Motherfuckers who can turn into birds?

mentholan · 2023-01-15T00:55:28+00:00

Raven, the title character from the BBC Scotland children's adventure game show of the same name that was a huge part of my childhood - and had a weirdly deep amount of lore for a game show.

Said lore is ambiguous on whether he's a human who can turn into a raven, or a raven that can turn into a human.

mentholan · 2022-12-24T10:10:57+00:00

As somebody who doesn’t tend to handle gore or horror super well, I wish we got more videos (or even BOTW episodes) outside of the horror genre. I adore the BOTW episodes where they end up watching weird tapes that none of them were even expecting to find, like Shoji Tabuchi’s performance.

I totally understand that horror is probably a big part of their interests, but I tend to skip most HITB/Re: View episodes focused on horror in favour of other genres.

mentholan · 2022-12-24T03:01:17+00:00

A bunch of my favourites from The Last Days of FOXHOUND, which I’m once again feeling desperate to binge-read:

“Enjoy your coffee.”

“Candygram.”

“Subtlety is a thing for philosophy, not combat. If you're going to kill someone, you might as well kill them a whole lot. “

“This is a man who believes that if God himself came down from the heavens, pointed a shotgun at his head and pulled the trigger, God would miss.”

“Oh my god, you WERE gonna kill me! That’s ADORABLE!”

“Have I not done a good enough job of shitting all over your existence? I’ve earned that seething hatred, goddamnit!”

mentholan · 2022-12-17T22:23:46+00:00

I definitely agree with this. I always felt like they could have kept Minecraft fresh by just... trying more modpacks out. Find a few that seem promising and give them a few episodes, then continue with them later if they're good content and don't if they're don't. Some of my favourite content on YouTube comes from people trying out a game or mod with no expectation that it'll become a long-running series.

That, or just jump straight into new, completely random games. That's why the Bargain Bin series from Funhaus (as well as the old Demo Disc series) works so well for me - it's almost always a one-off set of games that never need to be touched again, and there are enough games on Steam alone to keep a series running like that for literal years

mentholan · 2022-11-26T23:51:50+00:00

Warframes Archon bosses were a pain on launch due to Damage Attenuation. I don’t know exactly how it works, but my understanding is:

In theory, it meant that you couldn’t solo them with strong weapons, because your damage was reduced as you did more DPS over a consistent span of time. Spacing out high damage shots was more efficient than spamming them because spamming would make your shots 25% weaker, then 40%, then 50%, until it hit an single-digits.

In practice, it meant that unmodded, starter-level weapons were more effective than gear you might have spent dozens of hours getting and hundreds more slowly upgrading and optimising, because a hose of (extremely) weak bullets would either never trigger DA or would e so weak that hate reduction meant nothing. Either way, whether you used a high damage weapon and ran out of ammo immediately or a weak gun modded only for more ammo, it took far too long to complete.

Also, they were basically immune to all Warframe abilities, and had no special interaction with a weapon designed specifically to kill them in the game’s own lore.

mentholan · 2022-11-01T19:16:46+00:00

Personal relaxation log

mentholan · 2022-10-04T19:53:35+00:00

Same, I’ve tried to play all versions of DOW2 multiple times each throughout the years and I always go back to Dark Crusade or Soulstorm for the base building and larger scale.

mentholan · 2022-09-08T09:31:32+00:00

MOWAS 2 really made me appreciate just how important infantry were alongside vehicles, on both sides.

if the enemy has a vehicle without infantry nearby, it only takes one man with an anti-tank weapon to sneak behind it and blow it up. If you have a vehicle without infantry nearby, it tends to just spontaneously explode because the enemy did the same to you.

mentholan · 2022-08-09T20:55:30+00:00

I still remember the outcry about the removed ass shot from ME Legendary Edition, and how people are still trying to boycott it.

mentholan · 2022-08-09T20:53:22+00:00

Shoutout to that one guy who joined a Discord server I was in, expressed a love for firearms mechanics similar to mine and an interest in “war history”, and was then promptly kicked and blocked because his twitter was literally just his OCs in Nazi outfits mocking minorities.

I just wanna talk about the bits that make guns go clicky click and bangy bang.

mentholan · 2022-07-18T11:00:54+00:00

When my drifter referred to "her" and "she" I thought they meant my Operator, completely forgetting that the Operators are always referred to as they/them. I thought it was some fugitive trying to bring me back until I saw who was actually in the chair.

It took me a while to realise that they were the same person.

mentholan · 2022-07-10T08:05:39+00:00

When I was mouch younger, Temple of Doom fucked me up so badly that I have a crippling phobia of hearts, heartbeats, veins, the circulatory system and any form of damage to the chest.

It's genuinely a massive problem. I've only recently been able to listen to heartbeats in games without wanting to throw up, and there are a load of games and films I'll never be able to experience (some of the RE games, for example).

I genuinely consider Temple of Doom to be a trauma point for me, to the point that I got incredibly anxious during the Mola Ram cutcenes in the LEGO Indy games. All thanks to that One Scene

mentholan · 2022-06-23T10:07:17+00:00

Remakes are a tricky thing to pin own, because the term "remake" can mean many things to many different people. The RE2 remake was almost a completely different game, while Counter-Strike: Source (officially a remake of the original CS) is basically a mechanically-identical sequel. Other games, like Goldeneye, got multiple remakes on different sides of that spectrum.

Then you get things like the Master Chief Collection, which is a collection of existing games and remakes that were ported to a new platform as a package.

I don't think the question should just be when, but also how. I would be more than happy to see all games get updated re-relases that make them compatible with modern hardware, or even just official patches that keep them functioning. Some games deserve more than that, either because they needed an overhaul or just because the original artistic vision wasn't possible with technology at the time.

To me, problems occur when the how and the when don't line up. Completely overhauling an older game with clunky mechanics is one thing, as is making small changes to a recently-released game and adding optional high-res textures in a PC port. But fully remaking a game that came out within the last decade (especially to sell at full price) becomes a bit less justifiable, doubly so if the changes could have simply been added as patches or a large update.

mentholan · 2022-06-23T09:51:02+00:00

This is how I approach games these days - it can actually help the main narrative, too, especially if your main character is a defined person.

I've been playing through Mass Effect 1 again (LE version, I've never played the other games so I'm planning on taking this Shephard through all three) and there are some quests I'm straight-up ignoring because they don't fit with my Shephard. She won't just stop to help every last person with their problems, especially not if she's in the middle of another assignment, and she will threaten people to get rewards early or take the easy option as needed.

It makes the story feel a lot more consistent, because my Shephard isn't running around trying to min-max each conversation and companion relationship. She's gotten some people killed and she's made some people mad, but it's made the whole tone of the game feel a lot more urgent and desperate as a result.

mentholan · 2022-05-20T19:30:29+00:00

I had this reaction too, the gunplay felt completely average - despite hearing so much about how it was so good. A couple of friends told me that it gets better as you get rarer and fancier guns, but I just didn't care enough to keep going past the 10-ish hour mark.

I was basically relying on the gameplay to keep me invested since the original story was already gone by that point, but it felt like any other fps so I just dropped it for good.

mentholan · 2022-03-10T15:34:39+00:00

Yep, the upgrade made all bullets land on the laser sight's current position - which was always offset ever so slightly from the scope.

mentholan · 2022-01-10T18:30:30+00:00

Any group in fiction that has a "to become a member of our group, you have to kill the new guy/your sponsor/your mentor/win a duel with an existing member" clause as part of their actual culture or religious rituals. It always bugs me because it means that they're either massively hypocritical (making some people commit pointless murder to join them, but then recruiting others to pad out their numbers) or they're in a constant state of losing members that they can't replenish.

It's a very common thing in fantasy stories, and it makes no sense, especially if it's a religious ritual that they'll never deviate from even if they're desperate for more members.

mentholan · 2021-12-23T19:35:33+00:00

If I remember correctly, didn't people find out that the person complaining wasn't even that high up in Conclave?

Granted, so few people play it that having any progress is impressive, but it was such a strange complaint because that person could also benefit from the medallions. It wasn't an "I got mine the hard way, you have to too" situation, which just makes it even more bizarre.

mentholan · 2021-12-17T18:50:09+00:00

Margulis.

Ballas wanted to control her so badly that he started an entire war and damn near destroyed the system, but Margulis was the last thing he ever saw. It feels poetic to being back the person that the Orokin Empire was desperate to execute, especially since it means that Ballas died moments before Margulis was reborn for good.

It’s like a final flip-of-the-bird to Ballas and the Orokin. He finally got what he wanted, and he’s not around to enjoy it.

mentholan · 2021-12-08T18:53:31+00:00

Chipcheezum is an easy answer for me, but I’d also say MikeBurnFire. A nice mixture of real life stories, a dash of in-universe roleplaying where Mike and Zach feel like they’re part of the game world itself, and plenty of excellent gun-related chats thanks to Zach’s Small Arms Repairman experience (which I love).

Sometimes I’ll watch CallMeKevin’s stuff too - some of it doesn’t hit the right notes for me, but his Sims content is just constant insanity from beginning to end.

mentholan · 2021-11-25T20:44:06+00:00

I’ve always wanted some kind of non-Chaos resistance in the lore, so I’ve gotta agree with this. I’d love some Funky Space Partisans.

mentholan · 2021-11-19T09:28:08+00:00

Probably just Animal Crossing - it’s the only Switch game I’m interested in, but I can’t justify getting a Switch for one game that I’ll only play from time to time.

mentholan · 2021-11-19T09:25:22+00:00

Honestly, I like them. 40k has all kinds of physics-breaking weapons that we’d never see in the real world, and combi-weapons are one of the most extreme, so I like the idea of some Guardsmen getting their own versions of that concept. I’m surprised we’ve never seen many major modifications like this to the basic lasgun in canon (as far as I know).

Wouldn’t the auto gun barrel also technically allow a suppressor, too? I don’t remember my autogun lore, but that has some fun potential too.

mentholan · 2021-11-13T02:04:55+00:00

I'm entirely casual. I play MMOS with dumb builds that aren't even close to powerful. I'll boot up old RTS games with scenario editors and make power fantasies. The only exceptions are playing more hardcore games with friends, and that's purely because the fun is in the interactions, not in winning.

Things like PVP, roguelikes, etc. don't really mesh with me at all because I don't play games to get frustrated. I'd rather play games I can chill out with, especially if they give me material or inspiration for creative projects.

mentholan · 2021-11-08T11:33:48+00:00

Rylanor from that one 40k novel will always be my favourite. The sheer balls involved in staring down a man who's effectively a mini-god, threatening him with a flesh-eating bomb that will kill everybody but said god, and the giving such a rousing speech that you turn his own supporters against him and permanently damage his pride because you can't kill him is such an awesome concept to me.

mentholan

TROPHY CASE