I'm Officially a Professional Journalist!

After a bit of a wait, I've finally been compensated for my work at Durham's Herald Sun. For the very first time, my English degree has produced tangible results! It does not suck, this feeling.

It does not suck.

Clockwork Empires is on Early Access.

Fish People!!!!

It may be buggy, it may crash every 15 minutes, I may not be able to save it yet, but it's so fuggin' charming I don't care. This game makes cult related cannibalism charming.  I'll let that sink in.

Metal Gear Solid V is coming to PC... wait, REALLY?! What the hell?

Kojima! What is this? What are you doing? ...Explain yourself.

And to STEAM no less. This is... stunning. Like Uncharted 4 showing up on my rig's doorstep next year. After the blow of the next Tomb Raider's timed XBOX exclusivity, I did not see this sh*t coming.

This was... is SONY's bread and butter. The '98 original put the PlayStation on the map and the 4th was the PS3's first killer app (sorry Resistance). Making it multi-platform was one thing, companies like Square have been hedging their bets like that since 2009. This IP isn't an unproven property, this is a console kingmaker. While I've always had a good chuckle at the bi-annual  "pc gaming is dead" articles, I had no idea the wind had turned so fiercely in it's favor.

In fact, this news sounds more like a nail in the coffin of the console wars than anything else. Or maybe this game was so ludicrously expensive (see Mr. Sutherland above) that hitting all AAA platforms at once is the only conceivable way of turning a profit.

That's actually really unsettling. I was hoping it was because Hideo really liked Half-Life.

Cosmos is on Netflix. You no longer have any excuse.

Did you know he was a wrestler? Like, a seriously bad ass college level wrestler?

Why is it that I can get through Blue Valentine and Schindler's List without a twitch of my eyelid, but Tyson's Cosmos has me all weepy? There's something deeply poetic about they way this mini series just... explains science that gives me what has to be a religious experience. While the last 5 episodes are a little dryer than the rest, what comes before is (in no uncertain terms) the most awe inspiring documentary I've ever seen.

I'd better stop now before this devolves into diatribe.

NETFLIX, HO!

The Knick Review: Artist in Residency

If there was one thing I truly loved about FX's Nip/Tuck it was the aggressively realistic portrayal of plastic surgery. A better depiction of the self destruction of vanity there has never been.  The only problem was, oh I don't know... the cartoonish hyper reality of everything else. It had me going for a while though, right up until the penis-less serial killer and his incestuous twin sister... you know what? I'm boring you. I'll move on.

Ever since then; I have waited for a show to seize the potential in the bloody reality of practicing medicine, and Cinemax's  "The Knick" has taken up the mantle with a coked up bewilderment that almost approaches a Gilliam joint. But yet it still remains rooted in it's 1900's reality, aggressively 80's synth soundtrack or no. The best thing I can say about the soundtrack is that it didn't annoy me and that's the highest praise I can give synth. But I'm getting sidetracked agian, what the hell is the Knick?

It's the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York and the show is centered around Clive Owen's Dr. Thackery as he tries in vain to advance medical knowledge to the point where people have a better chance in a ward than on the street. Something that has only started happening very recently. Thank god Thackery's got anesthetic, or else the opening (sorry) c-section scene would have been exponentially harder to watch. And this is hard to watch... but in the best way possible. There is real tension and horror in these sequences and they are of some of the best TV I've seen this year and I include The Leftovers in that pile. I should do a Leftovers review come to think of it...

But it wouldn't be a 2000's golden age drama without an anti-hero angle. So don't worry, Thackery isn't just a brilliant (artisanal) medical mind, he's also a coke addict who's closed almost every vein in his body. I'm thankfull we've already gotten the "fall from grace" angle out of the way already, but it would be nice to see a genius on TV or film that didn't have some crippling character flaw for the sake of it.

Either way, Owen's up to the task and towers over the rest of the cast. They're good, Andre Holland and Chris Sullivan, particularly. But no one is frankly well written enough to steal focus. At least not yet, anyway.

