How do you do that?

The real tragedy is that he never got a chance to be the greatest grandpa who ever walked the earth.

This... Hurts.

Sir John Hurt has left us and I'm... pretty crushed. There's simply no one waiting in the wings that could make dialogue sing the way he could. He had a marvelously articulate rage, no surprise to anyone who saw V for Vendetta, which is actually an excellent companion piece to his work in 1984. It was the little things I always admired most about him. In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (still on netflix and well worth your time) he's a spymaster who ends up getting played by a mole and in the scene where the inner circle ousts him he shreds the line "I should have left you WHERE I FOUND YOU." That shouldn't be my favorite moment in the movie but through sheer force of will he made me love it.

My condolences to his friends and family. I'm going to miss him terribly.

C and C episode 56!

Chamberlain and Chance - Never good enough

This isn't gonna steal my joy.

Man, I've had a corker of a sh**y week. I worked 5 double shifts in a row, 2 of them nightmares. Then I tried to get Resident Evil 7 up and running on my first day off after 51 work hours and my top of the line rig shuts it down before the title screen.

No. I'm gonna get mine this weekend. I've been lost in ps2 emulator land for over a month and I need my AAA game itch scratched. What can I do? What's $20 off  on green man gaming that was... faintly praised by my podcast buddies?

Hmmm. What to do, what to dooooooo?

Come to think of it, wolf eye sockets are perfect for belt loops.

Oh, what in the screaming bloody F&*K Capcom?!!

I love PC gaming to tears, but there are times that all the money and effort spent trying to get the damn things to work won't pay off. Resident Evil 7 is one of those times. I've had games run badly, I've had games crash randomly, but never have I EVER played a game that wouldn't even let me see the title screen.

Thank Christ the steam refund policy is in place, I would be so much more angry if I had to wait a week or two just to be able to fiddle with the graphics options. The last game I refunded was Arkham Knight and I at least got to play the damn game first.

So I'd love to tell you how good RESI 7 is. After it's knocked down at least $30.

What the inside of my head sounds like right now.

Roosevelt's theme from Civ VI has been echoing through my brain for weeks now. It's been oddly comforting to me so here it is, just in case one or two of ya'll out there need it too.

But lord knows I can't keep my happy face on forever and it's only a matter of time before that tune devolves into... something else.

2017's gonna be fascinating. I hope we make it.

No one seems to want to talk about Dragon Quest 8 anymore.

Wait... f&@king what?!

I mean, it's not like the game goes out of it's way to tell you a party member is under the age of consent and gives her a "sex appeal" stat. She's a 17 year old who literally uses sex as a weapon. It's leery eye fades to the background the vast majority of the time. That being said, when DQ8 does get it's perv on it is, for lack of a better word, stunning.

One of her attacks involves her flashing monsters to... distract them. Yeah. I'm out.

John Lewis gets his.

March

Most of the time I don't want to make the Crackpot political. But then most of the time the president-elect doesn't childishly put down a man who was cracked in the skull on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Turns out Rep. John Lewis is laughing all the way to the bank. His graphic novel/memoir box set has completely sold out over night.

I wouldn't go as far to say that Trump is "illegitimate." but for this man to loose his cool like that over something like this may be the most spectacularly ironic event in American politics.

PS2 reunion tour: GOW II is still a f@$%ing masterpiece.

Allow me to set the mood:

I remember I used to be a huge fan of God of War, until 3 just... shattered my heart* (another post for another day), but Dark Souls took up it's place and ran with it for years. I had assumed modern action games had left it in the dust and that I'd probably give up on a play through 4 hours in. This was not the case at all.

Most of my PS2 jaunts these last few weeks were all the great JRPG's** but I forget how gracefully GOWII has aged. The bloom effects are a bit too much, but other than that, I'd barely change a thing. The puzzles are great, the loot's hiding places are brilliant and 2 of the greatest boss fights of all time are in here. The fates, man. They killed me on titan mode so many times 10 years ago I almost beat them with my eyes closed just now. But I still like that fight and that is the mark of greatness. You memorize a game inside and out and you still love it.

