Atlantic

And the soundcloud account with all of the episodes is: https://soundcloud.com/yesssss-2 There hasn't been a new episode since 18th January though so he might have gotten bored of it.

A bit of a change of topic... The first time I watched the series, I was under the impression that there was no one named Diane. Instead, I thought Cooper had named his micro cassette recorder "Diane" and that was another quirk of his character. Re-watching, I realise this is both silly (Cooper asks for a delivery of cotton earplugs and later receives that delivery) and also maybe a little bit ...

Recruitment agencies! I was unemployed for half of 2013, so I got in touch with a few recruitment agencies. They took all of my details and so on, and one of them told me I'd be kept at the top of the pile for the incoming jobs. I never heard from them until this Christmas just gone (!) where I was sent a boilerplate Christmas well-wishing. So I'm on their mailing lists but not for any positions. The managed to drive me up the wall almost a year later. I also have a Mt. Sympathy for everyone who is bashing their heads against the wall of this mess. Here in Ireland, it seems that the best way to get a job is to know someone (and I'm sure it's like that elsewhere too).

I think Dark Souls 2 was the only 2014 game I played in 2014, so my GOTY is Dark Souls 2 by default. I didn't even think it was as good as the original Dark Souls so whatever~~~~

Eraserhead is one of the most upsetting films I have ever seen. That snake-baby is forever seared into my mind's eye, and the continuous ambient drone is there in my mind's ear too. But Holy Christmas does Jack Nance look different. It took me a while to recognise him. About the Log Lady scene: there's a line by Truman where he says her husband died the day after the wedding. It's nearly a throwaway line where no else picks it up again, but I found it to be absolutely heartbreaking.

I want to play a story driven first person game set in a quirky 1920s theatre that has fallen on hard times. I do not want to play this Space Minotaur thing. I'm going to hold back from pledging until I know more.

"ZINGLE-DEE-DINGLE-DINGLE" - Steve Gaynor, 2008.

That was the Thumbsiest episode in a while. Theory: Steve makes it good/weird.

So Cardboard Computer's twitter posted a link: http://kentuckyroutezero.com/the-entertainment/ Another strange thing. Maybe Act III is soon?

But wasn't the main character supposed to be free from destiny because he was brought back from the dead? That seemed to be the initial setup anyway, in that you were outside of fate and free to forge your own path. Except any choice you made was frivolous and had no long term effect. It's probably that I was not invested in their fiction that I had no interest in anything I was doing in it. I know, woeful mismanagement and all. But, if the game was stronger, maybe it could have saved them... ?

I didn't think Amalur was ugly exactly, it just had no visual identity of its own. Completely plain. I would say "vanilla" but even vanilla has a flavour. And another thing that bothered me was the pronunciation of "Tuatha." Maybe it's a Scot's Gaelic thing, but in Irish I would have pronounced it more like "too-hah," rather than "too-ah-tha" that's in the game. It made me a confused man every time it was said. I guess I just don't trust the game to make the difficulty to be interesting. I don't feel that making enemies more resilient to be a good way of making it more challenging, which is what I'd expect from an RPG. Overall though, what it made me realise is that maybe I don't like games like this any more. Games that supposedly allow you to do anything, but don't execute those options particularly well. I found myself skipping all dialogue, so any "social" bits were out the window; I like stealth games, so the sneaky-tree here felt poor, with encounters more geared towards open combat; and then I wasn't engaged by the combat. I think games that have a tighter focus end up being better for it. Dark Souls doesn't try to do stealth or chatty bits and is far better for it. And then something like Dishonored, though not comparable to Amalur in any way (and actually a game I really enjoy) is good because it shows restraint: it's not an open world, it doesn't have a dynamic day/night cycle, and it gives actual choices which affect how missions play and some points in the story. That I was able to affect change in the world through my actions and not through a dialogue tree/glorified menu felt far more enticing. In short, I might be done with open world RPGs.

You also got evil points for eating baby chicks and good points for eating tofu.

Bit of a far cry...

