TALK PAGE HIGHLIGHTS

We Are Scientists have a new album out today, called MEGAPLEX. It’s pretty good, easily their best album in a decade. They use a lot of synth hooks and electronic embellishments to liven up their usual indie rock sound (which has sounded downright ponderous at times on their last few releases.)

Fortunately, by the time blitzball has any worthwhile reward to offer, you can use the airship to easily recruit a team of ringers (like Brother) which turns every match into a breeze. But it still takes hours of blitzball to get the item you need for Wakka’s ultimate weapon.

I think it’s best that the FFX keeps the mandatory blitzball time to a minimum. An earlier tutorial would grind the game to a halt. And while familiarity certainly makes blitzball easier, it doesn’t make the game any more fun.

I like the risk-reward decision-making of having to decide between equipping the optimal piece of equipment and learning a particular skill. “Oh, I really want Steiner to learn Armor Break from THIS sword, but THAT sword has almost twice the attack power...”

I’m playing Final Fantasy IX right now. The PS4 version looks really good, much better than the PS4 version of FFVII.

I think it’s too well-known for this list.

Thankfully still available on Netflix (and a reissued DVD set!)

I still love DVDs. I don’t trust streaming services (or even digital “pirates”) to keep my favorite shows and movies available to watch at my pleasure.

The Simpsons has had numerous major recurring guest stars who only voiced one major character, most notably Marcia Wallace as Edna Krabappel. It would not be a huge burden to hire an actual Indian or South Asian actor to voice Apu.

No. They reference some things in the trailers, but that’s it.

I think those were “sponsored posts”, stuff the AV Club publishes at the behest of an advertiser. They always turn off the comments on those, lest we mock them for selling out.

Screencrush has done three or four lists of sad/slow covers in film trailers. It’s an epidemic.

Damn. Eel is the only fish I really like.

You can see what they were going for with the action menu, but they completely botched it. It’s like someone tried to use the radial skill selection you get in the typical BioWare game, screwed up the programming, and then forgot to playtest it. And there’s no reason to even get that fancy! It’s turn-based combat, not…

And their decision to pivot Barbara away from being a generic “hero’s girlfriend” and make her into one of those kooky bad guys.

It’s been over a year since the Switch launched, and Nintendo still doesn’t have any significant classic games in its eShop. (The only exceptions are some arcade games ported over by Hamster.) They’ll be offering a revolving slate of free classic game downloads when their online subscription service goes live next…

I just started playing Regalia, a Kickstarter-funded indie game that just arrived on PS4. I’ve been playing for about an hour, and I’m not super-keen on it so far, but I’ll give it another hour to see if it picks up.

Does Toys R Us own most of the real estate where its stores are?

I blame Activision’s DJ Hero for taking the mystique out of mash-ups.