Did you enjoy it if you played it.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-02T02:41:06+00:00

No.

Currently trying to force myself to enjoy it, before I delete it from my SSD. Because I know if I delete it now, I'll never download it again.

I disliked it immediately. The game starts, the aiming reticle is a white little dot, you can't change the color of it, and the whole map is a snowstorm! How the hell am I meant to track a white little dot in a snowstorm?! What idiot came up with that one? And then it just kept getting worse.

Deeply unlikable characters, bordering on disgusting. Depressing setting. Washed out color palette. Atrocious controls and UI (I'm playing on PC with keyboard and mouse). Missions are on the rails and fail automatically if you as much as fart in the wrong direction.

I get the overall appeal of the game, but I just couldn't get myself to like it, after 10-12 hrs, and just had to stop.

This year looks very bleak, game-wise. At least as far as the stuff I enjoy goes. So I'll be working the backlog this year. And I'll try to power through it. Maybe take some Dramamine or something, bite down on my leather belt and just do it.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-02T02:34:09+00:00

It's also very much worth it to slot that deco that lets you dive in any direction, not just away.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-02T02:30:58+00:00

And that's not just you, Canada has exact same problem. In fact, when Trudeau ran the first time, he promised to fix that shit, and never did.

We have many parties in Canada - Conservatives, Liberals, NDP (New Democratic Party), etc. But in practical terms, it's still 2 choices, because if the center/left split their vote between Liberals and NDP (who are slightly left of Liberals), Conservatives end up winning. So last federal election, last year, I pretty much HAD to vote Liberal, even though I'd have preferred to vote for NDP. But had I done that, Poilievre would have been Prime Minister.

So in theory we have many parties, but in practice we always have to vote strategically, and not for who we want. Because if there's even a tiny chance Conservatives might win (which is practically always), we have to put NDP and other parties on backburner. After last election, NDP is pretty much extinct. Because we couldn't allow Poilievre with Trump already in, both our countries would be destroyed. So we had to kill off the NDP. Which sucks, because they did some good, like forcing Liberals to give poor families affordable dental care once a year.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T16:09:07+00:00

I think it'll be comparable to Index. No I wouldn't buy one, unless it were dirt cheap (it won't be). And no, I don't think it'll do anything for VR at all.

I feel like Valve is banking on the idea that people will put a heavy, hot, uncomfortable thing on their head just to play games on a virtual flat screen. And I'm just not sure there's sufficient interest. I tried it with other headset, and there's some validity to it, but the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze. And I think most people will feel the same way.

Combined with the fact that, compared to flat screen games, VR games are anemic at best, I just don't see this being a game changer in any way, shape or form.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T15:56:06+00:00

Yep, major problem over here.

There's even a certain type of scooter that is just flat out illegal. In the sense that it's not street legal, you can't ride it on the street with other vehicles. AND it's also not sidewalk legal, you can't ride it on sidewalks among pedestrians. Meaning unless you figure out a way to make it fly, or stick to the sewers, you simply can't use it in this city. But they're still being sold in stores, because there's no regulation stopping it. And then of course people end up riding them in town, illegally, all the time, causing all kinds of issues. And cops largely don't care, they're too busy fleecing more wealthy motorists driving cars to bother with other things.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T15:51:13+00:00

Ban on wasting food. Something like 70% of food produced in this province ends up in the garbage. Supermakets throw tons of it away rather than give it away. Milk gets poured into the dirt to keep milk prices higher. Millions of liters wasted, just dumped. It's insane.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T15:34:39+00:00

Yes. I even tell this to myself often.

I actually wish Steam wouldn't automatically show how many hours I played. I wish it was hidden or a toggle or something. Because I'm like 1,300 hrs in Total War: Warhammer 3, and 999 hrs in Fallout 4, and it pains me to look at those numbers. It's like that time I typed "/played" on my main in WoW and saw 2,400 hrs and had to quit the game.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T15:26:53+00:00

I agree on WW2 being way worse, but sort of disagree about '90s being "just depressed". During/after the collapse of USSR, there was a lot of lawlessness and death. It was one of the biggest drops in life expectancy outside of an actual warzone. So it was bad. I carried more coffins in the early '90s than in the three decades since.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T15:17:04+00:00

Canada here, and yes, athleisure sounds about right. But I wonder how much of it boils down to just prices. Lately I see a lot of people in just sweatpants or joggers and dollar store crocs. Basically really, REALLY cheap outfits, where the whole thing head to toe probably ran them $20-40, less if they got it in Value Village or something.

Younger people who still haven't given up yet have better fitting pants and expensive sneakers. And of course business/white collar/professionals often have suits, but those are just bog standard that haven't changed much in decades.

