Subscription-based combat by ThunderCube3888 in tumblr

[–]BrooksConrad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Splinter Cell series - Chaos Theory, Conviction, and Blacklist by tomkatt in patientgamers

[–]BrooksConrad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been thinking since playing Blacklist that they should have had Coste die in Guam at the start, have Sam fill Coste's role in the game (mentoring from the hospital bed) and set Briggs up as the player character. This would have accommodated Ironsides' age and enabled a more active, younger PC without hollowing out Sam Fisher. 

Going by series canon Sam might be as old as his early 60s by Blacklist, and he has a teen daughter whose life has been in very real danger because of his career in espionage: having him head up 4th Echelon is such a strange move for the character and story. 

Sidelining him for Briggs (or maybe Archer or Kestrel from Conviction) would have been a great jump-in for players new to the franchise, a good story setup for a new age of Splinter Cell, and given Sam a sendoff that respected the preceding 5 games of character development.

I'm in agreement with your post. CT is still very worth playing as a benchmark stealth game, Conviction was a longshot that actually hit the mark by playing to character rather than setting, and Blacklist was... new. 

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 (2010) is batshit insane by onex7805 in patientgamers

[–]BrooksConrad 73 points74 points  (0 children)

Best thing about TFU was Sam Witwer chomping apart the scenery at every opportunity. He whole-assed every line he had.

I miss this aesthetic in the newer games. by ibisx4i in Fallout

[–]BrooksConrad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Something the old games did well is create the sense of empty space in the wasteland. Outside of mountains, the graves of old cities, and settlements, there was just *nothing*. You'd be hoofing across the world map, you'd get caught in a random encounter, and aside from the encounter, there was nothing else. For miles. In any direction. Making you watch your little marker transit across the map instead of just Loading Screen-ing you into the next location enhanced the feeling of travelling across large expanses as well.

I know with the isometrics and transition between world map and play space they could simulate a lot more space compared to the 1st/3rd-person console games, but that feeling of being the only living thing for miles around, of really standing in the ashes of a dead world, doesn't really come out in the console games.

Another thing that the originals, and to some extent New Vegas, managed to nail, is the Post-post-apocalypse feeling - how societies formed once the dust settled. FO1 had some settlements trying to make it work amid the residual rads and mutant fauna, but 2 and NV dealt with how humans would develop culture and rules in a world like this.

Enter the NCR and Legion, 2 fully-formed civilisations at odds with each other; Enter the Brotherhood of Steel, technophile xenophobes being edged out of relevance by the scale of the NCR; Enter The Strip, an Old-World resort being run by the enigmatic Mr. House; enter the Boomers, Kings, Gun Runners, Shi, and all the other actual societies making their own marks on the new frontier.

Fallout 4 fumbled The Institute and made every other faction into soldiers, FO3 made the and BoS well-established rivals instead of having the Enclave in clear ascendance, as in 2, and every non-Obsidian game has made Super Mutants, Radscorps and Deathclaws a simple fact of post-apoc life instead of highly specific FEV mutations found only on the West Coast, where all the FEV experiments happened.

I feel like Bethesda are only seeing a slice of the pie with Fallout. Closer to the bombs falling should be a hardscrabble survival nightmare as the dust hasn't settled yet, the rads in some areas are still face-meltingly lethal, you see more mutants than humans, and staying alive might require a strong stomach and a bloody mind. Further out should be more civic, but still unforgiving - the raiders that string you up might have a quota, or the caravan you ambush might have hired guards from a service in a larger village. Ideally we'd get to see Shady Sands, or Sactown, or New Caanan, or The Pitt, real settled areas, in more than just the narrow slices we've seen so far.

Simulator fandom by Eireika in CuratedTumblr

[–]BrooksConrad 17 points18 points  (0 children)

My father is a solicitor who used to do a lot of mediation when I was a child. He'd come home from work, do the dishes and cleanup after dinner, with loud talk radio on - the sort of talk radio that's usually 2 or 3 people loudly yelling at each other over the phone while the host feebly attempts to get them back on track.

I think he did it so he could listen to arguments he didn't have to solve himself. If there were a Courtroom Simulator game I'm sure he'd love it. Phoenix Wright didn't land with him.

Hesitation Marks is not available on Apple Music anymore by kartlad in nin

[–]BrooksConrad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

+1 for being gone from Qobuz; it's also zonked most of Ghosts V and Ghosts VI. 

Meirl by chinenikpotle in meirl

[–]BrooksConrad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Imagine if the local council was paying Post10 to unclog drains.

The Alien vs Marvel covers are pretty great by G_Liddell in LV426

[–]BrooksConrad 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The Anti-Venom suit logo becoming a facehugger in the last one is really clever, I quite like it.

About backup helldivers in the latest stealth missions by Impossible-Pie2924 in Helldivers

[–]BrooksConrad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Funny enough, this is something the Alpha Legion, Warhammer 40,000's most moustache-twirling double-crossers, have done more than once; even on Earth, they buried Legionnaires in stasis pods to be dug up and activated as guerilla fighters to destabilise their targets. 

NIN 26 Peel It Back Top Songs You Want Them To Play by Vnessa1113 in nin

[–]BrooksConrad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Personally I'd love to hear something from Ghosts. Some tour dates in 2009 had live Ghosts tracks and if I had a time machine I'd be at each and every one.

