SignorSuperdouche

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Everything posted by SignorSuperdouche

  1. I understand that advertising something doesn't equate to an endorsement, and that Rob was likely just reading the copy provided, however this week's ad read for trymylola hit a couple of red buttons for me that I wanted to bring up. When a company emphasises a product's naturalness in it's marketing that company is almost always appealing to wrongheaded, and sometimes dangerous, notion that natural == good. In this context I'm fairly sure it's entirely meaningless too, and in fact I couldn't find any definition on their website as to what "100% natural cotton" specifically means (although it presumably excludes ghost cotton, zombie cotton or other supernatural cotton variants from their list of ingredients). Worse than this, however, is what I would consider to be fear mongering comments such as "The FDA doesn't require tampon brands to disclose a comprehensive ingredients list" and that the product contains "no bizarre additives or harmful chemicals". The implicit suggestion being that other brands of tampon are dangerous despite my understanding that they are necessarily FDA approved. Combine this with more scare mongering statements on the website like "No research has been conducted on the long-term effects of artificial fibers in tampons" and assurances that the product contains no GMOs (and the absurd claim of having "No chemicals") and we have what looks like a really unpleasant company that makes money from the baseless fears that it spreads and legitimises. Sorry if I'm living up to my handle, it's just this sort of thing makes me sad. Anyway, video games.
  2. Idle Weekend April 8, 2016: I'm Walking Here

    Do you ever have the experience where somebody says something and once it's said you can't believe it never occurred to you before? This forum makes me feel stupid and inadequate in the best possible way.
  3. I don't know any of the background here, only what was mentioned on the 'cast, but I really don't think it's that cut and dry. A Let's Play is, necessarily, a derivative work (and arguably a public performance) and a Let's Play with no commentary or other transformative qualities really doesn't have a leg to stand on in a legal copyright sense, or even in an "that's an OK thing to do" sense (In my opinion, YMMV). If That Dragon, Cancer had been a film I think we'd all agree that sticking a recording of it up on YouTube is a pretty not cool thing to do, so I'm not sure why it's different for what seems to be a linear, narrative driven game. We go and see movies at the theatre "sight unseen" all the time, or we choose to wait until it's available for steaming or on DVD or whatever because we'd prefer to experience it that way, or maybe we decide not to watch the movie at all because it might upset us. If I understand you're arguments correctly, you seem to be implying that because somebody would prefer to experience the game in this format then they have the right to, and that anybody has the right to cater for this audience. That doesn't make sense to me at all. If I write a book and somebody wants to adapt it into a movie because most people prefer watching a movie to reading a book I think we can all agree that I have the right to say if it can go ahead or not. Actually, a better example would be if somebody scanned each page of my book and made a video showing each page in sequence for people who don't like turning the page. That would be a pretty shitty thing to do, right? And what if this style of video became really popular? It would be hard to quantify, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that at least some people who would have bought my book didn't because of the video, right? Then if I don't make very much money from the book I think I'd be pretty upset about the videos and the fact that people felt they had the right to read my book in this way just because they could. I don't think that's an unreasonable response, and doing what I can to prevent this seems pretty reasonable to me too. I guess what I'm trying to say is it's complicated and I think it all comes down to context. In this case it sounds like the videos don't add to the game or recontextualise it, they replace it. This isn't the case for all games, or all videos of games, and the lines can get a bit blurred, but I think it's a far cry from the developers just being arseholes. Oh, and welcome to the forums!
  4. Idle Weekend March 25, 2016: The Way Wii Weren't

    I thought I'd chime in just to say that the real secret best Wii U game is Affordable Space Adventures. It's a small, download only indie game that makes better use of the game pad's touch screen than anyone has else by a goddamn country mile. It also has awesome asymmetric two player co-op which is the best way to play it (three players are supported but the third person just ends up doing nothing most of the time) This game shows just how much potential the Wii U has to give us something we've never had before, something fresh and exciting that simply could not work on any other system, but we'll never see because developers, not unreasonably, need to make a profit. It makes me sad. Anyway, if you have a Wii U and you don't already own this game, go get and play it with a friend.
  5. Ronin or Mark of the Gunpoint

