briantw

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Both Fuse and Ultrahand are insanely powerful gameplay tools as you start to get to grips with them. Like, ludicrously so.

 

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Especially once you get autobuild to recreate your builds wherever you are.

 

At what point do you get the thing in your spoiler?  Is it after a specific temple?  I've only done the Wind Temple so far.  I just got to the Goron town, so will probably knock out the Fire Temple (presumably) this weekend.

7 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

This, plus even if you are exploring, the game just isn't built around exploration in the same way. It's there, of courrse but in BotW it was the focus, the entire reason for being for the game. It's why there wasn't any real story to speak of, among other things. Here, it's building shit, experimenting with the physics mechanics - plus there's much more story, and way more little sidequests and shit. And since, like briantw said, actually getting around is far simpler now, wandering is not the key mechanic anymore. 

 

You can see the change in focus in the way enemies are handled. The game pokes you in certain directions by placing harder enemies on routes intended for later in the game. Although that is also part of the fusing mechanic- a good raid on a den of monsters you're theoretically not prepared for can net you items to fuse up some really good gear, so it needed to adjust the scaling mechanic to allow for that anyway. Going wherever you want is still absolutely on the table, it's just you have to actively plan for that now, a bit more. 

The nice thing is that fuse can theoretically make any fight winnable, at least so long as you don’t get hit.  Some of the enemies can one shot you even after you’ve added a few extra hearts, and I haven’t even fought some of the more powerful enemies like those three headed dragons or the lion things.  

Tears of the Kingdom effectively addresses just about every issue I had with Breath of the Wild.  The combat is more dynamic and fun thanks to all the crazy shit you can do with fuse and ultrahand.  Getting around is significantly faster and less frustrating than it was in the first game because of the towers that rocket you into the sky, the ascend ability, and being able to just teleport to a checkpoint on some sky island near where you're trying to get to and skydiving down to it rather than climbing a whole ass mountain.  Puzzles often have a variety of solutions or can be skipped entirely if you've got a rocket strapped to one of your shields. 

The vast majority of weapons you find lying around are no longer completely fucking useless, as you can use fuse to attach a high damage item to them and make them formidable.  The items monsters drop now have utility outside of making elixers, as some of them drop the high damage items you attach to your weapons.  Further, there's now a legitimate reason to fight tougher enemies, as they give you weapons with a better base damage (that you can improve further with fuse) and also tend to drop the more powerful fuse items.  Similarly, bows no longer feel wildly underpowered.  I use my bow far more than melee weapons in this game, and in many fights I don't even bother switching to a melee weapon at all.

There also just seems like far more to do.  It's not so much that the first game was short on content.  There was a metric fuckton of content in Breath of the Wild.  But the vast majority of it lacked any sort of narrative to go along with it.  In this game, every one of the dozens or so stables has at least one main side quest and several smaller things to do, like help the sign guy or a korok get to his friend.  There's also, like, an actual story in this game, and a bunch of cut-scenes.  It's not on the level of fantastic narrative works like The Last of Us or Portal 2, but it's at least more interesting than anything I remember from Breath of the Wild.  

It's definitely the best game I've played so far this year.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake! Because why not start a remake with the middle game of a series?

Probably the easiest of the early games to remake.  The first two would basically require ground up reworks like the first few Resident Evil games did, but the third was essentially already a third-person shooter by the time Kojima had tinkered with it enough.

9 hours ago, RumHam said:

...so Sony? Microsoft? I mean nintendo was first right? Someone else changed it. 

The best thing about the steam deck is that you can customize the controls for games that otherwise will not allow it. If I remember right Microsoft has something similar for accessibility on the Xbox. All companies should do that. 

What’s even more inexplicable is that they let you swap two of the buttons, but it’s not two that make the scheme make much more sense.  

So far the toughest enemy in Tears of the Kingdom is the controller.  Whoever decided to reverse the A & B buttons can fuck right off.  I've died at least three times because the buttons are so ass backwards. 

On 5/13/2023 at 1:13 AM, Lightning Lord said:

I agree! The Switch doesn't have the power of the major consoles but the designers sure managed to make some gorgeous landscapes.

Really struggling with not being the fully developed Link from BotW, though. I forgot a lot of skills in that one because I could just brute-force a lot of things.

