Roderick

After listening to this [excellent] recording, I youtube'd Succulent and Stick Shift. It did not disappoint.

So, if one were to be in the mood for a winter-themed strategy game, should it be Frostpunk or Northgard?

I finished Farcry 5, and about the ending:

Same feeling here, SAM! Saw the first ep of the Arrested Development S4 remix. Because of the way the story was originally cut up, it still feels a little like a string of snippets woven together. I intuit that further up it'll feel less jarring. And, granted, this may also be because I already know the story and its original structure, so my mind may be screwing with me. I never really dug S4's structure from anything but a technical perspective, so I'm also hoping S5 will return to the story-a-week format. Story-a-episode.

Dosed, about Xenoblade: it's a pretty peculiar JRPG, considering it uses more of an MMO-style of (singleplayer) gameplay. There's a steep learning curve and tons of systems, but I don't think playing other types of JRPGs will prepare you for that. It's more up to your own level of how fast you pick up new systems. If you feel comfortable with that, XC2 is a fine game that'll keep you entertained for a looong time.

The Artists Formerly Known As Campo Santo [But Now Valve Employees], naturally. Nice interview.

Cartoon shows and games really put down a foundation for me for learning English. It helped that Holland has a subbing tradition - we don't dub movies in our own language, so we get a lot of pure [American] content on tv. Then it just became the internet in general that further refined my understanding, forums like these.

Lovely stuff, Jon. Saw this on my Twitter feed this morning! The music is vaguely reminiscent of Meat Circus, yesno?

That's great to hear! I assumed it would be terrific fun with small kids to construct and toy around with. The house minigame was strangely alluring.

Pretty much all of Ragnarok got stabbed in the back by Infinity War. The whole 'we don't need Asgard, our home is where our people are' line of prophecy is cut short when Thanos outright destroys their ship and wipes out half the population. It makes sense from this movie's perspective, but the Thor films have this thing with prophecy and destiny, and that doesn't gel at all. (And where was Valkyrie?!)

The only time it really jumped out at me was in Kill Bill Vol 2, where Bill suddenly has this entire theory about Clark Kent being Superman's alter ego instead of vice versa. That really struck me as off-character, that suddenly this dude we hardly know turns out to be a major comic book nerd. It's so specific that it needed to be set up more in the beginning to sell it.

Oh, please do put your thoughts about Labo here, Miffy! Otherwise it's just my own super early impressions and I'd like to see multiple opinions here.

Valve house, baby

There's no shame in just looking up how to get to the DLC and just enjoy those delicious bosses.

Wildly unexpected news! Congrats though. If this means more resources and peace of mind to y'all in making games, then good for you. I'm sure the fundamental principle of the agreement was 'we get to keep making the games we want to make without outside pressure'. Hope it works out!

It would be very interesting to have the 'next BotW' feature a more urban landscape. How would that affect the sense of discovery and being out in the wild? Will it possibly encroach on the feeling of Mario Odyssey's New Donk City? Honestly, what I hope most of all is for the sequel to go off the beaten path and do something weird and funky. Like Majora was. They've nailed, absolutely nailed, the classic thing, and there's so much space they can still explore. Which they already mentioned themselves, by the way. So I would absolutely get my hopes up, just maybe not within the next two years.

Stupidly, I have owned three PS4 games for over two years now, just waiting for the console to magically appear: TLOU HD, the Uncharted trilogy and Batman: Arkham: Knightly Endeavors. I will most assuredly get myself Bloodborne as soon as I have time for it, and Monster Hunter World struck my fancy too. Also, Diderot effect already kicking in: my tv is seriously in need of upgrading to account for all these detailed visuals.

You're quite right. I gathered my chances would drop spectacularly if there was one of the following in the running: a. A man who also made an effort, but looked more like the character (full beard, possibly tats) b. A woman, making an effort and netting the 'outlier' boon c. A cute kid going just the right amount of disturbing

Well, that's another RTS game after They Are Billions that 3MA has sold me on. The allusions towards this being effectively "Agricola With Warfare" were already more than I needed, but then there was another hour of fun conversation to further impress me. Good job and great cast, everyone!

So, I dressed up as Joseph Seed a week ago for a contest for a Dutch gaming store chain, and I won a PS4. Finally, I can play some of the already-classics on it, and of course Farcry 5 first and foremost. It felt great to be a doomsday cult prophet, by the way.

Speaking of GTA, the hospital mission in GTA4 I strongly remember as an infuriating piece of mission design. Didn't quit, but I certainly wasn't happy and I absolutely threw my controller on a sofa seat in a semi-controlled fashion to vent my anger.

Regarding expensive veggies: here in the Netherlands it's not that bad (yet). It's still much cheaper to eat vegetarian, though there is nowadays a host of delicious meat replacement products of high quality in supermarkets. Not particularly cheap, but it makes everything much easier. Honestly, there is a chicked replacement foodstuff that is extremely tasty. It's been a boon to my curries.

What a sick situation to be in, when it's cheaper to buy a piece of murdered animal than some fucking vegetable.

TCOMI, wow. That was such an important game for me in my teens. I played through it often - though mostly only disc 1 since my second disc had an error [possibly piracy-related]. I bet I can still just about dream the right sequences and puzzle solutions. Ah, to completely forget and be able to enjoy this game freshly again!

There's a Space Asshole on tutorial island?!