#played and finished arcade mode. lets just say as soon as i actually had to fight even just a cpu

[lokh]

why they pronounce anji like angie

[uselesslesbiab]

How about hcs for the Phantom Thieves finding out Ren's been found out as their leader by like 9 people (one of which is an elementary schooler). I imagine they'd be cool with Sojiro knowing cause he's the group dad (no I will not accept otherwise) but they would not be cool about some of the others (especially if they find out some of the shit he's had to do for them).

Ooh I’ve had ideas about this for a long time and I wanted to write a full fic about it but I probably won’t any time soon. The idea was gonna be post interrogation scene Ren is forcibly put on bed rest so all his confidants come over to help him and the other phantom thieves out instead of Ren having to go see them. This might be a longer post so I guess I’ll separate the bullet points based on each phantom thief?? Just so I don’t forget anyone.

Morgana doesn’t get reactions for obvious reasons. Also this kinda turned into which confidants they would get along with the most oops. Mishima is also not mentioned since they all know that he knows and runs the Phan-site

Ryuji

His “For real?!” gets louder every time someone new walks in the door

He doesn’t really think it’s a big deal that these people know. If Ren trusts them, then he trusts them.

He’s super impressed by Shinya and they actually get along really well since Ryuji’s still a kid at heart. Shinya thinks his dyed hair and attitude is cool. (CEOs of cuffing their pants so high it looks ridiculous).

Chihaya scams him out of his money so fast it makes his head spin. Ren makes her give it back but his ego takes a beating.

Politics bore him to tears, but he likes the sound of Yoshida’s voice and the way he really listens to young people. “It’s like he totally gets us ya know? You’re alright old man!”

He has a nice talk with Kawakami where she apologizes for treating him like a troublemaker just because of what the other teachers said about him.

Ann

She’s extremely surprised and a little embarrassed that all these people know about them. “Ugh you’re worse at keeping this a secret than Ryuji!”

She starts complimenting Takemi’s goth fashion immediately and is totally in love with her style

She gets along well with Ohya too. The worlds of modeling and journalism are far from strangers, so they have a lot to talk about.

She gets along surprisingly well with Hifumi considering they’re almost polar opposites. Hifumi briefly mentions that she likes sweets and Ann invites her out for crepes on the spot.

Yusuke

Yusuke is disappointed in Ren of course and tells him as much, but he gets distracted before he can finish scolding him.

He’s absolutely fascinated by Chihaya and her fortune telling. He doesn’t have any money for her to take but she gives him a free reading anyway because he just looked so excited she couldn’t say no.

Yusuke and Hifumi really hit it off once they start talking about the phantom thieves and end up becoming good friends. She’s his first friend he’s ever made at school.

He calls Iwai a true artist when he sees his skill at making model guns. He demands to witness the entire crafting and detail process from start to finish. Iwai sees another kid with no parents and immediately goes into dad mode.

Makoto

Makoto isn’t angry, but she sure as hell isn’t happy either. As the strategist, she immediately recognizes and connects the confidants with the mementos targets that were troubling them.

She turns to Ren immediately and just goes “What in the hell is wrong with you”

After she gets over scolding him for being so reckless, she actually finds herself enjoying the company of Yoshida and Ohya especially

She talks to Yoshida and Ohya about her father and the injustice in the political system.

Makoto is really great with kids and Shinya kinda flocks over to her at some point and asks a bunch of questions about her role in the phantom thieves. Shooter arcade games are actually the only games she’s ever played, so they talk about Gun About strategy a lot.

Futaba

“Okay I got given so much much shit for letting Sojiro find out and Ren was doing this the whole time?!! You guys suck!”

She brags about her gaming skills to Shinya of course and challenges him to a Gun About competition.

Takemi sees her and immediately starts ranting off about how she needs to take care of her health and how her vitamin D is deficient and how she should get tested for this this and this and-

Futaba zones out but the feeling of having an adult female figure care about her well-being makes her smile.

Kawakami hears about her shut in nature and commits to tutoring her on the exact subjects she’ll need to know for the high school entrance exam. (Futaba may be incredibly smart but we all know the bullshit high school asks us to learn about. She doesn’t learn stuff she doesn’t have an interest in.)

Haru

Like Ryuji, she puts her faith in Ren and decides to trust these people.

She absolutely ADORES Iwai and his model guns. She fawns over their design and tries to pick up all the heaviest ones. He’s extremely flustered and thrown off at first because she’s this 5’2 tiny girl wearing a fluffy pink sweater and is rambling off facts she knows about all these guns.

Even so, Iwai is a dad at heart. The second he finds out she’s an orphan he practically adopts her on the spot. Haru is happy to finally have a male figure in her life that she can feel safe with and look up to.

She’s too smart to fall for Chihaya’s traps but she indulges in the fortune telling anyway. Only as a subtle way to give her some money.

[mrs-dynamight]

Be Nice To Me 3

Part 2.

*************************************************

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x fem!Reader, Denki Kaminari x fem!Reader

Warnings: Eventual mature content, angst, hurt/comfort, love triangle, the reader is lowkey toxic, everything will be adressed in every episode (:

Chapter warning: Swearing but just a little bit of it. Kissing because this is still on fluff mode

Chapter: 3/? Yup still don't know

Synopsis: You're in love with your best friend Bakugou, and you're cofessing to him but things get a lot more complicated when Denki starts to treat you different *wink wink*

Word count: 2.2k

Author's note: Okay friends, this is a little longer but it's cute, and it has some interesting things that will be relevant to the story, so read carefully, aaaand I must warn this is a slowburn. Hope you like it

Chapter 3 My Oh My - Aqua

We both left the empty classroom and went directly to class 3A. Tenya saw us coming late and started rambling about how punctuality is key for heroes and how we as seniors should give example and just Tenya stuff.

The rest of the class went pretty fast, I was thinking about what Denki said, he sounded so serious when he said the gig stuff, maybe I was overthinking, he has always been nice with me, just nice, we are friends right?

All those years getting to know each other, being partners in crime, spending too many nights wide awake talking about our future, the amount of pressure being a “hero” meant, how at the end of the day we were still children risking our lives, he understood that better than most of our friends; some of his words were burned in my mind forever: “I love helping people, but sometimes I wonder who’s helping us?” “I’m afraid I’ll turn into a puppet of the hero commission, like Hawks did” “I’m afraid of losing myself in the process”; as far as I know I was the only one that knew this side of Kaminari, everyone else always thought of him as the dyslexic class clown, but there were so much more of him that only jokes and a funny face after using his quirk, such a complex mind, sometimes I wonder if he plays dumb on propose…

Thinking about Denki almost made me forgot how nervous I was for my date with Katsuki, but the ring of the bell that indicates the end of the class made me jump from my desk in excitement.

-Oi dumbass, see you in a while, be punctual- Bakugo said picking up his stuff and heading to the door without looking back at me.

------------

We talked about nothing in the way to the ramen restaurant, I wasn’t as nervous as I were on Monday and everything seemed to be going so smoothly, just as I thought, this was Bakugo Katsuki my best friend, the guy I was in love with, he had seen me covered in sweat and bruises from the hero training, had seen me cry over my failed math tests, he knew me, if he didn’t like me back I could deal with it, but this date definitely won’t ruin our friendship.

---------------------

-Don’t make me laugh when I’m eating, you idiot- Bakugo said between coughs from almost choking with his noodles

-I didn’t mean it, but it’s true my greatest fear are those wacky waving inflatable things they put in the cars sales, they scare the shit out of me- I said laughing and with a bit of embarrassment for telling this stupid thing to my crush, but he found it hilarious

-I’ve seen you take down villains with a single hand and without sweating a single drop, but your greatest fear is ridiculous Y/N-

That kinda sounded like a compliment, and knowing Katsuki it probably was, I couldn’t help but blush but if someone asked me it was the spiciness of the ramen.

-I’m also a little bit afraid of heights, not as I used to, but it makes me a little bit nervous thinking about falling to my inevitable death- I said slurping the last of the broth in my plate

-Heights? No way, that means we can’t go rock climbing because of a certain pussy- Said the ash blonde, finishing his ramen as well

-Why? Is Bakugo Katsuki planning on taking me on a road trip anytime soon? – Oh shit that sounded way more flirty than I had planned.

I turned bright red right after I said that and to my surprise the boy in front of me was just as red as I was, that’s it I just made Katsuki Bakugo blush, I can die a hero now. We were not looking at each other, not saying a single word, just awkwardly sitting in front of each other.

-I… I was joking ´Tsuki- I began but he interrupted me with

-Maybe I want to take you to a stupid road trip, what you’re going to do about it? You can chicken now and saving me seeing you cry in front of a rock, but that wouldn’t be very Y/N of you- Aaaaand just like that Bakugo’s back

-Let’s go, Draw, I still wanna kick your ass in Mario Kart before curfew and knowing you, you will want to play those claw things and get some weird weeb thing, like a figure of that loud anime guy you like, the one who plays Volleyball; and of course you will be wasting all your money in the process- This man knows me damn too well

I was about getting my money to pay but he stopped me

-I got this-

-But ‘Tsuki I invited you, I have to pay for it- I said but the waitress had already taken Katsukis money

-If you beat me at Mario Kart, I’ll let you pay me back, but if I win… Well we will see about that later- Bakugo said without looking at me

Was that flirting? Is Katsuki Bakugo flirting with me? Did he noticed this was a date and that’s why he wanted to pay? Nah, he’s probably doing it to bother me, but if anything made me bush a little.

-Oi, you coming or what? – I was so caught up in the emotion that I didn’t noticed he was already heading to the front door

We walked a couple of blocks to the arcade, it was still early in the afternoon, we had a couple of hours before our curfew and I was going to make the best of them.

--------

After the tenth time losing against him, I gave up.

-This is bullshit, I don’t know how but you’re cheating, there is no way I actually hit all those frigging banana peels, this game sucks, you suck- I said making an overdramatic mouth pout and crossing my arms on my chest.

I could hear Bakugos laughing on my side and when I turned to look at him, he had the most gorgeous look on his eyes, but when he noticed that I was looking at him he changed his expression.

-I told you so, you can’t beat me, but I’m a compassionate God, so I’ll let you choose the next game for you to lose in- His big smile was equally irritating as it was beautiful

Three games in and Bakugo was about to blow the whole arcade up, apparently, he can’t dance to save his life, so Dance Dance Revolution was the perfect game for me to choose. I was literally tearing up from laughter, he was so angry and upset.

-If you had spending more time with Mina and me you could have learned a couple of steps, but you had to go sleeping at eight like an old man-

-Have you seen this face? This is what a good sleep schedule does to your skin, but I guess you’ll never know about that-

-Oh god, is that a pimple? – I joked to make him even angrier, I leaned towards his face to mock him more -Oh he has a brother, and a whole family of angry little buds, this even looks like you-

He turned his head and his nose was almost an inch away from mine, his eyes locked with mines, we were so close that I could feel his breath, a little bit more and our lips would be touching, my mind was going blank, I suddenly forgot how to breathe, I thought that it was actually happening, I should close my eyes and go for it, I leant a bit closer, we were almost there…

-Y/N, we both know there is not a single pimple in this face- Said Bakugo moving his head back and creating some distance between us.

I felt my heart drop to the ground. He didn’t wanna kiss me, I probably made him uncomfortable being that close, I’m so stupid, I fucked up.

-There is the claw machine of the Volleyball dudes, and there is the owl one you like- Bakugo was trying to be a good friend to me, and as much as I appreciated it I was way too sad to even think about volleyball

After more than a half of my money spent, I was walking to the UA dorms with my Bokuto plushie and an ache in my heart. I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment, was I imagining everything? Was he not flirting with me? It felt so real, I wanted to cry, but that would only make things worse, I wasn’t looking at Bakugo for the first time since we’ve met. I couldn’t hold a conversation after that, I used the excuse of being too concentrated in winning the plushie, but now that we are walking side by side it feels weird not saying anything. Bakugo doesn’t seem to care, or even notice, he’s also very quiet, this feels way too awkward, I just want this night to be over and cry my heart out in my room. There is only a couple more blocks and this nightmare will end.

