LadyCrimson

A year later and I can still sometimes get excited about upcoming changes to FFXV. Damn you, Square. This is probably my fave game since FO:NV, maybe more. It just suits me. Now if there would just be a good Borderlands 3 made I could die happy. Also, after years of saying "I'm going to get a kitchen apron one day," I finally did. From Amazon of course. And it's also ... of course ...

FFXV's "last" ATR was today and ... I didn't think they were ever going to do it, but they are. I liked the original combat system in the main game well enough, personally, but being able to switch between party members and control their actions (using their sets from the chr. dlc's looks like) while in combat will be a game-changer. If it works as well as it looks, it'll likely make combat so much more fun/interesting. Hopefully. Might even make me replay the game again, or at least parts of it. On the other hand, this is becoming more and more of an action-rpg game than anything else. Which is great for those of us that liked the combat but sucks for those that want a lot more in-depth storytelling. But, but ...that action is so sweet!

The most recent King Kong type movie was on HBO. Kong: Skull Island, I think? First half hour: "Why are they focusing so much on intro-ing these people when half are likely to be dead soon?" 2nd half hour: "See?" When Samuel L Jackson first encounters Kong: (me shouting) "Ahab has found his white whale! bwhahaha" Had some fun action and requisite humor bits (and Tom Hiddleston was lookin' good if I may say so) but eventually even the popcorn-entertainment value wore off what with all the "we don't own the world, *they* do" nonsense. That said, it's the first "Kong" movie where the attempt to make Kong sympathetic kind of worked on me. A tiny bit. It's lonely being one of a kind.

Comrades is so "muddy/brown" toned most of the time that (1080) screenshots (outside of the chr. creator) don't look as good as ones from the main game with its brighter colors/lighting. Curiously, if I record 1080 video via Elgato capture, screens lifted from that often look better. Does Elgato run it through my PC's GPU or something? I have no idea. Anyway...too lazy to Elgato most of the time. Let's see ... what sorta fuzzy FFXV-Comrades pics can I pester the forum with this time...

Went to a jewelry fair. Saw this cool silver bracelet that was maybe 3.5 inches long (not a skinny bangle). Asked how much it was guy weighed it and said $275. Yeah, no. Was fun however. Haven't been to one in a long time and you can definitely find good deals from low to high priced. I think I'll stick to Amazon however, it's easier to browse thru than crowded booths.

Turned on TV, saw movie called Jonah Hex. Thought hmm,Josh Brolin, I'll check it out. 1st scene after animated intro I lol'd. Warped supernatural western seems like my thing. Then I saw Michael Fassbender. Cool! Settled in. 10-15 minutes later I was frowning, 10 more minutes I was net surfing with it still on. Then I turned it off. Sometimes a first impression is way off the mark.

Is this weird/random/interesting, or music? Ah well, I'll put it here.

Level 27 or so in FFXV Comrades DLC now, probably getting close to the end of the new-quests questline/full map exposure. After you beat whatever the final boss-encounter is, what's left is just repeating any individual combat missions you like doing and grinding for special monster drops that allow you to max out the best weapons with highest stats possible etc. Some shops you have to buy items via barter instead of gil/cash, too, with the barter for the best base items for upgrading being some of those rare drops. Those special monster drops are a lot of RNG and being lucky at "breaking" specific appendages. Not sure if I'll farm for all of those, it can be seriously aggravating trying to get those specific damage-breaks for a small chance then producing the rare item vs. the common item. So probably a decent 35-45 hours of time to be had if you do almost "everything" and then stopped - shorter if you just beeline to the end fight. There's a NG+ mode but like in the main FFXV game it's rather lame/useless since it isn't a total do-over, just resets the map-node progression (keep all your gear/items and all your avatars can share/use the same gear so...). Only reason to do it is if you made a certain wrong "pick A B or C" choice, which would mean you'd miss out on special item shops. The combat difficulty overall isn't too tough - again, it's kind of like the main game, where there's a few/several that can be quite tough but most aren't very demanding if you're taking time to upgrade gear. Anyway, I'm still having fun. If they ever add in more areas/missions etc. I'd be there.

Lots of tattoos in this game (face, arms, fully body includes legs). I'm not interested in most but I did like this one. My male avatar, who unintentionally (no, really...at least at first, haha) ended up looking a little like this actor from some K-dramas... He thinks he's so cool that he just dances and makes the others do the work. (every MP game has to have a chr. dance right) (there's a pair of daggers you can equip to make chrs. dance and get an extra stat buff when they cast a heal spell on themselves)

I was more into Shaun Cassidy. Hardy Boys forever! RIP to David, the older brother.

