Fez

Hope this does well for them. Steamworld Build was a flop and led to the publisher "putting on hold" a game called Steamworld Headhunter. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/thunderful-says-steamworld-build-underperformed-reveals-it-s-looking-to-sell-headup

They already do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_against_Israeli_embassies_and_diplomats

I wouldn't be surprised if a few close US allies under our nuclear umbrella started looking into the feasibility of developing their own weapons after Trump made a whole lotta statements while President saying the US shouldn't defend our allies. But I doubt any of them actually have any yet, both because a nuclear weapons program takes a long time to spin up and because I think they would announce they have them as soon as they do. The only country I could at all imagine might have nuclear weapons but keep it secret would be Japan, because it would actually be against their constitution, much of their population would disapprove of it, and it would unnecessarily antagonize China to announce it. But its known that as early as the 1960s there were Japanese government white papers arguing that tactical nukes at least wouldn't be unconstitutional and their PM at the time told LBJ that Japan should have nukes if China does. So maybe they do have something. Even if they don't right now, they have missiles and literal tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium already, so they probably could put some together very quickly if they needed to.

Chrono Trigger is a lot of fun, but I'd certainly agree that its been surpassed by a number of games since; and mostly retains it's place on a lot of lists simply from how great it was comparatively at the time. There are some '90s RPGs that have better writing than most games even today (e.g., Planescape Torment) but are often janky in the actual gameplay. The only '90s RPG that I think completely stands the test of time is Final Fantasy Tactics, which I believe still is the king of its niche of turn-based, grid-based tactical RPGs. But note that, other Mass Effect 2, all the games I mentioned are less than 10 years old.

BG3 is pretty on-rails, so how much do you actually roleplay? You can certainly skip a lot of content, but you don't actually have a ton of choices besides whether to do a quest or not. There's a lot of gameplay options of how to complete the quests that you do, but the end result is generally the same. The one big exception is how the Druid's Grove resolves in Act 1, where there are numerous branching options. However, even there the outcome basically boils down to whether you have access to the Tieflings in Act 2 or not (and Minthara's fate). There's not really a true "evil path" through the game, just a good path and a good path with less content. Which means, it comes down to how you define roleplaying. A game like Disco Elysium blows BG3 out of the water in terms of truly playing a character that can take different options through the game. A game like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous beats BG3 in terms of character build roleplaying. A game like The Witcher 3 or the Mass Effect trilogy beats BG3 in terms of playing as a defined character going through a set narrative. A game like Cyberpunk 2077 beats BG3 in terms of the mechanical expression of gameplay (i.e., all the different ways you can resolve combat encounters). Don't get me wrong, I love BG3. But I don't think it is best in category for any of the ways you can define roleplaying. It's a very good RPG in many different ways, and it may be the actual best ever in cinematic quality, but its hard for me to see how its the best "in terms of what it's genre is trying to achieve".

There are certainly benefits to MJ legalization, and the old system was very screwed up. But anyone claiming weed is harmless is being willfully obtuse. Here's just a few of the studies finding health risks: https://repositorio.uloyola.es/bitstream/handle/20.500.12412/4656/Theblindmenandtheelephant.SystRevCannabisHealth.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://purehost.bath.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/242102875/Cannabis_potency_review_Clean_version.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Valentina-Lorenzetti/publication/340444978_Adolescent_cannabis_use_cognition_brain_health_and_educational_outcomes_A_review_of_the_evidence/links/61448dff519a1a381f672643/Adolescent-cannabis-use-cognition-brain-health-and-educational-outcomes-A-review-of-the-evidence.pdf Is it as bad as heroin? Certainly not. It's probably not even as bad as alcohol (though that's more because alcohol really is quite bad for you). This isn't to say prohibition is correct. But cannabis isn't harmless either, yet many people (and state agencies) have treated it as such since legalization occurred.

Yeah, it is remarkable how badly New York bungled its regulatory scheme and enforcement mechanisms for cannabis legalization. They're basically the case study for other states to review what not to do. They probably aren't the only state that screwed it up, but they are certainly the most visible.

