Nyvesse - Jack B.

This is just anecdotal but I find it really interesting how for so many books and movies, the 2nd entry is often considered the weakest and yet in video games I feel like the 2nd entry is fairly often the strongest. 1st introduces everything to us, 3rd forgets what made 1st special, but 2 nails it.

It occurred to me after this post that yes, Telemachus searched for Odysseus. And he even met King Menelaus but unless I'm misremembering, Menelaus basically went "Odysseus? Yeah I knew him. Cool dude. No clue where he is though, sorry."

And that was pretty much it. So my 1st question still stands.

Random Thought:

It took Odysseus 10 years to return to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

Let's assume the other kings made it home within a year.

Did they just... not hear from him for 9+ years and go "Eh, no news is good news in Greece. He's probably fine."

Were there search parties? Like, at all?

As of this past weekend, we have reached 12 games beaten this year! On the one hand, some of the games were pretty short and I felt a little guilty about counting them, but I know regardless of a game's length people put a lot of hard work into every one. I guess now we see how many past 12 we get!

12. Battlefield 6 (Campaign)

Was torn on whether to count this but it's a video game I played until the credits rolled so I figured I would. The campaign is only a few hours long and it's mostly set piece moments, but I missed this kind of campaign a lot. It's not that deep, but I had a good time.

There's gotta have been some sort of PSYOP situation that caused everybody to call a Bob-omb a "Bomb Omb." (Omb being like Bomb with no B.)

I say "Buh Bomb" like they do in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show (which could be wrong too I have no idea). But I have heard too many people say "Bomb Omb"

11. Hades II

I don't often like roguelikes, but I really like Greek mythology and Hades was a gorgeous game so I knew I had to play the sequel as well. I have zero complaints about this game. I consider myself an average player at best, and I felt like I was progressing at a good pace. Tons of fun.

Aim Sensitivity Sliders in Shooting Games:

(A bar that goes from 1-100)

1-5: Every single sensitivity that a normal, sane human being would use.

6-100: Ludicrously outrageously ridiculously way too fast

Seriously, why is every Shooter like this? Do people aim by moving their mouse 1 micrometer?

My luck in Borderlands 4 has been the worst I’ve had in the entire franchise. I’ve been farming for six different items and have gotten none of them in hundreds of runs.

…And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The chase feels real, and the loot feels valuable because of it, unlike in Borderlands 3.

10. Borderlands 4

Probably the most fun I've had in a Borderlands game since 2. I have some minor complaints, but I know the game will only improve and we're starting from a higher floor than BL3 did. Very optimistic for the future of this game. Writing still needs work, but the game play is great.

You would be upset to learn how many little fun factoids you've taken to heart were actually just made up by some guy online 20 years ago back when no one bothered fact checking stuff.

artwork referencing the "can u get pregante...?" song and animated music video by JavaDoodles, featuring characters from CITY. the top half of the drawing shows Nagumo (right) making a wide gesture toward Tsuchinoko (left), accompanied by a screencap of a Yahoo Answers user posing the question "I think my dog is pregernet???" the bottom half of the drawing shows Niikura (left) sliding across the ground on her knees, hands thrown up into the air as Mimineko (right) watches her with disdain. another Yahoo Answers question is displayed beside her, asking "How do I know if I'M prengan?"

been obsessed with this song/video recently and had to draw this lol

unmasked scooby-doo villain: AND I'VE WOULD'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT TOO!! IF IT WEREN'T FOR MY OWN LACK OF FORESIGHT AND PLANNING FOR VARIOUS CONTINGENCIES!

fred: wow

unmasked scooby-doo villain: what?

fred: nothing, we've just never had someone take accountability like that

Kinda excited to play Borderlands 4 tonight. Seems to be reviewing… decently. Like 84/100 averages from what I’ve seen.

I’m just hoping the writing is better than 3. I’ll probably enjoy the gameplay either way.

Manhwa Love Interests: “Why don’t they remember me from when we were kids?”

Manhwa Protagonists: *People who can’t remember what they were doing twelve seconds ago.*

500 chapters of which 300 could have been avoided if Love Interest just said “Hey Protagonist. I’m (Person from Place and Time).”

