Jake

The last two sentences are honestly a bummer to me. Why should the game cater to you like that? What is wrong with an NPC being forward and you judging him to be a dick?It bums me out that most BioWare romancing stuff seems centered around the player always feeling like a godly puppet master in control of all sexing. I know the reason the games are like that is because if something unfavorable or out of the player's control DOES happen -- if there is uncontrolled deviation from the llayers godly plan for their character -- designers have a justified fear that the player will judge the NPC in question, and the game, and the developers incredibly harshly (as opposed to treating it like a random life event or judging themselves poorly or any other nuanced and considered reaction you might have in actual real life where you know you don't have ultimate control over the systems that govern you). In the Walking Dead we basically had to tell players "you're right. You made the right choice. You did it correctly," or have a character in the group always say "I would have done the same as you if it was my choice," "there is nothing you could have done that was better than that," at every single decision junction, because unilateral berating over a not-stat-driven choice (like pursuing a relationship or witholding information from someone for dramatic purposes) tended to make players think the game was bad. That's not the same exactly as the BioWare relationship situation, but it reminds me of it. The game has to keep assuring you that you're in control and agreeing to your whims and fancies and fantasies, even when modeling something complicated and chaotic and not-always-in-your-control like human relationships, or when running what is ostensibly a hopeless disempowering story simulator. I don't know if there's anything to do about it, really. I think it just reveals what people really want out of these experiences. -- Also sorry for using your personal experience with one BioWare encounter as a jumping off point for a general rant and thought. I don't mean any of it personally. I have the same experiences as you when playing these games. It just frustrates me because I don't think there is a solution, even though it often feels like a problem.

He's the intern. When he guested a few weeks back, it was when he was in town for the interview. Nailed it.

I don't think tension within Giant Bomb had anything to do with it, but more Patrick wanting to do other varied things wih his life (even within games/writing about games, but who knows what else? not me) while he has the chance.

Storyline of Twin Peaks 2016 confirmed. "I'll see you again in 25 years... then and only then will you read my super-duper secret diary. As I call it, Diary III." - Laura Palmer

The episode is up! Enjoy

Hm

I was so glad that the Horns themselves just sort of throw up their hands this week about it.

Hey folks, the episode's out. Enjoy! Also I put up an episode 11 pre-discussion thread.

Koenig didn't tie a big picture bow on Serial at its end, and I think that's part of what people are having trouble with. She didn't say "and none of this would have happened if Americas criminal justice system wasn't so prosecution-biased, fixated on 'making a case' instead of finding the truth," or "the specifics of this case are absurd but in the sea of Americas youth, hundreds of not thousands of situations like this exist and stop one step short of murder," or "what would have happened if the kids were white in an all white town? probably not this," or whatever else you want Serial to be about. Im not sure how I feel about that to be honest - in some lights everything in Serial feels like a great build up for something more - but at the same time I think it was very effective at saying a ton as a series, without Koenig actually explicitly stating frames or theses. I think it's impossible to listen to Serial without thinking "the jury was biased because of race," and "the prosecutors and police were using cultural prejudices to tip the scales," and "it's shocking how little they care about anything but closing the case at any cost," and "how exceptional is this case really? when I was in high school no one was murdered but people did fucked up stuff," and a million other things, not because Koenig editorialized about it in her own voice, but through the evidence she chose to include when compiling and editing the show. She never lets loose with a final, really satisfying-to-hear firey indictment, but I don't think it had to to shed light on those issues. We still think about them, unavoidably, simply by having the content put in front of us.

Oh yeah that was in the 2nd one. I combined both the 2nd and 3rd one in my brain but now I remember unfortunately.

What I meant was that for a while there in the late '90s and early 2000s, it felt like Yuen Wo Pin & team, was EVERYWHERE, and there were imitators where he wasn't. Obviously martial arts movies, and action cinema in general that isn't from America, had a ton of very stylized fighting well before the 1990s, but it was an unavoidable explosion for a specific window of time. Its a style I don't expect to see as pervasive in VII VIII IX, other than maybe a couple hallmark scenes across the movies, which inexplicably get catchy crew nicknames which deep out in DVD featurettes and are name dropped by fans for decades to come. (eg: the "burly brawl" from the third Matrix movie... A movie few see twice but a ton of dorks can name drop the internal name for one specific action scene in it all the same) I bet all of the fights in the new Star Wars films will be very high concept and designed,* but they will try to have a unique gimmick per setpiece instead of constantly just upping the ante on how raged out the sword dancing is. * a couple of the fights' high concept will be that they are stark and "back to basics" and will excitedly be calling back returning to the Obi Wan fight from Star Wars and the Luke / Vader fight from Empire.... but this will be with the exact same enthusiasm as their describing the equivalent of the water wheel fight in pirates 2 or that parking garage fight in the latest mission impossible (or for that matter, a fight whose concept is that it's a callback to the big sword dancing fight showcases from the prequels). Just another in a string of high concept spotlight setups.** ** if the fight action is as consistently fun as the Pirates water wheel or the mission impossible ghost protocol parking garage scenes I will be pretty happy btw.

Alternate title for this episode thread: Serial Slam

It's probably appropriate in the case of Monkey Island, as it is a Lucas product and follows the Lucas definition of Special Edition - add a bunch of CG over a surprisingly analog original work, and trample the subtle original intent and tone of most scenes in the process.

