T w e n t y S i d e d
Not a whole lot going on this week.
I’ve (for some reason) decided to make a new Terraria world, in master mode, with the Zenith seed. It’s bad. Bombs can drop from pots and trees, traps are many times more common, and many other terrible features. One of the (very few) upsides is that most blocks take less hits to brake, so I guess that’s nice.
I have no idea how many times I’ve died so far, but it’s at least in the triple digits.
How’s everyone else doing?
The Best of 2017
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
Linux vs. Windows
Finally, the age-old debate has been settled.
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
Juvenile and Proud
Yes, this game is loud, crude, childish, and stupid. But it it knows what it wants to be and nails it. And that's admirable.
Punishing The Internet for Sharing
Why make millions on your video game when you could be making HUNDREDS on frivolous copyright claims?
Watch Dogs: Legion isn’t getting any better. The story and almost all dialog is embarrassingly bad. And the gameplay: It is Spider Bot the sneaking game and it is getting stale. The story missions try to implement some variety, but those variety is almost always shooting or getting away while being shot at. Shooting is not a strong point in this entry and getting away: Even if that fails the mission is a success anyway. The failing agent is blocked for the next 30 minutes. Who cares?
Big blunder in Palworld. My coop-Partner and I tried to conquer Oil Drilling Platform in the South East Ocean. We both died in the very middle of it and now all the enemies respawned, but gear ammunition, Pal Spheres, Pal Souls, money and other valuable stuff is deep inside a hornets nest. That could have gone better.
Analog Witchbound continues. I needed to cheat a little bit to get some coins to buy a Kalimbra. A critical peace of gear to continue the story, but if you – like the idiot I am – use the very few coins you get for other stuff you get stuck, because there is no way so early in the story to earn additional coins.
And I made the mistake to wander into a game store: I bought 4 new games I haven’t played yet: The Bloody Inn, Splendor Duel, Castle Combo and Hero Story. I heard good things about these games.
Watch Dogs Legion has been pretty cheap in the shops the last few years and I’d been tempted, if only because of the feeling of seeing a “bargain” for a AAA game. But as you confirm, it gave the impression of the writing just being too embarrassing for me to enjoy it enough to be worth the time. A bit like the Saints Row reboot looked.
I had fun with the Saints Row Reboot. But Watch Dogs, other than Saints Row, takes itself sooo serious, while Elmer Fudd would be a more believable antagonist, than that Albion dude. And those Deadsec agents, regardless of age and background, talking like in a DmC cosplay contest. It doesn’t fit together.
Saints Row is over the Top from the get go and was never more than a power fantasy. Cartoon-ish villains and protagonists blend into this scenario, not work against it.
More Abiotic Factor. While I’ve had fun with it, I’ve about reached the point where I’m ready for it to be done, which is inconvenient since it’s definitely not done. “Run at enemy with big stick” has failed me because Reactors has enemies who will survive Big Stick and then turn around and shoot out all of my favorite organs. It’s a heck of a difficulty increase over the combat in the entire rest of the game. Also, it’s an absolutely massive area, by which I mean 4 different sub-areas each of which is not small.
They recently let you have a pet join you as you play the game. It’s handy because it distracts the enemies, and kind of goofy because sometimes the enemies remain distracted even when the pet is KO’d. Also, it had a bad habit of walking in front of my laser power generators, which would a) disassemble the laser emitters and b) occasionally crash the game. They fixed that in a patch, at least, so now the pet just blocks the lasers sometimes with no other effect.
I continue to appreciate the QoL things it has – I recently got a bunch of extra inventory space (
a box I can put 18 things in that always takes up one space and weighs the same), teleportation, and limited flight, all of which are sweet. Also I upgraded my SCP shotgun and nowoccasionally it completely obliterates everything in front of me, knocking me back and whiting out the screen. It’s awesome.Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass continues. Another Reality Dungeon cleared, with another enemy that could render itself invincible, but mostly still just a good time. Reached the timed maze again; that thing was nearly impossible before, and is completely impossible now that my controller has stick drift. Good thing you can pay money to clear it instead.
Brotato got an update, with a new difficulty setting and character. The new difficulty adds environment attacks and darkness. The new character is one of those The Lost characters that dies in one hit; the game removes all the Health shop items, but not the health level bonuses. I’ve only reached one miniboss, which killed me. I do not like this character. But, I still like it more than Arms Dealer, or the other really annoying classes. At least its weapons still work.
Ok, turns out the new character’s weapon is both pretty cool, and a starting weapon for them once it’s unlocked. After dropping the difficulty to the bottom and unlocking the weapon, the one-hitpoint wonder then cleared a Level 5 run on their first try and nearly survived to level 40. I was not expecting that to be that easy.
Still debating how much of the new difficulty I want to play. It’s definitely not happening with the weaker characters.
Blah not much or maybe even nothing at all this week. But I’ve been watching The Expanse, which has dialogue about on par with most video games. It seemed so terrible in various ways and yet the story has kept me hooked enough. Perhaps this is what Firefly is like too. It’s easy watching, that’s the thing, really quite slow and low key despite the themes being the opposite. Other than that I saw the boxing, live in the Co-op Live arena. That was an experience, basically a football crowd in a confined space. Manchester remains too rowdy for me, a place where the partyers seem intent on making sure everyone in a 50m radius is aware of the extent of their partying, and their football team allegiance. But I know what “Northern Quarter” is now. It’s the same place I was 8 years ago when England won a match and the day-drinkers came out and blocked the road in their masses and threw bottles at the bus that they were preventing from moving. This time instead of charity shops, I was there for some food that had been recommended, The Birria Brothers. Their tacos looked amazing in the photos but after being taken to a seat inside by smiley waitress, I had to wait for too long for anyone to come back over, while various of the waiting staff walked past, and it turned out my friend had already arrived at the venue so I just left to meet up with him and eat there. I’d assumed it would be a café sort of place, I’m not a fan of dark loud restaurants with pointless candles at the table. Had to push through a group of lads to leave. Besides, the menu had the tacos grouped in 3s (I believe, some didn’t say how many you got), implied that tacos should be eaten with consommé (what?), and didn’t seem to allow for 1 of each of different fillings. So at least I didn’t have to negotiate for one pork, one goat, one beef and confuse a bemused but grinning waitress. Places like that usually have a feeling of stepping into their living room, it’s their space, which you are allowed to enter and request service, if they deign to provide it, rather than being the space in which they would like you to enter, wherein they request if they may serve you, if you see what I mean. Demand exceeds supply. Trendy places.
Still playing Suikoden III. I’ve cleared out the last part before the final dungeon and battle, and although the last individual segment still had me lose my True Rune despite my being able to mop the floor with the enemies, at least right after that I had an army battle that at least with my characters and levels was a trivial one, although the goal is to take out the enemy leader and the Harmonian bishop Sasarai — who was not one of the stars and so not controllable — kill-stealed him after he attacked him after I had used spells to wipe out most of his party. He’s not really targetable until that point anyway — you can hit him but only do 0 damage so you can’t win too quickly — but it was a bit disappointing to not get the final kill, although you go get a feeling of power from having his troops be not at all a threat to anyone. I’m going to try to finish this game off this upcoming weekend, and then decide what I’ll be moving on to.