The Wolf Among Us follows Telltale’s signature season structure, with new episodes released periodically (episode two came out early February). Their style is really much more about narrative than gameplay – there are occasional moments where you need to mash some buttons, but you’re mostly just poking around and talking to people, so non-gamers should find this pretty approachable. The hook is the power of player choices – although the narrative arc is tightly controlled, your choices dramatically impact how the game unfolds and how other characters react.
The game is based on the Fables comic series, in which scores of characters from various fairy tales and folklore have fled a conflict in their homelands and established an underground community in New York City. It’s a gritty, difficult existence – like any group of refugee immigrants to NYC, some of those with good looks and social skills have landed decent jobs and condos, but most folks struggle to pay the rent on their tenement apartments and resent the Fables that don’t live under the shadow of drugs, prostitution, and violence, bitter but more or less resigned to having been wrenched from their fairy tale existence of living under a bridge and eating children.
You are Bigby Wolf, formerly known as the Big Bad Wolf (get it?!?), sheriff of Fabletown. You gained a bit of a reputation back in your grandma-eating days, and the Three Little Pigs haven’t forgotten about their houses, either. As a result, all of your interactions basically result in people a) noting that you are an asshole, b) expressing concern that you will violently attack them, or c) being surprised that you are not being a violent asshole at this exact moment. The game starts out with what seems like a normal evening of you beating up drunk Fables who are beating up prostitutes, until you head home and find a grotesque “present” on your doorstep, which kicks off an investigation into what is shaping up to be some pretty effed up shit.
If you haven’t played anything by Telltale, it’s worth a look through their catalog. I’ve particularly enjoyed their take on The Walking Dead, which effectively captures the gut-wrenching feeling from the show and comics, and has one of the most engaging protagonist duos I’ve ever played.
Both games can be downloaded directly from the respective virtual stores for iOS, Xbox, PS3, OSX, Windows, and Vita.
Comments: Derf Backderf: A pencil to poke out my eardrums.
Mitchell W Feldstein: lynyrd skyyrd.......one of the best live bands i ever saw(original version) i saw them live before the song free bird had been released or it just had been. no one there had heard it. when they played it the place went bonkers......ronnie van zandt great singer and songwriter
Robin McDonald: Allman Bros! I went through 2 vinyl copies of Live at the Fillmore East before it came out on cd.
Heather Henninger: Skynard, but I don't wanna have to listen to either of them, ever.
Robert Sherwood: Skynyrd because of that riff from Workin for the MCA and On the Hunt. Marshall Tucker because of the flute.
John M Bachman: allman brothers birthed the jam band..Skynard all the way
Bruce Lilly: Nothing was worse than playing somewhere hearing " Freebird" over and over from the crowd
Gary Kachadourian: Genius execution of a bad concept versus perfect craftsmanship of a bad concept. In this case I think the perfect craftsmanship is easier to listen to but the beginning of Whipping Post is great until the words start.
Adam Robinson: Southern Fried Don't Give A Shit.
Patrick Smith: I'm amazed at all the Allman Bros votes. I think Skynyrd doesn't get the credit they deserve. And the Allmans remind me of a skunkweed and Schlitz headache on a really hot day.
First of all I'd like to thank Benn for truncating that last Student Body. I had food poisoning.
Also, I'd like to apologize for a few errors in the last Student Body, and clarify a few things. I typed it on my iPhone, and it surreptitiously autocorrected a few things which made the whole thing a little confusing:
-the siege of Sebastopol was conducted from a forest of guns 200 miles away (not 100) -I do not have a girlfriend -I still do steroids.
SPRANG BREAK!!!! SPRANG BREAK FOREVA!!!!!! EVERYTIME I TRY TO FLY...I FALL WITHOUT MY WINGS!!! YEAH!! CLASSIC STUDENT BODY, BITCHES!!! ALL CAPS!!! IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS THEN AXE SOMEBODY, BITCH!!
AQUARIUS: Outlook not so good. PISCES: Signs point to yes. ARIES: Ask again later. TAURUS: Very doubtful. GEMINI: Cannot predict now. CANCER: Without a doubt. LEO: Most likely. VIRGO: You may rely on it. LIBRA: It is certain. SCORPIO: It is certain. SAGITTARIUS: Very doubtful. CAPRICORN: Don't count on it.
