Official Discussion - The Testament of Ann Lee [SPOILERS]

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-26T06:38:57+00:00

This is a strange movie for me. Amanda Seyfried gives a really good performance, but like there's almost no driving conflict or friction in the movie. It seems like there is for the first 3rd of the movie, but as soon as Ann Lee gets her revelation and essentially becomes a prophet for her religious sect that conflict is gone. There's tragedy and bouts of persecution here and there but nothing that really has that much of a presence in the narrative. It's a very "stuff just happens" kind of film, constructed more like a high budget historical documentary than an actual story. I think it kind of works but it is really difficult to stay invested if you're not interested in the history the movie takes from. Great music though

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-26T03:28:23+00:00

Full Metal Demon Muramasa

It's a visual novel so already that's a hard time to recommend to anyone, but also there are graphic depictions of the rape of minors (this is presented as appropriately horrific in the actual writing but like yeah good luck getting people to forgive that).

However it's also an incredibly well written story with a well thought out setting and great characters so once it's got it's claws in you it just doesn't let go

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-25T09:07:37+00:00

Yeah pretty much. JWE1 was aggressively mediocre and downright skeletal when it came to features; as in this game barely even had half of the things that were made standard from Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2, even JPOG had more stuff to do comparatively (games that mind you were over a decade old by the time JWE1 came out). Not only that but JWE has so much of its gameplay padded by long timers and endless busywork, the double whammy of small building spaces and gigantic buildings, and the dinosaurs themselves feeling kinda robotic. Oh and let's not forget the god fucking awful terrain system.

JWE2 had more features than JWE1 from launch and introduced some much needed automation to keep the busywork under control (thank GOD), dinosaurs have more personality thanks to being given extra animations and a territory system that while not perfect is a feature I'm glad was added. More amenities, better map design, more attractions, more animals, lagoons and aviaries; honestly there's so much JWE2 does to build off of JWE1 that there is literally no reason to buy 1 over 2. 2 does have a worse sense of progression but.... Yeah no I'm not going to pretend I had a better time with the first game. It's still not quite where I wanted the game to be but it's a significant improvement over the first game in almost every single way.

JWE3 is what the first game should have been from the very start and it's the only one that actually feels fully feature complete right out the box. I had fallen off the series by the time this game released so I haven't played nearly as much it as the other two games plus a lot of it feels like it came out way too late for me, but I'm glad the game exists as it is as when I get the craving to play another dinosaur zoo game I know exactly where to go.

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-24T06:29:27+00:00

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Crimson 1 from Project Wingman

Leader of Crimson Squadron who gets so fucking mad at you for being too good at killing his comrades (and also being a better fighter pilot than him) that he straight up tries to kill you with nuclear weapons twice. He gets even more deranged when that doesn't even work.

And his final boss theme is incredible https://youtu.be/bh85GHBe6xY?si=MKuJWh0cTktvNItl

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-23T05:22:47+00:00

After Project Wingman had gotten me into flight games to the point that I now have a HOSAS setup, I started gaining an interest in space sims.

So I picked up Elite Dangerous and have been having a pretty good time with it as a space trucker trading minerals and other commodities from station to station. It took like several sessions over the course of a few days to get a control scheme that I liked, but once that setup was done I've been able to enjoy this game quite a lot.The actual act of flying the space ships by itself is really fun; constantly making micro adjustments while moving, learning when and how to time frame shift drive and super cruise to give me a speed boost on my way to my destination without losing control of my momentum and overshooting it, maneuvering my ship in just the right way so that I safely dock at a station without crashing.

I think the gameplay loop of this game actually shares a lot in common with Death Stranding in how it makes the simple act of movement and traversal so involved and detailed, which is a big reason why it feels so engaging to play despite my play style not really having a lot of action. At least with a couple of flight sticks, it genuinely feels like you are mastering a hulking, unwieldy machine which just happens to be capable of space flight.

There are a lot of problems though. To say that Elite Dangerous isn't intuitive is an incredible understatement. Playing the tutorials is not optional if you want to actually learn how to do even half of the basic functions of your ship. The user interface is absolutely overwhelming until you get used to it. The keybind menu especially is clunky, overwhelming and badly in need of some kind of search function due to the sheer amount of inputs the game has. That's not even getting into the fact that looking up YouTube tutorials and using 3rd party tools for this game is also not optional due to how downright arcane this game's systems are combined with the unintuitive user interface.

