It’s a game in my todo list, but pretty low on that list. Actually, speaking to getting closer to that design, you’d think 20XX (and I guess 30XX but I didn’t play) gets even closer. It certainly scratched my MMX itch in an interesting way.

Oh, a lovely game and so is it’s sequel. I recently gave a spare copy to a student of mine, too, so it was on my mind when I read this post. Enjoy!

My worst offender would be the Neptunia games I’ve played (which I genuinely liked for gameplay lol) but honestly, if your gaming family can’t accept you at your Nep, they don’t deserve you at your NepNep.

So… A regular Assassins Creed game. Mind, I stopped at Rogue.

Tbh, this isn’t a terrible idea for people who tend to use a guide anyway? Depending on how perfectionist I feel, that’s sometimes me (but the ideal game doesn’t lock you out of content over a joke answer in a random dialog).

Obligatory mention that ExoDos exists. Look it up.

Y’know, I kind of get why a storefront would prefer delisting when there’s just a more complete or more “HD” version. I’ve had a friend buy an old version of a game for the same price as the “complete” version since both were up and he didn’t check. Blizzard is obviously just trying to promote their remake, but I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

(I’d still prefer having options, though, and that option should be free because playing the DOS version of Warcraft 2 would likely help promote the HD version, as sort of a demo. That game is fire and deserves the love, too bad the execs are morons).

I’ll have you know that’s a chastity cage and Yoko Taro put himself in that position in preparation for the next big thing!

You don’t watch football while playing football? What else is the jumbotron even good for?

Yeah, the sorcerer subclass. From what I understand it’s not the cow-falling-from-the-sky good times from BG2 though. Might need mods for real craziness.

Man, I still haven’t had time to do my wild mage run. Granted a friend wanted in on that for the shenanigans.

While that take is correct in 98% of circumstances, this isn’t one of them for a couple of reasons. BG3 has enough content at release to play for several years and have different experiences each time. The fact that it’s getting free additional content is more so because of people making the game popular in it’s first year, showing that CRPGs aren’t dead, etc. The game won literally every GotY award, for crying out loud.

There’s not a ton of other games I’d say this is bad take, but you know, it’s like complaining about Terraria or Dead Cells or something. At some point you get the game and you return to it periodically.

The only two reasons to put it off? You’re too poor or you don’t have time for a 300+ hour time investment. It’s not gonna get a steep discount anytime soon, though.

I imagine with denuvo he’ll have to wait a moment before he can sail the seas. Not too long, though.

Hold yourself over with emulated DQ 1 and 2!

I adore the first trilogy of DQ games but I’m holding off cause I don’t like or trust SE anymore (plus, denuvo, ugh).

I will say, it’s a better experience to play 1 thru 3 in order with no prior knowledge of what makes them a trilogy. Having 3 stand alone kind of misses that “oh fuuuuuuuck” realization I got to experience (and subjected a friend to, who has yet to forgive me lol). It’s what made 3 one of my favorites next to 5 and 11.

I agree. I wish we could get a deck mini at the very least. I miss my hacked PSP for that reason, it has a good size for emulation. A PSP sized PC would be insane.

This tracks, I almost exclusively play Balarto on my deck. A lot of those last almost a whole day on battery with how undemanding they are (and did you know you can undervolt games? I run a copy of Phantasy Star Online at 3w and it lasts 8 hours).

Oh. Well uh, Mondays puzzle is so easy I already took care of it on the can earlier but I can consider Tuesday I guess.

I’ll break the other ones though, Wordle and Connections are unfun anyway.

Sounds like a lovely Monday.

That was the suggestion I was going to make! They have always been burpy and silly and “Job’s Done!” and all that. Even the sheep will bleat out a Babe reference with enough clicks!

Good ol’ Sandy Shores. I wish it wasn’t so spot on sometimes! Not that South LA is much better.

Ah shit, here we go again.

But really, I place it second after GTAV, but I’m biased. I was born and raised in LA but I was too young to fully get San Andreas references. But V? I live where Franklins from, work where Michael lives, and have relatives where Trevor lives. It’s not satire, it’s a documentary.

I hate to admit doing it multiple times, including in my 30s, haha. But it’s a long and tedious achievement. The trick to doing it at our age is a good podcast to keep the mind busy!

I’m going to give you an evil answer and say Final Fantasy X. Are you ready to dodge 200 lightning bolts?

Whenever it rains, I still hum that tune. Gives a certain mood to it all.

