Keyrock

Still playing Satellite Reign. I've now upgraded from Minigun to Laser Minigun. It's kind of a moot point right now because I try to stealth everything and avoid firefights at all costs, but I figure that eventually I'll have to do a mission guns blazing, so I'm still arming my crew as best I can. I managed to pick up a Stealth Module, which allows me to give someone other than my Infiltrator the cloak ability. The Infiltrator is still the vastly superior choice to send in solo since I have maxed out cloak ability, which lasts a lot longer than the invis from the Stealth module. Still, occassionally a mission requires a specific individual to infiltrate the compound for whatever reason, so it's handy to have. I'm starting to break into really heavily secured compounds now, so I have to be really careful because there are enough guards around that getting spotted usually leads to death. There are just too many of them to be able to give them the slip. This makes for some great tension while I desperately try to stick to the shadows when deep into guarded territory. I can't wait to see what the endgame missions look like.

Oh man, so many greats leaving us over the last couple weeks. Rest in Peace Alan Rickman, may the greatest movie villain ever hold Nakatomi Tower hostage in heaven forever and may Mr. Cowboy never win.

I did my taxes. Not the most enjoyable or exciting task, but it's done and that's one less monkey I have to carry around on my back. Plus, it's that much faster I get my return.

I got a minigun in Satellite Reign. This clearly makes me very happy, but it bring up a question? How the heck is my character concealing it? In the game as long as you don't have your weapons armed you can walk past guards and cameras and everything is hunky-dory (R.I.P. David Bowie). Pistols I understand, those I could conceal easily. SMGs is pushing it a bit, especially the laser SMG which is pretty much assault rifle size, but I can give that a pass. But a minigun? That thing is almost as big as I am. What kind of cargo pants is my soldier wearing that he can stash that monstrosity out of sight? I can't imagine my soldier just wearing that thing slung across his back and guards on the street thinking "I'm sure he's got a permit for that. It's fine." That is not a weapon a civilian lawfully carries in any universe.

It's true, before the internet took off, it was literally impossible to buy legal copies of many games in Eastern Bloc countries. If you wanted a game your choice was to buy a pirated copy. Period. There was no other choice. It wasn't thought of as piracy because there was no other option.

Sweet mother of Necromancy, 11 years has got to be some kind of record.

We interrupt this game piracy debate to bring you the following game trailer: We now return you to your regularly scheduled game piracy debate.

While it's in no way related to Morrowind (other than they're both open world and RPGs), Xenoblade Chronicles X, in a way, is that game for me. There have been hundreds (if not thousands) of open world games made since TES III, Xenoblade Chronicles X is the only one that gives me the same feeling of awe and wonder. That is, however, only from the standpoint of the look and feel of the world, of exploring a weird and alien landscape. It doesn't have the faction politics and no councilman has asked me to strip naked... yet.

R.I.P. A true legend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0

I have to agree, thus why i'd never try and change any game or take up the nonsensical conspiracy theories about games causing violence or sexism. Therefore I have to arrive at the same conclusion, i'm just a big wuss. Wolves are especially frustrating however, the yelping and frightened barks which are recorded so well in games make my Fido look up at me with his big brown eyes, and I feel as guilty as sin. I'm a wuss too, I guess. I do my best to not kill non-aggressive indigens in Xenoblade Chronicles X and even generally avoid aggressive ones, even if their level poses no threat to me. I'll fight back if attacked, but I don't like grinding on them for exp or loot. Sometimes when fighting an aggressive enemy I'll accidentally aggro a passive indigen via stray fire, then I have to kill it and I feel bad about it. This animal was just grazing, minding its own business, then it caught a stray bullet and I had to kill it. That said, I have no issue with the game whatsoever letting you kill things, whether human, alien, or animal.

Proxy Hacker is one of the very first upgrades I researched in Satellite Reign and it's still easily the best upgrade I've acquired. Being able to send my Infiltrator in alone for the vast majority of jobs makes life so much easier since I can go Invisi-Mode, making sneaking around guarded compounds exponentially easier. Good times.

Bayonetta 2. Then again, that game does pretty much every battle well.

