LadyCrimson

I keep meaning to try watching that Netflix modern-western with Benedict Cumberbatch in it ... Power of the Dog or something like that ... that's getting general rave reviews for some reason, but then I just keep watching soap opera melodrama kdrama's instead. Also, after Breaking Bad and Fargo series, I have a difficult time watching Jessie Plemons. Because of those roles, his face just instantly annoys me.

This is why I get so annoyed that consoles still want to make 500GB their default storage solution. I wouldn't say I rely on them heavily because I like to avoid major spoilers, but looking for a gameplay video or two is the first thing I do these days. Mostly to skim through the first couple hours of gameplay quickly in order to find out if the basic gameplay mechanics may be something I can't stand - often those dev. descriptions and Steam "user" tags don't really tell me much in that regard, since stuff like "RPG" "Action" "Open World" "Souls-Like" "Survival" and anything else have become so generically used they mean almost nothing.

Cat that has trained an entire apt. complex to do its bidding.

I have continued (for now) to ignore Guardians of the Galaxy in favor of Dysmantle - the latter has sucked me in quite a bit. It's not some uber game but it does hit all the little notes for obsessive but casual gameplay that I like, and is not a major enemy-fest like typical ARPG's. It's a great game for wasting 2-3 hours at a time with. What Dysmantle is not: --a base builder. There is no base building. --linear/concrete directives/goals outside of the loose "story" main quest --a true survival game, ala hunger, thirst, severe conditions you have to survive. Foods just gives you a perm. bonus first time you cook them, after that they heal HP if you cook at a stove vs. the camp/rest sites, so they are like after-combat heals. Heat/cold are a factor but you just craft and put on items to deal with it and that's it. --there are what I would call perks you can choose from that give bonuses, when you level, but there is no "chr. build" skills type stuff --there is no real penalty for dying repeatedly. At first you drop a corpse holding any loot, then later a perk makes even that not occur. What Dysmantle is: --a giant map you get to explore/expose at your leisure, looking for all the little things and doing the minor quests here and there. --the obsessive collector/hoarder dream. --things you can whack (and thus level of materials you can gather) depend on weapon type and weapon dmg (upgrading weapons is paramount) --most combat/enemies are easy, but the occasional "story" or side boss can be tough to do without dying if you're not stellar at dodging/strafing. --there are side quests/discoveries that include small tombs/puzzles or defensive challenges that are simple but often deadly. So far I've mostly avoided them, I'll go back to them later. There are these "timed loot boxes" scattered around that took me ages to figure out how to get them to open.... --a strange mixture of 98% casual/relaxing and 2% "wtf this is impossible, get the f outta here" Edit: I'm not sure it has much replay value, since it's not a randomized world, but the first time through it will take quite some time if you like it, a great time-waster, and well worth the $14 I spent ($20 if not on sale).

Aliens still has the "and then there were none" aspect. Well, almost. Also, watch the extended version if you want a little more chr. flavor to go with that all out action. Although it wasn't my personal fave thing because one: it makes the movie longer and two: I was not at all into that particular subplot of the film. But I can see why some would prefer it. The extended version of T2 was interesting with its little tidbits here and here, but not particularly needed. ....and I'm one of those few who still prefers the first Star Wars over Empire Strikes Back, even as an adult. Oh sure, I was surprised at Vader's reveal and cried at the end because of Han and Leia (I was like 11-12 or something) and Yoda was cool and all .. but I found/find Empire's pacing and its positioning as a "middle movie" a little dull. I felt Luke's tendency to be a whiny, sorta unlikable brat solidified even more, and it became ever more apparent that Mark Hamill is a limited live-action actor (Harrison Ford is much higher caliber and it showed even back then). Edit: actually, I would've been happy if the original Star Wars was all there was.

Dysmantle isn't a big screenshot game but... ...being a "survival" game the chr. has few hitpoints. You'll be dodge-rolling constantly. It's not difficult, but yeah, you can't tank/take a lot of hits at all. At least initially. Thus it's not a "horde" type game. One big or a few lesser enemies at a time (so far). Map space. You find/activate signal towers to expose a section of map. Some gates/easy entry points you have to do tasks before you open/use them. Eventually you can fast-travel between towers if you have materials to craft the thingie. The signal towers are also what keeps enemies from respawning if you upgrade them - so you can decide what sections you want to still respawn, or not. Digging for treasure. Fishing. There's no mechanic involved, just reel out and it auto-fishes. Each fishing spot is limited/runs out of fish. I think all of the materials/gatherables (like plants) are limited - they do not respawn (you can plant/farm a bit for some food items). Except deer for meat/hides. Not sure if enemy respawning keeps deer from respawning as well.

The mechanic was a little weird, especially in mouth-animation, but I kinda liked her in-game. Her role really wasn't that large and she wasn't a playable chr. The Adam Driver-ish lookin' dude with the panther was the best thing about DMC5. And PhotoMode. I guess that one guy's hoverboard like skill was ok. The gameplay itself was a pretty boring combat-fest overall, I never finished it. Edit: I'm not sure it's a game I'd want on some tiny screen, either. Altho for me that would be true of any visual-flashy game. It's like watching LotR on a 6" screen. What's the point.

Guardians of the Galaxy - I often like subtitles on even if they're speaking my language, so I don't "miss" anything or so I can speed them up when allowed. But the subtitles in this game are terribly done. I think this is partly because the dialogue is very movie-like, with rapid fire delivery and even occasionally overlapping voices. So the subtitles come up in multiple stacking conversation lines at once like a teleprompter. Rocket: xxx xxx xxxx xxxx Drax: bbbbb bbb bb b bb bbb bBBB BBBBBBbb bbbbbbbbb Starlord: ccc cccc ccccc And the worst thing is words even get divided into other lines so: Rocket: can you get your handspan ner out of my face ...it's very distracting and clutter-y and I had to turn them off.

