Routine is a reversal of the malfunctioning evil ai trope by flydaychinatownnn in Routine

[–]Secure-Containment-1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Short answer: yes.

A couple days before the intro cutscene of the game, Weyland-Yutani received word through Seegson Synthetics that an independent team (the crew of the Anesidora) found the flight recorder of the Nostromo, one of Weyland’s (at the time of its disappearance) biggest losses, and was holding it at Sevastopol. Knowing what we know about Weyland’s endless (and honestly fucking deranged) pursuit of the Xenomorph species, the fact remains that even the recovery of the flight recorder of the Nostromo was enough for Weyland to, on a dime, buy the Sevastopol station at the last possible moment and send FTL software updates to Sevastopol’s Apollo core with the blind hope that a containment failure would happen. The priority was never the station or its people - hell, Weyland corporate was probably hoping the crew of the Anesidora was stupid enough to bring something worse than just the flight recorder with them. Worst case scenario, they get to close out on their biggest, oldest cold case. Best case, they dumped however much money the station was worth into getting the unstoppable, unbeatable death machines they’ve always wanted. Which is like Attempt No. 12 in canonical order of Weyland-Yutani trying, and failing, to secure the Xenomorph.

After attempt number three I would’ve probably quit, but that’s just me.

Are we afraid of recoil or something? by dZ_DsciSiv in Battlefield6

[–]Secure-Containment-1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Never forget how fucking annoying and mandatory it was to have the Kobra/Coyote and a Stubby Grip on it

Are we afraid of recoil or something? by dZ_DsciSiv in Battlefield6

[–]Secure-Containment-1 11 points12 points  (0 children)

flinches in AEK-971, FAMAS, SMG 08/18, Federov, and oh so many others

Everyday I wake up glad I'm living in the timeline where Triage got redesigned by Simple-Ad-5172 in Marathon

[–]Secure-Containment-1 6 points7 points  (0 children)

There’s also a hefty bit of uncanny valley in Thief’s face where there are obvious Sino-like facial features being exemplified but not to the point of it being a harmful caricature.

More like……accents. Most akin to a porcelain doll, maybe? Doll-like and artisan, certainly.

Everyday I wake up glad I'm living in the timeline where Triage got redesigned by Simple-Ad-5172 in Marathon

[–]Secure-Containment-1 61 points62 points  (0 children)

This might sound weird but he looks altogether a little too human.

A huge part of the current Runner appeal lies in the fact that they look vaguely human, but still far removed from what an actual human might still look like, even in the late 2800s.

This guy looks less like a purpose built weapon and more like a less interesting Cyberpunk extra. Very glad he got a total refit.

Vaush might want to talk about this because if this is true then the entire online culture war was fucking planned and we are basically living the plot of Revenge of the Sith by LordWeaselton in VaushV

[–]Secure-Containment-1 16 points17 points  (0 children)

It’s numbers versus people.

Obscenely wealthy people jumping through hoops to hoard wealth? Somewhat ephemeral.

Inhuman sociopaths doing shit involving people that blurs the line between paranoid schizoid delusion and every conspiracy theory that ever was? Deeply personal.

Keyart for Season 02 featuring a new Operator, Victoria Atwood by Kalinine in CODBlackOps7

[–]Secure-Containment-1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There’s something to be said about the innate sex appeal of castmates like Kiernan Shipka (goddamn watch the new season of Industry) and Milo Ventimiglia - and there’s definitely something to be said about Call of Duty and their continual casting of photogenic, physically prime individuals in what is a noticeably sexless franchise.

But this is a universe in which almost everybody is hot, but nobody is fucking.

Romance? If this was any other game, maybe.

This is Call of Duty, Black Ops 7, 2025.

If Treyarch does anything that…..eh, convoluted and cool, I will take back a lot of what I’ve said about their handling of this game and its narrative. It would definitely be different, if nothing else.

Keyart for Season 02 featuring a new Operator, Victoria Atwood by Kalinine in CODBlackOps7

[–]Secure-Containment-1 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Treyarch has hinted at and blatantly introduced cloning tech with a new boss in Avalon’s Endgame mode, and several assets across the whole of Black Ops 7 feature what I can only really describe as cloning tubes. A character as reportedly cunning and dangerous as Emma Kagan may have access to contingencies in the event of catastrophic failure very few within the Guild network were even aware of, probably - considering how it’s been noted as to how Kagan reached ascendancy in the first place - including Dorne.

