#and very grand strategy oriented

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

(one of) my dream games is a super ultrarealistic city-building game and it's (ideally, though unrealistically) set in america or at least in major american cities.

and i mean extremely ultrarealistic. cities: skylines is like dumb as fuck arcade shit compared to what i want. it may as well be townscaper.

i want it to be detailed enough that it's used by actually irl city planners to simulate their building projects. i wanna be taking soil samples and hydrogeological surveys and flood risk assessments. and i want the regulations and zoning to be really complex and detailed.

and again, i want this to be set around real-life locations. there should be an option for "present day" mode where you start working with the city as it exists today or "historical" mode for some previous period in the city's history or "free play" more where it's just the blank slate terrain and no development.

and of course you gotta manage natural resources and tax revenue and population growth and population happiness and all that.

if you wanna make it ideal-ideal then there should also be a complex political/government angle too.

and ideal-ideal-ideal there should also be an army/military dimension as well. and actually you should be able to play as city, county, state, or federal governments. all simultaneously (although obviously these different governments should also be able to govern themselves automatically so you're not having to micromanage).

[goldsbitch]

Right? p2

summary: Y/N is a photographer for McLaren F1 team. Hard working, goal oriented professional who would never put her career in jeopardy for some stupid crush, right?

That is until a photoshoot gets out of hand and there is no way to go but forward.

part 1

You almost started this day with a shot from the minibar. Contemplated faking a flu. But the qualifying was too important, the sponsors seemed to love this track and your boss was very clear that he needs every photographer, even if they had a broken arm.

With a sigh, you entered the common area of the paddock, quickly heading for the media office. Sure he won't be there, he must be having some prep time now. You were not ready to face him.

Nothing happened, you tried to calm yourself down with every shiver that came around every few minutes. It was just a kiss in the heat of the moment. No one would ever know.

Oh, but if it had only been just a kiss.

You were a bit shocked when he closed the distance between you two, put a hand on your cheek and his lips on yours. This was no light romantic kiss. Your body reacted immediately, faster than your mind, which shut down completely. Butterflies in your stomach flying over the roof.

Lando pulled away few centimetres. "Is this ok?"

You nodded. Nothing else for you to do, you were hooked.

"Use your words. I want to hear it."

"Yes," you whispered and went for more.

Lando pushed you down, you were now lying on the backseat with him over you. Your bodies seemed to speak in their own language, it was all so natural. Your hands in his hair, his lip biting yours. You'd do anything to stay locked in this moment for ever. How can someone have lips so soft? You roamed around his perfect body, and he did too. His hand quickly found a way under your crop top. And it was right when he was about to touch your breast when your phone rang.

It felt like being caught by a teacher. Except you were technically not caught. Your boss was just asking if you were going into overtime or if the photoshoot was wrapped.

The ride back to the hotel was silent from both sided, reality kicking in. It was probably the longest drive you've ever experienced.

//

You had a strict deadline. Editing photos from last night was the last thing you wanted to do right now, but duty calls.

Your heart sank after you skimmed though them. Not because they would be bad - on the contrary. The last photos had Lando with the hottest look on his face you have ever seen on him, dynamic close ups and him literally eye fucking you via the picture. These can't get out. You were almost jealous at the thought of anyone being able to see him like that. Somehow, you managed to dig yourself even a bigger hole than before.

Professional, right?!

You didn't see Lando until few minutes before the start of qualifying. Focusing on taking photos of Oscar was your strategy to survive today, because the butterflies were unbearable yet again. Lando's nonchalant presence was something you were not able to tune out this time.

Taking few snaps of Oscar made you seem busy. You'd take only few pictures of Lando today. But almost as if he could feel you the same way you felt his presence, he managed to look into your lens right at the moment you were taking a picture. You could melt right at the spot.

Lando seemed less chatty than his usual self today.

//

Third in qualifying, fourth in the Grand Prix. Podium slipped through Lando's hands. But nevertheless, great weekend for McLaren. Lando beat himself up, but made sure to highlight the job of the people at the factory and the whole team.

You danced around each other all weekend, always busy, never alone and without company. It was probably for the good, right?

Days rushed over and suddenly you were sitting at the usual Tuesday PR catch up. The team was analyzing the response of the fans in their usual matter. Lando and Oscar were due to join in.

You sat rather quietly, waiting to be addressed and not trying to join in - very unusual on your part.

The whole room was watching stats and analytics, talking about the boys as if they were not human, but some sort of character. You always found that strange.

You both successfully avoided eye contact until the moment where the growing female fan base of Oscar's was discussed. This being a subtle hint that Lando is getting side tracked. Once you locked eyes, it was hard to look away. The room went silent for you, could not stop focusing on his look and the way he subtly licked his lips.

"Merch time!" This way your cue.

"Yes, let's see the latest photos," you stood up confidently to take over. Fake it til you make it, right?

As you went over the selected 15 photos and explained the idea behind them and how you believe these might work for the targeted audience, Lando seemed to be more intrigued than usually.

"Thank you, y/n. Lando, can we approve these for the launch?" asked his lead PR.

"Um." Lando seemed to be lost for words, fascinated look on his face. The room paused for a second. "Can I see them again real quick?"

What was he playing at? Your heartbeat skipped a beat.

"Yeah, sure," you skimmed through each of them again, putting them on a replay.

Lando put on a fake serious face, as if he was thinking something through. "Yeah, I think these are great," he replied, making everyone in the room relaxed again. Then he turned to you and gave you a smirk. " I think we should do more of this."

That fucker.

part 3

______________________________________________________________

@i-wish-this-was-me

[lesharl-eclair]

hi this is just my very long brainrot + highlights + quotes i cannot get over after watching the most recent fernando interview (rambles below the cut, read at your own discretion)

When I say high performance what do you think of? “Delivering higher than expectations and having that extra something on everything you do.”

It’s unlimited for him. He’s been in this mindset for all his life and he probably won’t stop functioning at this level of “pure motivation”. It’s a way of life

His quiet amusement when they bring up him starting karting at THREE years old

“And I think the race was 15 laps and I did two of them. But they told me that I won the race so I was happy after all and yeah, that’s how it started.”

Humble origins? “I don’t know how I can be that competitive in everything I do because my family in general are not at all competitive.”

Fernando knew how to hold a grudge (!) “I could maybe not talk to them for one full day if I was not winning [at cards]” etc.

The moment when it really clicked that he HAD to win was as a defending champion (coming back to the Spanish championship in ‘97 after winning the Karting WC in ‘96)

“When I have this pressure I try to calm myself”

He deals with the expectations by knowing everything about what he’s going into.

EVERYTHING.

Asks about strategy like 5 times, prepares every contingency plan etc.

This applies to his daily life and I quote “When I’m at home relaxing [...] or there is a tennis match or whatever, I treat that tennis match like a Formula One Grand Prix. So I have to know everything about with who I will play with.” Literally all about the hyperfine control.

“If he’s too strong maybe I skip that day at the tennis because I hate losing.” I love him so much.

What is your relationship like with self-doubt? shrugs, smirks “Not much.” THE CHARISMA oh god.,,,????? 

ALSO, FERNANDO ALONSOS THINKING FACE (see this excellent post)

also also this seems a good place to add his like totally random head scratches and fidgets and most adorable face scrunches. such a cutie patootie energy ball.

This man avoids self-doubt by just TOTALLY avoiding the things he’s bad at????? 

“I’m doing what I know that I can do and on that specific thing, I don’t have much self-doubt or I don’t have many problems.”

He never thought he was slower than Michael Schumacher

“a kamikaze approach to Formula One and to the start of my career”

He loves Dakar so much and it’s so evident hehehee. He can find fulfilment here I think, being “two weeks in the middle of nothing on a tent”.

How does comparison work for you then? “I don’t know.”

He wants to spend more time with his family (!!) It’s a life he “wants to live in the next 40 or 50 years”.

Media attention/paparazzi? He’s more bothered by it than his parents and he really really values his privacy

On his first race in F1 in 2005, he called his father and his father said “Try to enjoy because maybe it’s your last race.” His family is just so content with anything that could happen, even the possibility of quote-unquote failure. Everything is just a gift.

He views F1 as more “selfish, more glamorous but also fake in another way”. F1 circus.

“I’m taking care a bit more of fans and TV and these kind of things because I understand the importance of it.” aka justifying your TikTok addiction,,,....???

I didn’t take one moment to enjoy my career because I was too focused on winning? without hesitation “Same!!!” (I regret that, I regret that)

“Celebrating every weekend is part of my thing now” It’s good imo that he took a step back and learnt to enjoy more his little successes :”))

Did I mention he’s so so detail-oriented?

“executing the race as a robot” so many fic ideas here lol “no emotion. And just there is only one way to see the chequered flag faster than any other possibility.”

“That’s the beauty of the sport, that even if you want to do something with no emotion, everything comes alive in certain moments of the race.”

He knows his stats :0

He says “bwoah” or “mwoah” a surprising number of times for someone who is not Kimi

His life is basically built around confidence and discipline and this also translates to how he deals with disappointment and pain

Sometimes he can’t digest losing the races/not podiuming for a few hours or until the next morning

There is always a plan and once that’s drilled into you it’s very easy to keep going

80% plans that he expects to go perfectly and 20% contingency plans because “you don’t want to spend too much time in the suboptimum”

If he could go back in time he would want to win a championship with Ferrari (don’t we all)

“There is a new life, you know, in a few years’ time for me without driving.” Retirement????? A F E W YEARS????????

“I should have enjoyed more and [...] I would just change to live a little bit more, all those moments, and try to have more memories from those moments. I won the championship in Brazil 2005/6 and I hardly remember anything from those afternoons and nights, which is sad…” Oh Fernando…

“I would love to win the championship again, but it’s not the highest priority.”

“Winning Dakar one day is a high priority for me as well.” HE REALLY LOVES DAKAR AND HES SO CUTE ABOUT IT UGHHH “IF I WIN IN DAKAR THAT WILL FEEL FOR ME SOMETHING SPECIAL AS A DRIVER AND AS A PERSON”????? SO so so cute

He loves people who are confident. He’s attracted to people who are “so sure of what they’re doing”. He finds them powerful.

“College is beautiful time”

What is the hidden cost of your achievements? “Nothing really.”

“Probably not being in the sport and not being an F1 driver I probably would have my own family by now, but that’s something that you never know.” ???????? wdym you never know but YES nando loves kids good to know

How happy are you? (they dropped that like a bomb) the answer is “9, 9.5 [out of 10]”.

THE HEAD OF MECHANICS IN HIS GOKART TEAM SAID “THERE IS NOT MUCH TO CELEBRATE” WHEN HE GOT SECOND IN THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 

HE WAS T H I R T E E N let a guy be happy cmon

“you win or you don’t” That actually maybe explains how Nando used to be when he was younger

One piece of advice for listeners? “Self-confidence. Being prepared for everything you do in life. You cannot be happy with anything. You have to always search for something better.”

How much did you prep for this interview? “Not much, I was in the sim this morning.”

link

thanks for reading my absurdly long brain vomit !! lmk what yall thought of this :)

[alianoralacanta]

Coulthard, Sato and Pit Stop Misadventures: Spanish GP (14-05-2007)

Context: The blog plugin for the forum received an upgrade, including shiny new mood and activity indicators! I mostly used it to state what I was reading at the time, because I was and still am a bookworm. (In case you are wondering, my current reading is:

Travel reading: The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain by Ian Mortimer

Home reading: "No Offence But…" by Gina Martin

e-Reading: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Light reading": GP Racing, August 2024)

I'd spent most of the weekend trying to persuade my undergraduate dissertation to print off the computer (I'm not sure if my alma mater has an online copy - it probably does - but since I didn't write it under my psuedonym, I hope you will forgive me for not linking to it). Thus, I'd been on an adrenaline high when I finally succeeded. "Most" of the weekend, because I'd also watched the Spanish Grand Prix, where the accidental comedy had leavened things nicely…

Coulthard, Sato and Pit Stop Misadventures: Spanish GP

Sleep

Reading The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil

No Category

Firstly, I apologise if I doze off in the middle of this entry - I've spent a lot of today convincing an unreliable computer system to print off a 2800-word essay (I managed it and handed it in with one minute to spare - don't ask!)

The "Oh no it's all falling to pieces" feeling must have struck David Coulthard at some point during the race, as his Red Bull once again attempted to thwart his efforts to finish a race for once. I was very impressed by his ability to almost maintain the same speed minus third gear as he had with it - and fifth is a great way to finish the first race his midfield car has finished with him in it.

I particularly loved James Allen's comment just before the gearbox issue manifested himself; "This is the best performance we've seen from David since… [pause] …er, the last time we saw a good performance from him a few weeks ago." This proves three things:

1) Walkerisms still sound funny, even when Murray Walker isn't the one saying them 2) four weeks is too long to wait between races 3) David Coulthard is going through one of the best phases of his career - not that the points scoreboard shows that right now

Speaking of good performances from rarely-rewarded people, Takuma Sato put in a lovely race from 13th to 8th. With all the attention ITV lavished upon Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button, you could have been fooled into thinking the guy who'd outqualified both of them didn't exist.

At least, until Sato took Giancarlo Fisichella's 8th place off him and scored Super Aguri's first point ever. Even I, a Fisi supporter who thought that it was unfair that a malfunctioning pitlane device should have put him in that position, could not begrudge Takuma his just reward for a great drive. It seems that Takuma is currently having more success with his self-orientated team than Jacques Villnueve did at BAR. That is a credit to the staff at Leafield as well as to Takuma.

Returning to the pitlane, I was rather miffed at the stuff that was happening in the pitlane - and not just because the Renault rigs forced both Giancarlo and his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen to switch to the slower three-stop strategy mid-race. No, the incident that really got my blood boiling was Massa's portable barbecue.

