Wigwam

I really gave The Legend of Zelda (NES) by best shot after failing so many times before. I had the poorly translated manual right next to me, I locked in, but ultimately failed.

By the time I got to the 6th dungeon and a burger ate my shield, I knew it was time to throw in the towel.

Ammo regen is a weird one. On the one hand, it somewhat breaks the flow of combat where you're switching weapons depending on situation and strategically conserving ammo, since you can just spam whatever.

On the other hand, pretty fun.

I've been internally whining that I'm running out of ammo constantly and 12 hours in I see the fucking vending machine sells capacity upgrades. You know what, serves me right for not looking.

The world is cool, and it still holds up visually really well (I'm a sucker for cell shading), but the gunplay is shockingly bad. It's like if those wacky physics-based platformers like Human Fall Flat had an FPS mode.

Playing the first Borderlands which I haven't touched since I was like 14 and it's surprisingly tolerable when it comes to the comedy side of things. Totally not my thing, but it's a lot tamer than I remember.

Everything else is shite.

The excuse that the endgame difficulty makes the game fun is lame when applied to World of Warcraft and lame here too. I shouldn't have to spend 20 hours of nothingness for the game to actually get good.

Dunno if I can be fucked continuing with The Division 2. The fixed story difficulty makes every encounter a cakewalk, and it doesn't have the interesting storytelling of the first game (bordering on cringe at times).

The silver lining being the lore of The Division 2 is so boring it doesn't matter if its being cut short.

It's a really jarring change coming straight from the first game where phone calls sounded like crunchy phone calls with gritty delivery. Just bland "speaking into the mic" for the second game.

Is there a term to describe when games litter their worlds with audio logs, but have other dialogue interrupt the playback, other than fucking annoying of course.

The first Division rarely had this problem, but the second is a real bastard for it.

With Bluesky having no monetisation avenues (other than selling the account to some schmuck I guess), I have to assume this is just oldschool clout chasing. Very sad.

I picked up some intel thing and went into my progression tab to check it out and there's shitloads of stuff audio messages and the like, no idea where they came from. They're also just nowhere near as well written or performed as the recordings and briefings in the first game.

Can't tell if I like The Division 2 that much. They absolutely butchered the atmosphere and tone of the original. It seems much more focused on gameplay, and a lot of the changes they made are solid, but all the worldbuilding I liked from the first game is near enough invisible.

Playing The Division for the first time and firstly, fantastic in many ways I did not expect from a bloated Ubisoft game, but secondly, what the fuck is that ending for the Alexis Kwan side mission? is it meant to be a troll?

Edge of monitor with dead pixels and tooth marks.

Loathsome monitor-muncher cat poking his head out of a ripple rug

Woke up to 3 dead pixels on the side of my monitor, seemingly caused by small, sharp teeth. I wonder who could've done this.

Fuck Amazon Web Services. All my homies hate Amazon Web Services.

The main problem is just not knowing what I'm meant to be doing. Some games I'll grab loads of gear, kill some other raiders, and extract, but like, for what reason?

I imagine (and hope) the full game with all the systems unlocked will actually give you a reason.

It's hard to tell whether I don't like Arc Raiders because the server slam was too restrictive or because I don't like extraction shooters. It's technically brilliant, from the visuals and sound design to how the guns feel, I just felt like it was a massive waste of time.

Andrew Cuomo is so funny man. Absolutely fucking hopeless.

REAL HOPE. REAL CHANGE. SH*T LOADS of Green Party Members* *115,000 to be precise Green Party Promoted by Chris Williams on behalf of The Green Party, both at PO Box 78066, London SE16 9GQ

We now have 115,000 members (translation: a sh*t load).

And we're not stopping there. Thousands of people are joining every week to be part of a different, hopeful politics.

Join the Green Party today ⤵️

Dora in Hades 2 is probably the best testament to how good Supergiant are at character writing. I can envision a million and one ways they could have made the whole snippy millennial trope just annoying, but they made her so endearing.

It makes me think of Harambe. Outside of the fact the memes which arose out of that were deeply cringe, it was evidence people really couldn't care less about the situation itself, it was just a launchpad for jokes.

The lynchpin which brings down the entire Hasan controversy is that I just don't believe people care about animal abuse. A healthy society that believes he shocked Kaya wouldn't spend the majority of their energy towards memes.

You've played it?

I also think it maybe has something to do with intent, and having poor focus, the intentional act of getting out a physical signals "reading time" and not "fuck around on the iPad time".

Probably the same reason I actually play more games on the Steam Deck Vs on my desktop where I can waste time.

I've started taking a physical book into work to read on my break rather than on an iPad and it's refreshing in a way I can't describe. Something about seeing and feeling your progress just isn't replicated with eBooks, though pressed, I'd probably read on a tablet 90% of the time.

Plastic springs are great and cheap. Recurring cost though since they inevitably get sucked into the void under the fridge, never to be seen again.

I hope whoever first put touch controls on kitchen scales has had a really long think about the damage they've done to the world.

Hearing Zia Yusuf whinge about open borders and fentanyl makes it so apparent Reform are just trying to ape Trump in the bluntest way possible. Who in this country even knows what fentanyl fucking is?

Just imagine if people held this same passion for animal cruelty when it came to food production as they do for fake internet drama.

The broader criticisms about the character writing make little sense to me though. I found all the returning and new characters thoroughly entertaining. I suppose the critique regarding loose ends is a fair one, but in terms of overall characterisation, it's wonderful.