I listened to that 404 about Justin Yu's nightmare hike, and this is armchair quarterbacking, but man, there were some weird decisions made there (many in the early stages, before panic could be used as an excuse). Don't let tech seduce you into taking excessive risks, and don't leave the trail - particularly in an unknown area, in poor visibility, and for what you expect to be a two-mile stretch.
I would like to draw attention to Mister Caravella's testimony that he collects dead things, which categorically exempts human beans such as the late Mister Dan Ryckert from his hobby-related activities. The defense maintains that the video records found at Giant Bomb dot com lay ample groundwork for the attribution of Mr. Ryckert's demise to a tragic hand sanitizing accident.
Also, the defense finds the incompatibility of this website's comments system with tracking blockers highly unusual.
Re: Hagane: Super Nintendo chronicler SNESdrunk has covered this: the Blockbuster story seems to be a myth, at least for this title. You can find ads in gaming magazines listing the title for sale through mail order at the time of and for a good while after the game's release, and no mention of any exclusivity deal can be found in the magazine coverage of the game during its debut. This follow-up video details SNESdrunk's quest to obtain further information on the "Blockbuster exclusive" story and also traces its possible origins (possibly a Classic Game Review YouTube video from 2009). Note that Hagane is not, in fact, listed in that GamesRadar article that Brad mentions, and the author of that article himself admits that he's basically just guessing at the titles involved, as info on Blockbuster exclusives is untrustworthy and clouded.
Perhaps there's a piece of a puzzle out there we're missing, but the story doesn't look accurate at the current time.
(If I send this in via e-mail, it'll just get snowed under, so here's hoping someone takes a look at the comments.)
Speaking as a 40-year-old, I've never heard of difficulty with a Souls game being stratified by age. They're a bear for *everyone,* and that difficulty is founded more in timing and learning patterns than raw reaction speed.
There's a degree of disingenuousness to the invocation of -isms in the Souls Easy Mode conversation, I think, that seems intended as a distraction from having to defend the illogic of the fundamental "I want to play the games renowned solely for being hard without them being hard" idea. To steal from the Ben thread again, people are conflating accessibility with difficulty - not accidentally.
My opinion on the whole difficulty thing is that accessibility is cool, more people being able to play games is cool, but if the developer wants people to have a very specific experience with their game then they have no obligation to add an easy mode or anything like that as unfortunate as that is for people who can't gel with that.
As eye-rolly as I find the Souls genre, I agree wholly with this take, as well as Ben's Twitter take. Getting one's face caved in is the entire reason why people make the questionable decision to play Souls games. If you pipe up that hey, you want your face caved in, you just don't want all that pain, or bone damage, or fist-to-face contact - why are you here, exactly? What kind of experience do you want, and why are you demanding it of a title that you know is designed to give you the exact opposite experience?
Re: Sexy Transformers, I would like to point out that it is typically Starscream that has gotten all the female fans. Can't resist those dulcet Chris Latta tones.
It is so wearying to hear about how people love the latest Souls game. It's like having a friend who won't leave a bad relationship. They keep going on and on about the latest unbelievable shit their partner's pulled - still insisting that, no, you don't understand, their partner loves them, really - and you just want them to dump the fucker.
Now that, with Blood Warrior, we have apparently discovered the importance of the LOL Factor in the formula, science demands that Twin Goddesses be reassessed in light of these new discoveries. #3 seems about correct given recent advances.
I once had the red stonewashed jeans Brad's character is wearing (but in a better cut). I'm glad that the trend of jeans in a variety of vibrant colors is finally making a comeback from the '80s.
ETA: JEANS UPDATE: In a Monkey's Paw twist, the "multicolor denim" trend has apparently been revived only for skinny jeans, a cut that looks good if you are, as advertised, skinny, but hot garbage if you are not. Once again, GREAT FASHION is dashed on the rocks of the utter stupidity of the women's garment industry.
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