cerebralhawks

@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No more Jackie⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m a big fan of the “the mentor dies to push the student forward” trope, so it makes sense to me that Jackie dies and that pushes us into Johnny’s camp, for better or worse. And Johnny is a worse Jackie in every way (except that he’s modeled after and voiced by Keanu Reeves), until he’s not, which takes a while.

  Still, I felt it would have fit to have more time bonding with Jackie. They imply it in the opening movie after the prologue, but it would be nice to actually go through with all of it. I feel like it makes more sense if you’re playing a guy, but since they let you play a woman and they got such a damn good voice actor to voice her, not using her makes about as much sense as replacing Keanu Reeves with some rando for whatever reason. As a nerd, pairing Asuna (SAO) with Neo (The Matrix) is just too freakin’ cool to pass up. So anyway, girls tend to have it rough in Night City, so it would stand to reason it would take longer for V(alerie) to trust Jackie, not just one mission and then a montage of hanging out. Mass Effect, I think 2 or maybe 3, did this so much better, especially if you were romancing Liara (the blue chick), you had all this extra time to build a solid friendship with Garrus (the tall greyish, blueish alien with the ridged forehead). You could altneratively romance him, but if you weren’t going for that, the game made a hell of a friendship between him and FemShep that was believable, you could fully expect Garrus to follow you to Hell and back at the end of the trilogy. (Granted, that is a whole trilogy and not just a first act. Still, Mass Effect laid the foundation a decade prior.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Harry Potter cafe reopens four years after devastating fire⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Real fire or the dumpster fire that is what JK Rowling said about trans people? (Sorry to anyone who was affected, I know what she said had longer lasting repercussions. Also apologies to anyone who was hurt in the fire, don’t mean to be insensitive to that, burns suck, but also, fuck JK Rowling.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why didn't Venezuela move its capital further away from the ocean to make the government more resilliant to capitulation?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Washington is more or less centrally located given the scope of the original colonies. Not given the current scope of the United States.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI-Induced RAM Crunch Could Push Next PlayStation and Xbox Past 2028⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Good. They can both run Cyberpunk. Games don’t need to look better than that. Let’s focus on porting older PC games that still have some life in them to existing consoles, and/or getting Steam running on them.

  At some point we gotta say “what can we do with the tech we have” rather than looking toward the next one. Look at the Switch 2, it only has a couple games the Switch 1 can’t play, and “Switch 2 Edition” of existing games… that update was completely unnecessary. But they’re gonna release a big update for the biggest Switch game (Animal Crossing) in a couple weeks. Making existing games have more value.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's Video Game Companies⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Microsoft is about $3.9B BTW… Per another chart.

  You can make the argument that they do not belong because their primary businesses are Windows, Office, and AI. But if you’re looking for them because of Xbox, Bethesda, Mojang, or their other brands, that is where they would rank. Between NCSoft and NetMarble, with a USA flag.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How Are You Guys Handling This?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Mac user as well. I have an M2 Pro mini on my desk, and a base M2 MacBook Air.

  To be fair, you didn’t specify in the OP why you bought the Mac. Their comment is fair, and this is coming from a guy who doesn’t like Windows. It’s also a bad recommendation: you’re not gonna get a good deal on the Mac that would get you a comparative PC. Your best bet would either be a used Switch or a used Xbox Series S, or maybe a PS4 (Xb1 sucks).

  That said, you can get a comparable PC for $575, but you won’t get $575 for a $575 Mac selling it secondhand. The fallacy with that suggestion is you’ll get about 2/3 what you paid at best and that’ll put you in a much worse spot. Now you might be able to get a Chinese PC with everything on the chip like the Mac mini is, with 16GB DDR4 and something like an i3 dual core that will do some of the things the Mac will do, but it won’t have a Windows license, you’ll need to pay for that or get Linux. Still a bad idea if your new Mac works and you’re happy with it.

