dartmonkey

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/twin-peaks-season-4-mark-frost-david-lynch-showtime-1201891106/ 'Musing.' Two days until the book!

Season 2 of Discovery has been confirmed, and the last episode (5, I think) was easily the best of the lot for me. The Sarek thread is tied in quite nicely with established Trek. They presented (for the first time really) a decent reason for setting it when they have. I'm still not sure it's a good enough hook to hang the whole show on, but it brings up some nice human (well, Vulcan) drama for Burnham that fits quite neatly in the lore. Lorca gets a little more context too and it feels like a crew is coming together. I might even be able to remember some of their names soon.

Done. Does anybody else suffer with thumb pain when using one joycon in each hand? It seems to be the preferred method for Odyssey but Pokemon Go destroyed my thumb a year ago and I have needed to make a conscious effort to avoid aggravating it. Hitting A is fine but the slight bend needed to press B is uncomfortable after a while.

Apparently it's coming preloaded with an expanded Director's Cut of Super Turrican featuring an extra 2MB of stuff that had to be cut from the original 4MB cart. It's an attractive little box. I never had a SNES so a Mini would make more sense for me, but I've played most of those games on VC or GBA ports, so it's tough to justify 80€. And tougher still to justify another 100 on a Super NT - I've got a handful of SFC carts (Starfox, SF II, Front Mission, Yoshi's Island, Marvellous) but nothing else. A 64 NT could probably tempt me, but that's a long way off. I want NES Mini and SNES Mini collections on Switch (compilations of all the games on each Mini.) They could be the same price as the consoles themselves, I'd still prefer them. I've gone digital on Switch just to save space. I can't be clogging up my flat with more hardware!

Maybe that's wrong. I'm looking forward to possibly seeing this in IMAX.

A wee comment on retconning replicant lifespans - if I'm remembering correctly, before Batty they were longer lived anyway. The four year limit was introduced as a failsafe when they started rebelling. Also, a question. Perhaps I'm being dim but Roderick mentioned the mystery of the boy. What mystery/boy?

Two more segments named Bad Binoculars and The Number of Completion have been added to the extras lineup for the disc releases. Also, two episodes of something called Behind the Red Curtain, approximately 30 mins each and both subtitled 'Additional Material, Season 1'. http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/news/twin-peaks-season-3-blu-ray-bonus-material/ My TV has a line of bright blue pixels down the left hand side of the screen, and I've been eyeing at some beautiful 4K screens, super-large compared to my 32", not astronomically expensive... Edit. Also, check out this interview with Lynch about the music in the series. > https://www.kcrw.com/music/shows/morning-becomes-eclectic/david-lynch-2017-10-11

I'm still watching Discovery, and there are things I like, but it's disheartening that it feels so shlocky and formulaic in a serialised CSI way. It's super slick, but very paint by-numbers. You can see the dialogue and twists coming a mile away. I'm getting bored. I find myself actually missing the individual 45-minute stories. This feels like one loooong episode, with very little wonder and few ideas. And, again, the Klingons were always dull. And every 'shit' and 'fuck' feels crowbarred in between the theatrical Trek patter. It fit fine with Twin Peaks S3 (although I thought it was overused there) but here every cuss sounds like a gong - "we're just like you guys, guys! Fuckin' A!✌️" I've actually been going back to Voyager on Netflix. If Discovery isn't scratching my itch then I should probably return to the 400-odd hours of Trek I never got round to after TNG! I had probably watched a dozen episodes of Janeway & co. and was never impressed but I'm near the end of season 2 and it's growing on me. Tuvok, in particular, is a great character. I just watched a crazy episode with Michael McKean playing Fear incarnate in a weird psychedelic throwback to TOS. I don't know if it was good but it was interesting! And pretty brutal for Trek. Anyway, Discovery. I like the ship. I like Jason Isaacs, although the ends-justify-means angle feels so tired. Saru's alright.

Hmm. The save transfer is kind of useless - Edit. For me, although I guess if you've got kids and multiple(!) Switches in the house it could be handy - until 1) they've got cloud saves, or 2) you upgrade to New Nintendo Switch and need to do a System Transfer a la 3DS. Their online thing needs to include cloud saves. It looks like they're teeing it up, but let's have a very boring, sensible solution here, not a Nintendo-like one, please.