-Hey Y/N, wait- This is the first time I hear Bakugos voice since we started heading the dorms

I try to put my best “Everything is okay” face but I fail miserably when I see his face. I started to tear up and just hugged my plushie with my eyes fixed in the ground, I can’t see him in the face

-I’m sorry Katsuki, I wasn’t mean to put you in an uncomfortable situation, I wasn’t thinking and…-

I was grabbed so suddenly I dropped Bokuto

Before I realized his lips were pressed against my own. I was way too shocked to respond to his kiss, to my very first kiss. He pulled back, and a sigh left his lips.

-‘Tch, don’t apologise, I didn’t wanna kiss you in front of a bunch of losers- He said looking to his side, clearly avoiding my confused gaze

I didn’t hesitate, I grabbed his face and kissed him, trying to let him know how much I waited for that kiss. He quickly responded to it, for someone as strong and tough as him he was being gentle and caring, if this ain’t heaven, I dare God to come down and tell me this isn’t what glory feels like.

We kept the kiss, it became more and more passionate, he got closer to deepen the kiss, I could feel his arms around my waist, and I could taste the melon soda he had at the arcade in his lips. I opened my mouth just a little and I felt his tongue slowly brushing against mine. This was the pinnacle of happiness.

We broke the kiss with blushed cheeks and racing heartbeats. This was too much; my head was spinning and I almost cried tears of joy.

-I thought you didn’t wanna kiss me- I said with a broke voice

-I didn’t- His reply felt like a bucket of cold water

-What? You’re kidding, you kissed me- Knowing Bakugo he just said that to mess with me

-Y/N I didn’t want to kiss you, but not because of whatever stupid thing your mind its thinking right now-

-Then why? You can’t just kiss me and then tell me you didn’t mean it, you don’t like me? –

-I like you, a lot, and that is why this is getting way harder that it’s supposed to be, I’ve been dying to kiss you for a long long time Y/N, you had no idea how much I have fantasized with having you between my arms and telling you just how much I like your dumb pretty face, I like you, and don’t you ever doubt it-

-Then, why? –

-I’m going to become the no. 1 hero, and that means I have to try even harder than the rest of the losers in this and the other hero curses, that’s why I will be having internships abroad this semester, with the bests heroes not only in Japan but in the world. I have to be the best in everything, having a girlfriend will only be distracting and possibly a complete disaster because I will be a terrible boyfriend being that busy with hero training, and asking you to wait for me is selfish, even for me. I didn’t wanna kiss you and then leave for half a year, maybe even more, but then you looked at me with those stupid kitty eyes and I just…-

-You’re going away? And you didn’t told me? – Now I definitely started to cry

-Oi! You’re the first one to know I haven’t even told my mom yet –

-I’ll wait –

-What? No I.. –

-I said I’ll wait for you, Bakugo Katsuki I’ve been in love with you since we first meet, I’ve been waiting two years for this, this is just half a year, then we will have all the time in the world-

Now it was Bakugos time to shed a tear

-You don’t have to; I don’t want you to be waiting for me while I…-

My kiss didn’t let him finish what he was about to say, he was tearing, I was tearing, but it was beautiful.

-Six months and then you’ll be mine Katsuki, get it? –

-I don’t think this is a good idea, you dumbass-

-Maybe it isn’t, but what are you going to do? Stop me? - I replied and then we kissed one last time

************************************************

Part 4.

I really liked how this turned out, I'm going to the the masterlist post soon so you can find all the chapters together. As always I'm starting to write and in my second language (just give me my certificate already) so any error let me know, and if you want to be tagged message me. LY

[ducktastic]

2020 Gameological Awards

Over on the Gameological Discord, we have an annual tradition of writing up our games of the year not as a ranked list but rather as answers to a series of prompts. Here are my personal choices for the year that was 2020.

Favorite Game of the Year

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into Paradise Killer. I knew that I liked the vaporwave resort aesthetic from the game’s trailer and figured I was in for a Danganronpa-style murder mystery visual novel with an open-ended murder mystery at its core. Those assumptions were… half-right? The game definitely plays out like the exploration bits of Danganronpa set on the island from Myst but with far simpler puzzles. What I didn’t expect was to fall so deeply in love with the environment—its nooks and crannies, its millennia of lore, its brutalist overlap of idol worship, consumerism, and mass slaughter. It makes sense that the world of Paradise Killer is its strongest feature, since the cast of NPCs don’t really move around, leaving you alone with the world for the overwhelming majority of your experience as you bounce back and forth between digging around for clues and interrogating potential witnesses. And despite what the promo materials indicated, there IS a definitive solution to the crimes you’re brought in to investigate, the game just lets you make judgment based on whatever evidence you have at the time you’re ready to call it a day, so if you’re missing crucial evidence you might just make a compelling enough case for the wrong person and condemn them to eternal nonexistence. Am I happy with the truth at the end of the day? No, and neither is anybody else I’ve spoken to who completed the game, but we all were also completely enthralled the entire time and our dissatisfaction has less to do with the game and more to do with the ugly reality of humanity. I’ve always been of the mindset that “spoilers” are absolute garbage and that a story should be just as good whether you know the twist or not and any story that relies on surprising the audience with an unexpected reveal is not actually that good a story, but Paradise Killer is a game about piecing together your own version of events so I feel that it’s vital to the gameplay experience that people go in knowing as little as possible and gush all about it afterwards. Just trust me, if the game looks even remotely intriguing to you, go for it. I’ve had just as much fun talking about the game after I finished it with friends just getting started as I did actually solving its mysteries myself.

Best Single Player Game

I honestly missed out on the buzz for In Other Waters at launch, so I’m happy I had friends online talking it up as Black Friday sales were coming along. The minimal aesthetic of his underwater exploration game allows the focus to shift more naturally to the game’s stellar writing as a lone scientist goes off in search of her mentor and the secrets they were hiding on an alien world. It only took a few hours for me to become completely absorbed in this narrative and keep pushing forward into increasingly dangerous waters. In Other Waters might just be the best sci-fi story I experienced all year and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi novels, regardless of their experience with video games.

Best Multiplayer Game

Look, we all know this year sucked. 2020 will absolutely be chronicled in history books as a fascinating and deeply depressing time in modern history where we all stayed inside by ourselves and missed our friends and family. It was lonely and it was bleak. Which is why it made my heart glow so much more warmly every time I got a letter from an honest-to-goodness real-life friend in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Knowing that they were playing the same game I was and hearing about their experiences and sending each other wacky hats or furniture, it lightened the days and made us feel that little bit more connected. Sure, when the game first launched we would actually take the time to visit one another’s islands, hang out, chat in real-time, and exchange gifts, but we all eventually got busy with Zoom calls, sourdough starters, and watching Birds of Prey twenty-two times. Still, sending letters was enough. It was and still is a touching little way to show that we’re here for one another, if not at the exact same time.

Favorite Ongoing Game

Zach Gage is one of my favorite game designers right now, and when I heard he was releasing a game called Good Sudoku I was sold sight unseen. The game as released was… fine. It’s sudoku and it’s pleasant, but it was also buggy and overheated my phone in a way I hadn’t seen since Ridiculous Fishing (also by Zach Gage) seven years ago. Thankfully, the most glaring bugs have been fixed and I can now enjoy popping in every day for some quick logic puzzle goodness. Daily ranked leaderboards keep me coming back again and again, the steady ramp of difficulty in the arcade and eternal modes means I can always chase the next dopamine rush of solving increasingly complex puzzles. It’s not a traditional “ongoing” game the way, say, Fortnite and Destiny are, but I’m happy to come back every day for sudoku goodness.

Didn't Click For Me

With Fortnite progressively losing me over the course of 2020, finalizing with my wholesale “never again” stance after Epic boss Tim Sweeney compared Fortnite demanding more money from Apple to the American Civil Rights movement (no, absolutely not), I dipped my toe into a number of new “battle pass”-style online arena types of games, and while Genshin Impact eventually got its hooks into me, Spellbreak absolutely did not. With graphics straight out of The Dragon Prince and the promise of a wide variety of magic combat skills to make your character your own, the game seemed awfully tempting, but my first few experiences were aimless and joyless, with no moment of clarity to make me understand why I should keep coming back. Maybe they’ll finesse the game some more in 2021, or a bunch of my friends will get hooked and lure me back, but for now I am a-okay deleting this waste of space on my Switch and PC.

"Oh Yeah, I Did Play That Didn't I?"

I remember being really excited for Murder By Numbers. Ace Attorney-style crime scene investigation visual novel with Picross puzzles for the evidence, art by the creators of Hatoful Boyfriend, and music by the composer of Ace Attorney itself?! Sounds like a dream come true. But the pixel-hunt nature of the crime scene investigations was more frustrating than fun, the picross puzzles were not particularly great, and the game came out literally a week before the entire world went into lockdown which makes it feel more like seven years ago than just earlier this year. I remember being marginally charmed by the game once it was in my hands, but as soon as my mind shifted to long-term self care, Murder By Numbers went from hot topic to cold case.

Most Unexpected Joy

I was looking forward to Fuser all year. As a dyed-in-the-wool DropMix stan, the prospect of a spiritual sequel to DropMix on all major digital platforms without any of the analogue components was tremendously exciting, and I knew I’d have a lot of fun making mixes by myself and posting them online for the world to hear. What I didn’t expect, however, was the online co-op mode to be such a blast! Up to four players take turns making 32 bars of mashups, starting with whatever the player before handed them and adding their own fingerprints on top. It sounds like it should just be a mess of cacophony, but every session I’ve played so far has been just the best dance party I’ve had all year, and everyone not currently in control of the decks (including an audience of spectators) can make special requests for what the DJ should spin and tap along with the beat to great super-sized emoji to show how much they’re enjoying the mix. Literally the only times my Apple Watch has ever warned me of my heightened heart rate have been the times I was positively bouncing in place rocking out to co-op freestyle play in Fuser.

Best Music

Only one video game this year had tunes that were so bumpable they were upgraded to my general “2020 jams” playlist alongside Jeff Rosenstock, Run the Jewels, and Phoebe Bridgers, and that game was Paradise Killer. 70% lo-fi chill beats to study/interrogate demons to, 20% gothic atmospheric bangers, 10% high-energy pop jazz, this soundtrack was just an absolute joy to swim around in both in and out of gameplay.

Favorite Game Encounter

It’s wild that in a landscape where games let me live out my wildest fantasies, the single moment that lit me up in a way that stood out to me more than any other was serving Neil the right drink in Coffee Talk. Over the course of the game, you serve a variety of hot drinks to humans, werewolves, vampires, orcs, and more, all while chatting with your customers and learning more about their lives and relationships. The most mysterious customer, though, is an alien life form who adopts the name Neil. They do not know what they want to drink and claim it doesn’t make a difference because they cannot taste it. Everybody else wants *something*. Neil is just ordering for the sake of fitting in and exploring the Earth experience. It’s only in the second playthrough that attentive baristas will figure out what to serve Neil, unlocking the “true” ending in the process. Seeing the typically stoic Neil actually emote when they tasted their special order drink? What an absolute treat that was.