  I made my comment entirely based on the picture, which is kinda my bad but I’m leaving it. I read the text after. I blame my autism.

  That being said, you didn’t buy the Mac for gaming. If you did that’s on you. Heroic is good for some Steam games. M2 Pro isn’t great for gaming. I suspect you have an M4 base with 16 or 24GB of RAM (doesn’t matter in most cases). That’s a more capable machine. Still not great. Macs are not gaming machines. GeForce Now is a decent way to go if you have Steam games. You only need to pay the $10/month price to get decent game streaming, but only if the latency is good enough based on your location. If it’s not, the $20/month tier isn’t going to help. It’s just better graphics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How Are You Guys Handling This?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s the old price. GamePass Ultimate went up briefly from $14.99 to $19.99 then doubled (from its original price) to $29.99 per month.

  I got locked in at the original price. Better yet, I got the GamePass All Access deal right before it went away. That gets you the $500 Xbox Series X and 2 years of GamePass Ultimate for about 35 bucks a month. If you consider GPU to be $15 a month, that pushes the Xbox down to $480. Not a bad deal at all! You get the Xbox and a 24-month code straight up and make payments (it’s a credit card with 0% interest for that purchase, so you have to qualify for it). That’s why I have an XSX and not a PS5 like I would have liked. I couldn’t come up with $500 straight up for a PS5, but I could make $35 a month for 2 years plus I got GamePass.

  I still game on my Xbox (I’m a Mac user on computers — we got Cyberpunk and Blue Prince last year, and I own both on Steam, but they play better on my Xbox). I just buy games on sale. I got the Mass Effect Legendary Edition (remaster of the Shepard trilogy) for $6. That sale is still on. They also have Mass Effect 4 for $3 (or $4 for Deluxe) and the first one (OG 360 version) for $5. Bought all of it. Love those games. I got Hogwarts Legacy for $10. That nasty trans-hating Harry Potter author didn’t have any input in the game and in fact it has a bunch of gay couples and a trans character to spite her. I really don’t like her views and avoided the game for a couple years, but I’m hooked. I love flying around and exploring the castle. I also play Switch games. Those tend to last longer than PC/Xbox games. My wife got Animal Crossing last year and burned out after a couple weeks. I still check in on my island a few times a week. It’s honestly a lovely game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to deal with agression?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Much harder question to answer. If the aggression comes from external stimuli, learning to mitigate it is just part of growing up (and, I don’t mean reaching the age of majority; I mean growing as a person… there are people in their 50s and 60s trying to figure some things out — that’s why older folks say youth is wasted on the young, because after figuring a lot of these things out, they haven’t got that much time and certainly aren’t in their teens or 20s). Like for example if it’s road rage — people making you mad on the road — leave earlier, first of all, as that reduces the stress of reaching your destination on time; second, try listening to more soothing music. This is subjective — if metal calms you down, by all means, horns up. In fact, it isn’t even metal music I’m thinking of driving aggression behind the wheel — it’s political news and political podcasts. Especially the ones telling us who to fear or who to hate. For most of us, the most harm we will do is actually to ourselves and our loved ones rather than the people our political masters tell us to hurt or hate. Focus on something else. If you prefer talking to music, audiobooks are awesome. While the bestsellers tend to feature a lot of tense situations (drama), there are some that are lighter. For me, I go for Japanese light novels (equivalent to young adult fiction). So, like adventures and stuff. The ones made into audiobooks have also been made into anime, and they usually get the actual anime voice actors to read you the book, so, it’s like anime in audio/spoken format. If that’s not your jam, well, there are loads of other options. As for music, I can point to a handful of songs I just cannot get mad if I’m hearing, but they wouldn’t work for others.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Best-Selling Video Games Since 2020⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I had no idea Animal Crossing was that high. It’s a stupid game with no point to it… and I can’t help but play it 2-3 times a week, even if it’s just to check in. It definitely has its moments. I gave my wife shit for paying $60 for it, and I played it daily for most of the year since we got it. (She dropped it after a couple weeks, which tanked my progress since only the first player can advance the island. We started over with me starting an island and she played here and there. Then she quit, and I wanted to start over again… and she hasn’t used the new island yet, and I’ve had it for over 7 months now. It will be my forever island.)

