Trip Hazard

I've never heard of Lucinda Williams before, but there's some of her stuff on spotify. Are her albums worth hearing? Very jealous of you seeing Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. What was the composition of the crowd? I often wonder if this music appeals more to liberals or conservatives, religious folks or satan worshippers like myself. Or, more likely, a hodgepodge of all types. Heeeeey, where've I heard this before? I'm getting some major deja vu...

This game is very beautiful and is going on my wishlist right now. Also, did the Canabalt guy work on this? He's always retweeting praise for it, but it's a drastic departure from his best known work to date

Balls, I meant to watch your stream and then life got in the way. Haven't played BB for ages cos of Ratchet and Clank, but I'll be on it tonight. Going West, to the Nightmare Frontier Edit: Bloodborne happened, for four hours, until 2am. It was a very productive session and I would have happily carried on, but I started to feel guilty for playing so long. Spoilers to follow: I explored the last corner of the Nightmare Frontier and fought a boss there. It was a bit of an awkward fight, and I didn't exactly finesse it, but I triumphed with liberal usage of blood vials. Went to Yahar'gul, which had changed a bit since I was last there. Now there were knotted masses of skeletons dragging themselves around the streets, seemingly without purpose. What do they here? I murderised them all with the help of an NPC phantom I found. And then I murderised another big boss which plopped out of the moon. After this, I took a little trip back to Cainhurst, to visit my old pal Annalise (I still don't want your blood, thanks, I've got to drive home). Back to Yahar'gul, and I touched a caged man which took me back to the lecture building. Not much of note here, except I found Patches. I didn't have the heart to kill him - he's already a massive spider, and that seems punishment enough. There's still the question of whom, or what, bestowed this form upon him... Another Nightmare! This time concerning something called Mensis? It may have been mentioned but I've forgotten. Anyway, this area was pretty short and easy, and linear, until you get to Mergo's Loft, where things get interesting. Spiders are bastards. Spent a lot of time exploring the loft. Some tough bits, mostly not too bad. How do I (can I?) get to that thing I saw as I approached which glowed and caused my frenzy to constantly rise? The answer lies at the summit, I'm sure. What is that baby crying for? What happened to this woman with blood all down her front? What's going to be in this pram? OH SURPRISE IT'S A BOSS. Killed the boss. Boss was easy. Explore for ages and ages, trying to get to the glowy frenzy thing. Hello, this lift has a broken door, I can get out when it's moving. Fuck me, not you guys again, I had enough of you when I went West. Stop sending me West! Killed them all, pulled this lever and...OOPS. I returned to the Hunter's dream after that and everything is on fire. Gehrman wants to have a word with me under the great tree. I'd hate to keep him waiting, but I'm definitely going to keep him waiting, for ages and ages Editx2 hey what happened to my numbered list?

It'll be interesting to see how people feel about Nioh once the dust has settled, but I generally find that this forum doesn't buy into hype quite so readily as many others, and are more likely to offer a fair assessment. That being said, I played Nioh for the first time yesterday, for about three hours, and if you told me "Nioh is the best game that ever existed or ever will exist", I would believe you. I had a blast with Nioh yesterday, twirling my dual katanas and nimbly sidestepping around huge, ponderous yokai. The Ki Pulse system is brilliant! I played around with it a bit and got the hang of it, and can see how it could lead into some very long combo strings. I felt like a badass when I killed a big demon on a boat. But I can see, if I take a step back, how certain elements will become problematic over the long haul (and it is a very long haul, going by what I've heard here). There's so much loot that it's fatiguing having to look through all of what you've picked up. I get that Team Ninja thoughtfully included the little up and down arrows on dropped loot, but that isn't really an accurate representation of whether the weapon is going to be the right choice for your build. I didn't do the research, but I'm pretty sure it only indicates if it does more damage or not. The village that I fought through looked good, but there was nothing at all to interact with. No NPCs, no puzzles. Just barebones, run through the streets and kill the baddies. Could just doing that over and over sustain my interest over a long game? It's very good combat, but... One question. The eurogamer review mentions a noticeable dearth of different enemy types. How true is this?

I finished Ratchet and Clank on the PS4, yesterday. What a great game! I'd recommend it to just about anybody. Having never played a Ratchet and Clank game before, and knowing very little about the series, I didn't have many expectations going in. I thought it'd be far more of a conventional platformer game, actually, but I'd say it's gunplay which has a more prominent role. Okay, I want to say some really positive things about this game, but I'd like to get the negatives out of the way first. One, I thought some of the Clank sections were a bit tedious. They didn't quite hit the sweet spot of great puzzle design. On a couple of occasions, I'd walk into a new puzzle room, know what to within ten seconds, then spend the next five minutes laboriously shuffling bots about the place. Two, the game starts off a little slow. The middle part of the game is the best part, where you're discovering new weapons every level and can jump from planet to planet as you like. But the start, you've got your 'nades, which are fine, your peashooter, which is weaksauce, and the flamethrower, which is strong but useless against anything that flies. These weapons are all pretty conventional weapons, like the sorts of things you might see in the real world. Later weapons are batshit insane, and all the better for it. It would have been nice to get a more characterful weapon earlier on. But the positives are so, so many. The weapons are all fun, but also useful! They don't fall into the trap that many "zany" weapons fall into (I'm looking at you, Armed and Dangerous). The graphics are sublime; like playing a Pixar film. I never even skipped a single cutscene, 'cos I thought it was well written and animated. The story is...not amazing, but not bad. I didn't like the last minute inclusion of wossname, Anyway, great game. I'm gonna go play it all over again.

