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The People's Republic of Clogher
Bought Civ 6 yesterday!

Initial thoughts:

Love the way it looks. I'm getting some serious Civ Revolution vibes from the character models (and that's a fantastic game) and the way that the fog of war on the map is realised is beautiful.

There's a good opening selection of Civs, the number of which is sure to triple in coming months via the magic of DLC.

The city districts mechanic seems a nicely balanced way to min/max various specialisations.

Having three-use Builders instead of workers makes me connect with that part of the game a lot more - Previously I'd just build a few worker units and have them automate throughout the game.

Far too many huge tooltips popping up. There's got to be a way to minimise them, or at least delay their activation, because I'm finding that even sweeping my cursor across the screen activates a bunch of the buggers.

Scrolling by moving the map to the screen edges is janky as all get out. I wondered why it was initially turned off by default ... now I know.

All in all, I'm really impressed. Now to wipe my trial run and start again, as I'm sure I'll be doing a few hundred times over the next few years.
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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan



A system of cells interlinked
Played RDR for about 5 hours yesterday. Still a fantastic escape into the Wild West!
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



The People's Republic of Clogher
Religion's kinda OP in Civ 6.... something something snarky know-nothing aside, something something.

Yesterday, I got crushed by Saladin doing his thang and converting all my cities to the Islam, and today my shiny new Pericles invented Protestantism and began storming up the leaderboards. I really hope that Ian Paisley is one of the great prophets.

But yeah, we need some balance changes there.



there's a frog in my snake oil
Seems like it's got some weakness - invoke Holy War and you can smite all those missionaries with your normal warriors. Plus it just needs two immovable objects to meet and you've got an attrition war that can leave you outpaced by other disciplines. (My first game looked like it was going to be Catholic cruise, but the Russian Orthodoxy dug in, and some sneaky Buddhist guerillas kept capping islands when no-one was looking. Then Cleo sneaked off to the stars while everyone else was proselyting...)

Still can't see myself going full missionary though, unless the gameboard really cries out for it. Keeping your little enclave safe for as long as possible in a trollish fashion is kinda diverting tho. (I particularly like the 'drop relic if killed by lightning bolt' upgrade for the acolytes )

But don't listen to me, I started my latest game as Queen Vic on a small northern island, and I'm getting spanked
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



A system of cells interlinked
Heavy Rain:

Damn... LT and I crashed and burned HARD in this game.

I think we got the worst possible ending available:

WARNING: "Heavy Rain" spoilers below
FBI agent: Dead
Madison: Dead
Shaun: Drowned
Nathan: Committed Suicide in prison
Origami Killer: Got away, disappearing into a crowd of people on the street



The People's Republic of Clogher
Heavy Rain:

Damn... LT and I crashed and burned HARD in this game.

I think we got the worst possible ending available:

WARNING: "Heavy Rain" spoilers below
FBI agent: Dead
Madison: Dead
Shaun: Drowned
Nathan: Committed Suicide in prison
Origami Killer: Got away, disappearing into a crowd of people on the street
What did you think of it?

The 'cinematic experience' game has come a long way in recent years and I really don't know if Cage has the chops to keep pace. Fundamentally, he's a terrible writer.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Heavy Rain:

Damn... LT and I crashed and burned HARD in this game.

I think we got the worst possible ending available:

WARNING: "Heavy Rain" spoilers below
FBI agent: Dead
Madison: Dead
Shaun: Drowned
Nathan: Committed Suicide in prison
Origami Killer: Got away, disappearing into a crowd of people on the street
Did you commit the perfect murder??? I tried for this trophy but missed wiping down some finger prints.



A system of cells interlinked
Taccy and Suspect:

We liked Heavy Rain, but we did sort of feel like we blew it, overall. We may play through it again sometime, but there are some other games to get through before that happens.

