circadianwolf

Fair Game A film about what happened to Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. The guy playing Scooter Libby is ace. The scenes at the CIA, with all the evidence getting blatantly ignored, is surreal and so true to reports.

I thought the first episode was very well made, but holy shit the constant patriarchy and violence against women was baffling and horrible. Like I don't pay too much attention to that stuff normally but wow. Although I realize that's a flashpoint issue so I won't say anything more to avoid an argument.

I think Pattern Recognition is really, really good. Technical stuff aside, it's such a perfect encapsulation of post-9/11 disconnection (the whole "we have no future because our present is too volatile" business). I haven't gotten around to reading the Bridge trilogy (Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties), though I own copies. Spook Country is okay; I'm regretting not rereading it before ZH, as I don't recall some of the relevant plot details, but on its own it's not particularly necessary.

I am insanely jealous, Wrestlevania. Been a Gibson fan for a long time and working my way through Zero History right now.

Is that the evil Emperor Zurg?

I expected science and cultural victories to have the same approach, but they're actually very different, since the cost of social policies increases with each city (encouraging small #s) while cost of technologies (AFAIK) does not. I didn't realize this until after putting much time into a science victory attempt with a small civ.. oops. (Meanwhile, Napoleon conquered the entire planet while I squatted on a great defensive position and hid behind citadels, infantry, and artillery.)

I don't really care about Metroid that much, but I find the critical discourse sparked by this game very interesting. (E.g. http://g4tv.com/games/wii/61992/Metroid-Other-M/review/ and http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/130786-samus-aran-has-always-been-sexualized/)

Ironically, that's Nasreen. Michelle is the French Caucasian. (Unless the names are randomized, but I don't think they are?)

The left looks a bit like Dave Gilbert (of Wadjet Eye), but probably is not.

Law Abiding Citizen looked hilariously terrible, was it good as in entertainingly silly or actually good? (Law Abiding Engineer, of course, was awesome.)

Didn't Tycho speak (vocally) in Rainslick Precipice of Darkness? (I didn't play it, genuinely curious.) I am confused, especially since Telltale's also working on Jurassic Park and Back to the Future games, right? In addition to possibly more Sam and Max and Monkey Island? How much staff do they have?

Timeline? Good luck to Chris, Jake, Steve, Nick, and Sean, and thanks for the consistent wonderfulness.

Starship Troopers I love how it dives head first into its satire and never lets on, like a sci-fi version of Stephen Colbert. Intentionally bad filmmaking at its finest.

Haha, basically we're at Clint Hocking's position on Far Cry 2: you have to be creative for yourself, and shouldn't expect the game to force you to be creative. (Or as it's been put more bluntly, "the game is boring for you because you're boring".) I don't know whether that's bad design or not, but it seems to frequently be the case with these sorts of games. Personally, I didn't use the stuff a lot in Bioshock, but in the sequel I used everything for the gathering fights (when your Little Sister is gathering and the splicers attack en masse).

Although someone overestimating the amount of people killed by Americans is a lot rarer and generally leads to better things than the extremely common opposite.

His individual episodes from the first four seasons are great, but Season Five was mostly meh and sometimes terrible except for the two new actors, who are both brilliant (Karen Gillan is especially amazing given how nonexistent her character is). I'm still baffled by the Byzantium two-parter, which suggests Moffat completely misunderstood what made Blink awesome. Also, Human Nature/The Family of Blood is the best thing to come out of new Who. (But I think the last half of the Ninth Doctor's episodes are all pretty much great, so. Plus RTD's ridiculously exuberant over-the-topness brought us The Sound of Drums and John Simm's Master, which I will always love him for.)

I really didn't like Arkham Asylum at all. Mostly just lots of small issues that compounded.

Well, only the first two episodes have aired right? It's kind of hard to tell. It's certainly not Mad Men. I'm kind of baffled by it to be honest, but I'm going to keep watching for a while, at least.

Veronica Mars season 1 is one of the best things ever made for television. Seasons 2 and 3 aren't as good, but still quality.

Awww, that video just makes me nostalgic for Sonic.

Oh wow, I remember seeing this on the AGS forums but I didn't realize it had gotten all IGF and PC Gamer famous-y. Sweet.

Re: cyborgs: I think Deus Ex did a really good job with cyborgs, from the line about "it's not about people, but productivity, efficiency" to the stuff about social status and the resentment of mech-augs towards nano-augs because the nanos haven't given up their bodies for the cause, etc. I found the Sam Jackson with a sword arm discussion really funny because you know that's exactly the kind of thing he would do today, whereas in the Jurassic Park era he was still playing mostly regular people. Good luck Chris. I'll miss your Gamasutra stuff too.

I just finished Cory Doctorow's For the Win, his follow-up to Little Brother*. It's pretty great. Basically a novel superficially about MMOs that's actually about the global financial system, 3rd world sweatshops, and labor unions. * It's not a sequel, and he wrote another novel in-between, but they're definitely in the same spirit of "kids fight the power".

If it's not going to make you play as Geralt, then you shouldn't be playing as Geralt. (KOTOR isn't about amnesia, it's about brainwashing.)