Lamp, broken circa 1988

@SturmCRF Hey homie, you’re on the clock. I wont start on yours until thursday at the soonest, but after that it could go up at pretty much any second. If you want me to hold off until you’re absolutely sure, now would be the time to let me know and I’ll go on to the next record in line. @Curt McGirt Stop trying to hit me and hit me. ? If that's your album of the year, that's fine, I'll listen to it. It doesn't gotta be so hard. Okay! 1. "When I Get Home" by Solange 2. "Cuz I Love You" by Lizzo 3. "Jade Bird" by Jade Bird I have no idea who Jade Bird is. I assumed folk, and like a jade-ish album cover. I got the cover wrong, obviously, but the first sentence of the wikipedia article says “Jade Elizabeth Bird is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and former Stage School pupil.” Given the crushing existential dread that accompanies every experience I’ve ever had looking up anything about the English school system, I’m not going to go learn what “Stage School” means. That said, singer/songwriter sure leads me to think that we’re going folky. Let’s see how long I can get into this record before I start ranting about how much I hate British music production techniques. Uh, post-script, this is just a reminder that I make no promises that what I write about a given record is gonna be positive.

LETS GET BACK TO IT 1. Solange – When I Get Home 2. Lizzo – Cuz I Love You I mean, okay, “yes I know who solange is” isn’t interesting because of the nature of her family. If you follow music in America you’ve probably at least heard the name and who her sister is. As for past experiences, I liked A Seat At The Table though it has a lot of slow stuff on it, and we’ve talked about the hole in my head for ballad adjacent music in these threads for long enough to be worth meditating on it again. I heard this album once earlier this year and I’d marked a few songs on it for mix material, but this’ll be my first time just sitting with it with no distractions on my good speakers. I usually do one paragraph per track, but since there’s a lot of interludes and things around 30 seconds, those wont get mentions. It’s not because they’re not important to the tone of the record. It’s strictly about time management and where I think I’ll be spending most of my energy writing. Here we go!

as someone that does enjoy high level tekken, and likes learning about all that hit box/frame data stuff: Leroy is from hell. It'd be one thing if he had a really counter heavy play style, because then the parry stance would make more sense. The problem is that his moveset is largely extremely safe and his damage is FUCKING INSANE, so he can be played as either the best defensive character in the game or the best offensive character in the game, with basically no execution requirement to make those playstyles work. Usually when a character has that many tools they have some kind of significant deficit. For example, Wang was soul crushing defensively, but, his range wasn't exactly amazing, so he had to either get in real close or let people come to him before he could do anything. Leroy doesn't have that problem at all. on one hand, it's nice to know that The Character From Hell is an original character for Tekken, and it's not Akuma anymore. On the other hand, god damn I do not want to face Leroy ever.

Hm. I hadn't considered if I should do something special in case of two people naming the same album. I'll think on that and have an answer if I do this next year.

I'll get back to this next week, i'll be less busy then

WHAT THE GOLF [2] So on the last page, I mentioned that a 2 can mean I think the game is good but I had a bad time with it. Here's an example: This game is basically Golf Warioware (admittedly with a more grating aesthetic) but on PC, it has this nasty problem. See, in "Exclusive Fullscreen" it doesn't stop the mouse from leaving the screen. It's a game that requires a mouse cursor. I, however, have a dual monitor setup, so I can easily click something on the other screen while I'm playing. This would not be the end of the world usually, but what it does when the mouse clicks off the game is it minimizes the game and doesn't pause it. This is uninstallingly frustrating considering how quickly the puzzles go from "haha a mechanic" to "Mouse Action Puzzle Game With A Loud Whining Crowd Whenever You Fail." So, if you have two monitors, do not buy this game on PC. Otherwise it seems neat. KILLER INSTINCT [4, provisionally] My main Steam Sale pickup (other than KOF 13), and at the moment I'm in love with it. After spending a solid year grinding in Tekken, playing a game that is less demanding on execution is a god-send, especially since the game finds other ways to be fun like making you actively think during combos. I'm still in the phase where I'm getting my ass kicked with great regularity, but I have a character (Kim Wu) and I'm fascinated to learn more about how this game works. Extremely satisfied with my time so far. KING OF FIGHTERS XIII [4] look i'm an old KOF fan even though I am TRASH at the game so like idk man it's got the good sprites and my team's in here (Iori/Maxima/Andy). I'm good.