  And Hogwarts over everything but Animal Crossing? That’s kinda wild. I did not think that game was that big. Currently playing it, it was recently given away on Epic Game Store, I wonder if giveaways count (probably not). It’s basically the Harry Potter simulator we’ve all wanted for the last 20-25 years. Whenever those books and movies started coming out. Except it doesn’t have Harry Potter, or anything from the series but the places.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to deal with agression?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  In person or online?

  If it can’t physically affect you, you can safely ignore it. If it can, best to stay out of its way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you think Google execs keep a secret un-enshittified version of their search engine and LLM?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Apple execs use iPhones with a modified iOS that lets them use a keyboard that doesn’t suck and doesn’t have sponsored auto-corrections, and I will die on this hill. /s

  Honestly though, I think a lot of people at Microsoft just use Macs. Google? I have no idea. I would imagine the smarter ones search with DuckDuckGo or something like that. Apple? They probably just use their own stuff since they look down their noses at the competition, but they use the best. Co-founder Steve Wozniak basically confirmed that. Even though he no longer works there, he said they send him the best iPhone every year. (I’m not sure if they still do that.) He also said it’s pretty but he wishes it did half the shit his Android phone does. He also uses custom firmware on Android, so he’s not just using a stock Android phone, he’s running something like GrapheneOS or LineageOS. So Woz is basically just collecting them at this point. Maybe he donates them. I dunno. So yeah, Tim Cook has a Mac on his desk, but it’s not the $480 M4 Mac mini, it’s a fully spec’d Mac Studio that would probably set you back close to 10 grand. Because why would he use anything less? And he’s carrying the top spec’d MacBook Pro. And a 1TB iPhone Pro… he doesn’t seem like a big guy, so he might just be using the “regular” Pro and not the Pro Max, as a personal preference. Honestly, the executives can use whatever they want, but they’ll only be seen with the flagship.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When people are talking about GOG but call it GoG⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Good Old Games? Old should never be lowercase in an acronym.

  Gift of Gab? Could be written either way. It is kinda silly to lowercase anything in an acronym. For example, POTUS — Military/Government shorthand for President of the United States — is never written as PotUS.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How open are you about yourself to others online in general?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I won’t tell someone where I work and live or anything else personally identifying, but ideas and values? Totally open on that.

  As for not caring what people think. You might be getting hung up on the definition of “care.” I think we all care, to a greater or lesser extent, about things we profess to not care about. Speaking specifically for myself, I might seem to care to some extent, but I don’t let what others say or do affect who I am. That’s an important line to draw, and to recognise when it’s being approached and to disengage when it gets pushed, but learning to do so comes with age and experience.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Linux has had a great year, but there are two reasons I can't tear myself away from Windows⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think they should offer a base of 512GB (or 500GB?) for the storage, but yeah, I mean, I got a 2TB external SSD for around $110-120 on Black Friday a couple years ago. That plus my 8TB external hard drive… My Mac has 10.5TB to play with (and around ~1TB free between all drives).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Linux has had a great year, but there are two reasons I can't tear myself away from Windows⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So the article writer is basically saying they gave up on a free OS because it doesn’t have corporate backing.

  So split the difference and get a Mac. Forget what people tell you about the Mac tax, they’re $500. They’ve been $480 on sale for the holidays. That’s the M4 Mac mini. You can spec it out with more cores and more RAM, but it’s 16GB RAM, 256GB storage, and something like 8 cores. Good enough for most people, but you’ll probably want more storage. So add some, it’s got like 5 USB-C ports on it, and hubs exist. It’s also like, the size of your fist. Anyway, it’s a corporate (Apple) backed computer, and it’s not Windows. So, there. Problem solved… right?

