wollywoo

Voted Sony. It's just about the exclusives for me. God of War, Horizon, Naughty Dog games, etc. What does MS have? I don't care about Halo. And happily, most of their other exclusives I was interested in, like Ori, are coming to other systems. Game pass sounds nice, but personally I go for long spans without playing anything at all besides Switch, so I'd rather just buy the things I want than pay for a subscription. This is all my opinion, but I assume others feel similarly.

I enjoy an old-school FF as much as the next guy, but turn-based battles get a little tiresome to me. I enjoy some of the boss battles, but the in-between minor encounters generally don't have much to speak of in terms of strategy. When I play RPGs on emulators, I can literally just hold down on the attack button and fast-forward my way through them. That's not very interesting. Action-based combat will always require at least a little finesse. I'd like to see a return to turn-based, but only if they can somehow make it consistently fun.

I bet, though, that a FFXVII that is old-school and turn-based, maybe even 2D and/or pixellated, could sell gangbusters.

The art and the humor have aged fairly well in these, but the puzzles not so much. Without hints you have to be willing to spend a *long* time wandering around trying different things. That said, it is very rewarding when you do complete a puzzle - and the solutions themselves are often some of the funniest things in the game. I think with a good, reactive hint system these games are very worthwhile. But I think it's much more rewarding to spend a decent amount of time bashing your head against the puzzles before getting a hint.

My favorite is Curse of Monkey Island, but that one has not been remade and probably requires the SCUMM emulator. But the art is fantastic and it's by far the funniest. I'd kill for an HD remaster.

Thank you for making this thread and for the lovely videos. 2020 sucks but we can find some meaningful things to enjoy.

How you feel about Pavarotti is how I feel about Regina Spektor. It's difficult to pick a single song, but whenever she sings in Russian it just gives me chills. For the sound quality and perhaps the performance, I actually prefer the studio recording of this song, but there you can't see the rapturous expressions on her face.

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Whenever I think humanity is just not worth the space they take up, I think of this guy. I don't know why, but the scene of him playing piano to a blind elephant makes me happy. The elephant seems to respond and listen in a way that few humans do. As one of the youtube commenters says: "At least someone on this stupid planet is doing something meaningful."

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And to cap out a trio of piano videos, here's something much nerdier. Lara here plays a haunting Metroid melody. The real reason that I watch this video, though, is for her bursting into a smile at the end after three minutes of meditative concentration. It's enough to melt any nerd's heart.

I don't know numbers, but I think it's going to last you quite a while. It's really quite challenging, especially if you've never played one of these before. It takes quite a bit of practice before you can really get into the groove. Although it does take away some of the replayability that you can't go back and re-do all the goals with other characters (see other thread.)

Now I wonder if the entire Xbox line is just some incredibly elaborate, expensive game of tic-tac-toe between Gates and Bezos.

The Lobster - 1/5.

Well, this is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. The premise, if you haven't heard it: in this world, no one is allowed to be single. Anyone who is single is put into a hotel where they have a few weeks to meet someone; if they can't, they are turned into an animal of their choice. In the case of our main character, that choice is a lobster.

I'm not sure what I expected from this movie, exactly. If you only knew the premise, you might think it was an Adam Sandler comedy. I knew it wasn't that, but I think I expected something along the lines of a Charlie Kaufman movie; a very odd, droll satire with a lot of funny moments and thought-provoking twists.

Instead, what I got was one of the most depressing things I've ever experienced. It's hard to criticize, in some sense, because I'm sure it does exactly what it sets out to do; but it seemed like it was written by an alien. There's nobody in the movie that talks or acts like a human being. In fact, every character speaks in exactly the same way - stiffly and politely, regardless of the circumstance. Nobody has any relatable motivation to speak of. In a film like this with such a strange premise, I would expect the characters to act somewhat realistically within the norms and rules of this world; Black Mirror, for example, is good at this. When the situation is strange and the characters are completely inhuman, there's just not much to anchor you in reality.

I'm sure you could read this as an allegory for how society expects everyone to conform. The scene where police are checking for everyone's marriage certificates in the mall reminded me of similar checks that I've heard happen in Iran, where men and women are not allowed to walk together if they are not married. But what it's ultimately trying to say - I have no idea, and I don't have the patience or the interest to figure it out.

I did have a good guffaw at the random animals showing up in the background. The camel was my favorite.

I'm a few hours in, and this game is very good. The animation is excellent. I love the main character's design - she is just so damn happy. And the gameplay loop is addicting and relaxing. Taking the basic elements of Harvest Moon and combining it with open exploration was an inspired idea. Some of the mini-games / challenges do get slightly repetitive, though - hopefully it doesn't wear on me too much as it goes on. Here's hoping the game does very well and the team can make a more ambitious sequel.

So, this game is very good, in the same way that the originals were very good. It's a *lot* tougher than I remember. Probably from a few years (THPS1-3) of practicing on a semi-regular basis I got halfway decent, but that's gone now. I'm bailing all the time. But that's why these games are so beloved, I think - there's a very high skill ceiling and it's very rewarding when you master it.

It's really impressive that they pulled this off on the PS1. The controls were and are very fluid. When I think of PS1 games I generally think of RPGs or games with otherwise *very* stiff controls like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, MGS - games from a time when 3D was new and devs and gamers alike had no idea how to approach it. In terms of fluidity of movement in 3D worlds, Nintendo was usually light years ahead. These games were the exception. The levels are also impressively large - much bigger than I remember.

They are both very, very good. I played them back-to-back so I have trouble remembering which one is which - to me they are like one very long, excellent Mario game. I'll take any excuse I can get to replay one or both of them.