I loved this UPF - possibly my favourite one of the year thus far. It was thoroughly unprofessional, it was Friday and you were all way nicer and supportive to one another which made it really enjoyable. Thanks!
As someone who recently started playing Sea of Thieves solo, I'll just say that that game nearly destroyed my soul one night. I've had fun with it, but the tall tales will reset when you log back in if you don't complete all the steps (i.e. reach the checkpoint in the story).
As it initially took hours to do this solo, I once lost my progress upon logging out, had another failed attempt for dumping a chest overboard that contained more than just a notebook (it actually had a quest item which I didn't see because it never taught me that chests CAN HAVE MORE THAN ONE ITEM!) and then, on my third attempt, had so much BS happen over the course of FOUR HOURS, including:
Starting the tall tale and being attacked by a Kraken and SOMEHOW surviving,
Mistakenly ramming into a ghost boat while I was repairing holes below from the Kraken - beaching both of our boats and ensuring that their cannons had a direct, fixed line of sight for shooting my already damaged boat,
Surviving all of this, scavenging for boards, finding a rowboat, and then being chased by a team of 3/4 across the seas, until I pulled a ridiculous maneuver above my paygrade using a harpoon and anchor to hide undetected amongst a very small grouping of rocks for about 15 minutes,
Emerging, heading to the relevant island, and finding a literal boatload of treasures (which was surely the cathartic release I deserved), spending nearly an hour methodically collecting it all and loading it up on my boat, grabbing the totem thing I needed for the quest, running from the skeletons and sticking up a metaphorical middle finger at them before, not 10 seconds after having set sail and feeling happy again (I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN), being attacked by a Kraken and, this time, having no planks left to repair my boat,
Kraken sunk my boat - I wanted to cry with losing everything - but THEN IT SPAWNED ME ON THE ROWBOAT! YES! It'll be the equivalent of taking the Delta Flyer halfway across the Delta Quadrant, but I can collect all my treasures and slowly row back, surely? In panic of still being in the middle of the kraken, and unsure if it'd judge me worth of attacking, I grabbed a gunpowder barrel from the water and mistakenly set it off instead of placing it down on the rowboat. I jumped up in down and panic, trying to grab it before it exploded to throw it overboard, but it killed me,
I was in shock, felt totally powerless and defeated, yet nevertheless sailed back to see if I could find my stuff. I looked around, found some barely worthwhile crates, but couldn't see the quest totem and then... 'TALL TALE FAILED'. I was crushed.
Sailed back with my salvaged items and got probably less than 200 gold in total - and was told by a merchant that they wouldn't buy my crate of cannonballs because IT WASN'T FULL. At this point, I screamed aloud (my partner wasn't home, thankfully): 'FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER. YOU WANT A FULL CRATE? I'LL SHOW YOU HOW FUCKING STUPID YOU ARE' and proceeded to salvage enough cannonballs from the barrels scattered around THIS ASSHOLE'S ISLAND just to show him how FUCKING STUPID he was for paying me for SELLING HIM HIS OWN FUCKING CANNONBALLS.
That last interaction was the 'fuck you, game' that I so desperately needed - so I didn't feel as if the game had beat me - to switch it off. I should point out that this was the first tall tale - the Shroudbreaker. Essentially, the introduction to the game...
I know, from afar, this sounds good - I know this sounds REAL GOOD - but, at the time, I cannot adequately describe with written words how fucking FRUSTRATING it was to not be able to move forward and, essentially, get next to nothing progression-wise after FOUR HOURS of gameplay.
But if I had experienced all of this with another person to bounce off of? I'm sure it would have been pretty amazing! Or seeing it on 'Sea Beasts'? Would surely be a contender for a top 10 Giant Bomb video.
So, yeah - avoid solo if you don't want to suffer to the absolutely woeful on-boarding, or just hope you get better luck than me I guess?
Despite this trauma, it can be a fun game and I'd be remiss in not commenting on how, outside of this glorious bullshit, it could be immensely relaxing just sailing the lovely-looking seas by myself.
