Salacious Snake

The talk about this game prompted me to fire up Killer7 and start a new game. So good.

This makes me sad more than anything else.

I like the trailer. It's weird that there have been so few XBLA Kinect games. It seems like the right venue for experimenting with it and doing dumb stuff.

That combination has always turned me off, too. I love a game of Cyberpunk 2020 or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but mixing them together? Yuck.

A half-ass in the hand is worth a whole… Never mind, we can wait.

This looks neat.

More grist for the list: @jd_cohen

I'm totally clueless when it comes to contemporary stuff, so I'm excited about that, too. And more generally, I'm excited to have someone basically telling me what to read, because left to my own devices I'll get stuck in a weird rut where I keep reading the same author or something even when I should switch it up.

That's very true. Of course, the most famous purveyor of serialized, popular fiction was Charles Dickens, and I would defy anyone to read Bleak House or Our Mutual Friend and deny that they are some literary-ass literature. These labels offer only so much clarity. But, that's a bit of a side-discussion. I appreciate the frustration that motivated the article at the top of this thread. It may not be a high crime for an adult to read young adult fiction, but it sure looks like that's all anyone is doing lately, and that is not a good trend.

I think the jargon may be throwing you off a bit, and understandably so, as it's not all that descriptive. "Genre fiction" has a specific meaning in opposition to literary fiction. Sure, everything can be placed into a genre, but "genre fiction" is the particular kind of thing where the author picks a genre and hews very closely to its conventions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_fiction It's all quite vague, but it's a useful shorthand to round up your average Blood Axeman and Blast Lasercleft type of thing. There are a lot of edge cases that can be argued one way or another. There is some great, classic science fiction that I wouldn't lump into that category, for example. With true genre fiction, there's a motivation to avoid being too creative, as doing so could potentially alienate the reader. RA Salvatore doesn't sit down with the intention of writing a great novel; he delivers a very specific product which will meet the needs of his employer and his reader. Sorry, my thoughts are a little disordered right now.

Hah, do you still have the little stick that screws into the pad? I love/hate that pad… played a lot of Doom deathmatches and similar shit with one of those before discovering the wonders of mouse and keyboard control.

I have my share of guilty pleasures in all sorts of media, but I can appreciate this guy's stance. I won't begrudge someone checking out a stupid book, but it's bad when people never leave a certain comfortable area. It seems like a lot of people fall into a particular genre and then never explore outside of it again. I like an exciting story as much as the next jerk, but things like YA and genre fiction put far too little emphasis on style. In fiction, style is where the mind-blowing happens, at least for me.

That sounds pretty tight, but Chris isn't so much into that kind of genre fiction. I think we should go for something a bit more literary like No Time To Lose by Carrie Weaver: And if it goes over well, there are plenty more books in the "Harlequin NASCAR" series to choose from! http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Harlequin-NASCAR-Romance/zgbs/digital-text/700124011

Realized I left out a key component of my Apple IIc setup: Sproing!

I love it. Lobot (cyborg earmuffs guy) as the DJ is a stroke of genius.

Yeah, to be more specific, much of the media coverage I've seen has characterized it that way. Like, the blogs reporting on the whole "controversy" say that players are upset because they didn't get the storybook ending, while the players are saying that they want an ending that isn't dumb and nonsensical.

I grew up with these sumbitches: Colecovision (note the rad wheel and the Atari 2600 adapter, which broadened one's potential library significantly) Apple IIc Since I'm already talking accessories, we had some good stuff for the Apple, like the Cricket sound module (which had an awesome voice synthesis function, kiss my butt Dr. SBAITSO) and the KoalaPad drawing tablet. GRRZZZT *CLUNK*

That's the worst part. A lot of the discourse about the ending suggests that players are upset because the ending is a downer. I can't speak for anyone else, but I perfectly enjoy a good tragedy. I'm unsatisfied by the ending, because it has nothing to do with anything. It's like if you took Citizen Kane (sorry) and replaced the final scene with the end of Blazing Saddles… or a looping video of a cat playing with a piece of string. I don't even mind leaving things unresolved. The contents of the ending are so utterly stupid that they're worse than nothing. . A lot of complaints revolve around holes in the plot continuity. The holes are certainly present, though I don't really care about that either. The part that sucks is how out of left field the ending is conceptually and thematically. They try to go all deep and intellectual without having built the necessary foundation for it. Alright, I'm gonna stop before I get myself worked up again.

I definitely had that issue. There were a bunch of similarly terrible photos. Great stuff.

Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason. On the other hand, the sex scenes have been so weird and awkward, that I don't miss them. Not that they lingered on the alien boning really, but it's definitely more implied now.

I wish it was a joke!

The parallel here is surprisingly apt. The inscrutable alien menace of the Reapers is boiled down to "because a non-character who was introduced mere seconds ago said so." Everything is demystified with the wave of a flimsy magic wand when there was no good reason to explain it in the first place. I contemplated using spoiler tags here, but it's all so insubstantial that I don't think the concept applies.

These are all crazy but that last one especially. What the fuck. There's so much insanity in there that I don't know what to say.

It's really strange to me that you use the "next thread" link! I never imagined that people used those. My mind is blown.

Chuck E Cheese pizza party.