TwinIon

I wasn't really complaining about the tonal shifts, just acclimating myself to them. I totally agree that the traversal is classic 3D JARPG, but just because a genre has historically been bad at a thing doesn't give it a pass. If you're controlling a 3D character in a detailed open world like this, I don't think it really matters much if you're playing an RPG or Shooter or a puzzle game, I think your character should feel good to control and look like they're navigating that environment more than gliding on top of it. I'm not asking for a jump button or grappling hook or for Naughty Dog level quality everywhere. It's not really even all much of a problem because it's fast, but it seems cheap in the context of the rest of the game. I think it's a fair mild criticism to say that these characters in a AAAA game look silly sliding around and it's odd that they have a force field around them that sends everything with physics flying and that the animations are poor and slow and that the forced stealth controls are awful. I also completely agree about the context thing, and I'm kinda torn on what I think about that. I played the original in 97, I've replayed the couple discs a couple of times, seen the movie, played through Remake when it came out, but never really fell in love the the world in the way that so many did. I also haven't played all the other games like Crisis Core. I've watched a recap video or two, but I know I'm missing a million little things and kind of wish it was more accessible.

I'm not nearly as far as many of you, only having put in a dozen hours or so. I'm still in the Grasslands, mucking about doing a bunch of the quests. I feel like my impressions are kinda mixed. Some of it just has to do with meeting this game where it's at. There are wild tonal swings, it's goofy as hell, and it's supposed to be a big open world bonanza of nonsense to do. Even once I've more or less adjusted to all that, it still feels like it's a JRPG shoehorned into a Ubisoft open world game, with all the complexities of both added together. I definitely didn't feel this way with FF16 and don't recall this being as much a problem with FF road trip (whichever one that was), but here it's hard to miss. One example of this is the amount of stuff it throws at you all at once. Yeah, it's a sequel, but there really is a whole lot going on with the combat system and the leveling and all the mini-games. It felt to me like they had to rush through it as much as possible because they were about to send you out into the world not knowing what you'd do, so here's everything all at once. This despite the fact that the game begins with a flashback sequence. I think it's great that there is so much to do and such a deep combat system here, which I am still in the early stages of figuring out, but this is not a game that wanted to take its time getting you back up to speed. The menu system and UX is complicated and unintuitive. Why isn't the ability to change party members under the "party" menu? I dislike that I can't see what spells or abilities characters have when they don't have the ATP to cast them. Especially in a game where any character could have nearly any spell, I'm finding it easy to forget who has fire and who has thunder. Maybe I'll develop a system or start remembering, but just showing it to me in the battle menu would help. It's not a complete waste, but when I build up the wrong character to attack a weakness, it feels like a missed opportunity at least. For an uber-budget open world game, the traversal is acceptable only because it's fast. I will praise them for that. Chocobos in particular move fast and fast travel points are like Starbucks in a city. You can often see the next one from where you're standing. Still moving around feels terribly unpolished. It's so janky looking sliding up and down all these high resolution rocks, and every interaction you make is so slow. It's so slow to see if a room is locked or climbing up a cliff or stopping for your chocobo to smell around. None of it is broken, but it feels very much like these fundamental parts of the game have been overlooked in favor of more of everything else. Maybe I'm just too harsh on games, but I just feel like the level of animation fidelity is way too low compared to the rest of the visual presentation. All that said, there is a metric ton of stuff that seems available. I've barely gotten into the story, which I expect to go some wild places. The production values are extravagant, and while I have small gripes about the combat system, it's obviously got a whole lot going on. If I ever figure it all out, it seems like a lot of fun!

I really enjoyed the first couple episodes. Really looking forward to the rest of the show.

Least surprising outcome.

One way or another, I have to imagine that this whole Horner mess will be over well before this season is over. If the aftermath of the whole thing is that Ford, or Newey, or Marko, or whoever else end up leaving Red Bull, then I can imagine Max considering leaving, but I seriously doubt he's figuring out his next move now. On the other hand I totally believe that Jos would go to journalists claiming Max was considering it. As far as Ben Sulayem, this isn't exactly the first time he's been at odds with the paddock. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being the thing that gets him pushed out.

