Tale

If there's one complaint, and there's definitely at least one, I have about Zachary Sergi's Choice of Games titles, it's his stat system. You're basically pushed into making completely nuance-void choices and unchanging characters. Because if you pick something that's not perfectly in line with what the game thinks you've been picking, it practically berates you for that. I still like Versus so far. But I'm getting paranoid that since I had the character treat friends and family openly in the beginning, it's going to start making me fail at everything now that I feel like concealing stuff from people who are clearly up to something.

General love for IE style RPGs. I don't know if I'd call it a diamond in the rough, but maybe a lesser gemstone. It's actually frustrated me at a few points where I call BS on the bosses. But I think the pacing of the game is the only true turnoff.

I've been playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I was really enjoying it until after the troll lair. Now... I'm not really sure what to do? Am I just waiting for the next curse event? Feeling pretty directionless, wandering around just filling in gaps in the roads. Really killing my interest in the game, like it just ground to a halt. By the time the story picks up again I fear I'll forget what I'm supposed to care about. Also doing some Choice of Games stuff from my backlog. A Study in Steampunk was decent enough. On to Versus: The Lost Ones, from the guy who did the rather excellent Heroes Rise series.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets My reactions in the intro: Why is this movie so poorly received, this is looking to be great! My reaction when the two leads start talking: Oh... that's just tragic. This is some of the worst dialogue I've watched.

It's time to try Pathfinder: Kingmaker again. And it's going a lot better than I remembered. Just beat the Stag Lord and didn't have half the amount of rage issues as I did the first time. Though clearing the camp was still way more metagamey than I prefer. It's impossible to help that in this genre. And I'm really aching to give Dead Space trilo another play.

Contradiction, the all video murder mystery. It's neat, but has some flow issues. It just feels super weird to be visiting the same four houses like twice an hour.

I finished Memoria. The Sadja story is good enough that I can forgive it for treating Geron and Nuri as second class framing device.

I finished Chains of Satinav and remembered why it was listed as a favorite. I'm not crying, but I feel like I definitely would have the first time. On to Memoria!

I'm apparently on a roll lately. Metro 2033 and Last Light. Thimbleweed Park. Full Throttle Remastered. Orwell 1 and 2. The Order 1886. A little bit of Homeworld Remastered, in progress. And a Chains of Satinav replay. Homeworld Remastered isn't as fun as I imagined it would be. Interesting plot, just I can't be excited about making ships fight asteroids per my current mission. Chains of Satinav is a game I remember next to nothing about. All I recall is thinking I loved it after the last time I played it. Time to recall why. I'm on Chapter 3 and I'll say that the Geron/Nuri interaction seems good material for answering the question.

Orwell 1 and 2 Orwell 1 is fantastic. It's thought-provoking with great characters, interesting twists, and a real feel of agency. Orwell 2 is okay, but mostly feels like someone pushed them to get a sequel out when they didn't really feel like it. It lost pretty much everything that made the first great.

Her Story First time I tried to play this, I got turned off by the interface. This time I just plowed through it and immediately wishlisted the followup.

Saw it yesterday. Spent 40 dollars on food and drink. That place had good bar burgers and fries, though.

Metro 2033 (the Redux version) This would be the third time I've seriously played it, I'm still not sure if I got to the end the first time. But it's also the first time I really *got* the game. Like understood why people liked it. Those first two playthroughs the "stealth" never worked. So it was just a dumb game of going through corridors shooting dudes like every other corridor shooter I've played. The sections with waves of nosalis are still garbage though. And I'll accept no argument otherwise.

Night in the Woods It sounds like a quirky cute horror game. And it comes across that way at first. But what it kind of feels like its someone wanted to make a horror game and nobody else in the studio cared. It's alternately funny and depressing about the transition into adulthood ill-prepared. And then every couple of hours something ominous happens that we quickly ignore because regular life sucks all on its own. Also there are "nightmares" every night that are about as unsettling as a candlelit dinner with live music.

Avengers: Endgame spoilers are officially out. Footage has leaked featuring clips of many major plot beats. If you care about spoilers, now is the time to do whatever you planned for avoiding them.

It's been a long time since I saw a Star Wars trailer I felt absolutely nothing for. Heck, that title sounds like the movie's targeted at my complaints. But hah. Here we are.

Klaus was good, too. I don't know why I blanked out on him.

7th Guest The atmosphere is a lot cheesier and less authentically spooky than I hoped. But the puzzles are interesting. Kind of stuck on the Bishops puzzle, but I can probably figure it out if I get some caffeine in me.

I watched it entirely for the teleporting kid. He was the only good thing in it, but his part was so good.

I'm watching Gifted. It's not bad? 5 episodes in and I don't really care what happens next, but I also haven't decided to abandon it entirely.

I think the sequels killed my enjoyment of the first one. It's been so long. You guys are going to make me look and see where it's streaming.

You are dead to me! Dead! How was my funeral? It was pretty great until someone brought up that you weren't actually dead. That's when the party stopped and the real crying began.

I finished Resident Evil 7. It was pretty good. Started doing the DLCs, but they're less so. They seem to be well made, but they twist the gameplay into weird action crud. Like the End of Zoe DLC is literally boxing the monsters. Boxing! Who thought fistfights would be a good idea?

My problem is more that I need to consistently outline the scene first. Too often I write a scene just because I think it makes sense to have a scene. But I don't yet have an idea of why it's interesting or important to the story. So I write for a couple pages, but realize I hate what is written because it's pointless. I take a break for a while, go for lunch, maybe a drive, and think about what I actually want to accomplish. Then I come back and start over with a plan. I need to skip the first bit.

Took a personal day yesterday. Called my alma mater to see about going back for a Masters. I might need to do a GPA deficiency thing. But looking closer, I may not have to. Lacking recommenders and being 12 years out of school, I'm thinking it might be a good idea anyway. Got some writing done. Only a couple pages, but I'm learning my process. I need to prep for writing more before I sit down and do it. Watched Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse. It's still great. Watched Logan. It's better than I remember.