A recent article I caught while waiting in a lobby took a nostalgic look at the "wardrobe malfunction that rocked our world." It was a sports mag., (it was that or a People, and I really don't care about the people in People, nor particularly the "Royal Family", as I'm reasonably certain we fought a couple wars so I wouldn't have to give a shit). Anyway sadly, someone claims at this day and age to have been rocked by one exposed nipple ten years ago, in spite of the fact that most of us already have two.
This is not unusual behavior here in the US. A few years ago, there was a rampant blow back against breastfeeding in public. It was likened to sexual harassment, among other things. I'm not sure what our problem (those of you that are not part of the "we" here, my apologies) with the intended natural business of breasts are. We certainly seem fixated on them otherwise, and all but the business-end (or front) are allowable on public billboards, and everywhere else excessively in ads.
Some of it is our attempt to deny our fixation in general with breasts. Somewhere in our genetic hardwiring, big boobs became predominately a desired trait, even though there's no correlation between lactating and size. There's no reason at all for this obsession, unless you buy the theory of time-traveling, gene-splicing Baywatch enthusiasts.
I think a lot of it has to do with us acknowledging we are mammals, and by extension animals. Forward thinking as I like to think myself, I recoiled reading an article of a French restaurant offering human breast milk cheese.
"Gross" I thought, "I will only eat cheese and effectively suckle from other species-'cos that's not weird at all". Humans shouldn't be thought of as lactating, just the "lesser mammals".
Yet there is something amazing and seemingly magical about producing our own food. This isn't limited entirely to females, there are some male birds that do the equivalent of lactating for their young, and heck even some examples of male humans lactating, (endocrine/hormonal anomalies). Me? I'm holding out for bio-genetics to be able to install a chip dispenser, and maybe a bourbon tap on the other.
This will no doubt be sometime in the future, where hopefully we'll be as okay seeing Janet Jackson's nipple as we are with the really fat shirtless guy's in the upper deck.
photos courtesy of Sue Wood Goodall and Will Bauer
Being a TV junkie I try and watch everything, but there is always one show that rises above them all and draws my attention more than all the others.
For a while in the early aughts that show was ABC’s LOST. I loved J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof’s flashback approach to character development and story telling which at the time seemed innovative but now seems par for the course for many quality shows. Say what you will about how it ended and the questions it left us with, when it ended its six season run in May of 2010 I was hoping that something would take it’s place the following fall. I was left craving for a show that I could theorize about, obsess over, and anticipate watching each week. When nothing showed up in fall of 2010 that seemed nearly as good I felt, for lack of a better word, lost. Thursday nights felt empty. Then came Breaking Bad.
I came late to the Breaking Bad party, binge watching the first four seasons on Netflix in just enough time to enjoy its fifth and final season. Sunday night became what Thursdays had been for me. Unfortunately I found Mr. White and Jesse Pinkman, when they were preparing for their exit, which came on September 29th of last year. Throughout the fall season nothing seemed to be taking the place that LOST and Breaking Bad once held.
This brings me to True Detective.
When HBO announced last spring that it was developing a police drama I had no idea that Woody Harrelson’s Martin Hart and Matthew McConaughey’s Rustin Cohle would become my new Kate and Jack. The story focuses on Hart and Cohle two Louisiana State cops working in the state’s south plains to solve the 1995 ritualistic murder of Dora Lange. The narrative unfolds to the viewer through a series of interviews taking place in 2012 about their investigation.
Don’t tune in thinking you are going to watch your standard crime procedural. While there is plenty of attention paid to how police solve crimes, the murder of Dora Lange is just a backdrop to tell a mesmerizing story about two men who have been broken by their careers as detectives. Reluctantly thrown together, they end up depending upon each other to fill that void being a cop as created in their souls. McConaughey and Harrelson deliver inspired performances. It would be hard not to with the source material writer and showrunner Nic Pizzolatto has provided them.
There are passages of dialogue that make this show feel as if it were originally written as a novel. His writing sets an eerie and hypnotic tone that makes the desolate landscape of south Louisiana a living and breathing thing which demands to be recognized and is summed up best in episode one when Cohle declares, “This place is like someone’s memory of a town and that memory is fading. It’s like there was never anything here but jungle.” I could go on about the transcendent moments of dialogue that flesh out Pizzolatto’s setting and characters but it is best experienced through watching.
