syntheticgerbil

My apologies, I'm not sure if I know of a better way to say it, as I'm pretty sure Satoshi Kon movies all tend to be higher budget for Japanese productions. I mean budget as in terms of available animation frames not really in available movie budget, although they are related as well. Paprika doesn't really fit this bill but the other two I've seen, Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue, to me it's obvious they have a high amount of frames they can work with but I don't necessarily agree with which scenes get a higher amount of fluid animation and which ones are stills or pans or something similar. Really it's just distracting to me as both follow the usual Japanese production method of putting most animation budget on action scenes and leaving the character or talking scenes with little movement, but that may just be more Japanese taste. Usually it's the animation supervisor in animation productions figuring out how to distribute which scenes have so many drawn frames, so it's probably not exactly attributed to Kon himself. I guess most of my favorite Japanese animation doesn't often skimp on character acting frames. I have noticed in general it seems Japanese animation is taking more cues on character acting the last decade and incorporating it as essential. I must say when Japanese productions do character acting type stuff, it's incredibly easy on the eyes and makes sense because they are not doing it in the flail around overact traditional CalArts/Disney/Pixar animators do. They still do the character animation in the usual Japanese frame conserving kind of way, which leads to most things masterfully making use of pauses and character beats while the general mainstream American method is to have every character darting their eyes constantly, jerking their faces around, and swinging their bodies all over the place even when delivering the most simple of lines like some sort of drug addict. Er.. year, either way, I always like the stories and characters in Kon movies I've seen, so I think I should really revisit soon.

I'm shallow because I really want to like Satoshi Kon's works but I can't seem to get past the character design (except Tokyo Godfathers) and the way the animation in his movies tends to be budgeted. Maybe I'll try to rewatch most things he's directed someday when I have more time, because I still find a lot there to like.

Definitely. I don't like Being John Malkovich very much at all and I sometimes feel like the only point to seeing it is just to be the precursor to Adaptation. Also, out of that whole mess of the Michel Gondry/Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman triad, sometimes I feel like I don't know who I want to follow or who was really responsible for making Eternal Sunshine or Adaptation so amazing to me. I stopped following Kaufman after watching Synecdoche, one of the most abysmal times I've ever had in a theatre, then Gondry seems to be getting worse or at least has never amazed me with the way Eternal Sunshine did, which I feel works on more levels because of his input as a director more than the writing. Spike Jonze is sadly the only one I always feel confident about but I wish he would do more movies instead of music videos, commercials, and skate videos all of the time. None of that delivers in the same manner. This probably makes me seem really idiotic, but what I enjoy the most about Eternal Sunshine, beyond the visuals, is just the way it unfolds and how it is paced. I hate movies I can't understand or follow. I hate it when I'm confused about character motivations or actions. I also can't stand scenes that add nonsense or more confusion to the story simply for the sake of doing so without explanation. This makes me a terrible audience for most fringe, vague, or experimental movies. So my apparently narrow minded (so I've been told) way of wanting an understandable story made me think when starting Eternal Sunshine without much knowledge of the director or writer upon first viewing made me think I was in store for a bunch of abstract confusion and that I'd get really annoyed by the hour mark. I was annoyed for the first 30 minutes but then pieces started coming together, the point of the story was revealed at an accelerating rate, all the strangeness was explained, and you ended up caring for these characters that were initially confusing you in the bizarre way they were acting. I guess it's always nice to be intensely surprised when you think you're going to hate something. I know I probably enjoy a few other movies that may utilize similar tricks, but I can't think of any that does it better than Eternal Sunshine. Also on the topic of Moon again, the other day I was wishing I had a little computer buddy that followed me around and cared about my wellbeing. That would be so awesome.

Awesome, thanks Miffy. I'm going to reread this when I catch up on the Metroid series in an estimated three years.

Oh man, Orvidos and Miffy. I kind of want you guys to duplicate post those in the threads for the games just for reference. I don't know if that's allowed, but sometimes when I finish a game late, I search Thumbs for the thread and read what everyone said a way before.

