Well, they have me somewhat interested at least. Downloading it on Steam, I'll try it out tomorrow.

*Disclaimer* I am a habitual ARPG addict, this could potentially scratch the Division 2 itch, assuming they don't wreck the game totally.

*EDIT* It's 5:30AM and I've played a couple hours... a LOT of cutscenes in the early going, but actually not a bad story/setup. Cutscenes chug a little bit on my aging desktop, but actual gameplay is very smooth, 2560x1440, GTX 1070, i7-6700K 4.0ghz, 32gb ram, ssd of course. Everything is on Ultra except shadows on High. There does not seem to be a lot of variation in enemies in a given zone, so far. Quite a few loading screens/transitions too, but that could just be the starting area/home base. The game looks great, sounds pretty good, definitely some disparity in sound appeal on various guns, but it's really too early to tell. Definitely attack of the giant noses, on the character models so far.

I'm a little depressed by the potential pricetag of $60 for the game, and before it's even released, there's a $60 DLC of... some guns and a truck? I'll play some more later, need to sleep.

This comment was edited on Feb 26, 2021, 05:33.

RedEye9 wrote on Feb 25, 2021, 10:18:
GME continued to soar in overnight trading, currently around $12O.
Man is teh stuck.

Why are these people still buying Gamestop stock!? I can't tolerate social media influence these days. Or people's susceptibility to such influence.

Very interesting post, Burrito of Peace, and interesting article.

I disagree, purely because complex media, movies, videogames, whatever, always get misunderstood by many, if not most of the audience. This game will be no different. Teenage or younger players will be happily shooting whoever with no association to real world events beyond killing brown people who don't even speak English. Glorifying war is always a mistake, glorifying military service is always a mistake. "But this isn't glorifying", people will say. It is. It always is. Suffering and sacrifice in military service is a gigantic, glowing, recruitment poster of pride and struggle that will definitely make more fools join the military. It has always been this way. Even worse, they will see that the characters have loyal friends/fellow soldiers willing to die for them, while they are alone in real life at a comptuer. Even if they are afraid of dying, they will be drawn to having potential friendships they don't have in life currently.

Unfortunately I don't have a good answer. Pure recruitment films like Top Gun, vs anti-war novels like All Quiet on the Western Front.... everything still drives people to enlist, becaues they think I won't be the one dying or I'll be better for having seen combat or whatever the hell chemical/psychological mishmash occurs in youth to convince people to risk their lives for politicians. It'll be morbidly interesting to see how this particular game plays out, but if the military gets recruiting jumps after shit like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, what do you think will happen here, when the game ties endorphin rushes to playing soldier from the safety of your computer room?

Probably 95% of the people I work with who are Ex-military (maybe 60-70% ex military total, at my job) regret their service, across all branches. What's truly crazy is most of those people STILL want their kids to join the military! How fucked up is that? Is it nostalgia? Promise of a 'steady' job? True, most military personnel don't see active combat. It seems like it's a societal issue in this country, I'm not sure how we as a country get out of it.

Whatever the developer really intended for this game, it will end up as a recruiting tool. I question the marine interviewed in the article's motives, apparently he's all over Facebook, blogs and podcasts, and tried to get movie deals and shit. I don't know if that's morally wrong, in an absolute sense, but I personally am apprehensive of people who seek that sort of publicity. But hey, anything to make a buck these days, right? Side note: Who in the fuck is able to listen to all of these podcasts? Surely every person on the planet can't have multiple hour long podcasts that actually get listened to, it's not physically possible?

It'd be nice if the EPA came down on these fuckers buying video cards to mine Etherium and other cryptocoins, and maybe the FTC on fucking scalpers in general.

Quite unlikely though.

I would like to be able to actually buy a video card by 2022.

Ugh, this is just reminding me that I should have bought a second or third Steam controller when they were selling them for almost nothing, trying to get rid of their stock.

Is it pandering at this point? I mean, actors gotta work, he may or may not play some PC games, but... fucking social media, making me suspicious of everyones' motives!

I went ahead and finished Cyberpunk 2077, for 3 different endings, in the past few days. I was a little underwhelmed with some of them, and I'll probably go back in a year or two when it's all GotY/DLC'd/fully patched and finish the 'ultimate' ending.

Uninstalled for now, though.

