It looks like virtually all of the MECC games are available for free here: https://archive.org/details/mecc

He sure looks weird with short hair. Odd that his trademark "weird" long hair makes him look normal to me now.

Seems like a reasonable way to handle it, less clutter is always good. Are we still sticking with 2 tags now? I liked the option to post something to both a broad and specific topic, for example #music and #classical. I trust the community to apply a fitting community tag, and know we are able to suggest that tag when we post, but it seems we lose a little of the ability for a post to cross over into a fitting tag that the submitter didn't think of when they posted. Say I posted to #music and suggested #bach for the community tag. The community may be less likely to change the #bach tag to #classical, as it is a fitting tag, but someone following only #classical would miss it.

Personally, I'd really like to see the number of community tags that can be applied to a post go up the more it is shared. Keep posts at 2 tags starting out, and increase it after x number of shares. This would allow more universally enjoyed posts to show up for more people, while still keeping more niche post in their respective tags.

This post:Poetry's Alive, We Just Call It Rap is a great example, currently it is in #poetry and #music, 2 very fitting tags for it. #Music is a broad tag that many users are aware of, so it is likely to always be chosen by the community as the community tag on posts like this. It has been enjoyed, and has a full hubwheel now. It would be great if the community could add #hiphophubski to it at this point, as followers of that tag would likely find it interesting as well.

I feel very similarly about Zeppelin I myself. My best friend had discovered it, and copied their cd onto a tape for me. I was blown away by it. It was really the first album that showed me that music can be so much more than the pop I was listening to on the radio at the time. It was really the album that encouraged me to explore music for myself, a journey I am still on. It also showed me that music didn't have to be "new" to be great. The thing that stood out to me the most was how much I felt they were really making the music they wanted to, instead of what they thought people wanted. I could tell it was coming from something different than the pop I was hearing at the time, that they weren't just making it because they thought I would buy it. I didn't know anything about the machine that is the music industry at the time, but I knew that I had found something special that I would love forever.

I had forgotten how long Water Hazard can feel, but I managed to take down the chopper in one go this time! I think the pacing is a little slower than many modern games, but that's not always a bad thing. The story takes a little longer to develop, and at first it doesn't really feel like you are affecting the world at all.

I love that the game makes you think, some of the puzzles are tough, but satisfying when you solve them. The game does a great job of teaching you as you go.

I love the chaos of the teleporter scene, you see important set pieces and characters, but don't really know the significance of any of them yet. Ending up right outside the lab, and having to walk anyways is pretty excellent.

The Streets are definitely my favorite from the UK, and "Dry Your Eyes" is one of the most powerful songs I have ever heard.

Found a clip from the show on YouTube, not the best quality, but great to see he's still as funny as ever.

I love that part, because it shows you that you can interact with more in the world than was typical in games at the time, without feeling like a tutorial. It fits organically in the story, and enhances the feeling that you are in a very authoritarian society. That's something I've always enjoyed about game design with Valve. They allow you to feel like you are figuring things out for yourself, while ensuring you know the core concepts before you move on. A similar thing happens right after you get the crowbar, and have to break thru the boards.

They use this style again when they introduce the barnacles, by having a bird fly into them and show how they work before you are in danger from them. This article goes into a little more detail on how that is done: Untold riches: The brilliance of Half-Life's barnacles.

This main issue I see with this is the insistence that Nintendo needs to lock itself into another closed ecosystem. The market is constantly shifting, trying to be available everywhere seems like a much better goal. Release on PC, android, AND iOS. The gamers that grew up on Nintendo are older now, and less likely to want to buy a product solely to play Nintendo IPs. That doesn't mean we don't want to play them. The number of Nintendo games I would buy if they were available where I am already gaming is quite high, and I would be much more willing to pay a higher price for them knowing the track record of quality Nintendo has with their games.

I love his awkward dry humor, and didn't know he had done anything before "Nathan For You." Does anyone have links to any of his segments on "This Hour Has 22 Minutes?" I've looked around, and couldn't find any myself.

I assume you mean what happened to the Black Keys, as I'm not aware of any solo work from Auerbach since 2009. It does seem they have lost touch with the grittier blues sound that they used to have though. Their latest single "Fever" just feels so empty by comparison, simple, and repetitious. I don't know if they are just trying to reach more off a mass market audience, or if they are simply burning out themselves.

I wish I could play it again for the first time, you are in for a great ride.

Did you ever figure out what does happen to a comment when you click the wheel? I haven't been able to figure that out myself.

I've noticed almost universally the user-base here isn't very concerned with growth. The community here is excellent, and I think a lot of us understand that that is because the site is smaller, and that lots of new users would change that. It's not a competition, because one side doesn't want to fight.

I'm not sure why, but all the space on the sides makes me feel uncomfortable. Even a simple grey border (and a 14pt font) makes it feel better.

Why is this?

Zork seems like an interesting idea, but might be better once this gets going a little more. I'd love it myself, but it might alienate people early on.

Indeed it is, this was the article that really opened my eyes to that. Sure there's plenty of bad rap, but I now see how intelligent you really need to be to put together a really solid rhyme. It allowed me to really put my finger on what made different artist better and worse.

Didn't know about #hiphophubski, thanks.

I'm also voting for Half-Life 2, I feel this is a game everyone should play at some point, and I know personally I have no problem replaying it.

I think this could be fun. Seems it would be best to focus on slightly older games with a good story. This would allow us to play to a certain point in a game each week, and then discuss the story so far. A game like Half-Life 2 could be a great start. Slightly older games would be more likely to run on peoples computers, and would be less expensive for people that don't have them, giving us more possible people to play along.

I simply attached my gaming PC to my computer, and got a controller for it. Best of both worlds, outside of a few exclusives I miss out on, I have access to most anything I want, and often for far less than on a console.

Do you know if there is a way to go to a hubski address that includes multiple users in the url? (ie: https://hubski.com/user?id=insomniasexx+fckgwrhqq2yxrkt) Then I would be able to create a bookmark and simply add users to it as needed.

I do want to avoid the bubble that my last aggregator ended up putting me in, but agree with you that it should really be up to the individual user. Perhaps highlighting the posts my "starred" friends post in my feed, without changing the order would solve this. It would prevent my feed from being dominated by just a few users, but would still allow me to easily pick out the content shared by people I already know and trust the opinions of.

I agree with you, it seems it could cause anxiety for users, and make them less likely to post things in the future. What if a box popped up for a private message when you ignored a user, so they would at least know why they were ignored? Could help inform users of unacceptable behavior, without publicly calling them out.

Intersting concept, but I worry about Nestle getting any more control over nutrition, they dont have the best track record... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_criticism