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Wrapped up the campaign on Watchdogs Legion. It's a weird one to evaluate. The concept of "recruit anyone you meet and use them" rather than a central character to play is interesting, but I think falls down in some ways. "Anyone" is basically a cosmetic thing, a random voice, a style of clothing, and a couple of skills - most of those skills have no relevance on your actual game play. What it also means is that the games story has to convey everything without any real connection to the character you are playing. Which on story elements, I wasn't pulled in that deep on the majority of it. They've divided it into a series of chunks of 3-5 missions that convey an arc. These arcs have small things connecting them together (beyond the "they're screwing over the people of London and we have to stop them" in some way), which once you've completed all these arcs build to the grand finale. It's a bit loose and shallow, but then its countered by having a few key story points have a hefty emotional punch to them. Visually it's impressive, and mechanically there's some nice level design to a few of the missions. I just kept waiting for the wow factor to hit in somewhere and it never did. The hacking feels a bit lackluster compared to the previous games as well, with rather bleh skill progression/development which added to the lack of oomph. It's an interesting game in its attempt, and if you like open world with some philosophising on the nature of security, privacy, the IoT, facism, and media control, I'd say wait for the sales time to pick it up. But not one that's going to sink it's teeth into you. I can see myself replaying Watchdogs 2 more than returning to WD: Legion in the future.

As concerning is Trump's suggestions of a coup are, the almost certainty of many people supporting it on facing no real consequences is probably more cause for worry.

The Oregon Trail

The obnoxious kids you were not allowed to nuke so you could just get on with it. I think it was called Little Lamplight? At that point I stopped playing the game and uninstalled it. It has been sitting in my Steam account unused ever since. Point Lookout was quite nice though. If it wasn't for the mess with the Microsoft Live requirement, I would probably have reinstalled it just to play that part again.

Mass Effect 3 - Along with the color coded ending, anything with the space ninja was awful. You could beat his ass but there would still be a cutscene showing him dominate you.

Whenever a container (canteen) is filled up with any form of liquid and is dumped out by right clicking it from the inventory it seems like it never actually works. It empties the value but once you throw it out of your inventory and pick it up again, you'd see it return as if it didn't actually empty the value. - something related to the values not being updated: whenever hot crafting, the quantity won't get updated. Thanks Devs. :)

How did I miss this? Golden, thanks for posting. I love sarcastic, angry Brent. Especially a singing one.

There's not a single Republican who was elected without cheating. They're truly despicable people.

It is, from a certain perspective. But that's the thing with moral relativism. Note that the complaint isn't that it couldn't work, but rather that it's "too evil" -- so much so that it threatens the suspension of disbelief. And yet there is no dearth of real-world counterparts of Caesar's Legion that have successfully convinced thousands that their values provide a solid foundation for building a -in their eyes- better society. That may seem abhorrent to us in our urban, Western, Judeo-Christian mindset but, after a nuclear holocaust and a century or two of contemplating the irradiated remains of the society that those values produced, we may be more inclined to listen to Caesar-like figures. "Mustache twirling" is relative, and it stands to reason that after wiping the slate clean, many people would have lost their reference frame. This is insinuated in the lore explaining that in many places humanity has devolved into primitive tribes. So absent higher values of "good", they'd settle for the next best thing: whatever works. And the narrative clearly states that work it does. Regardless, I thought the beauty of it is that no matter what colors they wore, the game still often presented people as **** failing to live up to their own standards and working mostly towards their own selfish goals. The Legion was of course no exception.

Unless it's at gunpoint, good luck forcing me to get the vaccine right away.

Playing on Xbox multi-player. For both the host and guest, there was no backpack spawn after we drowned in the depths (by the t Rex). Guest did see one bugged at 30000 cm away underground and getting further away as we moved toward it. Update: not just drowning. Also occurs when koi fish kills you in that area. Now 5 times in a row

Too many games to list: King: "Good traveler I only met 2 minutes ago, I have a task of utmost importance to the welfare of my kingdom. Allow me to entrust you with knowledge of the highest secrecy."

Edna from "Edna & Harvey" was a very nice girl. Anyway, I tried "Thimbleweed park" recently and understood I'm too old to put up with adventure game's patent "Try everything with everything" bullsh†t. Their devs could at least offer some commentary for like trying to use lipstick on an old shoe, but so far only aforesaid Edna & Harvey first game had something to say for every possible combination. Playing "Outer wolds" now and loving everything so far, though I'd complain it's way, waaaaaay too much loot in this game, to the point I feel like OCD serial cleaner.

For anyone reading this - K_A_T solution works marvelously. I can play it perfectly on steam now. Thanks so much!!!

This. I hate the antivaxx movement, but I don't feel I want to take any chances and be part of the repeat of the swine flu vaccine issues that plagued us here. I've read that the vaccine side effects fund we have has been increased, but what ****ing good will a onetime payment do if I get hit with similar side effects (narcolepsy)? My life would be pretty much over, I love driving, cars and trucks, and your licence gets revoked (Rightly so, not complaining) if you have narcolepsy. In 5 years or something I'd feel more comfortable to get one myself.

