The Witcher 3 is like... really long, you guys.

I planned on finishing it up and reviewing it days ago. But this is an absolutely massive game in ways I'd not expected. It puts Inquisition to shame in just about every respect and I quite liked that game. I've played the main quest line almost exclusively, I even failed a bunch of missions just because I wanted to power through what I thought would be the end game.

But it turns out the final act is exactly that. An ACT. Not a single dungeon crawl, not a half-assed finale battle, but a solid 10 hour ACT. When most games are passing out on the finish line, Witcher 3 is gearing up for another mile.

An extra mile, you might say.

Oh... HELLO Tales from the Borderlands. Nice of you to start to begin to join us.

June 23? I'm trying to understand. I know you live all the way out in California and it takes alot for you to make time for me. I just wish you'd talk to me first, though. You keep saying you can make it out every 2 months. But the last time it took 4 and this time it'll be an even 3. I don't mind waiting. But it would have been nice to hear something, hell, ANYTHING about this a month ago.

I love our time together, seriously, you've been incredible. I'm starting to think... there's someone else.

Avellone has left the building.

Chris Avellone, chief creative officer, and head writer of my favorite game ever made... has left Obsidian. This dashes my hopes for a true successor to New Vegas to ever exist and that stings really hard.

He's the best writer in the business and his work at Obsidian was tremendous. Between NV, South Park, and Pillars of Eternity his reign was truly supreme. My bet is he'll probably end up with his buds at inXile, as he co-wrote their next game. Maybe that was cause for termination? Maybe.

I have officially left Obsidian Entertainment to accept a sudden opening as the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts.

— Chris Avellone (@ChrisAvellone) June 9, 2015

Hannibal, Antipasto: Review

This, unlike any other show that's ever aired, doesn't give a single f**k about what you think. It's going to do what it wants, when it wants to. It's going to blare an out of tune pipe organ in your ear while a woman passes out after pulling the entire length of her arm from a dead man's throat.

This is a bizarre, violent, show that follows more of a nightmare dream logic than a real story structure. This season it's decided to completely reinvent itself after last season's "get out of contract free" cliffhanger that left nearly every single main character bleeding out in Hannibal's mansion. Hannibal has coerced Bedelia (his former therapist and now "wife") into being his European camouflage. As he murders his way into a respectable position curating an Italian art exhibit. He straight up sits in his competition's office feasting on the man's liver so he can give that man's wife a cute little shock.

There hasn't been a horror film in years with this kind goofy, yet enthralling, kind of sadism. This is the one-of-a-kind folded steel carving knife to SAW's blunted cleaver. It makes sumptuous visual high art out of a mumble core penny dreadful script. And thankfully, IMDB tells me everyone's contract renewed, so the core cast will show up... eventually.

Not before Hannibal showed us that they totally could have built a show around just the two of them and part of me wishes they had. Settling into life with a possessive monster has a lot to do with bath tub based dream sequences and trips to unsettling, and fancy, Italian butcher shops. How come our butcher shops don't have rabbits and game hens hung up to bleed? Thanks, FDA.

Antipasto is a day in the life. All story threads that seem to lead to further intrigue are surgically dealt with by Hannibal's indiscriminate and defensive hand. It's a short film rather than an episode, capped off with Bedelia staring longingly at a train station security camera. Screaming for help on the inside. There's even a film within a film and it's some of the best character work in the series to date. Did you think Hannibal made Eddie Izzard just eat his own leg and then killed him? No. No he didn't. It's the greatest character send off I think I've ever seen. It's slow, horrific, and hypnotizing.

Apparently the Red Dragon is going to feature this season too, but to be honest... I'm already stuffed.

I can buy Fallout 4... and I'm really thinking about it.

Goddammit, OPEN ALREADY!!!!

Sure, it's possible that this game comes out in January 2017. Any number of setbacks could happen. But the fact they've had more than a reasonable amount of time to make the thing, and because of Todd Howard's famous "when it's ready" approach to marketing, and because I can plop down $60 to reserve the thing on Steam right now even though it doesn't even have power armor as box art... points strongly to a  Fall or December release.

This is happening. Sure The Witcher 3 was delayed almost a full year, which is why I'm not taking my hand off my wallet... even though my heart and my soul scream "YES!" As if $59.99 could make my hopes and dreams real. No, even though that in engine trailer was glorious and I'd happily slog through it if it was one of the greatest disappointments in gaming history, I do have more restraint than that.

I can wait. But not forever.

Welcome back, pal.

Roll over, Fallout. Imma scratch your belly.

Please stand by...? Whatever could you mean Bethesda?

Oh. OOOOOOOOH! Oh right, yeah! YEEEEAAAAAAAAH.  I'll stand by. No problem. Thanks Bethesda. Thanks for not chasing Skyrim 2. After ESO disappointed it must have been tempting.