But I'd put up with miscasting for a look into this New York. Child labor, patient poaching, health inspector bribery, visual progress metaphors via the electrification of the hospital, it's the details that this period piece spends a majority of it's energy. It's time and resources well spent. Don't believe me? You can watch the pilot right now and then tell me off in the comments.

Move along people, no dramatic potential here...

Vigil Games Lives!

The scariest thing about Crytek's financial woes to me was the fate of my beloved Vigil games. From THQ's fallen empire to Crytek's sinking ship; the folks behind Darksiders (good game) and Darksiders 2 (damn near my favorite game) have become free agents once again as Gunfire games.

There are only seven people at Gunfire, so Darksiders 3 is absolutely out of the question for the time being. Though Nordic games, who snatched up the IP rights to DS at auction, have been vocal about continuing the quadrilogy and have spoken to gunfire about it. They are not interested and want to focus on some indie fare first. Though eventually they want to build to the scope of what made DS2 so great someday.

"Third-person, games with a lot of characters, adventure aspects, player progression, hunt cool bosses, fantastical creatures," "We have some ideas kicking around." -Director David Adams

Music to my ears, man. Just keep flying.

Guardians of the Galaxy Review: Knowhere Special.

Would you look at that! Chris Pratt is now box office gold, and you have no idea how happy that makes me. What's more, between this and the Lego Movie, he's been able to have his critical cake and eat it too. Nice, talented, guys can finish first and that just makes me smile. But enough about Pratt and how awesome he is, you're here to find out if that article title is snarky or not.

It isn't. I thought Guardians was fantastic, but the hype left a little to be desired. I thought the movie was good, but the exact amount of goodness it accomplished must be discussed. One; because this could be James Gunn coming into his own as a great pop directer, and two, because I haven't written anything in almost a week and I haven't written a review in god knows how long.

First things first, the very beginning was wonderful. The maudlin opening is a fickle and occasionally very powerful tool, and a scant few directors know how to pull it off. Spielberg can do it, JJ's done one pretty well, and I thought Gunn nailed it here. Plus, Greg Henry on the big screen! That put me in a great mood. And a random alien abduction notwithstanding, seeing a little boy deal with the death of his mother (an unrecognizable Laura Haddock) with coldness and anger was a great character choice.

Chris Pratt realizing he can write his own ticket.

The movie barely takes another breath before throwing you into ancient alien ruins, then into an antique shop on a futuristic "not-earth" run by Glenn Close, then into a dank space prison. All the while building character arcs and motivation for the five leads on the margins of some damn slick action scenes. The prison break has everything that the film does best all at once. It gives every character something to do and puts little personality beats within each task. It was a cracking screenplay juggling act you don't see every year. After that, the movie exhales and lets it's muffin top show a bit.

Before reaching the massive floating robot head/mining colony "Knowhere" I was down with a giant talking tree, manic bionic racoon, a hulking tattooed convict who literally takes everything literally, a green skinned assassin with crippling daddy issues, and a roguish dolt with crippling mommy issues (and a cassette with some sweet tunes). I was down with it. Everyone had creatively earned their keep. Except for Gamora, but despite being underwritten, Saldana positively oozes charisma and screen presence, so... B+. But now we had to let the supporting cast take over, sit through some exposition scenes, and feel generally let down after Thanos shows up and literally doesn't lift a finger.

The present's so bright...

Benicio Del Toro is sleeping walking through his 6 to 7 minutes and it's hard to blame him. There's a sadness in his eyes that speaks to a much meatier part in a different draft that existed before he signed the contract. But nonetheless, the collector's gallery is a visual orgy of Easter eggs and I had plenty to occupy myself while not noticing Del Torro chew the scenery. Oh, and speaking of scenery chewing!

Lee Pace has simply outdone himself with Ronan. He's feeling genocidal, has a giant hammer, is covered in chalky face paint tears, and... that's it. But Pace goes the opposite direction of Del Toro and gets as loud and as angry as he possibly can. I can see how some people didn't think much of it, but I appreciated how he turned a bad situation into a workout. Near the end he has a single comedic line and he kills it. Just... murders the hell out of it. It was the biggest laugh out of me in a movie that had already taken plenty.

