Bartimaeus

Yeah, it was a very simple plot, but it wasn't pulled off too badly and I liked the more lower-stakes nature of it compared to the first and especially the third game...combined with the greater quantity AND quality character stuff, yeah, it worked well. Dragon Age: Origins, on the other hand, I got halfway through when I suddenly realized I despised pretty much everything about it. I hated all the characters, I did not care at all about the main plot or the world, and the 3D isometric tactical combat made me want to die - just as NWN2 before it did. Only difference was that I at least mildly liked most of the other elements of NWN2, and I actually really quite liked Mask of the Betrayer. I turned the game off and uninstalled it, and never shall I return.

Poor Chakotay - the most boring and lame character possible compounded by writers who clearly did not give a crap about said character. Didn't know they tried to do that, though.

Seriously can't even begin to imagine what B'Elana saw in that moron - guess it was her Klingon side telling her to fall for the closest angsty human version of a Klingon substitute possible.

...Are you saying this villain caused a slave girl to violently explode in a bloody cloud of gore merely as a demonstration? Also, that ending kind of came out of nowhere, or so it seems to me. Although I haven't actually heard him talk or anything, it sure seems like he's basically an overgrown kid at times, . NGE: I'd seen the King of the Hill one before and thought it was great, but the Arthur one is pretty good too.

There's also the Gell-Mann amnesia effect to consider: "You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

Isn't that the thing where, if one were to ever strike Earth, would directly destroy a good amount of life on Earth...and indirectly finish off the rest? Seems like an inappropriate usage of it to use it so willy-nilly...I guess that's the least of that show's crimes, though.

I feel like this is an oxymoron. Any halfway decent active community on that trash bin, outside of older niche interests perhaps, unfortunately seem to always eventually attract the childish simpletons that spam the same awful memes and caveman thoughts ad nauseam. I'm to the point where I can't even use it for sports because of how repetitively obnoxious it's all become...much less actual serious matters.

See, this is stuff I didn't really want to think about, because once you do, you start thinking other stuff like...well, wait, Eriol said he's the reincarnated version of Clow...which means Clow really did pass away. And if Clow really did pass away, why does his reincarnated version have all of his past memories and magical abilities...and so specifically Eriol really is like 13 years old, but doesn't act like it? Why? None of it really makes sense. In the original show, it doesn't feel that important, especially because the show more or less ends right as you discover some of this information, but that's not the case here. And when you're not enjoying something, your mind has a tendency to start over-analyzing the details because it doesn't have much else to focus on, so that's a bit of a double whammy... Okay, so it is essentially some sort of ridiculous plot to make her stronger by Eriol and Xiaolang (except that I guess she was "getting stronger" already without their help...the ridiculous plot by them remains, and also, didn't she literally say she hadn't had to use he powers in a long while in that episode - how do they know she's getting stronger, and why would she be getting stronger if she isn't ever even using her powers?), and I more or less guessed it in literally the first episode. They maybe shouldn't have telegraphed that quite so heavily. Don't think so, not unless it was at the beginning of the first episode. Kero had some sort of short re-cap at the beginning of episode 1, but he only got like halfway through it before saying "screw it" and just started the episode, . To be honest, this...doesn't really feel like it's worth watching - I think I'd rather watch Princess Tutu instead, .

Because nobody played it, as Wormerine said, . Origin-only + bad launch if you happened to blindly put your faith into EA and pre-order it + poor reviews made it so basically nobody I know that played the original trilogy even bothered to check this one out. I haven't watched much PreRecorded, but I'm pretty sure I have watched this one. ...Yep, 20 minutes of sitting in silence, that's the one, .

Can't say I blame you for that approach - Ashley did deserve to die, and I hope she burns in hell. ...Okay, maybe she didn't quite rise to the level of that particular Samuel L. Jackson rant, but I sure didn't feel the least bit bad about sending her to her clearly telegraphed death. I was...the Infiltrator in the first game, and boy, did that stink between not having disables and also because of the insane scope sway; switched to a Sentinel in the second game. Turns out, biotics are more fun and useful than whatever the hell I was trying to do before.

