SirSmUgly

No, your wife is actually a certifiable genius with great ideas because the Switch is fantastic. And I say this as someone who hasn't liked a Nintendo home console since the N64 or a Nintendo portable console since the GBA SP. It's a lovely little device to use, and I stay astonished at games that look like BotW or Super Mario Odyssey or NBA 2K, etc., etc., etc., looking and running like they do in handheld mode.

Sure, but those games don't get made without Bethesda's support, so let's just hope that they shift their money to other SP games or series rather than looking to make a shift significantly toward multiplayer games-as-a-service (single-player games-as-a-service is more than welcome, at least for me). I mean, this is the company that green-lit Rage 2 in 2018, so I'm probably worried about nothing.

I mean, that's cool. I don't take your opinion seriously about the story or dialogue either. We can ignore that entirely and agree to disagree. Horizon has bad melee combat, but everything else about it feels better. Aloy is more responsive and doesn't move as slowly as Kratos. It's easier to turn around manually with her and sight an enemy. The combat is also different, mind you, because you can play so much of it as a tracking game where you track and lay traps, so the actual combat has lots and lots of set-up on Hard or Ultra Hard if you want to give yourself the best chance of winning a battle going in. God of War springs battle upon you suddenly since you get ambushed a lot, which makes it all the more important that Kratos shouldn't feel slower and more unresponsive than Aloy. This explains the imperfect choice of having a "turn 180 degrees" button, which also takes away from your mobility since you're not really turning necessarily where you want to turn when getting attacked from behind. I'm not a huge fan of where the camera positions itself when you're in combat, either, which I think hampers your ability to react to enemies. Tossing the axe does feel good, but the attacks without the axe up to where I played felt so low-damage that it negated the feel of throwing the axe for damage. Combat became this numbing, slow thing where I was just trapping dumb enemies in a loop to chip for damage until they finally fucking died. Yeah, I really disliked that game, which is a shame, as I was pretty interested in it before playing it.

I think of the more recent of their current-gen games, Prey, Wolfenstein 2, The Evil Within 2, and Dishonored 2 all under-performed. Doom did well! But Howard was pointedly saying that Fallout and Elder Scrolls do 20M, and other games, not so much. He did say that they were generally happy with some of the performance, but that they'd be looking at some of these other games and series more closely.

I've got to find the article, but I just read an article in which Todd Howard just pointed out that a number of SP games underperformed and that they'd have to think about how they approach the games they put out going forward, which sounded ominous.

I mean, you don't have to take my opinion seriously about the fact that I thought the dialogue was shitty. The dialogue is shitty in most video games, TBH, and this was just another one to throw on the pile. I also don't take anyone seriously who argues that I need to play 25 hours of a game to get a sense of its plot, dialogue, or anything else. Five hours was enough for this shit. I'm also very much on the "if the book doesn't grab me after the first hundred pages, I don't need to stick around and read the next three hundred to critique it" train, FYI. I thought the combat was stiff. I don't think that, for example, it feels great to shift your line of vision to attackers behind you with a button press, and I found that other than throwing the ax, which feels pretty good, the melee felt unwieldy. When I fought the first boss, the patterns were simple, but moving and dodging felt shitty and stiff. I think of Souls games or Bloodborne or even Horizon, which emphasizes dodging with a dive, and those all felt good and the flow of combat wasn't thrown off by dodging. In God of War, you have to sort of re-set yourself, get your field of vision right, for just a couple of seconds, but those couple of seconds break the flow of the game. I'm definitely not the greatest game-player of all time, but I usually just play games on Hard from the jump, so this wasn't an "I'm bad at the combat so I gave up instead of just putting the game on easy, for fuck's sake" sort of thing.

