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So in conversation it sounded like Jake was uncertain about how they ascertained Jacques Renault's identity. What happened was that when they encounter him in the end of the previous episode he is hilariously wearing a name tag. I have to say that I really dislike the scene where Andy finds out Lucy is pregnant. Like, she suddenly is willing to talk to him because he shot a guy? I know it is because the rest of the guys are talking him up as a hero, but I thought it felt messed up and not true to character. I disagree with the assessment of the scene between Catherine and Pete as representing some real emotional breakthrough, or at least not for Catherine. She's just playing Pete. When they embrace Catherine looks like she is rolling her eyes. My favorite part of this cast is when Chris pauses after uttering the phrase "far cry".

I agree with Graham Smith's assessment that Assassin's Creed is the Michael Bolton of video games: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/08/14/assassins-creed-unity-2/

EDIT: Sorry, posted in wrong thread!

I love how when Leland sings & dances his way into Ben & Jerry's office they join him in dance. Also, the overhead shot when Agent Cooper is laying out the events the night Laura Palmer died, slowly scrolling across the table full of donuts while there are these soft fades of iconic imagery like the tree tops blowing in the wind, the traffic light, etc. Also, the whole scene with the Palmers et al. and the kids performing song and reading poems... totally incredible and so wonderfully uncomfortable to watch. And of course the ending is just a series of terrifying images. Especially the shots of the empty hallways in the hospital, it just really gets to me. There are of course a couple of odd things about the episode as well. While I think I conceptually get the shift for Donna's character where she suddenly turns into a noir femme fatale character, I dunno how I feel about the actual execution. I'm also not sure that some of the physical gags work for me as well as some of the other episodes, but that's totally subjective.

Thanks!

I'd be interested in reading that as well. I think I remember seeing it when it was first written, but kind of filed it away for later, and then forgot about it.

Favorites First Person Immersive Sims Life Sims Platformers RPGs Multiplayer Post-Soviet Apocalypse RTS Strategy Tactics Worms Games I think that's everything...

If Miss America has taught us anything, its that we can't determine who is worthy of receiving a college scholarship, and therefore is erudite enough to have an opinion worth listening to, unless we judge these panelists' appearances in a swimsuit competition.

Part 2 of interview ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

LostIntheMovies - yeah I literally mean the show as a whodunit is its least interesting aspect. If the murderer was spoiled for someone in advance of seeing the show I really don't think that person is worse off. I agree that learning about Laura is extremely interesting, and I'm a big fan of Fire Walk With Me. Broadly speaking, I think of season 2 as a philosophical investigation into what is the nature of evil, and I find it extremely compelling for reasons I'm sure I'll get into more after rewatching stuff and having a fresher perspective. I think Windom Earle is like the most interesting character in the show.

It was weird listening to this episode because I had some good memories of the game, but as the episode wore on I started to remember everything about the game that drove me crazy. It tries a lot of different interesting ideas, but that kitchen sink approach to game design means it ended up with a lot of annoyances that people have to overlook. As far as fantastical World War II turn based tactical games go, I think Silent Storm still comes out as the winner.

The murder mystery really is the least interesting aspect of the show. I know season 2 is typically derided, but I think there is so much interesting stuff that happens coming up soon!

I completed Shadow of Mordor! It was good, and I have lots of ideas about game design now.

Once again, Ta-Nehisi Coates says everything that needs to be said: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/barack-obama-ferguson-and-the-evidence-of-things-unsaid/383212/

Wait, did Bobby sabotage James's bike, or did he just plant cocaine on it? I wasn't paying close attention, but I thought that's what happened. Spoiler content discussion:

I have no problem with how they present the game, I just think it makes no sense, i.e. it is incoherent. I agree that a vision doesn't have to be unique, but it does need some sort of expressive intent, and I just don't see that. It feels way more like it's just following the whims of the Ubisoft board of executives' Ouiji board then anything else. One common thread of all the reviews of the game, which have been very positive, is how thread-bare the plot is. That's fine, but it just means Ubisoft is very good at making digital playgrounds, not that there is some sort of idea they are trying to execute on other than on iterating on what worked last time. Doing the same thing as Far Cry 3 but with an Asian villain, and non-frat dude protagonist doesn't strike me as a strong idea of what their game should be. Like I said, it seems like they are just kind of going on auto-pilot. I didn't say there was anything wrong with that. Bu the idea that Ubisoft has a strong concept of where the game should go is about as compelling an argument as saying they have a strong idea of where the Assassin's Creed games should go. They clearly don't. What they do have is a huge work force that has been optimized to churn these games out. It's successful, but I think successful business production is not the same thing as a coherent artistic vision. EDIT: All that being said, it does look like we basically just have a semantic disagreement so I'm going to stop here.

I didn't say it needs to be deep. I disagree that they know what they want to do with the series though, and the marketing demonstrates it. The marketing places so much emphasis on this weird villain despite your description of Far Cry as a game where you "Do crazy badass things and give the player lots of dumb sidequests in a big open world FPS." That isn't communicated in those bus ads at all. I mean, what you describe is basically the vision for all Ubisoft games at this point. That description doesn't give Far Cry any unique identity which is why I say there is no vision for the game. It might be a fun game, and successful for Ubisoft, but they are definitely running on autopilot creatively.

Well yeah, that's a bunch of marketing jargon. Nothing coherent about it.

Yeah, there's a quote that's been floating around to the effect that a competent prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich. And most of the time, sure enough, indictments happen. The one exception to that seems to be in cases where a cop is on trial. There's actually a potential legitimate conflict of interest here since prosecutors have to work closely with law enforcement. In my mind, it would be the equivalent in a civil suit of asking a lawyer to sue a paralegal he/she hired who was responsible for collecting and maintaining evidence for the lawyer generally. It's kind of ludicrous to imagine, but that's the American legal system.

Yeah it's pretty awful. There are things about his testimony that make sense, and things about his testimony that make no sense. This is exactly the sort of thing you have a trial for, when there are facts in dispute that need to be ascertained.

Poster feelthedarkness cited some good examples on the 3rd page of the thread. The Ichi the Killer connection sprung to my mind as well just because I watched a ton of Miike movies in college. I still think that even if they went off into some kinda odd tangents, the overall point about the weirdness of how Ubisoft markets the Far Cry games is correct. I suspect that's because post-Clint Hocking it doesn't seem like there has been any coherent vision for what the games are about.

It's revealing that protests for left-wing causes like racial justice are met with force by the police, meanwhile Clive Bundy gets together some group with an insurrectionist ideology that are pointing guns directly at police officers and nothing happens. For that matter, it's revealing that Clive Bundy lives while Michael Brown does not.

I played about a dozen matches online, and only one of them had any noticeable lag, and it was only for about 30 seconds. I hope Twig has just been really unlucky and his experience isn't typical...

"Italian food"

My superficial impression is that the SC2 community is a lot more mature than other gaming communities I've encountered. I tend to see a lot less flaming going on in your average SC2 match compared to other multiplayer games. Or this may be a situation where the term e-sports has primed people to analogize to the sports world where professional athletes certainly are punished for poor behavior.