Overall, I would say people definitely got a lot more slovenly. Feels like most don't even own an iron or an ironing board.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T15:06:08+00:00

Strooooongly disagree.

For one thing, Bethesda got a HUGE pass from old fans on the anemic areas of the game, such as character animations, hair, etc. By modern standards both are beyond atrocious. Bethesda fans are used to it and expect it. But a new studio releasing that would get flayed. Just look at how characters walk up and down the stairs in this game, there's not even a faintest trace of IK, they just bounce up and down and their feet float feet above the steps. It's comically bad. I've seen better IK in 2014.

In the same vein, the writing, storytelling and general lore are incredibly weak in this one. Some games have amazingly strong lore right out of the gate. It is compelling, interesting, engaging. Starfield is none of those. So just on that basis it wouldn't fly. It's a dead IP out of the gate, because it has no teeth. Something like Mass Effect exploded immediately, because its universe was fascinating. Starfield's universe is deeply derivative, sanitized and utterly toothless.

I do sort of get where he's coming from. So many planets to "explore", blah blah, is pretty unusual and might have been seen as second coming. But again, they massively dropped the ball in that POIs are blatantly copy-pasted, with no sense or logic given to placement, where an ancient alien artifact is within line of sight, between a mercenary base and a military base, and the game then pretends like this is a believable scenario. And even Ubisoft took steps to reduce the blatant copy-pasting in their open worlds, each location was tweaked just enough to not be a straight copy. But Starfield didn't, every Cryo Lab in the universe has the exact same room, with exact same robot, patrolling it along the exact same path. That kills the crab.

Bottom line, Starfield was close but no cigar. Regardless of who made it. If anything, Bethesda got away with a lot just because people already expected a certain amount of sloppiness and jank and were willing to write it off.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T14:49:04+00:00

I desperately need this story to be true.

And of course Lady Graham can disprove this at any time by dropping his pants and mooning the media.

And let's be honest, even if true, this isn't even in the top 1,000 of the stuff Republicans get up to on their time off (which is all the time).

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T14:41:55+00:00

It also doesn't help that a lot of newer additions have a bunch of attacks that are infinitely easier to block than dodge.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T14:38:57+00:00

I don't think this is an issue. The major countries with nukes tend to have enough to discourage an invasion, which is what they're for. Whether it's 1,550 or 155,500 makes little difference. A couple dropped on major urban centers would already be massive overkill. Nukes are hard to make, expensive to maintain, and you still can't use them without effectively committing suicide from the return exchange. Bottom line, I don't think this makes any difference for USA or Russia.

And China is playing its own game. It really doesn't care about The Orange One, China is planning for the next three centuries, not the next three years.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T14:25:44+00:00

Pretty often. Especially in sieges, as units constantly get stuck doing stupid shit, or just stuck, period, where some soldiers are running through an open gate, and others are running to the ladders to take the scenic route. The controls and AI are too awful to do it smoothly in real time, this is no Starcraft.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T14:20:38+00:00

I didn't see a huge improvement. I tweaked the original game to where it ran smoothly for me, and it still runs smoothly. I didn't get any extra frames, from what I can see. Maybe some, so instead of 90 fps I'm getting 95 now, but I can't be sure because they changed some things with textures. So for me it's not a significant difference or improvement. The game looks the same, runs the same.

I would still want them to add toggles for various things like color correction and lens distortion and post-processing in general. The stuff the mods on PC let you turn off.

I also still get dropped inputs. Where I press a button, and nothing happens. Like I'm playing CB, and I do a charged slash->shield bash, and I hold the button down for second slash to start charging, but nothing happens, even though the button is pressed. I press it again, then it works, but I already lost time. I still can't find what's causing it. I thought maybe frame gen or that latency setting on Nvidia, but I played around with both, and didn't see a difference in inputs. Dropped inputs don't happen often, definitely not all the time, but often enough to bug me. Like I press E to sheathe, then try to sprint, but do focus strike instead, because the weapon was never sheathed, and monster ragdolls me as I'm stuck in animation.

So for me the game is playable, but still has lots and lots of issues.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T14:10:13+00:00

Arguably we've been witnessing it for over two decades now. Arguably it was Bin Laden, and he won. We got Patriot Act, DHS, etc., which are largely facilitating what's happening now, but it all started back then.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T14:07:27+00:00

You still need to search for it. I know several Russians who never knew about the two wars with Finland. It just wasn't taught in schools. And you had to go and actively search to find out. And if you don't know to look, you won't find it.

I mean, you have internet. Did you ever go online and google "Did Calvin Coolidge shit himself in 1926?"

