The Mega64 guys team up with Cliff Bleszinski to honor the achievements of video game luminary, Warren Spector.
They are a group of six friends evenly split among men and women. Haven't seen this formula before! (Photo courtesy Screened.com)
I’ll get into it more later, but despite it being pretty standard fare for a sitcom, Happy Endings is actually hilarious and kind of awesome. I blew through season 1 this weekend (half on Netflix, then I bought the entire season on DVD).
Just catching any TV is impressive considering that I haven’t watched a second of it since Mass Effect 3 came out. Now that I’ve beaten that I had a chance to catch up on all the TV I’d missed.
Movies
The Descendants – Picked up the movie at Best Buy this weekend too. Great flick. I think Tiffany liked it despite its Oscar film plot meanderings.
TV
Community – Oh god, so glad it’s back! So glad! This week’s episode was pretty solid work for Community. Everyone showed up and was great. Even the Britta stuff was hilarious. I loved that she was a wizard with domestic stuff and wedding planning. Then of course she Brittas the entire thing by getting too drunk with Jeff.
Archer – Space! Pretty excellent episode of Archer. Can’t wait for the finale next week
New Girl – “Did you just Fredo kiss me?” The singing part was kind of “eh”. “Are those cannons on your back”. After watching a lot of Happy Endings later on in the weekend, I think that New Girl is a less good version of that. Bummer. Still, it’s coming into its own and I dig it. Max Greenfield’s Schmidt is hilarious.
Parks and Recreation – The Ron stuff was great. I guess I’m pretty tired of the Ann and Tom stuff too.
Bob’s Burgers – Kristen Schaal and Eugene Mirman are HILARIOUS! Footloose warehouse dancing is great! “No more lick foot”. “If guys had uteruses they’d be called duderuses” Great episode.
Justified – The show knows how to make things seem real bad. “I found the gun.” “Did you touch it?” “What am I, an asshole?” I think Winona’s great! Is she gone for good? Good to see Ava returning to prominence. I like her too. Boyd’s got a real firebrand preacher streak and that’s always fun to see. This season is about to get more real quick and I love it!
Up All Night – Maya Rudolph is great. Spitting the scotch back out was pretty hilarious. The stinger with “gift” and “seed” was the best part. I kept wanting to use that as a line, but it’s so gross.
Happy Endings – Not too bad. Wow. Extra Hot Great turned me on to this show and I spent all weekend watching as much of it as I could. I thought it was pretty hilarious. It’s got a modern Friends vibe, but with the jokes pace of a Community, 30 Rock, or Arrested Development. Just BAM! BAM! BAM! Jokes, jokes, jokes. I really enjoyed it. If you know me I hope you don’t mind me making you watch it.
Music
Just listen to more Rhythm Heaven music, guys!
Books
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Ok, Martin Vanger is dead already. Why does this book still have like 100 pages left?!
Video Games
Mass Effect 3 – Finally finished this sci-fi epic and…I loved it. Naysayers out there will tell you that the ending is terrible. They’re kind of right, but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t fantastic.
Ghost Trick – This is another one like Dragon Tattoo that I’m getting closer and closer to beating and I just need to put time in to finish.
Mass Effect 2 – Coming back to this after 3 is rough. Combat is slower, the engine is not optimized for PC, it’s trying too hard to be edgy…Still good, but I like 3 and 1 better.
Shepard and Joker get to have pretty awkard bonding time in this game... (Photo courtesy gamesweasel)
I’m about 66-75% through the game so I don’t think I can claim first impressions anymore. Here’s what I think:
NOTE: I’m planning on avoiding story spoilers, but if you want to know absolutely nothing, don’t read this.
- Remember the interface and flow of Mass Effect 2′s combat? It’s back! It’s pretty much identical, but Bioware says it runs a little faster.
- Oh, they brought back grenades that act like bouncy grenades. The spinfusor style from ME1 is gone, but those never operated that well anyway.
- I might be wrong, but it feels like there are fewer long conversation wheels in the early game. Best to keep things brisk in the early going.
