The Pandora Directive: Session 6

It's Saturday again, so it's time for another episode of Throne of Games! Pregame at 6:45pm CT, game at 7 on our TwitchTV channel.

We begin our final run of The Pandora Directive this week, seeking the best ending. A whole lot plays out differently on this path, so watch for the differences!

Freelancer: Session 1 now on YouTube

Session 1 of Freelancer is now on YouTube. We got as far as California Minor on this run, which feels like not very far in for playing nearly five hours. But this is my first time with this game, and I do get easily distracted by economies. I'm really enjoying it so far; glad John introduced me to it!

We were joined this week by my friend Amanda. Maybe we'll see her on here again sometime!

Next week, due to a scheduling conflict that came up, we'll be playing Freelancer again. The Pandora Directive will return seeking Mission Street, the good and canon ending, on August 11th.


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Freelancer playlist

Freelancer: Session 1

In one hour, Throne of Games begins its first session of Freelancer! That's 6:45pm CDT for the preshow, 7pm for the game, on our TwitchTV channel.

I've never played this game before, and I'm generally kinda bad at space flight games, but we'll see how it goes!

Freelancer

HERO. MERCHANT. PIRATE. SMUGGLER. YOU DECIDE.


Decide your fate, one job at a time.  You are Edison Trent,a freelancer pilot earning your name and pay one contract at a time. Each job you takes on brings new allies and enemies, aligning him with different forces within a dynamic universe. Choose to follow the compelling storyline, or break off at any time and follow wherever your adventure may take you.

Combining customizable ships and a coherent in-game economy with responsive flight combat controls, Freelancer offers intrigue and adventure to suit any play style. 1000 years after the events of Starlancer, humankind has settled the Sirius sector. In a system full of traders, pirates, and bounty hunters, Freelancers take any job that suits their fancy and pays the bills. One such pilot, Edison Trent, is caught up in events that place him in the path of a full-scale invasion.

Join Mark, John, sonicstormer, and Daniel as they take to the stars in this action simulation game every other Saturday.

The Pandora Directive: Session 5 now on YouTube

Session 5 of The Pandora Directive is now on YouTube. We cleared all three unique Boulevard of Broken Dreams endings tonight, which means, when we return to the game in two weeks, we'll be starting a run on Mission Street for the canon ending.

Next week, assuming the game installs and runs fine on my computer (older games can be finicky), Freelancer is, indeed, our pick for next game. Brendan will be writing up the intro post for that, since he's actually played the game before. It'll be a totally blind Let's Play on here, for once.

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The Pandora Directive playlist

The Pandora Directive: Session 5

It's Saturday! That means it's time for another episode of Throne of Games.

We continue our journey down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams in The Pandora Directive tonight. Preshow begins at 6:45pm CT, with the game at 7. Link to our TwitchTV channel is in the upper-right corner there.

Bastion: Session 4 now on YouTube

Session 4 of Bastion is now on YouTube. We cleared the game again, getting the opposite ending from before.

Still trying to pick a game, but Freelancer is the frontrunner right now; it seems likely it will be taking over the off-week slot starting on July 28th. But we'll still take suggestions — if not for the next game, for games further down the line!

Come back next week for more of The Pandora Directive!


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Bastion playlist

Bastion: Session 4

Thanks for the reminder! We'll be concluding Bastion tonight, preshow at 6:45pm CDT, game beginning at 7.

Meanwhile, game selection continues. The nominations that have come in thus far are:

• Freelancer, a space shooter/simulation best known for its open and persistent online play; but, as I understand, it also has a very compelling single-player story.
• Alan Wake, a survival-horror/mystery game in which a crime novelist must retrace a manuscript he can't remember writing to rescue his kidnapped wife.

If you want to see either of those — or something else entirely! — leave us some feedback here on this blog.

Host Profile: sonicstormer

Yo, everyone's favorite host sonicstormer here. Yes, yours too, stop fooling yourself. Some of you may know me from administrating on Toonami Aftermath and others just from here. To all of you I say, "You're welcome." I like to game, make mean spirited jokes at other people's expense, and hope to become a game developer much like our benevolent main host here. Other than that, I'm a Leo and I like long walks at night.

    Favorite game: Favorite?
    Favorite band: Boston
    Favorite book: The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
    Favorite movie: Pulp Fiction

Involved in ToG series: The Pandora Directive, Bastion, Freelancer

The Pandora Directive: Session 4 now on YouTube

Session 4 of The Pandora Directive is now on YouTube, just a few minutes too long to be split into two parts. We played from the beginning of the game to the beginning of Day 5.

We're aiming for the Boulevard of Broken Dreams path this run, and so far, we're on it. The story is unfolding quite differently this time around — Tex is a bit out of character, but it's much more in line with what you'd expect of noir.

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The Pandora Directive playlist

Throne of Games will be taking a break for a few weeks. I have plans for next Saturday night, and I'll be out of town the next two Saturdays. But we'll be back on July 14th with more Bastion, and Tex Murphy will return on July 21st.

The Pandora Directive: Session 4

Holy crap, I forgot to advertise this until we were already on! ON NOW, game starting in about 10 minutes! Hope you guys weren't busy doing anything.

We're starting the Boulevard of Broken Dreams run tonight, so get ready for some gritty noir.

