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mixdoyoung · 6 years

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Spiteful Gratifications

( tw: blood, violence, self-harm )

A solo pertaining to, and for @sichengxmi

He barks hard, but he can bite even harder.

Doyoung can feel his entire body trembling as micro shivers wrack his body. It’s the middle of winter and he’s dressed much more thinly than normal; Much too thinly for the weather in fact – he’s only got a t-shirt and a moderately thick hoodie on – which is hardly warm enough for the temperatures that were pushing sub-zero.

His choice of wardrobe is a lot more ‘colourful’ than usual – camo green and dirty white with light blue denim being a huge departure from his typical ‘all black’ Watchman attire.

But he’s not playing Watchman tonight. Not really.

He’s going undercover. Maybe. Sort of. He thinks the messy hair and obviously shitty casual wardrobe choices made for a convincing looking buyer.

He couldn’t bring himself to forgo the mask though. His identity had been much too preciously guarded up till now for him to just throw caution into the wind without a moment’s thought. So he swapped out the suspicious black mask for a more casual, explainable, surgical mask.

Sighing, he leans back against the bricked wall, numb fingers thumbing the ice cold metallic band of the silver wristwatch in his hand.

Citizen. Citizen Sapphire, if he’s not wrong. He can’t remember the exact model number though.

But he knows it’s a beautiful piece of work. Lightweight and elegant. The thin strips of polished gold metal pleasantly complimenting the bands of matte sliver. This particular model also had a matching model – one with a golden rim, instead of sliver.

He’d purchased them as a pair; He’d just gotten a nice fat pay check from one of his bigger projects, and felt like splurging.

The golden one was meant to be Sicheng’s. A gift. Because Sicheng could do with some help telling time, and he could do with a nice accessory; For a rich man’s son, Sicheng didn’t have very refined taste for fashion. ( But that’s because Sicheng wasn’t a rich man’s son, was he? )

He’d been fretting over how he ought to have, oh so casually, gift the gift. It’s unfortunate that he never got the opportunity to do so…

❈

“Yo, you’re the one here for the coke?”

Doyoung jerks up, shaken from his thoughts. He offers a curt nod in response.

“That’d be $300,”

He barely pays attention to the transaction, handing over the bills and pocketing the white packet silently without much though. His mind is on other matter. On other questions.

His dealer – Rail – though, is obviously in a hurry and clearly not interested in talking much outside of business. Not that has ever stopped him from getting what he wants. Just as the man turns to leave, Doyoung lurches forward and grabs the man’s wrist, stopping him from leaving.

“So, heard of Kiddo?”

It’s unsurprising that Rail reacts aggressively to the inquiry. And Doyoung finds his arm being flung off with excessive vigour as he’s violently shoved backwards.

“What’s it to you?”

Common sense would tell anyone seeking to avoid trouble to back off. But Doyoung isn’t seeking to avoid trouble. He’s looking for it.

Or more accurately, he’s looking for an excuse.

So he doesn’t back off. Instead, he presses on. Provoking. He makes a grab for the man’s wrist again.

“So you have heard of him,”

He feels his back colliding with the wall once again, with much more force this time. And he sees the uppercut coming before he feels it, but makes no movement to defend himself.

When it does land, he doubles over clutching his head, world spinning as blood rushes to his head. He can feel his heart rate pick up, and he’s not feeling as cold anymore. Adrenaline, no doubt.

“Listen here pal, we don’t appreciate snooping on our turf; So fuck off to your little rat tag before I cave your skull in,”

There it is, his excuse.

“You attacked first,” he mumbles, more to himself than to the man before him, “so that means anything that follows is just self-defence.”

“What the fuck are your muttering about you fu—”

Doyoung give no warning whatsoever, mercilessly kneeing the man in the crotch with all of his strength. He thinks he felt something pop; Or perhaps it was just him adding his own sound effects and whatnot in his head to make the ungracious attack feel all the more satisfying.

There is no honour to be had on the streets; And there is no honour to be had in Doyoung.

He watches disinterestedly as the man crumbles to the ground, tilting his head as he squats over the fallen male.

“You should’ve just talked, you know?” He remarks offhandedly, fiddling with the silver wristwatch, “I asked you about Kiddo,” he wraps the metal band around his right knuckles. He barely feels it on him – the watch – it’s too cold; His fingers are numb. But his blood is on fire.

“So are you going to tell me about him?” He stretches a leg over the fallen man, straddling him, wiggling his fingers around his makeshift knuckledusters as he repeats his question, “So, are you?”

All he hears are groans in response, and it’s clear as day that the man is still reeling from the pain of his attack, but Doyoung doesn’t bother waiting for an answer.

“No? Oh well,”

And he swings his fist down with all his strength.

He feels flesh rippling and bones cracking under metal; His or his victim’s he doesn’t know, but he does know that it feels so, very, very satisfying. So he raises his fist, and brings it down. Again, and again, and again.

“Still not going to talk?”

It doesn’t matter that the unfortunate soul doesn’t even get a chance to speak up. Because in the end, this is all just an excuse for Doyoung to vent. He’s not looking for answers tonight, he just wants blood.

And he’s getting it.

All he can see is red, RED, R E D. There is so much anger, bitterness and frustration, all he can see is bloody, fucking R E D. It bleeds into his vision, it burns at his eyes; And he can’t tell if it’s just his rage colouring his vision, or if it’s really red – blood.

It’s not until he feels something warm splatting across his face that he realises that, ah, it is blood. And it’s not until he feels the warm liquid trickling down his cheeks that he looks – actually looks – down at the man whose face was now a swollen, bloody mess that hardly looked human.

And it’s not till then, that Doyoung realises that his fist is just as much of a mess; Bloodied crimson and bruised purple.

It’s only then, that Doyoung realises, that the man had stopped struggling – if he ever had at all – a long, long time ago.

He drops his fist, loosening it. The watch slips from his knuckles, and he catches it with his fingers, dully noting the cracked clock face.

“You should’ve just told me about Sicheng,” he half hiccups, half sobs, staring dumbly down at the carnage of his own doing. The hiccups meld with his breathy giggles to give an almost deranged laugh, “No one EVER listens to me.”

And just as quickly as he’d fallen into hysterics, he snaps out of it. Staring down with a glazed look – as though in a trance – at the bloodied mess of a drug dealer as he abruptly straightens up.

“Idiot,”

Pulling back, he pats the man’s body down, fishing out the man’s mobile phone. Dialling 119, he brings the device to his ear, “Hello, I was attacked by a drug dealer down Seogang-dong. I think. I fought back in self-defence. You coppers would probably want to collect the sod for questioning. He’s got all kinds of shit on him, so there’s your evidence. Also, you might want to bring an ambulance along with you.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, chucking the device as hard as he could against the wall.

He doesn’t stay for the reception either.

❈

They say anger is poison; That hatred, vengeance, bitterness is a curved blade.

“So don’t get caught up in it Doyoung,” they’d tell him, “You’re so much better when you smile, Doyoung.”

“It’ll eat you up from the inside.”

They just don’t get it though, do they?

He likes the way his wrath is a two way street; He likes how it hurts him too. Just like how he likes the way 100 proof one shots burns it way down his throat and stomach. Just like how he likes the way the skin on his palms tear when he catches himself wrong on rough concrete. And exactly just like how he is presently relishing the throbbing of his cut and swollen knuckles.

Because it tells him just how much he’d hurt his enemy.

He doesn’t mind hurting himself, because the most reliable gauge of the effectiveness of his actions, is himself.

And Doyoung has always been a stubborn boy.

He will cling to his childish anger, and let it poison him if it meant proving everyone else wrong.

They say anger clouds the mind. That it narrows the vision, and makes for foolish choices. And they might just be right.

Tonight was one of those nights made of foolish thoughts and confused direction, but everyone had those days. Tonight had been an excuse, but that doesn’t change the fact that he can, and will find Sicheng eventually.

Thus far, wrath and bitterness has served as effective fuel for his goals in life; It would be no different this time.

#kdy; solo #sp; spiteful gratifications #[ mostly ramblings tbh ]#[ i wrote this half asleep on the plane ]#[ i hate long haul flights ]

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ecotone99 · 5 years

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[SF] The first chapter of a potential book that I submitted as an assignment for Science Fiction at school. It involves the Trump Monument, Nuclear War, and a human thought experiment to preserve humanity. Let me know what you think!

