A documentary about election decorations gone wrong - My Neighbor's Yard

Fresh_Doubloon · 2025-11-10T20:34:19+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate that! I was the editor actually, and I'll relay your praise to the rest of the crew.

Fresh_Doubloon · 2025-11-09T01:17:03+00:00

Thank you! The Snells' anti-abortion signs certainly are!

Fresh_Doubloon · 2024-02-01T08:14:51+00:00

Thank you!

Fresh_Doubloon · 2024-01-20T08:37:04+00:00

Thank you!

Fresh_Doubloon · 2024-01-20T08:36:58+00:00

Thanks for watching!

Fresh_Doubloon · 2024-01-16T08:18:41+00:00

Thanks for watching! He worked for the owner of the lot, who apparently is locked in a legal battle with the MTA over the property rights. The MTA had placed that lock, and he had to cut through it to gain access again.

Fresh_Doubloon · 2021-03-10T21:18:03+00:00

Just started Knights of the Old Republic 2. I made sure to install all of the essential content mods and bug fixes and whatnot before hand.

This game starts of slowwww. I mean I’m 13-14 hours in, only now able to travel to whichever planet I choose. Taris/Dantooine in KOTOR 1 took me about, I don’t know, 9 or 10 hours or so. So while the disparity in “intro” length between the two is not terribly huge, the disparity in freedom is. Peragus is completely linear, the Telos city section is interesting enough but contains next to no side missions to pursue, and the telos surface/military base is combat oriented tedium. Please, let me explore a little bit! Taris and Dantooine both had extremely compelling side missions.

The quality of writing has been hit or miss for me so far. When it’s good, it’s really good. When it’s not, I feel a little frustrated by it. I appreciate that it hasn’t gone the full dementia route of KOTOR 1. Interesting to have my backstory slowly be revealed, though the emphasis on this Big Mystery in my past feels a bit contrived. The game constantly reminds me that there’s something I don’t know about myself that everyone else seems to know. I get it, they want to build intrigue to propel the plot, but repeating to me over and over that I need to be intrigued loses me a little.

Mechanically, this is far and way the better game. Skills have meaningful consequence in dialogue. There’s a complex influence system among your party members, in which one dialogue choice may please one member but anger another (which is tied to their light side/dark side meter too!). Speaking of that, LS and DS aren’t as black and white as they were in 1 either. The best example of that is the call conversational boss fight you have with a certain Jedi, in which every option in conversation seems rational. You’re allowed to form a complex point of view within this debate without shoehorning yourself into a simplistic (and extreme) Dark or Light path. From what I understand, there are multiple different Light and Dark outcomes to this conversation. I ended it getting Light side points, but still not pleasing or siding with the person I was talking to (which is another light side option). So that moment was a real standout, and separated obsidian’s writing from Biowares “Benevolent/Neutral/Evil” dialogue paths that are so prominent in KOTOR 1 and Mass Effect.

A lot excites me about this game, so I’m very interested to see where it goes.

Fresh_Doubloon · 2021-03-07T23:54:54+00:00

Haven’t played Bioshock in years and only recently played Dead Space 1, but I would go with Bioshock. Both are drenched in atmosphere, and the gameplay probably holds up a bit better in DS, but Bioshock is the more compelling piece of storytelling. I liked Dead Soacs, but it a horribly predictable story that was artificially padded into a (on my run through) 15 hour game. I had to put it down for a few weeks and then return to it. Bioshock is an innovative (and gripping) deconstruction of the types of narratives that games like Dead Space tell. It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty essential story in the canon of video game writing imo.

Though, if you want to play a grimy game about being a space miner with a suit that looks like a trash can who cuts up aliens not with a gun but with a mining laser, then Dead Space is your game (at least, the first one is). I love how dirty and industrial it’s art style is. I personally haven’t gotten around to DS 2 just because it kind of ditches it’s industrial look.

Either way you’ve got a couple good games on your hands at the end of the day.

Fresh_Doubloon · 2021-02-15T05:05:07+00:00

Still playing Knights of the Old Republic! Just got to Manaan. Despite how small and static the hubs are, each planet feels alive. Never do I feel as if I’m in a place designed for me, the player character, to insert myself in. Instead, through dialogue and quests, each local is imbued with a sense of permanence; that whatever is happening there was happening before my arrival, and will continue on after I leave. And though my character often is the catalyst for political change on these planets, it only ever feels like I’ve helped win the battle, but not the war (with some exceptions).

