binged romancing saga 2 this last week or so and I’m still amazed how open and unpredictable a jrpg from 1993 is
it’s a very back of the box thing to say but it really delivers on ‘no two playthroughs are the same!!!’
i got divinity 2 & transistor in the sales!!!
I’m about to use a techo for my fourth year in a row. I love them! I love the quotes and little bits about Japan in the back of the book. Great design, feels really good to write in. I have so many mementos in my cover sleeves. ticket stubs, etc.
Here are my covers (I have more than four because I get the notebooks that fit in them too):
This is the cover I’ll use this year, probably the last earthbound I get unless they bring out another one that’s not just screens from the game:
I also have this cover but I keep it in my work locker:
EDIT: One of the earthbound covers I have was cut out of the pic, I’ll just post it here:
I have that cover and have never finished Earthbound. I just thought it was a nice cover. This is my fifth techo year and I love the little thing. I might order a new cover this year later on, just because my EB one is a little beat up, but I might not.
some tips on operators that are best for new players. basically i’d avoid playing operators who are vital supporters (breachers, jammers, gadget deactivators) first because having someone on the team who doesn’t know how to use, let’s say thatcher, can fuck the whole team over.
DEFENCE:
ROOK --> probably the best pick for new players since he has the most passive ability. put down the armor at the beginning of the preparation phase and after that you can do whatever you want. equipped with armor, most operators last longer in a firefight and they will always get downed instead of dying outright, giving you a second chance in case a team mate can revive you. since he’s 1-speed operator, he is also ideal for staying near the objective, in which case you don’t have to worry about knowing the map too much.
DOC --> also a decent pick. you can revive yourself if you get downed as well as heal others with your stim pistol. again, ideal for a new player because you can sit near the objective and heal others when needed.
MUTE --> a bit of a step up now. his jammers jam drones, thermite’s exothermic charge, hibana’s pellets. in addition, anyone sitting near the mute jammer is immune to jackal’s tracking device and dokkaebi’s phone call. now, you’d think that he is best for deploying in the beginning of the match at doorways to catch any drones? well, yes, that’s how most new players play him, but it’s not really good use of the gadgets nor prep phase time. thing is, once you are more familiar with the levels, any attacker can deduce the location of the objective without requiring it being identified by some drone. so at least in the prep phase, trying to jam incoming drones is waste of time. furthermore, deploying them all too early can leave you vulnerable to twitch drone: always wait until the end of prep phase to see if the opposing team might have twitch (has a shock drone that can destroy jammers easily). if yes, try to take care of them before you put down too many jammers.
now, especially if your team doesn’t have bandit (the guy who can electrify reinforced walls), mute is the best thing against breachers like thermite and hibana. so if you place down a mute jammer inbetween two reinforced walls, you ensure that those two reinforced walls can’t be penetrated by thermite nor hibana. the attacker can either shoot your jammers (which generally is difficult since having a line of sight to the jammer generally means having a line of sight to you as well), use twitch’s shock drone to destroy them, or throw thatchers’ EMP grenade to take them out. thatcher’s is the worst because there is generally nothing you can do about it.
tl;dr don’t bother jamming drones with mute in the prep phase or at all (as a beginner), just focus on muting the reinforced walls to make them unbreachable. sometimes i direct mute players to place their jammers in a specific spot, so try to listen to your teammates if they request your jammer somewhere.
SMOKE -->
i actually haven’t played with him, but I think he’s pretty self-explanatory: has toxic gas grenades. excellent way to deny certain entryways to the attackers’ for a limited period of time. particularly useful in the last seconds of the round when attackers are pressured to push in from somewhere. can really deny them this with smoke grenades and win the round thanks to timeout.
this is pretty much it for defenders. most of the other defender operators are either a) just fast, so for best utilization you need to go roaming on the map and this requires better map awareness, or b) have either very useful gadgets or gadgets that, once poorly placed, can fuck up the whole game (castle and mira).
ATTACK:
on attackers’ sides, there’s more freedom to choose since there’s more attackers whose ability isn’t too team-play focused. but here are some operators i advise not to play as a beginner, especially because having these die too early in the round to spawn peekers can be aggravating:
THATCHER - EMP grenade that can take out mute and bandit gadgets. so he is pretty much essential pick for most games as having those EMP grenades can be a matter of life and death as otherwise your team might not be able to breach key locations and you’re forced to rush to the objective through doorways.
THERMITE - main breacher. try to stay alive as long as possible. if you suspect that walls are jammed or see that they are electrified, don’t waste your charges. wait for thatcher or twitch to take care of the jammers. what can happen though is that if bandit is camping behind the reinforced wall, he can start placing his gadget the moment you start breaching. this will actually result in thermite’s charge being destroyed. it’s a common meta trick (also known as bandit trick).
