Dark Souls III Trailer: So that's how you make a bonfire...

Oh. I'm Sold. But then, I'm always sold on From Software. And they FINALLY have a decent soundtrack. I mean Bloodborne was good (this is better).

So Bungie recast Peter Dinklage in Destiny... a year later.

So Bungie just told one of the most beloved actors working today to go f**k himself. Nolan North has completely re-done his entire role. One that was said to be sleepy at best, but come on. This is what happens when publishers have way too much time and money to hold grudges.

You couldn't hold on to someone like Dinklage for the kind of marathon schedules games demand and you shouldn't have erased his entire performance with a patch. That's... so petty and so expensive. Good lord, Bungie.

Not you, Mr. North. I get what it's like for a working actor and you're as class an act as they come. We're still super cool.

My office job isn't really an office job. (and I love it)

I cut my professional teeth in manual labor. As such I've always had a soft spot for that feeling at the end of the day when I cut myself out of my shrunken and salty sweat soaked jeans in my mad dash for a shower. A moment of victory hard earned and richly deserved.

For some reason I thought working at an office in an apartment complex meant dealing with officy things and they do... when people actually bother to move out. When they decide to turn our $150 dollar a bag "trash out" policy as a maid service my callused hands are conscripted. A solid quarter of our tenets are wealthy glob trotting students. So the idea that they themselves would sully their brows with sweat over shlepping their 80 pounds of clothes/cleaning supplies off the 3rd floor is simply out of the question.

I haven't sweated like I have today in almost 5 years. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it. Plus it's not every day you get to "throw out" easilly $800 worth of kitchen supplies. Seriously. This guy left his entire kitchen behind and was all "...eh. I'll pay $300 to get rid of it."

I always wanted a wok.

Bojack Horseman Season 2 Review: Hollywoo Land.

You're broken and no one can fix you.

That is the central theme of one of the funniest show this year. It's mastery of absurdity and tragedy is unparalleled. You couldn't make this show with real people. You couldn't make it without it's goofy animal puns or it's increasingly intricate background gags or stable of bit players. It turns out when you mix Californication with Rocko's Modern Life you get the most honest cold stare at depression I've ever seen.

We open on Bojack listening to a self help audio book on his phone. He's helped publish a best selling autobiography and is about to go into work and play his dream role. He wants desperately to be happy and now has all the things he thinks he needs to pull that off. Though the book about all his life's accomplishments was called "One Trick Pony" and his dream role is a disgraced athlete who ultimately flung himself off a bridge.

This is also a show where in the forth episode the D in the Hollywood sign was stolen and everyone everywhere stopped calling it "Hollywood." I'm not sure how it keeps such a firm grasp while wrangling such opposite tones but it's marvelously successful 88% of the time. I say 88% because it does get a little too out there sometimes. 

Like when Bo's homeless couch surfing roommate reveals he's been secretly building his own homebrew Disneyland for years. I love Todd and I love how other characters shoo him away by asking him why he isn't having another "wacky" adventure. Yet the fact they needed such an obvious lampshade is part of the problem. He seems to be on a different show, a show that perfectly complements Bo's self inflicted misery, but still.

Actually, a lot of stories run parallel to Bo this year. Diane, his ex ghost writer/ex hopeless object of affection, and her husband (golden retriever Mr. Peanutbutter) have their own arc as a couple. The contrast of the cold intellectual with a vain, but fiercely loyal, air-head flows naturally from a huge fight to a shaky makeup to the most amazingly titled game show of all time:

I'll let that title be a surprise.

They have a real marriage. Their differences fester and drive them apart but ultimately make them more honest people. Yeah. Look at that gif and read that last sentence again. They have their dramedy cake and eat it too. I said before that Diane could carry the show on her own and she does for a while. Vindication is just the best, you guys.

The performances are all solid as well. This season gets bonus points for the most consecutive credit shocks ("wait... HE was in this?!!) I've ever had with a show. Liev Schreiber is in season 2 somewhere. I dare you to find him.

The 3 major arcs outside of Bojack may get sidelined for a while but they all reach a conclusion worthy of lead characters. I mean to say that this is now officially an ensemble show with 2 of the best female leads in television. If the male centric marketing turned you off, ignore it. No other show has ever explored  the fallout of sexual assault allegations this honestly (there's that word again). I'm not the only one who thinks so.

