Argonath Diver

How about we can have that as an early shuttle to fly around in-game? I forgot how rapidly the release of the game is coming up. I got a free copy via a graphics card purchase and it'll be my first proper use of this system. In the meantime I'm considering a heavily modded playthrough of Fallout 4, which I never got close to completing - I am just such a stubborn isometric game enjoyer that the 3d games never could keep me going as well as the 90s games. I think it'd get me better prepped for a Bethesda 1st/3rd person open world type game again.

I'm torn - I want to binge it again as well, then I pivoted to re-reading the novels instead. Both media versions were a delight, but I feel like I have read several orders of magnitude less in 2023 than in years. Perhaps I owe it to the author twosome. I wonder if I'll "see" the actors, or my original ideas of how everyone looked. But argh the show was so engaging as well and somewhat more suitable to my often late-night post-shift time, when a book or kindle might give me more eye strain than the show on my big projector screen.

I play exceptionally few games, but I saw this one for a bit on Twitch and really enjoyed it for ~20ish hours of very, very leisurely play. Totally worth it and I'm going to restart again soon now that I figured it out for the most part. Hopefully I can finish up it by the time Starfield drops soon. Not much time to game anymore, such is life.

Yep I'll fully jump on that hate-brigade. I figured maybe I was in a bad mood or something the first two episodes I didn't enjoy, so I re-watched into the 3rd ep. The show is just terrible, despite a great lead and strong actors around him. The story sucks. The bad guy and his girlfriend are atrocious. Unlike Bosch, his tween daughter is a papercut on screen. I'm just upset that I stopped my binge of the original, terrific Justified - I'm only 4 eps in - to retry City Primeval, and damn it was a thorough waste. Back to the OG for me.

Holy cow I didn't realize how close Starfield's release date is. Got credit for the game after my graphics card purchase this summer - it'll be my first true AAA game to push my PC in a long time. I don't count Diablo 4 since that ran just fine on my ancient 1060. For some reason I think "Oh its September, that's Fall, months away surely". Skipping this weekend's hyped Path of Exile league again - I work weekends and always miss the first 3 day wave of excitement anyway. The game has a decade of content to delve into, but to play at a high level, you simply need to invest more time than most graduate level classes just to understand all the systems. At the same time, D4 just really sucks after ~100 hours, so I'm delighted to hear that Grim Dawn is planning their biggest free content patch in years - even though it's much slower paced, I consider it the best single player experience in any ARPG ever if you can overcome its POE-adjacent learning curve. I'm pretty happy to see so many strong choices in my preferred ultra-grindy ARPG market right now.

Yep, Raylan's charm couldn't keep me interested when I found every other character repellant or uninteresting. I stopped in the 3rd ep. Though I now want to re-binge the original.

I agree. It's an outdated game, but the charm (no pun intended) was the constant gambling dopamine of hunting for that high rune drop or a Shako etc. D4's itemization is wholly uninteresting comparatively - as was D3s. They've nailed the moment to moment gameplay. I keep bagging on the game but I logged on last night. Most gamers will play for maybe 100 or 200 hours and move on when a better game comes out. The franchise fans want a game that is compelling for many many hours beyond that.

I again strongly, strongly advocate trying out Project Diablo 2, an exceptional mod for the original D2:LOD release. They've updated the graphics to look great on 1080p - it certainly looks nothing as pretty as D2:R, but it runs at 60fps and looks great. More importantly, they've added a deep endgame progression far beyond Mephisto and Baal runs. Endgame "maps" a la Path of Exile, along with its healthy item crafting and corruption. Actually engaging boss fights stretching the 20 year old D2 engine to the max. Huge skill balances and additions. 25 years of being a Diablo nerd and I swear it's the best experience you'll get, assuming you have your old Lord of Destruction CD Keys attached to your BNet account. Just as all the rest of the current ARPGs, they're operating on Seasons - the newest one having been amazing but most players have moved on. I still play it regularly using a single player mod called PlugY. If you guys enjoyed D2 or D2:R, I promise it's a delight. I'll be deep-diving back into the new Path of Exile league soon, and I know that game is far too much for most, but if even one or two of you try out PD2 I'll consider it a win. It's just fantastic and it's free (assuming your copy of og D2 and LOD).

The Endgame Stuff started at level 60 or so my man! You've been at it since you rounded out your Aspects! But I do hope you find a build that can take down Uber Lilith. It's too bad the most dynamic boss fights in the game are in the one-time unrepeatable Act 6 and then a singular end-game boss that doesn't actually have an objectively rewarding drop pool. As thoroughly disappointed as I am with this Activision game, I did pop off for a bit after this patch for a few hours. Dungeons and Helltides feel appropriately monster-heavy. Every moment not blasting demons in this game is a moment lost, and I'm glad they're sorting that out. Of course a bunch of us ARPG die-hards are full of piss and vinegar, but millions of people are still enjoying the game, so I sure hope Activision (sorry, Blizzard) try a bit harder in Season 2 and on to add actual dynamic and engaging content as more casual players seep away.

I lean heavily left, truly wish nothing but the worst fate for Musk, and generally agree with every sentiment in that opinion piece. But that shit felt like the worst of the New York Post or Fox News and was thinly labelled as "analysis". I feel like I have to find some mouthwash after reading it. Ugh. I suppose CNN is a flashy antithesis to Fox News now and maybe that's for the best, but man I am very happy that Reuters' US feed is my bookmark these days and not CNN. On topic: Wow she sounds as contemptible as Musk himself. Eat the rich.