My feelings about those games are very complicated. I feel like the first game had the most right elements...but some quite poor execution in a lot of those elements that made it not quite always work, but not badly enough that the game collapsed in on itself. Space exploration should be fun and exciting without feeling like it was randomly generated or copy and pasted; there should be a good helping of interesting characters as well as dialogue/narratives/outcomes for said characters; there should be an interesting plot that can either be justifiably low-stakes or high-stakes; general gameplay should be fun without feeling repetitive. They, probably unfortunately, went with extremely high stakes right off the bat...which creates the classic problem of constantly needing to make subsequent entries even more higherer stakes than the last, which...had the effect that it had in the third game. Whoops. Characters didn't quite get the attention they deserved, and their outcomes were awkwardly and very hamfistedly railroaded (the fact that you can't even choose not to romance someone when your options as a male character are Liara and...Ashley, is quite frankly absurd; it's about just as bad if you're a female character with Liara and Kaidan, becuase Kaidan and Ashley are both less than ideal, so if you don't happen to like bright-eyed Liara or you simply just don't feel like the romancing type at all to begin with...well, oh dear oh goodness). Space exploration that wasn't corridor/wall-barrier fighting almost entirely happened inside of the Mako. The equipment system was an incredible chore. Still...for 2007, it did enough right that it still felt like a pretty novel cinematic action space game at the time. Second game got rid of most of the space exploration stuff (boy, I sure love launching them probes and wandering through and/or fighting in endless corridors...), but you got more and better character stuff in return, plus the main plot actually was a solid enough follow-up to the first without escalating things to the point of absurdity...too much corridor/wall-ducking shooting and not enough meaningful exploration by far, but it did enough right to still enjoy it. Good lord, what in the hell happened in the third game? Mediocre to terrible character stuff, very bad and way over-escalated plot that the writers couldn't figure out how to deal with, a veritable endless gauntlet of no longer fun repetitive shooting in corridors...and when it wasn't in corridors, it was in wide-open spaces with enemies pouring in from every avenue and where you're getting hit from a hundred different angles which is also not very fun. The exciting space exploration stuff is dead, the fun character stuff is dead, any remains of an interesting or compelling plot is dead, and the shooting gameplay has so incredibly worn out its welcome by then - especially in the absence of other enjoyable elements to make you care in the least bit. It's just brutal...and all the while, the game is acting like it's some kind of high art with the embarrassing ending and the dream sequences and...oh gosh, I just remembered the pathetic samurai dude... On second thought, let's not remember anything more about Mass Effect 3.

Cardcaptor Sakura, Clear Card, episode 1: What a sad intro song - no energy at all. But that comes with the time, I suppose. Alright, so I'm not gonna lie...I just about ALT+F4-ed because of this: Wimpy art with terrible lines and colors aside, they held on this for a couple of seconds and...I legitimately thought her dad was staring at her chest and the idea of that broke my brain so badly that it was going to be the first and final straw for this show. But no, apparently, he's just shocked at seeing her wear the middle school uniform - time sure passes by quickly don't it, daddy-o? Nevertheless, this should tell you how low my expectations for this are that I legitimately thought that was what was happening here... Where are Sakura's rollerblades and why is she running around like a knock-kneed teen girl to school? She used to know how to run properly just fine... "Rika went to a different school..." That's one way of explaining away the voice actress passing away from cancer in real life, I suppose. You know, now that I think about it, I don't think we really needed to see the mushy teen romance stuff...the original show ended on the exact perfect time so we never had to! And why is Mizuki...still hanging around Eriol? Another reason it was good that the original show ended exactly when it did, because I didn't want to see...whatever that was explored whatsoever. This show looks uncomfortably like Love Live!, methinks. Well, it wasn't a total disaster, but it wasn't very good, either. Eriol said she'd have a dream, and she immediately had a dream that's making her go through the whole Cardcaptoring thing again...but with a different set of cards? It also coincides with the exact day Xiaolang returned to Japan...and also, they cut away to the slightly creepy-looking teddy bear that Xiaolang gave back to her that she apparently made that's sitting right in her room a few times. Is this some sort of ridiculous plot by Eriol and Xiaolang to make her stronger? Also, I almost kind of wish they went with the slightly insane art style of the outro for the entire show. It's a bit too intense, but much funner-looking without being too different from the normal art style. The normal art style is so...just not enticing to look at in pretty much any way.

