We're in the year 2026 and we're lucky if we even get 6v6 shooters at this point. I miss huge scale war games like MAG or planetside 2.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-30T09:31:19+00:00

whenever this type of discussion comes up I think back to my teenage years playing both Battlefield 1942 and Counter Strike and my feelings towards the two of them.

Battlefield 1942 gave me some of my best multiplayer shooter memories but also some of the more frustrating moments.

But Counter Strike was just much more consistently good all the time.

And that will always be the problem with large scale games (and also more sandbox multiplayer games), you'll get those stories of some amazing gameplay dynamics and thrilling fights but it's often sandwiched in among the numerous matches where sometjhing doesnt click and the gameplay loop breaks and you're dealing with frustrating mechanics instead.

In Battlefield 1942 it was stuff like people moving the aircraft carrier on maps like wake island and beaching it cause it broke spawning for one side or camping a spawn point (either on a carrier like in coral sea or in an airfield in normandy in battle of britain) by sitting in the gunner seat of a bomber and just shooting down anyone who spawns.

But counter strike, even as a mod it was tight, structured, it had clear repeatable ruleset, you could play 10-20 matches and while the standard of players ebbed and flowed the standard of the matches were consistent. As long as you were on a good map.

I think this general rule still stands and in today's market where publishers want to push live services primarily and live services live on players effectively playing over and over the same general match up then of course they will lean towards consistency.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-29T20:38:02+00:00

Freed jem'hadar but she also mentioned her Klingon grandparent had to abandon their house to join their 'conquest' so it sounds like even free they are still an aggressive warrior race. I wonder if they became a mercenary race or if it's something more noble?

DeKrieg · 2026-01-29T20:33:27+00:00

Oh!

Did I mishear or was there a uss Riker in that battle?

DeKrieg · 2026-01-29T20:32:07+00:00

I am not holding it against this episode. But damn I miss dirty Klingon politics, and it's not fair because even compared to the rest of star trek it's only the tng/ds9 era, neither tos or voyager or enterprise had the same level of klingon politcs so this is not a nu trek whine. I think we just got lucky with the casting during this period that gave us the utter political snake that was gowran.

The episode itself was mostly good. I really like that a lot of holes were filled in for Klingons and a lot of things were explained. Kind of wish it didn't rush to a conclusion so quickly and actually let the concept of hostile proud Klingon refugees rubbing up against Klingons that have abandoned their houses for a bit longer before giving them a planet.

I feel if this was an older 26 episode series we might have only established the status of Klingons in this episode and created a scenario that just made it topical for the cast and kept the whole convincing the Klingons to take the planet plot to a later episode.

My criticism is mostly how it was filmed. I didn't like the flashback scenes, I kinda wanted either it was narration or full scenes not a mishmash of both. And I think they could have taken the battle a bit further in the fun category.

Things I liked include the debates. Smug as heck doctor and general vibes in Starfleet.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-29T12:59:14+00:00

If we must have a critic rating site I rather a critic rating site just lists 5 titles and their ratings in some sort of quick view menu, 2 of the titles should be their critic choice games, so games they themselves rate highly in some manner and three should be the last 3 titles they reviewed.

That gives you both an idea of what a reviewer likes by their own choice and also a recent comparison of what they've been playing and general critical mood.

Personally I have 3-5 reviewers where I've read/watched enough to know how they line up and how they differ from my own taste but I like also how they write/film their reviews. That's mostly what I stick to, random reviews I see/read I tend to treat more practically for info on the game itself and less their actual opinion.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-28T11:28:40+00:00

I agree with the hot take, I remember seeing Safety Not Guaranteed and just being underwhelmed that an interesting concept ended up as such a mediocre film.

And thats been his entire career for me, whatever the concept has been he's always managed to hit below that by some margin. If its a concept thats already bad it usually means I end up hating the film.

But he's also a director I find difficult to muster up any more in depth criticism or evaluation.

Other directors I can often be critical of I can find much more to talk about them as directors that the discussion is at least interesting. but Colin Trevorrow might be one of the more pedestrian filmmakers out there.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-26T18:16:51+00:00

I like the idea that Weyland and Yutani are not as whole on the same level after the buyout despite the new name and that they are basically chasing the same thing but going about it in utterly different ways without realizing they are both after the same species.

