Bjorn

Any college hoops fans in here? It's almost March, conference play is wrapping up and the tourney is only weeks away! KU clinched it's 10th straight conference championship last night. Bill Self has more conference titles than he does home losses. It's a weird thing for me to be their fan. Most of my favorite sports teams are pretty terrible, and have been for a long time. And I have a deep loathing for every other dynasty in sports. Most of the time I don't think about it, but then we win another championship, and I remember how ridiculously spoiled Kansas fans are. And it feels goooood And then I question my irrational hatred of every other dynasty. And this is an amazing era for basketball in Kansas as a state! We'll have three teams in the tournament, again. Wichita and KU will be 1 and 2 seeds (a very slim chance both could be 1s if someone else collapses). K-State will be in, somewhere in a middle seed. A kid on the Wichita team is from my hometown, which means I'll have the pleasure of hearing Scott City, a podunk little town of about 4,000 people, talked about on national television for a second year in a row.

Thanks! I was so bummed yesterday. WSU going out was actually the worst part of the day. I was rooting for those kids so hard.

I'm a little mystified as to why this isn't on PC as well, given that Kojima said he would like to see TPP on PC and since it was developed for the PS4/X1, there shouldn't be as much work to port versus what the PS3/360 took.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I am really curious to see what you think of the way it handles race and racism by the end. As much as I do not like BI, I think it's worth playing for a gaming enthusiast as an example of how terribly wrong a great game and studio can go.

I read that in the voice of the torturer from the Princess Bride. How do you feel having just lost X hours of your life? On the ending, I have A LOT of problems with BI. Like, I think it's a terrible game. And yet I still like the ending, if you take it out of context of everything else. There was actually a good idea there, just terribly executed.

Black Gulch Area Spoilers: On White Knights:

Philosophically, I agree with you. But I don't feel like games get an automatic benefit of the doubt anymore that they are going to handle with care sensitive subjects, and not just exploit something traumatic or terrible. Not even MGS. There are too many examples of games doing it wrong, and very, very few examples of games doing it right. But yeah, I'll get around to it and form my opinion on the actual game eventually.

Yeah, I imagine if DS2 was someone's first Souls game, and they were into it, they would be having an experience much like the rest of us did on a previous game. On Black Gulch:

I've been looking forward to this, as I'm also a huge MG fan and apologist, but this stuff is turning my stomach.

That's very possible. The areas I like the most in DS2 are the ones I've spent the most time in by and large. I died a ton in the Forest of the Giants getting oriented, and I spent a bunch of time co-oping in Earthen Peak. But I think this statement carries a lot of truth to it: The weapons are far more balanced. It seems that most weapons are going to be not just viable, but roughly equal in their effectiveness (in terms of weapon stats vs player stat investment), it just depends on the moveset and what look you prefer. The result is that I've had a lot fewer "Ooooo, shiny" moments finding something new. Which on one hand is good, it means that there's not a handful of weapons that dominate and it encourages players to try a variety of stuff. But it takes some of the excitement out of finding new items. Also, finishing the game in 29 hours sounds like dark magic to me. I'm probably around the 50 hour mark and still have several areas to go (my actual time is quite a bit higher, but I left it running a bunch paused this weekend bouncing back and forth between watching basketball and playing). But I tend to be a pretty thorough completionist with my first run in souls. I want to find as much as possible.

I'd tend to agree with this. There have been some standout moments in DS2, but not as many. I've just got my third Old soul and have gone through Drangleic Castle not realizing that it was intended to be done after you have the fourth Old soul. Forest of the Giants is about the closest to requiring that area mastery. Harvest Valley and Earthen Peak are great. The foggy forest is good. But most of the rest of the areas are just a bit too linear and not terribly memorable. And I'm actually getting through most areas without dying much now, other than a botched jump or something like that. I've beat several bosses in a row now without dying to one. The one at the end of Drangleic Castle had been shown in so many previews and trailers that I was expecting a monstrous fight, but it ended up being pretty easy. I just finished Black Gulch, which is not a great area. The only challenge is That said, I'm still having a blast with it. It scratches a gaming itch that nothing else does. And PvP is as much fun as ever, though the continued lack of invasions is disappointing. I need to figure out how to nullify mages. Magic in general is feeling on the OP side for PvP. It's easy for one mage to have access to high level magic, dark and fire damage, plus a decent weapon. And cast times on a dedicated mage are super fast. So there's no solid defense when one person can throw all that at you. As a melee character, it basically amounts to sprinting into them and hoping to land an early hit to stun them. Facing another melee character is a lot more fun, where you can feel each other out and trade some blows.

Worst five hours of basketball in my life.

So you eventually see a fair number of slabs? That might finally tempt me to use one of the 2 I have. I've been tempted to try the dual Caestus route, I've got the right stats and build for it, just hadn't gotten around to it. I had one guy try to PvP me with them. It didn't go well for hem. I beat him to death with a stick of wood. I think I finally found my favorite weapon, and it turns out it has been in my inventory for over half the game. The Malformed Skull, the twisted skull of some ancient drake or dragon. No scaling, takes a 35 Str and has crap durability, so it breaks after 15 enemies or so. But it has high base damage, its damage doubles from 0-10 and it only takes regular titanite to upgrade. I ended up using some of those Simpleton Spices to lower the Intel requirement of Repair, and I've been keeping that ring on that makes things last longer. I almost one shot a guy in a duel with it, hit him for 805 with a a 2HR2, so he had crap hitpoints. It can one shot the Lions in the Shaded Ruins and the Katana guys in the Iron Keep. I went through the Shaded woods last night, and am rather happy that Scorpion Man was spoiled for me on here. Those foggy woods before the ruins though. That was some good stuff! Tense, frustrating, but amazing.

My wife and I have played a ton of co-op, and some of the funnest times are when it would devolve into us trying to kill each other. We also had one evening of racing each other, scoring a "point" for whichever of us made it to the exit first. We agreed that both people had to stay on screen, so it created a kind of "rubber band" effect like some racing games use. I think the farthest we ever made it was 2-1, but lordy was it fun.

:devil: :devil: :devil:

I started another character last night, a sorcerer, to mess around with between basketball games. Didn't want to go into a new area with my main character when I was going to be bouncing back and forth between several things. I'm surprised at the things that I missed in the Forest of the Giants my first time around. I missed a major shortcut. There's a ridiculously easy way to deal with the Turtle Knight. I completely forgot about a third door that was locked with the Soldier Key and have never explored it. I actually saw the Pursuer the first time he showed up, and beat him! If you beat him then, you get his soul and ring, and he's not in his room later. You can just run right through. On my original character, I head the sounds of wings and ran away, then could never figure out what was making the sound. It makes me wonder how many other things that I'm missing in the other areas I've gone through. I've felt like I did a pretty good job of exploring, but obviously not completely. Oh, and playing a Sorcerer with a 3 Str, completely unable to wield any shield is interesting.

Yeah, I played through the game twice, and had several other characters that I messed around with that reached that point. And never saw a Balder Side Sword. Probably just terrible luck on my part, but it does have a low drop rate.

Me too, lost that fight multiple times trying. I never brought in help, as I was afraid that my help would screw it up. But apparently it can be a lot easier that way.

Far Cry 4: Elephant Shepard. Fucking pre-ordered. GOTY.

Good, Petman will make a happy chirping sound as he crushes my skull, but then make a sad melancholy sigh when he can't put me back together again.

I've skipped the last 2 games, have been hoping that Russia would eventually make an appearance. I'd come back for that.

That's cool. I'm glad I already bought it though and supported the guy.

So two companies are trying to get permission to dig in the landfills where all the legendary Atari E.T. cartridges are buried. They got county approval, but failed to get state approval. Apparently it's in part for a documentary about the fiasco, and sounds like it's being funded by Microsoft. Which seems weird for a console maker to fund a documentary about the event that's regarded as the death knell for one of their predecessors.

I'm no Ohio State fan, but that's tough to go out in the first round for a bunch of seniors. And Oklahoma went down to a 12 seed as well. I always root for the Big 12 teams in the tournament, deeper they all go the better our league as a whole looks. So seeing one go down in an upset is a bummer. At least Texas got the job done. The only team that's hard for me to root for is Oklahoma State. They are quickly replacing Missouri as my most hated team in the Big 12. All 3 Kansas teams play in back-to-back-to-back games today! Wooo, it's going to be like 7 hours of Kansas basketball in a row. Which is awesome.

You'll hit 30 eventually, and you're probably capable of growing a beard, so you're good.