Valve has dropped the price of the beloved mind flexing game to $6.79 in celebration of launching its new DLC. Perpetual Testing, allows players to build and create their own test chamber, and share their creation through the use of Steam Workshop. The Steam Workshop has been a huge success with allowing players to create and deliver their on modification to Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, it’s about time we see it put to use on one of their own games.

So, what are you waiting for?! GET TESTING!

The sounds that you hear walking in would have kept me laying awake at night. Even at my age the music an ambient noises unnerved me.

Tribal mixed with something sounding like a monkey scream in an echo. All the details fit, down to making the water poison. Adding that one little smidgen gave the player a little more to worry about while walking about the map. For paranoid soul landing the jumps on the platforms, avoiding the water below, all while listening to an echo scream. It could push them a little far out of their happy-go-lucky place.

The boss fight was something else. This was probably one of the most engaging boss fights I’ve had in quite sometime. Outside of the fact that he completely complimented the vibe of Woodfall Temple, there was a lot that needed to go on to bring him down.

Between dodging his swings, throwing bomb flowers, and running around  a ring of fire; it makes for an engaging battle.

It may be a bit early in the game to call this out as my favorite dungeon, but as of now if I was asked on the side of the street by some longing Zelda fan this dungeon would be my answer.

Let’s see how the rest of the game goes, shall we?

Don’t forget to support Operation Moonfall every way possible! A re-release of the game would be wonderful! For people like me, who may have never got the chance as a child to play this wonderful title, and younger gamers who may not even know of Majora’s existence.

The Daily Byte is a new morning show that I’m in, EVERY SINGLE MORNING!

You can watch the show when it goes live weekday at 8am (PST) or on weekdays at 10am (PST). It goes live at twitch.tv/bytesizegaming ! It’s also then recorded and put to youtube for those of you who have a busy schedule.

The show features gamer news, as well as some occasional in-between skits.  The team behind the whole program will be launching a full site in the next coming months! So, feel free to browse it as it begins the process at http://www.bytesizegaming.com/ .

Hope to see some of you in the audience!

It has to be one of the most enjoyable adventure maps I’ve yet to play. Anyways, enjoy our adventures! Grab some popcorn and keep hitting that play button.

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you can watch all the other adventures yet to come.

As always for those interest in joining Team OP simply register at the forums, who knows maybe you’ll be a part of the next adventure!

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Being satisfied is something all gamer expect when coming to the end of a game. After spending up to twenty hours with a game, you expect to come out of it all with a smug smile. Some endings just don’t do that for the gamer. Sometimes it’ll leave the gamer in a weird state where they’re just confused as to what emotions they are supposed to be feeling. L.A. Nore is a prime example of one of those games.

Up until the end of the game Cole Phelps is the only character you play. Cole’s distant from players, leaving them to make the assumption that he’s been left this way after the war. It feels like the designers were trying to pull some emotional cords with the whole affair with Elsa Lictmann, but at that point they had no cords to pull on. Before this ordeal went down it felt like Cole was more like a user-created character, a blank-slate that provided the gamer a window into the gamer world. Yet, unlike most of those characters Cole has a story that is slowly pushed out into little bite-size bits at the end of each case, until eventually the overarching story seems to encompass him.

There’s a lot more to Phelps than the average gamer will care to analyze. He’s like a tantalizing stripper who never reveals more than her thigh. It’s only with the extra footage that we see, that we can start putting the pieces together. Then when you are about ready to figure him out, just a bit, he dies. Yes, it was a heroic death, but it was caught in the moment of decision; did I like this character or dislike him?

Playing as Jack Kelso for so long, changed up the game. Finally there was a character who was likable and admirable. Cole ends up dying saving Jack, a man he was sure hated him. There’s a void in left in the game where you can literally feel all the things that were left unsaid between the two. During the funeral, Herschel reminds Kelso, “You were never his friend, Jack.” He acknowledges this by admitting he was never his enemy either.

The tragic hero dies, as is foretold in all tragedies. Not all of the corruption in the city was brought out into public eye, which can bring the game closer to home. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, that corruption is no doubtfully on our streets now in some way or another.

The biggest slap in the face to the players was that Roy Earle is the one reciting his eulogy. The duke of corruption, the man who gets what he wants. I demand a sequel just to take him down.

We should have assumed with a melodramatic theme nothing happy was to come by the end, it sounds like a piece that would be played to an empty bar.

How did you feel about the end of L.A. Noire?

Okay, so maybe he does require a bit of skill.

Meet John Carter of Earth

John is a Civil War Veteran who is tired of fighting for other people, yet everywhere he turns people are attempting to recruit him to join some ongoing struggle. The rings on his fingers are from a previous marriage, one that was cut short by the comings of war. This explains his hatred of war, but is really the only insight we get to his past, except that sometime after journeying to Mars he because a very rich man.

His motives are never really clear. When he starts fighting in the war that is raging on Mars it’s hard to tell if it’s because he believes in what they stand for, or if he just has quite the hard on for the princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris. Sure there are moments where in the a ship battle John will say something profound like, “That’s not fair!” But being in a whole new world with extremely different values you might want to keep an open mind before you start pointing out the bad guy. Besides he did not seem to eager to change how the Tharks were handling their community, even when they chose to brand one of their own, and shoot the remaining children they could not carry.

By the end of the movie John had lacked a lot of development. After the whole adventure John lacked the dimensionality of a normal man, and very little emotional attachment can be made to someone who didn’t provide enough reason for relating. He felt more like a character rather than a person.

Meet Jackie Estacado

Jackie has problems that are similar to John. He’s extremely wealthy and his significant other has passed. He also has this Darkness inside of him that wishes to use him as a tool. Mr. Estacado is hard to relate to since most people don’t run a mob, have loads of money, or have the power of the dark within them. His character is very standoffish, but a player will develop more understanding of him while playing. Jackie, might not be like them, but it is a first-person game, so they are Jackie!

The emotional ties you don’t get from John can be from you being nothing more than a 3rd party viewer. In a game conscientiously or not, you’re doing a bit of roleplay. You are either pretending to be Jackie, or you are molding some of your own thoughts into what you think Jackie would be thinking about. The player than, in a way, decides how much they are going to emotionally invest in this character. Will they sympathize with Jackie and his ongoing struggle with the Darkness, or would they prefer him to rid himself of this evil?

Enter SimCity…

Now it may not be the first game that has had a ‘digital deluxe’ edition, but it just crosses the line. For an extra $20 you can get a European setting,  basically it’s a few extra style settings and items that you can use in your game. Now you do get a lot with the Limited Edition version of the game, a full Super Hero/Villain set, this is great for a preorder! You’re getting a little extra for showing your support for the game, and your willingness to buy it at launch for full price.

But no wait, if you give us $20 more we’ll give you just a few more options! Never-mind that they could have easily just been added to the limited edition bundle or just put in the game to begin with.

They could have chosen to wait off for a few months  and released the bonus as a paid DLC, but marketing it with the limited edition will make buyers feel like they have to buy it, because if they don’t it’ll feel like they’re not getting the full game.

There really is no solution for this, unless they were willing to stop pulling content out of the game to tack on $20.

Anyone a Sim City fan? Are you willing to take the hit for more options? I know I have for some other games.