DefaultHuman
-
Content count
68 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by DefaultHuman
-
-
Yeah, I checked on sales numbers hoping to see some chance at a sequel. The name was too obscure and the box art too anime-looking, I think, for Capcom to appeal to the average American demo.
-
I thought Zack & Wiki (horrible name) made great use of the waggle. A lot of it was pretty goofy, but it was a point and click adventure with an interface designed around the controller. It was rather simple, sort of an easy version of Gobliiins (or Gobliins or Goblins), but fun while it lasted.
-
Oh, and EVERYONE HAS SECRET COMPARTMENTS. Audrey's hidden space in the wall, Shelly's removable panel in... whatever piece of furniture that thing was, and Catherine's ledger stash. I wish I had a secret compartment somewhere. It would be so mysterious.
YES! That was amazing. Audrey couldn't just have a run-of-the-mill peephole, but needs a secret passageway for it.
The wake scene was comically tragic. I was having trouble accepting that the father of the deceased was so distraught and desperately wanted someone to dance with him, yet everyone else on the dance floor looks at him like, "Go away, crazy guy, can't you see we're trying to have a good time here?"
On palm leaves - I'm pulling this from childhood memory and not doing research, but in Christianity (as well as other cultures, I believe), they represent eternal life. In Christianity, this is from Palm Sunday, Jesus's arrival to Jerusalem (leading up to his crucifixion). He rode on the back of a donkey and those who believed that he was the messiah honored him by laying palm leaves across his path. The gesture is similar to throwing your jacket across a puddle for a lady, in that it doesn't necessarily accomplish anything, but is a representative honorific. Palm leaves had practical significance, being durable, but also were also a very useful plant. In the funeral scene, it could represent eternal life, sacrifice, inevitability, etc. [edit: Felt a little guilty talking out of my ass. The scriptures are pretty vague and some interpret them as meaning that palm fronds were waved. In any case, same basic meaning. Victory, royalty, eternal life, etc.]
-
That's just god damned brilliant.
"They'd thought they were out of coffee. What this heroine did will inspire you!"
-
Kraken is up there for me, prefer Whaler's or Gosling's though, since they both have the darkness without all the extra spice. I like the smooth molasses flavor of Whaler's for my dark & stormies. I'll have to give some of the other recs in this thread a shot though.
-
The music was a great complement. It confused the hell out of me, though, when my phone was manipulated by my thigh through my pants and activated Scribblenauts. I thought it was a strange choice for BGM.
-
Thanks for all the added "shit" words, folks. Can't believe I forgot apeshit and chickenshit (although I think chickenshit has more of a cowardly connotation). And yeah, Chris, you're right, I forgot the verb use of "bullshit" which "horseshit" interestingly doesn't share.
I am way too into this.
I was going to wonder aloud why all of the words that get the -shit suffix are animals, but then I thought of one. Dipshit! (n) a stupid or simple/ignorant person.
Now I'm, instead, wondering about the origin of dipshit. Dipped in shit? Dips (i.e. tobacco) with shit?
-
I agree that it was offputting. Maybe it's because many newer shows add outtakes or deleted scenes to the credits, but it gave me that same feeling. It changed it from being a bizarre, yet thematic, occurrence in a dream sequence to a, "Hey, wasn't it silly when we had the little guy dance out of the scene?"
-
The mechanics are interesting. I'm not yet sure if they intentionally start you off with a bunch of assholes, but my only two characters that aren't profoundly handicapped are female, leaving me to marry them off to puny, near-sighted, drunken bastards.
-
Just played my first little bit of it last night. The upgrade perks and battle tactics do feel very X-COM, but for non-ranged characters the movement feels very limiting.
Still warming up to it, I'm in the middle of my first non-tutorial battle and already getting a little bored with it. Hopefully, some of my micromanagement in the world view and doing research adds to the variety and versatility.
On an aesthetic/inferace note, the streamlined console-influenced interface works well for the most part, but the size and sometimes color of the text doesn't lend itself well to couch play.
