BruceVC

@marelooke and @majestic This is so serendipitous, we were just talking about SOMA and I went to Steam today to check it again and its on 80% discount !!! It was fate telling me to buy it.....and I did 🥳

@rjshae What do you think, is this something they not teaching you in school about US history...she did say people must just research like she did? 😱

Excellent news, I have been looking forward to playing STALKER 2 for a while now but I was waiting for it to be more stable But I will wait a big longer for more official patches

I remember talking about this game because I play Frictional games and I enjoy them. I played Amnesia Bunker last To be honest I forgot about it, I must add it my list

I finished Alice Madness Returns after about 30 hours, its good fun for all the previous reasons I mentioned. I first played this game about 12-13 years ago and back then I couldn't defeat the end boss. I tried about 10 times and raged quit. But now I won the final battle on my 3rd try. I used a Controller this time so maybe that was the difference? Anyway this game gets 65\100 on the " BruceVC game rating system " and its recommended Then I played The Lightkeeper which is a horror adventure game where the protagonist is a WW1 veteran suffering from PTSD because of what he did in the war. He gets tasked to maintain a lighthouse on a deserted island and supernatural events linked to his past start occuring. It has some very scary moments but its very short. 3- 4 hours. But its fun for a single sitting game Then I played The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante which is a text based, CYOA where you make dialogue options and advance certain skills that give you further options and success around choices. I spent about 20 hours trying to get the right outcomes which was for me about becoming a noble and keeping my family together. I mostly failed and had to restart the main chapter several times but then at the end I reached the perfect outcome for my family but they all ended up getting killed in the riots at the end of the final chapter I had enough by then of the repetition so I stopped playing with that ending. This game is an entertaining distraction, nothing fantastic. It gets a 55/100

Yes, Republicans are suppose to be the fiscally conservative party. But under Trump that definition has vanished

The reality of this debt is both parties are responsible for its egregious increase https://www.reuters.com/world/us-debt-crosses-40-trillion-threshold-after-doubling-under-trump-biden-2026-08-19/ Whats the most concerning is how its doubled since 2017 and how both Trump and Biden are responsible but for different reasons which is all discussed in this link " The federal government's IOU has now more than doubled in less than a decade, from $19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump was sworn in for the first time in January 2017. Roughly one-third of that increase occurred during two years of frantic government borrowing to fund the COVID-19 pandemic responses undertaken by Trump and former President Joe Biden, while the fiscal policy choices of both presidents combined with long-running tax-and-spending imbalances account for the rest.""

That link doesn't work, this one seems fine https://www.pcgamer.com/games/grand-theft-auto/grand-theft-auto-6-leaker-says-they-wont-stop-until-rockstar-and-take-two-apologize-for-anti-consumerism-and-make-a-concrete-commitment-to-do-better/ This type of outrage makes me laugh, what do we define it as? " Game espionage\gaming terrorism " Clearly a global issue and important reason for hacking that matters around a better world " They also listed three "commandments" in the manifesto—no digital preorders, no "fake" (ie, already part of the game data) singleplayer DLC, and mandatory "offline fallback states" for singleplayer games—and warned that publishers who violate them will be subject to sanction: "Cyberleek will not stop until they issue a public statement and apology with a concrete commitment to be better. Words are not enough; restitution is mandatory."

Have you ever played any Dark Souls game more than once .......Mamie tell the truth

I never use to replay any game unless I forgot most parts of the narrative and that normally takes 12-15 years and its mostly from 2007-2010. But now I can replay games using mods because they change and improve so much But this applies mostly to Bethesda games so I have replayed Fallout 3&4 and F:NV and then Morrowind and Oblivion

I completed the Pale Beyond after about 15 hours. Its an excellent narrative survival game, no monsters or magic. Just the harsh reality of trying to survive being stuck in arctic ice in the early 20th century The first 70% of the game is all about intense decisions to ensure you have enough resources to get through winter and the game has a very good system of how you engage with your crew and how you need to gain there loyalty. So most dialogue options you have to balance between the outcome and how this will influence your relationship with the crew member The game gets a solid 70/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system " Now Im playing Alice Madness Returns. Its addictive and thoroughly entertaining with its movement and combat mechanics. The art and recreation of Wonderland is beautiful and I often stop and look at a landscape It has a few frustrating movement puzzles but once you comfortable with effective jumping its very rewarding to progress over an area.

