Roderick

The difficulty curve of the first Zelda is really interesting, since it starts out really hard. You only have three hearts and get hit by everything. However, as soon as you collect two more hearts, suddenly everything gets really doable, because you can soak op more damage and make more mistakes. Pretty much the inverse of what usually happens in games, who tend to start easy and get more difficult later on. Of course, Zelda gets hard again during the final few dungeons, make no mistake.

I just came back from The Phantom Menace 3D and I'm ready to claw my eyes out. In the post-Plinkett review world, one cannot take these movies seriously anymore. Furthermore, it's been about 5-6 years since I last saw this film and for the first time I looked at it with a critic's eye. Holy shit it's bad. It's so unapologetically badly written, disastrously acted and filled with terrible, halfbaked ideas, it's ludicrous. You could've asked practically any aspiring scriptwriter to give a go at this movie and have them come up with a better version instantly. It's so poor, it's laughable. Plotholes aside (and boy are there a lot), nothing makes sense and it's awful. Then it struck me how exasperatingly stupid the final fighting scene with Darth Maul was. This wasn't in any review - this is all my own insight, just for clarification. Since practicing kendo for a year (I quit some time ago), I have some idea of how a swordfight goes and George Lucas pretty much doesn't. When two master swordsmen (as Jedi and Sith are supposed to be) meet in combat, the end result is this: 1. They look each other up for a while to figure out their move. 2. They do their move. 3. One of them dies. It's over in two seconds, literally. Look at this instructive kendo match between two 8th dan fighters: . It is nothing like the brainless bashing and blocking of the Jedi and Sith. And you know what? It's not even entertaining to watch. It's just stupid and messy.Oh and the added 3D? Barely noticeable. You rerelease a colorful film and then force people to watch it wearing sunglasses, adding nothing. Great thinking.

Yeah, I've put a moratorium on more good news this week, I just can't handle it anymore, the constant giddiness.

Gorgeous

Lure of the Second Temptress

Ouch! You're certain to miss that classy 'House MD' vibe you have going now walking around with a sexy cane though, once you're better again. Good luck in any case!

Sounds like there's something serious with your back. Life-long problem or recent accident? Anyway, as long as your surgeon isn't Dr. Spaceman, you should be fine.

Oooh, I'm not sure if you're hipster enough to work at Starbucks... sorry to break this to you. I'm going to go on a limb and congratulate you anyway.

Is the Double Fine Adventure going to be pirated? Yes. Should anyone care? No. If you look at this whole scenario, one thing becomes blatantly obvious: people want Double Fine to succeed, they want to pay for their games. Everyone who is genuinely interested in playing a hardcore adventure will either have already payed through Kickstarter, or will gladly plunk down 15 Dollars or whatever for the product down the line. I wouldn't worry too much about pirating in this specific case.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?! You think you have a grip on reality, you think the days of the high profile adventure game are over, and suddenly Tim Schafer gets almost 2 million Dollars to make one and Revolution are creating Broken Sword 5 in 2D. I can't express how insane this is, not in the least for this all to happen in a single week.

This has been a fascinating day at the office. No less than three people have been completely stressed out because of Valentine's day, all of which would have been so easy to prevent. First there was a woman at the office who had agreed with her boyfriend not to do anything for Valentine. Well, surpise, he announced there was something special waiting for her when she came home. Thus she spent her day completely anxious and guilt-ridden for not having gotten him anything. The two others probably only just remembered they really should do something and went on a frantic hunt for chocolate hearts they're still on now. Their motivation is obviously not based on love for their partner, but a deep feeling of obligation, the opposite of what this should be. All cases are pathetic. Valentine isn't meant to be a trap to get caught in, it's a day where you can do something small for a person you love. Don't do big things, just do something nice and do it from the heart. Even if you think it's just a commercial thing, take the fucking opportunity to do something. Don't scramble at the last moment for the wrong reasons, and don't announce that you're not going to do anything. Jeeeeeeeeepers.

I've had enough of this, and the string is hereby disrupted. ... Shit!

I recently saw a pretty nice Chinese detective story (obv with kung fu): Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. You could look into it.

Yesss, I finally managed to pledge! It was a wild ride with signing up for various Kickstarter, Amazon and 3V credit card accounts, but my money is in. I look forward to seeing the few pixels my money financed, so I can point at it and say 'Hark! There are my pixels!'

Not in the least bit do I think you're on the wrong track, Hermie, but I must protest this statement. I don't like the idea of something being done in any medium is 'wrong' per se. If you take a hardline 'games must be interactive at all times' approach, this statement would be correct. But you'd be cutting out a world of possibilities that bringing together interactive bits and non-interactive segments bring. Why are cutscenes wrong? Why would they necessarily be repugnant to players? I don't buy that at all. It offers new ways to tell stories. Obviously, a developer has to fuse the two ways of storytelling smartly, but isn't that always the case? The main reason cutscenes have such a bad rep in gaming isn't because they exist, it's because they're done poorly. Either the writing or direction is fucked up, or they're self-indulgently longwinded and tedious (Metal Gear springs to mind). But look at any of the succinct, funny cutscenes in Grim Fandango and tell me the game would've been better without. In short, I feel and fear we're taking the wrong approach and throwing babies out with the bathwater. Cutscenes -and non-interactive storytelling in games- aren't bad in essence, they're just a different way of doing things. They have to be done right. And gaming would be poorer for it if it became a taboo.

I can imagine Kroms in bed with a lady, right before intercourse going 'Hey, have ever really thought about what you're doing? Kinda silly, right?' Ha, I do agree though! Sex is entirely weird/hilarious/revolting from a certain perspective.

Well then get the fuck to exploring this. Make it an un-fantasy, or reality!

So, I gather, on a research lab? Or on a boat? It seems like an incredibly specialized line of work. Would a company hire you to do some research, or would it be government funded? I meant to inquire more about the practical job application part of it

Thanks Erkki. We do have one-use only credit cards here, so I guess I'll just get one and use it for this. Good idea. I wanna see that documentary! Player2 Productions was also responsible for the excellent first season of the Penny Arcade documentary. If this is half as fun, it'll be terrific.

Pardon my ignorance, but what does an oceanographer actually do? All I see before me is Steve Zissou and that can't be right.

Four days early - but pleasant nonetheless, no?

Yeah, for instance ME, since I can't fund the Kickstarter because of my lack of credit card or Amazon account =( I'm seriously miffed by it.

Yeah, I think you have a somewhat distorted perception on these games. I think what these developers are talking about is the abolishing of cutscenes, id est completely non-interactive pieces of cinema, whether actual cinematics or done with the in-game engine. The games mentioned all do a stellar job of not having too many cutscenes, while still taking place in dense, narrative worlds. The end result, however, isn't that much different from games having cutscenes. It's just a more elegant, 'gamey' way of accomplishing the same thing. These are still (mostly) very scripted games. One could argue that these games pull this off so well because their core gameplay is in itself very cinematic, and you could easily argue that -say- a bit of dialogue in Mass Effect plays very much like a cutscene would, just with you in control of it (which is of course the point). In short, I think you have a hang-up about these games that isn't wholly justified, created by colleagues extolling their virtues and maybe pretending it's a bigger step than it actually is. For the record, I do think these are exciting 'developments', even though I utterly enjoy a good cutscene as a reward for challenges overcome.

On an unrelated note: holy crap do I want to replay Red Dead Redemption. That feeling snuck up on me a couple of days ago and I was nowhere near prepared to deal with it. I thought I was done but now all I want to do is get on my horse and gallop to Mexico again.