Scribblor

I'll have to watch it again. I remember it being just alright. I liked the setup, but the execution fell flat. But it's a Ti West film, and those have never landed for me. Unless I'm defining "tense" differently. I use it to mean the build-up of tension, dread, fear. The knowledge that something is going to happen, and the anxious wait before the action (or jump scares, if it's that sort of film) happens. I didn't get that with The Inkeepers, just like I didn't get it with House of the Devil.

I've been really lucky. Only had a single left joycon with stick drift, and a single Xbox one controller with a dodgy left bumper, and both of those were after years of use. But then, I probably play less than a dozen hours a week spread across all the consoles I own and the PC, so they won't be getting all that much use really.

I'm twenty minutes into episode one, and so far it's promising but really clunky. The opening scene is laughably clichéd and the following sequence feels like a middle aged person without kids wrote it, even down to the way the kids dress, which my teenage daughter thinks is cringeworthy, and the music choices which are thirty years old. I can't tell yet if the anachronisms are intentional, like they are in sex education, or if it's just been made by people who are even more out of touch than me. I'll watch the rest of the episode, at least, so it's definitely doing something right, but it feels inauthentic. Edit: after episode one I'm not enormously impressed. The plot relies entirely on characters not talking to each other about things, and not questioning the fantastic elements of the story. I found the plot contrived and thought there was a real lack of build up to create the tension and fear that the main character's supposed to feel. It seems to be getting good reviews elsewhere, so don't take my opinion as anything other than my personal thoughts, but I don't think I'll bother with any more. It turns out the production company who made Sex Education were involved, so that might be why it looks and sounds so anachronistic. The writers are The Clarkson Twins, who were script consultants on His Dark Materials, did some producing and writing on The Haunting of Bly Manor and wrote for The Wheel Of Time.

I thought The Witch was really tense, and Possum, too. Other people thought they were boring though, so ymmv

I thought season 1 was good, but I thought season 2 was really fantastic. Didn't enjoy 3 as much, but 4 was great too. I really wish it had continued, as even the seasons I didn't enjoy as much, I still thought were good.

So should you just play incredibly conservatively, to try to keep the ball then? Or do different teams/races have different best strategies?

Yeah, I wasn't a fan. I loved the homage style, just like you did, and while I actually like slow burn stuff, this just didn't hold my interest. And I didn't like the stuff that happened when stuff started happening. I think I'm with @jon_cybernet - Ti West just doesn't do it for me. All his films have flashes of interesting things at the very least, but the whole always leaves me disappointed for some reason. To me, it's like he has these great ideas for scenes or themes or visual motifs or whatever, but once he's done them for a bit, he just falls back on something that ends up feeling like dull conventionality. But, y'know, that's just my opinion. Please don't take that as a criticism of you if you enjoy his work - I know there are films I think are great that other people reckon are tripe, and that's fine.

It's because games journalism isn't objective or ethical enough, clearly.

Also, that idea is predicated on the assumption that the only reason anyone does any job is for the money. I know that I could be paid a lot more in a different industry, but I don't want to work in another industry. I'm not going to claim I should earn more because a hedge fund manager earns more than I do*. If I know a writer in a similar sized games studio to mine earns a significantly different amount, I'd feel like I should be earning more money. And what's the problem with that? *Ultimately, I think taxes should scale so that pretty much everyone ends up with the same take home pay and the tax on higher earners go to a properly comprehensive welfare state. But that's never going to happen. Wage transparency is more attainable, but again that's not going to happen as people who could make it happen are higher earners and they won't want to share that information.

Cured pig legs at Christmas are always great from Aldi and Lidl, though I never manage to get through even a small one before it goes too mouldy to keep hacking away at. Aldi used to do an awesome 30 year old port and a nice ice wine around Christmas too, but I haven't found them the last couple of years. Aldi's own brand gin is great. Hmm, it seems like I just buy booze and meat from them... Frikadellen and Bratwurst are both fantastic, although I have noticed a distinct lack of the latter in my local stores over the last year or so.