Hmm, interesting. Generally I've gone with what my favorite release at the time was, rather than retrospectively what I like the most now. Though that isn't possible for the first 5 years or so. 1987: Sid Meier's Pirates 1988: Super Mario Bros 3 1989: SimCity 1990: Super Mario World 1991: Civilization 1992: Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 1993: NBA Jam 1994: Final Fantasy VI 1995: Chrono Trigger 1996: Civilization II 1997: Final Fantasy Tactics 1998: Xenogears 1999: Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri... I guess. This is kind of an impossible year 2000: Final Fantasy IX... maybe? Another impossible year. Going back, I'd only want to play Baldur's Gate 2. But, in the moment, I played a crazy amount of FFIX and loved all of it. But also the Tony Hawk games (1 and 2 both came out) and a ton of others. 2001: Final Fantasy X 2002: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind 2003: Dynasty Warriors 4...I suppose. I kinda didn't play most games from this year. 2004: World of Warcraft 2005: Civilization IV 2006: Gears of War...sorta by default. Another year I mostly skipped. 2007: Mass Effect 2008: Saints Row II 2009: Dragon Age: Origins 2010: Mass Effect 2 2011: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 2012: Mass Effect 3... but only barely. So many awesome games. 2013: Bioshock Infinite 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition 2015: The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt 2016: Overwatch... incredible how much the game/sequel has fallen in my opinion 2017: Hollow Knight 2018: Pathfinder: Kingmaker 2019: Disco Elysium 2020: Hades 2021: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous 2022: Elden Ring 2023: Immortality... for the very specific reason that it was one of the few games I've been able to play together with my girlfriend. And we had a great time. More traditionally, it'd be Baldur's Gate III. It's interesting to see how much my tastes changed over time. When I was younger I loved JRPGs and strategy games and now it's very rare I'd go to those genres. And after 2015, I almost totally disengaged from the AAA space. There have been a handful I played and enjoyed beyond Elden Ring and BG3, most notably Control and Cyberpunk. But vast majority I ignore because I know I'll be disappointed.

He was polling in first place that spring, which may very well have been enough to overcome the "wasted vote" concern that usually sinks 3rd party bids. Your own state's experience with Jesse Ventura shows what can happen if a 3rd party bid gets enough momentum going.

Unicorn Overlord is a really fun Vanillaware game on Switch (and maybe PS5?) I've ben playing. It's like Ogre Battle 64 in that it's a tactics game where you don't actually control your units in battle. Instead you are programming them (similar to the FF12 gambits), equipping them, and deciding which ones go in which formations. And then you see how it plays out. It starts simple, but gets complex pretty quickly. Unfortunately, if you know what you're doing, it's pretty easy. The AI units don't take nearly enough advantage of the options available. Also, the story is very basic. But the artwork and music are top notch. There's lots of little touches to the gameplay loops that are very satisfying. And fully optimizing your formations can be very fun, even if it's kinda unnecessary.

Well yes, certainly. Ground up is the only way to achieve lasting change. But that's boring and everyone wants to ignore that. I will say though, I think Perot 1992 shows that with the right stances and in the right circumstances, a 3rd party presidential candidate can have a real shot. If his campaign hadn't had such a bizarre July that year (including him briefly dropping out of the race), he might've actually won. He was certainly the polling frontrunner in May/June.

Especially since, to have any chance at all, a third party candidate would need to have pretty much the exact opposite stances of what these groups want. They always want the mythical reasonable Republican (read: not too social conservative, but otherwise bog standard). Whereas an actually effective third party candidate would be some populist hybrid of all the positions that these groups hate (e.g., calling for high taxes on the rich and shutting down the border); basically Trump 2016 with some tweaks to appeal to Democrats more and further differentiate from the generic Republican running.

I believe that's still pretty buggy though, since it's not really intended. Stuff like Halsin and Minthara sharing an overlapping tent in camp because they have the same location.

I do think Democrats are in a really good position to take the House back, and I think Biden is a little better than 50-50 to win re-election, but the Senate is a real tough nut to crack. Could Democrats get the clean sweep (minus WV) and keep a 50+VP majority? Sure, but I don't think the odds are in their favor at all right now. However, if Biden wins and Democrats keep the House and are at 49 Senate seats, I could see a situation where Murkowski finally does flip sides in exchange for enough goodies and in the name of avoiding total gridlock. But we'll see. I do think polling is basically totally broken right now, which is why I'm a bit more bullish than some on Biden's chances. But, without reliable polling, it's real hard to make any sort of informed forecast as to how things will go.

Sort of, yes. They can't easily force him to do things, but they can easily force him to not do things. Withdrawing troops from NATO bases costs money for instance, and Congress could include a rider in the appropriations bills that no funding may be used to withdraw troops. This is the exact tactic Republicans used to stop Obama from closing Gitmo. Granted, there is the wrinkle of how far Trump would try pushing his pardon power; e.g., ordering the defense secretary to illegally provide funding to withdraw troops and then pardoning him. Though that does run into the potential barrier of the military being supposed to ignore illegal orders. Also, I do think there's 5+ SCOTUS votes to reinterpret presidential pardon power if Trump tried being that much of an outright dictator.

Decided to give honor mode a shot, and am trying to avoid anything truly cheesy to beat it. I also still want to do most of the content, rather than rush through things. So far I'm level 5 and just wiped out the Goblins. I think so long as I don't get too greedy, I'm probably in the clear the rest of the game now that I gotta the powerboost of extra attacks and 3rd level spells. Just gotta delay certain fights until I'm over-leveled (like Auntie Ethel). The one tight spot so far was fighting the goblins outside the shattered sanctum at level 4. I got over-confident and tried taking on everyone at once without any real prep. Ended up having 3 party members die and had to have Astarion drink the triple-distance jumping potion and escape far enough away so he could flee to camp and pay Withers to bring everyone back.

