This week I’m still playing Borderlands 3, but I’ve started a new job, and I’m too tired to think of words to express my feelings on Borderlands 3, so I’ll just say I don’t like it very much.
What are you guys doing this week?
Final fast food burgers update, for a while anyway. I’m just about sick of eating burgers. I had the opportunity, sooner than I expected, to try Arby’s current selection of hamburgers. I’ve said before, generally I like Arby’s. I like the Roast Beef Sandwiches, but usually I focus on whatever their limited-time only burgers and sandwiches are. I used to go there exclusively for their “Market Fresh Sandwiches” menu, but they have actually discontinued all but one of the original choices. Arby’s also, as far as I can tell, started using cheaper ingredients and smaller portions. The Roast Turkey Ranch & Bacon sandwich is neither as thick as it once was, nor as tasty. If you didn’t ever eat one, you’ll have to take my word that they originally were a pretty significant taste explosion. In my opinion, of course. They still offer a Corned Beef Reuben sandwich, which started out as an occasional special offer, but I don’t think Arby’s offering is as good as just about anyone else’s. But apparently that was more popular than the Turkey Swiss they once offered.
Erm…didn’t mean for that to veer off into a rant. Anyway, on to the burgers, and the biggest non-surprise of all.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “One More Burger(s)”
So here we are, at the end of the second movie. This means I spent 46 strips in Fellowship, and 47 in Two Towers. I didn’t plan that, it just sort of worked out that way. Fellowship occupies 58 total pages, while Two Towers is 74 pages long.
So they are finally going to Isengard. There was a rumor that the Hobbits might have been taken there. I guess we’ll find out.
Sure, it can be bad when you realize that one of your players has been zoning out during crucial moments. But, the real horror sets in when the players who have been paying attention try to explain, and their perception of your gameworld is so different from your intention that you almost don’t recognize it as your own.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remastered XCIII: Impervious to Information”
This week I’ve finished Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I’m just going to summarize my thoughts on it: The lasers are fun, Oz Kits are very nice to have once you get used to them, I find the character Pickle really annoying, the novelty of being in space is fun for a while, I find it very weird that the events of the game are (as far as I can tell) completely ignored in Borderlands 3, and I like that Mr. Torgue is mad at the existence of laser weapons.
Speaking of Borderlands 3, that is now what I’m playing. Most of the things I have to say about the game are negative, but I’ll try to say something nice.
I hate the existence of the quest ‘Porta Prison’. Here’s a rundown: There is a guy trapped in a porta-potty, an AI is keeping him in there because he has a gun, you have to run around trying to replace the AI so he can get out. Almost every sentence in that quest has a poop joke, and the reward for the quest is a poop-themed rocket launcher. Even by Borderlands standards, the humor is juvenile.
I find that the combat feels squishy, I don’t know how else to explain it. Just, squishy.
They just add the character Typhon DeLeon as “The first Vault Hunter”. There has been no mention of him in any of the previous games, but now here’s this legendary Vault Hunter that everyone knows about, out of the blue.
And I guess the sliding and vaulting mechanics are nice.
For a small change of pace I did play the demo for Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders. Just a cute, chill game (pun unintended) about skiing. I recommend trying the demo.
Anyway, what’s everyone else playing?
I lost a day at some point in the last few days. It’s now Sunday, and I woke up thinking it was Saturday. I thought yesterday was Friday, and that today would be Saturday, and I planned out my day according to that belief. When I realized it was actually Sunday, I was suddenly a day behind on everything. So I had to spend the next several hours just mentally dealing with my schedule (such as it is) being wrecked and figuring out how to rebuild everything. Hopefully, I can operate correctly the next few days. But partially for that reason, today’s post will be another short one (by my standards…someone pointed out they didn’t really consider last week’s post “short.” And sure; it’s a subjective term. But first, a burger news follow-up.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Burger Conspiracy”
This week has been exclusively Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.
It’s like Borderlands 2, but in space! Which was pretty fun for a while, but now I’m sick of of space and I want to go back to Pandora, where there’s an atmosphere, the ground has vegetation, and Spiderants & Skags want to eat my legs.
The game is notably shorter, but the level cap is almost the same as BL2, which makes leveling up kind of tedious. The pre-sequel has 1 major DLC whereas BL2 has 5 major, and 5 small DLCs. On the upside, the one major DLC the game has is good.
I knew nothing about Claptastic Voyage, and I was pleasantly surprised. The theming of being inside of Claptrap’s brain is fun, the jokes are solid, and the level design does a lot of fun things that just wouldn’t make sense in any other context. The only bad thing I have to say is that the boss at the end has about as much health as a raid boss but without the loot of a raid boss.
So anyway, what’s everyone else up to?
Here is how I'd conquer the game-publishing business. (Hint: NOT by copying EA, 2K, Activision, Take-Two, or Ubisoft.)
From the company that brought us Fallout 76 comes a storefront / Steam competitor. It's a work of perfect awfulness. This is a monument to un-usability and anti-features.
What makes the gameplay of Borderlands so addictive for some, and what does that have to do with slot machines?
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2015.
C++ is a wonderful language for making horrible code.
Some advice to game developers on how to stop ruining good stories with bad cutscenes.
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
A breakdown of how this game faltered when the franchise was given to a different studio.
The comments on most sites are a sewer of hate, because we're moderating with the wrong goals in mind.
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