Mamoulian War

Looks like the retraction was preliminary here as well. Today UA hit Kursk HQ with allegedly DPRK officers on board with 12 SCALPS/Storm Shadows over the course of less than 60 seconds. Must have been very high value target, if they decide to spend more than 30 millions on a single strike, while still having shortage of these weapons…

The Kursk only restrictions were inaccurate reporting, as the first ATACMS hit Bryansk Oblast edit: now I have noticed, that you already reported the info about Bryansk

Today in Kyiv 24 TV has been broadcasted, that Biden has told Trump during their latest meeting, that he will approve ATACMS strike deep in Russia. Trump has not protested against this idea.

I am inclined here to agree with Zoraptor again. The statement, that “We do not review bad games” does not hold water IMHO. As I can say, that I have played few games, which have been absolutely terrible/boring snorefest, which has got the rating of 7/10 or even above. They do review bad games, but they are afraid to give it proper evaluation. Newest Dragon Age is prime example of that IGN and Gamespot gave it 9/10 and Eurogamer even 10/10 FFS… If this does not show the current state of quality of game reviews, than I do not know what

For me watching the game awards is completely useless. Precisely because you almost never get review under 7/10. Which made the game reviews absolutely useless and irrelevant in my eyes. Because it is sometimes more entertaining to watch a 5/10 movie than play a 8/10 game. Unless they fix this widespread issue, they will lack the credibility they are craving for so much as mentioned by Zoraptor.

Half-Life 2 free to keep on Steam, for few more hours/days. If there is still anyone beside me, who never owned it

Another giveaway, this time specifically tailored for Volourn! https://www.gog.com/en/news/16th_anniversary_special_claim_the_giveaway_of_diggles_the_myth_of_fenris

I really love this board. Almost every day, I learn something new. Today, I have learned, that Bethesda has employees, who test their games for bugs. Who would have thought, that this is reality in this Universe

Indeed

Ukraine has eliminated in Crimea war criminal, who has ordered a cruise missile attack on Vinnytsia city center, killing 29 civilians (https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/07/14/7358046/). He was also responsible for periodical attacks on Ukrainian cities by cruise missiles launched from Black Sea. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/11/13/7484248/

So, my wife ended up at work again, so I have booted the Dark Souls 2 DLC again, hoping, that the Iron Passage will suck less in NG+. Nope it does not. This level is designed, so it sucks all the joy out of you before the fog gate, and then you bored and annoyed to the max, will get smacked over the head with Smelter Demons magic Ultra Great Sword, even if you do not wipe while traversing the passage... At least the Demon is gone now...

Uff, I just spent 34 attempts on Fume Knight in DS2 NG+ (about two and half hours) He went down, but it was a pain. So far, definitely the hardest boss of Souls Franchise, which I played so far. Skill based encounter, which punishes players for the smallest of mistakes, and my oh my, I have made a lot of them when getting him to phase two. But his moves could be learned and predicted even by a slowpoke old fart like me, soooo GJ Fromsoft. I am completely exhausted now Going to sleep

There was never a possibility of UA joining NATO in the first place. This is just a RU propaganda scapegoat to excuse their landgrab. The common populace was so much against it (in 2013 it was less than 20%), that the UA parliament would probably never approve it, even if they talked about this option. People wanted to be neutral. Even after Crimea was annexed the support for NATO did not jump above 50%. Only after the full scale war, the NATO "popularity" has risen to 80% and risen since then to 90.

It's so lovely to have always online for single player games, isn't it?

I play like 99% of time male characters, and I prefer lean and slim character model over the ultra-buffed stereotype, which we get like 99% of time from western devs. I always pick gear and cosmetics, which are to me aesthetically most pleasing, and do not break the immersion. JRPG fem-boys looks are better choice for male characters than the Mountain type characters (although it would be vice versa IRL ), and for female characters, I do not have an issue with any amount of skin shown, but I always prefer elegant dress over bikini swimsuit. For male characters, I like the most "business suits" even if it does not 100% fit the world :P. Unfortunatelly with the exception of Like a Dragon games, there is a very limited number of games, which offer this option of fashion to play with

Can you give some info about why the first game was not as much enjoyable as you have thought? It was on my radar for a long time, but for now, I have skipped it due to my extremely big backlog

Have you seen latest releases of Mortal Kombat by the chance? Because this is a most obvious example of "game for modern audiences" where what you describe is in complete reversal Jacked up males in maximum revealing outfits, and extremely unattractive (words of my wife) female characters covered from head to toe . So it seems, the current western developers are unable to create content, which you just described. They are capable of creating only extremes on whichever side they think the "morale pendulum" just swung

