RIDEBIRD

Just yesterday I thought "it is going to be so weird when I am like 50 in twenty years and these dudes are 60+" while listening to the Beastcast. Dumb and naive thought I guess, but it's been 13 years. All of the years of my adulthood.

It is really weird. Thank you for everything.

Yes, the piano interlude scene is beautiful, awful, and hilarious at the same time, I can never stop thinking about it. My girlfriend used to sing that song based entirely on that scene (she had never heard it before it) for at least four years, not exaggerating, after we saw it in 2012. Mesmerizing is actually a very good word to describe the entire movie.

Spring Breakers is one of my favorite movies ever. Spring break foreverrERrrrrRRRr... biiiitch... Look at all my shit, every scene with Gucci, it's a goldmine. It's a very entertaining movie and sometimes it gets philosophical in both a very cheesy overblown way it can't pull off, but there's also some sincerity there for us that are of similar age to the girls. Everything is so vapid, empty and disgusting, in a way I at least can relate to somewhat. The movie captures that perfectly. The dubstep drugdoin' scene where the police busts them is just a nightmare and also hilarious. Franco is a decent Riff Raff stand in but I can never stop thinking about the movie that would have been if he actually had done the film.

As you both say, it's a weird movie. It's also very unique. I think the correct mindset for this movie is late at night and preferably a little bit drunk and or stoned. It works best if in summer as well. I was not entirely blindsided by it as I was a big Gucci fan and could only think a movie with him would be extremely weird, which it is. I was very surprised by Selena Gomez doing what she does in that movie, though. I love that damn movie.

If you don't enjoy the broken chaos of this game - especially the physics bugs - there is absolutely nothing in this game. It's an empty husk. Do not watch the cutscenes, the story only gets a lot worse. Don't try to make sense of it, it's probably the worst story/world building in a big budget video game in, well, at least a decade. All the areas follow the same formula.

Even with all that negativity, I had a riot with this game. The constant chaos, cougars out of nowhere, shit blowing up, all that stuff - it's so fun. Especially in co-op. If you don't like that, stop playing, there really is nothing else. Well, it's fairly pretty I guess.

That sounds really shitty. No pun intended. I am having no issues at all so far, apart from finding the controls - especially climbing - quite inconsistent. It can be very clunky whenever you have to do precise movement, and I find the Batman combat in this one not completely reliable. I've lost a lot of hit streaks due to Talion just not wanting to attack a certain guy as he suddenly was too far away to chain, while other times he's fine launching himself off the screen to hit a guy I couldn't even see. It runs very well at least and is in my Perfect Frame Time club along with Doom and other very smooth games. Completely unlike Batman which was and still is (although much less) very stuttery.

If you have an older soundcard and you don't have 10 that would likely be the culprit however, and you will not get any support going forward either. With your issues switching between quality settings in Windows, it seems like the problem goes further than the game. I'd recommend getting a USB headphone amp and just leaving soundcards behind. I did so last year due to having intermittent issues with my Xonar DX for years, and absolutely no drivers required makes sure it's future proof as well. That way you can get Windows 10 as well which is overall a much faster and stable OS in my experience, especially for games.

About 18 hours straight apart from eating delivered pizza and drinking a bit of coffee, and toilet breaks of course. I was reviewing Dragon Age 2. They did not deliver the fucking code on time.

Played 46 hours of that game over friday, saturday and sunday. I still really liked that game.

I wouldn't really listen to anything RPS says on this topic. They are not the only ones that have discussed this, but RPS is borderline notorious for hating difficulty in games. This normally only was John. Judging by the new guy Matt, it seems to have become more of a core ethos for their team. Others on RPS have written about similar things recently as well.

I love difficulty in games if it is correctly balanced and doesn't just end up being tedious. I especially like XCOM and Original Sin style difficulty - turn based tactics (normal here is fine for me and often challenging enough til mid-late game where it gets too easy).

When it come to boss fights though, John has a point, but the wrong solution. Most boss fights in games are absolutely horrible - according to me - and I would love to skip them, while playing the rest of the game on hard. What I would much rather prefer is that developers have less bosses, and focus more on creating memorable and varying boss fights - if they are not good at it. I love Dark Souls and similar games, as well as WoW, as they actually spend some time creating memorable, balanced and fun boss battles that play more like puzzles rather than hit the loot pinata for about five minutes while occasionally avoiding some garbage. Almost no other games succeed with doing this. Nier perhaps, but I couldn't stand the overcooked spaghetti feeling combat (again, my opinion) so I never really got to see them.

If a game like Cuphead names it's easy difficulty Simple, cuts content, and in other ways incentivises to try the regular mode, I am totally on board. That sounds like a great way to nudge players in to giving it a shot. Personally, I loathe difficult 2D platformers like Meat Boy, as well as spongy boss fights where the boss has like 80000000 hp to your 30, so of course I will not waste my time trying to like Cuphead. I think most disagreeing with this design choice should probably realize they love the artstyle and not the game, and leave it at that.

I have baldness on both sides of my family. My cousin went bald at like 27, and it started years before that. To prepare, I have had a buzzcut my entire life. I like that too, but now at 29 I still have full, thick, (but short) hair and don't seem to be balding any time soon.

I'd suggest you just shave it off or at least trim it very short (<4mm), it's the only way to go.

@mopanda: As you can see you are not alone.

I can really recommend Dan's book. It's very good, and I find it helpful that he is both funny and of course very successful in life. What helped him most is meditation. I do not suffer from general anxiety disorder, but I am quite sensitive and worried about most things. When it's bad I get anxiety that persists for an hour or two. Mainly where I am at in life, what I am doing/not doing about that, and how I'd like to have done a lot more at this point. I am most likely somewhat depressed as well. Dan and Drew were my main sources of finding out about that meditation actually works, and I am so thankful for that.

Meditation has helped me a great deal, especially those days when I do struggle with the more "physical" aspects of anxiety. Doing body scans (this sounds strange, yes, as do most things with meditation) can make me "locate" where the more physical aspect of anxiety is and sort of, I don't know, feel it. Let it wash over me. Get it over with in some sense. It makes things clearer. Read the book, and as Dan recommends Dan (!) Harris book 10% happier is a good next step in learning about meditation.

Ten for sure. Played one of the best games ever, if not the best I have ever played, in BOTW. What a fresh take on my favorite genre, just fantastic. Playing Nioh right now and while it is extremely difficult, I quite like its take on souls/Ninja Gaiden. Going to play Nier soon as well which seems to have themes that are right up my alley.

Got Persona 5, Yakuza perhaps and Horizon in the future, and recently I managed to make Dishonored 2 playable, which was a fantastic experience as well. Prey is lined up, and Tacoma, and I'll play Mario Kart as well. I think I am very excited because I'm playing stuff I've never played - BOTW is my first Zelda game for example. Persona will be the first real JRPG I'll spend serious time with.

Truly, it's the best time to be playing videogames.

Thanks for all the positivity, Drew. Truly an inspiration.