The brief feeling of curiosity and excitement when you see a new message in a Discord server you’re in, followed by the mild disappointment of said message being from someone you don’t really talk to in a channel you don’t care about that much.

9. Stellar Blade

Wow. If this isn't the best game I play this year, I'll be surprised. Thrilling combat, a great story, the best fishing system I've ever experienced in a game (for some reason), and I did every side quest I found for once. I was never bored or frustrated for even a single moment.

NPC: Ready to go, Hero? We won't be back any time soon; I'd finish up any errands you've got before we depart.

The Game: When you board the ship, you will be locked out of all unfinished side quests.

Player: *Leaves for 20 more hours to go pick berries and find lost cats and collect 17 cassettes.*

I'm 18 hours into Stellar Blade, and it's gonna be the 9th game I beat this year for my "beating games" challenge, but I wanted to make an early post to say this is the first game this year where I've REALLY wanted to 100% it, rather than just race to the credits. I haven't skipped a side quest yet.

Putting stickers on default guns is based.

There are three types of fighting game players
- “I wanna do cool stuff”
- “I want that guy to never do cool stuff”
-“I wanna have fun”

01: There is a woman facing you with a confident expression. She has blond hair, messy twin pigtails, a small angel wing coming off the right side of her head, and a devil horn coming off the left. She has a big angel wing coming off the left side of her back, and a devil wing coming off the right. Her right eye is teal and has an 'X' pattern on the pupil, whereas her right eye is indigo and has a circle pattern on the pupil. She wears a pink neckerchief, and a tight sleeveless top that's blue on the top half and dark purple on the bottom. She also has disconnected sleeves, so her shoulders are still visible. She says "HEY!! It's ME, you're OLD OC. Haven't drawn ME in a while, HAVE YA'?" 02: She puts up her hands in front of her, as if you say 'stop it'. She has big, robotic hands. She says "No no, IT'S OKAY! Let's be real, my design is pretty amateurish HAHA" 03: She turns a bit to the side, and adopts a more sympathetic expression, but keeps looking you in the eyes. She says "But I want you to know that I've been there all this time. I've watched you grow. And you've grown SO much." 04: Closeup of her face as her confident expression returns. She tilts her head and gives you a wink. "Proud of ya', kid."

(4/4) Difficult techniques that were easy to screw up, impossible to master, and allowed for more freeform gameplay expression from player to player were what originally drew me into competitive gaming and I’m always sad to see such techniques phased out in favor of single button abilities and such.

(3/4) I do think the “easy to learn, hard to master” method of game design is admittedly probably a lot easier for spectators to understand. I also know difficult techniques can drive prospective new players away from entrenched competitive scenes (just look at fighting games). But even still…

(2/4) I miss when games had more techniques that were just literally hard to pull off and the ability to do so reliably was a differentiating factor between players. I miss when it was less about “Ben knows how to use it better than Jim.” and was instead “Jim isn’t as consistent with it as Ben.”

(1/4) I’m sick of this trend in competitive gaming/esports where developers want “easy to learn, hard to master” gameplay where the skill comes from the superior application of tools that everybody can use and understand easily, but that aren’t strictly speaking “hard” to do in the mechanical sense.

Had a great time at Anime Expo. I haven’t been to an anime convention in probably like 7 years, so “the biggest one” felt like an appropriate return to con-going. Got to stay with a friend I had never met in person before and also got to visit LA for the first time.

It was a really cool experience.

8. Street Fighter 6 (World Tour Mode)

Probably the best single player fighting game experience of all time. It has its flaws, definitely, but it's still miles better than all the "fight -> cutscene -> fight -> cutscene" stories other fighting games do. I hope the entire genre learns from this game.

JWong is dressed as Mario
UltraDavid is eating a burrito
And Tong is a gorilla

More people need to have fun like these guys

7. A Little to the Left

A very fun puzzle game. Sometimes the game gets picky about positioning, but other times you can kind of just hover pieces over the board looking for them to snap into place automatically without thinking. Aside from those minor complaints though I really enjoyed this game.