miffy495

Awesome! Congratulations, Dr. Gormongous!

I opened the page on the gamepass app for this about 20 minutes ago. Worth a shot, then? I've been using my gamepass lately to get into the Outer Wilds, but on seeing it expand to PC, Vampyr stood out as a "I remember people speaking really positively about this" title...

I had a chance to try a Vive at a friend's house for the first time last night. On the one hand, I was convinced to finally buy Beat Saber for my PSVR. On the other, given the difference in price and tech, I expected a dramatically improved experience to my "console baby" headset. It felt... pretty much the same? In fact, after having now bought and played Beat Saber on my own system as well, I think I actually prefer the Sony set. I expected better tracking, less screen-door, etc etc, but really didn't see it. The only real advantage that it has is that it can see behind me, which the PSVR can't. As long as designers account for that though... I dunno. I got my PSVR with two games for 1/5 the price of a Vive and it feels like 4/5 (at least) of the experience. Given all of that, I can't imagine being interested in one of the sets that you mentioned any time in the near future. I agree that of all of them the Quest seems like the biggest potential things, but that storage is so low and the price is still pretty prohibitive. It's out of my budget for sure. I'll be keeping an eye out, but for now I remain very impressed and happy with my PSVR and the experiences it's bringing me.

I do find it really funny the way it colours how I talk to my students about games. For example, a kid got God of War for Christmas. "Oh yeah, that was a good one. I sat down and powered through it last spring break. The Valkyries were pretty tough, but I had a fun time." "You... you BEAT it!?!?"

I too bounced off MP2 when it first came out due to difficulty. I think I was like 14 at the time, for what it's worth. Going back as an adult in the Prime Trilogy, I got through the entire game with no issue. I'm also having a lot of the "games I thought were super hard when I was young are actually fine" experience as I go back to replay things. It's not like my ability to interact with a controller has changed much from age 16 to age 31, so I'm not sure exactly what happened there, but you're right that a lot of these things do turn out to be a lot easier than we had built up in our heads. I'd say that maybe beating them once flips something in our brains and makes us remember that it's achievable, but I didn't actually beat MP2 back in the day, so I don't really understand it either. Oh well. I loved playing through the game, regardless, and highly recommend doing so.

The advice I find myself giving is that employers just want evidence that you will commit to something, and a degree is handy proof of that. You're right that it really doesn't matter what, though. Luckily, I'm Canadian and it's (relatively, still not easily) affordable to go to school here. In the States, my understanding is that having to meet that requirement would really screw you over.

I replayed 1 and 2 about two years ago. Been wanting to do the same with 3 recently as well. I have the Wii U still hooked up, and the Prime Trilogy installed on it. I'll give Nintendo until E3. If they announce an HD remaster before then, I'll hold off and do it all at once. If they don't, I'm MP3 bound on my Wii U...

I love Brad, but he drives me crazy at goty. He is the most stubborn of all of them by far and I find he ends up coming off as really closed-minded. Dan had a lot of good points about RDR2, the rest of the crew seemed on board, and getting Brad to budge on that added like an hour to the process, which even then he grumbled the whole way through the resolution. RDR2 is a good game. It also let down a lot of fans of RDR. Those are not incompatible statements. Brad comes off like kind of a jerk during that conversation.

Wow, is that Austin? Texas has never been on my "to-visit" list, but you certainly make it look appealing. Very nice!

To be fair, these are completely different games, not remasters or rereleases (with the exception of U Deluxe). I have played all of them and, while weaker than other mainline Mario games (I would also put Yoshi's Wooly World and both of the Donkey Kong Country games above them), they are definitely pretty good and worth looking at. NSMB2 on 3DS is the weakest by far, NSMBU is probably the strongest. Especially the Soda Jungle section. I honestly would put this one and 3D World about on par with each other. 3D World is more creative and I like a lot of what it's doing, but the level format didn't really do it for me in 3D Land and still didn't there. I really liked it for a while, then it wore out its welcome and I started to feel like finishing it was an obligation rather than a joy. NSMBU, by contrast, did not wear out its welcome. It was less interesting in some ways, but the traditional 2D level design was rock solid. My only real complaint about it is that it has the same problem that EVERY Mario game has had since the N64: inertia. In 3D, the games are so differently designed that being able to stop on a dime doesn't really matter, so it's harder to notice. When they started making 2D games with 3D models though, it's been a real sore spot for the NSMB games. It just feels way too loose compared to the classic sprite-based Mario games, which leads to a lot of deaths that just feel completely unfair and like there is no way they would have happened in SMB3 or World. Mario takes too long to stop, turn around, etc. I also feel this way about 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey, but the levels don't punish you nearly as much for it as they do in the "New" series. How much of a deal breaker this is would vary by person. I put up with it, but it's definitely a thing. So yeah. I bought it, and played about halfway through this weekend (I'm at Soda Jungle again! Looking forward to re-experiencing those levels!) and will keep plugging away for the next week or so. A good game, but a stopgap. I'm looking forward to Yoshi's Yarn-tastic Knit-venture (I can't be bothered to look up the real name right now) when it comes out in March, as Wooly World was great and Yoshi physics have ALWAYS felt squishy so it isn't as much of a bother for me in that series. This will hold me over until then.

I got a bunch of gift cards for a local instrument shop! My girlfriend and I have been talking about learning to drum for ages. We both play other things (her: bass, me: guitar, banjo, and bass) and trading off with one of us keeping rhythm while the other plays something else has always appealed to us. We live in a shared house, so noise is a concern. I've been looking at decent entry-level electronic kits that are on the quieter side as a result. I think I may actually go try to get one this week. As a bonus, if I get one that has a 5-pin midi out plug (not USB midi) it looks like a relatively simple process to get it working with Rock Band pro mode as well (NOTE FOR OTHERS INTERESTED IN THIS: This simple process requires two specific adapters which are hard to find but I luckily already have for other reasons), which would certainly motivate me to practice a tonne. After years of dithering, I may actually take a drum lesson and try to learn some things. Fun!

Merry Christmas! I saw the video when I was 16 and can still see it sometimes when I close my eyes...

I also have continued to keep my Christmas avatar from 2010 or whatever since the day. Christmas-Russian-Muppets-Poster-Animal is who I am now.

Fine, yeah. But also not for me. I also picked up Okami again. May actually get past the second big dungeon this time...

I was fully on board until I learned that you don't actually battle wild pokemon. Now I'm very unsure about this game and so am waiting for reviews and impressions to hit. Remake Pokemon Yellow as a stopgap while waiting for a new game? Excellent idea. Replace the battles with Pokemon Go? Umm...