It is rare for a fuel hose to do that sort of thing, and it was dangerous for both the Ferrari and the McLaren mechanics (the fire had nearly burnt itself out by the time Felipe went alongside the McLaren staffers, but it could have so easily been a considerable amount worse. Intertechnik are not in my good books right now, and I'm sure they're not in Ferrari or Reanult's good books either.

BMW could not blame Intertechnik for their Carry On moment - they caused that one by themselves. How Nick managed to miss the front-right jack man not raising his hand is a minor mystery (not that it was really his fault, but…). How he got away with getting it around the track minus the front right wheel nut without being a hazard to anyone or damaging his car is a major one. (On the upside, the shot of the Toyota mechanic holding the nut aloft, in his best "Has anyone lost something?" posture, was priceless).

It has to be said though that the Spanish GP has been the most interesting race for me all season. I'm not sure what that says about the three flyaways, except that I am now looking forward to Monaco with renewed vigour.

On the blog front, you may have noticed that I have recently added a menu on the right-hand side of the blog screen. With access to a blogroll and the site policy, it should help make things that little bit more enjoyable. Please tell me if there's any other changes you would like to see.

Oh, and I broke the 2000-visit boundary today. I think my involvement in the wider blogosphere may have a lot to do with it, but I am pleased to see so many enjoy my site. Please come as many times as you like, and I hope you'll be here when I celebrate the next milestone (and for the more serious entries in between).

Wow! I managed to stay awake for all that. I'll just go and have a lie-down now…

La Canta Magnifica Blog - After the very interesting Spanish GP, Alianora La Canta looks at two of the stand out drives of the race (David Coulthard and Takuma Sato), as well as the unintentional action down the pitlane.

[an-organism]

sort of continuing on an earlier ramble or two - core contradiction of hermione is that she thinks systematically and values systematic thinking but often makes snap judgements and decisions on pure gut instinct and systematically justifies them after the fact, which leads her to act idiosyncratically. ruthlessness is arguably her single strongest defining personality trait in that she’s pathologically goal-oriented, relentlessly so, willing to disregard any obstacle for the sake of a mission, but she also has these weird hangups and grudges and pet causes that are rarely productive in or of themselves and hardly ever serve a greater goal. things will just rub her the wrong way and she can’t get over them, or they won’t and she’ll get over them before anyone else does because it’s necessary that she does so, and there’s not always an obvious pattern.

everyone else sees spew as a dead-end cause, it’s ill-constructed and there’s very little going on in the way of coherent grand strategy, but she decided it was important and couldn’t let go of it, and she was going to do it her way and no other way. there’s no reason for her to despise divination as a school of magic beyond just straight up hating it on principle, regardless of its eventual importance to the war in the way of prophecy, etc. meanwhile she has every reason to hate snape, who is frequently a dick to her specifically and has been for years, but once it’s established he’s on their side she’s among the first to compartmentalize, because they’re at war and he’s an ally and that’s what matters.

it’s the irony and the hypocrisy of her near-universal revulsion to the irrational often leading her to act irrationally in disregarding genuinely useful things she instinctively deems irrational. she's 100% do as i say and not as i do; rationality is both one of her greatest strengths and her most significant blind-spot! that’s just good character construction tbh

(this is also why i love the idea of her simply not being able to stand luna, who not only represents everything she hates in terms of the irrational, but worse, is sometimes actually right about things)

all those snap judgments also make her weirdly averse to outside influence- she does listen to others if she’s already decided she values their perspective on a particular issue (dumbledore and mcgonagall come to mind), but even then, once her mind’s made up it’s not likely to change, and the mind-making-up process can happen super quickly. sort of a positive and negative leadership quality; if you need a decision made in a high pressure situation, she can make a decision and stick to it, but she's probably never going to be a great listener, and there's always a chance the whole thing gets sidetracked to follow a hunch. the hero you need but not the one you want, i guess. (she would not be great for morale.)

she's like if you designed a person specifically to be invulnerable to hypnosis. if she'd gotten tom's diary i legitimately don't know if she'd have ended up taking over the world, deciphering the horcrux plot in its entirety, driving tom insane, or just throwing it away after an hour (isn't there a fic about this?)

i almost want to make her a seer just to see what the fuck she'd even do with that. curse her with unexplainable visions that keep coming true despite her best efforts to prove them wrong, pure magical thinking that she can never escape and has to force herself to trust, an instinct that betrays everything she stands for. oh my god she'd hate it

[kneel-to-seto-kaiba]

Bio:

Age: 18 (Episode 100: Isolated in Cyber Space: Yugi vs. the Big 1 Part II)

Height: 6’1

Orientation: Aromantic Bisexual

Gender/Pronouns: Cis Male, He/Him

Birthday: October 25th

Personality: loner, smart, visionary, inventor, machiavellian, narcissistic, grand planner, desire for control, power, likes to subjugate/dominate/rule, insatiable for a strong opponent and challenge, desire for status, independent, he likes duel monsters, and other strategy games like chess etc.

Takahashi’s graph on Kaiba’s personality: puts his personality as a “bad guy” with all the villains, while characters like Yugi/Joey/Atem are on the good guy side):

- Ranging from Crazy to In Self-Control.

- Ranging from Narcisstic to Caring For Others.

- Ranging from Greedy Or Obsessed to Desireless Or Indifferent.

Seto Kaiba - Narcissistic: LV 4/5 (highly narcissistic, opposite of caring for others on the graph)

Crazy: LV 3/5 (highly crazy, opposite of in self-control on the graph.)

Greedy Or Obsessed: LV 4/5 (highly greedy/obsessed, opposite of being desireless/content with what one has on the graph. He has powerlust and is a pretty insatiable person)

Longer Bio:

Opposing dynamic:

Him & Yugi are foils and opposites. Kaiba believes the cards are arms while Yugi believes they’re cards of friendship, Kaiba is the “Loner duelist” (Duel Links DSOD description) while the Yugi is “power of friendship” guy .

Traumatic Childhood:

Related to his traumatic childhood: he fixates on becoming the new king of the new kind of war with the cards as arms (gaming), and put an end to the old king of the old history kind of war (Gozaburo, weapons industry led war) which he vehemently hates (wants to topple the military industrial complex heralded by Gozaburo. His stepfather stole his VR to be used in weapons industry led war, when it was supposed to be for gaming. Kaiba vowed he would get revenge for this, and that he’d make a new KaibaCorporation that stood for gaming and destroy all their weapons facilities. Which he successfully did when Gozaburo died.)

The Fate of Duel Monsters:

Duel Monsters is adopted as the ‘worlds' way of fighting just as kaiba wanted in the anime timeline (manga timeline leaves it open to interpretation whether or not kaiba died at the end of DSOD, many different possible futures). Duel monsters and duel disks are weaponizable, so this leads to a lot of problems with that. At times, duel monsters can even ‘outweapon’ the military, that’s how bad it can get.

We see priest seth in the afterlife, so he is not Seto Kaiba reincarnation (they are not reincarnations) just like how Atem’s soul was sealed in the puzzle so Yugi cant be his reincarnation. Instead, Yugi is the counterpart to Atem, while Kaiba is the counterpart to Priest Seto. Destiny pulls them into certain roles, like being rivals with one another, and destiny repeats itself. Obviously Kaiba is very ‘screw destiny’ so he won’t let destiny control him on this stage if he has anything to say about it.

The dub treats counterpart & reincarnation interchangeably

Views on His Rivals:

He thinks both Atem and Yugi are worthy of the title of king by the end of the ceremonial duel. He is obsessed with power and ‘real victory’, it’s his self-made destiny to defeat his eternal rival. He needs to have a nemesis. “I will become the king!” Gotta win & keep on winning cause his ambitions are forever vaulting.

He’s kind of dictator brained. he wants to control everyone and everything lowkey. He’s sort of like a sith that way. A sith deals in absolutes (i.e “I destroy anyone who gets in my way” - Kaiba) and is an aggressive “ruler”.

Timeline:

DM/GX/5DS World Timeline, English Dub Based, Anime Canon Compliant: Manga/Anime/Filler/Movies/

(Note: Because anime timeline, only pyramid of light

and bonds beyond time are canon)

Duelist Kingdom Arc

Virtual World Arc

Battle City: Part 1

Noah's Virtual World Arc

Battle City: Part 2

Waking The Dragons Arc

Grand Championship Arc

Pharoah's Memories Arc

Ceremonial Battle

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

Cybernetics 控制論 with Chinese Characteristics & why we suck at the real Grand Strategy Game

If you’re someone who enjoys Crusader Kings, or Hearts of Iron, you’ll know the joy of Grand strategy games. Executing economic, political and military prowess, you can rule the world... well, just a model of it. But compared to the masters, you’re trash tier. The real Grand Strategy masters didn’t play Paradox games - they played the game of life. Imagine not just having to play the game, but building the computer from scratch and the software necessary to play the games. It’s time to introduce the real Epic tier gamers:

Everyone agrees living in the West is like living life on easy mode. Norbert Wiener and Stafford Beer were two of the best known cyberneticists in the US and UK respectively during the later 20th century, but what about those in the non-Anglo speaking world? We’re looking for the most hardcore players after all.

China is the perfect example. The country was a mess after the civil war - perfect conditions for a hard-mode run. Search for articles on China in the West and you will find plenty with titles such as “The country is perfecting a vast network of digital espionage as a means of social control” and “China’s increased surveillance capacity could be dangerous”. So who, was behind the rise of these surveillance style systems in China.

The answer, in fact, is the FBI.

Note: This is a less serious version of Dylan Levi King’s article. Link at end!

Enter Qian Xuesen ( 钱学森 )

Enter Qian Xuesen. Qian was described, by most contemporaries, as a genius and a quiet but serious man who asked very precise questions. Qian had been born during the fall of the Qing dynasty in China and had been a strongly academic child. He went on to study at M.I.T on a Boxer indemnity scholarship and found himself a position in the newly founded Jet Propulsion Laboratory during World War 2.

His contemporaries, included colourful characters such as:

Frank Malina – Stellar engineer, and later the director of the Division of Scientific Research at UNESCO and creator of kinetic artworks.

Jack Parsons – A talented engineer, and later an acolyte of Aleister Crowley’s Thelemite Occultism alongside L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, the Scientology one.

Together, with others such as Sidney Weinbaum, Qian was able to assist the US achieve it’s first rocket program.

Enter FBI

After the end of World War II, it became apparent to the United States that the Soviet Union would be its greatest threat in world politics. The rise of communism in Eastern Europe led to those such as Senator John McCarthy pushing to remove “communist influence” within the United States. Working with the FBI, the entire team of the nationally sensitive Jet Propulsion Laboratory were investigated.

Many members, such as Parsons and Weinbaum had discussed communist ideals in the past which were quickly unearthed and used to push them out of their positions in the organisation. Qian, on the other hand, was someone who didn’t particularly seem to care about politics. He mostly spent his free time at home with his wife and children, and one colleague described him as having a “typical aloof oriental attitude.”. Despite this, the FBI were able to find a connection with Malina and himself.

Sensing the changing public mood, Qian decided it would be best to leave the country and set off to return to China in 1950.

This was generally considered a bad move by the FBI.

Qian had been personally involved in:

Helping to create America’s first missile program

The creation of the Toward New Horizons report for the Army Air Forces Scientific Advisory Group detailing future advances in aviation

A seat on the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board

A consultancy role on the Manhattan Project (ie. Nuclear Weapons Research)

After realising the consequences of their actions, the Immigration and Naturalization Service forced Qian into a legal purgatory for five years in fear that he would leak important matters of classified national security to the Chinese. It was in this period, however, that Qian began a deep dive into the world of cybernetics.

He wrote a book, Engineering Cybernetics, published in 1954. In it, he technically outlined a field of feedback control systems for engineering purposes, inspired by the use of automatic missile control guidance systems. In his own words:

“The celebrated physicist and mathematician A. M. Ampere coined the word cyberne~tique to mean the science of civil government (Part II of " Essai sur la philosophic des sciences/' 1845, Paris) . Ampere's grandiose scheme of political sciences has not, and perhaps never will, come to fruition. In the meantime, conflict between governments with the use of force greatly accelerated the development of another branch of science, the science of control and guidance of mechanical and electrical systems.”

Importantly, he was able to build on previous work. He made the crucial step of moving away from fully assumed knowledge to systems

“...where no exact knowledge of the properties of the controlled system is necessary for the design.”

Finally released from detention, he moved overseas to China in 1955 to begin his career.

Enter China

Qian immediately set to work. The Science Planning Commission of the State Council had just begun drafting a 12-year plan for future progress in China, and Qian was quick to give his input.

From computing, to semiconductor technology, automation to wireless control systems and more he was key to the scientific advancement of the country. He was also keen to put his ideas into action, advocating for cybernetics and systems theory to be front-and-centre in agriculture and manufacturing. We can only speculate on what kind of Farmville player Qian would have been, but he definitely would have used a custom macro spreadsheet like some kind of freak.

It was in this time period that China began to import foreign based computing technologies which they sought to reverse engineer and replicate for themselves. Political instability, however, led to his ideas for cybernetics shelved for another decade, only to re-emerge in the 1970s. With the rise of Deng Xiaoping in the late 70s, Qian was able to take advantage of Deng’s opposition to the Gang of Four’s Maoist principles.

But what computing power would the cyberneticists use? Indigenous computers were, unfortunately, still pretty bad and the Chinese government had to use Soviet design machines and illegally acquired IBM machines which belonged to the Bank of China.

Not only were the Chinese cyberneticists eventually able to build their own rigs they stole their opponent's technology as well, like some kind of Dengist mainframe hackers.

In 1974, Qian and his team of researchers attended the Helsinki Triennial World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control and were astounded by the uses that Western, and Soviet, cyberneticists had been putting their computers to – namely economic planning. Inspired by Neo-Malthusian scholars at The Club of Rome, and their MIT led population overload models, Qian was instrumental in putting forward the One Child Policy.