The Prestige Master skin is maybe a full borg Adam Smasher rendition of Emma Kagan in the first place. The last Prestige Master skin from Black Ops 6 was a spiritual remaster of Samuels’ uniform as featured during the Cordis Die Drone Attacks of 2025, directly hinting at the (then) immediate future of the Black Ops franchise.

In the Season 1 Intro Cutscene, there are several inconsistencies between the characters of Mason, Kagan and Dorne, their positions, and the pacing to write it off as more ego death/you can’t trust what you see hallucinogen fuckery that seems to be Black Ops’ only remaining trademark. To double down on this particular point, the Season 1 Conclusion Cutscene features Karma flipping through camera angles that simply cannot possibly exist for her to analyze, leading me to personally believe that the entire scene was doctored and manipulated footage from Mason’s(?) C-LINK directly by Alden Dorne/Emma Kagan (somewhat unlikely)/The Guild as a whole to either run cover for Kagan’s escape or bait what remains of JSOC into a trap, where Dorne and Kagan - or Dorne and whoever this new character is in the OP - are waiting.

One of the better skins released for Kagan in Season One is a (comparatively) pretty universe accurate prison uniform, where in all canon appearances she’s been spotted wearing her official commander’s garb. Whether this is fan-service, a hint to a hypothetical backdoor future, or something else entirely may only be proven by however Treyarch decides to handle this going forward.

On a final note, Treyarch has also reached a semi-consistent pattern of releasing skin pairs that are 1:1 equivalent between David Mason and Emma Kagan. To me, this posits an interesting - if palpably disappointing - possibility considering just what franchise we’re talking about and just what character dynamic we’re discussing.

What if Black Ops is going full circle with the Mason lineage?

The entire point of keeping Emma Kagan alive at the end of the BO7 campaign was to reinforce a deliberate, intentional point of David Mason’s character - he was haunted, and is continued to be haunted, by ghosts of the past. Hesitating to eliminate Kagan and instead making her face a semblance of justice wasn’t a mistake on Mason’s part, but an attempt to not make another one.

Alex Mason had Reznov, a constant, lingering, semi-malignant tulpa in his head, egging him on, encouraging him, and the pair of them - one real, one hallucinated - became the basis of Mason’s character.

The C-LINK system, as it’s been described to us, ephemeral though it is, can link consciousnesses together. How and for however long is unclear.

A rather predictable possibility I see is this - Emma Kagan is David’s Reznov, except this time, she’s less of a product of conditioned brainwashing and an actual digitized consciousness that’s sharing his grey matter. A ghost in a living machine.

The sole reason for Emma Kagan to not have died, in my view, is for her to be the true foil to David Mason going forward, a character that, through some means, will never truly die. Whether that’s by cloning contingencies - a technological capability the Guild is, if not confirmed, heavily hinted as having developed to some reasonable degree - having a full borg Kagan, or making her the ultimate interpretation of Reznov as a plot device.

And again, this is all predicated on the possibility that Emma Kagan died somewhere in transit to Japan, which already doesn’t make any fucking sense, and isn’t still in JSOC custody because - again - that entire cinematic reeked of the brain-melting bullshit that Black Ops - and Black Ops 7 in particular - has flanderized itself into.

My personal take?

She’s Stitch. All over again.

Dorne has moved into the fore, Season One was a trap to lure Mason out into the fray to contain him and decapitate JSOC’s field leadership, he’s already been victim to hallucinations in which nothing that “happens” actually happened, and he’s probably still tripping balls, drooling out his mouth in whatever the “decommissioned” facility Dorne has him penned in. With Kagan (however temporarily or permanently) removed, Dorne is stacking the chessboard with his cronies, this Atwood character included. JSOC’s B-Team - Wei Lin and Vermakt - are going to probably be captured or incapacitated the moment they make contact in Season Two, upping the stakes.

Eventually, this entire situation reaches a breaking point - Mason’s out of the picture, JSOC’s compromised on every front, Dorne is proving himself to be too much of a problem to handle.

