Kadayi

My take was that the seed is the framework whilst the hair provides the data, rather than the other way round.

Listened to the podcast. GJ as usual. However, you guys seemed to get a little fuzzy with the whole Tulpa thing, and specifically Dougie. We only ever witnessed the Tulpa Dougie in episode 3 when he was talking to Jade before being drawn into the Red Room, and then self-destructing in front of Mike. Good Cooper was never Dougie, he was just simply not fully there, which conveniently fit with certain sporadic aspects of Tulpa Dougie, which is why Janey-E, Bushnell etc presumed and accepted he was Dougie, just having an extended moment, a consequence of a car crash he was involved in at some point in his life (based on what was said). However, albeit we only saw him briefly it's clear that Tulpa Dougie despite being a bad seed created and drawn from Evil Cooper (prostitutes and formidable debt) was capable of driving (his car was the one that got blown up by the hitmen) as well as being able to hold down a job at the Insurance company. Any and all commentary by Sonny-Jim seems to relate to the Dougie he's known latterly. A Tulpa drawn from Good Cooper is likely going to be a perfectly functional replicant which encapsulates much of Cooper's resoluteness. Neither Janey-E or Sonny Jim are going to be getting shortchanged.

Amusing as the implication is that I'm some unfeeling replicant. I'm merely pointing out how Lynch described it, Jake. The only thing the return is doing that's different than say most TV drama is it isn't heavily invested in trading in the short narrative payoffs and pacing that are part and parcel of typical television scripting. They're there (Albert on his dinner date with the mortician for instance), but that's not the journey Lynch & Frost are taking us on. A lot of peoples frustrations with what they're seeing is indicative of a Pavlovian expectation as to how things should deliver, based on years of a steady diet of largely formulaic TV scripting and more pertinently pacing. Given how in its day the original Twin Peaks irrevocably shifted the paradigm of typical 90s network TV drama, it's not really surprising that Lynch & Frost would eschew the typical beats of Cable TV and do their own thing. I doubt that the return will have as widespread an impact on the TV landscape as the original show did in its day, but it certainly illustrates how trite a lot of current TV drama is, in comparison.

I thought it was a decent episode. Storylines are moving along and threads converging. I honestly don't get the upset with the Richard Horne scenes. He's a despicable piece of shit, and his comeuppance is inevitable. Lynch has repeatedly said the show needs to be regarded as an 18-hour movie: - https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/david-lynch-talks-twin-peaks-revival-mulholland-drive-w482337 So I don't get why there's this bewilderment because narratives payoffs aren't delivering in what would be regarded as a films second act (Episode 10 of 18). At best you're looking at episode 13 before threads are going to start resolving, and in truth, I doubt Richard Hornes is likely to wrap up at that juncture, least of all because we still have yet to find out what happened to his mother, what she may be up to, and where she is. Her absence from Ben's storyline and Richards cash grab seems to suggest she's likely not in Twin Peaks or involved in the running of the Great Northern at the very least.

The scene in the morgue was legit up there in the unnerving stakes as the Winkies scene in Mulholland Drive.

Curious to know what the thumbs make of the various criticisms going the rounds in the mainstream press regarding the season.

I thought that was what was said/implied. Either way through it caused Osterman to blow his lid versus letting Velcoro gather his information, and led to everything going south with respect to being able to clear his name.

I heartedly endorse the Banner Saga as it's going at 50% at the moment. Not an easy game (think FTL but with fantasy Norse mythology and a bit of structure to it), but decent overall.

Open world games.

Outing was the subject under discussion. Again there is no system to 'out' anyone. I haven't yet encountered a sexually orientated distraction whilst playing, and none of the distractions have any larger impact that occupying the attention of a guard in order that you can either sneak by them or sneak up on them. They get a text message it grabs their attention for a short while and breaks their usual patrol routine. That is the extent of the mechanic. The mechanic is only available in certain situations. It's not something that you can deploy ad hoc whilst driving around amongst the general citizenry of the game. As regards the 'The impression of impropriety is as bad as impropriety itself ' given we live in a global digital age where in pretty much anyone can throw shade at all manner of things with little regard to the facts of how they play or operate through twitter or speculative articles I'm not sure how developers are supposed to mitigate against off kilter accusations at the end of the day. There will always be someone who is offended. Also I question whether a phrase that has more to do with whether it's right for say a person to judge a contest that they have a relative participating in (and thus whose inner thoughts of assessment cannot be known) is that applicable to a game which can be judged through the experience of play at the end of the day.

