Nappi

Ooh.. that coffee tip is good. Socializing is the most stressful part of the game for me, and even that is not too stressful. Mostly it comes down to the fear of not finding people when it's their birthday or missing the important day altogether. I think I will start wooing Leah because she likes wine and salads. She seems quite nice too.

It turns out that much like XCOM2, this game is occupying my thoughts at night, and now I find myself planning my next farming steps at work. Definitely less stressful than XCOM2, though. Time is used very cleverly as a resource in this game. I just reached the end of summer of my first year, and have enough money to buy a ton of fall seeds, but I don't really want to do that because all of my time would be spent on watering the crops. I refuse to use the basic sprinklers because the watering pattern is ridiculous, and haven't reached the gold veins in the mines yet, so I cannot buy the upgraded sprinklers. Therefore, my plan is to keep a moderate amount of crops in the fall, craft some artisan goods processors, perhaps build a barn, and explore the mines on rainy days. During winter I will focus more on cave exploration, in order accumulate gold for building a ton of sprinklers, completely overhaul the layout of my farm, and then just fish, forage and chill. Just the fact that I have a plan for different seasons makes me giddy. The alternative would be to plant a huge amount of crops now, spent the entire day every day watering them, and postpone all the other stuff for winter. This would probably be more "efficient" but damn that sounds boring. I have not paid much attention to relationships, yet. I try to impress Penny with my gifts every now and then, but I either have a hard time finding her, or then when I stumble upon her, I don't have a gift ready. I plan to make being more social my virtual New Year's resolution, though. I should be less busy by then, right? Anyway, I hope that the game doesn't secretly count negative hearts for the people I have ignored for most of the first year.

Hahaha.. I was really pissed because I could not lay out a wood path for many days. Also, awww yeah! Let the beer brewing begin!

Decided to try this out because I wanted to try something relaxing after XCOM 2. Ohmygodthisgameisgood!

Damn that art style! Damn that Tomas Dvorak soundtrack! Looking forward to playing this after Day of the Tentacle.

Yeah, Post Pop Depression is very interesting. Josh Homme clearly had a lot of influence on the overall sound of the album.

For the final mission, I picked a squad of 2 psi operatives, 2 sharpshooters, a grenadier and a specialist. I equipped one of my sharpshooters with superior auto-loader (for 3 free reloads) and the other with superior extended magazine (for +3 ammo), and gave both of them superior repeaters (for 15% chance of instant kill), AP rounds, and Spider suits. This turned out to be an excellent arrangement, as my squad was absolutely devastating. I dealt with most enemy arrangements by softening them with a Void or Dimensional Rift, perhaps a shot or two, and finished them off with Serial shots from my snipers. The last area was pretty brutal, but I managed to execute the first Avatar with my sharpshooter, crit the second one (again a the sharpshooter), and the final one I just shot and Null lanced into oblivion. All in all, this game was pretty fantastic. I think I'm most impressed by how well the sense of progress* and threat is balanced. For example, when I first encountered the stun lancers and Vipers, I thought they were the absolute worst things ever, but after I while, seeing them was a huge relief because it meant that I didn't have to deal with Andromedons or whatever that turn. Still, Vipers, Sectoids, and stun lancers never seized to be a threat altogether, because if you didn't manage to kill them before the end of your turn, they could still fuck up your plans real good. I felt like I was constantly getting more badass, but so were enemies, but not in an annoying rubberbandy** way whereby you wouldn't actually feel more powerful at all. That said, I would probably have had my ass handed to me several times during the campaign had I not relied on save scumming here and there. I mostly used it in dumb, annoying situations, such as, when after a battle you move your last squad member a couple of steps forward to a new cover and you trigger another squad of enemies, or when you miss several high percentage shots in a row. I never rerolled a mission, though, no matter how fucked up situations I found myself in, as I liked approaching firefights as puzzles to be solved. I appreciate that the game was not judgmental about my play style (by e.g. disabling saving during missions), since there is no way I would have finished this game had I played it ironman style, not only because of the difficulty but also because I would have found the experience way too stressful for my tastes. * My biggest progress related issue was with early game base building. If you don't pick the correct projects at the beginning, you are going to have wait for those essential Advanced Warfare Center and Guerrilla Tactics School a long time, because you have to excavate, build a power relay, and excavate some more before you are able to build your third workshop. All this with one or two number of engineers. I also wish there was more sense of progress in terms of your overall goal early on. Now you are just looking at the Avatar counter ticking up for a long time. ** By the way, are the new enemy types tied to the calendar or the players progress?

