SecretAsianMan

One of the engineers that I work with is leaving the company in a couple weeks. Normally this wouldn't be that big a deal, except that in our group there are literally only two of us that do what we do and now that he's leaving it's going to be just me. I'm already super busy with my own stuff but now I get to handle his stuff and mine. I've talked to my supervisor about it and he's aware of the insane workload I'm going to have now but unfortunately there's really no way to fix it. The company is in something of a budget crunch so they're not looking to hire. Between that and the number of retirements our numbers are swiftly dwindling down to barely manageable levels. Pulling someone from another group into ours to help me out means hurting a different department even more than they already are. I've been wanting to get out of here for a while now but this might be the final straw. It's likely going to completely screw anyone who takes over for me (if there even is such a person) but I'm past caring at this point.

I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye in the general direction of Weinhandler Nick's portrait at the end of my first viewing. I immediately restarted the video and was absurdly pleased at Nick's Vigo the Carpathian imitation.

My favorite part is Nick's portrait in the background, which I didn't even notice the first time.

The talk of using animals to remote control human devices reminded me of Project Pigeon. Conceived by B.F. Skinner (creator of the Skinner box), Project Pigeon was a plan to make pigeon guided bombs in WWII. The front of the bomb would have lenses that projected the image of the target onto a screen located in front of some pigeons housed inside the bomb. The pigeons would be trained to tap the target on the screen. The screens would shift position based on the movement of the bomb and the pigeons would perform course corrections by tapping the target. This would cause the screens to move and be translated to the bomb's control surfaces, steering the bomb onto the target. The army thought it was an impractical idea, but nevertheless gave Skinner $25,000 (around $321,000 today) for research. No actual bombs were constructed before the project was cancelled, although the Navy briefly resurrected it as Project Orcon in 1948 and cancelled it in 1953 after electronic guidance systems were introduced. So in summary there is precedent in using animals to do our dirty work. I should probably send this in an email as well.

That is also how I generally feel about Metroid Fusion. The premise give the game a lot of potential to change up the way Metroid plays but they just didn't do it. Even though I have no love for the genre, there are fleeting moments where Fusion almost turns into a survival horror as the invincible creature that inhabits what was once your greatest weapon now relentlessly hunts you down the second it spots you. I think it would have been amazing if the SAX was given some freedom and an AI that would actually pursue you through the game, showing up unexpectedly instead of at scripted points. As it stands it's a bit of a mess with glimpses of interesting stuff buried under a lot of superfluous elements.

I cut cable a long time ago so I don't currently have a way of watching Legion without paying for individual episodes. I might get around to it eventually but for now I have a sufficient Netflix back catalog to get through.

I started watching Jessica Jones over the weekend. I'm not quite done with the season yet (2 or 3 episodes left) but I'm liking it far more than I anticipated and am really regretting not watching it sooner. I'm probably going to be repeating some stuff that's been said and I think it's been long enough that I won't be hiding spoilers. I think what I'm liking the most is that this is a show about a damaged, flawed person who just happens to have a superpower rather than being a show about said power. Obviously she uses it to great effect in the show but it's hardly a centerpiece which is something I appreciate. I liked Daredevil for being gritty but felt it was too gritty with often unnecessary levels of violence for the sake of it. JJ feels like it hits a much more satisfying level of grit without overdoing it, though I will say I was more impressed by the action in DD. The fights in JJ seemed fine but not especially outstanding. The other thing that I really love is the depiction of detective work. This kind of stuff is like candy to me. I love a good hardboiled detective story, especially when they actually show the steps and don't just rely on informants to do the legwork for them. I really appreciate some of the ways JJ's powers are used in this respect. She's not beating up a string of goons for info (at least that's not her intent when she starts), instead she uses her strength as a shortcut to picking a lock. One scene in particular I really liked was her propping herself between building several stories high while surveilling a suspect. It dropped off towards the back part of the season but understandably so. I don't know a lot about the comic version of JJ which in retrospect made the series better for me. I like the Marvel movies but since they feature the really big characters I'm more familiar with their comic counterparts and that carries a lot of expectation into a viewing. The one thing I did take the time to look up was Kilgrave and I'm really glad they didn't go with a more "accurate" depiction as the Purple Man would have been far too ridiculous to take seriously. On paper I would think he wouldn't make for a good antagonist but in practice I have to admit it works well. It believably puts fear and dread into a main character who probably wouldn't feel those things otherwise. My biggest complaint is something that others have brought up here, namely some plot stuff. Such things are par for the course so I'm trying to not let it ruin anything but at times it still eats at me. I'm also finding myself looking forward to Luke Cage based on his appearances here.

I started the Spelunky dailies not too long after Chris. I started making it a personal challenge to do it before him so that when he streamed I would show up on his leaderboard (hopefully above him ). I kept going for a good while after he stopped but I forget what finally broke my habit. I think it was my annual one month or more of night shift. The Steam controller lets you configure pretty much every setting and remap anything to anything. I haven't actually looked but I imagine that it's possible to invert both X and Y axes. Of course getting used to using the Steam controller is a challenge in itself, one that I haven't quite completed yet. Edit: Jake mentioned this in the episode and I hadn't quite gotten there yet.

