SloMoMonday's recent activity
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Comment on What do you think about Destiny 2’s imminent death and games as a service? in ~games
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Comment on What do you think about Destiny 2’s imminent death and games as a service? in ~games
SloMoMonday LinkGoing to be a bit more emotional since played Destiny on and off since Peter Dinklage listlessly woke us up in the Cosmodrome. We had a regular raid group that did Vault of Glass, Crota's End,...- Exemplary
Going to be a bit more emotional since played Destiny on and off since Peter Dinklage listlessly woke us up in the Cosmodrome. We had a regular raid group that did Vault of Glass, Crota's End, Kingsfall and Machines Wrath all blind. Did Trails and Nightfalls religiously. Fought for god-roll gear. Sherpa for newer players. Got both my bothers playstations, copies of the game and PS+ when I left home so we could still play. And finished Rise of Iron thinking it would only get better.
Then, in spite of Destiny 2 being on the PC, it instantly felt like so much more of a chore. Forsaken and Last Wish were the last high points and Shadowkeep looked like it could carry that momentum. But Beyond Light and Witch Queen is where things started going pretty bad. I really should have drawn the line at Sunsetting content I paid for, or the over emphasis on Eververse, or the god aweful transmog, or the way PvP was left to rot. But my wallet kept being dragged back in.
There were plenty of bright spots here and there. But on the whole, it was simply a case where I could count on being let down with increasing frequency. And it was finally Lightfall that broke the camels back. Just deleted the game, sunk cost be damned. I even stopped watching Byf videos to keep up. It just wasn't worth it. Don't even know how Final Shape ended.
So yeah. After that, I just have zero patience for live service and MMOs. Even general PvP and co-op "friend slop". Destiny showed good enough numbers to supercharge the enshitification of premium online gaming. The idea, combined with Fortnight, CoD and Apex effectively killed countless other studios and promising projects, including Arcane Austin, Overwatch, Halo and a big chunk of Sony's unreleased First Party ambitions.
Just like Destiny, anything live service feels like waiting for a scrap of positivity in a deluge of bad business or poorly aging gameplay.
I would not be nearly as negative if I could boot up the game right now and have instant access to hundreds of hours of increble gameplay from over a decade of creative and community efforts. 95% of this work can exist as a single player, linear experience. I can't see any reason why this can't exist as peer-to-peer or through dedicated server setups that allow for people to curate their own experience. We've already had sensible looter style RPGs as far back as Diablo 1 and with the game going offline, there's no need to maintain the balance.
Last Christmas, I played halo splitscreen with my cousin and our kids. Got the AlphaRing mod, hooked up the pc to the big TV and spent nights going through Reach, ODST and multiplayer on 3. The same way I used to play with that cousin and our parents over a decade ago. It was just magical to have the whole family there and to see my kid go a little feral when we got that grav hammer.
I'm not going to show my kid how to Solo the Abyss or rag on my brother because he's never been able to outrun the flaming Servitor (it doesn't stop being hilarious to see him bonk the same cliff every bloody time). The infinite loot cave is gone. The Mythoclass, Bad Juju and Souros Regime that I dragged into every, even when it was off meta. No one will have a chance to reimagine the city factions or the criminally under used Last City (and even the Traveller itself). It's all just gone. And needlessly so.
After people paid for it. Thats probably the part I'm most salty about.
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Comment on Who’s buying SpaceX and Anthropic? in ~finance
SloMoMonday LinkI've actually just set a meeting with a financial advisor to make sure we have managed exposure to SpaceX and the AI public offerings. In general, the instant rules are being broken to get people...I've actually just set a meeting with a financial advisor to make sure we have managed exposure to SpaceX and the AI public offerings.
In general, the instant rules are being broken to get people "in on the action", it's the biggest red flag to me and it seems like the exact case here.
