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That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Skyrim Updates
I got Enchanting to 100, yay. Speech is now 50 and I've gotten Smelting and Smithing to high 30s or 40s. Wow. My character is 21 i believe.

Most of the cheating comes from an item dupe glitch and an invisible chest full of gold and loot to manipulate. It is rather time consuming and boring but some of the spells require some level of dungeon crawls to learn them, so that's a nice break.

As mentioned in earlier posts, my fear was true in that world mobs level in scale to your own. So though my character is level 21, my combat and armor skills are crap relative to what i encounter for not running quests to level.

Oh well. Smithing is my current objective which has been a time sink for what time i can give, but will be able to level my armor skills soon after.

I have found the transmute spell that turns iron ore to silver ore and silver ore to gold ore. So that's neat. Now I'm stuck passing time duping gold ingots until i have 750 of them to grind Smithing up. Sigh.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
^Yeah, I saw that Stray was on the PSN last night for like 29 or 39 U.S. I can't remember which. I couldn't tell if it required the PSN sub to get it though as "full" game was not selectable. I'm glad you had fun with it.



Skyrim Updates
Sigh. I'm sitting with a 72 Smithing stat and I'm so bored to continued. It now takes creating approximately 20 gold rings to reach the next level. That's one gold ingot per ring. Two gold ores to create one gold ingot. I have the Transmute spell, but I have to convert one iron ore to a silver ore to the convert that silver ore to one gold ore, twice in order to end up with two gold ingots. Then when I have about 35 or so ingots, I have drop them, one at a time, then task my companion to pick them up, one at a time. Once he has them, I quick-travel to another town and back to pick up the dupes. It's hit or miss as to how accurate the duplication trick is. Usually, I get get anywhere between half and 2/3rds of what was dropped. I do that until I have a total of 750 ingots. Dude. I'm processing maybe 100 rings a night before I'm glassy eyed bored.

But I do have that skill at 72 and my character is level 25, so there's another achievement unlocked. World encounters are kicking my arse though. On the bright side, the next set of skills will fill up both Light and Heavy Armor skills. At some point though, I have to take on a giant to boost my one- or two-handed weapons skills =\ That may be in August as little time as I've been able to put to all this. Still, it's a neat exercise. Trade offs for missing the game ENTIRELY. I doubt I can recommend this path at this point. I had fun playing the game before. Now it's all just a grind. I wonder if any of the quests will still be available after all this? Mobs scale with me, so I guess if I can pick up all entry quests to start normal quest chains, then I think I'll have a blast with a maxed character. Maybe. I am running into more vampires now, so meh.
__________________
"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear



there's a frog in my snake oil
This is similar to Rocket League, so it can go here I say

First Look: Nock



Finally replaced my CV1 with a Quest 2, and had to go straight to Nock. Definitely living up to the 'Rocket League in VR' tag. Although I've barely dared to step out of the bot ring as yet

The arm swing skiing works really well on the whole, and gauging arrow flights as you slide around feels totally natural. Loving the double jump shots, even though they seem to be high risk affair, (leaving you wafting around in mid air if you don't save the second 'jump' for a descent).

The core conceit of losing one of your 3 arrows if you miss a shot is a fine one, and then the arrow pick ups, 'block arrow' option, collision kills, and deadliness of high speed balls add the right amount of decision-making and chaotic drama.
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



The Adventure Starts Here!
Just got my order of four pre-owned Wii games from GameStop today. Ought to be fun for me... I mean, the grandchildren. I hooked the Wii up to the 65" TV successfully (via RCA cables) and realized I had forgotten how much fun these games could be. I stink at Mario Kart but still enjoyed it. These games ought to be great fun too. For me. For MEEEEE.




You ready? You look ready.
Just got my order of four pre-owned Wii games from GameStop today. Ought to be fun for me... I mean, the grandchildren. I hooked the Wii up to the 65" TV successfully (via RCA cables) and realized I had forgotten how much fun these games could be. I stink at Mario Kart but still enjoyed it. These games ought to be great fun too. For me. For MEEEEE.

I bought a copy of Twilight Princess for GameCube for way more money than I care to admit, but it is so much better than the Wii version.

I have been playing a lot of Sega of late. I had no interest in the mini versions of the NES or SNES, but I was all over the mini Sega.



And they just announced a second version:

https://sega.jp/genesismini2/

They are making a limited run of those for NA, so I made sure to pre-order it.
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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza



there's a frog in my snake oil
Some news from 'The Console For Your Face' land...

I've realised there are a ton of freebie apps with my expensive Quest 2. Here's a clunker and a highlight...

First Look: First Hand [Quest Hand Tracking]



This is a lovely homage to the First Contact Oculus intro app. But also totally let down by how shonky hand tracking is in practice unfortunately. At least in my experience to date. Very much getting Kinect vibes off the tech. (A fun novelty, with potential for some great applications, but fairly frustrating to use in practice).

