T w e n t y S i d e d
This week I am…playing Cookie Clicker and Roblox. We’ve got some big real-life stuff going on so it’s pretty bare minimum while we work things out.
What are you guys up to? Anyone have any good news to share? I could use the pick-me-up.
The Terrible New Thing
Fidget spinners are ruining education! We need to... oh, never mind the fad is over. This is not the first time we've had a dumb moral panic.
Internet News is All Wrong
Why is internet news so bad, why do people prefer celebrity fluff, and how could it be made better?
Push the Button!
Scenes from Half-Life 2:Episode 2, showing Gordon Freeman being a jerk.
The Best of 2012
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2012.
The Strange Evolution of OpenGL
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
Finished up XCOM: Enemy Within. I shouldn’t have played it back to back with Enemy Unknown, too much repetition – but as a sort of enhanced edition, it is still very good and worth experiencing. I took way too long to play XCOM because of its reputation for difficulty; it was really fun and I’m glad I’ve finally checked it out.
Started Syberia 3. There’s some sort of magic in the original Syberia that I’ve been chasing for a while, and I just don’t think the sequels have it. Syberia 3 is more sleek and modern than the older 1 and 2, but it looks pretty bad for a 2017 game. The point and click puzzles have definitely been better than 2, but the story has been a bit of a snoozer. Far from the worst game I’ll play this year, but I probably need to give up on this series and accept that Syberia was lightning in a bottle and its unique janky charm is not going to be rekindled.
I beat Blasphemous 2. I enjoyed it a lot. The final boss was kind of a joke, but the one right before it was tough so I guess it’s ok to have a victory lap. No idea what the endings meant but that kind of goes with the genre.
I gave up on Armored Core VI. In Blasphemous 2 I always knew exactly what got me whenever I took damage and what I hypothetically could have done to avoid it. In AC6 someone will fire 100 squillion missiles at you and if you rocket to the side at full speed you take 1000 damage and does that mean you did it right?
Started playing Lies of P. It’s a Soulslike with Pinocchio flavor, not much else to say about it. Pretty fun so far.
Replaying Tales of Berseria, this time on PC; finished the strongest part of the game and am just about to hit the middle muddle. It’s still pretty much everything I want in a game; Dynasty Warrior-style combat with Diablo-level loot drops, numbers-go-up for doing literally anything including hanging out in the menus, anime characters in impractical stripper outfits waffling between witty, goofy and horribly overblown, philosophy to think about and philosophy to laugh about. Velvet’s a villain protagonist that mostly avoids crossing any moral horizons, but for mostly practical reasons, and Artorius is likewise a heroic antagonist that does cross moral horizons, also for practical reasons. Pretty sure my first playthrough was very close to Nier Automata and I feel that game’s setting might have bled over into my interpretation here, but it makes this game stronger so I’m keeping it.
I want to believe it’s new to this version, and not that I just managed to never try using the Quick Save before, but it turns out it works anywhere even though you can only do normal saves at save points. Suddenly all the tension of risking half an hour’s progress picking a fight with an optional boss is… just gone. Actual gamechanger.
Got struck by a fey mood and set up a Minecraft 1.12 modpack for one of my friendgroups a few weeks ago, and been slowly polishing it up ever since. Last weekend I decide to stress-test it with a Skyblock playthrough, as I already added a bunch of mods to enhance access to resources on nonstandard maptypes (read: the old-school Sky Dimension), and it’s proven to be good, mind-numbing fun between Ex Nihilo Creatio and Project E. I’m up to a small power flower of Mk3’s and a fully-enchanted diamond sieve that lets me crank out even more goodies with some autoclicker spam, which leads to sometimes spending more time reading a book as my character works than actually playing the game! Such is the skyblock idle experience.
I also picked up BIT.TRIP RERUNNER today because I happened to check the Steam front page for events and caught its name in the new releases section. It’s a darn miracle I did, because otherwise it would almost certainly have entirely slipped my notice – despite having adored BIT. TRIP Runner on the Wii back in the day& played the heck out of Runner 2 on my oooolld iPad like half a decade ago, Steam has no way of knowing these things to recommend it and I would never think to search for it. I’m still a little rusty, but the old, abstract-yet-cartoony art style looks gorgeous with UE5, the controls seem swish as heck- and the soundtrack’s as timeless as ever. I doubt that I’ll ever end up getting into level editing with it, but I can’t wait to explore what the community creates down the line.
Had I not read your post, I would have no idea that RERUNNER existed. I loved RUNNER and RUNNER 2, although never finished them. Going to have to check it out. Thanks!