In terms of spaceX, there a lot of weirdness going on:
Most notably, the company is putting up a laughably small percentage of shares. Musk will still maintain full control of his company and have no incentive to act in investors best interest. If thr company goes public at the requested price, he then folds it into Tesla and is practically entitled to his insane "performance bonus" based on a damn technicality. And if SpaceX is rammed into every index fund and passive portfolio, governments will be forced to bail it out to protect pension funds. And all that money just goes to Musks slush fund.Similarly, with AI, I do not see any sustainable path to recoup the costing. 2 Trillion dollars is the cost-to-date on the AI roll out. And that's loose change compared to the $15 trillion valuation across the 6 already existing AI companies.
Can EVERYONE make a significant RoI to justify these types of costs and valuations. This is with an escalating energy crisis. And an inevitable everything-shortage. And an increasingly likely Chinese invasion of Tiwan. And the fact that Data Centers are not coming online anywhere fast enough for nvidia to install Blackwell's and recoup costs to buy the latest high end tech. And to still perform in the face of cheaper Chinese models.
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Comment on Outsourcing plus local AI will soon become more economical vs frontier labs in ~tech
SloMoMonday Link ParentApologies. Think I just misread the tone of your response. I'm used to "we'll figure it out" being a thought-terminating argument used to justify bad planning.Apologies. Think I just misread the tone of your response.
I'm used to "we'll figure it out" being a thought-terminating argument used to justify bad planning. -
Comment on Outsourcing plus local AI will soon become more economical vs frontier labs in ~tech
SloMoMonday Link ParentI really don't think that's fair on AI/LLM customers and not how you run an industry aiming to IPO in the multiple trillions. Simply because from the very start, it was all sold on the idea that...I really don't think that's fair on AI/LLM customers and not how you run an industry aiming to IPO in the multiple trillions. Simply because from the very start, it was all sold on the idea that AI will: get cheaper, get better, become self improving, improve outcome quality, end global warming, cure cancer...
The enterprise AI cost scaling only really started this year and became the norm in the last two months. And I'm sure Cluade Code constantly "glitching" to poorer output quality at peak usage times had absolutely nothing to do with it. Also, I'm sure retail costs are going to stay flat forever with "Tokenmaxing" being the new craze.
At no point do I recall customers or the public being primed to shoulder escalating OpEx when using this tool. At the same time, this pricing change was made well after most AI adopters have already reflected their "AI Savings"... which was in the form of firing a lot of technical and white collar staff. That means that the AI tools NEED to start generating value, in excess of the price increase. And I don't think that's going to be by the tech massively increasing product offerings and revenue centers. My hunch is that it will simply be more price increases, job losses, cut corners and all the other misery we've come to expect.
And I don't see any of the fabled new AI powered competitors coming over the horizon to stabilize the industry. The only people that can afford this tech is incumbent companies. Any new entrants will either be bought out by those incumbents or just have any AI/LLM solution replicated by the AI Labs (see: Cursor - Suppliers sell at a loss to identify where they can extract profit and then become a competitor to their customer).
Yes, people should know better. But people should also trust that their service providers and suppliers are honest. I did not offer any sort of AI solutions/strategy at my last job because I could not develop solutions I still am confident enough to stand by that the long run. There was a massive muck up on the e-commerce integration we made a few years back and I took the hit to my bonus over anyone below me. And after that, I put systems in place that kept that service running without issue until just recently (after an AI integration). I could not do the same with AI.
What's the recourse when the LLM Sales agent and the new AI powered dev team and the AI executive assistants and the AI analytics suite all start incurring true cost and my mess up looks like pocket change? Hell, we already saw just how flagrant and chaotic model upgrades and feature/service changes can be, on top of effectively meaningless Service Level Expectations (on that note, I'm curious if there is there an enterprise AI Services SLA floating around and how the terms and metrics are measured and enforced).
"People will figure it out" is not good enough when there's 300 low-income operations employees and dozens of downstream clients and multiple people who already lost their jobs in just my personal example. Multiply that over every medium/major company in every industry across the world. Sam Altmans and Dario Amodei are not on the line, even after convincing everyone and their grandparents that their marvelous machines are the future of business.