Ditto. No turkey for us, per usual. Too much food for 2 ppl and a cat (not that the cat would mind). I had wonton w/extra pork slices soup, kimchi/rice, and some ice cream for lunch, however.

Checked Netflix this evening which I haven't in a while, and there was all kinds of "recently added" I wanted to watch. Including the S. Korean film Prison, but that's another night. There was this 20 minute long animated short called Golden Time, however, where the picture still for it intrigued me. My style of animation. Directed by Takuya Inaba, 2014 I think (not really clear on that...). I'd never seen it before. "In the 1980s, a recently discarded television set from the 1960s refuses to accept its fate and tries to break out of the junkyard." It was wonderful. No dialogue at all. Sad and sweet.

There are some slight performance reasons for the Pro but it didn't sound like in action it would make a major difference for most users for that alone. But I suppose that depends how picky you are. Slight is a big understatement in terms of performance. I mean, that's not saying it's worth it to get for less than a 4k TV, but you make it sound like a pallid shade of what it actually is. Well, I'm not saying there's zero difference. Like I said, depends how picky you are. I don't own one, obviously, so it's all what I've heard/read from those that have both or review articles. --certain types of loading and processing will be faster, which makes a difference in something like timed-quest/leaderboard things (ppl in FFXV were pretty salty about that re: unfair advantages on leaderboards, even with no SSD, since they didn't have separate Pro/non-Pro ladders), or like you said, heavy action or MP gaming. But isn't something I'd notice with the type of gaming I generally do. Maybe occasionally in super busy combat moments I'd notice that difference. --certain graphics will look better, like maybe lower/middling settings vs. high settings? Lighting effects, some textures, that sort of thing? Fair enough. I tend to just buy what I need at the time and if needs change I buy something new. Not everyone's like that tho. Don't get me wrong, I was tempted to get the Pro last year, just couldn't justify it for me quite yet. :D And yeah, we were looking at the OLED tv's in the store the other day. Some of them look very nice, at least with the demo vids they play in the store. Although I have a feeling Comcast's cableTV broadcasts (that become more and more compressed around here from overselling their bandwidth) wouldn't look quite as spectacular. HaHa.

Since Cat Quest (PS4 version) is the only game I bought this year I guess for me it's ... Cat Quest? Meow. I mean I did play the FF-XV DLC's but I paid for those last year via season pass + they're not full games.

Loved FF-XV? More importantly, did you adore all those lovingly rendered food images? Wish you could cook those yourself? Well now you can, thanks to this game-fan recreating all of them and sharing how they were made. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u6BtakpOV3kLsR16TeedOHBNfl2uUSSg/view If you don't have a .pdf reader in your browser, this article has a bit: https://mothership.sg/2017/11/final-fantasy-xv-hong-kong-fan-recreated-all-100-recipes-from-the-game/ Now that's fandom. Also, I'm hungry.

^ I remember reading the book (and liking it a lot) when I was a kid, but that was maybe 35-40 years ago and I barely remember it now. It'll be interesting to watch it this way ... where I'm familiar with the concept but don't remember enough to have a lot of notions about what a filmed version "should" be.

I've seen: 12 years a Slave - good movie but I barely remember him in it. I know the role he plays but I mean he sorta disappeared from my memory after, vs. other performers. Centurion - I saw this one before I knew who he was. I enjoyed it as a weird action film and I recall I thought he was adequate for the role, but ofc not exactly an Oscar-nom type of role, heh The Counselor - Bored. Steve Jobs - My main thought was "Sure is a lot better than that horrid Ashton Kutcher film." He was decent in the role but I could feel him "trying" to be Jobs and I dunno, it just fell flat for me. Some of this however could be that I'm really not all that into the whole Job's mythology so... Assassins Creed movie - I turned it off after 20 minutes. Anyway, I'm in no way saying he's terrible in other roles. He just kind of becomes invisible/doesn't stand out enough for me to form a big, lastingimpression most of the time, for some reason.

There are some slight performance reasons for the Pro but it didn't sound like in action it would make a major difference for most users for that alone. But I suppose that depends how picky you are.

Me: "Tired of corded headphones, but everything for sale seems to be BluTooth now and my PC isn't." Hubby: "There's USB Bluetooth adapters." Me: "Oh really? Can you show/tell me what to buy?" Hubby: "I have a bunch from work+cheap headphones you can use to test with until you find ones you prefer." Next morning: Still plastic-box-wrapped USB thingie/headphones tossed on the kitchen table. I swear half the time it's like he's a magician pulling freebie doodads out of his hat.