You better hurry up because True Detective like American Horror story is going to be a new story with a new cast each season. With only eight total episodes it’s a possibility that Mcconaughey’s and Harrelson’s presence on the show, just like the town it’s set in, could be fading.
As soon as I read the title and saw the moody, blue tinted Baltimore city mean street, I groaned.
I wasn't sure what I was going to read, but I knew I dreaded it.
Perhaps it was the too precious design that I found alienating.
Perhaps it was because the longer I delayed, the more I ended up reading criticism of it. Some of it was sexist and offensive (I enjoy the author's regular site, That Guys On Heroin, but I promise the next person who uses the phrase "sack up" or "nut up" or any derivation, I will find you and I will tea bag you), and some of it quite good (Lawrence Lanahan's response is spot on, but it doesn't quite tack down all that bothers me about the original). There was also a whole lotta chatter on social media that seemed irrational, ill-informed, emotional - y'know, like most things on social media - and none of that helped.
After trying to read the whole thing over a dozen times (and it only being a 12 minute read - gotta love an online platform that lets readers know how much of a commitment they'll need to make to get through something) I finally got through it. And, it turns out, almost everything about the post bothers me.
At this point, Halvorsen claims to have over 350k views (the equivalent of over 50% of the city's population, which I don't doubt), thousands of shares, and a lot of mostly constructive and mostly positive feedback, which leads me to believe that she is taking the response she received as a form of validation of the post.
The author says she is growing to hate it here. That happens with people and places. Things change. My first response was to say, "Hey, city livin', it ain't for everyone." But that's too easy and dismissive. And she does offer some legitimate criticism. The problem is getting to the criticism. See, it's not really a piece about Baltimore City or Baltimore City crime, and what to do about it, it is essentially a piece about a woman of privilege and how she feels.
The bad supposition her post makes is that I care about this person I've never met. That we, as a city, are should care about her because she feels she's just the sort of citizen we desire. She's special. We're supposed to care because she's had enough, just like everyone else in this city who haven't said that they're giving up on the town.
Baltimore's crime problems are frustrating. And the lack of satisfactory response by city leaders - the seeming indifference, defensiveness, and mis-focus by our elected officials is all disheartening.
Baltimore is a special-needs city. For chrissakes, we're a small recession away from becoming the next Detroit.
However, she does any valid criticisms she may have an injustice by wrapping them up in layer after layer of comments espousing entitlement and self-importance.
For example, whining about property taxes and citing FOX news doesn't help. Tax status does not entitle one to special consideration. And using FOX news as a source for anything shows one doesn't really care about facts.
Tracey Halvorsen is issuing us an ultimatum - fix the city's crime problem or she'll leave. It's only fair to expect a certain portion of us to say, "Go. We don't need you or your ultimatums."
Unlike her, I love answering The Wire Question. I get it all the time: "Is Baltimore really like The Wire?"
I joyfully say, "Yes, it's EXACTLY like The Wire. Just like Law & Order is exactly like New York. Just like CSI: Miami is exactly like Miami. Just like Breaking Bad is exactly like New Mexico. Just like Italians are like The Sopranos and US Marshals are like Justified."
I mean Christ, if you're so stupid as to believe a TV show can completely capture the entirety of living in a city, or if you're so worried about crime that you have to ask that question, you're better off visiting Annapolis. God knows what the hell you'd do in Annapolis - maybe gawk at rich people's sailboats - but go there instead.
Halvorsen thinks it's reasonable to expect to be able to walk down a city street while holding several hundred dollars in her hand and to proceed unmolested. I think it's ridiculous to expect that. But when you think you are somehow entitled to walk around with a smart phone or a tablet in your hand and not suffer a mugging, that's what you are doing. It doesn't mean we shouldn't fight back against it (like pressuring city and state leaders to outlaw smart-phone kiosks where these items can be exchanged for cash). But c'mon.
I'm left wondering why she wants to stay. Why does she want to love the city again, as she claims? Sure she spends some time flattering, but it feels hollow, forced. Perhaps she has a different definition of love than I do - I love Baltimore. I want it to be better. And I work hard in any way I can to make it better. But I don't withhold that love and issue ultimatums unless it changes its ways. In fact, this sounds like a really unhealthy relationship.