-1-

It was a cold November morning in Washington, D.C. The sun had yet to peek over the Trump Monument, the tallest point in the capitol since 2020. In fact, the sun hardly covered more than half the city at a time because it was usually blocked by what some might call a ‘pinnacle of engineering aptitude.’ The monument appeared nearly identical to that of the Washington Monument, but after the demolition of the latter, for what congress called “something much better”, the Trump Monument now towered at 2,500 feet from the ground, and covered a span of nearly 5 blocks. According to the history books, the monument was originally erected as a “tribute to the greatness of this country”, proclaimed by then president Donald Trump, although to the wise it may stand as a symbol of oppression; keeping those deemed lesser in the shadow of those deemed greater, only for the lesser to be inevitably crushed by (possibly quite literally) their tribute to greatness in the end. Each year, this fate became seemingly more certain to those who know it, but as money filled the pockets of the capitalists in their endeavors, accepting ignorance in exchange for giving up morality and aptitude, the care for the matter seemed less and less urgent. Those outside of the government were too concerned for their wallets to be concerned about the world outside of business. The year is now 2051, and the government that has worked so hard to plug the holes in their sinking ship of debt has reached the brink of global nuclear war. The air carried a cloud of doubt, that these men and women that were soon to arrive at the downtown hover-rail station might change the fate of all those around them.

As the train neared the city, the only lights that could be seen through the thicket of bramble and fog were that of the capitol, since, as of early last year, all federal employees have begun working rotating shifts 24-hours a day to maximize profit, including weekends, typing furiously at computer screens to the point of callous, trying to prolong the inevitable for just a couple more days, a couple more days—And each day, they typed a little faster, a little faster, sending and receiving international transactions until you could barely see their fingers yet but a blur of flesh and skin and bone across each key in each fell swoop, until they would return home each night, armpits damp from anxiety, twiddling their fingers endlessly as they typed away into their dreams, never sleeping but never awake, but always working, for there was always more work to be done.

The magnetic brakes kicked on automatically as the train hovered down the rails to the final station, quickly but gently slowing down the behemoth. An unsecured brown leather backpack fell from a faulty overhead compartment onto the head of a younger woman.

“Ouch! Whose stinking bag is this?”

“Sorry about that, looks like I didn’t pack in my luggage good enough. Are you okay?” John picked his bag up off the pristine floor of the luxury train cab and carefully secured each arm through the shoulder straps. his cheeks swelled and reddened from embarrassment. Elevator music played in the background.

“Whatever, you’re lucky I don’t have that money yet or I would have sued your ass.” The woman looked at him, annoyed, before turning her back to him and departing from the awkward conversation. People are too sensitive these days, John thought. He wasn’t going to let one sour encounter ruin his day, however, for as she reaffirmed, there was a lot of money to be earned from this little week-long endeavor, whether they wanted to be there or not.

These 100 men and women, all of which were from diverse backgrounds, cultures, educations, and wealth, were all there for the same job inquiry—they had all received hand-delivered letters to their front doors by men in black suits and sunglasses, bearing official U.S. badges representing their affiliation with the US Department of Future Security, a military agency that focuses on protecting the United States from any and all future terrorist and domestic threats. Each delivered envelope contained the same message, which reads as follows:

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Dear (insert name),

You are hereby ordered to report for induction into a 7-day testing program at your nearest UNITED STATES FUTURE DEFENSE facility. Transportation will be provided to and from the facility. Be prepared for pickup by FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11 @ 5:00 AM at your residence.

$50,000 USD will be electronically transferred to your E-Wallet upon completion of the program as reimbursement for lost time.

Willful failure to report at the place and hour of the day named in this Order subjects the violator to fine and imprisonment. Bring this Order with you when you report.

Your country thanks you for your service.

David Koehl, Overseer of U.S. Future Defense

The doors of the train cab slid open with a long, hydraulic breath. The men and women aboard the train, all clenching their envelopes and anxious to finally stretch their legs, slowly and clumsily made their way out of the only couple doors available, and per instruction of a nearby official from the Future Defense Department, lined up: men on the left, women on the right, until they were left with two perfect rows of 50 men and 50 women. The official checked each person’s papers before a Greyhound arrived shortly for each line to provide the remaining transportation to the facility, although the personal space proved to be inconsistent with the luxury accommodations provided by the hover-train, and people were finally forced to small-talk with each other, something that has become outdated in modern society, and is generally avoided.

“What do you think they’ll be testing us over?” whispered someone in the back.

“I don’t know,” replied another, “but the sooner this is over and I get my money, the better.” There was a long silence before someone spoke again.

“…Do you think it’s gonna hurt?”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“So then why won’t they tell us what we’re—"

“Just shut up and be glad you’re getting paid!”

The Greyhound was silent the remainder of the way to the facility. The Future Defense Building was located on the very edge of the city, down a mile and a half of gravel back roads and through three electric barbed-wire fences with security checkpoints, each more thorough than the previous, until finally arriving at the underwhelming front driveway of the two-story Future Defense Building in what seemed like the middle of the swamp. It looked like a crumb on the crust of the earth compared to the mighty Trump Monument, and this was most people’s immediate observation. How ugly, this building! Only two stories? Pfft! My vacation home is probably worth more than this whole facility…

The two groups of fifty were escorted by men in their full military uniforms from the Greyhound up to the main entrance of the Future Defense Building. John was near the back of the line, pondering this operation that was about to unfold in the coming days. The group of women were immediately separated from the men and led around the back of the building, while the men were led through the front doors. Coming from the outdoors where it was much darker outside, most men in the group grunted and groaned as they were temporarily blinded by the white fluorescent lamps that composed the majority of the ceiling in the facility. The air was warmer than outside, but smelled of sterility and latex gloves.

An older looking doctor in all-white scrubs with only a single wisp of grey hair covering his shiny head popped out of a side door in the lobby to greet his subjects.

“Good morning everybody. We are thankful for your safe arrival!” began the doctor, “I am Doctor Mayflower, head of the E.D.E.N, project, Short for the Extended Deep Equilibrium Network. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so let me try and explain some things.” Doctor Mayflower reached into his lab coat pocket, withdrawing a tiny micro-chip, and held it for everybody to see. “At E.D.E.N, we’ve been perfecting the science of recording data. Not computer data, but rather, biological data. That is, the data that each and every one of you carry up here.” Mayflower tapped his index finger on the side of his head. “As many of you may know, our country has been on the brink of war for quite some time.” They did not know. The quiet hush of the crowd was replaced with panicked whispers and faces. “Oh, you aren’t aware? Well.” He cleared his throat. “See, nature is a cat-and-mouse game of survival of the fittest; Humans are bred to survive, and adapted over generations to catch each and every mouse, and prove time and time again his dominance over nature until there was nothing left to dominate. But as arrogant as humans are and always have been, we will time and time again neglect to realize that the greatest enemy to man is himself. The apex predator. The only difference this time is that we jingle the very keys to the atomic ending of life as we know it, and do so as if attempting to entertain a child.”

“We aren’t at war, we paid our debts!” blurted out someone from the crowd, believing what the doctor said to be borderline hysterical.

“Allow me to continue, please,” proclaimed Mayflower. “The government has exhausted its options for peace negotiations. If money is truly god, then god will not save us now. E.D.E.N. is our only escape.” The crowd became silent. Mayflower took a long pause, allowing his subjects to absorb everything he just said. After a moment, he began again. “Clear your mind and stay with me for a second. I would like to demonstrate a mental exercise.” He did not begin until the entire group was at his attention. “When I say the word ‘tree’, I want you to close your eyes and imagine the first image that comes to mind. Study that image in your head closely, but don’t overthink it.” John closed his eyes, and imagined a gnarled and ancient oak tree in a corn field. It was the very one that he used to swing from as a child. “Now,” said the Doctor, “I want you to imagine the first thing that comes to mind when I say the word ‘home.’” John did not picture his home where he currently lived, but envisioned the home where he grew up—a small farm house with a tin roof and vines creeping up the ancient oak siding. This image brought a smile to his face, if only long enough to have his fantasy interrupted by the doctor once more. “Okay. Lastly, I want you to think about the tree again.” The crowd stirred restlessly, not really seeing the point in this exercise. John followed the instructions and thought about the tree again, however, and pictured the same old oak tree in the field. “Now, I’ll bet money that the image of the tree you saw the first and second time are the same tree, yes? And if you think of ‘home’ once more, you will see the same image of home that you first imagined?” The men all looked at each other as if the doctor had read their minds without even needing to hook them to equipment. “This is because the human mind accesses memories using what we like to call ‘triggers.’ When I say a certain keyword, your first image that comes to mind of that word will always be the same. Because of this phenomenon, we have coined these as static memories, and have made possibly the most important discovery in human history, the ability to read and download thoughts. Since these memories don’t change, they have no risk of a deviation of outcome, and can be safely stored on these chips. Have you ever tried to store abstract thought on a computer chip? Well, it’s quite an impossibility. We have to have real, tangible data or the entire system is buggered.”