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Comment on Outsourcing plus local AI will soon become more economical vs frontier labs in ~tech
SloMoMonday Link ParentThe "cost-per-token" is an interesting idea because that raises the question of return-per-token. The value of LLMs is that it was a flat cost seemingly unlimited compute and your efficiency gains...The "cost-per-token" is an interesting idea because that raises the question of return-per-token.
The value of LLMs is that it was a flat cost seemingly unlimited compute and your efficiency gains came in the form of tasks/ticket completion vs. the cost/time of a human developer.
And people couldn't exactly compete against that. The fact that so many people I know were incentivized to burn maximum tokens as possible without any performance/quality metric never sat well with me. Pay-as-you-go for an infrastructure heavy service seemed like the logical outcome. (At least based on how uber, airBnB, AdobeCS, MSOffice, AWS, Netflix, Spotify and general online advertising all turned out).As soon as we moved to prorata billing, the discussion flipped to RoI very, very quickly. And if were scoping out project, question 1 would be: "what are we burning tokens on?" and question 2 is: "how can I tell that money is well spent?" Especially if it's standard practice to burn several hundred thousand tokens across concurrent instances.
Is it economical to just use LLMs on the easy stuff like setting up a dev environment, spinning up and connecting all the services and configuration oauth/ldap and maintaining documentation? Or are we just using it for QA and bug hunting? Or are we going to save it for the most complex tasks and have it chip away at it in the background?
Also, can we really trust any AI lab not to "nudge" models to maximize their own RoI. Especially after teams let go of a chunk of their developers and are in a pretty captive position (ie. See adobe, Netflix, AWS...)
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Comment on Who else is as excited as I am for the Backrooms movie tomorrow? in ~movies
SloMoMonday Link ParentIts sort of a meme and in a weird cultural/creative space. There's the Backrooms as Kane Parsons project that the movie is based on. It's his personal vision on the idea with it's own story,...Its sort of a meme and in a weird cultural/creative space.
There's the Backrooms as Kane Parsons project that the movie is based on. It's his personal vision on the idea with it's own story, characters and world rules. I think The Oldest View and People Still Live here are better concepts on his YouTube channel so I hope those get some traction after this movie.Then there's the Backrooms Wiki which is an SCP style collaborative fiction. It's a real hodgepodge of liminal space fiction where people are tossing around ideas and concepts with a very flimsy sense of cohesion. There's not any real standout ideas for me like SCP (I love everything about the Antimemetics Division and cognitio hazards) and it looks like they are really trying to uplift older posts with a rewrite drive. But looser rules and more outlandish universe lets people get more creative, at the cost of being a cohesive concept ( Red Knight is a good example ).
Then there's Backrooms/SCP crossovers. I've only ever seen it in Backroom-themed Games and those tend to be little more than long walking sims/interactive blender art projects. On the whole, I don't think there's a lot of overlap between the two creative initiatives.
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Comment on Life Below | Launch trailer in ~games
SloMoMonday LinkI'm a sucker an interesting city builder and itching for something to tide me over till Frostpunk 2 DLC. Will give it a try. Over the last few months I've tried Airborne Empire, New Cycle,...I'm a sucker an interesting city builder and itching for something to tide me over till Frostpunk 2 DLC. Will give it a try.
Over the last few months I've tried Airborne Empire, New Cycle, Captains of Industry, Stranded Alien Dawn and Memoria Polis. They're all pretty good and have their own charms. But they lack the spark to keep me coming back or to get me really invested.I tend to revert to playing my Timberborn megaproject or Jurassic World with the kid.
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Comment on US military launches strikes on southern Iran amid talks in Qatar in ~society
SloMoMonday Link ParentI think a lot of the global fuel price-cuts is due to releasing the strategic oil reserves to stabilize prices. All the talk of a deal was to calm markets to bring down the speculative price....I think a lot of the global fuel price-cuts is due to releasing the strategic oil reserves to stabilize prices. All the talk of a deal was to calm markets to bring down the speculative price. Materially, production is most likely at a cold stop. Even if things went back to pre-war arrangement right now it doesn't look that will even be enough to push through the slow restarting of production and then supply lines.