It's especially revealing when she translates Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's (a city official I am very critical of) statement that if you don't join her in her efforts to reduce crime in the city, you're part of the problem. Haverson understands that to mean the Mayor is calling her part of the problem. Which can only mean Halvorsen, like so many of the entitled, feels that she doesn't have to do anything to help make Baltimore better, well aside from owning a business, employing people and paying taxes. She sounds less like my definition of a citizen and more like the expectations of a corporation - well, except for the tax-paying part.
Doing the bare minimum isn't doing your part. It's just being present. While calling her a part of the problem is admittedly hyperbolic, calling her part of the solution is equally ridiculous.
She also seems to be under the impression that donating a little time and some resources to a charter school is going above and beyond. It's not. It only helps a handful of kids who were lucky enough to get into a charter school.
So I guess my problems are: 1. Her definition of love is conditional. 2. She seems to think she somehow warrants special attention given her status as a business owner and taxpayer. 3. She endorses bad policies like zero tolerance and harsh incarceration of children. 4. Her piece, while offering some hard to get at criticism, does little more than seem like a long whine. 5. She has every right to complain about crime and the city's poor handling of it. Every citizen does. We are all frustrated, and it's important to let our city officials know our level of frustration. But she seems to mistake crime for Baltimore's real problem, which is poverty. 6. She offers no solutions. She offers no call to action. In fact, she doesn't seem particularly interested in fixing the problem so much as pointing it out and expecting others to fix it.
It took me awhile to read Halvorsen's piece, and I can't say I'm glad I did - just like I can't say I'm glad for reading a majority of the criticism of it.
But like I said above, city living - it ain't for everyone.
On a personal note (just in case one needed my bona fides) - I am tax payer (I'm not sure what that means as we are ALL taxpayers) and a small business owner. In my 21 years as a city resident, I've had friends and neighbors attacked, beaten, stabbed, shot and killed. I've known people who have attacked, beaten, stabbed, shot and killed. I've been physically attacked, I've been harassed, and I've been the subject of attempted muggings. And I love Baltimore. And I want it to be better (which is why I spend a lot of time and effort and what money I have trying to make it the city I want it to be), and I have no plans on going anywhere. Real love isn't cutting and running when the going gets tough (and frankly, it's been tougher).
There's a certain charm to Orioles general manager Dan Duquette's thrift-store approach to assembling an opening day roster.
Any fool with a wallet full of money can walk into Brooks Brothers and walk out looking sharp. But it takes ridiculous patience and a nose for bargains to pull together a good look on a Gabriel Brothers budget.
Of course, the latter approach is torture to watch. We all know people who spend four hours at Marshall's digging through mountains of single socks and irregular undershirts. You and I would sooner die a painful death than search the racks and tables full of snagged sweaters and flimsy neckties for the one item of clothing worth paying for. You win, already. I'll pay too much for something just so I'm not up to my elbows in scratchy boxers all afternoon. But hats off to the guy at the Red Shed on Greenmount Avenue, who can unearth a pair of pants so perfect you'd swear he was born in them.
That's Duquette. Only suckers pay full-price and Dan's no sucker. You go ahead and pay top dollar for that sticky Hawaiian bud with little red spots in it. Dan'll do just fine with a lid of Canadian seeds and stems.
The O's were on their way out of the crapper when Duquette took over the team. Andy MacPhail engineered the deals and the draft picks that poured the foundation for today's pretty good O's team. When MacPhail left, Duquette took the GM job after half a dozen other whiz-kid moneyball-mathletes turned it down. And he futzed constantly with the dials and settings, shuttling guys back and forth between the minors and the big leagues. He signed other teams' cast-off detritus. But damned if the O's didn't make the playoffs in 2012, after a million years of stench. Even in the postseason, toe-to-toe with the Yankees, Duquette's bargain hunting showed. When your team hosts its first postseason game in 15 years and your DH is Lew Ford, you have a frugal GM.
* * * * * When the thrifty shopper is right, it's magical. "You got that for 12 bucks?" The guy's a legend. But when he's wrong, it's embarrassing. Visible zippers. Wide lapels. Epaulets.
The worst mistake a thrifty shopper can make is to try and convince the rest of us that his new shirt doesn't look stupid and out-of-date. When the rest of the world points and laughs at him, the thrifty shopper doubles down and insists you're the one who's out of step.
Duquette won't stop talking about David Lough, the fourth outfielder he got from Kansas City in exchange for Danny Valencia. He's also borderline obsessed with Francisco Peguero, who bounced up and down with San Francisco last year.
