Professor Video Games

Maybe this belongs in the pedantry thread, but a body slam involves picking the guy up and throwing him down. That was more like a body check. Regardless, it's dumb and storming the court or field has become so overdone as to have lost any meaning. Any upset, no matter how minor seems to warrant this kind of thing. Save it for winning a championship or something, I dunno. When football stadiums are installing collapsible goalposts you know it's gotten out of hand.

Regarding Grand Budapest Hotel

I'm mainly excited to see what the non-HL3 topic actually ends up being. Maybe developing DOTA lore? Environmental storytelling in Counterstrike through gun skins?

Yeah my problem was not that it is Oscar Bait. It's been months since I saw it so I would have a hard time citing specifics, but I remember the dialogue striking me as very artificial and clashing with the films whole organic, single-shot style. Contrast that with something like Grand Budapest where the performances and directorial style go together really well. I didn't think the characters were believable (see bad dialogue) and they all came across more as cliches than actual people, and I thought the ending was lame. And that's my Birdman Rant.

pics pics pics

That's fantastic.

The thing with midichlorians is that it adds nothing narratively (arguably it detracts) AND the explanation is totally inadequate. Ok, so some people have these things in their blood that allow them to harness the Force. How and why do these midichlorians help? What are they and where did they come from? Their existence raises more questions than it answers and as far as I know they're never really addressed, so why even bother? This is from the perspective of someone whose Star Wars knowledge is limited solely to the movies and a few video games.

I didn't like Birdman. Am I a bad person?

You and me both!

I kinda like it! I might just leave it this way!

Hey guys am I doing this right?

4k is also referred to as Ultra HD (UHD). Maybe we can start getting Ultra Editions!

It's taking all my willpower to not post a spoilered goatse.cx. It seems I've finally become an adult. Sigh...

Didn't Kid Icarus originally come with some bizarre stand because it was so difficult to hold the system while playing? I've got somewhere around 450 coins. I really just want 3D Land or Wonderful 101 but both are 600. I've played just about all the cheaper games that I'd otherwise be interested in. Has anyone played HarmoKnight?

Even as a kid I thought most of those Ninja movies were lame, though I did love the first two Ninja Turtle movies, and I think the first still holds up for the most part. ET freaked me out, as did the Wicked Witch of the West (though I got over it). My personal fave was (and still is) Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I saw that movie before I even knew who Socrates was, and to this day I have to check myself before pronouncing his name. Second place would probably go to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Edit: Re JonCole, all those kids totally had it coming.

Yeah I'm usually willing to help out as well (spork_armada). The way level scaling works it's never a total cake walk.

Yeah the story was definitely cut way, way down, which is a shame because it's clear they put a lot of thought into the world building. The whole game is littered with signs of cut content. The aforementioned high profile voice actors that do nothing, factions that are glorified vendors, locations that are completely unused (the Reef), multiple player character races that have absolutely zero difference narrative differences between them, a totally nonfunctional clan system, and the list goes on. But what it does do it does really well. I give it a 7.

If an interviewer opened with a question like that I'd most definitely end it right away. It shows a complete lack of respect for the interview subject and is totally unnecessary. Molyneux's explanations did all the work in showing how poorly handled that project was/is.

Yeah I'll do that exact same scroll-to-the-end thing on games I know nothing about. If the score is high (or very low) then I'll take the time to go back and read it. I think it's worthwhile for a review to have something, a score or whatever, that indicates to the reader "Hey this is worth looking into!" Joystiq (RIP) was going that direction with some sort of excellence award. But people want an arbitrary metric to point to and say their favorite game is objectively the best. Bleh. Anyway I thought this was a good 'cast. Justin's Destiny observations were interesting...a lot of the discussions I've heard boil down to people saying it's awful but they can't stop playing without providing any insights into what's actually compelling about it (or awful). And of course the theme song was great. All guest hosts should be required to provide the opening harmonies.

Does the content that's in there now wrap up the story arc (skeletons, audio logs, etc)? Or do they still have stuff to add?

Regarding the gender stuff, Argobot put it better than I would...so yeah, what she said. Also, I thought Hal's mom was another well realized female character. Maybe the only other? It's been a while... Danielle, I saw some of your tweets about the absurd stuff like the giant hamsters and feral babies. I don't think DFW was going for laugh out loud humor really, just establishing a world that's a bit absurd and unfamiliar to the reader. Do you think it comes across as trying too hard? PS That Wardine chapter is terrible.

If you were to look up nonplussed in the dictionary you would find a picture of Solid Snake.

Became legit freaked out at 1:20

How can you not give best album to Beyonce that's insane.

Saw Mr. Remo tweet this today: https://medium.com/backchannel/meet-the-ultimate-wikignome-10508842caad