Keyrock

Don't love Volo too much, y'all are playing against each other next week.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Chip Kelly NFL experiment is over. If it's not and someone is dumb enough to hire him in the NFL again they deserve all the misery their franchise will suffer as a result. Granted, I can't completely pin the Niners trainwreck season on Chip, as it was already an organization in self-destruct mode before he arrived, but he did set the Iggles back several years by getting rid of several of their best players and didn't do the Niners any favors either. Back to college with you, Chip. Golem get ye gone! As for my Boys, we lost a meaningless game to the Iggles where many of our starters played limited minutes, some didn't play at all. Heck, we played Dirty Sanchez at QB for most of the game. We didn't get any new injuries of concern, Romo looked sharp for the 1 series he played in, which is good to know in case we need him, and all the at all banged up guys got the night off. Also Zeke got the night off to rest his legs. I'd say mission accomplished all around.

I finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Good game. I'd say it was a small step forward in terms of gameplay and a slight step back in terms of story as compared to Human Revolution. I just think the story took too long to get going, plus the game had a big lack of compelling characters. The characters I found most interesting were K, Melania, and Duncan; it's a shame none of them played a bigger part in the game. Overall, though, I think this was a very small step forward over HR. Not the bigger step forward I had hoped it would be, but progress nevertheless. I got the Pacifist achievement on this Give Me A Challenge playthrough for not killing anyone, not even I also managed to though I failed to I plan to do another playthrough eventually on New Game+ Give Me Deus Ex difficulty and play the game bloodbath style, killing enemies indiscriminately, and all of them, if possible. As an aside, for the love of God, if your end credits sequence is going to be that long, please please please, with a cherry on top, include a key I can press to speed it up. I always watch the credits to make sure there isn't a bonus scene, and, sure enough, DX:MD included one. I won't pretend I saw it coming, but I wasn't surprised by it either. The character that pulls the Russo Swerve is one that I had some suspicions about during the game. Next up I need to finish Shadow Tactics. While this is a game I praise heartily (you've probably seen me blow my load all over it here plenty of times), it's not a game I can play in long stretches (unlike Deus Ex, for example). It's just too mentally taxing a game for me to play for extended periods of time, I usually stick to hour long sessions at most. There is so much planning and so many moving parts to keep track of at all times that it wears me out quickly. Still, I should be close to the end now, plus a game this mentally taxing is all the sweeter when you beat it.

Looks like the Chiefs are getting the 2 seed in the AFC. Edit: Also, the Skins **** the bed, which means both Green Bay and Detroit are in.

Nothing too wild here. Got together with some neighbors (that way nobody had to drive) and ate and drank in plentiful amounts. Later I went home and played some games. Now, on New Year's Day, the first thing I'm going to do (after taking a shower, of course) is put in the laundry. Yeah, I live an exciting lifestyle. Edit: Relevant:

The only interesting part about Zombi U was stripped out of the game when it became Zombi, and that was the second screen functionality of the Wii U controller. I've warmed up to DX:MD. The game finally gave me an antagonist, even if said antagonist is merely a puppet, which makes it a lot easier to get invested in it. Plus, I've ventured into more interesting, less Half-Life 2-like, parts of Prague. Also, I jumped back into Shadow Tactics and am playing what is seemingly the final mission, though I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be. This is the first time I get to use all 5 characters in the same mission and they really ramped up the difficulty here, reducing the amount of solid hiding places and forcing me to have multiple characters act simultaneously more often. This game continues to impress me with its level design. I can't speak highly enough about how well each mission is crafted. I have to devise some really crafty plans to get past the challenges. With more and more moving parts it become increasingly more difficult to get the timing just right and keep track of all the enemies close enough to ruin my plans.

For me, personally, 2016 was actually a really really good year. I escaped the frozen high cost of living wasteland known as Connecticut and moved 750 miles south to Charlotte (on my own, with little safety net besides the contingency savings I accumulated and no one in the place I was moving to to lean on), found a halfway decent job, and bought a brand new (and really nice) car. Hopefully 2017 will be just as good for me and for all of you. Anyway, for now it's time to knock back some alcohol so... Cheers!

Polish potato vodka, Luksusowa, to be more specific. It's my favorite and I've always preferred potato vodkas to grain vodkas (my pops is the opposite). I also have a can of Foster's ale in the fridge. It's not the greatest beer in the world, but I've always liked the giant can. It makes me feel like a manly man drinking from a big ass can like that.

CDPR are making a standalone version of Gwent. I think it's in beta right now.

The hits just keep on coming. Still 3 days left in this tragic year...

I started playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. I'm fairly early in the game and my impressions are kind of lukewarm so far. The story really isn't grabbing me. I haven't met a truly compelling character yet, hence I've failed to form much in the way of bonds. Duncan MacReady is the closest thing to a character I care about. I'm guessing he's the guy I'm supposed to hate at the beginning then learn to begrudgingly respect and maybe even like eventually, at least that's the impression I got. I must be ahead of the curve because I liked the guy right from the start, despite him being a racist (augist?) and kind of a ****. I know people have fawned over how amazing a hub area Prague is, but I'm not seeing it so far, keep in mind I haven't seen that much of it yet. To me it looks like a random Half-Life 2 city. There are houses and doors and windows, most of which are just for decoration, but a few I can open and go inside. There are some people out in the streets getting harassed by combines police. Beyond the giant rock suspended by chains, I've yet to see anything interesting in Prague. Maybe I just haven't been to the cool part of the city yet. Anyway, the gameplay is good enough that it keeps me playing for now, so hopefully the story picks up soon, before I give up on it. For starters, a good villain would help. The Illuminati pulling strings from the background isn't doing it for me. Edit: Also, the whole #AugLivesMatter stuff has fallen flat for me, mostly because it doesn't seem to affect my character at all. Jensen is about as aug'd up as a guy can possibly get, no amount of badass trenchcoat can conceal that, yet no one has given me any **** aside from one crooked cop who tried to extort me. I can go wherever I want and no one bothers me ever, which makes it hard for me to go along with the oh noes the augs have it so bad aspect of the game.