“Why do you want to read our thoughts?” someone cried out.

“What, do you have something to hide?” joked another.

Mayflower ignored these comments. “For the past 5 years, we have been working on a super-computer of sorts. Imagine a perfect reality, composed off all of the puzzle pieces of society, government, weather, and economy. Every man, woman, and child are as real and tangible as in this room right now, but there are no longer any possible threats to our existence as a species. No more wars, no more violence, no more aging. Perfect harmony. Equilibrium.” The crowd became suddenly more interested in what the Doctor had to say. “When the bombs fall, there won’t be anything left if we don’t prepare for it. So, we’ve created what we like to call the Extended Deep Equilibrium Network. A virtual reality held on a central computer here at the facility that houses the very thoughts and memories of the human race in order to construct the most perfect and accurate simulation of our reality possible. That is, after we take out all of the harmful or bad memories beforehand. That’s why we need each of you—You all have been selected as the basis for simulated human life. We have set up a state-of-the-art augmented reality chamber where the participants will re-experience static memories the exact way they remember them. Touch, smell, sound, sight, and even taste will remain intact. This is the only safe and efficient way which we’ve learned to collect these memories onto our chips. All of you standing here before me today might very well be pioneering the very fate of the human race as we know it. If and when the bombs drop, we will be prepared to house up to 500,000 Americans in state-of-the-art stasis chambers miles under this very spot. Finally, After the earth’s crust is blown to bits, we will be safe and sound, living indefinitely in the paradise known as E.D.E.N.”

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kennethherrerablog · 5 years

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A Beginner’s Guide to Micro-investing (and Our Favorite Apps)

In the 21st century, we like things small.

Our headphones, computers and dogs are all shrinking. Teacup pigs are surging in popularity. It’s no surprise that we like our investments small, too.

That’s because the word “investment” seems way too big for most of us. It’s too much to learn, too much responsibility, too much risk — just too much.

Micro-investing, on the other hand, is just plain adorable. Snappable, ’grammable adorableness.

Like a pig small enough to fit in a teacup, micro-investing is about investments small enough to fit anyone’s budget.

Interested? Here’s our beginner’s guide.

How Micro-Investing Works

Micro-investing apps allow you to automatically invest small amounts of money in stocks, even if you know absolutely nothing about the stock market. They funnel your extra cash into portfolios of stocks that they craft for you.

Your investment money is typically used to buy “exchange traded funds,” or ETFs. These funds helpfully spread your risk around by buying up shares in dozens or even hundreds of different companies.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to suddenly start following the stock market. You don’t have to watch CNBC or read The Wall Street Journal. You can continue binge-watching “House Hunters” or “Cupcake Wars” if you like.

Why Millennials Like Micro-Investing

Here’s another plus: You don’t need much money to start micro-investing. Heck, you can launch this baby with five bucks if you want.

The idea is to get you to start investing.

You’ve probably heard that Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement. Well, it’s true! The average U.S. family has nowhere near enough money set aside for retirement. It’s going to be such a train wreck when we all get old.

If you’re not already investing, the first step is the hardest. No, micro-investing won’t make you rich. Instead, this is about getting you to take that crucial first step toward investing for your future.

Our Favorite Micro-Investing Apps

Naturally, there are a whole bunch of apps competing for your micro-investing dollars. They’re all clamoring for your spare change, and they’re promising to grow your investments like diligent little money gardeners.

Virtually all of these options will have you set up a profile that lets the app know what kinds of things in which to invest your money. It’s a classic “set and it and forget it” approach.

Here are some of our favorite micro-investing apps of 2019. They’re all available on Apple and Android phones.

1. Acorns

Acorns makes it easy to invest without missing the money you set aside. It rounds up your debit or credit card purchases to the nearest dollar and invests your digital change.

You can have it automatically round up all your purchases, or manually round up only the transactions you choose. Because the money comes out in increments of less than $1, you’re less likely to feel an impact in your bank account.

Penny Hoarder Dana Sitar shared her Acorns review — she saved $116 in three months, about $35 a month, by connecting one debit card to the app and forgetting about it. At that rate, you’d put away $420 a year. And if you use your credit cards more frequently, your round-ups could amount to much more.

You don’t have to choose exactly where to invest your money. Instead, you’ll answer a few questions to create a financial profile and state your goals. Acorns uses this to build your investment portfolio, which ranges from conservative to aggressive

You start out with a free $5 bonus if you sign up here.

Cost: $1 per month for an account with a balance below $5,000

2. Stash

Stash lets you start investing with as little as $5. You can set it up to withdraw a certain amount of cash from your bank account every week or every month, so you can grow your investments over time.

Like Acorns, Stash will ask you a few questions to determine your risk profile: conservative, moderate or aggressive. Then it invests your dollars in a set of simple portfolios reflecting your beliefs, interests and goals.

You can choose from more than 150 ETFs and stocks. Instead of overwhelming you with industry jargon, Stash curates and categorizes these funds and gives them understandable names.

Want more information? Read our complete Stash review.

You start out with a $5 bonus if you sign up here.

Cost: $1 per month for an account with a balance below $5,000. Balances of $5,000 or more cost 0.25% a year.*

3. Rize

Rize is a savings and investment app.

The savings part is a pay-what-you-want web app that’ll help get your savings on track. It siphons part of your paycheck into a separate savings account.

You’ll create a goal and set a deadline. These could be short-term goals, like saving for a weekend road trip or meeting your monthly student loan payment. You’ll even earn 1.16% interest on your balance. (For some context, that’s 19 times higher than the national average for savings accounts.)

If you have a longer-term goal, have Rize invest the money for you and help you maximize returns.

You can easily tweak your settings in Rize at any time. Plus, the app has some fun automated features like “accelerate,” which automatically increases your savings by 1% each month, or “boost,” which triggers Rize to squirrel away money when it makes the most sense.

Cost: An annual management fee of 0.25% of your investments

4. Robinhood

The Robinhood app is best known for having no trading fees. You can buy and sell stocks on U.S. exchanges without paying a commission, and you’ll pay no account maintenance fees. You can also buy and sell ETFs and cryptocurrencies, if you’re into that sort of thing.

In keeping with its stripped-down approach, Robinhood doesn’t offer investment research or advice on your portfolio. So you won’t necessarily get a lot of guidance here. It’s a no-frills, bare-bones app that’s designed for investors who want to trade stocks frequently while keeping their costs down.

Cost: It’s free. There’s also a premium service called Robinhood Gold that enables you to buy “on margin,” which means borrowing money to purchase stock. Frankly, that’s not for beginners. The cost depends on how much you want to borrow. Also, you need a minimum of $2,000 in your account to do this.

5. WiseBanyan

You can start investing with as little as $1 with WiseBanyan, and the app charges no monthly fees or trading fees.

Financial advisors can cost more than you’re even trying to invest, especially if you’re just getting started. But free online services like WiseBanyan can provide the same kind of support.

The service is completely digital, eliminating the usual management, trading and rebalancing fees, but it still offers the same services as traditional financial advisers.

Once you sign up, you can create a “Milestone” by entering your goals (whether it’s saving for retirement or a jet ski) and a time frame. WiseBanyan automates everything, from suggested deposits to rebalancing your accounts to help you achieve your goal.

Cost: Free, but fees do kick in if you opt to upgrade to premium services. You can mix and match services to create personalized premium packages. These packages include detailed investment strategies, increased personalization and additional automation services.

Is Micro-Investing Worth It?

If you’re even a little math-minded, you might have realized: If you invest a small amount, you can only expect a small return, right?

You probably won’t become a millionaire or retire early from investing your spare change.

Realistically, these apps could help you set aside a few hundred dollars a year. It’s nothing to write Warren Buffett about — but it’s no small feat if you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck, wondering how you can get ahead.

You could have $500 in your emergency fund by the end of the year — before the next thing on your car breaks.

Or you can use micro-investing as a first step into bigger investments.

