As always, the email address is in the header image. We tried to get all the questions this week, but the last one was a big too big to squeeze in at the end of the show.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #253: Just Ubisoft, New PC, Captain Marvel”
This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.
Once upon a time, the British – who have demonstrated that they know their way around a TV show, or indeed anything involving acting – created a show called Upstairs, Downstairs. It covered the lives of a bunch of Edwardian-era posh noble types (the titular Upstairs) and their rough-and-tumble servants (the titular Downstairs). The constrast of these two worlds within the same manor house made for such interesting storylines that it was widely copied, and the phrase “Upstairs/Downstairs” became shorthand for an entire mini-genre. Downton Abbey is probably the best-known modern example.
The reason I mention this is that Game of Thrones has a certain Upstairs/DownstairsnessA perfectly cromulent word. to it, with one key difference: the downstairs is way better. Take, for example, the genuine and cheeful comraderie between the Night’s Watch/Wildling bunch (Jon/Sam/Edd/Tormund): backslapping hugs, comic timing, people experiencing actual human emotions – now this is a show I could actually like, with characters I could root for. Even the more reserved handshake between Jon and Beric rung true. There are more nice moments, like Tyrion topping off Pod’s wine, and the characters unironically applauding Ser Brienne’s impromptu knighting.
By contrast, everything upstairs rings off-key. The show tacked uncomfortably close to the truth last episode, when Sansa pointed out that for the past couple seasons, the quality of Tyrion’s decision making has split the difference between “drunken debutante” and “Custer at Little Big Horn.” So now, a succession of characters have to sing his praises, and talk the audience out of thinking that Sansa was right. Jon and Dany continue to have all the chemistry of olive oil and vinegar, and Sansa and Dany – well, I can’t figure out what exactly that was supposed to be. I guess they were supposed to be bonding, but it was overblocked and stiff as an I-beam.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Season Eight: “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms””
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “#17 Setting the Stage”
At the end of the attack on city hall, the camera pans over to reveal the horrible truth that the leader of the demons is actually… the guy we already guessed it was! Dun dun duuuun!
We cut to a week later. There’s a funeral scene for Officer Davis, and Peter Parker and Miles Morales meet. Over the coming chapters they’ll make friends and Peter will get Miles a job working at FEAST.
When the funeral is over, Pete changes to Spider-Man and asks Yuri if the police have located Martin Li yet.
It feels like we missed a pretty big story beat here. How does Spider-Man know that Martin Li is the leader of the Demons? Yes, that fact was revealed to the audience in the previous cutscene, but Peter wasn’t anywhere near Li when that happened. Moreover, Pete was unconscious at the time.
At some point in the last week, Peter Parker discovered that his friend – who is also Aunt May’s employer – is a mass-murdering terrorist. That’s a really big deal! It’s also the answer to the mystery he’s been chasing for the last couple of missions. And yet this discovery took place off-screen?
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Spider-Man Part 12: Silver Sable”
In my column this week, I talk about Google’s plan for Stadia, their new streaming games platform. This was a hard one to write because on the surface it looks like Google is being stupid or foolish. I’m comfortable second-guessing EA and Activision because they’ve perpetrated a lot of stupidity and foolishness in the past. But Google doesn’t have a history of this sort of behavior, which makes me think I must be missing something.
My favorite part is this bit from the Stadia website: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: Is Google Stadia Doomed?”
This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.
It’s Game of Thrones season again!
Some of you may be more excited about this than others. Over the past two seasons, critical opinions of the show have dropped, but that hasn’t made much of a dent in its overall popularity. There’s a threshold at which popularity becomes self-reinforcing: people start watching the show just to see what all the fuss is about. People (like me) who don’t think it’s very good anymore watch because we’ve already invested so much time in it and we want to see how it ends. Just as people who don’t follow football will still watch the Super Bowl, people who ordinarily aren’t interested in fantasy fiction will still watch Game of Thrones.
Because of this dynamic, by now I pay as much attention to people’s reactions to the show as I do to the show itself. In fact, when I first started writing about it back in the olden days of 2017, I operated off the premise that a mass souring of opinion on the series was imminent. That prediction hasn’t been borne out to the extent I thought it would, but there’s still time. In fact, in the days leading up to the premiere, the internet seemed to be bracing itself for disappointment. Instead of linking many examples, I’ll just link one representative one, titled “There’s No Way For Game Of Thrones To Get The Ending It Deserves.”
This may have been inevitable. This is the last season – the ending – and the endings of big-ticket “television events” don’t have the greatest track record. The only one I can think of that ended on a real high note was Breaking Bad, and even then there were differences of opinion. And Game of Thrones is going to have an even tougher job of it than usual, because there’s been a set of thorny problems baked into the story they’re adapting from day one. To massively oversimplify, the Song of Ice and Fire books had three main storylines. The “A” story was the Stark/Lannister conflict and its attendant political intrigue. The “B” story was Daenerys’ adventures on the other side of the narrow sea. And the lurking “C” story was the supernatural threat north of the Wall.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Season Eight: “Winterfell””
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #252: Far: Lone Sails, Early Access, Level Design”
I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
I'm a very casual fan of the series, but I gave Civilization VI a look to see what was up with this nuclear war simulator.
Team Cap or Team Iron Man? More importantly, what basis would you use for making that decision?
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
Cities: Skylines is bound to have a sequel sooner or later. Where can this series go next, and what changes would I like to see?
Why spend millions on visuals that are just a distraction from the REAL game of hotbar-watching?
What does it mean when a program crashes, and why does it happen?
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
This series explores the troubled history of VR and the strange lawsuit between Zenimax publishing and Facebook.
A look back at Star Trek, from the Original Series to the Abrams Reboot.
T w e n t y S i d e d
