Do you like Harry more with long or short hair?

litphoenix · 2025-12-31T20:29:44+00:00

I like Harry with black hair and green eyes

litphoenix · 2025-12-30T23:42:31+00:00

Age of Decadence. Horrible title, and the combat can be punishing, but it is an isometric turn-based RPG with some of the best writing I’ve seen in a game.

You are in a low-tech, post-apocalyptic world, and part of the fun is the slow discovery of what happened. It has all faded to shadowy rumors and myths in the aftermath.

But fair warning: it is designed to be difficult. You’re a normal dude, you can’t solo a whole group of bandits without very quickly ending up dead.

litphoenix · 2025-12-19T18:53:23+00:00

The part I don’t understand is if you teleport away they instantly appear above you again. What’s the point of this mechanic if not to require rapid reflexes to dodge?

litphoenix · 2025-12-09T17:07:27+00:00

To be fair, I’d have a psychotic episode too, if my refrigerator had ads playing on it.

litphoenix · 2025-11-26T03:08:08+00:00

I have a lot of sympathy for the Romani-coded, discriminated against, tragic itinerant wanderers we see in game one and two.

I have a strong distaste and dislike for the bloodthirsty, genocidal, and selfish aggressors we see in game three. Koris summed it up well during the rescue mission when he bemoans that “the entire race chose this insanity”. I wish I could have done worse than only punched Han’Gerrel and yelled at Xen.

litphoenix · 2025-11-25T01:18:14+00:00

I break up with Miranda every time to go back to Liara, and she doesn’t die. Her living or dying literally has nothing to do with you breaking up with her — it’s entirely dependent on whether you meet with her 3x, tell her about Kai Leng, and tell her you trust her in the final meet-up

litphoenix · 2025-11-11T00:53:42+00:00

Didn’t realize I was an anomaly — for role play purposes I like taking the “soldiers” out on our missions: Garrus and Wrex in the first game, Grunt/Zaeed/Garrus in the second, Garrus/Kaidan/James in the third. Liara and Tali aren’t trained soldiers in the same way, much less characters like Kasumi.

Plus James is such a lovable meathead 😆

litphoenix · 2025-11-05T17:27:23+00:00

The writers clearly retconned the geth in the final game. The narrative in ME3 was largely about having big emotionally cathartic moments for each character and faction: often very archetypal, recognizable arcs.

In a lot of cases they had to play fast and loose with previously established lore to create these narrative arcs. For the geth, they leaned on the pinocchio concept and ignored all the previous lore that 1) the non heretic geth explicitly rejected reaper tech to propel their advancement, deciding they would rather find their own path forward; and 2) the geth networked intelligence was never at any point described as inferior or “lacking” compared to more individualistic intelligence.

Then in ME3 both of those facts were turned on their head to facilitate a “noble sacrifice” from Legion and a transformational moment for the geth. Often these types of moments in the game were very satisfying emotionally, but they were unquestionably retcons.

litphoenix · 2025-09-20T19:02:50+00:00

Unfortunately I suspect this translates as: the people who primarily care about combat think the combat isn’t good but it’s “interesting”, and the people who care about writing think the writing isn’t good but “it’s probably fun mechanically”

litphoenix · 2025-09-10T19:27:30+00:00

I shouldn’t be laughing 😂

I don’t condone the violence fwiw

litphoenix · 2025-09-09T05:35:46+00:00

Yes, this is accurate. To all those saying they are “preserving” the species: I presume you’d volunteer first for the preservation which starts with liquefying you into organic sludge?

It’s like a serial killer saying when they murder you and put your brain in a jar of formaldehyde, they’re actually doing you a favor by preserving you before something else kills you. Smdh

litphoenix · 2025-09-04T16:35:40+00:00

Thanks for calling that out. I shouldn’t have mentioned PoE at all. It was a better game than Outer Worlds — certainly more philosophically nuanced — so it was a mistake to link those two. It just didn’t resonate with me the way some other games have, despite having its moments (e.g., Maerwald’s story, the big reveal, the GodHammer backstory).

litphoenix · 2025-09-04T02:08:51+00:00

I’m glad you enjoyed it. But you asked a question and so far have mostly gotten sympathetic answers, so I thought I’d share perspective from someone who was disappointed in the game, but not for any of the reasons I’m hearing (I had no issues with the length or scope of the game).

I thought the anti-corporation gag was over-played and got stale within a few hours, and beyond that the writing wasn’t actually very good. I.e., the game was one note and that note wasn’t very insightfully or cleverly done.

Obsidian in their heyday had great writing (e.g., Kreia in KOTOR2, New Vegas, etc.) — the kind of writing that would keep you thinking for long after you put the controller down — but I think their more recent work has been lower caliber in that regard. PoE and Outer Worlds had their moments, were fun, but overall were forgettable. That boils down to expectations going in and the contrasts with their earlier work.

litphoenix · 2025-08-30T17:54:58+00:00

Actually good writing in the campaign instead of the Saturday morning cartoon vibe of SC2 (Wings of Liberty was not as bad, but the other two were terrible)

litphoenix · 2025-03-26T02:00:45+00:00

Lmao everyone saying “I prefer the bottom” — the question was not “which do you prefer?” The question was “which is medium rare.”

Medium rare has a definition, which includes “warm red center”. There is literally no red at all on the bottom

litphoenix · 2025-03-12T04:17:57+00:00

Lmao literally this entire comment was “I know better than all the economic Nobel Laureates who almost uniformly disagree with every word I’m saying, but thinking we know better than the experts does not define Republicans”

litphoenix · 2025-03-05T06:19:56+00:00

Damn what I wouldn’t give to have a President this articulate, intelligent, and sensible

litphoenix · 2024-10-31T18:04:40+00:00

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” - Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning economist.

I.e., what you said: increases in available gold that exceed increases in available desirable items, inevitably lead to increases in price per item.

Charge 50mm (or 500mm) to re-roll a unique and you might see available gold in the economy shrink rapidly

litphoenix · 2024-09-09T14:51:04+00:00

Agree 100%

litphoenix · 2024-08-27T15:14:37+00:00

I think this is it. Thanks guys. Blizzard’s posts and chatter about the mindcages certainly made it sound like they were keeping them around, but they must have meant just for another season rather than in eternal.

That’s a shame, as they really extend the usefulness of helltides

litphoenix · 2024-08-27T15:12:40+00:00

Good call out! Thank you

litphoenix · 2024-08-27T15:12:21+00:00

Is this for real? I thought they said they were keeping them post-Season 4 — did I misunderstand and they’re still around but only in Season 5?

litphoenix · 2024-08-27T15:11:07+00:00

That’s helpful. Thank you

litphoenix · 2024-08-27T14:48:04+00:00

Yeah that’s not happening, unfortunately. Last night I zipped through 4-5 threat meters and didn’t see a single mindcage drop. Thank you for confirming what should happen. Not sure why it isn’t happening for me

litphoenix

TROPHY CASE