SomTervo

Same here. I'll do an hour's drive and realise that I'm coming up on my destination without really having been "aware" of the last 45 minutes. This is all about the the part of your brain that handles memory altering how much it writes to it's longer-term memory from experience. If you have done the one action millions of times, your brain will write practically nothing down about it when you do it again, as there's nothing new to report. The effect being that the time doesn't exist; your brain just didn't write any of it down, like you burnt a page from your diary where nothing new or interesting happens. This also means that if your mind is preoccupied with something else while you're doing a menial task, your brain will write even less about said menial task than usual. The opposite of this is when you're in an accident, and your brain's memory areas kick into overdrive from shock and adrenaline, and your brain writes down everything happening around you; the effect being that time seems to slow down. You experience everything with extreme detail, and it appears to unfold slowly. (I love BBC radio 4.) As a narrative device, though, it sucks utter balls.

Definitely playable with more than one person present. Even my mum really wanted to see what would happen next. @Dean: What character development are you talking about, Dean? I don't disagree that it started getting a bit extreme, but IIRC the circumstances were extreme. And it did some really cool narrative stuff later.

Just like in the show! Also, I just experienced an awesome thing in a Catwoman segment, that I didn't know could happen. Awesome stuff. Really shows integrity in terms of storytelling. Makes the universe feel that bit richer, too. Amazing.

Great's definitely the word for that one. The parallel with BR is more apt for Hunger Games though? Lord of the Flies is more intelligent than either of them, really. On that; I remember one of my lecturers at Uni saying that Lord of the Flies actually opens with nuclear war, and that no readers today ever pick up on it. Anyone else see that in the novel? This is covered in Battle Royale, too; in the series the main characters are in, there are two boys who take part voluntarily, and have won it before. One of them is an utter psycho (really disturbing, even in the movie, his background in the novel is dark as fuck) and the other is mysterious (with, IIRC, a really interesting backstory). The primary theme of the series is the brutality of war from what I took away. Book 3 really hammers that idea home. It's nice that there isn't really a big good rebels/bad dictatorship dichotomy, but you'd have to read through to see what I mean. Edit: And I guess Collins claimed to have never heard of Battle Royale before writing the book. BR wouldn't really even be the first thing of that nature (as staySICK pointed out, LOTF did something thematically similar), as I've read a few books/short stories with the combat for others' pleasure type thing. I guess you could look all the way back to the Roman gladiators for the real life counterpart as well. Anyway I'll probably have to check BR out if it's that good. Aye, it's not hard to imagine two separate authors coming to the same sort of idea (there's quite a time distance between them, too). The whole set-up of the process in the novel's is what's strikingly similar; however, Hunger Games seems more fantastical, while Battle Royale is basically fiction. It's set in our world, the real world. It even has some alternate history kinds of things. I don't think Lord of the Flies is too comparable to either, really, unless Hunger Games focuses more on tribal things? LotF is so about the old ways and young childhood breaking down, whereas BR is about the contemporary pressures and cut-throat nature of high-school and politics being literalized. The only similarity there is that young people are involved, though LotF is about kids and BR is about late-teen teenagers.

Yeah my first thought upon reading the synopsis of Hunger Games on Wikipedia was Battle Royale. It has the same premise of kids being forced into killing each other in an arena situation, however in BR it's one year from a high-school chosen at random (so you get all the social ladders and awkwardness and truths coming to light). BR is pretty clever as it plays on reality TV (lots of adults watch for pleasure, not from law), high-school drama made lethal, and on the IRL brutality of right-wing legislation in the far East, taken very far. The movie of BR is really entertaining and pretty well done, but the books truly great, I felt, which the movie doesn't quite reach. The book spends chapters just developing the politics and characters of the situation before the savagery and high-school politics turned violent kick in. Hunger Games sounds decent but like there's not much thematic depth beyond rebellion stuff?

Never heard of that system but it sounds good? The partitioning one. Cloud storage is pretty good, but that RHDD solution doesn't need t'internet, so if you have an isolated friend you're dandy.

In speech I'd never say 'an historian', so I write "a historian". I write "a h-"anything. A lot of people drop H's in speech, though. A cockney wouldn't say "a 'orse", but "an 'orse". So it probably varies from person to person. With no h-dropping as a standard in English, I'd say it should be "a historian" as an orthographic standard. Geography figures largely in this though? If in one region a 'mispronunciation' occurs in the youth and becomes a standard in the next generation, it wouldn't be a mispronunciation anymore as it's standardised in the area and everybody does it; but at the other side of the country, at the same time, it'd be regarded as a full-on mispronunciation and people would be berated for it.

Hah, I didn't realise that wasn't in the first playthrough. Also, the Animated Batman skin doesn't actually look half bad. I've been playing exclusively with the Beyond skin, it's so good. For learning the DLC character's moves, I find doing the Ice Lounge or whatever map is best to learn their moves. It goes on forever, so just experiment. And going into a predator map and just using all the quick-keys. Such an excellent game. Awesome how many more levels it works on than the first. When you're in a big fight with guards, one of em's armed, two have shields, two have knives, and one of them is a Riddler informant. So much to deal with, and it's so badass dealing with it. I've no idea how they're going to improve on it for the next one (which'll almost definitely be their last B-Man game.) Any ideas?

What is Hunger Games?

