Sort of off topic, but "apes together strong" has been hilariously useful to me over the years. The number of gamer brained "lone wolves" I've had to get onboard and working together is bizarrely high. Apes together strong always hits. Instant enthusiasm and team cohesion as they make fucking monkey noises together and start to roll with any set backs they have instead of squabbling amongst each other.
I use one of the extra arms to hit the enter key at work. This brings me much joy.
Seriously, one of my biggest frustrations is the tiny inefficiency caused by needing to use a mouse and keyboard at the same time. I can navigate most of it with just the left hand side of the keyboard except for hitting enter at the end of forms. Moving my hand off my mouse or from the left hand side of the keyboard to the right in this rapid, heavily repeated process is uncomfortable.
Now I've written all that I've realised I should just bind it to something on the left hand side of the keyboard or the mouse though. Oh well, I'll put it on the to do for Monday lmao
Also being able to type with both hands, hold the old school corded phones we still have, and use the mouse or write with a pen at the same time would rule.
I've been using a Logitech G Pro Wireless for years now and I love it. Zero issues, lightweight, wireless, battery lasts forever and worst case it just becomes a wired mouse for again for a little bit.
I replaced mine with a G Pro Wireless. Similar enough shape that it was still comfortable to switch to but lightweight and no cable to snag. Wouldn't go back to having a cable, such a huge improvement.
I hate that a lot of the ones with a progression settle on XP to unlock tiers of cars rather than money and buying them too. I liked going to the used car dealer ship in Gran Turismo and seeing what I could afford.
Contemporary racing games literally just throw cars at you in hope to make it fun by constantly giving you new toys.
Forza Horizon 5 is bizarre for this. It has an acquisition system, but right after the intro you pick one of three cars, all new and not cheap. Then you get a custom rally car from the next race. A bunch of unlocks are going to give even you more cars afterwards, and will keep doing so regularly.
Like hang on, maybe let me work up from one of your cheap, older cars first and work my way up?
But this is also the game that unironically calls you "superstar" from the jump and sucks you off constantly.
My MX518 is still sees daily use, just with a family member now. I think it's old enough to drink now (edit: not American lmao). The Logitech logo at the palm has been worn down to nothing but otherwise doesn't look too bad.
I dug out my old Logitech Driving Force GT from the closet and blew off the dust. I haven't gotten into a new (to me) racing game since Gran Turismo 5. The hardcore simulationist trend doesn't interest me, I miss proper career modes and I have just had some awful bad luck with games being broken. I just occasionally revisit some classics.
So after many enthusiastic recommendations I grabbed Forza Horizon 5. My first impressions were great. The intro was a lot of fun, with the big set pieces causing me to fight my wheel as it bucked after being long out of practice.
But this was not representative of the actual game. The vast majority of the content is filled by fairly normal races with long stretches driving to them, back and forth across the same stretches of empty open world. It's sort of like a Ubisoft game, but just cars.
This still could have been a good time. I like the driving model well enough, there is a large selection of cars and the environment, while bland, is certainly much less of an eyesore than what awaits me if I go back to play Need for Speed: Most Wanted for the umpteenth time.
I've got some criticisms of the actual racing (the way it generates opponents and their vehicles sucks, the tracks are boring), but what really killed it for me was this slowly creeping, eerie discomfort that built up in the back of my mind over hours until it became overwhelming. The vibes are fucked.
This is Fortnite, the racing game. It's full of cameos and tie ins with influencers. Brands are plastered everywhere. Microtransaction adverts in most menus. Everyone talks in this creepy, corporate approved "wholesomeness" and aware of how "epic" what they're doing is. There is a really uncomfortable tension between this huge festival that completely empties Mexico of pedestrians and how much the game fetishizes Americaness.
I wanted to scream during a sub-plot where you race a bunch of rich douche bags who are beefing with some guy at the festival. The game throws out shit like "they shouldn't be discriminated against for their money, they can't help the fact they are rich" and talks about fucking therapy. All the writing is this bad, I hate every single character in these inexplicably unskippable cutscenes.