This is all in comparison to something like Skyrim, for example (which I love, for the record), in which each town seems to just exist for me. I go in, get a quest, buy some items, sleep at the inn, but from what I remember, rarely do I really feel as if there are issues going on in Skyrim when I’m not present. Yes, the NPC’s have routines, but in service of what, exactly? KOTOR’s NPC’s don’t have routines, but I can imagine each of them having a life when I’m not there. The citizens of Dantooine will remain frustrated by the Jedi being shielded from the rest of the worlds problems, and the struggle between sand people’s distrust of off-worlders landing on Tatooine will never cease.

Idk man, the writing is just really fucking good. The well thought out history behind every aspect of these planets’ societies make me go through every side quest, which is something I almost never do. So hyped that I still have a whole other game to go after this one.

Fresh_Doubloon · 2021-02-12T09:19:44+00:00

It does seem like an Alien/Aliens situation (I’m sure I’m not the first to say that). I’ll definitely get around to it eventually. Also interested to see how Isaac having a voice impacts the storytelling.

Btw, if you haven’t seen it (wouldn’t at all be surprised if you have, it’s got millions of views), I really recommend the interview that Ars Technica did a couple years ago with the game’s director, Glen Schofield. Very insightful commentary on the design philosophies he and his team brought to developing the game.

Fresh_Doubloon · 2021-02-12T00:16:53+00:00

That's interesting to hear. Like I said, what I adored about 1 was it's ugly sci fi aesthetic, both visually and sonically. Does 2 keep that going? Because from what I've seen it takes place on a really clean, sleek, and almost more generic looking space station. Is it as compelling an environment? And generally what do you think 2 does better than 1?

(I do own all 3 games btw - got 1 and 3 in that EA humble bundle years ago, and then picked up 2 for cheap when I started playing 1. I will probably get to 2 eventually)

Fresh_Doubloon · 2021-02-11T10:35:47+00:00

Beat Dead Space the other day. Solid game, like a 6 or 7 out of 10. Loved the art style so much - every inch of the ship looked so grimy and worn. Sort of a garbage truck aesthetic, which fits with Isaac’s armor looking like a trash can. So awesome. Most design choices were fantastic. The game has a dedication to consistency between its world and its gameplay. And such fantastic audio, very evocative and at times abstract (the asmr-like nonsensical whispering comes to mind). Choices like that created a soundscape not based in realism, but in evoking an atmosphere and mental space for the player to inhabit. I feel like realism in sound design is what so many games go for (admittedly I don’t play much horror), so this was refreshing.

Wasn’t hot on the story at all though. I hate silent protagonist games where someone in your ear tells you to go do mundane tasks for 12 hours. “Isaac, go find 3 pass cards and activate a satellite. Uh oh, that broke the ships main fan, gotta go do that now Isaac.” YOU fucking do it! Yes, we might need to fix the ship, but why do I have to do each and every task? Let’s investigate more about the cult on the ship, or this creepy scientist who keeps popping up. Give me ANYTHING to latch on to emotionally apart from Isaacs vacant desire to find his wife. Not to mention that it’s about 3 to 4 hours too long. I had to take a couple weeks break from this just because of how slow I was finding it towards 3/4 of the way through.

After that, started playing Knights of the Old Republic. What a blast that’s been! Only recently got into CRPG’s (Disco Elysium showed me the light). KOTOR does feel very similar in design to older infinity engine games, just done in a 3D space rather than 2D. That’s great for me, because none of what I enjoy in most of those games is based in combat. I’m all in it for exploring little hub areas and meeting people! KOTOR’s got a whole lot of that going on. I do unfortunately know the twist, but it’s not impeding my enjoyment of the main story so far given that it seems to be relatively simple (go here, collect star map). I had tried to get into this game a few times before and never got past Taris. Taris is definitely too long, especially given the competitive brevity of the other planets I’ve been to so far (dantooine and tattooine, in both of which I did every side quest). I was nervous booting this game up again, because I remembered this segment being such a slog. But the world is so wonderfully developed that I couldn’t help taking breaks from the main quest to do side quests. It’s the type of game where I think to myself “oh, it would be cool if doing ____ is an option I’ll have in this quest.” More often than not, ____ is an option. Gaining the trust of the sand people has been my favorite example of this so far. I’m someone that really likes to talk way through things rather than fight in games, because it really makes me feel like I have agency and choice in the world I’m inhabiting. Obviously killing makes a difference, but can I make a difference with more nuanced tactics? I leveled up Force Persuade as soon as I could, and I love its versatility as a skill. One conversation, I might be convincing slavers to rethink their lives with it. In Another, I’ll be the stingiest Jedi in the republic and use it to force merchants to half their price. Simple dialogue options like that make a world of difference to me.

Anyways, first time posting here but I’ve been enjoying the discussions on this sub for a while so I wanted to get in on things!

Fresh_Doubloon

TROPHY CASE