Well, hopefully EA/Bioware learned that Frostbyte was never going to work for Anthem. Hopefully they don't try to shoehorn versions of Frostbyte into other RPGs/ARPGs.

You can't fix a game when the problems start at engine level, unless you're going to replace the entire engine, and they were never going to spend that kind of money and time on Anthem NEXT.

I'm not even sure why they publicly said they were going to try to fix the game like... two weeks ago? Three? When clearly they had their C or D team left on it. Possibly some unpaid interns?

Old school Blizzard-ish in their decision to finally fucking drop Anthem though, good for them.

Jivaro wrote on Feb 24, 2021, 18:04:
My step-daughter runs a sewing/mask making business. ( shameless plug https://sewitbeginsdesigns.com ) If we had a chosen fabric, she could do Blues masks np.

Lol, "Sewitbegins"

Masks sewing businesses are more punny than ska bands, apparently!

Beamer wrote on Feb 24, 2021, 12:16:
Is anyone else house hunting right now?

It's absolutely insane. My lease runs out next month, and after almost a full year of two people living in a 1 bedroom, often not leaving for 6 days at a time, and with me generally sitting in a seat at 9:15am and only getting up two or three times between then and 6pm, I'm dying for room.

Good luck on your house search, I'm guessing it varies wildly by state, probably even county. But even if you're stuck in your seat, GET YOUR ASS UP and do some jumping jacks, pushups/situps/squats every so often, unless health issues really prevent you. Sedentary = the slow death. Probably 50-60% of my coworkers have blimped up since Covid, it's looking grim, if this is an accurate representation of the rest of the USA.

What the fuck, a high quality cloth mask with Blues News styling, I'd buy several. ADJUSTABLE EAR STRAPS THOUGH, GOD how masks suck otherwise!

Also, Baarack may be one of the best sheep/livestock names I've ever heard, rofl!

Sewcalmasks.com and I'm sure plenty of others do 'Company' (or print your own) masks, although I have stopped ordering from sewcalmasks personally, they are beyond backed up on orders now.

Great quality masks though!

jdreyer wrote on Feb 24, 2021, 15:52:

Jivaro wrote on Feb 24, 2021, 15:33:
I understand their sentiment and appreciate it for it's intention.....but I am skeptical. Hopefully it turns out as intended I guess.

If they build a tolerant environment, shouldn't their wish just happen naturally? Just don't tolerate misogynist and homophobic assholes, and the rest takes care of itself.

Speaking of which, I saw this today and found it interesting:
1 in 6 Gen Z adults are LGBT. And this number could continue to grow.

Well good luck to them, not allowing hate speech and death threats to run rampant on any given voice comm for any current game is a major task. It feels like it's 10-50 times worse now than when I was in college and actually playing some FPS games competitively and otherwise. Battlefield 5 random pub chatter made me depressed as hell, had to uninstall.

Lol, 4 million players, still in early access? That's the death knell for this game ever being finished correctly, right?

Unfortunately it's already infected pretty much my entire coop crew and even PC gamers at work, it's ridiculous how popular this game is with my age group. Inexplicable! I am probably going to be forced to get it at some point.

Quinn wrote on Feb 23, 2021, 12:19:
As for your Last of Us wish.... Don't you think that will be one of those games that just won't translate well to the platform of the Master Race? I do. I think it will be a whole lot of "meh", while I also completely understand it's a hit on consoles and rightfully so.

Well, I literally have not played either LoU game, so I don't know, but were there some console-specific things that you think wouldn't translate well for some reason? I thought it was a combination of the great storyline/characters in addition to good gameplay, world design, etc. that made those games popular, not some controller or console specific element.

For me and people in my same circumstances (posess tons of PC games and great gaming PCs, no strong desire to buy consoles), I'd like to see The Last of Us series on PC so the interested few (or many) can finally play it.

The Last of Us, 1 and 2, immediately. IMMEDIATELY.

Even if I wanted to buy a PS5, they are nowhere to be found. I can buy a PS4, I guess, but that seems like a dead end. Plus, the damned controllers...

People who have Horizon Zero Dawn on PC, how are the mouse/keyboard controls?

This seems terrible at first, but who the fuck is/was Hardsuit Labs anyway? Their web page lists some free to play game, and Bloodlines 2. They were probably fucking up royally.

The game was cursed the second they started firing all the creative designers and writers, but maybe now some veteran studio can step in and make something worthwhile. Good luck, whomever that is/will be, that'll be an uphill battle for sure.


