Thyroid

While I'm not happy with a lot of the casting and some of the art direction, I'm excited for the Game of Thrones adaptation by HBO. (The book is really good, by the way.) Here's a 10-minute Inside Look.

Yes, about ten (oh god) years ago. It's why I saved Time Gentlemen, Please! for the rainy day. Spot of sunshine, to go with the metaphor. Congratulations to you, Dan, and Size Five! Well-deserved, I'm sure.

I just bought it out of principle, Ben, but I'm also keen to try it out. I'd been saving Time Gentlemen, Please! for a rainy day, but it's time to play both, I reckon.

It Sounds Like Death Stranding Is Going To Blow Us Away

Movies: Okja: because I'm crazy for Bong Joon-ho. But I really want to watch Private Life, Fundamentals of Caring, Land of Steady Habits, The World is Yours, Meyerowitz Stories, First They Killed My Father, and Crossroads: One Two Jaga. Series: Bojack Horseman starts out great and gets better and better and better. Lots of non-traditional, even avant-garde storytelling. I was sure the show'd peaked by season 4, but season 5 started analysing the actual show and the people who watch it and use it to justify their own behaviour to themselves. Hilda is as good as you've heard. Great family fun. American Vandal is immature, mature, stupid, intelligent, touching. It's one of my favourite shows. The fact it's a parody but so ridiculous is what makes it amazing. And then it actually has something to say! Twice! Hoping we somehow get a season 3 (and 4, and 5). Everyone watches Black Mirror and I love it so much I pace it (watching an episode every few weeks). In case you needed my stamp of approval. Season 2 is as good as the first one. It starts out with a spectacularly disgusting scene (they just went for the jugular), but it tones it down.

Great thread! Annemarie Jacir is a great director. When I Saw You and Salt of This Sea are essential. I also like Mais Darwazah's My Love Awaits Me by the Sea; hokey title, but the movie eventually makes fun of itself. Not sure if that works in translation—the deconstructive character is an Arab archetype—but I think it's worth the watch. Cherien Dabis's Amreeka was good. May in the Summer was filmed across from my old house, but I've yet to see it. Glad to see Nadine Labaki get some love. Where Do We Go Now? had my theater in Jordan sobbing. That movie really hit home for a lot of us.

Ugh, the temptation. I know I shouldn't, but I'm so curious.

Hey, congratulations! Those are nifty (and decidedly different) wedding pictures. You and your wife (and everyone) look elegant as all hell. What shoes are you wearing, if you don't mind me asking?

I resented the first game for having around 300% more snake oil salesmanship than I wanted and about 100% less train robbery and saloon fights. I pushed through it because I was promised a good story, but the writing was awful, too. Does RDR2 have wild west stuff, or am I going to spend my time riding a carriage with a sleazy oil salesman and chasing a random man who MaY oR maY noT be GoD? I can endure a smidge more "Go to Point A, to be told to go to Point B, shoot someone" if there's a mission where you, I dunno, strategically stick-up a bank or something.

Same here. I never got my boxed Sam and Max and Strong Bad games, because I was always worried about the shipping costs, and I could never get the Sam and Max soundtracks or art book. But my lovely friends knew how much I loved these games, and I have Surfin' the Highway in hardback and a Tales of Monkey Island mug because of it. Let that say something. From 2007 through 2013, I was suffering through an acute clinical depression. Mixnmojo, Idle Thumbs, the LucasArts library, Telltale, and Double Fine were a lifeline. I don't know if any of the people who made those games knew that they were creating something wonderful, but they did, and I can't overstate how important they were to me. As with Udvarnoky, the Telltale I loved is long-gone, but I felt strangely sad on the day of the announcement, as if an old friend you hadn't seen for years had just passed away. At least we have Double Fine and Campo Santo. (And Supergiant and Wadjet Eye. Rest in peace, too, Team Ico.) Here's to you, Telltale Games. You kept me sane at a time when little else did. I only wish you fared better.

Well, I'm officially euphoric. Monkey Island, incredible Brutal Legend footage, and a new Fumito Ueda game all within 24 hours? Description of the game: From the award-winning creator of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus comes a new gaming experience – the graphically-stunning, emotionally involving story of a child who encounters a legendary mythical creature. Trapped in a forbidding fortress, the pair must learn to trust each other in order to find their way to freedom. Prepare to live out a fairytale with The Last Guardian – a tale like no other.

As part of my ongoing efforts to wrap-up the LucasArts+ oeuvre, I'm just about to wrap-up "Grubbins on Ice," just over seven years—seven goddamn years—after playing the original Costume Quest. Still as adorable and charming as ever. Also, time flies. On a goddamn X-15 fighter jet.

Full Throttle easily gets the award for coolest intro, though. Sorry, Monkey Island. (Telltale came close with Sam & Max. And "My Style" from Strong Bad is still catchy as all hell.)

