RubixsQube

"Real oppression involves blood and death." Not true. You seem to undermine this with your next sentence: "insecurity over her self image that is created by images of femininity in media" This is oppression. You are arguing that we have to fight the symptoms of the illness, not the cause. You can't elevate a person's view of themselves until you fight the culture that makes it ok for us to oppress.

Flik, the emotion you are feeling? Where you are made to feel oppressed and shitty about something you can't really change about yourself? It's pretty rough, isn't it? Feminism is a fight against sexism and patriarchy. Sometimes, often times, most times, that means men. Sometimes, often times, that's white, educated, wealthy men. Feminism is not necessarily a fight against men, but it sometimes seems that way. That cross-stitch is something that some people believe, and they are entitled to believe that. Patriarchal men have given some people a reason to believe that. Being a feminist is not something where you get a free pass because of your beliefs. The best you can do is fight patriarchy, and listen, and support where you can. Don't feel like your voice is useless. Read more. Listen more. Take a stand when someone says something that goes against what you believe. And until then, recognize that what you are feeling is something you never want to project onto other people, through action or inaction.

...and relative to like, women's roles in silent movies as something you tie to a train track, they've come a long way, baby! It's 2014, and Gravity, the film you are giving credit for because of it's "strong female role" still needs to have g-g-g-g-ghost George Clooney appear to help ol' Sandy B in her moment of crisis. She can't get through it by herself! Heck, the Avengers, the other film you held up as a "massive success" has what, three women characters with lines? And all three were sexualized to some extent. I don't think we should censor art. I think we should stop rewarding oppressive art. The problem with South Park is exactly what has been espoused by many in this thread: there are many people who don't understand satire, and that's a failure of our culture to educate. But I think that the artist is to blame if they are creating oppressive art without understanding the ramifications. South Park is created by two dudes, in a kind of whirlwind fashion. A lot of it is very smart. Is every bit of writing perfect, and well thought out? Nope! In the eyes of a public that has not been well versed in critical thinking, this could get bad, and some of the blame most definitely goes to Parker and Stone. They don't get a pass because it's satire. Nobody gets a pass because it's satire. It is never all right to declare someone "too sensitive." If you offended someone, you offended someone. This idea that we're living in a society that is way too sensitive and can't take a joke? To me, that's BS. Art is art is art. Comedy is comedy is comedy. I'll fight forever for people to make both, but I won't support oppressive media, and I definitely want to hear when someone is offended.

"Gravity's strong, un-sexualized female lead" <-- This is a weird comment to make. I think that I must have watched a different version of the film than you did. Maybe one where Sandra Bullock didn't spend some time in her underwear, and also wasn't just kind of at the whim of whatever weird physics bs the scene called for. (Yes I know that this is not the point of your comment, and it mostly makes me look like an ass) (but seriously)

If I remember, Advance Wars has a pass-and-play option. Does playing the game on a giant TV make this option silly?

Yes, of course. Brain's entire persona was derived from his Orson Welles impression. He's even Orson Welles in that episode of the Critic. (He was ALSO Egon in the animated version of The Real Ghostbusters) I'm just flummoxed that people at Animaniacs were able to get that on the air. It's funny, but, according to Wikipedia, the cartoon was "described by writer Peter Hastings as 'a $250,000 inside joke'".

I also heard Chris going on about those peas and thought the same thing. still can't believe that the Animaniacs writers were able to derive an entire Pinky and the Brain episode from that Orson Welles peas rant.

Sean and Chris, thanks for your quick comments! While I would also love it if every guest learned to verbally spar with you guys, I think it's probably pretty tough in practice. It sounds like you're well aware of the situation! I really appreciate how good you are to your community, and your guests.

