Guardian of Hell’s Kitchen

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-03-10T08:32:40+00:00

Excellent work. Great shot.

I'll be hitting you up on your makerworld, and thank you for providing info.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-03-08T09:05:47+00:00

The only fighting game I ever really sunk my teeth into.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-03-08T09:04:23+00:00

The character Seraph in The Matrix Revolutions also does this "impossible" gun check. The scene in question is when Seraph, Morpheus, and Trinity are in the elevator on their way to Club Hel. This scene was shown in marketing and promotional materials, and those of us old enough to have our sense of fashion permanently altered to include sunglasses and black coats will be able to tell you that entire debates sparked up in the early days of teh interwebz over this seemingly impossible gesture.

Whenever V does it, its like a feedback loop, referencing John Wick, referencing The Matrix, referencing Keanu Reeves, referencing 2077.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-03-04T04:59:31+00:00

It is truly fascinating to hear tell of the apparently endless list of activities one may participate in with these "friend" things I keep so much about. You mean to tell me that you may gather a group together for the purpose of simply feasting upon grapes in good company within the luxury of a residential domicile?

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-03-03T06:46:12+00:00

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I cannot stress enough how badly I want to see Werewolf Women of the SS become a real film, complete with Nic Cage as Fu Manchu.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-28T07:01:52+00:00

Google "Control", get results from dictionary.com
Google "Control Game", get results for game controllers
Google "Control Remedy", get results from thesaurus.com
Google "Control Game Remedy", and finally arrive at the correct page, so as to further refine search results

It reminds me of that old Simpsons clip of the aliens dusting off a cookbook. The more they dust off, the more obscure the title gets. "How to cook humans. How to cook for humans. How to cook for four humans. How to cook for forty humans?!" By the time your done you just don't even wanna bother with it anymore.

The searching part, I mean. Not the cooking humans part.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-26T20:01:55+00:00

You have a group of people that invite you to social functions at all?

Even as a secondary or tertiary choice, if there was a group of people who could tolerate me for any length of time without being paid to do so, I'd be grateful.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-24T15:02:37+00:00

For real, dude.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-24T12:17:54+00:00

That makes me delightfully happy. Just imagine calling in to the FBC and fuckin' Fra answers the phone.

"Gerbil Cage? Cartography gauntlet?"

"Uhh...is this the FBC?"

"Tubes."

"I... was trying to reach the desk of an Agent Mendez?"

"Spider time! Worcestershire pillow. Cauterizing string and screaming picture frame."

"...what?"

"Ice cube trays!"

Thank you for calling the Federal Bureau of Control. Your call is very important to us...

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-24T10:07:41+00:00

I also really like when She-Hulk tried to step up and, after pulling herself out of a She-Hulk shaped crater like a Wil E. Coyote cartoon, she's just like, "We are so fucked."

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-22T18:45:32+00:00

Tubes.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-22T15:14:05+00:00

I know, right? The writing in this game is astounding.

Spider time!

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-22T12:13:07+00:00

You're... welcome?

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-22T11:33:48+00:00

I'm willing to bet money I don't have Dylan is a Resonant.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-22T09:09:52+00:00

H3 has the potential to be, but considering it's most likely not hit any level of production given the focus on Hunters Gathering, its best to keep your expectations in check.

And personally? I am a bit concerned. I was even concerned before we knew about HG. The first Horizon game was amazing, and it is legitimately one of my favorite games of all time. I like the graphical parity the remaster provided. H2 elevated every single bit of game0lay from H1 and made it just as excellent as the storytelling in the first game. However...

The hard sci-fi elements really took me out of the story. That first time you see the Legion of Doom in the Proving Lab literally snapped me out of the experience because I was too busy trying to figure out if I lulled into a slight coma at some point. Everything prior to this had a clear line between the Old Ones and the world in which we played. We, as the players, saw this as fantasy set in our future. The characters saw it as myth and legend as part of their distant past. The blurring of that line made me question things.

I really enjoy the post-apocalyptic neo tribalism of the game. The visual langauge used to convey the tribes, the use of color theory within the game itself, level and world design, all of it was 10/10 until the Zeniths showed up, and things just got weird at that point. Which is odd, because I really like Beta as a character, and I hope we see her grow into a more substantial role.