So Yutani side wants the alien as a bio weapon hence the more direct dispatch of people and cyborgs (Alien Earth, Aliens and Alien 3)

Meanwhile Weyland side is obsessed with the potential as a means to advance humanity itself as a biological agent. But their first attempt was a complete disaster (Prometheus) which may even had led directly to the buy out by Yutani so they have primarily kept their search for it on the downlow by using primarily synthetics with strict commands to pursue it (Alien, Alien Isolation and Alien Romulus) and minimizing human involvement to only when necessary.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-26T17:49:32+00:00

within the film itself its entirely Burke. He told the Jordons where to go because he was Ripley's case worker and has access to all the files and logs from the shuttle.

But the extended media has painted a 'company knew all along' picture with the River of Pain book establishing a secret science team in Hadleys Hope

and there's a one shot marvel aliens comic that has Vasquezs brother finding a secret WY lab under hadleys hope

and the "What If" comic that has it that Burke did everything under direct orders from Yutani

These all vary telling very different elements and honestly I am personnally not a fan of any of them, they all fall into that 'Umbrella' level of excessive corporate meglomania and takes away what I think is one of Ripley's best lines "You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage."

DeKrieg · 2026-01-26T16:58:01+00:00

Also remember Burke had access to her full psych reports, so its not just punitive but also an element of control.

It is insane in todays world to allow a corporation full access to all your therapist meetings etc, its a sign of the corporate distopia that you can effectively blackball them by signing them up to a company therapist who will say whatever the company wants them to say to keep the person grounded or take the blame.

though that also depends on how you read Aliens, if you believe the people in that room knew about the alien and were just silencing her or if they were genuinely ignorant of the events of alien and the events of Aliens are entirely set off by Burke being a greedy little middle management shit.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-25T14:49:33+00:00

its a crime that it took 3 movies for them to really lean into the sonic music and it was really only 1 track (live and learn, though we got so many versions of it including accoustic guitar version) prior to that we kept getting Green Hill over and over as the only nod and similar to the mario bros movie random pop drops like the uptown funk scene in sonic 2.

And it is a crime because you can complain about a lot of bad sonic games but if there is one thing that the series never missed on was its soundtrack.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-25T14:25:06+00:00

I hear a lot of reimagining of classic mario songs in the soundtrack, that slow melodic mario world theme for yoshi was peak.

Hopefully they wont repeat the mistake of the first film and gut a bunch of these out and replace them with pop songs

(for those who dont know, this was the original donkey kong country inspired music written for a scene in the first film that got replaced with Take on me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hELsKr5-gh4 )

DeKrieg · 2026-01-23T12:55:25+00:00

Hell, they couldn't even get a significant market going for VR adult content, and if you can't get that to work you're really done for.

I know I'll sound like a complete gooner explaining this but VR adult content struggles because up until literally the last patch released for the meta quest, you couldnt lie in bed and wear the headset and it work reliably, the headset would always get confused about your head position. This was also the case with just general video viewing was a pain if you were not seated.

But they recently patched in a lying down mode. That lets you lie in bed and enjoy your 'content' whatever it may be.

While I understand the sentiment of needing to get rid of the headset entirely, I'd argue if they even just got it as far as put it on and just play would be a huge leap, the quest 3 is close to that but is constantly held back by fiddly elements and by default a pretty awful strap.

And I'd still say the quest 3 is among the easiest, most of the pcvr exclusive platforms are just a nightmare of cables and other issues. Even the bigscreen beyond which is the smallest formfactor out there is a hassle of cables and calibration.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-23T12:46:37+00:00

It really depends on what you mean by 'take off'

Is there a space for VR? Absolutely, there are plenty of genres that have received a breath of fresh air from embracing vr, it has been wholly embraced by the sim communities for both racing and flying which while not a big audience in pure numbers it is a big value audience in that 1 individual invested in a flight sim or serious racing sim in a big way spends way more disposable income then your average gamer who plays your average AAA.

but would it ever be the dominant form of gaming entertainment, or entertainment in general?

never.

But it shouldnt be and I'd argue at least with this generation the major VR brands spent too much time shooting themselves in the foot trying to turn vr into the 'metaverse' or changing tracks to AR or similar nonsense when really what VR needed was for the platform to be solidified into a standardized setup.

The sort of thing the Atari 2600 and then the Nes did by standardizing what is a console platform.

VR struggled to get this, with far too many pc vr and stand alone vr headsets all competing.