Michael Rooker also manages to be a secondary power house as the guy who kidnapped Peter Quill in the beginning. There's a great father-son/Stockholm syndrome relationship between the two that winds up being much more interesting than the Quill/Gamora shipping scenes. But I actually liked those scenes too, even if they taste a little contrived.

In summation, this was a funny, affecting, and delightful space opera. The leads are all wonderfully cast, the writing only sputters in the middle( but I concede that drunk Rocket Raccoon was a legitimately moving middle scene... seriously), and it's generally as lovable as blockbusters get. This will be to 8 year olds what Men in Black was to me. A movie that will shock, amaze, and be watched over and over and over and over again.

You will believe a Raccoon. CAN. MURDER.

WTF is... Anachronox?

These guys are all delightful and charismatic, I promise. Because I wouldn't keep playing if they weren't.

It's a delightful little gem I found in PC gamer's 25 greatest RPG's and simply had to have. It's as if Deus Ex tried to out do Final Fantasy VII and they hired Douglas Adams to write it. It's funny. Not funny for a 13 year old RPG. Funny, funny. Funny in a way that doesn't beat you over the head with desperation (as some insecure games are wont to do). The writing is sharp, the spoken dialogue, professional (the guy who played Marcus in borderlands is the lead, and he's wonderful), and the maddeningly ancient facial animation is heartfelt enough to shine through playstation era character models. A herculean feat from where I'm standing.

If you've been itching for some classic turn based JRPG magic, but with a more western tone, this is your jam. It's tough at first... I forgot games could look this muddy. But it has a heart and a killer sense of humor.

It's $7 on Steam and $6 on GOG. Take your pick.

PC Gamer's 25 greatest RPG's of all time.

So maybe I'm throwing this up here because I'm trying to avoid real review articles. Maybe it's because they've put some of my more obscure favorites in there (dredmor!!!! holy crap, I thought everyone forgot that ever existed.) And maybe, just maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe my favorite game of all time is #12... and Fallout 3 isn't on the list at all. But this is a great list that doesn't have deus ex in the #1 spot and a game that came out 3 months ago is in the top 16.

Bet you're wondering what it is, huh?

And down we go... (my impressions of the Crown of the Sunken king)

Though much easier to find than the original's DLC, From software has brought the pain. It starts off simple enough, tall and hard hitting toxic zombies with some new puzzle switches, it shakes things up considerably fifteen minutes in.

For one, and this is kind of a spoiler, I knew it was only a matter of time before player phantoms (those transparent ghosts running around that are actually other people playing the game) became enemies. I fell for it. Hard.

If you've got $25 to throw down for some more dark souls, go for it. I say this after only sampling the first course of three.

Whiplash Trailer: One half boiler plate relationship story, one half J.K. Simmons being a complete and total BAMF.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone on the internet that isn't on Simmon's side. He's so lovable, especially when he's being an asshole. Whiplash looks to turn that around, giving him a character that is so caustically abusive in such a short amount of time, that this trailer scared me more than most horror movies.

Oh and Miles Teller.

He's in it too.

...he's ok.

Gardians of the Galaxy: It's apparently really, REALLY good.

While it may be surprising to some people that Chris Pratt can carry a movie, It's no surprise to me and my fellow pawneeans. I love James Gunn and I loved all the trailers, but even still, I've fallen hard for some real pieces of sh*t. Yet I still want to believe.

But the film has been recently screened. And the word is thunderous.

That word is also amazeballs.

Superego is back for Season 4! ...and Paul F. Tompkins is along for the ride.

My favorite gaggle of improvisationalists are back after a what seems like a 2 year absence. It's only been one, but that's how much they've come to mean to me. I've tried to put into words how funny I think they are. How they're just as much fun when they miss their marks as when they hit it out of the improv park. How the word of the day calender makes me spit hot coffee out of my nose after I've heard them both at least 4 times each.

They return September 1, with only an agonizing two month hiatus between each episode... probably. It will feel like two months to me, anyway.

