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?

Dark Souls 2 DLC on the way!

I really, really, liked Dark Souls 2. But not as much as the first, either because I could see it's nastiest tricks coming most of the time, or the setting wasn't as inspired. I don't know, I should probably write a review...

Anyway, let's gab about The Lost Crowns! A three part dlc epic ($9.99 a piece or $24.99 for the season pass) expected to drop on July 22, August 26, and then September 24. Isn't that nice of them? TellTale never gives specific release dates...

Here's a link to the video, IGN and blog spot aren't getting along so I can't embed it here. But I can give you From software's deetful press release.

Some mighty fine deets right there. I mean, don't you wanna know what makes an ability... esoteric?

Anthony Bourdaine digs Hannibal

I'm a huge fan of the nerdist network, and today they dropped one of the best interviews in a long while. Not that there's been a quality dip, I just liked this one personally quite a bit. For one; Matt and Jonah sat in, that's always a plus, but I also got to check in on Bourdaine. I hadn't heard from him since his Girl on Guy episode about two years ago.

It's a damn good interview and worth listening to all the way, but the best part for me was hearing him rattle off his viewing habits near the end. Yep, I love Justified's second season too. Yeah, Fargo is pretty damn good. Hannibal?! He watches Hannibal?! Thank god, if anyone would appreciate the food photography (literally one of the hardest things in the world to photograph well) It'd be him. And he just... gets it. Everything the show does well does not go unnoticed by him. It's rare to have an accomplished chef/journalist/author/cinefile in general. I'm just happy he didn't pass on it.

Anywho, check it out. He's a fiercely interesting guy.

...his sexist joke about foie gras that my sister won't stop reminding me about, notwithstanding.

So twitter changed yesterday...

Now I gotta find a whole new banner and my background's gone.

Damnit.

The Watchdogs Launch Day Spectacular!

"Citra? No... no, Clara"

Watchdogs is out just in time for my 3 day weekend that happened to start yesterday. Launch quibbles aside, i.e. not being able to ping my activation code for 4 hours, everything runs decently. But only just so. I didn't invest in a high end PC (GTX 780 SC and a I5 3570k) to run at 30 frames per second. And WD veers wildly in the fps ditch whenever I hop into a car. Everything else is smooth as silk though, and it's a damn sight better than AC Black Flag. The thing makes my rig grind and whir like nothing I've ever heard, but if I'm being honest, it only looks slightly better than Sleeping Dogs and runs about 30% worse. There's clearly some next gen voodoo going on in there somewhere, but I don't see it on the screen.

As for the game itself... I like it. It's a very close cousin to AC but manages to do it's own thing. The protagonist is a raspy cipher, but I can handle that. Your sociopath fixer buddy has more than enough personality for the both of you. The main missions are fun, and the script is better than I thought. When meeting a hacker femme fetale (I know, I know, but just go with it) for the first time, she rolls her eyes at you saying "you're exactly what I expected." It's nice to see AAA video game writers hang a lampshade on their bore of a leading man. If nothing else, it's good to know that they know.It's not like they wrote a racist character arc for him, realized their mistake too late in the game to change anything about it, then had the gall to call it "satire."

Watchdogs is worth it. It's not the half assed insult that GTA IV was (performance wise) and it's original enough for me to recommend financially encouraging it. For all it's familiar choices I can say it's stands on it's own. But can you imagine what would happen if this fails? Can you imagine how much more homogenized AAA development could get? I'm not saying this game is a $60 ballot in the new IP electoral process, but don't pretend powers-that-be aren't paying close attention.

Josh Sawyer Speaks!

It's gonna to be an agonizingly long time before we hear anything else about the next Fallout game. We have Bethesda's torturously mediocre MMO to thank for that. But in the mean time, the New Vegas director sat down with Eurogamer for a chat. The timing seems perfect seeing as I've recently fallen in love with the Mojave Wasteland all over again.

Hit the link y'all!