  Obviously not for Linux gaming, and Proton doesn’t exist on macOS (Crossover does which is kind of the same thing… Crossover contributes to WINE, and Proton is based on WINE), but gaming is roughly the same prospect on a Mac as it is on Linux. You gotta emulate or whatever the hell WINE is (WINE Is Not [an] Emulator) but whatever. Compatibility layer, same thing to the lay person. Which you are if you go running back to Windows after trying Linux for 5 whole minutes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Clarification: The lethal dose, not the LD50. LD50 means the lethal dose is 50… I forget what. Mathematically, you would have to smoke so much marijuana in an hour that you would not have enough rooms in your lungs for oxygen. You would die not because of the marijuana (smoke) but due to the lack of oxygen. Therefore, as long as you are getting enough oxygen, you cannot die from smoking too much marijuana. (If you had a different way to oxygenate your blood, maybe you could. But I think the lethal dose is strictly hypothetical and nobody has been able to reach it. Outside of laboratory conditions you wouldn’t be able to get close, anyway.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia GeForce Now’s Time Limit Will Stop Gamers After 100 Hours Each Month⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  IIRC it used to be 50 hours. Most people don’t hit that.

  As a Mac user in an area with good ping, I like GeForce Now. I’m not currently subscribed, though I have been in the past. Recently I’ve been leaning more into my Xbox for gaming.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia GeForce Now’s Time Limit Will Stop Gamers After 100 Hours Each Month⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not calling them out for their bullshit, but my GPUs are onboard M2 and M2 Pro Apple Silicon chips. I’m a Mac user. I think my Xbox Series X uses an AMD GPU. I didn’t choose it. My Switch has CPU/GPU technology by Nvidia. The original Switch was just a modded Nvidia Shield tablet and it originally ran Android (before it was released, I mean, the prototype did). Or it was rumoured to. I forget. My last Windows computer used an AMD GPU.

  So as a Mac user, I’m actually a good candidate for GeForce Now. Mac guys tend to hate it because it’s not taking advantage of the actual Apple chip, but if you’re a gamer, you game where you can, how you can, when you can.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Disco Elysium - The Final Cut is free to claim on epic games for the next 24h⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I own it on Steam. It supports the Mac on Steam. I wonder if Epic offers the Mac version. (Epic is at war with Apple over iPhone stuff. The Mac has always allowed their stuff, but they stopped supporting it as protest.) Claimed either way. Doesn’t hurt anything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨After GOTY pull, Clair Obscur devs draw line in sand: 'Everything will be made by humans by us'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Would have been fine if they’d been up-front about it. Some people still wouldn’t like it, but some people wouldn’t play a game made by French devs. Maybe. I dunno. People are free to have preferences, even if we think they’re weird or don’t agree with them. I think Clair Obscur had a ton of great ideas. Game really wasn’t for me, but I respect the hell out of it. It’s a shame about the genAI. Nice that they’re committing to avoid AI, but they really just need to be honest about what you’re getting. I think if they told people what the AI was used for, it would have gone over better.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do other languages use for "magic" words; or names and titles in fantasy and sci-fi novels or cinema?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Japan and Germany were allies in World War II.

  That’s why when anime takes place in a foreign land, it’s either outright declared to be Germany, or it’s heavily implied to be Germany. Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) appeared to be Germany until the country was named… in season 3 which was 5-6 years after the show started. At the end of season 3, I should add. Fullmetal Alchemist was set in a country that was based on Germany. Their head of state was called the Fuhrer and the whole thing was set to resemble Nazi Germany. SPYxFAMILY takes place in Cold War-era Germany, except East Germany becomes Eastonia and West Germany becomes Westalis. The capital? Berlint. They’re not even hiding it. Then you have The Saga of Tanya the Evil where a cruel Japanese salaryman dies (is murdered) and he is reincarnated as the little girl version of Hitler, plus magic. The country is called the Fatherland and it’s very obvious what they are going for. Oh and of course she’s leading the charge to take over the world. To be fair she is called Tanya the Evil, so they aren’t glorifying her actions… but the Japanese creative empire we all love is a bit weirdly comfortable with Nazis and Nazi-era Germany… less weird when you realise that historically, they were allies in that war.