Or just save for one more year, and you can get yourself a teacup pig!

*Clients may incur ancillary fees, charged by Stash, its custodian or both, that are not included in the monthly Wrap-Fee.

Mike Brassfield ([email protected]) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He already invests, but he clearly needs to invest more.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

A Beginner’s Guide to Micro-investing (and Our Favorite Apps) published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

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waynekelton · 5 years

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The Best RTS Games on Android, iPad & iPhone

When it comes to the RTS, the mobile marketplace has big shoes to fill. From Age of Empires to Command & Conquer (how about that Rivals, eh?), the frantic blend of actions-per-minute with grand strategy, the macro- and micro-management required to play this genre at peak performance has inspired many a gamer.

The internet is great, but we don’t always have access to it. Here are some of the best strategy games you can play while offline.

Recent Releases

Not everything that releases makes it into our top lists for one reason or another. Here's around up of some recent (going back to August) RTS releases that you might want to check out on your own time:

Front Armies

Dereliction

Without further ado Here are the best RTS games for android, iPhone & iPad to play in 2018.

Rebel Inc. (Review)

Developer: Ndemic Creations Platforms: iOS Universal Price: $1.99

Plague Inc. this is not, but Rebel Inc. still shares in its predecessor's excellent design pedigree. As the newly appointed administrator of a region that's just suffered a major war, your job is to try and help the population rebuild was also keeping local insurgents in check. It's full of tough choices and challenging tactical game-play as you struggle to pin down enemy insurgents and prevent them from doing too much harm.

Dealing with the concept of reconstruction is no easy feat, and the subject matter could be considered slightly controversial given the recent events that have inspired it, but Ndemic have treated the topic with as much care and attention as they can, even consulting with real-world experts on the subject. Rebel Inc. is a challenging and tense game, but just as rewarding, making this one of the year's best real-time strategy/simulations.

Element RTS (Review)

Developer: Flightless Platforms: iOS Universal Price: $4.99

One of the top RTS releases of 2018 to date, Element is a PC port that fits right at home on mobile. It's unique and streamlined design makes it a very accessible strategy game - you've got to balance the production of resources with the construction of units to either defend your base or attack your foes. The matches are short, and the AI is a pretty decent challenge, so you won't want to for entertainment.

It's just shy of being a 'must-buy' - the inclusion of a multiplayer mode would probably cement it as one of the best RTS games in mobile history, but we'd settle for an Android version. According to the devs, the game's been able to run on android devices for a while now, and they're just putting on the finishing touches before they announce a formal release date.

Kingdom Rush: Vengeance (Review)

Developer: Ironside S.A. Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $4.99

The latest entry in the acclaimed Kingdom Rush tower defence series has caused no small amount of controversy, which is likely to continue with it's inclusion in this list. It all depends how much you're bothered by the game's slightly-too-persistent micro-transactions. The only blemish on what is otherwise a stellar real-time strategy experience, these IAPs are completely optional and unnecessary, they're just a tad pushy.

If you're like Dick, who was a bit more forgiving in his review, then you'll find another excellent tower defence game, and one with plenty of humour and content to last you a decent amount of time - each level can take up to thirty minutes to complete. The way Vengeance handles towers as well is also fairly unique, requiring a bit more thought and planning. All in alll, unless you really want to take a stand against micro-transactions, there's a great game here waiting for you to discover and enjoy.

Autumn Dynasty

Developer: Touch Dimensions Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $1.99, $4.99

Autumn Dynasty has campaign progression and a bare-bones story to push the action forward with some serviceable if dull reasoning, but what really makes it shine are the battles. Unit types include simple categories like cavalry, pikemen, archers and catapults but this simplicity is complicated by the rock-paper-scissors relationship between them.

In the heat of battle, single moments of positioning and command become crucial, and this constant feeling of decisive command is what makes Autumn Dynasty such a fulfilling RTS title. Its sequel, Autumn Dynasty: Warlords lost some of the pure force and tension of the original in favor of adding map objectives and 4X elements, but the first game is still the best. This one is for all intents and purposes an Android-exclusive, for the developer’s whole portfolio was wiped out with iOS 11 Appocalypse. It works, but only selectively on older Apple hardware.

Auralux: Constellations (Review)

Developer: War Drum Studios Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free (IAPs)

Auralux is generally brilliant and wickedly simple. Glowing orbs skip across the void of space to do battle over planets, which in turn spawn more orbs for the controlling player. Gestures are dead simple, tapping to select and dragging to assign. There is only one type of ‘unit’ and one objective: take over the entire map. From these givens, Auralux has some intense, hair-pulling and nail-biting levels where the odds are almost ludicrously stacked against the little player that could.

The ‘constellations’ in the title are simply clustered series of levels, each with a gimmick mechanic which must be understood and utilized to power through said levels. The game shows its age a bit, but it also demonstrates how a simple idea with excellent execution can stand the test of time. Another bonus is the variable speed setting, which makes the action go from hyper to sedate, depending on playstyle. Local multiplayer is a nice plus, but the game’s primary draw is solo play.

Dominations

Developer: Nexon M Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free (IAPs)

Dominations deserves to be loved and known for the quality of play it provides and its relatively tasteful monetization, but unfortunately the quickest way to worm its way into your heart and home screen are comparisons, so let’s get those over with. It’s Civilization meets Clash of Clans, with empires spanning the Iron Age to Space Age, wonders to build, raids to conduct, and all the usual trappings.

So, yes, there is a certain likeness to established powerhouses, but the devil is in the details, and Dominations gets those spot-on. Playing it to a satisfying endgame without shelling out serious dinero will take patience, but Dominations’ emulation of all of recorded human history and conflict is pretty satisfying to stretch out and play in pieces. Of course, human history never before ran on a timer...

Iron Marines (Review)

Developer: Ironhide Studios Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $4.99

The Iron Marines are a space-trotting, world-saving team of elite squads tasked with putting out fires and defeating hostiles wherever needed. The elevator pitch for the game would be Starcraft...in space. There is a home-base which usually has to be fortified and defended, additional refineries to secure more resources, and just a handful of units.

From these simple, intuitive elements, the game ekes out a good sense of micromanagement and delectable real-time tension. Its enemies have unusual abilities and synergies, and its difficulty is no joke, especially on the higher levels. Yet the game also retains Ironclad Studios sense of long-term planning and strategy present in its tower defense titles. Its next update will introduce a brand-new world, the icy Borealis, on September 27th, but this is just an extra check in its favor.

Subterfuge

Developer: SnappyTouch Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free (IAPs)

Subterfuge is exactly as advertised: a subtle, long-term game of expedient alliances and stone-cold betrayals, filled with the irrefutable logic of hard numbers and the soft uncertainty of fog of war. A turn just means giving subs and bases a command which will take hours to fulfil, so while it is real-time like warfare is real-time, in Subterfuge the theatre of war sees its stage advance slowly.

Its scale is just grand enough to be deeply satisfying but be warned that it does take some time investment to get a game fired up. The leaders provide asymmetrical player powers, but even these super-units can be captured and bartered. Barring these modifies and special cases, the bases and subs are more or less identical. The game is simply a question of position, resources and force, but these factors are always shifting because of the partial information and precarious alliances.

Rymdkapsel (Review)

Developer: Grapefrukt Games Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $3.99

Rymdkapsel is about space-base-building and defense, mostly, but also includes some spatial puzzling a la Tetris and ‘exploration’. Its minimalism is more than just stylistic, going instead to the core of every action, options and goal. Perhaps the most satisfying bit is the constant packing problem for expanding the base.

New buildings can be any type and go any spot the player chooses, but also must have predefined dimensions. (all four unit polyominoes) A tightly knit base might come across as more defensible but reaching and researching the far-flung monoliths gives permanent global passive bonuses. The game is a logistics and timing puzzle with a really keen sense of efficiency and management for all its stripped-down design.

Tropical Stormfront

Developer: Noble Master Games Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $3.99

Island-hopping Tropical Stormfront pits the United Democratic Alliance against Order, Discipline and Obedience in a faux-historical struggle across the archipelago. The graphics are deliberately dated and the unit mixture, contrary to every other item on the list, is realistic and accurate. Missions scenarios range from the typical conquest to capture the flag and survival mode.

It’s like a real-time Advance Wars with pretty much no hand-holding, just sink-or-swim gameplay. The touch controls mean a bigger screen is practically a must, for while missing a swipe or tap in another genre would be merely inconvenient, in a game like this it is quite the setback. Still, Tropical Stormfront is a smartly realized real-time-strategy game with staying power.

