mikemariano

Poor Sexy Riker...

Every once in a while this game throws you into a self-contained, concentrated dose of adventure gaming. These moments feel really good, almost like a Portal test chamber. They show up abruptly, though, and without much connection to the main plot. But they're really tightly-constructed! I am no longer stuck like I was before, though it required me to walk around the entire town and read everything. Now I have access to all the characters and every location (I think)!

Really stuck right now! The game is giving me clear goals about what to do once I get out of the city limits, but I am five cents short of actually getting out!

Completed Void & Meddler - Episode 1 yesterday. As an adventure game it is unacceptably bad—nothing but pixel hunting and blindly using your inventory on objects. The story is also non-existent and there is no incentive to play the other episodes based on this one alone. But it looks really good! Pixel art plus insanely blown out lighting effects—all style and no substance. The music is great, moody cyberpunk, too. So print out a walkthrough and enjoy this pretty, mostly unplayable game!

Wishbone!

Frown frown frown (But plausible!)

Thanks for the link! I had to close the window quickly simply because of that video loop in the lower left corner. I feel weird jumping in on other podcast/video series because I'm sure that's a hilarious in-joke that I would laugh at if it didn't frighten me to my core.

The Wii Shop music was delightful.

This must be really frustrating to you but your frustration was really useful to me in becoming certain that I would not enjoy Torment. You have my thanks!

For a good time, call 8847 to hear my voice once the game is released.

Uhhh, I laughed all the way through Black Swan so I'm the wrong person to answer, but I think Get Out might be over the limit, but not by too much.

Strongly agree. There is a lot of movie here. Here are some spoiler-filled questions!

Sacrilege.

I am in San Francisco right now. Hi! I had to beg for a room from one of the people I vacationed with after realizing I couldn't drive what would have been 15 hours in one flooded rainy day. The Mission is cute. Lego Batman was cute. Goodnight, SF!

I am me! https://letterboxd.com/mikemariano/

The Cronenberg-directed Dr. Mario movie pitch was excellent! However, because Dr. Luigi now exists you could draw an easier line and have the Mario Bros. remake Dead Ringers with Jeremy Irons as the duo. Towards the end of the original film, Irons's characters alternate their despair-fueled drug binges. This is similar to the asynchronous multiplayer of the original Super Mario Bros. games—only one brother at a time goes out in search of mushrooms.

Thanks for everyone who posted in this thread! I am going to Crescent City, CA for President's Day weekend, driving up from my new home in Santa Barbara, CA. I will be in San Francisco Thursday night 2/16! I will be seeing a play at 8pm, but will be around for most of the afternoon if anyone has any tips not yet listed (or would be around to meet up!). On Friday morning I have been encouraged by the friend that I'm meeting to take a lot of stops between SF and Crescent City along the coast. Are there any must-see quick stops? Thanks everybody! (Also, would it be worth it to drive to SF during GDC solely for the thumbs meetup?)

Excellent third stretch goal.

Yes. There was also a good series of tweets asking why Valve is forcing their indie crowd onto a business model that requires them to know they'll be financially successful up front when they aren't willing to do that anymore with their own products. You take the risk, we take the money!

Thanks for the article! These are all fair points, especially the music, which I listened to for my first Rebirth run and shut off. I still get the original Binding of Isaac theme stuck in my head, but find the current music unlistenable. The rules you describe for items are still "the rules," as McMillen described them when describing the type of user mods that might make it into an booster pack update. Gimpy never bothered me because I figured Isaac just happened to find a mask and doesn't know of any other context for it. Runs can definitely take too long, and that's the biggest drawback as updates have come out. New enemies have multiple stages or lots of health and it's easy for things to become a slog. The speed was the biggest reason I have been able to put 687 hours into this game and not the original, so I hate that my run times are creeping back up!

I was extremely disappointed in Villeneuve's Arrival, and I think he's a poor match for Frank Herbert. The dialogue in Arrival was flat and distant—which you can get away with in Dune! But it lacked conviction, in particular with the bogus story about the naming of kangaroos or whatever. No Atreides would ever lack conviction! Herbert's philosophical imperatives were only an analogue match with Lynch's emotional unease, but it really worked for me in bringing out what I felt reading the novel. Whatever Villeneuve makes out of Dune, there's no reason to think it's going to get any closer to Herbert's work. Maybe that's OK! Jodorowsky obviously wasn't going to do anything close to Herbert but his film still might have been entertaining. But nothing we're going to get from any future film will be "fixed" Lynch or "pure" Herbert.

No.

Currently re-playing the first Pillars game and wincing a little bit every time I pay for a stronghold upgrade.

About how I expected!

Thanks! I am currently replaying the game with the White March expansion for the first time. The Devil of Caroc is a good addition to the cast of characters.