Best Free DLC of the Year

It’s still only a couple of days old at the time I’m writing this, but Marvel’s Avengers just added Kate Bishop, aka Hawkeye, and THANK GOODNESS. Almost every character in the game at launch just smashed the endless waves of robot baddies with their fists and that looks exhausting and uncomfortable. Hawkeye (the game calls her Kate Bishop, but come on, she’s been Hawkeye in the comics for over 14 years, let’s show her some respect) uses A SWORD. FINALLY! Aside from that, I’m just having a blast shooting arrows all over the place. She and Ms Marvel are the most likable characters in the game so far, so I hope they keep adding more of the Young Avengers and Champions to the game, and if the recently announced slate of Marvel movies and tv shows are any indication (with America Chavez, Cassie Lang, and Riri Williams all coming soon to the MCU), that seems to be what Marvel is pushing for across all media

Most Accessible Game

Nintendo is, first and foremost, a toy company. They got their start in toys and cards long before video games was a thing, and they still do more tests to ensure their video game hardware is childproof than anybody else in the industry (remember how they made Switch cartridges “taste bad” so kids wouldn’t eat them?). This year, Nintendo got to rekindle some of their throwback, simplistic, toys-and-cards energy with Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, a Switch collection of timeless family-friendly games like Chess, Mancala, and Backgammon, along with “toy” versions of sports like baseball, boxing, and tennis for a virtual parlor room of pleasant time-wasters. The games were all presented with charming li’l explainers from anthropomorphic board game figurines, and the ability to play quick sessions of Spider Solitaire on the touch screen while I binged The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix made Clubhouse Games one of my most-played titles of the year. Plus, local play during socially-distant friend hangs was an excellent way to make us feel like we were much closer than we were physically allowed to be as friends knocked each other’s block off in the “toy boxing” version of Rock’em Sock’em Robots.

"Waiting for Game-dot"

I get that everyone loves Disco Elysium. I saw it on everyone’s year-end lists last year. I finally bought it with an Epic Games Store coupon this year. This year was a long enough slog of depressing post-apocalyptic drudgery, I didn’t want to explore a whole nother one in my leisure time. I’ll get to it… someday.

Game That Made Me Think

Holovista was an iPhone game I played over the course of two or three days based on the recommendation of some trusted colleagues on Twitter and oh my goodness was I glad that I played it. What starts as a chill vaporwave photography game steadily progresses into an exploration of psychological trauma, relationships with friends and family, and the baggage we carry with us from our pasts. In this exceptionally hard year, I badly needed this story about spending time alone with your personal demons and finding your way back to the people who love and support you. Just like with Journey and Gone Home, I walked away from Holovista feeling a rekindled appreciation for the people in my life.

[bi-badass-geek]

Blizzcon 2019

Lmao fellas everyone was jokin how shit its gonna be and guess what ... we weren’t wrong tho at least we got pc titles not mobile like late april fools last year. Can’t make long post at the moment so it’s gonna be pretty brief.

They started with ‘apology’ i heard only piece of it and all i got from it was we will do better in the future let’s all move on nothin bout now.

First title we got on screen was “Diablo IV” which had kinda shitty graphic (like from mobile) if ya ask me but i hope its cause yt and other things that happens while streaming stuff. 5 class in total tho they talked bout 3 at the moment : Barbarian, Sorc and Druid.

 After opening they talked more bout D4 from which we found out : Sorcerer is elemental carnage intarnation , you can custom features of characters like scars hair and other details like this. Talents goin back , runes and skills gonna have tree system or somethin along that way ( they only showed talents tree looked fun if ya ask me), Sets are still game but won’t dominate the game, more push for legendaries we gonna see a lot of them. Open world no more do act this act that now (doesn��t feel Diablo much that way but *shrugs*). 16 time size, social hub which people already complained bout feelsbadman, events in the world you can finish with others (mmo feels much i’m right) and in some areas you can do pvp (kids gonna cry when they outplayed from lied party strategy i feel it already) mounts (horses was what they showed only so far the looks with armors and throphies at the side of it The Witcher 3 vibe much guys i wonder if that’s Roach). Bonus to previous feature combo dismount mounts (GW2 hmmm). They talked somethin bout fire places that inspired DS but not sure if it’s a thing in the actual game or was only concept. They were like let’s talk bout dungeons and hell then procided with showin us concept art only 22/20. Druid will have companions we saw 2 wolfs also can change into bear for example which was interestin.

After demons they went with ‘Blizzard Arcade’ but if its like special abonaments or just con thing i have no idea it was a mess tho ‘Starcraft II’ fans will be able to play vs AI agents, some commander comin back.

Second game they went for was HOTS from which we gonna get Deathwing (however you spell this pal) one of whihc everyone will get when its up and rollin, from now till 10th Nov. all heroes are free to play.

Third on plate was ‘Warcraft’ which i have next to 0 knowledge but from what i read its just old content that smells like other titles from miles away. ‘Warcraft Reforge’ beta open Thursday with virtual ticket. Said title is havin 25 anniversary also World 15th and since everyone likes vanilla actual quote mates they sellin ice cream vanilla there L.M.A.O., Classic will get update soon so tip finish quests if ya have any. New pet gonna be for sale next month all cash from it will go to 2 charities. 3 events cause anniversary whoever finish all will get obsidian pet or somethin like that. Sylv will clap Lich King if i’m correct and tear crown apart ( Go Queen!) preorder fever starts today and it’s literally Shadowbringers vibe from FFXIV or Shadowkeep from D2 *insert can i copy your homework meme* Name of the expansion is “Shadowlands” (so original) which gives new dungeons,raids also zones : Ardenweald,Maldraxxus, Bastion etc.

Forth nap material was “Hearthstone” aka new expansion bout dragons (which is cool still not gonna buy and play it) ‘Descent of Dragons’ on launch day ya get 5 free cards from set. Sept out you can pre purchase today yay! New mode ‘’Battle...’’ 8 players that works together gettin creatures till one remains.  12 Sept-beta (even tho we got Nov already i don’t get it so don’t ask me)

The last but not least i gonna be as bold as i can and say its game after D4 gaymers were waitin for aka “Overwatch 2” weirdly enough O1 will have updates with new maps etc so idk why anyone would feel the need to buy 2 really but whatever floats your boat. Story missions and hero missions which first is like campain and second adventure from Diablo (what they said) , you will be able to lvl up characters (actually showed that on Tracer) Custom skills will guess its either looks or in single cause i only glared at this part (feelsbad bein busy when you want to watch shit), PvE aspect, PvP new maps, New looks (mostly just hair and armor parts if ya ask me) New heroes we saw peak from ‘good guys’ side Soju is the name or somethin like that and works like some kind of soldier at least that was speculations. At the booth ya can play on Torano already. Nice touch skins etc will be transfered from O1 to O2 so yall gamble addicts can chill at start.

[loraagrs]

Little Star with the night

Chapter 11: One touch, is all it takes.

@fan-child-creation @kyaharalight

Emiko and Orikimaria head over to the arcade room as the girls were already there. The shy girl quickly got over excited seeing the machines and games. Something completely new to her, she may know what they are but never has played any of the games before. Emiko smiled seeing how she was walking around fast exploring the whole room. The twins notice Emiko as they tried not to laugh. Approaching her they put their arms around her shoulders. Emiko wasn't sure what they were up to but it seemed like they had something under their sleeves as she glares at them sighing, her smiling quickly faded away.

"What do you want now?" - said the freckled her feeling annoyed by their approach to her.

"Seems like someone has a interest for the new girl?" - said the young fox chuckling smirking at her.

"So you did took my advice huh Emiko?" - said the other twin giggling as the three of them looked at Orikimaria who was talking with Artoria and Daliyah about the machine games.

"I am not interest in her, I am just looking out for her since my old man brought her here. It's the least I can do right?" - explained Emiko avoiding any reason the twins gives to her.

"I don't know. You could of just let her be but seeing how you are trying so hard to impress her." - said Cherry as she wandered through her thoughtd about all this.

"I am not trying to impress her!" - said Emiko starting to feel more annoyed about all this.

"Oh c'mon Emiko! Out of all the places we could of gone we went to our favorite hang out. You ordered food for her, accompanied her to the bathroom and each time you see her happy you smile! I'm starting to think you are starting to have interest in her. Even if you don't understand what love and lust is." -explained Luciana as both her and Emiko saw Cherry laughing at what her twin sister said. Glaring at her, she rolled her eyes.

Emiko was about to say something against what the twins were saying but decided to stay quiet. She was trying to understand the conversations and interactions she had with Orikimaria. Did it seemed like she was interested in her? She was only being polite and try not to make her hate her nor think any badly of her. But why her out of everyone? Of course she wanted to understand all this but it seemed like a lost cause. Groaning she went ahead where Artoria and Daliyah was sitting. She started to see Orikimaria playing DDR, eyes widen she realize she was playing the difficulty mode hitting every step just right.

"What the actual fuck!?" - said Emiko very loudly shocked as the girls started laughing at her reaction.

"She's incredible! I wish I could do that!" - said Artoria excited cheering for Orikimaria.

"Is that so?" - said Emiko impressed by her skills. Guess she is the type of fast learner if being taught something. Once she refigures something out, the rest is easy.

Once Orikimaria was finished with the game she kinda wanted to play more. The girls decided to join her as each one took a turn on the machine. Emiko also decided to play difficulty as Orikimaria was machine. Pretty soon both of them began to compete with one another, even on each game machine. Emiko has never so dead serious as to one point move her long side bangs out of the way to try and breat Orikimaria. Everyone was having fun, mostly the twins were just enjoying the girls interactions with one another as the day go by.

The day has passed as dusk meet the twilight sky. It was getting a bit late, the girls head to the car. Artoria wanted to stay at Daliyah's house for a sleep over. So Emiko took them home first as she head over to the twins house. Returning the car, it was just her and Orikimaria. Holding hands once again crossing the neighborhood street walking towards home. Arriving, they pass through the kitchen as they saw a note on the table. Emiko took the note and read it.

"Me and your father went to spend some quality time together. We will be back once we are done with dinner. Don't do anything reckless please." -said Emiko reading the note as she rolled her eyes. "So mom and the old hag went out, guess it's just you and me now." - said Emiko looking at Orikimaria who had a worried look.

"So, what are we going to do now?" - asked the shy girl feeling a bit stiffed knowing she is alone with Emiko tonight.

"You can do whatever you want, I will just be in my room. Unless your gonna follow me around." - chuckled the freckled girl as she put her hands on the shy girls head.

"No, I think I'm going to sleep....I just don't want to sleep alone..." - said Orikimaria as her voice got lowered not wanting to say it so loud.

"What? Why?" - asked Emiko in curiosity.

"I just don't, ok!" - a bit upset by it, Orikimaria moved the hand of Emiko off her head as she went to Artoria's room to change.

Seemed like Orikimaria doesn't like sleeping alone. Emiko sighed as she followed. She knocked on the door as she wanted for a answer yet Orikimaria opened the door as she was wearing a cute green and yellow owl tank top and short pants pajamas. Emiko snort seeing her in does as Orikimaria got mad and punches her arm hard.

"Ah! Geez, for a tiny cute girl, you sure are a tough one!" - joked Emiko chuckling.

"I'm not that small! I can pretty soon reach your height you know!" - said Orikimaria crossing her arms glaring at her.

"Sure you will" - teased Emiko as she got hit again but in the back, laughing at Orikimaria's responds to her comment.

"What do you want Miss- Wait, correction. What do you want Emo Prince since apparently female terms makes you feel pathethic" - said Orikimaria has she was losing her patients.

"Let me correct you again, I'm fine being called she. I just prefer more to be called he because as you can see I rather be acting like a guy than a girl." - said Emiko putting her hand againts the wall leaning towards Orikimaria.

"Does it matter which pronounce you want to be called? I don't even care if they tell any pronounce to me. You're still a girl" - said Orikimaria as she poked the chest area of Emiko.

Emiko quickly covered up the chest area as she slapped away the hand of Orikimaria "Excuse me!? Be respectful! Don't poke my boobs! And no, I hate being called a girl!" - she said as she got mad yet saw Orikimaria covering her mouth as she was trying not to laugh hiding the smile she hide.

Groaning she fixed her hoodie. "Look if you don't want to sleep alone you can just sleep with me for tonight, ok?" - suggested Emiko as she head over to her room seeing how Orikimaria followed.