Musings about Planes: Fire and Rescue

You remember cars? The red headed step child of the Pixar family so ridiculously lucrative it's straight to video sequels still get a theatrical release?

You know the one.

Anywho, I was reading the reviews on RT and I stumbled across a pretty damn interesting insight from the National Catholic Register. Yeah.. they review movies. But more to the point, Stephan Greydanus  points out a stunning logical fallacy about the whole thing that just made me smile:

"Think of the climactic forest fire in Bambi, and then take away the deer, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, birds and people. A forest fire ... in an uninhabited forest"

The movie exists in the Cars universe. The one without people or animals. But planes are stopping forest fires. What are they rescuing? Car campers? 

I had the weirdest argument today...

I've never been a big reader of peanuts, but I read enough to get the major themes. I liked it, but when a peanuts book was sitting right next to Calvin and Hobbes... there was no competition for me. But to the point, I was having a conversation and St. Paul Minnesota came up. "You know who's from St. Paul, right?"she said.

"Prince." I said.

"Charles Shulz!" She retorted. And then we went off on Peanuts for a while, and it got me to thinking. No one has ever tried to copy Shulz's success. You'd think peanuts rip offs would be a dime a dozen, but 50 years later, nobodies even taken a swing.
 
"You know why that is, right?" I said, smugly steering the conversation into waters it didn't need to go into. "Because the strip's all about Shulz's depression, and only someone as talented as him can make a sad and lonely child funny."

She disagreed. She just didn't see it, and I spent a solid 10 minutes trying to explain it to her. Lucy as the therapist, Lucy and the football, pig pen and dysentery.  But I couldn't get through. I guess some people see what they want to see. The fact I needed to make her childhood memory of her favorite comic strip sadder says enough about my issues.

Author: Charles Schulz.

Snowpiercer is Online!

I've been waiting about a year and a half for this! Supposedly it was released a few weeks ago, but it just made it to North Carolina, and now it's all over the internet too. For the price of a matinee, minus gas of course, you can bring Bong Joon-Ho's english opus home to you.

I've got it queued up in the tab next to this one and uh... the "hd" option leaves much to be desired. By which I mean, I don't want to see giant brown pixels in my "HD" black space, Google play! It's like they want us to see this as an inferior option.

...but that's ridiculous.

Fallout 4 continues to be under wraps at Gamescon '14

I'm sick of being angry. It's been four years since Fallout New Vegas was released, a game I'm not ashamed to call my favorite.It sold over 5 million copies by 2011, a number I'm sure is much, much, higher after 2 years of bargain basement steam sales.

We know it exists, yet Bethesda says nothing, and the silence is deafening. Just recently we heard it will be a no show to GC '14, they will instead be showing off The Evil Within and... ESO. Well there it is. Bethesda's ravenous white elephant. It's clear it still needs more subscribers, and I doubt their investors want anything drawing focus.

I'm too tired and disappointed to screed. It's too precocious of a franchise to waste, so 4 is inevitable, but this is getting ridiculous. 

Alien Isolation Nostromo: a pre order bonus is officially more interesting than the game itself.

Did you want an original cast reunion with your survival horror alien game? Well you got it now, buckko!

I love this for a few reasons, an interactive re-imagining of one the greatest horror films ever made notwithstanding, this is not something Sigourney Weaver would do for just another paycheck. Or at least I'd like to think she wouldn't. The material released so far is damn impressive, so I'm choosing to believe the actors were coaxed on board by it's merit. Instead of the franchise's cloying, desperate, need for good word of mouth. I'm still going to wait for reviews, I don't think they'd dare embargo them this time until release.

But don't get me wrong, I'm still giddy abut this. My pen may be poisoned, but I can't stop smiling. Also the whole thing takes place right after John Hurt dies so... damn.

Oh well.

Bob's Burgers has been appraised!

This is, flat out, the best show on fox. In fact, it's best animated show about a family since the golden age of the Simpsons. But enough about it's artistic merits, how much does Bob pay for that place a month?

