Keyrock

I've rea hed chapter 9 (of 10) on my second playthrough of The Quarry. All the camp counselors are still alive, I got Abigail and Emma past the points where they died in my first playthrough, but that doesn't mean they're out of the woods (literally and figuratively) just yet.

It's my sister's birthday today but we celebrated yesterday. I took her and her boyfriend out for sushi and afterward to a baseball game. The Charlotte Knights hosted the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (I swear I'm not making that up) and lost, but at least they made it exciting; the Knights had the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th. Anyway, a good time was had.

This is why they keep pumping out more shows and why Paramount has 67 NuTrek shows in the works and why there are 276 Marvel and 148 DC shows. The name of the game right now in the wild west world of 8 billion streaming services is content, and more specifically, volume of content. So long as there are enough fanboys out there that will just consume anything and everything that has the brand name of the IP that is their life identity, volume of content is far more important than quality of content. Gotta have enough of it out there to keep 'em subscribed in perpetuity.

Given that Billy Dee Williams is 85 years old, I very much doubt he'd want to periodically fly out to film scenes, even if it's just to sit at a table. Luckily, they could just film him at his house, Cameron Mitchell style, and with today's technology green screen him into the scene.

I don't particularly care if it's Lando Calrissian or not, the Star Wars IP and the characters in it hold zero value for me at this point, but I do like the general premise. If executed well, the unreliable narrator gimmick can make for some great entertainment.

So, a bag of seeds? Stems?

Warhammer 40K

I'm starting my 2nd playthrough of The Quarry. The primary goal is to save Abigail and Emma while keeping all the people I saved on my 1st playthrough alive again. If I manage that it will mean that all the camp counselors survived. Secondary goal is to find as many of the 8 tarot cards I missed as possible. Tertiary goal is to save as many of the Hacketts as possible. I don't think it's possible to save them all, but I'm sure that I can save more than what I did the first time around. After this playthtough I will skim through a guide to see if it's possible to save yet more characters. Spoiler side note:

I converted a mobile laptop table into a makeshift stand for my wheel: It works fine for the time being, I just wish I could slide the pedals further away, but the crossbar prevents that. I put a couple 13 lbs kettlebells on the legs to keep the table from tipping when I'm steering hard. Sometime in the future my plan is to get/make a dedicated schlongpit rig with a modular design where I can swap the wheel with my HOTAS flightstick. I went with Thrustmaster because I come from the flight/space sim world and Thrustmaster makes really high quality flightsticks. I don't know how good their reputation in the wheel & pedal world is, but I have no complaints so far. For an entry level wheel & pedal set the TMX Pro seems decent enough.

I'm sure Activision Blizzard was completely impartial in their investigation of Activision Blizzard.

If only A Plague Tale: Requiem was already out.

Yuck it up. In 6 months you'll be buried under 2 feet of snow.

