Keyrock

Fess up, Nonek, you were just using that as an excuse to use as many mad synonyms as possible, weren't you?

I don't know what a thunderpoon is, but it sounds... dirty, and I like it.

Enoch is in mid-season form already. Anyway, word is that Romo looked... mobile during pre-season, I dunno, I never watch anything pre-season. If he can move like a human again that would be helpful. That said, I'll still cringe anytime he drops back to throw and there's a defender within 5 yards of him, because I know he's potentially 1 hit away from retirement.

Synopsis: Both sides have fair points. Gamers and reviewers sometimes look at games differently because of the situations they're in. Reviewers get the games for free, also they have hundreds of games to review constantly, so things like busywork are an obstacle to them getting to the heart of the game so they can post a review. Gamers have to pay for their own games and don't generally have the same time pressures reviewers do, so things that seem like busywork for reviewers may be enjoyable activities to gamers that extend their playing time and give them value for the money they had to spend. Also, Ars Technica are ****wads for going with a clickbait-y presumptuous title for their review. Also also, don't get hung up on scores, they fail to tell the whole story. Also also also, scores bad, mmkay? Edit: Ninja'd

A bit late, but this video from one Cynical Brit talks at length about the very disconnect between user attitudes and some reviewer attitudes toward Mad Max that Mamo (I hope it's alright I shorten your username to that... would you prefer MamWar? MWar?) asked about, and even talks about the very reviews linked here.

Woohoo, the season is almost here! My annual tradition of ignoring anything NFL related as best I can from shortly after the superbowl until just before the regular season starts is now over and I'm ready to talk footbaw again. So, how about dem Cowboys? No, really, someone fill me in. I know Jerral paid Dez and let DeMarco go (and got Darren McFadden), beyond that, I'm mostly in the dark.

I apathetic toward Felicia Day, she doesn't move the needle in either direction for me.

Yes, I am using a c0ckpit mod. The vanilla game doesn't have them (none of the X3 games do), but I like having them, even though they obscure your vision a bit. My ultimate loadout will likely be: Front - 8 x Incendiary Bomb Launcher - Maximum frontal firepower. Will instantly vaporize any fighter dumb enough to stay in front of my ship long enough for my front batteries to open up on it. Will melt corvettes within seconds (sometimes before they even have a chance to fire on me because IBLs have over a kilometer and a half greater range than any gun a corvette can mount). Will shred other frigates rapidly. Will do great damage to destroyers and carriers and eventually destroy them. Left and right double turrets - 2 x Ion Shard Railgun each (4 total) - Great for shredding heavy fighters and damaging corvettes that try to outmaneuver me. Fairly high energy drain makes me weary to mount more than 4 of these on my ship as it will take away from how long I can unleash doom, death, and destruction via my front mounted IBLs. Top, bottom, and rear double turrets - 2 x Phased Repeater Gun each (6 total) - A high rate of fire and extremely accurate weapon with a relatively low power draw (for a ship with the Tiger's laser capacitor and recharge rate). Extremely effective for missile defense and highly effective at taking out light fighters and scouts as well as damaging heavy fighters. I thought about just mounting 10 Flak Artillery Arrays in all the turrets. FAAs' extreme accuracy would mean that having these mounted in all the double turrets would pretty much guarantee that no missile ever reaches my ship. Also, it would spell certain doom to any fighter trying to flank me. However, FAAs have exceedingly high energy drain, making them prohibitive to mount in large quantities, even on a ship with as generous a laser capacitor and recharge rate as a Tiger.

This is a most joyous day, I have finally acquired my first frigate, a Split Tiger, marvel at its glory: And the view from the bridge: The Tiger is fast, has immense firepower, is surprisingly well shielded for a Split ship, and presents a tiny profile for enemies to fire at from both the front and the back, and a long, but slim profile from the sides. From the top and bottom are the only angles it's relatively easy to hit. It's going to take me a while (and a lot of credits) to get the ship fully equipped, in the pic from the bridge you can see I only have 2 Ion Shard Railguns at the moment (ISRs are very effective against heavy fighters and corvettes). Particularly, getting a bunch of Incendiary Bomb Launchers is going to be tricky and time consuming, since it's a pirate weapon and I'm not exactly in good standing with pirates, on account of the hundreds of their ships I've turned into debris. IBLs are worth the trouble to acquire, though, as they have tremendous range and do nearly as much damage as weapons that only destroyers can mount. Once I have this bad boy fully armed, nothing and no one is safe. The Tiger can outgun the vast majority of ships in existence, and the few it can't outgun it can outrun and outmaneuver. There is nothing a fully equipped Tiger cannot destroy single-handedly.

I don't think there's any plate to it, it looks like leather, or some sort of fabric that's somehow defying gravity (unless there are straps hidden under her hilariously tiny vest) and covering part of her boobs. Not the most protective outfit you can wear, but certainly effective for her "charm" ability.

Oh my goodness, is that Shani? That's Shani, isn't it?

Pros: Garrison uses a shockingly reasonable sized sword Scantily clad red head Badass looking golem Cons: Gully's ridiculously gargantuan gauntlets I'll definitely check it out if and when it releases and if and when they do a Linux port.