A good deal from Amazon UK/FR on Mario Odyssey download code if you've gone digital. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-16-jelly-deals-super-mario-odyssey-discounted-digitally-pre-launch

A Bloody Finger In Your Mouth - Roadhouse performance compilation. A Pot Of Boiling Oil - 37 minutes of oil in a saucepan, gradually heating and boiling. Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers - a documentary explaining the lack of Windom Earle in Season 3. See You On The Other Side, Dear Friend - detailed profile of Richard explaining all hanging plot threads and lore. Tell It, Martin - David Lynch's cousin, Martin, gives tips for maintaining a healthy, attractive lawn. The Man With The Gray Elevated Hair - Andy deep-dive. Two Blue Balls - teaser for season 4.

We should start a contest to guess the theme of each feature based on the title! For anybody pining for more Lynch, I found the following series of short animations he made called Dumbland. There's a good description in the link. He did them all himself. Definitely NSFW. http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/watch-david-lynchs-twisted-animated-series-dumbland-nsfw.html

Considering this surprising wave of Switch ports, another couple of crazy ideas entered my brain. Digital Foundry took a look at Cuphead and suggested it could scale well to Switch. The devs confirmed although they own the IP, the first game is a MS console exclusive. But besides waiting for a sequel, there's still hope: either they release a GOTY Cuphead Retribution Redux: Mugman's Revenge OR (and this got me thinking) Microsoft allows them to release a straight port. Which might sound implausible...but is it? Is it? Really?... Nuts to it - Cuphead is going on my wishlist. Doom's getting ported ffs! It's got Minecraft. It could signal a move from MS to putting out some select Switch titles!!... Look, it's all about Banjo. All I want is Banjo-Kazooie on Switch. Lego Worlds reminded me how great Nuts & Bolts was, and I need the originals too. Phil Spencer seems like the best shot of this ever happening and it happened on the GBA. Work out something with the Goldeneye rights, people. Make it happen!

I need to check the list but I think I'm an executive producer on this.

There's been an avalanche of great stuff released recently and it's growing every week. Not great if you suffer from backlog anxiety but it's a good problem to have. Re. sales, they usually come in the 10/20% off or 'Buy X, Get Y for 50% Off' varieties. I got Puyo Puyo Tetris 20% off, which brought it down in line with physical. Indies are routinely discounted (especially now as the shop is filling up), though it will be a couple of years before first party offers or a Selects line. Having said all that, I wouldn't hesitate to jump in. Even with the caveats, it's a really great system. And that backlog will only get bigger!

After watching this last night, I'm still digesting it. But I'm sure I've never seen a sequel so respectful of the philosophy of the original, both narratively and cinematographically (check out dat adverb!) From the evidence, I'm not convinced Scott would have been so restrained. It's the richest thing I've seen at the cinema for years. Do whatever you can to see it on the biggest possible screen. It would be an immense sadness to watch this on your phone. Really wonderful.

Overcooked is the game you want. I convinced my wife, who doesn't generally play games beyond Rockband, to try it one evening and she was hooked. We played it most evenings for the next two weeks! Simple controls, fun visuals and music, totally co-op. The later levels might be tough for her, especially if you're going for three stars, but it is the game you're after. After we beat Overcooked I downloaded Death Squared to try and fill the void. It's the only other co-op game I could find. Haven't tried it yet but I'll let you know how it compares.

Yep, over the past couple of months there's been a deluge of really good games. My wife has really got into Overcooked so that's been on every night for the last couple of weeks. Puyo Puyo Tetris was discounted so I downloaded that (hoping it'll take the place of Overcooked once we're finished.) I'm eyeing Picross too. Lego Worlds got an update in the week which improves performance a little. I'm warming up to it, although nearly all the control issues still exist - I'm just getting used to working around them. Ultimately it's going to become my canvas for slowly building a Twin Peaks world! That'll keep me busy for years, and hopefully the patches and QoL improvements will slowly appear. There's so much good stuff in there! Mario, Doom, Inside, Axiom Verge, Zelda DLC, plus tons of other nuggets. It was a slow start but I'll be running out of time and money before games at Xmas. I think Rabbids might have to fall through the cracks. Question re. Steamworld Dig 2 - is there any meaningful local co-op involved?

