LadyCrimson

Stray - think I'm really close to the end, just a minor bit or two left probably. There's a long stealth type section (nothing serious but...) which might be stressful for those who just wanted a "cat simulator" since such is more than just zig zag running from zurks. At any rate, it's probably the most "gamey" gameplay section of the game, which some might like a bit more. The save system still annoys me, because while I'm playing I'm constantly pausing to see if I triggered a new save point, in order to decide if I want to stop or not, which is disruptive. I did test it, where I found a couple Memories and quit without a new checkpoint save happening - when I reloaded it set me back at the last checkpoint location/moment and I had to locate/click on them again. >.> Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and say I'd give this game a 7/10, but in terms of cats, including the great animation of stuff even down to the ear twitches, a 10/10. I'd have no desire to replay it per se but loading up a mellow chapter just to cat-sim for a few might be something I'd do, since I have no real cat anymore. lol. "Cat roaming around in Bladerunner" ... yeah, sorta felt like that at times.

Sorry, one more...I got tired of being orange. Plus, a hat. Because adorable.

I think the first time I saw David Warner was in The Omen, where he made a memorable impression on my child mind. Then maybe Tron, some Star Trek stuff, smaller chr. roles here and there. A face/voice I always immediately recognized/new who it was, but I really haven't seen all that much of his work.

After being a little too lax for a few months, I was doing really well with my diet/eating habits again for over a month now. Even lost the few pounds I'd gained back. Then hubby's away and I went (in person) to the store to grab yogurt and salad dressing (not worth delivery service). And bought a bag of pepperoni sticks and 2 Lindt. dark choc.-orange candy bars. And over a span of 4 hours, I ate them. I am all urgh and bloated feeling, now.

They missed the perfect opportunity to make those cat-nap spots a "save progress" feature. >.> So you could at least run back to one of those where available to save your game if you want to exit before going to/triggering next save point. I reached the next section, next town, then next town. The latter of which is larger then the slums, but outside of oodles more vista-overlook climbing spots, feels more devoid of points of interest. I saw someone describe the exploration in the game as virtual tourism ... which I think is pretty apt, at least for some sections. I do like the sense of confusion I get while trying to keep track of large areas/alleys while at a low ground perspective of an animal. Btw, for anyone interested, if you are not interested in total achievements/collectables or wasting hours with "virtual tourism", the main path is definitely feeling short time-wise. There's even an achievement for doing the story under 2 hours - you'd need foreknowledge for that ofc, but I could see it being possible. I think 5-8 hrs. first-run would be average. Of course, I'll probably clock 15-18 hrs. >.>

*Tries not to spam images of Stray .... fails* ==================== Mommeeeee! WTF? ... hmm. A.I. - A.Eye. Ahhh, horror joke. Maybe. That's better.

1:45 - seems pretty similar to Aliens style and stuff. To be fair, I don't think it's that her acting is actually bad, maybe it's more that ... well ... some people have a facial expressiveness and/or tonal style that we emotionally connect with on camera (and make us not-uncomfortable for some reason) almost no matter what, while others simply do not. I am quite sure that if you caught a hidden/candid video of me shouting/crying in anger at something, and then tried to post it saying I was actually acting, ppl would say I was a terrible actress, if you get what I mean. I'm probably over analyzing here but eh, that's what I do sometimes. Gorilla's in the Mist is a decent movie, btw. Not a favorite of mine (I was a little bored here and there) but not bad.

I love Ms. Weaver, but imo she is not the best dramatic actress (especially if it's loudly dramatic) . She is always better with more understated or quieter moments - or comedy, sometimes. I feel the same way about Linda Hamilton. When she had those "emotional" moments in T2 re: the cpu inventor, I cringed - only thing I didn't like about that movie really. Alien is a great suspense/horror film. Aliens is great action/popcorn film (except for the child actress screaming constantly) if one likes such. The extended edition of Aliens doesn't add much unless you're into the mom/daughter dynamic I guess. There are no other "Alien" movies.

Not that I particularly care about Ivana per se, but ... stairs suck.

Is there a Xan romance mod? Huh? Huh? Huh? ... asking for a friend.

Woke up early this morning and hubby was already gone. Alone in the house for two days. Whatever shall I do. ...think I will start with ... every auditory thing he dislikes, at volume 10.

I saw the trailer for Netflix's The Sandman, which was visually interesting. I'm not sure I care about the show but it did make me curious about the comic. Edit: oh wait that should've gone into the TV thread. Sorry. Heh. >.>

Reminds me of me jumping onto grocery store shelves.

Stray - Two things I really like about this casual/chill game: ---sound design. From water/environment noises to enemies to yes, the cat's padded cadence footsteps and sporadic meowing when it lands, as well as the overall "silence" or bits of music. To the point when there are verbal language noises I feel like it disturbs it all. Thankfully there is little of that you must listen to. ---using visuals to set an emotional mood. Game made me feel a bit of sad early on, pensive and curious, and I have a feeling it's not going to be especially happy in the end. Not saying it's depressing, but it's not sunshine and rainbows either. Two things I don't like in this game: ---even using a controller, avoiding the zurks in those segments is annoying as all get out. Controlling the cat's movement at run/trying not to die-screen speed is very stiff/limited feeling, with some sense of too much input and game action delay (like, runsweverrunrun wait for an "x" to appear, try to jump) and It takes me several tries every time - (edit: if you mess up/don't figure something out, it's death-screen, not forgiving at all) the 2nd time you encounter them is a rather long extended sequence. Supposedly you get some auto-weapon thing to deal with them later and I hope that'll make it better. I think the game could have not used/had a direct enemy threat element at all and been just as good and/or eerie a game. ---there are cute cat things to do, but they mean nothing in terms of gameplay. As a cat person, I still enjoy them, but it would've been nice if such things were more incorporated into actual gameplay vs. just decorative. Like, you can drink out of water puddles, but there is (so far) no reason to. Maybe there should've been at least a minor thirst/hunger survival aspect.