"You know what Oxpeckers do to Hippos... right?"

I want to keep gushing. I want to talk about Lisa Kudrow's amazing role as Bo's steady. How she's funny as hell while playing a character that essentially bores Bojack. She's entertaining AND boring. How? How did she do that? Holy crap. But I have to stop.

 My flirtation with the show a year back has turned into a full time love affair. I've watched the season twice already and I'm seriously considering watching it a third time. Except maybe I'll skip Escape from L.A. That ones pretty hard to watch but it also might be its greatest. Does that make sense? If it gets you to watch the show I don't care if I'm typing in tongues.

I've been having a rough go of it lately and this show helped me.  I feel its best to lay that bias on the table. Just sayin' I'm a little too close to it. But I'm also not shouting in a vacuum this year, the consensus has been deafening. This is a wonderful show that delights and horrifies. It can make the funniest "elephant in the room" gag you've ever seen and then spend the rest of the episode slowly filling you with existential dread. It looks like something that ran for one season on Fox 3 years ago but it feels like a modern classic.

Sunset Boulevard by way of The Simpsons.

You know who ELSE thinks New Vegas is the best Fallout?

I'm listening...

Why, its the Starbucks of gaming journalism. I kid. Somebody has to be at the top and somebody has to be the industry's pet. Never forget they discovered real talent in both Jessica Chobot (who they've since replaced with a blonde pod-person) and Greg Miller.  They're all right most of the time, I don't mind them as much as some.

So let's see... that's Honest Trailers, Eurogamer, myself, and now IGN.

Ya'll just banked some serious brownie points. Becaue I am just that easy.

How good is Bojack season 2?

It's so good I'm willingly (hell, GLADLY) watching it all over again before finishing my review. It's no longer an unappreciated gem. It's evolved into one of the best animated shows yet produced and is still the most accurate portrayal of depression on screen. At least to me.

I've never done that before, for what it's worth.

Bojack's website is the perfect crystallization of 90's web design hell.

I honestly didn't think I could love this show more. #bojackthoughts

 #miracle

#everydayisamiracle

On binging Bojack:

It's good... really good. In the company of Archer, Bob's Burgers, and the golden age of The Simpsons good. A formal review is forthcoming.

God, they really hit the ground running this year.

Arkham Knight won't be patched until... oh, Jesus H.

A leaked memo just confirmed a worry I had. That the earliest I can expect AK to run properly is September. Or November!

"As previously advised, we have stopped sales of Batman: Arkham Knight PC while Warner and Rocksteady work on addressing performance issues with the game," it reads. "The latest information from Warner is that the updates won’t be available until Spring. Due to this we have made the difficult decision to recall all PC stock from stores to return to the vendor until an acceptable solution is released.”

They're talking about the Australian spring... so September.

2- 5 more months. Stupendous.

4 episodes deep and True Detective is still spinning it's wheels.

I'm sorry buddy. We can't ALL have a mcconaissance.

While still managing to be hypnotically watchable and showcasing Taylor Kitsch's best performance yet, this season's essentially a bust. We've barely covered enough intrigue to fill a feature film and the scant clues we have don't connect in any tantalizing ways.

When every suspect is a scum bag capable of anything the audience doesn't care when it's over. You're not spinning a mystery, you're playing duck, duck, goose. That shootout was pretty great, though. Too bad there's no one left to question.

That new job smell.

After floating around manual labor and restaurant jobs these last 4 years I've finally nailed down an, honest to god, DESK JOB. Finally I can put on a tie for work... I was becoming concerned that would never happen. It's only a 15 hour a week part timer but my long starved resume will never be the same. These are the first tentative steps to a full time job with benefits.

And at long last I can pay for health insurance!

I don't normally buy collectable figurines...

But when I do... they come from the Borderlands.

I just spent almost $40 on Borderlands figurines... I don't know why it happened. Wait, yes I do. I love those fuggin' games. Gimme enough coffee, podcasts, or old college buds and I could play BL2 or the Pre-sequel forever. Now I'll have tangible artifacts of all the good ol' gin soaked times I've had in there.

Yeah!

WUB!

