Tale

11.22.63 8 episodes in and I've decided I just don't care enough to finish it. Happy! 1 episode in and I hope it continues to be this entertaining.

One of my acquisitions over the steam sale was Cross Code. An indie action RPG with a 16-bit style and overwhelmingly positive reviews. And it's kind of a drag. Go through the first area doing a bunch of mindless quests. Get more quests for going through it a second time. Then move on to the next area, grabbing mindless quests. All the while the actual story is on hold until who knows when. People really put too much value into how much a game takes to beat, in my opinion. Not enough questions about if that time was used well.

I may have complained that I had nothing to buy and then bought a bunch of stuff.

Into the Spiderverse I'm mad about two things. 1) That I missed Miles Morales original origin in the comics. This was powerful and I'm amazed they were able to pack so much into this film. 2) That I left after the midcredits, came home, and found out there was a true end credits scene.

I played Tacoma over the weekend. It's from Fullbright, the people who made Gone Home, and I like it a lot more. Mostly because I got completely lost in Gone Home. Tacoma is a very guided experience and tells its story pretty much outright, though it has lots of details you can find that flesh it out. And it tells the story well, with reveals I thought were very clever. Oh, and I played The Hex sometime in the past week. It's from the guy who did Pony Island and it's similarly bizarre and meta. If you like metafictional games, or games within games, you'll probably love this one.

Bandersnatch on Netflix, a choose your own adventure Black Mirror movie. I think it was pretty fantastic at points.

So West of Loathing is pretty interesting. Digging around in spittoons and whipping people with snakes.

Shadow Warrior It was fun enough, kept me engaged a level at a time, but the story really grabbed me towards the end. Enough that I'm compelled to jump right in part 2. Edit: And a couple hours in and I feel like I've stumbled into a Borderlands copycat with even more junk in it. I was so excited for a moment there.

I binged Dirk Gently and loved it. Now on to Legion. It's a good show, but I can't help but be disappointed that he's not crazy enough.

Me: Ooh, that JRPG looks interesting! Also me: Don't you have like 5 of those you haven't played yet that are better? Me: I could use a new horror game! Also me: But I own everything on the top sellers and haven't played half of them. Me: Ooh, I could get the 7th game in this franchise. I like it Also me: You own 1-6, but you're still only on 2. Do you really need to buy it now?

So, final fight of Divinity Original Sin 2. And of course it's got to be frustrating. I actually creamed the first part of it, easy peasy. But there just has to be a second part! With stronger enemies. And the only bad guy that matters can void glide every single round. While all my abilities are on cooldown from killing the first fight. So the only way I can fathom beating it is starting the fight over from scratch and planning knowing exactly how the fight goes. Trial and error.

Anyone who wrote for Tyranny is a winner in my book. Have I mentioned my book is a collection of crude jokes?

It's why I didn't like Red Dead Redemption 1. Marston was a jerk to some people for no reason. There really wasn't any redemption going on.

Still Divinity Original Sin 2. Having glass canon on my main character, practically every boss fight starts with the boss dominating or shackles of pain. And if they dominate, it's when my MC is before my guy who can dispel it. It's getting a bit annoying. Last fight I was juggling revives. And found out Last Rites can crit. That wasn't cool.

Finally caught up on Expanse and finished season 3. Season 4 when?

If you haven't watched SyFy's Adaptation of George R. R. Martin's Nightflyers, good for you. It was a waste of an hour a day for two weeks. I imagine they did it so quickly because they knew nobody would watch the entire thing if they waited a week between episodes. I'll be a little more generous and say I actually did like it, but I can't fathom why. Maybe it's because Jodie-Turner Smith kept wearing form fitting outfits and I need to get out more. It was a show with a ****load of promise and some interesting questions from the very beginning. And the questions it answered... weren't that great. The questions it didn't answer were pretty important like "why would they do that?" The first episode of the series starts with a flash forward to the end of the pentultimate episode, deprived of context. And it kind of sold me. When we finally got the context, I wanted a refund. And it ends on an enormous cliffhanger. This is not getting renewed.

Won't it depend on what the stuff is? And what stuff is available on the way to "full unlock?" If a game requires 100 hours just to unlock horse armor, there's an issue there. Mostly a "whyyyyyy?" And that continues to be true even if the game has satisfactory customization and progression without a grind. When it doesn't, then we've got other issues. The goldilocks zone is "does what is unlocked justify the cost to achieve?" A new color scheme for your armor that costs as much in RMTs as an entire expansion for a different game usually does not fit that bill. And if the playtime required to unlock it for free is comparable to the length to play through an entire other game to the point of boredom, that better be some super sweet loot.

Found more of a groove in Divinity Original Sin 2. It does take me out of the experience to have to hop around the map like a mad bunny trying to find level appropriate quests and areas, but it's still fun. Even when the fights are cheap or cheesy. Like there's one battle I'm maybe even overleveled for, but the enemy has such high initiative and gets so many actions, they can kill a character before I take a turn. They start the fight with 4 pets, summon up 2 more pets, can steal source, and use a powerful AOE in turn 1. And all 7 of them get their turn before one of my characters. I had to abuse the fact that I can move characters not involved in dialogue to move my vulnerable characters out of range so they couldn't reach them without using up all their movement. Because when I tried fighting head-on using the location the dialogue starts in, everyone got frozen and then eaten before they could act. This is interesting, in a way, but it's not what I would want out of "normal difficulty." I also did two fights on bloodmoon isle similarly. Having my lead character attack from max range, then the rest of the party ambush from stealth so they can slip in between character turns while the enemies were wasting all their actions trying to get to my lead. I can't imagine how people play tactician difficulty without using Glass Cannon Fanes with Apotheosis and blood magic.

Coming down off Divinity Original Sin 2. It's a good game, but Act 2 feels like a bunch of busy work. Go visit the masters, do their quests for power, then maybe get back to the real plot. Also don't forget to pick up the dry cleaning and help all the old ladies across the street, else you'll be under leveled. It really sets in when I'm following the only interesting part of the quest. The master with the demon! Ooh, there's Malady, she's interesting. And... I'm 4 levels too low. Geeze, I thought I was running out of quests for this dumb act already. And now I find I've only just started.

Feelies, usually. New Vegas Collector's Edition had a deck of playing cards and some poker chips. I'm a sucker for playing cards. I wonder if we'll be looking at any sort of physical collector's edition here.

I imagine it has something to do with the ending of the game being the most unpredictable in a complex game. In addition to designers often plateauing the difficulty spike early on. To actually get a new spike they have to do something the players aren't prepared for to add in some difficulty. The two I like best, though, are duel finales and something of an endurance challenge that's only just complex enough that you don't get bored going through it.

Decided to stop wasting time with Skyrim and play a "new" RPG. Divinity OS 2! I think this is the first act final boss.

Jumping around a bunch of games, looking for something to catch me. A little Battlefront 2, Read Only Memories 2064, Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas. I'm trying to find something with a good story, but also easy to jump into. Most of these games are just holding pattern while I figure it out.

I know one exists for X3 Reunion. I used the map a lot. I just did a google search for "X2 The Threat Map" and "X3 Reunion Map" and found a few.

May the good blood guide your way. Edit: I keep forgetting what thread I'm in!