Back in the day, Asscreed 1-4 and Far Cry 2-3, there were constant improvements and innovations in level design, mechanics, graphics, cool shit to do basically.

Recently the 2 "highly praised" Star Wars "open world" games essentially haven't moved the needle but are just Generic Game with a star wars skin

1. The new Open Worlds, firstly we have the Horizon Dawn killers, Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring. Exploration focused game design, unique mechanics include unrestricted interaction and massive dungeons hidden behind tiny doors. Honourable mention to Death Stranding where deep mechanics are overshadowed by top notch facial animation by famous actors

2. Hero shooters, not a fan, but probably huge improvements and gameplay mechanics in Apex, Overwatch, Fortnight, maybe someone could chime in

3. RPG, Baldurs Gate 3, an impressive step up from Witcher 3 where every choice is considered, voice acted, millions of lines of dialogue, every player thought predicted by the designers.

4 The indies - usually the place for innovation but recent indies are super polished for small teams, bug free, fully thought out, addictive game loop, Balatro, Tactical Breach Wizards, Animal Well,Thank you for Coming.

In summary i think the industry is just spread out across more budgets, team sizes and countries now, no longer are the days when western Devs come up with fun or innovative AAA games, the focus more is on casual appeal and form over function

It seems the general direction the internet is going and I'm all for it

Earlier in the film, we are told that Worst Wolverine wore the Xmen uniform out of guilt and to remember his lost teammates, Deadpool jokes about it.

In the finale, when Wolverine redeems himself, not only fighting to save the people in the void but also DPs universe, his chains (the suit) symbolically explodes showing that he is free of his guilt

Also this is a pretty good way of tying in the mandatory shirtless scene in a somewhat meaningful way even if it doesnt seem so at first in a movie full of call outs

First hour of the game I googled "Aloy Talks too much"

I just finished the Elden Ring DLC and the Tomb Raider remastered trilogy. These games are 30 years apart but share the same mostly quiet protagonists.

Lara is alone, doesn't try to solve the puzzle for the player in the first 5 seconds, let's the player explore and figure things out and soak in the atmosphere. Aloy is as chatty as Nathan Drake but she's just muttering to herself in the wild, she even narrates her actions like an audiobook

The constant hud and text over every in world item also ruins the immersion. Yes I get that you don't see items in Fromsoft games, you get that streak of light. But Horizon firstly hides the item in their busy environment design then forces you to press a button to prompt that streak of light, for immersion!

I search for movies like Inside Man and posts recommended Heat.

But there's pretty much just 2 robberies? In the bank scene, they wear masks but have their faces seen before they even put them on and just open the safe.

Reviews also mention this as a heist movie.

Is there a distinction between heist and robbery? I thought heists were like complex thefts that the people didn't even know that the money is gone

I just had an experience with a auto soap dispenser, sink, towels and dryer set in the same place in a public restroom, didn't have to walk to a shared dryer

Plus if electric cars become the norm, the streets will be quiet for the first time since the industrial revolution

For example the living room is a middle square and the kitchen and bed rooms are not aligned but just smaller squares added to the sides

I just realised that I have never seen or used it, neither crude oil of course, but there are more variants of it than this natural mineral that powers a lot of the world.

What led to you seeing or touching coal?

1. Recurring characters.

Movies in general get away with this better than multi season shows with actors contracts and killing off a character early.

Sean Bean humourously being killed off in LOTR and Game of Thrones. This also ties into later seasons when the writers were afraid to kill lead characters. Jack Reacher does well not bringing back 2 of the leads from season 1.

Foundation is deathly afraid of this, having 6 characters that carry over season to season where in the books there are none.

2. Faithfulness to source material.

For people who have not read the books, Dune part 2 does end with a white saviour story and includes holy war, religious imagery. The distance from 9/11 helps though the middle eastern conflicts don't. A few actions scenes and techy stuff is added and some ideas and scenes are moved around. The daringness to commit to the source material is amazing, weird worm bile, talking babies, drugs and hallucinations

Foundation ignores this, having pacifist characters shoot at each other, adding pointless sex and action scenes that have no impact on the plot. The core premise abandoned very early on. It's like they wanted to make their own sci fi show but just slapped the name on it

Hi, I am on a driving trip and downloaded a recommended books, "Best Served Cold" and then the reviews say read the original trilogy first. After several hours of "The Blade Itself" there is no sense of a plot or where the characters are going, they are just meeting up.

I understand that this is a common criticism of his early works. Should I finish the Blade Itself or go on to the sequel standalone novel? I got a bit of the sense of the world.

Incidentally, I loved "Project Hail Mary" and started "Three Body Problem", but the pronunciation of the chinese names turned me off, so I'll read the book instead.