Valkyria Chronicles has exposed the whirring mechanical core of our relationship, the meshed interests that probably lead to the creation of the site ten years ago. It's a wholly new tactical experience, a gridless affair that manifests artistry from top to bottom. We overlap, here. We overlap, too, on the more lavish cutscenes. Neither of us has any enthusiasm for the banal insights into human nature that many Japanese games traffic in, but even there we have agreement. He has zero interest in upgrading squads, researching ordnance, customizing loadouts, matching personalities, and the other tasks that are required to maintain Squad 7's edge on the battlefield. Bookkeeping is not his heart's delight. Me, you know, I'll keep a book.
We discuss this and other things in today's podcast, which you might have been surprised to see pop up yesterday. Remember that our omniscient feed is your ally, and longs to serve you.
- What a delight:
I'd already been using the "NXE" for a week, so I don't think it was that, at least not directly. With the addition of Netflix support, though, Brenna and Elliot have been using it all day at home - Little Britain and Caillou, respectively. In precisely the manner of previous software releases - Halo 3 and Guitar Hero II, especially - it taxes a piece of hardware ill-equipped to manage it. I wish that I could muster authentic rage, but I loved that thing. I feel more like I'm burying a Goddamned pet.
In general news, Gabriel hates the New Xbox Experience, and I find it an improvement in general. Yes, that's right: disagreements at Penny Arcade. Mark your calendars.
- We played The Last Remnant for around fifteen minutes and turned it off - during this period, we saw ten separate loading screens. It runs, in a word, "shittily." The texture pop that is the universal scourge of games on Unreal Engine 3 makes gibberish of Square's typical visual elegance. This is haunting, because with its configurable squads and the way it interprets position, I can see the vague shape of something luminous behind the rest of this wretched pageant. It's like a skirmish fought with fighting tops, and I want that. I can't say it's bad, because I don't know that, but as a first impression the game is incomprehensible. I should have known before, but I didn't really want to. If you release a video like this one, you have nothing to show.
- Relic asked if we wanted to see Dawn of War II, and the answer is obviously yes. I thought they might be doing it because they're only a couple of hours away by car, just up over the border, but I see now that this may be one small maneuver in a much larger offensive.
- We pegged this year's charity goal at a very conservative seven-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars. Certainly, let's take a moment to appreciate that - for the community that supports Child's Play - three quarters of a million dollars constitutes a "conservative figure." But you don't really seem to care about that, instead choosing to break this figure over your knee and throw the splinters of it over your shoulder. We've just started, and we're already at around 475k - that's k. With the dinner coming up, and independent events yet to kick off, another astounding effort is already underway.
(CW)TB out.
