Somewhat Random Absurdity

[Doc_Brown]

I was hoping Yahtzee would have an interesting opinion on Elden Ring but apparently he's a fanboy. So much for that, then. 

Honestly, Silver, if you're inclined to give any Soulsborne a try, I'd actually recommend Sekiro.  Stealth is a more significant factor than in the others, the jump and grappling hook grant a greater freedom of movement, and there's a second chance ability that helps mitigate the notorious difficulty FromSoftware's known for.  Apparently, it was originally conceived as a new Tenchu game, which should tell you a lot.  The only reason I passed on it myself was that I've just never been big on feudal Japan as a setting, but I have a feeling you'd be more open to it than I.

Edit for obligatory SteathGamerBR demonstration.

"Call me Alhazrad. Some strange aeons ago -- never mind how many precisely -- having little to no sanity left in my possession, and nothing particular to interest me in this drab, mundane existence, I thought I would sail about a little and see the eldritch watery parts of the world..."

I like it.  Reminds me of how A Study in Emerald takes the Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet and gives it a Lovecraftian twist.

[Silver Sorrow]

Sekiro, eh? I've seen it, but never tried it. It doesn't look like something I would pick out myself, but I'll give it a shot. Don't be disappointed though if I come back and say "naaaaah." 

That video, though...wow. I wonder how long it took that guy to plan all that out?

"DaAy 12..p,p..stIll getynig asss kikeD bY meunstarssz lil teeenzy tinsy meeces liVe inn mah porez..."

Melville...Doyle...can't wait for Milne's Winnie The Pooh Meets The Black Goat Of A Thousand Young In The Hundred Acre Wood.

Okay, kids...time's up! Here are the correct answers to the Discussion Questions!

1. No. But "All my grandbabies will be adopted from China!" is.
2. Who cares?
3. That really wasn't a question.
4. I absolutely hate Mother's Day. No reason. It's not like I miss my mom, or anything. Nope. Not a bit. Stop looking at me. Go 'way.
5. I hope not. You don't want me cooking your food.
6. Have you ever heard of the FBI, Captain Oveur?

That's it for today, kiddos. For those of you who still have moms, happy Mother's Day. For the rest of us, there's always rum.

And don't forget the Word of the Day...BOOGER!

boogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerbooger

[Doc_Brown]

Don't be disappointed though if I come back and say "naaaaah." 

I'm in the same boat.  Due to my love of all things Lovecraftian, I figure Bloodborne's my best chance at liking a FromSoft game.  If I take to it, I might then be open to something like Dark Souls III, but if I don't it could turn me off from the entire Soulsborne catalogue...

That video, though...wow. I wonder how long it took that guy to plan all that out?

It's kind of what he does.  So much so that they officially partnered with him to advertise Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.

[Silver Sorrow]

My favorite part of the whole experience is that everyone is pretending that boss fights in these games aren't just aggressive versions of Yellowbeard's stagger-stagger-roll-stagger-crawl bit.

roll...roll...shoot...roll... ow!...roll...shoot...which button was that special attack again?...oh, hell's bells...load last checkpoint...

Anyway, good for him; it's so hard to find one's niche these days. But if he wants a real challenge, he should try stealthing Doom with 100% kills. And I won't say it's impossible because god knows there's some chucklehead out there who's done exactly that.

Absolutely irrelevant side note: this is my entire creative process in a nutshell.

Hey, kids! It's time for MORE CYBERPUNK CRAP! Yaaaaaay!

Okay, here's the deal: I'm not going crazy, I'm already there! No, wait. I mean...

Uh-huh. So! A list of things I've noticed thus far.

- Fidgeting V in chargen. What's the point of the fidgeting? When I change a mouth value, I kind of expect to see the result immediately, instead of waiting for V to put his/her goddamn hand down first. And this is after each change. Moronic.

- Less shit strewn all over the place. That means a lot less consumables and other inconsequential garbage cluttering up the scenery. This also includes fewer containers with random junk inside. I must say that I'm disappointed that they took away the joy of finding a purple plastic cowboy hat in a crate just sitting in the middle of a room for no reason.

- Lizzie's bar is a little more...sparkly. That is, the light show is more impressive. Or maybe it always was. Again: I wouldn't notice the obvious if it fell out of the sky, landed on my face, and started to wiggle.

- Traffic doesn't seem as psychotic.

- I wasn't harassed by a call from whatsername...uh...ol' one-eye...when I got near the market across from the netrunner in T-Bug's quest. And there wasn't a ton of Tyger Claws hanging around the place, either.

- Speaking of those guys, i crossed the street and stumbled upon three of them hanging out. One of them barked a warning at me and i didn't linger, but they didn't aggro out on me when I turned around to look at them. Weird, huh? That NPC factions aren't hair-triggered?

- Happy: able to skip the tutorial BD, in a way. (You still see the BD, but you don't get all the instructions that go with the experience.) That was a pain in the ass. Of course, I think anything involving Judy is a complete pain in the ass, so the less I had to deal with her, the better.

- On a side note, why did the devs feel the need to go out of their way to try and convince me that Evelyn Parker is someone I should give a bleeding crap about? I just find her boring and grating.

- On another side note: why is it that one of the few NPCs that are actually interesting, Jackie, is killed off? Why couldn't I have used Judy as a meat shield instead?

