Armada Glados and the SUMMER SALE

I think its kind of funny that it is so hard to emulate the dreamcast games now. When the Dreamast was new, the CD format and modem connection made the Dreamcast games some of the easiest to pirate. Now, you have to ebay, like I just did.

Armada for the Dreamcast. I have a friend who currently owns a Dreamcast with 3 controllers, so I have been struggling to find a Dreamcast game that supports 4 players so me and my buds can rock it old school. My search led me to ARMADA. Its a spaceship based RPG that is actually a lot of fun. The controls take some getting used to but it allows a lot of exploration and has some nice sound effects. I'll review it as well, and I have decided that my Dreamcast reviews will come out once a week on Mondays.

Of course, now that I spent money on Armada, I find that there is an free alpha of Armada online available through steam greenlight. I don't regret getting the game, but this happens to me a lot. Currently, the Steam Summer sale is draining wallets all over the world. Now I own most of the computer games I could want right now, but I am still managing to get burned.

damn you and your deals

Going into the summer sale, I thought about what games I might want. When I narrowed it down, it was essentially Bioshock Infinite and Mark of the Ninja. Bioshock never went below 30 bucks, more than I was willing to pay, but Ninja has been sitting solidly at $7.49. I bought it last night and what do I see this morning? Its on extra sale for 3 something. I don't think a 3 buck loss is much, but its still annoying. I also bought Dark Souls recently. That was before the sale started, but recently enough that the discount kind of annoyed me.

Speaking of Valve, the Portal series is awesome. GlaDOS is in my opinion one of the best video game villains ever. Someday, I may devote a post to her and the question of her soul. But for now, lets talk about the Companion cube. Everyone fell in love with this thing. Hell, I made one and carried it in a parade. But its probably filled with bodies of test subjects. For a complete discussion of this, watch the Game Theory video by Matthew Patrick.

Did you watch it? Good, because I am going to assume you did.

So, I had heard most of this theory before, but Matt consolidated the info well and I hadn't heard the bit about material emancipation grills. As I was in the shower this morning, it suddenly hit me. There was another piece of the puzzle: Schrodinger's Cat. The cat experiment is a bit of a theme in the game. Rat man draws it on a few walls and in the portal comic GlaDOS requests neuro toxin for "Schrodinger's Cat" experiment. Now obviously she was alluding to her plans to gas the whole facility, with the facility being the cat's box. But it could also refer to the Companion cube. After GlaDOS is finished with a subject, she jams them in a box and we have a very convenient Schrodinger's Cat experiment that has practical use in test chambers. It would give another reason for the hearts, she needed some way of differentiating from regular cubes and the cat experiment cubes.

Honestly, I totally believe valve thought about Portal themes this hard. They are just that kind of company.