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Friday Fun Thread for June 30, 2023

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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When is the last time you truly got sucked into something, and experienced a sense of childlike wonder?

For me it was, predictably, watching the VisionOS demo. I found it magical, and so exciting to think of the future of where that technology could go.

I'm currently in the middle of probably my third playthrough of Alien Isolation. Within about half an hour of my first playthrough I had a really strong feeling that this would be a game I would find hard to put down and would return to again and again. The controls are tight and responsive, the level of detail and craft that went into replicating the visuals of the original Alien from 1979 is breathtaking, the sound design is impeccable, the atmosphere is more powerful than BioShock.

Suffice it to say that, even though it's my third playthrough, I'm itching to get back to playing it.

Having seen the film several times, and having read about the game, the idea of playing it seems just.. incomprehensible.

The film shows what you get for being insufficiently paranoid and unarmed out there in the unknown. It's meant to be unpleasant for a good reason.

Doing it over and over again ... well, we are all different.

The game alternates between sequences in which the player character must evade the Alien; and downtime sequences which advance the plot, or in which the player character must face off against other enemies.

The latter sequences are at worst a little tense to play, but manageably so. The former sequences with the Alien are exhausting. When I get to the end of such a sequence, I typically find myself needing to take a break for a little bit just to calm down. I think that's the mark of an effective horror story, really.