Humanoid

Ignore these console peasants, the only controller you need is the Warthog HOTAS.

Can't remember the last time I needed to play online on a console. Might have been Mario Kart 8 when it launched. And I'd probably have done it once or twice ever.

Didn't count Forza as an exclusive because it's playable on PC, but yeah, that cross-platform purchase thing is cool. On the other hand, it removes incentive to buy an Xbone. I can't see a practical way to mount a steering wheel in the living room anyway.

But doesn't it have backwards compatibility with older titles, while the PS4 has not? Don't really remember the details here, but it's one of the things that would make me rather buy an Xbone. For example, just to be able to play Red Dead Redemption in pretty. Sort of. It doesn't have native backwards compatibility, rather Microsoft sift through their back catalogue and manually port selected titles to the Xbone. With "proof of purchase", i.e. the 360 disc or your account, you can download the ported version free. Sony also manually port their back catalogue, but it's tied to a subscription service, owning the game previously gives you nothing.

I totally forgot Steam Machines were a thing, huh. I bought my Switch back in April. I've used it for maybe two hours so far. I don't regret it as such, I'd have bought it anyway once its library got bigger, but it might have been too early in hindsight. As for PS4 vs Xbone, when I last did a comparison I scored it at 1-1 on two relatively minor points. The PS4 has one exclusive that I'd sorta like to try in HZD, and the Xbone (S) does 4K Blu-ray. Yes, I read though the exclusives list for both consoles and found a combined total of one that was potentially appealing. Obviously neither factor would have been too important as I ended up buying neither.

If Overcooked 2 was the only thing announced at E3 I'd still be happy. Can't wait.

Tried Secret World, felt like my character was a complete doormat, quit. I mean, you're a complete doormat in WoW too, but Secret World is meant to be character driven, so it felt like the mute player character with zero agency completely defeated the point of the game.

Starting WoW back in January 2005, I played for the included month, made no friends, and quit at the end of that month (hit level 40 on the last day, the level cap was 60) since I had no reason to continue. The experience being painfully dull when played alone, that's not a modern MMO thing. There's a big "but" attached though. A couple of months later I tried again, got to the level cap, and more importantly, a couple of people went out of their way to befriend me. Through networking, I ended up with a small core of players where I could reliably log in and find someone to group with. This was to everyone's mutual benefit as the pool of players who happened to play at the same time and on the same server was naturally very limited. And for what it's worth, this core eventually evolved into a guild that I'm nominally still involved with today (despite me not having played for over a year now and being on-and-off for the past 5-6 years) This is the part where modern WoW is different - there's no longer any reason to manually form groups, with everything being automated. In addition, the player pool is no longer just the people on your server, but everyone in your region. You have 200+ times the number of people to potentially group with, and those people are selected at random. As a result, the people you group with are people who you will likely never ever see again. To make friends in this kind of environment is not something that happens naturally anymore. What's more, that added anonymity means bad behaviour no longer has any consequences beyond the immediate, the anti-social jerks no longer have the slightest reason to maintain any veneer of pleasantness. TL;DR: MMOs need friends to be any good. Back then you could either start playing with friends, or make friends while playing the game in order to do so. Now, you more or less have to start with friends.

In the "most recent purchase" thread I mentioned buying Rimworld back in April and that I hadn't gotten around to it. Well, one thing led to another and eight hours later.... That said, the Phoebe Chillax storyteller on the second notch is a little quiet, might experiment a bit with the settings to get something that's still easy but more eventful.

I'm just disappointed that the game seemingly has nothing to do with Interstate '76.

Had a total party wipe on the mosaic setpiece fight, as well as on some skellingtons under the temple area, for what it's worth. Probably should be a huge blow to my ego, but it's just annoying really to have to reload after sitting back for a few minutes watching my units fail miserably. I'm level 6 or thereabouts I think. Granted I didn't have the best gear equipped - everyone just had their default gear since the last thing I want to do is inventory management - but checking my bags afterwards the better stuff I had would only be better by 1 armour or 5-10% damage anyway so it wouldn't have been a major factor.