And unless the US government steps in and effectively nationalizes the oil companies and considers local people, they will keep exporting the strategic reserve for $100+/barrel. (odd choice given that you're at war). They know KNOC, EBN and the CNPC have an incentive to buy supply wherever they can get it. There is a world where the strategic reserve is used for it's purpose and carry people through a supply shock. But where's the money in that?
The faintest glimmer of a silver lining is that I can see this being a massive blow to gas cars and force air/cruise travel to evolve, at least outside the States. Hybrids or full EVs have become the norm in under a year where I am and we're well behind Brazil, Mexico, India and SE Asia. Even some of the recovering parts of the middle east are plastering their buildings with panels to reduce grid dependency. Pretty sure Europe, Australia and Canada will start catching up as a necessity too. Beyond that in the 15+ years it takes to start bringing more nuclear plants online, most countries could probably get the bulk of domestic users onto supplemented renewable VPP grids. It's either that or keep the risk of insane people taking the entire world hostage for a quick buck.
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Comment on A random sci-fi question for you in ~talk
SloMoMonday LinkSoooooo... what do I need to do to get to Terra Nov... I mean New Mongolia. (I really liked the idea of Terra Nova. Unfortunately the show did not get the space to find its groove and audience.)...Soooooo... what do I need to do to get to Terra Nov... I mean New Mongolia. (I really liked the idea of Terra Nova. Unfortunately the show did not get the space to find its groove and audience.)
But seriously, even if I do suffer some horrible frontier-related death; the thought of a clean slate planet is intoxicating. I'd happily take being mauled by some mega-fauna predator over slowly being killed in a windowless office by my neighbors second hand Vape smoke.With a colony like Mars, I can easily see it becoming a distilled corporate hellscape. Food, water, data and even air being at a premium and provided through monopoly services. Not hard for those seven years to be dragged out with every excess charge and no real recourse, even with a united workforce. (If this sounds like your thing, can I recommend the game Hardspace Shipbreaker. The plastic free food option is not bad).
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Comment on From neat lawns to wild havens: how No Mow May is transforming England’s gardens in ~enviro
SloMoMonday Link ParentI'll see if I can find my notes, but from what I recall from way back when: a lot of nutrients and minerals in the soil tend to sink because they're heavy. And if the vegetation is sparse, its not...I'll see if I can find my notes, but from what I recall from way back when: a lot of nutrients and minerals in the soil tend to sink because they're heavy. And if the vegetation is sparse, its not exactly going to be used anywhere else. What weeds tend to do is capture those nutrients in their roots and since they don't exactly need much to grow, they sit on the bulk of it.
Weeding pulls the roots and all their captured nutrients out of the soil and then tilling jumbles up any roots, mycelium and insect biome made that space home and was effectively circulating all that energy. Throw on all your fertilizer and weed killer and all those nutrients are sinking about 15cm-20cm with nothing to catch it. It's where you start transitioning into B-Horizon density and it's not doing anyone any good there. So naturally a lot of industrial farmers resort to just saturating spaces with fertilizer, which is a way of getting nutrients to your crops but its hell on the soil ecosystem.
Now this is going to be a tangent, but remember "its not much but it's honest work" meme. That's the late David Brandt, and that gentlemen is a pioneer soil health in the US. Here's a lot of the discoveries and strategies he developed and I'm sure there's plenty of literature from him is you know where to look. There's also Charles Dowding with his own good resources but I'm not the biggest fan of his style. I have a thing for chaos gardens.