It's been a long time since you were a critical darling, Kratos. Here's to your comeback!



*it ran out of both money and ideas a 1/3 of the way through and ended with the exact same finale as II. The fact that they're only now making a game set after 3 and it's abandoned Greek mythology entirely I think proves that they didn't like the ending either. Oh. OH! And that creepy surrogate daughter sh*t with Calliope. Where the hell did that come from?! GRUMP! 

**Seriously where are all the great JRPGs these last 2 console generations? The ps2 era was absolutely lousy with em'.


 

The Durham PD thinks I could use a hug.

I'm not gonna get my cash back or anything, but you know what? This is kinda nice. I had no idea there was a "victim service unit." I'm glad my tax dollars are paying for something like this.

Ice Storm 2017

I may not be from the Midwest like Chamberlain or even Canada like Chance, but I haven't been snowed in like this for a couple years. Good thing I'm all stocked up. Sausage and pasta FOR. DAYS.

Persona 4 and the real, Real, REAL, ending.

Some games have disappointing endings. Some games have disappointing fake endings hiding the real happy ending. One game in particular has the real ending behind a happy ending, behind a shitty ending, behind a tragedy. This narrative nesting doll is Persona 4 and I'd just like to take some time to appreciate it's magnificently batsh*t storytelling choices.

Also it has the best video game end credits I've ever seen. You finally get hear the lyrics to title screen theme!

My Christmas Hot Sauces:

Being able to support myself is a great feeling, but I always seem to end up with nearly everything I want as far as gift giving goes. It's not like anyone can just ask for a stronger sense of self worth for Christmas... but moving right along, I have standing bounties in lieu of specific gift ideas. Any tea, coffee, or hot sauce I might like.

See the key to affording the stuff I want is to find the cheapest way to eat food I like. Places like Cost Co allow me to get decent produce and absurd amounts of pasta at a fair price. But even my favorite veggies get boring after making so many stir fries. Then there's my frozen staples which after all these years especially cry out for new and interesting hot sauces. So here we are: Crackpot Hot Sauces 2017:

Arrogant Bastard Ale: Jalapeno Heat.

Pretty good beer, too.

This is thick and dark like a BBQ sauce. It's got a sweet taste and a short burn perfect for burritos. But preferably steak burritos.   

Baby Clydesdale Sriracha

Their mascot doubles as a warning label.

This is hot sh*t in every sense. Like fireworks that change color, BC is gonna hurt you in a couple different ways. There's depth to the hurt, is what I'm saying. It's gonna make you stop and think about just how badly you need another bite of eggroll. If Tabasco is budweiser, then this is a fine sipping whisky.
 

Happy Hangover day!

Can someone turn the lights down please?  ....thanks.

It's a day after christmas miracle!

Irasshaimase!

My new card is great, it really is slightly better then a 980 TI at half the cost. But for some reason, right before I checked out Nuka World, it straight up murdered the load times in Fallout 4 for me. 30-40 second load times turning into at least a minute and the wastleand itself could be as long as 2! I'd barely put up with that if I'd first started but this was nearly a year after launch.

Mods didn't help, message boards didn't help, and I'd just about given up. As long I had my 1070, Fallout 4 was dead to me. The only thing I hadn't tried was putting it on a solid state drive. Seeing as the cheapest SSD worth a damn was $130, I had a problem. Mainly because just as many people who said that was the silver bullet said nothing had changed.

So on my wishlist it went. If it worked, great! If not, more storage space! Thankfully both were true. I'd go as far to say it runs smoother than ever. So much so that all my games are going on it.

Merry day after Christmas everybody!

How many fetishes are in this picture?

You do you, Tedderz.

...Because I'm seriously asking.

