I decided to post this after trying Dark Souls for the first time.
The excuses people make for this game are weird, and I don't understand why they do it. It's like everything I read is "it's good once you read these 30 pages of things that any halfway decent game designer would have the game teach you" and "it's good once you replay the same bit often enough (because you will) and finally find some opaque pattern to this one enemy's beavior (that's useless for anything else and only works about half the time)."
Meanwhile, it decides to take everything we've learned about action games and throw it out the window. Predictable enemies? Meh. If you're lucky they'll wind up, but then you don't know if they're doing one attack, two, or six. Oh look, you've fought these guys 8 times before, but here's a new thing that you didn't know they could do, so the beginnings of strategy you'd put together suddenly goes out the window.
Basically, there are a good number of people who have been Stockholm Syndromed into pretending it's not a prototypical example of bad design, and some are apparently willing to sink a few hours of just trial and error in the hopes of getting better. This is apparently what it takes. It's like writing a book, only you did it in your own language that lacks any consistent grammatical rules, and there are people out there who made a story of their own out of it. That's not what I buy books for.
While on the subject of books, I don't understand why anyone likes The Name of the Wind. It's an entire novel devoted to a douchebag jerking himself off about how great he is.
"The alchemist" By Poehlo Coehlo. Every one, and his sister, list it as his favorite book. And it is not a bad book per se. But, in the 351 night of the Arabian Nights translated in 1700, there is this story of a man dreaming of a treasure in Cairo Then around 1940 J.L. Borges wrote about his love of the Arabian nights. And with a profusion of excuse about how inferior his version is, he present his short story "the Two dreamers". His retelling of the 351th night is way better than the original. It's exotic, fun in its twist, and any sense of spirituality is lighthearted. On the contrary the retelling of Coehlo is pretty much a power fantasy for spiritual person... this blogger seems as angry as me, and he make more sense on how bad the book is. And coehlo never acknowledged his stealing. Funny how writing about spirituality and wholeness, Coehlo stole the good idea from an old tall and made money out of it. He is a scam
I agree that it's fairly shallow, but that review seems doubly so: he's complaining that something written as a fable is writteen as a fable. He frankly seems to be going out of his way to find things to criticize; the allegations of sexism ring particularly contrived. I get that as a spiritual message it's pretty empty, but criticism shouldn't mirror that IMO.
Autotune. There was a time, kids, when actual humans could sing. Their voices were beautiful, and flawed, and emotive, and gave texture and soul to the songs they sung. The heart and passion they felt was transmitted viscerally from their lips to your ears, and went right past all the logic circuits in your head, all the interpreting neurons, and went straight into your basal ganglia and made you shiver with feeling. Case in point, Merry Shelton on the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter": (Hint: Do NOT pass up clicking on that link and giving yourselves 2:52 seconds of pure skin-tingling sensation.) Chris Cornell made fun of Autotune at the end of "Show Me How to Live", by karate-chopping himself in the throat during the final coda/fadeout at the end of the song. No single technology advancement has ever had as deleterious effect on music and the power of the human voice, than Autotune. It's fucking garbage and needs to die.
The fucking anal cleanliness of all pop music production these days. The need to have a Ph.D. in "sound design" to gain entry to the world of music. The need for all music to be so fucking locked down, produced to death, carefully sculpted to the tiniest microbeat and fraction of a kiloherz. The crushing humourless stylishness of it all. It feels so stifling and unspontaneous. That and Post fucking Malone.
"Nanette". If someone told me "here's a fairly interesting (albeit very navel-gazing) Ted Talk on the structure of comedy and the problems therein", i would at least have not felt cheated. Instead, half a dozen people told me that it was the best comedy special they had ever seen. I, living in a world where words have meaning, assumed that this meant that it might be the funniest, or at least most entertaining comedy special they had ever seen. Oh, how wrong I was. Note to future self: if the content you are about to watch is referred to as "important", "vital", and "game-changing", but not the primary adjective you associate with that genre, e.g. "funny", steer clear. I don't really have any problems about the content of the jokes that were told, and couldn't give less of a shit that most of the jokes were at the expense of straight men. It was just the fact that there was seemingly one "joke" every 5 minutes, and the remainder was a one-woman-show that I had somehow been duped into seeing. But at least Hannah Gadsby had something interesting to say about the form and problems of comedy, even if she didn't have many jokes. I just hate the trend in comedy recently where every other special has to shift gears into sad life stories in the third act. There are a million goddamn places to listen to good storytellers talk about their personal lives, and a comedy stage is almost never one of them. I've seen a lot of truly terrible live stand-up from people who have gotten the impression that stand-up is first and foremost a form of therapy, rather than, you know, an opportunity to tell jokes or make people in some way happy for a little while. It's all well and good to want to talk about your feelings in a serious way - just call it something other than comedy so I can know not to see it. Also, fuck Radiohead, Hamilton, and every Marvel Movie.
