Thyroid

Heh, you should ask for intelligent comments. The vast majority is loud, ignorant and proud of it. I think my favorite was someone calling Tim Schafer a "fag" for not including Limp Bizkit in Brutal Legend. Though I'm not one to talk: Once, when I was maybe 15, I made the Quote of the Moment here on Idle Thumbs for saying that World of Warcraft should have been a single-player game (cited as "one of the many idiots who plague the internet"). I don't necessarily agree with myself anymore, though there's a part of me that still believes in, and will defend, that statement. I am an idiot, and this is reflected in my comments. As Kroms, I mean.

I watched the movie maybe a day after Chris Tweeted about the book. It was abysmal. Eco apparently agrees, though, according to some quick Googling, this also meant he refused to sell Pendulum's film rights to Stanley Kubrick. I'm in-between books. I have a dozen or so to choose from, but I don't want to read anything that'll keep me fixated, since I'm knee-deep in final exams. I started Miami Blues (Charles Willeford) and stopped on the first page; that thing is way too good for me to be able to concentrate on my exams. The writing is top-notch. So, I started A Spot of Bother (Mark Haddon), was impressed by the prose and the story (I've never read about cancer patients), and so I stopped. I finally started reading The Dead Zone (Stephen King). I think I'm sticking to it. It's going to be a good story, I think, but slow enough that I can pace myself during exams and then with a payoff that'll make it un-put-downable once they're over in ten days. Just what I want. First time I stop reading something because it's so good, though.

I'm still on the fence. On the one hand, the gameplay I've seen does look bad; on the other, I'm in love with trying to do something different in a game. David Cage's enthusiasm for the whole thing makes it worse. I'll decide when the reviews start pouring in, I guess.

Any fans of Beach House on here? Their new album is coming out soonish and, because I am such a nice guy who also happened to (legally) listen to the album, I will recommend it. Here is an mp3 of the song "Walk in the Park" (unreleased, I think - but the link is legal); save as and enjoy.

OK, but I should mention that Right 2 Life usually comes with Old Flames, that The Passenger was stuffed in with The Lost, "Winter Child" with Off Season and that it's not called Trine but Triage. I'm an idiot. Triage is really a compilation, novellas/short stories by three writers based on the same idea (one work by each of the writers). All this talking about Ketchum's work's made me want to read more of his stuff, hmm. They're quick snacks, great while they last but leaving you wanting more - in a good way.

I literally just finished it. It was awesome. It says a lot when the only major criticism I have about a game is the somewhat shoddy writing, though the character arcs all feel deserved. Really, great great game. Everything was so very refined. It's what they call a "system seller". Favorite thing: it's aware it's a platformer, so any time Drake is on something a little rickety it'll give way just to screw with you - so, rotten wood will break, stuff like that. I liked that it happened whenever you forgot about it.

I've heard Koontz is rather hit and miss. I borrowed the novel Dark Rivers of the Heart a while ago and read the first 50 pages; they were enjoyable. I've heard Velocity is good. But I've also heard that his new novel (whatever it's called) is kind of shit. Peter Straub's novel lost boy lost girl isn't particularly scary, but it's a great overview of what works in horror and why it appeals to people. His The Hellfire Club is OK. Jack Ketchum is a good horror writer, though he rarely writes about the supernatural and casts humans as his monsters. I've read the novels The Lost (quite good), Off Season (gory, very offputting, will probably make you a vegeterian), and Red (not bad; more of a thriller). I've also read his novellas Old Flames (very good), Right 2 Life (excellent), and The Passenger (pretty good, a little far-fetched). Finally, I read his short story "Winter's Child" (excellent). I still have The Girl Next Door and Trine to read. I've heard Bentley Little is good.

But Morgan's death scene had to be handled differently. Sure, both Lola and Morgan die in similar circumstances, and as characters they're sampled off the same template, but that's the exact reason you're going to have to do a 180 degree flip on it. You need to make sure the player is completely concentrated on Morgan, and not thinking of Lola at all. It's like having a war movie where the hot heroine dies, and the sad scene is ruined because she also happens to have a nipple poking out, and all we can think of is the nipple. Know what I mean? I agree that this scene could have been handled better, but alluding to or being inspired by Grim Fandango is probably a bad idea. You should also keep in mind that Schafer worked on Grim for 3, maybe 4, years, whereas Stemmle had a few months to whip Chapter Four into shape. Once again, I blame Telltale's damn production schedule, though I say this with complete ignorance.

