Thursday Next

Ok, so either post-game, or once you have unlocked all teleporters (not sure which) the teleporters link so you can fast travel a bit. I've finished the story and have been doing a few speedbooster puzzles, but I have to say, I'm really not enjoying them, so think I am done with the game. NG+ doesn't really interest me tbh.

I liked MD apart from a couple of issues. I agree that it desperately needed fast travel (even if it was a late game thing, and only available between certain room types), the controls are also horrible. To aim and fire a rocket you have to hold "L" to aim, "R" to select rockets, aim with the thumbstick, and press "Y" to fire. When certain bosses require you to aim a rocket at a specific point, while avoiding stuff, it's just ludicrous. I also would have liked to have play post game with the hyper-beam, rather than the old Ninty stalwart of rewinding to before the final boss.

100% agree with this. The right answer is usually complicated, difficult, time consuming and most of all, b o r i n g. Yeah, AV would have taken some time and money to set up, yes it meant you had to learn complicated concepts like 1st preference and 2nd preference, but it would have made voting sooooo much more meaningful. Same with leaving the EU, boring chat about economics, rights, harmonised standards etc, intangible concepts of "soft power" all that boring stuff was nothing compared to brown people turning up to take your benefits/jobs (delete as appropriate) and people with funny accents telling you what to do. On the bright side, the Tories deciding that one of their own taking 3x in bribes lobbying compared to what he made as an MP did not even warrant the slap on the wrist of a 30 day suspension seems to have managed to actually piss off the Daily Mail, which is the equivalent of seeing Fox openly criticise the Republicans (although I note that the Mail blames "the commons" rather than the Tories).

I agree with pretty much all of what you said. I wasn't a "Corbyn fan", but I did agree with his policies, I voted LD last election as they were the most likely to unseat the Tories here (I always try to vote policies rather than politics fwiw and therefore tend to swing between Lab and LD depending on tactical realities). I'm still gutted that the country voted against the AV system proposed by the Lib Dems during the coalition. It was a great chance to have a more representative democracy, and having gotten away with it, not something the Tories are likely to risk again. My hope is that Starmer is keeping his powder dry and will come out with some sensible, ambitious, left leaning, fully costed policies come election manifesto time, rather than sharing his vision now and giving the Tory machine time to develop talking points and strategies against those policies. We'll see.

Yeah, ya see, I think that over time people would come around to Starmer's personality and style. To be honest with you, I think he does have personality, and charm. The tory supporting press and Corbyn supporting labour factions are keen to push the "Starmer has no personality" line, which people are quick to parrot just like they did with "Corbyn is a terrorist supporter" and "EU laws make our lives more difficult". But when you hear vox pops from people who have actually met him they describe him as a charming and interested person. I feel like people assume that because he is calm, and doesn't shout, and sticks to the facts instead of lurching into hyperbole that he doesn't have "passion". I have a similar personality, and it grinds my gears when people make those assumptions about me. I also think the british public needs to give their collective head a wobble. We need leaders with substance, not entertaining front men.

The problem is that Starmer seems to have listened to the people complaining he wasn't "passionate" enough and has dropped his analytical, forensic barrister style. This is a problem because he is really good at barristering, and not great at fluff and passion. I'd rather see an ad from them that just set out in clear terms "this is how the tories fucked, this is how we're gonna fix it".

I hate how the media that constantly whip up storms with their "Enemies of the People", "Crush the Saboteurs", "Traitors" etc headlines take literally zero responsibility for the monster they were and still are feeding. They look all wide eyed and innocent and wring their hands and say "how did it come to this" and I'm just like "How!? You were driving the fucking bus here is how!"

What's not to like about ASMR vikings?

I actually don't mind Blair, Iraq war aside (which itself was a symptom of being too reliant on the US and not enough on our EU neighbours) I think he left the country in a better state than it is now. I think that he was best we are likely to get, given that the media has painted the country against ever electing anything close to a socialist government. My dad always says "countries get the governments they deserve" which is, a bit reductive, but in the UK's case, we (as a nation) don't seem to want to elect a government that actually wants to help those in need, and ask those who can afford it to help pay for it.

