one-armed dwarf

I watched All of Us Strangers (2023), which is this queer romance story set in London. But it's also sort of like a ghost story on top of that and based off a Japanese novel. Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal play the leads, they are the only two people who live in this apartment block in London. Which is a bit unrealistic but the film does attempt to justify it a bit and use it as an effective metaphor for what it's dealing with, themes-wise. Anyway they have a meet cute and spark up a romance, meanwhile Andrew Scott's character is writing a book about his parents, he goes to his childhood home to unearth those memories and wouldn't you know it his parents are just there, the same age as when they died. So it's sort of like, what would you say to your parents if you re-encountered them at their and your middle age. I did like it, but the ending annoyed me a bit. But I think on a rewatch I'd be more fair to it rather than getting hung up on it. But it's an easy enough recommendation.

Companies don't get to choose. We are still talking about these companies like they are amorphus economic units, not like there are people working in them. It invites massive uncertainty to your role if your company gets targeted in an acquisition. Unless you're an executive, you don't get to "take that bag", you sit tight and hope the inevitable restructuring plans don't blow your way

Cheerleading consolidation by any company will always be weird to me. It reminds me of stuff like trickle down economics, the way they try to sell it to people.

I mean I will also add I hate censorship, don't wanna be like the USSR. Tons of its artists had to emigrate or suffer recrimination for their work

I'll try to stay out of this one cause I dunno if my perspective is that valuable, but I find that last statement pretty interesting to think about. It definitely feels like we are more reactionary, less patient, less capable of critical thinking, more polarised and less empathetic and it's a question of how we got to that point. I don't necessarily think it's gaming that caused it, or is the sole reason or anything, but something's done it to us.

Reading my post earlier in the thread, it didn't click for me until I went and downloaded the actual guide book for real DnD and read some stuff in that. I just found it an easier way to learn the concepts, mechanical things like advantage but also lore stuff which helped better immerse me in the role playing cause I felt the dialogue choices had more meaning afterwards This is a take I expect huge disagreement on, but I think the game is way more fun on harder difficulties cause it forces the mechanics on you or grinds you beneath them, which helped me learn things better and better differentiates choices you get to make. Like you can use brawn or intellect but also you can use stealth and scouting for some of the problems in the game, which I found really immersive even while struggling with it at times Never bothered sticking with it for act 2 tho cause I heard mostly bad things about act 3 leaving me in a place where I'm not actually sure what I think about the game, or if I even should have an opinion on it if it's not informed by a full playthrough Act 1 is great though

This is technically a post for another thread, but relevant here all the same. Blood Omen I and II on PS (I assume when they say PS Premium that you can buy the games separately still) Only one left is Defiance, I think Blood Omen 1 is a sort of classic Zelda clone, though not as good from the hours i played For some reason, Blood Omen 2 is the only LOK game I've completed. It's not good, kinda a 3D hack and slash block pushing game So uh yeah, probably not getting people hyped with those descriptions but still. BO1 seems the most important lore wise, BO2 much less so

Being real that is also why I couldn't get into Arcane. The only one to really work for me is Fallout If I was going to watch an episode it'd probably be the Armored Core one cause I would wonder if they do the stripped back storytelling that FROM do, albeit AC is much more straightforward than Souls.

Not really interested in this, but they mention Concord. Don't really recognise a lot of the things in it but they show SIFU a lot I think. Only see a tiny bit of Armored Core. I used to like M83 but then they became like the default band for these types of adverts

Maf will have to sort out his passport first

It's neat that they don't just dub the German and Italian parts all in English This looks like a tremendous treatment of the property but it needs a bit more for me to pick it up on release I think. But it reminds me of the kinds of games that don't get made nowadays, with the lite immersive sim elements Only weird thing is animations, feels like something is missing there. But that's just a presentation thing. It's in this weird spot of being very high budget and lavish looking, but also like it's cutting significant corners here and there, but it looks like it's prioritising the things which matter at least

The question is about terrible games though. I guess that can be subjective but if RDRII is the most miserable gaming I've ever had, I'd still find it hard to call it an objectively 'terrible' game. Maybe I've done that before but if I did I was off base If I had to submit an answer, maybe Enter The Matrix. But I really liked that game, which is why I stuck with it. Was just super into anything that let me run on walls, on that note see also DMC2