Perhaps it shows a distinct lack of empathy to my fellow man but the sheer amount of endangered species that Ms Croft slew in her earlier outings really made me uncomfortable, as opposed to her few runs in with fellow treasure hunters. I'm such a big wuss when it comes to this, in the Witcher i'll ride away from bears and wolves when at all possible. As for her slaying of the dinosaurs she found, I was aghast to say the least, 65 million years of extinction and the young lady decides she has a right to decide their fate once more? Ideally, Lara would have had a tranquilizer gun rather than her dual pistols. That said, after seeing her origin story in the reboot, it's pretty clear Lara is just a stone cold killer and sociopath. I mean, there is that brief moment when she momentarily struggles with her first kill. A short time later, she's just murdering everything that moves on the island. I doubt Lara is concerned with the preservation of life in any form. Anyway, I've harped on that game long enough for now. Apologies for the ranting.

...of every TOMB RAIDER since the first one? No. The first Tomb Raider actually had very little combat and what little combat there was was mostly against animals. That game was heavily focused on puzzle platforming, (I'm guesstimating here) about 85% exploration and puzzle platforming and 15% combat, and thus is my favorite game in the series. Every Tomb Raider after gradually increased the combat percentage (much to my dismay) to the point where Underworld was like 65% exploration and puzzle platforming and 35% combat. Even with the increase in combat, that game was still focused on puzzle platforming (though much less than I'd like). Then Torture Porn Rider pushed it much further in the combat direction to the point that the 2013 reboot was about 75% combat and 25% exploration. I purposely didn't mention puzzle platforming because, while technically there were some puzzles, they were so childishly easy that it was flat out insulting, thus I argue they don't count. I'm not saying this as an exaggeration for emphasis, I legitimately felt insulted by the "puzzles" in Tomb Raider 2013. The earlier games, though less about puzzle platforming than I'd like, still had puzzle platforming as an integral part. The "puzzle platforming" in the reboot felt like an afterthought, like they were patronizing me. It was sad. Anyway, what I want is a game even less combat focused than the first Tomb Raider and more open and with more human (non-killing) interactions with people. Like talking to them.

An exploration archaeology/treasure hunt game with little or no combat. Fairly open levels where you visit nearby villages, talk to people, and hunt for information/clues, then descend into ruins and tombs and catacombs searching for relics, dodging traps, and puzzle platforming. Basically a Tomb Raider that went in the polar opposite direction that Torture Porn Raider went.

I finished Pony Island, though there's more to do and possibly another ending to get... maybe. It was an interesting experience and I like how the game messes with you, particularly in the final parts. It's pretty short, I finished it in under 3 hours, but at $5 the price seems fair (especially since I sold all the cards I got during the holiday sale and got this nearly for free). Anyway, it was fun to play something so weird and different. Sometimes, I just need to play something way out of left field.

A robot manned, wooden-hulled, four-masted barquentine. On a building. With rockets?

I wonder how this will fare, given the price tag. It will be interesting to find out what the proverbial line in the sand is for VR headsets. For home consoles it's $400. If your console costs more than $400 it will fail to sell regardless of how impressive the tech is (this does not bode well for the majority of Steam Machines). For handhelds it's $200. There will obviously be enthusiasts that will buy this at launch, for whom no amount of price tag is high enough a barrier, but I'm curious to see if $600, which is a rather significant sum to the average consumer, will be a deterrent to said average consumer. My guess is yes. The other factor in this is other VR headsets coming out and what price they will sell for.

I was already going to wait several years to even think about jumping on the VR bandwagon, now I have even more reason. Wait 3 or 4 years, they'll have time to iterate on it once or twice, the technology will be better, they'll be a lot more games out that support it, and it will cost half as much. That's my plan, anyway.

Pony Island

I'm playing Pony Island. It's not a game about ponies and Satan wants my soul. In the game you play a game apparently made by Satan, which I'm assuming is a pseudonym, since it would likely be illegal for them to use the name Electronic Arts.

One thing that really pisses me off about Satellite Reign is camera rotation being limited to about 90°. Why not allow full 360° rotation? The backgrounds are 3D and everything is fully 3D modeled. Why not let me do full 360° rotation? And I don't want to hear the artistic vision excuse. **** their artistic vision. The game would be a lot more fun to play if I wasn't fighting the ****ty camera angle sometimes. I wonder if there's a mod that unlocks the camera?

Far Cry 4's best ending can be attained in less than 30 minutes.