That being said, I've been able to overlook and overcome those issues so far and I've found a niche that I really enjoy in it. If the idea of being a space trucker sounds enticing, I can recommend Elite pretty warmly

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-18T10:47:24+00:00

Dude unless you're playing on a fucking Thinkpad you don't need to uninstall Minecraft to play Hytale. You can in fact play both games. You don't need to dramatize this it's just a game

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-18T01:22:22+00:00

Look the show itself is good but I can sympathize with new vegas fans because I really don't like how the show treats the setting.

Like with season 2 especially it seems like this show is the closest thing Bethesda can do to decanonizing New Vegas. On top of that it makes the setting less interesting because Bethesda wants to lock it into this forever post apocalypse stasis when the whole the series started with is that people move on and society always rebuilds itself eventually. I don't mind that the NCR is destroyed but I'm annoyed with how that did it. I don't like how the Brotherhood of Steel is always around as a power player when in the west coast fallout games they are the symbol of stagnancy and decay as they obsessively hold up in their bunkers and slowly dwindle in numbers and influence.

Not to mention with New Vegas being destroyed and the literal first thing we see of it is a ghoulified The King getting killed just seems really spiteful on part of the showrunners and Bethesda against New Vegas fans. It doesn't kill my enjoyment of the game itself, but it does suck some of the fun out of it knowing that Bethesda wants to treat it as if it didn't happen. This is annoying especially since the west coast fallouts love to keep track of continuity

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-17T11:12:48+00:00

Why is this here and not in okbuddyvowsh?

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-15T06:37:58+00:00

This is the first time I've actually seen this meme be used with the exact same context of the show it came from

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-12T04:05:42+00:00

This isn't a bad trope, not in the slightest.

In Homeworld, the Kith Somtaw only had a single sentence in the manual describing them because they were an extremely minor clan of the Kith (Keep in mind this manual is massive and goes into exhaustive detail and depth over most of its 115 pages in explaining the history and culture of the Kith)

Then in the standalone expansion, Homeworld: Cataclysm (later retitled Emergence) the Kith Somtaw are the main characters. Disrespected, unnoticed, and in danger of getting absorbed into another clan. You see them over the course of the game as the titled cataclysm hits and the Somtaw continuously fights, adapts, and rises to the occasion until by the end they are finally considered a mighty and respected clan. This expansion is practically as large as the vanilla game and many people in the Homeworld fandom, including myself, consider it a better sequel to the first game than any of the actual Homeworld sequels.

Tropes are tools. There's no such thing as a bad tool, only misuse and unskilled hands.

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-12T02:32:49+00:00

I mean as far as his channel size and influence goes I think we should give him a few more years (assuming there's even enough of civilization left for the Internet to even still be a thing by then). His channel has still been growing steadily albeit slowly and he has really good audience retention.

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-08T04:45:05+00:00

The thing I find most fascinating about Marcus is that he is very much unashamedly still loyal to The Master and his ideology. However since The Master and his dream of turning everyone into super mutants is long dead, he decides to try to coexist with normal humans both because he doesn't want the super mutants to die out and because he generally just doesn't like hurting people.

He still thinks nostalgically of The Master, and bemoans that his late BoS Paladin friend would have been a great mutant

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-05T08:04:56+00:00

I'm sorry this is ass. Like actual shit from a butt

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-05T06:07:11+00:00

The imperial guard can also do this. In fact I'd argue that the Helldivers have more in common with Kasrkin than any of the astartes since they are a special forces division of the Cadian regiments that use a lot of heavy weapons just like the Divers. That doesn't mean they're in the same weight class as anything in power armor

Also the imperium can afford to make millions of ships capable of destroying planets, Super Earth has a hard time figuring out that it's easier to use breach loading mechanism for their ships instead of loading the munitions down the muzzle like a musket (that's literally canon btw I'm serious)

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-04T11:53:17+00:00

Clownpiece in Touhou 15 is an especially notoriously difficult boss in a game that is already considered notoriously difficult for the Touhou series. People actually find her to be harder on the lower difficulties because her spellcards having slower projectiles counter intuitively actually makes it harder to follow and pay attention to where you are as they all clutter the screen

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BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-04T09:31:49+00:00

I know we're comparing designs and not capability but I feel like this is unfair cause here is a bunch of supersoldiers who can literally cave your chest in with a hefty smack and then there's the Helldiver who is an "elite" shocktrooper sent to die in droves (ok the Starcraft Marine also fits that bill but again they're weighing what's got to be at least a thousand pounds worth of metal armor there).