-
I think if we took on two episodes per week (either as a single podcast episode or two) per week, we'd be setting ourselves up to slip as soon as we're ever slightly too busy. We know from experience (the Idle Book Club) that taking on secondary podcasts can be dangerous, and we'd rather have a fully achievable schedule that we rarely or never miss, rather than an ambitious schedule that causes us not to meet expectations.
Thank you for considering the suggestions. I'm just happy that you guys are able to squeeze in another show and appreciate the need to keep it manageable. One of the positives to the weekly roll-out (apart from the already mentioned weekly viewing just like the original airing) is that it makes each episode an event. Watched or commented upon all at once, the nuances of each would be lost in the crazy overarching plot progression. [Edit: Noting that I have three damn posts on this page demonstrates that I'm way too excited about this, so thanks for dragging me into this rabbithole]
-
I totally disagree, very very strongly. It is completely impossible for me to see her action in anything other than a humane light. I am specifically talking about a first-time interpretation of it, too. There is absolutely no suggestion whatsoever that she is closing the factory for good. I know that the first time I saw this show there was absolutely no doubt for me at all about this, and the same was true the more recent time. In fact I think the only way NOT to see it favorably is if you HAVE seen more of the show and you retroactively consider this scene in the context of some of Josie's other subplots--but even then I can't see it that way. It just in no way at all carries the feeling of a Japanese (or otherwise Asian) businessperson coming in and "shutting down a factory," because it's immediately and obviously clear that she's not shutting it down for any reason other than temporary grieving. It occurs in the same episode that a school was closed, for the exact same reason, and I certainly don't interpret the principal's actions as being evocative of a rich white conservative man shutting down a public institution out of anti-government furor. In both instances, they are people who are personally affected by the tragedy and sensitive to other people's sense of grief.
I have to humbly admit that I, indeed, did have the assumption that she was closing it down for good, probably for economic reasons. I was, perhaps, not paying enough attention but since the pilot skips around so much, I didn't assume that the school announcement scene had anything to do with the factory, while there had already been references to the sawmill approaching bankruptcy so it could be bought out (unless I really have my timeline memory jumbled).
A potentially interesting thought, though - you have the benefit of a previous viewing (not implying an observation bias here, but having warmed up to the tone and flow of the show) as well as having watched it initially some time ago. I've found that older shows (TP included) are more difficult for me to watch until I become accustomed to them, since the style and pace is so different from modern television (which is both more quickly paced and hand-holding). I have to wonder if I'd watched it a decade ago, if I'd have absorbed more from the pilot.
-
I think that the note (in your spoiler) is actually helping me to tolerate the character. I still don't like his acting, but I'm a lot more forgiving when the show acknowledges it.
-
There's a theme of foreign involvement in the town, from Josie to the Norwegians (who seem stoicly businesslike in the scene before their departure). The Norwegians may have some ripples later (I haven't watched the show before), but seem to exist only to propogate odd stereotypes (is there a word for stereotypes that may not actually exist?).
The switch from the viewer's initial impression that Josie was a heartless businessperson to the opposite seemed very intentional, but it's a leap to think the auteurs were counting on the viewers' prejudices to support that.
-
So generally it doesn't seem like it's broken down in a ton of hacking or anything? No flagrantly impossible behaviors? That's good to hear, i guess.
I really enjoyed the PVP while i was playing and managed to handle myself pretty well most of the time, so that in itself wasn't really an issue. (I probably won more fights than i lost, at the very least.)
What about more subtle things like people being way too powerful and well equipped for the the soul memory range you're matching into? That was a thing people seemed really worried about happening last i played.
The questionable encounters I had were primarily in Belfry Luna. One was phenomenally overequipped for the level (seemed to have massive stats in faith, intelligence and strength/vitality when I was somewhere around L60). Another, the invader was moving so rapidly around the area I'd take a step and he'd be on the opposite side, the next step he'd be behind me backstabbing. I put that one down to potential lag.
With few exceptions, those invading have bested me with skill or smarter loadout. I griped about Belfry, but many were very sporting. One guy was attacking until another invader came, so he backed off to spectate, moving to get a good view of the action and gestured appreciatively when I won; we proceeded to have an epic duel worthy of an action movie. I only won because I snuck out a well-timed fireball between jabs. So BL, I guess, is simultaneously my most hated and most loved area.