I'm bumping this from oblivion because I just finished Full Throttle for the first time. Which essentially wraps-up my twenty year journey into the LucasArts and LucasArts+ adventure game library. It was a good game. Harmed by a poor design choice or two, sure; I couldn't find the junkyard crane because the game did everything in its power to make sure I didn't notice it. Odd criticisms, here and there. They don't really matter. As denouement, though, it is fitting. Flawed, a little rough, but wonderful. Much like the LucasArts+ catalogue. I'd postponed Full Throttle intentionally. Once Telltale stopped being Telltale, I held onto it more. It was the last of the LucasArts classics—sans Loom and the B-ist of B-sides, The Dig—and I wasn't ready to quite let go. Those games meant—do mean—the world to me; they were a comfort and a joy, and I looking back at them I feel the same warm happiness that an old favourite book or movie inspires. Watching the credits, I got a little nostalgic—you see names like Jonathan Ackley, Larry Ahern, Mike Stemmle, Peter Chan, etc. knowing the great games they'd done and have done since. Got my nerd on there. Anyway, it's a surreal, bittersweet feeling; I've been in this fan community for 20 years (since I was eight), and I feel something precious has been lost. The upside is all the wonderful stuff being put out by other people (many of whom are members on this forum). I can't wait to try Time Gentlemen, Please! (I loved Ben There, Dan That) and the few Wadjet Eye games I have remaining. Campo Santo. Odds and ends. But I'll miss the LucasArts library. I do wonder if they ever realised they were creating something wonderful, back then. I suspect they didn't.

ActionRPGs are sexy. This is the second aRPG thread I've created in under a minute. I've seen very little coverage outside of some circles, but the bottom line is that it's an aRPG from the Titan Quest guys plus an attempt to fix whatever problems Titan Quest may have had. Much of what I've gathered from this interview indicates wanting to add weight to your hits (good) and a darker, "edgier" approach - which is probably fine, but man I wish these games stopped inspiring each other when it came to the art. (Digression: Everything is either a rainbow factory or the inner mind of a goth teenager. Or, god forbid, a rip-off of Team Ico's stuff. Hey developers, when you play Ico, do try and notice everything else. It's the stuff that made the game so great and which you've missed.) Anyway, Grim Dawn. It still looks good.

I received a head of these as a gift and I've been working my way through them, reading one after every few serious, brooding novels. The best cure for that Anthony Trollope (who is awesome) novel is a bit of Terry Pratchett. They're very good, as most of you may know. They're funny, yes, but it's not just that: 1. Terry Pratchett writes three-dimensional, fully-realized characters, even if they are exaggerated in a lovely Dickensian way. He doesn't have to, but he does, and that's terrific; 2. the books are funny, but also have genuine profound insights into things, like your average work of "serious literature". For example, this line from Guards! Guards! got to me: 3. They parody stories, and especially "stories of imagination"/'speculative fiction" (a ridiculous phrase if there ever was one), but in a fond, loving way, and are, as of the three I've read, good, engrossing stories in their own right. As of right now I've made my way through Mort, Guards! Guards! and Monstrous Regiment. I have another ten or so to read, as well. It's nice to parcel them out and sandwich them between Marcel Proust or George Saunders or whoever.

I'm a few years late to this, but I just finished episode 3 (from season 1) and feel traumatized enough to be unable to sleep. Good job Jake, Sean, and all. I feel awful. In a good way. I'll hate you in the morning.

There was a point during Torchlight II where I realised I honestly just didn't care anymore, and ended-up running past monsters in the last or second-to-last dungeon just to get to the end. Speed spell, then run. It's a good game. It's a very good game, in fact. Even when it's generic. But it's way, way too long. Definitely one for the multiplayer. I was enjoying it a lot more when I had someone to play it with.

You know, I've done some "high-minded" reading. I love intellectual ping-pong as much as anybody. But the sincerity and heart in Monkey Island and Discworld both are damn fine constituents in anyone's formative fiber and beautiful works of art.

Argobot is going to freak. http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/03/02/now-in-bloom-our-spring-issue/

Not sure if anyone cares, but look into Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose books if you like tragicomic novels. Bit of Zadie Smith mixed with Ian McEwan, so far. Further, stronger confirmation awaits in the second one.

I guess the forums don't allow more than two YouTube videos simultaneously, so. Rum: Mashrou' Leila (trans. "A Night's Project" or "Laila's Project"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WDfN_GH7Xc

The Arab world has been producing interesting music for the past few years. Here's a list of good indie artists if anyone cares. I myself have already listened to just about half of these, and encourage you to try all. If anyone wants me to translate lyrics to a song, just ask. If I don't reply, PM me. And hey, some Arabic music I like: Yasmine Hamdan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7RkHEB7wLs Hayajan (trans. "Frenzy") Alaa Wardi also performs solo; I've met him, and he's a pretty nice guy, so I'm a bit extra enthused to share this:

Edit: Posted in the wrong thread. Merde.

Edit: Posted in the wrong thread. Fack.