Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
PaperclipPerfector
7hr ago
(text post)
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Video game thread
I haven't played anything in weeks. Been too busy with a responsible adult mode/productivity streak. Haven't been getting enough R&R and became a bit worn down. Please tempt me into some fun gaming.
Old World Blues is a Fallout mod for Hearts of Iron IV. Compared to the base game or many of its flagship mods, it’s more about diving into the setting.
My current playthrough is multiplayer with an old friend. He’s got a vault nation up in Colorado, stomping out the neighboring raiders and negotiating an alliance with the New California Republic. My faction, though, is a loose warlord state which trades off leadership according to regular wrestling matches. Its mutant luchadors are happy to lose gracefully and bide their time for the next match. In the meantime, they like to lead volunteer troops to other nations. This has been difficult, lately, since their closest neighbor is the Sinaloa cartel. After years of suffering raids, they’ve formed an alliance to wipe those bastards off the face of the planet.
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A while back I made a post about WorldBox God Simulator, and how my chosen world had become an endless throng of insane cannibal rhino men living under the lash of a race of wicked angels.
https://www.themotte.org/post/3382/friday-fun-thread-for-november-21/386100?context=8#context
Recently this had become a bit stale, so I wiped the angels out of existence (at least in this timeline), put some rhino guys into their isolated mountain lair instead, and then wiped out all life outside the lair.
Centuries passed as the rhinos sat trapped in their mountain, their hunger having been temporarily removed by divine intervention so that they could survive this way. Over time new civilizations emerged. Elves and druids and cat people and all sorts of things. Once they had several thriving kingdoms and seemed to be heavily engrossed in their own politics, it was time to make a hole in the side of the mountain, and to make the boys hungry again.
That's right, monsters from before the dawn of civilization, God's chosen world-eaters. They immediately established a large warmongering empire that split the main continent in two, prompting everyone in the world to declare war on them in turn.
The thing is, these guys are basically feeder mice for my evil angels, sure, but they're still far stronger on an individual basis than any naturally evolved species. The world's counteroffensive is getting smashed. Not only that, but the rhino religion gives access to a devastating set of strategic-level ritual spells. It's going to start raining demons and meteors across the planet as soon as the rhino leadership can get its hands free for five minutes straight.
But you know, the rhinos weren't like this when they initially won their own world. They were strong and warlike, but not utterly insane. They had conquered the world, divided up into a few factions in sort of a permanent cold war, and then sat there being so peaceful that God got bored. I had not only made them stronger at that point, but as disagreeable as possible, so that they would continue to fight even when they were the only race or culture to exist.
Yeah these guys turned on each other, for absolutely no good reason, while at war with everyone else. With their strength split in two and fighting bitterly against itself, the elves and druids and cat and dog people and whatever else were able to crush them both and save the world. My pet rhino guys went the way of every over-engineered killer orc race in fiction.
So hey, sometimes good wins, even in my would-be miserable hellworld. I should have been taking screenshots or something. Fun toy, worth picking up, has some gimped free to play options but I don't know about them, I bought the full price version.
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Download a modpack for Skyrim.
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I have been playing Kingdom Come Deliverance and, while it was already clear that this was not a woke game from pretty early on, this line really drove that nail home for me. You would never here a line like this in a modern American video game. It's not even anti-woke: as a game from the Czech Republic, it's so far removed from the modern American culture war that it just doesn't even care. This is in response to being asked why does God allow so much evil in the world, and the man responds that it's probably a test so we can become better by overcoming it. Everyone is a medieval Catholic (except the evil foreign Cumans who are barbaric and evil, but also way way stronger than your local bandits which makes it terrifying when you stumble on one early game and you probably need to run away instead of fighting), and it's just kind of in the background morality of the individual characters. There's a quest where you go back into the ruins of a town that was just destroyed and still roving with bandits and scavengers in order to bury your murdered parents, putting yourself in danger for no reason other than respect for them and wanting them not to get stuck in purgatory. And yet it's not as if the story is glazing Christianity either, it's got plenty of evil and corrupt people abusing the system, and even a drunk and lecherous priest who is preaching protestant reformation against the Catholic church and their money grubbing ways. Characters believe things because it makes sense for their character to believe that in this culture and the narrative isn't using them as a cudgel to propagandize you that they're obviously right or wrong.
What I think I like about it most of all is that it's an open world Western RPG where your character is... actually a character. You play as Henry, a blacksmith's son from a town, with parents and friends and a personality. He speaks, he has opinions, he makes decisions that you cannot control that drive the plot forward. He is not a blank faceless self insert who gets swept along in some chosen one plot so that you can pretend he is actually you in this world. Henry is Henry in this world, and that gives the writers so much more room to actually write a real story that involves him in it because they can make him do and say things that the story needs a protagonist to do and say. They do a clever job of giving him a bit of moral gray at the beginning with a good and honest father who tells him to do what's right, and a bunch of mischievous friends trying to get him to misbehave, so that whether you decide to run around stealing and murdering or decide to be good and helpful both are still kind of "in character". But there is a character, and I really like that and think that most Western RPGs are missing this.
I haven't finished it yet, so I can't speak for an overall review of how good it stays or how the narrative wraps up in the end, but I am very much liking it so far.
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Nioh 1 and 2 (fast-paced action RPG)
Dark Souls 1 and 2 (slower-paced action RPG)
Gundam Battle Operation 2 (mecha action)
Death Stranding 1 and 2 (terrain traversal)
Quarries of Scred (mining game—no brain required)
Freeways (interchange-design game)
Slipways Classic and Slipways (interplanetary transport network–design game)
I was hoping for subjective descriptions of fun, interesting gaming sessions people have had recently.
Nioh: Use seven different weapon types (Nioh 2: eleven) in three stances (dodgy-but-weak low stance, powerful-but-slow high stance, and good-at-blocking mid stance) in conjunction with yin-yang magic, ninja skills, and guardian spirits to rampage through Japan, slaying samurai and demons by the dozen. This series is more fast-paced than the Dark Souls series, with a mechanic that allows you to recharge your stamina more quickly with good timing.
Dark Souls: Plod through a fantasy apocalypse, wielding a plethora of different weapons (or several different types of magic, if you prefer) against undead, demons, and the occasional humanoid enemy who mostly plays by the same rules. Stamina management is key.
Gundam Battle Operation 2: See glowing description here.
Death Stranding: Plod through a sci-fi apocalypse, delivering mountains of cargo on your back. This game takes "walking simulator" literally—the player must pay attention to every rock in his path, and take the momentum of his burden into account in picking which way to walk. Later you can upgrade to motorcycles and trucks, but they are far from all-terrain (until you build highways).
Quarries of Scred: In this fun game with simple pixel art and arcadey physics, you mine for gems. But watch out for boulders that may fall on you!
Freeways: Draw ramps and roundabouts to solve interchanges of increasing complexity. Dozens of puzzles are included.
Slipways: Draw interstellar hyperspace routes to level up the planets in your sector. The classic version has nice pixel art, while the final version uses more polished 3D graphics and has fancy quests.
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