BadHat

Fuck Dan congrats Dan

KIA exist to decry "tumblrina" style overreaction whilst unironically overreacting to every imaginable thing. Seriously the funniest thing about people like that is how often they mock feminists for being "offended" versus how often they pull things out of their ass to be offended about. Only it's not offence when they do it because they coat everything they say in a paper-thin veneer of "fact" and "reason." What's everyone's thoughts on this? I'm kind of in two minds but I don't have a very nuanced take on it (spoiler: neither do 99% of people commenting on it). http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/news/g546a6fc73886f/Sweden-considers-sexist-advisory-label-for-games/

Oh yeah I forgot the best part. She starts as a girl with poor self-image, gains confidence as an elderly woman, and then goes back to looking plain but learns to accept it. Oh, except for the part where she gets sweet shiny white hair and it gets perfectly singed into an attractive style, and then Howl tells her her hair looks like "starfire" or whatever and they kiss a bunch. So, moral of the story, if you don't like what you look like, uh... get a haircut?

Hi fellow NZer! That song was pretty tight, I'll check out your other stuff and maybe fling a few New Zealandland Funbucks your way.

Yeah, well your opinion is an idiot.

I found the man-on-man thing a little troubling too (not in a homophobic way, I guess just discomfort at how it could be misinterpreted or used as a way to discredit his argument by people unwilling to hear it?), but I also understand that appealing to people on this level is difficult, as he points out. On a recent Thumbs cast, they point out that for a man to understand how invasive man-on-woman sexual assault is, they'd have to be interacted with by an alien in ways that "hadn't even been conceived of yet for your gender," or something like that. I feel like this is pretty illustrative of how difficult it is for me, as a man, to even imagine a reality in which this could happen to me. Man-on-man assault, unfortunately, is the closest thing there is. On your second point, I think this is where his point about individual vs. cultural advice comes in. It is absolutely responsible to advise people to avoid potentially dangerous situations, and for women (or whoever) to be able to take that advice on board and use it to make informed decisions. But in a culture where victim blaming is commonplace, and the advice is often disseminated in the least thoughtful or compassionate way possible (often from people in positions of authority, I even recall an incident where a police chief publicly advised women to "just not dress that way"), that advice is far less helpful to the individual woman than it is damaging to the culture at large. Is there a way to disseminate advice like this without poisoning the well? Maybe, if it's delivered with a sensitivity to the larger issues at hand. But are we (or, specifically, you yanks) ready to take that information on board as a culture?

Origin's lightweight enough for me not to hate it now. The only things that really bother me about it are not being able to throttle download speed and the fact that my Steam friends aren't on there. This game looks pretty good but I don't think I'm prepared for another big AAA thing so soon after Shadow of Mordor (nor is my wallet).

Counterpoint: I saw Porco Rosso after Howl's and Ponyo and loved the shit out of it. But then it's impossible to not love Porco Rosso. I agree on Howl's. Part of why it frustrated me so much was because elements of it, namely the small-scale fantasy stuff you mention but also the animation and characters (an elderly woman protagonist, neat!), were wonderfully imaginative. But they jibe so poorly with the larger scale pieces that the whole thing topples under the weight of its own ambition by the end. This was one of my main gripes. A main plot point is that there's a war happening, like... somewhere, for some reason. There's a sequence where Howl goes all birdman and fights in the war and it seems like they're propping it up as a big character moment, but then it's just kind of pushed aside for other stuff? Then you have the (sort of) villain (because Miyazaki movies never really have villains), who is ostensibly responsible for carrying out the war because she's Howl's jilted lover or something? Then Like what? Seriously, what?

I've been devouring all of filmcrithulk's old stuff and I'm currently part way through his gigantic article about rape culture - http://badassdigest.com/2013/11/14/we-need-to-change-how-we-talk-about-rape/ Anyone have thoughts on this? I'll admit to being pretty ignorant on the topic. This seems like a good primer from someone with deep personal experience of the effects of rape, but he also uses a lot of emotionally charged language (not that I blame him) which makes it seem more like an appeal than an explanation at times. But then that's kind of his thing I guess, same with his fantastic gamergate article.

My opinion of Miyazaki has deteriorated with his more recent films. I loved Mononoke and Spirited Away, but Howl's frustrated me to no end (I watched it again later to try and reevaluate and hated it even more) and everything after that just bored me. Ponyo in particular cribs so heavily on past tropes that I have no idea how someone could enjoy it going in fresh unless they were very impressionable (so... the target audience, I guess >_>). Arietty was, at least, very consistent and clear in its storytelling, even if it was totally forgettable. I can't help but notice that the animation has gotten blander over time as well, with Wind Rises being probably his worst looking film (imo), but I guess that could be due to many things. FWIW, this interpretation has been discredited by Miyazaki.

I had a dream where I was visiting England for some reason and just walking around the streets. I idly walked into this one building that resembled a museum, but there were plaques all across the walls with bird names on them as far as the eye could see, presumably one for every species of bird on the planet. Then I spot my mother cooking something on a barbeque, and she puts it in a bento with rice, then opens a plaque to reveal a hidden opening and slides it in. "What are you doing?" I ask. "Just making dinner," she replies.

