Keyrock

Yikes, hope you get through the hurricane alright and take no damage to your home, Kaine. My mom went through a major hurricane last year in Florida, I was all types of freaking out, but she got through it alright.

^ Boss of company says their product is great and you should buy it. In other news, scientists have discovered that water is indeed wet. Now, here's a chimpanzee waterskiing.

Not even just since 3, pretty much all the Tropicos are almost identical with the exception of 2.

Swery, you beautiful, magnificent lunatic. Thank you for continuing to make bat**** crazy games.

Ooh, I get to be a charter member. I'm in.

I'd be down for something like Brutal Legend but focused on one genre (action RPG), rather than several genres mashed into one game with none of them being done particularly well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEeEphYGio8 I'm a little disappointed that this won't actually be a FMV game, but I'm still definitely interested, plus I liked Hard West. The idea of an alternative history Cold War XCOM is quite appealing. Here's a link to the steam store page if you want to see what the game actually looks like: http://store.steampowered.com/app/559100/Phantom_Doctrine/ Edit: I just figured out where I remembered the woman in that trailer from. She was from Devolver's amazing E3 presentation. :D

^ "The Bob Dylan of Video Games" (I'm assuming this refers to Anthem?) just about broke my Pretentiousness Meter.

I can't grow a good full beard. I can grow a good circle beard, but if I try for a full beard it's kind of patchy on my cheeks and looks crappy. I feel naked whenever I go babyface, so there's almost always some kind of hair on my face, either a circle beard or, more often, the classic pornstache. Edit: Also, shoutout to my pointy acorn head.

Jealous?

My coworkers and I took about 15 minutes out of our workday to go outside and watch the eclipse. Here in Charlotte it never got to total eclipse, but it came pretty dang close. Here's my crappy eclipse selfie: It doesn't accurately portray how dark it was. At around 2:40 PM it was about as dark as it usually is around 7:30 PM this time of year.

Pfft, all y'all crying that there may never be a fifth Mass Effect will get no sympathy from me; I've been waiting 12 years (and counting) for a second Jade Empire. Mass Effect maybe should have just stayed as a trilogy, not everything needs to become a 247 game long franchise like AC and CoD. It was a 3 part story and it wrapped up with a definitive conclusion, even if that conclusion was complete hogwash and about as satisfying as biting into a head of iceberg lettuce. One big problem with Andromeda is that by taking this game out of the Milky Way they essentially removed some of the more interesting and entertaining races like the Elcor and Volus (who were woefully underutilized in the original trilogy as is) and they weren't replaced with anything of real interest. Then there's the issue of the game starting off at a snails pace and really dragging in the beginning before they let you loose on the galaxy. In fairness, the first Mass Effect basically followed the same formula, except that the Citadel was infinitely a more interesting and enjoyable place to explore and traverse while you did mundane tasks than the Nexus.

I suppose I shouldn't assume everyone has access to AC. Where I live now it's almost a must. Back when I lived in Connecticut, AC was a nice luxury, but you didn't have to have it, a good fan would make it tolerable during summer. I can't imagine going through a Carolina summer without AC. I'm lucky enough to have central air powerful enough to easily keep my place at a nice 74°F even when it's like 98°F outside (I've yet to see triple digits since I moved here a year and a half ago, but mid to high 90s are fairly common).

I finished mission 4 (of 7) of the German Campaign in Sudden Strike 4, The Battle of Stalingrad. It was easily the longest and most difficult mission so far and I suffered heavy losses throughout, which is fitting, given the real battle it was based on. When I finally took the Volga River and completed the mission I had 1 tank, 1 artillery cannon, and a small squad of infantry left, plus my support vehicles (repair trucks and supply trucks). I'm having a ton of fun with the game. I'm sure RTS grognards have plenty of things they can use to pick the game apart, but for a filthy disgusting casual, like me, it's a very enjoyable time. I particularly like the focus on both sides having a finite number of units, rather than having buildings that produce units or one side having endlessly spawning periodic reinforcements. Both sides do get reinforcements during missions in scripted events, but once said scripted events happen, that's it, you get no more. It makes you play a lot more careful and measured, since every soldier lost is a blow to your success, and losing a tank is devastating. Repair vehicles can repair critical damage to other vehicles, but that just gets them running again, it doesn't magically heal them up to 100%. This creates really tense moments near the end of a mission where you are pushing toward your final objective with a small squad of battered, smoking tanks, and tired, wounded infantry. Gaining victory when you are on death's door is oh so satisfying.

The end of a long and grueling mission. Flanking maneuver + air strike = good times (not for the Russians, though)

Wait, very hot weather means you are less likely to play video games? For me it's the opposite, when it's super hot outside (like right now, though we should get cooler air on Thursday) I'm more likely to play video games, since I'd rather stay inside in my air conditioned home than do stuff outside. When the weather is more pleasant I'm much more likely to be outside and not playing games.

I'm back from the game. It started out rough with our starting pitcher giving up an inside the park HR to the very first batter and the Iron Pigs tacking on another run in the first, but then the Caballeros exploded with a thrilling 4 run 5th en route to a 5-3 victory. I had great seats halfway down the 1st base line in the 3rd row (the great thing about minor league baseball is that you can get great tickets cheap). It was a beautiful evening with temps in the mid to high 80s, relatively low humidity, and a slight breeze. I had a great time. Drummers and dancers outside the entrance before the game. My view. Bases loaded with 2 outs during the thrilling 5th inning rally. We won! The Queen City at night, taken on my way out of the stadium.

That's rough, Barty, my condolences. I'm off to a Charlotte Knights, or, as they are temporarily called, in honor of the Queen City's rapidly expanding Latino population, the Charlotte Caballeros, game (phew, that's a lot of commas). Not gonna lie, they should just change the name to Caballeros permanently, that word is awesome to say. Minor league baseball, plus the team is terrible this year. Feel the excitement! Still, going to baseball games is usually a good time. As boring as it is to watch on TV, and holy **** is baseball boring on TV, I always enjoy myself at the park.

What sort of machine were you running 18 thousand years into the future?

The term Pyrrhic Victory comes to mind.

I'd give my right arm for a sequel or prequel where you play as SIE.

I think HBM is the future, it's just not necessary yet. The extra bandwith, for gaming applications, is overkill at the moment, GDDR5's bandwith is still plenty. At some point, GDDR5 won't be enough, that point is not here yet. Hopefully the HBM gambit pans out for AMD in the long run and they catch up to Nvidia. As a consumer, I want the 2 companies as competitive as possible across the board. I guess the best bit of good news for AMD is consumer-grade Volta getting delayed until 2018, as I expect Volta to mop the floor with everything that's out today.