Hall of Fame

We want to keep this list lean, so as new comes come into the lime-lite other games will get rotated out. We don't want to forget about them though, so we've added this hall of fame section so we can remember them forever.

Anomaly 2

Mushroom Wars 2

Plague Inc.

Teen Titans GO! Figure

What would your list of the best RTS games on mobile look like? Let us know!

The Best RTS Games on Android, iPad & iPhone published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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terryblount · 5 years

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Fallout 76 Review: Semi-Wasted, Semi-Wonderful

By now you’ve likely seen Fallout 76’s overwhelmingly bad reception. Mainstream sites have roasted it, the internet has mocked it, and retailers have slashed the price of it. The oft-heard critical terms are glitchy, soulless, broken, cash-grab, early-access, and junk. All these and more hang over Fallout 76 like a condemning toxic cloud.

So is this game simply trash? Is it unworthy of any attention? Well, it’s certainly true that Fallout 76 is broken, buggy, and sometimes unplayable. If we gave review scores here I’d probably give Fallout 76 a 4 or 5 out of 10. It has potential, but it’s simply a malfunctioning game rife with incompetent programming and faulty systems.

This leaves me in a strange position. After 65+ hours of play, I’m still eager to leisurely explore, build my character, and craft ever-more-powerful gear. I clearly see the numerous and unacceptable issues, and yet I find myself quite captivated by this mostly-dead Appalachia open-world.

In a world full of glitches and server instability, is inner-peace possible? Do we even dare to ask?

How can I enjoy Fallout 76? Am I insane? Just plain stupid? Bought-off by Bethesda? For those who dare to dive in, I humbly ask you to read this lengthy review in which I explain why Fallout 76 is both a technical disaster and a potentially powerful gameplay experience.

First, Let’s Roast: So Much Broken Stuff!

In case you haven’t read and/or watched how embarrassingly broken this game is, let me give you the highlights of the low points.

I’ve had about 14 game crashes, 20-plus server disconnects, 7 or 8 sudden maintenance shutdowns, and probably 30-plus lagging out episodes taking up to two minutes to resolve. The servers are less stable than the results of my last psychiatric evaluation (dual-burn!).

I was playing the game for five minutes to get final screenshots for this review…and then BAM.

In the worst case when the game does disconnect you, you might log back in and find you’ve lost the last five minutes or more of progress. Or maybe you won’t have. It seems to depend on the servers’ moods.

Particularly disturbing is how the quest log will sometimes fail to load. I’ll get in game and all my quests have simply vanished from the game world. Oh joy! Sometimes they’ll load in a few minutes. Other times I have to reconnect over and over and hope the game manages to scrounge up all that pesky quest data stuff.

This trash heap represents Fallout 76’s programming. A big mess of junk, basically.

One particular quest was deleted from my quest log and reinstated about eight times over the course of a week or so, but finally the servers dug deep and registered my completion. As such, finishing a quest is often a momentous occasion not because of stellar writing (it’s not) or amazing rewards (they’re not). Rather, it’s kind of a miracle the game could momentarily function well enough to allow proper quest completion.

To make matters worse, the quest system itself uses a checkpoint system that fails to save your progress for many quests given but not begun. For instance, let’s say a robot at point A gives you a quest to go to point B. Despite the game adding this quest to your journal, if you quit your game without going to point B, the quest will be deleted as if you never began it. Idiocy is what this is.

Ah, the dreaded T-pose in the wild! Stop breaking my immersion! Go away; nobody likes you!

Then there’s the broken artificial intelligence. About half the time enemies will glitch out in numerous mystifying ways. You just never know if they’ll slide around in a “T-pose” or teleport back and forth or glitch out of world or die instantly or be naked or invisible. Who knows, maybe they’ll even behave properly!

And we mustn’t forget about the persistent and unacceptable lag. Remember the 1990s on dial-up internet with all its hitches and delays? Fallout 76 not only remembers but emulates this with very obnoxious momentary pauses between major actions like looting, shooting, and building. At best, it’s a split-second annoyance. At worst, it’s seconds on end of bandwidth befuddlement. Do you even network code, Bethesda bro!?

The servers couldn’t be bothered to load super-mutant clothing. Very embarrassing, really.

The framerate and performance is often quite fine…except when it’s totally dismal. In typical fashion, Fallout 76 can sometimes run very smoothly, but then the programming strangles itself with all those bits and pixels and things grind to a stuttering, halting mess. This is a seriously dysfunctional game engine.

On your end as a player, your attacks often won’t register and animations won’t play. When they do play, you’ll often shoot or swing right through enemies. If you thought previous Bethesda games had bad combat, wonky movement, and glitchy animations, Fallout 76 takes it to a new level. More like 76 times more glitches (ultra-burn!).

A more surface annoyance is how the game refuses to remember my username and password. And why can’t the keyboard/mouse and controller be swapped on the fly? This is 2018, isn’t it?

Oh, and the game can’t even exit properly. I usually get stuck at a frozen game screen when quitting, even when using Alt-F4. I then have to invisibly open the Task Manager, type “fa” to select the “Fallout 76” program and then use Ctrl-E to end the task. If you didn’t know how to do all that…then you’d probably have to restart your computer or something. Fun!

So are you excited to play Fallout 76 yet?! Did I mention not only is the game priced at $60 retail but there’s a micro-transaction shop full of outrageously over-priced stuff that should be in the game to begin with? Yoda voice: Greedy and incompetent, Bethesda is!

$4 for a map, $14 for a rocket decoration, $4 for a door texture. Such blatant greed.

There’s my Fallout 76 roast. Disdainful derision for a flamboyantly flawed Fallout. If you are dead-set on hating Fallout 76, stop reading now and go in peace. Or read on and hopefully see why there may still be something worth salvaging in this massive mess.

What Player Would Enjoy This?!

Ok. That was a lot of broken stuff, wasn’t it? This is why, as a reviewer, I cannot recommend or endorse Fallout 76 in its current state. It’s truly one of the most broken triple-A games ever released. And yet, there is much here to enjoy and for a certain type of player.

This is key: Fallout 76 will only appeal to a more-limited range of players because it’s absolutely not the typical Bethesda RPG experience. I believe there is unique captivating joy buried within Fallout 76, but it requires defiant digging and self-determination.

There’s a vast world out there, full of treasures…if you look closely and carefully.

Let me explain by starting with what types of players won’t enjoy Fallout 76. Firstly, story-driven players won’t be satisfied. There’s only a bare-bones narrative told with holotapes (audio logs). There are no cutscenes or reveals or payoffs. There’s no characters to truly care about.

Action-focused players won’t be pleased. There’s almost no well-designed combat encounters. Most combat is awkward and clunky. There’s no sense of progression like in mission-based shooters, and the combat “Events” are mostly terrible (often broken) wave-based affairs.

Role-players won’t find much of a role to play since there’s not a single character to have a back-and-forth dialogue with. Shakespeare said “all the world’s a stage”, but Fallout 76 is more like an abandoned stage days after the last debauched performance, everyone gone and everything in disarray.

MMO-fans won’t find much to celebrate because Fallout 76 is the anti-social multiplayer game. Instead of advertising how you can get a job and become a hero or villain like many MMO-style games, Fallout 76’s “selling point” is how all those interesting interactions are as dead and gone as all the human NPCs.

This is where all the NPCs went. Thrown in dumpsters, never to give out quests again.

Speaking of everyone being dead, we finally get to the target audience of Fallout 76. The archeologists. The anthropologists. The wanderers. The nomads. The explorers of the unknown. The ones who are energized by solitude and find rest in their own private world.

Fallout 76 calls out to those who dream of having Disneyland all to themselves without the masses getting in their way. Put me in my own world. Let me explore. Let me discover. Let me escape the shackles of someone else’s story. Set me free from the madness of human interaction. This is, ironically, the mantra of Fallout 76.

A whole world to explore at my own pace, in my own way. To me this sounds like heaven!

Now you probably think I’m nuttier than my last peanut butter and jelly sandwich…but stick with me here, I’m going somewhere delicious with all this.

Self-Amusement Park: My True Story

Let me tell you a true story. When I was about 12 I went to an amusement park near my home. The whole park was rented that day by my friend’s mom’s employer, so we had full access to the massive park with only a maybe 200 of us instead of the usual 2,000+.