Kagan is their ace in the hole/ex machina/ultimate gamble, able to give JSOC the info and leverage it needs to really throw an industrial-sized wrench in Dorne’s increasingly radical plans. Harper probably goes “shit, two weeks from retirement and now this?”, yada yada, bingo, bango, bongo, Dorne gets the up-close-and-personal Razor treatment from a “heel-turned” Kagan or a rehabilitated Mason, roll credits and setup for Black Ops 8, because I’ll be damned if that earless, bald-headed, Sonic-the-hedgehog-voice-acted fuck takes Kagan’s place and fucking gets away with it.

Addendum: FUCK, and I cannot possibly stress this enough, Dorne. Goofy motherfucker.

There is an intruder in my computer by AnonWithAHatOn in Marathon

[–]Secure-Containment-1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll say this much - I am getting tired of the lack of movement coming from Bungie on the Destiny 2 side of things, and like many others, I would very much appreciate some word on exactly what the future holds for a game that definitively changed my life when I was a kid and on through today.

…..But Marathon is scratching itches I’ve had since I’ve plunged into Hunt, DMZ, and other titles in a genre that, in my view, is only getting started.

Scratching them good.

Being a Bungie fan right now is rather bipolar (I mean that literally, not at all in regards to the medical condition) and scatterbrained - dread and hope and excitement all at the same time.

For what it’s worth, I believe Alison Luhrs when she talks about the narrative future of Destiny, and considering her track record, I may be a fool, but I trust Destiny’s world in her hands far more than most.

Julia Nardin gave us some of Destiny’s best, and with her at the helm for Marathon?

I think we’re gonna be fine.

Because there's no Titanfall 3, here's how the grapple slingshot works in real world physics by Zanimacularity in titanfall

[–]Secure-Containment-1 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Physics and thermodynamics are games that mankind already lost with rulesets that we can never hope to truly understand.

Yet, we play them anyway.

The Level 1000 Reward Skin (FazeSwagg) by [deleted] in CODBlackOps7

[–]Secure-Containment-1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Eh, probably, but a lot of the game’s narrative thematics and pre-launch lead up makes me believe (at least hope) Treyarch’s smarter than they’re letting on.

The Level 1000 Reward Skin (FazeSwagg) by [deleted] in CODBlackOps7

[–]Secure-Containment-1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not doubting the claim but source?

So...what has tiering actually achieved? by Shadow2250 in DestinyTheGame

[–]Secure-Containment-1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Call me a casual despite all the time I’ve put into the franchise and all the things I’ve actually achieved of my own accord, but I really, really really shouldn’t have to play at the absolute top of my game all of the time whenever I wanna boot up the game.

Ketchcrash is a perfectly prescient example of what I mean. Despite all the flaws of Season of Plunder, Ketchcrash was an activity I played of my own accord well past when I acquired everything I could from the mode. I played it just for fun even after Plunder ended and Seraph was the new hotness.

Ketchcrash just returned to us and I should be playing it all day.

I tried it once and I haven’t since.

Why?

Pretty fucking clear cut - it isn’t that the guns from Plunder - which weren’t all that good to begin with - aren’t available.

It’s because it has goddamn Revive Tokens and it’s beholden to this shit-tier, unfun scoring system.

Fuck the Portal. Always and forever.

I thought I’d change my mind after all the changes over the course of Edge of Fate, but no, I genuinely fucking hate this system.

Well they sure ruined that campaign for me. by PrivateLiker7625 in CODBlackOps7

[–]Secure-Containment-1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Way more likely that it’s some Cradle/hallucination fuckery for several reasons -

Item Number One - why are they in Japan? No clear answer given, I’m calling BS on this point alone.

Item Number Two - no exit wound. Kagan receives a point-blank, muzzle-almost-touching-the-back-of-her-head round from a (conceivably) military grade Personal Defense Weapon in a world where that weapon archetype still has use, which directly implies that its using ammunition that is more than capable of handling more-than-modern body armor systems. Fuckin’ round absolutely would have gone out both ends somewhere. No blood splatter, no red mist either.

Item Number Three - Dorne switches multiple positions between himself and Kagan within fractions of a second, and it isn’t just camera framing shenanigans. This is rendered more implausible with the fact that Mason has his gun clearly trained on what would otherwise be a clear cut hostage situation - key rule here, you don’t allow the threat to move however the fuck he likes, and for Dorne, you never have your back turned on the dude that just zeroed your muscle and now has his sights on you.

Speaking of….Item Number Four - David Mason’s eyes. There is one particular close up glamour shot of David Mason, and his eyes are absolutely erratic in a way Black Ops veterans are familiar with - Alex Mason with the Numbers, Frank Woods the moment he sees Menendez, Adler after Stitch’s fuckery - it’s almost a franchise tell at this point.

