The Open Thread is a place for open discussion among my readers. Post anything you feel like sharing! From now on, the Open Thread will no longer be monthly. Instead, there will be a new Open Thread whenever it is adequate. The stage is yours. Go ahead!
The latest Open Thread is made ‘sticky’ to improve access.
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Tomorrow is the release date of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. Incidentally, on the very same day the fan-game Yasuke Simulator will be released as well, which is generating some buzz in reprehensible corners of the Internet:
I’ve heard different things recently about certain investors getting really pissed and wanting to sue for being mislead, to Ubisoft secretly approaching other foreign investors for funding, to them possibly selling off their IPs and disbanding as a company. Whatever the case is, it’s not looking very good for them. From what I understand they’ve just had too many commercial failures in the past 5 or so years. Ass Creed BBC numbers aren’t necessarily bad, but also not nearly enough to necessarily justify moving forward all things considered.
Ubisoft has lost about 3/4 of its market value in the last few years. If I was an investor, I would be furious. Ubisoft dug its own grave, doubling down when the “modern audience” did not show up in meaningful numbers. Now that USAID is gone, they do not even get any astroturfed support anymore either.
Is your minimal game ebook still relevant today?
Yes, I still consider it relevant.
Just to let you know Sleazy, but this link has become non-functional:
https://blog.aaronsleazy.com/index.php/2020/04/14/out-now-ebook-online-game-the-no-nonsense-guide-to-getting-girls-on-dating-sites-and-apps/
Fixed.
Hope to see all the content on this blog restored sooner rather than later. But if you can for now, could you please restore the thread where me and GoodlookingandSleazy were talking about Fred Ettish? (UFC 2 fighter), and the other thread where I mentioned being “Kindred Spirits”?
Out of all the folks on this blog, GLAS is whom I relate to the most. thank you Aaron for having provided us a platform to have some of these deep conversations.
Anyway, will be off to a cousin’s birthday party. be back!
I will look into this later.
Here are the restored threads: Open Thread #334, Open Thread #407.
Thank you, Aaron!
Trump shut down the Department of Education, thus delivering yet another blow to the Deep State:
https://archive.ph/285B4
The title of the executive order is great, “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities”. It hits the nail on its head as the ED, despite its thousands of employees and hundreds of billions in budget every year, has not improved education in the US at all. Quite the contrary has happened, which was arguably its intention, following the leftist agenda of dumbing down the population.
While this may not directly interest most goys who read this blog, maybe there are parallels to the straight scene and hustler women extracting cash from drunk guys…..
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1jhqo1r/19_m_currently_working_a_48_hour_shift_in_a_male/
I just completed Final Fantasy II. I played the Origins version for the PS1 – quite acceptable graphics, even the mid 90s standard CGI cutscenes are okay, but they do look a bit cheesy being shoehorned in with the 16/32 bit game. If you’ve got an actual budget, the pixel remaster would probably be the best way to go – I’ve played FF1 in this version, quite good.
I can fully understand why many consider this entry a bit of a low point for the early FF series. The elimination of the usual levelling system and instead every single stat being levelled up individually is very different and can easily be frustrating. Many will definitely find it tedious making sure they use every spell in their arsenal at least once per battle in order to power up. You can even attack your own fellow team members in order to increase your stats quicker. Although the key stat you should be focusing on is evasion – that way if an opponent can’t even hit you, you don’t need to obsess over building a high HP.
The story is quite standard – evil empire taking over the world, only three chosen ones stand in their way. Yes, your party is quite often only three members, but occasionally a fourth character will join. Just don’t go wasting too much equipment and spells on them that you can’t spare, because most of them are only with you for a limited time. First appearance of chocobos – handy but very underutilised. There’s the ship and the airship, but personally I think you get both of these way too late in the game to have any real fun with them. And the dungeons are objectively awful – multi level dead ends, empty rooms with sky high encounter rates.
All that being said, despite the game’s obvious flaws, I personally loved it. But that’s just me – I don’t mind the grinding in RPGs. I like planning out my grinding sessions – making sure I’ve got enough phoenix downs and cabins. Hunting out areas with the toughest monsters to help level up quicker. Vampiric monsters are quite handy in this game, because they drain a good chunk of your character’s HP and MP – thus a good way to level up these stats.