- The more defined mission style of ME2 returns for another go. ME had you stumble into more free form environments that may or may not have missions. It was a less directed than 2. What 3 does that I like is eliminate the debriefing summary screens. I always felt they killed the flow of any mission and felt more game-y than not.
- Remember how your crew used to let you enter into a conversation wheel with them all the time even if they didn’t have anything new to say? That system is gone. Instead your crewmates talk in the not-cutscene field when they’re just making one-sided comments about a mission. They enter the conversation system if they have a dramatic bonding moment. This sounds worse than it is, but it’s pretty awesome. Instead of loading the conversation and learning they had nothing new to say, it allows you to know at a glance they’re not gonna say anything new.
- Which isn’t to say they say less. If you talk to your crewmates after every mission I guarantee that 98% of them will have something new to say. Some kind of comment or joke. It’s awesome. What’s even more awesome is that the crew speaks to each other. You can walk into Liara’s room and hear her on the intercom with Javik or see Garrus and James shooting the breeze and bragging in the mess. It’s a much more organic system, but I feel bad for people like :cough: Eric :cough: who lost anyone who would normally be on your crew. They’ve all got hilarious/interesting things to say.
- Speaking of which, Javik has been more than worth the money, in my opinion. The fresh Prothean perspective he brings to every mission and the conversations/comments he makes are all pretty well thought out and interesting. I’m glad I have the version that comes with him, but I’d recommend buying the DLC if you didn’t get him.
- Look for the Blasto advertisement wall in the Apartments of the Presidium Commons. You won’t be sorry if you spend five or six minutes listening to the whole thing.
- Disregard what you might have heard elsewhere: the story and choices you make in ME3 are amazing. I don’t see first time players getting much out of it, but people who have been there since the beginning will totally love how things come together. If your crew mostly survived ME2 you’ll also love spotting your mates on various missions. The ME3 world is a crazy place. Everything’s in disarray thanks to the Reaper attack. More than once I’ve found myself amazed at how fucked everything seems. There’s a sense of despair that pervades and I love it. Super effective use of mood and place.
- I like how the new enemy types gel with the combat system. There are a new classes of enemies with different vulnerabilities and the factions all feel unique.
- Can’t not mention the multiplayer! Not being able to pause is less of a concern than I thought it would be mostly because you’re only managing one person versus three. A solid team makes for a fun wave-based shooter. Combining powers for a biotic blast is always super fun.
- OH! Forgot to talk about the new encumbrance system. Instead of having set weapon profiles for classes, Shepard now has a weight limit associated with each class. Carrying more (or heavier) guns adds to your encumbrance rating, which slows your power recharge speed. The fewer you carry naturally boosts your recharge speed. It’s a neat system.
- Also cool is the War Readiness readout. It gives fun/interesting little things to read about your war assets and how they’re contributing to the effort against the Reapers. Very cool stuff.
Floating holo displays are awesome. (Photo courtesy gamesweasel)
Smoke alarms! They notify us about fires, but they also incessantly beep when their batteries are low. It’s tough to sleep when that happens and you don’t have 9V batteries laying around.
Oh, yeah, also Mass Effect 3 came out this week and obliterated my TV watching.
Wanderlust – Sharing a lot of the DNA from Wet Hot American Summer, Wanderlust was appropriately strange, but also pretty darn funny. I’d put it at 3.5 or 4 stars of five.
Baseball: The Tenth Inning – Rewatched about 75% of this fantastic baseball documentary with Greg. Good times and good prep for the season. Can’t wait!
George & Jonathan – I was turned on to Beautiful Lifestyle by The Besties podcast (“Little Marcus” is their opening/closing track). Great chiptune disc with a lot of variety. Reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog music a lot of the time.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Bloomqvist is captured by Martin and there’s still so much book left! WTF!
Final Fantasy XIII-2 – The Sazh DLC can kiss my ass. Hours of playing poker to unlock Sazh? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Devil Survivor 2 – I love how brutal these games can get. Atlus isn’t messing around. When demons invade there’s no sugarcoating.
