dium

takeaway phrases: "star of quincy, miser of the year" "bedouin crab dinner"

I mostly liked Skyward Sword, but I can never see myself replaying any of it. Because the worst part of the game for me was the beginning: I had to finish the entire first dungeon before the game stopped feeling like an elaborate tutorial for itself. The "wind-up" periods of modern Zelda games get longer and longer with each release, and this one was the record. I don't remember Navi being nearly as annoying as everyone else says she was. And I played through that game several times; maybe I was young enough to develop a "hey listen" immunity? I found Fi to be way more annoying, and started to see her as the personification of all the unnecessary hand-holding Nintendo put in the game. It's a pity because I liked everything about her at first (her visual design, her goofy fake-talk sound effects, , and to a small extent even her robot personality).

This is a CD Projekt game so you can probably bet your livelihood that parts of the finished project will be at least as grossly sexualized as those promotional materials. It also means it could be worth playing despite that, if you can get over the embarrassing parts. This is how I felt about both Witcher games.

I can't off the top of my head think of any reason why I'd buy a new console on day 1, and I doubt I'll buy any at all this gen. It is conceivable (barely) that enough interesting platform (or console) exclusive games will come out and hardware prices will drop low enough that I pick another box up eventually. But this is highly unlikely: there's a billion games I want to play on PC that I don't have enough time for as is. My PC is hooked up to my TV so if I want the couch-and-big-screen experience with next-gen graphics I'll just upgrade my computer. I'm more likely to (eventually) get a Wii U than whatever Microsoft or Sony offers. But even this is pretty doubtful: I'm thinking of a scenario where Nintendo releases the volume and quality of first party games that it did for the Gamecube (anything earlier is not really comparable, since most titles were platform-exclusive anyway). I'm not holding my breath, but it's possible, and I wouldn't mind cluttering up my living room a bit more if it actually happens.

I remember an episode of idle thumbs where a few Sierra games were mentioned as a response to a "recommend me some adventure games" reader mail; wish I could remember the episode in question.

Ha. The only Sierra game I have actually played was one of the Leisure Suit Larrys, as a "curious" ~12 year old. I remember getting points for using a toilet, and then more points for flushing. That's actually my strongest memory from the game.

Y'all are probably already aware of the GOG Christmas sale, but in case you aren't: it's happening and there's deals in it and stuff. I'm interested in picking up some Sierra adventure games, but I'd like some advice before purchasing. What are the Sierra adventure games that you think are notable/most worth playing? I haven't played any of them, and the discount is steeper if I buy the whole bundle, but realistically I'm never gonna get around to playing that many old adventure games.

Tim and Eric are at their best at their most Lynchian. I read somewhere that they find David Lynch films to be hilarious and that a lot of their work is trying to communicate what they find so funny about that kind of cerebral horror. Sometimes it works, though, and sometimes it really really doesn't.

I genuinely love how whenever there's a compilation of "futuristic megacity" imagery, a lot of it is just pictures of Tokyo or Hong Kong from as far back as 20 years ago. Something about those places just screams "the future", even from the past.

Mmm, cast. Glad to have my question read. For what it's worth, Uncharted 2 was the only example I could come up with myself of a video game using non linear storytelling to any interesting extent. It was probably my favorite thing about that game.

ALSO: I noticed the sweet episode eleven-2 logo while I was perusing through old episode pages (quality time). I have no idea if that's new or not but I like it.

Gentlemen if you were to manufacture stickers of decent size and quality of some of the logos at the bottom of the new website (specifically the Idle Thumbs Society and Phaedrus ones) I would purchase the shit out of them. I don't actually know how smart/feasible this kind of merchandising is, so I'm not holding my breath. But at least my desire has been heard.

I think it's a term useful to people who played a lot of NetHack (or perhaps even Rogue) for whom a lot of modern "roguelikes" seem nothing like Rogue and so the name feels inappropriate. Personally I'm ok with the definition being broader than it used to be; like "RPG" which used to have something to do with role playing but now just means something with a character you upgrade. Which is most games.