Orikimaria explored the room of Emiko as she was near her closet and drawer changing herself. Wasn't too long before Orikimaria looked to her direction. She realize that even Emiko had a few scars, but she wasn't sure were did they come from. She could recognize a few. Knifes and bullets, but why? Wanting to ask about it she just stayed quiet for it felt like it wasn't her place to even ask. At least, now it wasn't the time to ask about it. Emiko stayed in her usual sport bra and boxers as she went to bed turning of the lights. Orikimaria joined as Emiko wrapped her in her bed sheets.

It was the first time Emiko had someone else sleeping in her bed for she usually had her friends and sister join her in her room. But someone new like Orikimaria was different. Shs tried to sleep yet she was still away for the sensation of Orikimaria being next to her kept her awake. Even if she had her back facing her she could still hear her breathing and the warmness of her body. The curiosity took over as Emiko was facing up seeing her ceiling in the darkness.

"So, you survived the war with the old hag huh? What ever happened to your home?" -asked Emiko as she quickly saw Orikimaria giving her a death glare, she turned around and grabbed her pony tail pulling it as Orikimaria got close to her.

"You should seriously respect your father. Miss Akali didn't just felt because she wanted to as she was obligated, force to go so that does things never reached where all of you guys were living as my home got destroyed and a lot of people died! Maybe she wasn't there to raise you but at least try because she came back home and all this time she was speaking about Miss Evelynn and her family, especially her friends and still kept a smile on her face even if she had to see everyone die in the battle field!" - said Orikimaria as her voice started to crack, she took a deep breath and continued "You are very rude and selfish! At least you guys have a family I dont!"

"You do now" - said Emiko holding her hand of Orikimaria that was pulling her hair as she pulled her closer to her seeing how Orikimaria forgot about the other hand being behind her. "Even so, it would seem like you can just kiss me right now" - grinned as she chuckled evilly as Orkimaria's eyes got widen, her cheeks being red and let go of Emiko's pony tail.

"Thank you! Ugh! Now I gotta fix it, thanks a lot!" - said Emiko groaning taking her rubber band off trying to fix her pony tail again.

Orikimaria never thought about all of them being her new family. Sure, she wasn't alone anymore and finally had somewhere to seek help and settle down. But even Emiko considering her as someone important was something she wasn't sure if it was true or not. Maybe it meant something else? She sighs as she tried to just wrap herself in the blanket and bed sheet but was still facing Emiko as she layed her head on the pillow. She never saw her with her hair lose before, as she started to stroke her hair, Emiko looked at her confused.

"What are you doing?" - said Emiko questioning her actions as she finally fixex her pony tail.

Orikimaria shrugged "You just look really beautiful that's all." - she said looking at her calmly.

"Um..." - Emiko blushed as she wasn't sure how to even respond to that.

"Wait correction, handsome" - said Orikimaria giggling as Emiko began to laugh.

"Most of my childhood was always me trying to survive. I forgot what sleeping in a bed felt like, how certain foods are so new to me. I never even played in a arcade before. I know certain things but I just never experience them...used to running from does monsters, hiding, trying to find food and water, sometimes even medicine. I usually sleep in a cave or up in the trees where they don't find me. I mostly don't sleep because at night they were active, and even people went chasing after me." - she pause for a moment as she moved facing up to the ceiling staring at it. "No I don't know how kissing someone feels like either yet I doubt you deserve a kiss from me anyways" - said chuckling as she looked at her.

"Ha, ha very funny. Besides, I'm pretty sure you would enjoy it if I kissed you" - teased Emiko smirking at her.

"Prove it" - said Orikimaria looking at her serious.

"What?" - said Emiko quickly confused as she didn't realize she would respond that serious to her.

"Prove me wrong. Are you gonna bite or bark all day?" - smiled evilly at Emiko as Orikimaria chuckled.

Emiko wasn't gonna stay quiet about it and even if it would seem to fast she wasn't going to waste a opportunity for this. She stood up a bit as she leaned over to Orikimaria and kissed her lips. It felt soft and warm as both of them had a few more minutes of a touch as Emiko pulled away. Orikimaria had her eyes that looked like the light was shining again as she chuckled smiling. Emiko pulled her close hugging her, letting her rest on her chest. It felt right kissing her, it felt like she wanted more.

To just have her company all day everyday, her heart was beating fast as she tried to calm down by stroking the short hair of Orikimaria. Just one kiss it took to make her want to have Orikimaria stay with her by her said. There are certain things she still needed to figure out. What was she for her now? What now that they kissed? Did it meant something? For sure, her relationship with her father is something she will deal with on her own. She rather keep a few information about what she does at night and about Orikimaria's parents stays with her. She can't know about them, at least not until she is ready. Closing her eyes, feeling how relaxed and at ease Orikimaria was sleeping with her, she fell asleep. For tomorrow was gonna be a day she wasn't gonna forget.

Next Chapter 12

[sharksfood]

spoilers for Ralph Breaks the Internet (Wreck-It Ralph 2)

SO i was going to wait to record my thoughts on Ralph Breaks the Internet until after i finished my homework but i cant stop thinking about it!!!

anyways, I saw RBTI on Tuesday night in 3D and it was AMAZING!! i mean, both the movie by itself and how it looked in 3D. i loved that they put in a nod to those movies that took 3D to the fullest potential with stuff coming at you from the screen, when Ralph was throwing the football into the air.

BESIDES THAT i LOVED this movie!!!! i’m no negative nancy when it comes to sequels and i had been wanting a WIR followup since the first one came out!

but to get the biggest aspect out of the way, i was not always on board with the plot of Ralph and Vanellope going into the Internet. when I first heard the movie announcement and the whole Internet aspect it didn’t totally make sense to me. I mean, I originally thought the gang going into online games was a good mix between Internet and video games (since WIR revolves around video games). However I quickly changed my mind, especially since they WOULD be going into online/mobile games.

My initial reaction to the movie as a whole was EXTREMELY POSITIVE!!! I loved how the animation looked, the fact that we got an introduction on what Ralph, Vanellope, Felix, and Tammy (Calhoun) had been up to since the last movie, and that everything including the arcade had changed in basically real time. That last part was a bit sad too, especially with how few games were left in the arcade and that it seems business was not as good for Mr. Litwak as it used to be. BUT this movie, especially the beginning, was like catching up with an old friend after a long time apart! WIR means so much to me and I was so glad Disney took the time to connect to those who’d seen and loved the first movie.

I’ll admit I was a little nervous with how they’d handle the Internet, especially for a fictional universe thats based on the real one, like WIR. I knew they’d have to create fake websites and video games and what not to fit the plot and because of licensing rights. I’m also glad they did this because if Yesss were the algorithm for actual BuzzFeed or YouTube I don’t think they’d let anyone forget that. plus that would be too 4th wall breaking in my opinion. and this movie did A LOT or meta/4th wall stuff. I dont think any of the references or hints or real-world tie ins were annoying or over the top, it was the right amount for me. they could have made everything fictional, but that would fail to hook people. it was the right amount of fiction and real-life.

that being said, I do think some of the things Ralph, Vanellope, and Yesss accomplished couldn’t work in the real world. What bothered me is that any video of Ralph showed him as 3D, like how he looks in Sugar Rush or in the Game Central Station. Yes, that is how he looks “inside” the games and from other video game character’s perspective, but does that work for humans? Maybe it wasn’t explained very well, thats all. WIR is at times a little hard to wrap my head around. But then again, not everything needs to be explained or completely realistic, since, you know, video game characters are not able to coexist in each other’s games or buy stuff from Ebay.

the new characters was SO GOOD especially Yesss, Shank, and Knowsmore (to me anyways). I would have liked if the new characters had interacted with each other on screen more (like Yesss and Shank are friends but you wouldn’t know that without each of them saying so). also the Disney Princesses were adorable and actually more plot-related than i thought they’d be!

the biggest surprise for me is how much importance the movie gave to Vanellope for being a princess, i mean, she got a song and everything! To me she never gave her princessship much mind, since she only wanted to be a racer. by the end of the movie she was farther from being a princess than before. but i think this was intentional and why we got the scene with the other princesses in the first place, Disney wanted to show that there’s no one way to be a princess. obviously Pixar addressed this with Merida, and I think Moana is a good example, too, but Vanellope really is the least-princessy princess. I’m also glad that they didn’t make her song or voice too cute/pretty, it fit with her character, personality, and dream!

the part of this movie that my most impactful for me was the message and eventually plot structure of how Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship was addressed. WIR means a lot to me is many ways, but the fact that romance or blood family isnt the main relationship dynamic is huge.  I mean, I can’t think of many Disney/Pixar movies that do this, and even those that do, friendship is just a subplot. Ralph and Vanellope becoming friends, protecting one another, even in the face of their differences is one of the main messages of WIR (the other being self-acceptance and following your heart). RBTI took this further with the message of how friends can grow, drift apart, have difference dreams, become too attached, and build negative friendships based on anxieties. I’ve NEVER seen this in an animated movie, and it hit me pretty hard.

so with anxiety in mind, I really liked how Vanellope’s glitching was utilized, i mean since she now has a general control on it, she doesn’t glitch out as much. the only time she does in RBTI is when she wants to or when she’s super anxious. its almost like a physical symptom of her having a panic attack. (on a personal note, Vanellope’s glitching was the main thing that helped me get over my fear of glitch, so that relation to anxiety and fear is very meaningful to me) but Vanellope’s anxieties were very different from Ralph’s, which is good! they both struggled with being accepted within their games in the past, and part of that still lingers, though now, especially for Ralph, it manifests in anxiety over their friendship. I really like the direction that Disney/Pixar has taken with some of their movies recently in that the main antagonist is not a villain, but rather an emotion or conflict anthropomorphized.

as for the characters, Ralph and Vanellope were PERFECT. Vanellope is my favorite and she was just amazing. Their characters were the right amount of the same from the first movie and different, since there’s been 6 years for them to grow. I’m also really happy that Felix and Tammy were in RBTI, though I wish they were in it more. I mean, this was Ralph and Vanellope’s movie, but most of Tammy’s appearances were just for comedic affect, in my opinion. They also seemed way different, but I guess that’s marriage? It’s as if their character-specific dialogue and quirks were toned down. Maybe after a second viewing it’ll make more sense to me.

My only other complaints are that when Ralph accidentally finds the comment section of BuzzTube, his reaction and that whole scene didn’t add much to the story. I think it was important, especially given Ralph’s past, but it was so short. Ralph seemed to have forgotten all about it after the scene ended. The comments and toxic parts of the Internet play a much bigger role than that, so I wish it was addressed better. I also thought it was weird that we didn’t get any clear context as to why Mr. Litwak got Wifi in the first place. I mean, I assumed it was to get an online presence for the Arcade, but i don’t think that was actually addressed. Of course thats a minor thing compared to my previous comment. 

The last thing I noticed is that the main conflict of the movie, the steering wheel of Sugar Rush breaking and how they’d need to buy a new one or Sugar Rush would be gone for good, was introduced too soon. I think this was done because there was so much content to get through within 2 hours, and I know that the main premise was involving the Internet, so staying in the Arcade would defeat this purpose. It’s just that to me it all sort of fell into place a little too easy and fast. Also, Vanellope feeling trapped in a boring loop of her game and other feelings from the characters in the beginning were told rather than shown. I know already mentioned that I thought certain things weren’t “explained” well enough, but I mean that like, both visually and through dialogue. With the emotional parts of the movie’s conflicts, I think those developed well once Ralph and Vanellope got into the Internet, but it seemed “presented” almost at first. Again, I only saw it once and its not totally fresh in my mind anymore, so maybe after seeing it again it’ll clear this up.

okay so as for the aesthetic and animation of RBTI it was GORGEOUS!!! I love how Disney/Pixar can take things like the Internet or your brain (like in Inside Out) and turn them into working cities/structures that are creative and make sense! I really like that Pop Ups are maneuvered by sentient beings like street salespeople, since the feeling of online popups and ads is the same! Also, the Dark Web being the underbelly of the Internet “city” and all the avatars are dressed like theyre in Incognito mode is amazing. i also LOVED the viruses, since they looked like gross, scary, creepy fictional bugs or visual germs (they reminded me of Osmosis Jones in a way). How the viruses functioned, at least the Insecurity Virus, made sense for how I think most people imagine computer viruses to act. I honestly don’t know how that stuff happens, and I bet Disney knew most of their audiences dont either, so they took some artistic liberties with that in mind. But the virus was a clever plot device because it literally detected insecurities, both in that Ralph/Vanellope were insecure about their friendship, and neither of them “belonged” in the Internet.

