Salacious Snake

I noticed the same thing! It doesn't fill me with confidence about the movie, but more than that it raises questions about the state of movie reviews. Like, c'mon, people.

It all sounds so good. I expect it'll be a little more snappy on crappy lappies after the update.

Considering how people reacted to it, I doubt they'll take any cues from 3. (I still appreciate what they were going for in that game, but it just didn't work.) There's kind of a glut of science fiction "4X" games right now, but they all leave something to be desired for me, so I'm happy to see someone else take a crack at it.

I made a cheesy little song that revolves around a sample from one of their videos: https://soundcloud.com/eotf-seork/cold-steel

mmm, remo eggs

This just unlocked a long-unused wing of my brain.

This is a weird tangent, but that product is something far stranger than you may imagine. Prime Directive takes place in the "Star Fleet Universe," which is the setting of Star Fleet Battles. It's based on a tangled licensing agreement that gives the publisher the use of only certain elements of Star Trek, including data from Franz Joseph's technical manuals and the various races of the Animated Series. It was introduced before the films appeared, and can't incorporate anything from beyond the cartoon, but it's developed in its own in different directions. There are Federation Heavy Cruisers that look an awful lot like the Enterprise, but there is no Captain Kirk, because the characters aren't included in the license. The Klingons are based out of a planet called Klinzhai, because that's what some novel or other thing had said, and Qo'noS wasn't established until later. It's lousy with cat people. It's also a hyper-militaristic setting where everyone is always at war. I guess that makes sense for a wargame, but it also dovetails with the creator's openly hyper-conservative bent. You may already know about all this, but I'm sure someone will find this dark, freaky corner of nerd shit interesting. (info from the publisher http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/about_universe.shtml'>here.) (GURPS PD is a good starting point for a homebrew Trek campaign, though.) Oh! To make this post relate to video games, the Starfleet Command series was based on Star Fleet Battles, and the first few products even took place in that weird setting. And finally, I'm going to round this meandering post out with some pilfered images. This does look like fun to me: I wish it were easier to get SFC running on a current computer.

I had the same feelings! The first Chibi-Robo was so cool.

The staging in the new version where the ship is weaving around looked cheesy to me. On that subject in general, I don't like the special effects in the remastered version. At least, I don't like the exterior space stuff. I understand why they did it, because the original stock is so degraded, but I'll still take the old grainy stuff. The worst side-effect of the switch is that when they dissolve from an interior shot to an exterior, they have to start the dissolve earlier to avoid the original frames where the models start coming in (or later when fading the other way). The timing is all out of whack, and sometimes you have characters still talking when the fade starts. Messing with the timing like that makes things really awkward, especially in relation to musical cues. Luckily the blu-rays let you pick the old effects while still getting the benefit of the sweet as hell digital transfer, so it's the best of both worlds. I feel like such a nerd purist complaining about the "new and improved" version of an old beloved thing, but there are real compromises in the execution.

Yeah, that's a good one!

I live with 2 cats. That look in Daffodil's eye is probably fear. Dudley probably looks like a cat you could pet. You'd be wrong if you thought that. At least they have each other, united in hate.

I think part of my cold response is that I've been so conditioned by the increasingly codified art of trailering for maximum effect. I kept thinking it was building toward something dramatic, but it was just the same mishmash of dogs and people and robots and critters walkin' around and the camera tracking, and then it was over. No *whump* sounds while it cuts to black and then shows a bunch of quick cuts of crazy shit and then silence and *BWAAAAAAMP*. I realize these cliches are horrible, but they totally work on me, and just showing off your cool game world for a minute used to be all I needed to get psyched! On the other hand, I love their latest Doom thing: It's, like, a couple seconds of a revenant stomping around, and I'm like "oh shii-"

I don't think it's a good trailer; it's way too long for something that reveals so little. A 3 minute announcement trailer shouldn't feel that padded out. I like the dog, though.

I thought about writing about games for the first time in a long time today, and I got a twisting, barfy feeling in my gut. I was doing it professionally (in the form of very traditional reviews and articles of the "why does this style of coverage even still exist?" variety,) and then gamergate started, and I dropped it completely. My last article was in August 2014. It was just weird to realize that it's now been almost a year, and it's still viscerally off-putting to me.

That is awesome. I love the sweatshirt, the computer, the desk, the curtains, the pose... just awesome.

Heretic II was weird. Free-roaming third-person action stuff hadn't really been codified at that point, so it was one of those deals that handled like a first-person game, but with the camera awkwardly pulled back.* Rune (made by the same core team of people I think) had the same thing going on. Of course, both were made with FPS engines (Quake 2 and Unreal, respectively). I was more of a Hexen II guy. Fun multiplayer! *see also: MDK, Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.², Alice, Oni (which I remember having so many control options that it seemed like they hadn't come up with an optimal system) and many others. They were interesting times. At least all of these were pretty manageable, unlike clumsier experiments like Fade to Black. There are so many cool ideas in that one, but it just isn't playable.

Me too. It's so good!! I should play the DLC episodes sometime.

So 90s. Someone posted this game.com ad on twitter recently which does the same thing:

Now I'm picturing a magazine ad with a picture of wildlife covered in oil from a spill and the text WARREN SPECTOR IS GONNA MAKE YOU DRINK HIS INK and it's an ad for Epic Mickey. Alternatively:

I started this on the PS4 and the UI text is uncomfortably small (and this on the "Large" setting). My TV isn't huge, but it's not tiny, either, and I'm not sitting that far from it (and my glasses prescription is up to date). I get that QA dungeons consist of a bunch of people sitting at desks with their faces in their displays, but geez, c'mon. I mean, CD Projekt is obviously a PC-centric developer, so I can cut them some slack, but this isn't their first rodeo.

I love this bird picture, holy poop. DSC00609.jpg by J.D. Cohen, on Flickr DSC03873.jpg by J.D. Cohen, on Flickr DSC04725.jpg by J.D. Cohen, on Flickr DSC00900.jpg by J.D. Cohen, on Flickr I feel like it's a bad look that I'm too lazy to title things, but I still have a gross watermark on everything. Like someone is going to want to steal DSC00900.jpg, or will even stumble on it without tags or a description or anything.

I'd be into a photo challenge!

Haha, even Heidelberg, named after the town Heidelberg, will commonly be referred to as Heidelberg's. That's just how we do shit. Even the website for Peter Luger refers to it as Peter Luger's half the time.

Oh, so weird. I've seen bits of the game before, and I just knew about the glitchy black and white landscape stuff. I didn't know about the weird 90s game within the game. Dope. http://www.polygon.com/a/creativity-cover/the-magic-circle-short-story