Mal

Every so often I get pulled into watching a series based solely on MADs. This time it's KonoSoba. And look, another witch character. One that loves explosions. Since the world this series takes place in is literally a RPG world (it's like a nice Dragon Dogma world), this witch character based everything of her built on the strongest magic in the world: explosion. The problem is that she's disabled for a while after every cast. She's turning out to be the best thing so far in a series based on an self-insert male MC. The show has a case of bouncing breasts and other forms of fan service. Kind of off putting but I can deal with it. Little Witch Academia balances KonoSoba out. As for another show I'm watching: Youko Senki, based on the manga/LN of the same name. It revolves around a war similar to WWI/II in not-Europe where magic is a thing. But in the anime, they all get duck faces. At least everything else is pretty neat. The OP by (the overused and samey?) MYTH & ROID is jamming. And that's the LN art.

Little Witch Academia TV series is out in the wild now. MFW anime is saved yet again by witches As a side note, the Humble Book Bundle has a Nihei bundle with a $1 new sub for Crunchyroll. I guess it's time to check it out. Getting rid of one more pirating route (this one might be my last one too) in my life might be good. Besides, Jojo is on Crunchy and I'm having issues finding a good torrent of the series. Edit: Crunchy's website is such a POS though...

Honestly one of the reasons why I stopped playing months ago. I thought I was pretty good healer and I enjoyed it a bit but it was exhausting and you get (got hopefully?) shafted come time for pointed awarded. Maybe Terry Crews voicing Doomfist will finally nudge me back in... Edit: And is it true that Ana kind of replaced Mercy now?

As of the new year, it's predominately in Central to Southern California. All this rain helps refill reservoirs outside the Sierra (everywhere other than eastern most California) but as you can see in advisory, the snow level with the current storm is high and with a lot of rain. It can melt a lot of the Sierra's snow which stores all the water for the summer months for farming and other uses. Could mean bad business if next winter is dry or if all the storms dry up for the rest of this winter. As of right now, the government is concerned with major flooding. Doesn't help there's another atmospheric river (AR) system on the way... For reference, a normal storm is kind that comes with the kind of storm fronts you get in the UK, just out here in the western United States. Fun fact: This sort of system has a bigger brother where multiple strong storms (like the current storm) stall out and dump rain for over a month. It's referred to an ARkStorm scenario. It would essentially turn the Central Valley into a big lake.

Last year's winter was forecast to be a really wet one due to El Nino. It didn't pan out... until this year. I haven't seen consistent rain (at least weekly) in 5-7 years and I'm currently in So Cal. Central and Northern California is getting hammered by ~weekly atmospheric river fed storms. So Cal just gets the edge of it.

You believe in cultist legends. Fairy tales the Rebellion tell their children at night about the false feats of the traitorous Jedi Order. Time embellishes all war stories.

Coming from Game Maker Toolkit, Downwell might fit the bill of being a nice mobile game where controller doesn't suck. You're only pushing three buttons: left, right and jump/shoot. The only issue here that this game is fast and your hands seemingly get in the way. I say seemingly since the buttons are down on the lower edge which covers up that part of the screen and the game scrolls fast enough to make seeing whatever is there moot. Though, if you play Downwell on PC or consoles, you shouldn't have this problem. Mind, this game was made with mobile in mind.

Mid-season trailer. Spoilers obviously. The connections between PT and OT is going to get intense. Rebels is hitting similar high notes that TCW did during its prime. As for how I see it, Maul's survival allows for a Sith to basically keep themselves alive with pain and hatred, something that Anakin/Vader couldn't do (Vader needs his Bacta tanks, suit and perhaps even an initial boost from Padme's life force with Sidious' help) but some Sith in the Legends EU could. It discards the need to dig deep into the Old Republic to flesh out what a Sith and, with arcs involving Maul, what Dark Side user can do. It's all contained within the PT to OT time frame.

Here's a honorable mention: Dragon Dogma: Dark Arisen It's a PC port of an older game but oh my god was it awesome. I poured so many hours to the game. It clearly shows that a love for a open world game isn't lost from my soul.