    I thought I should start a thread about Ronin, because it's one of the best games I've played in ages and feels like Thumbs would appreciate it. On the other hand I'm not sure I actually have a whole lot to say about it other than "It's rad". We'll see. Superficially it's somewhere on the locus of Gunpoint and Mark of the Ninja, but that doesn't really do it justice. The meat of the game as it's turn based combat which bears little resemblance to either and is totally awesome. There's 15 levels that basically look like gunpoint levels. There's computers to hack, windows to leap through and guards to not be killed by. As the game starts you have a jumping mechanic that is identical to Gunpoint's, a grappling hook that's very similar to the jumping mechanic and a katana that you can slice dude's in half with if you're close enough. If you're spotted by a guard the game pauses and the turn based mechanics begin. The guards have laser sights on their guns so you can see where they will shoot when you've had your move and it's their turn. Based on this you have plan to your swings and pounces, in about 1 second increments, to get you close enough to an enemy to chop his legs off without getting shot by other guards while you're doing it. As the game progresses you gain new gadgets and abilities and new enemy types are introduced but this the basic idea. I played with a 360 controller and it wasn't the best the be honest. Sometimes the controls were finicky, sometimes they flat out didn't work. Navigating the menus with a controller never worked properly for me. I encountered occasional bugs too where I was teleported through a walls - particularly frustrating when in the middle of combat. Don't worry about any of this though - it's really, really worth it. Even though it's turn based, the game feels fast and frantic, similar to Hotline Miami. Also similarly to Hotline Miami, when you have murdered every body and completed your objectives you'll silently backtrack through blood-splattered hallways or perhaps you'll take the elevator back to the ground floor while bland elevator music plays and the carnage you've wrought scrolls by. It's an unsettling juxtaposition. The game plays with your expectations a lot too. You'll internalise the rules of the game only for it to turn around show you it doesn't always behave like that. This never feels unfair, just unexpected in the best possible way. Frequently I was left with a massive grin on my face. It turns out I really didn't have much to say about it. There's a demo on Steam, so there's that I guess. Man, I'm rubbish at this. Well, I'm hardly the most active forum member these days so hopefully the fact that I was compelled to write anything at all is an indication of how much this game is worth your time. On that note, hello to anybody who doesn't remember/never saw me. I'm SignorSuperdouche and I'm almost always a prick. But not this time.
  6. Life

    Had a work day out today.
  7. Movie/TV recommendations

    I was looking for something so-bad-its-good and ended up getting Kevin Costner's The Postman. Turns out it's actually just good. Yes it is occasionally a little long, a little self indulgent, and Tom Petty turns up as himself for literally no reason, but I found it all good fun. Maybe the DVD is a completely different cut to the theatrical release, I don't know, but there's no way this film deserves the reputation it has. Plus you see Olivia Williams' boob.
  8. Life

    I get $11,000 out of pocket max, but what the heck does the rest of this mean? Anyway I wanted to share the following ticket I picked up at work today My line manager marked it Priority: Major. Goddamn right.
  9. The Wolf Among Us

    That makes more sense. Kind of.
  10. The Wolf Among Us

    For the first time in a long time I've played a game soon enough after it's release to actually engage in the conversation about it. Hooray for me. Actually I agree all of the above and don't actually have a whole lot to add so maybe less hooraying for me. Aesthetically I'm really into it, the menu and credits deserve a special mention because they're rad, but overall I'm just really unsure how I feel about this game. I guess part of why I find this game wierd is that in TWD I felt my decisions directly affected Lee's life, but in this all the choices don't seem to impact Bigby at all and I feel really detached when making them. Could be just me. Also strange is the way one of the achievements works - first time through (for all my moaning I enjoyed it enough to play it twice, more to soak up more of the atmosphere than anything else) I got all but one of the little backgroundy character bio thingys, second time through I got them all and got an achievement for it. I didn't miss the last bio the first time because I hadn't thoroughly explored a scene or had otherwise missed something, it's that I hadn't made the right choice at a certain point in the game. It seems contrary to the point of a game which gives you choices on how to react to a given situation and adapts to your choices to then say "Oh, but that choice had a right answer and a wrong answer. Well done on picking the right answer." Also, (very minor spoiler)
  11. Chips challenge, QBasic gorillas (and nibbles!) and Indy/Yoda desktop adventures were a huge part of my childhood gaming time. It makes me happy that other people remember they exist.
  12. Life