If you want a practical overview for a home garden/veg patch, this is my method
You start with 3 rules: 1. Don't ever weed or pesticide you garden. 2. Don't till the soil. 3. Please don't ever weed or pesticide you garden. If you want perfectly controlled environments and clinical precision, hydroponics or micro-greens might be your speed (and they're fun projects anyway so give them a try as well if you can). To "tame" your plot for planting, start by collecting as much compostables/mulch as possible and ensure you have a good stockpile until a few weeks before planting season. Also collect clean brown cardboard. Minimal black ink is fine but avoid the color/plastic stuff or ones that come from food places (grease and meat smell).Mark out your plot and you can cordon it off with some wood beams if you like. Then tile the cardboard over that space. Unless there is a considerable shrub there, you want to preserve as much plant matter as possible. Soak the cardboard with water, put a bit of manure to level it out and then a thick layer of compost and top it off with mulch (some people do plastic but I find that a magnet for slugs and snails. Periodically top up the compost and throw your bokashi broth and other soil supplements if you like. And when its time to plant, just shift the soil for seedlings or poke it for seeds. Then you just need to be very generous with the mulch. If you want a bit of order or irrigation flow, gently push the soil to form two mound beside your planting line.
If weeds are encroaching on your crop, don't pull them. Just smother it out with a small piece of wet cardboard. But the much should help prevent that and retain moisture to bring down the watering costs.
As for pests: there are super targeted and minimum impact ways to deal with most of them. But a general use killer like roundup is indiscriminate and goes for pollinators and generally valuable fauna. There's also companion plants that tend to be very fragrant and natural pesticides. Mint, lavender, marigolds, basil. Plenty to choose and it has the added benefit of brightening up the color and smell of your space. (Just try to keep mint and lavender in a pot, that stuff spreads like crazy). Can also encourage natural predators, birds, bats, spiders, ladybugs. Even if they take their share of produce, they can make a big difference with even household pests.
I don't know if its past planting season up north, but if you missed it, you can even start now and just litter your space with a mixed bag of green fertalizer seeds. Then you can cover over that growth next season for a bit of a head start.
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Comment on How I feel about LLM (AI) writing in ~tech
SloMoMonday LinkLLMs supercharge so many issues with the internet at large so it's hard to have opinions on one specific part of it without being contradictory on the whole. So I'm going to be pedantically...LLMs supercharge so many issues with the internet at large so it's hard to have opinions on one specific part of it without being contradictory on the whole. So I'm going to be pedantically specific:
I think LLM writing is fine (or even fun) for entertainment and creative purposes, provided the models are fairly trained on works by consenting and compensated artists. Those models should be run on sustainable hardware, and in a well considered sandbox that protects the users privacy and with the proper guardrails and deterministic measures taken to prevent abuse and model drift.And I need to be so granular with that view because things outside that parameters goes into territory I don't agree with and consider harmful.
I'm only going to rant on first part of that condition: "Entertainment and creative" reasons. It drives me insane that people use these tools for information, correspondance and decision making. Common sense would say that you should always verify whatever you find, especially regarding important matters. But it doesn't help that 9 out of 10 times, when any web page is published after 2024, its just more LLM generated content. Same thing with emails. I have a tag specifically for people that I know communicate via LLM. Because if I receive anything that contains technical or precise details; I will call to double check. If I send them something with important details; I will call to make sure they got the info in case their AI summary of their entire mailbox missed something. And the fact that these tools are becoming increasingly accurate is more of a problem because that means when the model does messes up, it's harder or less likely to be caught.
And even if they are more accurate than a human, the issue is a matter of accountability. My professional liability cover does not include AI related errors. I specifically asked for it over the last two years and they don't even entertain the idea. So I fave a report and an LLM filler line leads to a bad decision, that's on me. Hell, if I look up a formula online and get something slightly off from an LLM generated page, I'm still on the hook for that.
And that carries over into LLM written content thats flooding every corner of the internet. Especially when it's an LLM centipede as far as the eye can see. I looked up the recipe for a caramel sauce and AI auto-result spit out a method I knew was wrong. No butter, the sugar boils, too little cream no instruction to take it off the heat. It's going to burn or become a grainy fudge block. There was a reference to an LLM written recipe on a site created by a "home baker" in 2024. The site has several hundred recipes, each with a touching emotional story and photo that made the dishes look magical. It's obvious whats happening and there is no incentive to stop it. Especially when the metrics for online success is attention, scale and advertising space. Not authenticity and factuality. Yes it's been like that for a while, but it's near unmanageable.
