Professor Video Games

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/690327260109283328

It's funny that "what is Firewatch" is a thing when "what is The Witness" is a way better question.

Yup.

Get that most definitely alive cat out of here.

I'll just spoiler talk it up (sorry Gorm)

Yeah you might have some problems with Jessica Jones then...

I liked Jessica Jones a lot at the start, but towards the end it really lost me. Characters did things that seemed totally irrational just to keep the plot going (which itself got kinda nuts), the action got too over the top, and it got increasingly lore heavy. Not to say the show was bad...most of my complaints are a matter of personal taste, but after watching the first few episodes I was really into it, so the directions it went bummed me out. And I'm still curious to see what they do for season 2, because the villain in S1 was legit terrifying and will be tough to top.

No, just Tuttles here.

Well to be fair, the way they did it made the odds of winning a non-jackpot prize higher. So maybe it evens out?

Bjorn, I had basically the same experience. I bought a ticket for the Saturday drawing just for funsies before seeing an article about how the odds were changed. It's weird, because I know the lottery is bullshit anyway, but that move really offended me for some reason. I guess just because of how blatantly manipulative it is.

Narbacular Drop is good because Narbacular is fun to say. Narbacular.

Let me rephrase that for you and then answer. No.

Favorite little moment in the latest Kerbal vid was Austin declaring "we're geniuses!" as they aligned a perfectly perpendicular orbit. Also they seemed to think that if the stranded Kerbal jumped from his ship he would slow down or something? I couldn't figure out what they were thinking there. Their logic at practically every step of that rescue attempt was absurdly flawed. It was fantastic.

Feel free to go in the big church door by the way. Just uh...save beforehand

I finished Tales from the Borderlands. That game is real good. Top tier Telltale for sure. I had minimal Borderlands knowledge going in and it didn't matter...the characters and writing stand on their own. The gameplay is standard Telltale stuff but they do a good job making it interesting. Like episode 5 has a QTE sequence that is just fantastic, which is not something I would have thought possible. Plus, even though my PC is relatively ancient, their game engine is too so I could still run it like a champ.

Yeah, I agree the arc with his wife wasn't great (and also totally made up for the movie btw) but I liked the rest of it enough to overlook that. But forget about that...more important news has come to light. http://www.avclub.com/article/hbo-has-greenlit-deadwood-movie-230448 Start prepping that Idle Deadoowd Rewatch cast now plz.

No watched it subtitled. Had I known Werner Herzog was in there I might have acted differently. Already on it's way back to Netflix though

I watched The Wind Rises last night and really liked it. I used to work at a company that did some defense work myself and thought a lot about so many amazing human innovations are co-opted for the purpose of murderin' dudes, which is pretty much the whole point of this movie, so it resonated with me pretty strongly. Had a few moments that were a bit too on the nose for my taste, but whatever. Also it's real pretty.

Considering everyone says VR is something you have to try before you "get it", I imagine their line of thinking is something like "get the product out there to people who are really passionate about it, build positive buzz and let the early adopters show the thing off to their friends, and then work like mad to get the price down later". The price is high but I'll bet their margins are pretty close to zero...FB has the deep pockets to subsidize this more if they want, right? I'm so curious to see their sales expectations and long term plans.

I'm long overdue for a new PC and my plan is to wait until around Christmastime and see how things have developed, then (if things look good) spend an irresponsible amount of money on a virtual reality setup to play with over the holidays.

I haven't paid very close attention to this. What did they change wrt online play that made things worse?

I'm glad this is back because as much as I like to read I often find myself doing other things with my time and whatever book is on my nightstand ends up being there for months, so a little external pressure to get through a book is good for me. Plus I get to then share my poorly worded thoughts about that book on the Internet!

I just finished this over the weekend. I did pretty much everything which speaks to how much I enjoyed it considering the size of the game. The writing is good and the world feels real, instead of just a sandbox for the player to be the lord of. The various witcher contracts got a bit repetitive (talk to guy, go to spot and use witcher senses, go kill monster), but they're all framed with little unique narratives that flesh the world out a bit so I still enjoyed doing them. I'd advise against doing a bunch in a row though. Ending talk: Misc stuff: -Wanna murder Roach. As soon as you leave the roads he starts acting like an idiot, stopping and turning all over the place. I hate him. -The weapon/armor loot and crafting outside of witcher gear was kind of a waste. It was almost never as good as witcher gear and I just sold it all. "Thanks for the cool family heirloom, guy!" *Sells to blacksmith for $300* -On the other hand, I really liked how each upgraded version of witcher armor wasn't just flashier but looked like actual better armor, with added chainmail, plating, etc. Very cool. -I didn't like the skillpoint system. There weren't enough slots plus it seems like you really had to commit to one path if you wanted to unlock the really advanced stuff. Part of me wants to jump right in to the DLC, but after god knows how many hours, I think I'll take a break from witching for a bit...

I really liked Phantom Hourglass. There were complaints about revisiting the main dungeon multiple times, but every time you go back you have new abilities that let you breeze through the previous levels. I think it's worth checking out.