Tank

1 hour ago, Hobbes said:

For whatever reason, I can picture you as a jet ski guy. 

In the 24+ years I have been posting on this website, arguing politics, Star Wars, movies, video games, and even putting up with death threats from crazy former members, I have never been more offended than I am right now.

4 hours ago, captainbleh said:

I had a small hope that it might so-bad-its-good bad, even though that's unlikely from Snyder

I was at least expecting some cool visuals and action scenes since that's his bread and butter-- but it's so over-processed and effected it looks muddy and out of focus 85% of the time.

5 hours ago, The Choc said:

Yeah, I mean no one rides horses in our time when cars are available. 

Oh please. No one rides a horse now in a professional or daily travel capacity. It's recreational or competitive. You're doing that thing where you pretend to be way dumber than you are to start an argument. I'm just saying, if you got spaceships and hoverbikes, you don't need to ride a giant lizard.

Well that was awful.

5 hours ago, Hobbes said:

This movie looks really bad and I am a big Snyder fan (I am the person that loves his DC work). 

Something I thought of in the trailer, but I hate people fighting mythological type animals in sci-fi films.  

People riding some sort of creature is in every Star War there is, and it is always the worst special effects in said given film. The only time, ONLY time it seemed justified was on Hoth, when the speeders couldn't adapt to the cold. Any other time, why would you ride a critter when spaceships and speeders are as common as cars?

Yeah, but Star Wars cribbed enough from Dune that Herbert tried to sue Lucas.

Every time I see the trailer the Christ Rock scene from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back pops into my head-- GEORGE LUCAS GONNA SUE SOMEBODY!

I was wrong, it’s not our u til the 21st on Netflix here. 

I'm going to watch it today, on Netflix.

Here's the true Hollywood story for this-- Snyder meets with Lucasfilm and says "I want to make a Star War." Disney says NO WAY. Why? Possible reasons: SW already has toxic fans, adding the Snyder cult into the mix might drive away every last SW fan that isn't a bro. Snyder has a very dominate style that is very not SW. To remain true to itself, the cinematography and visual language of SW is still very stuck in a old school style-- Abrams and Johnson pushed it with the ST by using a lot of interesting color choices and things like inserts, close-ups, and dynamic camera movement-- but it's still pretty neutral. 

Whatever the reason, Lucasfilm tells Snyder NO, and he says "Okay, I'm going to do it anyway." Netflix, always wanting franchise power, says "We're in."

Honestly, when I look at the trailer, it reminds me of nightly in 1999. Having just seen TPM and had my heart broken, and also having just seen the Matrix (which was obviously the birth of style still ripped off to today), I recall a thread called "what if SW debuted NOW." And we all assumed Jedi would be wearing shiny black jumpsuits and doing bullet time kung-fu, that all the production design would lift from high concept sci-fi shooter video games and anime, and that it would of course be "grim-dark."

This is exactly what Rebel Moon is giving! I've also seen people calling it Bro-wars, which cracks me up. I looked at the response to an ad on Twitter for it, and it was a three way fight between a bunch of Snyder-bros, a host of old white dudes saying "it better not be woke," and confused regular folk saying "Is this Star Wars?"

The kid and I watched all three this eve. Overall I loved them. The second one especially.

There’s three kinds of Dr. Who stories— wacky scifi, scary monsters, and timey-whimey. Davies is great cause he not only leans into tjese, but also knows how to combine them.

This is why Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead is my fav story ever. It’s got them all.

Tennant was always great because he played The Doctor with that PTSD from the time war edge that would bring out a dark side. I was curious to see how that would play given that as a character, the Doctor has long since healed from this. Davies expertly subbed in the Timeless Child / Flux fallout to take its place.

It’s a long payoff to the thread started in the last anniversary special when Tom Baker returned and hinted that old faces might be revisited. Chibnall ran with it obviously.

I wish they’d been a little more clear on how it was 15 years for Donna (and what, 40ish for Mel), but from the Doctor’s POV it’s been at least a thousand years. Smith and Capaldi both had big time jumps during their runs.

