Mera'din

Really been wanting to watch it, but trying to clear my queue out a bit before I get it. Figured it wouldn't hurt to let a few episodes build up. Been hearing REALLY good things so far.

I am okay with this. She is an excellent actress. Smaller than I expected them to go for so wonder if they're gonna go the CGI route for her transformed.

Managed to get one this time. Was weird as hell though. Could only select the normal console (digital only button was greyed out), and when I went to check out, it wouldn't let me pick my normal Best Buy store for pick up and wouldn't let me even try to select just shipping it to me. Had to pick a store that's 90 min. away in another state to get it to go through. REALLY hope there's not a snow storm around when it comes out. XD

So much for pre-orders starting tomorrow. Fucking Walmart. Thought I almost had one with Best Buy (just had to confirm my order. Was in my cart, payment info accepted, etc.) and then it wouldn't progress past trying to confirm it and eventually everything went down and it disappeared out of my cart. Some cool looking stuff in that. Looking forward to the next God of War and am intrigued by FFXVI. Thought it was going to be some sort of FFXIV thing at first but then it showed some combat bits and I was like "Wait, what?" Must be the same character designer or something because the art style and designs were a lot like what XIV has.

But these disk drives are SPECIAL. Because of all the [buzz words]! Clearly, they must cost at least $60.

Yeah, same. I have what will be a 15 and 16 year old and they both are pretty big on keeping people out of their 'bubble' even before the virus so I'm not too worried about them overall. Still hoping a decent amount of people just aren't there though. XD Luckily we just built a new elementary school and the high school was expanded not terribly long ago so we have a decent amount of room to work with.

Ours are optional. Can choose to go back or choose to do distance learning on a quarter to quarter basis. 50% classroom capacity, masks required, etc. They're bringing all the subs in full time and hiring extra teachers on top of that. We're sending the two in high school back because they were absolutely terrible with the distance learning and keeping the 2nd grader home because elementary schools are going to be like hearding cats with the mask stuff and everything I imagine and he did great with the at home stuff. Only thing I don't like is they're using an external service for the at home stuff now and it doesn't necessarily teach what the school is teaching which seems annoying but shouldn't be a big deal for 2nd grade anyway so it'll be fine I guess. Would have been weird for the older kids though I think.

I watched it. It had an interesting premise so I decided to give it a shot before I dug into another series. It was nice to have something movie length to pop on and I ended up enjoying it. Watched a few other things over the past couple weeks too: [Un]Well - Documentary series on Netflix about the alternative medicine "wellness" industry. Each episode covered a different topic (everything from Essential Oils to Bee Sting Therapy to use of human breast milk for adults and more). It did a really good job of staying neutral on the subject matter, presenting perspectives for and against, people that were seemingly helped by the thing in question and people who were hurt or endangered by it and doctors and experts who supported it and ones who were against it sharing research and things like that. Was really well done overall. Teenage Bounty Hunters - Really didn't know what to expect going into this. Saw a trailer and it seemed like it could be a fun little distraction, or just absolute garbage. Was pleasantly surprised as it ended up being legitimately good. Deals with a lot of interesting subject matter and had a lot of great humor in it that I really enjoyed all around. Only thing that threw me off is I had a weird moment of mental dysphoria when I realized I was about the same age as the parents of the main character. High Score - Another documentary series that popped up on Netflix. About halfway through it. It more or less is about the the history of video games and has been a fun watch so far. First episode covers the arcade boom and the rise of Atari through to the near collapse of the home console industry due in part to E.T. and also talks about the first ever competitive video game tournament in the US, the Space Invaders US National Championship. Lots of interviews with interesting people some of whom I'd never heard of (such as the guy that originally invented the use of cartridges to swap games originally for a console I honestly hadn't even heard of). Second episode deals mostly with the rise of Nintendo and the NES, including segments about the creation of Nintendo Power magazine, their lawsuit with Universal Studios over Donkey Kong and the 1990 Nintendo World Championships gaming competition. Third episode went into detail about the creation of adventure games and RPGs and when graphics were first used for PC gaming and their evolution from text based adventures and vector graphics up through Final Fantasy. Also includes an interesting segment about the first ever LGBTQ-centric game, GayBlade that was made in the 80s and was thought to be lost to time and did not exist anymore Overall it's been a really fun watch and there has been some really interesting stuff I didn't know about here and there.

