SteposVenzny
@SteposVenzny@beehaw.org
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 22nd 6 days ago:
If I were given carte blanche to redesign 3D Sonic gameplay, making it control like a faster-moving Tony Hawk game seems like the way to go.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 22nd 1 week ago:
On my seventh attempt, I walked into a store was told yes when asking if there were any Switch 2s in stock. The young cashier adorably turned to his older coworker and unironically said “Wow, that’s four in one day! You weren’t kidding about these things.”
So anyways the past few days have been a blur of Mario Kart World. The new mechanics are a challenge to learn but they’re a challenge I’m delighted to have and make me feel incredible when I’m using them well, the soundtrack full of remixed classics on par with the best of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s that are just there to fill the empty space between the proper racetracks, and I was not prepared for HDR in the hands of Nintendo’s artists. This game is by far the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen on a screen and that was already true before I looked up how to use that shockingly unhelpful calibration tool the Switch 2 has and now it’s twice as beautiful on top of that.
The sole complaint I have about this game is that I’m not enjoying Waluigi’s new voice actor. I can’t hear the pain underlying the mania that Martinet understood was core to the otherwise ill defined character. His animations and his costumes are so fucking good, though, it’s hard to even care that his voice is downgraded.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 15th 2 weeks ago:
I have lost so many Baldur’s Gate 3 Honour Mode runs because I’ve accidentally blown up the Zentarim hideout.
Did you know that having a torch equipped as your melee weapon means you’re considered to be carrying an open flame even when you’ve switched to have your ranged weapon out? I just found that out yesterday. There are so many new and exciting ways I’m learning about how to explode.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 8th 3 weeks ago:
Jeez, what was starting with 3 like?
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 8th 3 weeks ago:
I finally picked up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, this being a game that’s been on my radar since well before it came out because I was a big fan of Jet Set Radio Future back in the day. It’s kind of too much like it and not enough like it at the same time? I tried the original Jet Set Radio when that came out on Steam and bounced off it but based on that limited experience I think this is kind of splitting the difference and that’s where most of the frustrations come from. Movement is more like JSRF but level design is more like JSR. And the soundtrack seems to lack that variety of some songs being made for the game and others being licensed that kept the monotony at bay. No “Aisle 10” to slow things down for a bit.
I am enjoying it, though, for as little as it sounds like I am. Movement feels good enough that it’s making me search for combo lines for the sake of combo lines and at the end of the day that’s what’s really important about this kinda game.
Also finally finished Zelda echoes of wisdom.
Never would have guessed going in that that would have the most graphically violent last boss sequence the series has ever seen. I beat it feeling like I was the real monster.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 25th 4 weeks ago:
I hope you’re not playing Anniversary Edition for your first time with the game. Getting bombarded with all that Creation Club stuff would not be my ideal first impression.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 25th 4 weeks ago:
I got that Blue Prince bug where your data secretly stops saving twice now. I read it’s been fixed but playing the game has a tension behind it now that’s discouraging me from investing too much in it, psychologically speaking, and also I’m hesitant to play anything else on the PlayStation because closing the Blue Prince application on it risks being hit by the bug again if it does still exist.
Which all seems like the universe telling me it’s time to try Baldur’s Gate 3 Honour Mode again with these new subclasses. I’ve made a dragonborn barbarian, planning for him to be a giant that specializes in punching, playing him arrogant and naive. Lae’zel and Wyll feel like good companions for that temperament but I don’t know who my third should be. Maybe stick with a hireling until I get one of the druids? He’s too insecure to tolerate Shadowheart or Gale. Astarion or Karlach would mean having to reclass somebody so there’d be a support role on the team and reclassing the origins never sits well with me.
- Comment on What are some examples of series that only have a good first season, and should be dropped after that? 1 month ago:
Cobra Kai
Every successive season forgets harder and harder that grown men having karate feuds is embarrassingly juvenile.
- Comment on What are some examples of series that only have a good first season, and should be dropped after that? 1 month ago:
This but unironically. I hated that movie.
- Comment on Fortnite now lets you chat with Darth Vader using generative AI speech [Eurogamer] 1 month ago:
I saw a video of someone demoing a Skyrim AI mod and it sent him on a quest that didn’t exist because it just made shit up when he asked, despite the AI being fed all the true information about the game.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 11th 1 month ago:
I’m deep into Blur Prince right now. Not loving all the randomness for this kind of puzzle game but the puzzles and lore are good enough to keep me going. Always a weird feeling to think “I love this, I just wish its core premise wasn’t part of it.”
- Comment on What are the best gaming moments of the last decade? 1 month ago:
Final Fantasy VII Remake, when the proper Jenova theme kicked in. Props to the hours of auditory misdirect leading up to it.
“We wouldn’t just play it, of course. That song is too silly for a dramatic scene. But here is a subdued motif to remind you of it.”
“Well we have to play it now because there’s a new Jenova fight but you’re getting the respectable cinematic version.”
“Now the fight’s really getting going, you’re getting the upper hand so time to boost the epicness and heroicness during the climax. Isn’t this song so cool now that we fixed it?”
Then the synthesizer finally kicks in and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.
- Comment on GTA 6's delay doesn't mean the games industry's in trouble - it's already dead 1 month ago:
I simply cannot bring myself to care that giant corporations won’t make as much money as they used to by doing a thing I already don’t really like. If this is what the industry’s death entails, why should anyone grieve?