Been playing Starfield for the last few weeks. Was loving it, but these past few days have turned sour as a few nasty bugs have reared their heads. The game hates me docking at space stations. I either get trapped inside the station until I fuss with my owned ships, or it locks me in my ship and wont let me board the station at all to begin with. Has really killed my ability to play. And with the creation kit so far off, I have no clue when a fan patch for this bug might come. Might just go back to either Fallout 4 or Skyrim if this keeps up. Or finally try to continue either Balders Gate 3 or Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. I could also actually try starting Cyberpunk 2077 after I got gifted it over a year ago.
Oh, I booted up Animal Crossing New Horizons for the first time in months, just to do some clean up as my BF and I have plans to try to work together to finally finish my Museum. So that’s gonna be played a bit in the next few weeks, as we have a soft goal of finishing it by our anniversary at the start of October. Otherwise he and I have been playing the new Pokemon DLC.
Otherwise have been mostly just doing the events in the mobile games I play all the time Azur Lane, Arknights, and Fate Grand Order. Oh, and made some progress on a RPGMaker game I picked up a while back and have been playing off and on.
I finally finished The Witness. Or as much of it as I was willing to finish, after finding the secret bits I could see but not get to, courtesy of a walkthrough, and realising I had hours left to do including a timed section (no way).
Next I think I’ll try The Looker, the spoof version – it looked funny but also fun.
Good news? After more money and toil than I ever expected (mental toil and a bit of physical – of checking the work of the plumbers), my dishwasher is now installed. Meaning I get time and back-comfort back, as well as additional worktop space. It’s not just the time, there’s something about doing the dishes that makes me angry, it’s fiddly and slippery and do it for too long without gloves and your skin becomes perma-wet for a while, not to mention it’s always hurt my back leaning over to do it. But not only does the dishwasher take that chore away for the most part, it also provides inventory space for the dirty dishes, making the kitchen less cluttered and the hand washing of select items to be much less stressful, no more tetris.
And now, with the kitchen slightly rearranged to accommodate it and my having found better places for some things, there is a much calmer feel in the kitchen. Feng Shui by iteration.
I managed to get in another session of The Old Republic with my Bounty Hunter for the blog, finishing off Hoth. I already have plans for my next two playthroughs, as I switch between Empire and Republic side since I do the class stories and planet stories to have enough XP to take me to the end, and alternating the areas allows me to forget the planet stories before I hit them again. Over the past few playthroughs I’ve noticed a lot of really interesting scenes that I don’t remember from my previous playthroughs, so I think they’ve updated the class stories a bit over the years.
I also managed to finish Dragon Age II. I was at the final part, where Anders does his thing (and my character killed him for it). I remember there being other quests to do — Fenris’ final quest, and something with the nobles — that I didn’t get this time, but my level was still fine and getting Restoration potions really helped the rest of my team, so all I needed to do was keep myself alive to survive the final fights. I sided with the mages because my character wouldn’t have wanted Bethany killed, and so it remains the case that the only time I sided with the Templars was with my mage character (she agreed that the people would demand blood and hoped that it would be less extreme if she participated, becoming a mage Viscount at the end). Fenris always rejects you if you side with the mages, and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to convince him to switch sides, but a joking response of hoping he would die at my side in a hopeless cause got him to switch. Also, every companion joins in at the final battle, which was pretty cool. Next I’m looking at either going back and finishing the leftover DLC from Origins (Awakenings and Witch Hunt) or else figuring out the Dragon Age Keep again and starting my Inquisition run.
Sigh, the finale is such a mess in that game… For the record not just companions but also
your siblingandZevrancan join that fight if you play your cards right. I should really sit down to finishing that nightmare playthrough. I stalled halfway through the third act so I’m super close to the end, assuming my saves carried over properly to the new PC…The biggest twist of all for me in DA2 was that
it turns out that Meredith’s suspicions about the Mages were right ALL ALONG. First Enchanter Orsino is the one behind all of the Blood Mages, and in fact, he’s indirectly responsible for Hawke’s mother’s death because he gave his tacit approval to Quentin to continue his depraved research. Now, as a Mage who happily uses Blood Magic myself I can understand the whole “we must be knowledgeable of all the tools at our disposal, for if we do not learn about it, others certainly will, and they may not use it as wisely” thought process, but Orsino had clearly reached the point where any cost was justifiable for the end means. I honestly wish there had been a chance to interrogate/argue with Orsino over his actions, but it probably would have felt kinda inappropriate at that stage of the endgame.Now, I don’t have any solid evidence but generally the belief why virtually
every mage turns to blood magic and attacks Hawke, even those you’ve helped, and why Orsino turns to blood magic even if you’re literally winningis because they’ve literally ran out of content.Been playing Starfield pretty heavily since it came out. It’s got it’s problem, glitches, and those oh so obnoxious little Bethesda touches, but I can’t get enough. Completed one of the faction quests, made a lot of headway in the main quest because the story has started heating up, and done a buttload of side adventures. There is, also, a ton of other stuff I have barely touched at all, including almost anything and everything in the second big faction’s area. And it’s got SPACESHIPS. And you get to make your own, and that’s fun and cool.
