Roderick

Where are you going, Miffy? I'm hearing such good things about Hatsworth, I'll probably buy it way sooner than Chinatown Wars.

Yeah, I had a great time with Rambo a couple of months back. There was just nothing wrong with that movie.

This has been haunting me for the past couple of days... I can't remember the name of this realtime strategy game from the late 90s on the PC. The stupid thing is, it was a pretty big release, got magazine covers and everything, and I just can't remember what the hell it was called. It was about an invading race of aliens from venus or mars in modern day, had pretty good, realistic 2D graphics, a day and night cycle, and the aliens would actually tan into purple colours if they were out in the sun long enough. It was pretty cool, if nothing really special, and I can't think any further than the pretty mediocre Dark Colony which was from about the same time. I recall the name was insultingly generic. Please help.

Canned laughter is a weird thing. I had grown used to its absence by watching exclusively series like The Office, Arrested Development and Reno 911. So when I began to watch How I Met Your Mother, it took some time to adjust to it again. But I have to say... you get used to it quickly. I hardly notice it anymore, and HIMYM turned out to be a great comedy show full of heart. At the moment I'm watching The Big Bang Theory, which is proving nice, but it lacks HIMYM's heart and often cunning insights into what makes people tick.

Apparently, the game was so awful no one bothered to Youtube it.

YES GODDAMMIT!! I was constantly thinking of shit like Conflict Earth, Conflict Mars, I knew it was something stupid. Thank you. Now I can Youtube this and get it the hell out of my system.

Ah, that's so cool. Always nice to get a look into the kitchen. It looks so deceptively simply handcrafted! But it was the brushy highlights on the nails that made me doubt it was made on paper.

I'm curious how you made this, Stevan. Is it stock, hand drawn, filtered...?

A game, movie or whatever form of art's context shouldn't be considered? But that's ridiculous. Everything has a context, that will alter the way things are perceived. If a game is made by people I know, my actual enjoyment of the game will be increased, because it is mixed with admiration, familiarity, all sorts of things. If I know a team went through hell to do something, their achievements will ring all the trueer. Context is everything! That's what makes reviewing stuff so goddamn impossible. There is no way to objectively approach these things because there is no standard of how to experience anything. That's why it's important for reviewers to give that context in the reviews themselves, so the reader can see how the thought process went. In the end, no one can tell you how you're going to experience something, because everyone enters from a different angle. Sorry for the rant!

I don't think the video game critic versus editor-in-chief or magazine/publisher relations guy was implied in the question.

Is it in any way like the old topdown GTA's of yesteryore? I can't bring myself to buy this. I know it's good, I know I'll enjoy it, but I just can't be bothered. Gaming fatigue? Perhaps.

I see no reason why the two should be mutually exclusive. The one doesn't compromise the ability to write the other. Or am I missing a crucial element here?

Of course, of course. I'm not bashing the game in any way, I'm just ruminating on how these mechanics might flow into actual gameplay and expressing a careful opinion. What the developers have done is tremendously impressive on a technical level (and there are also some really smart game design choices like the ongoing time-echo thingy that ripples on to 'refresh' the present), and they duly deserve the applause they have received for that.

I'm totally lagging behind with the conf grenades, but I'm catching up. Yesterday I listened to this one and, my interest piqued, I searched for the Achron videos and site. And I must express some reservations here, especially in the light of the overwhelming enthusiasm in the podcast. Now, first off, I'm not saying this just to be contrary to everyone here; I genuinely don't know about this mechanic. It's obviously technically very impressive and a tickling notion to go back in time, change a few things and mess with everything. But will this result in more engaging gameplay? I think it'll just complicate things massively without actually making for a 'better' strategy game (however subjective that is). See, if I follow things through, what will happen is that a match will become an enormous, convoluted, frustrating affair where every move you make is countered by the enemy tampering with time, thus requiring that you tamper with time, and him right back, up until the point where, presumably, one of them runs out of time-juice and can't stop the other's attack. That sounds fun on paper, but every skirmish will become a tedious war of attration, drawing out any battle for ages (unless time is SUCH a limited resource that one can't use it for every minor battle, but I didn't get that impression from the videos). The time travelling mechanic does give you some cool new strategies to play with; especially sending units back in time to double up their past selves is a cool new thing. I also get that whoever is better and faster with diddling with the timeline will get superior results, thus making it a valid strategic choice to put in the game. I just doubt it will be a fun game for more than a few novelty runs to try it out. But I obviously didn't see the GDC walkthrough, so maybe I'm missing a crucial element here, like the bigger picture on how a typical game would go.

You're just a secret muslim!!

Hahaha, I would like to dare a suggestion: Suske & Wiske? =D

I'm with Elmuerte here, I usually read non-fiction, but I do really enjoy reading books. Most fiction I read will be classic works, things I feel I have to read to increase my literary knowledge, or things that particularly tickle my fancy. But most of what I read is history, philosophy or science. Right now I'm reading In Europe by Dutch author Geert Mak. It's a chronicle of his year-long journey traversing the entire European continent, describing through touching small stories and anecdotes the grand lines of the incredible events that transpired in the 20th century here. Every country and every city he visits has its own history, and with their tales a grand scheme is woven that's really amazingly interesting. A lot of things one already knows, the intricacies of the third Reich, the rise of communism, etc, but there are a million fascinating details told that keep me glued to the book. I'd recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in modern European history.

I loved the final scene of Adama on Roslin's burial site, but was rather stumped at the following scene. Did Caprica and Baltar survive 150.000 years, or just Caprica, who'd then date someone looking exactly like him? Who was this 'god' and why doesn't he like to be called that way? I thought the featuring of robots in the final scene was pretty ominous, almost like a Jon Stewart 'Here we go agai-haiiiin!' credits roll. Overall, pretty neat, even if I found a few things missing. Besides what has been mentioned above, the Baltar/6 visions turned out to be a huge disappointment. 'You were here to save the child'. No way. Didn't mind the missing link thing much though, but I dislike how it turned out like 'this is our real past!' instead of being totally fantasy.

WUXTRY! Joker pulls boner of the year!

Need, part two!

I've been going crazy over the new Lego Pirates set today. Just look at how spectacular these new sets are! Soldiers' Fort Brickbeard's Bounty I MUST have these! As a kid I already loved the pirate Lego, but the ships and forts were way out of my (or rather my parents') price range. The last time proper pirate sets came out was in 1997, so 12 years have passed and finally... the time has come. I'm getting my wenchlovin' pirate galley! ARRRRR!!

Lego has made a few cringeworthy attempts to cash in on successful franchises (Spiderman, Harry Potter), but for every dud there is a jewel that they've exploited really well. The Batman, Indiana Jones and Starwars Lego is absolutely terrific, well-made, full of creativity. Next to that there's still a ton of original Lego: the City, Castle and now Pirates settings have never gone out of style in lieu of the licenses. Overall, the quality of Lego is still supreme. You're all a bunch of Scrooges (Admittedly, that Spongebob thing is truly abysmal, but I could post a whole topic full of incredible Starwars vehicles to counter it with ease.)

Hence the huge nostalgia attack and delight

Just give it a day, and you'll have convinced yourself that you can't live another moment without them.

There IS a Lego clone (which since recently is allowed because of a lawsuit loss by Lego) called Whateverwhatchamacallitblocks that has official Pirates of the Caribbean Lego. But it's just... you know... meh. I look at the boxes I posted above, the design and everything, and I just get giddy with childish excitement. That's what Lego does.