I think I will try to complete the game tomorrow, as my second Psi operative now has all the essential skills and as I do not want to mine for more Elerium cores. A couple of questions about the final two missions: Will there be a chance to heal between the two missions? Should I use up all my intel in the black market and on perks for the penultimate mission or will there be new opportunities to spend that stuff after the mission? Will the perks be active for the final mission as well? How are the sniping prospects in the final mission? By the way, a portion of the health bar of a dominated enemy often flashes red at the start of the turn but turns blue again after I move or shoot. Does this have any significance or is it just some glitch? I mostly dominate Andromedon's so I'm not entirely sure if it happens with all enemies.

Ok, I guess that would be The Avatar Autopsy? I already started researching the Psionic Gate, and would probably have researched that one as well just to get it out of the way, so thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for the tips. Yeah, supplies makes more sense. I have barely used the black market at all and only just remembered that I could sell that stuff. I think experimental ammo and grenades are instantaneous for me, but I might be running low on Elerium cores. Training the other psi operative will take a lot of time, though. Well, at least the Avatar project progress will not be a problem for a while as the counter in now less than half filled.

It seems that I only have a couple of Shadow Chamber projects, and the two final missions left. Comments I have read here and there make the final mission sound quite brutal, and I feel like I should do some grinding before tackling that one. At the very least, I should start paying more attention to ammo and grenades. I should probably also train a second Psi operative. I just realized that my ship is full of corpses I could be selling for a lot of intel in the black market. Has anyone found a handy list of which items or research projects require which corpses? Also, is assigning an experimental grenade project and hope for the best the only way to get, say, acid grenades? Typical work day for a proving grounds engineer must be fascinating.

Umm.. what happens to mind controlled enemies at the end of the mission? I met my first Gatekeeper during a story mission, shat myself, then realized that it is made of flesh and blood and quickly dominated it with my awesome Psi operative. Wiping out the rest of the enemies was very easy after that. However, once the mission was accomplished, the Gatekeeper wasn't among the corpses. I assume that this is because I didn't actually kill it during combat, but I guess it could also be some whacky random thing (I haven't paid attention whether all corpses are collected at the end of the mission). If it is the former, it makes sense I guess, but also sucks because of course I would have totally wrecked that thing once all other enemies had been wiped out if I had been given the chance. I assume that Gatekeeper autopsy gives me something awesome. Edit: Fuck it. I re-did the last part of the mission, and this time simply killed the Gatekeeper before it had a change to do anything. Got the corpse.

Haha.. I wish I had known that too. I got the timer after triggering the Avatar, suddenly making the encounter extra stressful. I reached the distress beacon with my mind controlled Andromedon only to find out that it cannot shut down the beacon. I thought about destroying the computer instead but since it wasn't one of the targets you could aim at, I decided to rush the panel with my ranger instead.

Finally feels like I'm making some progress. I investigated the Alien Forge, destroyed a random facility, killed an Avatar (man, I hope those guys don't become as popular as the Codex did after the first encounter), and am about to investigate Codex brain coordinates. I took my Psi Operative lady along with me on a mission for the first time today, and quickly realized how freaking badass she is. I was able to defeat the Avatar despite triggering a bunch of new enemies while skulljacking the Codex, largely because I mindcontrolled an Andromedon and used it to distract the other enemies. Towards the end of the mission the Andromedon was annihilated by a Sectopod, though, and the empty, non-mindcontrolled suit almost fucked me over. Luckily I had people on overwatch to deal with the situation. As an icing on the cake, my Psi operative finished off the badly damaged Sectopod with a Void Rift that also caused the only remaining enemy to be mindcontrolled, thus ending the mission. I feel like Domination will become more and more crucial as the enemies get tougher and tougher, to a point that I think that I should have two Psi operatives in my squad. I wish I had built the Psi Lab earlier, and trained two operatives in parallel. I almost never do optional hacking. Should I be doing it more? I tried it once recently because I had nothing else to do that turn, and gained control of a random enemy (a sectopod that I didn't even have visual on before, so that was nice). How are the hacking rewards on average?