I'm reading The Princess Bride, which manages to both satirize swashbuckling adventures and be a good example of the genre. It's funny, it's interesting, the story is great and the characters are people you'd probably enjoy hanging out with. That's a lot more praise than I dish-out to most things. The word that comes to mind - and I hate this goddamn word, but it fits - is "kickass". It is a kickass book. I try reading a page or two before falling asleep (I have had no time to read lately), and end up going through 30. I bought The Girl Next Door (Jack Ketchum) and Miami Blues (Charles Willeford) recently, and I plan to read them during winter break. Looking forward to it. This thread is pretty stagnant, by the way.

They saved it from being boring and generic by giving Guybrush a little moment where he thinks he's all James Bond. I'm interested in knowing what you'd have done differently. I know the feeling - it literally happens in every game I play, movie I watch or book I read: the "I'd have done this like that" feeling. Care to satisfy my curiosity?

Am I wrong about the ratings thing, though? I could swear you mentioned it on the Telltale forums.

Yep, I read that last week and posted about it on Mixnmojo yesterday. It is an excellent read, and the exact kind of thing I'd like to see more of.

The death scenes in chapter four were brilliant. The one is a little awkward on a second playthrough, but was amazing: shocking, deserved, and poignant. There's no blood because they needed to keep a certain rating with the ESRB, though I'm not sure for exactly what reasons. Probably financial.

Oh, games-related stuffs...get an awesome PC, play at least 50% of Dragon Age, and get good at Left 4 Dead 2. Hm. Probably code my first little game. Or at least learn how to code my first little game.

I'm keeping up with my new year's resolutions, and I have kept with a good percentage in the past. Mine: - Finalize getting back into shape. Look awesome for you're 21st birthday. Progress. Progress! - Don't be a fucking twat. I don't know if I can do this one, but I'm going to have to try to balance out my tendency to criticize everything and my fanboyism when it comes to Telltale/Tim Schafer/whatever. I did a bad job of it posting on Mixnmojo last year and I'm going to try and do a better one now. - Get better marks. I'm in high B/low A territory right now. I can do better, and I will. Thinking positive! Let it rub off ya.

So, what are you guys doing tonight? I'm staying home and turning in early - I don't even have enough energy for the countdown. Yay me.

I think I have a little time to see a movie today, though I doubt it's something I'll watch in the theatre. I feel like watching a zombie movie. I've never seen a zombie movie besides Shaun of the Dead and Day of the Dead (the original), so I'd like any recommendations (I hear 28 Days Later is worth seeing) - even if it's something so bad it's good, like Plan 9 From Outer Space. Thanks.

Oh, I meant CD (or, ideally, vinyl, though I'd first like to see the Brutal Legend soundtrack on vinyl). I know LucasArts released a skimmed version at some point, but I'd like to own a copy on CD, with the complete music. A nifty cover by Peter Chan wouldn't hurt either.

Current listening: a lot of Peter McConnell's soundtracks. Holy crap, that man is good. Even outside of the games, his music is good. I'm up to Psychonauts now. I think I'm going to buy the CDs. (Currently listening on YouTube.) It also makes me really happy to see so many people praising the game and the soundtrack on the comments. Even after a day where I'm feeling like total crap, something like that can cheer me up considerably (for some reason). I wish there was a Grim Fandango soundtrack. Also, Monks, a great 60s band that were everything the Beatles weren't. I haven't had time to give their music a proper listen, but what I've heard I've liked: 5nFmULueK1A

Haha, saw one similar on CNN Breaking News yesterday: "Woman knocks down pope at Mass; Christmas celebrations begin." Later: "Pope delivers Christmas message after Mass attack." (It's funny if you read it out loud.)

Braid, Beyond Good and Evil. There's a couple of other games I want to buy, but am willing to hold to next year for (Total War, Indigo Prophecy, Torchlight, Trine). Which begs the question: is this annual? (I'd check but it takes sooo long to load Steam.)