Blogger Laura Allen crunched the numbers to figure it out. But before you scroll to the bottom and leave, know that there's much more scrumptious financial details in her origonal post. It's good reading. And yes, financial details are sometimes scrumptious.

Sometimes.

Damn that's small...

In which I eat crow about The Lone Ranger.

The Lone Ranger was not a good movie. But damnit if I didn't like it, and damnit if I didn't wind up respecting it. A film that hangs a lampshade that good on a white guy playing a native American needs a formal review. I mean Tonto winds being just as embarrassing to the other natives as he is to us. That kind of turn does not exist in completely cynical filming, and while this is a very cynical movie that hates it's own reason for existing... you know what? I'm gonna save that for the review.

Just know that I'm sorry for judging a book by it's cover, and that the critical consensus just seems political to me now. Unforgiven it ain't,  but it's better than the last 3 pirates movies combined. You forgot there was more than 3 didn't you? Well that happened, and we let it happen.

Crytek on Strike.

This is a first, that I'm aware of. A video game company has gone on strike. Long has it been known that working conditions in this industry are more than a little manipulative/emotionally abusive. But I believe this is a first. Long have the threats of bigger workloads and tarnished resume's from upper managers kept the code monkeys in their cubicles. But it sounds like Crytek UK has left the building. According to Kotaku's inside source, about 100 employees have walked out.

This probably won't end well. This is a shoe every major publisher knew was going to drop. They most likely have a contingency on top of contingency on top of a standing army of scabs. That's actually what the role of programer is, pretty much. A scab. The majority are ushered in during crunch time and let go when the project's done. It's a nifty way to side step health benefits.

The question is, will more companies file suit? The next Homefront game being canceled (probably) is one thing, but what about the next Assassin's Creed or COD? That could seriously get a union ball rolling, hopefully. But maybe not. I can't wait to see what happens next, though.

Six Seasons and a Resurrection.

Just before the clock ran out on the cast's contracts, Harmon has struck a deal with Yahoo.com. Community will officially have six seasons. Let that infromation wash over you. This is weird. Really weird. I didn't even know they did web series. What does this mean? Is the budget gonna be smaller than last year's already shaggy offerings? Is it possible for a Troy cameo, or is that asking too much?

Sh*t, I don't care, this is incredible news. Community will no longer end with the sourest possible grapes as they did a few months ago. Creator Dan Harmon had this to say: .

“I look forward to bringing our beloved NBC sitcom to a larger audience by moving it online. I vow to dominate our new competition. Rest easy, Big Bang Theory. Look out, Bang Bus!”

Sitcoms and porn. Righteous.

Snowpeircer is a modern day masterpiece... and it almost never made it to American theaters.

Modern filming is frustrating for a myriad of reasons. The latest Tranformers piece of drivel is doing gangbusters for one. For another, minor filming (just under tentpoles) is becoming extinct. The sad story of behind the scenes of Snowpiercer is a microcosm that explains what many believe to be a looming movie market crash.

 The Boston Globe just published a wonderful article on the subject. You should read it if you give a damn about movies. Any damn at all. In a word? Harvey Weinstein is a petty sum'bitch. In another word, high ranking studio heads still hold a lot of sway over not only what gets made. But even if it's done, and made bucko bucks overseas, they can still pull the plug on meaningful entertainment.

Chris Evens is the lead for Christ's sake!

Amplitude Studios does early access right.

Kickstarter and steam early access have become two incredibly contentious practices in this new wild west of crowd sourced patronage. There are successes as admirable as Star Citizen (looks amazing, but the jury's still out on how the whole thing will end up) and grotesque con jobs too numerable to mention. I'll let Jim Sterling handle that. 

But then there's Amplitude, whose Dungeon of the Endless has charmed me out of $20 and 33 hours of my life. It's wonderful and it's pretty much finished now. I say grab it. Grab it right the hell now. But even though that game isn't officially finished yet, they've still been busy on their high fantasy riff on Civilization. It's called Endless Legend, and I sit here stunned at what this modest studio has pulled off. They say you should never fight a war on two fronts; and I expected progress to slow down on DOE considerably, and wanted nothing to do with EL.