Yup, the lack of route indicators made some of the more traditional race type events a bit annoying at times. Definitely an interesting design choice.

Oh man, Burnout Paradise was fantastic! Definitely the best time I have had with any racing game. I also bought Need for Speed: Most Pursuit because it was developed by Criterion and looked super good at the time, but as Rob said, something was missing, and it wasn't nearly as fun as Burnout Paradise.

The low initial stats and the slow progress practically guarantee that your rookie year will be a huge disappointment. Focus on getting a good teammate grade and spend your upgrade points wisely. I gradually became the highest scoring player in my team during the second season despite being simply awful at the beginning of the season.

Or relative speed, or conservation of momentum. The fact that they have to literally touch the ship whose crew they are about to rescue before they dare to EVA is at the same time both hilarious and infuriating.

Thanks for the tip! The grapple ability is indeed great. As are destructible environments. I encountered three enemies in a room with only a couple of my soldiers managing a line of sight. I was able to clear the situation by first softening two of the enemies with bullets, throwing a grenade into the room killing the two, and finally taking out the remaining sectoid by grappling to the floor above and sniping it through the hole made by the explosion. This game can feel amazingly satisfying at times. Both of my snipers are now equipped with spider suits, making them at least twice as badass as before.

I made a pan pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, and garlic. A bit boring but really tasty.

Regarding the balancing act between different types of cultural content, I have found that the best way for me to get a "balanced diet" is to not worry about what I should be watching/listening/playing next, and just go with what feels right at the time. On idle days, I usually play something after work, almost always read in bed before going to sleep, and often watch a movie or an episode of some TV series between the two activities. What I play, watch, or read depends entirely on how I feel at the time. If I feel like reading an Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler* novel I will do so without worrying that it is eating into my David Foster Wallace or Vladimir Nabokov time, because I know that after some time I feel like tackling one of those books. Also, I seldom feel bad for, for example, watching a goofy or trashy movie afterwards because it still gives me something to think about (such as, "why did I find this stupid movie so stupid and/or so entertaining?") I'm glad Rob brought up The Americans. I love the series but I find it very difficult to actually start watching the next episode. I think you are right about the emotional drain of each episode being a big factor here. * By the way, I did not pick these authors because I think they are trash or lowbrow or anything. They are not. I just find them much easier reads than some of the other authors.

The incident during the latest episode of Cool Games Inc. had me laughing uncontrollably. I shouldn't be listening to this stuff while walking. Jesus. https://soundcloud.com/coolgamesinc/episode-7-asdfasdf#t=23:00

I'm not usually into multiplayer games, but I really enjoyed playing Destiny with my friend. We completed the campaign and leveled up some more, but neither of us were interested in committing ourselves to the raids, the competitive multiplayer and all that. It sounds like this game could scratch my co-op shooter itch. I assume the missions scale with player count so that they are enjoyable even if you only have two player crew?

Yeah, Spider suit sounds awesome. Sniper positioning has been a huge pain in the ass in the more hectic/surprising missions.

Ok, so I don't have to worry about the counter too much yet. Thanks! Holy shit, my latest mission was rough. I thought I had everything figured out with my badass squad, when I got a new retaliation mission. I made one move with my soldier and immediately triggered two groups of enemies. This was the first time encountered both berserkers and improved versions of advent soldiers. I managed to kill them in a couple of turns with pretty much everyone in my squad taking some damage. I immediately triggered another squad of enemies, this time one berserker and two mutons. I moved my best, most damaged soldier to safety and triggered a faceless one. At the end, all of my team survived, although 5 out 6 got wounded. I guess this means that I should be upgrading my weaponry, so that it won't take ages to kill advent troops from now on. I thought I would absolutely hate sectoids and vipers because of their mindcontrol and tongue pull abilities, but in many cases they actually turn combat situations into interesting puzzles ("Ok, so I need to hit the viper to release my soldier, who can then run to the sectoid and try to kill it to release the other soldier from mind control"). Advent soldiers are just boring, with the exception of Advent stun lancers who are fucking annoying. Edit: I did not understand how Skullmining worked and therefore did not even research it yet. Maybe I should. Probably should use Proving Grounds a lot more in general. How does the Proving Grounds armor work? Are there any penalties in using E.X.O. suit (or whatever it is called)?