Keyrock

There have been a billion games where you play as one legion or another of the boring space marines. Where's my Evil Sunz combat racing game? Seriously, can we get basically Twisted Metal but 40K? Obviously I'm playing Evil Sunz because the red uns go faster.

I'm playing Chinatown Detective Agency. I had never heard of this game before but I was in the mood for a point n click and this serendipitously popped up on Game Pass. The game plays like something halfway between Beneath a Steel Sky and Where in ****** is Carmen Sandiego? You are sometimes required to figure things out outside of the game, either from your own knowledge of history, geography, folklore, et cetera, or via Alt-Tabbing to a browser, using your phone, or whatever method of information gathering via internet. I mean, you could probably also phone a friend or go to the library, but the internet will likely be faster. Point is, you do detective work outside the game from clues found within the game.

RIP comedian Gilbert Gottfried.

Some more thoughts on Weird West now that I've done 2 out of 5 stories: Of the previous Raphael Colantonio games, this most reminds me of Arx Fatalis. I'm not sure why, there is definitely Dishonored and Prey DNA in the game, but I rarely get reminded of those games while I play it, meanwhile I'm reminded of Arx Fatalis somewhat frequently. It might just be that it's rough around the edges like Arx Fatalis, while Dishonored was polished and Prey was really polished, too polished, if that's possible. The rest of my thoughts are theories about the overarching story, hence I will spoiler tag them.

I finished the Pigman story. I did a whole lot more murderin' with him than I did with Jane. I got a legendary revolver and from that point on I was an unstoppable killing machine. I'll probably take a break from Weird West for a bit. I need to get back to Elex 2, though I also want to play something that's not a RPG, perhaps a point n click.

It almost happened:

Plot Twist: Laura Dern plays Admiral Holdo in the new David Lynch movie.

My hooptie project, a 1974 Honda Civic. Stock: The idea of supercharged V8 in this car sounded so preposterous that naturally I had to do it. I'm not much of an artist but I did my best to make it look like it's rusted with scratches and paint flaking off. The only thing better than leaving a million dollar hypercar in the dust in a 1974 Civic is doing it in a 1974 Civic that's falling apart.

I'm probably roughly halfway through Pigman's story, if Jane Bell's story is anything to go by. I still do a lot of sneaking to thin the herd, but when I see an opportunity with a bunch of baddies bunched up I let the dynamite fly. I have the Demolitionist perk maxed out, meaning I do double damage with dynamite. On the off chance that anything survives the explosion I got a sharp blade and an itchin' for some slicin'. The game hands out too many Golden Aces, provided you are as diligent as I am in picking areas clean. At the rate I'm finding them I may max every perk out before all is said and done.

Brisco County - EP9 Brisco For The Defense Brisco is pulled back into his old job as a lawyer when a friend is accused of murder. This is a good old fashioned murder mystery episode and not in any way related to the main story. Brisco and Socrates are the only regulars to appear. I'm always sad when Bowler doesn't appear, but it wouldn't have made sense for him to be there. This was sort of like an episode of Law & Order, except entertaining. The good thing about not having watched this show in nearly 30 years is that I had no recollection of who had done the deed. I thought I had the murderer figured out about halfway through. I was sort of right since said person wound up being an accomplice.

Will the Max Payne remakes include shark cards and a subscription service?

@BartimaeusI think I saw smoke coming out of my phone as it tried to load those gifs.

Brisco County - EP8 Senior Spirit John Bly kidnaps professor Wickwire and one of the robber barons' sons. Brisco gets some help from beyond the grave to confront his nemesis. This is the least comedic and most serious episode yet. This is also where it is revealed that there is more than one orb. Bly is great as usual as the soft spoken evil manipulator.

I think the XBOX Elite controllers are also fully remappable, but they're so freakin' expensive.

I wish they had never made controller thumbsticks clickable. It never works well. I wind up pressing the stick when I don't want to press it all the time when moving it around rapidly. And when I do want to press the thumbstick I wind up moving it when I don't want to move it. It's a really terrible place to put a button. I get it, controllers have limited buttons to work with, but there has to be a better solution. I'd rather we went back to 6 face buttons like the SEGA Genesis controller and did away with thumbstick buttons. 6 face buttons is more awkward than 4, but I'm 99% confident that I would erroneously press face buttons with the 6 buttons A LOT less than I erroneously press thumbsticks. Is this just a me problem?

Racing a stock Gremlin X through a torrential downpour: One of the joys of racing games is taking a hooptie and tricking it out. I had to leave it stock for this particular championship, but I'm going to get a hooptie, whether it's this or another ridiculous looking car, fast enough to race against Lamborghinis.

I finished Jane Bell's story: Now it's Pigman time! I'll probably play more aggressively as Pigman.

Bounties are the fastest way to make money. Between the bounty itself and the junk you will collect along the way you can make roughly 300. Your playstyle will have a big effect. Playing Jane ghost style I have way more money than I know what to do with because I'm not spending anything on ammo & healing. I plan to play at least one character demolition style, hurling dynamite like a madman. I imagine I'll be just scraping by with all the money I'll be spending on dynamite. Pro-tip: Buy a horse ASAP. It ain't cheap but it will pay for itself quickly.

Fantastic news! Vinegar Syndrome is putting out a new 4K blu-ray of Miami Connection: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage/products/miami-connection As you know, I'm a big fan of terrible movies and this is one of my favorite terrible movies of all time. It's a masterpiece of hilarious ineptitude. I've long wanted to own a copy of this to have forever, but the old Draft House Films blu-ray has long been out of print. I'm glad I didn't take a chance and buy a used copy of the old blu-ray. It's in good hands with the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome. I'm happy to give them my money (I ordered New York Ninja and Pizza Girls while I was at it). They genuinely care about the movies they print, they won't sell you some crappy VHS rip.

I'm not particularly worried about narrative consistency across multiple games spanning over 30 years in a series as silly and irreverent as Monkey Island. Ron Gilbert & Co. can pull out whatever manner of shenanigans to connect the timelines or not. Drop me a reference to a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle and I'll be happy.

Vince McMahon was always terrible at taking the Stunner, but what transpired over last weekend was next-level: What a trainwreck, I loved it!

"Hardware Vendor #3" Jensen hates AMD so much he won't even name them.

The irony is that Curse is IMHO the best Monkey Island. Anyway, I wholeheartedly welcome MI6.

Things you can do when you are a virtuoso-level musician: That's gotta be the weirdest guitar I've ever seen, and I don't mean the dragon claw design. 3 necks: A 12-string guitar half fretless horizontally. A regular 6-string guitar. A 4-string bass guitar half fretless vertically. Plus, an invisible drummer!