Qian’s was also a pioneer of “legal systems engineering” – the use of cybernetics in law enforcement. The Public Security Bureau (PSB) set up Golden shield, a system which allowed law enforcement to access information on citizens tax records, personal details, criminal record and more. This is the system which has led to the current Chinese surveillance state in the 21st century.

Cybernetics vs Reality

Theory and reality don’t always mix. Qian was responsible for many policy successes, but some of his policies are responsible for a number of issues that China is experiencing today.

Take China’s One Child Policy. This is the ultimate example of theoretical idea combined with real world culture and consequences. The idea behind the policy is sound – keeping population within set limits to prevent over-burdening the country and its resources. The reality is more difficult:

The state apparatus needed the tools to enforce this policy. This wasn’t always possible, and in many rural communities many children were sent to orphanages and weren’t observable in the system of control.

Culture led to more women being aborted than men - a male child being more valued in society. This resulted in gender imbalances that still plague the country to this day.

This underlies the failings of many cybernetic systems: They cannot measure that which they can’t observe. In data-science terms, crap goes in, crap comes out. The Chinese cyberneticists were most successful where they were able to use reality to update their systems, and take into account how the bureaucratic systems functioned.

Qian, in his later years, was remote and distant. He refused to interact with anyone outside the country and eventually died in 2009.

Lessons to be learned?

So what can we learn from this?:

Persecuting people for no reason can backfire, and lead to the Chinese Nuclear Program. You would have thought people would have realised this after The Treaty of Versailles, but there we go...

Cybernetic systems are only good if they adapt to fit reality, otherwise they can make things worse. You may think that your economic strategy in HoI II is working, but if you don’t invest in your military in response to foreign force build-up then you’re fucked when they knock on the door with a blitzkrieg.

Grand Strategy Games are a great analogue for control systems - a simplified abstraction of reality. They often don’t model the difference between assumed input and what the input actually means in reality. Practical cybernetics need to take into account real world use of systems and societal/cultural/social implications.

The main fable behind this story is to do your research, and consider the real world implcations of your actions. You may be tempted to put your feet up and stick with a simplified understanding of the world - this is bad. The blind ideology of the McCarthy & his FBI investigators, and the lack of effective monitoring system for Chinese families by Qian, both led to bad outcomes.

One bad choice by the FBI led to not only Qian helping China advance technologically, but also it’s mass surveillance system and the One Child Policy and it’s now serious effects on China’s society.

Sources (I’ve missed some out, but can provide links on request):

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/china-surveillance/552203/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/01/10/china-surveillance-covid/

https://archive.org/details/fbi-file-tsien-hsue-shen/FBIFile_Tsien_Part1/page/n25/mode/2up

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0895717788904438

https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/10/17/the-genealogy-of-chinese-cybernetics/

[fremedon]

Brickclub 5.2.2, “The Ancient History of the Sewer”

This really is a weird chapter, and the book seems to know that--it orients us in the same way it’s introduced all our other grand and horrific setpieces (Waterloo, the convent, the barricade): by inviting us to consider the shape of a letter of the alphabet:

You will form a more accurate picture of this strange geometrical plan if you suppose that you are looking at some bizarre oriental alphabet, lying flat on a dark background, all jumbled up, and the misshaped letters welded together in apparent confusion and as if hapahazardly, sometimes end to end, sometimes at angles to each other.

Except this alphabet is illegible. (And also racist, but it’s not just a foreign alphabet, it’s an alphabet stripped of all sense even to people who know the language.)

The other letter-locations were grotesque, and sometimes sublime, but fundamentally comprehensible in a way this place is not--even while Hugo appears to be changing his argumentative strategy to an appeal to economics, he’s telling us this isn’t going to make a neat narrative.

@everyonewasabird‘s writeup points out how odd it is that Hugo is appealing to truth here, and praising the sewer as a final arbiter of truth, in a book that’s always been very pro-lying. I don’t think I fully have a handle on what Hugo’s doing, but I think this passage is doing some heavy lifting:

The sewer is the city’s conscience. Everything converges here and is brought face to face here. In this ghastly place there are shadows but there are no more secrets. Each thing has its true form, or at least its definitive form.

That’s a nice distinction but I think a very useful one: the sewer may reveal secrets--but that’s not necessarily the same thing as Truth (as Valjean’s confession will make painfully clear).

Hugo continues:

The pile of filth has this in its favour: it does not lie. ... This farrago is a confession. No more false appearances here, no possibly plastering-over; filth takes off its shirt; stark nakedness, all illusions and mirages dispelled, nothing other than what is, showing the ugly face of what is finished with. ... This is more than fraternity, this is intimacy. Everything that used to pretty itself is now besmirched. The last veil is torn off. A sewer is a cynic: It tells all.

Bird points out that the modern, post-Napoleonic sewer is basically Javert: yet another best instantiation of a bad system; so effective and efficient at consigning people to oblivion that the bourgeoisie never needs to be troubled by them.

But this is still the ancient ancient sewer--and it’s a cynic, a pile of filth that, whatever its other issues, at least doesn’t lie.

That’s Grantaire. That’s the cynicism that looks at the worst of humanity and thinks that a lack of comforting fictions is the same as truth.

In Hugo’s historical scheme, where the ancient sewer is the ancien regime, I think this is the view that crime and misery happen because some people are Just Bad, and the only reason to look deeper into them is for the thrill of horror; while the modern sewer is the society that understands that these things have reasons and causes and still would rather sweep them out of sight than address them.

And I think--I hope--we are meant to understand that this isn’t a wholly accurate view, and that the revelation of secret shames and sins doesn’t actually permit the kind of magical reconstruction the last paragraphs describe, from the last sentence:

In what remains, it finds what has been--good, evil, falsehood, truth, the bloodstain from the law courts, the ink-blot from the cavern, the drop of candle grease from the brothel, ordeals suffered, temptations welcomed, orgies spewed up, the kink that characters have acquired in abasing themselves, the trace of prostitution in souls whose coarseness made them capable of it, and in the jerkins of Rome’s street porters the imprint of Messalina’s elbow.

We know what makes a person capable of prostitution in this book, and it’s not coarseness of soul. Whatever secrets are revealed here--in the lowest mine, among the people society wants to throw away and forget--may seem, to someone looking in from above, like they’re telling their full stories. But we’ve seen those stories, and seen what little trace they leave; and we know that’s not true.

[racingliners]

For the fic ask game, may I please ask 5 and 25?

of course you can my lovely!!

5. How many wips do you have?  What fandoms/pairings are they for?

I have the grand total of two WIPs on the go! The first is Life In The Fast Lane which is my Great Re-Write Project™️ of the work of the same title that was rpf but I'm re-doing as it's own separate universe with all OCs (but still tied into irl F1 to try and make the two works feel somewhat connected). And the second is The Rules of Strategy which is my Seb/Lewis at Merc AU (in which Seb is an ex-driver turned engineer/strategist) set during the 2017 season.

(I do have a couple of what I call private wips but they're just for funsies and to help iron out any writing niggles I've got)

25. What’s your favourite part of the writing process (worldbuilding, brainstorming/outlining, writing, editing, etc)?

Definitely worldbuilding! It both helps me get grounded in the little universe I'm writing in which helps me get focused and as I'm also very detail orientated I just find it so much fun.

When I'm in the writing zone I also really enjoy it, but rn I'm in a semi-writers block struggle which is very not fun.

fanfiction writer asks

[theohonohan]

A not-so-bitter lesson

The Bitter Lesson is an essay that makes the claim that, in AI, computational brute force tends to sweep before it. As hardware gets faster, old attempts to model cognition are in danger of being made irrelevant, no matter how elegant or promising they once seemed.

A more general principle is the idea that computer science is not governed by ideas, but by what can be done on the available hardware. Computer scientists would like to think that ideas are what matter, rather than whatever hardware is currently on the shelves. In the field of Programming Language Theory, in particular, there is a focus on “ideas of lasting value”, as opposed to incidental technical details which will inevitably quickly become obsolete. It’s valid to aim to teach undergraduates only material of lasting value—but there’s also an element of prestige attached to the supposedly eternal truths the academics are working on. When Robert Harper refers to the fact that the mathematical idea of a variable (as used in functional programming languages) has been around since “antiquity”, it’s clear that he intends this to be evidence for its canonical importance. For some, the Greek letters and apparent impenetrability of PLT seem to be evidence of elitism. There’s also, perhaps, an element of insecurity. The Curry-Howard correspondence is most often used by computer scientists to borrow ideas from the more august, tweedy and established discipline of logic (rather than allowing logic to borrow from computing). It’s an isomorphism, but in practice it has a direction: from logic to functional programming.

Most undergraduates realise that coming up with elegant concepts is just building castles in the sky until their effectiveness is mathematically proven or measured in practice. Every student learns this not-so-bitter lesson: that you can’t just invent grand and clever-sounding computer science concepts in a vacuum. They learn that intricate algorithms, with good asymptotic performance, are often bested by brute force approaches, due to the complexity of real machines and compilers. Knowing this, they don’t get attached to their ingenious ideas when they turn out not to be an improvement on more obvious or established methods.

I’m an observer of the Haskell (and Agda, Coq, etc.) scene, and it seems to me that it suffers from this problem of overvaluing elegant ideas. The Haskell community will tell you that they are pursuing truly important, timeless principles of programming, rooted in category theory. Well, they won’t tell you that, but it’s implicit that they are pursuing “ideas of lasting value” rather than working pragmatically (and straightforwardly) with the latest hardware. There are plenty of valuable concepts in the Haskell canon, but there are also ways in which Haskell is disconnected from the kind of software than 99% of the world needs to write. In my opinion, the lack of a repertoire of Haskell patterns for solving typical problems is evidence of this. With Haskell, the correct approach seems to be that the programmer should be a mathematician, should think very hard and come up with an exotic abstraction that is applicable to the problem, and should then write their program from scratch, guided by pure intuition (and, I suppose, using a few Haskell libraries). Haskell is the opposite of a glue language: Haskell is for solving problems with your intellect rather than solving them by downloading and combining packages which other people have put together. This orientation towards difficulty and abstraction is prestigious, but it’s not always appropriate—perhaps not even often appropriate. Looking for a quick, dumb solution (“worse is better”) is a much lower-maintenance strategy.

The not-so-bitter lesson is that it is the running code that matters, not the (possibly gratifying) thought and problem-solving that led to it. The code is the proof, but, unlike proofs in mathematics, it may be invalidated by changes in technology. Mathematical proofs have a kind of monotonicity: a proof, once established, can never be rolled back by being disproved—only by being forgotten. These demonstrations, these temporary, contingent proofs of the effectiveness of the programmer’s thinking seem to me to be what matters. Computer science would be very different without hardware.

[shoparug]

Sydney's Rug Auctions: Where Tradition Meets Modern Luxury

Rug auctions, oh the splendor they possess! For countless years, these auctions have graced the Sydney market, becoming an irreplaceable component of its fabric. They serve as a grand gathering, uniting a vast array of rugs - be it the aged and cherished, the vintage and timeless, or the contemporary and cutting-edge. The allure they offer lies in the golden chance to attain one-of-a-kind, high-quality rugs at prices that ignite the spirit of competition.

Now, let us embark on a captivating journey through the rich tapestry of rug auctions, steeped in history and tradition that spans centuries. The magical realm of rug-making and trading has forever held a cherished place in diverse cultures, and rug auctions emerged as a magnificent stage to display and sell these masterpieces. Sydney, with its vibrant soul, witnessed the birth of rug auctions in the early 20th century, and ever since, they have flourished, their beauty and significance echoing through time.

What treasures await at these splendid rug auctions, you may wonder? Prepare to be enthralled by the diverse tapestry that unfolds before your eyes. From Persian marvels that whisper tales of ancient empires, to Oriental wonders that carry the essence of distant lands, to tribal creations that embody the spirit of ancestral traditions, and finally, to modern designs that push the boundaries of creativity. A magnificent array to suit the palates of every connoisseur, each seeking their own unique blend of luxury, beauty, and durability. Witness the true marvel of these auctions, where the variety on offer knows no bounds and truly astounds.

Dear reader, let us now delve into the bountiful rewards that rug auctions bring forth, benefits that extend to both eager buyers and enthusiastic sellers alike. It is within these auctions that buyers find themselves in a realm of limitless possibilities, where a vast selection of rugs awaits their discerning eyes. Here, they can traverse the expanse of options, comparing prices, and perchance discovering rare gems that possess an otherworldly charm. Meanwhile, sellers find solace in the competitive dance of bids, a dance that often leads to prices that surpass even their wildest dreams, far exceeding those in traditional retail channels.

Now that the curtain has been raised, and you, dear reader, stand at the threshold of this marvelous world, it is essential to learn the steps required for you to partake in the grand spectacle. Pay heed to the following guidance, and you shall be well-prepared to immerse yourself fully. To enter the realm of Rug auctions Sydney, acquaint yourself with the noble houses that host these events and acquaint yourself with their schedules. Take note, for most auctions require prior registration, which can be done either through the vast web or in the flesh. Once you are granted passage, venture forth, gaze upon the displayed rugs with wonder, query the auction staff to satisfy your curious mind, and ready yourself for the bidding contest that awaits.

Ah, the thrill of bidding, an experience that sets one's heart ablaze with exhilaration. Yet, dear reader, do not be caught unaware; for this endeavor, strategy is paramount. Allow me to impart upon you a few pearls of wisdom to enhance your chances of triumph:

Firstly, establish a budget, a wise boundary that shields you from imprudent choices. Determine the maximum sum you are willing to part with and stand resolute, unwavering in your commitment.

Secondly, knowledge is power. Immerse yourself in the study of rug styles, the materials that form their very essence, and the estimated values that bear witness to their worth. Become a connoisseur, a sage in the realm of rugs.