That sounds a lot like how Frozen Synapse plays (in case you want to try more of that style of gameplay), except it is dudes with guns in buildings.

I agree, I think the only non-toxic FPS games I've played have been coop PvE ones. Like Destiny doing Strikes and Raids I've never encountered any toxic behaviour, similarly (although not an FPS) Ghost of Tsushima has a chill community.

Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square layout is a trademark. I don't think the other layouts are, but they may have had design rights or patents or similar. Design rights (in the UK at least) cover the design of something that goes beyond being purely utilitarian, and don't need to be registered, they just exist. Arguably the labelling of the buttons reaches this level so it's a sensible precaution to use different labels. Design rights only last around 15 years (depending on territory), but naturally, once you have adopted a layout, switching to match another layout after the time has expired is pointless as all your customers have learned your way of doing it. See also Windows having close window etc buttons on the right, while Apple has them on the left.

I don't think it's a sign that you are broken. It's survival adaptation. You gotta survive where you are and part of that is accepting the existence of the bad stuff. Otherwise the emotional burden really would utterly break a person. Like even in a "safe" country, if you actually, actively *think* about the rough sleepers, the covid deaths, the kids starving and having to rely on food banks, all while the people at the top throw themselves and their school mates billions of pounds in government contracts, at the same time as claiming that the government simply can't afford to keep everyone warm, fed, and clothed, you really would go mad. Accepting the reality of the world as it is, even in its abhorrence is all part of coping.

The Zero Escape series also does that Groundhog Day type thing, although the GOAT for that concept has to be Ocarina of Time. I've completed my first loop on DeathLoop. Will have to see how that unfolds.

Haha, yeah it's hard to sum up Episode 3 without spoilers, but it sucked. Agree with the criticism of Strange. It was a bit deus ex machina, but as you say, par for the course in comics-land. I enjoyed bits of Zombies (lol), it's just that overall the episode (as with Ep3), was just a bunch of set-pieces.

I thought Project Eve looked really dated. All that boob jiggle and lingering butt shots is really 90's/00's imho. If you told me this was a PS3 game, I'd believe you.

I like What if..? Agree that quality is up and down. Black Panther and Dr Strange were my faves so far. Captain America was good. Zombies and Episode 3 were the weakest. I think it pretty clearly delineates along: Episodes that explore a single character's personality = top tier, episodes that try to include lots of characters and are driven by fight scenes = lower tier. Captain America is in the middle as it does a bit of both. I was never a fan of the "Marvel Zombies" thing anyway tbh, the idea that they are "zombified" but still able to use their super-faculties and intellect just doesn't wash.

Showing your age old man. I know what you mean though, for the last 40 years Arnie et al have have been the epitome of "strength" in entertainment, and they are of the "Mr Universe" muscles-for-show school of thought. See also current "World's Strongest Man" Tom Stoltman (right) and his brother and fellow WSM competitor sporting the "power belly".

Does anyone have a code for the PS5 Firmware Beta?

I really liked this game. The gameplay was solid*, I liked that it was predominantly an exploration / puzzle game, with some arena fights thrown in, rather than another open world adventure game. The story telling (both the delivery, and the content) were what elevated it to a "must-play" for me. Edit* "in my opinion", like nothing felt broken in terms of combat or movement, controls felt like they did what I wanted them to do. Combat felt more tactical/puzzle based than skill/timing based which I enjoyed. Just wanted to be clear that @Mister Jackis allowed to have their opinion as it sounded a bit like I was just saying "nah, you are wrong."

I loved Sekiro sooooo much.

Inside out is big for me because it removes cables. I just really want a release date.

You can fight a divine dragon in Sekiro, but it's a more of a... puzzle fight I guess..? I recognised the protag (and the growing stick weapon) from the TV show Monkey (maybe "Monkey Magic" in the US?) looks interesting.

I absolutely hate missable shit in RPGs. I loved FFVII Remake for it's chapter thing allowing multiple, quick, do-overs.

If you have the budget, I can recommend google's Nest WiFi (or whatever they are calling it this week) for a whole-home wireless solution. I had to swap my Vodafone hub for a standalone Modem to resolve some DHCP conflicts, but since then it has been absolutely bomb-proof.