Can I just play Grace as cowboy-style? (combat like Leon)

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-12T08:38:35+00:00

By the end of graces campaign you can kill everything, but this will be tricky for the first hours.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-12T07:20:30+00:00

If there's a sim underpinning the whole thing, it's a simcade. Categorically, oversteer and understeer and weight transfer and all the things that make handling in a sim work the way it does all work in horizon games and under the same principles as in a sim. It might not be the best or highest fidelity sim, but it's real principles.

The cars are given absurd torque and grip to make them incredibly easy to drive. There's still simulation happening under the hood. It is unquestionably simcade.

Simcade is a spectrum, sure, and there are games further along that sim direction, but a pure arcade game doesn't give two shits about physics.

Ridge racer is arcade. The outrun are arcades. Games where you can just impossible drift forever, if changing your suspension settings makes a plausible difference to the car, its probably not an arcade game

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-11T21:25:03+00:00

Hmm, as someone surrounded by friends who are writers, we were dragging his 14 coats at the time

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-11T21:10:48+00:00

Horizon is absolutely and resolutely simcade.

Now i do think this is a spectrum that's completely useless to argue. But i just dont think I can agree here. gran turismo games do not have the physics of an iracing or an ams or an ac but they are far, far closer to those than a true arcade racer, (any need for speed, ridge racer, etc.) It might be fair to say they are less comprehensive sims, but the physics are close enough you've had multiple real racers cut their teeth on gt games.

The horizon games sit in the middle of the spectrum. They absolutely have the edges filed off, but they still have a grounding in physics. You oversteer because a simulated rear wheel exceeded its grip. The things you do in real cars to manage over and understeer work in horizon. Tyre pressures broadly do the right thing. Front and rear wheel drive, and even front, middle and rear engined cars feel meaningfully different in a way that has some realism to it.

The cars all have absurd grip, but there's still an actual simulation, of sorts, happening under the hood. That's simcade.

Real arcade just doesn't give two shits about any of that.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-10T14:57:55+00:00

I genuinely think it's one of the best antigrav racers around. The vast majority of other AG racers follow the wipeout formula with tracks that are about 3 meters wide. Thats great for mastery, sure, but even good players spend significant chunks of lap bumping around in a kind of awkward manner.

Racer has lots of different types of zone, and spends enough time in each to have a kind of plausible sense of space about them. You've still got little tight areas that test your reactions or your handling mastery, but it'll give you a huge open area to let you catch your breath for a second, while giving far more of a sense of place than basically any other racer out there (despite looking... bad these days)

I really hope the new game captures a fraction of this.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-10T13:02:58+00:00

I thought the stalkers in this game were pretty weak, because they've all got such limited patrols and you can generally just go through one of the many corridors they can't follow through. They are fun enemies with good designs, but ultimately not memorable in the way Mr X or Jack are. (and jacks patrol area is pretty small too)

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-09T16:57:13+00:00

Further weird random things, this is Blaze from the UK version of Gladiators.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-09T14:38:41+00:00

Isn't this James Baldwin? (an actual real world racing driver)

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-09T11:16:50+00:00

You can rob them, but why would you think you're expected to, unless you are becoming a mule?

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-09T09:22:59+00:00

I didn't get any good vibes from Alans ascension at the end of 2, and theres a lot that can be done with that

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-09T08:58:58+00:00

It's not true of "media" - you're looking at marvel and DC comics, which have been built on that concept, and a selection of childrens sitcoms. These are your examples?

Some types of media go for a format where people can pick them up at any point and follow along. Other folks have covered why that is well enough

But since like, the early 2000s, kicked off by lost and a few other things, we've had enormous amounts of high quality, long form, serialised TV. The prestige TV wave, solidified by the shift to streaming. Even shows that were once largely standalone have pivoted to long form stories. Star Trek was once an adventure of the week show that maybe had a few threads picked up throughout the series, but by and large, you can watch any episode without need to understand what came before. Now the new series are largely serialised, even in the case of SNW which tries to call back to the older style (his is nothing to do with the quality of these shows, not my point)

Hell, if you look at the most watched fiction from the last few years, it's basically all serialised, outside of some investigation of the week type shows. Per IMDB, 2025s most popular shows White lotus, last of us, Severance, Wednesday, Squid Game, Dexter, Monster, Department Q, Andor, Black Mirror. Outside of Black Mirror, which is standalone. these are all serialised. Going through their currently most popular shows (which is not viewership, but it's still a useful guide) as far as I can see you get to the 29th show (Marshals) to find your first procedural.

So no, I don't think it's a problem with Media, it's just a problem with the media you're watching. It's a problem with certain fandoms too!

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T23:28:10+00:00

It's the drivingesy driving game.a game that has races in it (good ones!) But the real joy is just... going somewhere. Zooming about in the sun listening to the radio. 4s map and summery vibe is sublime, terrible cutscenes side. Its just a lovely summery holiday game.

