TheMightyEthan

I beat the game and did a NG+ 100% run and still never got that one.

Death's Door I originally shelved this game on the third main boss, cause I thought it was too hard. Here's what I said then: Well I went back because all the talk of Tunic made me feel like I should give this game another go, and I beat that boss on the 2nd try, with no additional upgrades. So idk what my problem was before, maybe I was just being too greedy about trying to do damage and not dodging enough. This game is hard but manageable, and checkpoints tend to be reasonably placed, especially before bosses and stuff. It's a little bit Zelda, a little bit Souls, and it works perfectly. Really the only thing I'd want them to change is to add a map, as some of the areas can be pretty confusing even after you've been through them several times. I say it's a little bit Zelda because the world exploration is in that vein, but it's definitely a simplified version. You do get items like bombs or a hookshot (I forget what it's called in this game) that allow you to access new areas and change how you move through the world just like you would in Zelda, but there's only a couple of them. The game as a whole is smaller too though, so I think it fits well with the scale of the game. As far as the Souls aspects, there's the obvious one which is the difficulty. There's also the combat, which is based around dodging. You are definitely not a tank in this game. Every time you get hit takes 1 health, and by the end I had 6 total health. I think there was 2 more I could get, but that's it. So combat revolves around dodging to avoid damage, and getting hits in where you're able. Also like in Souls games, you collect souls to upgrade your stats like damage and speed and whatnot, but you keep them when you die so there are no corpse runs, and in that way it's a little forgiving. If an area is too difficult and keeps killing you you're still making progress towards upgrades, so it doesn't feel so much like a brick wall. (The exception to this is bosses, because if you don't kill the boss you don't get any souls, so no progress is made.) Overall, this game is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. Grade: A+

P4G is a rough platinum, I have every trophy but Hardcore Risette Fan, and that one requires you to hear basically ever Rise combat line, which means you have to have like every possible situation arise in battle. It's ridiculous.

Oh no, lol, I understood what you meant, I was just making fun of your government for focussing on people helping the defenders and claiming that's warmongering while ignoring the people who actually invaded the country in the first place.

I've been playing Cyberpunk and really quite enjoying it. The general consensus seemed to be "there's actually a pretty good game buried under all the bugs" but I'm actually enjoying it more than that led me to believe. The world is really cool, and the hacking stuff is well integrated into combat. Honestly the biggest issue I have is that it's too engaging, something about it encourages me to really really roleplay, doing only what my character would actually do, and not do things for out-of-game reasons. The reason that's an issue is because it means I've been doing almost no side content, since V's got some pretty damn good reasons to want to deal with the main story ASAP, so I feel like I'm not getting the most out of the game (though I have been doing sidequests that feel emotionally important to V, so mainly the ones that deal with main characters, just not the random job type ones). The other thing is the shooting doesn't feel good at all on a controller, but since I'm playing a netrunner I typically avoid most combat, and now I have a smart gun that auto-targets with guided bullets so it's really not an issue. I'm coming up on the end now, and assuming it sticks the landing I anticipate giving it high marks.

More than anything else I've heard that comment makes me think Elden Ring might actually be for me, even though none of the other From games have been. QoL improvements is what it needed.

Gran Turismo 7 I am simply not enough of a car nerd for this game. From the very beginning, the interminable, unskippable opening credits that do the Star Trek Enterprise thing of like showing the history of car technology, but like 1000x slower than that, which then segues into like 5 minutes of in-game footage of races, also unskippable, had me fed up with the game before I even got to start playing. I mean yeah, those in-game races were pretty, sure would be great if I were driving in them. Then I've got to talk to all these assholes so I can learn the history of Japanese coupes, then I get to do a couple races, then I have to talk to the assholes again to learn about more differenter cars before I can do more races. I mean, goddamn, I played for an hour and a half and got to do like 5 races. The racing itself was fine, nothing stand-out, except somehow contrived to make me feel like I was going 20 mph the whole time. I would rather be playing Dirt or Forza, but if I didn't have any other racing games available this would be an okay option. As I said, I am not enough of a car nerd for this game. Grade: C

Well, strictly speaking, the West supplying weapons to Ukraine is prolonging the war...

Grass is always greener.

That game is near the top of my "to play" list.

