Lonan's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan LinkLately I've found I'm getting worse at games that require any kind of quick reactions. The straw was when I couldn't get past a boss on Luigi's Mansion 3, which up to that point had been pretty...Lately I've found I'm getting worse at games that require any kind of quick reactions. The straw was when I couldn't get past a boss on Luigi's Mansion 3, which up to that point had been pretty easy. So instead I've been playing some more cerebral stuff on Switch.
I played through Pentiment. I knew nothing going in to this, and initially was pretty disappointed given its good reviews. The game is described as a medieval murder mystery, which it kind of is. I'm not sure how much actual mystery solving you can do. While playing it felt like I had little input to the story, and nothing I did really made a huge difference.
For the most part, you speak to NPCs and there's a limit on how many conversations you can have before the story moves on almost automatically. For example, you can choose to have lunch with one family or another, and depending on who you eat with you will hear one side of a story or the other during the meal. You can't eat with both groups, and when the meal is over, the in-game clock advances, and people move on to their new chores or locations. You definitely will miss something. But in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, since hardly any of the information is actually used for anything.
Now that I've finished the game, I listened to a spoiler-filled podcast about it, and all of the major beats are left fairly vague or ambiguous, so any story choice you make is valid (whoever you point the finger at as the murder culprit). Choices seemed forced on me at several points, perhaps depending on who I spoke to, the replies I gave, and so on. Some of those were determined by selections of "abilities" made at the very beginning, like can my character read Latin or not. The podcast hosts made some different choices to mine, but the overall outcome was basically the same.
As the game went on I made more milquetoast choices in conversations, since saying anything slightly "controversial" seemed to lock me out of certain paths. Maybe. Anyway, it's an alright game, certainly unique, and once things picked up about an hour in it held my interest to the end, and the whole story wrapped up well. However it was more like a 7/10 for me, not the 10/10 it has been given in reviews. And I found a lot of it quite depressing! There were a few times I stopped playing because I didn't want to know how it continued, or to speak to NPCs who were very sad/depressed. In some ways it was like a Ken Follet novel, where unjust things happen to regular people over many years, as those in positions of power take more and more until there is a tragedy.
The conversation-based gameplay reminded me in some ways of Heaven's Vault, which I played a couple of years ago. That game has a more procedurally generated feel to it, but the choices you make seem to have more impact on what happens. I played through HV several times to see all of the possible story beats, whereas I'm not keen to play through Pentiment again.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentI watched a video review of that, and it's pretty interesting that the remake/remaster is still running all the old logic under the hood. You could even show the 8-bit vector-style 3D view in one...I watched a video review of that, and it's pretty interesting that the remake/remaster is still running all the old logic under the hood. You could even show the 8-bit vector-style 3D view in one corner. It reminded me of "The Dark Spire" on the Nintendo DS, which did a similar thing allowing you to choose between "modern" (also now ancient by today's standard) graphics and the black and white line-art vector style.
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Comment on Fast-food owners, squeezed customers test limit of value meal economy in ~food
Lonan Link ParentI was watching a Red Letter Media youtube video yesterday on the death of cinemas, and they also mentioned how everyone has forgotten about covid now. They were saying it in the context that...I was watching a Red Letter Media youtube video yesterday on the death of cinemas, and they also mentioned how everyone has forgotten about covid now. They were saying it in the context that cinemas can't blame "fear of being with lots of people in a closed space" as a reason for movie-goer numbers to be down. Big concerts are packed with people again, conventions are at full strength, travel is back to normal. The pandemic has been almost erased from our collective memory. Nobody really wants to remember it, I think that's part of why.
Essential works got screwed everywhere. Almost right after the pandemic nurses and other medical staff were on strike in parts of the UK and Europe because, despite being "essential", their pay was crap, their hours ridiculous, and their working conditions abusive. Food service is understaffed everywhere too because, surprise, the pay is bad so nobody wants to do it. Dealing with the public sucks as well, people are ruder than ever.
