algroth

On my behalf I don't mind either version existing. I'm in agreement that female characters in videogames tend to look overly supermodel-like even when the specific characters hardly call for it, and I like that Obsidian avoids that pitfall even if in turn the portraits for the famale character don't attract me in those terms. But I don't really mind the sexualization of characters in fanart and I take these alternate portraits as just that. Taken in terms of being fanart I think they're pretty good. Weirdly enough I do find this alternate Pallegina portrait seems to fit her Deadfire character model a bit more due to the nose shape and the more angular frame of her face, or would with just a slight bit less "waifufication".

That was awesome. Didn't that guy used to have another channel called SinglePlayerGamer?! I don't think so, but I know he's written for a few media before he had his channel. Also... Here's my reply to him in full with regards to his Planescape: Torment breakdown (I'll deal with his Tides critique in a later reply).

Again, not sure this belongs here, but this is a great video (even if I don't agree with all of it):

The Girl who Lived

Here's hoping the map will be even bigger, but all the same, great work!

Hayao Miyazaki usually doesn't have a full story in mind when he starts doing a movie. He has scenes and then the story is supposed to grow from there. I don't think he always succeeds in doing that. Far as I'm concerned that's never been an issue with his films - it might be noticed a bit more in some of his more recent work since it's a little more freeform or open to a surrealist logic, but with the possible exception of Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo aside these always feel the result of a deliberate decision more than any lack of direction at play. Funny enough, in my experience with the anime scene I think one of the things Miyazaki excels at head and shoulder above the rest of the filmmakers is that he has a very clear understanding of storytelling and narrative structure, and hardly ever seem to run away from his hands or meander in weird tangents that only serve to obfuscate instead (which is a far too common problem with many anime films in my opinion). For Spirited Away I cannot really agree at all with the above, I greatly enjoyed it and found it a rather wonderful "down the rabbit hole" style of story, with fantastic characters and really memorable sequences throughout. But I would have to give it another watch to properly defend it as it's been easily a full decade since I've last seen it.

Hey, you never know what kind of kinks the crew may be into.

I'm 90% sure I spotted a vithrack in the known sailors tab during the video, and I was under the assumption that's people available for hire. But maybe I'm wrong on that front. It's why I was wondering. I know there's a captain on a different vessel who's a vithrack, so I'm not sure if those are simply "known sailors" including potential crewmembers, enemy salilors and captains and the likes, or actual hireable people.

Man, I do hope we'll see more non-kith crewmembers to hire beyond the imp, xaurip and ogre. I'll be really disappointed if there is no vithrack crewmember to add to the party. (I'm also curious about the "known sailors" tab, does that refer to people you can hire, or enemy captains and the likes?)

Me too, that was weird to watch. At least there was a slight tease about all those codes spread around the media pictures. I said on the other thread that I predicted this video would be about voice acting, and maybe announcing the voice cast and so on - hence Katrina and Josh doing voicework for muppets. The 'gag' would have made more sense then, but all the same I guess it was humorous in its own way. That said, maybe my incorrect predictions influenced a bit of my opinion on the backer update too, but... I wasn't too big on it. I'm looking forward to the ship combat system and all but I feel like this video was just a repeat of everything we'd seen in other media regarding this feature up to this point, with little new being added or presented. Granted too that we're about a month away from the release so I guess we really don't need to be shown more new stuff either.

Welp, not sure where to put this, but I thought I should share this little trailer a friend of mine made for a GTA V event on his channel, which is pretty awesome because A E S T H E T I C S :

I've read a few of his reviews, and they have pretty consistently fell on the latter side of what you describe above. Mostly though, I find that what he often does is to spin a yarn about nothing at all connected with the film in question, or to anything at all - his reviews very often come across as almost Cantinflas-like exercises in pointless verbosity, concerned with building the appearance of an argument but not actually sustaining one at all. They are amusing reads sometimes, but he's a con artist through and through.

Armond White's well known for his troll antics, and he uses his forced contrarianism as a means to constantly bait for controversy. Which is to say, his reviews are rarely ever about the films, and more a mediatic stunt to bring attention on himself instead. If you take his reviews as a serious source of criticism, you may as well read The Onion as a legitimate, non-satirical news site. Seriously though, he's been around for ages and has kept to his shtick for just as long. He's a joke amidst cinephile communities and it's very amusing to see people unaware of his existence reading him seriously.

Armond White lol

Josh has uploaded a few vids to his social media accounts showing some work on fighting animations, so yeah, it's been worked on. From my understanding the character models are all completely new and thus so are their animations.

I'd like to hear more before I can give an opinion obviously, but there's something about the timbre in the leading melody right there which to my ears sounds very artificial, more like a keyboard violin sample than an actual string section. I did get the same feeling from some of the tracks in the first Pillars and needless to say, those were on a level way beneath the actual orchestrated tracks, so here's hoping I'm just wrong and it's simply part of a WIP and/or a wrong impression caused by both the brevity of the clip and the capture device.

For a first playthrough I'll probably go with single class for all, just to be able to acquire and try out the higher class abilities. Might try multi-classing in a second playthrough though.

I suppose we'll find out soon. As a random thought, I reckon the reason why update #45 is being done with 'muppets' is to talk precisely about voice acting (since Katrina and Josh would be voice-acting themselves in that skit). Here's hoping we get to see it this week!

If you look closely enough you'll realize the tip of the pen reads X5wF7T.

Haven't seen the film itself, but that hardly seems like a bad thing to settle for.

It's been confirmed that naval fights and ship/crew management are largely optional content. Yes, you will still have a ship with which to move around, but you aren't *forced* to upgrade your ship to a larger one or hire and manage a crew for it (from my understanding your party companions ought to be enough for the Defiant, which is the ship you start off with), and if you don't like the scripted naval combat system you can always skip straight to deck-on-deck fighting as well.

Black Panther delivered the fifth-largest domestic opening of all time. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4371&p=.htm "tOo BaD iT wIlL fLoP"

I was hoping The Florida Project to make more of an appearance there as well. Shame. I have heard good things about I, Tonya though and also agree that Three Billboards is superb.

I liked the Endless Paths a lot more than you guys did, it seems, though I can agree that every few levels there's one which does act as filler. Mostly though, I feel most of the levels in it have their own personality and in the better ones there's a nice little subtheme and secret to them, with the highlights for me being most likely the vithrack and ogre levels. I will concede that it's no Watcher's Keep though. With regards to Tyranny on the other hand I do find the level design/layout to the *Oldwalls* interesting, but aesthetics aside there was very little to the rest of the game in this regard (maybe with the Burning Library as another exception... maybe). And even the Oldwalls seemed based around one concept primarily, being the key collection mechanic and so on. For the exteriors though it did make several encounters quite disappointing while hardly allowing much buildup towards some of the most climactic encounters in the game (facing the other Archons and so on) - I certainly do hope we'll see much more involved areas in Deadfire that resemble more those of the first game than they do Tyranny's, and I do think it's what we'll get all the same. I also feel that based on some of the mechanics introduced in Deadfire these will likely come into play in the dungeon design either as part of unique puzzles or as more variety with how to make your way past a given dungeon or other. I haven't played the B.B. so I can't say much on it but I did like plenty of the little mechanics and touches here and there involving the likes of gunpowder barrels, the sneak mechanics and so on. I also like that, unlike the first Pillars and much like Tyranny instead, traps are actually visible on the map and thus added as an element the player can react to through his own perception instead and not just as an invisible, hence partly random, surprise.