Xbob42

Is it in like a super stereotypical accent? Is it hilarious?

Was just about to post this almost verbatim. "It worked amazingly well! Everyone was happier and stimulated the economy while having dramatically reduced anxiety!" No word on anything like it again for 10 years where another city does it and has the same results. Repeat forever.

I also played the demo. I'm not even sure what this game is supposed to be. Is it supposed to be a Monster Hunter style game? If so, the story missions seem weirdly out of place and filler-y. Is it supposed to be a big exploration-based JRPG adventure? If so, the Monster Hunter shit seems weirdly out of place and filler-y. I also think the UI is unbelievably obnoxious, the abilities are too flashy, especially for how little they actually do, there's too many systems layered on top of each other that are both simplistic (attack to fill gauge, hit button prompt to trigger different levels of "big attack") and unfun, as they break up the pace of you actually doing the fighting yourself. The game doesn't seem bad or anything, I just can't get a read on what I'm supposed to expect. I really don't feel like playing anime Monster Hunter right now, but I wasn't convinced by what I did play that there's going to be a big JRPG adventure, either.

I dunno, I'd want something that actually killed me instantly. Not having my head alive on the floor for like half a minute after it was cleanly sliced. That sounds unpleasant. Anyway, to expand upon what I said earlier, you should always be thinking about situations like this with "Okay, but what if we find out later this person didn't do it?" Sure, here and there you'll get some ironclad evidence, but... not always, which is weird for something like the death penalty. Now imagine this person gets an unbelievably painful death and you cheered it on like a coliseum spectator -- what did that extra cruelty accomplish? Now imagine you one day find yourself in the unlikely-but-not-impossible scenario where you're wrongly being put to death. At least then you only have to contend with your impending death, rather than the extreme dread of fearing a torturous death to thunderous metaphorical applause. It's why I said the state's job isn't to "punish" or to cause excess pain, and it shouldn't be, and we shouldn't ever want it to be. Whatever someone "deserves" is highly subjective and is almost always based on incomplete, highly one-sided information... provided by the state, and some (but of course not all) provided by the media. Our justice system should be pragmatic in the extreme: remove, reform, reintroduce. Failing that, remove until death (with a state-sponsored killing being an option for worst-case scenarios) -- none of this should be about getting back at people or being big tough guys who are hard on crime. That doesn't actually accomplish jack shit, as we've seen from a century of America absolutely fucking up the justice system over and over and over again, ad nauseum.

If it has an FOV option, raise it. Low FOV is like walking while looking through binoculars. Do that in real life and you'll get sick in seconds. Even if the FOV is close to correct, if it's too low you just get the same problem, but it takes a little longer to show up, or it only shows up while sprinting, as with you. Barring that, sit a little further from the screen, get one of those little motion sickness bracelets that you squeeze for a minute or so (I don't get motion sickness so I have yet to use one, but they apparently work surprisingly well for a lot of people. There's also a watch one that gives a very small electric current that seems to work as well, but is obviously more expensive.) or just acclimate yourself to it. Lots of options, give one a try!

Well, I think it should be humane. Not because these people deserve it, but because the job of the state, to me, is to apply neither "punishment" nor any sort of needlessly excessive pain. That ain't the state's job and I'm not about to endorse it. I'm only "against" the death penalty (even calling it a penalty really poisons the well) insofar as I don't think our current justice system is very reliable when it comes to correctly identifying people who are a permanent threat to society and should be removed (read: killed) rather than risking even a small chance of escape or parole. Clear that shit up, fix up our prisons to be places where people are likely to be reformed rather than just turn into even more hardened criminals, and suddenly I'm just fine with the death penalty. I think a high caliber round directly to the temple's gonna be about as humane as it gets, and is a lot harder to botch than a buncha fucking rednecks playing mad doctor. Plus if you fuck it up, you keep on firin'!

Bullets are cheap, why are places wasting their time on weird experimental shit?

Well, no. I don't think that way about it. For one, most battles in single-player are automatically 1v1, whereas multiplayer is 2v2. So it's like an entirely different game on that alone. Second, the reason the multiplayer "makes it good" has less to do with the mechanics and more to do with mind-games you'd get in any turn-based game. The game's too simple in all the wrong places and overcomplicated in just as many wrong places. Even with years of QoL updates, just getting set up to play the online is stupidly complicated compared to other competitive games, and when it comes to raw mechanics, stuff like Bravely Default just eats it for breakfast, lunch and dinner in every metric that I think can make a turn-based game fun, and I think would make a wildly entertaining multiplayer game if they could ever balance the damn thing around such a concept. The parts I like about Pokemon are less to do with raw battle mechanics and more to do with just the base satisfaction of capturing a lot of weird looking perverts and building a team. If there's one area Pokemon can't be touched in, it's customization of your team. Again, probably overcomplicated to being detrimental, but you customize two sets of stats, which monsters go in which slots, their held items, their movesets (which change based on the format, i.e. 1v1, 2v2, rotation, gimmick matches like ghost only, etc), their natures (which also affects stats), their more general ability that activates based on certain parameters... You can come up with a completely novel team and moveset no one's ever seen before and win tournaments with it, assuming no one has a good counter. I mean, you're not likely to be that good at all of it, but you can theoretically do it. And I think that part's real cool.

