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  2. 1 - That Crow remake looks like it's tossing anything that made the original at least a little impactful, outside of fun/otp violence/mayhem, away. Zero interest. 2 - never really noticed/thought about it before, but Kyle MacLachlan's chin does seem like it has extraextra bone protrusion or something. Certain lighting/shadowing makes it really stand out. The guy in the new movies is a little less "weird", but it seems to still be fairly prominent/deep dent between chin and lower lip. Maybe it's considered a requirement for the role.
  3. Moved to games, as it looks like a discussion of games, not the company itself...
  4. Today
  5. So as much as I'll rag on Pillars of Eternity 2, The Outer Worlds, and New Vegas I still have to admit that Obsidian Entertainment makes some pretty great games and rpgs. Some better then others, so I figured that I would share my thoughts of them starting with the best and going down the list. -][- Neverwinter Nights 2: Neverwinter Nights 2 is one of those games that feels like it will never come again. The Loud music of the Harvest Festival seared into your heads, the stupidly complexity of the DnD 3..5 system and all of the race and background and class choices, how each of your companions though simplistic at first each have something to make them stand out as well as a complex plot of gambit pile ups upon gambit pile ups as opposing factions trip the **** over eachother as their scheming brings them into eachother's crosshairs by sheer accident. It's fantastic. And with all Obsidian games. . .there's a lot of cut content. Qara your Sorcerer companion is mostly cut content with only the barest bit to make her functional left in the game, Neeshka (who is bae) had her romance cut. -][- Pillars of Eternity: Pillars of Eternity is Obsidian's first real solo adventure that they had had in decades. A brand new CRPG, in a brand new hand-crafted world, with unique peoples, cultures, languages, gods, and all of it wrapped around a world coming into it's Renesceance. Pillars 1 has some of the best companion characters that they have ever made, with notable stand-outs being Durance the Self-aggrandizing Priest who hate/loves his own Goddess after he helped kill a god. Or That Village woman who is super super cool in concept but sucks to actually use because the other companions never talk to her and mostly just ignore her entirely. Or Pallegina whose arc revolves around whether it is best to follow her orders, or do her best to break those orders to better benefit her people for better or for worse. Or Aloth your Wizard pal who has a severe case of one too many people inside his own head. Or Hirevias the Druid trying to come to terms with his past (seriously I highly recommend picking Hiravias up as immediately as possible as he has SO MUCH dialogue in parts 2 and 3 of the game once you hit the big city) Sagani trying to complete her quest so she could finally return home, scared that her own family has forgotten her. And Kana Rua your giant friendly historian buddy whose sister you can date in the sequel. Genuinely one of the best games that Obsidian has ever made, even if their Rtwp system feels odd to go back to after playing the sequel. -][- Pillars of Eternity 2: Do you like Voice Acting? Ship to Ship combat? Turn-Based Combat? No. . .Aww. Pillars 2 takes place in the Deadfire Archipelago (Not the Dreadfire as it turns out, that was another Berenstein bears situation it seems) where you go chasing after the God who destroyed your well earned castle and home from the last game, and find yourself once more at the whims of the Gods. While chasing after this threat you find yourself embroiled in the political machinations of the factions of the region. The Huana: Or more specifically the Huana Tribe of the Kahanga who seeks to unify their people under their absolute monarchist banner in order to stave off the outsiders who are attempting to colonize the archipelago for themselves. Perhaps the most ethically good faction of the bunch hampered severely by their Caste system. The Royal Deadfire Company: The Faction of Rautai. Rautai's heritage belongs to that of the Archipelago as the same people who became the Huana and the Rautai were once the same, until a cataclysmic event led Rautai to flee and conquer Rautai for themselves having lost their homes. Now they are back to share their new culture and ways with the Huana. So think Imperialism being forced on you by your cousin, but in exchange they bring you Forts, Gunfire, and tear down the caste system entirely. The Vailian Trading Company: think the East Empire Trading Company. Their goal is profit. They seek to harvest, exploit, sell, and steal anything and everything that they can get their hands on. Stealing land from the Huana? It's all good! Working with Slavers in Huana lands, also good! Really the only thing they have going for them is that they don't want to conquer the Archipelago as much as they wish to exploit it and it's wealth of Arda. Amusingly they have what is either one of the most hopeful and one of the most dour endings of the game. Principi sen Patrena: The Princes without Patrons. Pirates of the sea, refugees from Old Vailia, who seek to claim a new homeland for themselves and or as much profit as they possibly can. They are perhaps the most colorful faction in the game. . .and also the most inconsequential in regards to the actual main plot of the game. Without a doubt the faction with the most potential for change with the most colorful characters and system of government. . . but again inconsequential. Don't do them for your first choice. Cool companions, each of which I tend to play in two teams. A Team: The Factions Gang B Team: Main Plot Gang. The Turn Based mode is odd but works oddly well after a while. -][- Alpha Protocol is a broken broken ass Spy game that is easy to break over your knee and is shockingly reactive to your choices and method of play. I highly recommend it. -][- Fallout New Vegas: Great Game, overhyped by everyone over the years, still pretty great even if only two game paths are actually viable and thus a player wanting to make their golden endings tend to make the exact same choices every single time. The Legion Sucks narratively because they could have been so so so much more interesting, and it feels like they were placed in the game first and written backwards. -][- running out of time before having to leave for work Uh The Outer Worlds decent, but it only has a single joke and message that ultimately does nothing with it. Best planet for writing and choices is Monarch, Best companions are Parvarti, Maxwell, and Fenix in that order, again a game where the choices are far far too easy. -][- And those are my rushed thoughts on Obsidian Entertainment games. What about the rest of y'all? What are your thoughts on their catalog?