So my 4 point scale means an extremely specific thing 1 = I hate this game 2 = I regret playing this game 3 = I don't regret playing this game 4 = I love this game So, while Pokemon Sword is pretty objectively bad, the circumstances in which I've got it and the person I'm sharing the time with make up for that deficit. Put another way, one can play a bad game and have a good time. That's a 3 on my scale. one can play a good game and have a bad time. That'd be a 2 for me.

DEATH STRANDING [4] hiking to episodes of the world's worst fiction podcast that has the most expensive fan animation possible. i'll probably 100% it. POKEMON SWORD [3] Let's be perfectly clear: I think this game is bad. The circumstances I have received it under (sent to me by someone who is going through A Lot to have something to talk to them about) mean that I'm glad to have it and glad to play it, but holy shit man. I don't know what you'd call the uncanny valley in terms of architecture and world design, but it's in here. The inside of every building feels wrong. Impossible. It's deeply unsettling. Also, the game is significantly easier than the last pokemon game I played (Moon) but with no charm, just perverted towers and an online mode that lets you see other people at the cost of around 40FPS. A Mess. KILLER QUEEN BLACK [4] An amazing game piled to the top with smart ideas. It launched on PC and Switch, and it immediately had both Crossplay and the ability to play all four players of a team on one system. The game has a spectate mode, and the spectate mode latches onto one game at a time so when you want to take a break but still watch the game to learn about it, you and your friends are watching the same game to learn from it. It's got two buttons (Jump and Action), three win conditions, ways to counter all of them, and a bunch of maps played in random orders. It's just fantastic.

yeah uh i am adoring death stranding so far but that's so unsurprising coming for me that this is probably the most I'll ever say about it on here, for fear of appearing predictable

A day late, but, we're here. By the way, for this thread, I'm gonna put a reaction on your post when I've posted your specific review. I heard Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” for the first time in 2018, and thought it was a fun song and was pretty sure at some point she’d be a star. Unfortunately, the first time I’ve ever mentioned that thought anywhere was right now, so it looks like I’m pulling some “I KNEW LIZZO BEFORE EVERYONE KNEW LIZZO, BUNCHA BANDWAGONERS” type of thing. I’m conflicted on Lizzo, and not because of any like plagarism thing (fuck the marvin gaye estate for making this litigious hell songwriters are now at risk of, but also fuck robin thicke in general (especially for that record about his ex-wife, holy shit that thing’s gross)). There’s like multiple facets to the conflict here. I have a lot of misgivings with the body positivity movement because while there are people who mean it and are coming from the right place with it, the arrival of body positivity in pop culture has come along with a lot of capitalist recoup and I feel tense about the marketing aspect. I also feel like it’s a thing I don’t get to claim for myself. Before I say anything further on that, let me assure you that I’m super aware of the hell that the pursuit of thinness puts on young women and the literal harm it can cause. I understand that my needs aren’t first in line. I’m still in that same line. I’m a self-conscious fat man who has seen on more than one occasion someone be radically body positive and supportive towards women and then degrading towards fat men. I also am suspicious of body positive art. Again, it’s meant from a lovely, well meaning place, but like… okay, for every style of human suffering and vice and problem, there’s art about that state of being. With the exception of, like, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, the only art I know of that has anything to say about how hard and painful fatness can be is mine. I’m sure there’s others out there. They don’t get elevated in the same way that like records about addiction do. And all of this is kind of moot when it comes to Lizzo, because the “BODY POSITIVE ARTIST” thing is a thing that’s forced onto her. She’s not out here being a deliberate radical activist. She writes catchy love songs, but because she’s larger than what society dictates is an acceptable person to make songs like that it becomes a radical act. All of that is to say I’ve heard Juice and Truth Hurts and never checked out the record until now because the conversation around it when it came out was mind-numbing. Here we go! As always, one paragraph per song.

