By Pentadact

Seniath: Still no "I'm your host" Ross Atherton? He hasn't died, has he?

The Poisoned Sponge: Thoroughly enjoyable, even if Steve Williams is a big negative grouch. I mean, he's not Francis, after all.

Grill: I think he's working on Top Secret Projects. :-o

J-Man: J-Man needs his Atherton!

Jazmeister: He still manages to write the editorial. Lol @ "Ross 'Feratu'" in the mag, btw. Actually, wherever he is, he must be gaming.

Tom's face on Page 10 seems... well practiced. It was cool reading 20-21 after reading its genesis on twitter, too.

Roadrunner: Ross Atherton must of lost his job in the credit crunch :(
You guys should talk about characters who look similar to sar-

Nevermind.

Jason L: Regarding the sensible AI thing, you guys might want to look at the Airborne Assault games. I'm not a competent devotee, but I picked up and played a copy of one of the early versions essentially by accident. Even in that early implementation like ten years ago, AA is the only game that's truly given me the 'feeling' that I was commanding competent subordinates who could interpret orders, and it's quite an enjoyable wargame for it. For me there are also traces of that feeling in Close Combat and surprisingly enough in Sean O'Connor's Windows Games' Firefight, which simply cannot have any meaningful AI. That probably tells us something deep about human perception.

Jason L: No, I'm wrong - Sid Meiers' American Civil War RTSes also have a good strong dose of it. But that's all. I think.

ZomBuster: I think I disabled the flashing window a week after the steam community was started.

Pod: GRAMMAR BOT IS HAPPY.

Best software Developers: Sensible Software. I'll have to buy the mag to see if you put them in there, somewhere. If not: I HATE YOU.

Also, I think I asked this last time; but wtf happened to the PCGamerTop100?

Final point: Why did I immediately come here to say these things? I didn't even know you'd make this post.... Maybe I just hate the PCG forum?

ad_hominem: Best software Developers: Double Fine Productions. They may not have really proved themselves yet, but I feel like they're the developers with the most promise for the future. Anything involving Tim "Dance The Grim Fandango" Schafer is fine by me.

Remnant: That wasn't very funny.

Yet for some reason, I couldn't stop laughing. Damn it lol. It's like AustralianGamer podcast, if everyone had class and accents.

Jazmeister: Remnant: What do the Australian Gamers talk like?

Don't know about the rest of you scurvy dogs, but I always put it up louder than some game and play that. This time, it was Spore; worked well! I hope I don't still love Spore this much when larger-than-a-breadbox computers are a thing of the past.

Remnant: Jaz: The Australian Gamer crew, usually Yug and Matt (occasionally Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation), talk in a far less... civilized manner. Aussie accents, obviously, makes them seem far more casual - by comparison, that is.

They also go off on tangents FAR more often. There isn't anyone roping things in as much, so it goes to strange and hilarious places =) I recommend checking them out! To be fair, this is the first PC Gamer UK podcast I've heard, and enjoyed it, so I'll be looking back at their other ones.

KING: Currently listening to the US PC Gamer podcast.... it's dreadful. I'm only listening because they mention Vampyre Story.

KING: I listened to about 10 minutes or horrid, boring, rubish, monotonous Americans talking about games, then skipped through until I found the mention (it's around 55 minutes in). They say PCG UK gave it somewhere between 40 to 65 and they hate you for that.... I hate you for that. (I haven't played it yet).

Who reviewed it? Do they have a blog? ;)

DoctorDisaster: If there's anything being trapped in a workplace with a bunch of academics has taught me, it's that someone who participates in a discussion is a "discussant."

Being trapped in a workplace with a bunch of academics is less educational than you might think.

peterd102: ITs the first of these ive listened to, and i have no idea which voices belong to who, but no matter. I have to say i enjoy the base building mechanic as long as theres a reward at the end. SupCom for instance gives you the a challenging way to try and build your base up to an economically active level, then rewards you for your hard work and time by giving you immese units to attack with. When the base building isnt rewarded properly then it feels tedious.

Jazmeister: Peterd102: I love supcom, actually, and the base building there is justified. You *do* have to build factories if you're arriving on your tod with nothing but nanolathes and your ingenuity. Some games, though, it doesn't make sense. In the Warhammer backstory, space marines shouldn't have to manufacture a thing. The only thing they're short of is "relics"; when their God-Emperor veggified, it caused a Credit Crunch the likes of which we can only piss our pants in bed about. They can't manufacture a lot of the awesome weapons and armour, but the undead/possessed chaos marines are a handy source.

For a real time strategy, you just need strategy (which I can only loosely define as "tactics for motherfuckers") and uninterrupted time-flow. There's this tendency for the meaning of terms to migrate. Even "first person shooter" can migrate; I've heard people call portal an FPS, and yeah, you are shooting a glob of portal wax, but are you shooting the paint in MSPaint?

KING: It's weird that PCGUS would sort of... hate PCGUK's verdict on something. Maybe some people can put up with obtuse puzzles, but that sort of thing would drive me nuts. Anyway, a review isn't a damnit judgement, it's an exploration of the virtues and violations. Right?

Pentadact: Does a game get extra points if it contributes to your anecdotal database?

Jason L: That was one of the many genius conceits of Total Annihilation, to justify the base-building by inducing bottlenecks in the background story - which is pretty ironic, given that the story was obviously not a major focus of the game and there was no pressing need to justify the status quo at the time.

Smurfy: I read this post and realised I am a fool for not listening to the podcast and buying the magazine.

I now listen to the podcast and buy the magazine.