Vasari

There are probably already threads about previous incarnations of Prey, but there doesn't seem to be one about the Prey that's actually being released next week. This isn't Space Cherokee or Space Bounty Hunters, this one seems like a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. There's a demo on PS4 and Xbox One (But not PC unfortunately) that lets you play the opening section. Some thoughts after playing it:

I think there's another side to this auto-generated merchandise. My previous job title was "Systems Tester", and at one point I started getting these ads on facebook: Job titles on facebook actually have their own pages, so presumably this tshirt store is just scraping facebook for job titles, creating the post/tshirt, and then purchasing an ad targeted at people who have that job listed on their facebook profile. Most of them don't get any hits but occasionally there's one with a comment where someone is tagging all their work friends. I guess sometimes people also put dumb things as their job title on facebook though:

The only way this could be more of an Idle Thumbs game is if the map of your park is a piece of paper on a 3D-modelled clipboard.

You know when you're filling out a web form and you accidentally hit back on the page, or close the tab, and all the text you entered is lost? Lazarus Form Recovery saves all the text you entered so you can instantly refill the form. If you use any software like JIRA then this thing is an absolute lifesaver. There are firefox and safari versions as well.

Citymapper is incredibly useful for getting around big cities with public transport. I just moved to London and it's been a huge help. I'd warn anyone who wants to use it that because it's using your mobile data and your GPS it'll drain your battery very quickly, even while your phone is suspended. If you're planning on using it you should probably get a backup battery charger for your phone.

With apologies to the good people of France. regicide.mp3 suddenly.mp3 svp.mp3

One thing I haven't heard talked about much that I really like is how everyone on Talos 1 has a name. This is exactly the sort of game that could have repeated alot of lazy environmental storytelling tropes involving corpses, but they've put so much care into presenting the game world and a big part of that is acknowledging that every dead body you find was a person involved in the story in some capacity. It tells you far more about the world to see the bodies of people who were clearly running to the shuttle bay when they died, than the old Fallout trick of putting a corpse next to a pistol and a bottle of whisky. It seems small, but in this sort of game that's absolutely a detail you need to get right, and they've clearly spent alot of time thinking about it.

These dates match up perfectly when I'm selling my PC and moving across the country, so I'm going to sit this one out. But if anyone needs any miscellaneous assets/voicework I'd be happy to help!

Jurassicanji reminded me that I was also a garbage child who filled my creative writing exercises with creatures from Final Fantasy 8.

You also get alternate history texts in the beginning of episode 4. I don't think you get them anywhere else, but those were the only two places I checked.

I'd like to co-endorse this. I'd never tasted miso soup until today, but I tried making it on a whim and it's delicious. Plus, once you've got the basics, you can use it as the soup for a ramen bowl.

(Screenshots from fourth dungeon) Occasionally Yusuke says stuff like this and it slays me.

There's a map of the world in the background. The "world" of course being planet Earth, where most science fiction was written.

If everyone is planning to write Hey Ya, then the odds are that when you go back to being a baby, someone older than you will beat you to it. Ideally you'd pick multiple songs and hedge your bets. On the other hand, that's a really fun (if convoluted) plot for a film. Twelve people from all across the world have gone back in time, and they're all racing to remember the lyrics to Hey Ya and bring them to Andre 3000 before any of the others.

Here's a teaser. It's a trailer for the trailer! The full thing is coming on thursday.

If you want to get really technical about it, I'd wager that A: These posters were sent out by Sony and not Activision, and B: Since they're shipping internationally it's alot harder to time the arrival, so you err on the side of making sure they all arrive in advance. I don't buy into the idea that these game announcement leaks are all intentional. I bet these days most publishers would give an arm just to have their trailer be the first people hear of their game instead of a blurry smartphone photo.

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/03/23/leaked-image-gives-a-first-look-destiny-2-out-this-september Turns out it's not today! But it's going to be announced "Soon". A very rumoury rumour I read was that these posters that went out to retail stores are supposed to go up next week, so we might not be waiting long. I doubt they'd send out posters very far in advance of an announcement in any case.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-03-23-leaked-destiny-2-poster-reveals-september-release-date September 8th for Destiny 2. Looks like PS4 will get a beta in July as well.

I heard a rumour recently that Destiny would be the free PS+ game in April, with access to the entire game for a limited time. If you're thinking about getting into Destiny it might be worth waiting until April.

Have you guys seen this deleted scene from Terminator 3? It's about the origin of the Terminator's appearance and voice.

I forgot to post this last week, but the funniest part of the Alexa dollhouse incident was when a news station in San Diego reported the story and activated even more Alexas by repeating the phrase. The same thing happened a few years ago when a TV advert for the Xbox One featured a voice command that would turn on any Xbox Ones that heard it. If voice-activated technology is going to be everywhere in the future then there has to be some sort of safeguard that can't be bypassed by someone shouting the magic word.

I suddenly became incredibly uncomfortable when listening to Chris explain the flamethrower drones. Specifically because he used the phrase "Drones have been employed to clear trash from telephone poles", and I interpreted "employed" to mean "being compensated in exchange for labour", instead of the more appropriate definition of the word "being utilised to perform a task". I had a mini-freakout when I realised that the way that working-class jobs are moving towards contracts and the gig economy, that the definition of employment for alot of people is alot closer to the latter than the former. But on the plus side, nature doesn't seem to need our training to take care of drones.

I'm having an awesome time with this game. The documentation is pretty bad, but once you learn to read the move list you can figure out how characters really work and how to use their abilities in hilariously unfair-feeling ways. There's fortunately a good 1v1 bot practice mode under the How to Play menu option that lets you get to grips with a character. Plus doing a 1v1 against another character is a good way to learn how their moves work.

Me, age 13.

Actually, something has come up, so I'm not going to be free on sunday after all. Sorry! I suppose it works out best if the timezones don't line up.