Kal-El814

The books were cooked, I knew it.

Yup that tracks.

I’m a mark for that model, too. When I moved to Watertown, one of my college buddies / roommates used his iMac to burn bootleg DVDs of The Venture Bros and Aqua Teen Hunger Force from iDVD on one of those, it fucking ruled.

@Commissar SFLUFAN - The father @sblfilms - The son @Mr.Vic20 - The holy spirit @Kal-El814 - whichever apostle is the shittiest without being Judas, I don’t know

Yea, but does e-transfer have default privacy settings that people don’t bother to change so when you use the app you can see your friends sending money to one another with shit like eggplant, peach, and water splash emoji?

Those iMacs look like big iPads that happen to run MacOS, and the iPad pros now have M1 chips that run iPadOS. What a world. I’m happy we’re getting more color out of Apple again, the clear, color Macs from back in the day are obviously super dated looking now but I always enjoyed how they stood out.

Next thing I’m going to learn is that Ip Man isn’t a bunch of movies about a dude that fixes your router.

I didn’t Venmo because I was too busy finally clearing 120 shrines on BotW Master Mode. Next time I’ll have Link jump off cash mountain and not Death Mountain. Also how the fuck do you dunces not know how to Venmo, it’s like a text message that robs you / pays you. Christ.

Why are you polluting the verdict with a Ben Shapiro appearance, boo.

Someone hold me.

OLO

The Hobbit trilogy was so...not what I want from LoTR content that I’m not the least interested in this until it’s out and we have some impressions.

American obsession with perfectly manicured lawns is bananas.

I’m 5’7” and my first GF in high school was 5’ tall and I felt like I towered over her. Do you just... walk into her sometimes?

Yeah I’m not especially worried about that aspect of it.

How tall are you / wifey?

Having gone through a refi recently, my house increased in value by $100K since I bought it in 2019, and we already went through one refi before that. Money is stupid.

I don’t think it would have jumped out to me, except the NPCs you interact with immediately after the fight sequence look like they belong just fine. I also didn’t feel this way about any of the baddies in RE VII. The combat felt pretty “bad” too, but I assume that some of that is due to this part of the game being early / funneling you to the story beat. I hope so, anyway. I don’t mind feeling “weak” in RE games, necessarily, especially early on until you get better at it. The first time through the village in RE4 was a struggle, by the time you know the system Leon just mercs everyone. We’ll see.

The monsters looked out of place to me in the demo. I don’t know how to explain it... it looked like they weren’t really part of the game?

TIL I’ve been pronouncing the character’s name wrong my whole life, whiteness level 1000000000/10 confirmed. Sigh.

Looks fucking rad.

I really cannot emphasize this enough. Not all successes are good, not all failure is bad.

Hey I didn't bring up ND. And I don't think their writing is "bad," I just think they 1) don't do a good job of having the gameplay and narrative gel and 2) I think their writing is good for games, not necessarily "good writing" in general. But I'm no hater, I buy almost all of their shit on launch day. Except Crash Bandicoot, friends don't let friends play Crash Bandicoot games. Also around these parts I have a rep to maintain about being a ND critic, I have to keep paying those taxes. Honestly I think the biggest thing that DE has going for it aside from writing quality is related to what I was getting at before... It's not a power fantasy, the world does not revolve against you. AT ALL. It's clear its world has history, both recent and more distant, that are affecting YOU and the world around you. But you're focused on the murder, the whole game takes place in one city block. That really puts the PC and the events of the game under a microscope in an interesting way, which is much more aligned with how many TT RPGs run. Most systems aren't built for you to change the world you're in, you're just living in it. I love that something like Mass Effect lets you change the fate of a whole species with a conversation or two, I enjoy power fantasies and "big scope" as much as anyone. But as someone who plays a bunch of indie RPGs, I also have and appreciate for those "small" moments where the world changes YOUR character, or when your actions just... change another character's mind about your character. That stuff really hits in TT RPGs and DE lives in that space as well as any CRPG I've played. In DE I did a thing. Someone that hated me before I did it changed their opinion of me after I was done, and then they did something kind for me to thank me. That meant as much to me as something like the giraffe scene in TLoU because I made the choice to do it. I could have failed doing it, but I did not. I could have not done it at all, but I did. This isn't to shit on TLoU, I adore that scene. But personally I'm always going to be more attached to an outcome that I could affect than one I could not.

Just finished DE yesterday. The writing takes a big ol dump on everything Naughty Dog has ever written, it’s not even close. ND is obviously much, much better at delivering a cinematic experience. But in terms of dialog, character depth, world building, yeah, DE gobbles up just about everyone else’s lunch. I’ll say that I could completely understand someone getting to the end of DE and thinking that the game doesn’t stick the landing, or not like that this is a “real” RPG and has no combat to speak of. Or if you’re the kind of person who wants the world to revolve around the protagonist a la BioWare stuff... this isn’t that game. But if you’re the type of person who thinks that the point of the journey is the journey and not the destination, it’s hard to imagine someone failing to appreciate this. One thing it does very well that most video RPGs handle very badly is failure. In many modern tabletop RPGs, you’re not expected to succeed on every check and a good GM works “failing” into the narrative. Something like Mass Effect, you fail something and that’s it. In a lot of indie tabletop RPGs and DE, failure often provides different ways to move forward, just with consequences.

Say it with me now... abolish the second amendment.