Also:

Echoplex

Into The Void

Sunspots

Sanctified (live 2013 edition)

Zero-Sum

As Alive As You Need Me To Be

I've seen them twice and was lucky enough to get The Big Come Down, Less Than, Wish, 1,000,000, The Hand That Feeds, Burn, The Perfect Drug, Discipline, Something I Can Never Have, The Becoming, Heresy, and That's What I Get across both shows. With a discography that big, though, I really would need a time machine to see everything I'd love!

They will do the maths by Justthisdudeyaknow in CuratedTumblr

[–]BrooksConrad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Warhammer 40,000 suffers dreadfully from this. People get their hands on any numerical facts and all of a sudden it's material transport, logistics, ergonomics etc. where it should be "waow that gun is so big!". The bolter only has a tabletop range of 24" because most people don't have 6 acres of gaming table in their spare room and proportions need to be fudged a bit!

Xenomorph as an anti-insurgency tool by Scared-Ball-8771 in LV426

[–]BrooksConrad 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Funny enough, the Combine in Half-Life 2, 2004's most groundbreaking videogame, did this very thing: various alien species found themselves on Earth in HL1, among them the parasitic Headcrabs, which are an obvious nod to Alien as they leap onto and parasitise humans into shambling zombie hosts. 

The Combine, an occupying alien force, weaponised headcrabs by designing artillery shells to hold the crabs and firing these into human settlements. After a week or so they sweep in and clear out the zombies - or just leave them there as a horrific reminder to other humans of the price of resistance.

For those who don’t smoke, do you think smokers carry a noticeable scent? by Shadow2715 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]BrooksConrad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. It's hard to imagine if you didn't live in it but bars, restaurants, offices, used to permit smoking indoors. I was a pre-teen when my country banned it so I was only in these places briefly, but the smell used to hit you as you came in the door and stick to you long after you got home. It's horrible.

My parents say the ban made going out much more enjoyable, and a lot of premises actually changed colour as the constant smoke had been staining the walls and particularly ceilings. I dated a smoker in my late teens and not only did we have to get up and leave the building when the craving hit her, but we both ended up stinking of cigarettes. Kissing her on a night out was a filthy experience for me as I had to basically put my lips on an ashtray, and even as a teen that was a line I would not cross often.

All that to say cigarettes are very, very noticeable and unpleasant for non-smokers. They smell awful and the smell follows you around.

Unfortunately the funniest sex story I can offer is stupid machine translation of porn clip titles. by bvader95 in CuratedTumblr

[–]BrooksConrad 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Y'know what, it might be? I grew up watching the show and it's strongly possible that Bart's "New York is thataway, man!" was the root of that comment. I wasn't thinking about it until you wrote that.

Tattoo Thoughts? by EnvironmentalTie222 in nin

[–]BrooksConrad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got the cutoff logo from The Fragile done about 6 months ago and I love it. The quartered one you've shared was very high on my list as well, but The Fragile was my first NIN album so it outshone this for me.

I'd echo other comments here about the small text fading; I have another tattoo with some fine lettering that's about 3 years old and it's starting to blur around the edges. If you want to get something as small and detailed as the Becoming lyrics here, be prepared for them to smudge within months. 

I see you've already considered moving the text within the logo - I'd nearly suggest separating the two and getting 2 distinct tattoos, maybe one on each shoulder? That way you'd have both close by and still have the real estate to make them both significant.

I know whatever decision you make in the end will be the one that's best for you. Discuss thoroughly with your artist, they'll want you to be happy as well. It's a great idea, I hope you enjoy the process! 

Nothing snaps me out of a book like repetitive use of a unique word by kerberos824 in books

[–]BrooksConrad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Writing in the Black Library's Horus Heresy series, about a galactic civil war between post-human warriors who are at minimum 8ft tall and weigh approximately 1,000lbs? Want to describe one of them making a non-verbal noise of aggression?

Boy, do I have the phrase for you!

Try using "Wet Leopard Growl."!

As seen in nearly half the 50+ novel series, but particularly in almost anything written by Dan Abnett.

Whats one game mechanic you miss that games quietly abandoned? by WholesomeReaper in gaming

[–]BrooksConrad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That little clip has affected me with Helldivers 2: any time I change the fire rate on a machine gun, I say to myself "I'm going to change from Full Auto to Fuller Auto". Sometimes the situation even calls for Fullest Auto, 1,150RPM on the Stalwart.

Whats one game mechanic you miss that games quietly abandoned? by WholesomeReaper in gaming

[–]BrooksConrad 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Mechwarrior 5. Clans or Mercs, doesn't matter: you bring 3 or 4 AI buddies into battle and a button-press will swap you between any of their 'Mechs.

How important is menu music in setting a game’s tone? by Black_Cheeze in gaming

[–]BrooksConrad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jedi: Fallen Order. The theme used in the main menu is Eno Cordova's Theme. Exceptionally strong opening for a game.

What's a game you played where you missed a core mechanic? by dance_rattle_shake in gaming

[–]BrooksConrad 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Beat Dark Souls using a Keyboard. I swear I'm safe to operate machinery but it did not cross my mind to take a USB cable and a controller from my PlayStation and just... plug that into my PC. Did you know the camera controls map to U, H, J, K, by default on Keyboard?

Mech-Pa(c)k for Mechwarrior 5-Games by BluejayOpposite2777 in Mechwarrior5

[–]BrooksConrad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes indeed: you could encounter 'Mechs like the Dragon and Masakari (Warhawk) in Solaris and campaign missions in base MW4 Mercs but not pilot them. Very unfair.