Thirdly, seize the opportunity to attend previews, for they are a gateway to enlightenment. Inspect the rugs with your own eyes, marvel at their intricate details, and inquisitively pose your queries. This is your time to acquaint yourself intimately with the rugs, to understand their essence before the battle begins.

Fourthly, patience, my dear friend, is a virtue that shall serve you well. In this grand ballet of bids, wait for the opportune moment to reveal your hand, to seize the perfect instant, and to avoid being swept away by the tempestuous currents of impulsive desires.

Lastly, trust in your instincts, for they are the compass that guides you through this sea of possibilities. If a rug beckons to your soul, if it resonates with your very being, let your intuition guide your hand as you bid. Trust in your judgment, for it is your unique taste that shall lead you to victory.

[seooptimizacija]

SEO Content Controversy

SEO controversy about web page content

Strategies related to content One of the ways search engines determine website rankings is by sorting your online content and ranking websites based on repeated keywords or phrases. Content-rich websites have succeeded in search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. While I highly recommend this strategy, there is another point of view that is less dependent on content for exposure to rank websites.Strategies unrelated to content Some webmasters are strong advocates of non-content SEO strategies. These technical experts rely heavily on meta titles and other html-based SEO strategies. Or code for pages that are less content-oriented. Purists on both sides of the argument will say that their approach is far better than the other's. For content sites, I can gauge their success through keyword strategies that are visible in the site's long-term rankings. For non-content sites, they can look at the keywords or phrases used to determine the site's ranking from a more technical source in the code behind the scenes.Which approach is better? Both together. This is really about being able to have your cake and eat it too. You can maximize SEO strategies in coding on your website. As you infuse original knowledge-based content into your website. A combination of these two strategies can work more effectively than either one alone. If you are not well-equipped to manage coding, you should work tirelessly to include knowledge-based articles on your website. The standard negative response to this concept is when a company primarily sells a product or service. And he doesn't feel that original content really works with their online store.Adding knowledge-based articles For example, if your company sells blocks of gourmet cheese, you could include original articles about various cheese offerings. Their taste and texture and the history of each type of cheese. You can include articles that offer recipes that include the types of cheese you offer. We hope you get the idea. By adding knowledge-based articles, you can help your website rank. And help your clients and minimize the need for coded SEO strategies. Until you learn how to best implement SEO without content.SEO content controversy - there will always be a battle over which SEO strategy is best. But I will go so far as to say that the best strategy will be one that incorporates both concepts. And that in the best possible way from the capabilities of the web owner. Although some of the problems want to decide either/or, it's really a both/and solution. However you optimize your website, do your best to implement strategies that work for you in the long run. Too many strategies are short-term props that help you very little in the grand scheme of your website's life. Read the full article

[cyarskj1899]

The Best Video Games of 2022

Luke WinkieDec. 8, 2022

In a year devoid of many major blockbusters, eccentric titles had their time to shine.

Best of 2022

The best entertainment of the year, as chosen by Vulture’s critics.

Photo-Illustration: Rowena Lloyd and Susanna Hayward; Photos: Courtesy of Finji, Annapurna Interactive, Nintendo and FromSoftware Inc.

From a purely financial perspective, 2022 was a down year for video games. Overall sales have swooned since 2021, which analysts have chalked up to both regression from the COVID boom and the lack of a central, needle-moving blockbuster on the release schedule. It’s hard to squabble with that point as you take stock of the cycle; 2022 did not contain a marquee installment to a galactic franchise — Starfield, Final Fantasy XVI, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are each earmarked for 2023. Instead, we received a constant trickle of eccentric, offbeat projects that seemed destined to appeal, unapologetically, to a very specific type of video-game fetishist. Our top-ten list for 2022 contains ’90s-worshipping arcade throwbacks, wooly economic simulators, eldritch dungeon crawls, and ultra-high-concept RPGs. There was always something fascinating on the horizon this year, and while gamers weren’t swallowed up by a white-hot Zeitgeist, the hobby never ceases to blow our minds.

10.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One)

If you are a child of the ’90s, you likely once fantasized about a world with unlimited quarters. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle arcade games that paneled barbershops and bowling alleys were notoriously difficult, designed specifically to separate you from your allowance by the time you hit the second level. But in 2022, millennials finally had the chance to enact their revenge. Shredder’s Revenge is a full-throated tribute to the twilight of the arcade era, when beat-’em-ups reigned supreme. You and a gaggle of friends churn through a legion of identical, purple-clad ninjas, without ever fearing a trip to the change machine again. The campaign is swollen with all sorts of vintage TMNT throwbacks, which will cement you back at your happy place: standing in the corner of a Chuck E. Cheese, a slice of pizza propped against the joystick, with one of those infinite weekend afternoons ahead of you.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

$35

9.Disney Dreamlight Valley (Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)

It is a little strange that more developers haven’t aped the tried-and-true Animal Crossing formula. Gameloft, the venerable mobile-oriented studio, finally took the bait in the best way possible. Disney Dreamlight Valley, as the name implies, sends you to an overgrown hamlet that was — at least once upon a time — home to a variety of Disney characters. As you clear out the bramble and break away the stone, slowly but surely, those former residents make their return, eager to present players with a bucolic, homesteading fantasy. At last, a chance to furnish a home with Remy the rat, or tend the garden with Mickey Mouse, or enjoy the sunset with Kristoff. Dreamlight Valley is textbook emotional manipulation, but it effortlessly captures the core fantasy of the average Disney Adult. Life would be so much simpler with friends like these.

Disney Dreamlight Valley

$30

8.Victoria 3 (Mac, PC)

The grand strategy titans of Paradox Interactive tend to stick with antiquity in their games. Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis are both set in the High Middle Ages — an age of kings and regents — where swaths of territory can change hands with a severed bloodline. But Victoria 3 shifts the parameters to the 19th century, where the stakes are a tad more relatable. You are given the controls of the commodity market at the dawn of globalization: managing an economy, organizing trade routes, and charting the political future of your people. Will you plunge the United States into socialist revolution? Grind the East India Trading Company to a halt? Reverse the forces of colonization in the heart of Africa? Victoria 3 gives us the world. Results may vary.

Victoria 3

$50

7.Stray (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5)

A lot of ink has been spilled over what made Stray — the debut game from French indie BlueTwelve Studio — such a massive hit over the summer. Is it the low-key cyberpunk aesthetic? The tastefully implemented puzzles? The plights of the sad-sack robots inhabiting this fallen world? No, not at all. Stray succeeds because it is a full-throated love letter to cat people. Your orange tabby can scratch up carpets, ruin couches, haphazardly knock over household items, and make those uniquely feline leaps into tight spaces. Never has so much effort been made to re-create, in exacting detail, the proclivities and mercurialness of the average house cat. No wonder BlueTwelve had us eating out of its hands.

Stray

$30

6.Nobody Saves the World (PC, Xbox One)

That title is more literal than you might think. In Nobody Saves the World, you take control of a little white blob named, you guessed it, Nobody. He’s slow, feeble, and weak-minded, but he can transform into a whole slew of RPG archetypes to conquer the dungeons splayed across this saturated, Saturday-morning cartoon landscape. Yes, Nobody can become a wizard or a warrior, who are both outfitted with tons of D&Dtropes — but he can also swap into a turtle equipped with a ricocheting Koopa Troopa attack, or a slug who can ink the combat arenas with speed-dampening slime. That is when Nobody Saves the World sings; ping-ponging between a litany of forms and finding the peculiar synergies within. As it turns out, a rat and a dragon make for a devastating one-two punch. Oftentimes I finish an RPG with a lingering regret that I rolled the wrong character and that I would’ve had more fun with, say, a greater emphasis on an ignored school of magic. Nobody Saves the World renders that problem totally irrelevant. By the time the credits roll, you’ll have seen everything that little white blob is capable of.

Nobody Saves the World

$25

5.Splatoon 3 (Nintendo Switch)

There is an argument to be made that Splatoon has been on cruise control since the first game in the series emerged as a surprise hit for Nintendo during its dark, financially precarious Wii U era. Yes, it is true that Splatoon 3 very much resembles Splatoon 2, which itself was a modest — but insubstantial — refining of the ideas in the original. You are still going to be battling other punky squidling teenagers for superiority, coating the map in your national colors with a variety of esoteric water guns that dispense massive, oily payloads of ink in a variety of different shapes. (Ink shotguns, pistols, sniper rifles, and so on.) The innovations in the combat will only be noticed by the most ardent Splatoon addicts; the ability to boost out of wall-runs is surely transformative for the Über-competitive scene, but will mostly be unnoticed by laymen. And yet, Splatoon 3 is the best the series has ever been, and it’s rarely left my Switch for long. There may come a time when Nintendo needs to drastically reengineer the blueprint, but for now, I’m more than happy with a few new wrinkles, and lively multiplayer servers, every couple of years.

Splatoon 3

$57

4.Marvel Snap (Android, iOS, PC)

You can complete a game of Marvel Snap in three minutes. This is a Magic-style collectible card game shrunk down to its base atomic particles. You’ll have a deck containing only 12 cards, and over the course of six turns you’ll battle for supremacy at three different locations; win two of them, and you’ll claim victory. The design team is made up of Hearthstone veterans, who they bring that game’s silly, flavor-rich splendor to the Marvel universe. (For instance: Mr. Fantastic, with his long limbs, can boost your power at two adjacent locations at once.) But by far, the team’s best innovation is its titular gambit; if you think you’re ahead — even on turn one — tap the Snap button at the top of your screen. You’ll double your rewards if you claim victory, and risk brutal punishment if your hubris fails. Marvel Snap is built for bathroom breaks and subway-station transfers, and it passes that test with flying colors.

Marvel Snap

3.Tunic (Mac, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Tunic is a Legend of Zelda game with a deviant streak. You are exploring a diorama realm filled with monsters that are no match for your sword and shield, but you’ll quickly discover that everything in this game — the dialogue, the signs, even the pieces of the in-universe manual you find scattered around the atlas — is written in a coded language. It is up to you to parse the runes, and the only tools in your inventory are cunning and guile. Those moments where you discover a whole new dimension hiding in plain sight are Tunic’s lifeblood. It lends to a genuine sense of metaphysical puzzle-solving. You’re not prying open secret passageways or trapdoors; you’re uncovering that maybe there is a fast travel system stashed in the mechanics … so long as you know what button to push. That’s Tunic’s finest magic trick; by the time you’re finished, you’ll finally understand how to play the game.

Tunic

$30

2.Neon White (Nintendo Switch, PC)

Neon White is a first-person shooter where players are pretty much invincible. You are a celestial sinner — on the bubble of purgatory — who needs to prove his mettle before gaining access to heaven. The evil-eyed demons in your path can’t muster much more offense than an evil glare; most of them will be easily dispatched with one pull from your divine arsenal of firearms. No, the true villain in Neon White is the timer, which can mercilessly separate you from a gold or a bronze medal in a matter of seconds. The levels in Neon White can usually be completed in a minute or less, and they each require a tight network of air-dashes, double-jumps, and Super Mario–style ground pounds — like a parkour sizzle reel in zero gravity. When it all comes together, Neon White is a master class of momentum and control, even as you’re struggling to shave that last millisecond off the registrar to guarantee your immortality.

Neon White

$25

1.Elden Ring (PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

If you recall the decaying gothic ramparts in Dark Souls, or the condemned Victorian hell of Bloodborne, then you already know that when FromSoftware is at its best, the studio creates some of the most iconic settings you’ll ever find in a video game. Elden Ringexpanded on From’s tried-and-true formula — a dense, clockwork universe packed with furtive secrets and ecclesiastic lore — into, perhaps, the largest world ever rendered on a console. The Lands Between, where Elden Ring takes place, encompasses about 30 square miles of digital real estate. It takes a player three and a half hours to walk across its diameter, and they’ll find 157 unique boss fights across innumerable dungeons, alcoves, and temples along the way. FromSoftware took no shortcuts; every inch of this forsaken realm is authored and intentional, operating with a euphoric indifference toward the player. Will you find all of its secrets? Elden Ring could care less. You can play for hours before discovering a nondescript marble elevator that sinks down to a verdant underground river coursing, eternally, below our feet. The world map pleats open, revealing even more for us to chew on. Elden Ring’s scale is a singular achievement. I still can’t believe they pulled it off.

Elden Ring

$53

Honorable Mentions

Throughout 2022, Luke Winkie maintained a “Best Video Games of the Year (So Far)” list. Many of those selections appear above in his top-ten picks. Below are the rest of the games that stood out to Winkie this year:

Core Keeper (Windows PC)

Photo: IGN/YouTube

Core Keeper takes the bucolic charm of Stardew Valley and moves it deep underground. This year’s foremost Steam breakout hit is a satisfying meld of all sorts of other fantasy homesteading simulators (think Minecraft, Valheim, and Terraria) except, this time, your sprightly survivalist is lost in an expansive, procedurally generated network of caverns. Core Keeper strikes a sublime balance between precarious dungeoneering and the cozy chores back home. Yes, sometimes I would like to face off against the monstrosities waiting for me at the abyssal depths as long as I get to tend the garden by torchlight afterward.

