James

The funny thing is that, whilst there are things you find out throughout the course of it, I don't think it's a film that relies on surprising you to be entertaining. I think ideally I'd like to come to all films completely fresh (the problem with that being how to decide what to see), and perhaps this is more sensitive to spoilers than the average film, but its quality isn't based on smart-arse twists.

I don't know, you can play it, but it took me a few rounds to discover how some stuff actually works (the medic's übercharge and all that sort of stuff). Perhaps that's because I'd played it a year or two prior and forgotten everything but used up all the tutorial stuff. I don't know. According to a friend who plays much more than I, a lot of pyros still don't know they can put out fires. Or something. I'm not saying it's hard, but it's not necessarily entirely self-evident. Perhaps I need to pay more attention to the instructional stuff, though.

You can set a string different than your actual username to be the unique portion of your community page URL. It's a bit silly to have multiple accounts for a single system (NAMING NO NAMES KONAMI ID), but at least it allows me to almost completely hide the username a friend signed me up for Steam with when I was without Internet (he put a number at the end, which is something I'm irrationally averse to).

I don't think I can ever forgive. Nah, it's all right. Waypoint, though! Waypoints are handy! Even when chasing the crooks! They help navigate all the bridges and tunnels that are confusing with their multiple levels of roads and so forth.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/thejamesm/

I did a lot of exploding, yes, but it was almost always a solitary affair, which was a bit unfortunate. I kind of did a bit crap this week (according to my objectives as well as the game's), but it was still a laugh as always.

As with most things I've discovered recently, I found Jacob's Ladder by Noah Creshevsky through People Like Us' excellent weekly Do or DIY show, which is available as a podcast. Hyperlinks.

Oh yeah, that's another reason I use "computer games" as a general term: it means I have something to refer to the pair (PC and console gaming) with.

The weird thing about Moon was how eager it was to show you all its cards. It had things that seemed like they'd be twists or mysteries, but it didn't really beat about the bush with explaining everything. I think it was OK, though, since there wasn't much fanfare around the revelations, so it's not like they were trying for it and missed; it just didn't match my expectations of how a plot like that would be told (I make no judgement one way or the other on how it should be told). I thought the ending was a bit flat, but on the whole it was pretty good (as I said before).

For years I resisted the term "video game" because it sounded too American. It's not so much that I don't like how Americans speak; rather I thought it would sound like an awkward affectation if I was tried to copy it. But these days I can't stop saying "awesome", so I suppose that's ruined. Anyway, games consoles are computers. If I want to distinguish I say "PC games" or "console games". Aren't I helpful?

I'm guessing red ring.

I don't know, I personally have always seen the boring job thing looming on the horizon and I got one anyway. It's not quite the boring job I was expecting, but it's hardly contributing much to me as a person. It's fine, but I think that might be part of the problem: it's not objectionable enough to ditch, so in my complacency I just get on with it. To be honest, I don't think I'm really equipped for much else, though, so there you go. Not to bring you down, Kroms. You sound like a much more driven and focused than I am.

As an experiment with longer videos (and not bothering to edit things), here's the entire first round (well, the first half of the first round): Bh_wyn-5p3M

:( Paid-for avatar-modifying DLC killed the baby Jesus and rendered the Virgin Mary infertile with cancer :( By which I mean I think it's pretty daft to spend money on that stuff, but it's similarly daft to care so much about other people wanting to. We're all letting somebody down with our lack of taste and discrimination in some field or other. Perhaps I'm giving up on class and self-betterment, or perhaps I'm just not being absurd and melodramatic. Only Smarties have the answer.

The thing Wrestle is apologizing for at the beginning of the first video is the fact that we alerted him of the approaching boomer, but instead of shooting it he flailed at it with his health pack. An easy mistake to make, of course, but very frustrating. Which is why I felt it was absolutely paramount I include his admission of guilt in the video. Will do. I don't mean to be totally self-congratulatory with these videos, but I find things tend to be more coherent from the eyes of the victors. Also, I try to block out the painful memories. It'd be cool if we could get several people recording, so that we could get multiple angles on things, but the logistics of editing that into something that makes sense could be nightmarish, particularly for a weekly event. Still, I think Danny boy (as in not DanJW) is going to give it a go.

We had a very good round of versus. Again, it was close enough throughout to be consistently exciting. My team very nearly being amazing: -rOv1xHHtXg A demonstration of why it's generally a good idea to get into an open space when a tank comes: m8-oxNtd1l4 Sorry these videos are so loud, by the way. I would have thought that, without my messing with the sound levels, they'd come out at the same volume as the actual game was while I was playing it, but I'm sure they're much louder. I'll also probably sort out my headphone situation so that I'm not just recording everyone other than myself chatting (which would probably mean that I'd record none of the chat at all). There are probably higher highlights to these videos (I record everything), but I generally only really remember the stuff right at the end, and if I don't upload things straight after playing I probably never will.

If everybody stands on the ledge right at the back of the tower where we all were, it messes up the AI a bit and nobody except smokers go for you. Except it didn't always seem to work, hence the tank corpse right in my face. That guy nearly killed us all, so it wasn't exactly plain sailing. For the record, we got past the first tank through legitimate means, but we kept losing at least one person in the process (mainly through bad luck, I'd contend), and one of our number started getting a little impatient. Amusingly, his daughter had turned his computer off earlier in the campaign, so he didn't get the achievement, as he hadn't been present throughout. Anyway, regardless of our slightly shitty methods, I thought both clips were amusing, possibly because they both involve dear Daniel being incapacitated. Also of note: my voice chat wasn't recorded (due to the set-up), meaning that (in my imagination, at least) I give the impression of a calm sage-like figure, rather than the screaming idiot I was in actuality.

Chrome is my secondary browser, but I miss too many extensions from Firefox to make it my primary. I should probably give Opera a proper go. Opera Mini is an absurd improvement over other mobile browsers. I guess there are some security concerns, though, if you're bothered by that sort of thing.

I'll see if any of my friends are interested in going to the London one.

I find it kind of weird that other people have such terrible experiences with cinemas, because although I have encountered that sort of thing, relative quietness is pretty much the norm for me. What I do find amusing is the audible sigh I've encountered in every fully-subtitled film when a portion of the audience realizes they're going to have to read if they want to follow the plot. Speaking of which, my last really outrageous cinema experience was The Orphanage. That had all sorts of sighing and chatting and phone-answering and the people right next to me repeatedly getting in and out of their seats. Thankfully everyone seemed to give up being dicks by about forty-five minutes in, and they hadn't actually ruined it for me anyway. I might be fairly tolerant. Besides that, it's mainly just people laughing really loudly at stuff that isn't funny, and sometimes isn't even intended to be funny.

Is it soon yet?

Everyone loves triple-posting, so here's a not-strictly-Thumbs-related video I recorded tonight: pzbwhRwz6Nk It was an excellent way to end a fairly lengthy session, even if we did kind of cheat a tiny/fairly significant bit.

And here's a screenshot from a few weeks ago that I thought was quite delightful:

THERE IS ONLY ONE CAKE TO BE TAKEN.

I saw his name in the credits, then completely forgot about it, so I didn't spot him.