Ben X

I ended up binge watching Sense8. As long as you can handle it taking twice as long with everything as it should, it's actually really cool. I ended up liking all the characters, there's loads of sex and well-directed action, and the concept is interesting (although it could be summed up in a long sentence yet took about six episodes to reveal!). It also touches on a load of LGBT stuff in a way that felt well-handled to me.

I think the thing is that the prequel trilogy had more of everything so while it had more miniatures (and perhaps practical creatures too or whatever) it also had a shitload of greenscreen and CGI in there right up in your face. That's why the special editions also sucked - they had all the original practical stuff in there but with a load of crappy CGI slapstick plastered on top. And yes, in the end, the problem was not the sometimes-crappy effects (of which the original trilogy has a fair few) but everything else, which is why the PR leaning on this so heavily feels like an attempt at a dog whistle.

I was starting to suspect I was being trolled, but you're far too subtle, man!

No it's not! No more than "you" is a proverb!

I didn't notice a dip in Y (or Runaways) myself... In other news, Archie is getting a revamp. Mid-level spoilers in this AVClub write-up. I've never read an Archie comic, so I'm not really invested, but I did think "aw, that's a shame" until I saw Fiona Staples was doing the art for the first three issues. Also Mark Waid is writing, and he's well thought-of, I think?

Oh, someone referred to Domhnall Gleeson as the guy from Black Mirror. In case you weren't aware, he was also in some of the Harry Potters as the cool Weasley, along with his dad Brendan Gleeson (they also shared a scene or two in Calvary).

I know what Argobot means, though. It's definitely cool that they're using real sets, effects etc, but instead of just showing it they have a voiceover telling us too, like it's a magic wand that waves away any potential for this film to be bad. I hadn't twigged that both Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson were in this movie - keep them away from those DroidsTM! Also, yeah, I think I'll start avoiding stuff now.

It's not a proverb, though!

Okay, enough of the love-in, let's get back to picking at each other: I have not heard of this proverb "yous haven't read something"... (NB: if you go to read that full post, you'll get Ex Machina spoilers)

Hello SSD, good to see you again! It does seem to be a regular knee-jerk response to new (indie?) games - "this is a clone of X!" rather than "this looks similar to X".

Okay, I'm done with Wolf 3D now. The maze-like levels and the droning music were killing me. I think it would have been a lot more fun as a 12 year old with a friend making maps and the music muted with some '92 Metallica blasting out instead, but I doubt I'll find anyone willing to join me for that. There was the occasional nice bit of level design where they used signs and stuff to make it more navigable or obvious secret passages or holes leading to cave sections. And it did manage to make me jump out of my skin one time with a hidden Nazi suddenly yelling at me from a corner. But overall it was quite arduous. I thought it was pretty hilarious just how much Hitler decor there is in this castle - stately portraits, extreme close ups of him yelling, even stained glass windows! I watched a playthrough and it's a shame I didn't get to any of the bosses because they looked hilariously cheesy, and again some nice cinematic stuff going on with the death cam and the camera panning round to see the player character triumphantly fist-pumping. I knew there was mecha-Hitler in this game, but not that he starts as wizard-Hitler shooting fireballs at you and disappearing into thin air with a cackle as his wizard cape crumples to the ground. Then when you do enough damage his mech falls apart and you get vanilla Hitler, who shouts "Eva, auf wiedersehen!" before melting into a head and a pile of mush. I'm guessing Return To Castle Wolfenstein won't have a Hitler boss, which is a shame. Next: DooMTM

Or were you using meta to mean "sexy"?

A problem above all others, I agree!

Until we found out he wasn't joking; then there was incredulity!

The concept of Inside Out seems really gimmicky and limited to me, so I'm surprised it's getting generally very good response.

See, this is the problem with "meta"! Everyone's using it in different ways!

After reading this, I think my plan as a Windows 7 owner is "wait until June 2016 then decide": http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/09/windows-10-impressions-releasing-any-day-now-edition/

I think Jake said "are you kidding?" as in actually asking if Sean was making a joke or had legitimately made that colossal error. I had the exact same question in my head!

Yeah, I should have said this instead of "about itself". So metadata is data about data. But that got expanded out to "dialogue about other dialogue" or "a film about other films", which has led to it (sometimes inappropriately) being used as an adjective interchangeable with self-referential. But it even seems to be moving away from that. Not to pick on Jake - his usage is just a recent example - but I still think that using "meta-goal" to describe the main or ultimate goal of the game is another completely different meaning (possibly the original Greek preposition, in fact, as it is indeed next to or beyond the other goals), of which I've heard many used for meta. It just seems like people are flinging it at anything at the moment - or perhaps it just has a few concurrently used specific definitions which makes it an unwieldy term for the listener...

Jake kept talking about the "meta-goal" in No Man's Sky in this week's episode. I have no idea what meta as a prefix or adjective means any more. As far as I can tell, it started as a prefix meaning something along the lines of 'about itself'. So dialogue about dialogue would be meta-dialogue. This particular type of usage of it seems to have led to it being used as a synonym for 'post-modern' or breaking the fourth wall. That in turn seems to have led to it meaning 'outside or above'. But Jake seems to be using it as 'overall' or something here? This seems to be another one of those words that has become popular and then lost all meaning incredibly quickly.

Agree. Kind of agree - it's good fun. Disagree - pretty bland with annoying voice-acting. Agree.

Well, my friends and I often get into pun wars. Say, if we're talking about someone who loves cheese, we'll all make a load of dreadful cheese puns until we've exhausted it. There's also a pun thread in pretty much every AV Club comments section ever.

It's not even out yet!

The Lego Movie/Jump Street duo are doing a Han Solo prequel movie: http://www.avclub.com/article/phil-lord-and-chris-miller-are-reportedly-directin-221886

Yeah, I got lost for ages in DooM3 once, that was embarrassing.