Oh, it's really awesome that I come into a thread with some opinions, read everyone's contributions, and then realize that everyone has already said so many great things I was also thinking. Every episode with Danielle is fantastic, and I hope that giving her a nickname is the first step that leads towards her being a permanent fixture on the show. Can I also say, though, and perhaps this is me being overly nitpicky, but it sometimes feels as if she gets interrupted quite a bit. Again, this is the nature of the show - everyone is super excited, and wants to share, and create something fun and incisive. I think that Sean did a pretty good job during the episode to come back to her points, and that's great! Now, I wasn't there, I don't know anything about the actual recording of the podcast. Her comments are so damn on-point, though, it just feels like she got pushed aside sometimes. I was hoping to hear her talk more about Escape Goat 2, to be honest, since I read her review and you could tell she had genuine interest in the game, but it was kind of swallowed up in another (also interesting) conversation. I know that Chris and Sean are both perhaps reading this thread, and I do not want this to sound like I'm being unnecessarily critical! Please know that the whole thing was great, but when I started noticing the interruptions, it kind of stuck in my head. Gah, I really don't want to sound like a turd. Also, can I say, thanks tabacco, and everyone in the thread who's been showing the door to the shitheads who come in complaining that someone is talking about feminism and social issues? What world do these people live in? Why do trolls exist?

So, I was inspired by Chris, Tylea002, and Assassin's Creed Black Flag, and I made my own little version of the Campo Santo shanty. It's not ideal, but for a few hours work I'm totally fine with it: 'ere was a time I first heard of the land, and the legend, and the treasure, but I thought she was only a way of talking. Bored sailors, sick with rot gut. A song for birds. "Campo Santo." Bah. I saw 'er tho', one long night, when the moon is too large in the sky and when the wind is but dead and the ocean is too much, even for an old hand. She sat there on the 'orizon. ye can't but reach out and hold 'er, but she'll never be yours.

Today was my best Daily Challenge Ever. I beat Yama! Edit: Also, congrats, Cine! That's awesome!

I tend to not find many game reviews to be altogether that useful, because the reasons that I enjoy video games tend to be so wholly and completely different than the reasons that most game review websites enjoy games (Although, while this has been true historically, the games media landscape on the whole is getting better!). Places like Giant Bomb, while they tend to offer "funny" and "highly critical" takes on video games (which is good, I'm glad that they broke free of the standard model), are speaking to an audience that I don't know if I belong to, and as a result, reading a game review meant for someone who needs to know whether the latest Big Video Game Experience is worth your time and money is not helpful to me. That being said, I have always liked Jeremy Parish, even if he is a little "dry" (I agree, Architecture), because he has a very solid grasp of individual game mechanics, and I know that if he enjoyed a game, I'd probably like it. Ditto for Idle Thumb's own Jake and Chris. Danielle Riendeau of Polygon does a fantastic job delving into important social aspects of video game design (even if she gets undeserved, patriarchal blowback). Chris Kohler at Wired also seems to write some fantastic games criticism, especially levied at Nintendo, although I do wish that the company would read it. The author who I absolutely love reading, but who produces the most polarizing responses in his readers, is Tim Rogers (actionbutton and kotaku), who's favorite games are so opposite of mine, but who understands the nuances of the game experience in a very important way.

The Threes making-of article does have a fantastic little tidbit near the top about how 2048 games can be played almost optimally by repeatedly pressing up/right until nothing happens, and then pressing left, and back to up/right. It hasn't worked perfectly for me, but you can play for quite some time using this method.

ALSO, is there any reason that Chris (and elmuerte above) clears the left side of the black market before angering the shopkeepers in lieu of the right side of the black market? I've had a lot of success clearing the right side recently. It seems to just be a smaller area to kill everyone, and it puts all the shopkeepers together so a bomb does more damage to more of them.

That is GOOD TO KNOW. I finally beat Yama for the first time on Saturday, and it felt real good. Yama can be real insanity. I wish that I could like, get to hell more consistently since I need hell practice.