I'm in no hurry to get Pfizer's vaccine, or any of the others, for that matter. I'm not an anti-vaxxer or anything, but drugs generally take 5-10 years to get approval. Under the circumstances, I understand the vaccines getting fast-tracked. That said, I'll let guinea pigs brave heroes beta test them for a good while before getting the vaccine myself.

-Adding a new way to transport base materials such as grass planks and weed stems long distance to reduce tedium involved with base building. The addition of a new perk or ant armour tier to increase capacity to 10 would help but my preference would be either some way for bugs (ants) to help or a sled that can be pushed by the player with a smaller capacity than the weed pallet but still larger than the current 8 max for the sake of not simply adding static gameplay changes (BURGL perk on = x better at thing) although I do like current perks too many could easily get sickening.

The other states used the police force to guard the "inmates" in the hotels (14 days of mandatory quarantine at the guests expense when traveling from either overseas or interstate). Australian citizen only from overseas at the time (Kiwis are welcome now, no quarantine required). Victoria just got this "brilliant" idea they could outsource the police work and it was a failure of epic proportions. As the cases exploded in Melbourne and later the various regions in Victoria (state borders were closed), all the strict measures, including curfews were put in place. All of which could have been avoided and people could have been a lot better off 5 months earlier. I live in Brisbane, Queensland (large chunk of land in the northeast of Australia, part tropical part sub-tropical). Queensland shut its borders to both NSW and VIC (and NT had already closed it's borders to all states and territories to protect its numerous indigenous communities). I lived in Victoria (Melbourne) for a while, but moved north in March, just 2 weeks before the borders closed

Actually, the sad thing is it was so unnecessary. Just look at the rest of Australia. The local government ****ed up and hired private companies for the hotel security job instead of using the police to enforce it. Those companies screwed up big time and should never have been used for something that should have been the police's job in first place. As for draconian... yeah, not used to seeing soldiers in the street enforcing curfews. Would've been better of those troops (and the police) had been doing the private contractors job in the first place?

Is that the game where you cook up some pure alcohol in the police lab so you can drive a beggar drunk and steal his money to make a phone call?

I proposed something similar a couple of months ago. Steal Egg -> raise ant -> ant follows and carries grass -> deposits grass on pallet

I learnt two important lessons in Xenonauts yesterday, both related to trees. 1) Money doesn't grow on trees and 2) hand grenades are unsuited for forest warfare (after wiping out half my squad with hand grenades that hit trees and didn't go anywhere)

Yeah I don't make the comparison of Cowboy Bebop to Firefly because I generally dislike things Whedon touches. It honestly holds up better than it did when I first watched it because it's basically about poor people trying to navigate the gig economy which happens to be relevant to these times. I don't think JoJo has an artstyle, so much as every season does because each arc until Vento Aureo or Stone Ocean saw some tweaks in the manga until Araki hit what he wanted. I think all seasons look pretty good, but it is really boosted by a vibrant and dynamic color palate in a way that a lot of other anime (or triple A games) isn't. You can view each season separately because they're connected but not essential, so if you really don't like Phantom Blood/Battle Tendency or Stardust Crusaders you can jump ahead to Diamond is Unbreakable or Golden Wind. Crybaby is freaking weird my dude. And Asuka should have strangled Shinji long before the end of the series. All of those fit with realizing Shinji is the only other person alive. And the Star Wars Christmas Special will be getting a Lego sequel, which is horrifying.

The data that made the stocks soar has also not been peer reviewed. Which doesn't mean it isn't accurate, but does mean that we cannot be sure it is. As vaccines go the Pfizer one isn't a great option anyway- it's mRNA based so hard to make and expensive, and requires dry ice level chilling. If there are alternatives available that are even close to being as effective they'll be picked first.

Did I say that? I just bought the LG CX, 55". It was on sale for $1400 (the 90T QLED I've been eyeballing is around $1500+ for same size). Fark it. Won't know re: burn-in risks unless I try one, and if I think it's too much burn-in risk for my PC usage, as hubby said, "we can just stick it in the living room for movies/TV" and I can go back to 90T hunting. Wasn't in store stock so I get to pick it up Monday. So then the question becomes...will 55" be too big even for me (probably not...)? Maybe I can lay down some plastic, get a wheeled mini-table to put the KB/mouse on and just postion-roll myself where-ever in the room like a crazy person? We shall see.

Yes, the selected electors for all three states are voted for on election day, so no I believe the respective legislatures can't change them. The fact that Trump had no compunction against asking this makes his removal from power all the more worthwhile.

