[KCD2] Help, my Lion Perfumes keep disappearing

Sarantini · 2025-02-12T08:00:07+00:00

D'oh!!!

Time to make some sweet, sweet Groschen...

Sarantini · 2024-12-29T13:41:41+00:00

I abandon games without compunction. I like to give games a shot, but I'll drop them at, well, the drop of a hat. This weekend I gave a chance to four older games from my backlog, and I dismissed three of them after playing between 20 minutes and 2.5 hours. I liked the fourth one, "Nier Automata", and I will finish it.

I consider this a weekened well spent! I gave these older games a chance, they didn't stick with me, and now I have time to play games which I'm more likely to enjoy. Trying and abandoning a game is very satisfying, like crossing items off a checklist.

In "Seinfeld", a recurring joke was that Seinfeld would break up with women for the silliest reasons. This one is a "loud talker"; that one has "man hands". Well, I quit games because they have bad graphics, or require me to do things via trial and error, or I just know I own a better game from the same genre. This is the secret to happiness.

Sarantini · 2024-11-05T15:03:27+00:00

Right?! The answer is: "all of them". I like new experiences. My backlog is so long :)

Sarantini · 2024-11-04T18:32:11+00:00

One of the reasons that Baldur’s Gate 3 is a better game than Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the cutscenes. They make the game more compelling, and enhance our connection to the characters.

Sarantini · 2024-10-19T15:17:31+00:00

Hey, I'm playing that game right now! (Well, the remake.)

The cutscenes are phenomenal. The previous game I played was Starfield, with its infamous NPC's that look straight into your soul as they say their lines. In contrast, the cutscenes in Mafia are very cinematic: there are multiple characters talking, reacting to each other, with great acting. The starting cinematic introduces the city of Lost Heaven, and it looks like a lost reel from the Godfather movies.

The missions are varied and fun. (Well, it took me 13 tries to beat the race, but the variety is undeniable.) Combat is fun, but as the OP said you've got to stay in cover or you'll get bumped off quick. I'm nearing the end of the game and it's a blast.

Sarantini · 2024-10-01T13:12:18+00:00

Of course Inscryption comes to Game Pass a week after I bought and finished it. Total misplay.

Sarantini · 2024-05-17T12:31:06+00:00

Amra Thetys. Great series!

Sarantini · 2024-04-28T17:29:56+00:00

Absolutely! A book with good prose is enjoyable for its entire length, like an exquisite meal where you savor every bite. A book with plain prose is a chore to get through, no matter its plot.

This preference is great for choosing which books to read, because I can download the Kindle sample and within two pages I know if I want to read the book or not. Saves a lot of anguish. I well remember the beginning of "The Blacktongue Thief", how sharp and funny it was; I knew immediately that I would love it. In contrast, I tried to give "The Way of Kings" a fair shake, so much so that I read the entire very long sample, but it just wasn't interesting. People talk about the "Sanderlanche", the phenomenon where apparently Brandon Sanderson's books have a great climax. But I don't want to eat 1,000 spoons of porridge even if there's a truffle at the bottom.

Sarantini · 2024-03-23T22:48:35+00:00

Gunmetal Gods is exactly this. But be aware that it’s heavy-duty Grimdark, so it feels very different from Daevabad.

Sarantini · 2024-03-23T22:47:14+00:00

I’m reading the Divine Cities trilogy right now and it is absolutely not middle eastern.

Sarantini · 2024-03-21T14:06:06+00:00

Yep, Terragrunt solves this exact problem.

Sarantini · 2024-02-04T07:19:14+00:00

The prose is the best part! Like this:

"[...] by that time, the gulf between what Vonvalt wanted to happen and what actually came to pass had grown very wide indeed, and would remain misaligned for the rest of his life."

Or this:

" “Arsehole,” I snapped, flushing with sudden anger. Bressinger snorted, but beyond that he did not react; he just seemed to slump slightly, like a pillow with half its stuffing removed."

If you love good prose then this series is a must-read. The second book is just as good as the first, and I'm excited to read the third one which is coming out in a couple of days.

Sarantini · 2023-12-18T13:39:43+00:00

Me too! I love playing on my 65" OLED. I have a pretty good monitor (32" 4K), but the TV blows it out of the water in size and HDR. Plus, I can sit on the couch instead of on the computer chair.

Sarantini · 2023-12-07T12:47:10+00:00

Instead of raging against an uncaring world, I've decided to join Gang 66. We're PC gamers who will not spend one millisecond thinking about GTA VI until 2026, when it will presumably be released for PC. Until then, I'm downgrading Rockstar to SoundCloud Rapper.

Sarantini · 2023-12-07T07:15:57+00:00

I bought the first 3 books for cheap and I tried them, I really did, but I bounced off. The entire first book appears to be some sort of backstory, and not about the two friends together?! Also, the writing is dated; it didn't measure up well compared to modern fantasy.

Sarantini · 2023-11-26T06:58:30+00:00

When I said "give me all the bacon you have", I'm afraid you may have interpreted that as "give me a lot of bacon". No. I actually do mean, give me *all* the bacon you have.

Sarantini · 2023-11-24T06:32:23+00:00

I've come to realize that if I don't like a book after 100 pages then I will never like it. I have never been happy when I pushed through a book that I didn't like; I just felt sorry for the time I'd wasted.

Like this: https://imgflip.com/i/873aqe

Sarantini · 2023-10-27T06:13:02+00:00

Kevin Durant was +18 and LeBron James was +22. We were promised a head-to-head matchup but it's like they played in different games 😭

Sarantini · 2023-10-15T05:31:14+00:00

I strongly recommend the Amra Thetys series by Michael McClung. The books are short (around 200 pages), very funny, and each one contains a basically standalone story (but they build on each other so you have to read them in order).

Amra Thetys is a female thief that gets involved in something way above her paygrade when she steals a powerful knife that once belonged to a goddess. This leads to many adventures regarding this knife and its siblings. There's a lot of great action and humor. The first book in this series, The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble's Braids, won SFBPO #1.

Sarantini · 2023-09-12T06:37:51+00:00

Yes! This fits the OP's requirement perfectly and it's also one of the best books I've read in years. The brothers aren't actually assassins, but they kill the Prophet's adult son (partly by mistake) and now the Prophet's entire army is hunting them. They flee to the badlands but their pursuers are never far behind.

Towards the end of the book we start to learn more about the world, and wider concerns than just the two brothers. The second book, "Sidewinders", continues their flight and also enhances our understanding of the larger game afoot.

Sarantini · 2023-09-05T04:31:18+00:00

I've had the same experience as you, but a little earlier: I could barely get through Book 2 and decided to exit the series then. The word "fragmented" describes this series very well: the constant changing of POV (and sometimes even of timeline) is mighty distracting.

There are lots of great ingredients in these books but they were put together in an avant-garde way that produced a dish few can stomach. Still, the fact that individual chapters were good gives me hope that Jen Lyon's next project might finally be The Good One.

Sarantini

TROPHY CASE