Winter is Here.

This season of Thrones had me REAL worried. It's still a great show, but it's had to deliver what all great shows need and that is to outdo itself. I can count on one hand all the greats that managed to keep upping the anti.

Ladies and gentlemen, the anti has been upped. In the end, we all keep tuning in to see dragons fight ice zombies. And it'll take a whole 'nuther season to see something on the scale of this white walker attack again. But seeing these blue blooded sons o' bitches play with their food was worth it's weight in dragon glass. Stop hating and get back on board. Dorn wasn't that boring and Cersei's in prison now! Know what? I'm watching that again.

(UPDATE) Microsoft may be planning on buying Silent Hill.

 (NOPE. None of this is true)

Which means that it will be an Xbox exclusive. Which means the act of taking the playable teaser off of the PS network was actually a cynical move to drive up that game's value to sell off to another publisher and get the best possible short term gain off the license.

If any of this is true.

And if it is, Konami can still f**k off and die. Why do they have to be such dicks about giving audience what they want?

I've been playing the witcher 3 for over a week?!

How... how is that possible? I haven't even meet Ciri yet and that's the halfway mark! Dear god, this could be an all timer for me. It's so much better than the critics are saying. I mean, I've never seen an in game storm as awesome as these. They take a minute or two to blow in and you can track it by looking at the cloud cover. It's spectacular:

See, the clouds haven't covered the sun yet, so everything is brightly lit against the sky. SO GOOD!

So... is Brad Bird an objectivist?

After walking out on Tomorrowland's preachy second half... yes. As ham handed as passion projects can get, TL winds up being a total screed. There's a great point to be made about modern apocalypse fiction being a self fulfilling prophecy. But I wish the actors would show that to be the case instead of just saying what I just said, essentially.

So I'd probably get into an argument over cocktails with a favorite director of mine. Big whoop, I'd commit multiple homicides to get that chance. It doesn't make any of his masterworks (which is nearly every film he's ever made) less amazing. Even though the message that the great "few" shouldn't be held back by the mediocre "many" is literally the moral to every one of his movies not starring Tom Cruise.

But who the hell cares? I don't. I'm much more concerned with my favorite cartoonist being a bigot.

Bojack's back a month early.

Last August, an anthropomorphic horse stole my heart. It was a goofy, by the numbers, animated comedy that slowly bloomed into a sincere exploration of cynicism and self destruction. They also broke the news that Andrew Garfield loves lasagna and hates Mondays.

I'm so down for this I just might watch the first season all over again... again.

I just avenged the angry spirit of a miscarried fetus.

So what did you do today?

Green Man Gaming is super-duper sorry.

I'll be honest, when GGG was selling The Witcher 3 for $10 less than every one else, I pounced. It was only later did I learn that they managed to do that by putting one over on the developer.

CD Projekt Red, pride of Poland, and dyed in the wool advocates against DRM. I was pissed. I'd have supported them more if I could, but I didn't get the whole story. Oh, and apparently some of those ill-gotten game codes didn't even work.

So this morning a 40% voucher popped up in my inbox. Valid for my next purchase whatever that might be.

What...ever that may be.

I'm still deeply disappointed in them, but I also am not turning down that kind of a deal. Also WB interactive could use a good buggering. Why not take on a studio with real lawyers GGG?

The Witcher 3 and the death of doll eyes.

Running though GTAV recently has been a blast. It looks absolutely gorgeous. Just stunning all the time. Except the cut scenes. I started to hate them. Not because anyone who isn't Michael, Trevor, or Franklin is a bizarre shell of a tired stereotype... well not just that.  It's that nobodies eyes ever focus on anything. Sure, sometimes their eyelids narrow or open but they can't disguise the lifelessness beneath.

Neither could Bioware, hence the name "Bioware face." But the Witcher 3 fixes a lot of these problems. In the first 10 minutes alone Geralt smiles... with his eyes. I forgot to take a screen shot, but suffice it to say, it's something Julia Roberts made a career out of. Every character's eyes in this game focus on something and I'm in love:

Here's some free advice:

If you ever feel like sending an angry letter to management... don't send an angry letter to management.

Are you stone cold sober?

don't do it.

Are most of your fellow employees on your side?

Don't Do It.

Can you subsist off the land and create a new life out of simple tools and fertile soil?

We both know you couldn't make it 2 weeks without the internet, DON'T DO IT.

So it's come to this: A Simpsons Theme Park.

The last episode of the Simpsons I saw was in 2009. I owned seasons 2-8 and loved them all, but I couldn't bear to see what had happened some 10 years later. I literally grew up with the Simpsons, sneaking it at friend's houses as my parents were kinda-sorta "media crusading" against it. They're better now.