Whenever I'm at a studio trying to find a publisher, it's an absolute nightmare, as I'm never anyone with enough power to make a decision of that importance. I don't know what I'd have done if I was at Avalanche. I'd like to think I'd have exited ASAP, but now that I'm out of 'normal' design and into narrative and writing, decent positions are pretty rare, so it's possible I wouldn't have been able to find another at all. I definitely couldn't have just quit, and returning to a level or systems design position would feel like a huge step back, career wise.

It's a tough question, for sure, but I think it's one worth engaging with (not that you suggested otherwise) and everyone's got their own limits. Honestly, for me, it's less about whether someone actually boycotts those companies or games, and more about whether they consider it. If they have a personal deliberation and decide they're going to buy the latest Madden even though they'll be funding baddies, that's at least being engaged with the topic. It's people who just don't want to even think about it, or who don't care at all, who boil my piss.

Well... shit. That's going to lead to some tough decisions in the future.

It's nothing to do with whether you run anything by me or not. It's your blatant admission that you don't care about the issues surrounding it that marks you out as selfish and lacking empathy.

Man with no shame or empathy more like. But at least you're honest in not giving a shit about other people if it might impact your enjoyment of media for a handful of hours.

Yeah, it was a fun Owl. I do agree that the holding call was unfortunate. Not that it was a bad call - I've seen the replay and as subtle as it was, it was a hold. But as has been said, suddenly calling that so close to the end of the game, when the refs had been loose all game previously was disappointing, because it let to a fairly anticlimactic last drive.

Game Pass have Fox too, at least for the pre game. But I'm almost certain that means it's going to be Fox for the game too.

My son is 10, and we talked about the issues. He's decided not to engage with the game because of the harm JKR does to trans people. He was never a very rabid HP fan though (he was a fan, mind you, just not a huge huge one) so it's maybe not the toughest decision he's ever made. But 10 is totally old enough to consider what you're supporting if you buy the game.

I worked with Avalanche on Infinity 2 and 3, and their structure was insane. People working on different playsets had no contact with each other to share resources, their visual scripting system looked and performed as though someone had glanced at a screenshot of Unreal Kismet once and made something based on how they thought it might work (leading to bugs like order of execution being the same as the order of which pin on a node was dragged first) and they were massively, massively overstaffed. I was a 'mission architect' on Infinity 2, supposed to work with a narrative designer to put in side quests according to their designs, and literally all the guidance I had to go on were things like "The mayor gets brainwashed." That is a direct quote of the entire design of one of the Avengers sidequests. And that was that person's entire job - to design sidequests for that one playset. Given that, I'm astounded they've managed to make something that seems to be as good as it is. Well done them, but it's a shame it's on a property that's so sullied now. I'll never play it, and my kids have both said they want nothing to do with it or anything HP any more.

I think a lot will come down to Mahomes' ankle. They're saying it's much better, but if he has any issues with it, I think they'll really cause problems for the Chiefs.

Vinnyvania, Project B.E.A.S.T, 13 Deadly Sims and the Endurance Runs are just perfect.

NFL Game Pass is the raw US feed I think? That's how I watch it. The ads last year were really shit. Unless it's not the US feed, and I was getting served special Game Pass ads?

As usual, I'll be watching the Owl be Superb by myself, but I think this year marks the time I'm finally too old to go anywhere near as all out on snacks as I usually do - no half time wings or sloppy joe during kickoff, for example. Last year I just felt overfull immediately and had bad indegestion. This makes me sad, but it's undeniably healthier.

I watched them talk over the Nintendo Direct last night, which is the first video of theirs I've watched since Jeff left (and, really, the first full video I've watched since the Nextlander crew left). I can honestly say I won't be watching another video from GB. Bakalar was basically mute. Jan was a shadow of his former entertaining self. Grubb was irritating and Dan's schtick 100000% doesn't work without the old GBeast lot for him to bounce off. Just take GB out back and put it out of my misery. It's done. There's nothing worth salvaging there.