  6. Dune... . . . . . . . . . ...(1984), by David Lynch. What a weird, clunky, messy film. It's like David Lynch couldn't make the narrative Lynchian enough, so he decided to Lynch it up in other ways. But it was vaguely entertaining somehow (sometimes in unintentional ways...), so I guess you could do worse than watch this nonsense. I assume it's probably for the best that I'm pretty much not at all familiar with the Dune books - while some of the sets certainly look cool enough, I can't think the film quite captures the spirit of whatever the heck the books were supposed to be about. Kyle MacLachlan has the most unsightly chin - a chin I daresay made for a villain of some nature, and certainly not a messiah.
  7. Good news everyone, Israel is planning on putting the 1.2 (or 1.4 depending on source) million people in Rafah into 'Humanitarian Islands*'. How can anyone object to that? Sadly some do though, as with the latest incident of a Jollycopter donating Rainbow Projectiles to another group of 'people' waiting for 'aid' to be 'delivered'. They should be thanking the IDF for trying to do its bit to prevent obesity and overpopulation... *some might think there's a preexisting term for Concentrating civilian population into Camps, but I can't quite put my finger on what that term is.
  8. "War" campaign assignment 10. One of my fave campaign maps, because large but not especially tough enemy army sizes, center lake, native-land to deal with (they buy your goods too, bonus), and various other fun stuff. Long ago I learned you could simply wall in map wolves (top center) and I've done so ever since, so I wouldn't have to build an army of prefectures (police/firefighters essentially) in the first months (or ever) to deal with them. Cheese tactics ftw. Gatehouses as walker roadblocks and one house shanty shack by wall towers to provide "employment" access, included. Ballista towers are/were op'd. The maps I found most difficult - or at least annoying - were the desert ones because fire risk was dramatic and a lot of your work force was soaked up with prefectures. >.> I may still be "too familiar" with the game overall but I'll say one thing about city-builders - if you like the genre, ofc - if you want to kill tons of time, getting absorbed in designing/planning can sure make you not realize how much time has passed. Altho the Julius/Augustus mods have a MUCH faster speed multipliers (up to 400% vs. 90-100% I think?) so that's helped re: any waiting periods. Anyway, still a great game, even without all the QoL of modern ones.
  9. I haven't played that since initial release/purchase period, although it's still installed/been updated etc. I enjoyed it a fair bit but after figuring out how it worked/mastering efficiency (a me thing), which didn't take too long, it was limited and didn't find it super replayable (limited maps/no map generator or editor). I think it does have a map editor now. Maybe it's time to try it again. ============= My biggest irritation with (most) modern 3d/more AI city-builders is drastically decreasing performance vs. population/size of cities (huge fps drops over time or AI glitches starting). Limits designs/expansion re: map sizes even w/beast PC's. Often CPU limitation. Some newer ones it starts to occur even at just 400-500pop depending on one's rig. Where in old ones like C3/Pharaoh it's essentially just limited by map size (even back on pc's of that day). 8000+ pop. in C3 is nothing, good luck getting that in most modern ones. Yes I know, most people probably don't care about filling up entire maps, trying to squeeze just one more little city block in that corner over there. But doesn't mean it's not an irritating gameplay limitation. Not that it stops me from buying/trying, mind.
  10. After watching the trailer, I am now neither more nor less interested in seeing this movie.
  11. Yesterday
  12. Frieren has created some weird and sometimes outright scary subcultures on the internet. The Ubel Armpit fanboys are legion and outright disturbing at times Sadly, embedding not allowed for this video https://youtu.be/8KkyNQpgbhA?si=EojIN7_VsVv5ffeS
  13. The White Rex group (Russian Volunteer Corps) is dodgy in terms of being neo nazi, all of them are dodgy in terms of being Russian. Last time around we got a lot of Poles and Ukrainians appearing as Russians in their videos, and the propaganda videos this time around have featured such classic telltales as using the Ukrainian rather than Russian terms for Kursk and Belgorod- not exactly what you'd expect from an actual Russian Patriot in the RDK/RVC which is what he claimed to be. Not at all surprising, it'd be like the Russians arming a bunch of Ukrainians from Lviv and staging an incursion. No way the Russians would trust them enough to arm them so they'd be a bunch of Russians doing Ukrainian accents like they were auditioning for 'ривіт 'ривіт. If it's all to do with the Russian elections- pretty likely- we'll have maybe three more days then it will quieten down again.
  14. I watch Bloomberg "Brilliant Ideas" which is a surprisingly good series of art documentaries.
  15. Hey, the 14900KS is here! Well, and no one cares, except maybe for overclockers. For them the extra money for (more or less) eliminating silicon lottery might be worth it.
  16. Yes, in fact I watched it just last week. CGI is terrible, but other than that still holds up, imo.
  17. Episode 11 of Delicious in Dungeon. This episode marks the real start of the main story and it goes off with a bang. From here on out it's a wild ride.
  18. For those who might not have wandered into it before: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/deus-ex-mankind-divided-4c6370 Epic Games has Deus Ex Mankind Divided going free at the moment.
  19. The original had a sense of style and emotion to it. I'm not really picking up either vibe from that trailer. Plus, Michael Wincott was a most excellently drippingly evil villain.
  20. Rebel Transmute. A metroidvania that looks a lot like Metroid. I reached the second map and I'm enjoying it a lot. The only problem I have so far is the map that has some areas that don't look connected while they actually are. It's a little confusing when backtracking.
  21. Did you ever watch the original with Brandon Lee?
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