I wonder if this will ever be implemented but yes its another example of Trump throwing his toys because of the myopic and ill-conceived decision to attack Iran without clear and coherent objectives And then other countries refuse to get involved

The Pale Beyond has got a really good system of how death and failure works I mentioned the game is broken into 50 turns and each turn you have to manage resources, go hunting, respond to personal requests from crew and address various health issues like frostbite and malnutrition. And at the end of each turn you feed the crew and there is summary of your current resources so you can see how well you are doing And in the beginning of each turn the game is automatically saved, this is the only way to save. And if you die you can restore to the beginning of any of the 50 saved turns but all the saves after this are deleted. Which means you can go back and make different decisions but its not completely frustrating where you have to restart I have died twice so far. First in turn 7 where I didnt leave the ship in time to create a camp on the ice shelf and the ship was crushed by the ice and sunk and then in turn 10 where I didnt manage a metric called Decorum which is about overall crew morale and it starts at 100 and if it gets to 0 your entire quest ends in failure But in both cases I restored to previous turns where I then made different choices and ensured I managed Decorum properly. Im now on turn 13 so I have a long way to go to survive but its great fun

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/trump-spokeswoman-karoline-leavitt-to-leave-white-house/107031078 Leavitt is leaving. Its a shock because being Trumps press secretary must be such a great job....no stress and no need to clarify or explain much But she does have a new baby so wanting to focus on that is also a legitimate reason to resign

I finished Fry Cry Primal after 60 hours and it was fun The main narrative and objective is different to other Far Cry games because its really about ensuring your tribe can grow and survive. Yes there are 2 main enemy chiefs you have to eventually defeat but thats part of the overall survival of your tribe So everything is about building and upgrading your village and the welfare of your people Then there are some great mechanics like taming beasts and how you use them in combat strategically and you can go on these unique hunts for very dangerous animals Its well worth playing as a Far Cry game and it gets a solid 65\100 on the globally followed " BruceVC game rating system " Now Im playing the Pale Beyond. Its a survival game designed like a CYOA RP adventure game. You need to make constant dialogue choices around how you manage resources and survive The narrative is you become the captain of a British exploration ship stuck in Antarctic ice in the early 20th century. So you need to manage fuel, food and the constant morale of crew and you have to make hard decisions about who will survive the terrible arctic conditions because of the limited resources Its set over 50 weeks that are broken into turns that you need to survive before you get rescued when winter ends and the ice melts. And there is an overarching question about why you travelled there in the first place which is unclear. The initial objective was to find another ship that vanished 5 years ago but what are the sponsors of this latest expedition really after?

GTA 6 is going to end up as the most popular Rockstar game of all time and its biggest revenue earner But its going to be a while before I play it because they haven't even announced the PC release date

There is downside, he is being referred to the DOJ for contempt of Congress and possible prosecution https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-was-fauci-held-in-contempt-for-pleading-the-5th-and-what-happens-next But we also know the current list of failed prosecutions from the Trump DOJ because of the sensationalism of the reasons to prosecute so I'm not sure Fauci is that concerned?

But does that really make sense to you? I have watched Fauci being questioned before by Paul and its a debate around science and what is considered best practice in any virus pandemic. Its hard to believe as irritating and flawed some of the virus preventative measures were any doctor could be held criminally liable? End of the day governments basically followed WHO global best practice So how could they trap him? The Clinton development was different, he lied about an affair and he did something wrong

Im not sure why Fauci took the 5th? He has answered most of these questions already and he is protected from prosecution for what he did before 2025. This was advice from his lawyers I can imagine its irritating to dispute conspiracy theories and argue with Rand Paul again but its not like he did anything wrong?