Ghost Trick – So very close to being done and plot twists are just appearing and stacking up like crazy.
Mass Effect 3 – Badassfully: Blasto 6 is the funniest part of this game by far! Here’s a tip for any of you who don’t already know: Anytime you complete a mission you should walk around and talk to everyone. They have funny/interesting things to say. Javik, in particular, has an interesting perspective being a Prothean and all. Look for impressions soon.
I don’t think it’s possible for you all to understand how pumped I am for baseball to come back this year. It’s been a long, hard offseason, but spring training is off the ground and I’m super pumped.
Higher Ground – Vera Farmiga (and her sister Taissa) stars in this intelligent movie about a woman constantly seeking religion, but unable to arrive at the faith and two-way relationship she so desperately craves. It’s beautiful and slow and it’s fantastic work by Farmiga.
What’s Your Number – Oh, the things we do for love. Seeking something to watch together, Tiffany and I stumbled upon Anna Faris’ ill-received romantic comedy that is simultaneously all about slut shaming and also about finding love before your friends continue to slut shame you. I’m injecting way more importance into this light, breezy romantic comedy than it deserves. As far as these types of movies go, you could find worse. It’s alright.
The Walking Dead – So tired of the non-zombie plots. “Waaah waah, I’m suicidal! Waaah.” Pretty sure they’re setting up a mega-swarm headed to the farm. Not sure.
Life’s Too Short – The tumor stuff was predictable, but funny. I don’t think the Johnny Depp stuff was half as good as the Liam Neeson stuff from last week.
Parks and Recreation – Ginuwine jokes, haha. Oh man, the part where he read out the image URL for Leslie’s campaign poster! The water fountain visual gag was also hilarious.
Up All Night – The stuff with the godparents reminds me of David since Eric just had his baby. Steven Pasquale was pretty hilarious in his Army vet role.
Justified – Not every episode has to be super exciting/awesome. Still some good acting in this episode, but not as sharp as the rest of the season has been.
Archer – “You make me sound like some kind of chubacabra, but for dicks.” Pretty good ep.
Portlandia – The Eddie Vedder tattoo stuff was brilliant. About 1/3 of the Battlestar Galactica sketch (featuring James Callis, Edward James Olmos, and (the real) Ronald D. Moore) was excellent as well, but it strongly relies on you knowing what Ronald D. Moore looks like (Hint: He’s not the guy who played Adama or Baltar and he’s not the guy with his name.)
Houston Astros at Washington Nationals – Stephen Strasburg’s curveball looked sharp. It was missing a little bit of placement, but otherwise looking great. Too bad Tom Gorzelanny came in and stunk up the joint. Still, baseball! Spring training!
Rhythm Heaven Games – Go out there and get your hands on Rhythm Heaven soundtracks. The music from these games is super catchy and fun and I’m pretty sure they include perfect versions of the songs that have all of the sound effects in them.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – I swear I’m making progress, guys. I really am! He’s actually working with Lisbeth now. It took half the book to get them there!
Devil Survivor 2 – Devil Survivor was one of the best DS TRPGs (or normal RPG or games) out there and DS2 is more of the same. New characters, broader setting…I dig it. So much so that it’s supplanted…
Ghost Trick – Used to have a steady slot in my DS, but I’ve sidelined it for a little DS2 action. Gotta finish it because I’m nearly done, but DS2 is sooo fun.
The Old Republic – Nothing like getting a little Bounty Hunting in, but the stupid TOR people haven’t announced the legacy stuff so I’m at a stalemate with getting more playtime in with Min.
Man, nothing else on television is close to as good as this show is right now. (Photo courtesy flipittyjupe2)
It was a hectic, busy weekend that resulted in me becoming an uncle. So glad that the delivery was ok, but now I’m crossing my fingers for everyone to get healthy soon.
Almost watched one this week! Didn’t though.