The Iron Man style shield and hand blast played out pretty well in the end. It was just anything that pushed more into detailed object interaction which went wibbly.

I am finding the simple menu interactions fairly neat and slick to use on the whole though while trying this stuff out. When they work . And certainly 'Minority Report' style tablet swishing seems viable.


First Look: Tea For God



This is a great concept. A 'roomscale' adventure which generates maps based on your available playspace, allowing you to walk through the game world in real life without ever bumping into your stuff...

Unfortunately my playspace is way smaller than they recommend (1.5m x 1.5m), so the corridors twist back on themselves in a ribbon of impossible recursive absurdity. But the designer has some great set pieces along the way, and it's still great fun teetering along ledges and around impossible corridors as you go. Very much as daft and endearing as I hoped it'd be.

It looked from the menus like it might be possible to play with classic control locomotion, rather than roomscale walking, (and possibly with a bigger generated game spaces as a result?). Which I might try if so, even if it does kind of go against the roomscale heart of the game



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
yay. during the move I found an old PSN gift card. I THINK I bought it for a coworker a Christmas or two back and forgot I had it =\
It's mine now. I might pick up Stray and/or the ole NieR: Automata that never seems to go on sale >=\

Not that I really have time to play either any time soon. The mom has moved in as of Sunday. I still have two rooms that need to be resorted for all the storage and stuff that's been stockpiled, and we are hoping to start renovation soon. The dog has no idea he's in another location. The cat seemed kinda pissed though. Me too, if I'm honest, as I'm not used to another lifeform freely roaming my home. The cat disappeared into a wormhole last night for about 40 minutes or so and had me freaking out some. Then it pushed open my bedroom door around 2am and woke me up pawing at wtfever. Around 5am, she found her way into the bathroom and yanked on the shower curtain.

There will be adjustments to make.

Anyways (that was for YOU, AU). Back to the PSN card. Stray has been sitting at like $29.xx since release via the PS store but it appears to be part of the PSN+ subscription. I can't find any info one way or another on that point, so that's weird.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
How did it take so long for someone to make a cat game?



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
They kept walking on the keyboard and breaking it.
Lighting a candle to Saint MahKLANE rn.



there's a frog in my snake oil
This isn't even about games, but I'm putting here anyway. Because it's interesting, and it's a bit like Guitar Hero

First Look: VRtuos [Passthrough Beta]

It's a pain to grab the full footage and audio, so here's an example of what it's like:



This app doesn't faff around with hand tracking, and has a nicely robust keboard mapping setup if you don't have a midi keyboard to plug in. Which meant I could just sit down at a keyboard and play Beethoven's Moonlit Sonata at 35% speed, while the dropping bars of rainbow guidance gave me the heads up on what to play

And like, I'm still bad. But actually getting those familiar tunes ringing out on pretty much the first go is fairly crazy. And I could definitely see how muscle memory could start to kick in.

There are a few teething issues still. (It doesn't re-orientate the virtual keyboard after each sitting, because I refuse to remap my roomscale boundary just for this. So have to resize it each time, but it takes about a minute.)

But this is the first AR app I've used where I've thought: Damn, that is cool. And useful.

And after downloading some random midi files I managed to get various John Williams tunes for my kid. And he was happily playing the Star Wars theme within minutes. If at quarter speed to start . Could definitely see this as a really useful bonus way to learn tunes, as an adjunct to traditional methods.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
NieR: Automata
I have NO clue what's going on but I love it!!

*EDIT*
OKOK, it's the next morning and I'm more awake to type to some of this. The opening sequence immediately threw me back to my late 80's console shooter mind. The monochromatic color palette, awkward widescreen bars, and overhead ship design reminded me of a vibe I used to get playing Truxton, Thunder Force III, and even Space Harrier as the approach flight started as overhead, morphed to side-scroller view and eventually landed on third-person perspective, all fluidly transitioning one to the next. I had no idea what I was starting with this game, but that opening sure as hell woke me and had me screaming for more.



This seemed to be a primer for the game to come as the camera view changes at various locations along the game stage. So far, I've run through the first manufacturing zone and, while slightly disorienting at first, the shifts in perspective kept the level fresh and intriguing. Controls remind me a lot of old Stider side-scroller, especially the quick sword slashing and sound effects. The soundtrack is great as well, reminding me of several Final Fantasy titles.

This game seems to be linear, which is a design that I typically hate, but due the continued changes in camera view this may not be an issue. I still have no idea how to play this game and I'm thinking to just throw the dialogue into Japanese and let go of any control. I imagine this one will be an adrenalin rush regardless. It seems as though the designs have taken all of the best from my childhood console experience and created a genetically superior Super Cell variant. I am so down with this.



The Adventure Starts Here!
For fans of The Witness game, there's a free-to-play clever send-up called The Looker. I'm still in the main garden area, but I've laughed out loud too many times to count already. Check it out on Steam!




The Looker is very funny and also a not-bad puzzle game in its own right, too. Highly recommended, particularly if you played and even sort of liked The Witness.