Oh, well.

[Starfox]

Things you probably didn't noticed but I have (because of difference of interest maybe  ):

-- If you load a game from a pre-patch 1.5 save with the patch 1.5, all your perks are reset. Pain in the ass because you have to recall all the perks you previously had (perks are reset because some perks disappeared -- like the ability to not be affected by enemy's hacks, which was a very high level ability but nice to have) -- and other where "adjusted".

-- They nerfed netrunner abilities... again. They already did in patch 1.3, they did it again. For example, the ultimate "ping" hack that previously allowed to quickhack both equipments and persons through walls now only work on equipments. Why? Mystery, because in this game, equipments and persons are alike. If you can hack one you should be able to hack the other.

-- Now, cloaking is available at your friendly local cyberware merchant. Thing is, cloaking mod is something that was verbally mentioned in the original release of the game but couldn't be found anywhere. Well, glad they rectified that little omission. Not that it is really needed (15 sec of cloak with 45 sec of cooldown -- for the legendary version of the mod -- is more of an emergency backup than a real plan).

Point is, when you still feel the need to adjust the gameplay in a dramatic fashion more than a year after the initial release of the game, it's because something went horribly wrong. Gameplay is something that should be entirely figured out during development, gameplay balance at the end of the development cycle. They "adjusted" Cyberpunk gameplay in every major patch since the initial release. Like if we needed more proof that the game release was that rushed... Either that or they're adjusting the gameplay to be in line with their upcoming multiplayer thingamagic... which I really couldn't care less about.

We still don't know what the single player DLC will be about. I shudder to imagine...

On a side note, I'm not particularly impressed wit Ray Tracing, except maybe for one thing (supposing it is linked to Ray Tracing which I have no idea) the fog at night is very realistic.The gloomy street lights diffused by the fog, very nicely done (anyone having driven at night through a fog can appreciate). Either the fog is new in this game or it's a RTX thing that I didn't have before because I didn't have a RTX card (or maybe there was fog before but it was so crappy I actually didn't notice... ever, before now).

[Doc_Brown]

Anyway, good for him; it's so hard to find one's niche these days.

Y'know what's weird?  There's another guy, Volound, who I remember used to do those kinds of videos, too.  When I needed to look up a link for the StealthGamerBR example I gave previously, I decided to check in on him to see if he was still active.  While he is, apparently he's now focused on "mastering complex strategy games like Total War."  I can't think of a more 180 degree turn in interests, like a professional twitch shooter pivoting to chess...

We still don't know what the single player DLC will be about.

That's assuming they even deliver on that promise.  Grand Theft Auto V was supposed to have single player DLC, but once they realized how much money they could make from multiplayer content they dropped all pretense and have proceeded to milk that money cow for every last drop.

[Silver Sorrow]

- I said the traffic was less psychotic. Today someone ran me over. Didn't even touch the brakes. I shot him. Cops didn't like that. A bunch of female cops killed me. Interesting. At least they didn't spawn in from ten feet behind me.

- Also, I forgot to mention: in the scav haunt in the first mission, I screwed up and alerted the scavs. All of a sudden several more spawned in the room with the boss and came out shooting. I mean, come ON. Idiots.

- Having one's stealthy approach blown is still a permanent thing, at least in Konpeki Plaza.

I considered trying to load one of my pre-1.5 saves, but I had visions of hardlocks dancing through my nightmares. Still, could be amusing...

Got a couple of mods that might be of interest in light of the devs' adjust-a-thon:

Every Version of the Optical Camo Cyberware will now last to 15-20-25-30-35-40-45-50-55-60 sec (that's the name, man.)

OR: Better Optical Camo

And my favorite: Restore Legendary Ping

If the DLC allows my character to dress in such a way that she doesn't look like a schizophrenic colorblind rooster, than it will probably be worth it. But, since I am an orthodox pessimist, I am expecting something on the same level as horse armor.

Strategy Games: a long time ago Barry Bollinger sent me a copy of KKND Extreme, just raving about how good it was. My reaction was "Ah...uh...thanks, but I'm not really wired for that sort of thing."

Btw, if anyone hasn't heard yet, Starfield has been pushed back to the first half of 2023. Way to go, Bethesda.

On the bright side, maybe vid cards will become affordable again in the interim. (The trend seems to be pointing that way.) And perhaps pigs will not shit upon me as they fly overhead.

[Silver Sorrow]

Speculation: what will be the first mod for Starfield?

1. Bug "fixes."
["There was a small shrub floating three centimeters off the ground, and this mod aims to fix such egregious errors that should ultimately be punished with the ritual executions of the entire QA department and their families..."]

2. Nude mod.
["I am fourteen years old."]

3. Reshade.
["The game doesn't conform exactly to my preferred color palette."]

4. "Overhaul."
["Everything about the game sucks and I'm going to change it."]

5. Furry mod / stupid anime crap.
["Pink cat ears and a big fluffy tail for your character!"]

6. Pride flag.
["What better way to announce to a universe (that doesn't give a rat's ass) that you're gay than to plant this stupid rainbow flag on the planet of your choice?"]

7. Anti-Todd Howard mod.
["He promised us! Waaaaaaaaaah!"]

Add your own idea(s) for the useless-ization of the so-called modding community here.

This post brought to you by the Why Do I Even Care Anymore Foundation.