NBC NewsCandidate who dropped out beats Trump’s pick in a battleg...NBC News projects that Thomas Smith, who raised very little money for his bid, won the Republican nomination in Michigan’s 8th District. This is an usual story, a GOP primary in Michigan was won by someone who dropped out the race and he beat the Trump endorsed candidate "Thomas Smith, a political unknown who raised almost no money for his campaign, defeated President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate in a Republican primary for a Michigan congressional seat the GOP hopes to contest this fall, NBC News projects. Trump had backed military veteran Amir Hassan in his bid to take on Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet in the 8th District, which the president carried by 2 points in the 2024 election. But Hassan lost to Smith, who suspended his campaign in mid-July, according to local media reports. With nearly all of the vote tallied, Smith led with 50% of the vote, followed by Hassan with 33%. A third candidate, Al Lemmo, took 16%."

I played the latest Fighting Fantasy PC game book, Return to Firetop Mountain. These games are all PC versions of the iconic Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone RP gamebooks and the PC versions are not only nostalgic but they create a better experience than the books because of certain mechanics and design. If you die you dont need to start the whole story again, you can restore Tin Man games has created about 23 of these original games and I have played about 80% of them. Highly recommended if you enjoy the books, they dont take long. Maybe 4-6 hours to complete Now Im busy with Far Cry Primal. Its your typical Ubisoft successful and tried and tested design, a large open-world map with lots of repetitive activities and then main quests to progress the game. You also need to build a village and find resources But this is obviously set in 10,000 BC and this unique time period is very entertaining. I'm having lots of fun taming beasts and interacting with the animals and enemies of that era I am also playing on Survival Mode to make the game harder so you have to rest to regain stamina and animals are harder to fight at night Im about 15 hours in and so far Im not experiencing any of the inevitable fatigue with mechanics around this type of Ubisoft game. That normally happens to me after 40-60 hours or so because you can only do the same types of activities so many times before boredom sets in

Its a scheme and commercialization of the influence that any US has but Im not sure its inside trading by definition because you dont know what impact Trumps comments on Truth will have The amount of BS, inane rants and sensationalized comments he makes on Truth it would be difficult to determine what is true and what is not?

How Spain's migrant crisis created a political storm - wh...The Ceuta crossings have shaken Europe politically, exposing divisions over the sensitive issue of migration, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford writes. This Spanish migration disaster started with Spain giving citizenship to 500k illegal migrants so you create a false impression about "Spain welcomes illegals " Then fake news and a misunderstood Spanish court ruling led to this latest incident of the 50k plus illegals thinking if they get to Ceuta they will somehow get citizenship and access to the EU Its stupidity on an unparalleled level for these migrants, people still believing SM as truthful But the Spanish government needs to also take responsibility for its original decision around giving papers to the 500k illegals " Italy is not the only country to see Spain as soft on migration, though. Meloni's call for an urgent meeting of interior ministers to be held on Tuesday was signed by almost two dozen EU heads of state, calling for the elimination of all policies that could be "pull factors" to Europe. Above all, they mean Spain's controversial move to allow hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants apply for residence and work permits and "regularise" their status. The government's pragmatic: Spain is ageing and needs workers. But those who flocked to the beaches of Ceuta this week were not heading to sign up for a campaign that's already closed. Sanchez himself points instead to a recent ruling by Spain's Supreme Court: it said those who enter by sea cannot be pushed back immediately. The prime minister argues that was misrepresented by smugglers to promise an easy path to Europe. The crowd heading for Ceuta didn't need to pay smugglers, though, because most were Moroccan and the route is well known. The message was actually spread online. Migrants have shown social media posts to reporters with people shouting that "Spain is Open" and jumping into the sea. Multiple accounts we've checked ourselves show young people in wetsuits and flippers, or filming themselves already swimming, mixed with pictures from inside Ceuta itself. Some have only been active for weeks. Several have tens of thousands of likes. All their promises were false. The crowds who made it to kiss the shore in Ceuta with joy were met with nothing. Without food or shelter, and with no way on to continental Europe, most quickly turned back."

Its really interesting reading this post because Im exactly the same but you have explained it better I want choices even if its not about any significant gameplay change and that tadpole example is an excellent example even though I haven't played BG3 yet I always try to RP like Conan. He is at heart an honorable man, he will always save a damsel in distress but he also wants wealth so he often goes on quests and missions for the money. But he wont abandon his principles and integrity

They attacked and damaged an Iranian ship and killed 1 sailor Ukraine has said it was unintentional They might have sunk it but as usual with this type of news its uncertain Definitely a WW3 triggering event