Oh yes, it’s uh… an interesting experience with your significant other. Especially if you’re married and have a young child.

My guess is it’s because it’s EA and required Origin for a while (might still, actually, even though I think it can be bought elsewhere now).

That’s not the full article, just the summary on the journal page. That said, we shouldn’t be purchasing overpriced articles, they’re priced so only well funded academic libraries can pay and access them (It’s a racket taking advantage of hidden costs in education, as opaque as our shitty healthcare insurance but less talked about).

Like I said, they’re at best matching on review scores and pretending that’s all that’s going on to influence earnings. Articles like this aren’t particularly useful, although they’re perhaps less damaging that those with junk science claiming video games are the reason for school shootings and such. I get students who still believe that junk.

Hmmm, I’m also curious about their methods as there really isn’t a clean way to do this. They seem unaffiliated with anyone and isn’t paid for my anyone (seems more like a person trying to get another notch on their CV) but unfortunately the research is behind a paywall.

I know a lot of statistical models, and the only decent one I can think of are propensity score models that, put simply, try to match a game with denuvo with it’s nearest neighbor in a database, paired based on a variety of attributes. For example, Game A has cracked denuvo, Game B wasn’t cracked, matched on review score, price, and any other forward facing and easily quantifiable metric.

Those models aren’t without their flaws, though, and the attributes you pair with could be any variety of things and make it really easy to say whatever the hell you want with the data. There’s always something you’re missing, which is especially true if you’re looking at denuvo vs none.

Also 99% chance this guy probably isn’t even that rigorous in their method. CV fluffing, you usually don’t have time for that.

Edit: also the journal is in isn’t well regarded, although there aren’t many top tier journals that are that specific.

I mean, you’re more or less correct although toxic masculinity feels pretty immature, and certainly more common with teenage boys. Given the number of muscle cars nearly running me off the road these days, I certainly agree they’re not all teenagers, though!

Gotta wonder if that guy who just said he slept with your mom on COD was really 30+ year old “alpha male” lol

Coincidentally, teenagers are also the reason most gamers prefer single-player games.

To be fair, 30% cut probably wouldn’t be sustainable. They were hemeraging money last I checked thanks to exclusives and “free” games.

When I think “AI will end humanity” I was thinking a sort of Skynet type deal, not… this. Sigh.

Mix the two and use a trapezoidal shape for the mouth, perhaps?

When my raid friends and I have a little disposable income (like during COVID) I’ll admit we did troll one another like this. They’re still welcome to get me troll games and I promise them I’ll play them but only as a “rando” when I randomize my collection.

What’s more fun was back before people knew, recommending doki doki literature club to hentai VN fans.

All good. Also I’ll look into that game, I think I got a copy at some point. It’s the kind of thing I think I’d like.

I think the down votes are because the post is ultimately about the reliance on online libraries being flawed, which steam certainly is. Honestly, it often feels like steam will be around until the heat death of the universe, but alas I always figure I’m good though at piracy that all my purchases are essentially a donation, anyway.

That said, I think I heard that they have a policy that if it were to come to that, any files made local on your machine are yours and can still play them. Might be tricky if it’s drm and they go poof, though.

Well… I mean, if it’s out of context hand models, I don’t think potential employers are going to care, haha.

Something along those lines, although someone with better memory might recall. I think they even had the setting sort of figured out, which kind of shows in the early lore of that game.

To point 2, I like to mention that Overwatch started off as a scraped game. MMO if I remember right. Oversaturated market, so they took the assets and jumped into hero shooters when the concept was fresh.

Obviously contemporary Blizzard still found a way to ruin it, but to be fair the genre more or less than it’s course by then. Anyway, if Sony had an ounce of talent that old Blizzard had, they’d have done likewise.

Technically they still have it in their portfolio when they apply to their next, likely more lucrative job. 3D artists, illustrators, animators, etc, can use assets in highlight reels (usually, especially after NDA is cleared after release).

Also AAA titles are a collaborative effort. While it’ll suck to see it panned, knowing you are just the guy who made the hands or something softens that blow.

I remember from an interview that the first JRPG, Dragon Quest, was heavily inspired by Wizardry (as with other CRPGs of the time). Most others copied that design, including Final Fantasy, so in many ways we can thank Greenberg for helping lay the groundwork for virtually all RPGs, not just CRPGs.

I ended up just getting them for my wife, the funny thing is it took me like 20 minutes to get 20 once you know all the harder ones (like oasis). But yeah, I agree. Optional bosses made sense at least.