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I'm playing Old School Rune Scape on my phone. I never got into it in it's day, but I gave it another shot and now actually am feeling pretty good about it.

I love the freedom, and don't mind the grind. I wish there was a little more social interaction though. Sometimes the travel time kills my drive. The quests don't give you enough info to figure out how to beat them, but there are tons of guides. Still some very basic things are extremely hard to figure out even with all the guides.




there's a frog in my snake oil
I'm playing Old School Rune Scape on my phone. I never got into it in it's day, but I gave it another shot and now actually am feeling pretty good about it.
I had no idea this was possible

I offer this guy playing Runescape in between Beatsaber bouts as an alternate reboot

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



there's a frog in my snake oil
Here’s another cartoony use for multiple dimensions

So NMS is finally working smoothly for me in VR!

All it took was a ruinously expensive CPU... :/



It definitely was the proc gen surfaces that were the issue. Much heavier on the processor than the GPU. I can finally jink over the undulating terrain freely . Any sudden stops are because I've hit a mountain, which is fine

Thought I'd do a quick showcase vid now I can actually get smooth footage of a bit of everything



Ultimate Chicken Horse is a good one if you want to multiplayer party platformer. I didn't mind Giana Sisters either (its free on xbox gamepass) the sound track was quite epic.



A system of cells interlinked
And talking of customised rides...

I've spent the last few nights just happily driving cars outside the city limits to pimp them at Franklin's freebie garage... (only stopping for any emergent tangles along the way...)





I seem to be favouring garish muscles cars and retro hot hatches . (The Dukes-esque one with the Jamican flag on the roof is kinda my favourite though...)

The luxury beasts are cool, but they have a tendency to go so fast in town that I start getting hitching amongst the high rise. (Or at worst, the floor disappears...). So I'm sticking to silly drifty things that growl while driving up hills...

Trevor is annoyed that mobile homes cannot be customised....
No Coil? Huzzuh??
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



there's a frog in my snake oil
No Coil? Huzzuh??
Voltics are totally my uptown taxis

I’m thinking Michael will have a hankering for the high end stuff for sure... (But I’ve gotta make a sweaty A-Team homage van for Trevor first )



A system of cells interlinked
Voltics are totally my uptown taxis

I’m thinking Michael will have a hankering for the high end stuff for sure... (But I’ve gotta make a sweaty A-Team homage van for Trevor first )
That car is just so fun to drive. Love me some Coils!



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
It's the end of the year and contracts generally slow down around this time. People are planning trips and vacation time to visit family, both in house and client-side. I don't have that much to keep me occupied, but I just took a week off myself so I feel it inappropriate to take more, especially considering we will shutdown for the year around the 19th. Maybe I'll finally start updating my movie watch list, or writing a few reviews that I've been picking at off on and on for infinity. Perhaps I'll try to re-watch Annihilation for a third attempt at making it past the 20-minute mark, though I loathe to even type that title. Likely, I'll just bide my time here in the game forums. Or the PC thread once I start building this weekend.

For now though, I downloaded Shadow of the Colossus last night around midnight. I stayed up late enough to install it and play a bit. This game is absolutely gorgeous. The introduction is long but lovely in its animation and cinematic qualities. This game world is quiet. Peaceful. Reflective. Dare I say therapeutic? I played enough to track and kill the first colossus and (most) everything is just lovely and smooth.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS4 Remaster)
I have no idea the expanse of the game world yet, as I've only played for a short while, but the scale appears to be massive---at least in architectural design. This world was designed for giants and the relative scale (and speed) of our playable character feels so small and insignificant in comparison. The lumbering motion and stride of the first colossus created a new level of game play in which I could actually climb onto the creature, leaping from limb to body holding on for dear life. I find it fascinating that a killable game creature can be explored as any other level, but responds to my position and actions upon its body. This is very creative design.

Controls so far feel smooth and accessible. There appears to be no HUD overlays with the exception of what appears to be a stamina meter. This could be a result of player settings, but I like it as it affords me the screen space to experience this as a movie rather than a videogame. And it feels so much more organic as a result. My mount is slow to start, difficult to turn in tight radii, and nearly as lumbering as the first colossus I encountered; however, it does feel quite natural as the designers made the steed considerably large compared to the character in mount. I believe a boy with this build would also find it difficult to control such a beast and, therefor, I have no issue accepting my controls as they are. In fact, it feels incredibly realistic given the scale of the game though it can be frustrating at times. A small sacrifice for such immersion, in my opinion. In ways, I find the mount controls more comfortable that my experience in The Witcher III. That could be in part due to the lack of environmental distractions in this barren, desert landscape.