I knew I forgot to get a game during the Winter Sale but yes, it's a good game. How's the port? When I played the fan translation, I recall that I sometime question if my game was running correctly (running via Japanese applocale and all its potential issues) and hell, the translation accuracy as well. This was like 2-3 years ago. I still can't believe how much the JRPG and related games scene on PC have changed.

With the annual talk about games completed and backlogs, I decided to take a look at my Steam library. It's not good. At all. The backlog is easily 75 games deep. I can probably get rid of 25-30 games that I have little intention to play (say games I've played a bunch of but got bored or frustrated with) but still, it's a long list. If I discipline myself maybe I'll cut it in half by this time next year. There's a lot of long RPGs in there that will require at least 50 hours in the usual pace I play. Some of these games I do recall having trouble running as well since they're so old (Prince of Persia, Red Faction). Let's see if I can do this.

Oh what the hell, let me see what's the big deal is with this one.

I think I'm at the point of my fandom that I want to dress up as a Stormtrooper, Clone or something and be part of the 501st. Great excuse to cosplay. Now I just have to make a costume or three.

Superhot The story mode is short but what is there is super engaging. Finishing it also unlocks challenges and endless modes which is really the main meat of the game. Seriously, who cares about the story?

I'm actually missing the DLCs for the game. If I remember hearing correctly, those were like the best parts of the game.

Not on sale but for $11, what the hell. It was between this and Slime Rancher but I went for the complete game. Supposedly a sidescroller meets Stanley Parable. I loved Stanley so I have to give this a try. Besides, a Chinese dev which is really rare.

Game of the Year Can you believe this is made by one person? A lot of care was put into Stardew Valley and it shows. Sure some things are lacking but you'll be hard pressed to find a more comfy game. Plus, a Harvest Moon-like game on PC and now on consoles. Hell it's going to be on the Switch, a platform that should be Harvest Moon's successor's home turf. Anyhow... Surprise of the Year GOTY material for sure but seriously, id pulled off a modern Doom game. Prior to release it was a big if if this was going to work. I was sort of a believer but the multiplayer (by another studio) immediately before release didn't give any hope of it being the case. And hell, arena shooter might have to wait for the new Quake game to see if the old school MP genre can make a modern comeback like SP Doom has. Disappointment of the Year I went in without much expectation and left disappointed. While the game can be fun in the exploration sense but the game was a steaming pile of shit performance and graphical fidelity wise. It remains to be seen if the Foundation Update can provide much of a... foundation for this game to reach some of it's potential since again, it can be fun when things comes together (got chased by T-rex like creatures on one lush tall tree filled planet and experienced the power of Skynet and it's Metal Gears on another world). Favorite Moment of 2017, Surprise Numero STORM TEAM of 2017 and Real GOTY 2017 EDF! EDF! EDF! Most Anticipated of 2017 Everything looks wonderful so far since it just improved on the first game and its expansions so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05Ic0ynas Well a fair chunk of the modern guys of Alexendrov Ensemble just died a plane crash. This sucks. RIP

Thanks Dan for Crypt of the Necromancer, SUPERHOT and Crusader Kings 2! I'm on mobile so no pictures but now I can play the game who's OST I listen to A LOT, I can John Woo everything (SUPER HOT SUPER HOT) and I can create a incestuous infantcidal empire.

@Dean

Now that I think about it, the last time I downsampled was with my old graphic card. If you can swing 4k then go for it. I tend to try to keep 60 fps whenever possible so 1440p was my default. And generally to me it's the preferable AA if options are lacking.

Since I had a day to think about it some more, you can indeed argue that it is top three or even the best. The first third of the film stumbled a bit (one scene seemed out of place but it can make sense considering who we were dealing with) but it picked up after the whole crew gets together. Still, it is a moderately different film from the way my head and trailers hyped it as. What we got should be the better product. In any case it serves as an excellent bridge between the PT, OT and the new expanded universe. For example, all Vader bits were excellent and at one time we got hints of Anakin.

The visual benefits from 4k to 1080p is quite minimal when 1440p down sampling gets you most of the benefits. Give that a whirl.