I've never heard of I Am Dead, but that banner sure makes it look enticing.

Permanently missable as in you can't even get it on NG+?

Holy shit, I thought ER took at least 3 playthroughs to plat.

The Touryst, the only native 8k game on PS5! (downsampled to 4k because the PS5 doesn't actually support 8k output yet) That tech is cool, but that's not the only reason I got it, I've had my eye on it for a while cause it looks like a neat little puzzle game, and then it went on sale.

The Senate passed a bill to make Daylight Savings Time permanent! Now we just need the House to do the same. The only part I don't approve of is that it won't take effect until next year. Make it this year you cowards!

Looks like we have official word, from CNN: So the "make sure that they don't spiral out of control" part makes it sound like they intend to act with restraint as much as possible. We'd probably only see a full-fledged response to an unequivocal attack.

Well, in the event we do end up in a war between Russia and NATO it seems Russia is giving us good data on their new weapons tech: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/russia-ukraine-weapons-decoy.html That seems like the kind of thing you don't deploy for a "small-scale" conflict like this, because you want it to be a surprise if you do end up in a war against a stronger foe. Now NATO knows about the countermeasures and has a head start on developing counter-countermeasures. *Edit - lol, I wrote that last paragraph before finishing the article, but farther down: *Quote edited for conciseness.

Yeah, I saw they were going there and was like "holy shit, that's ballsy". My wife and I were just talking about what NATO would do if something happened to one of them. Whether that would constitute an attack on the country for purposes of Article 5. As far as the Chinese aid, what I've been hearing discussed is "military aid", so that's cool. I don't think it would cause problems for Chinese people in the US though, unless we actually end up at war with Russia, but then I'm not a racist shitbag so I have trouble predicting what will and will not trigger their fuckery.

If something "accidentally" hits Poland then it's pretty much up to Poland what to do, as I understand the NATO treaty. Basically Article 5 of the treaty is the part that says all alliance members have to come to the defense of any member that is attacked, so in theory at least it would be up to Poland whether to invoke Article 5 or not. In practice I imagine they would consult with other NATO members before deciding whether to invoke it, and my guess is NATO members have already come together and drawn up contingency plans that set out what they'll do in all kinds of situations that could happen in or adjacent to Ukraine. So probably there's a document somewhere in which paragraph 17.a.ii.A says that if a Russian missile hits Polish territory and no structures are damaged and no one is injured then they'll just issue a strongly worded statement, and 17.a.ii.B says if it destroys property but no one is injured then more forces will be moved nearer to the border, etc, covering situations ranging from disruption of the powergrid in NATO countries due to damage to power equipment in Ukraine all the way up through a major attack on a NATO member. They'll want to have planned for every possibility ahead of time and agreed on the response so that no one is having to make those decisions by the seat of their pants when the situation actually arises.

My first Xbox 100% since TT Game of Thrones way back in 2016.

Carrion This game is great. It's a "reverse horror", where you play as a mysterious alien organism rampaging through a scientific facility to try to escape, like The Thing where you're the Thing. You eat people to regain health, and the bigger you are the more powerful abilities you have. It's a 2D side-scroller, kind of a metroidvania, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes those. Also it's on Game Pass. Grade: A+

I've never played EDF, so I wouldn't know. DioField Chronicle looks pretty dope. Bring on the tactical RPGs!

The Forgotten City This is a cool time-loop mystery game, where you get to carry over knowledge and items from one loop to the next (because you are physically going back in time), in an attempt to free a city from a supernatural confinement where if anyone commits a "sin" then everyone gets killed. It was originally a Skyrim mod, and its TES roots are obvious, but it's been released as a standalone UE4 game. With the time loop it makes really cool use of the system TES games have where all the NPCs are off doing their own thing, they're not just waiting around to interact with you, and it actually does live up to the promise of making the world feel more alive. Gameplay-wise you're mostly walking around talking and exploring, with some very light combat that's entirely optional. I can't really say much more without spoilers, but it's great and I highly recommend it. There's 4 endings and I went through to get all of them. It's also on Game Pass. Grade: A

Exoprimal looks like Left 4 Dead but with dinosaurs, but somehow less fun than that sounds like it should be?

Yes, much better, but it's still nothing special, just passable, but you also barely need to do it, so it's fine.