prettyunsmart

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Everything posted by prettyunsmart

  1. Kim & Clint Hocking their Swiftboat down the Amazon

    I think they would be an also ran without game to back it up. Hiring Swift and Hocking has me paying attention at least, even though I generally have no interest in purchasing another thing that plays games. A solid game from either could change that, though.
  2. Quitter's Club: Don't be ashamed to quit the game.

    I quit playing Spelunky without really meaning to. I've been a bit busier than usual over the last couple of months, so my game-playing time has been limited. I just forgot about it, and now feel like I've been away too long to make any real progress in it. I had a good run where I was playing consistently and could make it to the Temple pretty regularly, but I always managed to screw up the Olmec fight. My skill level plateaued and I just walked away for too long. I guess the great game just isn't for me anymore.
  3. Now we have two competing versions of the song, with Tylea002's Flogging Molly-esque take and Chris's shanty. I suppose the sea shanty version is probably canon.
  4. Recently completed video games

    How heavy are the Freudian overtones? I have a deep love of Link's Awakening and a deep hatred of Freud, so I can't tell if this would be my favorite thing or my least favorite thing ever. For context, I'll say that what bothers me is when people take Freud's work as literally true rather than an interesting historical document/groundwork for the countless developments in psychology that have come along since.
  5. A Far Cry from Home - Travel Discussion

    So this is much more modest in scope, but I'm going to be travelling within the American midwest a few times in the next couple of months for work. In the event that any thumbs have some advice on places to eat or things to do that don't cost a ton of money, that would be neat. In a couple of weeks I'm going to be in downtown Chicago for the Popular Culture Association conference. I'll probably just be doing academic things most of the time. I've been before a couple of times, but only in "let's go look at the Willis Tower/Navy Pier" mode with family. Then over the summer I'm headed to Bloomington/Normal Illinois for a writing program administrator conference (wooo!). Any ideas?
  6. Amy Hennig and Naughty Dog Part Ways

    Well, Riot does bring in a fair amount of money. Maybe they're looking to diversify their output and make a narrative-driven game?
  7. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

    Also, there's a difference between someone saying "that thing you said was [racist/sexist/transphobic]" and saying "you are [racist/sexist/transphobic]." The former can be a good way to start a discussion about the ways language, intentionally or not, can reinforce problematic power dynamics. The latter just leads to people feeling insulted and shutting down discussion. It seems like the discussion here is more focused on the words/phrasing rather than Thrik the person, which I think is cool.
  8. LOST

    I wonder how many of the objections to Lost's approach to mysteries (I've had a few since starting to watch it as it aired live during season 2) have to do with the way the show was marketed more than a fundamental objection to that style of storytelling. I totally respect the artistic freedom that the writers of the show had to go where they wanted to with the show and make it about whatever they liked, but that clashed with the preview of the following episode in the credits. "NEXT WEEK! ALL YOUR QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED!" or whatever. Divorced from the marketing, I think people might have been more capable of letting the story go where it was headed without getting so incensed.
  9. The Official Video Game Music Corner

    Whenever I'm having a bad day, the Katamari soundtrack never fails to cheer me up.
  10. Far Cry 2

    I'm not entirely sure, but I think I had a Far Cry 2 guilt dream last night. As I was completing the arms dealer missions, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between what I was doing (placing IEDs in the road, waiting for convoys to pass by, and detonating them) to contemporary acts of insurgency or terrorism. Leaving aside the complex moral conversation that we could have about justifications for occupying a country, or resisting that occupation, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was only doing this at the behest of an arms dealer. So, in my dream, I was being interrogated and put on trial for my actions. I'm not sure if this is some combination of too much Far Cry just before bed, or a mingling of other fears in my life (I hear grad students heading into exams often have inquisition dreams), but that was deeply unsettling. I think I'm just having trouble with the moment to moment fun of the game pushing against the bleak, horrible setting and characters. I know that's kind of the point, but it is sort of messing with my head.
  11. Far Cry 2

    Well, today I finished the process of drinking the Idle Thumbs Kool-Aid and accepted Clint Hocking into my heart as my personal savior. I had played Far Cry 2 for about 45 minutes before getting frustrated and giving up. After listening to the Tone Control Episode with Hocking and learning that this is the standard pattern of people who suck and not giving the game enough of a chance, I went back and played a couple more hours. At that point, I felt like I understood why people liked it, and I could go on to doing other things. Then, today, I was stressed out and needed something to play, and Far Cry 2 came to mind. I played for about 4 more hours, complete with rolling grenades, Jeep chases, and an accidental zebra murder. I'm probably going to finish it this time.
  12. MO MONEY MO THUMBS - PAYDAY 2

    Is anybody still playing this game? I picked up a copy with the Steam weekend deal since a friend from work said he wanted to play it with me, then his job got way busier and he hasn't played video games in a while, so I have this game that is hard to play without other people. If anyone wants to take part in some idle bank robbing, let me know on Steam.
  13. Recently completed video games

