Codicier

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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    1010
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About Codicier

  • Rank
    Wanderer

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  • Website URL
    http://rightbrainonly.blogspot.co.uk/

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    The North Wales Wilds
  • Interests
    Following the Zeitgeist at a safe distance.
  1. The threat of Big Dog

    we are dooomed https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/28/combat-ai-beats-air-force-experts/ DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED
  2. The problem is these shorthand terms are only really useful when you are actually talking about a work in the medium/genre the term applies to. Jake made a comment in this weeks show where he called Doom "a game ass game" and similarly I've heard Gorm call a show a "anime ass anime". It's important when someone calls out the ridiculousness of a genre works use of well understood tropes that its clearly not being talked of as the totally of a medium and that you have both a audience and a speaker who have a affection for and understanding of a medium, and honestly i think Gorm and Twig are being to harsh on Patrick R because clearly he makes a distinction between his gut reaction to the term as a outsider and his knowledge that is not the entirety of it. I've seen a similar thing happening in the last week or so in reviews of the Warcraft movie, now don't get me wrong the film has a butt load of flaws and problems but a good few critics have just used "video gameness" as a easy stick to beat it with rather than actually talk about it's very real failures in storytelling or cinematography. I think the reaction to Chris using anime as a shorthand results in the same thing, it wasn't particularly terrible, it was just a little lazy and didn't actually inform us what he felt the problem with the videos was. Now to talk about the Overwatch shorts! My instinct is to be similarly lazy and to say its like "dreamworks" (technically incredibly accomplished but with a overly self serious but sickly artificial sentimentality) does a "avengers" fight sequence (action centred far more around the showing off the combatants abilities rather than tension or drama). Blizzard has a reputation for over polishing things but honestly that doesn't feel like the problem here, its simply just not good use of the limits of short films. Trying to world build and set up clear emotion character motivations in 5 minutes is a ambitious choice to put it kindly, shorts are instead often at their best when they concentrate on creating a self contained moment something the TF 2 shorts did exceptionally well. my favourite of which remains the truly strange thing is that their trailer for Tracer in Heroes of the storm actually gets allot of that stuff right showing us her character and quirks rather than attempting to shoehorn a whole story in.
  3. anime

    Ok so i realise the "best girl" trope is pretty widespread but: A: What criteria does a character need to meet to be declared a legit "bestie"? Is it just a fun quirky comedy sidekick character in a anime? Does the anime have to be a bad anime? & B: Is there such thing as a "Best Boy"?
  4. Idle Cook Club - Veggie Feeds-me: My Body Is Ready

    Ok ladies and gent's SBM has informed me it my turn this week After a quick consultation with our benevolent overlord to check it was acceptable i can announce the theme this fortnight will be "the packed lunch" so rules are, any dish is fine as long as: - It can fit inside a Lunch box, Tupperware, Bento box or equivalent - It is ready to eat with minimal if any utensils (a spork or equivalent is acceptable) - It can be be prepared a decent amount in advance (overnight as a minimum). basically anything which you could pre prepare take with you to work or a picnic etc just some jumping off points to get people started here are things like sandwiches http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/11/sandwich-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall or salads http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/19/nigel-slater-summer-recipes-light or pasties http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/gluten-free-veggie-pasties/ and if people are feeling more ambitious they can go for more complicated combinations like these http://www.brit.co/vegetarian-bento-box-lunch/
  5. Painting tabletop miniatures

    I've been working on finishing off a tau etheral model i started 2 years ago then got bored of also experimenting a bit with this but .............. spin my pretty! spin! plan is to now do some pretty spectacular object source lighting on this guy which is why i thought id try to get some nice pics in case i mess up royally
  6. XCOM 2