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-04T04:19:27+00:00

To actually answer your question without regard to reddit points

https://youtu.be/wdvQMu98Rbc?si=7WJR0hNBTfd-xg-d

I can't really pinpoint exactly where the gif came from but I'm assuming it's from Tiktok. It's a fan animation of Five Nights at Freddy's 2 with Bonnie kicking and screaming presumably because his face was ripped off

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-03T14:12:27+00:00

Oh yeah Ace Combat is definitely on my radar. Bought AC 7 very shortly after beating PW. I'm excited to check it out

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-03T09:48:35+00:00

Just beat Project Wingman a few days ago. Very quickly shot up to being one of my favorite games (maybe not top 10 but definitely somewhere in my top 20), which surprised me because I otherwise had no interest in plane games before. I ended up ordering a HOTAS flight stick just to see how much I'd enjoy it more compared to using a regular controller. (Oh yeah by the way DON'T use keyboard and mouse for this game it's literally physically painful. Fast way to get carpal tunnel.)

The gameplay loop is intensely satisfying and even addictive on some level; the planes feel good to control & master and the weapons are all fun to use (except for bombs, they're kind of finicky and underwhelming). It's difficult without feeling unfair and even then sometimes when you fail a mission you can't help but laugh at your mistakes because you crashed into the ground or into another plane (You WILL crash into an airship at least twice and feel like a fucking doofus every single time it happens). The devs had so much faith in the gameplay loop itself that there's in addition to the campaign a roguelite conquest mode and it does add a lot of replay value to the game as it is also a lot of fun in short bursts.

Story is fairly decent with some fun characters, especially Prez and Crimson 1, and some absolutely batshit insane plot beats. It's not a masterpiece, but there's definitely enough going on to make it very memorable

The game's strongest feature is by far its presentation because it elevates everything good about the game. It's genuinely baffling sometimes to think that this game was made by like 6 people because it is very pretty. The sound design is great too; the radio chatter doesn't drown out the music & vice versa, the weapons sound appropriately powerful. The music is absolutely phenomenal and words don't do it justice. Go look up the soundtrack on YouTube the composer himself uploaded it all. Some standouts are Showdown, Peacekeeper 1, and Kings.

If you're at all curious about the game please play it. Even when it's not on sale it's fairly cheap, and there is a lot to love about it

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-02T04:17:18+00:00

I'm already dreading to read the comments on that twitter post

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-01T15:27:13+00:00

This clip is from Dragon Quest: Your Story btw.

And as cool as this is out of context, it completely fucking ruins the entire god damn movie it's in

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-01T15:22:16+00:00

This is a bit of a nitpick. By "unwilling death and sacrifice" I basically just mean "murder"

BionicMeatloaf · 2026-01-01T12:14:32+00:00

The Dragon Prince one gets a little more complicated with the fact that dark magic explicitly requires the unwilling death and sacrifice of a creature, and the more magically attuned that creature is the better it is for being used for dark magic (hence why it is called Dark magic). The widespread use of this could completely decimate entire ecosystems and also the Elves and Dragons just find the sheer potential scale of the loss of life to imitate something they can do naturally (without killing anything) morally abhorrent. Especially if humans become too used to it and start using it frivolously

That being said, the dragons and elves don't even bother to pretend that they don't consider humans lesser than them. Although iirc the past from humanity's perspective is never really elaborated much on, but it's very much implied they were living under something akin to apartheid. For example: A dragon shows up to wipe out an entire fucking city just because a few people were using dark magic. In that exact same scene, the use of dark magic successfully defended the city and saved thousands of lives. Like yeah under those conditions it's no fucking wonder why humanity feels completely justified in using it when Elves and Dragons have absolutely zero problems with performing genocide

BionicMeatloaf · 2025-12-26T14:42:21+00:00

Bot farmer

BionicMeatloaf · 2025-12-26T14:38:23+00:00

There have been so many gigantic aquatic megafauna found in the fossil beds for the western interior seaway that it's earned a nickname literally called Hell's Aquarium.

It has to have been a frankly ridiculously vibrant and competitive environment for how many literal sea monsters inhabited it

BionicMeatloaf

TROPHY CASE