The PS2 reunion tour continues:

Christmas presents have cleaned me out, so I'm lucky I haven't touched most of my PS2 gems in almost 9 years. My old collection, with a healthy dose of emulator filters to give em' a new coat of paint, could keep me busy for months. Plus I'm curious how much Persona will have changed once 5 comes out. Though I can't say I'm pleased Atlus has given me this much time to catch up. April?! Seriously? It's been 8 friggin' years already! But I digress, because it's sh**y job story time!

I remember playing this during my landscaping summer job. I've been stuck on a mountain in 20 degree weather during a hail storm. I would have almost rather spent a summer there than at greenscape corporate landscaping. Pruning parking lot trees and 30 ft. tall holly bushes in record breaking heat. I woke up every morning at 4, starving, but dehydrated. I had to fight to keep down my oatmeal while my stomach threw a hissy fit. 5 days a week for 2 1/2 months. I still have lil' scars on my fingers from the holly bushes.

You should see what these f**kers do to leather gloves.

If Persona 4 hadn't been the tireless fount of positivity it is I don't know what I would have done. It's good to be back in Inaba, I just might play through twice.

Anyone wanna see what a gum graft looks like?

Everything tastes a little bit like blood.

"OOOOOOOH...... kayyyyyy." Is something I didn't want to hear my dental surgeon say while pulling length after bloody length of suture out of my mouth. Apparently my teeth are so close together under the gums I threw a consummate professional for a loop. But everything's good now. My gums are grafted and none of my molars will be falling out anytime soon. That's a relief. The Vicodin's not a bad deal either. My point is, I've lost a lot of traffic recently and you know what they say about journalism: If it bleeds it leads.

Last chance to bail. 

I sincerely hope that's not silly putty.

The Man in the High Castle Season 1 Review: Is New York Burning?

If there's one thing peak TV has taught me, it's that there is a finite amount of craftsmen in this world capable of making genuinely great shows. MITHC has a lot going for it. A killer premise, solid production value, and a firm grasp on how living under a foreign power would feel. That last part is the hardest nail down and it's worth watching simply because it's about time Americans get a taste of what it's like when the shoe's on the other foot.

 It aims straight at the heart of what would drive someone to commit acts of terror and I'm glad this kind of story landed in the mainstream instead of the indie scene. Though that has it's drawbacks. Serious drawbacks. No one talks about MITHC much because aside from 3 or 4 brilliant episodes, a whole lot of mediocre writing waters it all down.

If you love fedoras, crisp suits, and jackboots this show will make you loose. your. SH*T.

I'm gonna try to coin a phrase here: Law&Order-itis. When a show becomes so plot driven the dialogue becomes laughably bad. Case and point, halfway through the season the main couple has a fight that gets so heated one of them accidentally (acci-f**king-dentally) blurts out that she murdered someone recently. The only reason in the whole goddamn universe someone would say something like that is because the writer couldn't think of a way to move the story forward. Dialogue like that is the canary in the coal mine for bigger plot problems. Such as someone sneaking into an office to steal Intel almost once an episode. One time two office excursions played out simultaneously. If this show wasn't set in a genuinely well realized nightmare of a world I would be much more upset right now. But, Christ, the writers needed to figure out different friggin' things to do with it! 

The opening credits are something else. You really need to see it.

But there is a lot to love. Rufus Sewell's SS captain could have been a goosestepping stereotype, but he is ordinarily and horrifically American. Everyone else doesn't get in the story's way but hardly any characters are fleshed out enough to grab my interest. Though the folks involved in the obligatory Jewish resistance were lovely. The script really came together for those scenes.

There's nothing else like MITHC. Aside from the script problems and the occasional absurd action scene, this vision of America is still haunting. I find myself thinking about it at work and in the car. Not that this specific reality is possible, (Hitler was fighting a war on 3 fronts, the Nazi's did a bang up job defeating themselves) but a fallen America is a hell of a thing to see. I'm not a flag waving, chest pounding, patriot but seeing Americans bow before Japanese secret policeman made me obnoxiously uncomfortable. That's not nothing and I'm willing to forgive several rookie screenwriting mistakes because of it. It's greatest contribution to 2016 was the dire warning that democracy is not guaranteed. That's something we all need to understand.