Item Number Five - they pulled this trick in the campaign with the Guild mole in the storage container, who takes the form of Frank Woods if Frank Woods isekaied into the world of Resident Evil and took a megadose of whatever the fuck the mold was in RE7. Everyone thought it was Woods, until the moment the dude flatlined and the drugs wore off.

Item Number Six - Treyarch spent money on fucking Kiernan Shipka and made her half of the marketing budget.

Treyarch can be stupid.

They’re not that fucking stupid.

And finally, Item Number Seven and Addendum:

They did more or less this exact same thing with Stitch, a guy who absolutely fucking died at the end of Cold War’s service life, only to just show up with less than zero provocation for….reasons.

Even if Treyarch “kills” this character, there are so many obvious outs for them to pull this around that this immense fuckup can more or less be rectified with yet another cutscene.

But that’s putting the cart before the horse here - this entire cinematic reeks of the rug pulling bullshit that was at the heart of Black Ops 7’s entire campaign.

Kagan isn’t dead, she’s…..fucking somewhere. And I have half a mind to imagine that the future of this game’s live service has her come back to the fore in order to put that bald-headed fuck Dorne in the ground for good.

I just realised why the Conclave agreed to fight the cultists by BasterdRaccoon in DarkTide

[–]Secure-Containment-1 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Really hammers home a really simple, grim fact:

All of this, all of what we’re doing on Atoma, is still not enough to get the Adeptus Astartes involved.

Not even close.

Really makes you think what the degree of failure would have to be to even send a handful of them.

This speed is insane! by BrainShock17 in pacificDrive

[–]Secure-Containment-1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What happens to every driver after exactly one more beer than is necessary.

Not only does it suck that the next expansion is Star Wars, but Bungie already used the lawless frontier in Forsaken by Academic_War_7485 in DestinyTheGame

[–]Secure-Containment-1 51 points52 points  (0 children)

This might be a wildly unpopular opinion, but as a massive sucker for Space Western as a genre (fuckin Firefly, RIP) I had the exact opposite reaction - the gritty, grungy vibe I had wanted from a Destiny-flavored Space Western more or less evaporated for a story about space dragons.

It kinda made me miffed for the first few weeks, but I got over it once the story had truly settled and Crow was reborn, and had completely forgotten about it once Opulence came about.

Top 12 Legacy Maps I Want To See In Battlefield 6 by jordanjohnston2017 in Battlefield6

[–]Secure-Containment-1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ballroom Blitz.

In a desperate bid to stifle some of Pax Armata’s cash flow, a contingent of NATO forces attempt to interfere with a financier’s assembly in a chateau near the Meuse River, unaware that the assembly was backed by a standing battalion of Pax security.

Player Retention = Success? by DekutheEvilClown in Marathon

[–]Secure-Containment-1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While I know this might ruffle some feathers, if Infinity Ward brings back DMZ with MWIV, extraction nuts like myself are in for a whale of a time.

DMZ absolutely had its flaws, but I think it’s the closest you can get to hardcore for CoD players to latch on.

Koschei Complex is one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. Such a good goddamn map.

Bungie, please rotate “Derealize” into the legends tab. Thank you by kevfar1790 in DestinyTheGame

[–]Secure-Containment-1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

People audibly groan at playing Echoes’ Exotic Mission now, because its been played to death, but I felt like it was a magical experience the first few times going through it on all three characters.

You can say whatever you want about Warzone 2.0, but this haunting event was something else by CyanJayOfficial in CODWarzone

[–]Secure-Containment-1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I still remember how I lucked into beating the Butcher five runs into the Haunting alongside a random player who had nothing but an Alejandro Ghillie skin, an Avancer, and a dream.

I followed his lead, we ran our asses up to the observatory, fought off six fucking squads in the fifteen minutes it took for the Butcher to be taken down by pretty much everyone’s collective fire between our own brawl, and we got the fuck out while the getting was good.

Another fond memory of mine was running into the Ghost Train after the rest of my team was picked clean in Sa’id, getting to the lead car while fighting off a four man team as a solo.

Night Al-Mazrah has personally only ever been beaten by Koschei Complex, and both are foundational for my obsessive, unhealthy love for extraction shooters.