I think it's way too early to speculate about what Max will do when we still don't know what will happen to Horner. Max is under contract until 28, is in the fastest car on the grid by a wide margin, and still has Newey on the team. I would expect him to keep out of the drama as much as possible no matter what happens. Now, if Red Bull completely screw up in 26 and Horner is gone, I can imagine Max looking for greener pastures, but I just don't see him ditching a great situation because of drama that he's not directly involved in. As for the race itself, I think it just confirms that there won't be competition at the front. Max will easily win the championship, it's just a question of how dominant the season will be. Could be that other teams score a few more wins, could be that Max wins 20+ races. That we'll have to wait and see. It does seem like the rest of the field is quite close together, so even though this race was a bit of a snooze fest, I think we'll get some excellent battles going forward.

I absolutely loved Dune part 2. I rewatched part one the other day and I liked it more than I recalled, but part two is on another level. It's instantly iconic. People love to put Dune (the book) up there with Star Wars and LOTR, and part one aspired to that level, but I think part two actually lives up to that level. I saw it in Dolby Cinema and I really have to reccomend seeking out the best sounding theater near you, be it Dolby, IMAX, or whatever. Villeneuve had a little intro talking about why Dolby is so great, and I think the HDR is well done, but it was really the sound experience that pushed this film over the top. Really hard to recommend this one enough, but definitely see the first movie. Like LOTR, Dune is one story split across multiple movies.

Max remains inevitable, but at least in Quali pace it seems the Ferrari's are right up there. My fingers are crossed that they're competitive on race pace as well, but given how good the RB19 was I won't get my hopes up.

I continue to really enjoy this game, and the more time I put into it, the more I appreciate little design decisions. Overall it isn't very well polished, it's still pretty buggy, unstable, and could use a good deal of balancing, but I think the core gameplay is great and they did a great job nudging players to do the right thing at both a macro and micro level. Things like shared resources, planetary objectives, group resupply cooldowns, etc. As I've gone up the levels of difficulty it's been fun to see how your approach needs to change to both individual enemies and at a strategic level. I also really appreciate the approach to difficulty they've taken, where they just ramp up the number enemies instead of making them bullet sponges. I really feel like they've played a lot of Destiny 2 and decided to make things simplified and more player friendly. As time has gone on, I've seen fewer farmers and more groups willing to complete a whole campaign. I still get bad groups from time to time, but most of the random groups I play with are pretty good, which itself is extraordinary by typical multiplayer random group standards. It just feels like a game that I could play here and there for a long time, but doesn't demand a full commitment. I've put in ~30 hours, hit level 30, and I've got most everything I want unlocked. Yeah, I've still got more ship modules to upgrade, a few straggling stratagems that I doubt I'll use, and there's still a ton in the battle pass I haven't gotten, but it's mostly cosmetic. I'll play Final Fantasy and I still haven't gotten around to Baldur's Gate, but I think I'll keep dropping in a hellpod from time to time.

I don't think that single task devices are necessarily archaic or at odds with what modern kids (or their parents) like, and I think the Switch itself is a pretty good counter example of this. The idea that unitaskers are obsolete has been around since the Swiss army knife and the clock radio, but they still sell just fine. It's not as if the Switch launched way back in the day before kids had phones or tablets or Roblox or Minecraft. Yes, kids today are accustomed to having games across platforms, but my nieces were very excited to get a Switch for Christmas last year. There has been talk of Nintendo becoming a software first or software only company for decades. I remember when Sega became a software only company people were speculating on how long it would take Nintendo to follow suit. During that time we've also seen Apple go from near bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world on the back of an integrated hardware and software ecosystem. The bottom line is that Nintendo believes that their future is most secure and profitable when they control both the hardware and the software, and given the success of the Switch and the very likely success of its successor, I think they're probably right.

I always find it funny how many crazy solutions people come up with when it's clear where the outlier is. It's like when congress is looking to reduce the federal budget and they ignore defense spending. The strategic plan they put out starts out with a number: they need an additional ~471-1000 KAF per year to meet the absolute minimum of being minimally healthy in 30 years. That is the absolute lowest target they can come up with. Figure 5 on page 10 showing water usage. Of the average 2300 KAF depleted each year between 1988 and 2022, if you got rid of all municipal, industrial, mining, evaporation, and water used for wetlands, you'd only get about 850 KAF. The rest goes to agriculture. Want more water to fill the lake? 70% already goes into agriculture. I get that no one wants to pick on farmers. It's an essential job in the most critical possible sense. However, it probably doesn't always need to be done in places that don't have water. We have the same problem southern CA. The value of agriculture in Utah is only something like $2B. That strategic plan they put out mentions that the costs of a drying lake are $1.70-$2.2B a year. I'm sorry for the farmers, but it really seems like maybe that's where the majority of the burden needs to fall.