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Comment on What video games have had you taking real-life notes? in ~games
Lonan (edited )Link ParentYou keep the fast travel routes, which reduces some repetitive play. There are a few things that I missed on first play, but none of it is really major. It's more like you notice subtle...You keep the fast travel routes, which reduces some repetitive play. There are a few things that I missed on first play, but none of it is really major. It's more like you notice subtle differences in what people say or choices made. Six reveals some more information, I think. I imagine you got certain characters to end up on different moons to where they started, and there are a couple of endings like that for different people, I don't think it's possible to see all of them on one run through. You should know what ends the game, as it were, so know when/how it will wrap up - this means you can keep exploring and avoid the end point, or if you are getting fed up then you can beeline for the end.
For the translation, the texts you know for sure are kept, but you lose any "?" words and all previous full sentences. The latter is a shame because context helps with other words, but I got used to it.
It only got really repetitive on the 4th run through for me so I stopped there, but I've read people online say that up to 7 times through they had new stuff.
(edit to clarify what I meant about the end point)
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentI was listening to the Axe Of The Bloodgod podcast, the latest episode where they praise TTYD a lot, and apparently one of the hosts interviewed Miyamoto back around the time of those sequels and...I was listening to the Axe Of The Bloodgod podcast, the latest episode where they praise TTYD a lot, and apparently one of the hosts interviewed Miyamoto back around the time of those sequels and asked him "why do you hate story?" 😅
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Comment on What video games have had you taking real-life notes? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentYes! I loved that game. I didn't take notes in it but played through the story 3 or 4 times. By the end I could recognise the words and little extra do-dad glyphs. One of the best rewards for...Yes! I loved that game. I didn't take notes in it but played through the story 3 or 4 times. By the end I could recognise the words and little extra do-dad glyphs. One of the best rewards for handing something over to your pal on Iox was more stuff to translate.
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Comment on What video games have had you taking real-life notes? in ~games
Lonan LinkLast game I used actual pen and paper for was Tunic. There is a rather nice puzzle that requires... well, I can't talk about Tunic because discovery is half the fun of it. But I took screenshots,...Last game I used actual pen and paper for was Tunic. There is a rather nice puzzle that requires... well, I can't talk about Tunic because discovery is half the fun of it. But I took screenshots, then copied out the clues on paper to piece together the information in the screenshots. Several end-game puzzles required drawing things actually. It's a weird game because the first two-thirds was mostly pure actiony, then the final part went full on puzzle madness.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Lonan LinkI watched the animation film Robot Dreams. It has a suspiciously high Rotten Tomatoes rating, currently 99% for critics and 90% audience, which just screams "astroturfing" to me. Also, I suspect...I watched the animation film Robot Dreams. It has a suspiciously high Rotten Tomatoes rating, currently 99% for critics and 90% audience, which just screams "astroturfing" to me. Also, I suspect I'm not the target market for this type of film, but despite all that, it wasn't bad.
Complete coincidence that it's the 2nd film in a row I've watched that has an 80s theme. Last week was Totally Killer, where the protagonist traveled back in time to 1987, whereas Robot Dreams is set in 80s Manhattan, with the dog character always slurping on a can of Tab. (I was just a kid in the 80s, I'm going to feel really old when we start getting 90s and early 2000s nostalgia movies)
There are a few moments that drag on longer than necessary, but the film was mostly a series of random vignettes so if you didn't like one, then it'd change to something else in a short while. The overall story was bittersweet, and the animation was really good. I liked the way it animated everyday occurrences in a sort of exaggerated realistic way. The mac and cheese popping in the microwave, or the condensation dripping in the bus window, for example. The ending was sort of unexpected, but also fitting to the overall vibe of the film.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentJust a heads up, the spoiler there has not turned out right and is in plain sight.Just a heads up, the spoiler there has not turned out right and is in plain sight.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Lonan LinkI watched Totally Killer (2023) and really liked it. The elevator pitch would be "Scream meets Back to The Future", kinda, in that it's about a murderer and involves someone going back in time to...I watched Totally Killer (2023) and really liked it. The elevator pitch would be "Scream meets Back to The Future", kinda, in that it's about a murderer and involves someone going back in time to the 1980s. I don't like horror / gore, so the stabbing scenes were pretty awful, but they are done in that over-the-top slasher film style - there's one in particular that looked really fake, you could pretty much see the squibs going off separate to the knife! I'm a huge fan of time travel movies so put up with that gruesomeness to enjoy the rest of the film.
