Gormongous

Squirrel burying a nut in a dog:

Well, I don't mind careful play, which was how I played the first Hotline Miami until I got really good at it, but the fact that there's a scoring system that punishes hesitation doubly (through a lower or nonexistent "time bonus" score and through shorter combos) makes it a bit frustrating. Clearly, Hotline Miami 2 wants me either to take my time or to accept a lot more cheap deaths, but only the latter is really the only one recognized as valid by the game's internal system of evaluation. I know people are going to say that it was a problem in the first game, too, but Hotline Miami 2 is so much bigger that all of its inherited problems are substantially worse.

I guess I'm just not enjoying a show that vindicates Saul as a good man over and over when I know from Breaking Bad that eventually he succumbs. It robs the show of tension for me because I know that sooner or later, probably owing to his brother's condition and/or his brief association with the Mexican drug lords, he's going to slip and that's going to be it. There is literally no other outcome possible, without some crazy breaking of the continuity, and with knowledge of that, the show's slow pacing isn't anything but slow for me. I also just didn't like this most recent episode in particular. Not only does he do the right thing, he does so at immense personal cost and risk to himself, and it just feels corny.

They're dark green boxes, about the size of a small table in the game's geometry, that only open up when your gun's completely empty. They'll have the small teal arrow for interaction then, you just go up and right-click at them. Fair warning, they don't refill your gun completely, for some reason. You only get maybe a quarter of the gun's full ammo count, so conserving your starting ammo for as long as possible is still very important.

The line I draw between "game" and "puzzle" in the Hotline Miami series is the ratio of improvisation to memorization in my play. In the first game, it was only really the hospital level that required extensive memorization from me, there because of intentional mechanical restrictions in place. In Hotline Miami 2, there are so many situations from which not even quick reflexes can save me, usually long hallways or glass walls leading to a guy with a shotgun. I just have to die that first time and commit the location to memory in subsequent tries, because I'm invariably dead if I don't remember it and do some peek-a-boo cheese to get around it, which I don't recall being such a ubiquitous element of level design in the first one. Also, by the end, I was beginning to notice how ridiculous the architecture of so-called houses and apartments was in this game, like the long glass hallways of the mansion I mentioned a few posts back, just to keep me from using it to my advantage, and it all adds up to a game that pushes back hard if you don't come at it exactly like the developers intended for a given level. It's just a more linear game, which is clearly working for you, but it definitely didn't for me, not all the way through.

Fuck! Actually, I change my answer to either "Cara Eleison" or "Kyrie Ellison," whichever goes over better.

Lost Cara-cosa.

Over a year later, Katherine Cross wrote an in-depth post discussing Oh Eun-a's character and it's fantastic. Anything to resurrect this thread! Love's newest game looks great, since she's taking on romance and dating simulations in video games, with a healthy dose of deconstruction aimed at the Bioware model in particular.

Okay, I probably need to put a re-watch of Perfect Blue on my list. It didn't make much of an impression on me at the time, but people all love Kon so much... Also, an unrelated thing, but while trying to find a good .gif of Cromartie High's hallway walk for a retrospective series, I found this image on Tumblr: I laughed, I admit. I almost wish I bothered to have an account on Tumblr, because sometimes it has some good anime stuff, like the short-lived #animecathusband meme for Space Dandy.

I don't know. The story feels more focused, even though it doesn't seem to be focused on anything in particular, and I feel like that implies some sort of coherent intent on the part of the developers. I will say, the fan wiki turned me onto a couple of statements by the developers that make me feel like they think they've made a really powerful and compelling story here, for instance them saying that the Fans (and what happens to them, maybe) represent the people who wanted Hotline Miami 2 to be the same as the first game. I mean, I felt that way after the first act too, but then the game lasts for three more acts, each with increasingly longer missions. Satisfaction spreads thin after a point.

This whole thread is making me feel like a weird cat widower, because I love all cats unconditionally, especially my friends' cats, but have had no desire to own my own since we had to put my old cat Yoshi to sleep six years ago. Maybe I'll go find a picture of him...

No problem! I tried to find a comparable Samsung TV with full-array LED backlighting to help you with a price comparison, but apparently in 2013 Samsung decided that full-array setups are only for their UHDTVs (which is the ugly way that electronics manufacturers have decided to market 4K) and have instead used edge-lit LEDs for even their high-end HDTVs with something called "micro-dimming technology," which is supposedly as good as full-array LEDs but looks to me like they're just trying to confuse people with something that sounds like "local dimming," another term for a full-array LED setup. So, long story short, there's no real comparison between Vizio and Samsung. Good luck, and let me tell you, no matter which TV you buy, you will be wracked with doubt that you bought the wrong one and spent too much on it anyway. No pressure! If you're lucky enough that the TV doesn't break or go to pot in the first few years, those doubts will go away, mostly.