I don’t know how I feel about the bi-generation. Lord knows they have changed the rules of regeneration many times, I’ve never understood the Watcher stuff from the 4th’s regeneration, and this was kind of the reverse of that?

Really it just felt like a way to keep Tennant in the wings whenever they need a boost and not have to explain why he’s getting older. The Doctor has run into himself multiple times, there’s at least six of him in Victorian London at any given time.This is no different only now they don’t have to explain why Tennant is aging.

It was also not too different from the other Tenth (.5) Doctor off with Rose in her dimension. Feels like a cheat. 

I have always thought it would be interesting to do regeneration mid-story and let the new Doc finish things out, so we sorta got that.

Loved the new Doctor’s energy and the fact he did it all without trousers.

3 hours ago, Darth Krawlie said:

I need to start looking for stocking stuffers and I hate doing that

I hate sticking stuffers. It's always just stuff that's cute for a minute and ends up in a pile that;' never touched. Don't know if you guys have Rocket Fizz up there-- but that's where I go now. Everybody gets a the weird candy they like and a novelty soda. Consumables make for less clutter!

Starfield just eventually hooked me with the fun of playing it my own way. I also finally had enough money on hand to start building starships which I spend a lot of my time doing.

That said, it’s still janky as fuck and my list of complaints grows nonstop.

Shit.

I like Starfield now.

God damn it.

Looks amazing. I knew I’d miss the 80s vibe of Vice City, but I am pleased to see the healthy addition of “Florida man” vibes. What Trevor and the desert were to GTAV, we are def getting swamp trash. 

You greatly overestimate my desire to be in direct sunlight. And thankfully I got nothing to tow!

Insurance increase is negligible. You can opt in or out of covering stuff like that, and I chose not to as I paid a little extra in the deal to cover any needed replacement of that stuff via the dealership.

And yes, did a lease— super short term. Only 2 years. Given how much my career has gone up and down over the last couple years I like a shorter commitment. 

On 10/10/2023 at 4:15 PM, Hobbes said:

Why not the electric Wrangler (4xe)?

Okay, despite all the reasons I said no… just got a new 4xe wrangler hahaha.

I don’t love the downgrade to a four cylinder, but in full electric mode the acceleration is more than I had running out first gear in my previous Jeep. I’ll miss the manual transmission, but I won’t miss filling up on gas constantly.

It sounds like the gas mileage is roughly the same, but an overnight charge in full electric mode will easily cover my day to day driving.

Cost-wise, it didn’t cost me too much. $1700 to turn in the lease (I was over on mileage), $4k down, and a monthly payment that’s only $30 more a month than what I am used to paying (which less fill-ups will cover).

kept the payments down by doing a short term lease, only 2 years, which given the unstable nature of my industry, feels smarter.

On 11/30/2023 at 1:07 PM, Hobbes said:

If you hate it, what sucks you back in?

 

I'm hate-playing it until I've got my $80 worth.

Also, everyone who defends the game says the same thing-- "It's a Bethesda game, you're supposed to find your own story." I remember not liking Fallout 4 at first because I played it like a straight-line narrative and missed stuff. So I told myself with this one, I'll try to find my own thing to do and see how that goes. I found some motivation for my own head story: I am going to be a masked space vigilante.

This was my inspiration after finding the hideout of "The Mantis" who is exactly that. Only the Mantis is dead and has a Dread Pirate Roberts mantle-passing origin. The game starts you off getting fucked up by space pirates, so I decided they are my enemy. The game makes them a faction you can join if you want. My late ego is a low key, mid-level with a spaceship for hire. I take shipping jobs, some passenger transporting, occasional survey work, and a bit of smuggling. This gives me a cover for seeing the galaxy, and also makes me money, which funds my vigilante operations. I've got a big ass hefty cargo ship for doing this work, a couple outposts that farm resources for doing all the mod-building you can for weapons and armor.