It seems innocuous, but what if one of the millions of instantly generated, untested methods, suggest someone deep fry something frozen in hot oil. Or it misses a warning when some step could be dangerously reactive. Or a person has an important event and it's ruined because of bad guidance. It's not out of the question with how much content is generated in the food space alone. Multiply this issue across every field and every question. And then factor in that there is incentive to use these platforms in advertising. Include the fact that many LLM providers are very cozy with the current US president and their CEO's have, unique beliefs.
We make decisions based on perception of the world. LLM's have flattened that image into a general average and now its reinforcing itself ad nauseam. The tech is fine, I guess. My friend paid me to train his LLM game on some of my old TTRPG notes and the prototype I tested was fun for a few hours. I have a local model that has a good handle on the technical manuals and reference books I use and can point me towards things I might need. A guy I know has a model that is starting to preemptively flag issues on his print-farm. It's got utility, but it just seems like its the only tool being used for every possible thing, just to justify its existence.
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Comment on US Government UFO document release in ~society
SloMoMonday Link ParentTo be fair, it does feel like the US military is being run by a mid 30's basement dweller that uses his mom social security money to my a bunch of pay-to-win crap and still gets wrecked by a lobby...To be fair, it does feel like the US military is being run by a mid 30's basement dweller that uses his mom social security money to my a bunch of pay-to-win crap and still gets wrecked by a lobby of 13 year olds.
But in all seriousness, it does look like the current us military has a thing for the aesthetics of the military, without any of the tedium or rationale that would make the biggest war machine in history even somewhat effective. Like that AI written speech after that pilot rescue thing. It's like someone is fishing for quotes or narratives that will fit into a game depicting this war. Hell, even the rhetoric they use reeks of insecurity. Insistent in only talking about "warfighters", constant use of religious imagery, constantly reiterating just how completely Iran's capability has been destroyed.
It bleeds over into this web design with the faux military, cyberpunk, conspiracy styling. Like this project had more forethought than the whole "who would have thought they would choke out global oil supply" situation. Its so tragically juvenile.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
SloMoMonday (edited )Link ParentIts probably one of the best games to show off with if you get the opportunity. You can watch a rapid jump from "Its just one button. How hard can it be?" to "Its just the third level. How is it...Its probably one of the best games to show off with if you get the opportunity. You can watch a rapid jump from "Its just one button. How hard can it be?" to "Its just the third level. How is it so hard?". And then you casually FC 1-X while holding a conversation, because that 7-count is burned on your brain.
Also, why am I 60 hours in and only leaning that there are difficulty levels. I probably pushed it up to hard when I first got the game, and forgot. But I could have saved so much grief on 5-X and 1-XN? -
Comment on 'Blue dot fever' claims Post Malone, Pussycat Dolls concerts. What's really behind it? in ~music
SloMoMonday Link ParentAlso throw in the fact the modern events are pretty miserable. In the last few years, I only managed one music act but I work in conventions, sports and stage shows when I travel. Beyond the...Also throw in the fact the modern events are pretty miserable. In the last few years, I only managed one music act but I work in conventions, sports and stage shows when I travel. Beyond the endless seas of phones and rowdy crowds, really feels like there no more effort from the organizers side. Concession stands are far less and of worse quality. Similar thing with merch which are mostly crappy blanks with even worse prints. Stewards and security beyond the main seating is lacking and often have no clue how to handle a crowd. Constant software bugs, poor signage and miscommunication everywhere from parking to tick check and dispersing afterwards. Ton of places with seats that are essentially a waste of money for the experience you get. Don't know if its just me or a new trend, but the last comedy show, a hospitality convention and a circus act all had horrible AV.
