What's always helped with our cats and dogs over the years on the 4th, is simply having some "background noises" going within the house the whole evening, and also, doing our best to shut out the outside world for a few hours.

We have all the doors and windows closed and our air conditioning running (if you don't have AC that might be a problem after an hour or so in this kind of heat, though) which already helps a lot to dampen outside noises, and then we usually watch movies in the evening (home theater system), so we make sure to crank up the sound just a little bit more on nights like this, and that totally does the trick. Also, in the kitchen, away from the main TV room, we put some music on shuffle in the MP3 player and turn it up decently, and that masks anything out in that side of the house, too.

But yeah, just do all or a combination of these things (it's only for a couple of hours, really), and it will help a LOT. Just shut out the noise of the outside world for a bit! We actually like doing that quite often anyway.

MajorD wrote on Jul 1, 2012, 20:59:
Cold Stream "BETA" has been available to play for so long now, it just doesn't seem that news worthy (not directed at you Blue); however, I may be interested in playing it again to see how well it polished out.

Well, I guess it's still newsworthy simply because it's finally done and officially releasing (to me it's utterly laughable, though, that one user-created campaign took well over a year to test and finish!), but I know what you mean, my friends and I have played it already so much the past year that it hardly feels like "new" content anymore since it still plays and feels very similar to how it did the first time I tried it last year (and I'm still not that crazy about it, and much prefer Vavle-created content to user-created), so it doesn't feel like anything "new" at all anymore.

At this point, Valve, just bring on L4D3 already (or whatever they wind up calling it)!

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Jun 11, 2012, 20:04:
yeah but then again who gives a shit about a bunch of whiney little f-tards' account information anyway? not much payoff

Many would say the same about the majority of Blizzard games players. Same exact sentiments, my friend, just depends on which side of the fence you choose to sit on (and thus, think is the far cooler side). *yawn*

xXBatmanXx wrote on Jun 11, 2012, 16:52:
Imagine if this was a Blizzard story - would already have 200+ posts....just sayin....

Eh (aside from the obvious fact that, duh, Blizzard owns the world so that's a given), it happened a couple of days ago at this point, so anyone who plays the game actively probably already knows all about it (old news is old) and discussed it in their official forums or any number of other gaming sites and blogs that carried the news yesterday or the night before. Additionally, it only affected accounts in "certain European regions", so it's not a game-wide thing. So yeah, meh.

nin wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 14:17:
No bots, no sale.

Same. And, thankfully, there are bots.

I just buy KFC chicken. Done.

I hate parties and get-togethers (too many awkward conversations and/or too much boring small talk) so it all sounds like a nightmare to me.

spindoctor wrote on May 20, 2012, 18:28:
But yea, it is a pure sandbox where you have to find your entertainment by yourself... there are no guiding gameplay systems for that yet. So only you can decide on how much replayability you can assign to a game like that.

Well said, and I agree. Kind of similar to Minecraft in that regard.

Doma wrote on May 20, 2012, 16:11:
Day Z is fantastic.

Also, it shows what mod support can do for a 3 year old PC game.

For a 3 year old game it sure runs terribly on my 3 year old system (which was semi-decent at the time), lol. Sad, but I think I'll upgrade just for this mod (and to be ready for Arma 3, which I now want since being turned on to Arma 2, which I bought specifically for this mod).

DayZ is blowing my mind.

PHJF wrote on May 16, 2012, 11:17:
I'd be all over this... but not at $30. If Valve/ARMA devs have any sense whatsoever they will make sure Combined Ops goes on 50% sale, and damned soon.

Agreed. I want to try this but refuse to at $30. I mean, ARMA3 is supposed to be coming out by the end of the year, so ARMA2 is (from what I hear) clunky, bug-ridden old news now.

No, not at $30. Lower it, Mr. Steam, and I (and my regular gaming group) will buy it. Not before. We all agree on that.

RaZ0r! wrote on May 12, 2012, 13:01:
Lost me at 'third person shooter'. I hate those. A shooter should be first person in my opinion. Third person is for RPGs and console games, not shooters.

I feel the exact same way. I always stop reading when I see "third person shooter". Other genres are fine that way, but not a shooter.

Frankly, most of the free games they give away on that "Game Giveaway of the Day" site are pretty limited and lame, gotta say--in my experience anyway. Hopefully you're getting a little kickback of some kind for running links to that stuff so regularly.

Eh, I'll try it when it goes free. And it will.

When I can tear myself away from GW2 for a minute, that is.

For the record, Napoleonic Wars is FANTASTIC! 200 player fort Sieges are a glorious sight to behold--and experience. Some of the most insane, epic multiplayer fun I've had in years.

Aw man, I got excited for a second. These were already released last Friday.

NOPE.

You know, Steam has this built-in AMD driver auto-update thingy that I never use, but I'm feeling kind of lazy today and wondering, does that work OK or are you better off just downloading the files and doing it yourself manually like I've always done? Just curious. Cuz if the Steam update way works good, why not use it and let it do all the leg work?

Wait, wasn't this patch released a few days ago?

Can anyone yet comment on how good the new Napoleonic Wars content is? How are the new maps and modes, especially?

I love MC to death, but "working rides" is always a bit of a stretch with this game. Always sounds better on paper, because there's only so much this game is capable of doing in that regard.