GAMES THREAD

I'd add to that Nissan. I grabbed a 2013 Nissan Versa earlier this year, and it's such an upgrade from the Fords that my wife and I were driving for the last ten years.

If it makes you feel better, mine got weird a while before it conclusively died, so you may have up to a year ahead of you before it gives up the ghost.

As a person who originally sought out a journalism career, I'm surprisingly happy that I never managed to get into it. It's so valuable, and important, and appreciated, but is terrifyingly tenuous for so many people.

(1) This year I'm actually attending two Halloween parties. One on Friday, and one on Saturday. The former is really a 30th birthday party that just coincides with the season and therefore has a Halloween theme, but the latter is a straight-up Halloween party. Given my introvert characteristics and a low alcohol…

WOOOHOOO, that's pretty awesome that you've gotten so good at the sobriety corner that it feels unremarkable. Definitely a milestone. I've generally been of the opinion that once something gets unremarkable or even… boring (?), it's effectively become a habit or a sustainable lifestyle choice.

Oh man, I'm looking to cook up some vegetarian chili soon! I hit upon an ideal recipe last year, and spent last winter tweaking it to perfection. Looking forward to brewing up a batch this weekend or next week. As for pumpkin beer, have you tried Evolution's Jack Ale Lantern? It's the best I've had this year, and as a…

Gotta play that one. I just spent my little Steam gift card on Superhot (currently on sale, at last!), so SOMA will have to wait, but it's definitely high on my list.

I never got past the demo - it was just too scary for me, haha.

I've never played it, but that setup and tension kept me away from it. It was pretty much impossible for me to reconcile the time slowing mechanics and the shooter gameplay with a horror narrative.

I will note that the demo for ZombiU was probably the scariest thing I've ever played, and much of that is down to the clever interface - the Wii U gamepad includes a radar that shows you where movement is occurring elsewhere in the building you're in, and also requires looking away from the screen to manage things…

This problem is a fascinating one to me, as it seems to be unique in both the world of horror and the world of games - games do not necessarily suffer from repetition, and horror in other mediums does not necessarily face repetition at all. It's rather remarkable that horror is possible at all in a medium where a…

Openly hostile worlds are often hard for me to engage with - the inviting but dangerous world (a la Mario) is typically more compelling, at least to this player. With hostile worlds, I tend to feel like my time could be better spent elsewhere; it's like a mildly hostile environment in real life, where I tend to feel…

It's funny, when you wrote Downfall, I read it as Downwell. Pretty different games, huh?

I could see the argument crumbling into the kind of musical genre debates that I hate, but I think it's fair to try establishing some understanding of the difference between fear impulses. There's such a clear distinction between the dread of omnipresent danger and the sudden shock of an unexpected scare, so it stands…

@avclub-d0cf409eb912cc0cc950b41b6d892d07:disqus has a pretty great answer below, but I would add to it the following: Resident Evil Revelations, Resident Evil Revelations 2, Oxenfree, ZombiU, State of Decay, PT.

I think this ambiguity is part of what works in the movie's favor - it maintains the sense of nightmare-like dread and unknowable force of the "monster." That said, I suspect that people who watch it fall into two camps overall: (1) those who enjoy ambiguity and the absence of lore or rules, and (2) those who enjoy a…

My wife and I were just talking about this recently while on a long car ride. I hadn't even ever seen the movie, and she'd only seen a portion, but even the ads for it managed to leave such an effective sense of the destruction that large automobiles can do.

I can't not hear that in the Simpsons' Bronson-esque voice.

OK, I think I've finally figured this out. I checked the flag, and found that it indeed says "All 200 Battle Cards Collected" now. But before I unfurled it, the goal it set out was purchasing 200 battle cards from the shop - I know because I was at 197/200 at the time and simply walked over to the shop to buy the…