The introduction sequence is somber and lonely depicting a boy (my guess, a teenager but projecting an awareness and determination beyond his years) traveling across different landscapes. Desert, forest, day and night, resting only to take shelter from a beautiful moonlit rain. This last for minutes drawing you into this world, preparing you for what appears to be a very solitary gaming experience. Yes, technically most games are solitary experiences, but this one really feels as though I am absolutely alone in this. I already feel like Atreyu from The Neverending Story. I can already sense the brooding weight of losing my Artax once I've journeyed deeper into this world. Eventually, the boy finds his way into a massive stone structure that appears to be some sort of holy place built to honor this world's colossi. After dismounting, we see that the boy is carrying the body of a young girl. He carries her to a stone shrine and is greeted by several shadow figures named the Dormin. They speak in a layered, Borg-like voice using a fictional language affected by dense reverb and delays. It is beautiful. Something of this reminded me of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver in the emotions stirred by this environment and disembodied voices that echoed within.

This temple; this voice; both are presented as sanctuary for the boy, but both feel ominous and I feel that something very sinister will be revealed as I progress.


I have no idea how long I will stick with this game, but I must say that it feels like nothing else I have ever played short of, perhaps, Cinematronics' 1983 title, Dragonslair. There is just something about the scale and fluidity of the main character that feels more like an epic animated tale than a game. The word "game" really undermines the soul of Shadow of the Colossus---something games generally lack.

I highly recommend at least watching YouTube clips of the introduction and colossus interactions. This title is current available on the PSN for $9.xx U.S.
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"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



A system of cells interlinked
Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favorite PS2 titles. I haven't had a chance to play the PS4 remaster, as I don't own that system, but I hear it's pretty spectacular. SotC (and also Iko) are pretty unique in their vibes.



The People's Republic of Clogher
I Death Stranded for a few hours yesterday, and think I'm finally getting into its loop.

It's a stealth game - No surprise, I guess, considering it's from Kojima. Unfortunately the stealth sections aren't that enjoyable...
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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



Welcome to the human race...
I keep forgetting to mention that I finished The Outer Worlds in the past few weeks and, though I definitely had fun with it and played it obsessively, I'm already kind of forgetting that I ever played it (which is a shame since it is very much my kind of game). Also kind of weird that the film dumps one very good moral dilemma on you at the start regarding how to deal with Edgewater and then never presents anything that truly matches up to that level of conflict after that (guess they just made the Board into too much of a love-to-hate corporation). But then again, when the whole thesis of the game is "wouldn't it be f*cked-up if interplanetary colonisation was so insanely privatised it made BioShock look socialist" I guess there's something to be said for a more direct delineation between options.

Also can't decide if it's too short or if I just played a lot of it at once.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



The People's Republic of Clogher
I keep forgetting to mention that I finished The Outer Worlds in the past few weeks and, though I definitely had fun with it and played it obsessively, I'm already kind of forgetting that I ever played it (which is a shame since it is very much my kind of game). Also kind of weird that the film dumps one very good moral dilemma on you at the start regarding how to deal with Edgewater and then never presents anything that truly matches up to that level of conflict after that (guess they just made the Board into too much of a love-to-hate corporation). But then again, when the whole thesis of the game is "wouldn't it be f*cked-up if interplanetary colonisation was so insanely privatised it made BioShock look socialist" I guess there's something to be said for a more direct delineation between options.

Also can't decide if it's too short or if I just played a lot of it at once.
Yeah, Outer Worlds should have been tailor made for me but it's firmly in the 'good but nowhere near great' category.

I think the whole corporation-as-antagonist thing was a bit too on the nose in the way it was written and each world lost identity because of it. The combat was also pretty forgettable and those menus .... urgh.

All in all, a brave attempt at a Bethesda style rpg on what's bound to be a tiny fraction of the budget but, as I've said before, I'm a lot more interested in what Obsidian make next, now that they've got Microsoft money behind them.



Welcome to the human race...
I can definitely accept it as Obsidian doing a test run for something more ambitious as that is what it ultimately feels like (not least because of its brevity). Not wrong about those menus - I never got the hang of which shoulder buttons cycled through which menus and also the lack of options when it came to re-arranging inventories. I definitely didn't bother much with trying to mix and match the contents of the inhaler beyond just "stimpak", at least.

