Bjorn

I wish the Will Smith movie was just named something else (the way that earlier film versions were named different things, like Heston's The Omega Man). It made it so hard for me to like that movie, because it mostly (except for the alternate ending kind of getting it) jettisoned the core idea of the book, of the last man on earth as a real life Bigfoot, a mythical monster who stalks the day, who the real survivors of the plague warn their children about. He's the villain, the monster. And the dawning realization of that on both him and the reader is the best part of that story. It also means that the name of the movie is completely meaningless, as it is the clue of how the story will twist at the end. Okay, nerd rant over. Edited to add: Oh man, I commented before the discussion was done. The Walking Dead comment about how individuals become so valuable in a post apocalyptic world is the idea that I Am Legend is turning on its head (the last man is actually a great danger to society continuing, but that's an impossible thing for him to consider until the very end). No the nerd rant is really over (unless something else sparks another thought on this subject).

it *mostly* seems to be that things that are core equipment are infinite, and things that go in the utility slot are finite (there are probably exceptions to this). I've honestly been save scumming building some things to get a look at what they are to decide if I want to keep them or not. I figure that's the kind of stuff a manual would have told me at one point in time and I shouldn't be guessing about the outcome. Edited to add: I like that the stun lancers are kinda suicidal. It makes sense for at least some of the enemy troops to not particularly care about their safety if they can hamstring their opponent, given the whole implant in the head thing.

Thematically, this feels so much stronger than XCOM:EU ever did. As much as I love that game, there were elements of it that always felt really off for what it was trying to present, like the black market. The market makes a lot more sense in this game, and I doubly like that there are always things in demand, versus the occasional odd thing someone wants in EU. I sold some pretty nice stuff I would have preferred to keep one month because they were all in demand and I was desperate for supplies to get my Gauss Rifle built and a couple of rooms constructed. The ACW room (whichever one lets you respec, something like that), seems potentially awesome, bringing in a bit of the Training Roulette into the regular game. I just got it built, and the very next time someone leveled up it was my primary sniper who picked up an ability to add +3 damage to one shot. Haven't seen another upgrade yet, but it ensures you want to continue leveling up rookies for more than just backups. Speaking of Second Wave options, that's at least the second time one of the SW ideas has made its way into this game. Flanking doesn't appear to be as binary as it was in vanilla EU, some version of the aiming angles option is present. I only notice it when I'm fairly close, so it might be dialed back from the second wave option, but I always felt that system made more sense than the flanked/not flanked system. I am super not missing satellites. Maybe the comms system has flaws I haven't experienced yet, but being able to start a game and not feel like I have to spend the first 2 months with a laser focus on getting sats up is really nice. So far, the enemy that scares me the most is the I forget that in the canon timeline, since Earth was overrun in a few months lots of the later game enemies and weapons wouldn't have been experienced by this world. Mutons were a rumor. Laser and Plasma weapons weren't developed. Psionics weren't researched and developed.

I'm not sure I'll ever start this back up again. I made it to the Throne a single time, died instantly. I like this game alot, but the particular mastery or skill that it requires just isn't something I've been able to pull off.

What do you mean by exploiting mechanics? Like blowing up cover with grenades? I usually won't take a shot that's below 65 percent unless there's just nothing else useful I can do. In the early game, with only 3 shots per weapon for most guns, every miss isn't just a wasted action, it also quickly contributes to another lost action in the form of a reload. Everyone gets a grenade except my medic. The grenadier has two, so that's 4 grenades in the early game. Those are almost exclusively reserved for cover busting to give other soldiers better shots. I don't even need to catch the enemy in the explosion, I just want the cover gone. My rangers usually only shoot from flanked positions. My ranger is out on the edge of the rest of the team, so that when they flush the next pod of enemies, the ranger can advance pretty easily into flanking positions. Since snipers start with squadsight now, my snipers ascend the first elevated position they can find and stay there until they have to advance forward. I do have one Pistoleer sniper now, who advances with the team and her job is to finish off wounded enemies. She can fire her pistol twice per round (3 now, just got the next perk, and maybe 4 if she gets fired at). I really like that the pistoleer sniper is a more legitimate option now. The old sniper had the one perk for pistols, which was useful in early game but a waste in late game. With a dedicated pistol tree now, it feels a lot more like the sniper is two different classes. Actually, I feel that way about the Ranger too. I'm just starting to get one up the cloak path (because the sword is so good my first 2 rangers both too it). I can see how being able to re-enter concealment and the concealed bonuses can really swing a mission.

Got to the Codex thingy tonight, and I dug how that played out. Of course, it didn't cost me a squad wipe, so that helps. I feel like the surprises 2 is throwing at me so far are working a lot better than anything 1 ever tried, likely because 1 was far more tied to the enemy types of the original game. I got my first "Shaken" soldier tonight, and that's tense as hell taking one of them back out to try and get them over their shit, knowing that they're ready to panic or get mind controlled at the drop of a hat (because that's how PTSD works folks, you go kill more things and experience more horrors of war and it all gets better). Apparently if you can get them out of it though, it ultimately increases their Will. I'm also feeling desperate for cash non-stop, and my Avatar meter is creeping up as I can't reach some site in another country, because I keep getting distracted away from expanding out by having missions pop up. And if one of the little "Wait 3 days for free shit happens", it's always supplies I can put to use immediately. From what I've seen so far, the world map stuff is a much better idea than the remake's version. You've got shit to do besides just hit the button and wait for something to happen (even though in some ways it's just flying around and hitting the button in different places, it still feels more engaging). Probably the worst I've faced so far was having all but 3 soldiers gravely injured, and out of cash to recruit more. Thankfully the black market popped up shortly thereafter, but I ended up selling some things I would have preferred to keep just to make sure I could have a full squad. Then my new recruits both got killed in the next mission. Ah well, 50 supplies to keep my veterans alive, I can live with that. Sorry cannon fodder rookies.

Those load times sound basically what my loads on my regular drive are, like the SSD isn't really helping. I didn't have enough space on my SSD to load it there, glad I didn't take the time to clean it up.

I really liked Gunslinger, it's that rare game that nails the "B movie" formula for a game. Mechanically it's competent enough to be a lot of fun to play, but the story is the best kind of self aware western...not camp, but certainly playing with the tropes of the genre in a fun way.

Man, what nerve it would take for an indie game to name characters after the creators.

I'm a bit jealous of that, my game started in Siberia. I'm about to get into whatever the first Black Site is. So far it's been pretty smooth sailing (on Normal, or whatever that's called now). No deaths, have had a couple of close calls where a shot could have finished someone, but they missed. The Sectoids seem much more interested in raising the dead than in trying to mind control me. I had to do the majority of missions without my only Ranger as well, as she got grievously wounded for a 17 day heal on like the second mission. And then I pulled three snipers out of my rookies. Going to try a pistol build on one of them to see how that works.

I just noticed in my pod player that the genre of this episode is "Teddy Bear".

Oh, neat, I hadn't looked it up yet. That makes it much, much more interesting to me.

Okay, I may be slightly less irked about the nature of the future DLC. I didn't know that they had commissioned the Long War creators to have 3 mods ready for release, including new weapons, a sub class and a new enemy, in part to demonstrate what mod tools are available and to have (hopefully) high quality mods available from the getgo. That's pretty cool, and an awesome recognition of the work the Long War people have put into XCOM 1 over the years.

Still happy with the Monthly Humble Bundle. This month came with a twist though, Humble is now funding mini-experimetnal games which are (for now) only available to Bundle subscribers (I don't know if new subscribers get the already released game or not). The first one is The Elephant in the Room, by the devs who did the Saturday Morning RPG. Otherwise the bundle had: Dropsy (yah! super excited for a hugventure) Alien Isolation (already owned, make a good gift) Broken Age (already owned, make a good gift) Titan Souls (yah! Been on my wishlist since it came out) Volume (no idea what this is) Penarium (a game that isn't worms by Team 17 that has local co-op....okay, that's worth a try)

I looked it up, it's only $20 to order one, I think if you were going to make it harder to stop, you'd have to charge a lot more. There is, hilariously, an option to add glitter to the inside of the bear though, so when they rip it open they get glitter everywhere.

I could continue hearing the happy birthday song play for like 2 whole minute after the episode ended. That really is like the sound of madness.

I only had time to get through the scripted tutorial tonight before I had to head to bed, and it's likely to be Saturday before I can touch it again. I'm excited by some of the things I'm hearing. I expected it to look better though? In my memory, it feels like 1 looked as good or better, but maybe I should fire it up to see if that's true. It took me about 25-30 minutes to unpack, and it wasn't installed to my SSD, just my regular drive.

Nice. Is Legendary the new Impossible? Or is it Classic?

Edited: Ooops, this is the wrong thread, not the bad thread.

Stop the presses. Old guy complains about "kids these days", film at eleven. Tune in next week for our exciting expose about walking uphill both ways, in the snow.

When isn't Slack homoerotic? Also, that conversation still didn't quite have the same spark to it without Lansbury there though.

Oh god, racism is rampant in all food service. And the logic is just as bad as all racism logic. I had a few black people not tip well = all black people don't tip. I had a few white people not tip well = those are just exemptions. When I did pizza delivery, some drivers would skip taking any orders that had Indian/Pakistani/Middle Eastern names because "they don't tip". So those orders were more likely to be late. So those people were likely more irritable when they got their pizza. So they don't tip and are less likely to be regular customers because of poor service. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's, for better or worse, by design. Somewhere if you read around in Steam, it explicitly says that Not Interested will have no effect on recommendations, it just removes that item from ever being suggested.

Pre-Load is live! Download for me was 24.7GB, going to take 14-16 hours or so. For US folks, it actually unlocks tomorrow very late evening (like 11 pm Central).

Yeah, at least at the big locations up here they've added some theaters that are more like Alamo over the last few years (probably starting 7-8 years ago, before Alamo even moved to town). The super duper weird thing is that the theater Alamo is in was actually AMC's flagship theater, like they spent some crazy fuckoff millions of dollars restoring this theater, declared it their flagship and the ultimate AMC experience, blah, blah, blah...and then a few years later they turned over control to Alamo. It was weird. Edited to add: Wiki history of that theater if anyone is curious, AMC spent $30 million restoring it, have owned it for almost 60 years, and then very suddenly gave up on the project.