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@ShadySands Happy Birthday my brother! We are older, grayer, and likely heavier than we were. But we carried the legacy in our time! More than that no one could ask!

I just dropped in to take my victory lap. I believe I predicted the 47th President of the United States would be a complete idiot who has no business being put in charge of anything? Nailed it! Of course that was a bet I really couldn't lose!

70 hours, finished the game. Seems like there's some differences in ending, I think I got the best one, but not sure. Overall, I liked the game. For me it was probably the worst in the DA series, but it wasn't a bad game overall. Can't really compare it to modern AAA games since I don't play that many. Worst part was the writing. The overall plot was fine, and the ending too, but the more minute details weren't that good (the baddies were uninteresting, dialogue was often bad, quests were really repetitive etc). Or as good as previous DA games, anyway. A lot of Bioware fans seems to like the games for their writing, so maybe the game won't score that big with them. No real knowledge, haven't googled to find out. Exploration was good, but they started running out of gimmicks later on, and it got a bit repetitive. Thankfully the game ended soon after that. Combat grew on me. It's very actiony and flashy, so that might be turn off for older players. Maybe modern AAA games does it better and ignorance was bliss for me. Builds and stats seemed great, there were a lot of options and I could come up with lots of different ways to build my character. Buuut, since I really only played one, I have no idea if it's really that balanced. DA:O and DA:I were quite bad at that part (DA2 much better) so can't really claim it's Bioware's forte. The game tied up most of the plotlines from previous DA games, so it felt like they intentionally made it the last one... buuut, then So it seems they're keeping their options open.

Thanks to you and Shady, and any other veteran's we have here, for your service.

Why should you be having fun while your wife is at work? Game working as intended

So, my wife ended up at work again, so I have booted the Dark Souls 2 DLC again, hoping, that the Iron Passage will suck less in NG+. Nope it does not. This level is designed, so it sucks all the joy out of you before the fog gate, and then you bored and annoyed to the max, will get smacked over the head with Smelter Demons magic Ultra Great Sword, even if you do not wipe while traversing the passage... At least the Demon is gone now...

Hope all is good with you

Sorry, @BruceVC, but I disagree. I'm very strongly convinced that even if Article 5 were activated (and even that would happen only after weeks of ridiculous "discussions," thereby making any aid too late anyway), many NATO states will simply ignore their Article 5 obligations and choose to do nothing. Obviously countries like Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey, and now also Bulgaria, but very possibly even states like Germany and Spain, and of course Trump's USA. The fact that NATO has become bigger, but still holds to unanimous decision-making, means NATO cannot and will not act in a timely manner.

Iranian hostility towards US can be traced here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état Of course during the road there has been quite lot of back and worth to build the hostility more. As side note not surprisingly reason behind the coup was that democratically elected Iranian government had decided to nationalize Anglo-Persian Oil Company which British saw as stealing from them so they first wanted to invade Iran, but ended to up to organize coup after USA refused to give military support.

The Substance (2024). The perception and treatment of aging women (including by themselves and towards each other!) in the United States is something I've long talked about as being a sad indictment upon our society, and playing off of it with addiction, self-harm, self-loathing, and other neurotic and self-destructive behaviors does make for a natural pairing...but I really just don't like anything about this as a movie, and that became very apparent to me as soon as maybe two minutes in. It's one of those things where you can sit and nitpick all the little minor things that bothered you, but no matter what you could say, it still just wouldn't really touch upon the base issue, which is that you sat through a 2 hour-plus movie where it was perfectly obvious right off the bat that some combination of the direction, editing, tone, visuals, cast et al. was conspiring to make certain that the film wasn't ever going to click with you, so there was no reality where you'd ever enjoy it even if all the themes and ideas should in theory appeal to you. If the same film were made by a different director whose style and film sensibilities I actually like, I think I could've loved this movie...but as it was, I mostly just sat there irritated the whole way through, occasionally wishing I were watching something else a little less obnoxious. Like, I'm sitting here watching probably some of the grossest body horror you'll ever see in a film, and I'm just sighing at all of it, wishing that I was into the film enough for it to have some kind of effect beyond annoying me.

MechWarrior 3, from 1999 is still the best of the series, not visually, but gameplay wise. It's all because of the mission design and smaller mechs being more challenging but still entirely viable.

Henry's coming home baby. And it's Europe's that's keeping bigger budget RPGs interesting. On that note, I've restarted The WItcher 3... and this is the first time it clicked. I had a beef with so much of the quests being railroady, the simple systems/combat, and all that. Additionally, Ciri isn't really properly introduced (never read the books), but still made the hook of the story, the damsel to hunt after. Never really worked much for me. This time I focused on the side content, adjusted the difficulty and skilled differently (which made combat more tactical) -- and even found a few alternative solutions to a quest here and there that wasn't spoilt by markers. (F'r instance, you can find the bandit hideout in Novigrad simply by listening to dialogues and following the clues, as opposed to doing what the quest log encourages you to do, step by step... so much more immersive!) I'm in now truly though. Novigrad looks like I'd always pictured Riva in my head way back on my Pentium 75.

I wear whatever gives me the best buffs for the build Im playing. I dont care if its a dong sleeve or Bozo the Clown outfit.

And now you basically described the Saints Row franchise

About 35 hours in, felt like writing something. Not sure how long this game is, seems like there's still lots more Overall impression is "kinda ok". Probably wouldn't play this if I wasn't interested in the DA world. Story setup felt interesting, like I said before, but after that it's felt a bit meh. Some of the factions in the game world have been changed, and IMO in a boring way. Can't avoid change, I guess, but the Qunari just feel like basic baddies now and the Crows like a vigilante group. Apparently this mostly relies on stories from non-game DA products, but doesn't save them from being boring choices. Main baddies are boring, hoping they'll shape up by the end. Most of the NPCs are either immediately on your side, or your enemies, without too much in between. Dialogue is the usual Bioware fare of quipping and one-liners. The main difference is there's no massive interrogation trees with important characters anymore, most of dialogue is either in party banter or in specific quests for them. Lots of just text stuff around to flesh out things, like in most RPGs. Exploration is quite parkoury and 3D. There's always things to fiddle with, or loot to get. It's quite smooth overall, but you can spend 30mins trying to reach a chest without figuring it out. But it does feel meaningful, in that what you find ties into the rest of the game fine. Combat grew on me a bit. At the start it felt like I was just dodging 90% of the time, but it feels quite smooth now. I don't play that many games with actiony combat like this, so not sure how other games do it. I'd still prefer the more party based approach of older DA games.

I don't remember exactly, but in DA:I were there not some dialogue choices where one may end up clicking the romance option just because all the other options were rude/stupid/ridiculous? I seem to recall feeling 'forced' to click the romance option because clicking any of the others felt like you were being a jerk.

Its worth playing, the War Room has some nice mechanics and there is always something to do I enjoyed the party interaction but I didnt Romance anyone. I tried with Josephine but she is a NPC and it didnt work out anyway despite how I followed the Romance dialogue options