Keyrock

I had a Caprese Salad and a Mojito at an overpriced restaurant at the Bayside Marketplace in Miami with my dad. It was delicious and overpriced. But hey, it's the holiday season.

Muh Boys get to play a completely meaningless game this Sunday since we're already locked into the 4 seed. I guess the big games this weekend are Bears/Vikings and Iggles/Skins to decide the final wild card in the NFC. There is a very real possibility that the Iggles still sneak into the playoffs, which makes me both sick to my stomach and very uneasy since Nick Foles is once again at the helm after Carson Wentz's latest injury. The Bears still have something to play for since they could, theoretically, move up to the #2 seed and earn themselves a bye and a home playoff game in the divisional round. Of course, that scenario requires the Rams to lose to the 49ers. I know the Rams have lately become very beatable, but, come on, it's the 49ers. Still, the Rams/Niners game doesn't start until the Bears/Vikings game is over, so I expect the Bears to play hard. I guess I'm hoping Mitch Trubisky murders his own team, which is a distinct possibility. As for the AFC, I don't care about the AFC, so someone else can figure out the plaoff scenarios for that conference.

Keep strong Hurlshot. I hope your father-in-law pulls through.

We're in! I can sleep easy tonight. :wiping_sweat_off_brow_emoji:

Today I hop on a plane taking me to Palm Beach International. From there a short drive to my parents' house on Singer Island. Christmas on the beach for the second straight year. Aaand my flight is delayed. Classic American Airlines.

Suda, you're wonderful weirdo.

jRPGs - Where the men look like women and the women also look like women.

Artifact had an update. Along with a small balance change (green got hit kinda hard with big nerfs to both Gust and Cheating Death) they also added a progression system and a new way to earn card packs in-game, which addressed my only real complaint with the game. Previously, the only way to get more card packs was to either buy them or to play in expert mode (which uses event tickets). In theory, you can go infinite in expert mode since you can win back your event ticket and also more event tickets and card packs, but you need to have a really high win percentage to achieve that, so only the elite, or at least high skill, players had any realistic chance to pull that off, leading to a rich get richer while the poor stay poor scenario. Now, Valve introduced a progression system in the game where you earn XP by playing anything except the Call To Arms timed event. You get XP win or lose, but you get more for winning and/or doing certain things during the match. So now anyone can earn card packs just by playing the game (up to 15 per season, don't know yet how long a season is) even if they suck (good news for me ) and even if they only play casual (now called standard) where you don't need to spend event tickets to play. I wound up going 3-2 with my Blue/Black Venomancer, Prellex, Crystal Maiden, Bounty Hunter, Sniper draft deck (you play until you either win 5 matches or lose 2, whichever happens first). Next up another Blue/Black deck with Veno, CM, Luna, Phantom Assassin, and Lion.

Maybe Lake Park had Brahma on their team?

She looks more like Vishnu to me.

I finished The Council and so I am happy to nominate it for the prestigious... Obsidian Microsoft Forums Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos Totino's Pizza Rolls Shick Hydrobot Game of the Year Award - Presented By Mountain Dew Amp Gamer Fuel Charged Tropical Strike. Mountain Dew Amp Gamer Fuel Charged Tropical Strike - LVL Up Your Game! Obviously some recency bias may be at work here, given that I just finished the game, but that was a fantastic experience from start to finish. Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. While overall it's a good looking game, it obviously can't measure up to God of War, RDR2, or other AAA titles that cost 20X as much to make. The game has its share of jank. As I meantioned in an earlier post, the sex scenes are Mass Effect 1 level - Just as terrible and just as hilarious. Occasionally characters will "teleport" a few inches during some scenes, as if a few frames of animation were missing. There are some inconsistencies between what is being spoken and what is written on the screen. Usually the meaning is the same, the person speaking is essentially paraphrasing, but I did catch one time where an amount was mentioned and the number on the screen and the number said were different. With that out of the way, this is the evolution of the Telltale formula I have been waiting years for. The game incorporates many different elements into the narrative adventure genre, including puzzle, point & click, and RPG Lite elements. Best of all, these elements all work really well together and don't feel merely tacked on; everything complements everything else quite well. There is an impressive amount of attention to detail in this game, and I don't mean horse testicle physics, as impressive as that is. Everything in the game has a purpose. The smallest, seemingly insignificant, details come into play later on in the game. Things that initially didn't make much sense make sense later on once some revelations or certain callbacks are made. There are even certain things that may never makes sense if you didn't go down a certain path or speak to a certain character at a certain time, but these things do have an explanation if you seek out the right people or places. Most impressive is the dedication to themes. Every piece of art and piece of literature in this massive elaborate mansion follows a theme that ties into either the main plot or one of the many sub-plots. It's all really well put together and great care was obviously used when designing everything in this game. I will definitely play this again in the future and choose a different path to see how things play out. Simply put, this is the new standard for narrative adventures. I say bravo to Big Bad Wolf and I look forward to what they come up with next.

I'm usually all about pacifist playthroughs so I fully support the OP here. My Deus Ex:MD pacifist ghost playthrough is still one of my proudest gaming achievements.

I would definitely like it if Obs made the quest compass (as well as other hand holding features) options you can turn off in the settings. Figuring out things on your own without a giant arrow showing you exactly where to go is not for everyone, but it is for me.

Alright, we play the Bucs this Sunday. We should be able to beat them, we better. If not, quite honestly, we don't belong in the playoffs. I'd rather not go into week 17 with the Giants having the chance to knock us out. Volo would love that.

Finished the first chapter of the final episode of The Council. Holy crap what a finish to that chapter. I expected a certain party to make a power play, but I did not expect it to be quite so audacious. This certain party believes they have won, but unbeknownst to them, I have a couple tricks left up my sleeve. Oh this is so delicious!

Oh man, now I gotta make those cookies!

I finished episode 4 of The Council. So many big revelations in that episode turned everything upside down. I'm into the final stretch now. I can't wait to see how this ends.

Awesome thing to see and an awesome place to see it. Assuming you were on I-80 somewhere between Rock Springs and Medicine Bow. If you were in town or in the mountains I hope you were watching the road and not the meteors!Indeed I was on I-80, heading east. I was pulling a load from Sparks NV, near Reno, to McCook IL, just outside Chicago. I saw nearly a dozen shooting stars in the span of about a half hour, mostly in my peripheral vision with just enough time to see them for a second before they finished burning up. I was tempted to pull over somewhere to get a better look, but it was around 4am and very cold outside while my cab was nice and toasty.

I saw a meteor shower while driving through Wyoming a few days ago. Does that get me any Christmas Comet points?

Having more fun with Artifact. This seemingly subpar deck I've drafter with Prellex, Crystal Maiden, Venomancer, Sniper, and Bounty Hunter is putting in work. People just don't know how to play against plague wards. They seem so innocuous, then a couple turns later most of your units in that lane are dead and the lane is out of control and just plain lost. I'm sure higher level players can handle plague wards just fine, but casuals get murdered by them. Good times. Edit: I'm 2/3 of the way through episode 4 of The Council and holy crap did they just drop a bombshell on me! Oh boy oh boy oh boy, **** just got all types of twisted.

The Redemption happened when you redeemed $60 for a copy of the game.

I finished episode 3 of The Council. Down the rabbit hole I go. There's a really great puzzle at the end of episode 3 and it has serious consequences if you don't solve it correctly.