I don’t know how much drug dealers make, but I wouldn’t have guessed a million dollars a month. It’s certainly not the kind of number I imagined while watching Barksdale and Stringer Bell closed up in the office above the strip club. A million dollars a month seems like Scarface money. But this is inner city Baltimore.
As Freamon unfolds the extent of Barksdale’s operations, Daniels asks something else that didn’t occur to me.
“So where’s it all go?”
Freamon is nonplussed. Barksdale doesn’t have fancy houses, cars, or jewelry. He owns business fronts and property. And he makes political contributions. Substantial political contributions. Legal political contributions. Freamon also mentions the senator’s limo driver caught with a bag of cash. The implication is that there are also less than legal political contributions.
As Freamon explains this, the camera pushes in on Daniels, lost in thought. And then a shadow passes across his face. Not a figurative shadow. A literal shadow. Continue reading →
Okay, a skeleton requires a magic 2 and a magic 4 to get past its armor, as well as the inherent strength 10 for being on the third level of the dungeon. Once I’ve covered those boxes with dice, then I need two strength 3s, one strength 5, one strength 6, one agility 5, and one magic 5. In other words, once you’ve magically blasted away a skeleton’s defenses, you mostly punch it really hard. Its only special ability is that it runs down the timer if I don’t fully defeat it. For some reason, this represents a skeleton being “Undying”. That’s what the card says. Just go with it.
So let’s get down to the anatomy of a skeleton murder. Continue reading →
We’ve got a lot to say about Wonder Woman, so the Brittney doesn’t start up until the 1:38 mark. But then we back up and read our great listener emails about Wonder Woman, so the actual 3×3 doesn’t start until the 1:56 mark. At which point we mount a discussion of stairs in movies.
Next week: Transformers: The Last Knight
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Does Rich live in Florida for the reasons he says he lives in Florida, or because he was run out of New York for allegedly causing a riot while protecting a pinball machine? You decide. We’ll also talk about dumbed-down superhero games, Tim Curry, birds, and a dead MMO that might not actually be dead.
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The Wire is about what it’s about largely because of one character. Without this character, McNulty would be just another homicide detective, Avon Barksdale would be peddling drugs unsurveilled, Omar would rampage unchecked, Bub’s hat collection would be minus one bright red hat, and residents of the projects would have easier access to a payphone. Furthermore, without this character, there are now two points when the investigation would have come to a halt.
In other words, The Wire would have been a much shorter series. Continue reading →
I had some stuff here about the glut of twin-stick shooter rogue-likes with retro graphics, the legacy of Doom, gameplay filler, and even a bit about female protagonists. But I deleted it all. Because this is a review of Tormenter X Punisher, in which you go to planet Fuck You to shoot hundreds of demon things and get a high score.
Unlike some dude burbling on in an attempt to write about this lean retro tantrum of game design, Tormenter X Punisher knows exactly what it’s doing. Continue reading →
If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Universal’s new franchise unraveling. At the 1:18, the podcast collides with a discussion of things that have been hit by cars.
Next week: Wonder Woman
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It Comes at Night puts a family in a Petri dish and focuses a microscope on it. “Come take a look at this,” it says, its face betraying nothing about what you’re going to see. Is it an insidious virus? A cure? Something baffling? Or some meaningful new discovery?
At first glance, it just looks like another post-apocalypse. Continue reading →
All right, I know this is kind of petty, but I’m going to have to get it off my chest sooner or later. And I might as well lump in a couple of reservations I have about this episode. I figure there’s going to be enough effusive praise on down the line.
So let’s have a little naysaying, handwringing, and moralizing. Continue reading →
You didn’t watch this for our sake, did you? We would feel awful about that. At the 1:24 mark, we unmask our favorite face reveals.
Next week: The Mummy
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For someone (i.e. me) who hasn’t read any of the Culture series, or even any Iain Banks, Player of Games is a real eye-opener. Banks is a deft and imaginative writer. This is a series I’m eager to explore further.
But as a commentary on games from thirty years ago, it doesn’t have much to offer. Continue reading →
It might sound trite to relate this war movie, written with keen insight by someone who served during the invasion of Iraq, to a videogame. But consider that the videogame in question was also written by someone with keen insight into the wars America has fought since 2002 (actually, since 1965).
I’m going to list a few facets of our situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of these is a part of the story in Sand Castle and a gameplay mechanic in Afghanistan ’11. It’s going to sound disjointed, so you’ll have to trust me they come together as a narrative in both the movie and videogame.
Here goes: Continue reading →
From the screenshots, you might expect Danger Zone will inherit the mantle Criterion shrugged off as they made their crashing games less about crashing and more about racing. If I recall correctly, that was somewhere around Burnout 2. But it was great while it lasted. Now, at last, someone appreciates what Burnout could have — should have! — been.
Or not. Continue reading →
Tokyo 42 and Hover: Revolt of Gamers (pictured) are distinct types of games, the former based on teensy Crusder-style micro-gunplay with the slightest touch of Hitman, the latter based on nostalgia for Jet Set Radio in a post-rollerblading era. But they’re both futuristic open-worlds bathed in bright bright colors, the likes of which you haven’t seen since the invention of neon pink (some time in the 80s, no doubt). They both came out today, which makes this the most colorful Wednesday on record. And based on preliminary faffing about, I can vouch for both being made by people who know what they’re doing.
What do you show and what do you imply? What do you spell out and what do you leave to the imagination? What’s in the frame and what’s outside the frame? These are questions a filmmaker constantly considers. Every single moment is an answer to those questions.
The Wire has some interesting answers this episode. Continue reading →