I'd say get ACIII when its 70% off. ACIV is a pretty fun and well worth getting when it's 50% or so. Haven't tried the ACIII DLC, but in large part as it seemed to be an alternative history I couldn't really see how it advances the main story so avoided it. Given there's 3 parts I imagine it's fairly substantial, but I'd say hold off until you've played III through before deciding.

Trailer looks good, but Feb 2015 is a long way off. Reminds me I need to restart TWII. I got a fair way through it at release, but RL intervened and I never got back to it, and like anything once you've been away from it for a while your muscle memory gets shot. Interested to see how how differently it played with the enhanced additions. I recall the fight with the monster at Flotsam was a particularly painful exercise in the joys of the QTE, not helped by some lousy optimisation, so I'm hoping that's been addressed. GOG galaxy I figure is a necessary step to attract new games to the site, as its a necessary conduit for patch delivery. I'm not against it as an idea tbh as long as it runs ok.

I think I definitely preferred 'Wolf Hall' to 'Bring up the Bodies'. I think Mantel has perhaps turned Cromwell into too much of a superman in terms of his innumerable abilities and many fingers in many pies and in doing so undoes a lot of the core belief in the character. Still looking forward to the conclusion mind. Was unaware of the BBC adaptation. Shall keep an eye out for that.

I think if you're really into the American history then you might well enjoy it. Being from Euroland (an off shoot of Legoland) I can't say I found it particularly gripping and in large part the game makes no effort to really introduce the various historical characters the game throws at you versus assuming you'll take the time to read through the codex entries. Instead you find yourself constantly engaging with people who seem all too familiar with you 'Connor do this' 'Connor do that' with little explanation as to the why of things. There's also a lot of 'stuff' to the game. You need to build up your estate in order to harvest resources to then manufacture/trade goods (using a really tedious UI that defaults at every stage), in order to make the necessary money to upgrade your ship and it's a lot of tail wagging when all is said and done. Plus there's the obligatory assassins management as well. The ship stuff is pretty great, but feels very detached from the rest of the game. Albeit Connor isn't the personality vacuum that was Altair, there's no real sense that he's anything other than easily lead and often times he comes across as a petulant boy even though he's much older. Ultimately I only powered through ACIII because I wanted to see where the main story went and so get into ACIV, which so far has been pretty enjoyable in comparison.

Merus, on 07 Jun 2014 - 03:18, said: This is incorrect; the problem with outing has nothing to do with the act itself, but in how that information spreads and gets used in a culture that, in part, sees people crossing gender categories as sick deviants. For transgender people, their privacy can be literally a matter of life and death. Watch Dogs is feigning progressivism by having transgender people in their game, and then uniquely make them victims of the protagonist just by existing in the game; the fact that your argument is, essentially, that it's meaningless suggests their either you really didn't follow Watch Dogs' examination of privacy or (the more likely option) that there's nothing there to follow. But again in the game you're not utilizing that information in any way. Outing as an act implies broader public exposure. Lets say you learnt that a friend was transgender or a closet homosexual for instance, you knowing that information is not outing. You'd be outing them only if you broadcast that information to other people. It's not simply about knowing the information. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/outing I think to appreciate SR4 you kind of need to play SRIII beforehand at the very least (and maybe SRII for good measure) . There's a lot of back referencing in IV that would largely be lost on most people unfamiliar with the previous games. Without that carry though and an appreciation of events beforehand I can understand how the game might not add up.

On the whole you can avoid it save a couple of the main missions where it's very much kill, or be killed. You can unlock some pretty nifty tools like the blackout ability, a noise bug etc which make evasion and non lethal at night pretty straight forward and there are non lethal hacks like distract and coms jamming that you can use on certain individuals as well. Much like silent assassin in Hitman, it's pretty satisfying to pull off a well orchestrated infiltration with zero deaths.

