I didn't! Small world — though Stavanger might as well be in another country given how expensive it is to get there from just about every non-west-coast place in Norway (my brother has lived there for the last handful of years, and I wince every time he mentions how much the tickets cost when we meet at home for…

That does seem really interesting. I think my main quibble with the social stuff is that it seems to require a level of attention I'm not quite ready to bring to it. Sussing out each character's likes and dislikes seems like it would take a lot of work if you want to do it without a guide, and I'm a bit wary of…

Yep. And thank you. You're right, it does cut both ways, and I'm sure my perspective on it is very coloured by the fact that I'm from here and not from there (as it were).

Thank you for the reassurance; though I wonder if there's any practical difference between failing at something because it falls squarely outside of your experience and because you're just not capable/stupid/strong enough. I suspect the difference might just be confidence.

So far it's just as compelling, though I do feel like I didn't get far enough into it the first time for this to truly feel like a replay. As far as I can remember, I barely scratched the surface in those previous thirty-odd hours of play. Also — and this might be both a good and bad thing — I don't remember enough to…

Judging by the excerpts of interior art here, the cover portrait piece seems wildly unrepresentative of the actual art style of the book. Where Seaton's work in the actual panels seems pretty damn amazing and distinctive, that cover looks like it was stolen from the Top Cow or Aspen part of the catalogue. Don't get me…

Not all the way germane to your comment, but if you like watching Let's Plays, I can't recommend Cool Ghosts' run-through of that game enough.

Thanks for sharing the story about your dad; I love hearing about those kinds of connections. It makes me wish I'd tried harder up through the years to maintain my parents' interest in consoles — back in the SNES days, my mom and dad were mad about Super Mario World and F-Zero, respectively.

Just arrived at the parents' house in northern Norway after a 15 hour, 600 mile train ride. The Wii U was a last minute packing casualty, so I'll be taking a somewhat forced Easter break from Breath of the Wild. Given my tendency to lose interest and thus never finishing big games, I'm sure this hiatus spells certain…

If that open world was Hyrule, it's the very antithesis of bloated and overstuffed, so I think you're okay on the hypocrisy front. And if the trend had to happen for us to get this game, it wasn't all for nothing, anyway.

Thanks for laying out your Witcher 3 challenge. I love hearing about custom modes like that.

Man, your Picross observations made me v. sad. It hadn't even occurred to me how intrinsically linked my experience with the game is linked to the last-gen Nintendo interfaces, and how unlikely it is that the company will ever put out a new version of the DS.

A D-pad Joycon has to be no-brainer, right? It's intuitive enough that I was able to think of the idea myself while daydreaming about Switch Virtual Console the other day, so Nintendo has to have at least considered it, right? The best part? They only have to sell the one "half"-

Man, I love Hetsu so much. I don't think I'll ever get tired of the confetti-cannon-maracas coup de grace of the upgrade dance.

This one time I was playing, I was standing in a field with that bandana on, scythe in hand, and I found myself wondering if Guns N Roses had ever covered "Don't Fear the Reaper"

Go away.

Ever since I revisited that Generation X run, along with the Generation Next mini that preceded it, I've come to realise that a significant amount of credit for the awesomeness of that art has to be laid at Mark Buckingham's door. Even if the changes in Bachalo's style after the two of them parted ways can be…

Here's a link to that rundown of Breath of the Wild's ties to the rest of the series. It's really worth checking out!

You sir/ma'am, are a national - nay, global! - treasure.

Wait, you clubbed herons? What are you, some kind of stealth machine?