I've hardly had time to enjoy my projection screen or Oculus for movies or TV in ages. Getting off work at 1am or later five or six nights a week cuts in to my movie time, alas. Anyways last night I finally put on Spider-Man Across the Multiverse up on my big home screen. I consider the first film the best comic book ever - apologies to the Nolan fans, love those too but Into The Spider-Verse made me feel like a kid reading my old comics under a flashlight in the 80s. The sequel wasn't a 10/10 as I think that one was, but it was such a joy regardless. Just a gorgeous sight to watch on a huge screen. I have been uninterested in just about anything MCU related post Endgame, and I wish pretty much every comic book movie abandoned real life actors and ugly CGI and just filmed their stuff the way this film (and the new TMNT and the bizarrely terrific Puss in Boots 2 do). I had completely forgotten hearing about the, um, structure of the film. As in, it's an unannounced Part 1 that ends with a shameless "See you next year!". Left me with a sore taste in my mouth. But if I'd known it was simply half a film, I would say it was absolutely spectacular, and would think any pre-teen would love it the way I loved Star Wars and Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones. Far more fun than any of the Phase Whatever of the MCU.

If only that clip were a second or two longer for that victorious spit of disrespect.

Cecil and Prince Fielder were among the first recognizable people I met. (In this case, just saw and didn't communicate with). They were at a Reservation casino in Iowa at a Blackjack table just near mine. Prince was either just past 21 or close to it and already gigantic. Cecil was a huge dude also. The elder was clearly into the blackjack and Prince was 100% checked out; they weren't audibly arguing but it was really obvious that the younger had zero interest in a sleepy casino in Tama Iowa. I have no idea what they were doing out there, but I loved Cecil when he was a Blue Jay and never approached him due to their awkward interactions. I'd actually completely forgotten about seeing those two until the Prince-and-son mention. Man he kicked the crap out of the Cardinals for a few years.

Great news. I've always tended toward fantasy vs sci-fi, but I've been known to dabble, and boy howdy has this series entertained the hell out of me.

In Diablo 1, the second floor of the game features a closed off room with a lot of visible torture gore inside. Your first time through the game, you're clicking on slow skeletons with your weak fireball, then you open this room confidently. Out came a huge red demon who shouts "AHHH FRESH MEAT", whose movement speed is equal to yours, and who generally caused everyone's first death in the game. Having him drop in randomly somewhat recreates that feeling along with a nice chance at an item some builds use.

I'm aware that TLW is one of the younger contributors to the forum so I'll cut him some slack on that absurd "Aw, it's tough to be a guy now" schtick. Masculinity is alive and well and it needs not be toxic. For the record, complaining about undermined masculinity is incredibly unappealing to pretty much everyone.

I just love the first hour or so of Black Dynamite. It stalls out pretty badly, but it's terrific fun for about 45 minutes. I usually pair it with Kung Fury for a solid hour and a half of absurdity. Looking forward to trying this one out before my Netflix sub expires.

That's amazing. I had a rescue kitten gifted (unexpectedly) to me in my 20s, he had little tufts of hair between his toes and spiky ears, this tiny little thing. Well surely he had some Maine Coon or similar in him, because little Walter ended up one big boy. Alas feline leukemia took him before he was two so we never got to see Truly Big Walter. Anyway my reasoning stands that a nice lazy lap cat might not mind my ridiculously large Oathbringer hardback laying across him for proper page-turnability.

Have you tried a large, overweight cat?

You know the two productions weren't actually competing against each other for Best Film Of July 2023, right?

The "Gotta Watch It All" momentum the MCU had stalled at Infinity Wars and the Disney shows for sure. I hypothetically enjoy the better comic book content, but I've skipped probably 2/3s of the Phase 4 content and am less interested every release. Then again the same has happened with Disney's Star Wars content for me, and in the past I've been a colossal SW fanboy vs only a middling comic follower. Perhaps it's simply the oversaturation for me.

My best friend has added a big family room to his house and we've installed the TV while mom has their 3 and 5 year old girls shopping. They're using just the smart TV apps not their cable box, so we were poking around on Tubi's free streaming. We found mXc and were delighted. In another life long before the fam, we were roommates in our 20s watching that on our late night unsober adventures. Now the toddlers are home and it's their new favorite show.

Sure it was fun but the whole reason for Seasonal resets is compelling new content. Im retired from POE and I get its too much for people but their best seasons had incredible new content and systems. Double goblins is a long running joke for their worst effort. I was such a Blizzard fanboy for twenty years - probably 15k hours all told - and will probably be playing D2 when I'm 70. To me the company is Activision just licensing the Blizz branding out for max profits. This time it's hurting them with this universal panning of this patch. Super skeptical the Chat will have anything but mild backtracking and some weak promises.

The amount of top notch memes coming from this snowballing negativity has been as much fun as I had with the game since the first playthrough. So many great ones. I expect an entertaining Fireside Chat explaining why nothing fun at all was introduced except more vendor fodder uniques and uninspiring ring enchants. We should have seen this type of seasonal content after that D3 season where they spawned 2 treasure gobs not one. That was it, that was the season.

Honestly I expect it to out-sell Oppenheimer by a significant margin, at least the first weekend.