Mister Jack

60% off on the eshop. This one supposedly has switchable combat styles for each weapon, so it'll be just different enough from World to not feel like the same thing all over again.

I need a new keychain already. My old one broke and I'm constantly in need of some kind of tool, so this was a nice 14 dollar solution. I used to have a pocket knife I really liked, but the friggin TSA took it a while back when I forgot I had it in my bag. This was 12 bucks.

Don't get me wrong, I get it. It's still kind of a bummer to lose out on something, though. If we can get better PS4 games as a trade-off, however, then that will make up for it.

Bloodborne and Ratchet and Clank are the PS+ games for March! On the downside, PS+ will be discontinuing support for PS3 and Vita next year.

"Who wears a watch anymore?" I can already hear you say. Well, I do. I like being able to check the time without having to pull out my phone constantly, and sometimes I can't be taking my phone out anyway. Up until now I've been getting by on fairly cheap watches. Target and Wal-mart Timex fare, but they're just not very reliable over time. The Timex I have at the moment tells the time, but the light on it died a long time ago which makes it worthless at night. This is my first smartwatch, but I didn't go crazy. This is a kickstarter watch that normally costs about 150 bucks online, but I got it for around 120 thanks to a discount code. There's no need to buy a new data plan for it. This does mean you can't use it as a phone when you don't have your phone already nearby, but I take my phone with me everywhere anyway so that's a useless feature. You can still use it for calls and texts as long as your phone is within bluetooth range. I really just want something with customizable faces and the ability to check my notifications and incoming calls without always having to take my phone out. If I don't like it, I have 30 days to send it back anyway.

I beat the story for Monster Hunter World. It took me about 98 hours to get through, although truthfully I could have done it much sooner if I rushed. I spent many hours helping out a friend with her own hunts. Had I ignored that, the story might have taken me...I dunno, maybe 70 hours? Just a rough estimate. Honestly, the story in the game really isn't anything anyone is going to care about. It's just an excuse to go from monster to monster, and now that I've beaten the final boss I can move on to the endgame where the monsters are super buffed but also drop better loot. I'm nowhere near done playing this game yet.

I could see one of those Hori pads being good on the PC for emulat--I mean for legally purchased retro games from the steam store, naturally.

So my old phone, the S6 was alright, but the battery life on it has always been less than ideal and I didn't like the lack of an expansion slot. The S7 fixes both of those problems in addition to better performance, and since the S8 is out now it cost me less than 500 to do this slight upgrade. This one is just a tax time treat for me. As much as I listen to music, I really should have invested in some decent headphones a long time ago. These were 200.

I caught part of a town hall debate that had Marco Rubio and some lady from the NRA and people were absolutely livid. Several of the people in the audience were survivors and they were tearing them new assholes about gun policy. A few people even started screaming out of anger. Rubio himself said he has rethought his gun control position recently. People are PISSED.

BULLSHIT! If I have to hypothesize, which I do, my guess is that vibranium absorbs shocks but can be manipulated with gentle kinetic energy i.e. tapping it with a chisel as opposed to banging it with a hammer. Otherwise it just makes no sense how they can build an entire civilization out of it. I don't recall anything in the MCU that says this can't be the case.

Black Panther I don't think it's Dark Knight good like Metacritic would have you believe, but it's still quite good. People kept going on about how it has a strong message, so going into it I was concerned it might be preachy or even racially charged, but it really isn't. There's a message, but it doesn't dominate everything. The white characters aren't made evil or buffoons just because they're white. The message was fine. More political than racial, honestly. Strong performances all around, though slightly hampered by questionable CG and cinematography at times. Killmonger is one of the better villains in the MCU, surprisingly. One question bugs me though. If vibranium absorbs all kinetic energy, how did the Wakandans manage to mine it in the first place?

You can tell that cat is Japanese without even looking at the tweet.

I hate to triple post but this is just too good not to praise. Monster Hunter World is a loot based game, which means much of your time will be spent farming for drops. Generally it's not too hard to get what you need, but the rarest crafting parts in the game are gems. You can spend hours farming a monster for a single gem drop. Gems can be earned sometimes as gold quest rewards, but the quests that give these rewards out are a real son of a bitch. HOWEVER, there is another way! Every few days (possibly a week?) Capcom puts up new limited bounties, which are basically rotating lists of three or four specific objectives or hunts. If you complete the whole list before it expires, you receive a voucher that you can trade in for ANY GEM YOU WANT. Imagine how much monotony this erases, and it doesn't even kill the game's longevity because you have incentive to keep playing for the next bounty list to get another gem. Frankly, I think every loot based online game should do something like this. You can still farm the old fashioned way if you're impatient or need multiple gems, but if grinding the same mission for hours is too dull, just do the limited bounties. It may take longer if you need more than one gem, but you're guaranteed to get what you want eventually. That relieves so much frustration for me.