As The Mantis, I'll take the occasional bounty, I'll help settlers plagued by pirates, raid pirate strongholds, and I have the Mantis' ship, which I've streamlined into a fast-attack craft that I use to stalk and hunt pirate ships. I nuke most of them, but the bigger ones I highjack and then sell for funds after I steal their cargo. The Mantis ship also has an effect/chance of scaring pirate ship off when you appear. On this path I run into lower level criminals, which I will often do work for if it is non-violent, letting them think I am working for them, when really, I am just using them to get to higher up bosses, or operations I can shut down and loot guilt free.

I did see by accident on a player guide that if you get arrested you can trigger a storyline where the law basically makes you go undercover into the pirate fleet. Realizing this was perfect for "my story" I went into the nearest shop and stole a bottle of water to get arrested.

To the games credit-- I've been able to do this all pretty easily. This covers tons of missions, multiple story beats, random side missions, and action found exploring. So once I decided this was my story path, damn if the game isn't making it totally doable.

There's people out there starting resource farms to get rich, people with drug empires, people who play out being s space pirate as part of that faction. The ability to make your own story is actually pretty amazing, and the deserve some credit for that.

That said-- why try to force me into a main story at all? I think it's BS-- they either want you to play your own story or play theres. Just commit to one. The there is the fact that if you don't have motivation, it is kinda lifeless. There's no real performances and the PC isn't even voiced. There's no deep emotional connection to the story. And then there's the glitches, the poor resource economy, the stupid ass encumbrances, and all the other stuff I talk about in. my previous posts.

So it's really mixed. I think about this cool story I've made for myself, and I get excited to play. It's fun to clear pirate outposts... until they start repeating layouts. The starship builder is actually a lot of fun... but you need a lot of in game money to do it. So I think of the potential and get excited to play, have fun for a couple hours, then get stalled out due to glitches or poor game design and get irritated.

It's just incomplete and not well thought out it too many ways. The said, I'm sure after a couple years of big updates, mods, and some DLCs, it could get there. I was insanely disappointed by Cyberpunk, Mass Effect Andromeda, and Fallout 4 in the OF versions-- but yers later they are among my favorite games,. Its just sucks that it requires years of extra development, and n entire fan community to get it there.

And again, I paid $80, I deserve some entertainment!

Back to the Starfield hate...

I admit I keep getting sucked back into playing... but then after a couple hours get frustrated every time. The economy and resources just don't work. You want to build A but need X to do it. You find a way to farm X, but it also requires B. You can buy B but only in small quantitates, so you figure out ho to farm B, to farm X, to build A, but then find out it won't work without Y.

All this eats up mass and you get encumbered almost instantly in this game. Gone are the settlements of Fallout 4 where you could build creative, personalized post-apocalyptic townships with NPCs working toward your resource needs... now, even YouTube's "best" outposts are basically just seas of cargo modules plays build to be able to hold resources properly.

Ship building is fun, until you realize only certain parts are available in certain locations, you can't save parts you aren't currently using, you can buy ships but not sell... even setting up a ship-building system at your own outpost won't let you access everything at once without a mod/hack. 

The funniest part of all is that somebody at Bethesda is butt hurt about the mid reviews on Steam and has been responding to them saying things like "when NASDA went to the moon for the first time there wasn't;t anything there to find." Cause you know-- comparing actually going to the god damn moon to sitting in a gaming chair and guzzling Monster while visiting a location with nothing to do, or at least a three minute walk to get to something, in a VIDEOGAME totally makes sense.

17 hours ago, Gamevet said:

My problem with Dead Space (nearly finished it on 360) was that I got the PS5 version shortly before getting Resident Evil 4.  I forgot how damned creepy Dead Space is. Playing it in surround is downright scary, with the moaning coming from walls and feet scurrying from behind you. It all makes you a bit jumpy.

That's a problem? Sounds awesome!

On 1/20/2013 at 5:19 PM, Tex said:

I've always hated chick wrestling, even if the wrestlers were talented. I think it's because it's harder for me to suspend disbelief. Part of what makes wrestling work for me is when thou have interesting characters, and there have never been enough interesting chick wrestlers at one time to make it appealing. It just looks like a bunch of hot chicks cat fighting.

