sethos

still no Trine 2 on PSN in Europe, what a farce. at least Journey is being released in March. Also, they are finally releasing PS2 Classics on the European PSN. Hopefully Odin Sphere is coming soon (it's been available in the States for ages now), I miss playing that one.

I know everybody is psyched for Mass Effect 3 right now, but when it comes to third parts I think I'm more interested in Max Payne 3 and Bioshock Infinite. I never got into Mass Effect. To be honest, I haven't really enjoyed a Bioware game since Baldur's Gate II. I liked the first Dragon Age for its story, but I thought the gameplay and graphics were only middling. Mass Effect 2 was gorgeous in parts and well written but it never fully grabbed me.

Second episode seemed to roll back from the shift of tone that dominated the opener and did a good job of selling me on the new cast.

 

Tom and Kelly (Misfits), separated at birth ?

Holy shit, you're right! wouldn't be surprised if they were brother and sister in real life.

Mark, I was in much the same boat when I heard what they were doing, but I can't really complain about the actual episodes. It's all pretty good, though not sold on new vampire dude so far. It could have helped if they had gone for someone who looked a bit more different from Mitchell.

I liekd Drive in part because of the slowness. I think it worked really well, especially contrasted with the few fastpaced scenes of ultraviolence.

agreed.

Recently saw 50/50. Great flick about a twenty-something guy called Adam dealing with cancer. I like how they managed to walk the line between comedy and drama, great balance. Only thing wrong with it is that Jessica Chastain's role as Adam's girlfriend is horribly written (she acted very well though). I really got the idea that the scriptwriter (who based the script on his own battle with cancer) was getting some revenge on an old girlfriend. Anna Kendrick was good, but her character very idealized. Angelica Huston was terrific in her small role as Adam's overbearing mother. Seth Rogen was Seth Rogen (which is fitting as he's basically playing himself: he's best friends with the scriptwriter and also was there for him during the cancer). Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great as Adam. Solid movie all round.

EDIT: whoops, it wasn't Jessica Chastain, it was Bruce Dallas Howard.

I just had a look at some patch notes (for 1.4) and there doesn't seem to be any mention of Johns particular problem.

Not listed in the patch notes but my issue was indeed resolved with the latest patch, result!

 

Played through the rest of the Thieve's Guild quest line over the weekend and it stands as easily the best content in the game for me so far - finding out more about [ Spoiler : the Falmer and their connection to the Dwemer ] was loretastic and the final, related, confrontation was suitably epic. The [ Spoiler : Nightingale ] armour looks damn cool, unfortunately my home-made Dragonscale kit puts it in the shade in terms of protection and enchantment quality.

Yeah, but the [ Spoiler : Nightingale ] armour does give you much much better stealth (though not better than the special [ Spoiler : Dark Brotherhood ] armour you can find during some of its later missions). Since I'm a stealth maniac, I tend to keep one of those handy. with my proficiency with stealth (maxed out) and archery (nearly there) I recently managed to kill a dragon with one shot!

and yeah, finally started playing again with the 1.4 patch installed. no lag so far and nice to finally be able to finish a whole lot of missions I previously experienced bugs on. That said, I'm never buying a Bethesda game on PS3 again.

it really, really isn't.

Spartacus continues being great fun.

I hope everybody's getting their hands on Luck? just watched the second episode, pretty damn great. what a terrific cast.

good episode, even though I hate them [ Spoiler : murdering Nina off screen, though I can't fault them for then also killing off George. ] sniff.

new characters, I don't know. none but Werewolf youngster has made much of an expression, but he's had a lot of starring time in the previous season.

wasn't just me about [ Spoiler : the werewolf blood ]then.

I think it's just another nail in the coffin of the Big Two. another short-term hype/money-maker for DC to justify its existence to its parent company. Watchmen doesn't need prequels. It's certainly not the perfect book people make it out to be, but it is perfectly fine on its own.

Anybody else play that Kingdoms Of Amalur demo? I don't know, obviously the game is huge (just look at that in game map), but I was disappointed how clunky it was compared to Skyrim.I figured it would at least have better functioning third person combat but apart from better collision detection, it seems they dropped the ball. Why the hell didn't they include a targeting system? the running feels very off as well, you float above the landscape, it seems. the graphics are very cliched, it really is one big riff on World Of Warcraft. Also, quite a lot of graphical glitches in the demo (PS3), with trees sudenly popping in and out of existence, textures disappearing, etc. the voice acting varied from piss-poor to decent, the story is a big wet fart of fantasy trope... I don't know, I'm not sold on the game at all. I really wanted to like it, but it just pales next to Skyrim. I'll wait for Dragon's Dogma in a few months to see what the Japanese can do with free-roaming RPGs.

I don't think we're too far off it - unfortunately Sky have HBO locked down for another few years but I'm personally hoping that Netflix is a huge success on our respective shores so we see a quicker turn around on the availability of other US programmes through same.

 

DC have gone from making no money off me to nearly twenty quid a month by putting their product online in a timely manner, I'll gladly pay a couple of euro to stream a high-def version of any given TV programme rather than have to nick it off the internets.

HBO is coming to my country next month, apparently. 15 bucks a month for three channels, with US shows airing within 24 hours of the US broadcast and access to HBO-Go. I'm pretty tempted, I have to say.

I forgot just how much I enjoyed watching Raylan Givens sauntering around being a smugly cool son-of-a-bitch!

 

Despite having one of the best supporting characters on tele in Walter Goggins' Boyd Crowder, Justified feels like it hasn't built up a whole hell of a lot over two full seasons. I'm not really engaged in the story or any of the characters outside of the aforementioned pair but I'll be damned if they're not enough to keep me watching - the ending of the season premier left me grinning, so that'll do.

