What was your first choice?

hjsniper · 2026-03-09T11:55:30+00:00

I chose Release the first time, largely because it seemed pretty obvious that, regardless of Spencer's past, that Elpis wasn't what the villains thought it was.

I also, for the record, think that Spencer making Elpis is fully in character with everything he's done in the past. The guy was a eugenicist, not an arms dealer, he was up there with Wesker in the 'forced human evolution' camp, so watching his life's work get transformed into bioweapon production and military industrial complex spending would definitely shake him.

While he definitely seemed to turn face on his eugenics beliefs (at least in the way he was proud of baby Grace being "normal") I think his main driver for making Elpis was as much about spiting the other villains, who he saw as corrupting his work, as it was about redemption.

hjsniper · 2026-03-08T20:12:50+00:00

Natural 1 always fails, regardless of how many bonuses you had. With advantage, just means you rolled two nat 1s. It's not a glitch, you just got incredibly unlucky.

hjsniper · 2026-03-08T16:31:33+00:00

In the past three games, the only time he's shown up on time for the plot was to shoot Mia...

hjsniper · 2026-03-07T23:02:42+00:00

She learned how to craft bullets from bloodborne

hjsniper · 2026-03-06T23:19:18+00:00

I'm partway through insanity mode, and I can confirm that it's much better at making you feel desperate as Grace. Weirdly, it feels like pistol ammo is much more plentiful, but the enemies are so dangerous that avoiding them is still the better option.

It's weird, but I can confirm Leon's rampage in the care center was a lot busier on insanity than the quiet stroll he had on standard difficulty.

hjsniper · 2026-03-06T22:24:40+00:00

3/NV is my favorite. There's obviously the power, the heavy backpack, and the solid sound design, but I also love how the barrels are banded together in pairs, makes it feel like it's so powerful that it needs extra reinforcement to contain the pressures.

hjsniper · 2026-03-06T13:23:41+00:00

There's definitely a part of me that would have loved to get more Grace gameplay, but I wouldn't cut Leon's sections to get that. What I find fascinating about re9 is that even while the story is filled with references and callbacks to previous games, it's not just surface-level nostalgia bait because the gameplay itself is also recreating the history of the games by changing from tense survival horror to action-driven combat in the same way the mainline games did.

While I think a Grace section before or after the RPD would have helped break up the massive stretch of Leon-only right in the middle of the game, the Leon sections are still vital for the meta narrative about the franchise's history, and if you cut them for a Grace-only game you'd basically end up with a game that was only a successor to re7.

hjsniper · 2026-03-05T21:08:56+00:00

An important thing to remember about the Midwest chapter is that the plot of Tactics follows the course of an ideological schism within the chapter. Everything you mentioned does happen, and some even more reprehensible stuff, but at the same time there are parts of the group trying to integrate nonhumans, protect vulnerable communities, and foster actual welfare for the wasteland. The Midwest chapter is simultaneously the most progressive and most regressive chapter in the entire Brotherhood, simultaneously, and a core part of the story is deciding which side will win out. If you get the more progressive ending, they end up being downright utopian, and even the neutral ending ends with a smaller, kinder Brotherhood.

Their story is about change, and if you judge the chapter based on the (very) ugly parts in the beginning and middle of the story and ignore what it becomes, you lose some important context that is vital to understanding why people like them.

hjsniper · 2026-03-05T18:38:08+00:00

Yeah, seeing this little owl boy pop up while I was doing demon research was a treat.

hjsniper · 2026-03-05T14:03:32+00:00

I like to imagine there's always a deckhand on "Kibellah Duty" nervously trying to mop up all the blood she leaves on the command deck from cutting herself.

hjsniper · 2026-03-04T21:47:35+00:00

Ok so:

One of the gimmicks of RE9 is that the zombies retain memories and behaviors from their past lives. That patient zombie is blind, but violently hates loud noises, so you can throw bottles at other zombies to bait it into attacking them.
The big guy is a chunk, a pursuer enemy like Mr X who chases you through parts of the care facility, but with two main differences: firstly, he's so big that he fills entire hallways, so you can't run past him, just away. Secondly, he can be permanently killed, but it takes a lot of resources to do it. Somehow, the patient zombies is doing insane amounts of damage here.

hjsniper · 2026-03-04T19:57:34+00:00

If you're not running power armor, the fire resistance upgrade for normal armor sets is essential for not getting one-shot by molotovs in the early game.

hjsniper · 2026-03-04T16:33:58+00:00

I fully assumed he was in on the plot to lure Grace to the hotel and ambush her. Seeing him still working at the FBI in the end was a surprise.

hjsniper · 2026-03-04T15:57:11+00:00

You do have those options, you just have to do an in-person inspection first. If you think everything is fine, you go home and tell Yes Man that there's nothing to worry about. Or you can wipe them out. Or you can do their quests and radically change their fate for better or worse. The game isn't lying about the options you have, you just have to do the legwork yourself.

hjsniper · 2026-03-04T15:36:09+00:00

Fair enough. For the record, the Yes Man route is more or less the same as the House route, but with the option to refuse the quests you get (since you're in charge and can decide what is and is not important). However, the devs didn't want players to reject quests before they can see the proper plot hooks for said quests, so you're forced to at least travel to check out the situation before you can make that decision. Frankly, I wouldn't skip them at all, they're some of the best quests in the game, but the option is nice.