2016 claims yet another one. Princess Leia dead at 60.

Guilty feet have got no rhythm.

Drugs are a hell of a drug. RIP George Michael. Yet another talent taken from us this year much too soon. 2017 can't come soon enough.

So much for a repeat superbowl winner this season. On the positive side, matbe my Boys can get the Donks to give us some draft picks and players for Tony Romo. It makes sense for them. Paxton Lynch ain't ready yet and you ain't winning no superbowl with Siemian, even if your D is still great (not so much tonight).

Rough week for young franchise QBs. I hope Dak gets through tomorrow safe.

I decided 67% was enough of a discount and bought DX:MD just before I left yesterday morning to go to the airport for my trip to the frozen north for X-Mas, started downloading it, and set up "shutdown -h 720" (shutdown after 720 minutes for the non-Linux folks out there) as I walked out the door. I wonder how much of the game downloaded before Anonymous or whoever killed Steam?

It gets very one not after a while though, did enjoy it though just not much joy when every mission becomes everyone walking in an Indian file and using cloaking devices.Agreed. Satellite Reign starts out great, but it gets incredibly repetitive after a while. Every mission becomes essentially the same. That's where Shadow Tactics, in my opinion, shows its brilliance. It's not exactly the same genre, but there are enough similarities that I feel a comparison is fair. Shadow Tactics does a far superior job of periodically introducing new mechanics, and even when all mechanics have been introduced they present new challenges with clever enemy placement and environmental crafting. In fairness, it's a lot easier to do that in a level-based game than in a semi-open world game like SR. Also, I don't want to sound like I'm taking a dump on SR. I thoroughly enjoyed it for some 12-15 hours before the repetitiveness started wearing on me and I feel I got my money's worth. Hopefully they make a SR2.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. I was going to wait until I finished it, but I'm far enough in that only a ME3 level ending fiasco could sour the experience enough to knock it down off this year's top spot. This gem of a game not only revived what was a dead genre, it did so in style. I consider 2016 the year that procedurally generated became a dirty word(s) and Shadow Tactics shows the value of hand crafting content. Simply put, Shadow Tactics has the best level design I have seen in a game in years. The game is ruthlessly difficult (as it should be) but fair. Enemy placement and patrol routes combined with meticulously crafted environments create a series of at first seemingly impossible challenges that nevertheless have multiple solutions and reguire imagination, strategy, coordination, and increasingly more razor thin timing. The difficulty curve is near perfect and the design excellence never wavers, plus fresh challenges appear regularly. This is the triumphant spiritual succesor to Commandos. Honorable Mentions: Enter the Gungeon - Proving that procedurally generated can work well under the right circumstances. Tyranny - Mediocre combat is bolstered by an interesting setting and great choice and consequence.

Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus. I'm currently at the airport waiting to board a plane bound for the frozen north to celebrate with family.

Luckily for you, Barty, you don't necessarily need the Cowboys to beat the Lions on Monday (though, I'm sure, it would be nice). If the Packers win their last 2 games then they win the division, regardless of what happens to the Lions this week. I think the NFC playoffs are going to be: Cowboys C-Hox Falcons Packers G-Men Bucs

WOOT! Thanks to the Iggles the Cowboys are now the NFC East champs and the #1 seed. Our 2 remaining games are now meaningless to us. If it was up to me I'd play the first team for 3/4 of the game this week and 1/2 the game in week 17.

It took me over 3 hours to complete this mission, but in the end it was so worth it.

Enemy soldiers everywhere My plan here was to kill the straw hat guard up in the tower that's in the center-ish of the screen It took me about a dozen failed attempts to get the razor thin timing just right of grappling up to the top of the ramparts, getting to the tower, killing the guard while the samurai patrolling the ramparts was turned away from me, disposing of the body, getting out through the trap door and out the door at the base of the tower just before the samurai got up to the tower, then avoiding the guards' gaze in the courtyard and getting to a hidden location. It was worth it, though, because with that guard out of the way it opened up an opportunity to kill another guard on the ground, which in turn opened up the opportunity to kill another guard, which in turn... you get the idea.

I'm playing mission 9 in Shadow Tactics. This one takes place in the middle of a full on battle with soldiers everywhere. It's so freakin' hard. I'm slowly, very very slowly, making my way through it and whittling down the opposition so that I can strike at my objectives, but the timings I have to work with are razor thin, plus there are so many enemies to account for at all times. I'll think I have a foolproof plan set up where I distract one guard while another of my team kills another guard and it seems i have all my angles covered and no one will see him die so long as that one guard is distracted, except that other guard up in the tower that can see everything and I'm screwed. Back to the drawing board. I love it.