    @Nappi Because of the fact it's consequences for failure can sometimes be pretty strong Hacking is pretty much either a luxury/emergency choice that as you said often only get's done when there's nothing else to do, or when you are in trouble and need that sectopod disabled "right NOW!", unless you have enough tech skill and equipment (high lvl drones & skullhack upgrade both help) to make it far more reliable. As Sorbicol say's a couple of the +hacking bonuses can be a huge boon I had a ranger miss a 96% hit chance two turns in a row last mission >_< i think that's the worst i've seen so far this ironman run. It feels blatantly unfair when that stuff happens but it's bound to happen sometime. Also a minor warning to anyone using it there seems to be a small bug with the steam controller post patch where sometimes it purchases two of a item instead of one in the armoury Still at least the mission names are good I'm currently about to undertake my 1st ever attack on landed UFO (for some reason they never came up in my 1st playthrough), I got the armour upgrade recently and i now feel hugely more secure. Feel my base is alot more efficent this time around got the both the AWC, & GW up & running as quickly as i could along with a nice centrally located workshop.
  7. XCOM 2

    new random recruit customisation choices are interesting.........
  8. XCOM 2

    2 minor addition to bjorn's otherwise comprehensive list is: -Wraith suits also increase your dodge chance -War Suits give you a activated shield which gives you and nearby soldiers the equivalent defence to heavy cover (iirc)
  9. Idle Cook Club - Veggie Feeds-me: My Body Is Ready

    Here's my pizza this use a Hugh Fernley Whittingstall dough which was basically 50/50 plain/strong flour. Sauce was plum tomatoes chopped up with some thyme and tomato paste Topping was mainly mozzarella with some cheddar on top to add some extra flavour and produce that nicely golden texture Green olives, pepper, artichokes, mushrooms, red onion, jalapenos and thinly sliced courgette plus some chilli flakes. Overall it waasn't a hugely adventurous version of pizza but I'm pretty happy with the taste
  10. XCOM 2

    I tended to run double specialist in most missions, all with medical protocols one with haywire and one with revival and always restoration. I guess they were just always heal bots for me. As a side note what armor did people run late game? i tended to stick ghost suits on snipers & rangers and the heavy suits on everyone else apart from my hacking specilist who had normal armor so he could have one slot for his hacking tool and one for the med kit this was my final mission set up & yeah god i love shredstorms
  11. XCOM 2

    lets just say ive seen it a couple of times.... with the same guy...
  12. anime

    I agree generally but
  13. XCOM 2

    Nice Wooben! was that your first complete run or did you do a practice run on a lower difficulty first? Regarding the Psi situation i think what the wiki says is spot on with what i've experienced so far the only thing i wondered about while playing was "do psi stats effect those abilities which do dmg & will is used for those abilities based on mind control & effects" in other words does will effect the same things offensively that it does defensively, but everything dmg based uses psi? I'll prob try doing some testing to find out at some point, thematically it would be cool if it did but probably the more simple thing will turn out to be true I'm now starting to think about planing my next run, and since I'm expecting commander Ironman to be tough as old boots I was thinking "should i have a upgrade path laid out in my head?" but then i started to wonder if the new strategic layer is weighted significantly enough that the best approach on higher difficulties will be to grab advantages where the game hands them me & try to capitalise on them rather than using a more strict approach. Instinctively my 1st play through has made me think the key early elements i want are (in reverse order of importance) 5 man squads, psi ops & the first armour upgrade. so maybe i should just aim to get those 3, but not worry too much about the order they arrive in?
  14. XCOM 2

    oh don't mind me i've just psychicly took over two aliens and killed 2 and severely wounded another all on my own. It's not like Psi-Ops is incredibly overpowered or anything, I mean it's not like you could solo a mission with one, oh wait... Yes you can Although that run was lucky in several places I still think even if things had gone wrong i would have come out fine considering all the fall back stuff a fully skilled psi-op has. I think it was Cordeos who suggested it in slack but i'm currently wondering if just psi-ops with a few personal healer specialists would work for the "beat the final mission in conventional gear achievement"