Guardians of the Galaxy ... I might get out of the easy/early chapters one day. I've turned the game on twice, spent most of my time in Photo Mode. Did you know Drax keeps a "SARCASM for DUMMIES" in his bunkroom? Me either. Dysmantle ... I spent more time with this one today, because at least early on, it's simple but almost immediately kind of addictive. Definitely feels a bit more akin to Torchlight vs. 7 Days to Die, except for the destroy and collect everything aspect. And there's cooking (healing or effects, not "food survival"), and fishing. So far, no huge mobs, so less ARPG in that sense (so far). You can barrel through or spend a lot of time grinding, your choice. The world map you're gonna have to traverse seems quite huge, although I dunno if it'll feel huge. Combat seems ok, too early to really tell. Mostly, I just like destroying and collecting and upgrading and ... when you start, enemies respawn every time you rest, but there's a quest goal of making it so that won't happen anymore. Seems like a fun little game.

I'm going to Rick Roll through the Universe! I agree, more pockets is always better.

Spent an hour fiddling with Guardians of the Galaxy settings and running the included benchmark. Then I started the prologue and spent 30 minutes using Photomode to gaze around Teen-Lord's bedroom full of geek. I could even play the Rubik's Cube, kinda. The game allows you to individually define quite a lot of difficulty parameters (vs. only "Easy/Normal/Hard presets") - that's always a nice feature, that more games should adapt. So you can have some stuffs on "Very Hard" level (like damages) and other things on "Easy" setting (like how long death-delay or ability timers are). All up to you.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy - I wanna listen to the fun banter Dysmantle (I think it came out of early-access recently) - it was on sale for $13 and sounded like an exploration, combat, crafting/upgrade fest so why not. It's survival but food and sleep are apparently optional, and from gameplay videos I'm guessing it's a little less survival and a little more explore/craft/arpg than most. https://store.steampowered.com/app/846770/DYSMANTLE/

To DLSS or not DLSS ... (chose RT with no DLSS for the moment) Nerd-Lord has a huge bedroom every 80's teen would've died for.

Picked up watching the kdrama Black again. Now on episode 10. It's still somewhat entertaining but for the past three or four episodes it started to suffer from being a little too ... over the top? Ridiculous? ..even for a kdrama. Not in a slapstick way, but too many rapid coincidences and evil happenings one after another + cartoony villians. My eyes start to roll now and then. Also, the female lead becomes more annoying all the time, in that "constantly makes annoying idiotic decisions" way. The theme of death/fate and whether one should always try to change it simply because you emotionally think no one should have to ever ever die or something, not an uncommon theme, has been done far better in other fantasy kdramas. But at least the male lead looks great in a casual black suit.

Geordi is the guy who is always friend-zoned, had a holodeck creation - that he wanted the computer to make "more human acting" - help him troubleshoot instead of utilizing his actual human team, and generally treated by the writers as a sometimes engine-tech genius but an interpersonal relationship dufus (not including Data). It's not surprising that most of his episodes were not very good.

FINALLY. I still have to wait almost a month tho. Please don't suck, please don't suck ... at minimum, at least be watchable.

I was actually thinking about that a couple days ago. Relationship shenanigans are (usually) much more fun than hanging out on some old game forum. Hope it's all going swimmingly for him.

*looks out a window* ... "I think there's a squirrel hanging out by the pool! Where's that bag of walnuts I bought?" ...."Never mind." Also, it's a galley kitchen, but all the cabinets have giant built-in lazy susans and drawers, so you don't have to remove half the stuff in front to get to anything in back. After years of almost no kitchen storage, this one has almost too much. It's very late 80's or something. Reminds me of my mom's kitchen a lot. Miss you, mom.

Took me a bit to place the singer/voice. Also, I still think we should move to Canada. Except ... the snow, the cold. nvm. ....you'd have to make that "If I had ten million dollars", now.

How have I never known of this guy's YT channel before. If you're ever stuck in a car but have your phone, it's a great one to look through and they're all very short. Half of them had me in stitches, hubby kept wanting to know why I was laughing. Minus the lawnmower, this was so me when I used to read a ton. Including the shower. I once walked three+ miles home reading the entire time.

Spent the last couple days at the new house doing various stuff. "This weird plastic jet whirlpool tub in hallway bathroom is too high walled and I can barely step over into it without jumping, it has got to go" "Closet rods are like 7 feet high, I can't reach them at all - gotta knock out/remove all this weird homemade closet organizer crap" "I can't reach this shower head holder (to use it hand-held)." "This microwave over the range-top is too high I can't reach/use, how useless (to me)." Apparently, most people don't do their houses for short people. ...if standing straight and I stretch arms fully above my head, tips of my fingers might reach six foot, two inches. On tippy toes. My good/effective height reach is a lot less than that, especially if you have to lean. Pffft. Tall people.

Guardians of the Galaxy is 35% off (a bit under $40), making it tempting again. The banter/story seems like fun but I get the feeling there's going to be too much space-station/ship environment for me.

Not really news but darnit, I sorta want this game, because city builder/management, with .. beavers! Cute little beavers! But it's only been in EA for a few months. Must...be...more patient and at least give it a few more months first.

^ That is disgusting. I've never understood ambroisa salad's ... I like mandarin oranges (fresh or bottled/canned) and I like fresh pineapple (canned pineapple is gross) and grapes individually, but I don't like them covered in marshmallows, coconut or whatever else people tend to put in those.

Is Amazon still doing that LotR series? I remember when I thought (younger) Ryan Reynolds might make a decent Atton Rand, mostly because of Blade Trinity. He's more famous now, maybe it could still work.