That seemed pretty fair overall. Pretty much what I expected it to be too. IE: Mostly enjoyable until the campaign is over and the grind starts unless you REALLY like that kind of thing.

I really can't get into those games. Really don't know why. I really enjoy the humor in them, but it took me like 5 attempts and 2 years to finally finish the story in BL2. Think I'm halfway through the first DLC otherwise. XD

I'd like to play something together that lasts more than 3 matches before someone rage quits. XD

I grabbed it on PS4 when it was up for $2. I figured I could at least enjoy the story since I had a bit of fun with the original, but I couldn't even stay interested enough to make it through the campaign.

I'll probably still get it eventually because I liked the story levels in the beta a lot. I just didn't care for literally anything else they seem to be putting into the game so i want to give it a bit to see what kind of shenanigans they get up to with monetizing it before I put money down on it. Would be fun to play something with you again though. >_>

I did cancel it. It was before I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I still don't feel comfortable paying even $50 for it. The "challenge card" is not a traditional battle pass style of thing. You don't pay for the cards for the base characters, and there's no time limit on getting all the stuff. They're permanent and not a "seasonal" thing. The track on the card gives you some of the premium currency, and the cost of the card for any new character that comes out is 1000 credits ($10) and you get all of those credits back via completing the card. So if you complete the base ones then you don't actually have to pay anything to get the ones for new characters but yeah, I'm sure it's a mega grind fest to complete those. They still have the premium currency store using the credits too though that has skins not on the challenge cards so it's still a pretty shitty setup overall. I'm going to wait for a price drop and/or wait to see how they handle future content. All characters, quests, story, areas, etc. added will all be completely free so I get the need to make money from something but if they make additional cards for existing heroes that also have to be bought and it's not a "one time" fee per new character as a whole, I'm probably not going to touch it anytime soon. Paying for skins and emotes and other cosmetic shit up front is one thing (nevermind that it's still pretty lame after something like Spider-man as web said), but if they're going to effectively start double dipping, then I don't want anything to do with it.

I'll be getting it. I've had enough fun coming back to the game after nearly 2 years away and catching up on story stuff that I missed and this brings back one of my favorite characters (it's why I became interested enough to give it another go in the first place XD ). I've actually enjoyed this particular season, though looking back at and/or doing some of the other stuff they've done for other seasons though it's been REALLY hit and miss overall, so we'll see for anything beyond the expansion. There's some major story points they still need to hit on (mostly dealing with Mara and Uldren) that I may buy into if it goes that direction. If they pull some new character out of their ass though, I'll probably sit on it. It took like a year and a half for the Drifter (and half the other characters really) to become even remotely interesting and I don't think I could deal with that kind of foot dragging at this point.

I'm willing to give it a shot for sure with what I'm seeing there. The suit and cowl look a LOT better than they did in the stills and test shoot thing too which is good. They showed some stuff from James Gunn's Suicide Squad movie too and it looks 10x better than the first just off of the character roster alone. They also did a weird animated "teaser" thing for Black Adam which seemed like more of a reminder that it existed and the Rock was playing him than anything but still neat.

A'ight, now I'm fucking concerned. Apparently they (higher ups at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox) have fired Brian Mitsoda (lead writer and writer of the original game) and Ka'ai Cluney (Creative Director) and they have been replaced with a "Creative Consultant" to fill the role that the Creative Director previously performed. Official Statement: https://www.bloodlines2.com/en/an-update-on-the-organizational-changes-for-bloodlines-2 Rock Paper Shotgun has a statement from Mitsoda. This was not a "my job was done and I wasn't needed anymore" kind of thing it was out of the fucking blue and the writing team was on schedule with their portion of the game and he was not consulted about the delay. The firing appears to have actually happened PRIOR to the recent delay announcement which is even more worrying if I'm being honest. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/08/19/brian-mitsoda-has-been-fired-as-narrative-lead-on-bloodlines-2/ Brian's Statement:

