One tries.

Briefly returned to Assassin's Creed 2, a game defined by such wonderful craft that it spawned a dynasty. But whose main achievement in stealth is that it's a generic action-adventure under the cloak of the stealth label. Also, the Italian accents are a uniquely painful unforced error.

Death Stranding 2's form swings between quite amateur self indulgence and outstanding kino. The bones of the plot make up a bog standard sad dad gig. You've seen those many times before. Honestly, there's a lot of bad held up by a lot of excellence. Feels a bit like Death Stranding by way of MGSIV.

I know that Cowboy Bebop was a perfect storm but I'm stricken that nothing at its level has come out in the past twenty years.

Chainsaw Man is over! A supremely dark and gory comedy that takes the piss in ways subtle and loud out of the entire battle manga genre, Chainsaw Man plays with conventions and expectations in a way that has made fans feel as if author Tatsuki Fujimoto was personally trolling them. Respect.

Seeing George Miller on the regular and not wishing I was rewatching Mad Max instead is a test many games would, and do, fail. It's too common for games to nakedly rep their influences in such a manner that highlights their own vacuity. Intertextuality as an own goal.

Even today film reviewers disparagingly compare certain movies to games. DS2, which uses George Miller's likeness for a character, shoots its action scenes with a stylist's touch and textbook clarity. In contrast, it appears shameful how billion dollar film franchises could ever settle for less.

When I discovered videogames, they ignited something in my imagination. In that same instant, they made me a promise: that they would be a new channel for the human spirit which like air, like light, seeks to fill the universe with its song.

Mundaun keeps that promise.

The first hours of Death Stranding 2 are certainly on brand. The game will drag you through some utterly graceless exposition and later do what today we like to call "absolute cinema."

Very good, @coledone.com, enviable in fact.

I played Esoteric Ebb and I enjoyed it very much.

What's My JND? Find your Just Noticeable Difference in colour perception. How small a colour difference can you actually see?

hrm. strange. most of my life i've felt quite chromatically challenged.

What's My JND? 0.0050
Can you beat it? www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd...

I have not observed one critic to be consistent in their affections, and despite a deep familiarity to the medium, none can overcome the subjectivity of reality, only elucidate it in some slight manner. Like all of us, Ebert saw symbols to which only his soul could answer -- mainly to our benefit.

damn, it's your birthday? im sorry i missed it. and of course, Happy Birthday

silent hill 2 supremacy

A boat approaches a jetty leading to a fantasy castle.

Cyclopean II: The Dreamlands picks up a genre that I am fairly alien to: the old school dungeon crawler. Though more often than not I roll my eyes at *yet another Lovecraft joint* this one is well written, mysterious, and looks as if it was carved out of pixels if pixels were ancient minerals.

A board-like interface with various symbols and numbers describing the setting and status of a wargame between fairies.

According to its Steam page, "a surreal strategy game for clowns and criminals," Titanium Court remixes Shakespeare into a genuinely funny and charming puzzle box that will first disarm you then seduce you.

A character sidescrolls across a neon city with a giant hologram of a ballerina in the background.

Altered Alma is a metroidvania set in a cyberpunkissima Neo-Barcelona. Unlike many gigs with a pg-13 cartoon vibe, this one actually works for me. Perhaps because I found the characters spoke with some level authenticity.

First person view a hand holding a fantasy sword in a ruined world.

Some demos I played this weekend!

Queen's Domain. One of several Field-likes to emerge in recent years, and certainly the most handsome of them. I didn't get to do much in the demo but it was persuasive enough. Now, I wait.

Dramatic painting of a girl lifting her skirt in front of a wolf.

Gorgeous shot of a mossy green branch against a field and wood.

Alex Descas and Josiane Balasko share a knowing smile at a bar.

Close up of Juliette Binoche and Paul Blain about to trip the light fantastic.

Watched Let the Sunshine In by Claire Denis, an understated comedy featuring Juliette Binoche in the typically masculine role of the oversexed yet noncommittal protagonist. Naturally, there is a small part for Alex Descas. Bless.

unfortunately the owls have claimed "parliament"

I propose "congress" as the collective noun for bastards.

I cherish Disco Elysium so much that I doubt I will soon reach objectivity about Zero Parades. But I played the demo and it was okay, if inconsistent. It would have been great with the guts to be its true self, and not a follow up to something that will always be better.

I finished Righteous Victims by Benny Morris. Undoubtedly a well written and informative work. There were a couple blind spots, but that's why I read the Charles D. Smith book. It's a painful history, but there is nothing to resent like a missed opportunity.

Shot of a forest.

Totems made of bones jut up, seen from ground level.

An infected rests by a giant bone mound.

Human figures approach the forest of bones.

I enjoyed 28 Years Later, and I can now say I enjoyed Bone Temple, but I am thoroughly over-gored. I can't watch it anymore. Its realism has put it beyond cartoonishness for me.

very zeitgeist appropriate

Woman on balcony looks at Paris streets.

Man on balcony smokes.

Close up of a young girl.

Private airplane on runway at dawn.

Claire Denis's Bastards, her rather effective take on neo-noir, has joined my roster of discomfort movies.

From the Games community on Reddit: Caves of Qud's water ritual - "Your Thirst Is Mine, My Water Is Yours" Explore this post and more from the Games community

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It's not really a masterpiece but I think it might be interesting as part of a collection of post 9/11 games.