On a more somber note, there have definitely been times I’ve been playing and wondered what Shamus would’ve thought of it. Because he definitely would’ve had strong opinions on a lot of this stuff, that’s for sure.
I’m really on the fence about Starfield.
I’m kinda particular when it comes to RPGs. My favourite by far is the Witcher 3. Regarding Bethesda games, the only modern Fallout I like is New Vegas, and I got bored with Skyrim pretty quickly (to me, it’s an ocean with the depth of a pond). Do you think I’ll like Starfield? How do the main- and sidequest quality compare to the ones in, say, the Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk?
It’s a Bethesda game. If the only one you like is the one not made by them, I think that answers your question! That said, the story is pretty good for a Beth game. It reminds me more of Oblivion in terms of the kinds of stories being told than Skyrim or the Fallouts, though. I’m constantly coming across little outposts with their own little stories and style. It’s nowhere close to the same league as Witcher or Cyberpunk though.
Of course, the game does seem to have a lot of randomness built in that makes some of it hard to judge. I just know I’ve been sent to the exact same dungeon on two different worlds by two different main quests, and that is far from great.
Yeah, it’s probably gonna be a miss from me. Thank you for replying!
That was an excellent summary of Skyrim!
Still going through Little Nightmares II. Enjoying it quite a bit so far. It’s very similar to the first game, except that now there’s a second character to help you. Fortunately, their presence doesn’t lower the game’s creepiness factor. While there’s not as much of a sense of isolation as there was in the first game you’re still a very small child in a world of huge monstruous people.
Also going through Bacon Pines and man, has this game engrossed me. It’s this odd sorta “choose your own adventure” kinda thing but where the more bad endings you hit the more interesting and gripping the story gets. It also has a beautiful art style befitting of a storybook. Don’t let that fool you, though. The game’s narrative can get super dark.
Sorry, this was driving me crazy, but it’s Beacon Pines. not “Bacon”. I was a bit hungry when typing that.
Well, my computer’s stand crumbled this weekend and almost took my computer with it. Since I have no way of buying a new one right now I fixed it by just forcing several screws it didn’t previously had on random spots to supposedly increase its stability and strength.
Since I did absolutely no study or calculations, I likely just made it barely functional and prone to suffer catastrophic failure at any moment.
Still, now I can have my computer precariously resting on top of it to use it once more.
Wish me luck. Maybe I’ll play some cities skylines today.
Last week I spilled some water on my keyboard of nine years (the first time that’s happened, somehow), and had a scary morning when it didn’t work after letting it dry overnight. Luckily it started working again in the evening when I next turned on my computer, but it’s got me thinking about looking for a replacement; maybe not to buy just yet (since it still runs just fine), but to at least have something on hand I can order quickly when it eventually does succumb to entropy one day. There are enough keyboards out there that I’d rather not have to make a snap decision when needing a new one, and it’s surprising when you think about it how many games cannot be exited if you don’t have an Escape key…
As for what I’ve been playing: not so much this week as I’ve been feeling a bit more creative (making sprites for Pokémon: Infinite Fusion and doing some video editing), but mostly going for badges in Shadow Gambit plus a bit of Slay the Spire and Terraforming Mars when I’m not.
Last week’s Ironclaw game had the party fail to take safe harbor from a storm on a string of islands. We hit a reef, and lost the ship in the bay. Fortunately, everyone evacuated safely and the island was plagued with conveniently-timed pirates. A few swashbuckling shenanigans between our Jackal Medjat, Tiger Dillitante, and my Otter Rake/Sailor and we had ourselves a new, better ship!
My D&D group didn’t meet up, so I didn’t get to resolve the situation with the gnoll they’ve soul-saved.
Metroid Prime 3 I beat the bosses on the first two planets, puked phazon, released a swarm of metroids, and dropped a nuke on a planet in order to save it because a creepy organic supercomputer told me to. Looks like it’s going great! I’m really starting to like the thing where you can fast-travel between different landing sites. It feels a bit un-Metroid, but it allows the game to sometimes go “Oops, you weren’t supposed to come here yet. Here’s a landing pad so you can come back later.”