The only show I have planned for this year is the new run of Rocky Horror Show and not keen to waste time or money anywhere else.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
SloMoMonday Link ParentI've not been having the best time getting more intensive F/TPS to play smoothly on the Deck. Roboquest, Deadlink, Deadzone Rogue, Selaco, Void Breaker, Boltgun... I literally can't get a grip on...I've not been having the best time getting more intensive F/TPS to play smoothly on the Deck. Roboquest, Deadlink, Deadzone Rogue, Selaco, Void Breaker, Boltgun...
I literally can't get a grip on it and even games that are fine on regular controllers feel clunky.But at the same time, slower and more tactical games are a blast. The original Dead Space and Resident Evil 2R were a blast to play while travelling.
Also, Voidigo is a blast on local co-op. Highly recommended.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
SloMoMonday Link ParentSo far I've found 2 baseball songs. A heart to heart in the cages. And a 50 course baseball dinner.So far I've found 2 baseball songs. A heart to heart in the cages. And a 50 course baseball dinner.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
SloMoMonday (edited )LinkI've been on a Rhythm Game kick for most of this year since its easiest thing for me with work has been kicking my ass. Finished up the Rhythm Doctor 1.0 release. It's a one button game where it's...I've been on a Rhythm Game kick for most of this year since its easiest thing for me with work has been kicking my ass.
Finished up the Rhythm Doctor 1.0 release. It's a one button game where it's interesting takes on every 2nd or 7th beat. Sometimes it's by managing multiple rhythms, holding a note, incorporate delays or dealing with a fictional human/pc virus that messes with the game window. Game has a light lockdown-inspired story where you're a remote nurse that needs to stay in synch with heartbeats.
I was a bit sour on where Early Access left off with the Act 5 boss level being an unforgiving and annoying sports song that would fit right into a 2000s Sonic game. Thankfully Acts 6 and 7 picked got back in form pretty quickly with a stage musical love song, a horror/anxiety level and their own Remix 10 right at the end.
Theres also a ton of custom tracks (of varying quality) and a handful of free collab tracks with other games. Some with custom mechanics.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't call this the most approachable game. Even with just one button, it can get pretty unforgiving. Especially if there's a system you struggle with. Progres/performance gates can lock you in place for a long while. And those tough songs tend to be on the longer end or stack multiple rules sets so it just ups the frustration factor for a more casual player.
But I'd say it's highly recommended for enthusiasts. The boss levels do some amazing things with conventional rhythm systems and it's constantly evolving in unexpected ways.
Then there's Bits and Bops. My kid has stumbled on Rhythm Heaven videos and this is the closest thing I could find for her outside of getting the game running on Emudeck. While the average quality in B&B is pretty high, it's still only 16 minigames. Theres also 3 games that seem impossible for me to get a Perfect on for some reason and I have no intention of hearing President Bird sqwak again in my life.
Overall it's a fun experience, especially with kids. Lots of vibrant animations with some silliness sprinkled in. I really hope they're quick to bulk up that library of songs because just over a dozen is hardly enough to keep players coming back and the workshop levels are not very good.
Put a bit of time in Rift of the Necrodancer again. On release the 3 track music/combat/style was fun, but there was a lack of interesting patterns, especially in the lower difficulties. But I think the chart makers on the workshop really ran with the tools because there are some real gems there. It seems like some of that styling has been brought into the collaboration packs.
Of those packs: Friday Night Funking, Undertale, Hatsune Miku and Valhalla have some of my favorite tracks. The other packs like Pizza Tower, Celeste and some v-tuber music are not my taste in this context. I'd also like to see more veriety in the official music. It's all been very "video gamey" music so far and a bit more of a mix could do well in this system. (Uptown Funk is in the workshop and that is a fun chart. Also the Silksong charts are shockingly good).
I'm currently part way through Unbeatable.