There are, but I never pay attention to the compass, I'd rather find my objectives by searching around the level when out on a run and in Heoi I just got so used to constantly heading toward the MTR that it became instinctual, plus I read the full mission briefing much earlier, when I first got the message for the mission, then wound up doing every other mission and didn't bother reading through the whole message again when it came time to actually do the mission since I had already read it once before and remembered "oh right, that's the mission on the boat" and my brain didn't make the rather logical leap that a mission on a boat wouldn't start from the MTR because I'm a dumbass. Anyway, doesn't matter now, I'm halfway (?) through what I can only assume is the final mission. On the bright side, I'll at least have 1 run that will be totally fresh when I inevitably replay the game sometime in the future.

Can we at least get a **** pic? I promise to not send you a game for one.

This one's for Volo: The Dwarves - An RPG by KING Art Games (Book of Unwritten Tales, etc.) with a tactical physics-driven combat engine.

Believe me, I'm as big of a proponent of stay the **** out of there as you're gonna find and certainly the US sticking its nose into the Middle's East business hasn't helped. On the other hand it's not like that region has ever been stable. That region is a powder keg, always has been, but yeah, the US threw some matches on said powder keg, which didn't make things any better.

This makes Murica's own problems with its borders look downright negligible by comparison. There's a vetting process to go through when you seek to enter a country, where your credentials are scrutinized and background checks are run to make sure they're not about to let a known terrorist or wanted criminal emigrate into their country, I know this because my family went through such a process when we were emigrating to the US. This process took months, granted this was back in the 80s and a lot of that can be done much more efficiently now, but how the hell do you do that with hundreds of thousands making their way across your borders? This is a mess and very very bad things are going to come of this. Thank goodness I'm an ocean away. I feel for the people who are staring this directly in the face right now. Because that's worked so well in the past.

I finished the hub plot in X3: Albion Prelude and started the shady business plot. This is the longest plot in the game outside of maybe the main plot (I'm not sure which one is longer) and I'm going to put it on hold soon because I'm not ready to do the latter parts of it. Eventually I'll have to take on capital ships to complete that plot, even if I take the easy way out, rather than the more difficult route that also ends the Terran War. I'm just not ready to take on capital ships, my Argon Centaur ain't gonna cut the mustard for that kind of battle. The good news is that I now have enough money to build another crystal-less power plant, so that's my next step. I'm going to scout out a good location for it, build it, convert it to crystal-less, then do some combat missions with my Centaur while I wait for funds to come in to build another power plant. Eventually I'll buy a frigate, probably a Split Tiger, and then I'll be prepared to take on capital ships. That's a still a ways off in the future though.

That makes sense, I was so used to starting practically every single other mission from the MTR. Too late now, anyway.

I haven't finished the game yet, but I'm into endgame territory now. One gripe I have, I'm not sure if this is a bug... it seems like a bug, when I went to see Auntie C she told me flat out "finish any other runs you have before you start this mission". No problem, right? Standard stuff. I had one pending job left at that time. The problem is that it wouldn't actually let me do that job. I could accept it from my mission computer and it would show up as an active job, but when I would go to the MTR, the only option I was given was to start the endgame stuff. It's not that big a deal, I feel I'm plenty powerful enough, so whatever karma and nuyen I missed out on for that last job shouldn't hinder me any in the endgame, but if you tell me "finish any remaining runs you have" it would be cool if the game actually let me do that. Oh well. I should be done with the game in the next day or two.

I'm really glad Crookz autosaves your game every 30 seconds or so (you can manually save whenever also). It's not something I needed to take advantage of earlier in the game when the missions were more forgiving, but boy oh boy do I need it now. The missions are getting really complicated and there are so many moving parts I inevitably lose sight of some of them. There are some really tricky areas to get through, made easier or harder depending on who you chose to bring along and what tools you have. It should only get harder and more complicated going forward. Good times. Crookz is my pleasant surprise of the year so far. This game came out of nowhere, basically zero press coverage before launch (and not much after launch), and it turned out to be so good. It's kind of interesting playing this game and Shadowrun: Hong Kong at the same time, as they're both great games, but they kind of juxtapose each other. S:HK is a game with excellent writing and narrative that carries fairly mediocre gameplay. Crookz is a game with excellent gameplay that carries fairly mediocre writing and narrative. @Mamoulian War - You own a pretty large chunk of Europe.

No comment on Ars Technica, it's not a site I've ever frequented, so I have no gauge of the quality of their work or how their views line up with mine. Jim Sterling, on the other hand, is pretty much the last guy I'd ever go to for a review. I trust him to give me an honest, objective review about as far as I could throw him. My biggest question about Mad Max is how is the driving model? Beating up dudes in bondage gear with fisticuffs is all well and good, but when I think Mad Max I think car chases and vehicular combat. As long as that's good, I'm in.

I wonder who is more obsessed, me about orcs or Volo about dwarves? With that in mind, no playable orcs... not even half-orcs. They better put out an orc-themed DLC, otherwise, opportunity wasted.