I'm driving home in the dark on a wet road. Suddenly a deer bounds into the road about ten feet in front of me. Even though I'm going at the speed limit (yes, really!) there's no way I can avoid hitting her. I slam on the brakes, but the deer collides heavily with my left front bumper.…
This is a follow-up to my previous post. Last night I played EXIT: The Forbidden Castle with a different group of friends than the ones from last week's puzzle game. Notes: The game seriously handed us our butts. It took us two hours and forty minutes to solve it. We used several hint cards, though only three…
Please don't buy any of the Thames & Kosmos EXIT games... so I can play them with you! I purchased my first EXIT game because the series had won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award in 2017. These are "escape room" games: Your character is trapped, and can only escape by solving a…
It just occurred to me: In the past year, among my Wiccan friends, a couple moved to North Carolina, another friend moved to South Carolina, another is moving to Texas. Among my gaming friends, one has moved to Philadelphia. Another is moving to Seattle. A couple are moving to Minnesota. It's my deodorant, isn't it?
This is not a review. There will be no spoilers. I had not intended to see The Last Jedi on its opening day. I anticipated the theaters would be jammed. Also, there were was a lot scheduled at work both today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday), including a #ScienceOnHudson talk and the lab's holiday party. Just as I…
I've written video-game reviews from time to time, but this is the first one for which I'm giving a trigger warning: discussion of severe mental health issues. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an unusual video game in that the lead character is psychotic. I'm not using the term in its popular (and incorrect) sense of meaning "psychopath." Senua…
The last time I reviewed a Telltale game, I noted that it's debatable whether it was a game at all. Since then, I read a comic by Aaron Williams (my web-fu isn't strong enough to locate it) that suggested that Telltale games are nothing more than "Choose your own adventure" books with a graphics interface. I don't…
What do you call it when someone wants to be bisexual, but despite that wish they discover they're only attracted to one gender but not the other? I have yet to see a word for this, so I hereby propose one: "wannabi." Someone please notify the OED.
This is a "sequel"/DLC for Uncharted IV. Strictly speaking, you don't have to have played Uncharted IV to play U:LL; there are quick tutorial explanations for all the keypresses you'll need. As a practical matter, I think the game would be quite difficult without familiarity with the typical "tricks" needed to get through other Uncharted games; for…
This is one of those "Oh! I just watched this incredible thing and I gotta tell you about it!" posts. If you're feeling a bit media-saturated and would rather just wait until the female Doctor is unveiled in the next Christmas special, I'll understand if you want to skip this post. So: Sense8 is the series that…