Keyrock

Thinking about the state of the NBA and what team is in the best position, outside of the Warriors, of course. Conventional wisdom would say the Cavs, obviously, but they are facing the same conundrum the rest of the league is facing, which is how in the world do you beat the dubs? I mean, Cleveland was clearly far and away the best team in the east. The destroyed everyone in their path to the finals and then got demolished. They are obviously much better than anyone else in the east but they are not even close to good enough to beat Golden State. LeBron played arguably the best basketball of his life in the finals and it wasn't even close to enough. It took a ridiculous game from Cleveland where they hit 24 3-pointers (24!) just to keep from getting swept. If you're any team not named the Golden State Warriors you have a choice to make, build for now or build for 2020 or so. If you're building for now you're building to beat the dubs. Good luck with that. Cleveland had a super powered and ultra-talented team and they weren't even close. If you're Cleveland, assuming you keep LeBron, you have to build for now. You can't build for 3 or 4 years from now because LeBron is 32. Sure, LeBron is not your average player and defies normal age conventions, but he'll be 35 in 2020 and father time catches up to everyone eventually. But who do you get that you can afford to close the gap to Golden State? Let's say you deal Kevin Love to get Paul George. Does that help? Probably. Does it make you as good as Golden State? Nope. Does it give you a fighting chance against them? Probably not. For the rest of the league, it would probably the most prudent course of action to build for 2020 or so. In that regard, the Philadelphia 76ers might be the team in the best position. Obviously projecting young players' careers several years into the future is an extremely inexact science, but they have a really great young core. The big caveat being, of course, can Joel Embiid stay healthy? Current evidence suggests he can't.

I'm playing through the escalations in the Hokkaido level in HITMAN in preparation for my attempt on the current elusive target (which is also in the Hokkaido level). I wish there were more escalations in this location (sadly, there are only 3), but at least they're really interesting. It was previously one of my least played levels, so I'm committing to memory every nook and cranny and all the patterns and behaviors of its inhabitants. Elusive target missions usually change a few things in a level, but most characters and patrol routes remain unchanged. Interestingly, I don't actually get to see what this target looks like before going into the mission, adding another layer of challenge. I managed to successfully complete the last 2 elusive contracts, but I haven't managed to silent assassin any of them. Maybe this will be the one?

I haven't bought anything in this Steam Sale, I doubt I will. I'll likely just save my money for Pyre, which releases in about a day and a half. I kind of feel like Steam Sales lost much of their luster when they got rid of flash sales and dailies. I mean, I get why they did, but the sales just don't seem as urgent as they did back then.

^ I guess it's not for everybody. I currently have 71 hours in the game, all of which I've enjoyed immensely, and I'm excited for the elusive target that arrived today. For me the fun of the game is formulating a plan, testing the plan, and refining the plan. I'll spend an hour, sometimes hours in a mission just studying the layout of the level, the patrol routes of characters, and how they react to disrupting their routine. That probably sounds boring to most people, but to me it's the definition of fun. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Minny made out like bandits, they got Jimmy Butler for 30 cents on the dollar. I have a hard time believing that was the best offer Chicago got for him, but there it is. The T-Wolves have a pretty solid looking team now. I expect they'll still screw it up somehow, given they're the Timberwolves, but it looks good on paper.

Pro-Tip: Don't read youtube comments, they're almost as awful as Twitter and Tumblr. Almost.

I can't believe Malik Monk fell all the way to #11, what a steal for the Hornets. His best case scenario is not quite Steph Curry, but man he's one hell of a shooter. Definitely the best scorer in the draft.

Aww yeah, I've unlocked the ninja starting outfit for HITMAN's Hokkaido location.

I've barely messed with the key rebinding since I mainly play with my Steam Controller, the only thing I rebound was aiming (look down sights/scope) to Mouse 4 (I use my mouse for shooting guns, which I do rarely, everything else I use a controller for), so I can't confirm if any keys are restricted from rebinding. It may well be setup in a dumb way where if a key is already bound to something you need to rebind that to free it up.

