cervin

There's one author I can think of as funny as Wodehouse, and that is Evelyn Waugh. I kind of resent that Brideshead Revisited is his most famous work, because it's elegiac and weirdly paced and wholly unrepresentative of his best work. But Scoop! and The Loved One are about as witty, bitter, cutting, and painfully satirical as anything written. Ever.

Flotilla sounds totally awesome and way outside my ability to comprehend. Homeworld was like that for me, too, but then Yes recorded some kind of promotional song about the game and then everything fell into place. Unless that place was along the Z-Axis (studios RIP). If only there was some kind of progressive rock song to make clear what was once obtuse in Flotilla...

I don't know if this really counts, but I forgot I had an account on this forum until I got the friendly automatic "happy birthday" notification on February 22 - and a visit to the forum revealed to me the revival of the podcast and a subsequent interest in actually joining a forum discussion. Thanks, automatic updates!

It's been over a year since I've posted on the Idle Forums (not that I was ever active), and while Just Cause 2 isn't the impetuous for my return, it has the potential to be the best in breed of stupidly awesome games worth discussing with strangers, a Crackdown or Earth Defense Force or Red Faction Guerrilla for '10. Or had, anyway -- Crackdown 2 looks like it's going to take home that blue ribbon if the 4 player co-op works at all. The only experience with the Just Cause franchise I've had is limited to the Playstation 2 version. It's just preposterously glitchy, and in good conscience I cannot recommend choosing it over a PC or Xbox 360 copy. They are surely better games than this PS2 incarnation, but I cannot imagine enjoying Just Cause if the draw distance wasn't so gawdaful. That was half the fun, running into trees and buildings without warning (well, more like 1/90 the fun, if you're drunk at the time). I hesitate to even try the functioning PC or Xbox360 versions. How can modern convinces like working cameras, double digit frame rates, and reasonable load times fundamentally improve my opinion on a game that lets you deploy a magical disappearing parachute, a grappling hook, and a consistently entertaining disregard for physics to tackle the most boring missions in the history of open world games. Too much polish would lend verisimilitude to the game, and the last thing Just Cause needs is verisimilitude. Yet it looks like this sequel will improve on the first in all the very obvious ways game sequels tend to do, ironing out all the personality and forcing a grittier, more self important storyline. Just Cause was "jua de'vive: the Video game" to me, despite being borderline horrendous on the PS2. Still: chaos is the dominant economic system in the world of Just Cause 2. That sounds sweet.

The Netherlands has a lot of tall, blonde people, so I can understand the confusion. Also, lots of bikes. About Killzone 2: maybe you, Chris Remo, aren't enamored with a deliberately paced, tightly directed FPS experience, but if you invested early in the 10 year life cycle and don't own an Xbox because Christ you've already spent $600, there really aren't that many great shooters in this milieu on the system. Like, I get lost trying to get to the same Safeway I've shopped at for 5 years; I don't need a big open world experience to recreate what I'm used to. I don't want that sensation like I'm waiting for a bus in a city where I wasn't sure there was a bus line in my Video game. I do want to shoot the helmets off dudes who don't realize they're not completely behind their cover. Apples and oranges.

Hello, thing on the internet! So I sometimes play new video games, although at this point I spend more time lost in Proustian reverie except I'm thinking about awesome Blackthorne was instead of whatever things Proust was thinking about. One nice thing about focusing on the past is that it's free, and considering my unemployment insurance is going to run out next week, free is neat. I aspire to live the craziest, most grandiose sort of 19th century life, with a bad absinthe habit and a fly-by-night escape from Paris as Napoleon III seizes power and everything, but I guess that is impossible and 2009 is okay, too. I'm kinda a forum slut (I don't know if that's actually a colloquialism but it should be), because I've registered at like 20 different forums and posted in each one twice or thereabouts, but maybe I've just been looking for love in all the wrong places and the Idle Thumbs forum will just understand me and laugh at my jokes, you know? I decided to join this board because I want to write insightful things about the podcast, which is so great it makes me want to grind a sweet ghost. Also, Chris Kohler.