Cattle's xmas Steam gift this year was Pako - Car Chase Simulator. It had me pretty well captivated for my first two-hour session. I think I worked out a little bit of strategy:

• Use a controller. This is mandatory.
• Never drive in a straight line, a police car will always come from off camera to hit you.
• ABB: always be boosting. The speed and drift are very useful in all but the tightest of areas.
• And so find some tight, navigable areas to brake around, letting pursuers run into obstacles, then speed away before you get swarmed.
• Use the rally car. It's fast and has predictable oversteer.
• Fire your ammo off immediately. Most weapon types are too slow or narrow to actually save you from a collision, trying to line something up will likely result in a completely different death. Some weapon times (lasers, spiral ammo) will maybe take out far away pursuers and buy you a bit of time.
• Consider saving the good items (force field, shrink, etc.) for an escape when you have no outs. This also means you'll avoid the negative items (poison, flashbang, shrink).

Anyway, it's a fun arcadey experience.

• The music is neat, the action is fast.
• It's like a streamlined version of GTA car chases without the long buildup or consequences for screwing up. And it feels a lot like Blast Corps.
• Negative items kind of suck. The game isn't easy, but having a dice roll decide if you're going to get a run-ending poison is just cruel.
• It's fun to hit the two-minute limit and start spraying bullets, but I feel there could be a longer ramp of difficulty/reward.
• The power ups are numerous and fun (beachball!).
• It's addictive, but I'm not sure about the replay value beyond a few challenges.
• Where's my handbrake?

And Pokey got everyone Pony Island. I expected a rainbow sidescroller or maybe a weird rpg.


I won't spoil it, but the name is pretty misleading. It's a really cool puzzle game like Myst with a Lost (tv show) vibe - this is something you find out almost immediately so I promise I haven't spoiled it.


Oh yeah, and part of it is basically a debugger, so that's fun.


Some of the PUBG crew bought in-development Post-Scriptum about a year ago. It was on the shelf for a while, but Cattle and I decided to give it another go. It doesn't seem to have changed much - it still has all of the complex, deliberate gameplay that is its hallmark. Of course this makes the game hard to play casually and it's hard to go deep into a game you're not sure you're going to continue playing.

I (calmly) ragequit the last session after 60 minutes, a dozen deaths, and zero enemies seen. Unless I'm missing something, it feels like the one sniper you're allowed to have per squad is just super OP. And if that's historically accurate, then it fits the game. But other than a few iconic scenes from the silver screen, I don't remember having seen or read about markmen being decisive tactical elements in WWII. Perhaps that has to do with the sheer numbers involved in actual battls vs 40/side Post-Scriptum.

So at the end of the day, all of the amazing graphics and team mechanics are - for me - defeated by the fact that as soon as you get near the front, you'll be shot long before you see an enemy infantrymen. PS is still(!) in (active?) development, but at this point if I want tactical MMOFPS action, I'll fire up Planetside, it has half the depth but infinitely more approachability.


With increased stability and finally MMR (temporarily), we gone back to PUBG over the holidays and had a good time doing it.



Cattle and I had a very Silver League shootout. To narrate the above:

• We got into Mil Base early (see driving video below) and were hanging out at the edge of the circle - we aren't cowards, I had no 5s for my SCAR.
• We heard some dudes outside the house so we covered both doors.
• Oops - the bathroom had a non-glass window, so some guy came out of the bathroom door and shot me in the face (non-lethally). But the far superior noob tube took him out with a well-placed panic shot between the legs.
• I planned to flashbang the bathroom, but was on underhand throw and the other dude was already inside.
• So my flashbang blinded both remaining players as I got knocked.
• After a lot of blind firing, Cattle drops the other dude.

Anyway, Cattle requested a video, so it was a good time to try the updated (months ago) PUBG video editor.

Previously you could just watch replays and had to do a screen record, this actually has cameras and video output. That really opens up the editing options, where previously you needed a stationary camera or numerous tries to get a moving camera (with no pan).

The key frame settings are buggy, so you frequently have cut and retry key frames. It takes an hour or so to figure out how to work around the issues.

Export creates a strangely-encoded (Firefox hates it, Chrome plays it) webm with no mpeg or avi option. I never had sound on any of mine and found nothing when searching for solutions. I'm not sure if I have something wonky going on or if everyone just sets their videos to music. My workaround was to do a screen record and add the audio as a track for my webm converted to mp4. This, of course, means timing the audio start and not using slow mo: not fun.

The other major weakness is that you can't jump back in time. While doing so can be confusing, but if it's done right it can be really neat. If you're going to jump between perspectives, it's good to rewind a couple seconds so the viewer can track the camera change. And as can be vaguely derived from the video below, sometimes there are two cool paths to follow. I knew from memory that we had a neat buggy vs motorbike race to the island, but didn't realize there was a Kenny Powers-style jump from one of our adversaries. I could have generated two videos and cut them in, but I'd rather have multiple timelines and bounce back to the chase after watching that majestic bike jump.

The Hacienda Heist

The new meme strat is to drop into Hacienda to nab the gold camaro (mirado). After one incidend where I ran Cattle over, we decided it's best to have one person grab the car while someone else loots a cold warehouse on the outskirts. You still end up having to drive through a town where people are already looted up, so it's perilous. But meme strats aren't meant to be easy.


The old meme strat is to go to a Vikendi church and pray to RNGesus

I'm Torgue, and I am here to ask you one question, and one question only: EXPLOSIONS?!?

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