Roderick

Damn, Three Moves Ahead is good. Three Moves Ahead: Sucklin' the Strategy Teat

Those domain names seem very 'GTA'-ish indeed, but I'm with Gwardinen in that I don't think Take 2 would Take Chances with a costly, big figures game like LA Noire. They're probably registering for their GTA5 campaign down the line, but I wouldn't expect it to start before LA Noire's release. They'd be fools for Taking away steam from the Noire hype.

Anything with a good dose of repetition will do. For me, World of Warcraft and Puzzle Quest 2 were great podcasting moments. I actually have extremely distinct memories of where I was in WoW when I was listening to certain bits of podcast or half-watching a movie. I recall for instance that I was watching The Untouchables while questing in Hellfire Peninsula. So every time I go there now, I think to myself: That's the Chicago way!

@ Thompson: '500 Euros? You won't see penny one from me, you slag!' Haha, genius.

Damn Thunderpeel, that was funny. The French horns never go out of style. Everyone will know this clip, but I've been rewatching The Priest And The Beast and this is just so good: JCopQAVxeU0

You do make a great point about the mods, Orvidos, but I've never really been drawn to them. I made due in Morrowind and Oblivion without mods and the games lasted quite long without I know by far the preferable way to play TES games is on the PC. However, I don't know if my current PC will have the chops for Skyrim. Another huge thing is that the rig is located on the office where I work, so if I chose the PC version I wouldn't be able to leisurely play it in the evening... which is when I'd want to. Gameplay-wise, Oblivion was already developed with consoles in mind. Skyrim will have become even more platform-agnostic.

Okay, you're off the hook. But don't let me catch you saying crazy things like this again. I still need to play Shivering Isles though... I was waiting for a goddamned deal to get Oblivion + SI on the XBox 360, but it's completely vanished from stores. Also: STILL not sure if I'm going to buy Skyrim for PC or Xbox...

I say go for it

That's troubling to hear. You seem like you're miles above those people in terms of humanism and intelligence. Have you considered leaving Jordan and living in a more, well, 'enlightened' place, for lack of a better term? You might not have to fear speaking your mind freely there.

My mind is once again blown. Oblivion didn't look great? Did you look at the environments and towns, man? TES has never been strong design-wise, usually having weird people and lizardfaces, but I've noticed in various places people saying how ugly Oblivion (and Morrowind) are, and I am just baffled by this. They were gorgeous games, especially at the time of their release and still pretty much today. Enchanting, atmospheric, detailed and believable.

Quite interested in how things are in Jordan at the moment, too.

I sometimes wish Kroms would just quit this community. C'mon, get outta here!

There were some movies of this big ubermod for Morrowind circulating a while ago. They really spruce up the game's visuals, though I didn't like it because it didn't 'feel' like dusty Vvardenfell anymore. But hey, to each his own. I wouldn't mind Morrowind's original graphics that much, I think. I have a pretty high barrier when it comes to accepting graphics. And, for fuck's sake, Morrowind can still bring the pretty! I dare you to take a midnight stroll to Ebonheart, rest on some of the large rocks near the shore, hear the music swelling up and look at the giant moon rising amid a shifting sky. Tears to the eye, my friends! Ahem. Back to the trailer; I got really excited seeing the difference in architectural styles in the various shots of villages. They all had a distinct Viking feel to them, yet differed enough to set them apart. I hope there'll be a lot of cultural/political depth to this world, as there was in Morrowind (Oblivion not so much).

Don't cancel your subscription to Idle Thumbs! Think about all the effort you put into ingratiating yourself with our elitist, implacable, boo-hiss community!

There's still enough crashes and VPU problems to go around though. It remains fun to beam your way through swaths of monsters, but I hope they patch it up quickly.

I love the warrior wizard shouting his magic along with the music around halfway through

It's funny that this discussion is happening here now, since I'm listening to the (always excellent) Bethesda podcast and it's nothing like that. If anything, the interviewed person (I forget his name, (one of) the boss(es) in any case) is very careful not to raise expectations beyond what the game might be. He sounds very concerned about overhyping and misrepresenting the game.

I honestly can't imagine anyone thinking this will be a good idea. Let's have the intimacy of sexual relations and share it with friends...? Because that's generally such a good idea? Also: 99 out of 100 times this will not turn out particularly sexy for the participants, just incredibly awkward and stupid and degrading.

It's funny how this Star Trek is often compared to Star Wars, they say it's more like Wars than Trek. However, Wars never felt illogical. Sure, there were lots of seeming coincidences, but the fact that DESTINY was such a tangible part of the universe (the Force) made it believable. Trek doesn't have that undercurrent of fate, its universe does in fact want to be realistic. In that sense, this Trek movie is astoundingly unbelievable. @ DanJW: you put it rather cynically, but in a way, yes, characters are often more important to a movie 'feeling right' than plot. Ideally, especially in sci-fi, both are up to snuff, but in almost any story it's the characters that are the most important. I feel like a jack-ass explaining this

Already, destroying my resolve: the new trailer for Skyrim came out just now at www.elderscrolls.com. It's pretty cool, a sort of lengthier version of the teaser, but with lots of ingame footage. It's scripted, but uses the ingame engine and I presume also models. Pretty rad! Loved seeing all those villages with their differing Viking architecture.

This music is unalterably, eternally linked in my mind to the Coco Bongo club in The Mask. Hey! Pachuco!

More fun plotholes: apparently the evil dudes need a rickety, giant drill to insert a piece of volatile red matter into the planet, which is then capable of blowing it all up. If this really is dark matter times 1000, why need a rickety drill? Why not just fling it at any old planet? The answer is screenwriting: this unstoppable weapon needs an obvious flaw so the heroes have a chance. Then, when the rickety drill goes to earth, apparently earth has not a single defensive weapon to shoot it down. No rockets, no jets, no spacecrafts, no satellites, nothing. No effing way. And these glaring technical fudgings are besides the things Orvidos mentioned and the easy coincidences of the plot and nonsensical attributes. Still, all this doesn't matter (that much), because Star Trek feels right. It's about fun and zany action with the characters, even though speculatory science fiction grounded in science has been unfortunately dead for a decennium.

Torin's Passage was fun, but even then there was a sort of juvenility to the game that makes me think I wouldn't really enjoy it today.

We are talking about the Star Trek reboot, right? It was pretty good. Nonsensical in plot and riddled with plotholes, but it had great, loveable characters. And lots of strangling. That reminds me, I should put even more strangling in my screenplays.

You mean, do let's continue not seeing the movie, or...? I saw it by the way, just confused about your meaning. You seem to mean a thing.