I like the main system. I really like the baseball minigame. I like when the story does artsy stuff and it can sometimes feel like a proper punk film along the lines of DOA, Bigger Splash/Rude Boy or Breaking Glass.Its also a game i dread starting it because it's severely lacking in the QoL department. Unreliable save points, long and unskippable dialogue segments, some visual indicators that just lie, tedious navigation and inconsistent... everything. Like last night, the game magically moved me to save slot 2 and I needed to do the whole setup process before I could go back to menu. And when I got to my save file, it randomly threw me 2 hours and an annoying minigame back.
Spent the time since then in arcade mode and will dip into the story when have the bandwidth to put up with the all the crap you need to wade through to actually experience it.
As for the actual gameplay: It's a two track horizontal scroll that folds in from both the left and right. It can get really tricky if you're unfamiliar with a chart and there's a ton of little tricks they can introduce like invisible notes or beats that jump across tracks. I also love the mix of music and some of the soundtrack is on my current rotation.
Lastly, I'm excited for the Dead as Disco early access in a few hours. Got way more time in the demo than I reasonably should and it's an incredible power-fantasy rhythm brawler.
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Comment on I love bioparks in ~travel
SloMoMonday LinkAll of Table Mountain in Cape Town is effectively a giant Bio Park. If you just want to have a nice day trip, Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden is tucked into the North-Western part of the mountain...All of Table Mountain in Cape Town is effectively a giant Bio Park. If you just want to have a nice day trip, Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden is tucked into the North-Western part of the mountain facing away from the sea so it's pretty sheltered and not too bad when the wind picks up. There's a ton of endangered plants, a bonsai garden, cultural and medicinal garden, a canopy trail. And it's built in a way where the landscape gradually morphs into fully indigenous fynbos as you get closer to the mountain.
If you go further south, there's Table Mountain National Park which is more hardcore multi-day hikes and camping. But there is the Cape Point area where you can climb a mountain towards a lighthouse and wander towards the narrowest cliff-point in high winds. Great spot for bird watching, tracking down rare plants and potentially falling to your death.
But seriously, Cape Town is just a magical space for bio-tourisim. You can do all the easy tourist sites, a good week of hiking or cycle tours. You could also find a lot of landscapes from the live action One-Piece if that's you thing.
( I strongly recommend doing the hikes or biking with a local group. Partly for security, but mostly because some of these spots can get deceptively treacherous with a constant risk of wildfires, wind and mist/fog.) -
Comment on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate price drops to $22.99 USD/month in ~games
SloMoMonday LinkI'm genuinely surprised it wasn't renamed to CopilotBox 360 Pass for Gaming. But in all seriousness, MS seems committed to bleed thier enthusiast customer base. Call of Duty has lost all cultural...I'm genuinely surprised it wasn't renamed to CopilotBox 360 Pass for Gaming.
But in all seriousness, MS seems committed to bleed thier enthusiast customer base. Call of Duty has lost all cultural relevance. Halo Infinite launched with UX limitations that prevented essential features. Bethesda... is doing Bethesda things. Studios were mismanaged and then shut down. Paying the monthly subscription is a tacit approval of whatever MS is doing and just encourages them to not change for the better.
If you'd like a bit of a lighter story about the game. This was around Deep Stone and I was running it with my sibling and some friends. Warm up with the strikes and the whole way through, my bro is going on about how hes so hungry. We tell him to get some chow but he says he's good... then proceeds to wine about it all the way through the twin Oger fight.
So I get out my phone and order him delivery. In the form of random sides and extras from as many places that would allow it (add that it's a prank in the notes and people are surprisingly game). We had to wipe every few minutes because he had to go get 2 chicken wings and a handful of serviettes and a cup of ice and a can of bagle sprinkles and waffle toppings without the waffle and a platter of BBQ rib sauce over grilled peppers.
After the half dozen wasabi tubs, my brother threatens to dip and one guy does a flawless Zavala impression: "Guardian, are you abandoning the mission because you find your rations... unsatisfactory. And am I to understand that you find humble gifts from your brother in arms to be beneath you. Is that truly the conduct you wish citizens should expect from a Titan of the traveller."
We didn't even make it to the sorrow fight that night. Was it worth the money? No. But I was playing Destiny so that should explain where my head was at.