Roderick

"Goodnight, kid". It's fucking Bastion. But I kinda like this a lot better, because at least it explains the core theme/dread of the game, which is the end of the world.

I'm so excited when I finally get to playing Assassin's Creed III, and then maybe Unity a good five years from now.

That is the weirdest trailer ever. Scarcely effective at communicating anything about the game, nor the tension in the world, weirdly edited, strange choices all around. But. Majora's Mask is coming to the 3DS, hopefully with some much needed difficulty tweaks in some of the bosses/optional stuff (looking at you, barn shooting bit). This is more than the Half-Life 3 thread ever gave.

I really enjoyed the super frank talk about how the sausage was made. Blizzard games have been a HUGE part of my teenage years, from Warcraft II up, so getting to know how it all looked from inside is a delight. Hearing about balancing difficulties, how the stories and even the singleplayer were almost a last minute consideration, gosh! And yet, notably the story in Starcraft was a big inspiration to me. I'll be very interested to hear the second part. Good job, Soren! And thanks for participating, Rob!

ENGAGE FESTIVUS, or like we say in the Netherlands "Gelukkig Sinter-Kerst en Nieuw!"

"Gamergate Nederlaandse" is fantastic, I wish they'd call themselves this. On my Facebook page (filled with Dutch friends), there were exactly two people passionately pro-GG, and dozens outspokenly against. When I posted my critical podcast dissecting the movement/farce, they kept silent after. I think it's a pretty non-thing here. I'm so happy with Rami though, he's a cool dude.

Cine, for whatever little thing it's worth, you are loved around these parts for your insightful, warm, humane posts. Glad to have you here.

Moddus, another great thing about writing what you know is that you save approximately one hundred ninety million hours doing research, since you already know how all the corridors of your life smell.

I am personally thrilled and excited that even after three pages of festive joy, you have still granted me the yearly privilege of sharing with you... ...THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS Happy kris kringle everyone!

Ugh, my Windows 7 64 bit keeps freezing after I exit a game. I just recently installed this system and it's annoying. I've looked into various solutions, most of which seem to point to my (new) RAM, but all the tests I do come up with zero problems. It's a common thing for W764 apparently, but that doesn't make it less annoying.

You look great with and without a beard, Bjorn. Killin' it.

Played for two hours now, first impressions after fifteen years! I like it! The graphics are still really good and atmospheric. I LOVE how each environment is a single screen, and all the interiors are see-through as you step into them. There are so many gorgeous details, like flying leaflets in the wind, cans kicking around, crows. This game (at least these first parts) was made with tons of love, it really shows. You walk just a little too slowly, that gets tedious, especially when the backtracking begins. Having said that, the puzzles are refined. There's not a lot of inventory management. So far, the game seems to understand that exploring the environments is its own reward here. I'm tremendously stuck already through. I've wired up jumper cables to a generator, but I can't seem to electrocute anything yet. I think I'm supposed to fish a cross out of a river, but see no way how. It's fun being stuck again, after the incredible easiness of Broken Sword. So yeah, I'm totally impressed. So far this is a great time and it's holding up. Also, more than a little freaky. I forgot about the deformed kids with twin mouths and roots for legs.

If you translate the captions to English, you get a pretty accurate idea of the general writing in Fantasy Finale. "I'm riding the old horse." "Sweet vinegar." It looks extremely boring though. The wilderness doesn't at all capture the imagination like a Skyrim would, inducing you to hours of exploration. I feels like they still don't have a clue what game it is they want to make. Sweet vinegar.

BELLY BOOTIFUL!

I can dig that, since in my fifteen years of scouring the land for a single copy of Sanitarium, I came up with zilch. The jewelcase edition you had might've been the rerelease they did in the States, which wasn't available here. I know. As time went on, my quest became more and more piffling and I a weird old milquetoast collector.

WHOA WHOA WAIT WAIT WAIT, as of yesterday, Sanitarium, Sani-fecking-tarium is available on Steam! http://store.steampowered.com/app/284050/ I know it was out for ages on gog, but this is Steam! I haven't played Sanitarium since 1998, so it's bound to delight and disappoint, but holy cow. Fun fact: did you know Sanitarium was the holy grail, that I've sought after since 1999 or so, when I got it into my head that I had to own a physical copy? I've searched through countless gaming stores to find one (Ebay would obviously be cheating). It was such a fun quest, to always have something to be on the lookout for. Now, it has ended! I've bought the thing on Steam, because who needs a physical copy nowadays anyway? So, long story short, SANITARIUM! Sani-DAYUM-rium!

Wow, I will listen to this as soon as I have the chance! Great to see the network expanding with such choice titles.

I am very much enjoying Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., it's a fun, lighthearted show that tickles me in exactly that 'conspiracy and twists and banter and spy stuff going on'. It definitely picks up around halfway season one, and the second opens strongly. It may be an unfair comparison, but Agents gets right what Gotham doesn't (so far): it thinks through, logically, the ramifications of what is sets for the rest of world. Where Gotham seems so limited to just the city (nowhere else in the world there seems to be any weird stuff going on, but Gotham city happens to be full of weird toxins and mutations and quasi super-villains), Marvel takes it world-wide. Which builds a much more coherent universe. I can believe the wackiness happening all over the place, whereas in Gotham it feels out of place and undeserved most of the time.

Sterling recommendations there.

Wii adverts are getting weirder by the day

I sat through the second season of Lexx this year, and it was mostly really excruciating and boring. Every episode is the same thing (Stanley and Zev wants sex and go to some planet/station/ship to get it, they get into trouble, in the last ten minutes Kai wakes up and saves them). The production values are bad, the acting is terrible (only Stanley gets a pass because he is supposed to be obnoxious), the music is that bland 90s 'someone fell asleep on the synthesizer', and the writing is beyond horrible and often specifically sexist. The first season of Lexx at least consisted of (overlong) movie length stories that had some interesting scifi elements to them, and the inclusion of some fun actors (Rutger Hauer, Tim Curry). After that, all pretense of wanting to build a coherent and interesting universe are traded in for... the cheapest low-brow scifi shovelware imaginable. I don't for the life of me understand why Lexx appears in some of the 'top 25 sci-fi shows' lists. It's crap.

I think the answer to both questions is: Hollywood. There's something nuts about Hollywood and stardom. I think as soon as you find yourself in that position, taking on acting as your way of life, it becomes really hard to keep a handle on who you are yourself, especially once everyone starts scrutinizing your every move and either loving or hating you for it. I know I'd go a little crazy.

I don't know how much of this was pre-written and how much improvised, but if you want a master class in taking control of a show, look no further than this 1994 appearance of Jim Carrey at Jay Leno's. It's amazing. I hope most of this is unplanned. Carrey absolutely dominates the thing. Over the course of the show he sets up various strings and jokes, paying them off in pretty neat ways. CCCCCINNAMON

Wait, did Shia LaBeouf just totally redeem himself in no uncertain terms?

GamerGate podcasting news: I recently recorded a half hour long GamerGate special of my geek podcast, along with Dutch feminist and fan culture specialist Nicolle Lamerichs. It's in Dutch, but considering the recent explosion it seemed appropriate to post. In it we discuss the basics of the matter, and inevitably strongly condemn it. http://geekersopjespeakers.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-17T23_03_14-07_00