Bartimaeus

Ignoring Sonic06's perpetual state of contrarianism, the classics are definitely overrated, but in the sense that they're not really amazing masterpiece films like a lot of Star Wars fans seem to make them to be. They're solid and fairly simple action space operas that have a lot of heart with some meanderings into philosophy and morality. They also have pretty good (and natural) chemistry between the cast, and there's a lot of cool and cleverly used film techniques for the time (a lot of which still stands up today). Funnily enough, the things that make the original series good (good cast, sweet and simple plot that gives way to the cast doing their thing, cool sets and locations and film techniques, etc.), are pretty much all the things that the prequels utterly lacked in every way imaginable, which is why the prequels are braindead CGI and/or laughably choreographed* action snoozefests. For these new sequels...I think they're much more of a mixed bag, which is a massive improvement over the prequels, which is really all it had to be to be "great" by Star Wars standards, I suppose. The 'bar' they had to reach had fallen into the core of the Earth, after all. The first movie was a repeat of a New Hope almost beat for beat (even down to the locations), which was...okay, for a new trilogy that was trying to divorce itself from the prequels, but the second movie was where things were supposed to really take off. They did...sort of. I no longer really care about the characters or where they're going or what will happen with the plot from here on out, which I guess means it wasn't very good in that regard...but at least the action, writing, and locations are still better than the sterile, repetitive nonsense that was the prequels. *The amount of technical skill that went into the choreography in the prequels is no doubt impressive, but the result on screen is...unnatural, silly-looking, and very obviously choreographed to the point of absurdity. If you think Palpatine and Yoda in Episode 3 is a better battle than Vader and Obi-Wan in Episode 4, then we'll almost certainly never see eye-to-eye on what makes a good movie, because for me, it ain't about endless and pointless action sequences with characters you don't give the least amount of crap about. Action sequences, especially what're supposed to feel like important and/or dangerous action sequences, are given importance and meaning when you actually care about the characters involved - at least one of them! - and you're worried about what the outcome will be and what the consequences from that outcome will be. How many of the same crappy action sequences had we seen by the end of Episode 3 in the prequels? I'm not supposed to be watching some mindless action movie with characters who could live or die without me batting an eye - I'm supposed to be watching Star Wars.

I didn't know that about it - that might be it. The dialogue pacing feels very different from the other Ghibli movies I've seen (which I actually kind of like), but on the other hand, it feels like some connecting scenes were missing, leading to characters acting a little...odd at times. Furthermore, the final quarter of the movie was pretty Disney-esque, which I was actually surprised (and a little disappointed) by, as none of the other Ghibli movies I've seen had been. Great first half, but not quite as great second half, I guess.

Howl's Moving Castle. I really thought I wasn't gonna like it for the first five, ten minutes. Cheesy as all heck, a kind of confusing and maybe not as well-defined plot as the other Ghibli movies I've seen so far, and the animation style wasn't really all to my tastes...but it was actually still pretty great even accounting for those problems. I'd put it right up there with Nausicaa or maybe even a little above. It did feel a little more...American-ized than the other Ghibli movies I've seen, but I can't quite put my finger on why. That's not necessarily a negative, but it's not necessarily a positive, either.

That seems pretty lame, but at least it sounds like a semi-legitimate squirming out of doing it. I am a little more concerned about the apparent groundwork that the GOP is laying as a reason to fire Rosenstein and Mueller. I don't see anything preventing them from getting away with it, either. Hmm. A few Republican senators might support protecting him and possibly re-appointing him, but unless they actually force a re-organization in the Senate, it'll never come to a vote.

Valve seems unlikely, given Gabe Newell owns 100% of the company and seems to hate(?) Microsoft, or at least dislike them. Also, Microsoft purchasing Valve would probably be pretty terrible for mainstream gaming, given Microsoft's abysmal attempts at trying to control the market so far.

The Trump administration announced today that it would not enforce the sanctions voted on months ago nearly unanimously by Congress (98-2 in the Senate, 419-3 in the House...and signed in by the President). I guess that means we're in a constitutional crisis? I mean, we have checks and balances for dealing with this (impeachment via the legislative branch), but they almost certainly won't be taken, especially seeing as the GOP continues to put all its eggs in one basket in Trump, so...that'll be an interesting precedent.