Death Stranding review embargo is up. None of the perfect scores are from websites I've ever heard of. The Giant Bomb coverage so far is scorching, especially the Beastcast. EDIT: this post originally said "none of the perfect scores are from websites about it" and I just want to note for the record I have no idea what that was supposed to mean either.

DEPIXTION [3] Picross but a 12x12 grid and you're solving Red, Yellow, and Blue layers to make a full colored image. This sounds amazing. It's... okay. Here's the problem. Sometimes you solve "what is that supposed to be" before you're done with all three color layers, and so it makes it feel like busy work to finish it. Also, it never does the colors in an order aside from Red, Yellow and Blue, which lends to a general sameness in the execution of everything, which I know is a hell of a thing to say about a Picross game but it's true. There's some fucking jams on the soundtrack though, so, if you want to play a weird Picross variant and love overly computerized funk, this is a good time. DISCO ELYSIUM [4] This might be the game of the year, but I wont know until I finish it some time next year. It's got so much going for it. Like... okay, I'm at a point where I want a game to be something for me other than power fantasy. I've done a lot of power fantasy in my life. I want more varied experiences. Disco Elysium is doing that for me. Premise-wise, it's starting in a standard place. You have amnesia. You have been Up To Some Shit. You need to figure out what, and what to do about what you're expected to do next. It plays like the old Infinity Engine stuff, but with absolutely no combat. Everything is ten layers of speech and dexterity checks. But it's not just speech and dexterity. You have 24 different traits that you're in constant struggle with, old ways of thinking from an old life. Some of them are persuasive. Some are creative. Some are invasive. Depending on how you're doing managing these internal mechanisms, you'll end up performing differently in the world. Dialogue options change, options open up, even perception transforms itself if you do well enough. If I went on too long about this system it would seem like i am trying to sell you something. Suffice it to say, a roleplaying game where you have no real experience with your past aside from wrestling with these old tightly woven thought patterns and habits counts as "a more varied experience." The game also has a brilliant way of letting you solve some problems. In addition to the world around you, you have a mechanism that allows your character's brain to process some thoughts in the background, and then hours later you can confront that experience and move forward. This is an ingenous way of letting you try every solution to a problem before going back to another more obvious answer. Also all of the writing in the game is good so far, and it seems to be About Something. I recommend this game very strongly, and I hope it doesn't get lost in the shuffle because it released a week before The Outer Worlds. If Moral Grey Area CRPGs are your thing, Get This.

As a phillies fan who hated Disney McNike before he became a Phil, did I say the Nats? I meant how much I hate baseball and earth and stuff.

In a little while, I will remember how much I hate the scum-sucking Nats. Right now, I'm happy Max Scherzer is happy.

I'll start on this the weekend after Halloween btw, and submissions are open from right now until January 1st. Come on. I know one of you is going to make me listen to that Tool record. Just do it already.

Last year, some people said that they didn't notice this was happening again in the same thread and ended up submitting records late. BEHOLD, A NEW THREAD. NOW I COMMAND YOU TO SUBMIT (to this thread). YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. Rules: First Come First Serve If you nominate two, I'll listen to zero No guarantees that my review will be positive. If you want to talk about a bunch of records, that's cool, but please bold the one you want me to listen to. For example, I liked a lot of records this year! Like Lightning Bolt's "Sonic Citadel," or Black Milk's "DIVE" EP (which low key might be better than FEVER, and I thought FEVER was amazing). For a while my album of the year was Tyler The Creator's "IGOR" because I was so happy that he was making good on the promise of Flower Boy's strongest moments by making a huge sprawling genre-mess pop record about love and queerness, AND that the album hit #1 in the US in it's first week. Ultimately though, my favorite album of the year was "Guns" by Quelle Chris. The shortest explanation I can give for why is this: it addressed an idea I had for a symphony so well that I threw out the symphony because I didn't think I could express it better than Quelle Chris could. EDIT: I wrote this before legal problems forced Chris to change the beat for one of the best songs on the record, Box of Wheaties. It is a damn tragedy that this version of the record doesn't publicly exist anymore. also i put out a record that i thought was really good but i've talked about that a lot already Your turn!

