Mister Jack

@danielpholt Fish bait just instantly spawns a fish in the water if there isn't one already.

Mal I'm super jealous that you got Cherry on your island. Meanwhile I started with Rocket, who is my least favorite animal in the entire series. I'm opening my gate. Code is G6SBK. I've focused more on expanding my town than decorating my house so it's not very impressive yet but might as well establish that link. Oh yeah, I have a couple extra pears and some bamboo if anyone needs those.

If anything the T-virus is less deadly. At least that thing only spreads through direct contact and it was only a single city that got fucked by it.

It looks like, at least in my state, Gamestop is still semi-open. I say semi-open because the stores themselves are closed to the public, but they're still doing curbside pickups for orders that have been placed online or preorders that were made prior to the closings. I'm torn about this policy. On the one hand, it's hardly an essential business and even with the distancing measures in place there is always going to be a risk of exposure when you go outside. On the other hand, this also means all the employees aren't stuck at home without any pay for who knows how long. Theoretically this means I could probably pick up my FFVII preorder (can't cancel it, already asked) but I can't help feeling like if I do that I'm part of the problem.

Cheat codes. Honest to god cheat codes. Remember when those were a thing? Doom Eternal remembers. Granted, you can't just push some buttons or type in a password and cheat your way through the game. Cheat codes are collectible secrets and you can only use them when replaying missions, but they don't disable progression so you can have them on while going back to get all the secrets you missed. They're also a ton of fun. I'm not the type to cheat my way through a game the first time I play it, but they're a great way to have fun just dicking around once you've beaten it.

I've seen that argument before but the difference is that mass shootings, while terrible, only have a direct effect on a specific community while the coronavirus is affecting absolutely everybody in one way or another whether they get it or not.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by that but there are more environments with more variety, bigger spaces to fight in, and much greater variety in enemy types. A few levels also have death traps you can exploit.

God I don't even want to think about this thing lasting 18 months. That's an absolute worst case scenario. At least for now I'm keeping an eye on June. I don't think it'll be gone by then. In fact, that's when people are saying it's going to peak. If it peaks then, however, then even the slightest sign of the rate of new infections starting to decline afterwards would be extremely encouraging. Right now it's nothing but stories of the virus accelerating faster and faster and it's pretty disheartening. God only knows when it will come to a head but the country will seriously need just some sign that these measures are working even a little bit. The optimist in me likes to believe we might finally have a serious chance of getting a universal health care bill passed. One way or another something is going to change when this pandemic is finally behind us, whenever that is. There's no way in hell we're all going to come out the other side of the tunnel and collectively say "Well let's just pretend that never happened and go back to business as usual."

Doom Eternal Okay so this is probably the best modern FPS game I've ever played, and when I say "modern FPS" I'm going all the way back to the original Half-Life. About the only shooter that can compete here for me are the original Doom games. It really puts its competition to shame. This is much more than Doom 2016 with a few tweaks. They practically redid the entire philosophy and design of the game and made it better than it already was. The levels in this game are huge. In fact, they're so huge that they give you a fast travel point at the end of each one in case you need to grab some collectibles you missed, of which there are a ton. The biggest change in this game compared to the last one is a greater emphasis on platforming. Platforming in an FPS sounds awful, I know, but id actually found a way to do platforming that not only works, but is a ton of fun. You'll be jumping, wall climbing, swinging, and air dashing in ways that would make Mario himself proud. I could hardly believe sometimes how much ground I was able to cover just by smartly timing my double jump and my air dash. The best part is that unlike the last game, this time if you miss a jump and fall into the abyss you simply lose 20 life points and get teleported back to where you were instead of dying and having to reload. I had to redo quite a few jumps but I never actually died from falling so it never got frustrating. The weapons got a face lift too. Also the pistol is gone. You might miss it at first but soon enough you'll understand that even if it was there you would never use it. The demons in this game are absolutely relentless and way more aggressive than in the last game. In fact, this might be one of the hardest FPS games I've ever played. It starts off simple enough but just you wait. They're throwing arachnotrons at you almost right out of the gate and those are considered the easy enemies! Demons also come at you in greater numbers now and you can't run circles around them like before. You can dash to put some distance between you, but there's a short cooldown after every two dashes. It's only a second or so, but that's long enough for the demons to gain ground on you. There's a bunch of brand new demons too and they will seriously mess you up. One of them in particular is so tough that it would be a major boss fight in any other shooter, yet here it becomes a normal enemy in the second half of the game. Some people were fooled into thinking this game would be easy because it has extra life power ups, but you will fucking need them. Fortunately, the demons aren't the only ones who are stronger. The Doomslayer has so many new tools to even the odds and you can not afford to ignore a single one of them. While there are health and armor packs lying around as always, I'm telling you now that they will not be enough. You will be running out of ammo and life CONSTANTLY, and the best way to replenish them is with fodder enemies. Fodder enemies are basically zombies and commandos who are weak and easily disposed of, though they can still overwhelm you if you ignore them because they spawn infinitely until you kill all the elite enemies. You'll be glad to see fodder though because they'll be your primary source of power-ups and what you get depends on how you kill them. Need life? Glory kill something. Need ammo? Use the chainsaw, which now regenerates fuel after each use. Ammo caps are a lot lower now so you'll be using the chainsaw more than you ever did before. Need armor? Use the shoulder mounted flamethrower. On top of that each glory kill charges up something called a blood punch, which is basically this game's version of berserk mode. A single blood punch can kill multiple weak enemies or severely wound a strong enemy. Balancing your various resources by making use of all these tools is extremely intense and everything is happening around you so fast that sometimes you might forget to use your chainsaw or flamethrower until you get used to it. Demons also have weak points to exploit now. Sometimes a demon is weak to a specific weapon or sometimes you can shoot off a specific body part that will drastically weaken their offensive capabilities. The point is, you can't just spend the whole game relying on the super shotgun anymore. Hell, even the regular shotgun stays useful until the end of the game and that's never happened before in this franchise. This is honestly the closest thing to a perfect shooter I've played in a long, long time. Everything is so fast and furious that it makes other FPS games look like day cares with bullets. Hell, even Doom 2016, which I still love, doesn't compare to Doom Eternal. About the only thing I can really say against it is that the multiplayer might not be for everyone. It's basically one Doomslayer vs two player demons and a horde of AI demons. It's not bad, but don't bother looking for your traditional team deathmatch because it ain't here. If you mostly play shooters for online multiplayer then I guess you should stick with Call of Duty or something, but if you want a near-perfect single player FPS experience I can't point to this one hard enough. However there was one really shitty thing I can't ignore, and I bet this wasn't id's fault. You cannot start this game if you don't have a Bethesda.net account. It won't even let you go to the title screen until you either register for one or sign into one and I think that's downright appalling. Maybe it's possible to bypass this by disconnecting, but why should I have to do that just to play a single player game? It's ridiculous. It took me over half an hour to start playing because I had to come up with a unique username that wasn't already taken and that shit pisses me off. It's just a good thing the rest of the game is so fantastic. I would have been livid if I'd grudgingly given my email to Bethesda and then the game turned out to be a piece of crap.