    Well it turns out that TV isn't legally binding and when they said "we'll give you a job at head office" what they actually meant was "you can come to head office for two days on your days off, unpaid, pay for your own travel and file invoices because we don't k ow what to do with you and we can't actually afford to give you a job anyway. Despite having a degree we sugest you look at further education." So yeah, fuck those guys.
  13. Life

    I start a (hopefully) totally sweet new job on Monday. It's exactly what I want to be doing and for a boatload (~£8k) more money than I get now. Plus it's a Monday-Friday 9-5 deal, no more working weekends I know I've said this before but hopefully this will give me more time to participate on the boards again. Hooray for me.
  14. I got a knock on my door this morning, and the FedEx guy asked for a "Signer S Doochay" Also, today is my birthday, so that's awesome.
  15. You don't have to pass an IQ test to be a senator

    It certainly looks that way, but how much of that is editing and how much is a genuine representation of what was said? Lets also not forget the Bill Maher has shown himself to be as stupid and dangerous as any religious fundamentalist by telling pregnant women not to get the swine flu shots: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/bill-maher-vs-the-flu-vaccine/
  16. A Brief History of Curious Things

    I'd recommend Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem. It's a pretty broard history of mathematics culminating in the solving of Fermat's Last Theorem - it describes the lives of a handful of famous mathematicians rather than focusing on the maths itself. It's rather light but I enjoyed it. I'm also currently reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan - it's sort of a comanion piece to the television programme he presented of the same name. Sagan has a knack for explaining big ideas and making it read like poetry, I'd strongly recommend this one. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is the other on that springs to mind. Again, Dawkins has a talent for explaining his subject matter in an engaging and simplified fashion without making you feel like you're a six year old. By the author's own admission the book is not technically 100% accurate and some things are glossed over to keep the book relatively simple (and of course it's quite old by now, so it wont be up to date either) but it allows someone who is not an expert to have a glimpse of the beauty of the process of evolution. I found it an engrossing read that genuinely changed the way I looked at the world.
  17. Favorite early cancelled TV series

    Actually, as neither a woman nor a gay, I'm going to agree with this. It's a guilty pleasure but it is so good. Ricky: It's really clear what that song was about. Jordan: Yeah, my car. Anyway, aside from that and the previously mentioned Carnivale and Space Western in Space with Cowboys. In Space, I'm going to put Deadwood forward. It features fucking Lovejoy as the murdering propietor of a sleazy brothel
  18. IDLE THUMBS KICKSTARTER!

    So far 10 people have pledged over $1000. That's mental.
  19. idlethumbs.net

    Fund Idle Thumbs's next podcast YOURSELF! Or not. Either way :tup:
  20. Movie/TV recommendations

    On a random impulse I picked up a copy of Ip Man on DVD about 2 months ago and loved it. Since then I've started a small collection Hong Kong cinema. Basically I've learnt 3 things so far: Donnie Yen is awesome. Sammo Hung is awesome. Jackie Chan is awesome. The List (in no particular order) Ip Man Ip Man 2(Bonus feature: hilarious English accents!) Flash Point Kill Zone (nothing to do with the game) Project A Dragons Forever Rumble in the Bronx Little Big Soldier Jackie Chan's First Strike The List The Founding of a Republic I have no idea why I've never really paid any attention to Honk Kong cinema before but I've suddenly realised I've got an awful lot of catching up to do. If anyone has any recommendations please let me know
  21. Fund Tim Schafer's next game YOURSELF!

    Damn. Will there be anyone left to actually buy the game when it's released?
  22. Londonweek

    Oh, OK then.
  23. Londonweek

    Are lurkers who post sporadically welcome?
  24. Life

    Fuck yeah! If you end up not making it again though I'll cry.
  25. Overgrowth

    I've been following this for a while (I think I came across it after the first humble indie bundle) and preordered a month or two ago. I can confirm it is As much as I think the game will be cool, I'm actually more excited by the modding tools that are being built in though. They're looking :tup: