Mr. GOH!

Mass Effect: Andromeda. Despite my criticism, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. Of the sequels improve on it half as much as the original trilogy sequels improved on ME1, I think we're on for a treat. Specific major choices and loose ends discussion behind the spoiler tag.

I do not understand how spoiler tags work on this newfangled forum system. Now, for the combat. My enjoyment of the combat really suffers from the fact that I had just completed Horizon: Zero Dawn with its constantly super fun and tense robot dinosaur battles. Going back to gunning down humanoids, robots, space dogs, and the occasional space dinosaur has left me feeling cold. There are a few very large enemies, but fighting them feels very similar to the end boss of ME2 with a few elements of the scripted dragon fights in DA:I thrown in. But those fights are few and far between; most enemies are on the scale of previous Mass Effect games; person-sized to small mech sized. ME:A, more than the original trilogy, really hurts from a lack of enemy variety. The vast majority of enemies in the game fall into the following groups on medium (or maybe hard) difficulty: mobs with guns and no shields, heavies with machine guns and shields, tech enemies with tech powers, armor instead of health and shields; Snipers with health and shields; Stealth guys with invisibility, health and shields monsters with armor and no shields, in small, medium, and large sizes with a few cosmetic differences and elite versions of the big ones with one-hit kills; mechs with shields and armor; floating robots with health and shields and beam weapons; running robots that make drones that physically charge you through the air; and robots that can set up their own cover. I do not recall seeing a single biotic-wielding enemy. There are a few boss-class enemies not on this list, one of which kinda sorta uses a biotic-like power to float and teleport around, I guess. The gun-wielding mobs come in different flavors of aliens and humans, but they all function the same. Maybe some of them have grenades and others don't, but grenades do not matter due to your jetpack-dodge abilities. After dozens of hours, the variety gets very stale, and there have not even been new mixes of enemies. I mean, encounter escalation with the kett works like this: easy encounters have mobs and one or two guys with machine guns and maybe some small space dinosaur dogs. Slightly harder encounters add stealth guys and maybe a few more dinosaur dogs. hard encounters have tons of machine gun guys, mutliple stealth guys, dinosaur dogs and maybe a boss or elite monster that can one-shot you. Sometimes harder encounters just mean more waves of mobs and machine guys and stealth guys. That's it. It's even worse for the other alien races, although the robots at least are different enough from the milky way, kett, and angara encounters to be a welcome reprieve until you realize that you'll be dealing with ten robot-only encounters in a row. Aside from enemy variety, ME:A further erodes the foundational shields/health/armor trifecta upon which ME combat has always been based. It's weird to shoot at a fucking turian with no shields and health, as if his armor is all that's keeping him alive. I also don't feel like the different guns matter all that much against the different protections; sniper rifles destroy any protection and automatic weapons chip them all away equally. Gone is the feeling that I need an SMG to dal with the hefty shields on a mech before switching to a shotty to take down the armor. Some of the problems have long been in the ME games, such as the unending frustration that biotics have little to no effect on enemies with shields up or armor. I get why shields might protect one from biotics gameplay-wise and in the lore, but it's silly that armor protects you from being tossed about by singularity or pull. The jet packs are good, and the improved mobility allows the level and world design to be more interesting. But sometimes it just seems to easy to keep jetpack-dodging away from every attack until your shields recharge. There needs to be a better variety of enemies and, I believe, more large-scale enemies. I'd love to take down more gunships or a shuttle with my biotically-enhanced Ryder. The Initiative might be hard-pressed for combat vehicles, but the races of aliens that have been at constant war for decades ought to have more options than capital ships and piddling ground troops. Design the vehicles like HZD robot dinos to have weakpoints and attachements that, when removed, change the vehicles' behavior. The robots' mech-sized enemy has a hint of this in that you can destroy its gun turrets, but it's not nearly as interesting as any HZD enemy. ME needs to rething the shields/health/armor trifecta. I'd propose having every enemy aside from bots or vehicles have health. Sheilds ought to block all damage to health and armor underneath, and ought to recharge and go back up after being brought down by gunfire. Biotics ought to only damage shields at high levels, but ought to degrade armor from the get-go and paralyze baddies in armor like they paralyze health-only guys. Armor should be very resistant to most tech attacks and gunfire aside from specialty ammo/weapons and should not regenerate on most standard enemies. Armor ought to protect against explosive weapons better, too. An enemy brought down to health-only ought change its behavior and act more defensively, too. And that's just scratching the surface.

