PI currently working out of Oakmont, Massachusetts.

Alt account on https://kbin.run/u/CharlesReed

  • 13 Posts
  • 127 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Sims 3 has the most hours played in my steam library, but I haven’t played it recently. I seem to go in cycles where it’s all I’ll play for a few weeks, and then I won’t touch it for several months, and then I’ll come back to it again. It’s a great game to have mindless fun in, and last I checked, the mod community was still going strong.





  • They made a lot of changes this season to weapon crafting and modifying that’s made it much easier than previous seasons. There’s also a couple things that they made available across all difficulty tiers instead of the two higher ones. I haven’t looked into specific specs, but I believe they’ve also buffed a bunch of the skills.
    I don’t know about mtx, but the paid battle pass is really only cosmetic stuff and doesn’t affect core gameplay, if that’s what you’re worried about. There are things called “smoldering ashes” which serve as season permanent buffs, but they are available on the free battle pass, so everyone gets those.



  • I made it about 3/4ths of the way through my second play of Lies of P before I decided I had to take a mental sanity break. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that has made me so angry and frustrated because I can’t change the core trajectory of the story.

    .

    After learning the lore in the first run and actually hearing the King of Puppet’s dialogue during his boss fight this time, I feel extra bad that I complained so much about it in my first playthrough. Geppetto can go fuck himself. I am begging this game to let me side with Romeo.

    To fill the Lies of P void, I decided to take another go at We Happy Few. I started a playthrough a few years ago and finished the first act, Arthur’s story, but never got around to the rest of the game. I don’t feel like I got to fully immerse myself in the world last time, so I’m going to take my time this round.

    Diablo 4: Season 4 started this week, and I’m going with a fire/ice based sorcerer build. I’m liking the changes that they made to crafting and modifying weapons, and I’ve already made it to the paragon boards. I also got one of my friends playing with me this season with a similar build, so it’ll be extra fun.




  • Finally finished out Diablo 4: Season 3, again after finding a group to tag along with to fight Duriel. I am very glad Diablo 4 doesn’t make you complete every objective to get rewards and move on to the next chapter like 3 does, otherwise I’d have to deal with FOMO. Speaking of Diablo 3…

    Diablo 3: Season 31 started last week, so I’ve shifted my Diablo focus to that. I’m going with a witch doctor build this round, and have already made my way through chapter 3.

    Still working on Lies of P. I’ve been replaying earlier sections in order to level up some more, because fuck the King of Puppets and it being a two part fight. I just got into the weapon assembly aspect, so I’ve been playing around with different builds to see what works for me. And I think this game is teaching me button control and strategy? I’m used to panicky button mashing, but I’ve quickly learned I cannot do that here. Still, I’m happy with what little progress I’ve made this week.



  • Managed to get all the campaign achievements for Ghostwire: Tokyo, including a really, really stupid RNG one. There’s an extra mode called The Spider’s Thread, but I don’t think I’m going to focus on that anytime soon. I need a break from Tokyo lol.

    I wanted something that wasn’t very combat heavy next and picked Kona. For the most part it felt like Kholat meets The Painscreek Killings - a fun little detective walking sim that just lets you loose without really telling you where to go or what to do, all while taking place during a blizzard. I liked wandering around and trying to figure things out myself, and the narrator didn’t seem too overbearing. I had a good time, up until the ending. It felt rushed and just kind of… happened. Like one moment you’re going along in the forest looking for stuff, and then all of the sudden, here’s an explaination for everything in a short scene! Now literally run to the end! Bye! I was hoping for something a little more drawn out.

    I’m not really into soulslike games, but since Lies of P was on GamePass, I thought I might as well try it out. I’m actually having a good time playing it. I’m usually not great at soulslike since they can be frustrating, and I’m not a fan of “die in order to learn”, but I’m making progress and the story is kind of interesting. I really like the atmosphere, very steampunk vibes. Some of the characters could have had a little more effort put into them, but that’s a minor complaint overall.



  • I’m a bit if the opposite, I seem to thrive on games that have a lot of collectibles and side missions/tasks because it turns into mindless fun between emails.
    But I get where you’re coming from, and I think that one of the game’s pitfalls is the collectibles/side missions to main story ratio. Like finding the stickers/graffiti has been the most difficult for me, so I probably could have done without that one. The relics are really cool, and I love reading about them, but they kind of have a weird spread over the map.
    I think the devs could have either made the map smaller (not that it’s that large to begin with) with less “stuff”, since you don’t unlock at least half the map anyway if you just stick the main storyline, or they could have padded out or lengthened the main story so you do unlock all the map before you get to the point where you move “off map”. (Edit to add) It seems like the devs got so caught up in creating a realistic version of Shibuya that it kinda got away from the main point and plot of the game.





  • After weeks of playing Diablo 4: Season 3 off and on, I’ve finally hit level 100 (yes, I know, I’m incredibly slow at leveling). I’ve got one objective left to complete the season, but right now I’m focusing on continuing to level up my glyphs before I go showdown with Duriel or Uber Lilith.

    I’ve been really interested in Ghostwire: Tokyo for a while now, especially since it’s made by the same developer at The Evil Within. Even though the game needs a little polishing (it took me way too long to get the controller settings adjusted to something I could comfortably use; idk what they were thinking with the defaults), I am having so much fun with it. But I kinda had to stop reading all the animals’ minds for a little bit because it was making me sad. Hearing how some of them are confused and missing their owners was hitting me right in the feels. I’ve also been playing it with Japanese audio, which is really great and immersive, except for in the boss fights when they’re just casually dropping lore but I’m too busy trying to stay alive to read the subtitles. Right now, I’ve finished up the main story line and am now just mopping up the rest of the map. But there’s a lot, so I might be floating around Tokyo for a while.


  • Harvard also said that its own handling of the book, a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s “Des Destinées de L’Ame,” or “The Destiny of Souls,” had failed to live up to the “ethical standards” of care, and had sometimes used an inappropriately “sensationalistic, morbid and humorous tone” in publicizing it.

    The letter, signed by Needham and two other leaders of the group, said that the library had a history of handling the book “brutishly on a regular basis, as an attention-grabbing, sensationalized display item.”

    I gather this has something to do with it. It’s the item that got the most attention due to of the way it was (allegedly, as I don’t have any examples) presented to the public by Harvard, which was deemed inappropriate. I guess if they would have handled the item more respectfully, it would not have gotten as much as a push to remove the binding as it did, because there are tons of books, shoes, wallets, etc and whatnot from back in the day that use human skin. Hell, even the original owner of Des Destinées de L’Ame had another book bound in skin.
    So it seems it just came down to the handling and presentation.





  • I’ve been meaning to play Amnesia: The Bunker for a while now, since I love the series. You’re in a tighter space than the previous installments, and it doesn’t go as quite deep into the lore as Rebirth does, but it felt so much more like an Amnesia game then Rebirth did, since you’re learning the story through the notes and whatnot, and there’s not really any other characters to interact with for the most part. My first playthrough was super stressful because of the fuel and shitty flashlight situation, and there were a couple of times I didn’t think I would actually end up finishing the game. But through the power of crawling around in the dark Alien Isolation style, I did! After finishing, I was going to set this aside until I saw all the features I could change and switch up on a ng+ customized difficulty, which I thought was really cool, so I ended up playing another round for some mild achievement hunting.

    During a monthly get together with a few of my friends, we played Worms W.M.D. as a filler between conversation. I had never played any of the Worms games before, but this one was so much fun. I’m sure part of it had to do with us not really knowing the game and just fucking up trying to learn it, but it was still a good time all around.