Also, as a fan of turn-based games, Pokemon has the shittiest turn-based combat on the market that only becomes good in competitive play.

If you're in bed with SpaceX on just about any issue, you know you've got nothing but labor violations to offer the nation.

My preloading went off without a hitch, though at this point it's about the same whether I unpack or download. Anyway, game's been fun so far, really liking the fact that you can play your unlocked music anywhere, including the new little podcasts they add. Weird that they don't have subtitles. So you have an English and a Japanese podcast (Not, like, a Japanese podcast and a dubbed podcast, they're completely different podcasts) and if you only speak one language, you can only understand that one. But they add some life into the world and the English one had a pretty good and unexpected Shenmue joke, really liked it. Combat already feels so much better. I did the combat trial in Man Who Erased His Name, but it was pretty brief and I didn't really dig in much. The ability to reposition freely already helps a lot, but the fact that you can attack enemies from behind, or angle yourself to knock them into other enemies or into allies for follow-ups has been dope. Makes the basic attack that much more interesting!

A lot harder to pull this one off...

I've always got like a dozen different games going on at any given time (not literally at once, obviously) but I also understand I'm an outlier. That said...

Legends style is the top spot, though Scarlet/Violet, being mostly Legends, are close behind. I actually find most of the older style games unbearably dull. I think, technical shenanigans aside, the series is moving in a good direction. If they could find someone who knows how to, like, optimize their games, they'd be fantastic.

Not a statistician or anything, but I feel like if 40% of one group of your respondents are LGBT, your survey might not be representative?

fuckin weebs

Is it really so hard to comprehend? It takes Pokemon and does fun, silly shit with them and has you interact with them more than you ever can in normal Pokemon games, while also being a silly parody. I can unlock an ability to use my dumb sheep like a shield, I can throw them at certain facilities to "automate" them, they have both combat and crafting/gathering skills, and you can give Pikachu a glock. While it's certainly more successful than I imagined, I don't find anything artificial about it, it's been the talk of the town since that first "Pokemon with guns" trailer.

I still don't know why people are saying Gears of War, does it turn into a cover shooter or something later? It's still 100% a survival game like Ark, Rust, etc. That said, now that I'm mostly over my cold, I'm getting back into it. Gotta say, starting to really enjoy it. The combat is more satisfying and polished than other survival games I've played, with proper dodges, sidesteps, backflips and such to give it a bit of a Zelda feel, with melee hits really impacting enemies, making a fun little sound effect on hit, and just selling the hits well. Enemies have unique animations for attacks that feel polished and professionally made rather than typical survival game "we just needed to get this game out" jank. There's a big tech tree, and you unlock stuff on it pretty quickly, helping to ease you into each gameplay system without overwhelming you, I found a "lucky" Pal which has what is basically the shiny icon from Pokemon, but rather than coloration it appears to be an extra "lucky" trait for +attack and +work speed (for your sweatshops) -- I found it because I heard a weird tinkly noise and saw it proudly posing on top of a rock with a golden aura, which was really fun and silly. Still super early, but I'm digging it. I still say I'd like it 100x more and more easily if it was like a structured MMO or even a structured co-op game or something rather than being survival. I feel like you make a survival game when you feel like making a gameplay system and a world map but get tired before actually making content with all of that, so you have the players "make" the content. Whatever, it is what it is, and it's better than I expected after opening it and punching trees.

Sounds like they need to rebuild their algorithm from scratch to counteract SEO as a whole, SEO has been a huge cancer that helps enshitify everything.

Pokemon x Gears of War? It's more like Ark + Pokemon. Even the character creator is one of those "you have to try pretty hard to not make a deformed oompa loompa" deals. Honestly I have no idea why it's part survival game, I think that actually just brings it way down. Any game where I begin by fucking punching trees automatically has an uphill climb to keep my interest these days, as I've been over that shit for like a decade. That said, the actual Pokemon style mechanics seem neat, but I've not played enough to judge more than that. Been sick, so I'm waiting until I feel better to dig in.

Can I put a punisher logo on my Warhammer space nazis?

The idea of them turning a bunch of barely-known ancient franchises into massive hits (or even moderately successful ones that'll move the GP numbers at all) when they can't even get their flagships straight seems idealistic in the extreme to me. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for them to look at all those old franchises, but they somehow secured a Bethesda dud. I'm sure Starfield did "fine," but it did not do Skyrim numbers. They can't even buy their way into great games lately. It's almost comical how every chance they get on near-surefire hits just keeps making a big wet fart.

You just described what Microsoft spent the last 20 years doing and it didn't work.

I did. Then I got this big ass wedge pillow for my bed. Been waking up feeling great ever since. All hail the wedge!