I vaulted it as the height of comedy while barely understanding why it was funny. And it turns out I wasn't wrong. The Simpsons started a golden age of comedy, not just for animation, but also single camera shows that might as well have been animated. Like Community and to a lesser extent, Scrubs.

It's fitting that now that Harry Shearer, literally half the voices on that show, has left the show that the new theme park has opened. That's a death kneel and I can't imagine them soldering on too much longer without Mr. Burns, Flanders, Principle Skinner, or any other of the hundreds of characters that now have to unceremoniously disappear. He's also 70. That may have something to do with it.

So this is the end. Why not go out with a bang? With a museum of highlights that will physically remain long after that future solar flare stops all electrical current on this planet forever! I am not anti-Simpsons theme park. Far from it. Will I ever go back to Universal Studios? Probably not. Though it is nice to know that in the eyes of executives TV properties have all the same rights and opportunities as film.

In a Simpsons theme park that has a DMV, somebody's heart somewhere, is in the right place.

You thought I was kidding? McCracken doesn't kid about the DMV.

Marvel's Phase 4 has been leaked. I don't think you're ready for it.

Let your face be melted off by an awesomesauce whose PH balance is off the scale! The PH scale! This awesomesauce is so caustic you guys!!!

Crackpot Theory: Fallout 4 is going to be bitterly dissapointing... maybe. God, I hope I'm full of it.

"Just because I love you don't mean I won't put you down."

It's been... let's see, 6 months since the internet last riled me up with another fake scoop on Fallout 4. A game I've waited on for so long I honestly don't care half as much as I did 2 years ago. A time that, fate willing, they would have had more than enough room to produce a solid sequel. But it's been nearly 5 years since New Vegas. Even if production started when Skyrim's DLC ended we should have heard something, ANYTHING, other than dead silence.

Now a super secret, but totally trustworthy, source found by a German PC gaming site claims that Bethesda's first ever E3 conference will hold a behind closed doors demonstration for critics. Of Fallout 4. Sure. Why not? I honestly don't care anymore.

But you see, I'm worried. Some games take too long and more often than not, it's because a lot went wrong. I'm willing to bet ya' that there's been dozens of prototypes of Half Life 3 that all fell short and Valve is too embarrassed to admit it. Or maybe, and this is my more hopeful reason, is that Elder Scrolls online forced the suit's hand and made sure they weren't contributing to any hype that wasn't for that game's now evaporated potential.

Or they aren't happy with it. If that closed door meeting turns out to be the case, they really aren't happy with it. Also, the Obsidian crew has almost nothing to do with it, which also bums me out. Why you'd wind up having Chris Avellone not write a Fallout game is just blithering madness to me. So my loins are girded. I pray I'm dead wrong and this is all because of overactive corporate paranoia.

We want to love you F4, why can't you just poke your head out the window? What the hell is going on?

Can we talk about Endless Legend for a second?

Every single piece of static art is this game is just.... auggghhhhhhhhhhh.

I've checked and only about 1500 on steam are playing it at any given time. This cannot stand! This was Rock Paper Shotgun's PC game of '14 for seat's pake! Pete's sake, sorry, I'm a bit flustered. You see, I've seen Endless Legend through early access over a year ago. I'm pretty invested. It's so much more than a high fantasy strategy game. Well, it's exactly that. But it's such a refreshingly original high fantasy.

They really took thier time to make those moldy old mainstays at least slightly more unique. Elves are isolationist tree/human hybrids, dragons are an organized civilization dedicated to world peace, centaurs all have delightful potbellies, and the infamous "one city challenge" from Civilization is recreated here with a specific civ with a eerie back story. You're a doomsday cult that spreads influence instead of borders. You play as these creepy-ass clockwork mannikins... I've said too much. The cultists are a trip, man.

I've never actually formally reviewed that game, but with their "giants" expansion just hitting Steam I can no longer contain my rage. I'll do what I can to keep Amplitude studio's candle from blowing out. Maybe my 8 bounces a day will do something... in some way.    

Guess what?

With 2 incremental upgrades over 2 years totaling $1400 (not proud) I finally have what I can safely say is my favorite PC rig ever. And my 2006-20011 rig was no slouch. After maxing out GTA V with momentary dips below 45 FPS I can say for certain that all future problems now lie with the game's optimization alone.

Wheeeeeeeeeee! You know that draw distance is maxed out and you'd better believe the crowd variety is too!! I uh, I should go outside now...

I now know I can tackle the beast on the horizon with style. As you all know... Witcher is coming.

The crackpot is down.

Or rather, the computer I use to maintain it is. Be back Tuesday or Wednesday!