Thursday Next

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.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-55646360 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ni-hospitals-and-schools-facing-food-shortages-in-major-crisis-minister-39967782.html https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/sainsburys-says-lot-uncertainty-over-nireland-trade-2021-04-28/ BBC, Belfast Telegraph, Reuters for a Mainland UK, NI, and EU mix of views all of which basically align on the supermarket shortages being at least in part due to Brexit (covid certainly hasn't helped mind). On return to violence: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/violence-in-northern-ireland-it-s-worse-now-than-when-it-was-in-the-troubles-1.4532953 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-56664378 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-nireland-protests-new-idUSKBN2BV1XQ Again, mix of sources with different biases that all broadly agree that Brexit is at least a major part of the reason for return to/increase in violence (though Ireland is very complicated even 100 years on from separation). There's lots around the "NI Protocol" (if you want a search term to go by) which UK govt signed up to assuring everyone it was a great deal and would "Get Brexit Done" and now are coming back to having realised that it is an Indiana Jones, Holy Grail, chose poorly, level of poison chalice.

It's so good! Flinging batarangs feels great!

Well, the border in the Irish sea that we were promised wouldn't appear, appeared. The violence in Ireland that we were promised wouldn't return has returned, supermarkets are struggling to stock shelves, and mobile roaming charges are coming back. So all in all, "Project Fear" turned out to be "Project Kassandra" and is now pivoting to "Project I know I said I wouldn't say 'I told you so.' but since you went back on everything *you* said... 'I told you so.'"

Like, I feel that this is just life advice.

Mine was a Kindle Voyage. I think it cost me £120ish when I bought it I think so I'm more than happy with the 2/3 off, and the discount.

How is it? I'm starting to want to play something other than Hades on my Switch.

I sent in my Kindle for a trade-in (only recently found out that Amazon will give me £40 +20% off a new kindle if I send in my (6yr) old one). It's taken 6 days to finally give me the discount, and my new Kindle won't arrive till tomorrow. This means I've had to pick up a bo-ok (I assume it is pronounced the same as coop?) from my limited collection. I went for Part I of the Divine Comedy (Inferno). If you've not read it, I find it really interesting as it is where we get most of our modern ideas of hell from. The major challenge with reading it (similar to Machiavelli's The Prince) is that it refers to a lot of contemporary Italian (and in particular Florentine) politics and political figures, so you really need to have a version with those references explained to get some of it.

tbf, the running up a bamboo thing is sort of new. I don't think I've seen that sort of horizontal to vertical traversal in a game before. Reminiscent of how Spider-Man runs up a building, but applied in a natural setting. It could make open world games like Tsushima feel more three-dimensional. Or, in a game set between warriors and assassins you could choose between using that verticality as an assassin, or cutting down the bamboo thickets to deny enemies that terrain for a "fair" fight.

I really hope there will be new game-play tropes as well as story ones.

I've beaten the final boss in Hades a few times now, so will consider it "beaten". It's really good. The god bantz works in a way that I feel it didn't in that other mythology game. Fenyx or something like that? The rogue-like elements are familiar and enjoyable. The meta progress is satisfying and it has an "easy" mode that increases your tankyness by a couple of % each time you die so that eventually you hit a sweet spot where you are being challenged, but are not getting completely hosed and hitting a brick wall.