Justified – The stuff with the organ thieves was awesome. Also the scenes with Limehouse have been stellar. Tensions are running super high in Harlan County and I can’t wait to see what happens. Definitely the best action drama on air right now.
Childrens Hospital – This week they aired the rerun of the 70s episode. I still love the lines about Ken Marino’s character being a baby killer. Great stuff.
Up All Night – “I know you’re kidding, but why put that out there?” Oh man, the Lennon-McCartney of hip-hop and the Simon and Garfunkel of hip-hop. SO GREAT! Alanis Morissette is quite the capable actress. All that terrorist and TSA stuff was great. Beeping out profanity is way funnier than profanity most of the time.
The Walking Dead – This show is kind of on a roll. The violence and gore was pretty impressive this episode.
Glee – Whaaa…? Suicide attempt and a car accident ripped straight out of 80s soaps. Weirdly fluctuating tone, mediocre songs. What was this episode?
Archer – Decent episode with some real great lines. Loved the WV stuff.
My Strange Addiction – Got stuck watching this with Tiffany. There was a dude who was in an intimate, sexual relationship with a car. I watched a show about an actual, real person who is in love with his car. Shoot me next time, please.
New Girl – Jess being bullied by one of her students? Makes a lot of sense as a plot point to me. Good fun this episode. Schmidt is still the best character so far.
Fringe – Finally returned to season 2. The case of the week episodes that don’t advance the narrative are less fun, but this one was still pretty neat. Poor Broyles.
Enjoy St. Vincent’s “Cheerleader”:
Probably read Dragon Tattoo. Can’t remember if I did.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 – Continues to be a JRPG-ass JRPG. I still like it though. Interested in seeing more of the plot.
Ghost Trick – Getting close to the end! I was proud of myself because the Spanish I’m learning from playing it in Spanish has actually been put to use. For example, a basement is a sótano, a word I didn’t need in Florida, but I needed yesterday.
Rhythm Heaven Fever – Got a few quick rounds in with David. Lots of fun.
The enjoyable paradigm system returns for the sequel. (Photo courtesy 289chjl)
Man, oh man…If I asked you which Final Fantasy game you were most hoping for a sequel to, would you have said XIII? No, of course not. I wrote quite the lengthy post about how Squeenix should have allowed the complete destruction of mankind in the ending of XIII and I also gave them far more credit than most did as to the story and themes of the game. Since they didn’t kill everyone, they had the chance to make a sequel and…I’m not annoyed by it. I like the way that the story is handling time travel, even if it seems disconnected and/or sometimes characters say contradicting things in back-to-back lines.
Like it or not, I’m invested in the silly world they built for FF XIII and I like seeing how it changes from present to future. The overarching story makes zero sense, mind you, mostly because the plot coupons make no sense. We need artefacts (their spelling, not mine. I know it’s spelled wrong) to travel through time, but the artefacts have no real connection to anything. They’re just hunks of crystal. Shouldn’t they be anachronistic items that make sense instead of anachronistic hunks of rock?
Anyway, my impressions are below. I need to get those out before I get too crazy about the lore of XIII-2. Typing that sentence made my head hurt…
- Show, don’t tell! You have the most advanced cinematics ever seen with photo-realistic faces and you have to tell us that Lightning is confused or wondering “What’s he up to?” SHOW! Anyone who actually talked during battle as much as she does would be insanely annoying.
- Was anyone saying, “You know what FF XIII was missing? Quick Time Events!” I’m pretty sure they were saying that the interface is insanely cluttered already and adding in button prompts on top of the in-engine visuals will make them hard to see. People are prescient like that. Seriously though, we didn’t need these. They don’t add anything to the game.
- I still like the paradigm system, but I wish I didn’t have to start from scratch. Luckily it gets to speed relatively quickly.
- I like the “Here’s what you missed on FF XIII-2″ segments when you load a game. Helps catch you up when your story is ridiculous/makes no sense.