I think it's interesting how this conversation has shifted over the years. Not very long ago it wouldn't have even been considered remotely plausible that it would financially benefit Nintendo to release games on the PC, and I don't think the actual merits have changed much. There's just the straight up opportunity costs. It's quite plausible to me that Nintendo wouldn't sell that many more games if they released on the PC and it's equally plausible that some of those sales would come at the cost of selling consoles. We can look at examples from Sony and Microsoft, but they're imperfect comparisons at best. There aren't any Nintendo games that look to me like they could be another Helldivers 2. The games that might sell best on the PC are probably the Zelda games, the exact games that they're relying on to sell their consoles. Also, it's more important to Nintendo than to MS or Sony that you buy their hardware, because they actually make money on it. I also think there is a lot of brand control and images issues at play. Nintendo has always been very protective of its brand (which I think is demonstrated in this lawsuit), and I imagine they contribute much of their success and longevity to that protection. I also think there's a simplicity to it that they value and want to hold on to. Want to play a Nintendo game? Buy a Nintendo. Besides all this, I think that if Nintendo were to release games on another platform, the PC probably wouldn't be it. They'd probably put games out on mobile first. I know they've actually done some of that, but they haven't really been hits. (I don't count Pokemon Go, because it wasn't a Nintendo game in any way that matters).

A situation that 13 (I think) other drivers also find themselves in. For some (Stroll) it's more of a formality, but it's really a make or break year for much of the grid.

No one should be under the impression that this is a slam dunk court case for Yuzu. Copyright law is weird and non-deterministic, and there is absolutely enough space for Nintendo to win on at least some counts. I look at Google v Oracle and think that Yuzu may well lose that case based on the criteria SCOTUS came up with, even if Yuzu might not be dealing with APIs in exactly the same way. Despite what some gamers would like to believe, there isn't a clear cut "right" to emulation. The whole right to repair movement is tackling very similar issues of what rights you have to something that you have purchased, and I think it's telling that they're not cementing their rights by taking John Deer or Apple to court, they're passing laws. If it remains an open question as to if you have the right to fix a broken tractor without the OEM's parts or software, it's definitely an open question as to what you can do with software you purchased.

Didn't realize that Remedy didn't fully control it already. Probably bodes well for Remedy that they feel comfortable buying these rights.

I'm excited for the season, but I don't expect much of a challenge for the title. I think Max has this wrapped up already if the car is anywhere as good as it looks. Much like the years Merc was dominant, we get to the end of a season and it looks like other teams are making headway, but it's only because the dominant team stopped developing that years car in order to get a head start on the next. Midway through last year I decided to lean in to the idea of just watching Max win. Yeah, it's not very exciting up front, but there's still value to watching maybe the best season of F1 that anyone has ever had. If we get more non-Max winners this year, I'll be pleasantly surprised. Still, the great thing about last year was just how close the rest of the field was. I have no idea how things will shake out between Mercedes, Mclaren, and Ferrari, plus there is potential for Aston (or at least Fernando) will show some more flashes of brilliance. I also expect to again see some real shifts during the year. It's pretty hard to match the kind of fall off that Aston had or the kind of gains Mclaren made, but hopefully we'll see more of that shuffling just by nature of the field being so competitive. I don't really have a team I specifically root for, but I'd love to see Lando finally win a race. I'd love to see Williams take a big step forward and really fight in the midfield. I hope that Aston has a good enough car to battle the top teams, if only because Nando is so much fun to watch when he's fast. I've got some friends that are big fans of Checo, but I'm honestly not expecting much. With Hamilton going to Ferrari, I feel like the 2025 silly season has already begun. With so many drivers without contracts and so many seats open, everyone is going to be fighting hard for their next drive. It'll be fun watching the "Max's next teammate" sweepstakes (my money is on Riccardo). I expect Fernando to go to Mercedes and Sainz to Audi, but who knows. So yeah, excited that F1 is back. It's a great low-investment sport. There's only 10 total teams, 20 total drivers, the rules are really not all that complicated for viewers, and there's only one race every other week or so, and it's only two hours or so. If you get more into it you can watch quali and practice and follow along with the development race and what not, but I think people can enjoy it without getting super into it. So if you're not watching, give it a try. There's plenty of drama and action and I've really enjoyed my time watching the sport.

