theGreatjon

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    14

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by theGreatjon

  2. Posted

    Was anyone else annoyed that Chris kept saying that Hitman GO was deveoped by Ubisoft Montreal when it was actually developed by Eidos Montreal, but still got Eidos Montreal as the correct developer for Deus Ex: The Fall. Also, it's listed as "FTL: Ultimate Edition" in the games discussed, but it's actually "FTL: Advanced Edition."

     

    Anyway, that's my dumb grumbling. Great episode guys!

     

     

    Actually Hitman GO was developped by Square Enix Montreal, which is a different studio than Eidos Montreal.

  3. Posted

    You know what book's a bunch of hot air? Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer; it isn't anything but storytelling gimmicks and kitsch.

    I just read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by the same author, since I seemed to recall having heard about it on one of the casts.

    It matches your expression exactly: "storytelling gimmicks and kitsch". I don't like to post pure non constructive hate. But that's basically what I felt throughout the book (that and utter boredom). Never I have seen an author indulge that much in his own visual cheesiness.

    You spend the whole book expecting Whoopi Goldberg to jump in. UGH.

    Had to vent, sorry.

  6. Posted

    Finished it yesterday. Haven't listened to the podcast yet.

    This is the first Chabon book that manages to bore me. I tore through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, even Manhood for Amateurs. But this time I kept wondering if this was just a sitcom-like story with rather unambitious plots. Turns out that it was. Plus the writing is so pretentious I made me cringe: I am traumatized by the whole chapter that contains only commas, as if to imitate the impression a long take would make in a movie. I found that so gimmicky, so artificial...

    Now there are a lot of good things in the book, some scenes (Gwen and Aviva's hearing), some witty lines, the atmosphere. I'm currently going through a jazz phase so I enjoyed the musical references and the vinyl store atmosphere. But I found the tarantino and shaolin references a bit too heavy handed. I felt like CHabon was trying to force the atmospheres down my throat.

    I think it boils down to this: Given its narrative content, the book should have been shorter. Chabon spends too many words indulging in his own "trip".

  7. Posted

    I really have a problem with assimilating free to plays with farmville. Tribes Ascend is a free to play. It's currently one of the best multiplayers FPS out there. It no doubt is a compelling experience. Mechwarrior online is a free to play, and it's not a subpar game. Free to play is a business model, not a genre. And we are seeing more and more quality "free to plays".

  10. Posted

    I think the gambling and crack analogies are way over the top. And yes the pay to win expression is over used. One of the most successful games in this "genre", League of Legends, sells mostly cosmetics. It also sells additional characters, which some argue is pay-to-win, but since these characters are not necessarly more powerful than the free characters, it's rather about diversification and personnalization.

    Anyway, I don't share the "burn the witch" mentality I often see in the industry. I think it's just a new way of monetizing games (and we live in times where new business models, in many fields, are legion).

  12. Posted

    So, the Cloud Atlas movie: should I see it or not, having read the book? I'm not looking for exhaustive descriptions, just a emphatic confirmation or decisive no.

    Everything I see about that movie looks bad, but I'll still watch out of curiosity. Seeing a book transposed to TV or movie is one of the most fascinating things, even when it ends up being a failure.

  13. Posted

    Friggin damn loop midgets. I found 3 of them within 5 lootchests. Now I'm constantly backing up when opening a chest.

    Sadly Borderlands 2 is just like the previous game, not suitable for a quick game. Wanted to do a quick 45 minute session, but ended up playing close to 1.5 hour to finish the mission.

    .

    True, the save system is awful. Doesn't even use the checkpoints you encounter. Just reboots you to the geographical start of the mission while keeping the chronological status. Weird.