Hannibal Season Finale Post Mortum: "We're gonna need a bigger body bag..."

He never actually duel wields those kitchen knives. Damn near broke my heart.

I've followed Bryan Fuller for a very long time now. From Wonderfalls, to Dead like Me, to Pushing Daisies, and finally Hannibal. He's become a very different kind of artist since the beginning, one that isn't scared of where he has to go next season. Because he's never actually made it to a third season... ever.

With that in mind, Hannibal's second ended in what I'm choosing to call a bloody, fiery, temper tantrum the likes of which I've never seen before. An ending whose prevailing message seems to be "You can't fire me, I quit!" We will see Hannibal again next year, I'm over the moon with that knowledge, I'd have gladly sacrificed both Community and Parks and Rec to make that happen. Good thing I only needed half a recipe.

But what if this was the end? What if we were all left with Alanna, Will, and Jack all bleeding out in Hannibal's kitchen? That would be some confoundedly grim sh*t made worse by the mockingly upbeat end credits. So yeah, Fuller went full tilt Macbeth last Friday, and made one hell of a meal out if it.

We all knew Crawford was gonna get it, we knew Hannibal would see his trap coming, but damn if there wasn't one little surprise left. Abigail was alive this whole time, presumably living under house arrest to kill in the event Will broke Hannibal's heart. And Will did exactly that.

Thankfully Abigail wasn't just a human sacrifice. She managed to get to Alanna and throw her out a second story window. I for one can't wait for the indoctrination flashbacks for season 3. We already know how fond he is of keeping "pets."

The whole bloody affair was gorgeously filmed as always. Especially the shot with Alanna flying out the window. The way time slowed and the music swelled as everything went into soft focus and then the tiny particles of glass became sparkles? Phenomenal. Better photography than most movies I've seen this year.

So here I sit after gorging myself, week after week, on the best new show on TV. I'm stuffed. Almost glad it's over and I have time to digest. Does the whole plot string together? I'm not sure. The whole business with Dr. Chilton felt rushed. I mean, how long was Hannibal grooming him to be his fall guy? It had to be years. But that's beside the point. I'm not chomping at the bit for more, I'm happy sitting back and letting Hannibal slid into periphery of my attention.

Just so it can come out of nowhere next April and let me have it.

Here's a teaser for Disney-Marvel's first animated feature, and don't worry, it's pretty damn good.

Good physical comedy is a confoundedly rare commodity these days, especially in America. That's why I'll always have room in my heart for anything and everything Aardman produces. Actually I have this whole screed rattling around in the back of my head about how that's why Spongebob got such a strangle hold on the last decade. In that Stephan Hillenburg just knew physical comedy backwards and forwards, while nearly everyone else in TV animation largely ignored it (Dexter's Lab being the obvious exception).

But that's not why you're here; Big Hero 6 is being adapted, and it's teaser is a delightful about-face from the typical "you're so special, you have destiny" garbage that was trite more than 40 years ago. It's just a quick physical comedy sketch between a boy and his poofy crash test dummy robot.

I think you're gonna love it.

BIG HERO 6 Trailer #1 - Early Trailer by itsartmag

Superego's H. R. Giger at Home

What better way to celebrate the death of a great artist than an animated short of a nearly 3 year old improv sketch? I really got to tip my hat to the Nerdist on this one, recently there were rumblings that superego was coming out of retirement and I can't help but think Chris Hardwick had a lot to do with it. So... I dunno, yay? Yes, YAY!

God bless Nerdist industries and long live the Superego Institute!

Superego's Maggie the GPS.

This is the kind of sketch that gets funnier the more times you hear it. Trust me, You'll think it's hilarious eventually. Matt Gourley's spot on computer voice gets me so good it makes me angry.

Superego's Hashimoto Wellness Lab

I've decided to start forcing superego into our conversations more frequently. You'll sit there and take it until you learn to love it. I don't have to go get Mr. Jumper Cables back in here do I?

I didn't think so.