It makes a lot more sense if you reframe it as freedom for rich white landowners in the 1800s to not have to pay taxes to King George, not so much for the peons, paupers and slaves.

Nobody.

I actually really like the SNES game, it is objectively not great though. You can’t even save, so emulation is a must unless you can dedicate an 8-10 hour sitting to it.

Particularly that it switches between top-down outdoors and a pseudo-FPS indoors, and the claustrophobic interiors and darker music give it a lot of charm.

And they’re probably carving themselves a nice bonus out of the tax write-off for the studio closure.

I mean, let’s not forget that the early consoles had their own pitfalls, a period of gaming that spawned tropes like ‘Nintendo Hard’ and ‘Guide Dang It’ in order to, among other things, pad out the length of what we would consider an otherwise barebones game, and to sell time on their hints and tips hotline. I do feel like there was less bullshit in the past, but it definitely still existed.

I preferred the switch lite with a protective case that gave the grips a little more body, made it way more comfortable to hold. At least until I picked up a Steam Deck, which ended up being pretty much everything I wanted out of portable gaming, and waaaay easier to emulate on.

No discredit to R.E.M. but my world’s been ending for over a decade and I feel like dogshit constantly. Nobody told me the apocalypse would be heralded by the dumbest fucking cryptobros and AI prompters the world’s ever seen.

Meta acquiring Oculus

As someone with industry experience working with VR, I can tell you it’s a mixed bag. I think there’s certainly no way Oculus (and consumer VR in general) takes off the way it did without Facebook’s dollars behind it, and it’s certainly paved the way to the outstanding quality of standalone HMDs that are on offer today. However, it killed the initiative for PCVR hardware with the non-consolation that Meta, Pico, and HTC offer “Link mode” on all their headsets and it’s iffy on good days, which makes B2B PCVR very difficult to facilitate without some serious legwork on lowering latency over the air connections. Would that we could revive the Rift S, that headset was perfect for our needs.

Redfall also flopped last year

Feels like an understatement - this was the game that killed Arkane, because a majority of the team decided they’d rather fuck off than work on whale chasing live-service nonsense. And like, good on them, but it means no more Dishonored, no sequels to Prey, no chance of Arx Fatalis II, and it fucking sucks to see enshittification strangling good talent. I hope they’ll find success outside of MS’ looming shadow.

Sounds like somebody needs their ass behind bars, then.

I don’t know if I could call it good, exactly, but one unique concept that I haven’t really seen captured anywhere else was the Dungeon Maker series on PSP, that allowed you to build dungeons that you would then explore/fight/loot, to give yourself funds to build out further/deeper, ad infinitum. It was clunky, controlled pretty stiffly and basic as ARPGs go, and after a certain point you kind of went on autopilot, but there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to it that I really quite enjoyed, especially if you planned out your builds. I think a similar title was released on the DS but it was turn-based and not particularly well-executed.

Seconding the Dark Clouds, god I wish that series had continued.

Volatile

Read: We don’t want to put the time and resources into making quality games when we can prey on whales in shitty Skinner box mobile apps.

I mean, again, you’re claiming if Republicans get rid of minimum wage then they’ll have to come up with some state-sponsored plan to get Bob his shoes when the inevitable wage reduction makes shoes even more unaffordable. Republicans do not care. They will let Bob walk to work barefoot, starving, and destitute, until it eventually kills him, and the whole time claim Bob’s well-being is his own responsibility, and if he can’t manage his life on the wages that the free market provides, maybe he didn’t deserve to live in the first place. This is the party that asks rape victims what they were wearing, and suggests that bulletproof backpacks are the answer to school shootings. They do not give a fuck.

You say this like they have any decency or shame. They will continue to talk out of one side of their mouths about being a party of the common man while letting people who can’t “afford to live” continue to die quietly in the gutters.

I got a Serta Lautner executive chair as a gift, normally runs about $300 off sale. It has adjustable air-bladder lumbar support and is so soft I’ve taken naps in it.

I recently accidentally sheared a bolt holding one of the arms on because I failed to check it every 6 months, I called the support group and the lady on the other end was kind enough to waive the cost of the replacement kit and shipping. Cannot recommend enough.

Knowing the current court, I imagine they’d be inclined to agree if the arsonists paid them enough.

I don’t think they would want to deal with this shit again, and I wouldn’t blame them. I’m just going to be content with the fact we got one good game.

Nothing of value was lost. Any content worth having couldn’t have existed without Kurvitz’ writing.

The thing I’m noticing now is a deep stratification between Democrats who are begrudgingly forcing themselves to vote for Biden because a second Trump presidency basically means the end of the United States if it wasn’t already inevitable, and Progressives who are refusing to vote for Biden because of his tacit support of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, who feel it doesn’t really matter who they vote for because the AMIC ensures that bombs will fall and innocent people will die regardless of who’s in the White House.

And the thing is, Biden has achieved a lot that goes quietly unnoticed. $130 billion in student loans debt relief, the $35 cap on insulin, gains in employment and reduction on inflation, to name a few accomplishments. But America’s been circling the drain for a long, long time, and the refusal to admit it, and hold accountable the people responsible for it (because as much a sin it is to engage in bothsidesism, those people bankroll campaigns for team red and blue) is what will end up being the death knell for democracy in America, and even if it’s not, the earth is falling apart faster than we can fix or escape it.

Me, personally? I’m voting for Biden, but I’m not holding my breath for hope in this lifetime. Suicide rates are the highest they’ve ever been and it’s not hard to see why.