I don't know, I'm guessing that after all is said and done this season, Boyd will be in full control of Harlan county's illegal happenings. I'm just waiting for Karen Sisco Goodall to show up. now she's gonna make Raylan doubt his bond with Winona, I'm guessing.

Returned to Skyrim after a week's break, still miffed at the borked Thieve's Guild questline I loaded it up just to clean up my character's inventory and leave him somewhere civilised before waiting for a fix to materialise from the developers....two hours later I forced myself to log out and go to bed.

 

Still so, so much to do and I've put 100 plus hours into the thing, amazing.

the next patch is supposed to cure many of the game breaking mission bugs, includng quite a few I've had the misfortune of running into, so hopefully your thieves guild probs will be solved as well. sigh.

My favourite US Marshal Raylan Givens is back on TV, and the first episode of the third season is fantastic. Some very interesting new faces (including Quinn from Dexter??), and just enough Walton Goggins.

Also, Carla Gugino is a recurring cast member this season. Now... is she playing the same Elmore Leonard character she played before on TV? because that is a crossover I would like to see.

EDIT: oh shit, she really is playing the same character (only with a different name)

Got the Skyrim.

 

So far not too impressed.

 

Am a girl orc.

how much have you played? I thought the opening was rather naff, but as soon as the gameworld really opens up (after you get to the first town and basically get to say "I wonder what's beyond that mountain?") it just becomes quite staggeringly beautiful.

After finishing "Loud & Clear" the next mission doesn't kick off like it's meant too - apparently this is down to my having broken into a brewery roughly 90 hours playtime ago.

UUUUUGH.

I've had that happen with a minor questline, where I went into a dungeon early in the game and managed to kill a main baddy which I wasn't supposed to do for a while yet. thankfully that's only a side mission.

Dead Island was a really nice gaming surprise - the story was a mess and characters non-existent but wandering around an open world zombie apocalypse with drop in/out multiplayer was smashing fun.

 

Kate, the issue with Skyrim on the PS3 possibly getting choppy after your save-file grows past a certain size is rumoured to be down to a flaw with engine used in its creation - meaning that it'll probably never get fully fixed.

apparently if you started a new game after that round of patches came out it's supposed to be a lot better. but since I'm about 150 hours in I really, really don't want to do that. what kind of bug did you have with the Thieves Guild, John?

Max Payne 3 is all that's on the radar at present.

 

I'm not really into the fantasy genre. Someone described Skyrim as akin to Game of Throne or Beowulf. Apt description?

more Beowulf than GoT (though the game does have some quite decent political scheming, yes), but yeah, the game has a very heavy Viking atmosphere. The landscape is pure Scandinavia (some of it truly feels like my trips through Norway), with many of the designs being more extreme versions of Viking and Celtic design. I think it's one of the most detailed/persistent game worlds ever created: there are almost no elements that seem out of place in the world, with every nook and cranny hand placed and designed. Your mileage may vary based on your tolerance of game bugs and the somewhat dodgy fight mechanics, but I think it could well end up being my favourite RPG of all time.

I'm curious to see whether GTA V will come out this year. I think it might make an appearance round october or something.

Games most excited about:

Bioshock Infinite

Aliens Colonial Marines

Diablo III

Skyrim expansion pack (you're not the only one who wants to stay in that game as long as possible, John!)

Dragon's Crown (VanillaWare's new 2D hack 'em up/RPG hybrid. I really love the VanillaWare artstyle, despite the bizarre bodyproportion and all)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lmU5ijwZ08

question marks (as in, could be good, could be bad):

Dragon's Dogma (Japanese trying to do more western style RPG, great graphics but no idea if it'll be the same old boring gameplay)

Reckoning: Kingdoms Of Alamur (Elder Scrolls wanna-be from one of the lead designers of Morrowind and Oblivion with (rather naff if you ask me) creature designs by Todd McFarlane)

Last Of Us (it's by Naughty Dog, so it should be good, but there's been no gameplay shown as yet).

The Last Guardian (really am starting to wonder if it'll ever come out).

South Park the RPG (it looks just like the tv show, storyline written by Parker & Stone, but developed by Obsidian... how many bugs will this have?)

Yes, it certainly is according to the internet.

It'll be a manga.

 

http://manga.about.com/b/2011/11/29/gourmet-manga-goes-west-anthony-bourdain-pens-foodie-graphic-novel.htm

no, it's not manga. Langdon Fos is definitely more Euro-inspired when it comes to his art. reminds me a lot of the late great Seth Fisher.

more Love & Rockets

Anthony Bourdain's apocalyptic food culture graphic novel from Vertigo

King City trade collection

Multiple Warheads volume 2

Rebecca Dart's Battle Kittens graphic novel

Lucy Knisley's Relish GN

the upcoming collection of Emily Carroll's short comics.

Journalism by Joe Sacco

euro comics:

the Darren Aronofsky-written Noah graphic novels (I think Vertigo grabbed the US rights? anyway, it starts coming out in February over here)

new Jonathan by Cosey (already out in France but only coming out here next month)

final part of Siegfried (same as above)

King of the Flies volume III (hopefully)

Boardwalk Empire: did not see that coming!

I think SOA just about got away with that...but the shot of Fat Elvis strumming his guitar - and the version of "House Of The Rising Sun" that followed gave me a fit of the giggles, front runner for unintentional comedy tv moment of the year I reckon.

well, I've slightly mellowed on the reveal, especially since I thought about it and it makes sense with the cartel's actions throughout the season, but it still seems like a deus ex machina to make RICO go away. but yes to your observation.

I think you are giving them too much credit, John.

Anyway, well, the Sons Of Anarchy season finale has a huge twist (kind of telegraphed last week), which destroyed all the careful plotting and build up of the season. very lame, in my mind:

that final image was pretty great though.