And, yes, I did manage to finish the Shroudbreaker on my next attempt with absolute ease and no problems at all. Just the way she goes...?
I remember that Tetris BBC documentary. I watched it when it was first broadcast (if I've remembered rightly) on BBC4. That was quite noteworthy at the time as it's a bit of a high-brow, middle-class arts channel - and it was around the time of the 'games are/aren't art' debate.
I almost didn't stick this series out at first - between the genre just not being my cup of tea and, well, the portrayal and treatment of women in the game.
But I did... and it was a total sleeper hit. I honestly think it has been my favourite GB series since Exquisite Corps. Ben and Jason are a good duo.
@blupotato: I presume Sean's referring to that little bit of writing that is likely trying to provide a subtle-not-so-subtle inflammatory dig at identity politics - which is generally used by those with some sort of transphobic agenda, people who follow Prophet Peterson, people who want to deny the lived existence and experience of others, and people who just think they're being funny but don't understand the subject matter well enough.
It's possible they are also alluding to the Doom Eternal controversy where there was a line of dialogue from, I think, the UAC corporate spokesperson in one of the trailers saying that enemies should be referred to as "mortally challenged" instead of the derogatory "demons". Doom is, of course, a game about killing all of these demons indiscriminately and, thus, Doom Eternal is implying violence towards those who push identity politics and playing with the idea that it's all a ploy to invade our world and destroy civilization as we know it. What's next? Demons in women's bathrooms?
So it is, essentially, framing its lead character as a futuristic Travis Bickle who is gonna 'clean up' the streets of downtown Hell, and get to be the sexist, homophobic, subtly racist (or, in this case maybe, demonist) hero we all need adorning the walls of college dorm rooms/student halls/frat houses everywhere for the next few decades.
I think everything we see in the game here suggests the 'seitans' are demons of some kind - or aligned with the demonic.
Seitans, demons, 'transgenders', enbies, socialists etc. - they're all the same, obviously. They've come to destroy the familiar white, hetero-normative, middle-class, Christian family values-driven world and thus you, the white knight, have gotta stop them. Or, in this case, the Priest.
Personally, I'm rooting for my fellow mortally challenged...
My top 10 averaged out at about #109, hah! ... Well, if you remove Subserial Network as the undisputed 501st community game of the year according to Rorie's top 500 list*, it was #65. That's still pretty low. Clearly I have a lot of good games to buy and play, and very little money to work with. Guess I'll be waiting until they've all become cheap, forgotten 'old' games...
So, you know what? I'm going to start with #65 and #109 on both lists, since that's where my tastes clearly sit, which are:
- Mario Tennis Aces (I GOT THIS FOR CHRISTMAS AND HAVEN'T PLAYED IT. A WIN!)
- WarioWare Gold (Okay, good good... I just need someone to buy me a 3DS and we're all set)
- Kirby Star Allies (Eh... am I perhaps secretly a huge fan of non-first-party Nintendo-published games?)
- NBA 2K19 (Did Nintendo publish this? Wait... is this one of them 'real' sports? Fuck this experiment)
I'm saddened that it seems as if nobody else voted for Subserial Network - so instead of lamenting its non-appearance, I'm nominating it as the undisputed 501st game of the unweighted list.
(And, yes, I know if it only had 1 vote, then it probably really wasn't 501st either - but *raspberry* to you)
Regarding Rowan Atkinson's voice: I think people in Britain and Ireland (at least those 30+) probably have a different view due to the fact he starred in an 80s British comedy called Blackadder. In fact, for me, Edmund Blackadder is his most iconic role - more so than Mr Bean! It's a fantastic show - with a great supporting cast. Definitely in my top 10 - well, seasons II, III and IV anyway. The ending to IV is... wow... something special. Only thing is that, like most 'classic' comedy shows, it has some outdated tropes - such as some transphobia in the form of men in drag being used for a laugh ('outdated' cause, you know, that trope doesn't exist today... *cough*) - but, if I've recalled correctly, it does at least try to intertwine it with some historical reality. As long as you're prepared to deal with that going in, I'd say give it a go past the lesser first season - especially if you're a history buff!
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