juv3nal

What did he do on Sin City?

So, Borgias... From what I can tell from my limited history, not really sticking to what we think actually happened at all, but I found it pretty entertaining. Jeremy Irons' Alexander was sufficiently ruthless but didn't seem as clever as I would have liked. for example, paraphrased & compressed conversation with his son: Sean Harris as Micheletto is badass.

Oh fuck you guys. I was supposed to go to sleep an hour ago and now I'm awake at 3am due to watching that video even though I've (of course) listened to that cast already.

Sword and Sworcery (not a typo) is supposed to be the new pixelly indie hotness, but I wouldn't know as I'm waiting on the iphone version (the ipad one is out already). Also, I like battleheart and hunters: episode one.

kutiman (of thru-you fame) has a new thing: nIl4LkHYRkg

~5 hours in (well, more actually, but you don't want to know how much time I spent tweaking Hawke's face in character creation) and I think in general, the characterization of your companions is done much better than the first one although it feels like giving Hawke a voice has nothing to do with that. Difficulty so far seems a bit lower, but I'm okay with that. And while I agree with some of the other criticisms of the game on an intellectual level, I'm not really bothered by them. I'm a little meta-game weirded out by how the rival/friend thing works though. It seems in some instances you'll piss off a companion by taking on a quest, but I'm always going to choose to do the quest, because I won't necessarily be doing a second playthrough and I want to see as much content as possible. Is this a failing on my part or the game's?

It's worth noting that originally in Shake's time, all the female roles were all played by men (or boys). Which makes the crossdressing more easily "convnincing" to an audience, at least, if not plotwise.

OMGOMG

Yeah I just threw that number out there because it was the first site I'd found. My company doesn't actually support IE6, but as a matter of principal, wtf South Korea/China. That's a link to an official MS site which (I haven't tried myself, but I've read) doesn't render properly in IE6. The irony boggles the mind.

As a web developer, let me just state for the record that everyone being on IE8 would be just fine and dandy. Fancy css3 is nice and all, but it's far, far down on the list of priorities when there's some 7.85% of users out there still on IE6.

So I finally got around to trying the demo on PS3. Although I've already pre-ordered it and I'm sure that this is just a unrepresentative chunk of the game, the demo feels a bit like...Final Fantasy 13. Linear corridors punctuated with combat: check. Chunks of non-interactive exposition: check. If they keep that junk up for 20 hours I will cry, but I've mostly liked everything Bioware have done so far, so I should probably give them the benefit of the doubt.

Also, OMG OMG official app coming to iOS

movable spawn point incoming

There's in-game extras they want you to pay for and it's grindy, but there's a new gemcraft TD game. It's a flash TD game with all these odd, intricate systems layered on top of it. Your health, btw, is the same as your remaining mana (which, in other games would be your money) which is an odd thing to get head your around if this is your first experience with the series. Previous games in the series are simpler and, consequently, maybe more approachable, but have the quirk of providing your gem (read: tower) types randomly which the latest one does not: Gemcraft Gemcraft Chapter 0

I'm sure I'll check out this other new stuff, but I just want more Sam and Max (so long as it's as good as last season).

spoiler answer supar spoiler answer edit: jinx on you, tanukitsune

100% Done. Great fun.

Yeah the uniques aren't necessary for every puzzle, I didn't mean to give that impression. But the fun of this game for me, anyways, is in being completionist about it, because if you just want to find one solution to a puzzle and move on, there's really not much to it. (well, so far, anyways...I've just 100%-ed the first two areas and have yet to go to the third).

Yeah, I'm not far in but it seems gameplay devolves to being inside a scene from "where's waldo" looking for the shimmer on uniques. That's okay though. It's pretty. I'm having fun with it.

If he's not been mentioned before and you haven't heard of him*, y'all should check out beardyman: vqjZ0CBgmUk * I was going to add an "...and if you're interested in beatboxing..." but he's so ridiculously amazing that I don't think you could legitimately claim to be interested in beatboxing and not have heard of him by now. his youtube page soundcloud with some downloads of live sets

Huh. what do you know, there's an anime thread. If it hasn't been mentioned yet: Paranoia Agent is the best anime thing of all time. Of all time.

I only hate achievements when: 1) they're not hidden achievements and either the description or the title spoils a plot point that's meant to be a surprise or 2) there's some kind of in-game power up or unlock tied to them. I only ever actively try to get an achievement in the case of 2 despite hating that games do that. Otherwise, I don't really care about achievements except in the rare art-game where seeking out the achievements is kind of all the game there is (linger in shadows, for instance).

has anyone mentioned reMIND? It's pretty awesome.

I'm kind of into arty comics, rather than stuff that places a huge priority on story or whatnot, but I wholeheartedly recommend Ashley Wood's Popbot (pricy, coffee table book type format though. there's two "collected" tpb volumes and then a complete hardcover I think. I just have the first collected one) and David Mack's painted/multimedia Kabuki material (some of it is just B&W inked which isn't my cup of tea). I would recommend the TPB Volume 4: Skin Deep as good starting point for Kabuki. If you like that then seek out more. edit: some links http://ashleybambaland.blogspot.com/ http://www.davidmack.net/

I have a PSP and don't even touch it anymore now that I have an iphone. Not to say that the iphone is necessarily a better gaming device, but the simple fact of only lugging one device around matters a lot. I'd be tempted despite that if there are good games for it, but let's face it, it's Sony and they're probably going to make it stupid expensive. One thing that could sway me is if it really was a portable ps3 like they keep claiming and all my psn games somehow automagically worked right out of the box for no additional charge. And I'd like a pony. Edit: Oh and on the console games versus designed-for-mobile games debate, I'm in the wanting console games camp. I already have the iphone for playing-in-short-burst mobile games; if I'm biting the bullet on one of these things, that's not what I want it for.