  Funny that they’re both our allies now… but while anything Nazi related is strictly forbidden in Germany, it’s practically celebrated in Japan, to this day. Fullmetal Alchemist came out in 2003 (the anime, anyway). SnK, 2013 or so. Tanya the Evil was around that time. SPYxFAMILY is new and new episodes are coming out weekly. Though to be fair their show is post-WWII and Eastonia (East Germany) is portrayed as the enemy, and Westalis (West Germany) is seeking peace, though they’re using the exploits of their top spy (the main character’s adoptive father) to do it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Browser and Wario are Mario's mortal ennemies, why did he invited them for a kart race?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I like this answer because it also implies that Princess Toadstool/Peach is/was never in any real danger, they’re just acting in a play and you’re playing the hero.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  People who say this are idiots.

  I had a good friend about 30 years ago who kept telling me vaginas smell like “tuna and bologna.” I didn’t pick up on it at first, but later realised he was saying this for his little sister’s benefit — who he hated, for some reason. (I liked her. She was a sweet girl. Took me way too long to realise he was just an arsehole.) I haven’t been with a lot of women, but I’ve since learned he’s wrong. I’ve never been with a woman who “smells fishy.” (He got his payoff eventually, he got her to blurt out “my pussy doesn’t smell like that!” in front of their mother, and we got sent away, I assume she at least got scolded. I wish I’d had the imagination (and the guts) to tell him hers really didn’t smell like that… partly to see how long it would take him to get it.) (We were not friends long. I couldn’t be friends with a guy who treats women or girls like that.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows copying Mac feature, but only in certain apps⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  On Mac or Windows? I’ve never had backwards scrolling on Windows.

  Apple calls it “natural scrolling” and it’s kind of sublime on a MacBook, with the track pad. With a mouse it feels like shit for some reason. I guess opinions differ, but as a seasoned Windows user, I didn’t like “natural” scrolling. When I roll the wheel, I assume the bottom part is on the page where the cursor is, so as I roll down with my finger, the bottom of the wheel is rolling up, pushing the page up, scrolling down. That makes sense and now I can’t visualise why it’s fine the other way with a track pad, but it is. I have no justification for that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows copying Mac feature, but only in certain apps⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I wonder if maybe it’s coming to the rest of Windows later. Microsoft 365 is a subscription service, so maybe it’s a test pilot thing?

  People who use Macs at home most likely use Windows at work, if they use a computer at work. There are some jobs that do use Macs, but like usage outside of work, it’s a lower percentage.

• Windows copying Mac feature, but only in certain apps
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨9⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Day 517 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah, Halo… the main image that showed up in my feed looked almost like part of Mass Effect 1, but the vehicle wasn’t right.

  Same generation, but Mass Effect has a remaster, Legendary Edition. It’s been on sale on Xbox for $6 USD a couple times (what I paid for it)… and that’s for all three.

  While I suppose they are technically three games, the intended use of the product is for you to import your clear save from the previous one to start 2 and 3. Your decisions from previous ones carry forward, even minor choices in the first one playing out in the third one.

  For straight shooting, Halo wins, particularly against Mass Effect 1 and 3, but I think Mass Effect 2’s shooting was competitive to shooters contemporary to it. Though, it and 3 are a bit more like Deus Ex or Star Wars where you have tech/magic stuff you can do in addition to the guns. I tend to stick to pistols and assault rifles, but I’m known to throw a bit of magic here and there, especially the ones that eat shields.