Man, Mario Kart 8 is really great. I thought that I had just sort of stopped liking Mario Kart that much. I busted out Mario Kart 64 a couple years ago, and that was good, but limited. I played some of the original on my SNES Classic, and it was alright, but I didn't have the desire to play it that I did when I was ten. I played Mario Kart Wii a year or so ago and got bored super-quickly. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has its hooks in me, though. I can't quite tell why - maybe it's the mixing of different systems from different Mario Kart games together in an effective way that works for me. Maybe it's the choice of tracks because I think putting the main Excitebike track in this game and letting me race it with Rosalina on a motorcycle is a genius idea. Also, I love Baby Park. What a madhouse that level is when it really gets going. Maybe it's the OST (yeah, it's definitely partly the OST). Whatever it is, I've rediscovered my love of Mario Kart. -------- I didn't like God of War at all and actually re-sold it after logging five hours of bland, shitty gameplay and mediocre father-son relationship development, but I appreciate Sony's commitment to long, interesting SP games with high production values. Horizon was one of my four favorite games last year. Now that Bethesda has taken a beating sales-wise on every non-Elder Scrolls, non-Fallout SP game with high production values, they seem to be focusing more on MP games (like this Fallout game that I have zero interest in playing because it's PvP and online-connected continuously, or at least, that's what it appears to be). That leaves really only Nintendo and Sony as the companies with a commitment to making SP games with great production and intricacy. SEGA does this with Yakuza, but they're obviously still trying to find their footing almost two decades after the Dreamcast died. One of the reasons that I haven't even bothered getting an XB1 is that Microsoft isn't interested in greenlighting any SP-focused games these days. I would certainly play Crackdown 3 in single-player mode, but otherwise, I don't see what there is to draw me to the console, even for the dirt-cheap prices that you can find XB1S models at here in 2018. Funny enough, if they had universal OG Xbox backwards compatibility, which would allow me to play all of my old OG Xbox games with dope SP modes (like Def Jam: Fight For New York, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta [yeah, I know that's playable now], Breakdown, GunValkyrie, etc.), I'd totally buy one.

Yeah, as a shitty teen, I loved that stuff without thinking about it, but as a less shitty adult, I find most of the Attitude Era unwatchable, tbh. Obviously, this comes from a combination of getting older and current events, but I have a hard time watching wrestling promos and feuds built around racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. I just find it not fun or entertaining. It just feels shitty to watch for me. People say, "Hey, it was a different time," but that doesn't mean that I'm going to feel okay about it in 2018. EDIT: In fairness, that's not totally true. I can watch New Jack shred SMW fans all day. I guess what I can enjoy depends on power dynamics. I also have no problem watching Chyna punch dudes or watching Miss Jacqueline beat the shit out of Disco Inferno. Actually, now I think I'm going to go watch Jacqueline beat the shit out of Disco.

I'm still watching lots of Stampede. Bret Hart was a dope FIP. Honestly, '79/'80 Stampede is pretty good, but you can tell that Bret and Dynamite are the glue that hold things together, and I'm enjoying Big Daddy Ritter and the bits of his feud with Jake Roberts that I'm getting. I also decided to start watching 1990 WCW Pro because fuck it, it's early '90s WCW and I'm typically a mark for that era and promotion.

So that's what Hamada's been up to, I guess. I loved watching her.

That's good to know because it was kinda killing my desire to run around and do random shit, and that's the best thing about Yakuza. Also, in Zero, I farmed money running the club or chilling out in a Hi-Tech Land playing Outrun until my properties paid off, mostly. I don't think I ever farmed money by fighting Mr. Shakedown.

It's less about the difficulty and more about it happening way too often, especially when I'm trying to do something else. It was pretty easy to avoid a Mr. Shakedown if I was on my way to doing another thing. Not so much with Majima.

So, here's what I've been playing lately: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is really, really good. I really love perspective puzzles - my favorite part of the Arkham games are the Riddler question mark puzzles, to help make this point - and Treasure Tracker is mostly perspective puzzles (with the occasional twist thrown in). I'm fascinated by the level design which tends to be compact and yet filled with secret passages and platforms and switches that help the player make progress. That each level hides three gems, a star, a pixelated Toad, and any number of coins, gold mushrooms, and 1-up mushrooms is a testament to the ways in which the level design evokes simplicity and offers complexity. Six stars, as Meltzer would say. This is legit one of my favorite games of all-time. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is like being able to drive through the Mushroom Kingdom (when you're not being pelted with all manner of shells and Blooper inks and such) and enjoy the scenery. It's gorgeous. It's fun, it feels good, it's full of superfluous characters, but mostly, it's lovely to look at. I wish that instead of adding Splatoon and Animal Crossing characters (or FIVE baby characters), they looked more at adding some of the more obscure or less-used Mario-verse characters (like Wart or Tatanga or what-have-you), but I do like the use of F-Zero and Excitebike (!!!) tracks, and Animal Crossing and Hyrule are interesting additions. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle: Donkey Kong Adventure was more Mario and Rabbids, which is a good thing. DK is sort of OP, though, as he can toss one enemy into another (or a status block into an enemy) and then has two attacks that can be used to hit multiple enemies in one turn, and THEN also has the equivalent of overwatch in XCOM as a move. I'm still finding my way into Yakuza Kiwami, but no, I am not enjoying all the random times that Goro Majima is jumping me in the street and making me fight him, why do you ask?

I'm bummed that I have no opinions on Grohl or the Foo Fighters (though I do have opinions on Nirvana), or I would have posted that and gotten such an awesome tag. Seriously, I'm envious, Other MattD

I don't give a shit what you were or weren't doing, your argument sucks. He said what he really felt. Some of you will do anything to bend over backwards and forgive racists.