I think it's just what the cultural bandwagon is on right now. Sad sacks have always been funny, being outrageous is sometimes funny, but being an asshole is becoming less and less so. So rather than making fun of other people all the time, it's about making fun of ourselves. Some people can pull it off without being annoying (Dan Harmon comes to mind), but it's rare. I saw a couple clips on YouTube. As an aside, using a European VPN server + that search means I'm now getting UKIP stuff in my recommended videos. The sacrifices I make. I'm reminded of this great show called The Young Ones. Not in terms of the humor, because the Young Ones was funny. But they had random musical acts in the middle, and did it only because the BBC gave more money per episode to variety shows versus straight-up comedy. It seems like this is what happened: no one would go see what this actually is, so it's couched as a comedy special for advertizing purposes. But then she had to try to include jokes, and they're bolted onto the side rather than an integral part. This is a good rule.Note to future self: if the content you are about to watch is referred to as "important", "vital", and "game-changing", but not the primary adjective you associate with that genre, e.g. "funny", steer clear.
The Young Ones are still one of the finest comedy shows ever. The musical acts as a non-sequitur in the middle of scenes. Adrian's mindless and pointless anarchism. Rik's Portland Hipster 20 years before Portland was founded. (heh.) Neil's drippy hippy. Just priceless archetypes, so perfectly realized. Loved that show. And the phenomenally shitty puppetry. Puppets are always best when they are really shitty.
I love The Young Ones. Supposedly the musical acts were done because the BBC would give more funding per episode to shows that were "variety" rather than just a comedy.
I also use both a British VPN and that search, and get no UKIP content. Have you been bulk-buying union jack bedlinen on Amazon or something? :D, using a European VPN server + that search means I'm now getting UKIP stuff in my recommended videos
Haven't heard that before, but it was very common for comedians or poets and other "performance artists" (I don't know a better term... educate me!) to support smaller bands and vice versa. The early days of "alternative comedy" in the UK was more like an experimental variety movement. But they had random musical acts in the middle, and did it only because the BBC gave more money per episode to variety shows versus straight-up comedy
That's possible, but they had some big enough acts on there (post-Ace of Spades Motorhead, for example), that I doubt that was the motivation.
Every single musical microgenre spawned by tumblr. No one will ever convince me there's a difference between the various nounwaves other than what images go into the pastel photoshop collages, and I'm pretty sure I could write a script that generates new a e s t h e t i c s and albums and rakes in the tens of dollars from bandcamp. Steam/Origin/whatever. It baffles me that having to run spyware to play a game has become acceptable.
I think I am one of about 6 people on Earth, who can't stand the Beatles.
I was going to say that they at least have some really good songs, and then i remembered that everything that made me think that was covers by other bands.
Thank you for saving me all the time in typing that all out. I hate the Beatles as much as you do.
boy oh boy if you didn't like the first one you would hate the second one remember when kvothe loses his virginity to the personification of sex? there's a sentence in there somewhere about how her tits were floating while they were sitting in a lake and i dearly wish that that was something the author just found out about and wanted to show off his new knowledge somehow remember when kvothe finds the warrior-woman free love culture that don't know where babies come from? awkward wrestle-sex literally in the bushes? 7/10
I'm not sure I ever got that far, even. My wife and I were listening to the audio book on a long car trip, and once the trip was done, so was I.
I feel you on Name of the Wind - I read it after hearing about all the hype. I mean, I like the way some of it is written; I do find the style to my liking. But the story itself annoyed the hell out of me. Kvothe was far too good at everything - so good that it felt like the few things he turned out to fail at, were mentioned purely so Rothfuss could say "see he has limits". Did you manage to stomach the second one? There's a solid unfortunate chunk in there that might have you lobbing the book across the room. As to Dark Souls... were you playing the 2nd of the whole series, Dark Souls? Cause yeah that wouldn't have been fun. I found 3 far more interesting and engaging, and sort of lived up to the expectation that people had thrown at it. I like them because I don't see them as brutally unfair games, to me they're just uncaring - like I'll get better if I want to get better, it won't help me at all. In 3, I died like a million times to the tutorial boss then went merrily on way close to the end before dying another time - I just took my time and it paid off. However, I don't like how some of the fanbase get shirty when people don't click with the series. I also didn't like having to pore through random items to learn a bit about the incredibly vague universe I'm in. Or the now popular idea that a video game needs to be punishingly hard to be any fun. Stardew Valley spits in the face of that thought. Though I absolutely loved how unpredictable the enemies could be. I don't know if you've played or will ever play 3, but there are one or two boss fights that sit at the top of my gaming experience for how smooth, unpredictable and relentless they were. Currently playing through Dead Cells and I'm getting a similar vibe of "Git gud" from it, like yeah it's tough but you learn and you do better. I haven't gotten past the High Peak place yet, that whole area just drills me each time. As to your question - I can't stand Instagram. I'm sure it's not controversial here, but it is super popular. I had it for a while, but the feed was just people doing anything they could to get sponsored. "Had such a good day at the gym today, use my code ChunkyMunky123 for 0.25% off this off-brand protein power and laxative!". Getting rid of it started a great social media purge I feel better having done, Facebook is active but not on any of my devices (kept it for Messenger, still a slave in a way), instagram is gone, no twitter either. Seems like a much calmer place in my head now.