Did you turn off level scaling or set it to only scale upwards? Because enemy placement can be really weird without full scaling. I turned it off and got waylaid by pirates way above my level right out of the tutorial - and right next to the first place you go right after getting the your ship fixed, so it was definitely not the case of being someplace I wasn't supposed to go. Can't remember, will check when I play again tomorrow (it's probably on whatever the default is). This isn't random encounters though, just stuff in Neketaka. There's also the usual annoyance with enemies immune to piercing weapons and stuff like that. I remember that kind of thing really putting me off from even getting out of the starting dungeon in MoTB. Logic be damned, I can't be bothered changing my weapons for different enemies, not when I'm supposedly playing a difficulty mode meant to be trivial.

Everyone's saying how Deadfire is so easy but I'm not far in and already hit the point where just sitting back and watching combat is resulting in my death. Maybe I'm going places I shouldn't be yet, but really I was expecting Story Mode to be easier, like where I can kill anything with one hit of my fists without having to equip any gear. Unfortunately this is not so, and even when I win it just drags on. I think I need a mod that reduces all enemies to 1hp each.

I'm not sure I understand... Prey was demonstrated in 1998, and released in 2006. The sequel was released last year. Yeah, I know that Prey ended up being a 2006 release, but the 2017 one is also called Prey so I ran with it for the purposes of the joke. That said, with my warped perception of time, 2006 feels fairly recent really.

Unreal, Prey, Sin, Half-Life, Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever - the Quake-killers - were all supposed to release at pretty much the same time. And Prey had a release last year, ergo I'm not old.

Had to go back a fair way through my emails. It's Rimworld in early April. I think I bought Breath of the Wild around the same time. I've played them for a combined 1 hour total, give or take. Yeah.

Speakers last much longer than the electronics within. I don't like powered speakers for this reason, you fry the amplifier section and end up having to toss out otherwise perfectly good speakers. Instead, you can buy yourself some regular bookshelf speakers, probably better ones for the same price, and a T-amp (with or without DAC), and the speakers will last until you die. Bookshelf speakers you have the choice of thousands and it would be impractical to make a specific recommendation - I'd visit your local hi-fi shop and have a listen to what they have. Amps are plentiful too. I use a Topping VX1 DAC-AMP with my PC but it lacks a subwoofer out, it runs about $100. The VX2 model might be preferable if you don't need a headphone output (it also gains an optical input in exchange for any sort of analogue input). I use an SMSL Q5 Pro with my bedroom setup and that does has a sub out, as well as remote control, about $140. If you don't need a DAC, the companies above produce standalone amps too. At the very bottom of the range simple T-Amp from Lepai/Lepy can be had for $20 or so and will sound just as good at low-to-medium volumes (but will distort sooner when you crank it up). EDIT: Just looking at Amazon prices, the R-15PM is $450 and the otherwise identical passive model, the R-15M is $181. That's ridiculous. EDIT2: The subwoofer decision will partly drive your speaker selection too so you should bear that in mind when shopping. I don't use a sub so I use the larger (basically standmount size) Monitor Audio Bronze 2 for my PC. But with a sub, I'd be plenty happy with the compact Bronze 1. Best value compact option might be something like the Q Acoustics 2010 (superseded by the 3010 but still available). 2020/3020 is the larger option.

Only just got my boat. Given that I'm playing on Story Mode, this is the first time I actually have to learn any of the game mechanics, hmm. One fun thing is that I haven't even opened my inventory since they very start. I wonder if my default gun and clothes will let me survive to the end of the game.

The thing that's impressed me most is that there's a wading-in-water animation.

Aw man, now literally everyone I know that plays WoW has access to beta except me. Legion is the only beta I got into, and I promptly ignored it. Dunno why I even got an invite, I'd been inactive a good while. Incidentally this month marks a year since I last logged in.

I haven't always had the best experience with Galaxy, but decided to risk it and it worked fine, plenty fast enough to saturate my connection. Going to dive right into it, Story mode baby! P.S. Had no idea that we were going to play the same character until the intro played just now. EDIT: I can't exit stage left, what is this, Mario? EDIT 2: It tells me if I want a custom save I can do it from the main menu, but of course I can't even get to the main menu from here. *sigh* Alt-F4.

So if you want to play classic Nintendo games on your Switch you will now have to pay for an ongoing subscription. Yep, sure Nintendo I'm sure people will do that over using alternate means.

Just one step away from dressing like Sean Connery in Zardoz.

They didn't, turns out the entire genre is just a prank they played on the west.

Fire Emblem is not an RPG really, it's more like, uh, XCOM-lite? But with romance between missions. Some people like to call the genre SRPG but I think that's a nonsensical term.