Tale

I guess I'm done with Control. I've got one optional boss fight left and a couple of little other things. But it crashed while solving the luck puzzle and I decided it's not worth starting back up just for that. It's a good game, I'm just tired of running around.

I like to abuse the phrase "I low key love/hate _____." There's nothing low key about this, I love Control. The loot system is a tedious addition, the dialogues are longer than they need to be with time wasted on internal dialogue. But the gunplay is simply fantastic. And I appreciate the hell out of what they're trying to do with the setting and story.

I'm telling you the truth or my name isn't Brad Pitt.

I got Planetary Annihilation: Titans in the Humble sale. And it's fun. I've only played a little of it including the tutorial. Maybe I'll talk about that more later. The Beginner's Guide is another game I got. I ran through it in an hour and a half. If you're at all interested in narrative games and have no objections to "walking simulators" this is a must buy. It's basically a great short story in game form, focusing on a guy whose friend used to make games that were never meant to be played. A little bit more of Cat Lady. For a no-risk Horror Adventure game, I still have trouble playing it for long stretches. It still manages to be tense. And, lastly, ESO is having a free weekend. I played it a bit and I have to say I don't care for it at all. The typical MMO nonsense of way too many enemies to wade through and constantly respawning while you spam the same single slow attack has me put off on this after only a single quest post-tutorial.

I finished Telling Lies. Man, I kind of want to talk about this. Just who was David? I see two readings of the character that can be justified, neither of them particularly good. I stopped Dead Cells. 2 BSC and can't seem to make it to Concierge. And the only way to get stronger is to beat Concierge. More effort than its worth since there's no real new content until 5 BSC ending.

My brutality build run in Dead Cells is going a little too well. I beat the Time Keeper only using one health potion. I expect I'll have my second Boss Stem Cell by the end of the night. And then I can accept I've learned enough to try the the Giant again.

I'm still kind of sad that Megaton Edition of DN3D isn't available. I kind of want to play that first, then Ion Fury.

Decided I wanted to finally try that Outer Wilds game I hear so much about. Only to find out my e-mail was harvested as part of Epic Games bot spam. When I tried to create an EpicGames account, it told me I already have one. I recover it and the password recovery is in Italian. Anyway, I've submitted a request to delete that account so I can make one of my own. As for what I'm actually playing, Dead Cells. Pretty fun. I've beat it on 0BSC twice. Maybe time to move up a difficulty.

And did a successful Everspace run again. I complete it for the first time and suddenly get two more in a row right after. Maybe this is because I switched to third person camera. Or because I'm abusing Time Extenders. Or both. The third possibility is it's just not that hard on Normal and I only had bad luck for why I didn't get it before. Like my very first run got all the way to sector four, found an Ancient temple, fought the guardian, BEAT it, and died because I didn't expect it to turn into a black hole. And a run not that shortly after got all the way to sector 5 or 6, encountered a system with two jump suppressors, one a corvette, the other a frigate, and a close by sun causing everything to overheat. . I've never seen that close by sun weather again. This run I didn't even see a Frigate. Or Ancient Temple. That's what I was really aiming for. I only have two glyphs

I finished my first run of EVERSPACE yesterday. Felt like I only got there with a lucky early drop of a device that lets me take control of enemy ships. I even had Corvettes on my side. Today, I did my second run. And I beat it again immediately. Thanks to a time extender, really. Tip if you ever play it, don't even bother fighting Mk 2 Corvettes. You'll run out of energy trying. It looks like I have 3 more runs to go to get the final ending. And some Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure. Not much to say here. Feels like a Lucasarts game.

It's very good. It's very little like Freelancer. It's a roguelite. You spawn in, traverse sector to sector, and try to make it to the end. You collect resources to upgrade your weapons or build new ones. With the expansion you also have quests with NPCs. You die and start over, spending your leftover money on upgrades that carry into the next life.

FTL and Everspace. This is teaching me a lot about what I look for in Rogue likes and Rogue lites. With FTL, I played all the way to the final and died. Nothing I feel I could have done. I start over try out the new ship, it's garbage, die, and start again. After going through a bunch I figured out little. And eventually gave up feeling like I was going nowhere. Everspace, I've not gotten even near the end. One time I died right after spawning. But each time I die, I get to buy perks. More money, more resources, more equipment slots. And so with Everspace, I always feel like I'm progressing. I want to keep playing because I have something to look forward to with each life.

I ended up buying Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure yesterday. Surprising production values with fully animated sequences and detailed layered backgrounds. Lots of promise for having barely started.

Some Spacechem, some The Cat Lady. I played through Mechanicus and it was pretty great. Only thing I hate about it is how the awakening timer rushed me into missing out on lots of stuff. I'm not a fan of missables.