That does sound more like the original concept music by Brian Williams than Mark Morgan's work - is that the case? There used to be downloads of his work for the game on the Interplay website circa the late 90s and early 2000s (that I have copies of), but this trailer's music was not included. Too bad, too, since I came in thinking that I couldn't really remember any trailers, and instantly remembered the entirety of that trailer when I saw you posted it, even though it's been forever since I saw it. This one from Icewind Dale isn't quite as memorable.

Yeah, I've never used a limited use, limited quantity item like potions or wands in BG in pretty much any game. It's just the principle of the matter, .

e: resized because holy crap that was big

Furi (thanks, Shady!). Decently fun gameplay, laughably bad character design and writing and...pretty much everything that isn't the combat itself. Cheat Engine's speedhack to the rescue for all those parts!

maybe people realized that john is boring and annie is just kind of not very good

​what the eff

​ ​Ah, chokepoints, that age-old AI exploit. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot you can do about it. If you had them try to calculate whether it was a wise idea to go in, you'd then have to figure out what to do in the event that it isn't. Do you have them stay back? The player would just pepper them with ranged attacks. Do you have them run away to a different area? That might work in a few areas, but not in a lot of others. Do have them take out ranged weapons themselves? Similarly to the last one, it'll make sense for some enemies to have ranged weapons, but it won't for a lot of others (especially monsters). About all I can think of that would reliably work is some sort of "shove" ability, but that would probably feel very cheap and undermine the tactics of character placement to begin with. You don't want to destroy the very idea of chokepoints afterall, as it's actually a very realistic and useful tactic in real life combat situations. It's too bad that most games' combat systems just aren't really equipped to deal with them in a way that seems organic.

​On the other hand, if you stay on Windows 7, you help contribute to developers not being able to afford to switch to W10/DX12 only, as it's still much too big of a demographic to ignore. :D

​You know your cat is diabetic when he refuses to eat meat - chicken, tuna, salmon, doesn't matter - and will only eat that dried pure carb crap... What a stupid cat I have.

​ ​witchwood thadbbey

​​ ​Hey, I'm an equal opportunity complainer: I'm pretty contemptuous of Bethesda games as well.

speaking of intelligent communication, I fixed these for you,

Yep. Don't expect it to let up much at this rate, either.

Three more weeks of funding approved as another stopgap: Dems got CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) re-approved for six more years in exchange for it. I think that's a pretty decent deal for both parties, all things considered. Neither Dems or Republicans really want to be labeled as denying healthcare to children, I would think.

No, I think the darkest timeline was the Patriots winning 4 Super Bowls. We're way past the darkest timeline at this point...and things look like they're going to get worse before they get better.

Total War games are disappointing and shallow on a whole 'nother level, though, sadly. Europa Universalis I really liked at first, but I started getting very frustrated with the devs as they just kept adding more and more unneeded features on top of the game and it all started becoming a jumbled up mess. I wonder if they've stopped releasing expansion yet. As for Civ 6...if they're anything like the real world custom maps from Civ 5, they are probably wonky as heck and don't make for an actual good campaign.

*sigh* go eagles

Unfortunately, that's gonna be a no for me. The last one was absolutely dreadful, and Hollywood has really managed to do what should theoretically be impossible: make dinosaurs completely and utterly passe and boring. Bah, humbug. I watched Kiki's Delivery Service. I like good coming-of-age stories, and this one was fairly nice. It went a little too far on the anime "inexplicably weird timing with dialogue and way, way too long fits of laughter" scale for me, but it was more fun than Only Yesterday was...but less thought-provoking.

I considered it, but upon reflection, it seems like Civ games have gotten worse with every new iteration as of the last few, and as far as I'm aware, there's still no "world scenario"-type game that at least makes an attempt at a real world map, which is what I actually want instead of the random arcadey bullcrap* that the Civ games tend to be, so I had to decline. *There's so little satisfaction in playing in and with randomly generated/placed landforms and civilizations if you ask me, but that's me...