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Comment on It’s time to bury the defective detective in ~tv
Lonan Link ParentI've been watching "Jonathan Creek" and it fits this pattern. The main character is a magician's assistant and lives in a windmill.I've been watching "Jonathan Creek" and it fits this pattern. The main character is a magician's assistant and lives in a windmill.
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Comment on If you had up to US$250 to get one person into a hobby you're interested in, what would you do to get them started? in ~hobbies
Lonan Link ParentI've been playing guitar since 2017 and had to look up what an OM was! For anyone not in the know, it stands for "orchestra model" and is a size of acoustic guitar slightly smaller than a...I've been playing guitar since 2017 and had to look up what an OM was! For anyone not in the know, it stands for "orchestra model" and is a size of acoustic guitar slightly smaller than a "dreadnought" acoustic (these are almost comically large in real life) while maintaining the full scale size. A good choice. I bought a 2nd hand Yamaha F310 starting out for far less than $200 and I still use it all the time. But being a dreadnought, it is gigantic and had I known more I would have gotten something smaller.
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Comment on What is your opinion on Dan Brown novels? in ~books
Lonan LinkDigital Fortress, Brown's "first" book (see note below) was covered on the 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back podcast, which is a humor podcast that discusses bad books. The name comes from the length...Digital Fortress, Brown's "first" book (see note below) was covered on the 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back podcast, which is a humor podcast that discusses bad books. The name comes from the length of Ready Player One, the first book they covered. Some tropes / comedy they found in DF include:
- weird foods. At one point a guy chugs down olive oil with his tofu
- huge amounts of chapters, there are 120+ in this one
- end-of-chapter "cliffhangers" that try for dramatic effect, but are pretty silly e.g. the phone rings, it's somebody from the office... end chapter.
- odd horniness - every woman is hot, every man is gross (except the semi-self-insert "hero")
- hatred of Seville's hot sun, and shitting on Spain in general - "the wound should not be fatal, but in Spain it would be"
- saying someone is intelligent, but not actually have them do anything clever. In fact, they are pretty stupid throughout.
In the book's defense, Dan Brown was onto the whole NSA / cryptology stuff over a decade before it made headline news with Snowden. Although since it is written with the NSA cryptologists as the good guys, it takes a stance that may seem quite shocking or even naive if you read it nowadays: that the Electronic Frontier Foundation are the bad guys for not wanting the US Govt to put back doors in cryptographic systems. The pace of the book is great. It zooms along, swapping between events in Spain and the NSA HQ in America. There are some twists, cinematic-style set-pieces, and interesting characters, even if they are a bit cliché. I enjoyed reading along with the podcast, both in terms of the unforced-errors silliness and the story overall.
I've also read Da Vinci Code, but it was years ago when that was in fashion, and can't remember much about it. I remember reading it quite quickly, so I must have been into it at the time. We have a copy of that and the sequel (Angels&Demons) kicking about the flat somewhere, but I can't remember the sequel at all, so it must have been pretty forgettable. The Da Vinci Code movie is worth watching just to wonder WTF they were thinking when they did Tom Hanks's hair / wig like that.
Note: his actual first was written under the name "Danielle Brown" 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman.
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Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of May 12 in ~games
Lonan Link ParentThat's such a clever marketing technique, because usually people say "I'll wait for a sale", but by having a sale right away they are playing on people's FOMO. I'm going to skip it too, because...That's such a clever marketing technique, because usually people say "I'll wait for a sale", but by having a sale right away they are playing on people's FOMO.