Was sick today so watched The Conversation (1974) on 4k bluray, the only film of Coppola's 70s run I hadn't seen cause I figured it was a bit lightweight or something. It fucking ain't though, it's a great film. It's about surveillance, Gene Hackman pulls off a really technically complex bugging operation on these two people who are involved in something dangerous. The details of it don't actually matter that much though cause it's moreso a thriller of stunning psychological depth than it is political intrigue, despite being set right around the time of Watergate (with an oblique reference or two to that). It gets deep into the question of what America is I think, particularly during a sequence at a convention where they are selling these surveillance devices, populated by the most ghoulish of capitalist predators who've made their bread and butter on ruining other people's lives and have long buried their conscience, the last part being the thing that Hackman's character seems to struggle with. His is a character who says so much while saying almost nothing, which comes in focus in the plot at times as he betrays no secrets while observing everyone else's, trapped by his guilt and paranoia. Harrison Ford is also in this film, a few years before his life and career changes with Han Solo and in a way it feels played against type he would later establish for himself cause of how dark and morally unscrupulous his role is I look forward to destroying this image I have of Coppola when I watch Megalopolis in a few months, but what a terrific film. My 2nd fave of his behind Godfather 1.

This is the only MCU film to look cool to me in a while, lots of Marvel heads seem down on it tho I like the De Palma-esque split screen stuff

Konami say they are remaking Snake Eater cause younger generations barely know what Metal Gear is anymore https://www.gamesradar.com/games/metal-gear/metal-gear-solid-delta-exists-because-konami-was-starting-to-get-worried-that-the-younger-generation-of-gamers-arent-familiar-with-the-metal-gear-series-anymore/ Interesting that all these 'legacy' type series are encountering this drop off with their audience aging out and younger people not caring. But while it seems like the approach for Silent Hill worked really well I still wonder about this game. I'd have done a remake of the MSX Metal Gear

Tbh, I've stopped playing games i don't like. I just drop them after a few sessions. So I'm not sure i can think of a properly crap game I've played No reason to play a bad game

I've not played the new DLC, I don't think Remedy do good DLC tbh. I'll just wait for Control 2

I think the 'boring' choice is the way to go with a DnD game at first. Mage characters are so annoying to figure out until they level up a bit and become indispensible. But you can swap vocations around anyway so it doesn't matter in the end

I made a start on that, no save points you got to beat it in one go 😰

Double post, but putting some time in on Dizzy and really enjoying the full screen zoning and screen control. But like, I can't tell if she has any real mix or pressure going on Maybe it's just about frame traps, I dunno 🤔. Every one of those 'pro' replays I see on youtube just spams the 236 fireball knowledge check or does this fake ass fish oki where they dash cross up or empty jump for 2k. The first 2 minutes of this zato vid show what I mean, lots of fireball spam (just stand block and 6P out of it and it's not plus), threaten with strike throw. Maybe that's fine for a character of this archetype, but I feel like Testament has more juice than this edit edit and allowing myself to have a moan about a matchup: Potemkin. Checking those patch notes, they added guard crush to slide head. It also has armour. I don't know what answer Dizzy has to this, cause a jump in on a spamming slide head can be useless cause of armour, it crushes zoning options and the only move which seems to stop it, 5H, can only be used super close. So I guess you jump over the slideheads and try and do it or something cause it beats full screen super as well. I'm genuinely baffled by how limited the counterplay options seem to be on this, the combo of armour increased and guard crush full screen low is just a lot 🤔 edit 2 lol diaphone had the same problem, well I'll try this jk cs counter hit stuff for a bit

Rough one for scalpers https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/lack-of-ps5-pro-shortages-means-some-scalpers-are-re-selling-at-a-loss/ Still, if they hold on a while for those Trump tariffs to hit they might see a nice bonus when the RRP goes through the roof

I don't know if the disjoint reached as far as that before or not but it lines up with the visual effect so I'm pretty sure it was always like that. What's new is that flick flicks way more things than before, making the Asuka matchup pretty hell cause he can't just cube it up. btw there's a mod on github that lets you see these hitboxes and framedata on PC but only in training mode. It breaks every time they update the game but I find it really useful so I don't have to look at dustloop anymore https://github.com/Sevoii/StriveFrameViewer/releases edit it looks like this

Yeah tbh I couldn't stick with it when I was playing it a few years ago. I was kinda surprised that they aren't open world games, or at least SoC wasn't. It was more like wide open areas but otherwise a pretty 'traditional' stage based game. There's a gameplay section in the video here which looks just like the original. Makes me feel like it's maybe a psuedo remake or something. I do kinda wish the enemy AI in that video was a bit more reactive, but then again maybe the Zone makes people enjoy getting shot at.

Crystal Skull came out 16 years ago so it's as likely to be disinterest as any negative impact of that film would be forgotten at this point. I think that this could end up being a really big obstacle for this game tbh, the last 'great' Indy film came out in 1989. That cross media synergy isn't so high as there's not a lot of non-movie stuff with Indy that's helped sustain a fanbase around it, at least not below the age of 35 imo If the game reviews superbly tho then maybe it's all moot, and this is the sort of team who could pull that off maybe

New trailer for 2024's goty darkhorse The stuff about physics and ballistics affecting weapons differently is really interesting