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The Last of Us just looks fantastic overall. I'm pre-ordering it big time when I get the chance.

I just got my SpyParty beta invite! Woohoo!

Took like six months (for a paid beta!).

Never heard of SpyParty. Looks interesting.

Paid BETAs are weird things. The only one I'm in is rFactor 2 which seems to have been in Beta forever (heck, there are even mods for it) and doesn't seem to be progressing at the rate of other pre-releases like Project Cars, which I wish I'd bothered to get in on.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Oh yeah. Spy Party is crazy interesting; the guy's spending a looooong time tweaking it so you get some serious balance even on high skill levels. Looks like he's been doing nothing but bug fixes and tweaks for like a year now. He's making it deep first, then working backwards to some degree of accessibility. Very excited. Very psychological and strategic. The developer describes it as a "reverse Turing test," which is a pretty clever way of explaining the idea.

Why you need to be excited about Spy Party

One of the reasons I'm excited is that it seems to have attracted a great community, where people mentor each other and everyone's really interested in the nuances of the game. They just had a small tournament where several top players and the developer himself did a live play-by-play commentary:

The Lanoyer gag reel:



Impressively strange.

EDIT - There are some impressive swears in here so be warned...

Ah, now, see, this is a game I could play.

I've only participated in one real beta (non-paying) -- for Myst Online (Uru) way back in the day. And of course, I bought Minecraft when it was still in beta, but then all of us millions of beta testers were upgraded to the regular edition when it came out. It was more like buying it early and putting up with the testing and bugs for a while, but well worth it. Still love that game and I still have no idea why.

Yoda, are they still accepting beta applications for this one? (There's a YouTube video of a guy running through some early missions and talking us through it -- looks like the kind of game I could appreciate.)

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Okay, I signed up for a place in line for the beta. Yoda, I hope you didn't get me into something that'll be a real time-suck. LOL

No idea, but I gotta say, I'm surprised you're interested; it's not the kind of game you normally play. All competitive online play, and pretty high-stress. To clarify, as far as I can tell there aren't any single-player "missions" or anything; just one human Spy and one human Sniper.

I don't really mind multiplayer games, honest. It's just that 99% of them are FPS and just too quick and too button-mashing-happy for me. Too much blood and gore and fearing for one's life.

This one looks more subtle -- like The Sims Meets James Bond At a Party Playing Clue. One sniper, sure, but only one shot.

The only multiplayer games I've ever enjoyed are racing ones, possibly because I'm reasonably good at them and possibly because the AI in single player titles still can't get anywhere near as clever as a decent private server.

The rest of the time playing online I'm reminded that a fair percentage of my fellow passengers on Earth are utter, utter morons.

Ah yes, see, Taccy, that is part of the problem. I won't even join in on Guild Wars with other people unless I know them all personally, because I hate the feeling that I'm weighing down the group of 14-yr-old boys who are simultaneously messaging everyone about the idiot archer they let into their group. LOL

As for AI, the kinds of one-person games I play don't rely on an intelligent AI: Myst, Minecraft, and adventure games.

I really wish I could get into FPS games because they're so cool-looking and the graphics are amazing, but I don't have the fortitude to run around being shot at. (I don't mind the shooting -- it's also being a target that bothers me.)

I'm a wuss. I admit it.

Just played my first few games...tense! But also even more engaging than I'd expected. Nice community; some guy with a couple dozen games under his belt was teaching me some stuff. Even won a couple of games (2 out of 6, I think it was). But only because he was new, too.

The YouTube video I watched just ran through the first few minutes and ended with a 10-second countdown timer and then listed "You accomplished all your missions!" and showed the list of missions (getting microfilm from a book, swapping out a statue, etc.). But no sniper interaction (he was the spy). This may have been a tutorial or something, though. Anyway, my biggest gripe from what I saw was that all the female characters wear strapless dresses. LOL

Probably just an example, in Practice mode. Then again, if the Sniper thinks the Spy hasn't accomplished their missions, they can just let time run out.

Are you reporting glitches, etc., as a beta user, or is this just beta testing to see if too many people break the server?

Anything and everything. The developer seems interested in using it both for bug tracking and fine tuning/balancing the game.

I remember one online game I really liked - Journey!

Maybe that's because you never know who your co-op partner is, and it's only co-op in the loosest sense of the word.

They can't even teabag you. Much.

I was thinking about Flashback recently - would love to play through that again!

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Yeah, Journey is one of the finest online experiences ever made. I still play it just to see how many people at once I can play with. One of my favorite games ever

Woof!

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I think the only developer I've liked more than CD Projekt has been Troika. Witcher 3 looks mightily ambitious but I think they'll pull it off.