Some fun puzzles so far, too. Just out of the sort of tutorial.

Yeah, the two new Zelda games definitely veer more toward Dark Souls in difficulty than the Zelda games of old, which were challenging at times but very gated.  With how open the world is and how little restriction you get from the outset (at least after leaving the tutorial area), it’s easy to run into enemies early on that can obliterate you in one hit. 

On 5/9/2023 at 2:39 PM, Werthead said:

Yeah, if they wanted to confirm each flashback was from a particular flashback, they'd use a device like Lost's, where you're with one character in the present and there's a "flashback noise" and then with that same person in the past.

I think Yellowjackets did that once, when they had present-day Lottie on one side of the screen and then cross-cut to 1996 Lottie on the other, so both were on screen at once and then they completed the cut.

In the pilot they even used "2021" and "1996" title cards the first time they transitioned, which if anything suggests the shift is more omnipotent.

They're also pretty clear when we're with one character's POV during a drugs trip or nightmare or something.

Yeah, the show has been pretty up front about when scenes aren't actually real.  If it's not revealed in the scene itself, it's revealed before the end of the episode.  I don't think there's any reason to suspect that the shots in the past are the product of unreliable narration outside of the moments where characters are very obviously having starvation-induced hallucinations or something similar.

Further, what purpose would it even serve to have Misty's character not remember pushing her friend?  Misty is, on a macro level, already responsible for every single death that happens out there in the wilderness that wasn't a direct product of the plane crash.  She's the one who prevented them all from being rescued.  So whether she pushed her friend or not is entirely irrelevant because she caused the death either way.  We also saw Misty kill someone in cold blood last season, so it's not as if we don't already know she's a killer.

30 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

The Messenger kicks all sorts of arse. Great little game. 

I decided to look it up on Steam and apparently I already own it?  Which is strange because I don't remember buying it, or ever having heard of it before.

Seems like a great deal for Cleveland.  

5 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Having finished Prey, decided to takle something a bit more light-weight and breezy - Firewatch, which so far is extremely delightful, and by all accounts won't take more than 5 hours to finish. 

I really enjoyed Firewatch.  Played it back around when it came out.  I was a little underwhelmed by where the story ended up going, but it was still a great, atmospheric game with gorgeous visuals. 

25 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

The interface looks multifacted and potentially frustrating. How are you finding navigating the game's UI, and is it cumbersome, slow to load, or overly intrusive? 

It takes some getting used to and is a bit obtuse, but the game is mostly pretty slow-paced and so it's rarely an issue.  Time only advances in the game when your ship is moving, and so for the most part you're safe when stationary (outside of certain areas), which allows you to take the time to fiddle with your inventory or prepare for an expedition into dangerous waters.

The game's atmosphere is unsettling and there are some enemies that can very easily destroy your ship, especially early on before you upgrade it, but for the most part it's a pretty laid back experience.

Dredge is a fun little game.  I haven't had the proper time to dig into it, as I've been on vacation and then had my parents visiting, but I've made it to the third of four islands in the game.  I love the art style, and the game is equal parts peaceful fishing adventure and Lovecraftian horror.  

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Huh?
 

 

Love basically pushed his toe into the guy and ground down.  Green lifted his foot and stomped down, then jumped off of Sabonis.  Green's is clearly worse.  

28 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Idk man, sounds like most people talking about it don't think another player would have been suspended in that situation and the league kind of said as much.

Yeah, and the league has been incredibly soft on player discipline under Adam Silver.  He particularly seems to let the marquee teams get away with murder.  Green should have gotten at least two games.  That's what Kevin Love got for stomping on another player, and his stomp wasn't nearly as hard.

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It was clearly intentional, and his comments afterwards indicate he knew exactly what he was doing. He was stopping another player, not protecting himself. Furthermore we can fairly assume if Draymond did that and then got stomped on we'd still be talking about how dirty he is and he had the stomp coming.

I just in general hate that the instigator regularly gets off lighter than the retaliator. 

Anyways, like I said, Draymond's real punishment is obvious. The Warriors have every reason now to not bring him back and it's hard to imagine there will be many if any teams that want him. He might have just played himself out of the league right there.  

If Draymond got stomped, he’d deserve it, but whoever stomped him should still get a suspension.  The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

The simple fact is that grabbing a guy’s leg isn’t sufficient provocation for him to lift his leg and stomp you.  It’s a foul, but not a suspension worthy foul. 