My gran saw me playing Soul Calibur one day, years ago, and, after looking at the TV for a moment with a puzzled look on her face, she asked me "Why do the fighters keep jiggling up and down?" And, you know I'd never really noticed? Whenever you're not moving, your fighter constantly raises and lowers their shoulders. I didn't know what to tell my gran, so I just said "I think it's so you know the game isn't paused". There's not much of interest happening with those animations, but they are idle animations. After my gran asked me this, I got to thinking about other games with animations that play when you're not, you know, playing. I spent a long time booting up all the different games I own and just standing there, to see what would happen; I was really amused that people had presumably spent quite a long time animating a sequence that many players would never even see. One of my favourite examples is Sonic's famous foot-tap. It's a really simple animation, of course, but I laughed when I saw it because it tells you a few things about Sonic's character. His look to the camera tells you that he has attitude, and is more self-aware than other game characters. His tapping foot tells you that he's impatient, and wants to keep moving. Does he fold his arms, as well? The cheeky little shit. It's a simple thing, but it conveys a lot. What are some of your favourite idle animations, and why?

I had a decent time with CBFD, but what you say is totally true, it is very uneven. Amazing idle animations, though! The sound effects and voice help to elevate some of the weaker jokes. This one from Boogerman is f'kin minging, as you'd expect

Looks like a great guitar. A kilo heavier than the yamaha, it seems, don't know if that'll matter to you

I've never heard a bad word said about the Yamaha Pacifica, but have very little experience of it myself https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-Pacifica-Full-Electric-Guitar/dp/B00123DQT6

listened to this today, and I think we can all agree that it's incredible

Recently, I've been on a bit of a country music kick. For the longest time, the only country music I ever heard was about rednecks swilling cheap beer and disrespecting women, or modern(ish) country pop stuff like Shania Twain and, more recently, Taylor Swift, whom it is impossible to avoid without going to live in a cave on Mars. But, I knew that good stuff was out there, I just had to look for it. Here are some of my favourite things I found, and, yes, they are mostly traditional country songs with an emphasis on authenticity in the music and the lyrics. Most of them have a religious bent. I don't like the mass-produced stuff cos I'm a big snob. There's this from O Brother, Where Art Thou? And this by Willie Nelson, recently featured very prominently in "Preacher"

Just watched the trailer yesterday, was creasing up at it. I'll have to get this game soon, my daughter in law would really dig it

Whoa, Makotos walk animation is incredible! I'm not sure it counts as idle, though I don't think I've seen that one from DoTT before, but it's a beaut. Beaut may be the wrong word to employ, here. That Jonathan Frakes thing gave me the heebie-jeebies - the human mouth should not be able to open so wide... Ooh, the snark from Half-Life is so good

For some reason, I haven't been too excited about ME:A, despite enjoying every Mass Effect game so far. I think it comes from playing Mass Effect 3 with all the DLC installed, and trying to do every optional quest and whatnot. They were largely good quests, but it just felt so odd being able to twat about indefinitely when the fate of the universe is hanging in the balance. Of course, this is a complaint common of many, many games. Anyway, watching that trailer, I am super hyped for this. I think it looks amazing how the jetpack can be used not just to shoot into the air, but also to the sides. Should hopefully make combat less about finding cover and just hunkering down, and more about out flanking and surprising foes. Plus, every class can use every weapon, which should just have been the case in every game tbh

What is WMG? Is that Warner? Shit! Edit: sod it, get on the proxy

Last post was 4 months ago, but I can't not share this. It is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Let me set the scene: Richie is playing Dark Souls on Twitch. Richie has never played Dark Souls before. Richie does not play games very often. So why play Dark Souls, a notoriously difficult game? Because his friends thought it would be funny to watch him try. It is funny to watch, but it is also funny to participate. His friends send him many conflicting messages in the twitch chat. Sometimes the messages are helpful, but usually this is accidental. More often the messages are not helpful at all. Sometimes they are actively unhelpful. Almost always they are openly abusive. Richie struggles valiantly on. He overcomes many hurdles, but suffers terrible setbacks. Sometimes he feels he will not succeed, and should give the whole thing up. Richie hasn't given up yet.

Why have they done this

Noah Hawley was executive producer on Legion. Noah Hawley did Fargo. I must watch Legion immediately.

Ain't nothin' better We beat the odds together I'm glad we didn't listen Look at what we would be missin'

Brendan Caldwell had some mixed thoughts about it in his review, but I got the impression that, overall, he had a good time with it. I've certainly enjoyed the bits of footage I've seen so far, except for how much useless information the UI constantly seems to want to fire into your eyes

Sorry, everyone, to go back to the freedom bundle, but they added even more things recently, and my mind simply can't process these astronomical levels of generosity

Man, I really wanted to like Motorhead but then I heard that track "Jailbait", and went right off them. Either way, I'll still probably get this. If you're still playing Victor Vran, Bjorn, I'd be well up for a bit of co-op some time

Couldn't agree more with this statement. I don't always agree with his politics, but the brilliance of his games cannot be denied

Have been watching that with my partner and it is absolutely amazing. Really funny and insightful, and just...damn, Netflix, you've hit this one out of the park

Also same. Thank you very much for the recommendation Simon!