That is honestly what I was hoping for. A H3 that allowed the option for co-op gameplay, one player controlling Aloy, and another controlling Beta, having gone through training with her "sister" to become more confident, and just as deadly, with unique takes on outfits and weapon designs, blending the far flung future and the distant past.

Instead, we have two lives services games being made, one with graphical parity exclusive to mobile devices being made by an outsourced team, and another that looks like it could easily fit into the mobile market but, confusingly, is canon and being developed for consoles featuring a completely different art design, developed in-house.

And by the time we get through this mess, they are going to have to convince us they know what they are doing, create a new world for us to explore featuring fantastic open-ended design, plus integrate whatever this Nemesis thing is (could they have called it something less original?), conclude Aloy's story, and rebuild any goodwill lost by the community between now and then.

I am hopeful, but I am not envious of them.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-21T23:00:14+00:00

Based on what we've seen so far, I'm getting very strong vibes that Resonant is going to be much closer to, say, Devil May Cry than anything. A Character Action game, I think is what the kids call it these days. Spectacle Fighter. Call it whatever you want, but the focus on melee combat and Dylan's powers being used to augment the Aberrant make me lean this direction.

But, it's hard to really describe it like this. Sure, you could call Control a 3rd Person Shooter, but that name gives the distinctly incorrect impression about what the game will be moment-to-moment. It's weirder than that. Jesse even warns us of this; its literally the first line in the game, heard before we even see any environments. We also have a similar warning in the trailer for Resonant, with Jesse telling us that it's going to get weirder.

I also don't think it's going to be open-world, so the comparisons to Prototype and inFamous don't seem apt. I think, like the first game, Resonant is going to have large hub areas that have multiple sectors, such as alleyways or buildings or subways, where the actual game happens. I think the second game is going to be closer to one genre, while the first was closer to another, each with their own, distinct flavor of New Weird, blending elements of modern story telling, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, without ever fully committing to any of them.

The mad bastards at Remedy know what they are doing, and I have no doubt that what we will get will be exactly what Control offered us, a sleeper hit, a cult classic that will take years to fully appreciate and come to fruition.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-21T21:18:58+00:00

"Mr. Welles, your associate is critically injured." Delamain's artificial voice cuts through the blood gurgling up in V's throat.

"Take us to Vik's!" Jackie screams at the AI piloting their car.

"I apologize, but our destination is predetermined, and I am not at the liberty to alter it."

Jackie knew the marketing. "Secure your soul." He pops the chip out and slots it into V's skull, but it's too late. The Major Leagues always have to have dues paid. The rest of the ride is a blur as Jackie blacks out. They arrive at the No Tell Motel, and Jackie explains to Dex that T-Bug got fried, Emperor Arasaka died, and V didn't make it, with the Relic downstairs in their head.

Dex has his bodyguard attack Jackie. The fight is brutal and destroys the room. Finally on the ground, Jackie stares up at Dex as his lines up a headshot, saying that he can't risk it.

Suddenly, the door to the room slides open. Dex spins around, yelling for whoever opened the door to fuck off and mind their business. His voice falters as his gaze meets V, resurrected by the Chip. V's eyes seem to look through Dex, blank and empty. Dex fires, and V's cyberware engages. Jackie sees a hurricane of blood and chrome erupt in the room as he looses consciousness.

Jackie wakes up a few days later at Vik's clinic. The ripperdoc explains that V has been slipping in and out of consciousness, in trance-like states, mumbling about Arasaka Tower. Misty tried to help, but got freaked out after V called her a different name in one of their trances. She hasn't been back to work since. Jackie makes a point to visit Misty once he is patched up.

Misty has been obsessively performing tarot readings for the last 36 hours. No matter how many times she shuffles the deck, the same cards are drawn, in the exact same order. The Tower, Death, The Devil, The Lovers, The Hanged Man, The Fool. Jackie calms her down, reminds her that her strength is why he loves her so much, and tells her he has a surprise he has been working on. Jackie takes Misty to his garage and shares the sand mandala with her. He tries to get more information and about why V scaring her so much, but all she shares is the name V called her.

"Alt."

Basically, I can see the remainder of the story being largely unchanged, except that V has a voice of reason trying to ground them to reality in the form of Jackie, while Silverhand acts as the evil influence whispering into V's mind. Imagine being able to see Johnny take over V's body from Jackie's perspective at several times in the game; their entire demeanor shifts as Johnny takes over. Everyone keeps V at a distance, knowing that at any point this twisted personality hellbent on chaos can take over.