Depending on how things shake out, Democrats could straight up have the majority and just make Jeffries Speaker (albeit only until a few special elections in safe Republican seats wrap up). Right now, if nothing else changes or really unexpected things happen, from April 30 to May 21 the Republican majority will be down to 217-214. There's been ongoing rumors that another couple House Republicans are already planning to resign soon. If there's a new round of chaos because of a move to vacate the speaker, it's not that hard to image a couple more than that calling it quits and all of a sudden Democrats have a 214-213 majority or thereabouts. And since special elections take time to organize, they could potentially have that majority for a month or two. Fantastical? Sure. But not actually as crazy unlikely as it sounds.

I know referencing movies is hackneyed, but I'm reminded of that part in Kingdom of Heaven where the crusaders are laughing at "those sorts of Christians" who actually try following Jesus' teachings. Anyway, good to see everybody.

Depending on where the decimal points are, that 52-47 may mean that Catholics voted slightly to the left of the country as a whole. Certainly better than 2016, when they went 52-44 for Trump. But that's the only time they were pretty out-of-sync with the overall vote this century. In 2012, they went 50-48 for Obama, 2008 was 54-45 Obama, 2004 was 52-47 Bush, and 2000 was 50-47 Gore. While white evangelicals are the biggest problem, it's really all Protestants that are an issue. Even in 2008, McCain won them 54-45. If the Reformation never happened, Democrats would probably never lose another election. (Hi everyone!)

Maybe. But the issue is:

A lot. They substantially reworked the narrative of Act IV, with new quests, changes in flow between existing quests (to better tie events together), and more companion reactivity to events. Apparently over 150,000 words of text were changed and 130,000 new words were recorded by the VAs per https://www.neoseeker.com/divinity-original-sin-ii/guides/Definitive_Edition_Differences They also made a bunch of balancing and leveling changes throughout the game.

Yeah, honestly as much as I love the game overall, Act 3 completely kills my interest in the game. The last time I played, I managed to plough through Rivington but once I hit the lower city I just had no desire to keep going (it also didn't help that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth just released and is incredible). It's actually too open-ended, and too disconnected from everything you've been doing up to that point. Act I is open-ended, but it's also very tight in that everything you do relates to learning about your tadpole and possible options for getting rid of it. Act II is extremely focused. And then Act III is open-ended again, and not really in service of anything specific. I hope a director's cut eventually changes it as much act IV of Divinity Original Sin 2 got changed.

There was a real chance of it happening in 2004. Kerry lost the national popular vote by 2.5%, but only lost Ohio (my how things change) by 2.1%. And if he won Ohio he'd have won the election. Then, in both 2008 and 2012 Obama won the tipping point state (Colorado, in both cases) by more than his national popular vote margin. In 2008 he could've lost the national vote by up to 1.7% and still won the election, and in 2012 by up to 1.5% Up until 2016, it was more often Republicans talking about abolishing the electoral college to erase the assumed Democratic edge there. Although it was only Democratic states actually passing the national popular vote compact to do so. In general, the electoral edge has bounced back and forth between the parties. And the current Republican edge isn't even the worst it's been, it's just that elections used to more frequently be blowouts so it masked the issue.

I'll also chime in to note that Biden is certainly old enough to remember the 1968 election. LBJ was actually eligible to run for another term, decided not to, and the Democratic party split into several major factions immediately. The result was a chaotic Democratic convention and Nixon beat Humphries in an election that was actually close in the popular vote but was an electoral blowout. The conventional wisdom is that LBJ was so unpopular from the Vietnam war that he would've gotten blown out in the election and so he decided not to run to spare himself the embarrassment and to hopefully improve Democrats' chances that year. However, the limited polling at the time suggests that LBJ actually was in a good position to win and there's a variety of theories as to why he ended up not running. I think Biden thinks he can win and he doesn't want to be another LBJ.

I disagree. The problem is that Republicans are still in an excellent position to takeover, and hold significant amounts of power as is; especially at the state level. I do think this is despite MAGA, not because of it. But the harms of MAGA to their political aims hasn't been enough to make them risk pissing off their base yet. The only way I see MAGA starting to break is if Biden wins re-election AND the 2026 midterm resembles the 2022 midterm (especially if Democrats have the senate after 2026, and there are a few decent pick-up opportunities there). I think that, and pretty much only that, would lead to a 2028 Republican primary where MAGA starts getting ditched. And the problem is, that's a really tall order. Even if Biden wins, I think there's a very strong chance that 2026 is a more regular midterm incumbent bloodbath.