Just out golfing, enjoying the crisp, newly irradiated greens. And looking snazzy!

It was glorious. There were no lines and no crowded streets. I’d run from ride to ride with my friend. We’d go together a few times, then we’d split up and do what we wanted. It felt like this was my park. This was my world, created just for me to explore and enjoy.

To this day I remember this event as my best theme park visit ever. This experience was much better than all the other fancy super-crowded parks I’d go to in the subsequent years. Those other mega-parks were always chock full of people, reminding me I am but one of thousands, at the mercy of the crowds.

Here is where Fallout 76 resonates with me so much. Contrary to what I’ve said above, I don’t hate all human interaction. However, I want that interaction to be limited and optional and realistic. I don’t want to feel like I’m 1 of the 10,000 “Heroes” going on some quest-checklist to save the day like many online games.

The world is full of little locations such as this, pieces of lore to fit together however you like.

As a result, Fallout 76’s system is actually very enjoyable for me: there’s up to 24 players scattered around the massive world, which means I’m usually on my own. However, I always know other players are out there, released from my same Vault, exploring just like me. This setup gives an added realism and human connection to my exploration in a mostly non-distracting and beneficial way.

To put it another way, I can be alone but not lonely. Fallout 76 isn’t forcing me to team up and be social, and it’s not relegating me to an offline-only world populated by shallow NPCs. Just like my day at the amusement park, I have a big world to explore, but there’s others out there to create a contrast to my isolation. For me, this is a wonderful feeling.

Fallout 76’s Star: The Appalachia World Itself

Let’s get back to some specifics and describe the game world. Fallout 76 features not only the largest but also the most meticulously crafted game-space Bethesda has ever created. The attention to detail, little touches, and overall sense of place makes exploring the huge West Virginia Appalachia landscape a delight to me.

What a breathtaking, compelling, and expansive world, and it’s all mine to discover!

Truly the natural environments are stunning and impressive. This is a huge step up from anything Fallout 4 offered. Sadly, the man-made locations and buildings are mostly recycled assets from Fallout 4, and it’s almost all inferior to the creatively crafted natural artwork.

I cannot overstate how impressed I am with Fallout 76’s natural world full of truly unique biomes and locales. The lush green and bright red forests. The haunting mucky mires. The rocky moon-like crags and mining outposts. The otherworldly irradiated flora. It’s mesmerizing and graphically impressive!

There are some fantastically dangerous locales to explore…better bring a gas mask!

Most importantly, the world’s full of typical Fallout story tidbits. Husband and wife farmers about to lose everything suddenly hit it big only to have the world get nuked the next week. A bank robbery gone wrong made irrelevant by Armageddon. These stories get pieced together as you carefully find corpses and notes and so forth.

Thanks to the superb quality of the world itself, I find myself logging in and relaxing as I settle in to another session of wanderlust, being transported to what feels like a real place I can live and breathe in.

Such a quaint and calming scene. There’s beauty in simplicity. And those rocks are looking nice!

Sometimes I’ll just meander to a few locations and admire the views, takes some photos, and maybe find a note from a dead inhabitant. This leads us to what I’m calling my three pillars of Fallout 76.

My Three Pillars of Fallout 76: Wander, Discover, Examine

So we’ve already made it clear that this isn’t a game about story or characters. So what is it about? I personally view Fallout 76 as my solitary world to get lost in, and I find something very peaceful about walking through this vibrant world full of dead people and abandoned civilizations.

This simple process of journeying has kept me energized for a good 65+ hours, and I believe this is the fundamental gameplay loop of Fallout 76: wander, discover, examine. Let me explain each one.

I really love this photo. The ambience and mood is so gloomy yet soothing in a way.

First, I wander. I argue this game is for the wanderers, the nomads, those who see an inherent value in simply going forward to find what’s there. This feeling of wanderlust has never been truer than in Fallout 76. The game’s very premise is thus: the world is destroyed…go out and study what has happened…there’s nobody to help you…so forge your own path or die trying.

This mostly open-ended story structure is a tough pill to swallow for many fans because we’re used to Bethesda giving us all the major quest paths. This idea that we must blaze our own trail is what sets Fallout 76 apart, in an often misunderstood way.

Going out and seeing the sights for yourself is such a huge part of Fallout 76’s draw.

Moreover, many players will be sorely disappointed at how many “empty” locations there are. Many will ask, “What’s the point of yet another destroyed building to walk away from with only a backpack full of junk?” And yet, for us wanderers and explorers, the process of finding new places is, in itself, a worthwhile endeavor.

Now the second pillar: to discover. To discover is to live. This is the compelling truth that drives many of the world’s researchers, archeologists, and anthropologists. These are the ones that must discover, no matter what it may or may not lead to.

Some will ask what nonsense I’m talking about. It’s a big mental-shift to go from the quest-based discovery of prior games to this more free-form discovery of Fallout 76. Many players will hate it, but that indicates they perhaps haven’t discovered the joy of discovery!

One of countless little scenes set up to make you wonder and laugh and get immersed!

There’s so much to find and learn about in Fallout 76! The world is full of visually interesting locales and buildings and towns and bunkers! Uncovering a cabin hidden in the woods, now silent and empty; this is a joy to us archeologists! Let’s excavate the truth as best we can. We may never know exactly what happened, but we’ll try!

Coming across a scene of decaying bandit corpses, all at each other’s throats. Listening to a holotape stashed nearby that explains the philosophical disagreement that led to these deaths. Fallout 76 is so wonderfully full of this environmental storytelling, with dead bodies in curious positions and hints at how life failed to survive. The anthropologist in my eats all this up!

This is Greg. He fell off a ladder and died. A note warned him to be careful. He paid it no mind.

This brings us to the third pillar: examine. Let me tell you another story. I was in a summer program when I was a youth, going into the hills and digging up dirt to attempt to find old Native American arrowheads and other relics. We’d go there and dig and dig. Often we’d find nothing. Sometimes we’d find a few items that might be part of past civilizations. There was an urge to connect with the past and to find something hidden, which pushed us forward.

As many of us grow up, we lose this sense of wonder. We don’t have the patience for it perhaps. Fallout 76 is a rare game that asks us to slow down and study its world, much like how many of us remember playing and loving the game Myst back in the 1990s (another game that was criticized for being sort of empty, without much plot).

Here’s a mundane computer workstation. I thought this was a really nice setup for a photo. I like the cardboard box, unsure if it should fall or hold strong. That’s how our life can be at times.

This is where many label Fallout 76 as wasted or worthless. The gamer who wants to blow through five quests in 30 minutes and unlock that special weapon and become the hero…they probably won’t understand why people would bother with Fallout 76. And that’s fair for them: this isn’t their type of game.

And yet for me, some of my best times in Fallout 76 has been my own personal journey that started with wanderlust, blossomed into discovery, and finished with contemplative examination of the past. This seemingly basic process has compelled me to continue playing Fallout 76, pushing through all the horrible bugs and issues, akin to pioneers trying to avoid freezing to death or being glitched out of existence by diseased programming.

Helvetia: A Case Study

Still unsure if Fallout 76 is for you? Consider this case study that encapsulates this wander, discover, and examine philosophy that I claim makes Fallout 76 so captivating to a select group of players.

Welcome to Helvetia! It’s a nice place…or was…at some point…probably!

As I attentively stroll through the beautiful Appalachia countryside, I stumble upon a quaint little German/Swiss town, once a tourist destination but now lifeless apart from the roving ghouls. I’m filled with excitement because I know I’m going to discover and learn more about this world I love.

Questions fill my mind. Who lived here? What happened to this place? We’re they happy? What will I find as I go from house to house searching for answers? On the video-game side, I wonder if I’ll find a decent weapon blueprint or some higher level power armor.

As I explore the boundaries of the town and make a first sweep, I find no quest or higher purpose. Instead I find an art exhibit, a voting location gone haywire, and an old plundered inn. I spend maybe 20 minutes carefully sifting through the broken furniture and junk.

A swing-set for children. What manner of fun did kids have here? Where did it all go wrong?

There’s some notes here and there, and I do find a holotape. I hunker down in a safe corner and listen. It gives me a rare glimpse into the actual lives of the now-very-dead townsfolk. I also find a big score of tasty honey from the derelict-but-quaint local honey shop. Great!

All this exploration is done mostly quietly and peacefully with just a little combat to clear out the ghouls. After about an hour I’ve “finished” this location. I leave with the satisfaction of knowing I’ve explored another piece of post-war West Virginia history. Thus ends my time with Helvetia.

