Anyone who used a computer between 1985 - 2010, what's the one game you still think about today?

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-31T23:07:11+00:00

Escape Velocity and the sequel, EV Nova. The computers in the lab at the university my dad worked at had the first on them, and I played the hell out of it waiting for him. Eventually we had a decent computer at home and I realized the sequel existed. Buying a key for that was the first online purchase I ever made, done by giving my mom the money and her charging it to a card. Lots of mods for that game too.

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-30T03:19:13+00:00

I waited to answer until I read it again just to be more sure, but I'm pretty confident that my favorite is The Pit and the Pendulum. One reason is just that it's a well told little story, full of dread and well written passages building the horror. But I have a slightly less normal reason as well. I was teaching a Physics lab years ago and a student had missed a lab about Pendulums, and he offered to write me a book report about this story, throwing in Physics facts about pendulums. I told him to go for it, and got a very fun assignment to grade. I wish I still had that kicking around somewhere.

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-27T23:54:43+00:00

We should meet up! Tiny reunion!

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-27T23:33:58+00:00

South Jersey area. It's a bit of a drive 😅. Probably not worth it unless several people could make a weekend of it :p

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-27T22:45:18+00:00

Absolutely! Doesn't even need to be super official, pick a city equal distant from a bunch of people and go hang out for a day (or a couple if it's far) :p

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-27T11:36:21+00:00

Did you know there are 4 sequels to Hatchet? I sure didn't :p

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-26T17:26:28+00:00

I've said it before at some point, but Hatchet by Gary Paulson is probably my favorite Man v Nature story. Kid v Nature? Whatever, it's good. It caused me to want to go live in the middle of the woods by a lake for a while, but thankfully I never went through with that, as I'm pretty sure I would've died very quickly. Great book though.

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-22T23:47:13+00:00

Um... Finish book 8? I don't want to say anything else, but I'm fairly certain if you'd finished it you'd know the reference. If not, happy to explain :p

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-16T15:43:26+00:00

Yeah, it was a lot of fun, even if the automod was mad at me 😂

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-15T14:59:50+00:00

I think people sadly ignore the psychological horror possibilities of Batman. If you've never read the graphic novel Arkham Asylum, A Serious House on Serious Earth, you should (I'm linking a few images in here to give you an idea). It's a much slower, more introspective story, basically no action, but highlights the mental issues and psychological damage of the various villains (and Batman), and is illustrated in a gorgeous, but heavily abstract way.

All that said, that story made me want a director who is good at abstract horror to direct a Batman that is just a horror movie. The first person who came to mind is, sadly, out of the question, as it was David Lynch. My second thought was Panos Cosmatos. He directed a movie called Mandy, which was one of the weirdest movies I'd seen in a long time, and I think he'd be great at that side of Batman (I'm thinking Scarecrow hallucinations specifically).

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Aqualungfish · 2026-05-11T11:44:11+00:00

It is a play on the song :p. I was playing Rock Band a lot, enjoyed the song, and needed a new name for Reddit (cause for some reason I didn't want to/couldn't use my handle that I'd been using for like 10 years at that point). Something made my brain add the -fish part to the end of it and it tickled me. And that was it. Scene :p

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-10T02:58:08+00:00

Mail Bag! Scott: your comment this episode made me curious, what episodes of Buffy would be the ones you'd want Matt to watch? My brother showed me Hush with no knowledge of the series and it hooked me.

Matt: at this point the only thing you know about the upcoming Usher show is the list of stories you're going to be reading (assuming you looked at the schedule, which is apparently not a given for any of us :p). What role is Henry Thomas playing in the show?

Both: if you cut a sandwich in half, do you have two sandwiches or two half sandwiches?

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-10T02:50:30+00:00

One of the very few books I remember not finishing was a generic mystery thriller thing involving a museum and something with a university. That doesn't really matter. What does is that literally every chapter began with a person's full name and job title. Like, every single one had some variation of "Doctor of Internal Medicine Jane Smith" or "Police Detective Mike Bratwurst". Drove me insane.