HIBANA - secondary breacher as of now. again, her breaching ability is very important, especially if you don’t have thermite.
MONTAGNE - he’s just shitty if you don’t have communicative team members, since his main value is in trolling the opposing team to the benefit of other team members.
TWITCH - again, people expect you to use the shock drone to get rid of any gadgets (mute, bandit, ela, cameras). better played when you have a sense of common gadget placements and cameras. it usually sucks if a twitch player focuses too much on zapping enemies rather than taking care of gadgets.
otherwise, most attackers are ok i think. rule of thumb as an attacker though: pay a lot of attention to the windows as you approach the building. more often than not, defenders try to net some easy kills by shooting you from the window. whenever you are outside and you hear a sound of some barricade (doorway, window) being meleed, immediately try to see if you can pinpoint that sound to your team member or not. if not, it’s very likely that a defender is attempting to shoot you from some window or jump outside.
did anyone else know you can sorta customize your colors in Lightning Returns? it’s good
And continuing on with Jedi Outcast and God damn, the issues Dark Forces’ Nar Shaddaa level had is still miles better than JO’s awful sniper fest. With one instance of a very tricky force jump obstacle that if you fuck up is instant death, though from electrocution and not a bottomless fall like you might expect, though several fairly simple jumps like that are there. I don’t see how anybody thought this level was a good idea.
I have a Techo as well, but I don’t use it nearly as often as I should. I have terrible journalling discipline! I had a great time with it in the first half of the year, but by August I was just leaving it around and failing to keep up with it.
But it’s a gorgeous piece of design. If I were the type who could commit to a journal in the long term than this would be my ideal one. It’s very charming and it looks very slick! The calendar part of it is fantastically useful. Plus it makes me happy to support Itoi.
Love all those crazy jump/pit levels. Maybe because that’s the first thing everyone decided to abandoned as shooters became streamlined but they ride the feeling that tickles my desire to explore – even the critical path feels like someplace I Should Not Be, like I have to walk outside the intended level even to hit the necessary switch.
The hidden virtue of Jedi Knight’s celebration of the infinite scaling potential of polygons, picked up on for Raven’s first game
Also: I find the game much more fun with this console command (~ to open):
g_saberRealisticCombat 1
Dismember non-force enemies! It affects the balance but only slightly
On Christmas Eve I got a Nintendo Switch and a copy of Super Mario Odyssey. I beat it a couple days later. It’s very good.
I’m currently doing the post-game content and–holy fuck–why is there so much stuff? There’s so much stuff. I talked to the Girl Toad and she gave me like 50 moons for achievements that I don’t even know how to look at. I have only just started the Dark Side, and I’m not sure when I’ll have the energy to fully play through it. The lack of checkpoints is stressful.
Just started FF XV and I chose Japanese voices thinking English subs would be the default but no!
So I have no idea what’s going on.
A+
Edit:. Turned subs on. I may turn them back off again
okay, I finished Jedi Knight
there’s some levels in the middle that seem like they were designed away from the rest of the game; I generally found the start and end chunks to be quite good, especially the stupid setpiece of the falling ship level
also all of the duels are bad and after the first one, I found out that circlestrafing and swinging madly was enough to beat any of them, nevermind having Force Protection for the second half of the game
I GUESS I MIGHT AS WELL INSTALL JEDI OUTCAST
Started playing Volume as I got it free in a bundle and MGS VR missions by way of the Thomas Was Alone fellow is an intriguing enough combo. I am halfway through and it feels… inessential? It is technically fine but seems to care less about the player screwing up than I’d like. There is also less talking than was in TWA and what is there isn’t quite as charming.
The absolute best lightsabering game is the one no one remembers or cares about, Jedi Academy. Just skip to that, Outcast is boring after JK’s cool crazy levels
The final boss is a dinosaur though.
Yeah the normal jumps are fine, it’s just a matter of looking around to figure out where you can reach and sometimes it turns out you found a secret and that’s neat.
Even without pits or crazy jumps that’s generally JK levels at their best. Even Dark Forces had a couple of moments like this at times.
gears of war 4 is in no insignificant part about katniss everdeen shooting robot cops
so far my favourite part is when youre walking thru a maternity ward filled w some real smiling white families “we must secure a future for humanity” posters and you get that real bioshock infinite feeling of wow someone’s job was designing these white nasho posters i reckon they enjoyed it a little too much
anyway tom bissell wrote this one too and i still hate him
now think about a GoW game written by tom bodett instead
Kero Blaster. I just unlocked Zangyou Mode today. Game is awesome I wish I had played it before now.