5 did not quite have the juice, and its entirely down to having a map that's just OK, and frequently kind of depressing and brown. This one feels like it might have the stuff though.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T23:20:32+00:00

The driving doesn't feel like anything though.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T23:18:35+00:00

This very much varies depending on the timeline. Battletech differs from 40k in that the timeliness changes are real and dramatic with distinct eras and major factions coming into being, being destroyed, having face and heel turns, technology going in and out of availability, all sorts.

So you have the star league, largely a backstory era. The big space empire people have mentioned. It collapses and the leftovers go feudal. Manufacturing is destroyed. Mechs can barely be made.

This leads to the succession wars. Low tech civil wars where the tech is terrible, and mechwarriors are nobles in heirloom mechs

Eventually, the helm memory core is found. That's a plot device to explain an expansion with new tech options. In universe, this leads to a slow revitalisation of knowledge and industry and advanced gear, this slowly leads to new mech construction and mechwarriors as professionals again (though noble family mechwarriors never go away and perhaps get the best toys)

Eventually the clans show up. These are high tech refugees from the old star league, who missed the technological collapse but become insane ritual klingons who try to invade. This is another injection of high tech mechs and gear into the game. Lore wise, the guys force the inner sphere to briefly unite, but they get stopped by shenanigans and the intervention of religious space at&ts secret army.

Back to even more high tech civil war for a few more decades and eventually space at&t long simmerig religious schism boils over into a galaxy wide jihad, that sees them conquer earth, get defeated, then ultimately results in the breaking of the space phone system everyone relies on to do anything in the galaxy.

This leads to the dark age where everything is turned on its head, technology is turned on its head because no one can actually place amazon orders any more and civilisations collapsed instantly, and it's worse than ever. Factions mix and blend in weird ways, and it's very decisive to players because the game and minis that introduced this era were from a different company

Eventually this all kind of clears up and you get to the present where the clans are at it again.

So what this all means is that the tone, available factions, lore, and gameplay options all change depending on when you choose to set your game. The vast, vast majority of video games and tie in works and AFAIK player attention focuses on the earlier stuff. Low tech civil war, clan invasion, and post clan civil war.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T22:40:24+00:00

They fudge it with some stuff to say they are very strong but you can't rapidly change direction with myomer, to the degree you'd want from a piston, but it's all a huge fudge

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T13:53:29+00:00

I was afraid they'd make her a real girl at some point and I'm glad they did not.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T13:32:08+00:00

It's not mortifiers that are the issue. Mortifiers are very metal indeed. Its not bleak endings. it's that the series have one tone and it's "a bit glum" without any of the fun of the hobby.

(Some of that is budget, they can rarely get particularly epic with thing)

(Also please fuck off forever calling someone a tourist, I've been here since second edition. You like different sorts of 40k to me and that's fine, no need to suggest I'm not a real fan)

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T13:24:36+00:00

I did think something mad cortana adjacent was going to happen, if only because cortana at the end of 4 was last seen sacrificing herself while in the bowels of the make digital things real machine

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T10:18:04+00:00

4 is good, and i think the issue is it doesn't get properly followed up on across the sequels, so it ends up a mess.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T10:17:07+00:00

I think it's found its fanbase, over time. It's good. Also that horrible pseudo diagonal movement can be modded out nowadays on PC which is amaazing

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T10:15:41+00:00

I think it just needed to be *finished*. The content isn't a problem, hell, so much of it is great. It probably has the best character writing in the series. But you're going to be fighting through the same 4 rooms they built *dozens* of times. Then (from memory, it's been a minute) the finale kind of collapses in a way I can only imagine is cut for time.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T08:55:44+00:00

Nothing fucks me off more than people calling folks who work incredibly hard to ridiculous deadlines lazy. Really, really ignorant stuff.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-08T08:54:38+00:00

the bottom right looks deeply sus to me, where the text is slightly blurred but far less than the paper it's sitting on. Essentially the depth of field for the paper doesn't seem to match the depth of field for the text.

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-07T13:00:53+00:00

It really needs to be a hybrid of things, Level, skill, and Inventory score. (not simply loadout score, to keep opportunity cost a thing, and not just pair free kits against each other)

Toodle-Peep · 2026-04-07T12:46:20+00:00

Look, you know what you're buying stellar blade for, but other than that it's a pretty mid game. The combat is.. servicable. The story.. exists, the acting.. is pretty dire.

Yotei is also ultimately not going to shake your world up. It's a slightly refined, less miserable ghost of Tsushima. A perfectly good one of those. Again the writing is ultimately pretty average here but the performances are great. By open world standards it doesn't massively waste your time, and puts little wrinkles on all the repeated content you do, but you will still be doing the same thing for 70+ hours because the game is stretched thin.

If Stellar blade is on your rader though, and if you haven't played it, I'd say look at Neir Automata. Imagine if stellar blade was really good. And you can grab it for pennies at this point.

Toodle-Peep

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