ANOTHER THING is when Shank and her crew had to fight the Slaughter Race players, the distinction between player and NPC was clear and funny. It felt very GTA to me. How they handled Slaughter Race in general was great, since it was obviously a violent video game, but they didn’t tone it down too much to loose that feeling. I think it would’ve been cool to see cars and buildings “update” like they do in some games, too. OH the way that the Virus Ralphs joined together to make the Giant Ralph and that they kept moving to make the entire thing kinetic was SO CREEPY BUT COOL!!! that must have taken forever to animate.  I also noticed that on the Giant Ralph the little virus dudes were like laying down or posed a certain way to give the impression of different textures or colors on Giant Ralph, which is amazing!!! the filmmakers and animators paid so much care to the look and feel of this movie and it really paid off.

okay last few things before I forget: all of the main characters were great examples of positive and negative personality aspects that real people could reflect on. Ralph felt so much more openly emotional and body positive than in the first, which for a dude character is great!!  Vanellope has always been a great example of a girl who likes “tomboy” or “masculine” stuff but still likes cute and “girly” stuff (i mean she obviously wasn’t into the whole princess thing but she found her own way around it!). Felix and Tammy in RBTI were obviously an example on how married couples can still love each other just like the day they met! Did i mention how much I love Yesss? I love her SO MUCH!!! she wore a different outfit/hairstyle every time we saw her, she was fun and smart and over the course of the movie grows to actually care about Ralph and Vanellope beyond their Internet fame. the MUSIC was fantastic as always, and I love Imagine Dragon’s song and the Julia Michaels rendition of Vanellope’s song on Slaughter Race.

Just like the first one, this movie was funny, heartwarming, emotional, and really fun!! I hope it gets all the recognition and love it deserves. I can’t accurately say if I like this one of the previous better, since I’ve only seen it once. HOWEVER I ma really glad that Disney has made a lot of merch for RBTI since the first one got barely anything. All in all, I loved Ralph Breaks the Internet!!!!

P.S. Did yall see the after credits scene?

[bfseventeen]

How You Met Wonwoo

Your first date with Wonwoo

even though you visited the bookstore with wonwoo before 

it was about time for the two of you to have a first proper date

but since both of you were playful and nerdy what place could have been better than an arcade

the two of you met at the subway station and boarded together

it was fairly crowded as you were riding the subway during rush hour

it was so packed that you had to stand way close to each other 

only a few centimeters between your face and his broad shoulders

at first it was quite awkward but the more you spent time this close to each other

the more you got used to each other’s body warmth 

when there was a sudden stop between two stations

wonwoo put his arm around your back to prevent you from losing your balance

when you finally got there you were surprised how crowded the arcade was

but there was still a mysterious vibe about the place with all the neon lights and colorful machines

when you entered the arcade dozens of claw machines were waiting for you to spend money and to wish for your luck

but wonwoo first headed towards the basketball shooting game

“this should be easy” he said like a happy child

he got his focus on the hoop and quickly started to get the basketballs in

many of them were on target but not as many as he wished for

still he ended with 70 points and he shouted in excitement once the seconds went down

“there is no way i can beat that” you said a bit worriedly as you didn’t have a lot of experience in these type of games

“that’s okay, this can be only the trial part and we can go another round again” he said with a soft smile and you started to feel better

but before you could stand in front of the machine a couple showed up out of nowhere

“hey, what are you doing?” wonwoo asked the guy who pushed you away from the machine

“oh sorry are you guys playing here?” he asked as if he didn’t know already

“yes we are, she was just about to start her round” wonwoo glared but the guy didn’t seem too intimidated by him

“what if i challenge you for a game? couple against the couple?” asked the annoying guy and you were about to protest that you and wonwoo are not a couple but suddenly wonwoo reached out for your hand to hold it

“deal, let the better couple win” he said with a cocky smile and this is the first time you saw him like this

when it comes to games he can become easily competitive

“but you know i’m not really good at this and now i feel even more pressured” you whispered to him

but wonwoo put his hand on your shoulder and smiled at you sweetly

“don’t worry about it, if you mess up that’s okay. if we lose we lose. but at least we won’t regret missing out on this chance” he says which made you feel better

“i will try my best” you sighed with a little faith in yourself

the guy and his girlfriend knew it for sure that they are going to win

but wonwoo believed that you can bring out the best of yourself

the challenge began with the guys playing side by side

the girl kept screaming for her boyfriend and you got so annoyed by her behavior that you started to cheer on wonwoo loudly too just so he can’t get distracted by the couple

he was deep in the game and he managed to get 80 points which were pretty close to the guy’s who scored 76

now it was up to you

even though wonwoo won now if you lose and the girl wins by huge numbers than this couple challenge is lost for the two of you

“i believe in you” said wonwoo as he held tight both of your hands

you took a deep breath and you stood in front of the machine

you picked up the first basketball and when the countdown started you put your game mode on

you have no idea what happened to you but you became the second michael jordan in an instant

you kept scoring and scoring and scoring

while wonwoo was shouting loudly in excitement and was clapping loudly for you

while the guy kept on yelling at his girlfriend for being too clumsy in the game

you felt bad for the girl but on the other hand, you were happy for your victory

when the battle was over and it was clear that you and wonwoo won

wonwoo lifted you up and spun you around

“you did so well y/n, i’m so proud of you” he said and as he lowered you down he planted a kiss on your cheek

this caught both of you off guard and for a moment you stared at each other blankly

“ugh whatever, let’s go to the club babe” said the guy to his girlfriend while you and wonwoo were still looking at each other awkwardly

“i’m sorry” wonwo said finally after he got over his shock

“it’s okay i mean we were both too deep in celebration” you chuckled nervously while you could feel the blood rising up in your cheeks

“let’s grab something to eat” wonwoo suggested and he quickly started to flee from the scene of his embarrassment

the two of you bought flavored milk and ramen to eat 

it was awkward at first because you both were still under the spell of the moment

but then you started to talk about how angry the guy was and how you came over your struggles

“i think i’m going to give up on all my future dreams and i will just simply become a basketball player” you joked and wonwoo started to laugh and clap his hands together

“well you got your first fan for sure” he added which made you blush again “or maybe i should be your manager because it seems like you came over your worries because of my support” he added

“yeah i guess we can say you brought out the best of me” you said which made him smile proudly

after you finished eating you continued to play other games

you tried a shooting game in which wonwoo awfully beat you

but then in the driving simulator, it was you who scored the most and even you were surprised

then you finally came to the point of the evil claw machines

you can’t leave an arcade without trying at least once but you had high hopes in wonwoo

“don’t worry i got this” he said as he tried for the fifth time to get you a charmander

you kind of got tired of his suffering so you took over the console

“let me show you how it’s done” you said even though you didn’t have a lot of experience with claw machines but that night made you feel confident

and you actually did it!! 

after two tries you got eddy from pororo for wonwoo

“i can’t believe you beat me”

“i didn’t only beat you but i even managed to get a stuffed animal that looks exactly like you” you added and he started to laugh

then he put the medium sized eddy next to his face for comparison and you took a picture of them because you wanted to capture the moment

“but i’m not leaving without getting you a stuffed animal” he whined but you stopped him from getting his wallet

“wonwoo with all honesty i don’t want you to go bankrupt” you said with a serious face but you really wanted to laugh at him

“just because you beat me this time it doesn’t mean you should get all cocky about it” he scoffed and pouted

“no really, let’s just say you owe me one stuffed animal so that means we have to come to the arcade together at another time... it’s a promise” you shrugged and wonwoo smiled gently at you

“ah so you want to come with me again?”

“of course i want to, i had a great time with you” you said which made him smile like an idiot

“okay then pinky promise me soon we will come together and you will let me get you a stuffed animal” he said while raising up his pinky finger

you made a pinky promise then he suddenly leaned in to kiss your other cheek

“wonwoo!!!” you said while covering your tomato red face

“sorry i just thought if one of your cheeks was unlucky enough to get a kiss from me then your other cheek should get one too” he said shyly

“god you are so lame...” you said while still covering your face but then you looked up at him “but your kiss is soft”

“well pinky promise me the next time we see each other you will bless me with your soft kiss” he said while raising his pinky again but you stopped him

“we don’t have to wait for the next time” you said as some bravery sneaked in your head and heart

you got on your tiptoes and put your hands on wonwoo’s shoulders for support then you kissed one of his cheeks

when you were about to get down on your feet wonwoo stopped you with his arm on your back

“you can’t leave my other cheek lonely like this” he said while he was looking right in your eyes, only a few millimeters separating your noses

“you are right” you said then you leaned to kiss his other cheek but instead his lips found your lips and shared a soft kiss 

after you separated from the sudden kiss you two started to smile like as if you were drunk

drunk on love maybe

“this was the best night of my life” wonwoo said with a huge grin on his face and you thought he might be exaggerating but in reality, he did mark this day down in his diary as the best night of his life 

[burnouts3s3]

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, a review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously. Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Publisher: Sega Developer: Sega CS1 Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP): 59.99 USD How much I paid: 59.99 USD Rated: M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes How long I played: 12 Hours to complete the story mode (while watching the cutscenes) on Easy Mode. Microtransactions: An alternate Skin that is free if downloaded between October 2nd through October 16th. Pre-order bonus of 6 Destiny Talismans, equipable items that boost stats or other effects, all which are earnable in-game. Dual Audio: Yes. Both the Japanese and English Audio is available. English Cast: Robbie Daymond as Kenshiro, Sarah Williams as Yuria, Greg Chun as Shin, Allegra Clark as Xsana, Imari Williams as Jagre, Kirk Thornton as Toki, Kyle Hebert as Rihaku and Patrick Seitz as Raoh. What I played on: A Regular PS4, not a PS4 Pro Performance Issues: For the most part, Fist of the North Star runs very smoothly, with little to no hiccups that’s beautiful even to look at, even on a regular PS4. One instance of a game pausing for a brief moment before transitioning to a quicktime event. My Personal Biases: I only recently got into Fist of the North Star and have to say I quite enjoy following Kenshiro and his many adventures in the wasteland. My Verdict: Get ready to say “ATATATATATATA!” as you kick, punch, slap, and brutally kill any bandit you come across. While the open world element doesn’t offer anything new in terms of revolutionizing the genre, there’s such a plethora of content, mini-games, challenges and sidequests that even after the short campaign is finished, you’ll be busy mixing drinks, playing baseball with steel girders and managing your own nightclub. It maybe a Yakuza game reskinned as a FOTNS game, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a whole lot of fun. Buy it! Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, a review