It's a relaxing and generally comfy game. It can even be downright therapeutic. The thing about AC is that you're not meant to marathon it for hours at a time, at least not once you get going. You can if you want, but at a certain point you play for maybe an hour a day, but you play it every day. Your town progresses in real time so you're watching it slowly build up from a big patch of nothing to a thriving community that you helped put together. Because it's in real time, your animal neighbors also act accordingly depending on what day it is. They'll remember your birthday, celebrate holidays with you, and react to the changing seasons. That's not even getting into all the stuff you can collect to decorate your house. Also you can have a mortgage with no interest and no payment deadline and how great is that?

Going back and forth between Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing is nice and relaxing which is just what I need right now but progress feels much slower here than in previous games. Since you have to craft everything now it means you can't jump quickly dump bells into new public projects. I'm currently building houses for my neighbors but it'll probably be several days until I finish. It gives me something to work for I guess but it also means I don't have a lot to do in these early stages after I finish gathering the days' materials. Thankfully I have another game to fill the gaps. Doom Eternal is the SHIZNITE. This game fucking rocks even harder than Doom 2016. I love it.

Onward It's out on streaming already thanks to the coronavirus so I figured what the hell. I mean, I'm going to be watching a lot of movies for the next couple of weeks, if not longer. I debated putting this in the good movies thread but I think it just barely misses that mark. Most of the stuff in this movie is just okay, but it's a very solid okay if that makes sense. I didn't love any of the characters, but I liked them well enough I suppose. They have their moments, they're just not especially original or memorable. The same goes for the setting. Urban fantasy is a cool idea, but it's mostly just used as window dressing and the setting isn't really explored or fleshed out at all. Maybe that's asking too much for a movie that's less than two hours long, but I can't help being a little disappointed that the world didn't really live up to its potential. It's fine, though. The story is fine. The characters are fine. The jokes are...not that funny, actually. I didn't roll my eyes or anything but I only laughed once. The relationship between the brothers is what keeps this movie afloat and the last 20 minutes or so are pretty strong. In fact, that's where the movie feels more like classic Pixar instead of decent Dreamworks. I doubt I'll feel much of an urge to go back and rewatch this one like I do with Wall-e or Toy Story but I am glad I watched it at least once. I don't think it deserved to bomb at the box office but thanks to unfortunate timing this film just never had a chance.

Well he plans to do daily briefings on the coronavirus starting Monday to provide a counter to the horseshit spewing out of Trump's mouth so maybe he's gathering information or something, I dunno. Biden was never my guy but I do appreciate that he's making an effort to spread important and accurate information during the worst pandemic of our lifetime. Did you know that it's more dangerous for young people than everyone previously believed? A 32 year old from New Jersey with no underlying conditions just barely recovered from it and now he's carrying around portable oxygen at all times. This shit is scary.

What is that, exactly?

He's been cooped up at his house for a week, but supposedly he's got people setting up equipment so he can do livestreams.