Stieg Larsson over Joseph Conrad. Stieg Larsson. Over. Joseph Conrad. What the hell is the world coming to. Larsson's stories are good but his prose sure ain't, where Conrad is one of the most important writers of the 20th century. He invented the framing narrative you mention, which is a massive and since-repeated trope. (Granted, Heart of Darkness is far more compelling when you know a bit about the context. I doubt I'd have enjoyed it anywhere near as much as I did if I hadn't A.) been to a great lecture on it, and B.) read my anthology's introduction to Conrad. One of the best novel(la)'s ever written imho, and it's not even one of my favourites. It's just a masterpiece in what it achieves, though it's incredibly easy to see nothing in it, so easy to underappreciate.) On topic: Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing. Incredible so far, but seems to be one of those books that is just so well observed in its tragedy that it actually makes you feel very, deeply sad about the human condition and life.

Yeah Gleeson was indeed spot-on. Reading my post back my main issue was with Farrel and the music (in the first half at least). I felt the first half was more ridiculous than the second, or the ending. Farrel would always be cracking some awful disabled or racist joke while some really serious and moody piano music would be playing in the background. And jokes or funny moments always tapered off into the grey-area non-laughs. And a lot of the situations in it seemed painfully contrived; for example the whole love interest with the random girl on the random set of a random movie, who gets no character development at all (or rather, entirely ambiguous and forced character development) really pissed me off. But really, I can't say I disliked it. At first I was nagging my parents to turn that shit off (slipping right back into angsty teenager mode after living away for a good while), but by the halfway mark I couldn't say no to the rest of it. Also the theme of suicide was pretty excellent. It developed well thematically, I think.

Yep. It's pretty shit, I'd put this in the Terrible pile. Felt like a 'nothing' movie. In concept and execution it's thin as 2% milk. I'm about to rant a little. Re: The novels: The first novel, Wizard of Earthsea is one of my favourite books; and it sets scene impeccably, unlike the movie. It's really great. The context of the whole thing is: 'magic' is simply speaking the 'true name' of something, which commands its true spirit. Practically identical to Skyrim's 'Dragon breath and shouts are actually an ancient language'. In Earthsea, at the start of time everything was called by its true name, and Dragon's spoke the original true language, so could command everything. Over time, with the advent of man, (or something, this is all IIRC) fake names and pseudonyms became prevalent, and the dragons have been killed off, so the magic of truenames, or soulnames dies out. At the later point in history where the stories begin, people only speak in this 'fake name' pseudo-speak, so the true spirit of things aren't affected at all. People don't know things have 'true names' (and everything has a true name). Magic is what Sparrowhawk (who's in Tales of Earthsea, but is the main character of the novels (the eponymous Wizard of Earthsea), and his true name is Ged) learns from the start of the first book, beginning by commanding goats by their true race name etc., and he goes to a distant college etc. It's all great stuff. Captures your mind as a kid. magic is combining the true words for anything; individuals, species, races, elements, forces. The film tells you none of this, and goes on to tell a pretty shit story in a pretty bad way. May make this rant in the 'bad' thread. It's also the first and only Ghibli movie that didn't have Hayao in charge. It had his son, whatever he's call. Big fail imho. That's why it's not good, and your expectations were ruined Atomski! On topic: In Bruges. Sure isn't bad, but it's first half is really poor. I felt it had a really, really weak first half which set up a really, really strong second half. The first half is unfunny, gratuitously crass, and has pretty shit pacing (it's trying to be funny and quirky). The music is also inappropriate all the way through, till the more solemn parts later. Buuuut the second half pushes into quality drama that felt like it should have started sooner, and turns all the over-the-top lame trying-to-be-funny stuff from the first half into genuinely pretty good in-jokes. The music also feels more fitting. Is suddenly pretty great. The plot's also pretty holey, start-to-finish, but most films are much worse.

I just got it, and inadvertently played a couple of hours on Master. Doesn't actually seem that hard. I'm gonna stick with it and see how far I can keep going. It might just be I'm still in tutorial-land so everything's pish, but I didn't die once doing about 3-4 quests. Am playing cautiously anyway. Too used to Demon's Souls.

I am Legend the book? Cos that Will Smith film got it very wrong. Of course. ... What do you take me for?!

Nowhere near. The plane must be about 5 minutes. The desert must be 5, maybe at a stretch 10. I mostly just disliked how it chopped between cutscene and gameplay. I think locking the player down to gameplay creates a far better sense of atmosphere and a more unique experience. It was still well directed, but it could have been better.

I think a game of I Am Legend would be incredible. You could basically make a Harvest Moon mod that'd do the same thing. At night the vampires/whatevers come and attack your house/ fort, and you have to repair it. There's no way you can win if they break in. A day/night cycle where during the daytime you go around a small town killing vampires, and searching for resources and repairing your house. That'd be great. See, there's so much that could be done with the genre. So far all we've had are frantic shooters, old survival horrors, and an oddball action/RPG series.

... Maybe.

For Hottie's benefit mostly: From us headlining the Little Festival of Everything in Coxwold, Yorkshire. Was a pretty great time, but the space was incredible awkward. My dad took the photos, but even he couldn't get us all in the images (Asim the drummer's not even in any of them, he's at far back left in the corner.) This gig among others is part of the reasons my contributions to PXoD been so thin, too D= EDIT: Oh, and, uh, that's me at piano/ accordion/ guitar spot.

Yeah, this seems good. Subb seems good, too, Hottie. Though I'm not a fan of that kind of singing. I can't stop listening to this, or the album. Just amazing. If you're gonna watch the vid, I recommend fullscreening it and watching in HD (it's the short film version, they made a film to go with the album as it's a concept album, so this is only actually the first half of the song but it has a little film with it. Really well shot and edited.)

I like the idea of the photograph. They're good for capturing literary moments as well as photo moments. 'Picture taken. Years later, examine. Delete.'