I imagined this entire burrito conversation in Dan Ryckert's voice as opposed to the Steve Urkel voice I normally associate with Zeus.

That was my first thought as well.

Looking forward to the future reader mail from someone who's not familiar with the show's history wonders why you're Thumbs.

Very critical question: To whom do we address mail? We can't rightly call you Thumbs on this podcast so we'll need to come up with a new salutation.

The Super Metroid Rotation speedrun from AGDQ was good. It's really interesting to see how a nominal alteration to the game completely changes things. In a normal SM speedrun, one of the key items is the speedbooster which not only allows for faster horizontal movement but can also be used to sequence break. In Rotation, the horizontal corridors are now vertical shafts and vice versa, so the key item now becomes the high jump boots (and later the space jump). Areas that were trivial before are now a challenge and difficult sections become simple. I found it quite fascinating.

I had no knowledge of this game until recently and it took me forever to connect that this "Neo" game I kept hearing about on podcasts was in fact Nioh and not some new Matrix game.

Is it worth creating a new thread to talk about open world games so we don't clog up this one? I've mostly said my piece but I'll expound on it more if there's a conversation to be had. If we're done then I'll leave it be.

Despite (inadvertently) creating this thread, I completely dropped off watching any of them after Daredevil. I should really get back to it. One quick question, does the order I watch the shows matter at all? By that I mean should I watch them in chronological order by release date or are they independent enough that watching newer shows first won't spoil anything? I'm considering watching Daredevil season 2 first since I've seen season 1 already.

I think it makes sense because they are somewhat loosely connected. Not quite the Marvel Cinematic Universe levels of connection (although I guess technically they're part of the MCU) but still similar. Not sure if other shows like Agents of SHIELD or the upcoming Inhumans should be included since they're not on Netflix but also technically part of the MCU. I guess the tone and content of the shows matters more for our purposes, in which case the Netflix stuff is distinct from the ABC stuff. Also excellent work with splitting out the threads. It's reminded me of a lot of things I've been meaning to watch but totally forgot about as they got lost in the megathread.

I think its a question of scale. Crusader Kings and Kerbal benefit from a large open world because the scale of those games is not down to an individual. Granted you can pick out individual entities in those games but that's not really what they're about. I think when most of us hear open world game we imagine a single person running around an environment which is where the danger of being too big comes in. If the game is scaled around a person that means having to fill that space, either by design or procedurally. If you go too big the space gets empty (which feels boring) or artificially filled (which feels false). On the other hand if your scale is interplanetary travel or a multi-generational dynasty then a big world feels totally appropriate.

The Batman Arkham games fall into the category of open world games I liked for that very reason. They contain some of the things that I dislike about open world games like some annoying repetitive stuff, although I give them credit for at least trying to make a few of them interesting (such as some of the Riddler trophies being puzzles rather than collectables). I will take a smaller, more densely packed space with interesting stuff over a large expanse that allows for more "freedom" but ultimately has little in it. The other big thing that will compel me to play an open world game is good, engaging mechanics. I felt that Shadow of Mordor succeeded in this area.

I should clarify that what I wrote above mostly applies to designed open worlds as opposed to procedurally generated ones. I tend to not enjoy the procedural ones either but that's more personal taste than a design flaw. I like crafted, guided experiences which is usually not the case in procedural games. I appreciate games that allow for more creative and freeform goals but it's just not something I usually care for. Again, I'm full of shit because the game I'm currently playing is a procedural open world game.

Relative to its size, the barnacle has the largest penis of any animal. This possibly not true fact brought to you by House MD

Open world games have been fatiguing to me from the start. I appreciate the ambition but 9 times out of 10 the experience lets me down. The ones that I did like it usually wasn't the open world aspect that I cared for. I find them to be too repetitive. In order to justify having an open world you need to fill it with stuff to do and because making a bunch of different things is hard, you often end up with the same task repeated ad nauseum. I'm not trying to make a lazy devs argument here, it's a tricky problem that I think few games have done right. I tend to prefer more linear games because I find the craftsmanship and pacing better. Of course I'm a big fat hypocrite because the game I've spent the most time with recently is an open world zombie survival crafting game. So I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

I watched some footage of Wildlands over the weekend and while it looks great visually I feel like I wouldn't have much fun with it. I have a general dislike of open world games because while they sound great in theory the execution most of the time falls way flat for me and Wildlands doesn't seem like it alleviates any of my concerns. I've never been a huge fan of Rainbow Six or similar games either because while I like the idea of co-operative tactics I dislike "realistic" games. Wildlands basically sounds like its combining two things I don't really care for.

I don't know anything about that specific game but anything with co-op intrigues me. Can you describe it a bit? Meanwhile We Need To Go Deeper looks like it could be some amusing co-op. 2-4 people play as a submarine crew with different positions that need to be manned such as steering, engineering, and torpedoes. You explore a randomly generated Jules Verne inspired ocean and gather loot and improvements to your ship by disembarking into undersea caves. It's kind of like underwater FTL where you each control a crewmember.

All of Mario is random as fuck. I think him being an Italian plumber from New York is maybe the most sane thing about it.