Ben X

Yeah, this definitely blows those infuriating Kevin Bacon UK ads out of the water.

Interesting! Do you happen to know (or were you able to flip between modes to see) if the mouths move more than in the original?

iirc, a lot of them were songs that the graphic novel quoted, put in there without worrying that they didn't actually fit. Also, the use of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah over the sex scene made it sound like Rorschach was crooning to Night Owl and Silk Spectre while they banged. The one bit of music use I liked iirc was when the guitar on All Along The Watchtower briefly went quite well with Archie crashing into the snow.

Someone on the "what is game" thread mentioned that the war to make "literally" mean "figuratively" had been won. This stuck in my craw to the point where I couldn't resist poking someone on the Double Fine forums for misuse. I then started a new thread, and I thought I'd post it here too: Spinning this off from a bit of pedantry over on the DOTT board. I snarked at someone for saying synth instruments “literally do magic”. Then TP linked to this article: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/according_to_the_dictionary_literally_now_also_means_figuratively_newscred/ The first thing that annoyed me was this: No! This is not “of course” the correct meaning of literally! “Literally” means “non-figuratively”. That is it. It is used for clarification, such as “I literally p*ssed myself it was so funny” to clarify that I’m not using that as a figure of speech, I actually did. In that article’s example, it’s being used to mean “without exaggeration”. Now, it’s handy to have a single word for that, but this is one of the recent mutations of the word not the one that was being used, say, 5 years ago. I guess it’s okay for the word to have both those uses, though, as you can work out which one is being used from context. However, this new meaning in Websters is not actually “figuratively”, according to that dictionary’s authors; it is instead “pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis,” i.e. purely an intensifier. The problem is people are using it where no intensifier is necessary and/or where it clashes with the “non-figuratively”/“no exaggeration” meanings. It’s a completely pointless and actively confusing use of the word. We have plenty of intensifiers already, and we have no other word to mean “non-figuratively” (except for non-figuratively of course, but that’s awful). I know language is always changing, but when a change comes purely through people’s misuse or misunderstanding of a term and it serves to deteriorate that language, then I will continue to be irritatingly pedantic about it!

Yeah, I'm currently watching and enjoying it. There's some ropey acting across the board, but I especially liked the extended and relatively high-budget 'thought process' sequences (I'm mainly thinking of the ).

I'm just going to talk about an "overrated thing" - the Watchmen opening titles. Consensus is "shitty movie but wow that title sequence is great." The song choice is painfully literal and obvious (as well as it being quoted in the graphic novel so, along with most of the moments being lifted from there too, this isn't the brief flash of originality from Snyder that some claim) and the narrative it tries to present is utterly confusing for someone coming to the film with no prior knowledge: there were superheroes, then they retired or died in unrelated incidents, and the world's a bit shittier, then there were more superheroes, and they were popular, then they weren't popular." It's clumsy and unnecessary.

I've played most of the first level in Duke Nukem 3D and so far it's really fun. It feels quite sloppy mechanically, especially compared to Doom, but the LA movie-house setting is fun and it has lots of stuff going on - letting you turn on a film in the projector room, use the security cameras, stuff like that, plus enemies sitting on the loo or plummeting to their death, looking back and seeing your bloody footprints from where you walked through an alien corpse. FPS mechanics can get quite repetitive, so having variety elsewhere - enemy types, weapons, one-off events, stuff like that - really helps. Like Dark Forces, it has little touches like seeing your ship go down in flames at the start of a level, or hearing your character speak, that give it little narrative touches. While id's games would have minor environmental storytelling, these other games are pushing more overt stuff.

I've now given up on Dark Forces. It's cool to have such big, multi-tier levels, but after about half of the game it was starting to get repetitive enough that I didn't want to wander around lost flipping switches and shooting stormtroopers any more. The game's main strength is its great presentation and atmosphere. Lots of different OT-reminiscent settings, including Death Star type Imperial places, a grotty city with graffiti, and even a blockade runner feeling level with the nice white walls. It was nice to eventually get some aliens as well - the triclops ones and some Gamorrean guards, as well as a load of copies of that lizard bounter hunter in the orange jumpsuit. The mission briefings and mid-level updates in your earpiece (the first appearance of this trope!) tie everything together nicely, and it has a load of nice touches, like the little mouse robots running around, TIE Fighters flying around in-level, rooms where your laser blasts bounce of the walls, mines you can lay to fling enemies up in the air and the occasional clever puzzle such as following a schematic to position lifts thereby making a path through the shafts. It's just a shame it also has enough frustration (platforming, slippy-slidey ice levels, wonky aiming etc) and repetition to end up feeling like a chore at times. I watched through a playthrough for the rest of it and was amused to see they had an "all your weapons are taken away" level, which would also become a standard FPS trope. Also, Coruscant has wall carvings and busts of Palpatine in his hood, in a very similar way to Doom's demon murals and Wolfenstein's Hitler-drenched decor! Next: Duke Nukem 3D