I'm not sure I even finished the first one. My wife and I were listening to the audio book in the car on a trip, but I never made it past wherever the car trip ended. The last thing I remember is him being in a tavern or something, regailing people with how good he is at everything as soon as he picks it up. It's been years, though. For Dark Souls, I was playing the remastered version of the first one. As I said elsewhere, there's a difference between difficult and unfair, and DS is firmly in the latter category. Dead Cells, meanwhile, is in the former: skill is a huge component of it, but it never feels arbitrary the way DS always did. I haven't seen anything to suggest there's anything there that's worth the frustration, so I'm done with it. Social media generally was never super my thing. I blogged before it was cool (heh), using an off-brand site run by the same guy who hosted Pokey the Penguin. I started around 2000, and was really active in high school and college, then began falling out of habit sometime towards the end of law school, and it just kind of trickled out. I journal, but that's fully offline now since I couldn't find a platform or mobile app that was both good and sufficiently transparent about how they store what you write. I started a Facebook account sometime around 2005 when my girlfriend at the time pushed me into it. I was active-ish for years, although never used Messenger (the degree to which it spies on you is ridiculous even by modern standards). But I'd already started to move away from it by the time of the most recent presidential election. But that time really cemented it, and I just stopped using it. After like a year I realized how much better I felt, so disabled my account entirely. I also used MySpace for about 6 months in 2005-2006, again due to social pressure (this time a roommate), but I don't recall ever actually posting anything after I set my account up. That's the extent of social media for me: I started a LinkedIn account because I thought I had to (but I haven't updated it in 5+ years), but have never had instagram or anything else. It's all rubbish.
That small joy in Dead Cells when you get used to that first few levels and you're just rampaging through at high speed. If I start with a Balanced Blade and an Infantry Bow, I know I'll get a good run in. What is sealing Facebook off for me is my group of friends, and family, are having kids now. My nephew's days are all documented on Facebook and it's just making me really uncomfortable - he's going to be a teenager eventually and he's likely not going to want those photos flying around. I love him to bits and I love my sister, she's a great single mum doing her best but everything being on Facebook just seems off. Once I can convince the people I want to stay in contact with to just text me I'll do away with it.
For you second point, this was actually part of the appeal. If someone wouldn't contact me but via Facebook (and vice versa), they're probably not a particularly important part of my life anyway. I'd rather spend the time on the people who are.
With regards to Dark Souls, and it's not something I've ever played myself, but it seems to cash in on the exclusivity and prestige of managing to beat it, allowing the committed player to seperate themselves from those who don't "get it", and potentially trick themselves into thinking it's good. Maybe that plus the sense of accomplishment being heightened because you've been denied it over and over, like successfully performing a difficult skateboard trick. Because it's ridiculously hard, it's good. But then some people love it for the game world, which is a different thing altogether.
I remember playing Rick Dangerous for hours when I was a child. And losing my last life time and time again on the same level after hour to reach that level again. I hate difficulties, and platformer, and perfectly timed jump and strike. But there is something weirdly satisfying in a game that keep beating you down. I never played Dark Soul, and wont enjoy it. But I get the appeal.
I do too, but only if it's fair, and that's the difference. I don't mind a hard game that doesn't dick you around. I'm playing Dead Cells right now, which is clearly influenced by Dark Souls, but I'm loving it despite dying almost as fast and definitely as often. Because in Dead Cells, I never wonder why I died, and it's never due to RNG bullshit or opaque mechanics. Meanwhile, I can already feel myself getting better, to the point that I'm flying around the first level dodge-rolling and slicing things to bits like a buzz saw, and it's a blast. Dark Souls made me want to invent a way to kick a game in the nuts.