Keyrock

Goddamn Yakuza 0 is great! It's amazing how SEGA manages to stuff 10x as much interesting and legitimately compelling content into an open world area 1/100th the size of most open world games. There is a startling contrast between the super serious, emotionally gripping main story, featuring the most stoic protagonists that ever stoic-d and the hilarious side stories full of wacky characters, but somehow it works. And the mini-games are so good. My favorite is the dance club mini game. Please tell me I will eventually get to dance against the weird bald guy busting a move in his tidy whities. That would be AMAZING. This guy is THE MAN.

I think the grizzled look works for him. He looks like a badass grandpa. As for turn-based mode, I'm excited. I'll likely pick the game up once TB mode is out of beta and there is sufficient positive feedback.

I finished The Witness. Unfortunately, you can't just keep playing after the ending, the game resets itself and you don't have manual save slots. So if I want to 100% the game I would have to do everything again. Granted solving puzzles I've already solved would go much quicker, but that's still a TON of work to do again. I wish I had known that before doing the final step, but I had been purposely avoiding everything about the game because I wanted to not have any puzzles spoiled. *sigh*

Romo is terrific. He's been a breath of fresh air in an otherwise terribly stale NFL commentating field. I kind of wish Jerry would lure him out of the booth and have him be our QBs coach. Romo is obviously very intelligent and had a deep understanding of how the game works. Dak had his best year when Romo was still there to help guide him through games. Romo always had the mental capacity when he was QB he just sometimes fell slightly short on the physical talent end. Sometimes his brain would write a check that his arm couldn't cash.

Yazuka 0 I wish someone would make this hat IRL. I would insta-buy it.

Yes, you can sell the cards for Steam Wallet funds, but I would have thought that Valve would have made it so that you can't get a refund the instant you sell a card.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that no one should attend college. Higher learning can absolutely be very beneficial and is the right path for some people. My argument is that it is not the right path for all people and is neither a prerequisite for success nor a guarantee of it.

Fair point.

That's a product of the "College is your only path to success, if you don't go to college you are a failure" fallacy.

As all of this identity politics hysteria pushes us further and further into tribalism it becomes more and more unavoidable that this is going to end very badly. Badly for all of us (because there is always collateral damage), but super badly for the extreme far left. The thing is that the extreme far left is not a cohesive unit. It is an uneasy coalition of various idealogue groups, none of which is large or powerful enough to seize power by themselves, but capable of doing so as a collective. I'm speaking of radical 3rd wave feminists, radicalized members of various minority groups, radical gender fluidity proponents, postmodernists, neo-marxists, etc. They have done a terrifyingly good job of infiltrating and taking over college campuses, starting in the 60s, and indoctrinating young malleable minds then sending them out into the real world to spread their ideologies. The issue for them is that this coalition is destined to fall apart as they inevitably canibalize themselves and vie for ultimate power. We've already seen some of this, but it will accelerate as they gain more power. There is a growing response (there always is, this cycle has been repeated ad nauseam throughout human history with various ideologies and political powers) from the extreme far right. Unlike the extreme far left, the extreme far right is a cohesive unit that will not splinter, or at least not nearly as much, once they gain power. Once the extreme far left splinters, and they will, no single one of those groups will have the power to oppose the extreme far right. To make matters worse, guess who owns the majority of the guns (at least in the US)?

I'm not giving up on Artifact yet, if for no other reason than it being, far and away, the best (and most complicated) CCG I've ever played. Valve made some missteps by launching the game without any sort of ranked ladder and without a straightforward way for casual players to earn packs in-game. Both of those have since been rectified, but they should have been there from the start. It should also be noted that the vast majority of games lose a massive percentage of their player base a month or two after launch, granted not necessarily THAT large a percentage.

Yeah, as much as it tires me to see the Pats in the Superbowl again, they earned it. That was a thrilling game and The Goat and Co. converted every 3rd down conversion in overtime when they needed to. On the other side, the Rams were gifted a Superbowl trip via ridiculous non-call. I get that referees are human and calls are sometimes missed, I just don't understand how you miss something THAT blatant. No guarantee that the Saints win if that call is made correctly, but their chances would certainly have risen dramatically, since they would have been able to run a lot more clock and force the Rams' to burn their final timeout. Oh well.