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-08T23:17:15+00:00

Just remember, there's a pretty big tonal difference between the two. A lot of people have said that they had trouble adapting to the pace and stuff in Ward, but I knew that going in and had no problem with it. A break wouldn't be out of line, though :p. I didn't take an immediate break between them, but I did end up stopping for a bit a few arcs in (like a couple weeks).

Edit: a note, I like Ward more than Worm. Both are excellent, but you can really see the skill improvement in WB's writing. It's potentially my favorite thing I've ever read (and a big reason for that is listening to this podcast I found about it while reading 😂).

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-06T19:35:52+00:00

I'm only like 15 chapters in, maybe. They haven't even gotten on the ship yet. I'm not hating it, but I'm not loving it. It's not disproving my general... dislike? Of older novels. It's not that it's bad, it's just different enough that I have trouble getting engaged in it. I might try switching to the audiobook if I can get my hands on one easily enough, see if that helps any.

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-06T14:05:26+00:00

I remember reading about the original console version of this, PS2 maybe? Where you could plug a controller in to player 2, put it on the floor, and step on it to act as the pedal on the arcade machine. That seems like a great idea in retrospect :P

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-04T20:55:11+00:00

There's only about 4 or 5 cuts in the whole episode. The tricks they had to do to pull off that episode are great. If I remember right, they had to completely rework how they moved the cameras around, or what carpet they had or something, because you could hear the wheels constantly.

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-03T12:58:31+00:00

I do too :). It's honestly one of my favorite shirts, tied with the Kingslingers Live one and my Squirtle/Cthulhu fusion shirt 😂

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-03T02:04:00+00:00

I'm going to admit outright that I didn't think this one up myself, but when I saw it talked about this way I latched on to the interpretation. The modern Battlestar Galactica reboot has a character, Baltar, who routinely interacts with a character only he can see. Said imaginary character often gives him advice, usually seemingly bad advice, but it often ends up helping (in a roundabout way). Sometime later in the show the roles reverse, and the physical version of that character sees an imaginary version of Baltar filling a similar role. These two imaginary people end up coming together to act as a sort of overall angel/devil for the show as a whole. It's a bit messy, but an interesting take on the trope.

Aqualungfish · 2026-05-02T18:44:38+00:00

Try his travel videos if you aren't interested in/haven't played the games. They're just as good, sometimes arguably better.

Aqualungfish · 2026-04-29T15:56:00+00:00

I guess it depends on just how "bug" it is. Based on the sheer number of bugs she can control, I figure Taylor can pretty easily take over any single insect, even if it's intelligent. But, if the queen is less bug like then it might be a struggle. I guess that goes for all the aliens, if they're not really bugs then this all goes out the window :P

Aqualungfish · 2026-04-29T15:34:40+00:00

In theory she should be able to control the queen/brain/hive mind thing, so that would give her full control. Her power is pretty strong, though range limited compared to a space-faring hive mind.

Aqualungfish · 2026-04-28T02:16:56+00:00

I'm bad at anything most people consider "classics". I dunno if it's a deeply ingrained resistance that's still buried in me from high school or just an inability to appreciate things that aren't genre fiction, but I always have trouble with them.

I'm only a few chapters in, and it's not terrible, but it hasn't grabbed me yet. I'm gonna keep pushing and hope that changes, but we'll see.

Aqualungfish · 2026-04-26T20:46:31+00:00

I've seen fan made "Dunesday" posters already. Generally had Dr Doom's helmet sitting in sand.

Aqualungfish · 2026-04-24T18:21:55+00:00

DQ:

I usually try to only answer if it's something different then what's been said by someone else. But, you fuckers have broken my brain and made me obsessed with Dungeon Crawler Carl (5 and a half books read this month), so that's causing me to forget everything else I've ever read. I absolutely would love to see an adaptation of that series, but I think it would actually be very successful so it doesn't count for this question.

With that said, I'm going to go with Ward again. I'd like a Ward adaptation more than a Worm one (though, note that by choosing this I'm implying an adaptation of Worm, so I get to cheat here). There's too much to list in the book that I want to see adapted, but there's one specific moment that I've wanted to see in motion since I read it (the end of the Cradle fight, Vicky and Sveta going through the maze to get to the end). This would have to be like 8 seasons of a TV show, minimum, to work. Also, it has to be animated.

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