Keyrock

Kofta kebabs

Demomania continues with Star Ocean: The Second Story R. This is a remake of Star Ocean 2 and the second game in this latest batch of Next Fest demos that has me scratching my head at a bizarre design decision. If it isn't already obvious, they decided to marry 16-bit era sprites with fully rendered modern-ish 3d modeled environments. Why would you do this? The environments are fine and the sprites are great, but they clash. Why not just stick with one art style? Beyond that, this seems like your typical JRPG. It's been forever since I've played a Star Ocean game so I don't know how much the battle system has changed from the original, but it plays very much like a traditional JRPG with a real-time combat system.

Miyagi style.

I waxed my car today. I've been lazy this year. I typically wax the car twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, but this year I didn't do the spring waxing. Oh well, once is better than zero times, I guess.

Demo Madness keeps rolling along with ARTIFICIAL. It's a physics-based puzzle game in the vein of Portal, minus the eponymous portals. It has a low poly aesthetic, it basically looks like a PS2 game but with modern lighting and particle effects. It's a good aesthetic, looks quite nice IMHO. Seems decent enough, if unremarkable.

I would describe the stealth mechanics in Hitman games as serviceable. I treat Hitman games as puzzle games. I have to figure out how to do a silent assassin run and once I have that figured out, if I'm feeling froggy, I try for the ultimate, the suit only, silent assassin run. Some people enjoy having to improvise and fight their way out of a plan gone sideways. That's not my jam, but it's a completely valid way to enjoy Hitman games.

Demopalooza continues with Agatha Christie - Murder on the Orient Express. Everyone's favorite Belgian detective. Doing detective things. Investigating a murder, as Poirot is wont to do. Wait a minute, what the **** is a FN Five-seven doing in the 1930s? I knew it right away because of the really awkward to hold looking grip (it is!) and the caliber confirmed it. AFAIK that gun didn't come out until late 90s or early 2000s. A smart phone? Vape? Wait a minute, is this game taking place in the present? Well, that confirms it. The game takes place in the present, but the train is old-timey and people dress and talk like I imagine people in the 1930s did. What a bizarre design choice to mix 1930s and 2020s. Why would you do this?

Next demo, The Talos Principle 2. It starts out looking like The Talos Principle. Not the worst thing in the world since The Talos Principle is one of my favorite games and IMHO the best game Croteam ever developed. But then... But also Greek gods? This game looks STUNNING. There are some wall textures I've found that look a bit gnarly if you try to lick them, but overall it looks spectacular. It's out in less than a month too. /rubs hands together

Next demo, The Thaumaturge. This game is all over the place. It labels itself an isometric RPG and most of it is played isometric like in the picture above. Here it plays like a detective game and sort of like a point & click. You have powers that let you sense latent emotions left on things and I guess you can detective together events and motivations or something. It's weird. There's also combat, which kind of sort of takes place in old skool dungeon crawler view with me in the foreground and the enemies in the background. It's turn-based and the little bit in this demo was mostly me punching dudes in the stomach, but also you have this spirit dude who hangs out with you because reasons, y'all probably got a bond or pact or something. It's weird. There are also puzzles. Also, the game takes place in very early 20th century Poland, or, well, Poland didn't exist as a sovereign country at that time, it was still divvied up between Russia, Austria and... I think it was the German Empire at that point, but I imagine people would have still called it Prussia. Yes, it's THAT Rasputin. Anyway, this game has me intrigued, I don't know how to feel about it. I'm not sure if it works, but I'm not saying it doesn't work either. For example, the combat felt sort of barebones, but then I looked through the skill "tree" and there are potentially some interesting mechanics, but I didn't get to play with those, so who knows? Production value wise this looks to be quality AA. It looks good in a very good last gen game sort of way.

Who's left from the Von Erichs of that era? I think it's just Kevin at this point. I wonder if Michael "Pure Sexy" Hayes will get a cameo in the movie, given he's the last remaining OG Freebird alive and the Von Erichs vs Freebirds feud was the defining feud of that time in WCCW.