- Comment on Open World Games: yay or nay? 1 month ago:
I like open world games when the time I spend simply being in them without any explicit objective is enjoyable. If I’m thinking “I’m bored, where’s the next task?” then there’s a problem. If I’m thinking “I wonder if I can make a boat that operates by paddling instead of using a fan…” then we’re good.
(Tears of the Kingdom’s physics don’t work that way, I’m sorry to report. Thing flailed around like it was drowning.)
- Comment on People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies 1 month ago:
Cults have intentions to exploit and manipulate. LLMs don’t.
You could argue negligence here but not malice. It’s more in line with people falling into wells.
- Comment on Is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion still fun for a first-time player in 2025? 2 months ago:
If you limit yourself to only going into dungeons that quests send you to, you’ll have a better time. Legend tells it all the dungeons in this whole game were made by one person, so blundering into random dungeons tends to be really underwhelming compared to Skyrim. While that is charming for me in its own right to wander into a random dungeon and not know whether there will be anything interesting about it at all, all my best memories of this game are of the quests and the dialogue.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 27th 2 months ago:
I can’t put Oblivion down but I keep scrapping my character. Started as a stealth build but stealth isn’t as fun as combat. Made an unarmed fighter and was very impressed with how deadly I was but ultimately decided new weapons and spells are a fun treat that I wouldn’t get to have and I regretted how wacky I made his face.
Presently I’m doing a melee/magic type and I accidentally made him look uncannily like Wynn Duffy from Justified. He’s less capable than previous builds but kind of sucking at what he does just feels right with that face.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 20th 2 months ago:
I immediately bought the Oblivion remaster because I guess I’m that basic. They have done away with my beloved IV LIVI BLIVIO title screen and replaced it with some Doom art, and when exiting the sewer at the beginning I immediately see an Oblivion gate across the river before the point in the story you’re supposed to find them (apparently the new progression lock is that they’re present but non-interactive before then). It seems like it was made with fear that new players would react poorly to the sort of cutesy fantasy that comprises the majority of the game and it needs them to see hellfire quickly so they know it’s “actually” a cool game for cool guys. All the stranger then that they’ve added these bouncy new dialogue animations that would feel at home in The Sims.
But for all my nitpicking, it is still the Oblivion I love and the new visuals are a treat. I really didn’t expect such bold artistic swings as these wacky new heads on the Argonians and goblins or my character’s acrobatic knife moves.
I’m a Khajiit Bard named Stabby Cat who accidentally procured an armored horse because I never bought that DLC before and did not know the consequences of talking to that random Orc. I’ve leveled up twice just from sweet talking shopkeepers to get better prices from them. I crossed paths with a pair of NPCs who immediately complained to each other that they had nothing to talk about, then one thought of a topic but got shut down hard by the other’s direct refusal to participate.
Feels good to be back.
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Megathread 2 months ago:
I don’t count Jr because he has a Jr in his name. The other two are just Donkey Kong.
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Megathread 2 months ago:
Donkey Kong Country’s Donkey Kong wasn’t actually the Donkey Kong from Donkey Kong. I kinda hope this redesign is gonna be justified by saying he’s a third one.
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Megathread 2 months ago:
I’m looking forward to rewatching these Duskbloods and Bananza trailers with audio sync later today.
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Megathread 2 months ago:
On Wii U, upgraded Virtual Console games were like a buck or two if I’m remembering right. Probably in the five to ten range for full-price games if history’s anything to go on.
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Megathread 2 months ago:
You have to pay for Welcome Tour?!
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Megathread 2 months ago:
This GameShare thing ruled on DS.
- Comment on Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a Masterpiece, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an Indulgence 2 months ago:
Because those hundreds of hours are spent enjoying yourself.
- Comment on 'Jupiter Ascending' came out 10 years ago, and we're still not sure how The Matrix creators' space opera went so wrong 4 months ago:
Jupiter Ascending happens, which leads to humanity being introduced to galactic civilization. The resulting technological boom leads to the world of Speed Racer but then later it leads to the creation of the AI that build the Matrix. Each of Cloud Atlas’s eras is the same handful of test subjects being plugged into prototype versions of the Matrix. The events of the movie Bound are what the machines identified as the pinnacle of human civilization, which is why the version of the Matrix resembles the late 1990s. Sense8 takes place within the Matrix, which is the mechanism by which these human minds connect to each other (and it’s more specifically the version that NPH ran because it no longer resembles the late 1990s).
The AniMatrix is not part of the canon because they didn’t direct it.
- Comment on Algorithms are breaking how we think - Technology Connections 4 months ago:
If you look at your Subscribed page and don’t see any updates, there’s a good chance you’ll leave YouTube without watching anything.
The Home page has a higher likelihood of tempting you to watch something you hadn’t planned on.
- Comment on Suikoden US vs JPN Box Art 4 months ago:
I remember this circle art being inside the American manual.
- Comment on Suikoden US vs JPN Box Art 4 months ago:
You’ve unlocked a childhood memory. I was like twelve browsing used video games, guy at the store asked me what I liked and I said RPGs. He handed me a copy of Suikoden and said “I know it looks like absolute garbage but I promise it’s actually really good.”
At the time, my taste hadn’t developed enough to understand what was wrong with the American box art but I didn’t say anything.
- Comment on HP to build future products atop grave of flopped 'AI pin' • The Register 4 months ago:
I’ve never heard of this “pin” before and am fascinated by it. It does what smartphones already do but less conveniently? How did someone even pitch that in the first place?