JunkerSeed

I dunno if y'all use this for PS4 as well, but here ya go, my PSN is: JunkerSeed540 Just joined the Hondos community thingy. When I'm not playing Fallout I've got ROcket League and Destiny that I play on the onlines. Bloodborne real soon as well.

Holy shit, for a second I thought you meant there was a Scud port (from the Sega Saturn) on X-box live. Then I realized no one is trying to speedrun Scud on the Saturn.

Cloud nothings has really killed it with their last couple of albums. Super catchy stuff that does just enough with the pop punk/indie rock formula to keep my attention. Their 22 minute release with Wavves is a good summer listen.

Saw The Tribe last week. It's a Ukrainian movie about a kid who is sent to a boarding school for the deaf, joins a gang there and enters a life of crime. It's entirely in sign language and has no subtitles, so it's essentially shot and produced so that it functions as a silent movie. The "no subtitles" bit is kind of a gimmick (you wouldn't do that shit if it was just in a different spoken language) but it is expertly directed. There are incredible long takes with really well choreographed movement between the characters, actors, extras, etc. It looks incredible and some scenes are really jaw dropping. On a technical level the film is remarkable, and it also takes plenty of risks with it's characters likeability (or lack thereof) and your attention span that really pay off. Unfortunately, it doesn't really know where to go. For all of it's defiance of convention in certain ways, it goes down a pretty stock descent into ultraviolence and darkness that feels tacked on and intellectually lazy. It was clear by the end of the film that the filmmaker had very little to say. I would still recommend it based on how well directed it is and how powerful some scenes are, but just when you're watching it and mistaking it's slow pace and well-staged long takes for depth, know that you will be reminded quickly that still waters don't always run deep.

Was wondering if anyone around these parts has gotten a chance to check this out. I had a lot of fun with this and found it to be a huge breath of fresh air even compared to other indie games. Her story presents you with some police interview tapes of a woman who may or may not be a suspect in a crime. You interact with the game by typing search terms into the database of video clips. All of the clips have been transcribed so you are essentially searching based on words that this woman may have said. As you listen to her speak, you learn information that you can use to come up with new search terms. As you search a term, only 5 results will show at a time, so you can't quite cheat it by typing in "the" and uncovering every clip. The execution is rock solid. No one clip can spoil the entire story, and every clip is packed with so much many layers that a clip that did no more for me than introduce me to a character name could have felt like the climax of the story to someone else, depending on what they learned before that clip. The one game mechanic you have is incredibly simple, and clears the way for you to really think like a detective. I was alternately taking down notes, re-watching videos to catch anything I overlooked, and trying to brute force the system by typing in as many random searches as possible. Everything I did resulted in something that made sense in the fragmented way the story works, didn't give away the whole plot, and kept me interested. It's a perfect length and price, and I would also say that the game format is brilliant for it's resourcefulness. With one actor and a really small team they made a game that they can sell for six dollars that is probably my favorite thing I've played this year. It's 2-3 hours long, but the amount of time you can spend arguing about what you think is going on is double that. Highly recommended, and if any of you have played it, I'd like to know your take on what the hell happened!

Ha! I got a kick out of this. I hope Chief Keef listens to Lorde.

I know this ain't exactly something y'all don't know about but HOLY SHIT. I can't listen to anything but the new Kendrick album. Just instrumentally, the first two tracks had me falling out of my goddamned seat at work when I first heard them I loved good kid maad city but I thought that the production was pretty tame, i.e. much whatever was popular at the time plus some 90's Dre influence. The production of this thing is insane. All the thundercat stuff is bonkers, there's really good jazz all over the place. Even the version of "i" is waaaaaaaaaaay better as a live recording or fake live recording or whatever it is. This album is so well conceived it's insane. I kind of want to just sit and listen with lyrics up because the story-telling is next-level as well. That conversation on Mortal Man? Goddamn.

