It hasn’t blown me away yet, but it’s almost shockingly good given its pedigree. It’s preoccupied with a lot of the same questions about transhumanism as mid ‘90s anime like Ghost in the Shell, which makes sense, since that’s one of Haddock’s major influences. I was skeptical going in, but it won me over.

lol @ “Bradley Copper”

Multi-cams can be good, this just means Jeong is going to mug for the camera a lot.

If this is a single-cam that tones down Jeong’s schtick a bit, I think it can be good. Dr. Ken was mostly just an excuse for scenery chewing.

The KH games’ difficulty is weirdly out of step with their Disney aesthetics.

Yeah, I’ve been told that Chain of Memories is the low point of the series. I’m tempted to just watch the cutscenes for it. (The nice thing about the Story So Far collection is that there’s an option to just watch the cutscenes instead of playing through the game.)

What I’ve been told is that the series goes ludically uphill and narratively downhill.

Yeah, I had the same issue with the half of it I’ve played so far. It’s stylish, but it doesn’t control well - there’s zero finesse in aiming because the thumbsticks are too sensitive - and very little strategy.

Yeah, this is really meant to be played with friends while you chat over Discord or something. (I think Origin also has a built-in voice chat feature; I might be mistaken.) Trying to coordinate solving a puzzle with three other strangers is like herding cats.

Yep, that’s the one.

I mean, there’s ME1 and Andromeda. And of course other franchises like Dragon Age and Jade Empire. In any case, the central hub of Anthem is more claustrophobic than all of those games on average.

There’s a fun story moment in the demo that I really enjoyed, but because I don’t know how far into the game the demo is, I can’t tell if it’s an inciting event or a late-game development.

Having played the demo, I don’t think Anthem will attract anyone who plays primarily single-player. It’s so impractical for soloing that I can’t imagine trying to play it without a four-person squad.

*at, by

I can’t say I agree with Will’s assessment of Anthem. To be clear, I didn’t enjoy what I played of the demo, and I have no plans to get the full game. But I found the interactive bits are Fort Tarsus to be a lot like the kind of BioWare we all know and love. The conversations are interesting, and the setting is far…

With advancements in motion capture technology, this might actually be feasible!

Re: the headline - Let us not.

Oh God, is this Thiel vs. Gawker 2.0?

The name notwithstanding, the trailer makes it look like one of the few genuinely promising network TV shows.

Yeah, I could understand the dig if it was at No Line on the Horizon or Songs of Experience, but the general consensus on Songs of Innocence is that it’s good to great. It definitely wasn’t my personal AotY (I just checked and it clocked in at a respectable #31 on my list), but I could see an argument for giving it…