My beloved Panasonic ST30 plasma broke last month and I wasn't sure if the cost to repair it would be more than the cost to replace it, so I started doing research again. For under a thousand dollars, the best TVs for your money right now are the Vizio M Series. Specifically, any of the M Series that are forty-nine inches or larger, because those have the actual full-array LED setup that makes it worth the price. I know that we all think of Vizio as a Taiwanese company cobbling together budget TVs from panels rejected by Samsung, Sony, and LG, but they apparently turned over a new leaf in 2013. The E Series is still their entry-level brand that's not really made in-house, but the M Series (their mid-level TVs) and the P Series (their high-level TVs) are actual products designed to compete with the big dogs. They do thirty two-zone full-array LED backlighting, as opposed to the edge lighting that turned me off of LED TVs back in 2011, and true 120 Hz (that can spoof 240 Hz, but who cares about bullshit like that). A Samsung TV of similar size and quality will be slightly better, but at the price you pay for an M Series, it's the best in its class. My plasma turned out fine, just two hundred for a new SN board, but if I were buying a new TV this spring, it'd be this 49-inch M Series. I prefer a 42-inch TV, but it apparently doesn't have the same full-array LED setup. If you don't have an aversion to edge-lit LED lighting, that Panasonic that JonCole recommends might be the better deal, but I can't stand the light bleed and the poor white-level performance that comes with it. I swear I'm not a shill for Vizio. I've always hated them for flooding the market with shit and confusing the public about what a good TV is worth, but the numbers don't lie here. Even CNet liked the M Series, and I don't think they've ever done a positive review of a Vizio product before this year.

You're probably looking for the home theater thread, but all the information in it is out of date, so I'll just answer you in the Life thread.

People who talk about the effortlessness of discourse in a given medium tend only to have enjoyed only the fruits of it. There is a huge conversation on the utility of documentary methods to drive social change and Bogost apparently doesn't care either to know or to say it. Great post, Bjorn.

I got a little more than I was expecting from my tax refund, which means it's time for me to spend it foolishly until I'm back to starvation wages. By the end of the month, I'll have something to put in, especially if you remind me, Tegan. Knowing me, I'll just ask you to surprise me with something Eva-related.

I agree in theory, because Lord knows I'm always after the path of least resistance unless otherwise tempted, but there's something that rankles about loading up a level and seeing that it's specifically tuned to be difficult for the character they've forced upon me. I enjoy finding ways to break a puzzle, if Hotline Miami has to give me puzzles, but being given a specific character to beat a specific level increasingly feels like I'm trying to read the designer's mind about what I should do. I don't particularly enjoy that, not for twenty-odd levels.

I mean, I understand what you're saying, but the different creative DNA behind Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop probably isn't going to be readily apparent to the average viewer. Speaking anecdotally, most people will see these two images as the same thing, which is pointless anime cheesecake to be ignored: Sure, there's differences in their conception and execution, but the level of literacy necessary to appreciate those differences is fairly close to the level of literacy necessary to tolerate them. At least, that's the case in my experience. Anyway... That looks really good. In terms of criticism, it's very reader-response feminism, but I'll make some time to digging through it tomorrow. Thanks!

I really have trouble thinking that most people will have no problem with Faye Valentine's low-rise booty shots and crop top but will be impossibly turned off by the Major's monokini and jacket. I don't know, it feels a little like you personally don't like its aesthetics but are generalizing that to what the public at large will or will not stomach.

You are literally only the only person I know who's felt that way to that extreme. I don't know what to say except okay? That's not really been my experience, not even with people who aren't really into anime.

A little bit of googling brings up this news article, which contains the original quote from Lucas in 1977 plus an editorial note: It appears he originally said that some lifeforms have a natural affinity for the Force, which he later "clarified" to mean that they have more midichlorians in their cells. Still, Lucas might genuinely believe that that's what he meant all along, like when he said that he always meant for Luke and Leia to be twins even though he authorized toys that listed their ages as 23 and 18 right after A New Hope came out.

Sorry, Tegan. I just read your advice and fixed my post! Why are picture mashups almost always great, but video mashups, especially one show's characters doing another show's OP, almost always terrible? The latter are all over Nico Nico and YouTube and I haven't found one that's actually good yet.

I mean, everything gross about Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a legacy from Masamune Shirow. I can't imagine anyone jerking off to the lengthy conversations about police jurisdiction in SAC, it's really just there to make sure that as much of the fandom transferred over from the movies as possible. It's definitely not a good thing, but if you're turned off from a good show by a woman showing some skin for the male gaze, I've got bad news about every other piece of modern media ever...

I beat it and my opinion is unchanged. Why did they get rid of the mask selection, that's what I can't figure out. Also, I was waiting for one of the playable characters to be a woman, and I guess one of the twins is, but man if they didn't softball it. As a millionaire mobster, I'm going to construct my multi-story mansion with all-glass hallways. Privacy is for the law-abiding and the poor!

I have watched it twice and been humbled by how good it is both times. It is such a beautiful, living piece of feeling. The music is especially vivid. Then again, what movie has Takahata Isao made that hasn't been extremely affecting emotionally? I cried during Grave of the Firefiles, during Only Yesterday, during Pom Poko... Okay, kidding about the last one, but seriously, the man has a sense of gravitas that surpasses his colleague Miyazaki in a lot of ways. That's how they always do it for feature-film dubs. I love that they turn into time capsules for what people were considered the hotness in a given year. Steamboy is the one that always comes to mind: Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, and Alfred Molina; but I think that Princess Mononoke is the best example: Billy Crudup (a strangely subdued presence, often nearly inaudible), Billy Bob Thornton (what is he even doing), Minnie Driver (probably the best performance, but out of place among the rest), Claire Danes (yells every single line), Jada Pinkett Smith (appears to have decided that she will just say the lines without coming up with a character first), Gillian Anderson (growls every single line, but then she's playing a wolf god), and Keith David (tries to do a Brian Blessed impersonation). It's a bizarre dub, even without them all delivering a fairly slapdash rewrite of the script by Neil Gaiman.