I thought the story was great, but some so-so executed cutscenes, as well as insufficient explanation of some of the backstory (I didn't uncover a single legen; I didn't know there were legends until Schafer mentioned them in one of the dozen interviews I read yesterday), probably made the flavor a little more bland than it would have been. Not to mention the sudden final act. It almost felt like you needed to have a couple of more battles with Doviculous before earning the right to fight him. And...that beach scene was a little weird and out of place. Gameplay, it was mostly fine, though boss fights seemed to miss the point of the world. You can't make a game about heavy metal and then have Zelda style boss fights in there. This is Hardcore Territory. I'm not saying turn this into the heavy metal version of God Hand's lovechild with Devil May Cry, but they should have sat down and thought about how to make the boss fights a bit harder. The Metal Gear Solid games ones struck me as a better template for this sort of thing than Zelda. Some of the RTS elements needed tightening up. Eddie's axe swing didn't feel hard or energetic enough. But fuck it. This game was awesome. The world is mesmerizing, and a place I would probably like to visit (if I were immortal, I guess) and the atmosphere is incomparable. When the gameplay works, it is brilliant (the fights with Ophelia are intense and just so goddamn atmospheric, plus her troops are some hardcore motherfuckers). The art direction is fucking...man. And the animation? Holy shit. That all doesn't matter as much as the fact that so much heart was put into this game, though. I fucking love that. This was a labor of love, and it shows. If Schafer ever makes a full-blown sequel or something (and I would love one, as long as it doesn't harm the next IP), then I hope they polish the gameplay and explain it better, but yes: for the most part, the game is fucking brilliant and I'm getting into obsessive fangirl mode over it. I think I'll be playing it over and over for the next few months. It was worth the wait. (Finally got my copy on Monday, finished it last night.)

It's IGN. (Stolen from the Telltale forums.)

Bioshock is another game I think is unfairly praised. I'm very appreciate of the work that went into the world, but the narrative centers around the dicey moral choices of whether or not to murder little girls. I face a larger dilemma when I pick my lunch off a menu. And the gameplay is just your standard shooter fare, though granted, those Big Daddies put up a good, intense fight. If you say so. Games are fickle that way. There's a lot that bothers me in shooters that I can only assume people take for granted, things that won't totally affect their pleasure the way it does mine. The way I see it is, you sit down, you think of what you want to do and you design it to cater to whatever medium you're working in. This is something that Team ICO have been doing and that's worked out very well for them. But most games are essentially tech demoes: we need a level where it's snowing, we need a level where you escort the McGuffin to the place you need to take it, etc. We need a place to show off this idea, and another to show off that. By contrast, look at, say, Portal (I'm aware that I'm comparing Valve with itself). They decided they wanted to make a game about portals, so they sat down and designed as many puzzles as they could around ideas like contrasting distance, making it longer (the momentum puzzles), using the portals to guide an energy ball down a certain path, and so on. The interesting thing is that Portal is minimal, by which I mean that usually, if something won't serve to help you in your puzzle-solving, it isn't there. I remember getting stuck on some puzzle, and starting to walk around. I saw a fork/bolt cutter/whatever and picked it up. My first instinct was to think I needed it; my second was to realise I didn't. The game was designed around the idea that you need nothing, and the sparse art direction with knowledge of previous puzzles saved me from frustration. This all helps to serve the idea that you're going to need everything you use to finish the game. I guess that's how the Companion Cube happened: they wanted you to burn things around GLADoS, so they had you burn your "friend" earlier on as a tutorial that also served the story. Now if this were something developed by, I don't know, Infinity Ward, they'd have you run off and do all these side-missions. They'd have you fight against a horde of walking turrets or something to get you to the second gun. It's not that extreme, but that's how most developers seem to approach their games: "We need to place something that can show off our HD Rendering and have it affect our gameplay. Maybe have the player fight a turret with the sun blinding their eyes." And then they hire a writer to make it look somewhat less tacked-on. Actually, Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw were talking about something similar in this here podcast (not sure at exactly what point, but upwards of 22 minutes). They even mention that they plug in the dialogue/sound themselves so that they can pace it the way they want to.

Yeah. On the risk of sounding like the ignorant cunt that I am, I think that Telltale's production schedule needs a shake-up. Tales was great, but a lot of its flaws wouldn't fly in a second season.