Still waiting for git good unfortunately 😔

• Alexei Navalny
• Markus Persson
• David Attenborough

I’ll have uhh… a #9 double democracy supreme, with cheese

Sugarcoating pills is fairly common, especially for pills which are frequently ingested or target older demographics. It’s because sugar coatings are much gentler on the esophagus (i.e.: less likely to cause esophagitis, “pill burn”). Advil (i.e.: ibuprofen) is a cheap, well tolerated, and non habit-forming pain reliever – it’s about as safe as such a thing could possibly be, so hopefully that helps to explain why a sugar coating might be warranted given the aforementioned upsides (for the love of all that is holy; always read the directions on the label, it’s still quite possible that Advil is not safe for you specifically). FWIW: the bottles also have childproofing mechanisms built into the caps (… at least in U.S. markets. Not sure about elsewhere?)

Watch out I saw these guys about to show up at your inbox

No, but now that you mention it that would be a pretty plausible thing to have happen. Just grabbing hold of a random armchair analysis and then repeating it ad nauseum until it transforms into an irony-poisoned meme totem… you’ve really gotten my hopes up now!

Good for them. No cyclical mass layoffs and any paycuts always happened in the c-suite first. The U.S. game industry could stand to learn a thing or two from their Japanese predecessors, I think it’s safe to say.

Alright, enough cheerleading for a faceless multinational megacorp… I just had to give credit where it was due so that I can still take myself seriously the next time I criticize the games industry for inevitably shitting its pants again.

95% of the time he plays the straight-man and then the other 5% of the time he behaves like an unhinged lunatic. It’s the perfect recipe for cultivating an audience of viewers who love to torment him with his own words. After that it’s just one step further to put words he didn’t say into his mouth and see how he reacts to getting gaslit.

I make it sound like a cynical ploy but really this kind of thing is just intrinsically tied to Jerma’s online personality. Lightning in a bottle. If you ask me the most impressive part’s actually how he manages to stay in control of the situation and not get totally swallowed up by the increasingly bizzare behavior of his viewership.

When will it end? The streets run red with figurine paint

Still no free blowjobs!

“He who smelt it dealt it, and I am no blacksmith good sir”

I burst into a short musical number, then put my coat on and peoplewatch at the park with a sandwich.

In-group signalling. One of the many microhabits you need to acquire in order to fit in with the local culture and nothing more. As usual, people make up reasons to justify why their cultural proclivities are objectively right but these are without exception completely post-hoc.

A self-portrait. If it turns out unrecognizable, just move the goalposts and tell the viewer that it’s a depiction of their mum.

A fellow Xbox gamepass User IT seems.

Nope, I’m just someone who waits for sales and has a bit of an indie streak.

This was after my First playthrough. Now, with George putting out his video, im back in. My god, its marvellous.

I see we follow similar creators! I only just picked Pentiment up last week – Jacob Geller’s recent 2023 video is what originally put Pentiment on my radar and then George’s video gave me that final push into playing it for myself. I’m extremely glad for having done so because Pentiment has quickly become quite special to me. I already look forward to making subsequent playthroughs despite still working on the first.

Hifi Rush was great, but felt too formulaic for me, so i abandoned it after the first or second Boss. Too much running arpund, No real banger music between Bosses.

I can see where you’re coming from. From a macro perspective, the game’s essentially just a series of battle arenas stitched together by corridors and platforming challenges… nothing incredible there. What makes Hi-Fi Rush special for me is the novel fusion of rythm mechanics and spectacle fighter mechanics – they complement each other extremely well. (Forgive me for explaining at you like this. I just can’t help myself when it comes to talking about this game)

Normally, I can’t stand DMC-likes because of the requisite rote memorization. HFR flips this dynamic on its head by making the memorization incidental – it happens naturally as you practice playing the combo on-rythm. Perhaps even more importantly; just as mastery of a combo string comes within reach, the underlying musical qualities all suddenly spring into focus and turn the sequence into a musical phrase. It clicks together in a very intrinsically satisfying way IMO. Naturally, this all compounds in on itself and gets double-fun once you start improvising your own “melodies” during real combat. You like Jazz? Because it’s like Jazz if Jazz killed people.

Now, obviously this isn’t going to hit the same way for everyone (nor should it!)… but if you’ve not yet buckled down in training mode and truly mastered a string or two for yourself, then I would very emphatically encourage you to give the game a second try. I actually had to do the exact same thing myself before I really “got” the game and my mindset shifted. Hi-Fi Rush truly is the Dark Souls of 3rd-Person Action videogames

When it comes to Deep Rock/co-op I think my issues are more associated with the underlying gameloop design. I find it hard to perform well when the “tension” ramps up and these games are kind of tailor-made to create high-tension situations. When a round ends I’m left feeling tired/deflated rather than joyful. I had the same issue with Left 4 Dead, but oddly not so for Payday 2.

In any case, I’m right there with you when it comes to TF2 community servers. I sorely wish that more games emphasized these sorts of digital “3rd places”. I have TF2 servers where I can go anytime and just… belong for as long as I please. Games should have more permanent places like that, where play and community come before any imposed win/lose dichotomy. People would be happier.

Yup, that about sums it up: fun, but shallow. Nevertheless I think it’s worthy of a recommendation because it has a great honeymoon period before falling off.

I had a really solid year, all things considered:

• ⭐ Hi-Fi Rush – Love it, hands down. This game’s like if Jet Set Radio, Scott Pilgrim, and DMC got into a fist fight and then that fist fight had a baby with Jack Black
• ⭐ Pentiment – I’m still playing through this one but I can already tell it’s a new favorite. Major Return of the Obra Dinn vibes
• ⭕ Against the Storm – This game innovates on the citybuilder genre so hard and I can’t get enough of it. If you love a challenge and hate the late-game, this is THE ONE
• ⭕ Psychonauts 2 – Fun and bursting with creativity… but I had to set it down after a certain point because I stopped enjoying the gameplay loop. Can’t put my finger on why…
• ⭕ Peglin – Yes, Peglin. The Peggle Roguelite. I like it and you would too if you gave it a chance. It’s not a forever roguelite, but I guarantee you’ll have a blast with it for 5-10 hours
• ❌ Deep Rock Galactic – I bounced off of this one. The game has so much charm… but I just couldn’t click with it. I think co-op games just may not be for me

Honorable Mention: TF2 – Definitely not a “new” game to me, I own TF2, I bought it with money! Even so… this year marked my return after a looong hiatus. Coming back was a total revelation – I thought I’d grown to hate FPS games – as it turns out, what I’d actually grown to hate was the modern antisocial MMR grindset. Game developers: I beseech thee… abandon matchmaking and return to 2007. Return the slab or suffer my curse

I think it’s a little unfair to escalate my talking about a presumably invisible and flavorless level of contamination into somehow advocating for choking down soot-blasted cancer nachos.

For the record: that’s not what I meant and I think any reasonable person would not have interpeted it as such having read the context of the post. It’s a sealed bag of chips – they have functioning taste buds and eyeballs for Pete’s sake!

People have put worse things in their bodies. Some mildly contaminated chips won’t kill you and probably won’t even give you cancer.

Let’s be honest, though… a standard bag of chips is already kind of bad for you – maybe you should toss them out because you’re better off without them either way? It’s just a bag of chips at the end of the day.