That sounds like a nice overseas vacation, I haven't been camping in a year and I'm itchy to go. But I really doubt I'd have the money if I were employed.

Oh Afretto! What hasa happened to your face-a?! (He also looks like this guy I went to middle school with... creepy.)

Again, it's bound to happen with any long running thread or forum where someone is free to clarify, so getting upset about it is not worth it, really. It's obviously annoying enough to you that you are now posting in other threads about it. If you give those threads enough time, they will have a few more pages added and everyone will have forgot, since I doubt anyone likes to reread the long running threads from page 1 and on, especially new people.

Hah, I think they only formulate this misinformation to purposefully make their audience more angry and xenophobic. I'm not sure if it actually matters how factually correct it is or not.

My girlfriend's younger sister (like 12 years younger than her), had a good Mario Kart DS battle going on with me one afternoon. She already knew where everything was on the maps though and refused to let anyone else play Yoshi (not that I was wanting to) so I lost every time. She also sometimes calls me up sometimes for hints on certain games, but then she gets all strangely shy and awkward on the phone so it gets pretty silly. I don't know if there's much in the way of pride for her since it's not my spawn. Also if that were my kid, I would not allow her to play so many Hannah Montana type games. Her mom just tends to buy her whatever piece of shit is on sale as opposed to games worth the money.

Awesome, that still hasn't stopped in Houston since the light rail was put up. I seriously don't know how they are getting hit by the damn thing except they are running red lights, not slowing for yellow, or the lights are just malfunctioning. Oh shit, I missed the part where you already paid. Great job, Sony. Ugh.

Is that the guy with the Gorillaz avatar? Happy birthday Elek_trik! Also, happy belated birthday, Sombre! Sorry I missed the thread for that.

Now this thread has gotten meta ridiculous because spillover complaints on other threads are surfacing here. What the hell guys, calm down. You can't seriously expect the forums to follow all of these rules no one agreed upon in the first place over what and what should not be posted as new thread topics or what's appropriate to be posted in long running topics that weren't created by anyone who runs the forum in the first place. Almost everyone here is sensible enough to not hijack a long running thread like Youtube, Books, Music, etc. any longer than they feel it needs to be hijacked because I doubt anyone is interested in killing said threads. It also doesn't make a difference for you to passive aggressively complain mods aren't doing their job in ever third thread either, bbx.

I think he actually came off somewhat more courageous and willing in the games, whereas the movie Colour of Magic has Rincewind portrayed much closer to the books. I think the games make him seem willing because he takes part in tasks that belonged to others from multiple books, and he probably comes off as dumber because of the notorious lack of response for almost anything you do in Discworld except the correct thing. I remember in Sourcery there was multiple situations where Rincewind was at the very least cunning in getting away. I think it was like Tanukitsune said, he just has a penchant for doing the wrong thing in almost all situations even though he does have all the tools in his shed. Anyway, the first novel had him lucking out on taking Twoflower around along with some clever deception on his part. He also deceives Twoflower multiple times throughout the novel and the next to save him from harm. Glad you brought that up. In comparison to older adventure game leads like Guybrush, Roger Wilco is most obviously portrayed as an idiot. He would probably be closer to the characters Tanukitsune originally brought up. I think the easiest way to consider all of this is with Bernard from Day of the Tentacle. He acts and solves very similar to Guybrush or what other hapless hero. He often is clumsy and screws up, but we all know Bernard is smart anyway, aside from the obvious nerd portrayal.