    I got around to finishing Splinter Cell: Blacklist. It holds the rare distinction for me of being a game where I skipped most of the cutscenes. There seemed to be real tension throughout between the "terrorists are going to kill everyone, hurry up and stop them!" tone of the story, and then the possibly more deliberate gameplay. Before I skipped cutscenes, I felt more pressure to just keep pressing forward, even at the expense of getting spotted. Once I took the story out of the equation, I felt more free to just approach the levels as a series of stealth-puzzles that I could solve at my own pace. Anyway, I think I enjoyed the systems of the game for the most part, but something about the game just didn't sit well with me. Did anybody else end up feeling the same way about it? Or am I missing something secretly cool about the story/more action-heavy parts?
  14. Recently completed video games

    The Alpha Protocol comparison is especially apt because I approached both games with the same mindset: that they are interesting, but flawed games, and came away with a much better outlook than many critics did on release. If you play Dragon Age 2 expecting some of the problems with environments and the like, it is a lot easier to enjoy what is worthwhile about it.
  15. Recently completed video games

    What system did you play it on? I've been thinking about giving it a shot, but since I've yet to buy a PS4, I was worried that performance might be kind of shaky on PS3.
  16. College basketball

    Wow. So equal condolences go out to Bjorn and all the other Kansas fans. I had expected them to go far, but that game was way closer than expected. I suppose it isn't quite over yet, but its a three possession game with 30 seconds to go. They just showed this kid crying in the stands on the stream. Damn. EDIT: So that was a little premature, since they almost pulled off a comeback. Close game.
  17. Reading about Games

    I think there's something to be said for being dismissive with some qualifications. It's one thing to say "that's just not what I'm interesting in reading about," and entirely another to say "that line of inquiry is worthless and anyone pursuing it is just engaging in intellectual masturbation." Many of us are interested in games for different reasons, and that is pretty awesome. EDIT: I may not always be the best at controlling the tone in my posts, but I hope I don't come across as condescending or smarmy. I only posted this to say that let's all embrace our differing interests in the medium and have a big group hug or something like that.
  18. Assassins Creed Unity

    I'll clarify my skepticism and my thoughts on Black Flag. I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of my time with the game. After not enjoying AC3 very much, I read reviews saying "play this if you want a fun open world pirate game," and for the first part of the game, that's exactly what I did. I did all the naval contracts, I raided ships to upgrade the Jackdaw, and I had a great deal of fun being the scourge of one of the seven seas. The problem came when I finished up all of the naval side content and then got around to playing the rest of the main story missions. Without the naval aspects to break things up, the main missions felt (to me at least) a distillation of all the mechanical things about Assassin's Creed that really haven't evolved in very positive ways over the last 7 years. The repeated eavesdropping missions were frustrating and not very fun, the chase missions were obnoxious mostly due to the context-sensitve controls, and the combat continued to be inoffensive, but not particularly engaging. I felt like I mainlined the most "Assassin's Creed" style missions at the end, and the concentration just made me react more strongly against them than if I had played it another way. Maybe my play style messed up the progression of the game, but mostly it just left me hoping that they were willing to overhaul the climbing/stealth/combat parts of the game so that the main missions will feel like less of a drag. I still think Black Flag is a pretty good game, I just want a deeper reconsideration of the mechanics this time around.
  19. Assassins Creed Unity

    It looks shiny, and the French Revolution is a good setting to explore, but the environments look so familiar. On that first pan across the empty street, I could see the exact parkour line that's been used in so many of these games before, which makes me think the mechanics will remain basically unchanged. I mean, I guess it is working for them. Black Flag was ok, and I had some fun with it, but I'm sort of sick of the core AC gameplay. I don't know if I'm in for another (to paraphrase the late Ryan Davis) another "Assassin's Creed-ass Assassin's Creed game."
  20. Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

    So I got a bunch of students together at my university to play and talk about Gone Home. It was pretty neat. We talked about narrative design, the gothic, coming out stories and all that. Though everybody was really hung up on refuting the "it's not a real game" thing, even though nobody in the room wanted to argue that it isn't. Funny how the terrible internet conversation about the game can shape people's reactions to it even before they have a chance to play it.
  21. Post your face!

    Here I am, fitting the 20-something thumb profile of being white, male, and clean-shaven. Yay for taking selfies for the department website. Not sure which one to submit.
  22. College basketball

    Things can change! I picked UW-Milwaukee to get past the first round because I want to see them do it, not because I actually think it can happen. Games haven't started yet. It is a time for reckless optimism. EDIT: Then the games start and all hope evaporates. Aaron Craft's cheeks are no match for Scoochie Smith's amazing name.
  23. Life

    That is one route I will likely investigate. Mostly I was just frustrated about a potentially really good job not being as available as I thought. I hadn't thought about looking into work at the library, but I have been in touch with IT. I'll find a thing, it just might not be the thing I had hoped for initially.
  24. Get Jetting: JetGetters on Kickstarter + Thumbs Group Buy Info

    I'd be interested, if the idea is we PayPal you $5 if the Kickstarter hits its goal.
  25. The Shitty Joke/Anti-Joke Thread

    What do you call an Irishman who just sit around in the yard all day? Also, see reddit.com/r/dadjokes for a variety of terrible, stupid, groan-inducing jokes.