Was actually talking to him about it last night. I knew the signature gif, and the avatar looked super familiar and I couldn't stop watching it so I asked him where it was from and the second he quoted the song I was like OH YEAH. XD

Square has also long ago established that they will take money from anywhere they can get it and advertise literally anything in a game no matter how fucking weird it is (ie: the entire "Cup Noodle" questline, etc. in FFXV) and have already shown that they're doing it with this. A set of exclusive skins has already been shown that is only available to specific cell service carriers (Verizon in the US and Virgin in the UK I believe) and another set is rumored to be a promotional tie-in with Intel (possibly for one of their processors). All of which boggles the mind. This kind of thing is normally thrown at consumable shit like energy drinks or whatever. Almost nobody is going to change cell carriers or buy a new computer processor for a set of game skins. Sony is also getting a bunch of other exclusive or timed exclusive content including non-cosmetic content so there was clearly a bag of money involved in this whole thing somewhere. To reiterate, this is the same company, through which, you effectively had to pay $50 to get this:

We should be good to get one more season before we have to worry with as well as its doing. After 3 is when Netflix likes to start getting cagey with their shows regardless of popularity. I'm about 3/4 of the way through Season 2 and it's been excellent. I also watched 'Cursed' which wasn't too bad but not at all what I was expecting. Learned later it was based on a graphic novel. Netflix seems to be going all in on green lighting things that are based on comics/graphic novels lately and they've almost all been really solid.

Indeed. Every time it moves I panic because it's always loomed around where Bloodlines 2 was likely to hit at the time and that series knows that kind of pain already (first one released same day as Half Life 2. )

The games release has now been delayed until 2021. Guessing Q1 probably. Have been expecting this since the announcement that Cyberpunk was being pushed to Nov. since that seemed the likeliest time frame for this game and they're going to avoid releasing anywhere near Cyberpunk like it was the plague.

Yes and no. It's designed to be played with others it seems like, but you can turn off matchmaking and it gives you AI companions instead and as awful as that might sound, they actually DON'T suck. At least at the level of content I tried. That might not stick as well at endgame potentially but I've read that "99%" of the content can be done that way with no issues. Also, it seems like you can use matchmaking for everything though once again, may not apply to some endgame stuff. Haven't read one way or the other. Played a few things like that though because the matchmaking is broken as fuck right now. Hoping they get that sorted by tomorrow so I can try playing with people. One of the interesting gameplay things I found out about: Iron Man's ultimate ability is calling down the hulk buster suit and get in it. You then have the option of getting out of it and letting a teammate use it. Also, yes console. They made Spider-man a playstation exclusive character. :x Doesn't sound like a timed thing either. People are pissed. The reasoning behind it is absolute garbage bs too. https://www.ign.com/articles/marvels-avengers-how-spider-man-became-a-playstation-exclusive-character Honestly this reason is stupid enough and people are pissed enough I could see them backpedaling to a timed exclusivity though.

Got a code for the closed beta for Avengers since I had it pre-ordered on Amazon (popped up at a $50 price tag at some point and wanted to reserve the price) so have been playing that for a couple hours. It plays a LOT better than it looked during the original gameplay reveal which was a pleasant surprised. There are some small things that bother me about it (switching tabs in the menu taking longer than it feels like it should being one of the main ones), but it was pretty enjoyable. In the broader scope of game mechanics, it feels like it will be a super nice looking, AAA version of that Marvel Heroes Omega game that shut down a while back. Which is to say, looter style game where your constantly pushing for new gear. Combat felt really solid though and was a good variety of combos and some interesting looking skill upgrades and the little bit I played of the available characters made each one feel sufficiently different. Looks like there will be cosmetic microtransations for different outfits and nameplates and things like that, but they also have a pretty good variety you can earn in the game itself. Not optimal, but at least it's not all in on that shit. May actually consider keeping the pre-order at this point. So far it looks like there might be some decent depth to the game, but it's hard to say from the little bit you have access to. Interested in seeing more though. Before I was relatively sure I wouldn't get it, but this has convinced me to reconsider.