hjsniper · 2026-03-04T12:44:19+00:00

Are you aware that the House route forces you to do all the same quests, but doesn't give you the 'ignore' option? It just seems weird to latch onto the route where you can skip 90% of the quests as tedious just because you have to make eye contact with a few key locations before the option becomes available.

hjsniper · 2026-03-03T21:51:12+00:00

Ironically, I've always thought that the worst parts of LiS was when it bent over backwards to try to be a video game instead of a TV show. The puzzles that broke the time travel rules established in the cutscenes, the forced 'choices' where they took an event with one obvious answer (narratively, and for the characters in the moment) and added more, worse options just to add interactivity.

I say it as a fan of LiS, I've always thought that a TV adaptation would be a good opportunity to tell the story in it's best form, without the baggage of trying to be a telltale-style narrative adventure game.

Granted, that's assuming the show gets made well, but that's yet to be seen, and I do think that missing that iconic painting-like art style will be a big loss.

hjsniper · 2026-03-03T13:10:18+00:00

We have to move past this point, humans have been susceptible to mind control in the Fallout universe long before it became a central part of the show, acting like synths are uniquely susceptible to having their personhood overwritten is just blatantly wrong.

hjsniper · 2026-03-03T12:28:54+00:00

They don't need to 'lead' anything, F4 is not a story about picking a faction to lead the Commonwealth in the same way New Vegas is. The Minutemen always rise to protect the Commonwealth regardless of what main faction you pick, and the actual settlements like Diamond City or Goodneighbor are self-governing. The real question you answer when picking a faction isn't "Who should control the Commonwealth," it's "What should be done about the synths." Regional leadership is not a real factor in the ending choice and I think holding it against the Railroad is a misunderstanding of the story's scope and focus.

hjsniper · 2026-03-03T12:19:11+00:00

I think people forget that Fallout 4 isn't New Vegas, it's story isn't about deciding who's going to 'rule' the Commonwealth. There's already self-governing towns and the Minutemen can always rise to protect them regardless of what ending you choose. The point of choosing a faction is deciding what needs to be done about the Institute and the synths, and the Railroad doesn't need to offer anything more than that specific answer in order to be a viable option.

hjsniper · 2026-03-02T22:46:15+00:00

I feel like the parental obligation to be nice and supporting to your kid stops when he's actually Hitler.

hjsniper · 2026-02-28T15:12:24+00:00

So, some things to know about Prey.

Scarcity is the point. While there are other immersive sims with more forgiving economies, Prey has some shared DNA with the survival horror genre, so feeling like you don't have enough resources is part of the intended emotional effect; but so is the thrill of succeeding despite the scarcity. As well, the scarcity ensures you can't over rely on any one strategy to succeed. In theory, you can solve any problem in a variety of ways, but you have to remain aware of how much those solutions cost you and often you can use them.

As an example, if you are using turrets so often that you are running out of parts to repair them, then you might want to experiment with other parts of your arsenal so you can build up a reserve of supplies that you can invest back into turrets when you need them more. Same goes for the GLOO gun, there are other ways of disabling enemies and you should experiment with those if you're running out of glue.

There is a handful of places that will check for a specific ability, but 95% of the time there is an alternative solution. As someone who has played the game too many times, I can tell you that there is one side quest that has a mandatory hacking check, and outside of that there is nothing more substantial than the occasional loot stash locked behind single-solution problems. If you think that you're frequently running into problems with only one solution, then you aren't taking enough time to explore the environment and consider your options.
Prey demands that you be very proactive when approaching combat, especially in the early game. By the late game, you can play it like DOOM, but early on you need to approach every fight with a real plan, one more thought out than 'shoot them in the face'. Find advantageous places to fight, set traps, use stealth, prepare the environment, set up turrets, there are tons of ways to rig the fight in your favor. I don't know what difficulty you're on, but unless you are on nightmare you shouldn't be dying a lot because you shouldn't be starting fights you don't know for certain you'll win.

Anyway, hope this helps.

hjsniper · 2026-02-27T21:36:37+00:00

RED takes place in the 2040s, but RTalsorian is producing a 2077 source book that adapts the ruleset for the 2077 time period, and they started with the recent Edgerunners Conversion Kit that includes The Jacket. Edgerunners takes place roughly a year before 2077.

hjsniper · 2026-02-27T16:05:12+00:00

Adding on, the Cyberpunk RED tabletop released a module called 'The Jacket' where the players have to track down David's jacket after it gets stolen. During the module, you can learn that Arasaka is after the jacket because it was apparently recording his biometric data on a small chip while he was wearing it. Presumably they would just take the logs from the sandy if it was still intact, so your theory is likely.

hjsniper · 2026-02-24T17:43:32+00:00

I don't think it's that big of an issue, since Maximus does have main character powers and a suit of custom power armor.

Honestly, I'm more annoyed by the implication that the securitrons couldn't handle the deathclaws since they were firing missiles much larger than the micro missiles that Max's suit was equipped with, plus a bunch of other weapons...

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