You can get around that pretty easy El Meurte, you just have to make an account in whatever region you need to buy the DLC from. So it does have to do with the country code. Sony is not going to tell you this because of legal reasons, I'm sure, but many have made multiple accounts to get content only available in certain regions. Try this: http://www.consolemonster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10663

Considering the majority of adventures are coming out from Telltale and you named two games, one which came out three years ago and did poorly (from what I recall), I don't think anyone is starting a trend. Maybe creating badly realized characters but I guess I'm not sure why you'd want to play So Blonde in the first place. A more cohesive trend would be like the one going on in the early 2000s and up with the female protagonists that had the sideburn bang haircut and were all sassy but not really full of substance. Then you can go to the amount of wizards and magic makers in the early 90s and up. I guess I just think you probably need more than two examples.

I don't have the money to buy right now, so I downloaded this demo, belched in people's faces and got gum on others.

Haha, that's how I feel Miffy, especially two fold if the guy is trying to sell guides based on him being an Alpha Male. Funny thing is, I bet none of these guys come off as alpha in actual society (maybe a douche at the most) but that the internet propagates these types hide behind the anonymity to sell books to the desperate as there is nothing to be shattered. I get the feeling a real true "alpha male" would never waste time writing a guide on how to be top dog. It's just unbecoming. Anyway, what's obnoxious about this guy is he is after video gaming because of the pretense that everything a man spends his time on must contribute to society. It seems at the core he is proposing we be career driven all day in order to be of worth. I doubt this guy works 14 hour days every day a week only taking time to sleep. I would also venture he's of the type to spend at least 8 hours a week watching sports on some crap satellite setup. Also bible quotes FTW! And now I've devoted way too much attention and thought to a dolt that thinks every man in the world should be one way while all others who dare shoot their semen without his approval should be ashamed. What is really pathetic is he has defined who he is by his obsession with divisive thoughts like that.

I enjoyed the podcast even though I glaze over in boredom when hearing about sandbox or non "on-the-rails" story gameplay experience. I think what engages me about what Steve has to say the most is that he's coming from a background of similarly liked games but has a completely different idea of what games should be. It helps me understand what's with games these days I suppose. Anyway, on a personal note, it was neat to learn he left his girlfriend and place for six months to work at Timegate. I probably saw him at some point when I tried to intern there and was awkwardly interviewed and introduced to people under the strange presumption that half the people I was interviewing with thought I was trying for a real job. How embarassing. Anyway, leaving your girlfriend for career crap sucks, but I'm glad they sustained. Most stories work in the complete opposite direction.

Wrestle the vanity of birthday splendor! Er...

Wow Stevan, that's an awesome idea. I can't wait for more. I guess I'll have to figure out how RSS feeds work now...

Yeah but considering the major influence was Earthbound, which did not lower it's difficulty for younger players even though it also had a similar playful children's tone (except for the strange aliens), I really didn't know what exactly to expect.

Because then bastards will keep making chit chat meaningless posts like the one I'm writing right now and suddenly look like hot shit. I think, I don't even know. I doubt anyone looks at post count and join date because when tons of new members came after the podcast they didn't seem to realize that Thumbs existed before by the lack of noted confusion of members with a 2004 join date.

I finished Costume Quest I think a week or two ago when it was on sale for $7.50. It was a very quaint game. I suppose that's a bad thing in many ways as it was incredibly short and did come off as sort of a one trick thing, but I did enjoy the atmosphere and tone over all else. I wish I had played it in preparation for Halloween because I was zoning out and thinking it was autumn again many times during the game. Very good on hitting the nostalgia heart strings. I still think the art direction in terms of the characters was pretty bland. The best part was the costumes you could gather and the anticipation in finding out what they were but it sucks they all had two moves only. The biggest problem was that the turn based RPG gameplay was all simplistic and not incredibly varied. I know that's all turn based RPGs really come down to, but I would have at least like more moves as that equals more animation. I found an article where Tasha Harris was saying the RPG design was aimed towards younger players, so that's probably where I'm mixed up. I don't have a problem with games being made for kids, as this is probably an awesome game for a parent and child to play together, but I guess I would have found it less jarring if I were given a heads up first. Maybe I didn't read the press releases right?

Yes. Gotta put on that happy face/