If you want to delve deep into Final Fantasy lore, and you have a high amount of patience, give Final Fantasy II a shot.
I have not come across a lot of praise for the first two Final Fantasy games online, so thanks for sharing your experience. Final Fantasy III got some attention as it received a comparatively high-profile remake for the Nintendo DS many years ago. Overall, the classic RPG formula has fallen out of favor, albeit there seems to have been a bit of a revival recently. Dragon Quest XI fully embraces it, but Dragon Quest XII was announced to change the battle system. The Atlus RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio is a following a traditional turn-based formula. I know virtually nothing about this game, though.
I am keen to check out the Dragon Quest franchise in its entirety. It looks like there are some decent remakes of the earlier games, which is a relief because the original NES versions of these games can be quite a chore to play through. There are quite a few titles on the Super Nintendo I still want to play – the Star Ocean series, Chrono Trigger.
Metaphor: ReFantazio looks interesting. Looks like it has an alternating day and night system, which would be interesting to see play out in a turn based RPG as opposed to action RPGs like Legend of Zelda and Castlevania that have had day and night systems in many entries.
I just came across this utterly reprehensible video in which an Indian who escaped to the West berates his own culture:
Some interesting if not bizarre gaming news today: It seems that Metroid Prime 4 will indeed come out this year, at the end of the life span of the Nintendo Switch. Strangely enough, it was announced in 2017, when the Nintendo Switch was initially announced. Back then, some die-hard Nintendo fan boys claimed they would get this console for this game alone. This reminded me of die-hard fans sticking to the failed Wii U console because of the repeatedly delayed Zelda: BotW, which was eventually released for both the Wii U and the Nintendo Switch.
The most bizarre piece of news, however, is that Christiano Ronaldo, the soccer player, will join the cast of the upcoming B-tier fighting game Fatal Fury: City of Wolves, made by SNK. This is the sequel to the B-tier fighting game Garou: Mark of the Wolves, released in 1999. Presumably, the Fatal Fury brand had so little pull that SNK used the Japanese title “Garou” for marketing purposes. This is a game that some people claim to hold in high regards but it really is not that popular, judging, for instance, by player numbers of the Steam rerelease or Fightcade player counts. I would be genuinely surprised if the sequel did not bomb. There has not been another game in this series between 1999 and 2025, which is quite telling. There are multiple generations of gamers who have zero attachment to this franchise and the 1999 crowd is now in its 40s or 50s.
Aaron,
I’m not a fan of gaming, and I’ve never been. Anyways, have you ever thought about building a flight simulator at your house? Have you played Microsoft Flight Simulator?
I do not have the space for such a setup. In terms of size and cost it is probably quite comparable to building a sim-racing rig, which I find marginally more appealing. Flight simulators are too slow-paced for me, but I have spoken to people who enjoy them. It seems the big draw for them is the meditative aspect, basically letting the autopilot take them from A to B while they are only actively involved in some actions like taking off and landing. I recall one guy telling me that he likes flying from London to New York in a flight sim once a week, while he is reading a book or watching TV for most of the time.
I liked the way MP4 came across. It looks like a linear adventure very similar to 1&2 (3 I was unable to get into). I was almost worried that with the huge gaps in development time that they were going for some sort of open world format. The game has probably been completed for a while. I just hope they were able to streamline the game in terms of the monotonously convoluted backtracking aspect of MP1.
Another big surprise is the Gradius Origin collection. It’s been worked on by M2ST, and will even feature a brand new Salamander installment as well as multiple versions of some of the games. For $35 it looks like an awesome deal, plus there are the usual quality of life options available.
The announcement of the Gradius Origins collection also surprised me. As a word of caution, before jumping in I recommend trying out any of the classic games in an emulator first. Gradius may be a classic, but it is a lot different from modern-day bullet hell shmups. In fact, in the shmup community there seems to be little overlap between people who like classic, memorization-heavy shmups like Gradius or R-Type, and fans of bullet hells like Dodonpachi or Crimzon Clover.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyBcSuqLo3k
This is how women deal with rejection…not very well. I’ve had a few incidents in my life, but not with as direct of an aggression.
any of you have stories to tell of not responding to a woman’s signals (or even forward advances in rarer cases) and them not reacting well to it?