sclpls

Nice work, I missed a bunch of these streams, so thanks for putting them together in one place!

This is a real problem because it doesn't matter who is President, those jobs are not coming back. The story is all about the natural gas boom that happened in the U.S. in the last decade. The cost of energy production in the natural gas field is half what coal is. Coal is an industry on its death bed as a simple matter of production cost. Any politician that takes the concerns of those workers seriously won't have any great answers, and that makes them vulnerable to grifters like Trump who will happily lie to them about bringing those jobs back. It's unclear how to combat that sort of false hope effectively.

This is a real problem I have with narrative games in general. They are never as user friendly as books.

One nice thing about Inside is that there are a lot more quiet parts to the game, so I think it is a bit more forgiving than what I recall about Limbo.

Most games make awful design choices when it comes to reading text on a screen. I've been playing Caves of Qud a lot and that is a game with a lot of text to read, and they get this right. No matter what resolution you play the game in they make sure that the text size is really large. That makes a world of difference. People are consistently too wedded to 12 and 16 point font sizes even though those font sizes are really inappropriate for a lot of viewing devices.

Update: so I haven't quite finished the game (I've been taking a nice, leisurely time with the game) but I'm very close to being finished with the game. If anything, my positive feelings for the game have only increased. I still don't miss all the extra stuff from Souls. I think the controversy around DS3's poise mechanics highlights exactly how stupid these poorly defined stats are and they should just be ripped out from the game. I know some people don't like that there's only one real viable build, but that's fine with me since that one viable build feels great to play. I'd like to see a From Software game that takes cues from Monster Hunter and rips out leveling up and character stats altogether, and just focuses on improving weapons and armor. I gave up on DS3 awhile ago, but if I try and give it another shot here are the things I think I will miss: Boss music: Bloodborne was a return to Demon's Souls excellent boss music. Demon's Souls had these gorgeous soundtracks that were very evocative. Meanwhile each Dark Souls game the music has gotten increasingly bombastic and only seeks to evoke one thing: THIS IS EPIC. By DS3 I felt like it had gotten completely farcical. Bloodborne's boss music has its bombastic moments, but comparatively it is way toned down with a lot more emphasis on nice string sections, and I really appreciated that. Boss fights: I can't quite point my finger on why but I've enjoyed the boss fights in Bloodborne way more than in Dark Souls 2 & 3. Boss fights are suppose to be a highlight of the series, but in 2 & 3 I found them to be more of a slog than something enjoyable. The rally/regain system: It's brilliant, and I'm sure I will miss the risk/reward calculation it makes your brain puzzle over while fighting enemies. Weapon depth: The Dark Souls series has a much broader array of weapons, but I like sheer variety of move sets that Bloodborne packs into its weapons. The environment: Bloodborne does a better job of making its environments feel like real places. The only thing that comes close is the first world in Demon's Souls. All the Souls games have some lovely environments, but Yarnham was such a nice contrast to the excessive wilderness exploration of DS3. I probably will give DS3 another shot once I'm finished up with Bloodborne. I think I will try some sort of agility build. If I've learned one thing I think it is that I really just don't enjoy the sword & board style that has kind of become the default build for the Dark Souls games.

Unfortunately, the Firaxis post-launch support is not what it used to be.

I found this article pretty helpful as a way of processing the politics of Trump as psychological warfare, and I've been able to reflect a little better on my own emotional state. I'm also doubling down on efforts to give back to the community, and that is helping somewhat. EDIT: Forgot to post link to article, thanks Clyde! http://thebaffler.com/blog/against-bargaining-penny

I liked the story of Dishonored 2 quite a bit more than in the first game (although I think the DLC beats both by a long shot). It could be that recent political events have made me more sympathetic than I might normally be to a simple story about wrestling away power from a leader whose interests are entirely self-serving and egotistical. The other reason I disliked the original Dishonored's story is I thought the twist halfway through was very obviously telegraphed, and also the second half of the game is much less memorable. That being said, saying that I thought this game had a better story isn't really saying much. I was excited about the potential commentary from the character you're playing having voice lines, but ultimately that ended up being underutilized (better than the opposite problem though). I also thought the home base area ended up feeling kind of empty and pointless. Not that the home base in Dishonored 1 was terribly exciting, but at least it was a more fun space to explore with a couple of secrets to discover. You exhaust your time on the boat pretty quickly.