- Noel looks too much like Sora for me to take him seriously
Exhibit A (Photo courtesy Pendragon94)
Exhibit B (Photo courtesy MaidenKari)
- I said it before, but it bears repeating. The spelling of artefact is obnoxious
- The Mog voice is terrible and sounds like it doesn’t fit in the mix.
- The in-engine camera angles are stupid. They don’t properly frame anything. I feel like my laziness in setting up shots before I talk to people makes for ugly scenes where a person is occupying the corner and a wall is occupying the rest of the shot. It looks bad.
- I know I said I kind of like this game, but I’m not really highlighting anything other than the paradigm system. Seeing all the old characters get old(er) has been pretty cool.
-I’m also interested in seeing how this resolves. Time travel stories are, like, my thing, haha. I want to know more about this Valhalla place and how one gets there. Finding out how it ties in with the l’Cie narrative would be neat too, considering how perfect a metaphor for video games and their characters it is.
- The way that the Pulse fal’Cie are ambivalent gods is my favorite part of them. They’re so arbitrary and mean. It’s brutal the way they manipulate humanity
- Tied in with that, the running narrative about human independence is pretty neat.
- Restricting the game to a two-person narrative shows incredible restraint. It’s a story best told with only two people, for sure.
- The monster system is ok. Not sure I dig it yet.
I appreciate Min's patience playing RHF with me all weekend. We did get some great laughs out of it, particularly during this game, Ringside. (Photo courtesy Wiiloveit.com Images)
Guess what, guys? I like Rhythm Heaven Fever. It’s totally the best thing out there. I only wish I had more restraint so that I wouldn’t be done with it already!
Hanna – A violent, modern fairy tale. Hanna was a really interesting movie that I thought had to be directed by a continental European. I give myself partial credit since the director was British. A lot of neat imagery and very stylized storytelling.
The Walking Dead – I’m a little behind the curve (I always am with TWD since it airs on Sunday and I usually don’t watch it until Monday or Tuesday, but that scene in “Nebraska” in the bar with the two other survivors was chilling and awesome. Best scene the show has done yet.
Portlandia – Only saw the Mixology episode, but it was pretty funny. The best bit was the way that Fred and Andy Sandberg interacted. I also dug the diner scene.
New Girl – “Why do you have so many condoms?!” Pretty funny episode of New Girl. It still feels like a real work in progress as they try and iron out all the kinks and get it to a consistent place.
Parks and Recreation – Adam Scott gets this week’s Dan Mesa Award for Acting Excellence for all the background reaction shots every time a cop passed by. Great acting.
Archer – I was really excited for this episode, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been. It didn’t really pick up until the second half when the rest of the cast showed up. The fake accents were hilarious.
Life’s Too Short – Oh god, that Liam Neeson bit was brilliant. On the flipside, I’m not sure how I feel about Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant writing alternate versions of themselves, but only when they’re praising themselves. The whole “Why can Ricky do it?” thing was the only eye-rolling part of the episode. Otherwise I like them as openly hating Warwick Davis. Great debut, Min and I were rolling with laughter.
Persona 4: The Animation – Speaking of rolling with laughter, how about that Nanako and Dojima episode where she claimed he didn’t love her? Nanako is one of the saddest/most tragic characters in Persona history, and that’s saying something. The next episode about the Cultural Fair was super hilarious. I think they go to the Amagi inn next week, so we should have even more laughs.
Breaking Bad – For some reason the pro/con list about whether to murder a man was hilarious to me. Despite the comedy/drama line, I think it’s fair to compare this to Weeds. It’s interesting how Weeds never dealt with the decision to become a drug dealer at all. Breaking Bad is (almost) agonizingly slow at deciding whether or not Walter wants to cook meth. I mean, it’s being very interesting about it, so I can’t complain too much. It made sense for a man with a death wish to try and make some cash that way, but now that he’s supposed to start treatment…will the money be enough to motivate him? (Of course it will)
I spent this week listening to The Weeknd again. You should too.