Frozen in carbohydrates.

Ah, the Dishonored Dimension.

Nerd fail!

The next level (the mines) was a lot more linear but unfortunately had lots of platforming bits, which are a nightmare with these controls. I got to fight a dark trooper, which consisted of backpedaling in a circle shooting at him for 5 minutes. Then the door switch I needed to get out broke, then the game broke! I might use some level skip cheat codes to quickly make my way through the rest of the game and see any interesting bits (I seem to remember Vader shows up in this one?), then get onto Duke Nukem 3D.

Synth, I'm surprised by your lack of sympathy here. Suicide attempts, whether successful or not, are messy and bizarre in many different ways. But I find it hard to believe that someone would risk their life simply to bully some bullies on the internet. It seems more likely to me that it was her same dependence on internet approval and acceptance which led her to attempt suicide that also led her to keep communicating online during her recovery. Unless you believe she faked her suicide attempt, you surely understand that she's in an extremely fragile psychological state.

Apparently he wasn't going to retcon Alien3 so much as circumvent it, though I don't know how the hell he was planning on that. I won't get back into arguments about whether 3 was good or not, but Resurrection already shit the bed with regards to Ripley's death, the franchise, etc. So I'm with Moddy - Blomkamp just needs a good script and producer to focus him and he could turn out some (more, after District Nine) top-notch sci-fi.

Well, Gormongous? How did your costume go? My girlfriend and I tried to watch the recent Joe Dante film, Burying The Ex, but we only made it 20 mins in before deciding to watch Freddy Vs Jason again. My Netflix review of BTE:

The characters not having a say (in-universe, obviously; we all know they're fictional) serves to prevent the trope from broadening to include stuff like Power Girl's thing there. I think that could have its own trope name to be honest, but it's a bit different. "She dresses sexy because she wants to!" and "She dresses sexy because she HAS to because a wizard cast a curse on her ten years ago that blah blah blah" are distinct enough creator arguments that I think it's worth delineating.

That's a thing I want and enjoy, I just don't think this narrow trope supports it in its entirety! Basically, if something isn't an example of this trope that doesn't mean it's not problematic.

Eh? There is no lore explanation of why Bishamon's outfit is so sexualised, only of why she changes into a different outfit (which could be anything). MGS V specifically comes up with a lore explanation of why Quiet has to wear as little as possible. I agree with Griddlelol on Inara. And the spongebath stuff etc doesn't have a lore explanation for it. If we found out that she gains special powers from rubbing herself with the Mystical Sponges of Planet Kardo'h then it would count. As it is, it's purely a "look, she's sexy" scene with no hoop-jumping to excuse it.

I think the argument would be that you shouldn't be ashamed of being fat but you should be ashamed of being a bigot. (But yeah, I agree with the sentiments that bullying/shaming is not criticism, and that expecting/demanding that people be perfect in all opinions and actions is foolish.)

Oh, and Twig, I don't think your one counts because the lore explains why she wears it but not why it looks like that...

I'm also typing on a phone, so I'll be brief. I don't think that Firefly example fits at all, and I don't think this thread/trope is about the logic of having attractive/sex-positive female characters. It's about cases like Ghost where the female character is highly sexualised/objectified and the creator jumps through hoops to come up with some backstory/lore explanation instead of admitting they just wanted to appeal to horny men. It doesn't matter what that lore is, so ideally the conversation should not veer off into nerdy lore debates. Really though, it's just a trope, I don't think we should expect it to act as the bedrock for a serious and deep discussion on misogyny in media.

Nailed it.

That's weird, I just tweeted about this thread today and then re-read it #spooky