Online subscriptions have actually been a thing for a long time. In some ways it's even fallen out of favor, especially with the rise of the "freemium" model. MMOs are a great example of this as subscriptions used to be the price of entry with no other monetization, where as these days if an MMO uses subscriptions it's a secondary "convenience" fee after entry that is almost always combined with MTX bullshit.
If you're talking specifically about SaaS bullshit, it's because it required a certain level of infrastructure before it became practical. We had to move away from cash and needed reliable internet connections first, amongst a host of other developments. Anything that couldn't be a cash purchase in a physical store was losing significant market share. This didn't stop time restricted licenses on software still being a thing, but it was generally pretty niche software.
Citizen Sleeper. It's a short game about precarity and human connection. There are a few off ramps out of the current, desperate situation you're in that are usually weighed against letting someone go or leaving things behind. It's unique in games with difficult choices for so rarely about being given compelling reasons to do bad things, just choices that are hard for their emotional consequences.
Life is Strange hit me so hard. A content warning for people unfamiliar, but a core theme of the game is suicide. It comes at the topic a few times with different contexts that had me crying more than once. Highly recommended.
I really need to replay Dragonfall and Hong Kong. Never finished either just due to unfortunate circumstance outside the game but thought highly of both.
The ending choice of the Yennefer romance is underrated. You get to decide the meaning of their long, tumultuous story. Both the heart break and the happily ever after are cathartic, satisfying conclusions.
Though maybe you need to read the books for the full weight of it to land, especially for the heart break option.
I also disagree. Even discounting the large number of choices which were just a binary where one side was cartoonishly evil, I didn't remember any I found impactful.
I ended up following The Emperor path in Act 3 . There wasn't a moment where I got to weigh up the pros and cons of each major path, as I had decided I didn't trust Raphael already and he doesn't give you enough detail to do so if you don't play along when you meet him at the start of Act 3. If I had then maybe the Orpheus stuff could have given me pause, but that's not how it played out.
I think part of this was playing as Tav though, as the decisions with real emotional weight are all centered on origin characters and I didn't dictate what my companions should do for things that were so personal. Shadowheart's choice in Act III strikes me as one that probably would have hit.
But the bigger issue is I think Larian just isn't very good at writing evil. You never get those moments of practical evil. I don't remember ever having to consider doing something horrible for the greater good or being desperate enough to do something compromising out of self preservation. It was all evil for evil's sake.
which is of course what you would expect
Nah. I would expect there to be difficult choices before the final act, especially in a game so long.
Yeah, got talked into it by an ex. Wasn't even really about the awkwardness a lot of people talk about.
For me, it was initially hot but I ended up with a deep, hollow feeling. You have the same lack of intimacy with the third that makes one night stands unfulfilling, combined with this sort of violation of the intimacy you had with your partner. I actually felt a bit sick afterwards.
If it's your thing have at it, there are plenty of different relationship styles and kinks that'd make it much more appealing, but personally I would never consider it again.
None, and every time my coworkers talk about how many they have it seems insane. One has fucking 6 different services. It's not even about the money. I just truly cannot be bothered working out the maze of what is where when an RSS feed will just deliver me the stuff I'm interested in when it comes out from anywhere.
I need to occupy my mind with something that isn't related to real life. Not just avoiding topics that are stressful or otherwise emotionally loaded, just thinking about anything I'm going to do or things in my life will stop me sleeping. So I think of stories and fiction worlds until the day dreams become actual dreams.
Since I got into the habit my sleep has gotten far more regular and I have had more control over went it happens.
soli @ solitaire @infosec.pub Posts 0Comments 143Joined 2 yr. ago 
Sort of off topic, but "apes together strong" has been hilariously useful to me over the years. The number of gamer brained "lone wolves" I've had to get onboard and working together is bizarrely high. Apes together strong always hits. Instant enthusiasm and team cohesion as they make fucking monkey noises together and start to roll with any set backs they have instead of squabbling amongst each other.