An Infinite Number of Monkeys

HOLY CRAP. I just attacked somebody and made them *explode*. With *my bow*.
(So far, the storyline feels more like a laundry list. Especially since half of them have started with me picking up some weird thing on the ground and later finding somebody with an arrow over their heads.)

Apparently I never bought Dragon Age II. Unexpected wrinkle.

This film was badly misadvertised. The trailer said "Victorian Paranormal Activity" instead of "Wuthering Heights". This was definitely a Del Toro film--lush and lovely, and oh so much brilliant cardinal red. So much eye candy. The decrepit manor with a snowstorm in the entry hall, Tom Hiddleston's subtle little halo (probably not too subtle, seeing as how I noticed it), and all the things they did with Mia Wasikowska's eyes. Amanda says there are too many jump scares, but I did not think so.

Four wags, with popcorn and a soda.

I'm going to talk about the whole game so be warned.
First off, my general impression of the game is good. It's the weakest of the three chapters, but it's still good. I think a lot of my frustration with the game is that a lot of it felt like I was being ushered past a series of lovely diorama and admiring the artistry but not interacting with it. The endgame felt like a 45 minute cut scene, with occasional breaks where I got to limp down very long corridors designed to allow me to experience all the frustration of the painful mobility of the dream sequences but without the pesky agency of them. Which... are a couple of things I wanted to touch on. I'm guessing that the gigantic brain child on the citadel was the dream boy and it was... a metaphor about something, and was not just Shep remembering the kid she left on Earth. Because they seemed pointless and annoying at the time and I kept waiting for some kind of payoff. Instead all I got was discovering myself on fire and ruining a perfectly good date night. One of the other things that bothered me was the Illusion of Agency. It seemed like there were a lot of choices where they said "Here's a choice." and tried to pretend like it made a difference what happened. Which reinforced my feeling like I was being ushered along instead of playing a game. The kid was just condescending enough to be irritating but not get punched. And in the end, I limped down a long walkway until I got to a thing I vaguely remembered during the Cutscene of Incredible Length and discovered that I couldn't move away from it to look at other things. So I'm not sure what ending I got, but I didn't get to marry my yeoman so it was obviously the wrong one. My second pass, saving every time I escaped from the No Save Zone, I played Shep as the renegade iconoclast she'd been through the trilogy and was amused that I got the Rocks Fall Everyone Dies ending. I did not think they'd go there.

All in all, I don't think I get why people were so crazed about the ending. The format was exasperating, but I've gone over that already.

#MassEffect3WorldProblems #SamIsMyCoPilot

Multi-player q's:
Is there any way to change the macros? I'd like my 1 and 2 to be my 2 and 3 because the third power sucks and I'm not taking it.
Also, every third round no matter how many bad guys you kill, they just make more, right?

Which ever designer said "Hey! Let's make the button for 'run' also be the button for 'stick to the wall and stay put' in a realtime combat environment!" should be strung up by hir flash drive and used as a pinata until good ideas fall out.

#MassEffect3WorldProblems #TopPriorityIsNotGettingMyAssShot

After the surprisingly energetic response to the Addams Family viewing last Friday, I've decided to repeat the experiment this Friday at six with The Nightmare Before Christmas. If you want to co-ordinate food, let us know. There are pizza places that deliver here, and since we're right down the street from the largest indoor circular mall or something there's a lot of fast food too.

Oh yes, it's on. The 2015 Sacreligious Pick Up Line contest is now open--this is a Pro/Am tournament so don't worry about having to compete with Scott Shanks.

My opening volley is "Hey baby. Are you an angel? Because I'm Jacob and I'd like to wrestle you all night."
Well. Technically I also offered to send her a picture of my genitals.

Mimerki responded with "Want me to dip my spear in your waters so we can form Japan from the liquid that drips off the tip?" Which I give total props to despite not knowing the legend in question.

Although technically not sacreligious, we did dabble in Arthuriana as well, and I'm pretty sure there's a good Merlin one.

Feels like a new start. I have no idea why. I don't know what I'm starting, or what I finished. But there you are. Expect great things, just don't expect anything specific.

Maybe it was the concert. I have grown more and more aware that I've set my life up so that I end up doing a lot of things on my own. My options are to learn to like other things or learn to like doing them on my own. Or to let the things I like make me unhappy, I suppose.

An assorted laundry list of things I thought:

Very frustrating when multiple times Cerberus documents talk about how well indoctrination is going, and there is no opportunity to say "Holy Crap anybody but me, it sounds like the Reapers have been taking over Cerberus!" Not one opportunity. I counted. Twice.

Also, when we got to the Citadel and discovered that the Reapers had taken over Cerberus (Quelle surprise!) my first statement was "I bet that oily bastard Udina is involved."

In a game which remains in large part cutscenes I wish they'd taken the time to edit out the awkward pauses and bits of business which seem to accomplish very little.

I have this new awesome gun, a beam weapon that doesn't use thermal clips, which means I never run out of bullets and only occasionally have to reload. This has transformed my combat tactics from "Hide behind cover until powers refresh" into "BANZAI!' Well, technically it means I shoot at bad guys from cover while waiting for refresh. When I remember that I have a cool gun, at least.

When I'm making the rounds talking to my crew (No loyalty missions. Still acts like there are.) I still stop by Jack's basement and Thane's office and Tali's engineering station and go "Aw. Nostalgia."

Why would you put a character named Kaiden Alenko and Kai Leng in the same franchise?

#MassEffect3WorldProblems #IfTheyDatedWouldTheyBeKaleng