Darkest Dungeon gets deeper on the 15.

Double D is a harsh mistress that won't let you forget her. It's a trial of nerves and heartless strategy. Managing to be both cruel yet voraciously addicting. Like playing black jack under a swinging pendulum. I actually agonized over what the right gambling metaphor for it would be. It's not poker because chance factors too heavily. It's not slots because you have a ton of ways to haul your bleeding viscera out of a bad situation.

It's already a great game, but it's several updates away from being finished, I mean... there better be at least a couple more dungeon templates cooking. Either way, we get a new hero with what looks to be a scruffy wolfhound in tow. Great! I'm gonna watch that dog die. So many times.

"It's all your fault! You let this happen!!!!"

The Zombie Simpsons: Everything you wanted to know about it's slow and painful death but were afraid to ask.

Harry Shearer is officially back on the Simpsons. Yay, Nay, or meh? The guy's done the same job for 25 years and wants out. He's 71 and has more money than god so I'm a little sad they wrangled him back. The poor guy. Though he never has to walk into the studio again, so that's a pretty baller move.

But it was in the comment section of the Birth.Movies.Death article that I stumbled upon a self published chronicle of how that show's spirit slowly became amantiago-ed. I probably shouldn't have tried to verb that, but seriously:

"Charlie Sweatpant's" manifesto is a spectacular read. 

It keeps it's editorial voice to a minimum* and acts mostly like an investigation piece, citing dwindling amazon reviews, and old writers talking out of school. You know what the answers are going in, Matt Groening lost interest, the great writers drifted away, the mediocre links in the chain achieved seniority, then... darkness.

But it's nice someone took the time to set the record straight. I just realized I lost 3 of the 4 disks of season four that I've had since middle school and it's breaking my heart.


*I'm further in and it's now very much an editorial. Still a dead on critique, though.

18 whole minutes of No Man's Sky!

Every once in a while a game comes along that promises the moon. This one promises the universe. A game so big your entire life isn't remotely enough to see it all. I want to believe in it so hard. A polygonal minecraft with laser guns and spaceships and jet packs and aliens and black monolithic robots... I'll let the game's creator take it from here. Clearly I need to lie down.

True Detective Season 2 is... awful, ok? It's really, REALLY, bad.

Taylor. f**king. Kitsch.

My HBO NOW subscription lapsed on Tuesday. Instead of feeling like I was about to loose an important part of my Sunday night, I thought "Good." Let's start with the new opening. Last season's was a soaring, yet bitter, country-blues ballad. I listened to it all the way through for every episode. Even my re-watch. But this year? This pretentious beat poetry B.S.? I had planned on giving S2 an unbiased shake, but immediately after a minute and a half of "I'm so dark and mysterious, you don't even KNOW!" I started making myself a drink.

Over the next 2 hours I would have 4.

Season 1 was interesting because it played around with the crazy outsider and abusive alcoholic cop archetypes. It didn't waste a second. Boom, here's a visually stunning serial murder site. Bang, our "hero" is a funny, nihilistic, wackjob. Bam, the central villain is called the Yellow King, he kidnaps runaway children and burns down churches. I DARE you not to watch the rest of that show.

The first episode slavishly sets up the 4 main characters, none of which are remotely interesting enough to carry the show on it's own. There is no Marty-esque straight man to react rationally to each character's $10 words and needless pontification. But even so, everyone is... fine. Ferrel's violent desperation to be a better father to his estranged son (who's clearly the product of his ex-wife's sexual assault) is compelling enough, but it feels like the story plays it's best hand too early and won't have anything left to say come episode 5. Oh, and Vaughn pointed him in the direction of the man who (possibly) did it 10 years prior. But now he's in too deep with Vaughn and... zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

McAdams is the hard line rookie detective who's got a screwy guru dad (David Morse!!!), way too much to prove to herself, and just pulled off a dead-end raid on what she thought was a prostitution ring. Again, she's fine, but has absolutely nothing to do for 2 episodes that involve emoting or reacting in any way. I was gonna give Vaughn his own paragraph but he has the same problems. Being the mobster turned legitimate business man, he's having trouble walking the line afte- zzzzzzzzz.