Damn, I just realized I had an FFVII preorder that's probably just gone up in smoke. I hadn't paid it off or anything so it's not a huge deal, but it's still annoying. I should have canceled that when I had the chance.

The Lighthouse This is a movie from the same guy who did The VVitch, which I was lukewarm on, but I liked this one more. Maybe it's because the sea captain speak was more charming to me than the Old English or maybe because the entire thing was focused around just two characters which gave them plenty of time to shine. Either way, I liked this movie, although it's a movie that asks for a lot from its audience. It's in black and white, which isn't a problem for me personally but you know how the masses can be. The period-accurate dialogue seems to be a trademark from this director and while it works here I'm wary of the idea of watching all of this guy's future movies if they're always going to be like that. The unusual aspect ratio is also an interesting novelty, but it does mean you have a lot less screen real-estate to work with. The plot is also a very slow burn with a ton of buildup to an admittedly very good final ten minutes, similar to The VVitch. Finally, there are only two characters in this whole movie. There are one or two other credited roles but these people have no lines and show up for mere seconds. Memorable seconds, but calling them actual characters would be inaccurate. Fortunately, the two characters we do have are very well acted with great performances by Robert Pattinson and especially Willem Dafoe. Even if not a lot is happening for the majority of the film, whenever something does happen it happens in a big way and like I mentioned previously, the last few minutes are worth the wait. This is also one of those movies where you can interpret the events in multiple different ways until you're not even sure what's real anymore.

Jesus, and I thought it was bad over here in the states. Even if I was someone who only cared about how it was affecting the US---and I'm not---this kind of irresponsibility endangers not only his own country but the surrounding borders too. If by some miracle we manage to shut down enough in the states to stop the spread of the virus, all it would take is a few infected people coming up from Mexico with its business as usual attitude to potentially start things up all over again. Unfortunately this will also give the anti-immigration people a pretty convincing argument. "Oh, you don't believe they're bringing crime and drugs? Well how about the coronavirus? Do you wanna go through that again?"

Christ, someone better get prosecuted over this. Someone besides store managers and associates, that is. That is fucking disgusting.

Knives Out Maybe Rian Johnson can't figure out how to do Star Wars but he sure made a really great murder mystery. It's been a long time since I watched a movie like this since a bad mystery movie is a real slog to get through so I had forgotten just how compelling a good one can be. Maybe it's just me but I feel like we don't get whodunnit movies like this that much anymore and they can be a lot of fun when done right. The cast here is colorful, the script is just the right amount of playfully melodramatic without taking itself too seriously, and Daniel Craig just oozes charisma in his scene-stealing performance as Detective Blanc. Maybe the reason I don't see a lot of whodunnit movies being made these days is because producers worry the audience will lose interest if they figure out who the killer is, and I did figure out who did it about halfway through, but even then I still enjoyed just watching the pieces fall into place. I didn't predict every facet of the killer's plan so there were still a couple of surprises in the climax. If you have any interest whatsoever in murder mysteries then I really can't think of any reason why you wouldn't like this one.

Was that supposed to be a vaccine? It's honestly hard to keep up with who's testing what anymore.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Yeah, the Mr. Rogers movie. I'm stuck inside for a while so it's a good time for me to catch up on some movies. This was actually not what I thought it would be. I was expecting a biopic detailing Rogers' life and how he got his show and became famous but it really isn't that at all. Rogers is already quite famous when the film starts and he's not even the main character. The main character is a journalist who is interviewing Rogers and the story is about how Rogers brings a positive influence into the life of someone who has always been cynical and negative and helps him deal with his lifelong anger toward his father. It's quite wholesome and maybe even a little saccharine, but it was honestly kind of a relief to watch something like this during these tumultuous times. I mean, I don't know what else you'd expect from a movie about Mr. Rogers. This isn't some exposé about Fred's "hidden dark side" or anything like that because by all accounts he was just as nice and wholesome in person as he was on his show. Tom Hanks did a great job in his performance, though I have to admit that I am very familiar with the real Fred Rogers' voice and Hanks, while he nails the soft spoken gentleness of his speech, just doesn't have a voice that sounds like Fred to me. It's no fault of his own, really. An actor can only do so much to change into a completely different person and I'm sure that people who didn't grow up with Rogers will think he sounds just fine, but it is something that I noticed. I still recommend this if you ever just want to watch a movie that will make you feel good. It's easy for movies about teaching a miserable bastard to love again to feel sappy and unrealistic but Mr. Rogers really was that good of a person so I give this one a pass.

A little bit of good news for a change. The Japanese have found a flu drug that seems effective against the Coronavirus.

I usually don't buy two games at once unless there's a big sale going on because inevitably one of them will get neglected but seeing that I'm going to be stuck indoors for a while thanks to that bitch bastard Coronavirus...

Normally I'd get the PC version but my laptop keeps overheating when I try to game on it and the keyboard would need to be replaced again anyway so I'm just going to go with PS4 for now and get the PC version whenever I find the funds to get a new computer because I'm sick of repairing this one.