Helvetia if this Was Fallout 5: A Thought Experiment

Does my story bore you to death? Does my experience sound dreadfully dull? To some it will. These are the players who will likely curse Fallout 76 for, quite simply, not being Fallout 5. Part of the issue is it’s so easy to reimagine this town the way a fifth Fallout would have done it. For the sake of curiosity, let’s be creative and come up with our own Fallout 5 Helvetia.

This man was a writer…perhaps one of Bethesda’s, which explains the lack of storytelling…

If this were Fallout 5, this location would have been a vibrant town full of NPCs. You’d probably meet the town leader who gives you a grand quest to reinstate the annual town celebration day, requiring you to decorate the town or sabotage the whole event.

There would have been a deranged-ghoul who gives you a quest to kill the local honey shop owner because he believes the honey is a mind-control agent. You’d be able to side with him or turn him in. You’d later run into his family on the other side of the map, telling you of the time he ate some irradiated honey and nearly went feral.

Perhaps there’d be an upbeat German/Swiss companion you could recruit, dressed in a colorful blend of that culture’s traditional clothing and scavenged parts. She’d talk in an accent of course and have a quest to find her lost loved ones.

This photo is meant to calm our hearts and open our minds to the creative space…or whatever.

Did I mention you’d be able to buy a player-home? You’d then decorate it with a bunch of fun German/Swiss trinkets as you complete quests for the townsfolk. By the end, they’d adopt you as their local town hero, possibly building a statue to you unless you choose to role-play a humble character.

The above structure is the well-established (some would say tired) Bethesda role-playing design, and this is what many wanted Fallout 76 to be. They didn’t want a Helvetia that’s empty and dead, and I can’t argue with their feelings. All this stuff would have been pretty fun no doubt, and there’s clearly a huge appetite for standard Bethesda/Fallout quests and role-playing.

The flames are the hopes of Fallout fans as Bethesda burns down our dreams of Fallout 5.

But here’s the bottom-line: Bethesda chose to not make a typical experience, so it’s not reasonable for me, as a reviewer, to expect it of Fallout 76. They made it clear from day one what this game would be. Maybe that was a poor choice, but as a reviewer, I cannot judge the game based on a different game I wish they would have made.

And let me go a step farther, at the risk of upsetting some people. In a way, exploring Helvetia was a fresher experience for me than if it was the usual Bethesda Fallout stuff. Going the dead and desolate route let me express my own inquisitiveness in a bolder way than if all the stories were right there in front of me in living NPC form.

Engaging with and helping NPCs has its joys of course, but in Fallout 76 the joy is in helping yourself to discover and learn about this world. I strongly believe piecing the fragments of this broken world together is enriching in its own way. That drive to know what used to be and how it all was lost is what makes Fallout 76 worthy to me.

A Tangent: We’ve Done this Before: Fallout Tactics

Speaking of people’s desire for Fallout 5, this isn’t the first time us Fallout fans have gotten something radically different than what we wanted. And ironically, this isn’t the first time us old-timers have played Fallout with friends.

Look! It’s Fallout with friends! Well, actually they’re total strangers…but I can pretend!

Way back in 2001, it had been 3 years since Fallout 2 took the CRPG world by storm, and we had all been waiting year after year for Fallout 3. And yet we didn’t get it. What we got was a weird multiplayer Fallout forgoing story and traditional RPG elements. Sound familiar? It would take a full 10 years to give us a proper Fallout 3 (although it was reimagined/mainstreamed by Bethesda).

For many, this Fallout Tactics was written off as a fake Fallout, and it certainly wasn’t what most fans wanted. Still, many of us accepted it for what it was and made the best out of it. I have fond memories of building my Tactics team and facing off against friends on our LAN.

Fast forward to today. We all want a proper Fallout 5, one that returns to form with the intelligence and wit and depth of Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and New Vegas. And yet here we are with a multiplayer Fallout forgoing story and traditional RPG elements. Sigh…

Fallout 76 questing: you sit by skeletons and act like there’s choices and consequences.

To add insult to injury, I fear it will take us another 10 years to once again get a proper Fallout. Bethesda is busy with their new game Starfield. And then there’s Elder Scrolls VI. That probably puts us out roughly 10 years…a distant dream at best.

Therefore, it’s no wonder why Fallout fans are upset. Fallout Tactics was the last PC release for a decade, and it’s possible Fallout 76 will also stand alone for countless years. At least Fallout Tactics was competently made…Fallout 76 is not.

Anyway, I think this comparison is fascinating, and it helps explain how crestfallen so many Fallout fans are. Even if Fallout 76 released perfectly stable and bug-free, nothing can replace a real Fallout 5 in the hearts of many. And that’s understandable.

Back to the Review: World Size and Nuke Farming

Let’s get back to some actual review stuff. First off, how much content is here? To give perspective, I reached level 40 after 45 hours of playtime, and at this point I’d explored most of the left side of the map with maybe 55% of locations remaining. The Challenge tracker put my quest and event completion around 33%. So this is a big game world.

In regard to nukes, the first one I saw was at 25 hours, but it was way far away from me. At 50 hours I was at a location that got nuked, and I engaged in cooperative high-level play with a bunch of level 100+ characters. I got annihilated by the end-game enemies, but it was fun to get a glimpse of what high-level players do in the end-game.

This is the landscape after a nuke. Bask in the beautiful orange haze! So lovely! Warning: real nukes aren’t lovely; they’re terrible and should never be set off, even if you’re very, very angry.

I’m now level 60 or so at 65 hours of playtime, and I’ve engaged in quite a few end-game nuke farming affairs. Too bad the framerate and game performance tanks when you’ve got a nuke going off and 10+ players all crammed in a small zone. Maybe after another 20 patches…

One of the big draws is late-game legendary item farming (and high-end crafting), and I do think it’s pretty fun to try to farm a great new weapon to rework your character build around.

Character Builds and Perk Cards

Speaking of character builds, one of the few design decisions that has been mostly praised is the perk card system. Gone is the static character builds of the past that lock you into one path. Now you slowly collect new perk cards you can freely equip and unequip at your leisure.

The perk card system really is a fun and interesting way to build your character! Strength FTW!

Every player level lets you pick a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute (up to level 50), which allows for more (or upgraded) perk cards to be equipped to the attribute you select. It’s good fun deciding if you want a super-Strong or super-Lucky or very Agile or Perceptive character.

It’s also a real pleasure to slowly open new packs of cards and decide how to build your character. Do you focus on shotguns, survival, or something supremely wacky? There’s some really fun cards and returning favorite features like the Mysterious Stranger.

Even though at first there’s some essential cards (carry weight!), once you reach level 30 or so you have quite a large variety of build options open up to you. And once you reach level 50 and beyond, the depth of the character system fully reveals itself.

Crafting and Base Building

Fallout 76’s crafting is basically the same as Fallout 4. You can disassemble weapons and armor to learn how to craft various parts. It’s fun to slowly accumulate crafting knowledge, letting you make some incredibly powerful guns after dozens of hours of hard work.

The base building system is very limited, only allowing one mobile C.A.M.P. location. When you first start, you’re unable to build any of the cool stuff, and it can take 50+ hours or more to unlock even a fraction of the best building parts.

Here’s the first home I built! Very cozy. Very usable. I’ll upgrade someday, but for now it’s home!

There’s certainly a joy to occasionally taking time to build up your mobile base, saving chunks as Blueprints for easy reassembly as you move throughout the wasteland. Many players will likely miss the permanent Settlements and player houses of past Fallout games, but this mobile, more-limited base building fits well with Fallout 76 lore.

Workshops: A Great Idea Poorly Implemented

One of Fallout 76’s new ideas is the workshop system. All over the map you’ll find sites you can “claim” to make your own, such as junkyards and farms. Then you can build extractor units to harvest various resources over time. Other players can attempt to steal your workshop from you, making them “wanted” (Fallout 76’s penalty system), and you’ll fight it out.

Here I am “claiming” a workshop…I could be attacked by another player…but why bother?

The system is great in theory. The idea of claiming land as your own, harvesting certain resources like crystal or gold or aluminum, and defending it from attackers is fantastic.

The problem is in how unstable and fleeting Fallout 76’s world is. If you get disconnected or quit, all your workshop progress is erased since it’s only stored for that specific game session. So it’s not like you can slowly build up workshops over time. Overall, workshops are a wasted opportunity that end up being an occasional diversion instead of a robust, meaningful game system.