I'm sorry, but it's such a boring effing stock character. But I did love his monologue about his father locking him in the basement for 4 days. The show came alive for those 3 minutes.

And now, Kitsch. I've had a bone to pick with him ever since Friday Night Lights. He's not "bad" but in that show he was completely surrounded by actors miles out of his league. So was Minka Kelly and I skipped every scene they had together (You're the best, Netflix). This isn't the case here. Every main actor is meticulously set on the same level of pensive brood. No one stands out, so he isn't... exactly out shined. But when his character impotently begs to get back on his highway patrol bike, I believe him. This is his best work yet, but it's not enough. Not even close. I don't know how he landed this, but here we are.

The murder! Right, there's a murder. The guy had his eyes burned out and he was a keynote speaker on a proposed light rail constru- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

You guys, I am so sorry. I promised I'd stop dozing off. But BirdMan is no Yellow King. The first season was always driving home themes of obsession and madness. Every character dealt with them in ways worth exploring. Rust Cohle was a dick, but I cared about him almost immediately. I don't give a flip what's happening to anyone in season 2. I haven't even bothered to look up their names on IMDB. This is all a sleepy modernization of Chinatown with nothing to say. Yet. I'd love to retract all this months down the line if it ever gets "gud." But... that's silly. That would be insanity.

S1 had a framing device and a driving, biting, mystery. 2 has no momentum whatsoever. I think Pizzolatto had years to write 1 and what's airing on Sunday nights now is a middling rough draft. It hurts to say that almost as much as it is draining to watch.


UPDATE: Oh! Oh! I forgot all about this little gem. Be more on the nose, True Detective soundtrack.

I dare you.

How do you feel about making blade runners affordable?

If you've seen Kingsman, you know those amputee blade runners are rad as balls. But the radness is unfortunately in equal proportion to how expensive they are. And also how unlikely an insurance company is to spring for them.

They don't. Not ever.

 Fortunately there's a non profit that feels for amputees that just need to go for a run again.

Help out, guys. There's nothing on earth like a runner's high.

DONATE!

Arkham knight: Patch one. It's... better. There be miles to go, however.

The PS4 has better textures than this. The PS4 is a glorified 6 year old gaming PC. Sorry Chance, but it is.

The regularly scheduled freezing hitches are gone, but gliding and dive bombing still tank the FPS on a GTX 780. Which without high textures (which still don't exist yet) is goddamn ridiculous. WB was right to pull it, the thing isn't finished yet. Though those fancy smoke and flying paper effects look great and are stable at 30 FPS. But I'm a 60 fps man and that's just not good enough yet. Oh and apparently the rain effects never worked  so now I get to enjoy watching water slide off bat's helmet for the fist time. *Checks* yes... that's lovely.

So I've been treating it like an early accesses and it's been more good than bad. I seem to be in the minority that actually like the batmobile. I love Riddler's races and the stealth sequences (yes, stealth batmobile sequences) are both tense and tactical. I've already gobbled up the main story and I have only a few quibbles. The identity of the Arkham Knight is telegraphed harder than Peter's denial of Jesus. Of Nazareth? You know the guy.

But Scarecrow's ultimate plan to destroy Batman's mystique and reputation is wonderful. John Noble just owns it, you guys. His milky eyes and facial necrosis never gets old. Though the more and more I think about it, the sillier and sillier the idea of a mercenary army EVER agreeing to attack an American city is. What the hell is their end game, exactly? How are they ever going to see the outside of a CIA black site after the army takes them out? At least they sure are fun to punch.

So while they should have suspended the PC release for at least a couple weeks, I am glad I got to play it. In spite of all the vitriol 10,000 people are doing so  on PC right now. That's ten times the people playing Beyond Earth! It was a botched launch, but clearly a ton of people are still having a good time. Myself included. 

Tales from the Borderlands, still the most enjoyable game this year.

There's an argument to be made that Telltale doesn't actually make games anymore. There are no puzzles to solve or objectives to complete. But there are narratives to subtly direct. But the simple fact is I've had more fun picking dialogue choices for Rhys and Fiona's increasingly bloody and hilarious caper across the Borderlands than any other game this year.