The Shame Curtain

It's... uhhh, Snake Eater. Swear to god.

Far be it from me to call JRPG's "shameful." But just in case you were worried about roommates walking in while you're in the bathroom and then you find them trying to sound out "CUR-AH-E-JA" Final Fantasy 12 had you covered. A black, soundless, screen that just says "PAUSE." What's paused? It could literally be any game ever made. Including ones with such things as baseball and football.

Not that there's anything wrong with liking JRPGs. Hell, I'm taking time out of my weekend* to write about it. But if you really need to hide this firaga lit light under a bushel, Square Enix won't stand in your way.


*Hurray service industry!

Something Familiar

Baltheir hangs out with a lot of young boys in retrospect...

I wasn't an RPG guy back in '06. I'd never really played one. It's only because Okami had sold out* that I even gave Final Fantasy 12 a shot. "This is supposed to be a big frikkin' deal" I thought to myself. "Might as well bow to all those perfect scores" Almost an entire winter break later I emerged a changed gamer. "These things can last 40 goddamned hours?!" I thought. "How was I so blind?"

Coming back to it 10 years later is like sipping a fancy cup of hot chocolate. Too rich to have all the time, but it's nice while it lasts. Also having it on an emulator means I can kick it up to double speed so grinding is no longer a pain. You never forget your first and 12 is long overdue for a second look. Reading old reviews now is hilarious. FF fans were disappointed in the scope of this game? They had no idea what was coming. 12 being easily twice the game 13 or 15 were. At least to me.

Thus begins my PS2 RPG reunion tour. Maybe when I'm done reminiscing I can get my PS4 fixed... but that might be a while.

*ironic isn't it?

The Chamberlain and Chance 50th Episode!

Chamberlain and Chance - In which we change our minds

Error ce-36329-3: PS4 not found.

......Christ.

My ol' Ps4 up and died on me yesterday. I'm stuck in a loop where instead of logging me in I get an error message. I've safe moded, I've reinstalled factory settings (which means 33 hours of FFVX saves are gone), and I'm still in the same loop.

I'm not saying FFXV slow roasted my hard drive, but the more forums I read the more it looks like HD failure. Siiiiiiiiigh.

This unavoidable side quest is brought to you by.....

Jesus Square, how deep in the hole are you?

Cup Noodles; when you're broke and you need a nigh lethal dose of salt to choke back your pangs of mediocrity. Cup Noodles.

Also when you're a major video game publisher in it's twilight years and you need to recoup something, anything, to keep your white elephant feed. Cup Noodles.

They are remaking the HELL out of Crash Bandicoot.

Like the corners of my miiiiiiiiind...

That... that is a budget. Looks a little rough around some edges but it's early yet. It doesn't even have a release date so I'm sure it'll look less floaty by release. But I don't need much of an excuse to play these again on a ROM let alone with a top to bottom remodeling. You have my attention N. Sane collection... but will you have a good review?

Things I've done while waiting to play Final Fantasy XV:

See Ignus, while everyone else caks about you keep your eyes on the road. That's why you're my favorite.

When fast travel first came out people wondered if that would hurt the "journey" of Oblivion. Instead everyone went "Oh... no, this is f$%%ing awesome." And hence forth, in most open world games you can go where you want, when you want. Not so in Final XV. You can pop back to your car and the last place you slept. That might sound reasonable, but more often than not I'm stuck out in the wilderness running back to a road for as much as 15 minutes. Not only that, but I have spent what seems like hours driving that car doing nothing while my in game J-pop boy band does nothing. It's like an Escher drawing of a complete waste of my time.

