Roderick

Dutch people don't know that sentiment, since we sub everything. But if I'm honest, even we turn a blind eye to most non-Hollywood cinema. Regrettably. There's soooo much beyond the hills of H-dubs!

Well... I guess you're right.

Yikes, struggling through Bennie's part in I Have No Mouth makes me realize this game is totally unplayable without a walkthrough. It's a shame, but the constant barrage of inexplicable things triggering for no apparent reason and objects you can only pick up when obscure conditions are met make this a huge drag. Here's how bad it is: even WITH a walkthrough right beside it, I'm struggling to get the right responses and steps down. Not every part is this bad fortunately. Pity, because the game has a lot to offer with its moral quandaries, but the design is uuuuuugggghhh.

Yes, chains are definitely better than belts. Belts snap, chains just keep on goin'. I know nothing about cars though, just what I heard from the experts.

I don't quite understand western remakes when the original movie is clearly not outdated or badly made at all. Why an Oldboy remake when you could watch the actual Oldboy and get the same thing out of that?

Duncan, after six years are you still embarrassed to have played this game? Or have you just stopped visiting Idle Thumbs altogether out of shame?

I don't know if I've ever watched everything of a certain director, but I can easily imagine what you get out of it. Especially if it's auteur cinema: an enlarged appreciation of the themes woven throughout an oeuvre. Case in point - I think the one instance of a director I've seen a significant portion of their work of are the Coen brothers. If you take any one of their works alone, you can easily enjoy them, but when you get to know the whole body... it just kind of stacks. I appreciate their movies more, understand them better, and certain expectancies are raised even before I watch them. It's also strangely enjoyable to be able to place a movie into a larger whole, and perceiving where it stands in the development of a creator. Especially with the Coens, you might not understand the dark comedy of it unless you've seen their other films and grasp their bleak world view and how there's a twisted humor in how the lead characters often find a painful end. What is disheartening on its own, is suddenly comforting together.

This I don't understand. Why the +50 years? What good would that do to the original creator? Of course, things get incredibly muddy when you consider that a huge amount of content gets created by teams, working within corporations or funded by them. 'Lifetimes' don't hold up then. Perhaps a set amount of years would be better. Say, 50? 50 is an incredible amount of years to reap the benefits off of anything.

Interesting podcast, guys! I'd have loved to learn a little more about the background of Kingdom of Loathing and how it developed. There seems to be an interesting story behind that, that's now only hinted at. Maybe a good candidate for Tone Control? Also, I'd like to see Jake with a Corvo mask on.

It kind of prefigures Wrath of Khan in a way, with a battle between captain that each have their own nobility to them.

UWE BOLL!

Well, playing it with a walkthrough is probably preferable to never playing it at all? In any case, you should be able to get ahead mostly without.

I finished Gorrister's part. It's all mercifully short, but I must admit I grabbed a walkthrough to get through it. The puzzles are so goddamn obscure, I don't even want to figure all this stuff out.

McCoy is the absolute best thing in TOS. The Squire of Gothos was a novelty episode, but really nothing great. I'm telling you, Balance of Terror, where the Romulans are first introduced (when they were still cool!), that's the good stuff.

I couldn't even get through the 8 minute FMV trailer, unfortunately. I don't know if they're shooting for deliberate badness all around, or if this is genuinely the extent of their writing (and acting) skill. I feel like you could definitely take The 7th Guest into a nice nostalgic direction, but this doesn't feel right from the start. It almost needs worse chroma keying, lower resolution and choppier compression.

Yeah, he totally does that, but then the game is super on the nose about everything. It eventually spells out every twist. I was taken aback at the voice at the start as well, having pictured a more menacing, less 'human' voice. Instead we get what must be the most ludicrous intonation ever as AM talks about the German professor dude with a Nazi inflection. Zat izz korrekt!

Currently watching TOS, and will post some tidbits as I encounter them. Like I said before, so far there have been a couple of stand-out episodes in the first season: 'A taste of armageddon', 'Errand of mercy' and especially 'Balance of terror'.

The Animated Series? Steering well clear of that one. Shore Leave was a magnificent episode. OK, really silly. But 'A taste of armageddon', 'Errand of mercy' and especially 'Balance of terror' are super good. However, absolutely, Star Trek has its share of silliness. Almost every episode ends with Kirk making a small jab at Spock and the latter looking up quizzically.

I'm not there yet, still watching ToS. But to illustrate, the first ten episodes of that show are all about evil women or doubles taking over the Enterprise. Every single episode.

Then there's also the very concrete problem of character fatigue. When characters are just one-note caricatures, then they've got an expiration date. No matter how funny they start out as - and Scrubs had the funniest of all. Kelso, Cox, Janitor, JD, Todd; that's a gold mine. But even that gets old after three seasons. Still, fond memories!

Playing I have no mouth now, and it's definitely the obscurest point and click adventure ever. If you have problems with the genre, don't play this. Overlord is super fun. It's been a while since I played it, so perhaps it's aged a little, but I remember really liking it as a charming (Dutch!) thing.

I'm playing Gorrister's part now, and there are some issues popping up. This game is way too mysterious and unfathomable. Which is part of the charm! It's a double-edged blade. On the one hand it derives most of its value from its obscurity and weirdness. You never quite know what to expect! But then it applies that train of thought to the puzzles too, which makes it all but impossible to figure out. It wasn't so bad in Ellen's part, which didn't have a lot of dead ends, but Gorrister's is a minefield. I only just realized I'd screwed up my world by taking some wrong turns and clicking on stuff. Problem is, you can't know any of this! I'm OK with dying occasionally, since you get a clear message that you have to start over. But just screwing up and the game not even acknowledging it? That's cruel game design. I wonder if you can finish this game without a walkthrough and without just starting over ten times until you happen to hit upon the right combination of events. I still like it though, it's creepy and not too long.

Titanfall isn't Xbox exclusive, it's Microsoft exclusive. It'll be on PCs too. Yay!

I've been watching a lot of videos, including the Giant Bomb quick look, and must say it has whetted my appetite. Not really for the gameplay, which looked - to be honest - like a lot of work instead of a lot of fun. But the crime scene investigation stuff looked rad and the slow mystery of the Joker, well, that's something that'll always grab my attention. But, you know, I'll wait until it's 5 euros on Steam, in a year or two. That's fine.

I believe he provides the voice for the homicidal machine AM as well. Can't wait to play the next story tonight. I love the structure of five different short stories, it makes it eminently playable for a person strapped for time. The game is on sale now on Steam for less than 2 Centralized Old World Copper.