Mitchell R. R. Akhurst

"The Paradise Snare" book cover art by Drew Struzan (1997)
#StarWars #HanSolo

AUTISTIC MODE will be showing at the ACCESS FILM FESTIVAL at Framingham State University this Saturday at 12 Noon. See it if you dare.

This is half of my ideal cast for… anything.

An unforgivable amount of tv shows commit the mortal sin of not having CCH Pounder in the cast.

Yes, I do like SOMA's cassette sci-fi more than Amnesia's wafty gothic horror

SOMA is hard to beat because it's such a bigger swing in so many ways--the drama of the story, the ambition of the locations and shape of the narrative. Real Valve or MachineGames-level execution of first person storytelling in a game.

Still Wakes The Deep soon on the docket though, and that's had a much better reception. I probably won't get to VTMB2 any time soon, but I'm definitely going to play the newer two Amnesia games from Frictional.

It also must be said that it's bizarre how much of a step backward Machine for Pigs is, mechanically, from The Dark Descent. I've played Everybody's Gone To The Rapture before and between those two titles, I'm worried that Chinese Room just don't have the juice

Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I finally played and finished. Good game, great extension of the "quake/half-life mod" world, I loved the level design and general aesthetic despite being usually cold on lovecraftian horror.

A Machine for Pigs seems amateurish and bland by comparison.

I don't know if it's just I've been getting better at avoiding this sort of thing, but there are a lot fewer of these now than in its heyday of 2016-2021, movies like Fantastic Beasts and Solo

This writer is either in their eighties or so dreadfully antisocial they don’t know more than two women including their mother

"Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla" is a hall of fame-tier Onion headline

There’s a late ‘90s/early ‘00s atmosphere style that I call 'Buffy opening credits.' Every big budget religous horror movie had it--Stigmata, Bless the Child, End of Days, The Order, Lost Souls, Mother of Tears-and they aaaaaaaallllllll sucked lol.

I am a sucker for that style though.

new blog post: mgs3 and photorealisming the painterly game

www.joewintergreen.com/mgs3-and-pho...

We're in a period right now where cheap shit looks expensive. All these fancy low-effort graphics. It's not about style, any style can be good, it's about effort and genuine care. Look for a soul in stuff. You know when it's not there, complain about that

Someone said to me that this is like telling people "stop having fun" and I don't even

In honour of the Halo Remake Reveal, here's my blog post about how doing these is cheap'n'nasty and a colossal point miss.

tbh if you look at Halo's visuals and see something limited by the tech of its time you're artistically illiterate

As I constantly say, the thing AI prompting (and prompting disguised as decisions) is selling to people is constant, regular interaction. That is the desire being fulfilled. Cat’s got it right.

It's further proof that we actually achieved Artificial Stupidity as a species before an actual GI, which is the kind of idiotic win humanity deserves. The machine is about as capable as anyone who doesn't understand the appeal of anything, let alone how games work

Someone at Paradox hit me up, I'll make you a vampire the masquerade bloodlines 3 with a 95 metascore

one of those "firmware upgrade" kind of films where you just benefit holistically from having it in your brain

what a fucking movie

“Playtime is over” - me after I finish watching Jacques Tati’s 1967 masterpiece

I feel one thing ALIEN RESURRECTION really got right is how wet the aliens are. Just constantly dripping and dribbling

why is foundation so fuckin good??? season 3 is so fun. goyer's best work

I love how much american possums are just Dark Crystal creatures

The art of Alan Lee

Absolum is quite fun. Replaces the lives/continues system with a rogue-ish run system, and levels with a limited procedurally-generated element. They're Choices but I don't dislike them.

I also reckon this is a good signpost for how Gauntlet could be revived for the 2020s.

"it's french"

Streamers need to get better about supporting good writing for their bingeslop shows because too many of them fall apart in the last episodes of a season—and as we've heard before, if you have Act 3 issues what you really have are Act 1 issues