Keyrock

7th Guest is super cheesy. It's part of what I like about it. Then again, I'm one of those weirdos that loves cheesy FMV. As for the puzzles, they vary WILDLY both in terms of difficulty and in terms of quality, from surprisingly clever to completely nonsensical. I'll give Trilobyte credit for how much variety there is in the type of puzzles. I'm balls deep (70 hours) into DQ XI. I'm level 47 at the moment and it feels like I'm nearing the end of this section of the game and moving into what is likely the endgame act. I'm currently rolling with a team of Beefstick (my main), Hendrick, Jade, and Serena. It's a team heavy on physical damage that's a bit light on magical firepower and with plenty of healing.

Why did it take me so long to try smoked salmon cream cheese? I knew of its existence for decades, but I always figured I wouldn't like it and just stuck with plain or veggie flavored cream cheese. I just tried it for the first time recently and it turns out that it's delicious. Who knew? Shady, mind sharing that recipe? I freakin' love West Indian cuisine. Oxtail is my jam, but I do also love jerk chicken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIOTV_ZtIwg

You presume incorrectly. The crappy gunplay and bullet sponge enemies are what turned me off the series. I like the world and characters, though.

Then you have Arisa Nakajima Who is 29 and has perpetually looked like she's 40, going all the way back to when she started wrestling in her teens. In vidya game news, La Mulana 2 is coming to consoles in June (in Japan, anyway). https://la-mulana.com/jp/l2/consoles.php If a Linux port doesn't pop up shortly after, I'll just get the PS4 version once it's available in the west.

The first PC game I ever bought and played was Space Quest 1. I played it on a Tandy 1000 on 3.5" floppies.

Romero Games & Paradox are making a strategy game. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pcgamer.com/amp/romero-games-is-working-on-a-strategy-game-with-paradox/ No details yet, but I can only assume they're going to make me their bitch.

^ Ah, the game that sold the CD-ROM. I loved the 7th Guest and the 11th Hour. Top quality fever dream FMV mastercheeses.

I think the idea behind End of Zoe was catharsis. You spend most of the main game scared and weak, sneaking around, scrounging for ammo. Now suddenly you are this burly dude who can just punch monsters to death. Anyway, the DLCs are just some silly fun. It's an interesting approach and a let down for people that wanted more of the main game, basically, but I thought they were fitting. They're a nod to the silly and absurd stuff that has happened throughout the series (remember Chris punching a boulder?) and the devs decided to make the silliness separate, rather than mixing it into the terrifying main game.

^ A little of column A and a little of column B. The way I always understood it, alpha means playable, but not feature complete (a rather accurate description for a live service at launch) and beta means feature complete but in need of testing and balancing.

To be honest, none of that surprises me that much. The season just started. There are going to be outliers during a 162 game season. Quite a few of them, actually, especially early on.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/1723097746688457151 Found it funny this was news - they plan to have a closed beta. Well, I'd hope so. What does beta even mean any more? Given the shove it out the door and patch it later state of the games industry these days, games are being released fully in states that would be called "alpha" in the past.

When I wrote earlier that I thought I was 3/4 of the way through the main story in DQ XI I was clearly wrong. There's a point you reach in a lot of traditional jRPGs where The Evil One™ triumphs and there's a 2nd world to play through. It's usually some kind of Dark World, or a destroyed version of the 1st world, or something along those lines appropriately desolate and gloomy where The Evil One™ reigns supreme. I just recently reached that point in DQ XI. Most often it's somewhere between the halfway point and the 3/4 mark, so I'll split the difference and say I'm 2/3 of the way through the main story. The second world is usually where the game hits a difficulty spike but the spike seemed very mild in DQ XI. That might just be a product of my character being overlevelled. Without giving away any spoilers, can anyone that finished the game tell me if you can keep playing after you finish the main story? I have interest in 100%-ing the game but I can't see myself doing it before finishing the main story since I know from experience that 100%-ing traditional jRPGs tends to take well over 100 hours, and I can't see myself committing to that kind of time sink right now, especially since I'm eager to play X4: Foundations and Yakuza Kiwami in the near future.

This is funny in a frighteningly accurate way.

Still no word on a release date for M&B2: Bannerlord, right?

I'm about 45 hours into DQ XI. If I had to guess, I'd say I'm about 3/4 of the way through the main story. This is one of those games that doesn't innovate in any way, the story is super cliche, the twists and turns are easily spotted from a mile away, and none of the characters are particularly memorable, except Sylvando (who is fabulous). Yet, it's super enjoyable and I am powering through it eagerly in a way I rarely do with games these days (I usually don't have the patience to go through long games in a single stint these days, I appreciate shorter games more and more as I get older). Why? Because while the game simply executes the standard jRPG formula used for well over 3 decades, it executes it extraordinarily well. Every facet of the game's design is just done really well and is polished to a brilliant shine. Also, there's the trademark DQ charm. Sometimes, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just make a really really high quality wheel. Also, it helps that Squeenix doesn't pump out a DQ every year. If they did, I might get burned out on the series ala AssCreed.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. I'll have you know that I use the **** outta cumin, turmeric, and paprika.

The best part about that voice pack is that it actually exists.

KD had a ridiculously efficient 12 for 13 shooting night in a win over the Grizz last night, scoring 28 points in 35 min. He's like the anti-Kobe. Brings back memories of some of those ridiculous Chris Mullins shooting nights.

Hopefully ports to other platforms follow.

The Sawx bullpen was already their weakness last year. It didn't stop them winning 108 games and rampaging through the playoffs. But yes, if anything is going to stop the Sawx this year, it will be the pen or injuries.

The Al East is going to be crazy again. The Yankees have one of the best teams in the majors on paper, the Rays look really good, and, oh by the way, the Sawx are bringing back nearly the exact same team that just won it all and is arguably one of the greatest teams ever. We could be looking at 3 90+ win teams.

History is chock-full of genocidal wars. If there's one thing we humans excel at, it's genocidal wars.

Awesome. I too wanted to try both of them, and now I get to for free.* * not actually free

Maybe Ardyn is secretly Gabe Newell?