IMPORTANT QUESTION. On Chris' daily challenge from a few days ago, he commits suicide in the ice caves by letting a falling platform crush him, after which he respawns in the moai head, gets the hedjet, and progresses to the next level. At this point, he finds that he has lost the jetpack. This is real weird. Why does this happen?

I'm @RubixsQube I mostly tweet jokes and then references to an obscure film called Jurassic Park. Also, sometimes I line up every copy of a Dan Brown book in a thrift store on the shelf together so someone can buy them all at once if they wanted to. (Also once I tweeted about Chris Houlihan and then my mom introduced me to her personal trainer who was actually this person.)

I think that the image you just showed is indeed closer to the look of the game, but I don't know if I would assume that the look was a result of poor B&W conversion. Instead, I think that they wanted to go with a stark, high-contrast look with some splashes of red. This is a "thing" at this point.

I don't know if I understand eot's argument based on the image provided. I don't have a strong opinion about the art style employed by Betrayer, but trom the videos and images that I've seen from the game, it does look like they're going for an artistic bend that is different from the example image of that pond above. I think that they perhaps look different, in that the contrast is higher in the pond image than what was done in the game, but maybe I'm missing something entirely.

Hopefully, everyone read about how this whole orgy of 2048 games has affected the company behind Threes. This is a long, long article, but it has a lot about game design, too.

So, my buddy sent me a screen shot from with the words "this is the part of the video game where you take the dog to a secluded spot and beat it within an inch of its life."

YES I know that this is a thing that people who make podcasts hate, but The girl with the pigtails is identified as Ms. Mora Grissom, and the controllers they use to play SMB3 are real weird: Not NES Advantages, but close? Here's a picture of Mora mid-game for scale. Also, it's real great when the show suddenly gets into pop culture potpourri mode. The interstitial segment on Downton Abbey + Ninja Turtles + PHP was particularly fantastic. ALSO PT II, I just want to appreciate the Quadrilateral Cowboy trailer from last year. Just fantastic.

It seems like a lot of you are touching on my biggest worry: facebook is a company with a primary goal of increasing profit for their shareholders. As a result, their goal with Oculus is not really the things that Marky Z declared in his cute facebook post. You can bet there's already a committee of 20 - 30 year old white dudes sitting around some San Francisco board room talking about how to leverage the Oculus Rift for new money-making experiences. There's a white board on the wall where they're just blue sky imagineering all kinds of stuff that would make everyone in this forum cringe. This is a universe that did not exist a day ago, wherein the Oculus guys were concerned with "making money", but presumably this need was farther down the totem pole than "crafting the ubiquitous VR experience." I think that I am indeed playing the cynic, and I know zero about this deal beyond what everyone knows, but it's just a little disappointing that a company so obsessed with being capitalist has suddenly swooped in and thrown an absurd amount of money at like, Real Future Technology that is seemingly so unrelated to its core principles.

Today's daily was BEE-CENTRIC. I was sad that Chris didn't get past Bees Pt. I and discover Bees Pt II.

Mark Zuckerberg writes: I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the leader in virtual reality technology. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences. This is where Oculus comes in. They build virtual reality technology, like the Oculus Rift headset. When you put it on, you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away. The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you're actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it's different from anything they've ever experienced in their lives. Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences. Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this. But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home. This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures. These are just some of the potential uses. By working with developers and partners across the industry, together we can build many more. One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people. Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But the internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones. The future is coming and we have a chance to build it together. I can't wait to start working with the whole team at Oculus to bring this future to the world, and to unlock new worlds for all of us. Mostly, I read it thusly: After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine feeling sad and gross while you float in the same Cancun waters as your ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend on their spring break vacation. Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But now virtual reality will intersect with your own, weird, boring version of reality that you choose to present to the world. If you thought you couldn't feel any more resentment over how happy everyone in your life seemed to be (except you), now you'll be able to live their lives, and truly find out that they're doing so many better things than you will ever do. I can't wait to figure out some way to make a shit ton of money selling 3D advertising space.