EDIT: Oh, I also watched the Grammys. They were cool.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – I’m starting to worry that this is going to become a prominent tag on my cloud if I don’t finish it soon. It’s picking up in pace, so I’m reading it a little faster.
Saints Row: The Third – Beat it. What a wild and awesome game. Loads of good times. I heartily recommend it to everyone.
Rhythm Heaven Fever – AH! SO AWESOME! AHHHHH! Seriously though, this game is amazing. The games are all much better than the DS ones, somehow, and the music is generally pretty solid too. I was surprised how much I liked the book cheerleaders one. When that gets complicated it’s fun. Gotta go back and master the tap dancers too, I like those guys and I like when they shoot confetti.
The Old Republic – Been a while, but I got to log back in for my alt and to raid. Min and I are being held back by the lack of a legacy system announcement. We really need to know since we have so many alts!
Final Fantasy XIII-2 – There will be a first impressions post later, but I do actually like it even though it has a bad case of the anime bullshits.
Rhythm Heaven Fever is the best game I’ve played on the Wii in a while. So much fun! I keep forcing myself to try and play it slower so it takes longer to finish all the games. Such a great game!
The journey is over. (Photo courtesy Sold Out Activist)
Big TV week for me. A lot of huge episodes and great acting made me a very happy viewer.
I was supposed to watch Hanna this weekend, but I never got around to it.
Samurai Champloo – Turned out to be a show about transition and the end of things. About an age where Japan was forced to move forward and accept the great wave washing over it. Combining that with hip hop was a great idea. Mugen’s final battle was annoyingly unsatisfying. With Jin and Fuu at least the fight had something to do with the plot. The guys Mugen fought were not plot-relevant at all to anything that happened in the series. Also, everyone took ridiculous amounts of abuse and damage and then just lived to tell the tale?
Glee – What the heck was that? All of the numbers were embarrassing, Ricky Martin was used to pathetic effect, and none of the music was that interesting. When you make your episode focus Latin music, but you only really highlight pop crossover Latin stuff it’s kind of insulting to me in the same way all of that was insulting to Santana.
New Girl – For a show that gets a lot of grief, New Girl has been bringing it the past few weeks. Playing chicken with the proposed three way was hilarious. The show still has nothing for Winston to do
Up All Night – “Everyone hates flan!” Preach.
Justified – Whoa, what an episode. That last scene with Devil and Boyd…wow. Not to mention the stuff with Dickie and Limehouse. Awesome stuff. Can’t wait for more!
Breaking Bad – Everybody’s been talking about how great this show is for three years. Guess what, guys? They’re right. It’s awesome. Only saw the pilot, but it was impressive. Can’t wait to see more. Glad it’s on Netflix Instant.
Grammy Awards – Tuned in for the back half with Tiffany. I’m bummed that I missed all the Rap categories (I was pulling hard for Kanye’s stuff. Looks like he did quite well), but it was a fun show. I hadn’t realized that there were so many performances or I would have watched it in the past. Paul McCartney was pretty great, Nicki Minaj was appropriately bizarre (just rap, Nicki. Your flow is unstoppably awesome), and it was generally a good showing. Adele cleaned up, holy cow.
The Weeknd – Aside from the Grammys, I’ve been listening to The Weeknd like crazy. His stuff is totally awesome and 100% free here. If you’re looking for some red hot R&B, look no further. Particular props to “House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls” and “D.D.”
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Get a couple pages in here and there during breaks. Such absolute wish fulfillment writing…Bloomqvist is a weenie, but he gets laid like crazy.
Saints Row: The Third – This game is so hilarious and awesome. I spend most cutscenes hitting the Print Screen button to try and cap the ridiculousness. Well-deserved props from the Giant Bomb folks. I’ll probably beat the main campaign this week.
Ghost Trick – Still clever and fun gameplay. I think Min is playing this on his iPad now. He might catch up and beat me!
The Old Republic – Haven’t had a lot of time to work those alts (Min’s been busy), but it’s still fun. The news that Dave might be willing to play soon is awesome and encouraging.