-
I selfishly agree since I haven't watched the show before but am having to restrain myself from getting too far ahead. If not two a week, it could cover two episodes, though that sort of screws with the theme, particularly for the non IT folks. If it sticks to one a week, I suppose I'll just have to develop discipline.
-
That's really interesting stuff, thank you!
Way off topic, there's a certain serindipity (or, perhaps, unfortunate condemnation) in our both having made the same episode # screw up and residing in the same city.
-
While I honestly don't care for many of the characters in the show, I'm completely onboard with the Sheriff and Agent Cooper. This episode, in particular, seems to have many of those WTF moments I'm growing to love.
Coffee- it seems to be adored almost as much as fish in this series. It's featured frequently and the bizarre enthusiasm for a refill during the zen sequence was brow-raising.
Dream Sequence- What's with the neck wrinkles? Kyle MacLachlan is pretty young in the series (so much so that from certain angles I wasn't completely certain it was him), and he's got a contrasting network of neck wrinkles during the scene, though it doesn't seem like they've aged him with prosthetics (I'm watching blurry SD so maybe I'm missing something).
The backwards talking was interestingly done, at first I thought it was just reversed. Did they record themselves speaking backwards and then reverse it? There are many quirks in the sequence that add wonderfully to the dreamlike feeling of the scene.
-
I haven't had too many issues with ganking. There are a few hotspots that attract them but I've only had a few encounters that were ridiculous and of those, a couple could've been due to a phenomenal lag imbalance. That said, I do tend to overgrind due to suckitude so my soul memory is probably higher than average for given areas (if I understand the system correctly it'd be those in a given range of soul acquisition who were in the same place as me) making for fewer matches.
Even the fights where I get creamed, I at least try to put up a fight and people are generally fairly sporting. I about died laughing when I was obliterated and my opponent threw down the mournful-sounding "Sorry" carving.
The only frustrating area for me (PVP-wise) was Belfrey Luna, so I eventually did that zone offline.
-
Thank you for the reminders! I'd heard that AW had influences and kept hearing about DP feeling a lot like the show. I've yet to play either but will have to rectify that.
-
Having not watched the series before, I feel like I was really missing out on many later game and movie references. Lynch's genre play between comedy, noir, soap opera, etc., allowed for references or homages in a variety of media.
There are scenes, especially in the first high school segments, that feel very much like a point and click adventure game, and it's only now that I see influences of the show in DOTT and, more recently, Puzzle Agent.
-
Post hidden, Dium, many thanks. I had the dumb. I'll keep in mind to offset.
I kind of hate most of the characters so far (but those I enjoy make up for it). I have to disagree about Josie, though. At least it's the fault of the writing and not necessarily her performance. It's not that her grammar is bad as much as they seem to be hamfisting the word swap slips, reminding themselves to insert those so we remember that she's a foreigner.
-
Now that all the DLC is out, I've been thinking about playing through this again. Did they ever fix the 60 fps durability bug on PC?
Not that I've seen.. and they've recently released a couple of patches. They do a lot of fixes and equipment tweaks, but they don't seem to acknowledge the bug.
For what it's worth, I'm hitting 45-60fps and haven't had the issue. It seems to occur most frequently in mob fights, so maybe my cowardice saves my weapons. I almost never get an At Risk alert, unless I'm doing a run through a whole area and don't stop at bonfires.
You could tweak it to limit framerate, or just add some graphics patches to make it prettier and slower. It's tough to depart from the over 30 fps rates after you're used to it, though.
-
Nonsense is about on point. Sure, it's theoretically possible. In the same way that perpetual motion is theoretically possible if we have access to theoretical as-yet-undiscovered elements (aka unobtanium). Math can be done working around the variables, but the variables are currently, and for the foreseeable future, fantasy.
Waggle Defense Force 3D!
in Video Gaming
Posted
I've also just realized that I can't mentally disassociate Zack & Wiki from Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Still on topic, as I believe they both have waggle.