Went to the pet store to buy a ginormous bag o' cat litter, came home with a new sound bar w/blutooth woofer for the TV. Because BestBuy is next door to the pet store. Our 6 year old soundbar had no woofer, the remote was barely working, and it often makes an annoying transformer-hum sound if the volume is too loud so it was time. I also looked at Samsung 8" tablets, the high-res ones look good image wise but $400-$500? I'll stick to the slight crack in the screen Galaxy5 freebie phone hubby tossed me as my home-wi-fi tablet. Sometimes it feels like the older I get, despite having more and more $$, the cheaper I get regarding "tech-toys." Except a desktop PC. I'll still go quite far out for one of those.

I take it those wanting the PS4 Pro have recently gotten 4k TV's or already had one? I considered getting one instead of the Slim (at the time, here, it was another $100 I think?) but since I have no 4k TV-tech it seemed pointless. In another year or three if I have 4k then, I'll get a new console. If I'm still using a console for anything but FF-XV and Cat Quest, anyway. The regular ol' PS4 has worked fine for me overall. I have been very tempted to toss a SSD in it (the Pro doesn't have SSD either, btw), with more storage space too (500GB isn't much when PS4 games are sooooooo space hoggish and the needing a ton of GB free just for some game installers to even work). Loading times that are 15-20 seconds instead of 45 seconds would be, well, a lot less hair-pulling. But eh.

On the topic of actors: I definitely like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Cillian Murphy, altho the latter tends to be in productions that I don't find all that entertaining to watch. I tried Peaky Blinders once a long time ago (it was on Netflix, not sure if it still is) and while it's good quality, just not my thing. I might try it again one day. I couldn't get into Ryan Gosling at all. I don't dislike him but he leaves me cold or just kinda bores me and at this point if he's a main lead I lose a lot of interest in a project. Fassbender is, imo, great in the Alien prequels and I liked him in Xmen but other roles have fallen flat. Not sure if it's the projects or if he just has a rather limited range of what he's good with and that fits him. J.K. Simmons is one of my fave older actors. He's amazing. There's a lot of (what to me is) new generation actors where I've become used to their faces and I like in specific movies, but most of the actors that would be on fave lists for me, at this stage, are Korean, both film and drama.

Not a bug expert and don't know about Fiji itself, but last I knew there were none in the Hawaiian islands - although I think they tried to introduce some once, no idea how that went. Maybe they don't tend to like areas that are year round tropical? Like the island in Korea that has a lot of them and most of the US areas will still have chilly winter temps. I dunno tho.

I'm about 25 hours into Comrades (FF-XV Multiplayer-DLC). If you don't have PS-Plus or just don't want to play with real people, can be played solo with AI team members. While there are goals and missions, this is a team-match up mission style, just sandwiched by a solo "town-base" environment. The first 10 hours is a lackluster impression combined with complete aggravation towards way too many loading screens to get into and out of the actual combat scenarios that you need to do/grind to gain currency to spend on opening up the map-node progression+to farm items and the like. Once you get used to resign yourself to the loading screen-spam and manage to upgrade weapons for higher level/harder combats, it becomes more fun. All rather simplistic/shallow and very grindy, and the advertised "story" aspect is also minimal, but since I liked the simple but engaging combat in FF-XV, having more of it is ok with me. They changed aspects/control of combat just enough to make it newish-to-learn. No potions/pots of any kind, either, for example. The AI players aren't bad/rarely die so completely doable using only them. Not something you're going to want to play hours and hours a day but working at it a bit each day is a nice pace for me. Anyway - if I gave FF-XV main game close to a 9/10, I'd give Comrades something like 6/10 just for more fun combat and the weapon upgrade system as motivation. It's not going to be everyone's bag, but if you can push past the loading screen waits, it's some fun. If they continue to add to it, it could get better, too. Gladio DLC was more like 3.5/10, for me, and Prompto DLC was maybe 5/10. Ignis DLC better be at least a 7/10. Heehee.

See the little imp in the gold pot? Apparently in FF-XV Comrades, it shows up randomly (and rarely) during the hunt missions, where it moves around the playing field among the enemies. A text message pops up at mission start and a few others times, plus a cackling laugh, to let you know. If you manage to see/chase/tag it (not always easy when also trying to stay alive), you get a reward. It's hilarious. First time I had no idea what was going on/what the text prompts meant.... Also, more of my chr. I keep changing her clothes, ditched the tank-look for a fancy t-shirt already.