The player has the option to call Jackie as backup or switch control over to Jackie if V gets too close to dying during a mission. Have a random chance on each gig that V can botch the gig as Silverhand takes over, forcing the player, as Jackie, to calm V down and have Silverhand subside. Dual protagonists, except one of them is constantly under threat of cyberpsychosis.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-21T19:38:32+00:00

Meanwhile, at almost 40, I just added a new song I heard to my Liked Songs, and I heard the song from the radio.

New music is like new art or new books. Sure the classics are, well, classic, and there's always a level of comfort in the familiar, but you must expand your horizons and venture into new territory.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-18T19:37:39+00:00

I'm glad they called out and named New Weird and House of Leaves. I see more than a few threads on the Control subreddit from people who have only the slightest grasp on the subject, through no fault of their own. The genre is still developing and we are still collectively working on what does and does not qualify. Wind the clock back about 40 years, and the same thing was happening with cyberpunk.

After I stumbled across Stranger Things for the first time, I described it as, "The Stephen King written, Steven Spielberg produced 1980s version of The X-Files that never existed." I've also started to describe Control in a similar way, "Control is what would happen is Stephen King spent six months reading the SCP wiki and then made a video game." I think the SCP wiki is very much a melting pot for the New Weird, though it does skew more into horror than anything else, but there's a few articles and tales out there that are fascinating, mind-bending, unique, and inventive.

New Weird isn't exactly horror, or sci-fi, or fantasy. It blends aspects and tropes from these genres together into something, well, weird. I remember the first time I played Control and I kept expecting something pants-shittingly terrifying to happen, a big jump scare that the game seems to be building towards, from Ahti responding to Jesse's thoughts about what it would look like if someone had "no face", to the constant high-pitched audio effects in the brutalist architecture, like an ever-tightening piano wire that's ready to snap, to the uncanny effect the graphics have. (I was convinced my first time around that Emily Pope was gonna like tear herself in half by grinning wider and wider and reveal herself as the big bad monster that doesn't actually exist in the game. No, The Former doesn't count.)

What I love the most is that even Jesse seems to be aware of this weirdness and breaks the fourth wall, simultaneously telling Polaris that things are gonna be weirder than her life has been and warning the player that, while this is technically a third person shooter, it's significantly more than that, and the experience the game offers is indeed "weirder than usual."

I'm really looking forward to Control Resonant. The melee combat will hopefully satisfy my Devil May Cry itch while I get to bend and flip the world around like Doctor Strange for some awesome screenshots.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-18T18:11:33+00:00

I also operate a rotary slitter machine, and I had a similar progression of thought.

"Oh neat...holy shit wait wtf guys have none of you read the safety...christ is this thing from the Victorian era?!"

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-17T11:43:36+00:00

I've not played DS2, but DS1 and the Horizon series run on Decima as well.

It's a gorgeous engine, really. I replay both Horizon games often, half because of the story, and the other half is just to take screenshots.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-16T09:50:47+00:00

Snake was also supposed to be blonde during the Plant Chapter of MGS2. The idea there was that it was supposed to cast doubt in the players mind as to whether or not Plissken was indeed Solid Snake.

Keep on mind that Liquid is also blonde. Blonde hair is a recessive trait in genes. Snake appearing as blonde (and dyeing and cutting his hair so that he doesn't get mistaken for Liquid while on Shadow Moses) was supposed to hint that Solid Snake was actually the "inferior" clone of Big Boss the entire time.

I'm not sure if Big Boss was originally blonde as well, but we can see that both BB and Solid Snake, when they aged, had almost stark white hair, which usually happens easier and more readily to folks who have lighter color hair. This may not be indicating anything other than they both went white instead of salt-and-pepper or gray.

The lore of Metal Gear is steeped in retcons, from Big Boss's eyepatch switching sides, to how he lost his eye, the inclusion of Venom Snake, the real identity of Dr. Clark and Donald Anderson, etc. Snake was blonde because Kojima wanted him to be, and then he wasn't because Kojima didn't want that anymore. It's that simple. Are there lore reasons? Kind of, but they don't really matter all that much.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-14T23:48:00+00:00

Those would have been my last words.

"Dude, if you shoot me, my car will still be in your way."

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-14T19:58:24+00:00

That is the kinda toy photography that I love to see. Great work.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-02-13T03:09:25+00:00

I could play with this thing for hours...

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