But work continued at a decent clip a few months after EL was, um... early accessed? Balance and content patches came fast and furious these last few weeks, giving me more and more confidence in the studio. So today I decided to buy the EL founder pack, and I'm more than impressed. Let's forget they're an indie studio. Let's ignore that zooming out all the way on the map turns the world into an actual cloth map. Let's just talk about how much better this looks and plays next to Godus. The crummy alleged brain child of alleged auteur Peter Molyneux. Who at this point is somewhere between M. Night Shyamalan and modern day Francis Ford Coppola. In other words, a once great director that hasn't walked the walk in 10 years.

Amplitude is selling two games that are damn impressive out of the box, and will only get better. These guys walk the walk with wit and charm to spare. The writing for both of these games didn't have to be half as good as it is, but here we are. EL has pot bellied centaurs for Christ's sake!

So I hope some of you will invest in this rising star with me. I've never seen a studio work this hard for my money, I honestly don't know how they do it.

Watch Dog's unofficial patch just got more awesome.

Remember how recently the watch dog's pc port was an extra chunky epileptic stew of misery? Remember how modders were left waiting for a patch for so long they found buried code that made the game look like it did in 2012 before it was mysteriously assaulted by an ugly stick? Remember how Ubisoft walked that all back saying it would have made the game unplayable in that state and was absolutely not downgraded to keep from hurting console owner's feelings(see link above)?

I can personally say I haven't noticed a huge improvement with watch dogs with either the official patch or the worse mod. But this new version put an intense soft focus over much of the foreground, and I think it's gorgeous. Also puddles are sharper, I think. Maybe. But it is in no way more unstable. That's a goddamned lie Ubisoft, and you know it.  Either way, it feels like another case of the pc modding wizards picking up a port team's halfhearted slack. This version even comes with a cute desktop UI of Aiden's phone to tweak headlight shadows and such. The headlight shadows are wonderful, too. I forgot to mention that.

Orphan Black Season 2 Review: Sestrahood.

Orphan Black is a quiet revolution of gender politics on screen. What started as a simple twilight zone mystery (what if you ran into your doppelganger seconds before she killed herself?) has evolved brilliantly into a treatise on women's reproductive rights wrapped up in a light sci-fi thriller. But even that sells this show's strong suit short. Because you won't find a better actor on tv right now outside of Tatiana Maslany and her one woman ensemble.

Even though it's writers are mostly male, the show is quite aggressively feminist. But it never, ever, approaches preachiness. Because the way the story is set up, there's no way to root for Sarah and her sisters without rooting for reproductive rights. But the kicker here is how it mainly becomes anti extremism more than anything else. Blind conservatism is just as violent and detestable as greedy, privatized, science. In that way the show gets it's political cake and eats it too. In that way, it's one of the best shows on TV right now.

So what all went down this year? But more importantly, was it "good?" That's all you really want to know from a review, right? The answer is yes. This is worthwhile television, gender politics aside. If you want to bail here to binge, please do. It's quite worth your 20 bones.

There's something weirdly Canadian about this diner...

Maslany is as solid as ever, (aside from her turn as a transgender clone which was fun in the moment but...  the story burned out real quick.) despite seeming like a story driven vehicle, this is mostly a show about characters. Alison is spiraling after intentionally standing by as her best friend choked to death, Helena finds stability after being ushered into a fertility cult (which is a real, terrifying, thing.), and Sarah mostly plays scooby doo with Kira's baby daddy by digging up the Dyad institute's origin story.

None of the threads this season were "letdowns" but Sarah remained pretty static. She got to play up her confidence artist roots a couple times and the paper chase around Dyad yielded a Sarah/Helana road trip. Which was the highlight of the whole damn season as far as I'm concerned. The fact Helena (and her deadpan animal impressions) isn't grating at this point is also a minor miracle. I would have been irked by her magical recovery from her season finale gunshot last year, if the reason she survived wasn't so damn clever. Now she's a central clone, and the fun thing is it makes sense. Her loyalty always being so fickle and childish anyway.

