Oh I’m not saying ALL of TNG managed it. Nor that it managed to be good when it tried. Code of Honor? Up the Long Ladder? The Child? There’s some truly miserable (and weird) stuff in there!

Then TNG jettisoned the pulp and just did the morality play.

I’ve always described it as as two-fisted pulp adventure crossed with a morality play. Yes, it got intellectual and would confront its protagonists with moral quandaries, but they were usually solved by punching the right guy and sweeping the right girl off her feet, then discussing it and laughing.

Do we just need better spells? Maps that match the territory of the real as well as the emotional landscape that led these people so astray? Ignorance can be cured but stupidity is a death sentence. The forebrain is never going to defeat the hindbrain in a fair fight. So again: what’s to be done?

So where does that leave us? When people fervent believe objectively wrong things about reality in a way that literally harms all of us (for example, parents refusing to vaccinate their children) what’s to be done? A magic spell (read: story) got them there. Logic is not going to get them out.

That last part resonates with me particularly these days. Alan Moore’s book on magic has made me re-examine my own thinking on human belief, magic, imagination and stories. People don’t think their way into their beliefs and they’re not going to think their way out of them.

going to fight some goblins. I can’t remember playing a game with as poor an opening as this one in a long time. I only just got to the world map and it’s got have been nearly an hour.

Every time I think I can play it’s another f’ing cutscene. The story is there are Crystals and Blight and War is Coming. The bishonen is clearly the older guy we played earlier but with An Important Mark that indicates he is One of the Downtrodden. Exhausting cutscenes explaining you’re…

Jesus god. More cutscenes. More humping. To say this game has a problem with women is putting it mildly… One maiden and two whores so far. And the maiden in question is the “bubbly girl next door who’s also a shrine maiden.” This, by your lights, are nuanced, interesting characters?

And then…just when the game gets a little interesting…more cutscenes. :(

The sheer amount of money spent on making this non-game so far is mind boggling. If you want to make a movie, make a movie. But please don’t pretend any of this is “gameplay”.

Finally after a half hour of this is we cut to COMPLETELY DIFFERENT characters and our, of course, young bishonen protagonist finally starts the Combat Tutorial. I have done nothing so far but yawn and press “up” on the controller. (Oh, I shot fireballs and dodged somewhere during a cutscene.)

I know nothing about doing things I don’t care about nor have the context to see why they’re “epic.” A war is on. A sexist stereotype of a woman humps a stereotypical tough guy after “deeply important” things are said in a war council I have no chance of understanding. Nonsense place names abound.

Any suggestions on panels, etc? I keep staring at the website and planning, unplanning, and replanning. :)

I did not try one. I am glad I did not.

We’re literally at a Kate Pierson show tonight. They did “Dead Beat Club” — one of Neil’s favorite B-52 songs. :)

When we did the countdown of top episodes for our full-watch podcast of TNG, her performance in “Half a Life” put that episode over the top.

Thank you! Will have to check it out.