To be perfectly fair to the guy, Japanese society is totally sexist so he's not wrong. Unfortunately.

No, that's clear, and by those definitions "gamer" is certainly exclusive.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a tool of inclusion or exclusion".

Day Z looks amazing but it also looks like the sort of game where if I'm going to get into it at all it'll be the only game I'll have time to play for months.

And television series and Hollywood movie and advertising campaign and... ...uh oh, derailment.

If your personal definition of gaming includes board and other tabletop games (and you live in a decently populated city), you should look into finding a local game store that holds board game nights. Even if you only have a passing interest in physical games, you might give this a try anyway; a big percentage of the people who show up at store events like that play video games too.

I'm gonna offer up a morsel of support for Problem Machine's opinion that the "girlfriend mode" statement wasn't overtly sexist in that the statement probably wasn't made with females and women as opposed to males and men in mind, really. And I share Sean's previous, perhaps too charitable sympathy for the guy who said it. But the fact that someone could make such a statement, not thinking about the implications, is just as concerning as if he did. Nobody who is aware of and cares about the obvious misogyny in games and video game culture would choose to call an easy mode "girlfriend mode", it should just seem wrong. So I feel sorry for this developer for some reason, but I don't think for a second that he doesn't deserve to hear the backlash he's getting. I don't know how big the culture of blatant sexism amongst video gamers is; it certainly seems big because it is loud and detestible, but an optimistic side of my brain likes to think it's mainly noisy adolescents and not as big a part of the pie as it seems. In any case, it's still a problem. The much bigger problem, though, is a seemingly omnipresent culture of quiet (or covert) sexism. One that refuses to believe individual examples of overt sexism stem from any systemic problem, that's ready to defend questionable statements as "jokes", that consumes piece after piece of women-objectifying media almost exclusively and doesn't see this as strange. One that sees video games as something you do with your bros when your girlfriend is off doing feminine things with her friends, and is comfortable with these gender lines where they are. Sexism is the number one reason why I get embarassed about playing a video game. In college, when most of my friends didn't play or didn't play very many games, I would get self conscious about what I was playing all the time and generally played games when there was a low probability of being observed. I remember playing Mass Effect, which is hardly a problem game comparatively speaking, and having to admit to my roommate that yes, there is an alien race in this game made up entirely of attractive bisexual women, and yes, I'm aware how stupid that is. Maaaaaby I didn't actually add anything to the conversation with this but I wanted to say something anyway.

Thank you so much, Douglas. This has improved my quality of life. You probably never go by that but I really like saying "Douglas" for some reason.

I was anticipating the summer sale because I'm getting my girlfriend into civilization and now I'll be able to get her a cheap copy of civ 5. That's the only reason I was excited, however, and I didn't expect the rest of the deals to have much pull over me. Oh how wrong I was. Already I've bought Legend of Grimrock and Space Chem. I had to talk myself out of buying Terraria, Trine 2, Crusader Kings 2, Anno 2070, and From Dust. Also I was tempted to get a copy of Siberia, which I used to own but lost the disk to. Ugh. Steam sales. The absolute first-worldiest of first world problems.

There's probably a rule with a lower number about how much mindshare need be partitioned in the service of caring about hardware you don't own. I don't disagree with the guy (the last article at least), I was just amused by how many times the site published this guy talking about the same thing but with slightly different opinions than before. Also: I don't understand how anyone can watch an Apple keynote, or a press conference of any kind, really, unless it's your job. I can't watch any of the E3 presentations either, it just makes me feel base, and it's only made worse if I might actually be interested in what's being sold.

The guardian published three different articles by the same guy talking about the differing degrees to which he doesn't like Apple products? They're really embracing the medium of the internet.

I am in love with this concept and am straight-up lifting parts of it for a project of mine on another server. Much smaller scale, though (that server has even less active players than this one).