Sega is at it again. After their successful Yakuza series getting prominence in the West, the same developers decide to do the same thing, but using the Fist of the North Star license. Will they succed the same way they did with Yakuza? Let’s find out in this review of “Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise”! The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic alternate timeline Earth. After a nuclear war, the oceans have dried up. Kenshiro, a successor of the martial art Hokuto Shinken, was defeated by Shin, who proceeded to kidnap his fiancée, Yuria. Kenshiro thus travels through the wastelands to find his beloved. He eventually hears rumours that a woman called Yuria could be found in the city of Eden - he makes his way to Eden to find Yuria. Newcomers don’t have to worry about being lost as the game takes place in an alternate continuity and explains all the events occurring so they can catch up. So while the series’ iconic villains, such as Shin and Raoh, and familiar faces, such as Bat and Lin, make an appearance, the game’s narrative changes the context of such settings to fit into the world of Fist of the North Star and the new land of Eden. The city of Eden itself might alienate fans of the original show. Eden is a fully working city with services, guards, food and currency. It’s such a departure of one usually expects from Fist of the North Star. But, if you’ll give it a chance, you’ll find yourself loving the city but also invested in its characters. Things actually get less interesting outside of Eden. While the Wasteland is vast and allows for lots of exploration in your buggy, it’s mostly empty save for the occasional group of enemies and item to be found and sold. Occasionally, defeating an enemy will unlock a treasure map, markers that show valuable loot on the map. But most are under a timer so Kenshiro will have to drive fast before it’s lost for good. Combat is the game’s strength. While it doesn’t evolve much between light and heavy attacks, the variety of foes and situations he can use his abilities always surprised me. Just when I thought it would get tedious, Kenshiro finally pulls off a move that has my jaw dropped to the floor. Should a foe be in a staggered position, players can press the circle button to active a quick time event, leading to a cinematic kill. Sometimes Ken punches an enemy 100 times. Sometimes, he uses both thumbs to make the enemy’s head explode. Should Kenshiro use the circle button to ‘channel’ at just the right time, it leads to an instant death of the enemy, causing them to explode into gooey bits! And what Sega open world would be complete without mini-games? Remember that manga chapter where Kenshiro played some arcade games? Or worked as a bartender? Or used his healing ability to treat the sick? Or managed a nightclub and had to deal with troublemakers? That’s right, in this game you get a plethora of sidequests (called ‘substories’) where Ken can earn experience and money by playing mini-games. Working at the hospital activates a rhythm mini-game using timed button presses. Managing the nightclub means having to manage your ‘girls’ put them in the right table and manage their money, the customer type and their energy levels. Of course, if you’re feeling up to something more manly, you can fight off waves of enemies at the colosseum. (My personal favorite is using a large steel girder to play baseball against incoming motorcycle gangs and hitting their bikes away).   Completing story missions, doing substories or playing minigames will earn Experience, causing Ken to level up and gain Destiny Orbs, blank orbs that can be used to progress the game’s skill tree. In the colosseum, he can earn Battle Points and use it to buy Technique, Body or Mind orbs to progress your tree. The skill progression is surprisingly varied, allowing for different branches to explore and can give significant boosts or techniques in combat. Ken soon learns that in the city of Eden, Yuria has locked herself into the sacred chamber, a mysterious room that somehow provides power to all of Eden. But invaders and combatants would soon loot Eden for its resources and Kenshiro finds himself teaming up with the city’s guard to stop the bandits before they destroy everything. The game’s plot is serviceable. Granted, much like the source material, it relies more on coincidence than character action and reaction. (It find it a bit odd that many of the main players just ‘happen’ to know each other) as well as the reliance of weird rules to generate stakes (when you find out why certain plot devices work, you’d have to question the logic of what the architects and engineers were thinking). It’s too bad the game’s main story is all too short and the game attempts to hinder speedrunners by scaling the enemies to ridiculous amounts of levels so that players will have to grind mini-games and coliseum fights or be overpowered. What’s surprising is that the English dub of the game is actually very well acted. Robbie Daymond  (who voiced the English Goro Akechi from Persona 5) manages to capture the cold yet gentle nature of Kenshiro (though I think my favorite will always be Lex Lang in the old dub). At first, I thought Daymond would be too young and high pitched for Kenshiro but he actually delivers at the moments that matter the most. And it’s great to hear voice acting veterans such as Kyle Hebert, Patrick Seitz and Kirk Thornton voicing the NPCs. But praise should be put on Allegra Clark. Bioware fans (what few are remaining) will recognize her as Josephine from Dragon Age: Inquisition and Nakmor Kesh from Mass Effect: Andromeda, but she’s also done some anime work (such as in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure) and she does a really good job as Xsana, growing a scared girl who doesn’t know what to do to a leader willing to leader her people into prosperity.   THE JAPANESE VOICES ARE AVAILABLE TO THOSE WHO PREFER IT. CAVEAT: Fist of the North Star is by no means a revolution or an innovation to the open world genre. Like Yakuza, it’s a polished, well-made entry that offers a lot to both fans and non-fans alike. A lot of critics are going to say that the open world element feels restrictive or that the level scaling is attempting to make up for the short campaign or that the combat, at times, feels repetitive. While all those criticisms are true, I still had a great time with the game. It’s a game that’s more about style than substance, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have one helluva style! Verdict: Buy it!

[katbot]

Jessie’s Girl

This week’s Thirsty Thursday is a back-to-back feature after a two month hiatus. It consists of two men with the same name and polar opposite experiences.

--

“I can't work out tomorrow— or the rest of the week. I’ve got back to back dates."

I’m at impromptu gym sesh with my friend Dom before we head to our weekly pub meetup.

“Okay no problem? Switch machines?"

"Yeah. But wait-- get this…” I pause for dramatic effect

“Both guys— are named Jesse.”



“You’re kidding.”



“Nope... and I gotta admit...” I slide onto the seat and adjust the machine for my short legs.



“What?”



“My mum’s name is Jessie.”

                                                                xxx

It’s Wednesday, and I’m making my way to Hell’s Kitchen.

Tonight is Jesse 2— the self-proclaimed Miller lite alcoholic.

I’m judging slightly but let’s be honest, I’ll take any kind of alcoholic.




It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date. I did a two-month stint with K, which was more awkward than fun.



It ended amicably. Sometimes someone falls asleep during a screening of THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, and you just know not they're not the one.


Also, fuck the outdoors.


I’m meeting J2 at On the Rocks, an intimate bourbon bar with great lighting.


He arrives a minute after me, in fact I’m pretty sure he was right behind me on the sidewalk.


He’s cute— very nerd chic. But extremely nervous.



He orders an IPA, I get a Hendricks double.


He’s so shy. We’re twenty minutes in and he can barely look me in the eye.

I feel like a zoo keeper, prodding for conversation.



Where are you from?


Colorado.


How long have you been here?


Two years.

What do you do?


Film.

J2 finally seems to relax around his third beer, he's going on about the difference between hardcore and punk music

.

It’s a scene I’ve dipped my foot into, but never really cared for. It’s a relief that he’s finally passionate about a topic.

He pays the entire tab when I’m in the bathroom

.

I’m aching to end my dry spell, so I’m contemplating fucking him when he suddenly suggest going to another bar. 

This time I pick a semi fratty pub around the corner. We grab a booth with a Ms.PacMan arcade table.

I’m entering tipsy when J2 is basically drunk.



He refuses to believe that I’ve never been shy or insecure.

I’m rolling my eyes when he tries to “catch me in a lie.”



J2: My worst fear is public speaking. What’s yours?



TV: Fire.



J2: No way.  I don’t believe that

What’s up will all these insecure guys?


TV: Okay. Fire and my parents dying soon.



He’s trying to argue with me when I cut him off.

“Listen I get the whole anxiety thing but not everyone is built like that. I acknowledge and recognize you. But personally, I just don’t get it.”



He seems to accept it after two more minutes of back and forth.

Finally.



We tumble into video games and he seems to relax again.



Mid-Chrono Trigger spiel, he asks “Would you like to go home with me?”



“Yeah sure. Why not. Are you good for it though?”

  I’m referring to his pint of water sitting next to my Brooklyn Lager.

“Yeah! I promise!”

The train ride is unbearable and when he asks if I’m a PDA person I wonder if I made a mistake. It’s nice that he asked but so very Post #Metoo.

.



His apartment is old but cute. His room is a bit bizarre. It’s looks as if he’s just moved in, but he’s been in New York for 2 years.

He’s making out with me like a teenager boy, and when he frantically starts taking of hiss clothes I ask, “When was the last time you had sex?”

He doesn’t even need to open his mouth to answer, he’s blush does it for him.  



He begins to go down on me and after 3 minutes I sternly hiss-whisper, “Will you just fuck me??”

It last about four seconds when he suddenly says he can’t

                              …..

Who does whisky dick hurt?
                                                       Everyone.



He’s apologizing the whole time as I get dressed.



“It’s not you. You’re not the prob-“ 

I scoff before he can finish the word.

“Yeah, of course I’m not. Listen...”
 I’m slipping my boots on telling him it’s normal.

“Whiskydickhappenstoeveryone.It’s nothingtobeashamedabout.Don’tworry.”

It comes out in one entire breath like a memorized speech, I’ve entered my sex educator mode also I seriously don’t care

I’m mapping my way back home while he seems to be having a mental dick breakdown on his couch

I don't have time for this.

“Yeah... I’m just gonna... gooooooo.. sooooo” I let myself out and hit the sidewalk laughing.



Good god. What a waste of a condom.



Lessons learned:

Pull out my condoms on the second round to avoid waste.

Anyone that only drinks light beer probably isn’t for me

Encounter Rating: 4/10

App: Tinder

                                                            xxx

Jesse1’s opening line hits 2/5 of my check boxes.

Bumping into natives on any dating app is a mutual fresh breath of air.

An oasis in the transplant dessert.

We spit a few bars about hockey, growing up in Queens, and the scripted dates we've had with newbie New Yorkers.

"I'm so tired of having the same damn conversations about their so not unique experiences"

Good god. That hits too close to home. Lately, I've been dating so many foreigners.

It's Groundhog Day with different accents.

I decide to pull the trigger and invite him out to the first Islanders/Rangers game of the season. He picks a Rangers bar by my office, saying he'll meet me at puck drop.

***

I'm barside in front of BIGGEST tv I have ever watched hockey on. It's incredible to be able to see the puck without squinting.

The Islanders are tied with the Rangers when someone comes up behind me.

“Tessie?”

He's cute, blonde, and channeling a very lumberjack look.

It isn't until intermission that I actually get involved -- in fact I'm kind of annoyed he's doing more talking than watching.

At the end of the first period, I flag down the bartender to refill my gin. As I put my finger up, J1 cuts me off with a "Can you put that on my tab please?"

I AM SHOCKED.

Through intermission, we find out that we have a lot in common.

We’re both alumni’s of the catholic school circuit.

When he tells me he knows my school AND his sister attended both my alma maters...I absolutely lose my shit.

We swap stories about fucked up school experiences, and about each other’s school reputation.

“Do you remember when they banned skirts?”

“Yes!!!! It just made everything worse. Girls tailored their pants to show off every curve of their butt!!”

Being able to make references to old bars, obscure landmarks only relevant to natives, and deep Queens bus lines is refreshing. It’s like talking to an old neighbour.

We’re squealing and laughing straight through the last ten minutes of the third period.

Meanwhile, the Islanders have been murdering the Rangers.

“Fuck. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“You want to go drink that off?”

***

Weather Up is busier than expected despite the snow piling up outside.

We grab a table in the back and he tries to guess what cocktail I’ll get. A challenge my friends like to play a lot. We get the same drink with different spirits.

Me gin.

Him vodka.

The conversation continues to flow naturally and when the waiter comes back and I’m laughing too hard to order— I know I’m drunk.

How did this happen?!

“Ooh! Oh gosh.” I finally get a breath out between bounds of laughter “I’m having such a great time. I would love to see you again if you’re down.”

He agrees, “I’m just talking so much. I want to hear more about Tessie next time!”

We’re smiling at each other like idiots when the waiter comes back with our check.

“I would love to see you again too...I’m going to my friend’s show on Sunday. It’s in Gowanus, would y—“

I cut him off before my brain can process all the details “YES!”

It isn’t until he ask me if I’m sure that I truly realise what I’ve agreed to. “Are you sure? That’s a long commute for you.”

The fact that he knows that and ask to confirm makes me extra sure.

“Yessss. It’ll be fun. I’d love to go.”