The game is artistically very nice, imo. The environment is very atmospheric/dystopian. ...with occasional almost horror atmosphere. Also, more "zurks", because while they're not cute, I do find them sorta funny. Even moreso when animated and making their weird squeaking noises.

Technically/ultimately, just to survive, probably not. Practically/health-wise, it could shorten lifespans by being more prone to certain conditions/diseases that would weaken us over many years. And I'm sure human tech could create artificial lights that would minimize such. Also, underground cities to avoid a worldwide 120F+ environment doesn't mean we couldn't go "outside" occasionally. Or have "sunrooms" as upper-level parks, for example. You don't need very much sun exposure at all - we're not plants.

If that D&D film is at least 30% better than that one that starred Jeremy Irons, it'll probably be counted as a win. Although that trailer does nothing for me. Something about it looks cheap or cramped for some reason, not sure why, feels more like TV sets, and while the cast is maybe ok and it has that Guardians humor vibe, dunno. Looks very generic. Also, is there something about D&D that make rogues/thieves desirable as the core hero bunch? Didn't the J. Irons movie feature two theives too? Trap disarming maybe? Gotta have those I guess.

Occasionally I read articles re: economic and other world issues re: human quality of life/anger etc and feel like we're in the beginning of our own "fall of (random name choice) Empire", so to speak. Then I go back to some cute game like Stray or mindlessly loot hunt in some action game, and ignore it all again. Also, I heard it was really hot in Great Britain recently (still?). World weather heat maps recently make most of the world look like it's on fire. Time to start working on those underground cities?

Have bucket, will travel. Paper bag on head, because of course you can cat. Took me a while to notice that (a tiny robot) B-12's eyes were visible from the backpack on the cat. Which is cute. These things are not cute. They're like a cross between alien ticks and those head crab things in Halo.

Yeah, it's not a traditional platformer. I could tell that from the videos, because I dislike most of those almost instantly on sight. I'd call it more of a story driven visual walking and ... not puzzles, but look for items/find the solutions to progress story type of thing. Example, need a # code to open a door, have to find the code somewhere in the area. Need to get up somewhere, have to do something with something to be able to do so. It's not difficult but occasionally I was hunting a bit before I noticed. Since everyone plays at a different speed, not sure how far you are in an hour. Game says I've done 2.5 hrs. and I probably spent a lot of that in the Slums area, leaping around trying to find all the items and figure out what I was supposed to do. I quite enjoy it. It's really simple and yeah you just follow "x" prompts (there are many "x" marks that lead nowhere, too) but I like the hunt for the music sheets for example, and I'm curious about the history/story. Edit: I like B-12, too. So far, outside of "cat, well animated, cute stuff" and the moody/eerie visuals and atmosphere, I'd consider it a good/fun but not great casual game. I don't think I'd play it more than once, unless there are different endings or something. The only thing I haven't liked is the save system. It seems to save at checkpoints (single slot), and while I was going thru the slums, I thought about exiting a few times but the game would say "last checkpoint 12 minutes ago" and I didn't want to lose progress so I kept wandering and doing stuff, trying to find a point where the game would save again. I'm not clear yet if it saves on exit regardless and I didn't want to risk it. So that was kind of annoying. >.>

Just wanted to postscript, that through the power of the internet (and my trying it with another chr, myself) I've learned that even on repeated playthru's you cannot skip the credits of Tiny Tina Wonderlands - but you can hold the down arrow key to make them scroll much faster. Or on a controller it's pushing one of the toggle angles (this supposedly works the first time too, wish we'd known that, hah). On my PC it took about 3-4 minutes that way vs. 30 minutes. I'd guess hubby's PC would take a bit longer. So tape the key down and make a sandwich I guess. Edit: not the "typical" way of rushing credits, it's no wonder many players missed it/didn't realize, after ESC, spacebar, etc. didn't work.

BEST. GAME. EVAH.

"They can't see me, right? Yeah, no one saw me..." https://youtube.com/shorts/AzESo8KzCgQ (I guess YT's "shorts" don't always embed very well...link it is)

Other stuff: Other house, neighbor had avocado tree (altho it's currently dying, ::sadface::). This house, neighbor has grapes that entwine among the other bushes/trees. They're small, like raisin-size, but good/sweet. What you do when your knees are "bad" and the backstep is too deep/high. The floor threshold to first step was about 8 inches high making for a jolting forward-landing and I was side-crabbing it, which was straining one hip...now it's 3 inches and the other two steps are shallower/ok. I'm such a joint-gimp now. >.> The home-to-garage door stairs needs a plank/ramp over the stairs, too. Pfft. "Awesome, a lot of these are labeled with nice labels!" "...never mind, many of them are wrong, apparently." Why is this almost always true.