I'm a senior civil servant and my job is keeping naughty secrets from the Prime Minister. Tee hee, I'm so mischievous!

I'm always behind when it comes to AAA games, but the main story facial mocap acting is probably the best I've seen.

H:FW is taking it even further than RDR2, but I keep feeling like I'm playing a podcast. "This panel should open the door. The door's opening. I should go inside." Shuuuut uuuuup!

Yes, I think they are struggling with a story full of big unseen events. But there's less of an excuse for the constant hand-holding or the way the game seems to think story is a thing that happens during long, static conversations in between the action.

Maybe my focus can help here?

I'm enjoying Horizon: Forbidden West, but its approach to storytelling is very much show AND tell, and tell, and tell and tell.

If you ever revisit them, Discworld 1 is basically impossible without a walkthrough. Discworld 2 is good and much less harsh, comparable to Toonstruck in terms of quality. Discworld Noir is a glitchy and uneven work of genius, but you can't buy get it legally, these days.

Sound the alarm! A new episode of Eleanor & Alasdair Read That is out! We read Johnny and the Bomb and asked, "what's wrong with Eleanor?"

linktr.ee/readthat

A catalogue listing for a plumbing component: Draw Off Cock Washer

Telling another cowboy to stand down:

Probably, yes. And I was fairly impressed by Singer when I was younger (less so now, for good reasons!). But I don't think that difficult fuzzy line is relevant because even if newborn calves had no feelings, it would be cruel to cows to take their young and kill them.

I don't see the parallel, I'm afraid. An egg, sure. If you're claiming it's immoral to eat eggs because they might have become chickens, then that's essentially an anti-abortion argument. But it's not something I hear very often.

There are a lot of bad arguments for veganism that are preoccupied with purity or the innocence of animals. But it's clear that a cow is an individual who wants to keep living in a way that an embryo isn't. So I don't think there's a necessary structural similarity.

If the Labour government can be brought down because Labour were too friendly with a billionaire sex trafficker then that is very much their fault.

FFS. Nothing takes me out of a film faster than failure to even do the most basic research. The Statue of Liberty is on an ISLAND. It is not buried in a jaunty angle in the sand.

This is weird, because *I* knew.

I hope you don't mind the quote! It's obviously a cool idea, I just found it funny how enthusiastic people were about something that would fill me with dread.

Not only have I not been to an office pitch-in, I've never heard of an office pitch-in or worked in an office.

(I'm not criticising Thomas! People really do enjoy different things, and it's a marvel.)

I'm often struck by humanity in its infinite variety. For example, to me, this sounds unimaginably stressful and unpleasant.

I have my reservations, as I have probably mentioned to you. But once I realised it was a metroidvania I understood how to enjoy it - and I really did enjoy it. The vibes were spot-on.

I think it is. AW2 is certainly more ambitious, but it didn't give me more of what I liked about Control. I hope you like it more than I did!

If I may say something brave and controversial, Control is much better than Alan Wake 1 and 2, and the first AW game is quite dull and eminently skippable.

The problem nowadays is that CEOs don't want to work. They just want money for laying people off and blathering about AI, not for producing any positive or concrete improvement to the business. They expect hundreds of millions for thousands of job loses and it's weak sauce, snowflake behaviour.

Back on the BBC All four seasons now available again

www.pleasantgreen.co.uk/back-on-the-...

A picture of a library shelf with a small rolled up note on it. The note says “read this” in child’s handwriting.

A picture of the note unrolled. In the same child’s handwriting it reads “beware of the future!!”

Still thinking about this note I found in the children’s section of the public library when I worked there back in 2018. This kid tried to warn us…

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Fallout: New Vegas, Bishock 2 and Mass Effect 2 were all nominated, and are all better.

Artwork for April's show.

There's still time to book for Thursday's #Hitchin #MostlyComedy with QI's Rosie Jones, WILTY's @misterabk.bsky.social, State of Play Improv, @davidephgrave.bsky.social, and the Mostly house band.

www.ticketsource.com/mostly-comed... #hertfordshire #livecomedy

I'm torn because I think there's good writing in games, and there are good writers working in games. BUT, it's true that big games with bad writing have been showered with plaudits.

No doubt a homage to the art-house classic Ripper (1997) where I think that happens to Jonathan Rhys Davies.