Every character has gotten a laugh out of me, twists have genuinely shocked me, and I'm DYING to know what the Atlas corporation was up to before Hyperion snuffed them out. Die hard Borderlands fans (YO) are going to get the most mileage out of these episodes, but the acting and writing is so sharp I'd recommend it to people who actively hate video games.

Welcome to the Wayne-Tec help desk.

"All customer service representatives are currently busy, please stay on the line for slightly longer than 2 hours... we will be with you shortly."

But seriously, Once I got over the frame rate dips, it's spectacular game. Doesn't excuse the blatant QA smokescreen before launch, however. PC gamers are the most financially invested and we go nuts over trivial sh*t. We actually have a case now! Do you know what this means for your twitter page?

Patch, Ladies and Gentlemen, patch like your livelihoods depend on it.

Arkham Knight does not like the PC. AT ALL.

See that speed limit? I'm gonna pretend that was intentional.

From the heights of The Witcher 3 ( my personal best out of the box performance of a bleeding edge game EVER) Rocksteady has brought me to this. They raised the minimum specs in online store fronts 12 hours before launch and forced a 30 fps cap in-game. You can pull an ini. tweak and remove it, but the benchmark program straight up lies to you. It shows you the game running at the coveted 60 FPS then shrugs when it's sawed in half during the actual thing that you paid $60 for. Classy as hell guys, I'm dying to know your endgame. You're going to call it a feature on twitter aren't you?

Snark aside, I can run it and I really liked my time with it. But gliding 20 feet cuts my frames down to half and the "shmancy" Nvidia light shaft and physx rain are virtually invisible and shred my already mediocre FPS to ribbons.

There have been worse launches, I'm sure... but Rocksteady had all the time in the world to nail it. If a 200 person team in Poland can do it, what's going on here? Plus it's worth noting that they did not let ANY PC review copies out to the press ahead of launch. Strike 2 guys. Patch this nonsense up and all will be forgiven. At least by me, anyway.

People STILL won't shut up about New Vegas's launch troubles and that's a masterpiece. Even Honest Trailers says so!

 

Woke up Angry.

Has your subconscious ever screamed at you to quit your job? Because the other day mine handed over the reins in a huff. Within seconds of consciousnesses I was fuming over the gulf of how much I loved my job when I started to how shafted and rejected I feel now. That's never happened to me before and it concerns me for a couple reasons.

One, sleep's never come easy to me in the first place and it seems my nocturnal side may be presenting a sort of ultimatum. Because I wake up exhausted every single day now. It's not... depression, I've been down that road and I remember what it looks like. So what the hell is this?

Two... I ain't exactly hauling in marlins when it comes to the job hunt. This is good money for the hours and I genuinely like all my co-workers. Though I haven't been much for conversation the last week or two. A lot of my friends jumped ship as well and I guess I should take the hint. 

2 years at some restaurant isn't worth loosing sleep over. I need to hunker down and see if my measly English degree can get me a real job. Jesus god I'm tired.

Naughty Dog is still killing it.

I thought F4 broke my excit-o-meter, because nothing after that even moved the needle. Sure, stuff looked rad as hell, namely that new Ratchet and clank business. But nothing jumped out at me.

But then I was all "I got time for Naughty Dog. they made my first video game and they've nary let me down since."

That was the best driving sequence I'd ever seen! It wasn't a game of chase the way point, you had to figure out how to strategically avoid that truck and even though the player had all the answers he still broke every fencepost and fruit stand in that city and won my physics heart.

These muthers are just incapable of phoning it in!

Fallout is Minecraft! Minecraft is Fallout!

If he'd ask nicely... I'd kiss that man and so would you.

I'm uhh... I'm indisposed. I expected F4 to be good, this is so much more. Putting Borderland's piecemeal gun parts into the guiding hands of the player is one thing. Being able to tear the raw material out of the game's walls and make "Your Town, USA" is another thing. Making power armor not just a piece of armor, but it's own gameplay element complete with a motherf**king jet pack is another thing.

Also, V.A.T.S. is back... you can play as a woman... 11-10-15... dogs are cool.

I'm gonna lie down.

The Witcher 3 is like... really long, you guys.

I planned on finishing it up and reviewing it days ago. But this is an absolutely massive game in ways I'd not expected. It puts Inquisition to shame in just about every respect and I quite liked that game. I've played the main quest line almost exclusively, I even failed a bunch of missions just because I wanted to power through what I thought would be the end game.

