Keyrock

Wouldn't this be the year to run as a 3rd candidate? You have arguably the 2 most hated candidates of all time going against each other. What better time for a big name from either side to run as an independent?

Still playing Salt & Sanctuary. The game is great. I'm happy that they didn't make the game too punishing. The game is hard and I die a lot, but even if I lose a lot of salt by dying (doesn't happen that often because I'm a wuss and play it safe and use a bell to get back to a sanctuary whenever I have a bunch of salt on me) I'm never like *throw controller across room* "welp, I'll never get that salt back" *sadness & anger*. I'm like "well that sucked, but it's all good because I can either kill that enemy to get my salt back or grind for it for a short bit, no biggie". I also really appreciate all the shortcuts they put in that you open once you get through an area. As much as I love confusing metroidvania mazes, and I do, I like to have a quick way to bypass stuff once I've gone through them once.

That mouse is so adorable

But but but video games cause violence, despite countless studies claiming otherwise. For example, that person that shot people in Munich recently... I bet that person played a video game at some point in their life, therefore video games make people kill.

Killed the Mad Alchemist in Salt & Sanctuary. Definitely the easiest boss fight so far. I almost killed him on my first attempt, only died because I didn't know what I was up against. I wrecked him on my second attempt.

More Salt & Sanctuary. I died many many inglorious deaths in the forest. I've now got a hang of the area, though me plummeting to my death due to my piss poor platforming skills remains a very real possibility. On the positive side, I killed the Queen of Smiles on my second attempt at fighting her. This is still undoubtedly very early in the game, but I'll take whatever small victories I can get.

Frictional Games are working on two new games, including their first non-horror title. I personally don't have any issues with "walking simulators", so long as the walking is really interesting. As for Firewatch, brevity aside (I'm glad I waited to buy it on sale), that was a game that I felt was let down by its ending. It was a game that seemed like it was heading somewhere really interesting, then decided to head down just about the most mundane and uninteresting path possible for its conclusion. If Frictional do plan to make something like Firewatch then they really need to work on their dialogue, as that was Firewatch's strongest point and the dialogue in SOMA felt quite clumsy at times. I'll definitely be interested to see what they come up with, though I'm not particularly “existentially traumatized.”

As with any Firaxis game, I'll wait a year or so then decide whether or not I want to buy the complete edition.

I always keep tweaking the formula and trying different ingredients. I'm thinking of trying some leafy veggies in there like spinach or bok choy. Also, maybe some cinnamon or nutmeg for a bit of spicy kick. Blueberries are the one constant (besides yogurt as the base and a bit of milk to thin it out) in my smoothie recipes. They're delicious and I like the texture of the "crunchy" debris you get from them.

Blueberry, blackberry, banana, and plum smoothie:

The only BBF boss fight I had trouble with was the Deadwalker General battle in the swamp, and that's mostly because my character was still pretty weak at that point. It took me a bunch of tries and when I did beat him it was a tense nearly 10 minute battle that involved me mostly running away. Later on in the game I got to face a Deadwalker General again as a mini-boss and I MASSACRED the dude quick and easy. By the end of the game I had somewhere around 30% crit chance with my axe (I concentrated on weapon speed, crit, and damage for gear upgrades). I didn't bother much casting fireballs because they did pathetic damage, they felt like a waste of mana, but I would flame up my axe and flame myself up then charge in and just murderate stuff. If I crit (which was fairly often) with a flamed up axe I could nearly 1-shot weaker enemies and take a big chunk off tougher enemies. Flame weapon and flame shield were awesome when maxed out. My character was all types of OP in late game, but maybe that's because I went full-demon. I should try it again going down the humanity path and maybe stabby stabby style instead of big 2-hander axe.

Rabbits can have different stats? Will there be a Vorpal Bunny?

How is the character progression relative to the challenge of the enemies? For me, both Mars: War Logs and Bound By Flame start out relatively the same; your character is a pathetic weakling. The biggest difference is in the progression of your character's power level relative to enemies. In M:WL you remain a pathetic weakling throughout the entire game. While your abilities do get a bit stronger, the skill increases are pretty mediocre and the enemy strength and numbers grow at least as fast as your character. In that game it feels like you need every single weapon and armor upgrade available just to keep up with enemies. I am forced to constantly cheese the system just to survive as I'm almost always massively outnumbered and nearly every enemy seems stronger than me. Also, companions are completely and utterly useless in M:WL; they're good for 10 seconds of distraction at best. In BBF you start out as a pathetic weakling too, but your character grows in power relative to enemies throughout the game. By the late stages of the game I was feeling like a legitimate badass and I very rarely felt the need to resort to cheese tactics. Even when severely outnumbered I could usually buff myself quickly, then charge in and dispatch a couple of the weaker enemies very rapidly to reduce their numbers to a manageable amount. Also, companions, while still not great, have a more measurable impact on the battle. Heck, they even kill enemies once in a while all on their own.

How does Technomancer's combat compare to Bound By Flame's? I thought BBF's combat, while far from perfect, was significantly better than Mars: War Logs'.

I'm torn on the look of Salt & Sanctuary. The aesthetic is consistent and I like the lighting effects and there's a lot of layers in the background giving nice depth, but I hate the look of the human characters.

I'm playing Salt & Sanctuary. It's pretty good. I've gotten my ass whooped quite a few times already, but it's all part of the learning process.

WB pulled a ton of shady **** with Shadow of Mordor to manipulate the press. The weird thing is that the game was actually pretty ****ing awesome and they totally didn't need to do anything of the sort and could have just let the game get by on its merits.

Timothee "TTimo" Besset was the guy who made Linux/Mac versions of Id games. When he left Id so did Linux/Mac ports.

That game was jointly developed by Spiders and Cyanide. Given that Cyanide has continued with the franchise and Spiders has not, I'm guessing that Cyanide did the heavy lifting for that game. Continuing my Axiom Verge playthrough. I managed to "glitch" my way into another world that Elsenova calls "artifact", I call it Interlaced World. She warned me to turn back and leave the place. All I've found in there besides scan lines and horrible pop-in is 1/5 an Energy Tank Health Node and a gun upgrade that's proven completely useless so far. Maybe she has a point?

^ It looks completely safe to walk out on that ledge. Get it? Because there's a saf... No need to get up, I'll show myself the door.

I'm sorry to hear about your loss, Barty.

Totally NOT Metroid

Have some pictures from the Great Smoky Mountains. Sadly, it didn't rain so I didn't get to see the bluish looking fog that forms after rain that looks sort of like smoke, which gave the region its name. As an aside, I'm happy to report that I'm not as out of shape as I had feared. I made the half-mile, rather steep hike up to the tower at the top of Clingman's Dome without any trouble and no stops along the way.

Don't hate us because we're beautiful. Hate us because we're larger and wealthier than you.