Also it's nice to see Peter Outerbridge (Canada's more talented answer to David Caruso) as the politely unnerving head of the Prolethean baby farm. Far and away the show's best antagonist to date. Realizing his relationship with his daughter wasn't so much familial as it was "master/slave" was the best recurring segment outside of the clones this season.

Seriously, screw the Quiverfull movement. Just... kill it with fire.

And while we're talking about villains, I gotta bring up Rachel Duncan... and why I hope she's dead. While pitting a queen's English trust fund baby against Sarah's cockney artful dodger sounds good on paper, Maslany really seemed to struggle with her. She just seemed bored when she should have seemed dangerous. Though, I usually tune out of tv sex scenes, her dominatrix fling with Paul ended up saying more about her character than the next 5 episodes of development could. And her creepy Sensurround movie theater/wet bar was a great set. I'm going to miss it.

Cosima ended up being more of a chess piece this year than a character. She went to work for Dyad and then started to get sick... then she played a copy write free settlers of catan, passed out a few times, fooled around with/barked at Delphine for loving her, now she has season 3's macguffin. It was a short shrift, indeed. All the story beats with Delphine were reruns from last year and aside from her weaponized fire extinguisher, she had very little agency. But she can dance. That we know.

But the dark horse from last season finished first this year. Because Alison owned season 2. She is the knee jerk comic relief no longer. She is now the most dynamic and most lovable clone as of the finale. Her budding alcoholism/decent into rehab was played for laughs, sure. But you felt bad about it. She was still in pain, and you hoped she got better, but you also thought Sarah's story was going to be much more interesting. Pretty soon, Allison and Donnie's broken marriage was the breeziest and most subversive character arch of the year. Culminating in a fantastic make out session over a shallow grave in their backyard. A moment coyly foreshadowed by the musical she had to drop out of before her rehab.

And let's not forget how this brought Michael Mando back from abandoned ancillary character island. What at first seemed like an apology for forgetting about him in season 1, has now cemented him as a solid mid season pitch hitter should the writers need to keep time for other story points. And I for one will never turn up my nose at more Michael Mando.

I haven't even brought up Mrs. S yet, and maybe I shouldn't. I've spoiled a lot here today, but I've purposely left a bunch unsaid. This is a really good show bordering on great. Even if it never truly rises to that level, it's still a giant middle finger to the protagonist patriarchy. Not only is a show better with solid Bechdel test passing women, it still works if the cast is positively loaded with them. This is not a witty and original feminist show. It's a witty and original show that happens to be feminist. 

I don't have a funny caption. It's just a really good cover.

In which I write about not wanting to write.

Come on... write m**her f***er.

For the last couple of days I've had no excuse. I had everything to write about (orphan black ending, Fargo ending, game of thrones ending, what the hell am I going watch next week?, holy hell Boss is pretty damn good, etc.)

I should be writing... why the hell aren't I writing? Do I think I'm hot sh*t because I got a fancy new press pass and relived that the people at the Herald Sun are welcoming, sweet, and generally supportive people? And if so, why should that take time out of the hilariously titled daily crackpot.
Just because I never thought I'd actually work for a newspaper doesn't change the fact that the crackpot is one of the best things I've ever done for myself, and I'm not walking away that easily.

I'm gonna stop pussy footing stop right now. Tomorrow an Orphan Black season review is going live and it's gonna be 1000 words minimum. I got this.
 

You don't want to see my forced smile and doll eyes. Seriously.

Better Call Saul gets 2 seasons and a pushback.

I'm very unsure about this Breaking Bad spinoff. I mean, it's more Bob Odenkirk on tv... it's hard to complain about that. But I do not envy the job of following one of the best TV series of the last ten years, and quite possibly, of all time. But AMC has faith in it, seeing as they pushed it back a bit (probably to give them more time for rewrites/re-shoots) and ordered a whole second season sight unseen.

We'll all see how it pans out from here. Fingers crossed.