It's totally fair to wait. Horizon Zero Dawn is not to be missed, gameplay-wise.

Just don't sell it on Amazon.

When are you going to fix that problem, Ethan?

Modern pressure cookers a very safe. your gas oven and microwave as more dangerous. Although since you live in the post-apocalyptic state of Kansas, I guess you either burn cow pies or whatever wood and dried grasses you are able to gather instead of gas in your kitchen stove. Regardless; the instant pot is as safe or safer than that. We don't use one at my place because we're not lazy, however.

Sunless sea is worth $10. Anything less is a steal. There are some great games in there. FTL is phenomenal for what it is. Is Kentucky Route Zero finished yet? If it is, I'll pick it up here. Soma is also quite good.

I agree with what a lot of Hottie says, although I have major quibbles with the combat design. I have spent dozens of hours playing this and have reached level 53 or thereabouts. I have completed the vast majority of major sidequests, though I have ignored a lot of the fetch quest "tasks." I haven't reached any point of no return in the main quest, but I believe I am getting fairly close. The game has only thrown one new enemy at me in the last ten hours, and that is strongly suggested to have been a main quest-specific enemy I'll never see again. The following contains very general spoilers; I will hide anything specific about the plot or characters behind tags, but not my general criticisms of the plot or characters. The overarching story and narrative has so much potential and I am very disappointed with how it's ended up in muddled mediocrity. The character theme of the game is clearly, 100% about what it means to have to suddenly be a leader when confronted with unexpectedly fire circumstances, and the game simply does not develop it in any meaningful way, relegating any "meaningful" choices to a sort of who-lives-and-who-dies-and-who-shows-up-in-a-cut-scene-later simplicity. Very few of the choices you make as Ryder appear to change Ryder, the Heleus cluster, or any other characters. The game sets up at least three separate areas in which Ryder's influence and choices could have interesting and meaningful impacts, but either there is no impact or it's the most minor of cosmetic impacts. I will get to the combat tomorrow. Preview: it's better than ME3, but the shields/armor/health trifecta needs to be rethought and holy shit there are not enough enemy types to keep encounters interesting over the course of such a long game.

Rick and Morty was great.

The people defending JonTron are being anywhere from silly to repugnant. He's a straight-up racist.

Mystery Science Theater Season 11 is dropping on April 14 on Netflix. Fuck YES.

As I've played more, I've noticed the animation weirdness less. The writing remains odd, both overarching scenario writing and dialogue. For example, at one point you're able to meet a new species that does not want to kill you on sight, but the First Contact moment feels weirdly just like landing on a new world and meeting a new faction in ME2 or ME3; it does not feel like making contact with a whole new society. Within 5 minutes you're getting quests and going about your business. I mean, it takes all of a minute until everyone's conversing in English (via translators, I know, but the game doesn't really deal with that aspect). The race is also supposed to be emotive and unafraid to hide their feelings, but they just seem like all the other Milky Way races members of which are always eager to spill their life's story when recruiting Shepard/Ryder on fetch quests. There's so much potential here, though; I love the idea of clearing areas and setting up colonies and helping them thrive. I've played a good deal, but I feel like I'm just getting to the actual meat of the game after the initial dozen or so hours, and a self-imposed sojourn on one of the small non-colony worlds.

Also, everyone knows Supes is in this, right?

Holy shit Cyborg looks horrible. I never knew that Batman loved guns so much.

It's as if 7 years of scorched-earth political tactics didn't serve the GOP well when it comes to governing. It's also worth noting that the GOP House i more ideologically split than the Dem House was, or the Dem caucus is. I mean, you have a good number of far-right burn-it-all-down Republicans in the Freedom Caucus and you also have a number of old-school Republicans who actually think government has a role to play and that it ought to work to better the lives of Americans beyond throwing everything to the 'free' market. On the other hand, there are no Dems who demand the nationalization of all private enterprise; the caucus may disagree about where, how and when government intervention is best put to use, but there's no extreme leftwingers in Congress.

What? I just thought FMW's take was interesting, nuanced, and challenging in the face of the overwhelming positive reaction from media and the fans. As someone who would not spend $300 for a relatively useless child's toy, I have no dog in this fight.

Simple syrup is a pain in the ass to make. Better to learn to love the burn.

They're still making XBone games?

Hey, looks like folks will be able to play this on PC, at least after they violate national and international copyright law! http://www.pcgamer.com/wii-u-emulator-devs-show-incredible-breath-of-the-wild-progress-in-new-video/