Ah, the old Ambien defense. Yeah, I bet Hogan is only virulently racist when he is on painkillers.

Yeah, I've been watching since '86, and I tended to gravitate toward bad guys, but mostly because of the "good is dumb" trope. There are only so many times that I could see Sting fall for obvious traps before I was like "Sting sucks." I wasn't rooting for bad guys to be cool or edgy because I was too young for that concept. I rooted for the smart or funny wrestlers, and most of them tended to be heels. I also preferred Bobby Heenan and Jesse Ventura because they would clown on Vince or Gorilla or whomever and the face PBP person would miss these obvious logical comebacks to their arguments that I could see as a five year old. Also, if you had crazy personality or a gimmick that staggered me and just seemed cool, I would root for you no matter your alignment. For the first example, see Macho Man. For the second example, see The Undertaker or Papa Shango. For example, when I was about ten, Jake Roberts cut this promo on the Ultimate Warrior after very obviously setting up to turn on him for weeks, and I heard it and basically was like, "Yeah, Warrior is a total idiot, and he deserves to get beaten:" I also rooted against Warrior against The Undertaker and Papa Shango because, I mean, come on. That goofy "black blood" incident was awesome to me as a kid, and Warrior getting locked in the casket (which led to the Roberts feud eventually) is still memorable to me.

Eh. WWE is fundamentally a racist company and always has been, and for me, the breaking point was their open support of Trump because it signals the most blatant support for institutional racism that one can signal. In that respect, Hogan's right back where he belongs. I don't give the company any money, and I've totally stopped watching their stuff, and likely it would take the company being sold to some corporate conglomerate that at the very most hedges its bets with donations to both parties, including the one that wants to strip me of my rights, for me to come back to it. But most likely, I'll never be able to come back to it.

Not nearly funny enough to double-post, however. As I said earlier, I'm watching late '70s Stampede and enjoying it immensely. I need to drop some quickie reviews here just for fun.

OUR STAR PLAYER IS NAMED PORZINGIS? NO ONE'S GONNA BE ABLE TO SAY THAT. I CAN'T GET A SLAV OVER IN NEW YORK. GET ME GEORGE MIKAN'S AGENT ON THE PHONE, PAL! "Sir, George Mikan has been dead for over a decade." DAMMIT! I GUESS WE'LL HAVE TO PUSH A BLACK THEN. RING UP WALT FRAZIER'S PEOPLE. TELL 'EM WE HAVE A SPOT FOR HIM. WE'LL CALL HIM WALLY D AND HAVE HIM WEAR A DU-RAG WHEN HE PLAYS. /sorry, it was funny to me at least

Too busy playing Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, my friend. Which reminds me: Everyone, you should be playing Captain Toad Treasure Tracker.

That dude was mad over in 2014. It's insane how badly they fucked up with Roman Reigns. It's analogous to what they did with Lex Luger in 1994 except on repeat. Push Luger to the moon (except that Reigns's popularity was far more organic), have him win his big title shot by count-out, have him go 50/50 with Bret Hart at the Rumble, the WORST POSSIBLE PERSON to pit Luger against since Bret was pretty much beloved by the fans. Except I guess this is like if Luger lost to Yokozuna at WM two out of three years in a row and got intermittently pushed down the card only to be raised up it again in order to lose again. Re: Babyfaces, watching NXT a couple years back made me realize that I just want to see some white-meat pure babyfaces overcome the odds. Actually, I think the millennials who watch WWE shows want to see good people beat the evil machine that tries to take advantage of their goodness. Roman Reigns isn't that guy for a lot of reasons, but the idea of a little guy overcoming the unfair corporate execs and their machinations is actually more relevant in 2018 to this specific audience than it ever was (as tired as some of us are with that focus).

Iron Brigade is a great game, for sure. I don't think that I ever finished the Mars DLC on 360; I stopped playing for too long before trying to get back into it, and IIRC the DLC was pretty challenging. That was a precarious time financially for Double Fine after the Brutal Legend debacle, but man, did they make some of their best work under pressure. Costume Quest, Iron Brigade, and Stacking came out one after the other, and while I have so much love for CQ (not its sequel, though) and Iron Brigade, Stacking is low-key one of the best, most creative puzzle games of all time. I love the lateral thinking that the game promoted. My wife doesn't play video games at all, really, and she LOVES that game.

Yeah, but OTOH Figure It Out was a great show. Did the Summer of Punk have a trained dog riding a tricycle? No. Plus, Big Show got slimed. For being really tall, but still.