  As far as Halo, I only completed the first one (and did it on PC with keyboard/mouse). Played the first couple maps of the third one on Xbox, never could get the hang of it though. Only single player, never multi.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are skin readings a thing when it comes to psychics?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Someone posted a similar thing a couple days ago, except it was a guy who posted. Said he was 15. Said they asked for the exact same thing.

  Sounds like a scam they’re running on social media.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hack, or its modern incarnation, NetHack. (No relation to the .hack comment. That’s a game based on an anime. Hack is a Roguelike from the 1980s, came out shortly after Rogue itself, follows a very similar format, and is arguably if not definitively the oldest true Roguelike currently developed. I mean, you can get NetHack on iOS and Android, not to mention all modern computers, and it still looks like it’s running on UNIX in the 1970s. ASCII art and all. Though there are “tile sets” that give it graphics, the original does not have any [graphics] to speak of (aside from the icon, I suppose). You are the @ symbol (well, that’s the symbol for humans), floors are periods/full-stops, walls are dashes and pipes and plus symbols for corners, dirt paths are pound/hashtag, and most monsters are letters (and uppercase is not the same as lowercase; d is dog and D is dragon, IIRC).

  It’s a procedurally generated game. You start on floor 1 of a dungeon, and you have to find stairs down (>) and advance to the 35th or 37th (I forget) floor, at which point the Amulet of Yendor has a chance to spawn. The game is won when you exit the dungeon via the first floor. The bad ending is doing it without the Amulet (including right at the start!). You live a long life in obscurity. The good ending is exiting with the Amulet, in which case you live a long life, rich and famous. If you die, you get a tombstone showing what you accomplished. And you can potentially leave a ghost behind which you can fight in later runs (and get all those items if you defeat it).

  The game is based on D&D, so you can level up. It’s also based on Tolkien lore, and there are a ton of neat things you can do (for example, engraving the name Elbereth, IIRC, into a floor space means certain enemies treat that space like a wall. Walking over it gives them a chance of being able to pass over it. It’s also turn based, you pause the game by not doing anything. Time only advances when you move. Hunger is also a thing, so you have to find food, or eat what you kill (some enemies are poisonous, and some give you perks, like eating a Floating Eye sounds disgusting, but you can see life forms through walls from pretty far away.

  Did I mention the game is 100% free? And actively developed?

  www.nethack.org/common/index.html ← Latest version released February 2023. So not actively actively develped, but updated more recently than, well, most games in this thread! Considering this is a game from the 1980s, that’s pretty impressive! They’re still fixing bugs and adding features.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Is that the PS2 game they split into four parts and put an OVA DVD in each one, and charged $50 for each? If so, I only played the first one, and it was not hard. But, I only played a quarter of the full game.

  For anyone who hasn’t heard of .hack, it was an anime series that famously inspired Sword Art Online (first a book series, then an anime, and later it had games of its own). .hack was an original animation, meaning it wasn’t based on a manga or light novel, like most anime. It itself was an amalgamation of existing MMORPG tropes, based around a loner who couldn’t log out of the system. But SAO copied .hack wholesale, though SAO fans argue that the author of the SAO books, Reki Kawahara, merely started writing the SAO books while .hack was airing and didn’t actually watch it, despite being a Japanese citizen and professing to love both anime and RPGs. But of course he never watched a show that merged him, and all the exact similarities between his books and that anime are entirely coincidental. In fact, the writers of .hack may have read his stories and used them to steer the direction of their show! /s (if the sarcasm wasn’t obvious).

  I mean, don’t get me wrong. SAO is way better than .hack. The books, the anime, and the movies. (The games are trash, though. I got one on sale for like ten bucks and feel like I got ripped off.) There are over 2 dozen books in the main series, to say nothing of the spinoffs, and the first 17-18 of those books have been made into audiobooks, featuring the lead voice actors from the anime. Someone optioned the series to make a Hollywood movie of it, but nothing’s ever been announced and that option may have expired by now.