Hey go easy on yourself, we’re all phallic.

Haha, sorry to confuse things further but this is not true .

Tldr, “till” is its own word and is actually older than the word until, and they’ve been used synonymously for centuries. 'Til with an apostrophe is acceptable but has been less common, and til without an apostrophe is even less common.

Pride can actually be defined as pleasure derived from an achievement. There are meadows in your community right now with a sizable population of randy toads that would otherwise have been ripped out and replaced by cheap, cookie cutter (I assume) housing, if not specifically because of your interest and contribution.

Intent needn’t be part of the equation. Pleasure + achievement = pride. I’m proud of you for saving those meadows, for goodness sake take some for yourself!

Interesting that you call out story and visuals, I’d say those are the two elements that actually do rise above standard fare. Not necessarily the graphical fidelity (it’s great, but not ground breaking), but the art and production design, use of colors, they’re all magnificently cohesive and create some really stunning environments. Story’s more subjective but the performances were commendable, the theme of honor and victory was consistent and tragic, pacing was nicely balanced.

It’s the actual gameplay that I’d say was…fine. Combat is tight and varied, but eventually repetitive, and the open world loop is exhaustingly uninventive.

Finished Paradise Killer early last week. I liked it a lot, it got to be pretty addicting uncovering new pieces of the mystery. Whenever I had to put the game down, I’d come back to it thinking “Oh shit, I discovered x last time I played, can’t wait to see how that pans out.” The one negative thing I’ll say is that there’s not a lot of actual detective work on the player’s part. The actual mechanics of the game are pretty much just running back and forth over the island, talking to the same characters, and chasing collectibles. But I enjoyed the loop, so it worked out.

Started up Moonlighter for a low-commitment game. I’ve played about 10 hours and enjoyed it so far. It’s got a pretty well-balanced progression loop (explore the dungeon, sell your stuff, afford a small upgrade, get a little further in the dungeon, sell your stuff…) which is a big draw for me. Not sure it’ll keep my interest to the end but I’m fond of the time I’ve spent.

Calibri is not actually the default font anymore! In M365, at least. Granted, it will be a long time before it’s not recognized as such.

My company uses Roboto. I like it a lot, but I think it’s gotten pretty popular. Do you know about fonts.google.com? Huge library that you can apply filters to, makes it really easy to browse.

Courtesy of my expansive Google skills (I searched “comic child sick exorcist” lol).

litterboxcomics.com

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.

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.

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