I made gołąbki. I've been making gołąbki for decades and I dare say I'm an expert at this point. My gołąbki will take the Pepsi Challenge with any gołąbki out there. There's nothing fancy about the recipe I use, it's a simple traditional recipe, but I've learned valuable lessons over the years: 50/50 beef/pork is king. I've tried every combination of beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and lamb imaginable. Don't skimp on the rice, use at least as much volume of rice as meat. Mix the meat and rice very thoroughly (I get right in there with my hands rather than using a utensil). If you skimp on rice or don't mix well enough you will get meat clumps that may get kinda hard. Drown the gołąbki in sauce. I use a tomato sauce some people use a broth. Either way, make sure the gołąbki are swimming in the sauce when in the oven. Side-note: I should try making stuffed peppers. Weirdly enough, I've never tried. I imagine the process is the same except the meat/rice filling goes into a hollowed out red bell pepper rather than a cabbage leaf.

This is why I always use unsalted butter. Adding salt is easy, subtracting it, not so much

I don't even have a doubles/triples endorsement. It's easy enough to get and it's a one-time deal not like hazmat which you have to renew every 5 years, but I don't want it because I have no desire to pull doubles or triples ever.

My money is on Liliana. I'm going to have to examine her thoroughly to make sure. VERY thoroughly. ... Because you don't want to sentence an innocent to death. You can't be too thorough.

Next demo, The Inquisitor. You play an inquisitor investigating a vampire sighting in an alternate history where Jesus got all types of vengeful. It looks like a PS3 game. And runs like complete ass. They have a lot of optimization work to do. Still, y'all know how I love my Eurojank. This could be right up my alley.

Another Next Fest on Steam which means a bunch more demos. First up Ghostrunner 2. I never played the first game but it's a first person game with a focus on mobility where you play a cyberpunk ninja. Everything 1 shot kills you so it's all about being fast and precise. There were some HARDCORE stutters in what otherwise ran great. It's a demo so I don't expect it to be well optimized.

Gorilla arms + berserk might be OP. I am straight up wrecking everybody and I'm playing on hard difficulty.

Solo definitely increases with melee combat. I am running a gorilla arms build so most of my combat encounters are me charging in and punching chumps really really really hard and I rank up in solo constantly. Side-note: The gorilla arms finishers are BRUTAL.

WOW! He was there for like 5 minutes for a photo op. Whooptie ****ing do! What a hero! Yeah, the authoritarians still occasionally pay lip service to the values they used to represent decades ago, still pretend like they care about the working class, but their actions paint a very different picture.

Whereas the democrats (at least outwardly) seem like a party in unison, even people like AOC whose entire appeal was that she was supposed to shake up the party and challenge the establishment, have bent the knee and fallen in line. The republican party is a party in flux, Trump's victory in 2016 really shook the party up, both for better and for worse. You have those trying to bring the republican party back to what it was before Trump, the Bush/Cheney neocon type republicans. You have bible thumping, old skool traditional family values types, and you have some republicans riding the populist wave, or at least presenting themselves as such. I don't know how genuine they are, but they are filling the vacuum created when the democrats abandoned the working class.

Robert F Kennedy Jr. has left the authoritarian party and declared himself an independent for the 2024 presidential election. Democrats crying "he's going to take votes away from Biden and hand the election to Trump" and republicans crying "he's going to take votes away from Trump and hand the election to Biden" in 5... 4... 3...

Maybe he should win the Superbowl Big Game at least once before we even entertain that comparison? I will, however, upgrade him from Big Brock to Giant Veiny Throbbing Brock.

I finally got into Dogtown. I had the opportunity long ago but I wound up doing a bunch of other side stuff. Holy smokes was that a lengthy series of setpieces. They were cool setpieces but it drives me nuts when an open world game straps you into a 3 hour long setpiece and there's nothing else you can do but see it through to the end. It just keeps going and going and going and going and I'm like "can I please get the **** off this ride and back to being able to do whatever I want?" Anyway, I like Myers. I don't completely trust her, but she makes a great first impression. Songbird, on the other hand, I don't trust one bit.

Chicken fajitas On horribly misshapen home made tortillas. Aesthetics aside, these are some of the best fajitas I've ever had.

I get the fear from the NATO side. That access point to Russia's Eurasian Steppe works both ways. Yes, Russia could also line up column after column after column of soldiers and tanks and use it to attack parts of Europe. Hence why this is such a hotly contested strip of land.