Core Keeper

$13

Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo Switch)

Photo: Nintendo/YouTube

Pokémon didn’t necessarily need to change. Over the past three years, we received new editions in the primary series with Sword and Shield as well as remasters of two DS classics in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Those games all sold extraordinarily well, proving the Pokémon formula remains lucrative 30 years after Red and Blue. But Pokémon Legends: Arceus provides an alternative timeline in which Nintendo abandoned the Über-simplistic RPG trappings for something a little more substantial. Here you are: a Pokémon trainer alone in the wilds enjoying a crisper, spookier vision of what life among the untamed Pikachus would actually be like. Sneak up on Pokémon and blindside them with a Poké Ball, battle down your prey without being locked into a turn-based slog, and run for your life after angering a giant Electrode. It’s Pokémon meets Bear Grylls, which means I’ve been dreaming about playing this video game since I was roughly ten years old.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

$55

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves(PlayStation 5)

Photo: Playstation/YouTube

Naughty Dog frequently rereleases its back catalogue, so it was no surprise that the great PlayStation developer bundled its PS4 Uncharted games in a package that coincides with the mediocre film adaptation. But if you missed Uncharted 4 or The Lost Legacy when they first arrived in 2016 and 2017, The Legacy of Thieves is absolutely worth a look on the spiffy PlayStation 5. The Uncharted series typically presents Nathan Drake as an unruly man-child who grows weirdly petulant whenever he doesn’t get his way, but the fourth and final game in the narrative was the first to actually scrutinize his selfishness. (It’s one of the best action games of the past ten years.) And The Lost Legacy, the mini-chapter that focuses on two of the franchise’s most beloved characters, found Naughty Dog experimenting with an open-world gestalt that still has me excited for whatever the company is cooking up next. It will likely be a long time before we get another Uncharted game, and that’s probably for the best. After all, the series went out on top.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves

$50

Strange Horticulture (Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC)

Photo: Iceberg Interactive/YouTube

As the name implies, Strange Horticulture is a game about looking at plants. Beleaguered customers pour through your door and request specific herbal remedies, and you consult a dusty tome full of botanical theory before delivering the specimen of choice. This may sound boring, but by the time Strange Horticulture hits its groove, you’ll begin to appreciate the deep deduction system animating the design. You’re asked to pore over an encyclopedia of phytologic caveats with just a few clues, slowly narrowing down the exceptions and edge cases until you are sure, without a doubt, that the man in your shop needs the plant with blue flowers and triangle-shaped leaves. At last, a video game that allows us to feel intelligent and bucolic at the same time.

Strange Horticulture

$15

Rainbow 6 Extraction (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Photo: Ubisoft/YouTube

Rainbow 6: Extraction feels like a generous expansion pack. The game includes the same arsenal and characters as Ubisoft’s venerated first-person shooter Rainbow 6 Siege, but it trades the squad-based multiplayer for a horror-flick romp through an obscene, viscerally unsettling alien apocalypse. The antiseptic halls and corporate antechambers crucial to the franchise’s muted aesthetic have been overrun by oozing pustules, curdled zombies, and infectious muck — think John Carpenter’s The Thing with SWAT teams — as you and two friends attempt to complete a trio of challenges before succumbing to the horde. I went into Extraction with exceedingly low expectations, and I found a game that evoked the morbid, white-knuckle thrills of the best high-stakes XCOM missions. Did you leave behind one of your friends in the churn? Next mission you gear up to free them from the clutches of the parasite, or else they’ll suffer a punitive progression tax. After so many co-op experiences that treat us with kid gloves, you remember what it’s like to truly fear death in Extraction.

Rainbow 6 Extraction

$15

Horizon Forbidden West(PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5)

Photo: PlayStation/YouTube

It’s tough to wrap your mind around the setting of the Horizon series. You’re a neolithic cavewoman in a prehistoric America that happens to be populated by hulking cybernetic dinosaurs. You’ll fight them off with a spear built from serrated silicon chips. Oh, and you explore underground ruins that appear to be the abandoned laboratories of a much more modern human race. The original game, which arrived in 2017, did a fantastic job of spindling together all of these wild plot threads, and that diligence continues in Forbidden West. Gameplay-wise, this is still a competent open-world adventure that’s at its best when you’re facing off against one of those aluminum-plated T. Rexes, but you’ll stick around for the story, which tactfully unravels more of the mysteries lingering in this post-post-postapocalypse. The question at the center never changes: Does humanity really deserve a second chance?

Horizon Forbidden West

$45

Total War: Warhammer III (MacOS, Windows PC)

Photo: IGN/YouTube

Total War was once a franchise consumed with historical dogma. We wreaked havoc from Napoleon’s front lines to the Oda clan of feudal Japan, forever bound by the limits of planet Earth. But developer Creative Assembly pivoted to orcs, elves, and demons with 2016’s Total War: Warhammer, and six years later, we have received the conclusion of the trilogy. Like the previous games, Warhammer puts you at the helm of a marauding army eager to meet its rival force on the open field of battle. There is plenty of positional strategy to calculate, yet Total War is more about sitting back and enjoying the grand viscera when your cavalry executes a perfectly timed flank. Warhammer differs from its forebears with its emphasis on narrative. Creative Assembly is free of the analects here and has carte blanche to dream up gristly scenarios involving the many putrid creatures that populate the Warhammer canon. If you’ve always been curious about this grimdark universe but never felt the urge to paint those expensive pewter statues, Total War is a fantastic jumping-off point.

Total War: Warhammer III

$60

Sifu (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC)

Photo: PlayStation/YouTube

The beat-’em-up is dead. We aren’t getting a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game anytime soon, and you still need to drive to your local Six Flags if you want to drop quarters into the Simpsons arcade game. Sifu was born in that void, and it resurrects one of the most primal joys of video games: knocking out a bunch of dudes in a dive bar. Sifu has no plot other than a warmed-over collection of kung fu tropes, and its gameplay never deviates across a seven-hour running time. (Angry men want you dead. Show them no mercy with your fists.) But that doesn’t matter because meshing together a package of punches and kicks on some nameless heavy leaning on a pool table feels as good as it did in 1993. For those of us who love getting lost in an intuitive combat system, Sifu is close to heaven on earth.

Read Lewis Gordon’s review of Sifu.

Sifu

$40

OlliOlli World (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Photo: Nintendo/YouTube

We’re in the midst of a minor skateboarding-game renaissance, which is unsurprisingly peaking right alongside a wave of early-aughts Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater nostalgia. OlliOlli World doesn’t take much inspiration from those classics. Instead, it brings skateboarding to a two-dimensional plane where forward momentum is king. Each level puts you into a hellacious obstacle course bracketed by ramps, rails, and half-pipes; your core goal is to make it through the checkpoints in one piece. In practice, that means you’ll be blending wall rides and 5-0 grinds like clockwork, creating a rhythmic, almost parkourlike cadence with your repertoire of tricks. But what makes OlliOlli World uniquely memorable is its slacker-utopia aesthetic. Who wouldn’t want to live on a planet that can be navigated only by kickflips?

OlliOlli World

$30

Norco (MacOS, Windows PC)

Photo: Raw Fury/YouTube

Norco is a real place. It’s located just outside of New Orleans, hosts a population of around 3,000, and is dominated by a monolithic Shell oil refinery that both supplies and oppresses the town. The interpretation presented in Norco isn’t exactly true to life — Louisiana is not pockmarked by elegiac androids and swampy, revanchist death-cults — but for all of that pulp, Norco feels surprisingly rooted in the myriad tragedies of 2022. This is a point-and-click adventure that asks you to solve an enticing mystery but wants you to bathe in a uniquely American dystopia. You’ll feel the sorrow with every breath of that damp, sulfur-flecked air.

Read Lewis Gordon’s review of Norco.

Norco

$15

Ghostwire: Tokyo (PlayStation 5, Windows PC)

Photo: PlayStation/YouTube

Tango Gameworks first made its name with the pulpy, janky Evil Within series, but Ghostwire: Tokyo is the first time the developer has actually orbited greatness. It has left American suburbia behind in favor of an eldritch, rain-slicked Tokyo, haunted by every vengeful spirit in the Japanese legendarium. Ghostwire can be dragged down by its grind at times, but I’ve remained captivated by its silky first-person animation and vivid enemy design as well as the resonant hometown pride Tango takes in its capital city. This is a game in which you will banish demons before stopping into an ersatz 7-Eleven for some health-restoring mochi. It’s Japan in the midst of an apocalypse, presented as honestly as possible.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

$41

Weird West (PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One)

Photo: IGN/YouTube

Weird West comes from WolfEye Studio, a development team staffed with Arkane (Dishonored, Deathloop) veterans, and to nobody’s surprise, it has brought one of its trademark, eternally cursed realms to the American frontier. Bounty hunters, cultists, and the chittering undead are afoot as you wrest control of several misbegotten characters out for revenge. This is a top-down, tactical shoot-out in which the playing field is wide open. Nothing is taken for granted. See that chimney on the roof of the bank you’re trying to rob? Find a way up there, and you might discover you can shinny down the hatch to avoid a deadly firefight. WolfEye believes that gamers should be allowed to touch the worlds they explore, and Weird West is the ideal proof-of-concept for that philosophy.

Weird West

$40

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Photo: Warner Bros. Games/YouTube

Traveller’s Tales has happily adapted its Lego games into every IP willing to host it. It has made landfall in Harry Potter, Marvel, DC, and the Tolkien legendarium, but Star Wars was always its first — and best — home. The Skywalker Saga is the studio’s chance to be truly definitive in its relentless documentation of pop media, and quite frankly, no other game bearing the Rebel crest has ever crammed this much Star Wars into its source code. There are six different playable versions of Lando Calrissian. You can take control of Malakili, the guy who owns the Rancor monster in Jabba’s palace. On Tatooine, there is a reference to a “ghost droid” that exclusively appeared in a popular piece of non-canon fanfiction. Traveller’s Tales left no stone unturned, and the result is a living encyclopedia of both the glorious heights and abyssal lows of Star Wars. Yes, you will play through all of Attack of the Clones, and you will like it. 

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

$30

Dune: Spice Wars (Windows PC)

Photo: Funcom/YouTube

It’s incredible that Dune, a franchise that has laid in total dormancy for decades, has suddenly stirred from its licensing slumber thanks to the all-powerful Timothée Chalamet bump. We are suddenly inundated by Dune movies, Dune board games, Dune comic books — and someone at Warner Bros. had the good sense to hand the universe over to Shrio Games for a Dune-themed RTS. Shrio’s previous project, Northgard, borrowed liberally from Age of Empires as it allowed players to marshal Viking bands through the verdant wilderness of the arctic rim. The warring factions of Arrakis are translated beautifully into Spice Wars’ design philosophy; House Atreides and House Harkonnen clash in the wasteland, and players race to consolidate every dash of melange and spritz of water they can get their hands on to keep the war machine afloat. Of course, Sandworms are a constant threat and answer to no master. There’s always a chance that one of your battalions will be swallowed whole, sending your game plan back to square one. It’s brutal, ornery, unfair, and quintessentially Dune. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dune: Spice Wars

$30

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe(MacOS, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Photo: Crows Crows Crows/YouTube

2013’s The Stanley Parable was a masterclass in postmodern game design. You awake in an abandoned cubicle, haunted by a kindly, omnipresent narrator who annotates your various feeble adventures within the white-out drudgery of corporate life. The goal is to, effectively, break the game, and subvert the one-way conveyor belt that comprises the average linear, single-player campaign. Ultra Deluxe is the first time The Stanley Parable has come to consoles, and it adds enough new content to effectively double the initial offering. As always, expect the narrative to be bitingly self-referential and extraordinarily mordant — especially now that it has a chance to be in constant conversation with the original. How do you create a sequel to a game that was already so prickly to the touch? The Stanley Parable doesn’t know either, and it’s incredible to watch it try.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

$25

Rogue Legacy 2 (Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Photo: CellarDoorGames/YouTube

You could make the argument that the first Rogue Legacy, released in 2013, is responsible for the roguelike boom we’re currently living through. The game brought Machiavellian concepts like permadeath and no save points from the dankest niches of PC gaming to the front page of the Steam charts. Rogue Legacy 2 enters a gaming ecosystem where countless other developers have iterated upon its original doctrines, and the series graciously integrates many of those modernizations. Rogue Legacy 2 now has a wide array of unique classes, a la Hades, and a strong emphasis on environmental diversity, like Minecraft or Dead Cells. Best of all, the game holds onto the core gimmick that initially made me fall in love with the series. After a character dies, you wrest control of one of their direct descendants, who is beset with all sorts of congenital boons or curses. (You might have quick-feet, but you suffer from colorblindness.) It’s like a paperback fantasy serial stretched out to its tropiest extremes; just an endless series of sons and daughters avenging mothers and fathers. At last, the return of the king.

Rogue Legacy 2

$25

Evil Dead: The Game (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Photo: IGN/YouTube

The euphorically schlocky Evil Dead franchise always deserved a loving video game adaptation, and as you’re running around a haunted forest, boomstick in tow, defending the Necronomicon from ghastly interdimensional invaders, you’ll honestly start to wonder why it took so long for Evil Dead: The Game to exist. Saber Interactive distills all the gory thrills of the films into a tight, highly asymmetrical multiplayer experience. Four players take control of various Necronomicon-brandishing heroes, (Ash Williams, Henry The Red, and so on,) while a fifth commands a literal Army of Darkness. It’s a blast to survive by the skin of your teeth, but I have more fun taking the reins of a cruel dungeon master. You summon chittering demons from the gates of hell, who maraud around the map claiming the souls of your victims one by one. At certain junctures, you can even possess one of the heroes, turning their weapons against the team. The first Evil Dead movie was a miraculous sleeper hit; nearly four decades later, the video game surprised me in the exact same way.

Evil Dead: The Game

$20

Eternal Threads (Windows PC)

Photo: Secret Mode/YouTube

You’re a time-traveling detective standing in the ruins of a burnt-out boarding house. Six people died in the flames, and the goal is to survey the dimensional feedback that led up to this tragedy and edit a few choices made by the residents in order to forge a timeline where they get out alive. Most of the gameplay in Eternal Threads is spent scrolling through a week’s worth of arguments, secrets, seductions, and heart-to-hearts, and watching those conversations play out on screen as you uncover two mysteries at once. How did this house burn down? And what, exactly, are all these people hiding? The premise hooked me immediately, if only because Eternal Threads allows us to indulge in a fantastic bit of kindness. Wouldn’t it be great to go back in time and finetune our decisions?