We fight over the bill and who will walk whom to the train. I eventually win because his walk  grants us more time together.

The wind is so intense, J1 links arms with me keep me from falling over.

When we make it to his station, the warm lights from my office building paint the street like a spotlight.

“I didn’t expect that have so much fun tonight.”

“Yeah. Me too...like that was great.”

We’re staring into each other’s eyes AND I’m Still surprised when he pulls my scarf away from mouth and leans down to kiss me.

I don’t know how much time passes when I finally pull away.

I DO have to be here in less that 6 hours.

“Text me when you’re home.”

He descends down the stairs and I’m swooning.

Nobody ever ASKS ME to do THAT!

At 1am, I’m tucked into bed and shoot a I’m home text. He surprises me, texting back immediately.

Thank you! I had a great time, glad you got home safe.

It’s three am when I can finally will my giddiness away. My eyes are just about to close when the reality sets in.

Holy shit, I’m going out on a Sunday….TO GOWANUS.

Lessons Learned: N/A Encounter rating: 9.8/10 🏆 Trophies earned:

First Queens Native

First Subway Station kiss

First time a 2nd date was planned during the first.

[scitydreamer]

I’ve mainly played visual novels for the past few weeks and I do love them, even though it makes me “a weeb, a gamer and a fucking nerd all at once.” But sometimes, I like to sit down with something more arcade-y, so I decided to hit up something I saw in my feed a while back.

The 7-in-1 Morning Toast Mega Pack is by Morning Toast, a developer that mainly dabbles in Pico-8. The mega pack is a collection of arcade games that they have previously released in one package, plus a game that they haven’t released before.

BuzzKill

  I actually wrote about BuzzKill before and it was the game that got me to follow this developer. I gave it another go in the collection and honestly, my thoughts still stands.

Yes, I am indeed shamelessly using the pictures I took before.

Invader Overload

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Invader Overload is partially inspired by Space Invaders Extreme, an updated, flashier version of Space Invaders that was originally released on DS and PSP that has also recently been updated for Steam a few months ago.

Those doofy invaders do what they always do, shuffling back and forth while shooting down wiggly lasers. What’s different is that they now drop different colored squares, and getting all three of the same color gives you a temporary power-up like a laser beam or an explosive weapon. Occasionally, a little UFO flies at the top of the screen that drops a gold power-up that activates a fever mode where enemies start dropping golden squares. Pick up enough of them and you’re thrown into a hectic boss fight against a huge invader that throws down huge beams and its tinier fellows. It’s all very fun and a nice take on Space Invaders.

What keeps me from fully enjoying the game, however, are the backgrounds. Now don’t get me wrong, the backgrounds are actually cool to watch, but from a practical standpoint they can be too distracting. It’s especially bad with the boss battles for me, because the screen is very busy with falling green lines of code that get mixed up with all the actual shots you have to dodge. Honestly, if it went a bit easier with the backgrounds, this would have been my favorite game in the collection. With that, Invader Overload is fun yet flawed.

Alien Harvest

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Alien Harvest looks like if Alien had a tie-in game for the ZX Spectrum and feels like a tie-in game that would have been pretty okay for its time. The grandson of Burke plans to finish his work and you, as a faceless entity, are tasked with collecting alien eggs to prevent the legacy from coming to fruition.

Your main goal is to collect 12 eggs (or 20 on Terror Mode) to unlock the final level. You don’t necessarily have to collect every egg on a level, because if you leave an egg lying around long enough, it’ll hatch and evolve into a proper alien. You have a scanner that shows all the biological stuff scattered throughout the maze environments, showing you the locations of eggs, dead bodies that can give you power-ups and fully grown aliens. To stop you from just letting you walk to your doom, you also have an audio scanner that starts beeping the closer you are to a threat. As there’s no music playing in the main game, the scanner makes for a tense atmosphere.

Personally, I didn’t get into the game because it’s not what I look for in an arcade-y game. However, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Sure, I sometimes got stuck on walls while moving around, but the it’s otherwise a solid survival game. In fact, I’d say that it’s the most unique game out of the bunch.

Bustin’

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Bustin‘ continues the movie based Pico-8 action with a game based off of the new Ghostbusters. The Ghost Lord is out and about trying to unleash slimy ghosts into the world and it’s up to one of the gals to stop him.

Gameplay has you moving between four rows, blasting your photon pack at ghosts and the portraits they’re coming out of. You move on to the next stage after destroying all the portraits, with portraits getting repositioned to give you less breathing room while the latter stages have the portraits move on their own with the Ghost Lord himself stepping in to hassle you. I wasn’t into the game initially, especially since the first few levels are at their hardest in the beginning, but it settles into a frantic pace in the later levels that I really got into.

The photon pack can overheat, so you have to be careful about its usage. Or you could just move into a different row, which resets the overheating bar in what is certainly a glitch, but I’m not complaining. You can also deploy this thing that sucks up ghosts in a row for a few seconds, so you don’t have to worry about dealing with it for a bit. Touch a ghost and you can’t do anything for a few seconds, which can make a major difference. I kinda feel that you’re stunned for too long, though the game is still manageable.

The music can get a bit repetitive and the beginning is slow, but Bustin‘ made me feel good.

Mass 360

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Stepping away from the games based on other properties, Mass 360 is based off the real life story of the developer’s dad’s fight with cancer. Mass 360 has you control… something to fight off your dad’s growing cancer. I guess it’s metaphorical like Edmund McMillen’s stuff except tasteful and not gross.

You rotate around an arena while shooting inward, which is an interesting way of playing this. You progress by shooting apart cores, which are protected by cancerous masses that branch out when left alone and some virus things that shoot at you. It initially starts out slow, but it soon evolves to bullet hell levels, colorful sprays bursting out of the center.

Your dad starts out with a mere two minutes to live, but you can get more time every time you destroy a core. You don’t lose lives if you get hit, but you do lose your precious time. Ideally, you should focus on building up a time bank so you can spend the latter parts of the game focusing on destroying the turrets, because you’ll probably waste more time trying to dodge their nonsense.

Honestly, this may be my favorite game out of the pack. My biggest issue was that I kept getting disoriented playing this, but that’s a personal flaw more than anything.

Bullet Cave

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Bullet Cave is another shooter game with an interesting gimmick. Bullets fly toward you, but they’re completely harmless. Unless you let one of them fly past. A wall of spikes appears behind you, threatening to get closer with every bullet you let slip by. You think, “okay, I’ll just shoot them down.” You do that and suddenly the cave is getting more cramped in a different way, the cave walls below and above extending with every bullet you shoot down.

The game is an interesting take on shooters in that the difficulty comes not from dodging intricate patterns, but managing the environment around you to live as long as possible. You may be tempted to let bullets pass by you to avoid the cave walls from growing too far out or you may risk getting crushed by the walls to prevent the spikes from getting closer. You can collect an item that fills up a gauge that lets you freeze time and flip what the bullets do. Bullets will now hit the spikes back and destroying bullets also destroys parts of the wall, but now, you’ll be asking yourself which is more important to destroy.

You can also collect power-ups, which manage to be a blessing and a curse. Sure, you can shoot down bullets more easily, but also, that may not necessarily be what you want. Spread shots are important because they could shoot bullets that are blocked by walls, but that just risks bringing that wall closer. Then there’s the power-up that just shoots one slow big bullet, which actually kinda sucks no matter how you cut it. They can’t all be winners.

I wish that you could turn off your time freezing ability mid-use in case you want to conserve it, but otherwise, it’s a solid game with a neat concept.

Bunyan’s Rage

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This last game is the only fresh one out of the bunch, exclusive to this collection. The title screen is evocative of a fighting game, but in reality, it’s another shooter.

Bunyan’s Rage puts you in control of a jetpacking lumberjack shooting at hostile squirrels, ending in a fight with a bull piloting a UFO. It’s definitely the wackiest game thematically. However, from a gameplay standpoint, I actually consider it the most boring game out of the collection. It is a straightforward shooter, which comes off as disappointing after playing the more ambitious Mass 360 and Bullet Cave. You go through a gauntlet of enemies, you pick up power-ups to increase the power of your shots, the only thing different from a standard shooter is that you have unlimited lives and you’re held to a time limit that gives a score bonus for beating the boss at the end.

It’s still kinda okay, though the game lacks music and I think it’s hard to get a read on the character’s hitbox. It’s not terrible, but it’s not terribly exciting either.

Overall though, the 7-in-1 Morning Toast Mega Pack is a good collection, providing a series of arcade games with different ideas. The collection is pay-what-you-want, though I suppose nothing’s stopping you from checking out the games’ individual pages.

Checking out a collection of Pico-8 games by @morningtoast! I've mainly played visual novels for the past few weeks and I do love them, even though it makes me "

[somniax]

2017 Year in Review - Blog Revival? Part 1 - USF4/MVCI/KOF

What’s up all!

Been a long time since I’ve even looked at this page and I wanted something a bit more permanent than a tweet longer as they seem to be mostly used for retirement announcements. In the interest of preserving a slice of FGC history, this blog is temporarily (?) revived.

So where to start with 2017? I’ve had many adventures this year to Asia and around Australia thanks to my team Dark Sided’s support. New opportunities that have never been available in previous years have made this year very exciting.

2017 World Warriors Falco (Chun/Ibuki), Myself & ZG (Claw)

Rather than talk individually about every trip and experience, I’ll just break it down to highlights and lessons learnt in regards to each game I was competing in throughout the year. As a quick side note, I’m really grateful to all my friends that I’ve met again and for the first time during my trips this year, definitely makes the travel worth it. SFV will be continued in Part 2, so grab a seat and some popcorn.

USF4 - The Final Chapter

So as many people probably know, I got into the competitive side of Street Fighter when Street Fighter 4 landed. I was an arcade rat for many years playing Street Fighter 3, but never really tried to push myself into competitions until 2009.

As such SF4 has a special place in my heart and any visit to Japan ignites my desire to play again. Any day of the week I could head down to the Arcades and get a game of SF4, while SFV was only really available to me twice a week at most. Naturally I ended up playing lots of USF4 when I was there last in 2016. Benching my long term main Dictator for the newcomer to USF4 Decapre so that I won’t confuse myself while playing SFV.

2017 Taiwan Reunion with Lingo (Gouken) and Reiketsu (Claw)

Through some rumblings in the scene here in AU, a competitive league started up for USF4 and it saw tournaments at BAM9, OHN and SXC as well as a local league at Couch Warriors ranbats.

I placed relatively well throughout the year, 5th at BAM9, 2nd at OHN and 1st at SXC/Couch Warriors league. 

While it was fun, I did notice that I was finding myself annoyed a lot while playing, getting hit by a lot of gimmicks that I never really had issues with before and mostly bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t play Dictator anymore.

It was extremely hard to practice the game, as there wasn’t a sizeable list of competitors anymore and at most you’d get to practice once every 2 weeks or so. Which meant that people were playing with rust on at all times and just attempting to gimmick each other out. Didn’t really have the same competitive feel like it had before.

I think with this in mind and with the fact that 2018 is going to be packed with new Fighting games, It’s time for me to finally call it quits on USF4 competitively.

With DragonBall FighterZ, Soul Calibur 6, MVCI, Tekken 7, Injustice 2, Fighting EX Layer & Street Fighter 5 AE in 2018 I think that people are going to be even less focused on USF4, so it’s probably time to “Let the past die” and look towards the future.

Marvel Vs Capcom: Infinite

This is a tough one for me, as I loved UMVC3 and spent a lot of my time trying to grind out the game. One of the first games to even get me into Fighting games was Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter - which Toxy always reminds me was “the boring one” because it wasn’t as broken fun as Xmen vs Street Fighter. I really love the series as a whole and have always enjoyed watching and playing the games.