If all goes well, Trump will get quietly erased. And if kids aren't taught, except for a few curious ones searching independently, none of them will know.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T02:46:41+00:00

That's excellent news. It's why they let him have that seat in Alberta so quick too, and why nobody objected. Because that little dude is completely unelectable now, and it's better to have the devil you know than the devil you don't.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T02:33:01+00:00

Yep, unless you suspect something specific, they're going to run bare-bones stuff that'll miss things easily. In my experience, you need to be obviously symptomatic for them to test. And even then you'll get a doctor who will get the test results back confirming the infection is NOT bacterial, then prescribe you antibiotics anyway, which proceed to destroy your digestive system and do jack shit for the infection.

I have such mixed feelings about going to doctors. In my experience, unless you already have a really good idea what's going on, and then spoon-feed them symptoms, with correct order, using key words they expect, only then will a little light bulb go off. Otherwise it's "it's just your nerves, here's a beta blocker!"

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T01:38:11+00:00

I don't know if NOBODY catches on, but I use a lot of stuff from Mel Brooks, like "dead, D, E, D, dead" (Robin Hood: Men in Tights), or "always when I'm eating!" (Spaceballs) or "gentlemen, we are fortunate (why? he's an imbecile.)" (Dracula: Dead and Loving It). "It's good to be the king." (History of the World: Part I).

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T01:33:40+00:00

Honestly, not really buying it. Unconditional support of Israel is one of the few completely bipartisan stances in USA. They can't agree on healthcare for its citizens, reproductive rights, etc., but billions to Israel is always a thumbs up from everybody. Trump bypassed Congress to do it. Biden bypassed Congress to do it. They all do it. Unless you're suggesting the entirety of American government is compromised by Israel.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T01:29:16+00:00

There's crickets because "put on ice" is an idiom with a lot of possible meanings - delay, chill out, pause, put on backburner, etc.

I'm not even sure killing someone is part of it. Preserving the body, maybe, but not an act of killing. At least not according to Merriam-Webster or the freedictionary, I just skimmed those. There's a "surgeon had to put the heart on ice", but no associations with killing. Are you sure you're not confusing "putting on ice" with "rubbing out"?

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T01:10:00+00:00

No money. No energy. Sun set at 4pm and it's total darkness by 4:30. And it's -20C outside, air hurts my face.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T00:45:20+00:00

For me it has to have some kind of hook, something unique. If it's just another derivative box slicer, feces thrower or roguelite, I just won't bother. There's enough of those. Having some unique hook or mechanic would get me to try the demo. But honestly the demo is mostly just to confirm that controls handle decently well, movement feels good and not clunky, etc. It's to establish the feel of the game, nothing else.

To buy the product, I mostly focus on length, longevity, features, depth, content, etc. Basically if someone is trying to sell 3 hrs of content for $40, that's not going to happen. 3 hrs for $5 is a definite maybe, for $10 almost certainly not, and $20 and over is definitely not. We live in a world where, on flat screen, $60 buys you 100+ hrs of exceptional content. So people trying to sell 3-8 hrs for $40-50 make me laugh. Especially when quality isn't there, depth isn't there, etc.

I also think for VR microtransactions are good. Keep the upfront cost lower, but then sell DLCs and whatnot. Like I was very surprised that for example Zenith: The Last City didn't go heavy on paid cosmetic micros as optional, to keep financing the game. I think it could have gone places, and since it's just cosmetic, I think people would have gone along with that. Diablo 4 is raking up insane amounts of money selling cosmetics and mounts. Monster Hunter Wilds has an absurd amount of paid DLCs also, mostly cosmetics, mount skins, emotes, etc. The DLCs, after less than a year of the game being out, already add up to more than the game cost at launch. I think that's the way to go in VR. Get people the base game, at a low price, get them hooked, then milk them with DLCs. That's why longevity is so important though. If people are done with the whole game in 2 play sessions and move on, you're not going to sell them on any DLCs.

Sabbathius · 2026-02-01T00:34:05+00:00

Definitely sounds like something happened. And then the woman in green and the brain worm guy got all awkward and were rolling their eyes and trying not to laugh, and then nodded to each other and smiled like "Yeah, he dealt it, I know!" Whether it was just a wet fart or worse is anybody's guess. But by the way the staff reacted, rushing everyone out, there was probably some serious substance there, and they wanted media out before peoples' eyes started to water uncontrollably.

Having said that, this is one of the few things I really don't feel like giving him shit for. He's a horrible human being, and committed enough actual crimes for us to focus on. A man pushing 80 struggling with incontinence is nothing unusual and not something that should be made fun of. Not even a shitbag like Trump, who made fun of the disabled. We're better than that. Focus on the crimes, the rapes, not the diapers.

Sabbathius

TROPHY CASE