With the help of skinny nerd Cronos1388, we have successfully added this semi-useless portal to display any new GQ forum and site news and updates. From now on, every site update that is put up will be explained in the Portal, and any forum updates will be immediately displayed in the portal. As of now there are no updates except for this one. So, check in for new shit whenever you want.

useful

Portal is, in my opinion, the greatest game of the current generation, and in the running for my favorite game of all time. Can't wait for Portal 2.

yeah portal was really good fun, I think I'm really into the puzzle genre but don't even know it since there are not really a lot of pure "puzzlers" out there. Portal 2 is destined to be good because I really don't even know how they could make it bad.

Totally agreed, although I'd go as far as saying that I'm not even entirely sure what a pure puzzler is, or whether or not it's a legitimate genre--Portal obviously drew inspiration from first person shooters (especially Half Life, duh), Braid was an incredibly innovative take on the classic platformer style ala NES-era Mario, even Mario Galaxy and the last two Zelda games could almost be called "puzzle" games despite their old school adventurey aesthetics.

I think that browser/internet based games, as well as the Android and IOS platforms, have really started to bring the type of puzzley shit I love about the aforementioned games to the mainstream, more casual based games. Some interesting examples are fl0w (free on the internet), Angry Birds, Zen Bound (iOS), Machinarium, World of Goo, Limbo, even the new Lara Croft game for Xbox Arcade and mobile platforms....

If it's not already obvious, I'm extremely enthusiastic about this emerging independent based, puzzle inspired, artistically inclined sub-genre of games that Xbox Arcade, smartphones, and the internet are collectively fostering.

i totally agree. I call portal a puzzler only because there is no other real objective besides solving the area puzzles, no real enemies or whatnot, until the very end... or those turret gun things, but you have to stop them with puzzles too I guess. But really I have no idea either as to where to categorize portal or other "puzzlers", except maybe like tetris or that kinda stuff. And angry birds is great too, and while i dont have an iphone or one of them smarty phones, I have found myself playing a lot more flash games online and being happily addicted to the results. And they're cheap/free, which is what I need right now.

Ever play minecraft? There's a ton of lame fanaticism for this game nowadays, but it is actually pretty fun and addictive, though I think I got bored of it after a few days (although I could probably easily start plaing it again at anytime and get right back into it). It's like a minimalist nightmare that is somewhere between lego island and I am legend, and you really have no objective but to stay alive. Its eerie and isolating in its own way, and to be honest kinda annoying, but once you give yourself something to do it can really suck you in.

gordy, is minecraft the game where you can put anything you want in the game or something? i heard about that. and there's like 8 bit zombies you fight?
i heard the guy who invented that made some SERIOUS bank off that game.

yeah you can do just about anything in the game; i read an article about some guy who created a logic gate in the game so you can program your own games, in the game. weird stuff. don't know about the 8bit zombies though.

the guy made so much dough because he allowed people to buy the game before it was even out--the game still isn't out, it's just a beta that millions of people play. I'm thinking about buying it, because the free-to-play version doesn't work for me for some reason.

yeah, you can pretty much build any sort of structure out of the 8 bit cubes the world is made of, but first you have to dig it all out. and as you progress through the game and fine more minerals or metals or stuff you can construct other things like fences or traintracks and apparently some sort of electrical stuff. There are zombies and skeleton and this green dick things that run up to you and explode, but you can turn off the enemies at any time if, like me, you start to find them just annoying since they're better at killing you than you are at killing them, but if you leave them on the game can be eerily scary in its own 8bit way. And I can believe that this guy made bank, it probably cost them like nothing to make, its all based on really simple mathematical algorithms and conditionals, and its also really small to download (since the world basically is generated at random as you first encounter things, and is then saved from that point, so the more you explore the world the larger it gets), and i guess it isn't expensive, though for your convenience I've uploaded the game here (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=51NKTUWM) so you can download it and start playing if you wanna see what im talking about, and you can update it right on the title screen since, like matt said its not even finished yet and they're constantly updating it. You're gonna need to read an faq online to figure out how to do shit at first, since they tell you literally nothing, but its not hard. Honestly, like I said, I'm kinda bored of it, but it was a fun distraction for a little bit and I really feel like if I were to start playing it right now it would probably keep me occupied quite contently.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=51NKTUWM


oh and zero punctuation did a review of it recently thats pretty good

(http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/vie.../2680-Minecraft)

nice.

I'm still going to buy it if I like it at all, because the online component sounds pretty awesome. but I will be playing this for awhile first. good shit man.

I wonder what 2004 lee would have thought about how this thread ended up. it's relatively on topic, which is unusual as far as the rest of this board goes

minecraft is fucking amazing

Dude its pretty great but I can't even pinpoint why. I think it just appeals to the most instinctual and basic of nomadic tendencies within our nature, simply put. It's like the slightest thought or curiosity can all of a sudden (as in like 3 hours later) evolve into entire projects or labors... and its essentially for nothing but to satisfy our own self motivation. I think I stopped playing once I started to wonder why I enjoyed playing it though, because you're not even really playing because its "fun," but because you just keep doing. But I just played it again last night and it was still "fun"/enjoyable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BrhEW22QnQ
basicallly

yo ive been playing this game, Alien Soldier on the virtual console. It was released on Genesis but only in japan. Its alot like Gunstar Heros only it's mostly boss battles, much harder and with waaaaay better graphics.

are you still playing the free, alpha version you posted, or are you playing the beta now? if you're on the alpha, we should create a server so we can multi that shiz, i'm dying to see what playing with other people adds to the experience

I think the version I use and sent IS actually the beta, even though the info for it says it alpha. I checked a minecraft website and looked at the differences between the two and the version i use has everything found in the beta, and more than the stuff said to be in the alpha, which just makes me think that this was probably originally downloaded as an alpha exe but was just updated regularly into beta. That being said, I never (that is, the only time i ever tried to do it) was able to connect to a server, but I'm willing to try again, and if that doesn't work i'd definitely slap down a few buckos to see what the multiplayers all about.

i would've said
"man I cant wait til I get cool. I'm such a faggot until then."

yeah I think we'd probably have to buy it to play online. let me know if/when you decide to, I'll probably end up buying it sometime next week when I get my next check

I had to download a different file than the one you posted since I'm on my mac. the way that works is, i guess, they give you the basic alpha build, then expect you to log in with your registered (paid for) username and password to download the new updates, the crack i used went around the whole logging in thing so I'm using the oldest possible build of the game. the newer builds allow you to create custom worlds and gametypes and shit.

so from what I've read, the final build is going to actually add some story or objective based shit to the game to make it more of a "game". could be cool. kind of destroys everything I like about it right now though. they're also going to put more focus on the multiplayer aspects. I like the idea of playing it like an MMO, which is apparently how some of the beta online servers are set up.

yeah man definitely. I'd really like to see what the multiplayer has to offer. Since i've only played the single player, it was a really isolating game, and i've read a lot of people call it "personal," which makes a lot of sense considering the game pretty much lacks any sort of direction so how you went about it was really up to you. They could probably do some sort of psychological examination of how the game is played. Let me know when you plan on/do buy it.