I don't think we got Perfect Murder. I was sure I got all the fingerprints, but the trophy didn't appear, so I think I missed a spot.



there's a frog in my snake oil
If it's Ł100 cheaper than PSVR and doesn't have the vom-inducing tracking issues, I might be tempted.
I'd be amazed if it outdoes the big boys on resolution, framerate trickery etc. Will def keep an eye out for specs and reviews though.



Meanwhile...another Fallout 4 update of dubious use to anyone but me!

I did the whole "start over and play more honestly" thing so I could enjoy the DLC without rampaging through it. Moderately successful: it was definitely fun to experience that scarcity again. But I'm up over level 40 already, so I'm finding myself imperiled pretty rarely now. But it still happens.

I'm a decent bit of the way through the Far Harbor DLC. It's very pretty, and has a good aesthetic that feels of a kind with the core game, but still new, and suited to the locale:



Great so far: interesting dynamics on the island, and it's pretty darn big for an add-on. Only have a couple of complaints:
1) The new enemies, while cool and challenging, are challenging primarily just because they dart from side to side with ridiculous quickness. This was the same complaint I had with the feral ghouls. It feels like a relatively cheap way to make enemies tougher to kill (ditto for just upping their health).

2) While there are a good number of locations so far, and most of them are interesting, so far they're all pretty modestly sized. I'll discover a new building, steel myself for a big dungeon-y fight through it, and find just a couple of floors and a maybe half a dozen enemies inside. Not bad, but so far it seems like they decided to add more locations and more space, as opposed to more depth at each location. An understandable trade, but still a little bit of a letdown. So far, at least: there could be more coming.
After this, I'll move pretty much right on to the Nuka-Cola World DLC, and then just see how I feel after that. Decent chance I'll just go back to my ~130 level character and replay the DLCs all rampage-y, for fun, with a few different choices.

When all's said and done it's pretty likely I'll have topped 400 hours with this game, which is more than twice as much as any other Steam game I have. Pretty darn happy with it overall.

Some more cool screenshots:










Oh, and I have a video of the giant settlement I was working on up on YouTube, but I need to trim it down a little. Ideally I'd like to go back and re-do it (the video, not the settlement), but I should probably just post what I have already. Hopefully not too long.



Wheeee. That'll be a nice little excuse to go back and play that a bit more. I'll just go around and one-shot giants for an hour or two.
I erased all my stuff from Skyrim, so Ill be starting over from go. Havent decided what Ill play, most likely sword & board, but Ill be playing Skyrim Redone so this character can level up indefinitely....

....UNTIL I just saw your Fallout 4 screenshots, and that does look sweet. I gotta remember everytime I see those to get a new graphics card. I think Ive said that before. Theres no more avoiding it, I gotta do it today, itll make everything better, theres no avoiding it. I didnt play but an hour of F4 because my machine could only run it on low setting.



The People's Republic of Clogher
Will save games even be compatible between the original game and the new one where not as many mods will work?

Anyway, I don't use Patreon much. The two creators I support are James Stobie (who is an actual hobo, train-hopping across America and filming it) and Danny O-Dwyer, one time of Gamespot and now an independent video game documentary maker. His first documentary is going up next week.

Here's the trailer:




Will save games even be compatible between the original game and the new one where not as many mods will work?
Thats a good question. Since they say this is a graphics overhaul only and mods shouldnt affect it, I would think you could. Just Copy your save file and Paste it in the Special Edition Saves folder.



The People's Republic of Clogher
All I can find is Pete Hines saying that the console versions of the game will not support saves from vanilla Skyrim. The PC version 'should' support save transfer but I can't find anyone who actually works for Bethesda confirming this.

It wouldn't surprise me if it turns out that the games were made on slightly different versions of their engine - Whatever they tweaked on GameBryo (which is some awful Frankenstein's monster of a thing these days - they've renamed it but that's fooling nobody ) for Fallout 4 is probably forming the basis for Skyrim Remastered.