I'm pretty much with everyone in this sub-thread, though I honestly enjoyed the gameplay too. I'm mostly looking for the next honestly well-realized story in gaming, and Uncharted 2 is one of the few that really delivers.

Yeah, Uncharted 2 sort of validated the linear, single-player adventure game's relevance for me last year. I think if anything, given the continual "annualization" of triple A game titles, the worst this game could be is more of the same.

I really don't get "the more ridiculous it is, the better a video game it is" argument constantly waged against GTA. The KRAY-YAY-AZY! sandbox game has been done to death and never in a particularly satisfying way, especially the older I get (I don't mean to sound like a pretentious "mature" video game snob. I really…

"Sounder of boars" is a personal favorite.

I thought the pacing for Portal 2 got a little aimless towards the end of the "old Aperture" bit, but I also might attribute that slog to me rushing through the game because it was more delicious Portal action.

@The Ghost of Dai Vernon (is that how you tag people on this?) I too desired more "give it to me" from the end of the song when I first listened to it. I highly suggest the Barry Adamson remix of the song if you want more "give it to me" riffing. It adds two extra lines to the second verse and what I suspect to be the…

Maybe it's because I grew up playing in large bands, but the sax can be one of the sexiest, most versatile instruments around. That solo makes an already perfect synth-pop song even more amazing, and is far from what many probably revile as "80s Cheese."

That sax solo is fairly perfect.

I don't know, I'd at least give it a B or B-. Everyone sounds a lot more enthused, fuller and less arbitrary on I'm With You than Stadium Arcadium, despite the absence of Frusciante. Even Kiedis for the most part melds with some particularly interesting rhythm parts here as oppose to just egregiously braying against…

If you refer to Zappa as a composer-in-quotes, you've already fucking lost your argument against him and his "unfashionable" music, but I think (hope) Hyden was just pointing out the gripes other people who don't know any better make about his music. The Fergus & Geronimo stuff was a nice throwback to his stuff though.

Yeah, I have to give Sony a lot of credit for their E3 presentation last night. While I personally find it difficult to justify buying something so close to being a smartphone without it actually being one, they made the tech and its software appear so damn compelling. And the pricing is perfect.

I still like the Chilis, and while Kiedis has acted like a prima donna in the past, the band's general personality seems to say "troupe of lovable Californian oafs," especially after John's departure (who'o probably more than just "good," but I won't risk being branded as one of his devotees. Talk about insufferable.)…

Also, the thing being fed into the media bullhorn would be s&m, or perhaps sex in general. Which, hey, sex is fine in media, I just think media handlers might exploit its influence.

While I think sexually packaged pop-stars can be hard to decode in general because, hey, sex sells and is often calculated to be consumed thoughtlessly and with as little context as possible. While it's obvious that liking rough sex doesn't express a desire to get raped, I'd argue that feeding it through a media…

I wonder that about Zappa as well. I stumbled across a fan's archive of all, if not most of his magazine interviews, and in one of his latest he spoke about his ambassadorship to the Czech Republic. He said he felt awkward about an upcoming trip because his hosts were sort of nudging him to bring his guitar, but he…

and not in excitement, but in unwarranted consternation!

Say what you want about Stadium Arcadium, but their post BSSM output is pretty damn respectable.

Goodness, that Grinderman piece is great, if only for every quote attributed to Nick Cave.

I thought everyone came off on the wrong side of silly on Monster. Jay sounded devastatingly senile on the track.

As "batshit ridiculous" as the game may seem at times, as a whole AC 2 felt tasteful as opposed to self-indulgent and lame. It's certainly a little bloated in spots, but the AC franchise is no more absurd than most other beloved high-concept sci-fi/fantasy works. This is especially true for AC2, which trimmed its…