Agiel

Looked at the points, and together with Wargear not costing anything it seems like GW is trying to sneak 8th/9th edition Power Levels on us instead. Craftworld Eldar have apparently turned out to be so broken that they're being banned from some store tournaments. That said the big problem units (Support Weapon Platforms and War Walkers) are ones I don't actually have in my army.

Demo has been released. Despite some bugs I'm highly intrigued.

Cormac McCarthy.

Revamps to the melee combat and the gear system are what intrigue me most, as they remain my biggest sticking points with the game as it stands now. I hope how weapons are handled hew more towards what the BIS/Obsidian Fallout games had than to the Diablo/Borderlands formula. And as many fans observed the <<Escape from New York>> parallels of the expansion's plot are difficult to ignore. Next thing you know some of the new clothing items (which are apparently completely cosmetic now) include that weird zip-up tank-top and an eyepatch.

In case anyone missed it, OtaKing, who created the excellent TIE Fighter animation released a few years back is working on an Alien tribute: The clear throwbacks to 80's anime a la <<Bubblegum Crisis>> and <<Urusei Yatsura>> have my utmost approval, as does the soundtrack with shades of Chu Ishikawa.

For the benefit of those who have not found our talking about this game across six whole topics engaging enough:

@Wormerine

Of which Lord Worm, formerly of Cryptopsy fame, can attest:

Locations trailer: Cool to see Commoragh. Had Owlcat elected to put the game on Kickstarter and they needed a quick extra $100,000 put into the project then I'd wager a stretch goal of "Romance subplot with Dark Eldar Succubus" would do it.

Playing the Resident Evil 4 remake and finished my Professional Run. Some bemoaned the absence of the cheesiness that made the original memorable, particularly with Leon's interactions with the villains. But I would say my criticisms aren't so much that they are no longer present but the fact that besides the greatly expanded relationship with Krauser Leon _barely_ interacts at all with the villains until their respective boss fights, such as Salazar mostly having one-sided conversations with him throughout the Castle section. I rather missed Salazar slowly going insane with each successive failure to kill Leon, a dynamic that now seems to have been condensed into their boss fight. Speaking of Krauser it occurred to me that the apparently ret-conned Operation Javier is basically the plot of <<Clear and Present Danger>> one for one:

A Ukrainian pal had some family who remained for some years in Crimea following the annexation. They told him that much of the propaganda from the Kremlin-sponsored TV programming in years past has a pretty big focus on the "decay" of the West and the "decay" of European moral values, particularly in regards to transgender issues and gender roles*. Given the current Trumpian crusade against transgender rights it's hard for me to ignore the weird parallels in their values. *Can provide a Youtube link by PM on request, as the propaganda video he shared with me seems to me too skeevy for a PG13 board.

Still no firm release date beyond an estimated "a few months" but certainly by year's end: Brings to mind a certain Calvin and Hobbes strip that would certainly have caught a ton of flak if released today

The Combat Mission games are probably the most high-profile series using WeGo from what I've seen, though I'm told that the latest Battlestar Galactica also uses it. Hopefully we see more games using it going forwards.

1.0 and Steam release on February 28th. Played and highly enjoyed the demo*. Somewhat amusing to me that there's a segment of players who for whatever reason consider the WEGO as a personal insult and insist that it's not a "true" turn-based system. *Remember when those were a thing in PC gaming?

While Umberto Eco's Ur-fascism concept is often used as the starting point in recognising fascism, I would go further in recommending Roger Griffin's <<The Nature of Fascism>>, in which the term he uses to describe it, "palingenetic ultranationalism," probably does a better job in elaborating how uniquely dangerous fascism is even in comparison to run-of-the-mill populist far-right (and sometimes ethno-nationalist) regimes of Orban's Hungary and Putin's Russia.

Still no set release date, so basically guaranteed to not be out in Q1, with even late Q2 being a giant stretch.

Playing the <<Darktide>> beta at the moment, and when given the opportunity I knew I had to take it; I present to you the Imperium's smartest Ogryn:

I should note that I had posted this video with the intention of the clip of emphasis being the second portion from the <<The West Wing>> episode appropriately titled <<The Midterms>>. The quote by Bradley Whitford was always the one that stuck with me from the show, even if the past half decade or so may or may not be a testament to this (and the rest of the show) being an over-idealised picture of American democracy.

Since that Jeffrey Dahmer documentary on Netflix is the talk of the town at work I decided to re-visit Macabre's <<Dahmer>> biopic concept album:

<<Vermintide 2>> now free to keep on Steam until November 7th, and a free map on the 8th:

If we're being frank, <<Princess Mononoke>> had far more nuance:

In honour of the release of the Enhanced Edition I got off my lazy bum to come up with this: As many players noted how incongruous it was that casting a spell that consigns the souls of its victims to flames of eternal woe doesn't shift alignment one iota. I initially wanted to draw Daeran and Sosiel in place of Arushalae and Seelah, but then remembered that they too could cast Hellfire Ray.