 

Part of the reason why I hate it is because I'm always thinking of what they could be doing instead, like giving male mid carders more air time.

Here's a decades old post from a knob that aged well.

Scifi-horror is my favorite subgenera but I didn't LOVE love Dead Space. Maybe I should give it another shot?

I've got a Starfield update post coming. I'm definitely hate playing, but I am enjoying it a bit more... but there's still stuff inherently broken and/or poorly designed with this thing.

I actually played Outer Worlds and liked how quirky it was. If it had been any longer though I would have gotten annoyed with it for sure.

This is perfectly put and accurate. Re-reading my rambling from 2am last night it occurred to me that it was pretty amazing what I COULD do in some ways. I thought back to games I was playing as a kid and wishing I could explore more and wasn’t looking at static background. That I could go anywhere and do anything. If this game came back in time and I was able to play it at 15 I would think it was the best thing ever.

But to play this now— after Mass Effect, after Last of Us, after GTA 5, or even after F04, and it seems like such a miss. It feels unfinished and basic.

It’s like making and expecting people to watch a super basic 3 camera laugh track sitcom in a post Breaking Bad world. It’s like buying a Honda Civic from 1994 when you can get afford a Lexus.

For the record, you CAN fly your ship— but only for combat and docking with other ships/stations in orbit. To travel to other systems, take off, or land it has to be done through menu commands that trigger cut scenes.

I’m not sure why I am still playing it. I guess I am hoping I’ll have epiphany with it like I did Fallout. I did just find the lair and gear of The Mantis, which is their version of Batman with a bit of Dread Pirate Roberts. So I may now try the path of leaving the main story and becoming a space vigilante and see if that’s fun… but not holding my breath.

Okay, here's an example... I just played for a bit since my last post. Here's what went down...

1. I've landed on a frontier planet town, it has an old west in space vibe. I've seen this vibe done to death, and they aren't bringing anything new to it. The town is expansive. Tons of shops and people. NONE of it is interesting enough to suck me in. By comparison, the new vendor area added to Cyberpunk in Phantom Liberty was one of the coolest environments I've ever seen in a sci-fi game. It was familiar, but also really unique. This is not.

2. This is a desert-ish planet so when you are outside, there is a forced reshade filter that just reduces the contrast of everything and tints it slightly brown. It's supposed to be a feel, but it looks like a monitor mistake.

3. Every other person you pass basically has dementia. Get within a few feet and they jump you into whatever is on their mind. THINGS JUST HAVEN'T BEEN THE SAME AROUND HERE SINCE OUR WATER PLANT STOPPED WORKING. And of course, this now shows up as a mission for you. Most of the missions in my game journal are from snippets of conversation I walk by. Fix the air pump. Investigate the distress call. I'm not confident they lead to interesting stories, and are likely simple task quests to grind XP.

4. The mission I AM on is to help this boring ass guy I've got as a temp companion get some maps from his family that will lead to an alien artifact that the main mission faction is collecting. Get this, alien artifacts that give you a vision... which I have literally seen in so many stories, especially Mass Effect, which I just replayed.

5. Oops, can't get to the bank vault where the maps are because there's some bank robbers. Talk to the Marshal, he decides to let you handle it. Sneak in like a clever person, and try to stealth it (cause I paid into a stealth skill option) and do silent kills... but (and this happened in Fallout 4 constantly) my companion is immediately seen and starts shooting. So we kill everyone, fine. Hostages are in the vault. Before I let them out, I decide to pick the locks on a desktop safe. The bank manager, in the vault, is close enough to me that he is triggered to have the "you stole a thing prepare to get flagged as an enemy" reaction. My first thought is-- how does he see me steal if he's in the vault? The game says "oh don't worry, we'll just spawn him next to you so he DOES see." But then THAT triggers the mission response of "thank heavens you saved us and set us free" dialogue. So he's literally saying both things to me at the same time.