It's not bad, it's just fairly predictable in this particular case. Some of the characters are well drawn, some less so. I think Aaron Douglas does a great job as Jordi Chin one of Pierces associates for instance. With Aiden Pierce himself I think the writers made the mistake of writing him as a bit of a blank cypher and it has the unfortunate effect of dampening him. It's a mis-step that brings to mind Adam Jensen from DX:HR. Albeit it would of involved a bit more dialogue work it wouldn't of been a bad idea to take a leaf out of Dragon Age 2 with regards to how player actions inform and alter not only how you talk to characters but also how they respond to you. Adopting that approach would make some of the conversations feel less out of character.

I haven't yet witnessed a distract option that did capitalise on such a thing. Feel free to post a screen of any that do so in your investigations though. I'm interested in the actuality versus the potential.

Yeah. It's very much a case of it being a test bed game in terms of content. I think that's generally the case with most new IPs though overall. It's rare if ever that someone hits it out of the park on the first try. The premise is interesting and the game play is enjoyable enough. I think where it suffers is in a lot of heavy-handedness when it comes to the writing and a fair amount of the characterisation (based on what I've seen), and the game could of benefited from taking a lead from GTA as a series and had you engaging with NPCs more often as mission givers, Versus solely participants you encounter on the main storyline. There needs to be a lot more connectivity to these people as a whole in my view. Not that I want them to phone me up to go bowling, but more give a rationale to side missions etc. For instance beyond the fact that intercepting/beating up criminals improves your vigilante rating, there's no real explanation given AFAIR and as far as I've gotten as to why you've become a vigilante. Overall I'd say it's a more accessible title than AC1 was (that game was tedious to the max) and there's some interesting ideas, in there for sure, but I'm expecting the sequel to be more robust in terms of experience. Given Ubi decided to make the title cross gen rather than commit solely to next Gen & PC it's inevitable that ideas of scope had to be curtailed in terms of functionality and processing. Given the bulk of the sales have come from next gen and PC sales, one suspects that the next title will take proper advantage of Next gen systems. GTA is an established IP, where as Watch_Dogs is a new one. Albeit the game may have been in development for 5 years, it's probably fair to say that a substantial amount of the first few years would of been dedicated to developing the ideas and principles and running through proof of concept, Versus full on development.

Yes it's flavour text. There is no mechanical use to it. That you're able to chance upon such facts about people essentially ties into the premise of the game of where in the CTOS system that you're piggybacking off of is effectively recording every aspect of every citizens lives without them knowing. It ties into the whole idea of the surveillance state. It's very 'person of interest' when all is said and done, if you're familiar with the premise of that particular TV show.

There's nothing to get. Outing as an act implies intent. There's no active investigation option with regard to a persons sexuality of gender persuasion in the game, or any option to exploit such information. It's merely one snippet of personal data that might appear when you scan a person. Same as you might find out that they were declined credit, or were polyamourous by nature. The accusation doesn't hold up to scrutiny of the system in action.

If they don't want to play it, then don't go into it. Would you tune into a film podcast where the hosts talk about the films that they haven't seen and don't intend to, or a book podcast where the hosts talk about the books they've not read and don't intend to? So you'd rather trans people didn't exist at all. What next? No sexuality to any of the people? Then what? Ageism? It's very tenuous accusation in the first place. Even more so given said information reveal has no bearing on the game or narrative whatsoever. I thought it was a bad episode for the reasons given, and I'm providing feedback (after all this is the Idle thumbs podcast forum). That that happens to grate with regulars like yourself is really not my concern. I'm not a regular here simply because in truth there bigger more active forums elsewhere and my time is finite.

Post counts. The ultimate sign of significance. Never mind the quality, feel the width. Why bother. This episode reminded me of the one back when Saints Row III or IV came out and the entire episode revolved around deciding to not to play it because "reasons".

I like it that you put 'if' in there. Some of us actually play games before criticising them. I guess that's being high and mighty in your view though. As regards this episode. Telephone the podcast. Seriously if you're going to do a show about games, talk about games you've played/are playing Vs talking about 3rd hand impressions of games that aren't remotely in your wheel house.