Eternal Threads

$30

Diablo Immortal (Android, iOS, Windows PC)

Photo: Diablo/YouTube

Diablo Immortal was guaranteed to be controversial as soon as it was announced. This is one of the most esteemed PC franchises of all time pivoting to a mobile-first, microtransaction-heavy model — at a moment where the corporate image of Blizzard is in total freefall. Many of those concerns remain valid, but nothing can change the fact that Immortal feels shockingly intuitive on an iPhone. The demon hunter’s crossbow bolts stream across the screen with the flick of the index finger; wizards call forth arcane storms with a fidelity that almost rivals a mouse and keyboard. The game packs a full dungeoneering motif. You can party up with friends and delve into accursed catacombs — just like you did in 1999 — and allow the loot-lust to take over your life. Diablo Immortal will not save Blizzard’s reputation, but it is pretty cool to explore Sanctuary on the train.

Diablo Immortal

Card Shark (MacOS, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC)

Photo: DevolverDigital/YouTube

We’re in the middle of a digital card game boom, and the best ones on the market — Hearthstone, Slay The Spire, Legends of Runeterra — all essentially ape the formula established by Magic The Gathering in 1993. There’s a lot of math, a lot of keywords, and a lot of tempo swings back and forth before someone with a superior deck, or a superior brain, sends you back to the matchmaking queue. Nerial’s Card Shark, on the other hand, evokes an entirely different philosophy. You’re a 17th-century peasant on a quest to cheat the gentry out of their unearned shillings, and you’ll accomplish that with the ancient art of sleight of hand. Thumb through the deck, feel for the aces, and cut them to the top of the deck. Pour a glass of wine to get a quick peek at whatever your adversary is holding. Screw up, and it’s straight to jail. Card Shark understands that the best part of poker is manipulating the other people at the table, rather than staring down at whatever you happen to be holding. Let’s hope Nerial gets the Rounders license next.

Card Shark

$20

The Quarry (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X)

Photo: 2k/YouTube

Supermassive Games made its bones with 2015’s Until Dawn — a gristly slasher-flick pastiche in which you escort a cadre of idiot 20-somethings to their untimely deaths. The Quarry is essentially the game’s spiritual successor. This time, we’re in charge of a group of teenagers attempting to survive the night at a moonlit summer camp, and to nobody’s surprise, the action goes off the rails quickly. The Quarry unfolds like an interactive drama. You dictate the choices of characters over a series of daisy-chained cutscenes and watch as they inevitably meet some sort of terrible, midnight-movie end. It’s cheesy, hematic, and graciously unpretentious. Some horror games want to clue the audience in on its big ideas about the cosmic fallacies of morality, and some just want to toss your body on a meathook. Both are vital in their own way, but in the sublime early days of summer, The Quarry hits the perfect tone.

The Quarry

$29

DNF Duel  (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC)

Photo: DNFDuel/YouTube

Arc System Works has built a legacy on some of the most visually stunning fighting games of all time. Five years ago it released a beefy, bruising tribute to the Toriyama estate in the form of Dragon Ball FighterZ, and now it’s back with a take on a media franchise that has gone almost entirely unplayed in the west. Dungeon & Fighter is a massively popular RPG in South Korea, and Arc System Works has been tasked with injecting the series into a throwback, Street Fighter facsimile. But you won’t need to fret about the canonical touchstones you’re missing, because it’s incredible to watch DNF Duel in motion. Beams of crackling neon energy pour out of the combatants; bang out a super move, and you’ll be interrupted with a brief anime cutaway — some celestial fighter taking to the air and raining hellfire from above in a stunning coup de grace. DNF Duel pares down its control scheme to the most basic inputs; nobody is expected to master any esoteric joystick motions. That means this is an Arc System Works product that is genuinely approachable to newcomers, which is a reform that the fighting-game genre has needed for a very long time.

DNF Duel

$25

Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows PC)

Photo: Nintendo/YouTube

Cuphead languished in development for ages, because like the Merrie Melodies classics it was aping, it takes a long time to knit together zillions of hand-drawn animation cels — particularly when they’re stretched across a ten-hour video game. So I don’t think anyone was surprised to see Cuphead’sfirst expansion arrive a good five years after the original made landfall. Studio MDHR has used the opportunity to deliver more of what made its debut indelible: a marathon of brutally hard boss fights, rendered with the lustrous fidelity of Disney’s infamous cartooning sweatshops of the 1940s. The Delicious Last Course is accessible from the beginning of a new save file, so if you’re returning from a long absence, you won’t need to fear any of the game’s ridiculous trials to get to the fresh stuff.

Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course

$8

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga (Windows PC)

Photo: IGN/YouTube

Some of the best indie games on the market are made by designers who are singularly obsessed with a bygone franchise. For Symphony of War, the touchstone is the early turn-based Fire Emblem RPGs on the Super Nintendo. You are given a flat, top-down map — populated by manicured sprites and tastefully beautified 16-bit terrain — and you are constantly campaigning against the rival kingdoms jostling for power. The new wrinkle introduced by studio Dancing Dragon Games is a de-emphasis on individual units. You will not be deploying an outrageously potent collection of individual anime heroes who can destroy an entire battalion with one swing of their sword. Instead, you’ll be outfitting a raiding party of squads composed of a wide variety of units who are greater than the sum of their parts. This gives the player a much higher degree of creativity as they shape their warforce. Maybe you dedicate one squad to be a training operation for soldiers who show potential for upper management? Maybe you devise a perfect blend of strengths that can absolutely decimate the munitions favored by your rival? It’s a brilliant idea — let’s hope Symphony of War sinks into the DNA of the genre.

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga

$20

Raft (Windows PC)

Photo: Axolotgames/YouTube

Survival games have experimented with so many different wild permutations over the last ten years, but I appreciate the simplicity of Raft. You are, as the name implies, marooned on a small bundle of wooden planks and floating in a massive ocean pockmarked by the occasional tiny island. You scour the sea for debris that can be used as crafting material, and before long, you will have transformed your humble seastead into an indomitable water fortress. Like most other survival games, you’ll be growing crops, raising livestock, and staving off the sharks who are always prowling a few inches off board. There is real euphoria in wrestling a massive base of operations out of a video-game map, and Raft captures that glory beautifully.

Raft

$20

As Dusk Falls (Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PC)

Photo: Xbox/YouTube

As Dusk Falls was expressly designed for people who don’t play a lot of video games. Instead, it’s more like a highly interactive comic book. You watch as tragedy unfolds in the small desert town of Two Rock, Arizona, and interject at certain flex points in the narrative — like a choose-your-own-adventure novel — as the wayward souls of this world tumble toward their fate. As Dusk Falls is clearly aiming for the western-ish family drama of Breaking Bad or Yellowstone, but the feature that’s received the most acclaim is its cooperative mode. You — and seven other friends — can watch the story and vote on the moral decisions that come up, which reveals the inner Machiavelli in the room. Can you believe mom voted toshoot the crook robbing the convenience store? To the surprise of everyone, As Dusk Falls is the party game of the summer.

As Dusk Falls

$30

Live a Live (Nintendo Switch)

Photo: Nintendo/YouTube

Live a Live is one of the great lost role-playing games of the early ’90s. Square Enix released it exclusively in Japan and never translated or localized it for western markets. It grew in renown among collectors because of its fascinating premise: The player would navigate through eight vignettes told in different time periods and genre pastiche — a sci-fi tale, a shinobi story, a caveman saga, and so on. Thankfully, Square has amended the record with this gorgeous remake, finally available in English. The muted graphics of the original have been revamped with a resonant blend of 2-D and 3-D, which pleats these landscapes deep into your screen. The combat has retained its grid-based tactical intrigue, which is just as relevant in 2022 as it was in 1994. After the long wait, it’s a blessing to have Live a Live in our hands. Now if only Nintendo could release the other RPG classics that never made it over to America.

Live A Live

$50

Bear and Breakfast (Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch)

Photo: Armor Games Studios

Video games have pushed us on adventures to save the world, rescue princesses, and avenge our fathers, but in Bear and Breakfast, we just want to make sure that our humble woodland hotel is running smoothly. You play as a bear named Hank, and it’s your job to renovate abandoned log cabins to host our human guests and take their hard-earned cash. Bear and Breakfast is designed within the lineage of Stardew Valley and My Time at Portia; coziness is the prime directive, and this is a game to cuddle up with as the leaves change. When you tire of high stakes and white-knuckle tension, Bear and Breakfast lets you amble down a murmuring brook, picking up sticks with hopes of fashioning a nice kitchen.

Bear and Breakfast 

$20

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Nintendo Switch)

Photo: Nintendo

You can make the argument that Xenoblade Chronicles has taken on the mantle of the most popular Japanese RPG franchise in the West. The series packs a ridiculous expanse of psychedelic lore — you mean to tell me this planet we’re on is actually a gigantic celestial tortoise? — and the latest game is easily the most ambitious entry yet. The vistas in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 are Breath of the Wild–size in scope, and Monolith Software has slimmed down both the onerous filler of the side quests and the chronic grind of the combat. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is still very much beholden to a whole host of anime tropes, but if you’re a newcomer to the genre, there’s a pretty good chance it wins you over. Few games on the market share the same full-throated commitment to its fiction; Monolith is ready and waiting to overwhelm you into submission.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

$60

Two Point Campus (Linux, MacOS, Microsoft PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)

Photo: Two Point Studios

Two Point Studios has made a name for itself by churning out sprightly, low-stakes simulation games that bring to mind library-PC classics like RollerCoaster Tycoon andSimCity. Two Point Campus puts you in charge of the worst university on the planet at which you drum up a series of questionable programs for your bemused student body. (Do they want to major in virtual reality? Or perhaps the art of spying?) You’ll hover above the action, plopping down new classrooms, dormitories, and lounges across the grounds. The faint hint of an economy rumbles in the background, but like the best simulators,��Two Point Campus shines when it allows us to take something small and make it big, without bumping up against any monetary guardrails. Were you the type of child who played The Sims with all the cheats turned on? Two Point Campus has your back.

Two Point Campus

$25

Cult of the Lamb (MacOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)

Photo: Devolver Digital

Animal Crossing is one of the most popular game franchises of all time, so it’s honestly kind of surprising that its DNA hasn’t made its way into other studios. Thankfully, Cult of the Lamb is here to imagine an interpretation of the formula in which your island of misfit anthropomorphs is enthralled by the darkness of Cthulhu. You play as a lamb who has been given the task to unchain an ancient eldritch deity, and you do that by running through a series of procedurally randomized dungeons, which gives you the materials necessary to flesh out your home base and access to a steady flow of new members who happily drink the Kool-Aid. The developer, Massive Monster, has rustled up a delightfully jejune world of peaceful critters; it is your job to corrupt them intoenthralled scions of the cause. We knew thatTom Nook shouldn’t be trusted.

Cult of the Lamb 

$25

Rollerdrome (Microsoft PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5)

Photo: Private Division

The London-based studio Roll7 is best known for its peppy skateboarding series, OlliOlli, but in Rollerdrome, it has pivoted to a far more dangerous sport. You play as a man in a tracksuit, on a pair of Rollerblades, brandishing a whole arsenal of firearms. He is here to grind rails, backflip off half-pipes, and pump lead into an army of robots that has set up shop in the skate park. It’s a hilariously dystopian premise, but Rollerdrome sticks the landing with airtight controls; the game evokes some vintage Max Payne bullet time as you ricochet from kill to kill. Roll7 drapes the whole package in a delectable cel-shaded veneer like an unearthed ’80s anime resting on a forgotten laser disc. You won’t forget it anytime soon.

Rollerdrome

$30

 Isonzo (Linux, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S)

Photo: BlackMill Games

Blackmill Games has dedicated itself to digitizing each of the cataclysmic fronts of World War I, and in Isonzo, it turns its attention to southern Europe along the granite caps of the Dolomites. This is a taut, multiplayer-only first-person shooter — players march under the banner of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Kingdom of Italy — where battles are won and lost with single-shot rifles and pugilistic trench beatdowns. But unlike some of the steelier military sims on the market, Isonzo is wondrously pulpy and surprisingly approachable. A swig of a canteen probably didn’t do much for the battalions of 1916, but in Blackmill’s world, it can give you a useful stamina boost. It’s playing fast and loose with history; I doubt the actual conscripts of the struggle could equip a perk to reduce their weapon sway. It’s all the World War I pomp and circumstance filtered through the prism of Call of Duty. No trench foot. Only headshots.

 Isonzo

$30

Metal Hellsinger (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox Cloud Gaming)

Photo: Funcom

Rhythm games have been reduced to plastic guitars and limp dance routines for far too long. Thank God Metal Hellsinger breaks the mold. Here is a first-person shooter forged in the Doom tradition (a demon invasion, one fire-and-brimstone supersoldier to wipe them out), except that the combat is all syncopated to an overflowing playlist of big-budget groove metal. (Lamb of God, System of a Down, and so on.) When Metal Hellsingerhits its mark, it achieves a rarefied sort of euphoria — every sword slash or shotgun slug does extra damage when unleashed in time with the bass drum, as if you’re moshing with mouse clicks. Metal Hellsinger might not have the staying power of more mechanically rich shooters, but like the best thrash records, the decibels are more important than the resonance.

Metal Hellsinger

$30

Return to Monkey Island (macOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch)

Photo: Devolver Digital

It is good to see Ron Gilbert winning. The design legend’s indomitable run of adventure games in the early ’90s — Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, and of course, The Secret of Monkey Island — possessed lyrical dialogue, brilliantly moody art direction, and the sort of swashbuckling adventurous spirit that was genuinely Pixar-worthy if he was working in movies. Still, the idea of Gilbert coming home to his most beloved work, decades later, had a slight air of bitter nostalgia. Could he really find the magic again? Reader, he hasn’t lost a step. Return to Monkey Island is the sixth game in the series, and if you’ve never taken the journey before, expect a point-and-click journey through an eccentric, cockeyed interpretation of the age of piracy — the Caribbean bustling with used car salesmen, discount voodoo shops, and a handful of puzzles that are always tough, but never unfair. The star of the show, as always, is Guybrush Threepwood: a cheery, quippy, wannabe pirate at the heart of the fiction, who has a Frodo-like propensity to stumble into ancient cults and eldritch blood rituals. We’re happy he’s back. The video game industry is better off when Ron Gilbert is at the peak of his powers.