This is the only info, which is available according the Remasters for the West. Japan has already 3 and 4 Remastered. In few months they will have 5 as well. http://www.siliconera.com/2018/06/04/yakuza-creator-bringing-3-4-5-remasters-overseas-theyre-kiwami-remakes/ That's cool, so long as the 3,4, and 5 remasters do eventually come to the west. I don't particularly care if they make Kiwami remakes of the game of just straight up remasters, I just want to be able to play the whole series on PS4.

Well, I'll probably be on the road somewhere on Superbowl Sunday anyway, so now I won't mind not watching the game anyway. Still, that was an exciting AFC Championship game.

Fairly soon I'm going to need to take a break from The Witness. As much as I love that game, and I do, I can only play it for so long before I need a break, because that game works your brain really hard. You have to constantly take notice of every detail everywhere and look at things from as many different angles, both physical and conceptual, as possible as you try to wrap your head around these constantly evolving logic puzzles. With that in mind, I'm thinking of doing a Yakuza-thon, because I need something... I don't want to say mindless, but something that isn't constantly running Prime95 on my brain, if you know what I mean, but also that's an awesome game that's super fun. I already have Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 1 & 2 are already out. I know 6 is available on PS4 and 4 & 5 are available via PS Now. Frankly, I'm not enthused about having to sign up for yet another subscription service since I already have PS Plus, but when I get to that point in the chronological order if that's the only way I can play them then I guess I'll get the service just long enough to play those 2 games then cancel it. That still leaves Yakuza 3, though. Does anyone know if they're going to make a Kiwami 3? I want to do the whole series in chronological order and that's the 1 game that's, to the best of my knowledge, unavailable of PS4.

The Rams move on. I'll remember that game for one of the worst non-calls in recent memory. I'm usually a proponent of less flags and to let some contact go, but that was ridiculously blatant. The defender just straight up ran through the Saints receiver and never turned around to look for the ball. I mean he straight bulldozed him. Regardless, congratulations to the Rams. I didn't care that much who won that game, but I definitely do care about the next game.

I am mowing through the puzzles in the central hub are in The Witness. The game is pulling out all the stops to thwart me (e.g. rotating boards, changing colors, having to solve multiple puzzles at once, etc.), but I will not be denied. Once I 100% this game, and I will, I'll officially be recognized as a Puzzle Grand Master. I need to consider how to best utilize my powers. I thought about becoming a Batman villain, but that gravely voiced mother****er always seems to come out on top eventually, so that seems like a bad idea. Maybe I should use my powers for good? I could tutor the next generation of puzzle solvers. I would, of course, charge an exorbitant fee, but I'd be giving them the greatest gift of all, knowledge.

If you want a more authentic WWI experience play Verdun.

I'm sure it was "accidental".

I did it! I opened up the central hub in The Witness. There's some Aperture Science **** going on here.

Come on man, to get past the yeti you need the custard pie. It's perfectly logical! Never mind the moonlogic puzzles, though. Sierra pulled one of the all-time greatest **** moves in video game history. In one of the King's Quest games, I forget which one, there is a bridge you walk across several times because going back and forth to the same locations many times is standard point & click adventure fare. After you cross the bridge a certain number of times the bridge collapses making it impassable and if you got trapped on the wrong side of it or you haven't done everything you need to do on the side you can no longer reach you were SOL. This was long before the days of autosaves so you might have to revert to a save HOURS before or even restart the game entirely, and the kicker is that there is nothing whatsoever in the game that warns you about this. I write this as a guy who LOVES Sierra On-Line.

Personally I slide theatrically into my bright orange Nissan Cube- the 'Admiral Yamamoto', proudly emblazoned with the rising sun and rays- via the wound down front window as all manly men do. Down south we refer to that as "NASCAR style".