I finished The Quarry it was freakin' great. It took me 20 hours to finish, keep in mind that I'm a super slow gamer and I tried to find all the tarot cards (I got 14/22). The death toll: Abigail, Emma, Kaylee, Caleb, Chris, Constance and Silas died. I'm pretty sure I can't save Kaylee, Constance, or Silas. I'm iffy on whether Chris can be saved. The most important thing is that my girl Kaitlyn survived. This is easily the most impressive game I've ever seen visually. There are 2 very brief hiccups that stand out. A scene where a pair of teens are in a lake. The water looks good except for a brief moment when they are having a splash fight, the water being splashed... it's not the greatest effect. There is another scene where a character briefly uses a blow torch. The jet of flame doesn't look great. In a different game with 6/10 visuals these 2 5/10 effects wouldn't stand out, but when absolutely everything else is 10/10 those 2 effects look placeholder. That's like 0.1% of the game, though. The other 99.9% of the game the production values are LEGENDARY. The graphical fidelity, attention to detail, facial animations, lighting effects, cinematography, sound design, writing, voice acting, they're all off the charts. The bar has been raised, The Quarry is the new gold standard in production value. Where is @Bokishiwhen you need them to post 16K screenshots of this game? Guess y'all will just have to settle for the 4K screenies I posted. Gameplay wise, there's not a whole lot to this. It's basically an interactive movie. It even has a movie mode where you can just sit back and watch it as a movie. I haven't tried movie mode yet, but I read that you can set parameters on how characters act and watch it play out. Once I save everyone I think can be saved (hopefully) on my 2nd playthrough, I'll give movie mode a spin. Anyway, gameplay consists of QTEs with fairly generous timing, choices, interrupts/actions which you may or may not chose to make (sometimes it's better to not act), and a few moments where you can fire a shotgun, but these wind up being sort of like the interrupts/actions given how generous an amout of time the game gives you to line up a shot and decide whether to pull the trigger or nor, except for 1 time near the very end where you have a much smaller window of time to take the shot. The game lets you walk around freely at times. Sometimes it's over the shoulder 3rd person with full camera control, other times it's fixed camera. It's during these times that you can look for tarot cards, clues, and evidence.

Second straight day of 99⁰F. Tomorrow is also supposed to be 99⁰F.

Assetto Corsa Competizione This is the most famous section of Laguna Seca Raceway with the blind turns and hardcore elevation drop. I'm just practicing for now to get the feel of my wheel and the car (2019 911 GT3) down. My best ever lap so far is 1.28.68 while the record is 1.24.02. Once I can consistently run 1.27 and 1.28 laps I'll do an actual race. Edit: I posted a 1.27.75. If I can post laps like that consistently then it's race time.

What wheel are you using. I'm starting to get into Assetto Corsa Competizione, it's weird going from a somewhat arcadey game like Forza Horizon 5 that I play with a gamepad and in 3rd person view to a hardcore sim that I play in schlongpit view with wheel and pedals. I'm using Thrustmaster TMX Pro BTW.

After 27 DLCs it will probably be a great game.

I lost my first teen in The Quarry, it was properly gruesome too. Abigail got decapitated, complete with excessive blood splatter and a nice close up of the severed head. I'm sad she's dead but the kill was AWESOME.

Wait, who says that? I mean, I like CoP better, but I've always thought I was very much in the minority. Plus, it's well known that I'm a weirdo with questionable taste. I mean, I like FMV games for God's sake. AFAIK SoC is still the gold standard. Even I will admit that there's nothing as tense in CoP as going into X-18 in SoC... Or the first journey to Bloodsucker Village, watching Murk's crew get killed.

It's been many years, and I don't really remember. I'm not sure if I ever tested that. Anyway, I was moving through a swamp with tall reeds in relative darkness. Going back to find the loot would have sucked even if it was still there. The game was so immersive that I wasn't really thinking game mechanics; I was thinking whatever I drop in a swamp is as good as gone.

I so desperately want S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 to be good. The Metro games were pretty good as was Chernobylite, albeit a somewhat different type of game, but they all pale in comparison to how awesome Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat were. I just survived some nasty encounters and an anomaly. I have a sweet haul of valuables, but I'm moving at a snail's pace because I'm overloaded. I'm battered, very low on ammo, and I'm desperate to get back to Yanov Station. Suddenly, I hear the blowout off in the distance. I should probably drop some stuff and make a run for it, but I'm greedy. I can see Yanov Station in the distance, I think I can make it. Just my luck, here come 2 pseudodogs. Given time and ammo, not much of a threat. I'm critically low on both. I drop the first dog quickly with a couple shotgun blasts, but the second one is slippery. I'm making sure to always move toward Yanov Station as I desperately try to line up a shot with my shotgun and the last shell. I fire at point blank range and the dog drops, but not before it got a swipe on me. I make it inside Yanov Station with seconds to spare and about 30% health. Emergent stories like that stick with you.