Sly Reflex

Not an interesting one to look at, but more of an achievement. Or the start of an achievement. At the time the group I was actively taking part in were playing Art of Rally time trails against each other. This was the first time I got a global top 100 finish,. It wasn't the last, and in some cases the top end of the group was placing in the top 50 or so in the world. To give you some context, there's somewhere between 3 or 4 million that have played Art of Rally. I managed to inspire a moment where people that were not really into rallying or racing games in general were committing so hard they were falling into the bracket of the top 1% of the worlds players.

I did lose my footing at the top of the ladder trying to get out of the carriage but didn't bail, just dug my heels in on the ladder and tried again. I initially tried to straddle step my way up because that was required a lot on the cases and on the back of the seats, but once you're up at the top you can just walk right out. Crab walking up the ladder was probably the tensest part because the spaces between the rungs are not the same. It is really temping to just walk up them like they are nothing and then realise you can't get enough foot on it to have a decent purchase, and/or not have the strength to lift off the front foot and have a safe place to put the raised foot. It can cause so much panic when you make a huge step like that and then have to put your foot down because a fall or slip is imminent. I think the thing with this game is that you need to think about the angle of the feet as well as which foot you are leading with, it's really easy to barrel through a cliff face and ending up bodying yourself because you don't take into consideration where the rest of Nathan is going and that topples him over or bumps him off course. There's a famous picture of a Mario level where it shows you that two tasks are the exact same and that the only difference is the perception of challenge, and I feel like there's a lot of that design philosophy going on in Baby Steps that is akin to that. Lots of stuff you do without a second thought when it's close to the ground where falling doesn't matter, but at the same time when you're doing it higher up that fear of fucking up makes it easier to choke, even though you've done that manoeuvre a million times already. The other things is the game makes it hard for you if you don't commit. I was watching someone stream it earlier and she was keeping ground under her at all times and falling off because the step down was too much for Nate to take. The racing line step was shorter and less riskier, even though IRL you would never do that because you have the ability to move smarter and use your arms as well. That step was something she had done even up on the way to the part she was falling on, but she never put 2 and 2 together. Maybe at the time I didn't either, but gaining that knowledge over the game of what is and isn't possible, and walking in a manner that makes sense for Nate's joints to accommodate is half the battle. Sometimes the more dangerous the step looks the safer it is, you have to remove the logic of how you would navigate it and think about how the game wants you to navigate it. Some excellent design in this game in regards of the way it drip feeds you new skills without you ever realising it's doing it. There's a lot of stuff it never explicitly tells you, but you need to progress. I think back to times I saw paths as well and realise that the skills I picked up would allow me to take those routes without much hassle. It's really apparent that you end up developing a lot of skills without really registering that.

I just used to use the chromecast to send stuff to the main tv. Worked for everything except stuff there you needed to be frame perfect. Could play CloneHero on it fine enough, but something like Pinball FX was a no go. Anything under that level of input delay was perfectly fine. Wired one side, wireless the other side. Easier than how I used to do it with a Belkin bridge a long time ago. I think you can use the moonlight method on an appletv dongle as well? Supposedly not a bad way to go about it. Raspberry Pi was made for this sort of stuff, I reckon that would make an excellent bridge. Also you could put Pihole on it and get rid of all the adverts on your TV browsing. That shit is a silver bullet if you know what you are doing.

I still think that if you are in it for the really long game, the steam machine might be the thing to go to. You're not going to see any discontinued shit there ala like we have with the PS3/Vita stuff recently. Shit will just roll on and on, the OS will be supported forever too, that's another thing that tends to cripple stuff. Like when we went from 7 to 10 to 11. It's just insanely expensive for what it is. I can't even fathom how the big three are going to put another console out and have it come at a price people won't cringe at when they see the sticker price.

I don't really think the blame should be laid at this gen wholly. Xbox One was fucking ass. They lost so much ground there and everything felt soulless and stagnant. That whole gen felt like it was being insincere, you could tell they wanted to push it in that direction even after they were forced to change tact and it was seriously hard to take them on their word when they'd already showed us their hand. I have a similar feeling with this whole Sony stuff currently. We're in the doubling down and ignoring it phase and I hope we see a begging for forgiveness phase and throwing deckchairs off the titanic phase. I can't fathom how something can be such an open goal for them and see them still squander everything.

Manbreaker - Conquered Train - Done first time Game - Completed Great game, was a really big surprise tbh. I would have put myself down as hating this and would never have played it had I not don't the echo's stuff on stream.

What do we think is the end game here with all the cuts? Not just the save money because that's obvious, but more a case of what are they expecting outside of line momentarily goes up? I saw a graph where they were expecting a lot of people to be on GP by now and after all the money they've spent it's actually gone down in active subscribers. Does that mean that people aren't really down for a Netflix for games? Or they're not down for a Netflix for games under these circumstances? Is it just that people have lost faith in XBOX? Maybe people just don't have the disposable income to warrant another sub? What can we learn from all this, both from the MS perspective and the consumer perspective?

You'll get a freebie anyway even though every other cunt ends up paying £1200 for one.

For the most genuinely fantastic. Some of the chapters were a little filler, but it's really hard to argue against the quality of Morrowind, Summerset and Orsinium. The archaeology stuff that was retrofitted into the whole game is excellent as well, getting a treasure map to an areas you've not been to for months and having a walk about really gave the game a touristy feel after you had done saving the world there. Because it's set so far before any of the other games as well you get to see a lot of the things as they were. If you are a massive lore nerd and follow those games closely there's so much fleshing out there if you are willing to spend the time. Too much even, the game is packed to the gills of what things were like and how things came to be.

I wonder if they are going to line up the a Sony flavoured "Fortunately, we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity. It's called Xbox 360." like Don Mattrick did back in the day? Although honestly they don't give a fuck. They know this will blow over and you'll all buy the PS6. The outrage will die down once the next big thing comes for people to be angry about. RPCS3 might be also worth a look if you don't have a working PS3 knocking about too, if you're looking to play backup's . It's supposedly very good. I've never used it so I don't know. Might even be able to get it up and running on the steamdeck and play almost everything at a relative quality aside from those games that straddled gens.

I think I'm reverting Bethesda's choice to put horse armour into Oblivion. I'm not saying they were he first to do it, because I'm genuinely not sure, but they were the ones that arguably lit the blue touch paper as to why we have content drops that are not really content in a meaningful way. It started the trend of the least effort for the most return.

Next stream. Getting to the little island before the wide steps across the beam and the platform are just too wide for me to step with how I am doing it. I can't see how you get off the little square until I make it that far. It looks like a step of faith and then another step of faith that leads into the cambered bit that will see me slide off if I fuck it up. The rest of it's getting easier as well. I've done the bottom half up the cutscene 90+ times now so I'm flying through that shit like it's nothing.

I'm so fucking close. This bit I just couldn't do it without sliding off. Thankfully it's not a trip to the bottom unless you really fuck up here, I guess it looks like you can fall off towards the end but where I am you have some leeway.