God I can't wait for EVO.

Be sure your sins will find you out.

You don't HAVE to be a cheating asshole. Unlike Persona 3, you can level a confidant up to level 10 without having it go romantic. But yes, Kawakami's rank 10 perk is one of the best in the game. I recommend maxing out the doctor, the politician, and Mishima too. I know he's a weenie, but his perk is worth it.

I should really start recording some of my Monster Hunter sessions. They can get absolutely insane. Me and three other guys were hunting an Anjanath (T-rex monster) and managed to hurt it enough so that it started running away from us up into a tree. We were all pretty hurt too and down to only one life left between us, so it was anybody's game. However, going up into the tree was a bad move for the Anja because a Rathian (Wyvern monster) suddenly swooped down all pissed off, picked up the Anja in its claws, and dropped it right the fuck off the top of the tree. Hitting the ground from that high up did over 1000 damage to it, and this is a game where the heaviest weapon type is currently doing around 100 with a fully charged finisher. That poor bastard didn't stand a chance. I should note that this was not a scripted event. That Anjanath was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Alright, I finally had the chance to play with a friend. It's a little confusing at first, so here's how it works. When you invite your friend to join your session through the options menu, you're not inviting them to a party. You're inviting them to join your particular lobby. You don't invite people to join your specific quests. What you do is you wait until they join your lobby, then you select a quest to do. A notification pops up in the lobby every time someone accepts a quest, so your friends will know you're recruiting. After you accept a quest your friends go to the quest board and choose to join a quest. Your open quest should then be on a list for them to join. If you're already on a quest, your friend can drop in as long as they're part of the same lobby as you. If you're doing a story quest, they'll have to wait until you've viewed any cutscenes within the quest before they can join. If they join within the first ten minutes of a quest, they'll get the full reward for it. If they join later they won't receive rewards, although they still get to keep any monster parts they carve up. If you want to do an expedition (free roam) in co-op, you need to first accept a side mission of some kind. It can be something easy like collect 20 plants or whatever. They'll join you on that quest and get it done quickly. After it's done, you have the option to either return to HQ or go back to your camp and start an expedition. The latter option will take your friend with you if they also choose the same option, then you can run around in the map for as long as you want. It's a rather strange set of hoops to jump through, but at least the option is there. There is a clan system, although they're called squads in this game. I didn't use it, however, because starting a squad session closes you off to playing with randoms. I'm pretty sure that feature is meant for large groups of people who play regularly. Edit: Something else I should mention is that when you accept a quest and are waiting for people to join in the lobby, the only people who can join you are the people who are in the same lobby as you. Since that's only 15 other people and they might all be doing their own thing you could be waiting forever if none of them feel like doing your particular quest. However, if you depart on the mission and then fire a flare, that opens you up globally.

I wish they'd add a percentage for the probability of unlocking rare blades when you open a crystal. There's no microtransactions so there's really no reason to keep that a secret. I want to know if some characters have a better chance than others. There also needs to be an easier way to get your hands on overdrive protocols. They're absolutely essential items yet almost impossible to get.

Here's a good beginner's guide for players who are ready to stop relying on the auto combos.

It's not odd at all, really. High level fighting game play is really impressive to watch. As gaming genres go, fighters probably have the highest skill barrier to entry, so when someone is really good it's amazing to watch. I absolutely hate eSports and have never EVER watched a Starcraft or Overwatch tournament, yet I"m really into EVO every year because it's full of all these kickass moments you'd probably never see anywhere else.

God damn, why can't Sony make a decent trailer to save their lives?

I'm loath to compare it to Destiny, but it's a quasi-MMO I guess. The difference is that you aren't required to play online, although if you don't want to play online then why would you even buy this game. You join a matchmaking hub with about 16 people, I believe, though you only actually see other players in the gathering hub area when you're in your headquarters. Whenever you select a mission, you can be matched with up to three other people before departing. If you are doing a story mission then you usually have to start it solo but people can join you afterwards. If you don't want to wait to be matched or you're doing a story mission, you can also fire a flare after you've departed to open your instance up for randoms to join.