A Flight of Links

- Making WoW easier serves the game. 
- 10 things you probably didn't know about Star Wars Return of the Jedi. I didn't know all, granted. 
- Extra Credits closes its miniseries about agency in games. 
- More BSG recaps. Couldn't agree more. 
- Man, what a waste of Aaron Paul's talent. 
- The ultimate Joss Whedon interview. 
- Death comes to the game industry.  
- Good question about Stevron Frey's death.  
- MovieBob reviews Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs 2

Stefan's Theory Hour, part 44

Thursday is Theory Day!

This is the fourty-fourth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 44. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

The greatest experience in Pen&Paper RPG

It is strange, but since the inception of Nerdstream, I never once wrote about roleplaying games. I don't know why exactly this is. For almost a decade, they were one of the central things in my life. As with so many people, the arrival of "real life" with its demands - job and family chief among them - put an end to RPG. I played quite a lot in my day, starting with table-top RPG, adding LARP to it. I think I'll talk about LARP in some later post. Today, I want to tell you about the absolute apogee of P&P-experience. Don't worry, I won't bore you with tales of my character. I also won't get into too many details about the campaign in stuff, because, quite frankly, no one but the people that were there are interested in this kind of stuff anyway. I want to talk about what made it great. It's a sad story, I'm afraid. 

Sad stories call for sensual lower lips.

A Flight of Sorrows: Collector's Edition Revealed

Tower of the Hand: A Flight of Sorrows - Collector's Edition comes out in one week and one day. Never heard of it? It's a special print edition of the best-selling ebook, released due to popular demand, that includes a whole slew of extra content. And to celebrate the occasion, we're happy to let you all in on a little secret: the Collector's Edition's complete lineup (which, we're delighted to finally share, includes a few extra faces from the Ice and Fire community).

A Flight of Links

- GTA V review. Seems to be good. 
- They are making a spin-off of The Walking Dead. Because it's not bad enough yet, obviously. 
- Why aren't there more games set in WWI?
- Marvellous movie thrones. 
- MovieBob and the MarySue review Star Trek Into Darkness.
- A detailled analysis of the legal battles that major game developers fight over their respective FPS franchises. 
- Robert Pattinson really, really hates Twilight. Man, I feel him. 
- Some meta about Man of Steel.
- 7 Most Mismatched Fights in Movie History.
- Demographics of Netflix. Very interesting.
- Discussion about the recaps of TV series I'm guilty of, too.
- More on the same discussion, this time from the WSJ. 
- Someone did a five-movie-marathon, with interesting results. 
- Why Justin Bieber as Robin is a hoax. Most likely.  
- Slynt rereads Sansa III.
- Yahtzee elaborates more on his views on dialogue and character in games. I couldn't agree more. 
- Blizzard finally kills the auction house. 
- Breaking Bad's episode 14 inspired George R. R. Martin to introduce a worse villain into Westeros. WTF?
- There's a show called "Shut up and sit down" about board games. Check it out.  
- Joss Whedon airdropped onto the Thor2 set and rewrote some scenes. 
- Some updates on Hedge Knight and Dangerous Women.  
- So true. 
- Discussion about the morale of GTA V.
- A very sad review of GTA V. 
- Prisoners seems to be pretty good.
- You really need to check out this Youtube channel, especially this and this.  
- I totally agree with this assessment of Cercei's politics regarding the Faith.

Stefan's Theory Hour, part 43

Thursday is Theory Day!

This is the fourty-third article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 43. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair - Breaking Bad setting a new standard

Spoilers for season 5, episode 14 "Ozymandias" and all previous episodes coming. 

The fuck did I just see? I think this just topped or at least reached the WTF-level of the Red Wedding, and I'm not exactly generous with this kind of praise. Seriously, wow. It was obvious from the ending of last episode that there was no way for Hank or Gomez to get out of this alive, but before I was able to see the episode I wondered just how they would fill out the remaining three episodes to the series' inevitable end in episode 16, which, as we all know, ends with Walt's house in ruins and him driving around with a machine-gun in his trunk. Now, I guess, we know. The creators of Breaking Bad catapulted themselves in the High Olymp of storytelling and breached new heights to be achieved by serious TV drama. 

Say my name, ye mighty, and despair.

A Flight of Links

We're back! And no, no attempt to try to catch up with the lost two months. No chance. We simply go on starting this week.

- MovieBob reviews Man of Steel, again.
- Race to the Iron Throne gives us Sansa III, Eddard XII, Danaerys V and Eddard XIII. Especially his analysis of Eddard is worth a read every time.
- Yahtzee warns devs about the dangers of dialogue in video games. 
- The elaborate case of why GTA IV didn't prompt an 8-year-old to shoot his grandma.  
- Since there are currently elections going on in Germany, some ASOIAF guerilla inserted Game of Thrones campaign posters. They are, obviously, German, so if you're interested in a translation, ask in the comments.  
- Breaking Bad gets a "Better call Saul" spinoff. 
- League of Legends designers prove that if you're not an ass, you win more games.  
- A German professor for Linguistics has it with the guys who want to "protect" the German language and uses their self-styled holiday "German language day" to proclaim a "German language holiday", on which you don't speak any German and only use English. To commemorate it, he wrote an English blogposts explaining some of the peculiarities. 

Stefan's Theory Hour, part 42

Thursday is Theory Day! Buuuut, since yesterday was a brutal workday, it's Friday!

This is the fourty-second article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 42. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

That's one picture of Danaerys right there

After the break. Holy. Crap.

A take on Battlestar Galactica as a whole

Some time ago, a reader asked me what me take on the complete series was, since I always cover small narrative pieces. Well, you asked, I serve. Battlestar Galactica had a run over four seasons before it ended in a conclusive ending that continues to split the fandom in two. Some love it, more hate it, but it did one thing - conclude the whole affair, without leaving any room for ill taken sequels, which is a feat in and of itself. Too many series more or less trail off or simply make a big clusterfuck of their ending (looking at you, Lost). 

The title referres to the screenplay.

Spoilers for all seasons of Battlestar Galactica ahead. 

ASOIAF podcast 118 - What if? - released

The latest podcast of Ice and Fire has been released, covering a range of "what-if" questions. Especially noteworthy, of course, the important and infamous question of what would have happened if Ned had decided to crowd-surf at Baelor's. Yours truly was a part of the discussion, so listen and enjoy!

Stefan's Theory Hour, part 41

Thursday is Theory Day! Finally, I did it in time.

This is the fourty-first article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 41. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

Stefan's Theory Hour, part 40

Ok, technically it's part 1, but after the pointed question of a commenter I decided to rename the column. Still no internet at home, so they come unregularily for at least another week.

This is the fourtieth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 40. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously.