SUP Y'ALL, IT'S THE THIRD INSTALLMENT OF WHATEVER THIS IS!

I still haven't played much of the sailor moon RPG because that game is mad old and also it's annoying, but I will get to eventually (I'm not giving a date because I will undoubtedly break it like I'm douglas adams up in this). Regardless, let's revisit the two games I bought 4 days ago:

Zeno Clash

well actually I bought Zeno Clash 2, but that game is not out yet, so I played through Zeno Clash 1 again. Also spoilers if you haven't played zeno clash 1 yet (but if you haven't, I'm giving one away at the end of this blog post)

This is the fourth time I think. That game is so good and the sequel looks even better, but that's not what I'm here to talk about! By finishing up I mean I wanted to do all of the achievements.

I'm here to talk about two annoying achievements in particular (which were the only ones I was missing): Heavy Brawler (defeat a heavy enemy without taking damage) and Street Fighter (only use guns/weapons when absolutely necessary).

I tried doing street fighter once but failed. It's like, sometimes it's easy to know when you're supposed to use guns (the fights with hunter, for example). But occasionally they'll give you guns to hunt rabbits and I dont think you can use it there, you have to kick them dead which is super annoying. Also punching giant bugs is gross. It's a terrible achievement because it's way way way too vague.

Heavy Brawler sounds easy at first, but every single fight with a heavy includes little guys that hang around, and THEY COUNT TOO. oh my god. It's so annoying. I don't know how many times I tried fighting Gabel, or Deinother, only for one of those assholes to hit me from behind. I finally did it by fighting the little guys first but that's kinda hard because you also have to keep an eye on bigass elephant/chipmunk/other elephant.

Also playing through it again made me appreciate the little touches. When you fight Father-Mother after blowing a skull bomb in both yo faces, both his model and portrait have a piece of pre historic gauze with an eye on it, to replace the eye he lost? I mean his other eye just kinda glows yellow so it's not even accurate.

Also Golem's rubix cube is really funny still. Also also the music is (still) really really fucking good, and the little bit atlus posted of the music for the second one is incredible:

He was also really good in Rock of Ages too, he's probably my favorite western video game composer. Really wish I had the money for the soundtrack... though it'll just go up on youtube after the fact so it's not the hugest deal.

(also the chorus in that video is great, it's just a bunch of random ass looking people that look way out of place)

REGARDLESS YOU SHOULD PLAY THIS GAME IF YOU HAVEN'T IT'S PRETTY COOL.

Also I'll probably play it again, just to add all the other characters, primarily so I can post these things on a theoretical Animasta page (because I'm a horrid narcissistic bitch or because I think that would be funny, the world may never know).

(I will know)

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

My problem with xcom is not a problem with the game, it's a problem with me; the game is amazing, bugs aside... also I really hate the fact that women are way less likely then men to show up on your squad, but there's a mod that allows you to change it so I made it even more uneven on the other way around.

STILL.

my problem with xcom is that I keep restarting the fucking thing. It's like, oh no I think a thing went wrong, and it can be the most innocuous shit in the world, but I'll restart anyway. I'm technically on game 18 right now. I mean come the fuck on. Game 17 was actually going really well but I restarted because... I honestly can't even give you a reason. It was because I found that mod that would let me change the dynamics but I'm pretty sure it would've worked fine on a regular save.

Oh well! I'll complete it eventually... maybe on game 30.

MY SUPER SECRET CONTEST TO WIN ZENO CLASH:

do I like you/know of you/think you are funny and don't have zeno clash? you win!

NEXT TIME ON BLOGIMASTA:

I want to revisit E.Y.E., maybe I'll have finished the last remnant, maybe Cargo, I'm also real close to finishing V:TM:Bloodlines... the world is my oyster

Okay, so, me and my family moved from Hell on Earth (Las Vegas, Nevada) to Portland Oregon. In a car. Admittedly the trip was better than I expected, the cats were great fun when we took them out of their carriers, but regardless... we had an apartment set up but we had to wait in a hotel for 2 weeks while they set it up or something.

SO BORING.

I also meant to do a blog before I left but I was too slow before the internet shut off. So, instead of doing it then, I shall do it now. and instead of writing about one game, I shall write about every single (well not every single because I've forgotten some but whatever) game (my brother brought his PS3, along with his laptop)/movie/TV show/etc. I ingested over that two week period. Also a 4 day period after that with no internet (but my computer)

Movies:

Kung Fu Panda 2

terrible, boring, and unfunny, about what I expected.

Snow White and the Huntsman

this was on HBO every single fucking day we were there, I swear. It was also terrible! but Kristen Stewart has a pretty convincing english accent which is more than I expected from her.

I also saw reruns of movies I liked but meh, you don't really want to hear about those

TV shows:

Pretty Little Liars

I watched almost up to the season 2 finale (from the end of season 1), but I couldn't fit the last four on my phone. I mean it's not the most sophisticated show in the world, but I like it. It's about 4 girls who are being blackmailed or something by some anonymous individual named A. They have also floated the idea of A being more than 1 person. and guess what they named them then?

THE A TEAM (because of course).

but it's basically half soap opera and half teen mystery/detective show; one of the liars is shacking up with her english teacher, for example (she's also the worst because all of her problems revolve around him). Also, Nolan North is in the show and that's pretty weird. He's really a pretty good actor, though he sounds like what Nathan Drake would sound like at 50.

game of thrones

we don't get HBO so I never saw it, but the hotel had HBO so I finally watched some... I really don't get the furvor. It seemed like any other dark fantasy bullshit thing, political intrigue, shitty people, dragons.

Then again that may just be confirmation bias at work, so who can say?

Also I'm tired of british voice actors in fantasy. Just like we need more space british, we need more American dark fantasy.

I also watched a bunch of terrible reality shows about car buying and shit.

Books

Animorphs

OH MY GOD. so at some point (at the apartment), I realized I had all of the animorph books on my computer. So.

I read 30 of them.

I like the series, obviously, but I think I read a scattered 5 early on and then forgot about them. So I came back to it, and man. They have to explain pretty much everything in every single book. Like, by book 20, you should realize; "oh hey this guy is an alien he has a scorpion tail" "oh hey these humans can morph into cockroaches that's p. weird" but NOPE. they have to explain that shit every single time. Still, good reads, even if they are for people younger than I.

Games:

Skate 2

I bought this for my brother's PS3 because halfway in I was bored and needed something that would last me the rest of the hotel trip. and it did. I liked it.

Yep.

Alpha Protocol

I beat alpha protocol a 6th time, also on my brother's PS3. By the time you beat a game 6 times there's really not much you can say about it. It still rules, owns bones, etc.

Other than I don't get why you get money during the final mission when you collect intel

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

So, I finally got why everyone (Hardcore PC dudes) really likes this game. I never finished a game but it was still really entertaining. Also it's pretty effing hard, even on the easiest difficulty. But maybe I'm just terrible at it?

Europa Universalis 3

I play this a lot, but I never really played an asian game. I stick mostly to Norway. This time, I decided to play Tibet with the EU3+ mod, which includes a broken up China. I mainly chose Tibet because of the modern day situation, honestly, (I love playing underdogs). Tibet, in this position, starts like this:

pretty large, but they have shitty ass provinces. The only good ones are the capital, Qamdo, and U-Tsang. However, through clever war declaring, and other tricky bidness, I come to this: (Click for clearer text)

I have quite a bit of eastern China, of Siberia, of Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, maybe Kyrgystan and Tajikistan? I don't know, either way I am kicking ass. Qi is my ally... I think. Qi and Qin (that dark blue state between me and Qi) switch being allies to me every 10 years or so. Qi is obviously the winner of the war for China, they have been ever since they inherited Korea.

Also, Rajputana are fucking assholes. Them and Persia. :(

Still, this is one of the funner games of EU3 I've played in quite some time.

That is how I spent my time, mostly.

otherwise known as part 1 of my unincindeary blog posts! also known as a blog that won't be commented on a lot :)

I may have to come up with a cool picture for the top and shamelessly copy @video_game_king but that is not this time

okay, so I've been playing The Last Remnant (spoilers for this BTW). like, a lot. because it was either that or going through Dark Souls again with my sorcerer Parvati (and yes that is a HP reference). So, I had played it for 30 minutes like when I downloaded it (8 months ago at least) and then forgot about it, redownloaded it, finally got the gameplay, and started plowing through (I've got 40 hours and I've just hit where the 2nd disc would have been had I been playing the 360 version)

This game has the most side content of a JRPG I've played this generation, besides Resonance of Fate, and that's pretty cool. It's got so much side content that like half of my map is optional... Including, like, 6-7 cities I would never have had to go to in the main story. It's also nice to see a JRPG on the PC and why don't they do this more :(

The best part is how... weird the story is. Not in the normal sense, because the main plot is pretty much Final Fantasy 12 but with remnants (basically godly instruments of power or something) instead of magicite, but of all the small things and the characters.

This is a JRPG with a mom! a mom who is like 40-50 and who's daughter is all grown up. who looks eerily like her mother (it's a little creepy). but I honestly can't remember the last game where there was a playable mom, and especially not in a JRPG. She's also the coolest character in the entire game, because she takes no shit, she calls the MC out on being generic shounen "OH MY KIDNAPPED SISTER IS THERE MAYBE I SHOULD YELL HER NAME 30 YARDS AWAY INSTEAD OF SNEAKING UP TO GET CLOSER" protagonist guy. She even faces off against THE CONQUEROR, who basically looks like a viking and has main antagonist powers, pretty well until, you know, he kills her.she was my favorite character too :( and then her daughter just like comes in and takes her spot as one of ATHLUM'S FOUR GENERALS.

because you know she is obviously as good as her mom and why would we need to test that shut up this is a JRPG what do we care of logic

Also the main character's family is all alive! okay the dad was in a coma for a while but they're just like, scientists. I just finished a sidequest for the mom, in fact. Usually the parents are either gone, evil, dead, trapped, not mentioned, or die at the start, but nah, they're just there. They'll probably die near the ending or something, but it's intensely refreshing and if the main story was better this would probably be close to one of my favorite JRPG's just because of how refreshing it is. I mean, the side quests are cool and all, but most of em aren't very interesting in the story department.

Also I think the main character wants to have hot steamy sex with lord david or vice versa (who is the lord of Athlum, which is basically HQ for your party) because they have a lot of cutscenes near this garden of flowers and it's intensely homoerotic but maybe this is just me!

I just love when games subvert my expectations of them. Like, when that late game twist happens in Hotline Miami (that is to say, chapter 11-12 or whatever it was). or playthrough B of Nier (because yes, I can't go a whole blog without mentioning Nier). It's also a danger of paying attention to trailers too much.

uh, so I guess I should say that last remnant is pretty cool? I don't know. It's not a bad JRPG. Also the title is bullshit because even the first town has TWO REMNANTS. fucking get your names right square

I think my next blog will probably be about the sailor moon RPG, so STAY TUNED.

I know I know, stereotypes an all that, but it's accurate in that women are the largest buyers of romance, without a doubt, and I was just wondering why exactly... I mean, usually romance has many things a guy is into (that of course being sex, hot women, etc.). I doubt it's even about the fact that nothing is really happening, because in Anime the people who enjoy shit like K-On! and YuruYuri, both of which involve moeblobs doing cute things and then nothing happens and they're both goddamn terrible, the main audience is young adult Otaku's, most of whom are male. I can't really think of a similar equivalent in the west... maybe wrestling, the male's soap opera (if any of the wrestling thread wants to disagree, well, tough shit)... I had an idea but I then lost it in the middle of doing this blog so please help meeeeeeeee

and I guess this can also be, do you enjoy romance shit from time to time? I don't mean you were into boinking Ashley in Mass Effect or whatever, but something where the romance was the main part. Even if it's just a romcom or something

okay so there's been some 'awesome' anita discussions again and those are always fun, but one thing I am tired of is people calling people white knights, because that's entirely disingenious... for a couple of reasons. Look, I respect people who can make good arguments even if I don't agree with them (@Brodehouse is a pretty good example, I disagree with him on most things but I enjoy his arguments) and I think most smart, or even 'smart', people do too (of which I assume Anita thinks herself as smart; whether she is or not is not a discussion I want to have, so shut up). And, if you're really that fucking interested in reading a goddamn feminism debate thread in a video game forum, I assume you are too! So the white knight accusation is completely inaccurate from that point, and most people who enjoy my statements (and follow me because of this) that other people might construe as white knight exemplary are people who make the same arguments, and they aren't all women, though that's because there aren't a whole lot of women here.

The second part though, is the inherent disbelief that "you couldn't think that, you're only doing it because you want a girl/girls to notice you" or fucking whatever. People believe all sorts of crazy bullshit; people believe in goddamn chem trails! i don't know why your disbelief is such that a guy couldn't POSSIBLY be some radical feminist without doing it because he wants some pussy or even... e-pussy (I don't know the word for online sex)? Like maybe comparing radical or even hardcore feminism to chem trails is a little insensitive but it gets my point across. . Hell, people (it was probably endurancefun) have even called me a white knight for patrick. LIKE COME ON.

I mean Patrick's cute and all but...

:)

but seriously, don't be fucking lazy. Think up some new, more interesting, and more debatable words then that, especially considering that will sort of derail a debate, and debates are cool.

I used white knight recently but I was joking, which is how people SHOULD use it. It's such a ridiculous term if you honestly think about it.

Also I wonder if that term is why Dark Souls doesn't have white knights... just silver.

This is not a blog about how the walking dead sucks, or even how the walking dead is awesome, so you people who want to argue one or the other (you know who you are) should skedaddle.

ANYWAY.

I like the game. I do! i'm not even going to make the argument that it's not a game because if I did I would be a real big hypocrite (I have two visual novels on my list, Cinders and Analogue: A Hate Story, as well as Persona 4 Arena which the reason I liked it was not the fighting part).

I think the reason I am not enamored with it so much is I cry at too many video games already for it to be too effective (GAMES I CRIED AT THIS YEAR: THE WALKING DEAD, DEVIL SURVIVOR 2, PERSONA 4 ARENA, FINAL FANTASY 13-2, I KINDA CRIED AT SLEEPING DOGS, MAYBE BINARY DOMAIN I CAN'T REMEMBER) so it's like, yeah a video game made me cry, big deal (am I over emotional? ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES). and the puzzles and shooting are boring; I'd say gameplay but some people will get all up in my grill about how dialogue choices are gameplay and blah blah blah *virtual raspberry*.

but I digress! even if I thought it was my game of the year (which it is not, Crusader Kings 2 is, because it is the ur game, the game that blends amazing gameplay, amazing self supplied story [think the sims but with more incest] and is more open than any other game wishes it could be), the response would still bum me out. The reason being is that games have been doing the shit that TWD has been doing for a while now, but THIS is the game that has people basically ignoring gameplay to prop up a game because of it's story. I've been triumphing those games for YEARS, and all of the sudden THIS is the game.

Again, I don't want people explaining why they were so enamored with the TWD aside from others because I had a nice chat with @Oldirtybearon who explained it well enough.

So here are games that do what TWD did either almost as well, as well, or better;

GAMES THAT ARE ULTRA DEPRESSING: Nier, Witcher 2, Metro 2033,

GAMES THAT MAKE CHOICE MATTER: Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas, Cinders (of course no one knows if that is true or not because the only other person I know who's played it is @ImmortalSaiyan )

GAMES THAT FEATURE A LITTLE GIRL CHARACTER WHOM YOU BECOME PROTECTIVE OF: Persona 4, Nier,

GAMES THAT NO ONE CARED ABOUT; ALL OF THE ABOVE (and these are just the last two years, and yes persona 4 golden counts)

It's just a bummer. Like, I loved all of these games, and the walking dead, but suddenly it's the walking dead that gets all of the praise because it's a hot property and the puzzles aren't factors enough and it has zombies or whatever.

basically what I'm saying is play Nier if you thought the ending to the walking dead wasn't depressing enough

Like, the last three big GOTY titles (Skyrim, ME2/RDR, B:AA and Uncharted 2) all had either good (subjective I know but shut up guy who didn't like ME2's story, it was FINE) both areas or just really good gameplay (skyrim has a shitty story as well as lame side quests and this is not subjective except it is and I am just a big butthead). Suddenly this is the game that has people triumphing the story, and as someone who has been playing games where the story was the main draw for years, it's just... I hope people remember this for next year, I guess? because if this is the only game it happens too I will be way more angry.

Like I get that I am being completely unfair to the walking dead and the accomplishments telltale have accomplished; regardless of what I said I do think the relationship between Lee and Clem is superior to Persona 4 or Nier (those games do other things with the story as well, however). It's just me and my unreasonably large love for Nier, really.

THIS IS A PSA TO TELL YOU TO PLAY NIER

or this thread can be about misleading thread titles which is not actually illegal (is streaming those matches out illegal? I don't know I assume they are) (also is there no real place to watch those matches online for free? I mean not even on hulu or something? seems weird)

anyway, lots of people engage in misleading thread title usage. Most do it to stir up shit, some just do it to be funny (LIKE ME), some just are drunk and don't know how to say what they want to say or whatever.

The thing is, most people don't read the post. If it's sufficiently inflammatory, people just go in, skip to posting, and say "you're a fuckhead" or fuckin whatever. but if they're like that, don't just say that, that's super lazy and unless there's a giant block of unformatted text, at least read the first couple sentences to make sure you don't accidentally agree with him (in which case you say "I agree but stop being inflammatory you penis") or you can super pwn him with awesome inf0s you've gleaned from reading the post, which makes you seem like a smart person who reads threads before they shit on them.

I mean I do that occasionally but only to be funny

(or attempt to be funny)

(I'm basically a member of the cherry tree high comedy club only my hair is less anime)

(god that game is so terrible I played through it UGH)

ANYWAY.

I mean even if the thread title isn't misleading, like that one about Shane Satterfield not thinking The Walking Dead deserves GOTY; you cannot always get what you need from the topic title alone, a post is vital for understanding context. The original title of that thread was silly, as many people have many valid reasons for not giving TWD game of the year (mine is that the game parts are boring and diamonds), but that his reasoning was garbage. I mean, could that dude have picked a better title? maybe. but there's a larger problem here and that is people do not read posts.

What I'm ultimately saying here is football is a boring sport, but so is handegg, so people are people man.

(I shouldn't write blogs at 1 in the morning as it turns out)

(the real moral of the story is read posts you goddamn lazy people)

okay, so, everyone who's american (I was talking to a guy in australia who only knew the theory of twinkies so I'm pretty sure it's an american thing, mexicans and canadians sound up if they're there or were there) knows about the fact that Hostess went out of business. Sad news for those workers, obviously, but... god I am so glad.

basically 3 days after the announcement, my mom comes home with fuckin like a box full of cupcakes. I am literally talking like there was close to 100 cupcakes (only 10 twinkies but no one but my dad likes em). It was bananas, all chocolate cupcakes too (she works at salvation army and as far as I know they just got them out of a truck and the workers there got as many as they could carry I don't know I wasn't really paying attention) so me, having little to no self control and they being RIGHT THERE, decided that having like 6-8 cupcakes a day was a sound thing to do that would be perfectly healthy and I should stop worrying.

Of course, I'm pretty sure any person that knows what cupcakes are made out of can deduce this is a bad idea. I know it's a bad idea and I partake anyway because I have a carefree personality (when it comes to my diet, that is)

So we finish those, or get close to, in about a week. a day later she comes home with, like, 80 more.

ugh

I guess this really doesn't have any discussion value, so I wanted to know if something like this has ever happened to you; you got so much of a food item that you got sick of it? I mean it's not like cupcakes are my favorite food or anything but I do know that after this is done, I will not want any more cupcakes ever, and fuck hostess

this is a response to that hitman topic obviously, but there's a larger issue here; people not looking at things from others' perspectives.

Like, if I had to guess, most of the people here are:

straight

white

PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT OF THE TRANSSEXUAL PERSUASION

male

Nothing wrong with that! I'm not trying to blame those people whom fall under this umbrella, and I'm not saying that people who don't fall under this umbrella don't do this either. but there is a large contingent of people saying "well, don't be offended at this terrible fucking thing!". It's easy not to be offended when it doesn't personally offend YOU. Do I get super offended at gay people being called that word we are not to say? Not nearly as much; I do, but not to a point where I would get super fucking mad about it. However, I do understand why it's so terrible and I can sympathize with the pain it can bring (I like how we can say tranny all we want and people on this site have even said such a thing though hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa).

However, what can I say to a straight white man that really offends him because of those attributes? cracker, honky? breeder, het scum? prick? Do these words legitimate offend any of you? I mean it's a difference if you're a white man in like china or somethin. It's like, how about you try and look from different perspectives before saying "don't be offended", because for some it can be very hard not to be; and for some it is very easy. Some people are more emotional than others and are offended more easily.

and those slippery slope arguments are fun too! "Well if they take out this offensive dialogue and then they'll tkae this slightly less offensive dialogue out and soon all we'll have is PONG!" or fucking whatever. Honestly, I don't care if a character is personally transphobic; just don't make that out to be a good thing, or at the very least make it relevant to the story. Don't just throw in a "HAHA THAT NPC WANTED TO GET WITH THAT GIRL BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY A DUDE" That is not only offensive, it is also a terrible joke and literally has no purpose. There was mildly transphobic dialogue in Catherine, at the end, but guess what? I literally never complained about that because it was relevant to the story, it was done tastefully all the way up until then, and it was not immediately hateful. It made sense. but some were offended by it, and i respected their opinion.

All I'm saying, is there are many different types of people on this earth; try considering THEIR perspective before telling them they shouldn't be offended.

Okay, so there's quite a bit of hate around here for tricky. Like, more than I think is deserving; all of them have their good points and bad points (yes, even Vinny) of course, but it gets quite irrational at times. I also love how it's always prefaced with "BUT I LIKE HIS WRITING" as if that totally excuses what you are about to say.

but that's not why I'm here, to defend Patrick, though that is definitely part of it.

I think people here are too nostalgic for early Giant Bomb.

I came here at 2009, sometime after the Persona 4 ER, and that was great fun of course, probably the best content they've done still. You know what though? There were plenty of boring quick looks in 2009 & 2008. For every half blood prince, there were two boring QL's; but no one ever remembers those, do they? They're nostalgic for a time when it seemed they were just a small company, or even part of a larger (BUT STILL SMALL) company (I know they were in WM even in the first office so shut up THAT guy). There was very little difference though! There were more mailbags, but that's because they've gotten most of the stupid candy people have sent them; and the ILM's videos have been substituting the lack of mailbags recently. the QL's were shorter I suppose though that is just a personal taste thing whether you like that or not. The bombcast hasn't really changed, the reviews haven't changed, the QL's are largely the same though longer.

Nostalgia doesn't have to be for something 10 years ago. When you found GB, you were amazed! A video game site that makes a whole lot of videos, that's both less serious and just as serious, it's really funny... but some people got bored of that, and you know what? That's fine. Leave, if it's not entertaining you; If they don't entertain you than i think GB would probably think they have failed you in some way. They haven't really changed though, YOU have. and that's fine. Just don't mistake getting bored of the site itself for hating Patrick, for disliking the content... Patrick fits RIGHT in, better or worse that is all personal opinion. but Patrick is not the reason you aren't as enamored with the site now and you know it.