I also was a little underwhelmed. I thought the performances were good and it was pretty decent for a bit, but didn't entirely hit for me. I thought it the look of it was a little too obvious and Tim Burton-y and the third act is fairly predictable. I also hate that the creature has to do a very generic fast-motion head twitch thing and just scream at the camera. I thought this movie had a good grip on the idea that things are a lot creepier when they are seen out of the corner of your eye, suggested, glanced at, etc. and then it ruins it in the whole last half by having this thing just fuckin in your face screaming. I think nowadays when something even gets something half right in horror, people go nuts. Also, I feel like I'm fucking crazy, but when the babadook screams, I swear to fucking god they use a sample of a demon or imp from DOOM. Can somebody please confirm this? I'm about ready to download it to pinpoint exactly what I;m talking about but it happens more than once.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst is a new HBO miniseries directed by Andrew Jarecki, who previously made Capturing the Freidmans; a documentary that uncovered the dirty secrets of a seemingly normal family, and proved rather undeniably that the world is a dark and horrible place. Similarly uplifting, The Jinx opens with a dismembered body found in a lake in Galveston Texas and an old man with a bow saw in his trunk who turns out to be an heir to a multi-million dollar New York real estate fortune. Questions abound, not least of which being; where did he put the head? I'm 5 episodes into this (though all six have aired, and apparently, the ending is a real hum-dinger) and so far, The Jinx works as a character study, an examination of a legal system where money buys talent, and a hard look at the "whole truth," whatever that is. The show is making headlines ever since Durst was rearrested days before the premiere of the finale, but I would highly recommend watching it, even if you have read about it, or consider yourself "spoiled" from a few Facebook headlines. Durst is a very interesting and bizarre character. He is simultaneously every cranky old man from New York you ever met, and a completely unknowable sociopath. Anyways, I'd like to know what you folks think of it, and I had a few questions as I go into the last episode. Ethics Now that True Crime is seeing huge successes in this and Amy Koenig's Serial, how ethical is the use of these stories as entertainment product? Much true crime that I know about is based on people who are long dead. When the people involved are alive, I think the question is worth asking. I enjoyed Serial, but I found it a little problematic that it was made entirely without the consent and cooperation of the victim's family. Investigating a crime or a potential innocent person in prison is all well and good, but at the end of the day, Koenig was sitting on a pile of money, and the victim's family has a bunch of bloggers and news outlets and shit at their door dragging up the worst part of their lives. The Jinx is a different case. The friends and family of the victims as well as the alleged killer cooperated fully. The filmmakers, however, had to juggle keeping a relationship with a possible killer, while hopefully keeping in mind that any new evidence they find on the case should be turned in to the authorities. As the arrest of Durst came right before the final episode of the show, there have been questions as to how much information Jarecki gave the police and when he gave it to them. These guys could be trying to be ethical as they can, but the bottom line is they're filmmakers first, and journalists second. THIS SHIT IS SPOILER CENTRAL. SRSLY But interesting article nonetheless http://www.nytimes.c...ethics-too.html First Trial

They did this one called H.A.R.D.C.O.R.P.S. that was dumb as all hell but kind of fun. They were this generic tactical squad that could call in to HQ to switch superpowers when they needed to. They could each only use one power at a time so they would have to be a bit strategic. They found lots of ways for them to get stuck with a certain set of powers and have to use them creatively as well. Fun-ish; also violent as hell. I believe all Valiant comics were pretty gory, actually.

I think this OP rules and you hit tons of really good points that I couldn't agree with more. This makes me wonder about the recent trend of indie open world games, sandbox games and other games with no real end or with randomized elements. This has so far been a pretty clever and comparatively cheap way to give us games with hundreds of hours in them. Like anything else, sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't, but when it hits.... holy fuck. Kerbal Space Program has more potential meaningful hours of gameplay in it than even something like Dragon Age because you can't "plat" it or 100% it. Eventually, even an Atlus RPG with 27 endings for each character or whatever is just finished, but people spend a thousand hours on some of these more open-ended games. I think player freedom and mechanics robust enough to support that freedom is what gets me into a game for 50+ hours, regardless of genre. So here's a question, what can these expensive AAA games give me that cheaper indie games can't? It sure as fuck ain't length. Video games are unique because they often cost a different amount based on how much they cost to make. Generally music, films and books cost pretty much the same amount on release regardless of their budget. Should we pay more to see a Christopher Nolan movie nowadays because they're expensive to make (and long as fuck)? Should a 90 minute indie movie cost 5 bucks in the theater? I understand why Spelunky cost $15 and Uncharted 2 cost $60 when they were brand new. I would say both are priced appropriately. That being said I played Uncharted for about 40 hours and never played it again (but I loved it) and I've played Spelunky for almost 200 hours (Yeah, I'm fuckin weird, whatever). So I think while AAA games need to justify their cost now more than ever, length is a shit way to do it, as length is NOT something that expensive games necessarily do any better than indie games. AAA games need to show me where the money went, and how they're giving me something I couldn't get for 10 bucks from a team of 4 people. This is becoming increasingly harder to do as developers toss these elements of "perceived value" (game length padding content, unnecessary modes or features) over fun (and nowadays, over stability... I'm looking at you, AC: Unity!)

If anyone hasn't played Thomas is Alone yet, it's good for a couple of hours of puzzly platforming with personality. Steam key: TCIQ8-J8GPP-9W6AH

Rarrrrr, steam sale! I need to write up some of these on here soon, but until then, Rogue Legacy is fucking AWESOME. Play it!

Just a word of warning (aside from all the imo legit reasons not to see it that folks have been bringing up i.e. fuck that guy, he doesn't just have shit opinions but he had an active role in campaigning against human rights), but this thing was directed by the cinematic pussy fart that is Gavin Hood, the man who made the abysmal and schmaltzy Tsotsi and the unforgivable X-men Origins: Wolverine. In some ways these films are more atrocious hate crimes than anything Card has ever done.

Ya, he's pretty ridiculous, but unless you hold rotten tomatoes as some kind of sacred institution, he's harmless, and I think fun to read. The New York Press is a tiny, alternative paper that has a lot of weird shit in it; he's not exactly hurting anyone's box office. He's also actually really well versed in films. It wouldn't be as fun if it was just some bro dude laying into our favorite Pixar movies. He also writes a fair amount for criterion, and that stuff is good, and free of any ridiculousness.