FLips

I loved the original Neverwinter Nights, it was one of the very first PC games I played. Mass Effect 1-3 and the original Baldurs Gates are fun too. Sad fact is they arguably haven’t made a great game since Mass Effect 3 thirteen years ago. Any company not wanting to burn money would have closed them down ages ago, as easy as it is to point fingers at big nasty EA.

It’s the exact reason I couldn’t click with Metroid Dread. Gone were the massively varied environments and focus on exploration and instead it was all grey spacestation and parrying and I just could not be arsed at all.

I downloaded the demo on Switch and was getting disappointed by the Souls-like features as I was playing. When the enemies respawned and my potions refilled at the checkpoint I was one foot out the door, and then when I got to the boss and they killed me in about 3 shots I was fully out. I wanted Castlevania, not another Souls game.

I had one of their books when I was a kid, the one with the spooky trees I think. Quite honestly could not give a single shit what they were called though.

Had optional dental cover at work for 2 years but never used it. Got rid of it and one of my fillings has came completely out. “Filling” is probably generous as it makes up about half of my tooth and so I’m having to temporarily fill it for the next week or so until payday, at which point I have to go see the dentist which a couple of years ago changed from NHS to private so it’s going to be a dear fucking do.

It’s no surprise really with the likes of Dizzy and James Pond exactly how it’s happened. The developers are beyond irrelevent and are of the boomer age where they either don’t know about the negatives of AI because it’s just a fun thing to send to their Grandkids, or alternatively they do know and simply don’t care. They’ve got next to sod all going on and nobody is hiring them to do the next Mario or Call of Duty so all they have is what made them famous years ago. Do another Dizzy but now instead of begging on Kickstarter to the only people who will buy it, you can pocket even more money for yourself by AI generating everything. The issue is your only fans are mostly all of the age that hate AI and don’t want anything to do with it, and the younger audience don’t even know what Dizzy is. So you have long past-it developers taking an easy and cheap way out to try and make money off an ancient dead and buried franchise and they have an audience of none. A complete waste of everyone’s time.

I think one relief, I suppose, is that it was 100% natural causes and is as open and shut as you can get. If there was any room for doubt, those Youtube/TikTok/etc vermin would have latched onto it for the next however many months or years and now that has much less chance of happening. The last thing his friends and family needed was clickbait articles and conspiracies.

Hannah had to go really, she’s been on borrowed time since the second she entered the castle. The game is incredibly biased towards smart people and overly nice people because people get it in their heads they’d make a good traitor. I’m not sure as well that the traitors had to recruit only her or Jerry as the shields only protect from murder and not recruitment right? Either way she was toast, because as was said, someone as smart as her would be killed immediately anyway. Absolutely love Ross Kemp in this. Cartoonishly intense.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 1-6 I think ultimately they all have something to offer, regardless of film quality. Even the worst ones have Robert Englund putting in 100% and they experiment with weird camera tricks and practical effects. That being said it really is a mixed bag. 1 and 3 are great films, 2 and 4 are good but the former is too far seperated from the rest of the series and the latter loses all frights in favour of full-on catchphrases and nonsense. 5 and 6 have interesting ideas but are pretty rubbish. I hear 7 is good, and Freddy vs Jason was good fun from what I remember but our boxset only has the canon films so that’s all we watched. I’d put em 1342……56 Best kills per film for me: 1. Johnny Depp spraying all over the ceiling 2. Homoerotic towel whipping 3. Puppet guy with Freddy in the sky like Mufasa 4. Guy has a wet dream 5. Lad gets Comix Zoned 6. Nails on a chalkboard (this one is pretty spiteful)

I had no idea he was 37! He’s older than me!

Fantastic stuff. Will probably do more for his career than working for TNA ever would have.

That the one over in Doncaster? We were there last year and the tigers are fucking massive. Can’t imagine even looking at them the wrong way, never mind climbing in.

Last week while browsing vinyl at the town market, an interesting older chap beckoned me with “like your vinyl do you?”. Very much the anorak type, carrier bag of unknown goods in hand. He recommended a record shop in the town over, then quizzed me on random stuff, which I’ll repeat to you as you all love a quiz. ”What’s the most covered Beatles song?” I answered Which he said was correct. Then he asked the link between John Lennon and Gary Lineker which I never got after a few weak guesses. Anyway I made an effort this morning to walk roughly 45 minutes to this record shop he recommended and fair play to the lad this was a class little place. I raved to them how they had a Jazz Fusion section and eventually walked out with two Weather Report albums (their debut self titled album and Night Passage) and two Devo albums (Oh No! It’s Devo! and Freedom of Choice) for £55 all in all. Had to leave a few albums behind I was undecided about as I didn’t want to spend too much this month. Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill and Devo’s Shout might get picked up next month if they’re still there. Definitely worth the trek.

I think James Acaster has the best idea when he talked about just playing the game as a faithful. I know that’s basically what you’re meant to do anyway but I think a traitor who kills at random for shock value and doesn’t plot and plan and get caught up in poor lies because of it could go far.

Oh they had that at our Hollywood Bowl as recently as maybe 2021? Really great experience! My mates didn’t warn me about the gusts of wind so I didn’t warn them about the big puddle of piss I’d left in there.