Also, since you guys are potentially getting some hate mail over your response to West World I'd just like to say that I appreciated hearing your thoughts about West World and the current state of prestige TV, and it seemed well considered and thoughtful to me.

I think there are a lot of B-movies being made right now, and are very profitable thanks to just how cheaply made they are. And they all exist in the horror genre, and typically involve being shot with a camcorder either out in the woods, or just in a single house. Planet Money was on this beat last year. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/21/433505958/horror-is-the-best-deal-in-hollywood http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/09/11/439632877/episode-650-the-scariest-thing-in-hollywood

I'm with Tom Chick on this one. The eureka moments provide something like a 50% research buff is way OP. You want to get as many of these as possible if you're trying to play efficiently. That means memorizing a lot of random information since, as far as I can tell, these instances are not listed anywhere. Which is not a fun thing to do. I think the eureka moments are really neat as an expression of the idea that certain activities help shape and transform what a civilization looks like, but man does it not work as a game mechanic because there isn't any "interesting decision" there. I think you would have to rework how technology works or something, but then who knows if people would even consider it a Civ game at that point...

I found the way religion is handled in Civ6 to be the disappointing aspect of the game. Mostly because I expected more from the designer of Here I Stand... I think Dave Heron and others were right that basically Civ6 is an excellent game, but for people that have been playing the series since it first came out the games don't really offer any surprises anymore, so the game's ability to hold our attention and hearts is going to diminish. I still enjoy it, but I'm definitely ready for some other types of historically themed strategy games.

I think it is a missed opportunity that the game doesn't track animal kills. Like, you can accomplish a pacifist run while killing as many rats, blood flies, and hounds as you see fit. But if someone were to get through the game without doing any of those things I think surely the game should acknowledge that the same way it acknowledges ghosting a level or getting through a level without killing any humans.

Yeah, I wish the civilians were a touch less panicky.

As Atlantic said, I believe there are other non-lethal options available. Anyway, since you said you might want the achievement, here is how to think about the problem:

If anyone is totally stumped by the riddle for the Jindosh lock but wants to solve it let me know, and I can provide the guidelines for how to solve for this sort of problem without spoiling it. That would be LSAT prep knowledge finally put to use (since I ended up deciding against going to law school). I thought it was a pretty fun logic game.

Yeah this has been bothering me. I replayed a little bit of the original Thief as a comparison, and Thief's sound design is way better. So much easier to tell where people are based on sound. Another point that really irks is that sometimes guards will inexplicably see you through walls, floors, etc. It's pretty messed up.

It ran flawlessly on my machine, quick load times and everything. Maybe that isn't very helpful because I have a really nice PC though. But it doesn't look like some huge graphical upgrade from Dishonored 1 so I would expect it to run pretty similarly for people.

I played two hours last night. Man, what a breath of fresh air this is! The opening setup of the game is a little awkward and forced, but whatever. After that it gets so good. I like that there are lots of objects that you can interact with that don't necessarily have any gameplay value. And I also like Emily's character a lot. The writing for her brief monologues is all really top notch so far. To me it feels like a cross between this almost Shakespearian language and some hard boiled noir, and I'm so into it. Then everything else just feels like it is more Dishonored, which is great because more Dishonored.

Listening to this episode was a nice respite from the dark place my mind has been. Thank you.

Never want to hear from anyone ever that rape culture isn't real

I'm drunk, and angry right now, but fuck everyone that equivocated between the two parties.

Well, that escalated quickly.

Man, next week is going to be so great. This awful election will finally be over, and Dishonored 2 will be a game that you can play.