I've had my eye on this ever since it popped up on Steam, it's getting incredible feedback. I'm also pumped for The Witness and this seems to have a similar vibe. My wallet has taken a beating from Christmas so I might have to wait a bit to pick this up.

Update: 6 hours in, solved all easy/medium puzzles, lots of hard ones still left and the few that I've tried have had me scratching my head.

There's an in-game hint system but it appears to have a limited number of uses and with so many hard puzzles left I'm terrified of burning any of them.

Also there's these cans of paint you can carry around and I DON'T KNOW WHY. WHAT IS THE PAINT FOR. I DON'T GET IT.

But it's maddening in a good way.

Are you sure it's paint and not oats?

Terraria for iOS is 99 cents; I'll bite, as I don't think I'd want to pump in the hours on my computer but it seems like the kind of thing that would be fun to have on trips.

I did look into a used PS3; Gamestop had some pretty good deals.

In the end, we opted to buy a new tablet for a reasonable price, as a) it will be more useful to everyone in the house, b) the kids have plenty of Android games/apps they like and we can add more for free or cheap, c) it frees up the Nexus for me, and d) I had actually bought them inexpensive windows tablets because I thought it would be fun for them to each have their own, so returning those and giving them one, much better tablet to share works out pretty well financially.

Maybe we'll do the modern console next year. I'm also giving them some new PC games tonight, so I think they'll be good to go with gaming for a while.

Ok, more "I'm an old who doesn't have modern consoles."

I just gave my kids a couple PC games that would be best played with USB controllers (I have a few games that would be good with controllers, as well). I have an old gravis gamepad and a couple generic Xbox/PS controllers, but while they are recognized by the PC, games don't seem to like them. I'll keep working on it, but I do know that Xbox 360 controllers are supposed to be great for PC gaming.

So to my question. I have some old controllers from the original Xbox. Obviously I can't just plug them into the PC, but is it worth it to buy a couple cheap Xbox-to-USB adapters or am I better off shelling out the money for actual Xbox 360 controllers? Basically, do the adapters I can find on eBay or elsewhere work, or would I just be wasting money?

I've never tried using an adapter before, but I can reiterate the xbox360 controller is great and you can get them pretty cheap now. You might be better off googling for other people who have tried them for answers, as they might not be common enough for anybody here to have used one.

Future-proof: get the 360 controller in case you get a 360 later

Also, they're way more comfortable.

Most marginal case of future proofing I've ever heard, and that's saying something

Future proofing in case I finally get my kids a used 360 when Xbox TWO is released.

Talos Principle blog: up to 12 hours now, I'm through two of the three worlds which have a mix of easy/medium/hard. The one world left* is 100% hard so it should be a bit tougher, though at the same time I've gotten a lot better at solving the hard puzzles. That said, all the puzzles feel fresh and present new problems and it doesn't feel like it's getting stale at all.

Game seems pretty awesome, go buy it already


*(assuming it ends when the game suggests it will end, which according to Portal/Antichamber/this game's storyline so far doesn't seem likely)

I randomly popped in on a few streams of it, are the only puzzles trying to open those locked force field gates by using those mirror stands? Seemed very repetitive.

Well don't tell us whether or not the ending is a false ending without spoiler tags please!

That's the first mechanic you get access to but you quickly unlock more. The most common puzzles usually involve laser redirection but the mechanics are often arranged and combined in unique ways between puzzles.

Well I certainly don't know yet, and when I get that far I probably won't post about it, don't worry

I think the biggest surprise about Talos is that it was developed by Croteam. It's the first game they have developed that wasn't Serious Sam in 18 years.

Ok, back to my console/tablet purchase to kind of, sort of keep up with the times.

I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 to give to my kids and so far so good with it, though I still need to figure out how to back up their game data in case it gets wiped (may have to root).

But a development: my wife is in a FB group for moms selling stuff/giving stuff away in our area. She actually sold a few of our kids old toys the last couple days. Someone is selling a used Xbox 360 for $75. Cords included, no controllers, but I happened to buy a couple controllers to use with the PC today, so I have them already. Based on the pic, I think it's the Halo 3 Green special edition which may have a 20 GB HD.

Considering my kids don't know any better, as they have never had a new console (they play PC games and only recently discovered my original NES and PS1), anyone think I should just jump on this to give them something they could have fun with?

My fears with this are a) no warranty, and b) possible low HD space, though I don't really know how much is necessary.

Don't buy any of the original shaped 360s second hand. There is a very good chance it will rrod.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, hence the fear about a lack of warranty.

If your kids don't know any better then I recommend picking up an original Wii. You can get them for around $30 and they still release the new skylanders and disney infinity on it. They are very easy to softmod so that you can play emulators or load games from a HDD. It also has a massive library that is mainly targeted at kids. I gave my 6 year old nephew an old Wii with around 100 games on a HDD and he loves it. There's plenty of games on there that you could play yourself as well.

Thanks for the advice.

Ended up just sticking with the new tablet purchase. The kids didn't know what to make of the new tablet - my son actually thought it was his own smartphone - but my boy went through the roof when he opened his first-ever Skylanders set. The kids are playing with it on the tablet right now.

He couldn't believe that he asked Santa for it and actually got it (plus, we're Jewish, but hey, we can have a little Christmas magic, too).

A festivus miracle!

I had a wired 360 controller that I used to play computer games. It worked great for Emulators etc.

Yeah, I picked two up a couple days ago and they're great. I got Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed for my kids (part of a Humble Bundle recently) and I've been playing it all morning with the controller.

I air my grievances every day.