Return To Monkey Island

$25

Grounded (Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S)

Photo: Obsidian Entertainment

Survival games love to throw players into brutal conditions. I’ve been marooned along the frozen reaches of the Canadian arctic in The Long Dark and guarded a homestead from marauding greylings in Valheim, but Grounded shifts the setting to a much more familiar environment. We are a collection of grade-school ne’er-do-wells who’ve been shrunken down to ant dimensions by some sort of accidental sci-fi mishap. Now, either alone or in a group, you must forage for food and spindle together a shelter in the most challenging of all climates; the average suburban backyard. Like most survival games, Grounded has you scrounging together whatever resources you can find in order to forge them into munitions, infrastructure, and rations — but instead of toppling ancient oak trees and fending off flesh-eating zombies, you’ll be working with some incredibly meager, cul-de-sac supplies. (Blades of grass, grains of sand, maybe a shred of lint, if you’re lucky.) It all gives Grounded a delightful, Nickelodeon-ish verve; as if you and your friends are role-playing your own made-for-TV movie.

Grounded

$40

Scorn (Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X/S)

Scorn is ugly by nature. The first-person shooter celebrates the gross, gothic single-player dirges of the ’90s — like Doom or Heretic. You play a nameless, faceless husk trapped in an unforgiving wasteland with a vague objective to figure out what went so wrong on this long-abandoned planet. The upstart Serbian studio Ebb Software nails its one-of-a-kind art design. An ominous purple mist chokes the rotting desert that sprawls out between blackened industrial plants, and the corridors inside are knotted with sinewy, pulsating organic matter. You’ll have plenty of puzzles to solve and interdimensional horrors to dispatch inside the mazes, but Scorn is to be experienced for its vibes before anything else.

Scorn 

$40

A Plague Tale: Requiem(PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Cloud Gaming)

It’s always a joy to see a studio stumble into a surprise hit and suddenly be blessed with the resources to truly nail its vision in the sequel. A Plague Tale: Innocence arrived in 2019 with a clever — if occasionally janky — set of stealth-action puzzles and a delightfully downcast Middle Ages veneer. (You frequently would be asked to avoid a horde of diseased rats. It was pretty gnarly.) Requiem gives that premise far more oxygen with larger levels, a more devious arsenal, and a genuinely startling graphical advance — medieval France has never looked better. But best of all is the storytelling, which somehow manages to ground this gothic nightmare in the human beings who need to survive it — one swarm of vermin at a time.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

$50

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope(Nintendo Switch)

Nintendo rarely lets other video-game companies play with its toys, so it was pretty surprising when the Switch was unveiled in 2017 with … a Ubisoft-developed Mario game? In which the denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom engaged in tactical, turn-based strategy with the mediocre Rabbids franchise? It was even more shocking that Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle turned out to be good, and this year’s sequel is even better. Sparks of Hope is the best tactics game of 2022. The synergies and combos you can find on these war fronts rival your best XCOM turns. You can bounce one of the members of your squadron off of another dormant character, putting them in perfect flanking position. You can unlock floating sidekicks who grant a whole new slate of abilities. You can build out a Luigi like he’s a League of Legendschampion. Sparks of Hope is a roaring success. Just like everyone imagined, right?

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope

$40

Bayonetta 3 (Nintendo Switch)

Bayonetta is an eight-foot-tall librarian, with two pistols and a sword, whose entire body is sheathed in a coil of black, leatherlike hair. As you orchestrate combos, that hair unspools and morphs into nightmarish beasts that bolster your damage output. The premise is so ridiculous and politically fraught that it seemed unlikely the character’s namesake series would ever catch on among a discerning video-game audience, and yet people were absolutely parched for more Bayonetta after its eight-year hiatus. Bayonetta 3 keeps the series’ scintillating, whip-smart combat system, but PlatinumGames mixes in a number of interesting wrinkles for franchise veterans. For instance, Bayonetta can now summon a litany of demons to fight by her side like an Amazonian Pokémon trainer. There’s a new playable character in the mix, Viola, a punk-rock witch who’s equipped with a samurai sword that can transform into a gigantic, carnivorous cat named Chesire. It’s all proudly over the top, which is to say that Bayonetta hasn’t lost a step.

Bayonetta 3

$59

Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the December 19, 2022, issue of New York Magazine.

[olivereactsaboutgarbage]

One Piece - Volume 32

As you may have noticed, my consistent-posts-throughout-all-of-December have been called off. My friends have told me that I should take as long as I need to get back to posting, and that's a great idea.

I have a funnier idea:

I'm gonna see if I can post normally on December 24th and 25th, then go back to not-posting on December 26th. Will I manage it? Hmm... I wonder...

Chapter 296 - Ultimate Sky Situation

Zoro obeys Lufpy just in time to die, but he wasn't obedient enough, because gravity doesn't work.

It's fine though, because the vore snake is still relevant after all, because it had friends. Hmm... an animal that had friends... where have I heard that before... well, it didn't have friends enough, because gravity doesn't work.

It's fine though, because Usopp decides to also obey Lufpy, by disobeying Wiper. Nico Robin explains to Wiper that this is morally correct. Except Usopp wasn't disobedient enough, because gravity doesn't work. I thought better of you, Usopp.

It's fine though, because Wiper had a recording of gravity working.

Danganronpa really IS a One Piece ripoff! In case that wasn't already thoroughly established.

The foolish Dumbledore expy isn't a Danganronpa fan.

Chapter 297 - Praise of the Earth

Hmm... very on-the-nose.

Wiper says that no matter how much destruction happens, his people's history simply cannot be erased. Epic

The foolish Dumbledore expy realizes that Lufpy and Nami are members of all life on earth, and are therefore susceptible to his all life on earth ball, so he decides to go ahead and use it.

Lufpy counters with the very same special fetish move the foolish Dumbledore expy gave him: Sexy human testicle.

:) Themes Themes Themes

Next, something even more blatant happens. But I already smiled once just now, so I've hit my smiling quota and can't say anything about it.

Chapter 298 - Love Song

Now that he no longer has access to all life on earth, the foolish Dumbledore expy tries a new strategy: Becoming even less effective against Lufpy! This'll definitely work!

It DOES work! You see, becoming less effective was a distraction from the fact that he could use stabbing as an attack.

Lufpy decides to not give up. In fact, Lufpy does the thing: He rings the bell. I, uh, don't think I mentioned previously in these posts that that was what he was trying to do, but it was.

Chapter 299 - Fantasia

Everyone is happy that this happened. Well, Tony Tony Chopper is missing crucial context, and last chapter Sanji was complaining, but it's fine.

Whoops, I accidentally summarized the entire chapter. I could say something like "To be clear, 'everyone' includes:" and list various individuals, but like

Oh, I spoke too soon: Exposition reveals that the giant silhouettes were the shadows of regular-sized people. In case anyone was still wondering about that. I certainly wasn't after a multi-day break! Thanks for reminding me!

Oh man, the Hanukkah-themed JoJo character... when he was like "I must find a way out of this!!!" and then Tony Tony Chopper just went ahead and moved on with his life, that was actually just his (Hanukkah's) last moments of relevance weren't they? Comedy gold?

I ask because the foolish Dumbledore expy is also drowning, now.

Chapter 300 - Symphony

Oh man, yeah, the stakes have raised so much, even specifically for Asia, from the days when Wiper not letting Asia have some dirt mattered at all in the grand scheme of things.

Tony Tony Chopper is still missing crucial context and Sanji is still complaining. At least Zoro is around, to Get It.

Everyone discusses what souvenirs they want. Some people want recording device souvenirs. Other people want souvenirs that don't exist.

Sanji has a new sexual orientation. He no longer lusts after women. He now lusts after big sacks. Finally, some representation, for um, that, sexual orientation!

Everyone is sad that Papaya is dead, especially Papaya! Everyone is mad that Papaya is alive, making Papaya even more sad! Sucks to be him!

Oh, the foolish Dumbledore expy's four friends actually have four corpses. All's well that ends well. As for the foolish Dumbledore expy himself, well... he's an astronaut. Wow, One Piece was truly ahead of its time. People with god complexes really DO sit upon unfathomable amounts of money and then go to space! Oda knew!!!

Also, there's more fire. This is a clever callback to earlier on, where there was fire!

Chapter 301 - I Hereby Guide...

Lufpy has a get-rich-quick scheme.

IT INVOLVES STEALTH!!!

Usopp gives people garbage in exchange for recording devices. Now, recording devices can be a major aspect of the series! However, garbage can't be. This will ruin the Space Junk Galaxy ecosystem! Everything good comes at a cost...

Lufpy's get-rich-quick scheme was vore, naturally. What other kind of get-rich-quick scheme would Lufpy have?

Nico Robin impresses everyone with her Indiana Jones powers.

What a good sequence of panels. I loven't weaponry! What a relatable character! That must be why people love Nico Robin: she's relatable!

Also, the king of pirates was also there. The One Piece guy. No not Lufpy. The One Piece guy.

Nico Robin is taking the Bible to the end of Space Junk Galaxy. That's her mission. Everyone is very happy about that. Wait, did I call it the Bible before? I need a refresher. Maybe between the 26th and my earnest return I'll spend time on a refresher for myself.

Oh, right, having the middle name "the" is actually very significant. And in the One Piece guy's case, his name as it is commonly known is actually a mispronunciation of Goal the Roper.

Everyone takes a page out of Nami's book even though only one of them is Nami, and they all busy themselves entirely too much with stealing money to have any time in their schedules for receiving money legally as payment for a service. Nico Robin likes this!

Chapter 302 - Finale

Asia gets a haircut.

The knight god gets to be a government guy again. He reminds everyone what his favorite vegetable is, in case they forgot. Hee hee hee... however, try as you might to discern the identity of his favorite vegetable via my posts, you NEVER will! You'll NEVER learn it!!!

Lufpy and his friends leave using a hot air balloon. Zoro thinks the hot air balloon is his enemy from back before they even went into the Space Junk Galaxy, but Zoro was just confused.

Chapter 303 - The Wealthy Pirate Gang

The DK Crew will continue to fight... in the name... of, um, bananas? I don't know. I don't know what they're fighting for.

One of the seven strong guys is terrorizing those people Lufpy disliked ages ago.

LMAO???

The implication that Zoro spent that entire arc telling himself "Okay, so this is what the afterlife'll be, huh? This particular physical location? I can't wait!" is already hilarious enough, but Usopp's objection to this sentiment being "No, dude, you're destined for eternal torment" adds something as well.

So... Lufpy can never go to the sky EVER again, right? Narratively speaking, I mean. Like... as far as Sky Arcs go, One Piece can't top this, right? I could picture there being a better food arc, a better fish arc, a better snow arc, a better desert arc... but a better sky arc? I dunno, man. I don't think it can be done.

No one bothers to deliver the punchline to Tony Tony Chopper's "where's a doctor when you need one?!" bit, so he has to do it himself. Is that character development? I can't tell.

Nami gets to be a jetski character for the rest of time now, huh? Kind of like... uh, I have no idea how pertinent it is to Dragon Ball itself, and if I ever did I've long since forgotten, but kind of like that one Dragon Ball opening, right?

Nami says "It's time to do some accounting work! It's not time to do some accounting work!"

Lufpy says the next arc should be about recruiting TWO characters to make up for the fact that this one wasn't about recruiting any. They should be an Usopp Replacement and a musician. No one agrees. They don't like Usopp, but they don't like music either.

Bicycle cops are revealed to be the strongest kind of cop.

Chapter 304 - Long Island Adventure

The Depression Pirates are approaching. Their boat has a frog face. Well, so much for them.

Nico Robin doesn't have much to say about the transition to a new arc. Lufpy wants her to be more interesting.

Everyone decides to "boy who cried wolf" Usopp. "Depression definitely isn't real," they say. I'm sure he'll forgive them. He's used to being boy who cried wolfed, after all.

OH...! IS THIS WHOLE ARC GOING TO BE THE DEFORESTATION ARC?! GIVEN THE IMPORTANCE OF DEFORESTATION, THAT'S A LEGENDARY EVENT!

Maybe not, maybe this isn't the arc

This is the homeland of Endermen from Minecraft, that's not arc material

Also, there's a normal guy. And now a ship wearing a fursuit REALLY wants this to be an arc. They're preventing it from lasting a shorter amount of time than one single chapter.

Chapter 305 - Foxy the Silver Fox

Relatable

This is a good manga.

This random socially awkward guy from the homeland of Endermen is a laugh riot. He will most likely die.

See? It's canon. Um, not the part about him dying. The other part.

Literally any method of encoding secret messages would work for espionage if it was up against the crew of the Merry Go. Pig latin would work.

...Wait, that's not true, Nico Robin is there. Welp, better get rid of her.

OH, AN ANIMAL THAT HAD A FRIEND AND SPENT A LONG TIME WAITING, HUH?! IN ONE PIECE?! MAJOR PLOT TWIST!!!

"Saddest episode of Futurama"? More like "any chapter of One Piece"

Anyway, some horse hunters come to make this chapter of One Piece less sad. However, they do it backwards. It's fine though, because Tony Tony Chopper does it frontwards.

The horse hunters challenge Lufpy to a game. Lufpy says "Punching? Okay" but what's actually happening is that it's the Depression Game.

