Citizens of Earth: This got a 70 on metacritic because... why now?

I don't just like this game, I may be falling madly in love with it. The combat is deep and counter intuitive. Any rpg that wipes out my party when I'm not giving it my full attention has my respect. You MAKE me pay attention COE! You make me scrounge around town for clues on how to get another party member so I can kick the opposition leader's ass! Because now I respect you. Now I can get into your delightfully childlike views of how political power works. Like recruiting bakers, police women, school teachers, and conspiracy nuts to beat the physical crap out of the opposition leader! I am all about that madness.

Just turn off the voices. The acting quality bats 300.

I don't know why this is brilliant, and yet it is so.

Better Call Saul Review: The Ballad of Slippin' Jimmy.

BCS is... good. Better than I feared, but worse than I'd hoped. When everything clicks, it's not as good as Breaking Bad, because it's finally doing it's own thing. It's black and white opener in the present captures his new personal hell brilliantly. And being a general manager at a random mid-west Cinnabon is exactly that. There is beauty in making mass produced cinnamon rolls and the only reason I know that is because High Bridge's (Gilligan's company) photography is still the best in the biz.

From there we flash back to 2001 and we see a younger Saul in a different, somehow more depressing, suit. He tries his damndest to win an  unwinable case only to wind up with a third of what he expected to take home on his check. But that's just misdirection. This is not going to be about building a vast, profitable, empire. This going to be about a shell of a man finding his mojo.

Saul's life is beyond pitiful. His office is a storage closet in the back of a nail salon (wink and\or nod) He pretends to be his own receptionist, his public defense work is slowly killing him, and his brother's agoraphobic fear of electromagnetic waves means Saul's his unofficial nurse. Also the only prospective clients he's had in weeks went behind his back and signed with a much more successful firm.

The set up is decently entertaining but it feels like that's all it is. The new universe it created was fine but it took forever for the show to start telling a story with it. Thankfully, once Saul comes across a pair of competent, but short sighted, con artists I got what I wanted. A glimpse at the oily professional I came to see. From there we get to the "con gone wrong" story carried into episode 2, but I'll stop there.

What's here is good, with the potential for greatness. The handful of musical montages throughout the first two episodes remain brilliant. Instead of an incessant, irritating, motif. I mean, I'm just... done with American Horror Story.

 Odenkirk found the extra layer of humanity for Saul that the show desperately needed. The anticipation and release on his face every time he checked his empty voice mail were achingly perfect. His reaction to another lawyer walking into the courthouse bathroom while he was in the middle of his psyche-up speech "It... it's from a movie." actually got me to laugh out loud. Something I never do while wearing my serious show serious pants.

But it has to shake off those first season yips. It needs to double down on the lawyering/con artist angle and not re-tread the "in over his head with the cartel" storyline it's already set up. If it can do that, I'll be first in line every week. If it does the other thing... well, it's still a damn good show anyway. I just won't stay up to date every week.

And then I remembered I was out of pastel collared shirts...

Thank you Cracked.com. You say what I'm thinking.

They call them "chocolate" so you can't smell the bullsh*t.

You ever shopped for jewelry for that special someone and you look at the tags for the cheap stuff and a shooting pain runs through your arm? And after the paramedics leave you contemplate the very idea of  currency you can't literally use or eat?

I have! And Cracked.com made a hell of a video illustrating my point.

The Man from UNCLE looks like too much fun.

In a world that takes all the wrong lessons from the success of Christopher Nolan, Guy Ritchie shines as a beacon of agenda-less fun. His Sherlock's were fun. All his movies are, more or less. TMFU could have been a grumpy, remember this show?, paint by numbers meal ticket. It's not. There's no way this trailer is selling a facade. It's got campy 60's thriller in it's bones and I want it. I want it right fuggin' now.

When's the Kingsmen come out?

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter? Yeah... it's pretty damn great.

It's somehow more beautiful than a picture. How the hell did they do that?

I'm just 1 hour and 2 puzzles in and I'm hooked. Sure it's beautiful, a lot of games are beautiful. Sure, the game cribs a lot from Lovecraft, that's going around these days. This game is what I wish a lot of what I've played lately were, compelling.  The acting is good, the story is better and I could go on an uneventful walk in this virtual wood for hours. I wouldn't even have to stumble on a failed ritual sacrifice to stay interested.

But I've said too much. It's $10 on steam right now. Get your otherworldly murder mystery fix.

Step into my office.

Work's been hell.

I chose to take up an unreasonable amount of shifts at the restaurant during a week everyone and their mother was in town for one of multiple conventions. In other words, I've spent the last 4 days running around a mosh pit screaming at the top of my lungs.

I... need a minute.

The rebooted, slightly longer, and astonishingly even bloodier history of the Whalfast Estate.

I like Darkest Dungeon, I like it lots. But I also like things that hurt me often and needlessly, read into that as much as you want. I'm getting better at it... or at least I think I'm getting better at it. I'm becoming concerned I'm not improving as much as I'm getting lucky.

While the cruel wheel of fate that is this game's turn by turn dice roll makes every second absorbing, one bad fight can positively ruin an entire party. Erasing the majority of your progress, and leaving you with nobody but rookies to tackle the over leveled missions that remain.

When DD decides to stack the deck against you, it practically seals you in a wine cellar. In other words, I don't think this game's being as fair as say, XCOM, or Dark Souls. Maybe it shouldn't be. But I live for rougelikes like this and I've never felt so blatantly abused before. What I mean is, it's hard to develop a strategy when a couple missed strikes and one enemy critical hit make them all moot.

I hope DD learns to play with it's food more in the future.