I don't really mean to promote the idea that "everything is fake" per se, but rather anything from either sides without clear and outstanding evidence should be very skeptically considered. Between literally faked footage, footage and photos from other conflicts, outrageous official claims and literal transparent attempts at propaganda... Being skeptical should be automatic here. Does anyone know anything about the "Patrushev" military doctrine Russia reportedly adopted in 2018? Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it: If Putin is actually planning on making good on this doctrine, then we're almost certainly headed straight towards nuclear annihilation sometime soon (not necessarily from this Ukraine conflict, but...if Putin decides to push it even further with e.g. Finland...). It could just be a public game of chicken and therefore simply posturing (or the doctrine could've been mistranslated entirely), but it sure doesn't sound good in light of this war.

Yeah, I know, virtually everything is fake news at this point. However, I posted it more to highlight the human element of both sides here - never a bad idea to remind yourself that even the invading force of an army usually has a pretty large makeup of what are effectively very scared children.

Reportedly (i.e. grain of salt), there was a conscription in the weeks leading up to this war that forced a lot of untrained young men into Russia's invasion force after being told they would be held back for training only - might explain why there have been some reports (more grain of salt) of apparently (and thankfully) pathetic displays of army professionalism. Untrained boys who wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of this will do that - can't imagine how I would fare in the same situation.

"Joined 39 minutes ago" - and straight into the Ukraine thread minutes later? Hmm... Mirrors of the same video are clowning on it as being merged footage from a video game called "Digital Combat Simulator", but it is not as though I can confirm that.

I'm by no means an expert in 144p video of air combat, but it really does look super fake.

I see that the trademark FromSoftware jank is still alive and well.

And boy, was it not good. Glad to hear it's more like DS - really didn't want FromSoftware to emulate BotW in that regards as well, given how pants the story and dialogue/cutscenes in that game were.

Rhea Gall Force. Forum just ate my post, but I saved it - very cool. Opening title crawl: "The third world war fought between East and West has reduced the cities of Earth to mountains of rubble." Oh, how topical. The hell are we doing on Earth anyways? The last three movies were about an "alien" species that maybe were or maybe weren't at some point in the distant past related to humans before humanity's apparent extinction... Oh. Right, well, I suppose that makes sense. Oddly, a few of the girls up there have a strange resemblance to some of the characters from the other films... The film opens up with some sort of operation set in a burnt out post-apocalyptic city where the humans are apparently being hunted by armed flying Skynet automatons...some leftover remnant from the World War still acting autonomously. However, it turns out that the humans are doing some hunting of their own - it's a classic "hit them while they're distracted" trap set by some well-armed survivors, lead by our protagonist named Sandy (redhead in the center in the image). They head on back to their base to celebrate a successful mission...and find everyone's been slaughtered while they were out. Whoops. Seems as though it's time to get off this rock...and that's the mission of the film - evacuate off of Earth without our two different factions (the remnants of "East" and "West" - presumably kept vague so as to not unnecessarily date the movie) killing each other or getting killed by Skynet in the process. The idea of this film is less interesting than the rest of the Gall Force series, but ironically, it's probably executed the best out of everything besides maybe the first film by just staying simple and dead-focused on the issue at hand, which is something the other films struggled with. A solid enough if perhaps unspectacular little post-apocalyptic sci-fi - hey, as long as something like this isn't doing grossly stupid/boring/pathetic things that completely self-sabotage itself, I'm honestly not that picky. Unfortunately, it is really difficult to find stuff that doesn't do exactly that, .

Elden Ring currently sits at the second highest game of all time on OpenCritic with 111 critic reviews so far as well as a perfect "100% recommended" score (works the same way as Rotten Tomato's Tomato Meter). Certainly a better reception and outlook than I expected, given FromSoftware's history of jankiness. Huh.

Lmao, this looks worse than even I expected. I guess it might work as a sort of absurdist parody comedy, though. As for how I found it, on the site I use, there's a banner that has six different images for recently added items. Text appears only when you mouse over it: I accidentally did that for approximately a quarter of a second on my way to somewhere else and somehow managed to read the "Komi" part of it in that time to go "wait, what did I just read?". Lo and behold...

It occurred to me that I had no idea who the hell "Lady" was. Um...that's a look. Anyways... Hey @majestic, did you know they just made a live action Komi Can't Communicate? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15100806/ Looks like a lot of fun for you, .

Snowpocalypse today. Yeah, I'm ready for spring.

Microsoft is killing the "Bethesda Launcher" (did not even know this was a thing) and will be moving over everything to Steam (i.e. if you own a game on the Bethesda Launcher, apparently you will be comped with a Steam copy, not a Microsoft Store copy).