And it looks like UA will not need the western long range weapons anymore in close future. They just hit missile ships in Caspian Sea (1500km away) which were launching missiles against UA cities. This also made at least one airport in similar range from UA, to stop operations. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/11/6/7483198/

Looks like Elerond’s gloom and doom has not fully fulfilled. Pro-European Maia Sandu has won presidentship again. Looking at it after yesterday, we live in a very strange world when ex-soviet satellites with strong pro Russian sentiment among population, are better at fight against the Russian influence operations than the USA and Germany

According to newest study led by female researchers about preferences for character visuals, the perception within female population dramatically differs, when talking about visuals of characters and actually have the option to choose which one to use to play. “Women surprisingly expressed dislike, but also preferred sexualized characters.” https://nichegamer.com/research-shows-women-prefer-to-play-sexy-characters/

Not sure if @Melusina is still around, but in a month, Fairy Tail 2 will be released.

Now, when I am getting to the hardest part of the DS2 DLCs, I needed a little bit more relax in-between bosses, so in addition to MK11, I have went back after few years into the post game of Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition. So far, I got new swimsuits for the whole team and defeated first boss in the first post-game dungeon Labyrinth of Memories.

I have done it. I Went for the Sunken City NG + without help of summons Once again, the area design is gorgeous! Now, that I knew the areas, I was able to move through the city with pnly three deaths. Two of them was my clumsiness again , the third one was Jester Thomas. As always, the first boss in line was Elana. Well, what can I say… Now, that I fought her solo, I feel a little bit dissapointed. Her design to me feels now pretty cheap. She’s not much of a threat alone, pretty similar to Vendrick fight, all you need to do is follow her patterns, and not be greedy with hits. But then she starts summoning. The skeletons are more or less manageable, even by a clumsy old man like myself, but Velstadt… It’s just cheap way to punish player, if he has a bad RNG luck… sighs… Especially, if she summons him back to back, and starts to throw double fire explosions… I am just to clumsy, to defeat her if she summons him… Thankfully after 45 minites or so of attempts, I had luck few with double or triple skeletons in row, so I was to train the dodging and DPS enough to finally defeat her. IIRC, only one Velstadt attempt has ended with her under 50%… On the other hand, Sinh, is what I would call a properly designed skill check. On one hand I ****ing hate him, on the other hand, I ****ing love him Same as with Kalameet in DS1 It took me just a short time, to learn all of his attack patterns, but it took me a ****loads of time to “master” avoiding them. But I had a lot of fun, trying to overcome him. And yes, a lot of “mental breakdowns” as well, when I was to slow to dodge his fire showers In the final attempt, I was even able to cut off his tail I didn’t even knew, that this mechanic is still in DS2, but no reward for doing that at all I think it took me more than an hour, maybe hour and half to defeat him, with many many many “This will be my final attempt for today”. But whenever I said that, I had good attempt, so I went for another. And another. And another But now I am not really looking forward to finish the Sunken City. I already know, that for my skill level and reflexes, the Gank Squad will be atrocious experience… sighs…

Sooo I have not reported about me having fun in DS2 for a while, but I am still at the NG+ cycle. I just spent to much time grinding for covenant stuff and missing items, that it would not be much interesting for me to write about The reason is, that I have a feeling, that they drastically lowered the droprates for covenant items, because I spent much more time trying to get them. The most hardcore stuff are the Dragon Scales, which I Got just a single piece in last 2 maybe 2 and half hours of farming for Black Dragon and Drakekeeper weapons. Anyway I was able to clear all available content in base game, before the gate to the final boss, with the exception of twin Pursuers, which are still alive and happy from all the spanking, which they generously gifted to my ass, while I was trying to fight them. For now, I am just to bad to get them down with melee. Only one attempt was close to defeating one of them, but then, I have just rolled in the wall, which was closer, than expected, and got double pounded with overhead smites. As always, I had much more trouble with trash mobs, than actual bossfights, and from boss figths, it was again Vemdrick, where I needed most retries. The monotony of the covenant and item grind helped with me getting out of concentration and then ass kicked a lot as well. Actually the still missing content are also two covenants. Dragon Remnants and Rat King. Both due to the atrocious drop rate of covenant items. And I am not very eager to farm for them. We’ll see how this will play out. Now I have to decide, If I should go for Nashandra or for the DLCs first. So far, all of the NG+ fights have been done without NPC summons.

I do not want to turn this into political debate, but since 2022, there is really not much nice, that Ukrainian can say about Amnesty International, due to some of their reports about the war, which were really “sloppy” there has been a lot of debate about these reports in Way Off-Topic threads during that time as well.