Ben X

I had my first LOST dream in a while.

Woah. Also, Mike's love-interest just happens to be a head full of phalluses.

I thought Monsters U was pretty terrible, though I can't remember exactly why beyond it being full of cliches (and simply redoing those cliches with monsters, not parodying or subverting them) and pretty pointless. The most/only interesting things were definitely but the film doesn't really do much with those ideas. How so? (I hope I'm not just setting up a closet joke here...)

I think the demon has a metal card with no holes. But if you use a non-punched playing card, it gets sucked away and Manny says "Too much air pressure." I'm not sure if you see Eva use the hole-punch, but when you exit the lifts, the leftover confetti on her desk is in front of shot, which is what tipped me off. The main problem with this game is not always realising there's an item to interact with because you don't notice Manny looking at it, or because it's right next to another one. A "highlight all objects" function would go against the game's dedication to diegesis; a slightly clumsy but useful solution could have been a key to have Manny list everything he can interact with in the room. "I can see... Eva... Eva's hole-punch... the door to Don's office..."

Glad you're enjoying it! Just a small non-spoilery note - it was your rival Domino, not your boss Don, who told your driver he had the day off.

Oh balls, sorry guys! It's working now and I didn't take down any details, but I do have these from my downloads page: zl6LlIyl7Kb7QSF5WxA3MA.mp3Unknown server error. Please try again, or contact the server administrator. http://www.themidroll.com/track/zl6LlIyl7Kb7QSF5WxA3MA.mp3

I always find it surprising that anyone reads that site. I think of it as just the exit splash screen for Hotmail.

This millennium's booth babes...

Meanwhile, this avclub article pokes fun at how many awards they shove JLaw into in the hopes of securing her attendance. If it weren't for Bilbo Baggins' presence, I'd argue that Katniss maybe doesn't quite fit on that list, but she definitely would work better than the hobbit. "Blasted" is a bit misleading, though: there's an online petition. I think the shirtless jab is a bit unfair too, seeing as the other four nominees are male and there's actually a pretty good spread of male and female nominees elsewhere.

We'll let the other attending Thumbs be the judge of that...

I just played Grim all the way through with Residual and it ran fine, except once or twice it froze up and I needed to press '.' (ie the period or full stop key) to get it going again. Best to save often and in different slots, though, just in case. I had fullscreen ticked in Residual and didn't need to do any extra tinkering.

This might be an expected part of the downtime, but as everything else is back up I'll mention it: I'm getting a weird filename and a server error when trying to download the latest Thumbs 'cast. *hopes this isn't just him being stupid again*

There aren't any difficulty modes. I think you can change the controls from character-sensitive to screen-sensitive, but with the constantly changing camera angles I wouldn't recommend it. Also, the tank controls aren't so bad if you resist the urge to run everywhere. I think Residual say you need that patch or at least they heavily recommend it - they link to a file for it on their website, which is probably the best version to use in case you got it from elsewhere.

Ah, it was the olde-timey looking clothes that threw me!

You look surprisingly close to your avatar!

SPOILERS for Zeusthecat!

Sadly, neither of those sites passes the /wizard test.

Literally? He hopes to go to space or underground?

I haven't played Emerald City Confidential, but the Oz books could be a good setting for an expansive game with all their different lands and peoples and magics. I would say War Of The Worlds, but I think that's probably inspired a fair few games already. EDIT: I won't bother bumping, but The Fifth Element had a great universe (though you could perhaps instead choose the works of all the comic book creators that Besson gathered to do concept art for him).

REMINDER:

Dino, it played well on my ninja PC, but I found it damn difficult! Perhaps make it more of a tunnel to start with so the player can get used to the set up? (Also, I couldn't read the whiteboard instructions because it was too dark, so all I did was click on platforms to get the blue arrow to pull me in so I could pass through orbs.)

Finally finished Homicide: A Year On the Killing Streets, the David Simon book on which his shows Homicide and The Wire were based. I fully recommend it. It's heart-wrenching, thrilling, funny, sad stuff, with some images that will stick in my head for a long time.

Thanks dude. It's an ongoing thing but it's flared up this week in terms of time and energy required.

Re. spending money on AAA games: perhaps you could put a note on the site (plus put it at the bottom of the failed search results page) saying that you will only review games that you haven't spent money on as that will ensure objectivity. Therefore, if someone wants to see a review of a game and you haven't been provided with a review copy. they can either hassle the [publisher?] on Twitter or buy you a copy. Re. the video: I like it, and don't think editing is a good idea - it goes against objectivity. If anything, I think you should record your first playthrough (or at least what seems to be), including splash screens and settings menus, and present that unedited.

Isn't the Voight-Kampff based on analysis of pupil-dilation and heart-rate and stuff?