I was trying to give like the briefest possible overview because the best possible outcome of putting it out there is someone goes "oh hey maybe I'll play this WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON"

DESTINY 2 SHADOWKEEP [4] After angrily quitting Destiny in the wake of how much shit Warmind sucked, and refusing to give Activision any money for any Destiny stuff for fear of getting Surprise Travelers Tales'd again, my guild is back in on Shadowkeep. It's good. You're already playing it if you're going to play it. ANODYNE [3] I'm probably done playing this. I didn't beat it. It was sold on switch for a dollar, and marketed as "an alternative to links awakening." This alternative takes a brief trip through Someone Describing Yume Nikki To Someone Else And They Heard Every Third Word And Made A Game About It. if you don't know what Yume Nikki is, do not play this game. I am not responsible for you looking up Yume Nikki. I HAVE BEEN PLAYING A LOT OF RANDOM ARCADE GAMES BECAUSE I ACCIDENTIALLY OBTAINED THE COMPLETE FBA SET. HERE ARE SOME GOOD ONES: The Mahou Daisakusen Series (US Names: Sorcer Striker, Kingdom Grandprix, & Dimahoo. Play them in order for maximum effect.) Deroon DeroDero (Puyo Puyo but every time you hit a combo all the pieces reach across the well and try to link up for new combos) Metamoqester (Beatemup that kind of plays like you playing Street Fighter against giant monsters. See also: Dadandarn, Warzard) Boogie Wings (Shmup where when your plane gets blown up you can run around on the ground and continue fucking shit up and either earn a new plane or just ride horses/robots/pogo sticks) Waku Waku 7 (fighting game, total delight, I main Mauru)

Control is already on sale. This implies that it is not doing very well sales wise. The good news is, whatever deal they struck with Epic paid back the development costs immediately so they at least broke even. But, uh, if this game bombs, I will be sad forever, so please do your part to prevent that.

Neil Druckmann sez: " We began working on this game over five years ago. It’s hard to describe the immense pressure of following up the first game. We know how much you love this world and its characters — especially Ellie and Joel. Believe me, we’re fans as well. We love them. Which is why we spent years crafting a game that we feel will do them justice, telling a nuanced story that deals with the core question: how far would you go to exact justice against the people that hurt the ones you love? It’s a highly emotional story with complex themes that befit the world of The Last of Us. What we realized pretty early on is that we were putting together Naughty Dog’s most ambitious and longest game in our 35 year history. To tell this kind of story the game needed to be massive. Without spoiling too much, at the top of this post you can watch the brand-new trailer that we debuted earlier today on State of Play, which just scratches the surface of what the game has in store." I sez: "noooooooooooooooooooo" (context: i got a copy of TLoU remastered when I got a PS4, I convinced a friend to play it while I watched, we HATED it, and when the sequel was announced the make-good we decided on was that if he pays for it, I will play this one. so it being The Longest Naughty Dog Ever feels like cosmic punishment.)

Cosign on Darius Gaiden. It was one one of the like ten Saturn games I owned and it's fucking amazing and I think about the opening stage of it at least once a month. It's just burned into my head in that high of a resolution.

CONTROL [4] I'm not sure what reputation I have around here, and what it's worth when I say things like this, but if my reputation is like good-ish or at least understood, this should have some weight: I just beat Control tonight. I adored it. I don't have a single complaint or criticism about that whole game.

Ruby Yacht crew album? Ruby Yacht crew album.