I gotta vent a little about Jedi Survivor - I really did not enjoy it much at all and am surprised it was so critically lauded. The combat aims for souls-like but is way too twitchy and glitchy to make it feel fun and rewarding. I came out of 60% of combat encounters feeling bored, 20% feeling relieved that some erratic imbalance or technical tomfoolery didn't make me repeat it, and 10% feeling frustrated for the same reason but on the other side.

The same core issues affected the bosses too. I didn't feel like the game earned my dedication to "solving the puzzle" the way games like Elden Ring and Returnal do.

Exploration was mostly fine in a zone-out kind of way but grew quite stale by the end, being the same vertical platforms and grapple spots on every section of every world. And the story too was just too out of focus. The whole Tanalorr thing was a late first-act development completely divorced from the course of the opening, and there was never a clear or necessary enough idea of why they wanted to get there to justify it becoming a priority to drive the story.

I still like the characters, but I was desperate to be done by the time I was fighting a notable turn-of-the-second-act boss, whose appearance elicited an eyeroll rather than excitement. I set the game to story mode at that point and just rushed the ending.

While that was going on though, I did play Animal Well all the way through ("layer 1" anyway), and that was extraordinary fun.

Oh, I also tried out the Metaphor Refantazio demo and that feels incredibly promising, especially with the incredible reviews it's getting today.

Same, though interested is an understatement. Prey is one of the greatest games I've ever played. I enjoyed Weird West, but it left me feeling more like a POC of what the studio wants to do than anything up to the actual standards of Arkane's best.

If WolfEye fills the void of Arkane's deplorable closure, they'll get all the support I can give.

In searching for the video, (already provided in this thread) I amazingly found that this appears to be the same school where a selection of boys from the class of 2018 posed for a gleeful photo of them throwing up the nazi salute.

Decided to check in on things. She got a chuckle out of me from some of the quotes attributed.

Necheles asked her about the number of porn films she's written and directed, and said, “You have a lot of experience making phony stories about sex.”

“Wow. That’s not how I would put it," Daniels replied. "The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room” with Trump. She added, "If that story was untrue, I would’ve written it to be a lot better.”

Asked if she'd promised people she'd be instrumental in putting Trump in jail, Daniels said, "No." Necheles then asked her about a social media post where someone had called her a human toilet, and Daniels responded, "Exactly! Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down." Necheles asked if that meant she'd be instrumental in getting rid of him. Daniels said it was "hyperbole." "I'm also not a toilet," she said.

@MrVilliam@lemmy.world called it saying it would get cringey and gross. The "phony stories about sex" line from Necheles is awful stuff.

I don't know if Prey is my favorite game of all time, but it's on the short list. I can, however, say that it is the game that most fills me with awe. Talos 1 is an extraordinary playspace filled with incredible detail, choice, style, and diversity. The narrative, possibly the weakest element of the game, still packs in a lot of cool ideas and genuine surprises.

Prey also contains by far my favorite opening "level" of all time. Without spoiling, the immediate tonal shift, the creepy mystery, the complete recontextualization of your first 10 or 15 minutes, it's an absolute spectacle.

In a perfect world, all these devs get absorbed by WolfEye Studios or something and they get a bunch of funding to make another massive masterpiece.

Via Kotaku:

Bloomberg previously reported that the vampire shooter’s [Arkane's Redfall] troubled development grew out of a push by top Bethesda leadership to make a live-service game, a decision that ultimately led to sky-high attrition and multiple delays.

All reward, no risk for the executives demanding that their best-in-class immersive sim developer create an empty live service shooter. Stupid decision led to predictable outcome and the workers feel the ax for it.

There is some absolutely hilarious material in here, were it instead fictional.

First-term state Rep. Roger Wilder, R-Denham Springs, who sponsored the child labor measure and owns Smoothie King franchises across the Deep South, said he filed the bill in part because children want to work without having to take lunch breaks.

"I keep trying to give them lunch breaks but they insist on doing what's in the best interest my pocket lining!"

And my favorite, also from Roger Wilder:

“The wording is ‘We’re here to harm children.’ Give me a break," he said. "These are young adults.”

Could you imagine the delivery of this line, with just the right amount of pause after "give me a break" and the right expression to the camera if this were said on something like Parks and Rec?

I'm not convinced that cameras and Nextdoor are having a material impact on the vague idea of "trust between neighbors," but I admit it's hard to gauge because I only have my own experience, which exists on a potentially wide spectrum.

I'm barely on Nextdoor and was surprised to hear there's apparently a pretty common use of it for public shaming. The potential for petty community conflict does seem heightened by some of these technologies.

Home entertainment is such a closed system that all these companies are just beta testing shitty ideas for each other. Eventually they all do the same thing as long as any backlash was neither too destructive to revenue nor sustained. See endless streaming services price hikes, account sharing lockdowns, or the fact that you just can't buy dumb TVs anymore.

Braxton assumed office by default in 2020 when he filed for office and no one else, including the incumbent, did the same.

The defendants, listed as former mayor Haywood “Woody” Stokes III and his town council, held a secret, special election, preventing Braxton from appointing his town council. During their special election, the previous town council re-elected themselves, and ultimately reappointed the previous town mayor.

[Rechecks the year] ...WTF??

Some of us buy printers because we have abuse and humiliation fetishes. My OfficeJet is the kinkiest product I own.

For too long have Americans been a victim of its political parties putting party loyalty over governance. Together let’s send the message to Washington and say, ‘You will represent or be replaced.’

"I'm suspicious of any plan to fix unfairness that starts wtih 'step one, dismantle the entire system and replace it with a better one,' especially if you can't do anything else until step one is done. Of all the ways that people kid themselves into doing nothing, that one is the most self-serving." --Walkaway (by Cory Doctorow)

I think I'll be saying this a lot in the near future, but please don't throw away your vote. As revolutions go, "not voting" is the 0 value on a scale of impotent to effective. If you care about change, do it at the local level. There are candidates in your city and county with radical ideas and plans for your communities. You can make a massive impact all on your own in those elections. You can change things. You have real power there.

And that power grows when it joins with other communities across the country. That's when your voice is loud enough to catch the ear of establishment power.

It's idealistic I know, but no less so than trying to catch the ear of power through abstainment. "Do nothing" does not stoke the fires of discontent to organize collective power. Please do something, and start with voting. Please.