HI I HAVE AN OPINION ABOUT THIS I thought Snowpiercer was very visually striking and the direction, in parts, was excellent (I was very excited on account of Joon-ho Bong directing). I also thought it was fucking duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumb. Actually though the thing that annoyed me the most was how drawn out all the action sequences were, and how little heed the movie paid to sense of space or time. Like the thing with them shooting eachother through the train windows (why?) from ten cars apart and then the bad dude catches up to them in like a minute flat. Then later in the movie it takes what feels like a full half hour exposition scene for the clubbers to catch up to korean dude from one car away. It really annoys me in action movies when the action is paced according to the narrative in such an extreme and implausible way. Also was I the only one who thought like... does everyone on this train have to move through all these ridiculous cars to get to where they live? Where do they live? They go through the sushi car, aquarium car, school car, all these wacky cars and never seem to run into living quarters. Am I thinking about this movie too much?

That video is dumb as fuck for a variety of reasons, but it can be handily refuted with a single objection: he isn't cat calling. That's... not what cat calling is. The youtube comments, however, are a fantastic encapsulation of why this shit is actually a problem (as loathe as I am to believe that youtube comments represent an accurate slice of mainstream opinion). Woman objects to video; is told she is overreacting/was probably too ugly to get catcalled anyway. Woman points out flaws in video while also stroking male ego with "but feminists do overreact to this stuff!"; is called "a good girl" and given a pass. Literally someone calls her a good girl. What even. Also I just want to punch this recommendation in the face. I'm into this because I want to see dude culture fucking crash and burn. Even in a relatively secular, liberal nation like mine (we were the first to give women the vote!), masculine ideals still permeate everything like a thick, hazy fog. "Be a man" is a common sentiment, not just in spirit but spoken in those exact words. Even social issues have to be marketed to appeal to overt masculinity. This is an actual ad that ran here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDEWjoIGs8I It scales from this stuff all the way down to relatively benign things. There's a long-running ad where a thick-necked rugby player explains that depression isn't about "manning up and getting over it," it's about seeking help. Which is a fantastic message, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with the ad except that it had to be that way. There is no way this ad would have been remotely successful if the spokesperson wasn't the very embodiment of masculinity. Which, again, isn't a problem in and of itself, because men absolutely are expected to just "man up and take it" in a variety of ways, but it's such a fucking drain to know that my society's ideals are so poisonous in this way and that the very people being poisoned are resisting the cure.

Whoa, this is huge and instantly makes it way less DOTA-like. I like the idea of locking into a team roster for at least the length of a round, and being able to double up on characters makes them seem less like "characters" and more just like classes. I was kind of hoping for more of those Lords Management trappings, with the way they've presented the game so far.

Gonna give that seed a shot now! Edit: And done. Died to first boss. lol. I got a power-up earlier which gave me "controlled shots." But all it seemed to do was give me a single giant tear that I steered around the screen with the shot controls. Not only was it really difficult and sluggish to control, it did far less damage than my shots did beforehand, so my run was pretty much dead at that point. Wish I could remember which pickup did that so I can avoid it in future...

Also really loving the look of this. I feel like the general artstyle might be a little overdone now, but Blizz's art team is just so solid that it looks a step above any other attempt at this style I can think of. Also it just looks fun. I think they nailed the tone which makes it come across a lot less generic. It succeeds at the "saturday morning cartoon" vibe for me because it actually feels like one. I think I might be in love with Tracer. She's so kooky, I feel like we don't get too many characters like that, and when we do it's the super-shrill cutesy character like Tiny Tina or whatever.

Why do I have to check the comments. Why.

I thought CWCLVFDBOMGWTFBBQ was a pile of hot garbage, but Garden of Words was very enjoyable, not to mention one of the most gorgeously animated things (anime or otherwise) I've probably ever seen.

This video gives new meaning to the term "walkthrough." Why would they use that thumbnail? It looks far more interesting than anything they actually showed. (Well, the giant giraffe-mammoth things were pretty cool.) The aesthetic is completely baffling to me. I think they got a bit too close to real and still wanted to hang onto their goofy Final Fantasy fashion, but all I could think was "why are they running around the wilderness dressed like they're about to go to a job interview-themed rave." The part where he walks out on the dock I couldn't help but think there's no freaking way they'll let you swim because that guy obviously spent way too long doing his hair. It's like... even Final Fantasy X, which went for similarly realistic-ish, non-animefied characters, the outfits were so garish that you chalked it up to "oh, that's just his outfit" in the same way you would for a superhero or an anime character. Now it's like... the outfits look just practical enough that my brain goes "oh, he chose to dress himself that way for some reason." Ahhh.

What on earth.

Enjoying this quite a bit so far. Feels much more like "a game" than BoI. The original always felt like it was shackled to its Flash roots a bit much, probably because I used to play (and make, a tiny bit) a lot of Flash games and I got too used to the way they all felt and looked. Between this and Nuclear Throne I've got my roguelikelike fix well sorted. Edit: Oh yeah, anyone else think the new music is kind of... average? It'd probably be fine if the original soundtrack wasn't so freaking great. Wonder why they decided to replace it with something so different.

Good lord this thread is not helping my unhealthy habit of opening Far Too Many Tabs. So this was forever pages ago but I was just catching up on the thread and this image was bothering the christ out of me. I finally realised why and was compelled to make this.

I was actually most of the way through making a Giant Bomb soundbank for Worms Reloaded before my group of friends stopped playing and I sort of gave up on it. I was so looking forward to killing someone and hearing Jeff say "you can see their panties." Also, clearly the best Worms game is actually Liero.

Personal fave. I've had this album on constant repeat for the past couple of weeks. It's one of those albums that comes along and ruins everything else I was listening to because it's so much tighter and fresher. Not that it's the most original thing in the world but it combines so many things I like in such a tasteful way that it might as well be a love letter addressed to me.