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Yes. And Vanguard anti-cheat Riot thing. If it doesn't scare you and want to dip in, send me a message and I will send you the code. I have such fond memories of XCOM2012. Sequel was a bit improvement, but I like the vibe of the first one much more. If you like the first playthrough well enough, Long War mod is worth giving ago. It injects much life and strategic/tactical choice to the game, though actual full campaign can get mercilessly long (spoiler: never completed one).

I have booted today my first playthrough of XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012). I have purchased this some time ago, but never had the mood to boot it up. For now, it seems to me likeable. There are some things, which did not hit the right spot for now (the start up of the game feels slow paced to me - Normal Difficulty), so I hope it will get better lately.

The Lakers beat the Supersonics Germany beat Turkey

^^ It's 70% off on Epic, I snatched it.

Yes, that's kinda what I meant with my Path of Pain-post. It's true that the maps are smaller and with more benches inbetween, but those areas pop up non-stop later. You think you're done with it for a while, but then it just keeps going. For me it's too exhausting. I'm not a good enough player to do this stuff in first try. Usually I need 10 or more, to learn everything... The last thing I did was trying to get that mask shard in the bottom right corner of the map... with the lava pit. I can beat the mobs if I concentrate, but then running away from the lava fast enough... it's yet another area that I have to learn slowly, and it just feels too much now. Took a break since then and instead booted up Diablo 2 Resurrection again for lolz. Grinding some mobs with my level 90 Amazon. It's not super hard and a nice change of pace..

I assume you talk about Sam Lake, the face of Max Payne/Alex Casey? First Max Payne used a lot of friends and family for its character faces, and Sam Lake, the director and writer and remedy ended up playing Max Payne: James McCaffrey was the voice (RIP). In general, Remedy likes working with same people so there is a lot of intentional and intentional cross-casting in their titles. James McCaffrey voiced Max Payne/Alex Casey, Director Trench in Control, "Thomas Zane" in Alan Wake1. Matthew Porretta voiced Alan Wake, and portrayed Dr. Darling in Control (and Alan Wake 2 I suppose). Shawn Ashmore played the protagonist of Quantum Break as well as sherif Tim Breaker in AW2. Courtney Hope also starred in Quantum Break and was subsequently cast as the lead for Control. One of the DLCs has a whole bit about it. Lance Reddick was also supposed to be a potential link between Quantum Break and Alan Wake2, but his unfortunate passing required Mr. Door to be recast. AW2 being a story about writer and his creations coming to life has a lot of meta stuff to it, and most major Remedy games are being referenced. Alex Casey, possibly fictional hardboiled detective, looking very much like Remedy's fictional hardboiled detective is one of such callbacks. God I love Alan Wake2. I am now tempted to reinstall and give it another playthrough.

I dunno man, still can't see the radical left in him.

Ok, this is the one I'm going to recreate in my Abandoned Mode saves when I manually find the parts needed. More compact than the other one, 4 wall slots. I could play w/it some more but I'm burnt out for now. This is good enough - at least I don't cringe when I walk by it.

Functionally it's useless - vs simply sticking to a normal ship (no living area so no "storage/workstation" space) - but hey, it's small. Haha. It's taking advantage of overlapping, separate creation/edit stations - a sort of unintended simple glitch I suppose - you can't do this and save the design/edit, normally.

At last, I made something that isn't huge and doesn't look terrible, that I could live with as regular "main" use. And it still has 8 interior "workstation" ability if I want, plus good maneuverability and huge warp distance stats (the two I care about). So, yay? Maybe I'm getting the hang of how to use all these stupid parts. Course I'm still gonna obsessively fiddle with new/other designs for a while, before I get bored.

Who needs Unreal Engine 5 if you've got true artists? #Dishonored #UnrealEngine3 #RipViktorAntonov

Also this, as mentioned in another thread: https://internet.exchangepoint.tech/the-dog-that-caught-the-car-britains-world-leading-internet/ Not sure how realistic was the ChatGPT subscription (sounds too ridiculous, but so does everything coming from the current government and the 3 previous ones I have witnessed), but the combination with the Environment Agency’s comments was interesting. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-and-uk-government-minister-reportedly-discussed-giving-chatgpt-plus-to-all-brits-for-free

I enjoyed the platforming in Hollow Knight, and White Palace and Path of Pain. They were a little more difficult, but relatively short. Silksong, on the other hand, is nothing but a kaizo hack of Hollow Knight, answering a question that nobody ever asked: what if all of Hollow Knight was like White Palace? Nothing of it is ever as long and complicated and without break - at least so far - as Path of Pain was, but it certainly feels like the game after the first act was the result of an AI prompt asking for a full game in the vein of White Palace. One of the great things of Hollow Knight, the fun of exploring the world, has been lost. This I cannot quite quantify, the areas are connected enough, but the game lacks something that the first one had. Reaching a new environment is not like discovering a new world of wonders as they're also not nearly as distinct as Hollow Knight's were. Each one in Silksong feels so interchangeable because the design is too similar, even if the assets are different. Different enemy designs, but super similar movesets and enemy types. There are sawblades in the citadel, hanging spikes in the Sinner's Road, weird cushions in various places or the exploding poison bulbs of Bilewater. They're all variations on the same thing, something to pogo-jump off of. The worst part though? This is the game equivalent of The Force Awakens. That film has no true quiet moment where you could take everything in. Silksong has no quiet moment to enjoy the artwork or the environments, because it is loaded to the brim with platforming and enemies, but without the game design that usually goes along with games like this. For the amount and kinds of platforming nonsense you have to pull in, say, Bilewater, for instance, there are not nearly enough benches for it to remain fun to do. In some way the decision to include the crests and different movesets with them is part of the problem, I think. They had to design every platforming part in a way that is doable with all of the various downward strikes you can do, from Hornet's original diagonal downward slash to the slow Reaper slash and the fast Wanderer slash and whatever the hell you do with the Beast slash, the weird very short diagonal slash of the Architect... well, you get the idea. TL;DR: Beyond the first few, every enrivonment feels the same in Silksong. The devs made the mistake of stuffing everything to the brim with platforming and enemies, making it a chore to explore areas more than fun. Having to balance the platforming for different movesets also left them all being very similar, just with different skins. I'm still having fun, and I can't quite knock the game at the asking price, but it sure is a step down from the first game.