It's a tough thing to try exploring these themes in a nuanced way, especially when it so often gets to the point where the best way to resolve a particular planet's conflict is just trying to arrange a compromise between the corporate entity (even a standalone one like the one on Monarch) and the outcasts in a way that still seems like "hey at least they're not as bad as the Board". Again, the problem of trying to mix open-world options with a fundamentally didactic message. Enough to make me wonder if the entire subtext of the game is just Obsidian doing one big f*ck-you to Bethesda itself over their creative differences. Also makes it hard to navigate Elysium when playing the "good" path inevitably puts you at cross purposes with the Board and they will shoot you on sight.



there's a frog in my snake oil
the problem of trying to mix open-world options with a fundamentally didactic message.
All of this will be fixed when I release my open world game, populated entirely by AI stolen from Dwarf Fortress, with an engaging range of proc gen voices... (from squeaky pixie to drunken moose)



I keep forgetting to mention that I finished The Outer Worlds in the past few weeks and, though I definitely had fun with it and played it obsessively, I'm already kind of forgetting that I ever played it (which is a shame since it is very much my kind of game). Also kind of weird that the film dumps one very good moral dilemma on you at the start regarding how to deal with Edgewater and then never presents anything that truly matches up to that level of conflict after that (guess they just made the Board into too much of a love-to-hate corporation).
Yeah, they don't hit that level of nuance of ambiguity much after that point, which is a shame. Or, I should say, they don't hit that level of ambiguity unless you just take that path, even though they haven't given you much reason to. I went back and replayed a bunch of stuff, just to see what happens (after being very careful for an entire playthrough it can be a lot of fun to replay and not really care what happens), and there are some good-ish arguments and rationales and all that if you follow the Board path. But it's not as compelling as the more obviously good stuff, and it's sort of hidden in that you have to choose it to see why you should consider choosing it, which isn't great.

I think the only real thing they give you in a normal playthrough is, hey, that scientist dude seems unstable, and there's a tenuous order thing going on here. But that last argument--which is the most natural/best argument, if you wanna present the player with some legitimately difficult choices--kinda goes out the window, since the whole premise is that a lot of stuff is sort of falling apart. The natural dichotomy here is "okay a lot of this is messed up but people are alive and have basic stability and you can't control the chaos of whatever coup you want to enable," but the situation you find yourself in is already deteriorating, so you're just siding with one faction or another about how to handle that deterioration, which robs the Board of the only potential argument they could have, really. Until the end game, maybe, but that's too little too late.

Anyway I'm in the same boat as both you guys: Good and not Great, played it pretty obsessively for awhile but moving on it from it mentally a lot faster than I have previous games like this. But I'm so pleased it exists, and there's so much potential here, that I really really hope they do another, specifically if they can take whatever time they save by not creating the game from scratch and sink it into more content/quest/world curation.



Also, I'm pretty enamored with their little touches, like weight-to-value ratio being something you can sort on, putting multiple things into your inhaler, dialogue skipping stuff, companions just sort of warping because the "immersion" of them not doing it isn't close to worth the frustration of waiting, blah blah blah. I've probably said this already but you can tell this game was made by people who played games like this when they were younger, and had a long list of little tweaks they wanted to make them easier to play.

I think they mostly nailed things like weight management, too, in that you couldn't ignore your weight but you didn't spend a huge chunk of your time managing it. And having just a few ammo types that each encompassed a number of guns really streamlined stuff, too. That kinda stuff made prepping for battle, selling stuff, and looting, a lot more enjoyable.

The game is definitely a little on the short side, but then, that's probably exacerbated by having to spend several hours fewer constantly managing your inventory, like you would in all the games it's imitating, too. I'll take 40 hours over 45 if those extra five are just figuring out what to break down or which ammo I need to craft or whatever.



Oh, unrelated, but I'm finally going to play The Banner Saga 3.



I've literally been "saving" it for about a year and a half now. I knew I was going to replay the second one before (did the same for the second in replaying the first), which I finished again yesterday.

I'll be awfully sad when it's over, but it's time.



A system of cells interlinked
Banned for triple posting!

Meanwhile: An extremely kind benefactor has blessed me with a license code for RDR2, so I will be checking that out very soon!