u/Island_Mouse

After a big rewatch, Season 11 is my favorite of the bunch. It has the right balance of blood gulch vibes and intrigue sprinkled in. I love the character work through out it as they lose their minds. The character dynamics constantly shift around (Simmons voluntarily joining Blue, and then getting baited into involuntarily staying. Caboose becoming leader by accident. New Lopez somehow being more sinister than the previous lopez) The arcs and payoffs are really tight in this. I just appreciate a tight bottle story that didn't even need crazy fights to be interesting. I remember people being mixed when it came out, but I think it was a shifting audience at the time. The other chorus stuff is great too, but i still cant believe how tight the script is barring the initial exposition in the beginning.

I know people see Conviction and Blacklist as divisive entries, but I remember playing Double Agent PS2 back in the day and feeling like that was the one that started this trend of turning Sam into the punisher.

I'm sure Chaos Theory gets enough glazing, but one thing that keeps getting left behind is the balance between tension and humor that compliments the stealth. In Blacklist, The Engineers are guys that kill hostages en masse and leave piles of bodies in their wake. They are cartoonishly evil and it'd be better to panther them all away. In Chaos Theory, most of the guys you are up against are either out of their depth, or doing their 9 to 5. Sneaking pass them undetected makes more sense. When you interrogate them, there is a bit of humanity in there. Nothing is really stopping the player from going in guns blazing (unless the missions specifically say so), but killing people actually feels wrong in Chaos Theory from the context. The stakes are still high, and Sam IS taking it seriously, but part of what gives him his depth is the balance between his lethal focus mixed with co-worker banter with his support team. I normally don't mind dramatic tone shifts, but Ubisoft has had a recent tendency to turn all their games into Far Cry 3 (gameplay-wise and tone). Still lookin forward to it!

I realized we haven't had a night map playable for a while. The rooms are visually distinct. My only qualm is that the stairs to the basement is kind of hard to find, but thats a matter of learning it. Compared to Favela, Lair, Emerald Plains, the submarine, etc. the first impressions here aren't half bad

I'm a returning reader. I've had a massive gap where films, shows, and video games were my primary source of inspiration, but I wanted to go back to imagining worlds again. I've always wanted to try LoTR, but I can never read it while detaching myself from the movie visuals. Not a big deal, but having the movies in my mind prevent me from building my own picture. Similar situation to Dune, GoT, Metro 2033, Witcher, etc. I want to know what a good alternate world looks like that it made directors hungry to adapt it. What book has a world so engrossing that you can't believe it isn't a movie or game yet? Feel free to recommend any commonly cited choices. Book selections are so vast I don't know how to filter the quality ones. I do have a preference for horror, but Im open to anything!

Edit: The recommendations so far that I've seen have been amazing! Still parsing through the options, but the some of the summaries have been interesting.