Thyroid

Nice thing about playtesting: can give some indication about whether or not your game sucks without compromising artistic vision too much. So I agree with Chris on some points. But like with anyting big-budget, you're going to have to make compromises to make everyone happy, in film or outside of it. Focus testing still has its points. It'd be really stupid to make a big budget adaptation of Jane Eyre for this particular day and age.

To answer the previous post: The reason I like Bangs isn't because of his Benzentine writing; it's because there's some really interesting ideas in there. Bangs was someone who cared very passionately about very cool and interesting things, and his writing reflected that. As for whether or not he was the best writer of the 20th Century, well. I'll say he's better than most novelists. Most great writers aren't writing books anymore. Tim Rogers is OK, but not great. He's written some decent articles, but...yeah. He's too much of an internet age writer, for starters, but more to the point he doesn't have any real, original insight. No, he's leagues from Lester Bangs.

I was just reading the discussion board at the Facebook group CONSERVATIVE!!! (for educational reasons) and had to butt in at legalized (edit: I meant gay) marriage, since some girl wanted to know why it should be legal. Me: I'll tell you why it's wrong. 1. Because our orphanages aren't full yet. 2. Because we need to waste more money on issues like Americans having their freedom instead of actually improving the country. 3. Because if they're not married they won't have sex, right? Chastity, etc. 4. Because hot women makin out is a terrible, TERRIBLE thing. Just ask any gay-hater. They'd be MUCH, MUCH happier if there were some men involved... Oh so much funnier when I wrote it. OK, I'll go now. But California, do me a favour? I WOULD like to see some brides going at it like rabbits when I go there, so please kill of Prop 8 ASAP. Thanks.

Meat Circus was a bit more difficult to get through, but the only ridiculous part was the whole "Spiral fences of DEATH!" I may have died a good twenty times on that one, and the part where Raz's dad is busy shooting at you was a tad bit more difficult than it should've been as well. I finally remembered Schafer's advice on the DF FAQ: "What’s up with Meat Circus? What’s up with Meat Circus is that you’re a sissy. Sure, sure, invisibility is very important when Raz’s dad is trying to knock you off those tight ropes. And your shield will bounce the knife thrower’s blades right into those spinning target wheels. And also you can throw a confusion grenade at that bunny and then just go pick it up, instead of trying to grab it with Telekinesis. Those things are also true. But the main point I’m trying to make here is that first one, about you being a sissy." As for Brutal Legend, anyone who's kept up with Mixnmojo knows how unbelievably excited I am for it. Schafer's games are of the few things I look forward to and get hyped about.

My seven year old cousin owns a PSP and his parents' choice of games. These are including, but not limited to, Ben 10: Protector of the Earth, Transformers 2 and Wall-E. (Trust me, you don't want to know what games grace his Wii.) So now we're playing Launch of the Screaming Narwhal and he's absolutely loving it. He doesn't get a lot of it (well obviously) but he's been laughing in all the right places and just having a great time. His sketchbook is full of drawings of Guybrush, Elaine and LeChuck (he's a pretty good li'l artist). On the other hand you have people like his 18 year old sister, who actually likes games but doesn't play them for fear she'll be frowned upon from members of the socially "cool" crowd. She loves Crash Bandicoot though, and plays it when she has a chance. Clerks...Some dude laughed at me when I stated that Psychonauts was a better game than Halo. Another dude got annoyed at me when I walked into the store, saw Call of Duty 5, exclaimed surprise and then walked over and asked for Beyond Good and Evil; indicated that I live in the Stone Age. But for me it's always been the "hardcore" gamers (computer science students) who break my heart, as they would, as a majority, much rather play Fallout 3 (again and again and again) than, say, The Path. Usually when I end up ranting about derivative knock-offs they give me a puzzled look followed by, "But, it's so,...so...casual," or, after one particularly impassioned rant in favour of Grim Fandango, "But you don't kill anyone." Then again I've had programmers tell me that Star Wars is better-written than The Big Lebowski, and that's just baffling. (Edit: Forgot about these two. These two kids are awesome.)

It's been a few weeks since I've seen it (too busy) but I've heard it does sag a bit in the middle, yeah. It picks up again. Think of this as set-up for the last third.

That sucks. May sound cheap, but don't let it bring you down for too much, too long.

Signor -- Thanks I'd assume it was what anyone would've done. Scrobbs -- Beats crapping them, I guess.

There's this guy in my calculus class (I'm doing one for summer) who is so flamboyantly gay it's a wonder he isn't sweating rainbows. I guess I felt a bit bad for him, since he was gay in a place where you don't come out if you want to live and I told him I was pro-gay and wouldn't hold it against him. We talked for maybe 40 minutes, and after he finally realised I wasn't going to beat him up he admitted he liked guys and thanked me. He told me about all the crap he has to go through because of his femininity and I told him I'd gladly be his friend, etc. So that's my social life down the drain but I guess I can live with that. Not that I can hang out with this dude without my parents sending me to therapy or something. Maybe I should get a new girlfriend. It's been a year since the last one. Anyways, feels good that I've made the guy feel a little less bad about himself. Now all I gotta do is blow the Madonna/Spice Girls crap from his iPod.

Philip Seymour-Hoffman and Daniel Day-Lewis are two leading men who basically play different characters, all perfectly.

"[W]hen G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra feature film was announced, naturally I vomited on myself." - IGN.com Another real one.

Let us inject some melancholy soundtracks into this thread. Oldboy: great soundtrack, almost-perfect film. Park Chan-Wook is an astounding director, and you should see all of his filmography stat. 1mbKjV5OChA Withnail and I, another great film and soundtrack. I hope The Rum Diary revives Bruce Robinson's career, since he kind of abandoned the movie industry after Hollywood destroyed his third film, Jennifer 8. oxCFZ0ZZGb0 MsZZcCQfgvI I thought about putting some other tracks but I don't want to spam the board.

I've been reading a load of articles by Lester Bangs lately. He's good, by which I mean he manages to be both interesting and intelligent, and he's also very funny. I love this article he wrote about The Shaggs, and this one, a takedown of Lou Reed's disastrous Metal Machine Music, is great. I have one of his two anthologies (Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste), and I can highly recommend it. I'd go so far as to say Lester Bangs was the best damn writer of the 20th Century. <-- OMG. Can't believe I wrote this.

Hey, thanks for the support guys. The initial shock's worn off and I'm back to working hard again, trying to get back in shape, studying, writing Simpsons episodes for practice in my free time, etc. Kneejerk "My life is over" reaction is gone

My life's been on a downward spiral for a while now, but I got a real setback yesterday when my parents decided they didn't want me going back to Canada anymore. Looks like I'll be studying where, when you ask a Calculus professor a fairly complex question, he says: "Don't worry about it, it's not on the exam," then gives you a confused look when you persist after class. (Yeah, people here don't give a flying fuck about education. Just pass your exams, get a fairly boring job, get married, smoke yourself to death.) Here the chances of me getting published or having any creative willpower to do anything interesting, in games or otherwise, are going to be snuffed out. This is where my parents tell me off for being on the computer for over an hour...even though I'm a computer science student and need to work on my assignments. I can't believe what I've done to myself. From being a fairly likable kid with straight a's, a bunch of close friends and a stormy love life to gaining over 110 pounds, getting f's, getting suspended from university and with my closest friends over 5000 miles away (all my home-based friends are gone). I fixed things for a bit but then university decided to suspend me for a year; even though, technically speaking, I can still do the required courses and move on, mum and dad say no. So much for having dreams. I'm taking comfort in the fact that my talking so feverently about them might've inspired some other Arabic kid to try breaking out of the mold, but it really hurts that I've failed to do so myself. I'm still 20, I suppose...Maybe this is just a setback? I doubt it. I've become majorly pessimistic today.

So, again, I'm not a fan of anime but I'm watching Ergo Proxy. I've seen four episodes and I'm loving it. It's a strange blend of cyberpunk, philosophy, science-fiction (as in general), noir, police procedural and a bit of biology/arts/physics (Haploid number appears, Michelangelo's Day and Night statue, etc). The art style's pretty good as well.

Lemme bump this thread. Well, I just wanted to say this: having just finished Bioshock (and gotten an ending with ), the thought of a sequel makes me very sad. I loved the original, I loved how complete and well-thought out the world was, how it was part of a much, much larger world but also self-contained. It very much feels like a one-shot, and I just can't see the universe or story (although it's not like that was exactly laid on thick) go on any further. This is definitely a case where you don't want to learn more about the world; ten bucks says there's going to be a spin-off about the building of Rapture. The only thing that isn't making me completely bummed about it is that Ken Levine has nothing to do with it. Good. I'd rather see him do something else. That having been said, according to Wikipedia, which is a head-scratcher because although the game is good, I don't think it's that good. And what's with people praising the "morality-based story"? What morality based story? Don't/kill young girl? Maybe it's because my expectations for a "deep" story have been raised sky-high lately (thanks Dekalog), but again: what "morality"? There's been very little moral questioning involved, apart from, again, saving/slaughtering a bunch of little girls. Gamers confuse me sometimes.

Seriously, how can a defendant stab a (pregnant) woman 18 fucking times, kill her, manage to make the guards shoot her husband as he tries to save her (sending him to the ICU), barely get a mention in the Western press - and all of it inside a fucking courtroom? Oh, and all in front of her 3 year old son. That's the masterstroke. I love this. What irks me is the fact the reason they were in court to begin with was him insulting her for her faith. I mean, hey. If you don't like people saying Allah, cool. There's no need to end it with murder, right? I mean, fuck, it's not like we'll just drop the case because the fucking sand monkey's dead and is gonna be buried in sand and crapped on by a camel. (Yeah I'm pissed off about this, and it's not just because it's a fellow Ay-rab either. How do you stab someone eighteen times in court, man? Is this guy fucking Neo?)

Anyone know some really good...err...AI-focused fiction? Anything well-written with some focus on AI and any related moral questions would be good. Just finished reading Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. I guess I'm getting really good at logical reasoning because I figured out almost every last tidbit far earlier than she let on. It's no Roger Ackroyd but I can recommend it.

Mauling it over, I've changed my position and I do think that the EG review was pretty good - but the score was too harsh. I need to think about this. I think I've finally figured out what's always bothered me about Telltale.

Christ on toast, no it isn't. I agree that some of the NPCs are pretty bland but EG can 1. fuck off with that score, and 2. fuck off with every other criticism they've thrown out. I usually respect those guys but they've done a harsh one on this one. And let's not forget the 6/10 they gave Chariots of the Dogs. PS: The Marquis may be a stereotype, but bless 'is sticks of science, I loved him.

Here's something everyone will agree on: I think it really demonstrates how powerful Monkey Island's hold is when you're still discussing it passionately almost twenty years on. Isn't that the point of all great art?

Only thing I ever found on him mentioning MI3 pre-CMI...MI2 hadn't been released yet (at least for the amiga):

I've been playing Curse. I can't believe good it is. It'll take Telltale a lot to top that one...LeChuck is just so perfect: 6p9bpguYS7A "Sufferin' sailors, 'tis good to be dead!"

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