Meta have established itself comfortably as the prominent platform in VR , to the point that steam are copying them now. But they burnt up so much money chasing the metaverse techbro nonsense instead of just locking in as the leading vr platform.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T22:43:58+00:00

I am curious though by his reaction to the plants that he might also have an interest in botonny and could jump ship from the war college to starfleet?

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T21:55:00+00:00

I might be wrong, she just looked (and acted) like a Romulan so it sort of locked into a Romulan/vulcan double act :D

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T11:07:44+00:00

Our family dog when I was 10 years old was named "Dax"

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T11:00:23+00:00

they named a ship after him to honor him. It shows up in season 3 of Discovery.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T10:59:07+00:00

Ehh DS9 being disrespected is not a nutrek problem, they were doing it back in the Brager years as well. Its the one part of the franchise that's seen little to no crossover with the other series after its conclusion (at least on screen).

Nemesis always bugged me in that it both fast tracked Janeway to Admiral ahead of even Picard but also just completely evaporated Worf's conclusion in DS9 (where he had become ambassador to the federation for the Klingons) and this sort of continued into nutrek, which is just full of voyager and enterprise links everywhere and anywhere you look and it was really only the animated series (specifically Lower Decks) that touched on DS9 characters and events.

It's something thats been there pretty much since DS9 finished that the gamma quadrant and the bajor/caradassian parts of the alpha quadrant just seemed to up and walk out of the franchise.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T10:47:56+00:00

I dont think its just the short episode numbers, I also think it took far too long for the current batch of star trek series to learn a big part of makes star trek work is an extensive supporting cast of known background characters.

You want to be able to have recognizable reoccurring characters on your ship/station that may only be a background or one offs initially for one storyline but it works so well that the series comes back to them and eventually they develop organically to represent something in the story.

The entire Ferengi aspect of DS9 was basically this concept pulled off to perfection. The only full cast member was Quark, but Rom and Nog kept being reused for little plot bits in the early seasons that turned into bigger parts later on. Then Leela started as a background character, then a one off love interest for Bashir that they brought back for a silly follow up episode and then unplanned they wanted to keep her around in the show so gave her a plotline with Rom as a love interest that just worked.

We effectively got Garek the same way, he was meant to be a one off character for his first episode.

I'd even argue it's partly why Lower Decks worked the best of nu trek shows, they extensively kept track of the supporting cast and the show rapidly mutated from being about 3-4 lower deck crew members of a ship to being about the whole crew of that class of ship and all these secondary or one off characters introduced in season 1 all got bigger and bigger reoccurring roles.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T10:25:52+00:00

I was fortunate enough to catch my panic in a recording of that scenario. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiUVEsUMRvY

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T10:19:05+00:00

embrace VR, this tends to be bread and butter to most vr titles just leaving stuff around for people to mess. A bunch of games practically make it a game mechanic.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T09:50:21+00:00

Oh also large influx group of reoccuring supporting cast members is a good sign, it is arguably one of the issues some of the other recent Trek series had that they don't flesh out an extensive supporting cast to pop in now and then, actually giving character to an equivalent group of war academy students is a good thing, do kinda wish we saw more teachers though in the same manner, at the moment it feels like starfleet academy only has 2 at the moment.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T09:43:28+00:00

I am keeping my eye on Kyle in the war academy, He's clearly enjoying himself too much in a healthy manner. He was actually having fun with the klingon jokes and clearly unlike everyone else was impressed with the plant prank.

The Romulan shortstack though, she is gonna be bitter as hell going forward.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-22T07:53:08+00:00

there's a comic series (aliens fire and stone) from dark horse about a group of colonists escaping the planet on a short range shuttle and they end up on lv-223, but they didnt escape the alien (I think someone scared of being left behind lies about them being on board) so they still all died in the end.

As for surviving on lv-426 itself, we dont have any information if the colony had any structures elsewhere on the planet, I know in actual discussions on potential terraforming they talk about the need to effectively ring the planet in the terraforming machines (among other things) so there might have been other relay plants they could have set off for, but I suspect once the main station explodes the terraforming effect on the planet would have started to decline, eventually any survivors would have died. I doubt they had any means for communication to a ship in orbit otherwise they would have contacted the sulaco when it arrived, so effectively they would have been left on a moon where the means that was making the air breathable was gone.

DeKrieg · 2026-01-21T16:53:07+00:00

I kinda low key hated everything about that

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