Superego's The Family Feud

Here we see Patton Oswalt headlining again for the Superego crew, and he makes it feel like he'd always been there. This is one of what feels like five Family Feud sketches, and it's honestly not even the funniest one. But, it is animated, so I have an excuse to shove it down your throats again! I don't want you to love them. That makes it sound like I'm giving you a choice. No; you're going to watch this; you're going to laugh audibly, and  then you're going to buy seasons 1 and 2!

Well maybe just 2. 1's pretty rough around the edges.

 It's worth noting  that the podcast version has the actual Family Feud theme.
Kind of.
I don't know why I always fixate on that sort of thing.

Watchdogs PC has snark in it's code.

I'm... having a hard time finishing watchdogs. Sometimes I'm having a great time with it, other times I'm couldn't be bothered to put five more minutes into if you were offering free booze. Some of those issues are with the PC version alone. It's an ubisoft port, I expect the fps to drop to 30 a bunch. But what's crazy is that dropping shadows and anti-aliasing (big ticket performance hogs) doesn't affect the frame rate. AT ALL. In any other game I'd be getting double the performance out of it. It's as irritating as it is bizarre. Never unplayable, but it rides my patience something fierce. But to be fair, they've been trying to patch it since release and they say they're getting close.

But it's been quite a long time since release, and coders have been kicking the tires ever since. What they've found is surprising. For one, remember how good it looked at E3 2012? And how all of a sudden it started to look far, FAR, jankier in demos a year later? Well that sh*t's still in there. Though unoptimized, and frankly, not all that impressive as it forces the world detail down to medium. But still, stuff like that is why I love PC gaming. It's a wild west of coders and artists out here. Patching things and modding for free.

But the cherry on top is a messege deep in the game's code floating around where the abandoned effects are that says:

... I do. I CARE.

Superego's Knell before Zod... 's Public Defender.

This may be the funniest sketch they ever did, it's definitely in my top 3. I mean even while improvising Patton Oswalt is still both A. funny as hell, and B. stays convincingly in character while Zod's going off on how much droopy cleavage disgusts him. I actually think this one's a little funnier without the animation so... I don't know, close your eyes?

-also starring Chris Tallman

I haven't forgotten you, Crackpot!

 

I've just been busy... well, more tired than busy. I got on the front page of the Sunday paper this week, for what it's worth. Any who, I'm sorry I stayed away. You don't do this sort of thing for the money. Because online ads are as tacky as they are depressing. But mostly because I wouldn't get chicken feed for em'. I got bills, man...

ADDENDUM: The Protagonist of Farcry 4 is... anouther white guy. Or is HEEEEEEE?!

Seems pretty damning from this distance...

False alarm, I guess.

I'd like to thank Chance the blogger (whose blog is linked on the right ) for the correction. That wooshing sound you're hearing is my massive sigh of relief over Ubisoft making the right decision. Though he's still Jason Brody's Nepalese brother from another mother...

And you can't stay mad at evil Troy Baker. You physically can't.

I guess I'm a professional journalist now.

The blood sweat and tears that went into my English degree has finally, finally, led to actual financial gain. All $50 dollars of it. I wrote a small piece on a local Latin cultural festival, but I'm having a hard time focusing on that.

I have my hands around an actual, honest to god, career now. It's only been a year since I graduated, I honestly thought I'd be in the service industry a hell of a lot longer than that. I feel good. I feel DAMN good. I feel "gin and tonic staring into the middle distance" good. My education actually got me somewhere... somewhere I had actually intended it to go! 

You should see the ridiculous image in my head right now. Both my journalistic idols slapping me on my shoulder, vicariously proud of my tentative step into a beleaguered but proud profession. Oh if only there were a gif that perfectly encapsualted my...


 oh wait, here we go:

Netflix is back in Black. But also Orange. Because orange is the new black is... you know what? It's not worth it.

Orange is the new Black is back for season 2, live on the web. It's all up there for your binging pleasure. I'm not going too much into detail if you're not in the mood this week. But let me say that if you were looking for the immediate fallout between Piper and Warden Healy... you're gonna be disappointed. 

It really feels like we've jumped straight to season 3. And would you believe I mean that as a compliment?