TwitchTV channel

Bastion: Session 3 now on YouTube

Session 3 of Bastion is now on YouTube in a whopping and randomly-split 13 parts. Last night's broadcast was harried by some rather unfortunate technical difficulties; it might've been our connection, it might've been TwitchTV's fault, it was probably a combination of the two. As a result, the stream kept dropping, causing TwitchTV to start a new one every time. Sometimes we got almost an hour without interruption, sometimes we only got a few minutes. But hey, YouTube playlists make compensating for that rather easy. (Of note, the first hiccup in the broadcast occurred before we even began playing; I've kept the video on YouTube for...I dunno, posterity or something, but did not include it in the playlist. So that's why there's no 1/13 there.)

We played from the beginning of the New Game Plus through Colford Cauldron. The next session of Bastion will be on June 23rd July 14th, and will probably be pretty short. Next week, we begin our Boulevard of Broken Dreams run in The Pandora Directive.

Since there are so many parts, I'm not even going to bother linking them individually.

Bastion playlist

[EDIT] I realized I have stuff going on for a few Saturdays in a row starting on June 23rd. The episode on the 16th will proceed as normal, and then resume after the break on July 14th.

Bastion: Session 3

The third session of Bastion is tonight! We're starting a New Game+ tonight; the stages stay the same, but things are likely to pan out a bit differently this time around. And, of course, we'll be taking a different ending.

As always, the preshow begins at 6:45pm CT, and we begin properly at 7pm, over on our TwitchTV channel.

The Pandora Directive: Session 3 on YouTube

Session 3 of The Pandora Directive is now on YouTube miraculously somehow in one part in two parts now, because the single file was, for some reason, too lo-res to make out a lot of the text. We played from the beginning of Day 8 through both of the Lombard Street (that is, neutral alignment) endings. I love how goofy-yet-melancholy the second one is.

We return to Tex on the June 16th to tackle the dark, gritty path of The Pandora Directive that is The Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Next week, we begin the New Game+ in Bastion.

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The Pandora Directive playlist

[EDIT] So, it looks like it uploaded rather low-res for some reason...that's no good for something with this much text. Gonna try redoing it in a different way. This will be updated once a better version is up.

[EDIT 2] Wait, maybe I'm just encountering problems with YouTube processing the videos...I guess I'll check back in the morning and see what the deal is.

[EDIT 3] My original suspicion was correct: the single long video was lower-quality for some reason.

The Pandora Directive: Session 3

The third session of The Pandora Directive is tonight! We're starting from the beginning of Day 8. We're not quite in the home stretch, but we'll be pretty close by the end of the night, for sure.

As usual, preshow begins at 6:45pm CT, show proper at 7pm, over on our TwitchTV channel.

Bastion: Session 2 on YouTube

Session 2 of Bastion is now on YouTube in two parts. In addition to our usual complement of hosts, we were joined by our friend Chris. We played from after Point Lemaign to the end of the game. We had a tough choice to make at the end, but I chose the one that made the New Game+ make more sense, heheh.

That was a really great ending to a great game, though. Join us on June 9th when we begin Bastion anew (or, if you will, anew+), culminating in a different ending. In the meantime, The Pandora Directive continues June 2nd.

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Bastion Playlist

Bastion: Session 2

The second session of Bastion is tonight! We'll be starting where we left off last time, after Point Lemaign.

As usual, the stream will start at 6:45pm CT, and the game should begin at 7pm, over at our TwitchTV channel.

The Pandora Directive: Session 2 on YouTube

Session 2 of The Pandora Directive is now on YouTube in three parts. We played from the beginning of Day 4 to the beginning of Day 8, meeting characters like the dweeby Archie Ellis, and the intimidating Jackson Cross (played by Barry Corbin).

Tonight, we died for the first (and second, and third) time in this playthrough. Sometimes, adventure games aren't terribly lethal (LucasArts); other times, there's death around every corner (Sierra). Tex Murphy seems to periodically move back and forth between these two extremes, but generally leans a little more toward the latter. One of the deaths, though, was deliberate, so it probably shouldn't count toward the total.

Next week, we resume Bastion; we return to The Pandora Directive on June 2nd.

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The Pandora Directive playlist

Bastion: Session 1 on YouTube

Session 1 of Bastion is now on YouTube in three parts. We got a bit of a late start, but we played pretty late to make up for it — starting from the beginning, we played all the way through Point Lemaign. I thought we were going to have a few more people show up than we actually did, but that's cool, we didn't have to crowd onto the couch.

Since Bastion is 16:9, there was a bit of empty space in the screen layout that we didn't have to contend with in The Pandora Directive; I thought I'd try experimenting with a frame that could be doodled in by someone else, but was a little too late to jump on that plan and make it happen. Instead, Daniel drops some random text in there a couple of times. Better than a gaping hole, at least!

Next Saturday, we return to The Pandora Directive; Bastion continues on May 26th.

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Bastion playlist

The Pandora Directive: Session 1 on YouTube

Session 1 of The Pandora Directive is now on YouTube in two parts. We played from the beginning of the game to the beginning of Day Four. Phil couldn't make it this night, but sonicstormer (he'd prefer I use his handle) showed up, so our peanut gallery was no smaller.

Sadly, we had a bit of technical difficulty I didn't realize until we'd finished for the night — the gameplay was a little out of frame, and the game audio had an echo. I figured out what caused the former problem and fixed it for future broadcasts, and I'm assuming the latter was just because we had it turned up too loud, causing the microphone to pick it up. So I need to either turn my speakers down, or find something else to cancel the sound. Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.

Next Saturday, we begin Bastion; The Pandora Directive continues on May 19th.

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The Pandora Directive playlist