6. It seems to disable enemy status, so I go down to the vault to find the maps-- but nope. Have to go outside and talk to the Marshal and complete that mission first. Get the XP, and he offers to have me join his faction. Now I can talk to my idiot companion, go back into the bank and back down to the vault to get the maps. They aren't there. Find a note for him, that in theory I have to add to my inventory, then open and navigate through FOUR menus to read. But I think, it's for him, so I'll give it to him. As soon as I try to talk to him though, he immediately responded as if I have already read the note (because the game doesn't flag the difference between me having it AND reading it as two different events.)

7. So now we have to go see his dad who has the maps-- only idiot companion doesn't want to. I have to go through four very VERY on the nose dialogue choices to play therapist and get him to talk to his dad, and again remember the PC is not voiced, so all the "character" I have is broken into four dialog options. An overly supportive/positive reply, a snarky asshole reply, a non sequitur, or saying you don't care about what is happening. (This is a pretty common range for the game thus far).

8. We walk to the far side of town to find his dad, they argue, and I am given the choice of talking to dad myself even though he clearly hates me, telling idiot companion to distract him while I try to find and steal the maps, or go back to my ship where idiot companion's daughter is hanging out and ask her to schmooze her grandpa for the maps because they like each other. For the record, idiot companion has decided to keep them separate, which I can appreciate as having a toxic parent and a child... but also, what kind if space adventurer drags his kid along to his home planet but then makes her stay on the ship? I figured talking to dad myself would involve doing persuasion checks, which I haven't put enough points into and keep failing, and the game made me bring the kid, so that was likely the way to go. (Sidebar, persuasion convos are ridiculous. The game basically tells you "you have to guess what to say to people who knows how they'll respond... which is their of saying it is random, because if you follow logic, it doesn't lead you to a win. You just have a choices of things to say that cost points, and your skill "discounts" those points... but you are still playing a guessing game."

9. We walk all the way back across town to the spaceport to get the kid. Walk all the way back to the house so she and grandpa can reunite, and we get the maps.

10. Maps lead to a cave we (again) have to walk to in the wilderness teeming with rando animal attacks that wastes all my ammo. This is thankfully one of the shorter walks I have had in this game. I check progress on occasion with a long range scope I have-- but when I use it, it seems to want to lock in on something specific. I have to zoom in and out several times. I fix it by pointing upon into the sky... and see half a dozen rocks that have rendered up there instead of on the ground. Anyway, no ammo, so when we get to the location and it is full of all the surviving gang members of the dudes I shot down at the bank, I realize I need to go stealth and melee until I can pick up my bullets. I clumsily jetpack up to a bluff (because clumsily is the only way you can move in this game) to get the lay of the land and sneak in. This time I tell idiot companion to hold position so he doesn't trigger combat.

11. I start stealthing my way down. I get close to an enemy and trigger them being on alert. The way the AI works is that each enemy has a field of perception. Once you enter it, they will go on to alert and look around. If they see you, combat is triggered and any enemy in the area can now also see you regardless of where they are. I have a mid-level stealth skill, which nerfs down that area of perception. I also have a concealment skill so if I am crouched behind something, if the enemy is on alert, they have a slightly lower chance of seeing me. Rumor has it, even maxed out, you can still be seen and attacked by people even outside line of sight. That said, I manage to get pretty close. I alert a guard, but he doesn't see me. You get a little active progress bar that shows them cooling down back to being unaware. So I sit in hiding, watching it go down... and then idiot companion respawns next to me and starts shooting.

12. I take down the first guy and he has ammo I can use, so we clear out most of the enemies. I sneak up to objective building, and even though we just had a giant firefight with explosions and screams, the guys just inside have not been triggered because they have things to say about the bank mission I am supposed to hear... but I get a little too close, they go into combat mode... and they are fighting and saying combat dialog and the same time as the story dialog.

I paid $80 for this shit so I want to get some play out of it-- the moment I have motivation to break bad I will do it.