ConstableJelly @ ConstableJelly @beehaw.org

Posts

25

Comments

232

Joined

2 yr. ago

Spent some time with The Ascent, wish I liked it more than I did. I was looking for a good pick-up-and-play game, but the save mechanics in The Ascent are...not clear. If it supported a save anywhere/anytime feature I probably would have gone a lot further.

But never being quite certain where I'd pick back up killed my motivation to play too many times.

I have a soft spot for Jee-woon Kim, a Korean filmmaker probably best know for The Good, the Bad, and the Weird or I Saw the Devil. He's gotten some big recognition, and even made an American debut with a regrettably forgettable post-gubernatorial Arnold Schwarzenegger movie (The Last Stand).

But in the 2000s, he made a string of really phenomenal genre flicks (the two mentioned above, as well as A Bittersweet Life and A Tale of Two Sisters) that got me into Korean cinema even moreso than Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon Ho, who I was also paying close attention to at the start.

His career has been less consistent though. The Arnold movie and his adaptation of Illang we're both misfires. He does get good performances from his actors, and he can elevate a good script to it's maximum potential, but he doesn't do the same for bad scripts. I think his greatest strength though is his visual flair, and that just doesn't generate as much attention as his contemporaries.

Well, there's an audience for it. I love long-form critiques, to the point where I'm generally less inclined to bother with anything less than around 45 minutes because it's just not enough time to explore anything with the kind of depth that interests me the most (that's a pretty loose rule though, some topics can be incredibly interesting but just don't need a long-form analysis).

This essay actually covers about...9 games in the series I think? (1, 2, Tactics, Brotherhood of Steel, 3, New Vegas, a mobile game, 4, and 76). That includes all DLC as well, so it averages about 1-1.5 hours per game (variably, BoS and the mobile game both get significantly less time). And it is split into chapters with the YouTube feature.

I do know that's still not appealing for everyone. I appreciate the top comment on the video: "Sweet baby Jesus."

Yeah, I feel like I gave the impression this is just a full gameplay video or something. It's not, it's a critical analysis.

He does essentially review each game, but he also talks about stuff like the different paradigms of art in games: narrative, gameplay, choice, environmental design and storytelling, as well as their intersections (or their lack). For this series especially, he highlights those elements in contrast between the Interplay/Obsidian games and the Bethesda games.

I'm not actually interested in playing the games, but I love this kind of critique.

Imagining what it's like to be in his head for even 5 seconds is a genuine fucking nightmare.

Cox's fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth. Cox, who is about 20 weeks pregnant, said in her lawsuit that she would need to undergo her third Caesarian section if she continues the pregnancy. That could jeopardize her ability to have more children, which she said she and her husband wanted.

I know the answer, but the question deserves to be asked anyway: what the fuck does Ken Paxton gain by drawing a line here?? It's just dumb and cruel. There's no spinning this, I'm just...still in shock whenever conservatives reveal so transparently how much this is about control over preservation of life, an illusion they used to make at least some effort to maintain.

"The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability, is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice," said Guerra Gamble in Austin, Texas, state court, at Thursday's hearing.

It's heartening to hear someone in authority speak some sense, but the fact Ms. Cox or any other person like her was ever in this position to begin with...I just can't stomach it.

Haha ok, just curious. You said pleasantly surprised on both counts, which I took to mean you were happy it didn't win any awards.

I'm super excited about playing Spider-Man 2 (as well as Alan Wake 2), but I'm also a patient gamer so just keeping an eye out for even a little bit of a sale.

Did you...hate Spider-Man 2 for some reason? (Haven't played it myself yet)

100%. More Subnautica-style linear progression, much much less live-service-style chaos.

Weird trailer. Not really sure what they were going for with mashing up highlights of the movie but with...unknown custom character in place of the movie characters.

An honest-to-goodness single-player Arkane game, with Dishonored 2's caliber of level design, would probably be the catalyst that finally convinced me to get an Xbox.

I was almost relieved that Redfall arrived as such a dud because I didn't have to make this decision on that game's behalf. Still boggles my mind Bethesda took the minds behind the greatest modern immersive sims and assigned them a live service game. What a waste.

I'm not terribly familiar with the franchise personally. I had twice tried and failed to get into Fallout 3 back when it was released, and I've seen a video or two elsewhere (I think Hbomberguy did a video on a couple of the games a while back).

This video goes through every single game in the series (including Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel) sequentially, starting with the main game and then each expansion/DLC. He talks about story and gameplay, but also about the stories of their productions, the various influences that inspired the general feel of the universe, successes and failures, and how the identity of the series shifted as it changed hands.

So to answer your question, the highlight is that I feel like a certified expert without ever having really played any of the games. It's also just ultimately 9.5 hours (7.5 confirmed) of high quality critical content.

Lol, I am in fact at the 7h 22m mark. I jump in and out when I'm washing dishes, exercising, etc.

Racing, combat, and rhythm game mechanics all happening at once sounds stressful. But the game looks killer all the same.

The explanation they arrived at was that the big $500 all at once provided valuable startup capital for new businesses and farms, which the $20 a month group would need to very conscientiously save over time to replicate.

I don't know anything about rural Kenya, but I'm skeptical that these particular findings could be applied to bigger economies. The market in the US seems extremely hostile to small businesses, so investment typically looks more like stock market participation and massive private equity for risky tech startups.

In that environment, I would bet that the steady passive income would perform better.

I read this more as "Heads of 3 top US colleges refuse to trap themselves in what was likely to be a performative thread of anti-Palestinian questions from one of Congress's most shameless clown-people (Elise Stefanik)."

To be clear, from the article itself:

The university leaders all personally criticized anti-Israel activism.

On second thought, it may not have even been anti-Palestinian per se, but rather more careless exploitation in pursuit of CRT-adjacent nonsense.

Some Republicans sought to paint campus antisemitism as a product of universities embracing “the race-based ideology of the radical left,”

You seem really passionate about consuming inedible objects, and I admire your forthrightness.

I'd like to believe so too, but nothing spurs creative innovation like threats to power. But you're certainly right that there's no low-effort mode in business to unionization response. This may very well be the most they're capable of.

"Like the companies, the trade union movement is global in the fight to protect workers," 3F Chair Jan Villadsen said in a statement, adding that Sweden's IF Metall union had asked 3F to help."

Powerful stuff. I find myself anxious about retaliatory escalation as unionization continues this spike in growth.

Desperate Gazans in Khan Younis packed their belongings and headed towards Rafah. Most were on foot, walking past ruined buildings in a solemn and silent procession. But the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza (UNRWA), Thomas White, said people in Rafah were themselves being forced to flee.

Desperation and confusion pressing in from all sides, blanketed in unavoidable fear. Throw in the video that auto-plays in the article of the hospitalized two month old, my stomach is turning upside down again.