One little alarm bell that rang for me was when the Captain and Burnham were chatting about Starfleet being there to explore, not to war. It felt like they were establishing the MacGuffin Star Trek is about before they spend the whole series trying to get back to that. I can see it being all about war, and light on the 'explore'. Which is fine, I guess - the culture now dictates we explore these issues 'ourselves' rather than stumble on some planet with a problem and spend an hour watching their morality play before warping away. But, man, that's Star Trek! I want a weird little time loop episode, an off-the-wall one-shot story, in and out in 42 minutes, then something completely different next week. I get the feeling the series is going to be one looong pilot - they don't have the number of episodes to play with other ideas. It could just be a big arc with Klingons. Man, the Klingon TNG episodes always switched me off. They were okay, I just got bored of the Klingon bullshit. K'Ehleyr ripped the piss out of the Klingons like I wanted to. And the new they killed her. They were more interesting to me as surrogates for the Russians in TOS, but it seems that's being modified for Discovery. I dunno. It was fine. I'm open to anything. I just hope Discovery does some actual discovering! Not just looking in the mirror self-discovery, but quasars that fart musical jellybeans and planets where the natives communicate by rubbing their palms. You know, boldly going places! Not just boldly going to battle the bloody Klingons. Also, I'm going to be the dweeby dork who corrects in the Comic Book Guy voice 🤓 I'm sorry. But hey, it's a Star Trek thread! This is THE place for pedantry! "Ahem. Ectually, I think you'll find it's Encounter At Farpoint." Edit. Ahh fuck I was too late!!! 😂

Hot Twitter Takes!: 👎 -theme tune? -shonky Basil Exposition dialogue -couldn't say hello to Jason Issacs -not enough exec producers 👍 -theme tune w/out lyrics -Michael Burnham -Michelle Yeoh -the crew -Klingons & Kommentary Not bad at all!... It's dripping in JJverse, which is fine, although it would be nice to see a couple of shots not framed at 45 degrees. Perfect timing - Star Trek law dictates it won't find its feet until Season 3 anyway 😉

Looking back on the ports I wished would happen, it seems they've started on the list! Come on Firewatch 🤞😉 Edit. And another one! http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-09-23-playdeads-revered-inside-heading-to-nintendo-switch

I've played about an hour and a half and have just recruited the dude. Couldn't disagree more about the voice acting! Yes, it's hammy but they really go for it - now the Xenoblade 2 voice acting was bad. The visuals are lovely, although I'd like them to keep the character sprites sharp at all sizes. They can get a bit blurry. All told, I'm sold on it.

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/david-lynch-harry-dean-stanton-dead-91-1202560727/ Another sadness. It's going to be a poignant rewatch.

You don't have one?! I used my backlog anxiety as a flimsy justification for getting on at launch 😂 There's no time like the present! I'm going to write a bit more about Lego Worlds because it seems to be a very soft launch on Switch and there's not much info on it. I got it with low expectations - all I really wanted was the ability to use a 'lite' version of the LDD PC app and run around the buildings I created. The foundation is there. The terrain deformation, animation and art design in general is great - it's a little fuzzy in handheld mode but otherwise it's fine. The vintage Space theme DLC is fantastic. Leaving aside the slightly confusing and trite quest structure, which as I said I don't really care about, the problems are twofold. One, the input lag on the UI is really grating, and two, the lag is exacerbated by really questionable decisions re. the controls. Building/editing/painting/etc tools are accessed via a wheel that you call up. This is fine, but to access the wheel you have to hold X. Tapping X equips the last tool you used. And while a tool is equipped, you can't access the wheel by holding X - you have to put the tool away by pressing B, then hold X. So EVERY TIME you want to change tools you're waiting. I feel like I'm fighting the system and my instincts in order to use the game. They've done the hard work with the engine - it feels like they've really fallen at the easiest hurdle. By which I mean one would imagine it's an easy thing to rapidly test and change, unlike the engine underneath, which is really quite impressive here. The solution is to map the wheel to a trigger and make it pop up instantly. Instead camera zoom is mapped to the triggers. I can't imagine how they came up with the current system. Perhaps users can fudge a workaround on PC by remapping buttons externally, but they're still stuck with that delay for the tool wheel to appear. Perhaps TT want to keep everything on the face buttons for kids or something. But the whole menu system is impenetrable. It's terrible. I'm going to persevere because I really like Lego and there's some impressive work under this layer of UI/control crap. But I understand why people who can't be bothered or who want an actual game would be instantly put off by almost everything here. Almost ALL the problems I've had so far could be addressed in a very simple patch. There was some minor furore about the game's minimalist icon on the Switch dashboard, which I really like! Apparently they're bowing to pressure and changing that. Hopefully they'll take criticism about the important things onboard too. Also, this game has really highlighted the lack of digital manuals on Switch. There's just no info and the menu system ingame is slow, counter-intuitive and confusing. Also also, after the gyro aiming in BotW and Splatoon, it feels awful to not have it here. Especially as you need fine, precise control to place pieces, etc. Again, nothing that a relatively(!) simple patch couldn't remedy. So yes, enormous potential hampered by awful UI design, control decisions and sluggish menu performance.