And let free market competition govern society, correct?

tommy tuberville, the senator-elect from alabama who is unable to identify the three branches o' US fed government, unsurprising is confused 'bout the legality o' soliciting campaign donations on fed property. TCS: You gonna go campaign in Georgia, help them out? CTT: Oh, yeah. I’ll go over there at least a week or two and campaign myself, along with a lot of people in my former campaign staff. We’re raising money for them, the whole caucus is. You know, I had my first caucus meeting yesterday and Vice President Pence was there and spoke to us about the next two months. I got to get up and introduce myself and tell everybody, you know, why I’m here and what I want try to get done. It was very good, had a lot of good reception. Of course, setting up an office to work. Right now, it’s a temporary office. Now, it is five rooms, it’s huge, there in the Dirksen Building. But it’s something that gives you somewhere to work out of, whether it’s interviewing, whether it’s fundraising like we’ll do for Georgia. It gives you a place to work. So, anyway, I got it up and running and I got a couple on my transition team that are going to be on my staff at some level once we get this thing going full speed. But they’re all setting it up. I’m back in Auburn today and I’ll be back there most of next week handling all the major interviews for the top-tier positions. ... this kinda thing is not a grey area as far as illegal is concerned. HA! Good Fun!

Wasn't there an Eddie Murphy movie where he gets elected like that?

Have you noticed the size of the berries and acorns? How large do you propose this Growing station should be in order to allow a plant that produces fruit of that size? However, growing grass could be nice for areas where there is none at all. And maybe having grass fiber turn into dry grass after a couple of days would be a nice addition as well for areas without that.

I had my first full on encounter with the monster in Amnesia: Rebirth. I got to hear the monster here and there earlier, then caught a couple quick glimpses, but Frictional held off on the full reveal until a few hours into the game, which is smart. Honestly, they might have been better served holding off the full reveal even longer. Once you reveal the monster fully, it's only a matter of a handful of encounters before you become desensitized and the monster is no longer a source of tension but merely an obstacle. Games like Resident Evil get around this, to some degree, by having multiple monster types, that way they can keep throwing something new at you. I'm assuming Amnesia: Rebirth only has 1 monster, though I can't say that for sure. As an aside, I am kinda curious what happens if I allow myself to succumb to the fear/madness (don't tell me). So far I've not allowed myself to lose control, but I may do an experiment and just let all my sanity drain away. Maybe I'll hold off on said experiment for a bit in case it turns out you can't actually completely lose control, since that will kinda kill the tension once I am armed with that knowledge.

306 "landslide" HA! Good Fun!

That actually sounds amazing to me.

Apparently Rick Astley is "back" - eg, he's posting stuff on YouTube. Always nice to see artists from my past still around doing things. He seems to have become a bit more of a baritone (?) in his age. His cover of this song isn't bad, not bad at all. The funny/adorable thing to me tho is that if you watch his dance arm movements, at times you can see a certain meme-dance wanting to come out...

Happens a lot in movies/TV too. Family/child in peril or some kind of noble-idiocy are some of the most over-used shortcut devices to create conflict or relatable emotional sympathy/motivation. Not that they aren't ever effective. Just so common I'm personally left rather cold by them at this point. I can't think of specific game examples at the moment but something else that always annoys me is when there's some kind of misunderstanding that could be cleared up by a chr. saying a few sentences, but no chr. ever says them, despite them standing face to face 10 times repeating the same misunderstood accusations over and over. Plot requires them to be at odds, so ... they are.

Using "family" as a substitute to actually trying to get the player to form a bond with a character. Both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 did this, but I'd be surprised if they were the only ones.

If I can tell it's a device - as if there's a huge sign being held up saying "GET READY - HERE COMES A PLOT MOVER" - it's "stupid" - or at least, terribly over-used and/or not creatively re-worked to make it feel fresh or at least exciting/entertaining. Which at my age - and the amount of ent. media I've consumed - probably explains why I increasingly move away from story-driven games. Agreed. I also think many games often feel like you're just marching directly from one device to another, with not much in between to make you care why anything is happening. Which makes such stand out more and it's harder to ignore any sense of manipulation.

Is he using the 12 GB VRAM SUPERMEGAULTRAHYPERUBERTEXTURES? Because if not, what's the point? Might as well play a 8-bit retro graphics game.

And, the last boss before picking up my DS2 Platinum Trophy was Last Sinner. Well she was not planned as last one, but after owning my ass few times, I've decided to skip her for now. Unfortunately, when you decide to skip the Ruin Sentinels, you are not able to light the oil braziers in the boss arena, so, I had to fight her in darkness... The worst encounter so far was successful on 2nd try. Not this one... Counting all the attempts, including the first attempts in the middle of the game, I ended up finishing her on my 23rd attempt... The key of the encounter is to have always as much health as possible, and always focus on the boss, not the adds!!! I had to die 10 times before I stopped being stubborn and shoot all my spells at the boss instead of them... Anyway, the final successful attempt can be watched bellow

Boy genius, 12, set to study aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech Holy crap! This kid is something else!