Almost completely unrelated, I went ahead and finished Cyberpunk 2077 finally, and I must report that at least two of the (six?) endings infuriated me greatly. I am going to do some more endings today, but I feel like the endings didn't all need to be this grim. Damn you, grimdark cyberpunk 1980s era fiction!

So long, V:tM Bloodlines 2, we hardly knew ye.

Firing the entire development studio... that seems pretty new, right? I mean has that happened before for a video game? Probably, but it has to be rare.

I think we all knew that game was going to be massively delayed when they fire Avellone, now it's just going to get mangled for years, and released as who knows what.

This shit again? Surely even politicians are sick of it by now?

Jivaro wrote on Feb 22, 2021, 01:32:
I hear you MoreLuckThanSkill, but there is a logic circuit in my brain that says that if a particular brand gets exposed for purposely letting people die to save money, I am an idiot for doing business with them. It's not a fear of flying so much as that "gut feeling" that I should stay away.

Also, of course, during C19...don't fly is the best possible option.

Well, as Redeye pointed out, it's an engine issue (probably a blade issue), which aren't even made by Boeing, and those B777s with those particular engines (Boeing has like 3-4 companies making B777 engines? I forget) are being grounded. I'm just saying, don't look too deeply into Airbus or any other aircraft corporation either.

I think almost every corporation/brand has been exposed by now, for doing some horribly inhumane shit. The real challenge is finding a company that hasn't done something horrible, causing loss of life, or using child labor, or getting materials from slave labor, etc. etc.

You boycotting Boeing isn't out of the question, just... I don't see the end game for that, you will end up boycotting every aircraft/car manufacturer, with a little research.

Of course, that B777 landing with one engine exploded should be at least a little encouraging, the engineering in modern aircraft is amazing, even when some shit goes sideways. Not the blades though, most stayed inside, and some got blocked by the cowling as designed!

Jivaro wrote on Feb 21, 2021, 15:54:
I already told my wife I will never get on a Boeing aircraft again and flying in any aircraft is not a thing I am doing anytime soon. Between the industry itself using a cost benefit analysis to decide whether to fix a problem or not on several occasions in my lifetime and stupid people in a pandemic being stupid....an airplane is the last place I want to be anytime soon. I realize this particular issue might have had more to do with the airline then Boeing, but that doesn't exactly make me feel better..lol.

Cost Benefit Analysis by industries occur in all walks of life, unfortunately. The same thing happens for recalls for automobiles, train parts, boat parts, you name it. They just recalled thousands of snow blowers last week(or just a few days ago?) because the automatic shut off for the blades could fail under certain circumstances. Nothing will ever be perfect, and fixing stuff or redesigning stuff unfortunately isn't free. All we can try to do is have a strong, non-corrupt government to regulate industry, and keep accidents/fatalities to a minimum, as much as humanly possible.

Even with these few high profile crashes and non-crashes, flying is statistically the safest form of travel by a gigantic margin. Even losing an entire engine, a 777 especially can fly almost a thousand miles, if needed (depending on fuel, etc.) . Airline regulations, not aircraft design limitations, make pilots turn around and go home when losing 1 engine on modern aircraft. Did Boeing do some underhanded shit that resulted in lives lost in the B737 MAX? Yes. Will the B737 MAX be far safer when it's returned to flight after this series of debacles? Yes.

In another post, you ask about a software fix to a hardware issue... I see what you're saying but that's not literally the case for the B737 MAX fix, they are adding 1 or more sensors (hardware) in addition to updating software, and depending on the airline, adding some additional fixes/protocols.

You would be flabbergasted to see how many flights occur, in the USA alone, with no incident every day. Even B737 MAXes that weren't grounded for various reasons are flying around now. That's partially why airline crashes or malfunctions make the news, it's literally so rare for such things to occur. Plus the massive increase in cellphone videos being immediately put online, of course.

All of that said, a lot of people will always have a fear of flying, because yes, if everything goes wrong, the aircraft can fall out of the damned sky. That being said, driving in most of the world is statistically much more dangerous to your health than flying. Nothing will ever be completely safe as long as humans are involved though.

*EDIT* Besides, don't fly right now due to COVID19(and the new strains), not fear of statistically improbable accidents.

*EDIT* Typos, grammar.

This comment was edited on Feb 22, 2021, 00:26.