I'm going to skip it too, because everyone raving about Animal Well has caused me to not like it, because I'm secretly a bit of a gaming hipster.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentI wrote notes and I have one from Portoga that says "blue guy says to sail south first" so the game doesn't totally abandon that style and still gives some clues. And doing that you reach a place...I wrote notes and I have one from Portoga that says "blue guy says to sail south first" so the game doesn't totally abandon that style and still gives some clues. And doing that you reach a place pretty quickly and from there it goes fairly clue-driven again. Just saying, in case you ever return to it.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentAnd Tunic too. I'm really tempted to try Animal Well but I have soooo many games I feel guilty buying anything new. There was a dude on a podcast that said the Layer 3 stuff required cooperation...And Tunic too. I'm really tempted to try Animal Well but I have soooo many games I feel guilty buying anything new. There was a dude on a podcast that said the Layer 3 stuff required cooperation on-line because different instances of the game had different parts of the puzzle. Sounds like the kind of stuff that in a couple of years will be spoiled on a wiki somewhere so I don't have to interact with anyone :-P
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentDid you not get sub-classes in DQ3? I thought that was just before the boat-getting moment, in the area past the "Hobbit", near where you get the pepper for the king (is that what it is? I'm going...Did you not get sub-classes in DQ3? I thought that was just before the boat-getting moment, in the area past the "Hobbit", near where you get the pepper for the king (is that what it is? I'm going from memory here). That opened things up in terms of battles because you can have a healing-fighter or whatever. If you've had enough though, then that's understandable. It's quite a grindy repetitive game, and it doesn't get any better really. I imagine getting that boat was like "OMG, now I have to go everwhere, this is too much!" :-)
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Comment on Some observations about some of the conversations here in ~tildes
Lonan LinkDude, you've posted on threads about Trump and Palestine. What were you expecting there? They're like honey pots for internet rage. If you are sick of reading contrarian opinions, stay out...Dude, you've posted on threads about Trump and Palestine. What were you expecting there? They're like honey pots for internet rage. If you are sick of reading contrarian opinions, stay out conflict-attracting topics on the internet.
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Comment on Looking for recipes or advice for making a Spanish omelette/Spanish tortilla in ~food
Lonan Link ParentI expected that recipe to be an abomination, but my wife's Spanish, we live in Spain, and that recipe looks pretty authentic to me. In fact, my Mrs compromises and partially cooks the thin-sliced...I expected that recipe to be an abomination, but my wife's Spanish, we live in Spain, and that recipe looks pretty authentic to me. In fact, my Mrs compromises and partially cooks the thin-sliced potatoes in the microwave, then adds them to the oil with the already-cooked onions (so you save a lot on oil for frying the spuds) just to get a bit of fried edges and oil into them. The flipping section is also spot on. We have a special thicker dinner plate that's the right size to just fit in the frying pan to flip the tortilla. That part is pretty messy, because you put the plate onto the squishy raw top part, turn the pan over trying not to spill anything, then slide the whole thing back into the pan raw-side down. Also, when flipping, I've seen it all go horribly wrong for her, but don't give up! She just puts it all back in the pan and has another go a couple of minutes later, or if the whole thing is undercooked, it goes back into the bowl, stir a bit and start over. Failure is usually from lack of oil, even with non-stick (aging non-stick I suppose) the "crust" can grab on to the pan a bit if it isn't oiled up enough.
Getting the outside nice and cooked while keeping the inside the right amount of moist that you want is down to trial and error. Some people prefer a fully set center, whereas others like a runny middle. But it's like cooking a steak rare or well done, it's pretty much down to knowing your own cooking utensils, how hot the pans get, and experience of getting it wrong a few times.
Yeah, I maybe sounded too negative overall. I enjoyed large parts of Pentiment, and it is unique. There aren't many games where you discuss the meaning of the communion bread in church ceremonies with some random NPC. I also liked the actual parts where it was at its most "gamey", running around and gathering the information, and certain aspects of that do carry over. Townsfolk remember some of the earlier interactions you had, so it isn't all on rails. I suppose my disappointment was in part from the very high review scores, and going in spoiler-free so I wasn't aware it's more of a visual novel.
As for Viewfinder, that does look good. I am going to have to bite the bullet at some point and get a powerful enough PC to play these newer puzzle-type games. Blue Prince is another one I'm interested in there. I recently finished Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (on Switch again) and that was brilliant. That got great reviews too but had kind of mixed word of mouth so I avoided it for a long time, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it when I finally played it.