The Boys is pretty good. Jerk superheroes.

Nope. I reject it.

House of X #1 For those not into comic books, this is the start of the new X-Men series by legendary comic writer Jonathan Hickman. He's famous particularly for two previous series he did with Fantastic Four and Avengers. In both there'd be two separate series telling one combined story. Fantastic Four / FF (Future Foundation) then Avengers / New Avengers. The Avengers run lead to the quite popular Secret Wars story of 2015. Here we've got House of X and Powers of X. Only this first issue has come out today. And man is it a doozy. The X-Men are now living in a pocket dimension inside Krakoa, declaring a new mutant nation with Magneto as the ambassador. Offering revolutionary medicines to the world in exchange for recognition. But everything about it is fishy as ****. Dead characters have popped up and joined this new nation without fanfare. Everyone is acting suspicious. There's talk about omega mutants and reclassification of them. The situation is so worrisome that organizations like STRIKE, SWORD, AIM, and even a small contingent of freaking HYDRA are working together to build what I can only presume is an interstellar ark out of a planet killing superweapon and a Sentinel.

I bought Barotrauma on the space sale because I've eyed it a bit. The only thing holding me back was it's mostly multiplayer. I don't play multiplayer. I nearly refunded it right after buying it. Now I have 20 hours in it already. So that ship has kind of sailed. For anyone interested, it's Space Station 13-lite on a submarine under the sea on Europa. I spend most of my time ingame trying to chase off griefers or get to the husk eggs before they infect the ship.

Finished up Heat Signature and moved to another space game. But I found Space Pirates and Zombies to be too repetitive. So I went back to X3 Reunion. Ahh, Reunion. I think I last played it two computers ago. Heck, I think that was my college computer. I remember letting it run all night with automated trade routes to make money for a capital ship. Well, I don't need a capital ship this time since I don't plan on playing it that long. But at the same time I'm realizing how painfully pitiful the default start is on this game. The lowest class of combat ship and the only way to make money is by doing very small trade runs. Can't even shoot pirates because 1) killing pirates doesn't give money 2) any pirate group with a next tier combat ship will chase you through the entire sector and murder you. And there's not much of a way to find out where level appropriate pirates are. I recall now that I did those pitiful trade runs for hours on end to earn my first hauler. And then I screwed up and had to do them all over again for some reason. This is where I sigh heavily.

I played Warlock. People would beg me to find other people to then summon them to various areas. Lazy.

Heat Signature this time. I'm pretty sure I've got the hang of it now. It used to be that if guys had shields I just wouldn't do a mission. Now I've got my pick of crash traps, subverters, crashbeams. And I actually like the crash traps the most maybe. Because they constantly recharge. And if you place them on the teleporter reinforcements become a joke. My guys aren't dying anymore. But I also haven't attempted my first stronghold. Everyone's got a freaking shield on that one. Deraldin, if you're reading this, my first guy's personal mission was to save one of your guys. He died trying.

Rebel Galaxy I just bought the Sorcerer Dreadnaught. Only slightly more expensive than the cheapest dread and only 4 mil shy of the most expensive dread. And it's a beauty, ruins everything in sight. The game is basically done at this point.

I love choices. I hate filler. I'm turned off by even sidequests. "Please go kill the bandits for 14 copper and a piece of lint. They've been sitting in a cave 15 minutes ride south not bothering a single person who was worth having a name. But it says bandit over their head so they really just need to be gone." No. But I HATE grinds. "Here's a stick for a weapon and some roughly spun wool that we think passes for armor. To actually avenge the death of your wife, you'll need the DEMON HEART ENCRUSTED DIAMOND SWORD of +2000 agility and a suit of THUNDERBOLT IRON PLATEMAIL with enough defense stat for a starship hull. But to even get that you'll need the PICKAXE OF WOE that has a 20% droprate from the demon lord AB'ZZTHFR and he only spawns once a day. Then you'll need to mine 3 cubic miles of METEORIC IRON and kill roughly 50 demons for two hearts. Don't worry about mining for diamonds, just buy them. To get the gold you have to murder and rob the entire population of the nation 3 times over. Now get started." Quit->Uninstall

I don't let my wishlist get over 30. If I see it at 31, something has to go. I could probably trim it down to 10 realistically. That said, most of the stuff I bought this summer sale is stuff I deleted off my wishlist a year ago. And one item that was on my wishlist at the time.

Hit the second system of Rebel Galaxy and finally opened the sector map. Ahh, so it's going to be one of those games. Only a handful of systems to play in and a very linear progression. Like I progressed out of the first system thinking I was hot **** and the system map tells me that my new system is HIGH and every other system is EXTREME. I like the game, but I fear I'm just going to doing a slogging grind to be strong enough to go to the next system. Over and over and over again.