I got Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on the cheap just to have something to pass the time. I've played a few hours of it, bit I'm done. The setting is so bland, and none of the quests I encountered offered any sort of interesting scenario or decision to make. I think that's the problem: there are no choices to make that are in any way meaningful. With weapons it always seemed best to take the whatever did the most damage, with armour what offered the best protection. There is kind of a stealth ability tree, but there was no clear reason why I'd use be a sneaky bastard when I could kill anything in a few hits with no problem. The story seemed like the most fantasy-trope riddled rubbish. I have no idea who any of the "characters" are (in quotes because they're entities solely for telling you to go somewhere else and kill something else rather than exert any sort of personality or opinion). I can kind of see why 38 Studios went into bankruptcy from this side: it's not a very good game. No wonder it was cheap...

The first mission of the Brigmore Witches DLC that was released a few days ago is an homage to the first Thief. Breaking into a prison and rescuing an unconscious person was an early mission in that game. The DLC overall is probably not as good as the Knife of Dunwall but it's more Dishonored. It does make me wish there was a level editor though. Knife's neat thing was that it stopped time when you used Blink. I found that made me more daring in the swashbuckle-y sense, leaping from building to building that Corvo wouldn't have been able to do, but Daud can. Going back and playing the base game is a weird shift without it. Brigmore adds Pull. It lets you grab things (and when upgraded, people) from faraway. It's kind of useful for a pure stealth run, but it's not as big a deal as Daud's Blink. Edit: Oh, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun had an interview with Raph Colantonio about Dishonored's future. I don't think there are any important pieces of news from it, other than more confirmation that Arkane are definitely not working on Prey 2.

This was released yesterday and I've played a bit of it. It's absolutely fascinating. I made it to day eight and on that day I was in debt for just 5 credits. My family was relocated and I was thrown into prison. Arstotzka is a place with no leniency on any of its laws or policies. It felt like a very harsh punishment for such a small amount, but I get the impression that Russia and its bordering countries / the eastern bloc were harsh places in the early eighties. That message was fairly big and obvious and delivered in a cutscene, but there are other ideas which are conveyed in game. There was one man who I searched and found some contraband taped to the back of his leg. He said it was medicine and offered me 10 credits to let him through. At this point I had already been written up three times, meaning I had been docked five credits. I knew I was low on cash so I took it and let him through. Of course, I was written up again, so I lost another five credits and broke even. But gee whiz was it an interesting dilemma I was put in. I can't think of any other game I've ever played that did that. I wanted to play again, but I didn't want to have to go through all of the early days' tribulations. Thankfully, there is a clever save system. Your progress is saved at the beginning of every day, and you can start from any of the days you have previously completed. So I started again from day three or four, late enough that things are already interesting, but early enough that I'm not heading into debt again. I like this game.

If you complete all three surgeries (heart, double kidney, and brain transplants) you can unlock ambulance mode. In ambulance mode you have the same three operations but in a moving ambulance. The doors open intermittently to hilarious effect. If you complete ambulance mode a black floppy disk marked "?????" appears at the reception desk. Pop this in the slot and... (sorry about the guy in the video, he's kind of irritating)

The trailer they released made it seem to me to be cyberpunk Bastion (attn: Steve Gaynor). In one way I was a little bit disappointed. I loved Bastion, it's a beautiful game that is very fun to play and a cyberpunk version would be cool. The gameplay video makes it pretty clear that despite the isometric viewpoint, presumed RPG elements, Logan Cunningham and good music it's probably going to feel a good bit different. And in terms of setting, Bastion did it well in that there was a constant drip of information available, and only occasionally only forced down your ear pipes. I have faith in Kasavin's writing ability and Supergiant's craftsmanship (craftscorpship? Developers are corporations, right?) that Transistor will actually be interesting unlike the vast majority of current games.

I play the 'box sometimes. Less occasionally I play online (even though I am paying for it...). Anyway, hit me up on my sweet tag: Atlantic T Please.

I like TF2 so here's my Steam thingy: http://steamcommunity.com/id/atlanticyouth

Atlantic_T on the PSN. Please add me.

Holy moly! There are some infamous Famous revelations in this 'cast.

They pulled a GOG.com!

Scoops Bot, get them while they're Hot!