11 minutes ago, David Selig said:

No, you don't have to suspend Sabonis too, what he did was nowhere near as bad as Draymond's stomp. And he doesn't have the history of being the dirtiest player in the league.

Thankfully Shams' sources were wrong for once and Draymond actually got suspended.

In last night's game, Boston looked fantastic, Cleveland were dominant, and the Suns used their domainant midrange shooters to overcome another excellent game from Kawhi and a turn back the clock game from Westbrook, I can't recall the last time he had an efficient 28 points game in the playoffs, and with a solid defense too, though not as good as in Game 1.

What Sabonis did was certainly a foul, but he was properly assessed a technical in the game and it should be left at that.  That’s especially true since it’s difficult to tell if his grab was intentional or just a product of him protecting his face.  

Green’s stomp, on the other hand, was very obviously intentional.  The way he acted afterward should be a one game suspension in and of itself. 

The refs absolutely gift the Raptors three free throws in a three point game on one of the worst calls I've ever seen and the dude misses two of them.  

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Stop. You literally argued that WRs didn't want to play with Lamar. 

That could still be true, but eighteen million is eighteen million.  He wasn't getting anything close to that from anyone else and he took the bag.  I don't blame him.  It's probably his last big payday.  

Looking forward to when his dad starts cutting together footage on Twitter of Huntley not getting him the ball.

1 hour ago, dbunting said:

Yeah no.  He wasn't getting offers any where near this from any other team, at least none that were reported or leaked. Remember how he said he was offered 5 mill for a year from another team? Baltimore is desperate to get the Jackson thing done and overpaid for OBJ. He got 15 fully guaranteed and possibly 3 mill more in incentives so using him for this validation is weak.  It can however help us to see how Jackson handles a true star receiver. Hopefully they draft the best WR in this class and figure their future out because they are an AFC team I like.

Supposedly he called the Jets and asked if they’d match it and they laughed.  Well, I assume they laughed.  I would have if 2023 OBJ asked my team for eighteen million.  I would have sent him the Robin Williams “what year is it” meme. 

So yes, the Ravens were definitely desperate and overpaid by a lot. 

7 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

I wonder what the ratio is of the actual paid non guaranteed salary over cumulative nonguaranteed nfl contracts over the last decade?

Seems like if we knew that we could at least make a rough estimate of who is out of line where salary request wise and get back to talking about important things like  who's the best candidate for King of Westeros and why it's Stannis.

I think you need to separate QB from all other positions.  QBs are far more likely to survive their contract than any other position.  Realistically, most other positions get two to three year deals that have reasonable outs for the team after that, even if most big contracts are technically five years.

But as others have stated, there is zero way that Joe Burrow isn't getting every dollar of the next contract he signs unless he suffers some sort of career ending injury.  So why not just fully guarantee it?

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

K.  Not sure what your point is.  I agree the NBA is volatile and a lot of teams get trapped in that middle ground.  The key is either to shoot for the sky when tanking, or to, ya know, be a contender.

My point is that someone could become available a year from now that is worth sending some real assets for even if that person isn't someone you'd expect to become available that quickly.  

2 hours ago, DMC said:

The Magic are in an optimal position this offseason to add a high-priced player one way or another.  The epic failure that is the Gobert trade - and others - I hope will be informative.  Like, literally, no one in their right mind would trade Walker Kessler for Gobert straight up right now, regardless of salary. 

Adding "one more piece" rarely works.  Mitchell with the Cavs looks close to that, but it's rare.  Other than Luka, I can't think of another player on the market that is worth how much teams demand for a "premier" player.  I'll take Banchero, Wagner, Carter, Fultz, Suggs, Anthony, and the 6th and 12th picks over just about any overpriced "superstar," thanks.

Situations change fast in the NBA.  Utah went from a perennial mid-tier playoff team to rebuilding pretty much overnight.  Mitchell and Gobert weren't available two years ago.  Then they suddenly were.

17 minutes ago, Relic said:

They sure did. Fucking shitshow. Gobert seems like such a douchebag, maybe the second most annoying player in the league? 

Still kind of shocked at how much the Wolves gave up to get Utah's second best player, and a guy whose fit in the modern NBA is dubious at best.