Umm, yes it does, it even has secondary keys and recognizes extra mouse buttons: You can turn "Witcher Sense" as well as a multitude of other helper options off in the gameplay menu. In fact, the game has quite a robust set of options to allow you to play with as many helpers as you want (including none at all).

Yikes. The combat in Pillars was tedious enough with m&kb. I don't even want to imagine attempting to navigate Pillars' utterly obscene amount of tedious filler battles with a controller.

Be advised that what you get for free is only the ICA training facility location, which includes 2 missions and a couple escalations. Both missions are relatively short and easy compared to the missions in the later locations, but that's to be expected, as these were basically the tutorial of the game. Still, they give you an idea of how HITMAN plays (if you've played any of the previous games, you already know how this game plays) and you can't complain about free (well, you can complain, but you'd be a **** for doing it ).

It was definitely an underwhelming E3, in my opinion, but there were still some positives to take away from it. For me they were Metro Exodus, The Last Night, Wolfenstein 2 (though we already knew about it), Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle, A Way Out, and, indirectly, the XBox One X (I have no desire to purchase the XBox One X, but I will likely purchase a PS4 Pro when Sony inevitably slashes the price to $349 a month before the XBox One X launch). I was also initially very interested in Skull & Bones, since it seems like AssCreed 4: Black Flag with all the AssCreed extracted from it (which is great since my favorite parts of that game were all the parts were you were just a pirate doing pirate things, rather than the whole Assassin/Templar stuff I give zero ****s about), but everything they showed was multiplayer. I'm on the fence on that game until I find out whether or not it will have a good, proper, meaty single-player campaign.

That's a pretty fabulous shirt Alexey is wearing.

Metro 2033 still looks great

That Devolver "conference" was a pretty good parody of E3 as a whole. It basically took a giant steaming **** all over E3. I love that the main presenter lady's title was "Chief Synergy Officer". Such a meaningless title that pokes fun at all the meaningless bull**** buzzwords that get spouted at us each year.

Yes. I mean, I think this move is a win for Boston. They get Josh Jackson, a perfect complement to the Isaiah-led Celtics, and another valuable asset (a 2018 or 2019 1st round pick). Danny Ainge likes to stockpile assets and it's clearly working given the Celts turnaround from just a few years ago.

The scuttlebutt is that the Celtics are going to trade the #1 overall pick to the Sixers in exchange for the Sixers' #3 pick and either the Sixers' 2018 first round pick (which the Lakers owe the Sixers and which is #2-5 protected), or if that fails, the Sixers' 2019 first round pick (via Kings). Danny Ainge gonna Danny Ainge. So, I guess the Sixers are going to take Markelle Fultz and the Celtics will take Josh Jackson. In a lot of ways, Josh Jackson is a better fit for the Celtics' needs, so this move makes a ton of sense for them, but I'm kind of disappointed I won't get to see the Thomas/Fultz guard combo of death.

I'm starting my replay of Metro 2033 Redux. I'm going to attempt playing through the game on Ranger Hardcore. I'm not particularly good at shooters, so I expect this to go quite poorly, but I'll give it a shot. I expect once I fail enough times I'll just play on Ranger like I did last time.

Press release from IO Interactive: tl;dr version: IO Interactive is now a completely independent studio and the retain they rights to the Hitman IP.

Dear lord, I should have never mentioned the X Box One X. I didn't realize it would send someone into full on zealot mode. I apologize to everyone here.

Not really my type of game, so I don't care either way, but the scuttlebutt seems to be that Destiny 2 very much got overshadowed by Anthem.

I've pretty much given up on Fallout. Unless Obsidian gets contracted to make one again, which I doubt it will, the series is pretty much dead to me. At least we have Wasteland 3 to look forward to.

It's the price point for the X Box One X that's the issue. Historically, every console that has ever launched around that price has failed or struggled until a price cut. All of them: Neo Geo, 3DO, and PS3. I mean, sure, the hardware in the new X Box is really impressive for that price, but so was the original PS3's hardware and that fell flat on its face until Sony gutted it and slashed the price.It also doesn't help that Sony has all the best exclusives. Will the X Box One X be the console that bucks the trend of consoles at $500+ falling flat on their face? That temains to be seen. I have my doubts.