Idle Thumbs 176: The Classic Alien Form We sit in a dark room, split into factions by our actions or perhaps fate, conspiring to destroy each other for reasons unknown. We steal food from each other's mouths. We eye our friends' chosen partners jealously, vying to make them our own. Yes, we have been playing board games, so get ready for that. We're joined by special guest Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency, for a trip through board and video games of this year's XOXO festival in Portland. Photo by David Gallagher Games Discussed: Edgar Rice Soiree, Marrying Mr. Darcy, Guts to Glory, The Terror Aboard The Speedwell, Fight Night Round 3, Madden NFL '06, Pac-Man Battle Royale, Two Rooms and a Boom, The Legend of Zelda, Disneyland Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

Is this exacerbated by you hearing her voice, by her physical presence in the piece? I mean, she has modern white woman vocal fry going on to the max and one of the people's names involved in the case is pronounced like the word "hey" which makes that fact unavoidable. You are listening to her be who she is constantly. More specifically: Serial could have just as easily been a multi-part feature in a newspaper or magazine... it probably wouldn't have caught the audience that it did as a podcast (which is a tangential but separate issue), but the mix of original reporting, interviews, and first person perspective found on the podcast would be perfectly at home in a giant feature-style investigation piece for a major news or culture magazine... BUT, even with all that personal reporting intact, in a magazine feature version of the story, Sarah Koenig's name would just be listed in tiny print at the top of her text and beyond that she would disappear into her text. No matter how many times the words "I" or "me" appeared in the text, it would still just be those words in text, the same as me writing them just now. I don't have any evidence to go on with this, but I think that hearing her voice, feeling her presence and "who she is" as a person because of the medium Serial is released in, is contributing to this facet of the Serial Conversation more than it would if the content was identical but the medium was more traditional. I also don't know what meaning to derive from that, but I find it interesting to think about.

I thought there were even similar choreography teams on a good chunk of movies in that era. Wasn't there a martial arts fight designer & choreography team that was really in vogue around matrix/prequels/crouching tiger times?

The episode exists now! Thanks for waiting everyone. https://www.idlethumbs.net/twinpeaks/episodes/may-the-giant-be-with-you

http://www.Woofmaker.com

Sorry the episode is late this week. It will be soon though.

Stewed on this for a bit... As far as wanting new or interesting art goes, I think that wanting to get new art and new style out of a DOTT remake is kind of people wanting a new game. If DF/Sony have to go the route of redoing art, I hope that it is as invisible as possible to new and old players, or they should probably call it something else or make something new. If it's a remix or new interpretation I hope they go somewhere really different with it and try to say or do something unique with the work. If it's literally just an up-res, I don't want to feel that at all. I want it to be "oh this is Day of the Tentacle, exactly as I remember it (or exactly what I'd been told for 20 years), but I didn't know it was so crisp before." (Maybe that feeling is achieved by a little extra grain or invented detail, but it's probably not made by art style shifts e.g. introducing Chan's original ink and paint shading from his tone pieces.) I think anywhere in the middle of those two points will almost surely be muddled and not really benefit the game or players. As always, I'd be happy to be totally wrong here and be surprised as hell by a "different looking" DOTT made different just because, I guess, but to me it seems like a strange route to take.

Idle Thumbs 185: Beppo's Hole Beppo's Hole is not a place one wants to spend very much time (it's kind of a rollicking mess) but here we all are so let's make the best of it. In Beppo's Hole, Danielle catches the scent of Far Cry 4 but can't stay and truly enjoy it until later. In Beppo's Hole, Chris serves himself up the sensory envelopment that is the Monument Valley expansion, despite other patrons' incensed exasperation that such a thing exists. In Beppo's Hole, Sean raided the larder with his three starving friends, and yes they came out fed, but far sadder for it. Jake and Nick just came to Beppo's Hole for the view. Games Discussed: Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed Unity, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, This War of Mine, Zafehouse Diaries, Monument Valley: Forgotten Shores, GAME OF THE YEAR: 420BLAZEIT vs. xxXilluminatiXxx [wow/10 #rekt edition] Montage Parody The Game, Super Mario Advance Also Discussed: Interstellar, Taylor Swift, American Airlines, Italian Dinners Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

You could probably honestly solve any perceived lack of noise or texture by literally introducing some noise or a subtle texture on top. A light grain goes a long way. I don't think Peter Chan does final production art anymore - he's just a concept and idea guy, by choice, as far as I can tell - so I wouldn't get my hopes up for him painting backgrounds for the game. Assuming they're going down the "redo assets in HD" route at all, I hope this game looks exactly like DOTT with some "filling in the details," but hopefully beyond that it's left alone. In motion it won't need more than that. Especially once camera scrolling is smooth, ambience and music are pumped up, etc. PS: if this project means we get a live, McConnell-directed, old cartoon style symphonic performance of the DOTT theme, then it's worth it regardless of anything else.

Wow I didn't know there were directors commentaries which are now cut from re-releases. Crazy. I really want to hear them. The roller coaster of excitement to disappointment I felt about Peaks Season 3's announcement was 1:1 with your post.

Yeah apparently neither of us have ever seen easy rider. Oops!

Idle Thumbs 184: Super Pools 'n' Ghosts This week the 90s are back, but what if they came back wrong? Holiday reviewing season has Danielle in its grasp, but that may mean she has just been playing a ton of upcoming Nintendo and Sega games. That and Advanced Warfare. As the old saying goes, "Behind every Dorito is a gross, super-ripped and inexplicably triangular echidna, but you cannot see him, as he is perfectly hidden behind the Dorito." Games Discussed: Super Smash Bros. (Wii U), Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Ultimate NES Remix, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., Costume Quest 2, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Grand Theft Auto V, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, 720°, Klax Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed