Griddlelol

To both Problem Machine and Nappi: You guys are awesome. Starting to get fit is the hardest part, but once you get over that hurdle, it becomes incredibly enjoyable, and you're doing something to benefit yourself both physically and mentally. Also, if you find running hurts your joints, swimming is a great alternative. I struggled because I was really sensitive about how I looked, and despite being in pretty good shape right now, I still hate swimming because I get crazy self conscious. Weight training is probably the best thing to do if you want to lose weight, it's not just for jacked bros any more, even the powerlifting scene is full of women and you'll find most people who are interested in being fit/lifting heavy weights are really nerds at heart. prettyunsmart: no I've not used wraps, I ended up just stopping the boxing all together and playing squash instead. More people were willing to play with me and it didn't hurt my wrists. It feels similar in terms of exertion. Really fast paced bursts of activity. I have my first CrossFit class tomorrow. After a couple of months of not finding a gym I liked (this city is full of commercial gyms with stationary bikes and treadmills - somethings I consider to be boring and pointless), I have decided to give it a try. I really like the philosophy behind it, and I'm throwing all my enthusiasm into it. I hope it's good!

I'm really having fun with it, I'm playing the moody goth teens edition first, but I have exactly the same complaint as I did with Awakening. Normal is too easy. Hard is too hard. I had to restart the same level 12 times yesterday, after restarting the previous one 4 times. They were really early levels also! I got fed up with it and set it to normal and steamrolled through 2 more before I went to sleep. Maybe Hard-Casual is a better difficulty level. That way each map is challenging, but I'm not having to reset constantly.

Hah, I completely forgot that Blizzard separate EU and US. Why do they still do that? Seems like a relic from 10 years ago.

Quick poll, where is everyone playing?

A palmier.

My SE of Fire Emblem Fates came today!!!!! I know most of you Americans couldn't give a shit, because it's months late over here, but holy crap, I'm excited.

Ah, never thought about assassinating anyone to start a succession war. I'm an independent faction, used the last rebellion to make a bid for independence and have been that way for multiple generations now. I guess I'll play around with it and see what happens.

Is there a way to cause other people's vassals to revolt? My duchy is slap bang in the middle of the HRE, and the only time I can grab more land is if there a revolt going on to distract the vast armies available to the Emperor. So...is there a way to get people to revolt who aren't your own vassals? I could probably get some land through marriage, but I find that super difficult!

Yeah, in the end I just gave lands to my sons. Was the easiest way.

Wow, having a great game as the duke of Swabia. I sewed my dynasty into the most powerful families of Germany, and then declared independence. Killed my brothers and their heirs and took a bunch of land for myself. The timing of my independence was perfect. I waited for a big war between HRE and what turned out to be Venice, then declared my independence and only had to contend with a very small contingency split off from the main invasion force. So much fun! Then all my neighbours started declaring war on me, calling me an asshole and a tyrant, but thanks to some crafty marriages in Poland, I was able to call in my allies to help me deal with a war on 3 fronts. Ah!! This game is awesome. Still so much I don't know, and I'm still not great at using marriage as a tool to inherit, but I absolutely love this game. edit: How does one gain more vassals? I'm no where near my limit. Do I just grant landed titles to people?

I beat XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Then immediately deleted it from my hard drive. Iron man, normal difficulty. I have 12 different games that I've started and abandoned, and number 13 was the one that did it. Fuck that game, it's glorious and by far one of my favourite and most hated games of all time. Steam lost track of my hour count, but a good estimate must be around 200 hours to beat it. It's a stellar strategy game that fucks you over constantly. 95% to hit on an important target? You gonna miss. 20% to hit on a random pot shot, it crits and you kill stuff. 6 team members on overwatch? They all fire at the same guy, and they all miss. In terms of balance, I didn't particularly like it. Snipers are strong, a little too strong, support start out practically useless, but become pretty decent. Assault are good all rounders and Heavies start out great, but by end game they're utter crap. Their only saving grace is the missile, and sometimes I'd just bring them for holo-targeting as a squad wide accuracy buff. Psionic powers, particularly mind control are OP as fuck. Once you have 1 or 2 squad members with mind control, the game turns crazy easy. A full squad of mind controllers and you just can't lose. It was actually refreshing to find the last mission so easy because I could just mind control everything with my fully psychic dream-team. Yeah, so XCOM was the best of games, and the worst of games. Fuck XCOM, it's brilliant.

Yup, 70€ or £55. There's only the "special edition" available on consoles. Can't spot a single other options.

I don't really mind losing matches, as long as I can personally do well. I should have tried the beta, but had no access to anything that could play it while it was running. It sounds like my problems with TF2 aren't in Overwatch, and the number of people who are in love with the game has me really curious. Shame about that 70€ price point for PS4 though.

I tried really hard to like TF2, but I just didn't enjoy the shooting mechanics. None of the classes clicked with me. I ended up playing the spy most of the time because he eschews the shooting entirely, for a completely different deception mechanic. I also didn't enjoy playing alone, I only really had fun when I was playing with friends. Mainly because I didn't like the shooting mechanics. I'll happily play other multiplayer games alone if I like them enough.

I usually listen on the commute, and if the podcast is good, I'll listen while I'm at home prepping dinner/doing things also. I sometimes listen at work, but people constantly ask me stuff, and I hate rewinding or missing my place.

I have a question: If I didn't like TF2, is it likely that I won't care for Overwatch also?

I hate this game. I am now playing it again. I love this game. I think I'm close to completing it?

Well yeah, it looked shit. More like a Warriors game than anything from the Valkyria Chronicles lineage.

I'm glad they don't have WoW heat maps. That'd be scary.

I need to step up my game!

Cool heat map of destiny play time. I thought it was fun, https://secret-scrubland-31430.herokuapp.com/2/Griddle_lol/

I honestly found Bloodborne to be the easiest. The dodge moves you a huge distance, and gives you a ton of invincibility frames. The parrying mechanic is also very generous. I find parrying in Souls to be quite hard, and rarely worth the risk/reward, but in Bloodborne, parrying is basically no risk, all reward (huge damage, stun, regain health if you're damaged, regain even more health if you have the rune for it). That said, when I played every souls game, I'd go once through sword and shield, then once through no shield. So I was used to not relying on turtling up. The free health regen in Bloodborne just made everything seem really easy, coupled with being able to carry 20 (!) healing items from the get go.

I wouldn't say Uncharted is a must. It's for a very...specific audience.

I brought it up in the episode thread, but thought I might as well mention it here. Am I missing something about the combat? I thought it was crap. I'll happily say I was wrong this whole time and ignorant of why the combat is good in TW3, but overall I felt it was boring, shallow and kinda broken.

Is Jesse (or Jessie, or Jessy) H. the person who wrote in about Dark Souls/Witcher/MonHun combat a forum member? I'd like to hear their thoughts on why the combat in TW3 is as good as DS or MonHun. From my experience TW3 had god awful combat, but if they can convince me I was playing wrong or there's depth I didn't find, I'd be super excited to go back and replay it. The combat in that game was what stopped it from being one of my favourite games of all time. I didn't enjoy it and there was so damn much of it.