btw — to put into further perspective how impressive Sagan’s descent was, this is what happened when the yellow jersey group went down the same descent at slower speed:

Sagan is a very entertaining rider, who has had the green points jersey on lockdown for the past four years, mainly down to his versatility in modestly contesting fast finishes against the pure sprinters (by whom the green jersey was traditionally contested) but then hoovering up intermediate sprint points in the…

That position, known as the aerotuck, is more aerodynamically efficient going down hill, which increases your topspeed.. Contrary to what’s been said before, it can be used to steal a march on your competitors and the only reason that doesn’t happen more frequently in the Yellow Jersey race is that the risk/reward…

It’s terrific — there’s enough content already to keep you busy for weeks and another episode is going to drop in two weeks or so. The release format actually really helps to communicate the best way to play Hitman, which is to explore the many, many approaches and permutations to taking out targets within a map (for…

They’re releasing a boxed version, I think, once all the episodes are out; and I’d be pretty surprised if the Elusive Targets didn’t resurface at that point, though maybe they’ll take the form of standard contracts.

If you liked Red Dead Redemption, the Witcher 3 is arguably the best open world game since that one, in terms of the quality of its writing, even in seemingly incidental quests, and world-building that successfully strives for scale without succumbing to the accompanying instinct towards panic-filling it with…

While I thought the story and progression were handled very well, the puzzles weren’t particularly satisfying. The mechanics of each device proved quite shallow and almost all of the puzzles turn around your ability to juggle items around a level’s obstacles, which is where the quantity of puzzles begins to wear you…

What’s more impressive is that he also did it on a type of mission called Elusive Targets, which are essentially one-shot challenges made available for 48 hours that can be permanently failed if you screw up.

She’s not entirely mad — the frying pan, it seems, was in fact borrowed by Thaler, hence the cracked monocle you find in the abandoned house

The puzzles in this game are exceptional — each one requires you to realise something new about how to work with either the man, the sausages or a combination of the two and they build brilliantly.

Heavy prosthetics/CG are problematic and expensive for a TV show — not just in direct costs, but also because it makes scheduling harder and impacts post production if CG is involved. It’s probably a large part of the reason that Rick Grimes keeps his hand in the TV version of the Walking Dead, for instance. Equally,…

It’s terrifying to think how amazing the menus in their next game are going to be! I feel like you can also cut them some slack on the UI front for having produced a nearly best-in-class open world game with almost no prior experience in that type of design. It’s the best realised game world I’ve experienced since Red…

I don’t want to set the world on fire
I just want to start a flame in your heart
But if your heart will not conspire
The one thing I’ll do is to set fire to you

So far I’ve found virtually every aspect of the Witness’s design to be leaps and bounds above Talos — except for maybe the story, but I’m giving Blow the benefit of the doubt that it will come together in a satisfying way given time. The Talos puzzle mechanics are so much less sophisticated than what the Witness is…

I liked Talos, but I think Jonathan Blow is a significantly better designer than the folks behind the Talos puzzles, most of which were essentially challenges around juggling items rather than providing those items with deep mechanics. In comparison, Braid’s puzzles were a lot more sophisticated and its individual…

I’m not sure what the patience thing is aimed at, but I hope I can convince you that you’re being a little unfair. Guillermo del Toro, through no fault of his own, squandered years of his career — not making anything between 2008 and 2013 — at a point when he could have landed almost any gig he set his heart on or…

English football fans have been engaged in an arms race of animal-directed hooliganism ever since a Newcastle United fan was jailed for punching a police horse:

In a way, Cosmo’s level seems to distil the spirit of any% speed-running into a mario stage. It’s not that you do the level quickly, just that the goal of completion requires getting x number of things just so in order to produce the sequence of events that will get you there. And, moreover, working out that order…

You think he’s dead BUT:

While it’s fun in game, my hunch is that it’s probably too unbalanced/unbalanceable for games between real people. Most games turn on having more cards to play than your opponent through judicious use of spies, dummies/healers to re-play spies or the Northern Realm perk, and if you build a deck to take advantage of…