But it turns out the final act is exactly that. An ACT. Not a single dungeon crawl, not a half-assed finale battle, but a solid 10 hour ACT. When most games are passing out on the finish line, Witcher 3 is gearing up for another mile.

An extra mile, you might say.

Oh... HELLO Tales from the Borderlands. Nice of you to start to begin to join us.

June 23? I'm trying to understand. I know you live all the way out in California and it takes alot for you to make time for me. I just wish you'd talk to me first, though. You keep saying you can make it out every 2 months. But the last time it took 4 and this time it'll be an even 3. I don't mind waiting. But it would have been nice to hear something, hell, ANYTHING about this a month ago.

I love our time together, seriously, you've been incredible. I'm starting to think... there's someone else.

Avellone has left the building.

Chris Avellone, chief creative officer, and head writer of my favorite game ever made... has left Obsidian. This dashes my hopes for a true successor to New Vegas to ever exist and that stings really hard.

He's the best writer in the business and his work at Obsidian was tremendous. Between NV, South Park, and Pillars of Eternity his reign was truly supreme. My bet is he'll probably end up with his buds at inXile, as he co-wrote their next game. Maybe that was cause for termination? Maybe.

I have officially left Obsidian Entertainment to accept a sudden opening as the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts.

— Chris Avellone (@ChrisAvellone) June 9, 2015

Hannibal, Antipasto: Review

This, unlike any other show that's ever aired, doesn't give a single f**k about what you think. It's going to do what it wants, when it wants to. It's going to blare an out of tune pipe organ in your ear while a woman passes out after pulling the entire length of her arm from a dead man's throat.

This is a bizarre, violent, show that follows more of a nightmare dream logic than a real story structure. This season it's decided to completely reinvent itself after last season's "get out of contract free" cliffhanger that left nearly every single main character bleeding out in Hannibal's mansion. Hannibal has coerced Bedelia (his former therapist and now "wife") into being his European camouflage. As he murders his way into a respectable position curating an Italian art exhibit. He straight up sits in his competition's office feasting on the man's liver so he can give that man's wife a cute little shock.

There hasn't been a horror film in years with this kind goofy, yet enthralling, kind of sadism. This is the one-of-a-kind folded steel carving knife to SAW's blunted cleaver. It makes sumptuous visual high art out of a mumble core penny dreadful script. And thankfully, IMDB tells me everyone's contract renewed, so the core cast will show up... eventually.

Not before Hannibal showed us that they totally could have built a show around just the two of them and part of me wishes they had. Settling into life with a possessive monster has a lot to do with bath tub based dream sequences and trips to unsettling, and fancy, Italian butcher shops. How come our butcher shops don't have rabbits and game hens hung up to bleed? Thanks, FDA.

Antipasto is a day in the life. All story threads that seem to lead to further intrigue are surgically dealt with by Hannibal's indiscriminate and defensive hand. It's a short film rather than an episode, capped off with Bedelia staring longingly at a train station security camera. Screaming for help on the inside. There's even a film within a film and it's some of the best character work in the series to date. Did you think Hannibal made Eddie Izzard just eat his own leg and then killed him? No. No he didn't. It's the greatest character send off I think I've ever seen. It's slow, horrific, and hypnotizing.

Apparently the Red Dragon is going to feature this season too, but to be honest... I'm already stuffed.

I can buy Fallout 4... and I'm really thinking about it.

Goddammit, OPEN ALREADY!!!!

Sure, it's possible that this game comes out in January 2017. Any number of setbacks could happen. But the fact they've had more than a reasonable amount of time to make the thing, and because of Todd Howard's famous "when it's ready" approach to marketing, and because I can plop down $60 to reserve the thing on Steam right now even though it doesn't even have power armor as box art... points strongly to a  Fall or December release.

This is happening. Sure The Witcher 3 was delayed almost a full year, which is why I'm not taking my hand off my wallet... even though my heart and my soul scream "YES!" As if $59.99 could make my hopes and dreams real. No, even though that in engine trailer was glorious and I'd happily slog through it if it was one of the greatest disappointments in gaming history, I do have more restraint than that.

I can wait. But not forever.