Nick Calandra

He's literally rotting away.

A company desperate for money is also the one you don't want to fuck with haha. Can't risk our operation for that.

Dying? Already dead? Long live the MMO genre 💪

I want our stuff back!!

Really bums me out that the documentaries we worked on are now buried underneath a pile of gambling / crypto garbage.

That goes for all the good work our team did there both on the written side and video side.

All of the columns just hidden and forgotten. Everything that made it unique.

Since people keep asking if we're gonna try to reacquire The Escapist YT channel at least... I can't even get in contact with the people there lol.

The YouTube channel still links to my personal Patreon page and the contact email still goes back to Gamurs. The contact email on the website is dead.

In his latest Patreon column, @darrenmooney.bsky.social dug into Chainsaw Man, and how its dehumanizing horror speaks to life in the modern era.

www.patreon.com/posts/column...

Are the comparisons to Viva Piñata pretty on point??

Lotta people really testing the limits of my grace these days. I'll say that much.

a netflix ad shows a man talking to a woman and says " don 't test me on that " ALT: a netflix ad shows a man talking to a woman and says " don 't test me on that "

It's good that I have work, a good social life, and better social media judgment these days cause damn if those gloves don't want to come off... especially for family who want to try and pick a fight over current topics.

Especially when that family wasn't there when I needed them a year ago.

I don't think it's going to beat Arc Raiders numbers. It's missing a lot of that player-made chaos. And that's fine. The internet is gonna do its thing and be nasty to anyone that likes this game.

Yea, after playing a bunch more Friday and today, I think I'm sold on Marathon.

Now that I've really sat down and learned how its systems work, the amount of depth through upgrades there are via the various factions, and obviously that signature Bungie combat... I like it.

I know. Every day we don't get Viva Pinata 3.

Anyone, even family, who tells me this is what they voted for I will be shoving my phone in their face with this on it and saying - bet.

You know the next step now that we are in a self-declared war is that he is now a self-declared “wartime” president (yea, I didn’t cap that for a reason) and that he will try to use that authority to cancel the mid-terms.

Been saying that for months now.

Venezuela didn’t shoot back. Iran is.

I think I’m willing to not pay my taxes this year to not fund this fucking government in any form.

Haha well... good luck!

What you don't see is right after doing this great clutch is me calling the extraction beacon only to get swarmed by the AI and lost all the cool loot I got.

Such is the extraction shooter.

If you don’t like these types of games you still probably won’t haha to be clear.

The contracts I've learned are kind of the tutorial of these games. They teach you what items to look for, where to look for them, and help get you into the progression loops of extraction games.

Learning the maps, what items do, unlocking the different vendors preps you for the real game.

My biggest advice if you want to "get" the loop of extraction games is just stockpile stuff.

Go in, focus on contracts, unlock the vendors so you can purchase stuff from the armories. Focus on extracting with valuables to sell to get currency as back-up.

Build a bit of a buffer before all-in.

What would you change?

I think it's pretty well-done. Giving you free kits so you can focus on completing contracts and getting valuables to sell to get currency and unlock items within the armory.

I'm not sure how to better tutorialize that. I think people go in foregoing a bit of the grind.

Ha I like the art and world of Hunt, but man are the bosses tedious to fight in that. Just bullet sponges with very little reaction, at least from the last time I played.

The game I'm keeping a super close eye on for a unique extraction experience is Hunger, ironically from the former HLL guys.

I think about if Rainbow Six Siege were revealed today with its operators (heroes) and what the response would be.

I often feel like people wouldn't have the patience for it.

Last thing on this is think back to Rainbow Six Siege, which had a rough launch for a number of reasons, but is still one of the most popular FPS games today and there's a huge learning curve to that game.

Unique game mode, lots of mechanics, maps, strategies etc.

Give games time to grow.

Hmm, maybe.

I think the PvE element is really strong in this. Hope they have some legit big bosses to fight like Arc Raiders that create more of those emergent moments, as that's what I feel is missing compared to Arc Raiders.

Is there criticism to be had? For sure, but I also think people think having to actually sit down and learn a game, the menus, how systems work etc, people just don’t have the patience and go to “bad game” instead.

There’s a video in there I think that would upset a lot of “gamers”, but attention spans are so short that people don’t give anything that requires some actual practice… or reading.

Yea, you gotta read item descriptions.

Gotta learn to play commander in Hell Let Loose etc.

More I play Marathon, more I like it.

Just got squad wiped by an infiltrator which could have easily fooled me for another in-game player.

Getting ganged up on by the UESC in the game is no joke.

I think people hating it just aren’t learning it. Thanks Call of Duty.