Current/Last Thing You Watched?

[Mr EliteL]

Invincible Season 4 Episode 1

Decent start to the season, many big moments coming up. Didn't realise there's two more episodes already out but will watch in the days before next week.

[Moonface]

I was under the firm belief that some of the challenge levels themed around the PlayStation symbols in this game would be impossible to do without hovering, so to see that isn't the case and it doesn't even require crazy strats to pull off might have been the most impressive thing I saw in this. There were also some other fun facts about the game I didn't know like being unable to purposefully run off the edge of tall ledges because I just never dared to try doing it in the first place.

[Kyng]

Beyond Paradise, but it's just on in the background. The last thing I watched that I actually paid attention to was The Chase .

[Mr EliteL]

Invincible Season 4 Episode 5

Pretty good episode. Actually, I shouldn't really call it "pretty" though, as they spent quite a while on a certain moment that definitely wasn't that word.

[Kyng]

A snooker match, between Judd Trump and Neil Robertson (which Trump won 10-4).

Trump was 7-1 up at one point, before Robertson came back a bit - but it was too little, too late.

[Moonface]

Currently watching a streamer playing through a game called Class of '09: The Re-Up and... it's something that's for sure. Turns out it's part of a whole franchise too. If anyone wants to relive some of the type of dialogue teenagers used in 2009 this seems pretty on point although everything else going on is utterly unhinged.

[Kyng]

A David Attenborough documentary about some animals in a garden in Oxfordshire.

Quite a big garden, though: it had ducks, otters, kingfishers, and various other animals. But I think, after 70+ years, he's mastered the art of making these kinds of documentaries interesting !

[Maniakkid25]

Iconic Arms (series) -- Stuart "Ahoy" Brown

A series of videos about, well, iconic firearms, the basics of their history, and their usage through media, with particular focus on video games (Ahoy is really a gaming channel). The first few videos are extremely basic (having been made nearly 12 years ago), but all of them have absolutely stellar writing, and have easily become among my comfort videos. Stuart Brown is a master of dramatic documentaries and writing, and its clear he puts a lot of time and effort into this.

My favorite has to be the FAL episode, because I still get tears when I think about his description of it. For those that don't know, the FAL is a mid-Cold War weapon -- "The Right Arm of the Free World" for how ubiquitous it was. So ubiquitous, that the Falklands War featured FALs (British) fighting against FALs (Argentinian). A weapon of war that was brought up during a time of (uneasy) peace. Anyway, each episode uses a set of punchy phrases to cap off the weapon being discussed, and the particular choice for the FAL is "Pacifier, Sentinel, Stalwart Friend." Those lines, for me, really anthropomorphize the weapon to one that just wants what's best for everyone, and is willing to give the shirt off his back to help the people it knows. It's not a glory hog like its older brothers (the bolt actions of yore), nor is it the new kid on the block, but it's fine with its lot in life, and it doesn't mind if no one knows it, as long as the job's done right. I wish I could write this well lol.

[Kyng]

A couple of first-round matches in the World Snooker Championship.

No real shocks yet - but maybe there will be some unexpected results in the next few days!

[Moonface]

I know modding can achieve wild things with games but being able to not just make brand new levels/areas but add them into an existing open world game feels like actual black magic to me.

[Kyng]

Would've been Have I Got News for You?, although I wasn't paying that much attention to it.

The only things I remember were that Richard Ayoade was hosting, and the publication of the week was a cheese one .

[Moonface]

Currently watching Smokaloke on Twitch playing a PC port of LoZ: Twilight Princess that was recently released. Not too sure what extra stuff it offers besides better frame rate and resolution, and the website for it doesn't divulge what exactly the other QoL features are.

[Mr EliteL]

The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 (penultimate episode for the finale).

This Season has been terribly mixed for me, and I quite agree with other views I've seen about, that is finding the build up to the last episode has been lack-luster unfortunately. If only they continued with how well Episode 1 went and actually progressed the story properly, the Season would be decent at least. I'm...not looking forward to next Wednesday now. I'll still watch Episode 8 though.

[Moonface]

Besides my typical daily Twitch, I watched a video showing all the possible deaths in Directive 8020 since I was curious to see them after watching someone play through it and doubt I'll bother getting the game myself.

[Maniakkid25]

The Worst Word of Dialogue Ever Written (Spoilers for the new Star Wars Trilogy)

The video is very interesting, and it gets a lot of mileage given that one single word is singled out of a 2 hour+ movie in a set of 3, but I'm linking it because HE SAID THE THING I'VE BEEN SAYING! OH MY GOD, HE SAID THE THING!

So, one of my most hated things in stories is simple: homework. "Homework" is any necessary information that is not explained in a given story that is critical to understanding the plot. If it's that important, the story that is playing RIGHT NOW should be able to explain it, however hamfisted that may be. Here's an example that I actually experienced: Modern Warfare 2. Spoilers ahead for Modern Warfare OG and Modern Warfare 2 OG. As you might expect, Modern Warfare 2 is a direct sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but you don't have to have PLAYED the latter game to understand what is happening in the former. I know this because that's exactly how I experienced it; I had never played past the first hour or so of Modern Warfare before playing Modern Warfare 2, and I understood the plot perfectly. You don't need to know that, say, Zakhaev started a civil war in Russia to seize power; that's a largely irrelevant detail to the saga of Shepherd and Makarov. It's nice to know, but it's not necessary to understand why Russia suddenly invades the US; that's all explained by the powder keg that was finding a US operative's body left behind in a mass shooting in an airport. Realistically, the biggest thing that you would want to know is the nuking sequence that happens in Modern Warfare, but even that's explained in a key line by Shepherd. "5 Years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye, and the world just fuckin' watched." That single line tells you SO MUCH, it is amazing! Imagine if they had left that out; how do you explain Shepherd effectively orchestrating World War 3 with the help of his bitter enemy? All you know is that he was the commander of the US Marine Corp when Modern Warfare 1 happened; that doesn't explain shit!

But, as another example, have a hypothetical. In Modern Warfare 2, you have to invade a gulag to find a key prisoner who would aid in the fight against Makarov. While this is going on, you are switching between Task Force 141, who is dealing with the prisoner (later revealed to be Price, Cpt. Mactavish's commanding officer from Modern Warfare 1 -- though you don't absolutely need to know that going in; it just makes a few moments make more sense), and the US Marines fighting in DC while a full scale invasion by the Russians is going on. In the middle of the invasion, an EMP happens at an opportune but random time, saving your player character from getting rocketed off the face of the earth by a Hind. This is because, in the previous mission, Price launched a nuke that exploded in high-altitude (this is a very well-understood phenomenon) over DC. Now, imagine if, instead of constantly switching between the two, we left out the ENTIRE Task Force 141 set of missions, and just stayed with the US Marines, only explaining what happened in a 200-page book that explained what happened on the other side of the world. That would be homework!

This post got wildly out of hand. The point is, THIS VIDEO SAYS THE THING! THANK YOU FOR SAYING THE THING!