[first-personshooters]

Top Fps Multiplayer Games 2022

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction

One of the main elements of the entire extraction experience is studying objectives. Maps contain unique objectives called studies that players can choose to finish or ignore. Maps has approximately 27 primary study objectives divided into three categories. They initially function as background training, tasking you with doing basic tasks like hitting enemies with a ping or obtaining weak points, but they grow to offer a far greater degree of difficulty and add an element of excitement and tension to every mission. On our last run, we were required to save my favorite operator from the threat of aliens; however, it was hidden behind the third stage of the mission. It can be an extremely difficult task, especially if there are only two or three players. We managed to complete the first two objectives, but endless ambushes from enemies and unsuccessful stealth strategies caused us to be in a somewhat tense situation. I had minimal health and was lacking ammo, so the obvious choice was to extract, but at the same time, I was also faced with a study mission that required me to take from the third area of the mission. The primary idea behind Extract is a risk-reward system, and this simple set of background objectives just pushes that tension to new heights.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Extraction is one of the most intense and exciting co-op games currently available. It's an amazing new addition to the Siege universe and one that is a stand-alone illustration of the power of innovation within a genre that is largely stagnant. Before I begin this review of Rainbow Six: Extraction I'll admit that I have some basic knowledge regarding Rainbow Six: Siege. I played it when it first came out many years ago; however, I only watched two seasons of The Walking Dead and couldn't provide much information about the state of play. Well, besides the internet being pretty negative about it, it's also a coincidence that it's It's not because of a lack of effort; it's been pretty siege-free for the past six years. I've attempted to enter the fray on many occasions and was disappointed when I found the "community" isn't as welcoming to newcomers as the Korean Demilitarized Zone. This is especially disappointing given that Siege is a real game that checks all of my boxes. Violent, tactical, teamwork-oriented gameplay is my thing. Let's put it this way: I'd rather join the team than drop into anyone's battle royale map.

This left me scratching my head in a few ways at the idea of reviewing Rainbow Six: Extraction. It's a riff with confidence from the Siege playbook, and I was thinking that you'd need at the very least some previous knowledge of the franchise to understand it. Happily, you don't. It's also not your typical Ubisoft fare, at least not at the time of our review. If you're expecting another muddled whale farm to get money from fools, you could be delighted. It's been a while since they've launched something other than a variation of the by-now-patented Ubisoft Sandbox. There's no laundry list of tiny icons to gray out spread across exhaustingly vast playing areas. Extraction draws a lot from Siege and features an array of meticulously designed, compact maps, brought to life with an impressive array of mission objectives, operators, and enemies. The plot isn't very significant in the grand scheme of things, but it is a great method of combining Siege's universe with this one. As a result, an unknown parasite infiltrated Earth, destroying cities and bringing civilization to its knees. These alien creatures, the Archaeans (or Archies, for short), appear in a variety of forms from pupating egg-like nests and kill whatever they see. To counter this, a tiny selection of Siege's tactical combat specialists have been put together to make up REACT. The group is led by Mira, Elena, and Thermite; it comprises a small group that is likely to grow over time, depending on the success of Extraction.

I say "small," but there are 18 operators in all—nine at first and nine to unlock—and they offer a wide range of weapons and skills to carry into the incursions with them. Each incursion is split into three distinct missions, separated by sealed airlock doors. You can take off at any time by stepping onto the helipad and calling in the chopper, but the more objectives you complete, the more XP you bank. There are more than twelve different mission types in Extraction, spread across a variety of maps in different geographical locations. The mission line-up is randomized each time, so it's impossible to know exactly what you're going to get. The missions range from Biopsy, which entrusts you with stealthily killing a particular enemy, to missions like Rescue, which require you to locate an NPC and then take them to the Extraction Point.

Each mission is limited to 15 minutes, and when time is up, you'll lose your trip. If this happens, or if your operator goes down for any reason, one of the objectives of the next incursion will be an extraction. The operator is covered by yellow foam that protects them; however, they'll require saving before the Archaeans can take them into one of their arch-trees. You'll need to locate the foam and then free them so they can be used again. It is critical to remember that not only the rescued operator, but any operator who sustains a significant injury during a mission, will be disabled for a short period. Their health will be restored gradually, based on the amount of XP you manage to the bank in subsequent incursions using different operators. Each character has their weapons to unlock, their stats and skills to improve, as well as abilities to acquire. Only cosmetics are universal, and, so far, there's plenty to unlock in-game before you ever reach the storefront. Rainbow Six: Extraction is an extremely tactical and extremely strategic game. This game demands constant communication and absolute concentration, even at the lowest difficulty setting. Your operators can't tank more than a couple of attacks, even from the most Grunt enemies. If one of you falls and isn't able to be revived, someone is likely to be required to carry them out of the incursion or let them go and call for the extraction. As a consequence, every action you take is important. If you miss an opponent, somebody gets hurt. That's on you. If you choose the wrong gear in the field, do you find yourself completely useless? It's your fault again. Each operator has something of value to bring, but different types of incursions require distinct skills. Alibi's Decoy might be great to keep enemies entertained throughout sabotage missions, but when you're trying to lure an enraged Elite back to the Extraction Point, then Finka's Adrenaline Rush is essential.

Resident Evil Village

Is Resident Evil Village supposed to be a Resident Evil game? It does. While the plot and setting explore some areas you would never expect, it provides a ton of fan service for long-time franchise fans. A number of my favorite Easter eggs tend to be the guides that were published in the Winters' home at the very beginning. One book was developed by Joseph Kendo, and another was authored by George Spencer. These names will prick the nerves that are in every RE supporter's senses, and that's only the beginning of the entire iceberg. The story centers on a father carrying out all he can to protect his family members, but there are a few amazing details about some of the most storied stories. Trust me, it can take all of my willpower not to reveal the information I want to reveal. Although some may not take pleasure in the plot, I felt Capcom did an excellent job of balancing Ethan's story with the story of a more classic Resident Evil recreation.

Capcom is a fan of how Resident Evil 4 feels, and I also presume that this was the best choice. Together with the action and horror enhancements of Resident Evil 7 put into the gunplay and action of RE4, this makes a great balance between both, making the game accessible for both new and old players alike. If you've never played RE7 but are worried about it, there's a brief recap at the beginning that will bring you up to speed on the plot. If you love RE games, then play this video game.

If you've never played a RE game, you should give it a shot. Capcom designed a stylish knowledge that can take an entire 9–12 hours at the very least, and it's worth every second. This has easily wriggled its way onto my list of top RE titles, and I am also currently on my second playthrough. You'll be able to easily replay Resident Evil Village three times and certainly not get sick of it. I think this is a fantastic suggestion. Go with Dimitrescu and ignore the Heisenberg.

Buy cheap games with the best deals.

Many monsters hide in the shadows. Ethan Winters understands this within moments of arriving in this isolated settlement located at the foot of a castle dating back to the medieval period. Sunlight has barely shattered the actual morning mist when the fang-toothed, ferocious monsters begin to strike at him. Resident Evil Village's opening hour sets a tense and intense tone that blends a creepy, atmospheric atmosphere with rollercoaster-themed firefights that put Ethan in the nick of time. The village, like an ultramarathon runner, maintains this thrilling pace until the end credits.

Ethan's journey takes him to a run-down shantytown, blood-soaked wine cellars, and a foreboding mansion littered with animated porcelain dolls. These settings are the perfect backdrop for a blood-sucking overall experience. My stomach lurched when a deformed baby-like form pursued me through a dark room, then I was forced to take a breather and stop after a harrowing shootout with a snarling, truck-sized hound. Village's environments and the design of its enemies are fantastic, which makes it one of the most frightening Resident Evil games up to now.

Ethan slowly accumulates the typical number of guns, revolvers, and grenade launchers to fight this array of frightful creatures from another dimension. The armory in Village isn't much of a surprise; however, the overall gameplay is far more polished than what was available in its predecessor. The challenge of escaping the village's slow-moving bad guys is not a problem; however, navigating their flurry of fangs continues to be thrilling. Finding the time to get a set of headshots while these hordes attack the location is the real obstacle, but I also walked out of most circumstances feeling a surge of epinephrine. Other opponents, such as Lady Dimitrescu, a meme-like mistress, relentlessly pursue Ethan throughout the match, much like RE2's Mr. X.There's no way to know the moment one of these villains will stroll around a corner, creating heightened anxiety, but these scenes consistently eventually resolve independently in a massive, resource-draining boss battle.

When I wasn't fighting with teeth and claws for the sake of my own life, I happened to be looking through every hotel room from floor to ceiling in search of more and more ammo, healing things, as well as other useful tools. Similar to other Resident Evil gaming titles, Village's map does an excellent job communicating which rooms are cleared of clutter and still have some hidden treasures. Certain items are better hidden than others. The village, on the other hand, encouraged me to go over its intricately complex environments with a fine-tooth comb. I liked the majority of these scavenger hunt captures, and verifying rooms off my list was going to be rewarding. However, several items were elusive even after hours of scouring the area, and so trying to locate each item in every house became a tiny bit tedious. It's good to know that even a quick search for each hotel room yields enough equipment to help you get through the tests ahead.

Consumers could buy cheap PS4 Games.

Producing an exciting vision for details is also vital for solving the village's number of environmental enigmas. I enjoy how these puzzles provide a much-needed release of tension, and many of Village's puzzles had me becoming clever. Unfortunately, a few puzzle solutions are generally obscured by fuzzy reasoning. Case in point: I had to force my method through one challenge that required the rotating of statues because its clues were ambiguous. Once I had found the choice, it still took me some time to understand the reasoning. Fortunately, Village isn't going to litter the road with mysteries, the majority are simple enough, and speed bumps are uncommon.

Resident Evil Village's narrative is more intriguing than I anticipated. Ethan is somewhat of a boring everyday person, but his path to saving the girl is filled with outlandish characters and a handful of unexpected situations. Village's narrative wasn't the only reason for me to keep playing; I'm happy to see that Capcom put some ideas into this world, and some of the late-game turns are making me eager to find out where this series will go afterward.

[hakesbros]

New Home Building Albuquerque

The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority has developed a water resources management strategy that pursues conservation and the direct extraction of water from the Rio Grande for the development of a steady underground aquifer sooner or later. Autumn is mostly cool in the mornings and nights but sees much less rain than summer, though the climate may be extra unsettled closer to winter, as colder airmasses and weather patterns build in from the north and northwest with extra frequency. Occasionally, snow will fall in late autumn in December; hardly ever in late November. Spring is windy, sometimes unsettled with rain, although spring is usually the driest part of the year in Albuquerque.

Albuquerque was additionally the founding location of MITS and Microsoft. Film studios have a major presence in the state of New Mexico; for instance, Netflix has a major manufacturing hub at Albuquerque Studios. There are quite a few purchasing centers and malls inside the city, including ABQ Uptown, Coronado, Cottonwood, Nob Hill, and Winrock. The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Library system consists of 19 libraries to serve town, together with the Main Library, Special Collections department , and Ernie Pyle branch, which is situated in the former home of famous warfare correspondent Ernie Pyle.

The Old Main Library was the primary library of Albuquerque and from 1901 until 1948 it was the only public library. The authentic library was donated to the state by Joshua and Sarah Raynolds. The Old Main Library was acknowledged new home builders in albuquerque as a landmark in September 1979.

By submitting this form, you conform to obtain recurring automated promotional and personalized advertising text messages from Meritage Homes at the cell number used when signing up. "It's a very family-oriented, community-oriented neighborhood. It's very warm and welcoming... we'll be right here for a very long time." We imagine in getting involved and contributing to the neighborhoods where we build to assist assist native residents.

Mortgage charges have risen sharply along with the 10-year Treasury yield, which has been climbing amid expectations that the Federal Reserve will maintain climbing rates of interest in its bid to convey down inflation. The 10-year yield reached its highest degree since June 2008 this week. The nationwide median home value rose 8.4% in September from a yr earlier to $384,800. Sales fell 23.8% from September last yr, and at the second are on the slowest annual pace since September 2012, excluding the steep slowdown in sales that occurred in May 2020 near the start of the pandemic.

He tried to get insurance coverage years ago however it will have price more than what he could have insured his property for. Wildfires have burned about 11,000 sq. miles throughout the united states so far this yr, slightly outpacing the 10-year common new home builders in albuquerque. Forest Service didn't bear in mind the continuing drought and measures meant to lessen the fire danger have been whipped out of control by sturdy winds.

Remember, caveat emptor still applies when shopping for a property wherever. The data contained in this article was pulled from third-party websites mentioned underneath references. Although the knowledge is believed to be dependable, Norada Real Estate Investments makes no representations, warranties, or ensures, either categorical or implied, as as to if the information presented is accurate, reliable, or present. All info offered new homes albuquerque must be independently verified via the references given under. As a common coverage, Norada Real Estate Investments makes no claims or assertions concerning the future housing market conditions across the US. All of this protects the worth of an Albuquerque actual estate investment property since you can charge somebody for the injury they or their pets do and evict them for nonpayment of rent.

Our home designs supply streamlined options which would possibly be made to improve your everyday life. Enjoy gathering in your great room, escaping to your Owner's Retreat, or upgrading your routine chores with welcome additions like the Super Laundry™. Our home floor plans are designed with more practical dwelling house, so you'll find a way to manage your whole day by day actions with minimal hassle. When you purchase a house in one of Albuquerque’s new home communities you get greater than a house. Your new home is in a neighborhood where you presumably can reside an active and engaged life. Your neighbors aren’t just the people who stay subsequent door, they will be lifelong pals.

The bustling Old Town space offers leisure all 12 months long. Active homebuilders in the space embrace Pulte Homes, Twilight Homes, RayLee Homes, Abrazo Homes, and Tiara Homes contributing their experience and high quality customer support to the home shopping for process. Use photo voltaic energy to energy new homes albuquerque your home and scale back your dependence on the grid. Purchase photo voltaic on the lowest price of any national supplier with Tesla's worth match guarantee and take control of your monthly electricity invoice. Learn more about your potential savings in our Design Studio.