Terrible Non-Collectibles

Let me briefly note that Fallout 76 changes all the permanent-buff collectibles of past Fallout games into short-period buffs usually lasting an hour. This is a huge letdown since it renders Bobbleheads and Magazines mostly inconsequential. Nobody is going to alter their gameplay because they get 30% easier locking for an hour after using a certain Bobblehead.

Normally this would be an awesome find! But Bobbleheads are boring in Fallout 76…sad face!

This change also means none of these are true collectibles anymore. They respawn over and over and you can’t collect or display them like so many fans (myself included) have loved doing in prior Fallout games. Now I find myself vendoring Bobbleheads or using them instantly because who cares…

It’s an unfortunate change that takes something so fun and rewarding and makes it mundane and lame. It would have been great fun tracking these down with friends, sharing where we found them, and showing them off at our bases. Fail. Maybe they’ll patch it.

Holotapes, Notes, and Story Quests

I previously mentioned how Fallout 76 is full of various lore tidbits, fed mostly through holotapes and notes. For the record, I’ve found over 100 holotapes, roughly 150 notes, and about 20 treasure maps.

On the quest side, I’ve completed over 10 main quests, about 12 side quests, and a slew of unsorted quests. So there is questing to be had…it’s just limited…and without much cohesion.

Enemy Diversity and Challenge

It’s unfortunate that Fallout 76 reuses so much of Fallout 4’s enemies and assets. Still, it’s nice to see a wide variety of new and interesting creatures included. There’s some really creative and funny takes on irradiated wildlife in Fallout 76. However, the majority of the time is spent fighting the four or five main enemy types, which gets repetitive very quickly.

Look at that cutesy-wootsy fox! I bet he’s got a nice pelt for crafting! C’mere Mr. Fox!

The game challenge overall is as one would expect from a Bethesda title: easy. Tough enemies do spawn, but I mostly died because of the terrible or broken AI, glitches, or other technical issues. But nobody really plays Fallout for the combat challenge I would imagine.

Sound Design, Music, and Radio Stations

Fallout 76’s sounds are mostly rehashes from Fallout 4. There’s a few nice additions with fantastic environmental sound effects in places. Bubbling, steaming, grinding, and chirping world sounds create a nice ambient backdrop for exploration.

I’m sneaking into this Super Mutant camp! Must be very quiet! Nobody set off a nuke!

The biggest standout is the absolutely phenomenal instrumental soundtrack by Inon Zur. He’s been doing the Fallout music ever since Fallout Tactics interestingly enough, and I think Fallout 76 is his best work yet. It’s truly brilliant, creating such a warm yet despairing mood. So good!

There are only two actual radio stations in Fallout 76: classical and the standard early to mid 1900s tunes. It’s all fine, even if we’ve been hearing some of these songs for years now in prior games.

In case you were wondering, Atom Bomb Baby is just as glorious in the Appalachia as it was in Fallout 4. Truly an epic song!

Online Events: They’re Bad

Fallout 76 includes a couple types of “online” quests, and both are pretty bad. There’s “Events” and “Daily Quests” that repeat on timers. Sadly each of these quest types tend to be very generic, very tedious, and very fetch-questy.

The “Powering Up” Events are quite tedious…running around repairing stuff for a minor reward.

Most players will probably attempt these quests once and realize how unfulfilling they are. Overall Bethesda did a terrible job creating fun and engaging repeatable quests…not surprisingly really.

Photo Mode and Photos as Loading Screens!

Fallout 76 has a fantastic photo mode that’s super-fun to use as a sort of selfie-documentary, visually recounting your personal game journey. There’s so many wonderful and wild places for photo opportunities! And remember how I said this game is for anthropologists and explorers and archeologists and stuff? They love to take photos, trust me on this one!

Photo mode brings much happiness and joy! Here’s me chilling with my raider buddies!

I’ve personally taken over 80 photos during my 65+ hours exploring West Virginia, and it’s a trip down memory lane to go into the Photo Gallery and see the way my character has visually and geographically progressed throughout the game. Good times.

Not only is there a photo mode, but Fallout 76 uses your photos as loading screen artwork. This may sound minor, but it’s pretty much the best feature ever invented. Too much? Ok, but using your own photos as loading screens is the best feature you never knew you needed.

Even if Fallout 76 goes down is history as utterly hated, the one thing it’ll always have is your photos as loading screens! They’ll never be able to take that away from you, Fallout 76! Never!

Couldn’t We Have Had a Few NPCs?

I want to say I agree with all the criticism that says Fallout 76 did NOT need to have every single human/ghoul NPC be dead. Bethesda could definitely have included a handful of NPCs here and there and still delivered the core Fallout 76 experience.

This is as close to a NPC dialogue as you’re going to get: some text on a computer screen.

Some traditional Fallout quests and NPCs and dialogue wouldn’t have ruined the game. Therefore, it’s easy to look at the game and feel like Bethesda was just lazy and didn’t want to do all the hard work of writing dialogue and quests and choices and consequences. That’s logical criticism.

But Bethesda claims this is how they wanted to make the game. No dialogue. No proper NPCs. Fair enough I guess…but there’s still plenty of other ways they could have added more quality quests.

Fake Conclusion: The Fallout Future

The future for Fallout 76 is as bright or dark as Bethesda wants it to be. There’s great potential to fix all the bugs and lag and issues and to deliver quality (free) content for months to come. There’s also the unfortunate possibility Bethesda won’t ever stabilize the game, will add even more egregious cash-grabs (loot boxes), and charge big money for lame expansions in the future.

My faith in Bethesda is in as good of condition as this decimated cathedral.

I honestly have very little faith in Bethesda. I don’t trust them at all. Fallout 76 could get turned around like Final Fantasy XIV or The Division, but will that happen? Final Fantasy XIV took three years with a full relaunch, and The Division took a year and a half of extreme patching to make it into a truly solid, deep, and expansive game.

Does Bethesda have the will, the competency, and the moral compass to do what’s right and needed? Only time will tell.

Proper Conclusion: Semi-Wasted, Semi-Wonderful

As stated at the very start, Fallout 76 often is broken, usually buggy, and sometimes unplayable. And yet it’s also one of the most beautiful and detailed post-apocalyptic open-game-worlds ever created. Appalachia is the star: so exquisitely detailed and captivating. And when the game functions there’s dozens upon dozens of hours of brilliant exploration to be had.

Despite the enthralling exploration, the game definitely lacks quests, a sense of permanence, and a traditional video game plot. The cooperative play can be lots of fun, whether it’s low-level basic exploration or end-game nuke runs with a crew of 10+ other highly-geared Power Armor players. And yet stability issues are the greatest threat to your fun.

What else will emerge from Bethesda’s vaults? Can they unleash Fallout 76’s potential? Maybe.

Ultimately, there’s no way a serious review can overlook all the faults, but sometimes there’s joy to be had even in the most busted of video games. Just be aware that only a certain type of player will enjoy Fallout 76’s bleak, mostly-dead world of self-guided gameplay.

If my review piques your interest, then the safe bet is to buy Fallout 76 for cheap…in a year…if they’ve fixed everything…and over time you may come to appreciate the joy of wandering, discovering, and examining Fallout 76’s strange and creative Appalachia open-world.

At the very least, let’s agree using your photos on loading screens is genius. So Fallout 76 isn’t all bad, right?

Vibrant, huge open-world

Beautiful scenic views

Captivating exploration

Piecing together the lore

Character build diversity

Perk card flexibility

Coop when you want to

Base building and expansion

Crafting and upgrading gear

Atmospheric soundtrack

Fallout vibe when working

Server instability

Serious latency issues

So many bugs and glitches

Quest tracker issues

Lack of NPCs, dialogue

Clunky, awkward combat

Lame events and daily quests

Cumbersome menus

Recycled Fallout 4 assets

Ugly up-close details

Insulting micro-transactions

Playtime: 65 hours total. Nick’s explored about 75% of the map, having almost completed the final quests. He’s engaged in end-game content, built many homes, and crafted hundreds of weapons and armor. He’s eager to finish this review and get back to living the life Appalachia!

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using an Intel i7-3930k CPU, 32GB of memory, and a nVidia GTX 980 Ti graphics card.

Also read the Fallout 76 PC Performance Analysis.

Fallout 76 Review: Semi-Wasted, Semi-Wonderful published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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