Thursday Next

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B010B4L968/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I used this, connected hdmi from PS4 to the input, then output one went into the PSVR and output 2 into the TV. Just had to flick the switch to choose between HDR on TV or PSVR. But obviously requires 2 more HDMI cables so the rat king was even more ratty and kingly. At the time I struggled to find a switch that (a) Actually switched between inputs, rather than just splitting, and (b) didn't require power (and therefore even more cables).

I always use guides for collectibles. I also used guides heaps for Demon's Souls. I fact, I just use guides for trophies full stop. Normally I'll check for "missable" trophies, play through once blind, then if I want the plat, get a guide to hoover up whatever I missed.

Control is great. Concrete Genie will be nice to add to my PSVR Renaissance.

The Prince is actually a pretty easy read, and feels weirdly relevant to todays geo and office politics. I'd suggest you give it a go for a change.

Last book I finished was Machiavelli's The Prince, which is infinitely quotable these days. I've nearly finished re-reading Guards! Guards! so I'll probably end up doing the whole of the watch series now. A particularly apposite Machiavelli quote springs to mind as impeachment looms: "Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."

Done's Souls.

Oh my gawwwd can we keep politics out of music please? (This song bangs by the way!)

I am fucking *pumped* for politics to get boring again.

Quick sketch of my sleepy cat wot I did on my Remarkable 2.

I should probably do the same. How do you calibrate it? It's ages since I did that. It seems to work ok, but better is better.

That whole political wing (politicians and voters) is a cesspool of hypocrisy. They chant "blue lives matter" until a cop stands between them and the capitol, at which point they beat him to death with a flag. GOP say they stand for law and order until their president breaks the law. Reps claim to be about family values and then elect and support a man who cheats on his pregnant wife, and openly insults their partners. They claim to be "pro-life" and then refuse to give the needy food and shelter. I think Dems have their own issues. They can't decide whether to be progressive or centrist and so lose both arguments. Their supporters tend to let perfection be the enemy of the good. They fail to do what needs to be done because they get hung up on what should be done.

Is that Majora's Mask?

Yeah, that's fair. MS ahead of the pack in that sense. Stadia, PS Plus, Epic store is, I think, the norm at the mo.

To be fair, you can "claim" via the app, and on desktop site as well as the PS5 itself. It's no different to the Epic thing really where you have to "get" the game, add to library, whatever, Stadia does the same. It's a bit of a pain, but a low lift really.

I'm also getting back into PSVR. Now I have a PS5, I've set the PS4 Pro+VR up in the home office (I didn't want to set it up in the lounge as i) It has way too many cables and the missus would have my head on pike; and ii) No HDR passthrough on the gen-1 VR box which means either even more cables so I can run a splitter, or unplugging stuff so I can play games with HDR. I'm playing through the last level of I Expect You To Die, and picked up Statik again, and (as Ethan knows) started Star Wars: Squadrons. For any who don't know, I Expect You To Die is a bond-esque escape the room game (the first level has you in a Blofeld-like villain's car, in the back of a plane trying to make your escape). It's really enjoyable, there are multiple ways to solve each of the missions, plus extra things to do to unlock stuff for your home base. Because every scenario involves you being sat down in a static environment, I've experienced no motion sickness issues, which is a boon. Statik is a puzzle game in the same spirit as Portal. You are being held in a mysterious test lab being asked to do things by an equally mysterious scientist. It lurches from Orwellian to surreal. Squadrons is amazing. Really nails the space fighter feeling. My one complaint is that it starts you with controls that are i) Not inverted, which for a flight sim type game is nuts; and worse ii) The left stick controls acceleration and roll, the right stick pitch and yaw. The second preset layout is called "Pilot" and has the sticks set up correctly with pitch and roll on the right and speed/yaw on the left. No idea why this isn't the default and it made me spend the first mission and a half hating the game. Now the bugs are ironed out though, I'm loving it.

Yeah, it is way too small. Need at least 2TB, probably more like 10.

Not a US lawyer, much less a constitutional US lawyer, but my understanding is the 2/3 vote in the senate decides it and he can't run again.

Bloodborne is sexy af. Does Squadrons target where you look?

I don't even get it from a political pov. His term is done and Dems have control of both houses. Why not a) get Dems on-side by doing a bi-partisan impeachment (and collect payback later) and; b) ensure that the next republican president (whenever that may be) is a more predictable, moderate, reliable one? Trump isn't a career politician, he doesn't have the clout of e.g. Clinton around the Capitol. Once he loses the White House he's toast (until next election season), he doesn't have the backing of any of the civilian agencies (except maybe ICE). His base can froth at the mouth all they want, but they can't hurt the reps by voting in Trump again, ever, and there is no way they are going to vote for Kamala or AOC (who would be my bets for next Dem candidate) so the risk minimal. I'm re-reading The Prince, and I'm reminded of this quote: "one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."

Is Valhalla also RPG-y? Hard-pass if so. I liked AC as an action/adventure game. Not interested in it as an RPG.

Demon's Souls Remake What can I say? Nothing unexpected. I love FromSoft games, so I'll do NG+ to mop up the remaining trophies and then go back to waiting on Elden Ring.

Is it because he is full of the exaggerated swagger of a black teen?

I'm nearly there on my first completion of Demon's Souls. Think I'm going to plat it. I normally find NG+ way easier than NG.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161206/07190336205/game-review-site-says-square-enix-blacklisted-them-to-punish-low-review-scores.shtml here's another one. Most "blacklisting" I have heard of is more in relation to leaks than to scores. But there are definitely lists of "friendly" outlets (and "influencers") who will get the gold-star treatment, in the hope (if not certainty) that a better than average review will result. I mean you only have to watch a release from a big publisher. The first week on metacritic is mostly high, 8-10, then week 2 you see that number trend downwards as less favoured sites get their say. I don't even think that it is necessarily a deliberate attempt to mislead on the part of either journalists or publishers. Nobody is saying "this game is a bit shit, we'd better lean on publications for a better score before we get found out" (or at least they aren't in my presence). Rather, a publication that is given free stuff will generally feel better disposed towards a product, and publishers are more likely to want to work with people where they have a positive history. It's just human nature. You're more likely to be generous to people you like, and people you are generous with are more likely to like and support you. The same goes for reviews of similar games from different publishers. Bethesda can release buggy rpgs and people just chuckle along and say it is "part of the charm" and get an easy 8/9, EA release Mass Effect Andromeda and get heavily criticised and downgraded for the bugs and facial animations with cries of "did they even QA this?" The fact that it is not deliberate does not mean that the "reviews" part of "games journalism" are not marketing though. They absolutely are.

Someone once asked me if there was one thing I could change about the company, what would it be. Easiest question ever. I would not be publicly traded. If you're a private company, then all you need to do is make enough money to pay your staff for long enough to make your next game. As soon as you are publicly traded, you've got so show that you are going to make X times more profit than you did last year, that's what leads to hard deadlines, and therefore crunch and sub-standard products, predatory monetisation practices, mass layoffs, and pretty much every other negative thing the games industry has to offer.