This looks like he was jealous that he couldn't star in 1883, so he made his own. It could well just be YouTube compression, but even at 4K something about this trailer doesn't look quite right. I feel like it's not very consistent in it's color or noise or sharpness or something. Hard to put my finger on it. Trailer didn't really sell me, but I'm always down for a solid western and it sure seems like Costner cares a whole lot about this, so hopefully it pays off.

Up to episode 4 and I'm enjoying it well enough. It's not great, not terrible. I think they did an admirable job of combining elements from the original episodes, but even when they're clever, there is something to be said for focus. I'll keep going.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with their first balance patch. They've been busy with more pressing matters, but eventually they're going to have to address some things and I'm curious to see what their approach is. They definitely need to make other primaries compete with the breaker, but does that mean a buff for specific others, or just a nerf for the breaker? Same could probably be said for the rail gun. They need to figure out armor penetration in general, as right now it feels like the key issue and weapons that say they penetrate armor hardly seem to. They also could take a stance on the farming situation and just make those quick missions worth far less, or maybe make them worth less when done in repetition.

Two cases are being heard at the supreme court that could decide how the internet gets moderated. NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice are the cases looking at Texas and Florida social media moderation laws, and all sorts of issues could be at stake. Here's SCOTUSblogs' primer on the two cases, and here's the Verge's story stream (start from the bottom). Thomas seems intent on making this not only about the laws in question, but section 230. Kagan is trying to figure out if it's legal to only go after big tech. There's a lot of talk about what qualifies as a "common carrier" and if striking down these laws necessarily protects the status quo for these sites, or if it could leave them open to more regulation. Personally, I think these laws are absurd and should have no chance at all of remaining on the books, but with this court you never know what they could try and sneak into the ruling. I don't expect them to take away 230 or decide on a wholly new interpretation of the first amendment, but I won't feel good about the outcome until we see it.

That's kind of the problem. I want to play on hard, but I find it a struggle right now with fewer than 3 people. So if I start a mission on hard and can't get two other people to stick around, it's kind of a problem. Hopefully I just had bad luck with matchmaking and it won't be the norm going forward. I had good luck this morning. Found a couple groups that were generally good teammates playing well and working together and were playing through all the missions in a group (whatever that's called).

I miss when Vizio was the TV brand that had image quality above their price class. For a while they seemed like the go-to option for "I want a good TV, but I don't want to buy a Sony/LG Plasma/OLED." It seems like ever since the failed LeEco purchase way back in 2016.

Only saw the first episode and the tone is so different from the original. I'm trying not to judge it too harshly for that, but it is much more serious in a way that the One Piece live action show was not. The thing that makes me more concerned is that they don't seem that consistent in that slightly more gritty tone. The costumes are all bright and colorful and look brand new. Appa is as doofy in live action as in the animation. It makes me think they're going to be struggling with the nature of the show as taking place during a brutal war and the lightheartedness that the animation achieved.

Some of my fears are already coming true as players try to "optimize" their time. I played a bunch of games yesterday and found it difficult to find a group that wasn't just trying to farm the easiest defend missions. I saw similar complaints on reddit who blamed the phenomenon on youtubers and streamers telling people the fastest way to level up is to just grind those missions, but who knows. They are the easiest for sure, but you hardly get any samples and I just don't find them that fun. I think the joy in this game is in the craziness that is occurring as you're exploring the map and trying to complete the objectives. When I'd start my own mission and hope people join, people would just drop out. Playing on hard with only two people at ~15 is not great. Hopefully that was an aberration and not a new normal. The existing matchmaking system is dead simple, but it makes it difficult to find players who want to play in a specific way. There's no good way to advertise that you want to collect all the samples and not just rush main objectives. That said, I've overall had pretty good luck in finding random teammates, and when you do have a full squad that is working together on harder difficulties, the game really comes alive. It's a great sandbox to muck around in and I still have plenty of toys to unlock.

Surprisingly good. I have had the problem of finding a group through. I'm guessing people aren't turning their matchmaking to private when they want to be alone. I had a run this morning where as soon as I joined people (via the quickplay button), they either kicked me or left immediately five times in a row. In a couple cases even when joining a mission in progress.