Finished Magrunner. Ending was as expected, no surprising twist there. Not much horror either except for the stages where I get chased. Getting chased around helplessly does induce some kind of fear regardless of whether the monster's scary or not.
Nice game but like many games these days, there's no much replay value. I already know how to beat the puzzles so replaying this game would mean I in for the story only.
I think a sequel is quite possible here although the ending was not a cliffhanger.
One thing I forgot to mention is that I should probably add that it's also quite similar to Red Faction: Guerilla about the magnet thing, except in RF all the magnets can do is attract while here, they can also repel.
So now that they have got a new recycling company to replace Sembcorp, Veolia, to handle our recyclables, the new system is that they place a large recycling bin at the ground floor and residents have to dump their stuff inside. Fortunately, there is no need to sort them out as the Veolia people will do it for us.
The catch is that the old system used by Sembcorp is that all we need to do was use the bags they provided to store our recyclables before leaving it outside our doors every fortnight. The old system was so much more convenient.
In any case, people are still recycling on weekends. Last Sunday, the bin was filled to the brim and I had to leave one of my bags next to it. It's surprising given that on all other days when I dump stuff inside, it's always half full at most.
My practice is to bring one or two shopping bags' worth of recyclables down every time I go out of my house, eg for work. I have plenty of plastic bags so those are never a problem. It may look a little weird holding what look like bags of trash as I take the lift down, but I figured it's for a worthy cause and there's no reason I should give a damn.
Speaking of recycling, it must be such an awesome industry if you have the capital for the whole setup. I mean, those guys are profitting on donations! It's like Red Cross except it's a for-profit organization. The only issue is that the sources of its materials are spread across the country but it can't be that expensive relative to the prices of its products.
Then again, the quality control of its materials must be a really tough job.
NS2 is a lot faster now with all the reduced res costs. I've only barely tried marines though, so I don't really know much about them from their perspective. What I do know is that their exos have this cool new weapon that's just like Megaman's gun. Used by someone with good aim and that thing can really kill.
The other thing that I feel has changed is the role of gorges. They used to be pretty useless over the long term and it wasn't a good idea at all to be a career gorge throughout the game. I remember this because I used to be a gorge all the time in NS1 and I felt handicapped when I tried this in NS2.
Now, I see gorges all the time. In every game, there is always at least one trying to hold a certain strategic location with its clogs and hydras with the help of a few skulks. The difference between then and now is that this tactic actually works.
Bile bombs are so amazing now since there are so many gorges. In every battle from mid-game onwards, I'd see gorges bile-bombing everything and every marine since the bile now also erodes armour very quickly. Really softens them up for the skulks.
Babblers are another ability I see a lot in late-game. Usually gorges would keep them close for protection but sometimes, they would use them on fellow aliens because apparently they act as some kind of armour when used like this.
One problem with babblers that I didn't notice as an alien is that they become a trail behind the gorge when it tries to run, making it easy for pursuing marines to know where it's going.
Too bad I'm more used to playing as the skulk and onos now. Probably should try the fade more. Lerks, not so much.
The thing about lerks is that agility is absolutely vital to its survival. With its low HP and armour, it allows no mistake at all. All it has is its small size and speed, so hit-and-run is its only real tactic, so much so that the carapace evolution is useless on it compared to regeneration. The carapace does not make enough of a difference to the lerk while the low HP means regeneration can fill up its HP bar fairly quickly.
Since it's all about speed, my bad ping on American servers gives me a bad handicap while playing as a lerk, hence skulk and onos.
Saccharin's supposed to have an aftertaste but I find that it goes better with my coffee than aspartame. Its sweetness is just closer to sugar than aspartame whose sweetness is more of what we Chinese call "甘甜" (gan1 tian2).
Saccharin's also a coal tar derivative and this sounds kinda disgusting, except a lot of other stuff we eat also have pretty disgusting origins, like artificial flavours that come from crude oil. Everytime a label says "artificial flavouring", coal tar and crude oil are some of the examples of their origins.
Too bad aspartame is way easier to find here than saccharin.
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