This time of year, fans of other teams get excited about the big-name free agents they signed over the winter. Orioles fans have to make do with really tall relief pitcher Ryan Webb.
At second base and starting pitcher, the Baltimores have real need around the two biggest free agents of this offseason -- Robinson Cano and Masahiro Tanaka. But the O's weren't mentioned as a serious contender for either player.
Seattle gave the 31-year-old Cano $240 million and a 10-year deal. And before the Yankees paid $155 million for Tanaka, they ponied up $20 million to Tanaka's old Japanese team just for the privilege of negotiating with the pitcher.
The day that kind of deal happens around here is the day Edgar Allan Poe rises from his Westminster Hall grave and dances down Greene Street to Camden Yards.
So we'll all keep waiting for the free agent pitcher Duquette keeps promising. Meanwhile, one leaky, past-his-prime starter after another gets picked up by teams who'd rather drop a few million dollars than push around a cart full of red-tag bargains, hoping for a few cheap gems.
Comments: Dug Sohn:Yesterday I learned country singer Dolly Parton anonymously entered a "Dolly Parton look-alike contest" but lost to a drag queen.
John Walker: ...I give Dolly the nod for writing and performing "I Will Always Love You" as a pretty ballad instead of the melismatic vocal exercise it became.
Patrick Smith: Dolly's great, but Loretta Lynn is in a class by herself. Took a real stand when it would've been easy not to. Plus, the stuff she did with Conway still sounds great.
Mike Walley-Rund: Parton, purely on the strength of Jolene witch I believe is the platonic ideal of a country song with female vocals.
Robert Sherwood: Dolly for the songs Robert and Evening Shade. Wings upon your Horns and the Pill are badass, but falling in love with your long-lost brother, and burning down and orphanage....The Trio record is also pretty great.
Greg Peeler: I got mad respect for both but Coal Miners Daughter is one hell of a movie and Dolly hasn't ever come up with anything as ballsy as "You Ain't Woman Enough" so it's LL for me.
Stacey Wachter: Voting twice for Loretta! Have you people ever heard Fist city??
Richard Gorelick: Dolly cause I was an usher at Painters Mill when she performed and every, every night she'd say "I see you all out there with those binoculars.... You're trying to see if they're real!!!" And then, after the big screaming laugh, she'd say "I was talking about my wigs!!!!"
Claudia Balog: Knee-jerk reaction was first Dolly and her beautiful songs and voice. But then I thought the millions of women Loretta absolutely saved because she is the total fucking badass who recorded The Pill (not to mention the rest of her entire freaking catalogue is amazing). I'm going LL but it's practically a coin-toss.
Karen Tominey: Dolly. I like Loretta, but Dolly started an early childhood literacy program called Imagination Library and my kids got free books every month from birth until kindergarten.
Stephen Ashby: This is tough. I've gotta go Loretta Lynn though. As good as Jolene is, Coal Miner's Daughter, Rated X, and lines like "You better close your face and stay outta my way if you don't wanna go to fist city" win out in the end.
Jennifer Bunn Miller: Btw, thx for making me create a dolly station on pandora on the way home tonight.
Jack Livingston: Tough. Dolly has more all around talent but seems to be able to get as commercial as needed to become a mega star. Loretta remained more roots country but a kick ass feminista at a time when it was needed. Dolly's voice is pure but Loretta's sounds more authentic. Both stayed married to original back woods husbands. Loretta had a break down - dolly never would- too much sunshine. Dolly had the balls to move on from working with Porter Wagner- her mentor. Loretta never had or needed a male mentor. Loretta has a gazillion kids and grand kids. I have no idea if Dolly has any. There are drag queen Dollys galore. There are no drag queen Loretta's. Loretta's survived and kicked Jack white's ass. Dolly would too but doesn't need to. Final score: tie- into overtime. Loretta wins just because she has recently had an alt radio hit - Dolly's doing bluegrass. ... but a rematch is needed in a year.
Christy Paxson: Dolly was very progressive about her views on Christianity although Dollywood is purty cheezy.
Jack Livingston: One wonders how well known Loretta would now be if it was not for the film...many people think she IS the film. And it is old, but a classic. Dolly has remained in the spotlight all this many years and from all accounts is very biz savvy. Now who could play Dolly in the movie version???....