So I endeavored to make it more productive. Here's what I've been doing while I'm trapped in a imaginary car:

-Diced chicken sausages

-Sauteed spinach and mushrooms

-Ate tortellini with chicken sausage and spinach and mushrooms

-Caught up on unassigned sales emails. I lease apartments, you see.

-Resolved a complaint with Wells Fargo's fraud department. They seem real friendly these days....

-Planks. One minute planks.

-Transcendental mediation.  But to be fair I don't think I got very far.

-Asked Prompto to sit the hell down before he flies out of the f%$King car.

-Contemplated eternity

-Dusted a then recently discovered cobweb.

-Microwaved frozen fried rice

-Tried to open the equipment menu, realized the game only lets you use a shop* while you drive, and then screamed some less than courteous things about the baby Jesus.


* I'm pretty sure this is the game designer equivalent of a middle finger.

I lost 2 pant sizes!

aaaaand I promise to shut up about weight loss now. 

Arrival Review: We need to talk.

Humanist science fiction, when done right, are some of my most favorite films. Joints like Close Encounters, Silent Runner, and even Contact for the most part celebrate my favorite parts of humanity. They say we're at our best when we solve our problems instead of punching them. That our ingenuity and empathy are what slowly makes this world better.

That is the thesis of this linguistic thriller. Yeah, there's a linguistic thriller out there right now and it's wonderful. It may not last the test of time and it may not win best picture but this movie just made me feel better. That's rare enough as it is.

Amy Adams plays a linguist drawn in by the military to learn the language written by pilots of several alien disks scattered in random places on earth. Each country has their own team with their own disc. Cooperation is easy at first but when progress is slow the super powers begin to think everyone else is holding out on them. Replace giant aliens with a rogue nation and it shows you an agonizingly believable portrait of how the world will most likely end. In silence followed closely by bombs.

The most impressive thing I noticed about the film is it's sense of mood. Every scene whether it's a quiet cottage by a lake or a cramped plastic MASH hospital carries a solemn sense of... well.... doom. This world isn't ending in a loud and fiery war but in a withdrawn, caffeine addled, depression. The fact the first person to speak to the aliens winds up being institutionalized is a nice, almost cthulian, touch.

This entire film is a puzzle and in retrospect there were tons of clues towards the twist 2/3's of the way through that I thought was earned. But your experience may very. I've already had one fight with a friend who thought it was tripe. I liked it! Though whether you buy it or not you can't deny the actual aliens are worth the ticket price. The secrets of their language and motives make for a good story but it's most artful in how answers get doled out. I mean, I thought the whole show was wrapping up only to glance at the time (my phone was on the lowest brightness, I swear!) and realize there was an hour to go.

And don't get me wrong, those 2 hours flew. I was just concerned it was ending too soon. Which I say is a high compliment when a film ends and you're sad it's over. But not Arrival. No, Arrival ends exactly when it has to. Leaving me with a firmer confidence in the best of us. The idea that in the end... maybe we really can "all get along."

He has a line at the end that will be the cheesiest damn thing you've ever heard. Just know that.

Well apparently the new Final Fantasy isn't a disaster at all.

He swallows his own hair a lot, I bet.

I've been cold towards Square Enix for a long time now. Whatever spark they had is long gone and they've descended into late seventies Disney malaise. The last Final Fantasy I played, the second 13 one (Jesus the things I have to say to describe the way they name these games), was nothing. A game in search of a point it never found.

This is at least longer and much better overall than I'd imagined a game that took 10 years to make would be. Games can be in the oven too long and as a rule the clock runs out at 5 years. After that you tend to get stuff like Resident Evil 5. Competent, but soulless. 15 at least has a decent main cast and is scored no lower than a 8 so far.

So after Dishonored 2 bummed me out (Orwellian dictatorships are too close to home right now) this looks like it could pick me up. I can grit my teeth through some anime cheese for a 50 hour grindy jrpg jaunt.  I could use some damn positivity at any rate.