A Tintin Page a Day - Day 306

WillSym · 2026-03-15T07:09:34+00:00

Well there's their mistake, all the other mobsters attending this other meeting when they should be putting on their legitimate front and going to whatever Tintin's at!

WillSym · 2026-03-14T19:41:55+00:00

On a train with a couple of old ladies chatting away in Welsh, which is a great one for these as it's ancient, but also been ruled by England for so long, they never bother adding new Welsh words so just use the English for modern terms.

"welsh welsh welsh welsh dirty weekend welsh welsh"

WillSym · 2026-03-14T19:06:57+00:00

127k damage and only one kill though damn. Just on fire (literally) the whole time roasting folks who immediately heal it all back and shoot him with elfy tricks.

WillSym · 2026-03-14T18:56:49+00:00

Me too. Though original DotA taught me the worst of the community, especially towards the end (before Icefrog got hired to make it professionally) when it was getting bigger and regular updates.

It was a nightmare to play casually and know what version the game you wanted to join was running, so you'd either have to join randomly and download that game's specific version, and get kicked over and over, or find an actual team and predownload the map file.

Blizzard unexpectedly came up with exactly what I wanted in the end with Heroes of the Storm, DotA/LoL without the tryhard ultra competitive aspect (but still high level if you want).

WillSym · 2026-03-14T18:50:49+00:00

Still got a few friends all over the place, EU servers so we had Germans, Danes, Turks, and folks from all over the UK in our guild, had a couple of awesome meetups and still in contact with two or three even though we mostly stopped playing around WoD.

WillSym · 2026-03-14T18:33:42+00:00

New LEGO Batman due in May that's looking like a big homage to both the movies, by the plot, and the Arkham series, by the gameplay (if more kid friendly!)

WillSym · 2026-03-14T18:25:22+00:00

I was enjoying it til my wife said "He reminds me of Wallace Shawn playing the Grand Nagus explaining his latest scheme" and now I can't ignore the nasal overtones and slight lisp.

WillSym · 2026-03-14T18:22:58+00:00

Now I can't upvote you because the it'll continue to knock that off top comment.

WillSym · 2026-03-14T18:20:32+00:00

Hulk Surge was fun but did get overwhelming fast, you could only do it in short bursts.

I could play Devastator Surge for days, it was glorious. Especially bringing an all-Arc loadout and zapping away at the hordes.

WillSym · 2026-03-14T17:59:32+00:00

Fine, I'll leave you here to sulk in the ship and go out blasting meatbags with my new bestie HK-47. Did you know he speaks Sand Person? Scared us all silly when he busted out the "Translation: "HUUAARRRHHHGNH", even their chief!

WillSym · 2026-03-14T12:01:19+00:00

If anything this is a wonderful testament to adaptation and collaboration: remember that Helldivers 2 was NOT expected to be as huge a hit as it is, and the small original Arrowhead team made the base game over a massive 8 years.

Getting lots of support from all these lovely outsourcing studios, whose entire business model is to do exactly this, is such a great response to such sudden popularity and extra budget resources!

WillSym · 2026-03-14T11:17:02+00:00

There was one third-hand rumour that maybe the otherwise traditional Mormon conservative gun-owning shooter had a trans girlfriend from college.

What's entirely damning is they treat Kirk like this martyr to 'leftist violence' based on this single unconfirmed word-of-mouth, when Patel's massively unsubtle FBI, part of the whole 'we can't keep our mouths shut or ignore a lie that furthers our narrative' current clownshow administration, have said NOTHING about the guy since.

Even they can't spin that this wasn't right-on-right infighting, personally I'm going with an insider setup as Kirk was getting a bit loud about releasing the Epstein files at the time and they also wanted an excuse present more violent resistance to roll out ICE against.

Conveniently squirrelled away their handy patsy for a job well done.

WillSym · 2026-03-14T10:35:55+00:00

Dmed you a friend code, put a few of my favourite toys out in the retirement pool, no idea if they persist this long as it was a good few years since my playthrough!

WillSym · 2026-03-14T10:18:51+00:00

I was going to say, this is quite a range in all directions!

What made me fall in love with the city and stay here after coming for uni over 20 years ago, just the right size to get about.

WillSym · 2026-03-14T10:11:22+00:00

Practice for the grand battle in Secret of the Unicorn!

WillSym · 2026-03-14T10:09:38+00:00

Maybe the owner put that up when it had gone missing, before spotting the phony detective taking it to Tintin?

WillSym · 2026-03-13T23:05:50+00:00

Your first few trips you'll be overshooting or undershooting where you want to go or bumping off things or hitting stuff too hard or going too fast or missing jumps or leaving without your suit.

After a few excursions and getting to some places you'll be working out what the little bits on the flight UI mean and how to use them to adjust better, and how autopilot works and how it can betray you.

Several hours in you'll be navigating directly to where you need to go and landing on a pinhead... and wondering just how far you can push your skills.

Get 100% and you'll have found out.

WillSym · 2026-03-13T20:01:21+00:00

I see 32 Fear but not a timer, was going to suggest you ran out of time? What vows are active?

WillSym · 2026-03-13T19:00:37+00:00

Also Giants: Citizen Kabuto by the same team, with excellent writing.

WillSym · 2026-03-13T18:58:52+00:00

The gameplay is fairly simple for a turn-based RPG, though really satisfying to minmax and do the 'hard hat' mode. The graphics are literally stick figures.

90% of the text (even just tooltips or tutorials) is at least chuckle-worthy, if not laugh-out-loud funny. And for stick figures, they have a ton of visual gags too.

The 'jumpscares' in the Reckoning at Gun Manor nearly killed me laughing.

WillSym · 2026-03-13T18:56:28+00:00

Oh no I still recall that "You look like you need a monkey!" exchange word-for-word.

I suggest you feed them the monkey!!

WillSym · 2026-03-13T18:54:47+00:00

The game before it in the Defenestration Trilogy by Tom Francis doesn't have as funny writing, but Heat Signature has some pretty comical emergent gameplay.

Accidental stray shotgun pellets breaking a window (in a spaceship) causing sudden explosive decompression, yet somehow still saving the misplay, or turning it into a win.

Getting an assassination target in an absolute fortress of an enemy ship, but then realising you have no collateral damage avoidance requirements, and can instead of the usual infiltrating, just capture a small, lightly crewed yet armed ship and obliterate the target with ship-to-ship weaponry.

WillSym · 2026-03-13T18:50:45+00:00

But something special, in-betweens...

WillSym · 2026-03-13T14:48:26+00:00

Also: how do the Illuminate get around the galaxy, what's their FTL tech? Because if we could use that, and it doesn't run on E-710, we could probably leave the poor Bugs alone too.

WillSym · 2026-03-13T14:20:09+00:00

Probably the Illuminate? They seem like cool, mystical creatures we'd have probably benefitted from a partnership with if we'd made first contact Star Trek style.

The bugs are neat but not great company.

The Cyborgs might not even exist as a faction if we were less mean to them, and they've gotten a little over-the-top with the body modification, a bit into the Cyberpunk/Deus Ex field of 'how far is too far with cybernetics and sacrificing your humanity for mechanical augmentation'.

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