MVCI started out very different to me, I couldn’t grasp how the game was meant to be played and it seemed like defensive play was an impossibility for the longest time. I reached out to a few people for some help and understanding of the strategy involved. After playing KillerKai a lot in Taiwan I had a bit of a better idea but I would say I’m still trying to understand the neutral game.

Myself & Burnout Getting wrecked by KillerKai’s Zero/Dante for hours in Taiwan

I placed 9th in the Singapore Battle of the stones event, despite having no expectations as by my own standards I’m pretty bad at the game. SXC was a fairly low turn out but I believe I ended up 5th.

Some of my concerns about the game were patched recently, with others still remain. The discovery of fairly easy unblockables doesn’t really help the game tbh. Post patch I’ve had better results, finishing 2nd place at the Couchwarriors Ranbat Finals to Toxy with a fairly large relative turnout. I want the game to do well, and I want the issues to be ironed out - I really want Marvel to take it’s place next to Street Fighter as one of the most hype games at EVO (even more hype most of the time). Hopefully the developers can address the remaining issues & potentially re-release the product like they did with MVC3 and UMVC3.

I’ll probably spend some time learning Strange combos because he’s pretty sick, but don’t expect too much from me results wise in this game when 2018 rolls around because my only strategy so far is “never get hit”. I haven’t forgot about my give away of an MVCI copy (1k followers!), I’ll be doing it fairly soon to one of my twitter followers but I still haven’t decided the best method to do it yet. I want to give it to someone who will get the most use out of it.

ANZ Players to watch in 2018: I think this is fairly obvious, Baxter will be one of the unstoppable few in MVCI in 2018. Outside of Baxter I’d have to say keep an eye out for Mason in New Zealand, and Canpakes (Betterpart) who plays an extremely cheap Fireband/Raccoon team. I’m not too sure how the unblockables will change the game, but I imagine that the good players will still remain good.

King of Fighters 14

I doubt it’s very well known, but I used to spend a lot of time playing KOF2002 in the arcades. I wasn’t any good, but I played. Mature was by far my favourite character, so I’ve had a habit of using her in every game she’s in. KOF13 was a game I lightly played, never really learned that deeply but placed relatively well considering.

KOF14 rolled around and we were excited to have a new KOF to play. Although, it was a broken mess the first patch - Birds were everywhere. Eventually the patch came out and I decided to get a bit more serious about it and try to actually learn the game.

I spent a fair bit of time trying to level up and learn the combos/hit confirms and just as I got to a level where I was starting to compete with the upper levels of the AUS KOF community (compete, but not yet defeat) my local scene all dropped the game.

My last major for the game was in Taiwan, where I got destroyed a few rounds through winners of my pool by a player called BALL. I had no idea what to do against Yuri as I’ve fought the character maybe twice in KOF14. I thought “well, I was bound to lose because there are actual amazing KOF players out there” and as it turns out BALL made it to top 5 of the event so I couldn’t be too upset about that.

Getting slapped up by Yuri

I really enjoyed playing KOF14 and it’s sad that I had to drop it off my list of games I was playing. Online was not that playable and I couldn’t get anyone to play me locally, there’s only so much I can do in training mode by myself.

Luong is actually one of my favourite characters of any KOF series to play and I’m hoping that a patch 3.0 revival brings people back to the game. 

Speaking of Luong, one of the highlights of the Taiwan Major 2017 was Kindevu’s amazing run in top 4. If you haven’t seen it - make sure you check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMZowG9ZoSE

ANZ Players to watch in 2018: I’d have to give this to Baxter as well, if patch 3.0 reignites the scene I imagine that he’ll be back on top of it with Falco & players like Chen/Kyokugen/AlexK there to challenge him.

[letscraftycollectiontacofan-blog]

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My year in games - 2016

So for the past few years, I’ve been recapping the games I’ve played for the first time in the past year.  I was going to do things differently for 2017 as the first 6 months of this year were full of absolutely amazing games and the second half of the year is looking just as good.  However, I realized I actually never posted my 2016 games here, so let me do that first!  Here are the games I played in 2016 and what I thought of them:

The Witness (PC) - I actually wasn’t that big of a fan of Braid, but I like puzzles so I picked up Johnathan Blow’s latest game.  Quite fun with a lot of great puzzles, but suffers from indie art game syndrome where it thinks it’s more amazing and profound than it actually is.  Beat the main ending, didn’t beat every puzzle.

Star Fox Zero (Wii U) - The controls in this game get a lot of hate, but outside of a couple of circumstances, I thought the gyro controls made the game way more fun and with some practice became extremely rewarding.  However, the game is insanely short, and I had pretty much tired of the limited content after just 5 hours.  It has less content than even Star Fox 64 which is unacceptable for a supposedly major release in 2016.  Beat the game, didn’t get every medal because I’m not a completionist.

Star Fox Guard (Wii U) - The tower defense game that came with Star Fox Zero.  I’m not a big fan of Tower Defense and only played it once for about an hour.

Uncharted 4 (PS4) - Being tired of Nintendo not supporting the Wii U, I decided to pick up a PS4 and so Uncharted 4 was the first game I played.  Personally, the only other Uncharted I really liked was 2 (1 was shit, 3 was mediocre) so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  The game has an excruciatingly slow beginning, but picks up after a while.  Never reaches the heights of 2, but ends up being a fun enough adventure by the end.  Beat the game.

Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4) - I like this game way more than I should.  The plot sort of falls apart in the second half and the gameplay can be very repetitive, but this is mitigated by the fact that flying around with control of gravity is a blast.  It also helps that it has an excellent soundtrack.  I actually delayed beating Uncharted 4 so I could play this all of the way through.  Actually got sad when I got the Platinum trophy (my first!) since it meant there was no more game left.  Beat the game.

Batman Arkham Knight (PS4) - The Batman Arkham games are pretty much all great including, IMO, the non-Rocksteady developed Origins which I feel actually has the best story.  Arkham Knight is no exception, although it does have one notable weakness:  the Battank.  Driving around with the Batmobile is fun, but as soon as it goes into tank mode, the combat becomes repetitive and boring:  two things this series has typically done a great job of avoiding.  Beat the game, didn’t get all of the Riddler trophies and see the true ending, though.

No Man’s Sky (PS4) - I…actually liked this game?  I wanted a relaxing game I could just waste time doing meaningless (but somewhat fun) tasks in for a few weeks, and that’s what I got.  I wouldn’t recommend it for normal people though, as it’s lacking content, but by now you’ve probably read about that  Didn’t get to the center of the universe because I don’t like losing progress.

Journey (PS4) - I know everybody and their mother loves this game, but I just didn’t.  I do not care for games that put storytelling way over gameplay unless they go full in (more on that in a bit), and I really don’t care when the storytelling isn’t very compelling.  I felt like I knew where the game was going from the moment I turned it on, and got more and more bored as I was continuously proven right.  The multiplayer aspect however, was a very good idea.  Beat the game.

Shantae Risky’s Revenge (PS4) - A rather fun platformer.  It’s pretty short (I beat it only a little over 2 hours) but it has some fun ideas.  There’s two areas that feel like the platformer equivalent of Zelda dungeons which were extremely good, but they only made up about 30% of the game.  The rest was more standard (but decent) fare.  Beat the game.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (PS4) - A much better platformer than Risky’s Revenge.  It has similar Zelda-ish dungeons but more of them spread throughout the game.  The presentation is better with lovely HD artwork, and the game’s sense of humor is excellent.  Highly recommended.  Beat the game.

Transformers Devastation (PS4) - A PS+ free game which I otherwise wouldn’t have played since I don’t give the slightest care about Transformers.  I didn’t make it very far into the game, but it was a pretty fun and very challenging action game from what I had played.  Didn’t come close to beating the game as I got a PSVR the next week.

Playstation VR Worlds (PSVR) - And here’s where we get into the wild and crazy world of VR.  I bought a PSVR because I was curious about VR and had cash to burn, but I really didn’t try it until this game.  VR Worlds is really a collection of 5 tech demos I MEAN FULLY REALIZED GAMES MOST DEFINITELY NOT TECH DEMOS BEING SOLD BY SONY, NOPE.  Some are good.  Some are not.  I’ll go into each game in a bit, but let me just say if it had not come in my PSVR launch bundle, I would not recommend buying it for $40.

Ocean Descent - A simple experience in which you stand in a shark cage in the ocean.  At the end of the main dive, a shark attacks the cage.  This is the first thing I played in VR and judging by the fact the game comes with the headset in the launch bundle and the fact that it always defaults to Ocean Descent on bootup, it’s basically designed to be a first experience…and succeeds massively.  Within seconds, I was giggling like a little boy at how awesome it was.  VR is the real deal!  There is no gameplay, so it’s a very easy thing to show to non-gamers.   I also showed this demo to my parents who are not gamers, and they loved it as well.

Luge VR - It’s street luge you control with your head.  The graphics look horrible and blurry, even after properly callibrating the headset.  I played it once, and that was enough.

The London Heist - A 40 minute interactive experience in which you help steal a diamond.  It’s split between about 70% interactive cutscenes and 30% shooting action sequences.  Cutscenes are far more effective in VR and I don’t mind them as much.  The shooting sequences are great.  However, outside of a choice right at the end of the experience, there’s not much of a reason to replay it other than just for fun.  It does have a shooting gallery mode which is somewhat neat.

Scavenger’s Odyssey - A FPS in which you pilot a mech.  So far, this is one of the only times I’ve gotten VR sickness.  VR sickness, for those who don’t know, is basically what happens when your eyes tell your body it should be moving when it knows it isn’t.  This is why most VR games either use teleporting for movement or give you a fixed point of reference while moving (like being in the cockpit of a mech) instead of just giving you standard FPS controls.  While this game does try to sidestep VR sickness by putting you in a mech, it also involves jumping and flipping gravity which is what pushed me over the top.  I quit for a while but eventually came back and finished it.  It’s...ok.  Nothing really special.

Danger Ball - An arcade game that’s effectively like cooler PONG except your opponent is in front of you (like in actual ping pong) and you move your paddle by looking in a direction.  It’s kind of fun, but in order to put spin on your ball, you have to flick your neck which kind of hurts because I am out of shape and spend all day on a computer.  It’s kind of fun, but not something I’d really return to.

Batman Arkham VR (PSVR) - It’s a Batman game in which you don’t fight and it only lasts 40 minutes to run through the story.  While this is disappointing, it’s not as much as it would seem for two main reasons.  First, the game is only 20 bucks.  Second, VR is awesome and being Batman is awesome.  The story is somewhat interesting and the VR is probably the most immersive out of any title.  The suiting up and entry into the Batcave sequence is honestly one of my favorite experiences I’ve ever had in a game entirely because VR sells it.  As for the game itself, I liked that they emphasized the detective aspect of Batman and would have gladly wanted a longer game with more cases even if it still didn’t have combat (although it would be nice).  The game has optional Riddler challenge upon completion so the full amount of gametime is probably more like 3 hours, which isn’t too shabby.  Love the experience, despite its length.

Rigs (PSVR) - I’m not much of an FPS person, but after playing the demo of Rigs, I decided to go ahead and buy it.  Rigs is a team-based FPS in which you drive giant mechs and compete in a sort of sports league.  It’s probably the most complete experience currently available in PSVR as it has single player offline modes and online play.  It could use more modes and maps (which is why it’s a good thing they’ve announced another map is coming soon) but it’s still pretty fun.  I’ve always hated shooting with control sticks on consoles which is why I like that you can aim with your head.  VR also makes the scale of the game feel massive which I love.

Windlands (PSVR) - A first person platformer where you use grappling hooks to get around.  This is the first VR game I’ve played with full locomotion with no static frame of reference and I thankfully did not get sick.  The game itself is pretty decent.  There’s some fun platforming but it’s a bit bland as there’s no enemies or major obstacles:  just you vs. the geometry of the level.  Overall, probably not the best use of VR.

Job Simulator (PSVR) - A game in which you visit the museum of jobs run by robots in the year 2050.  The robots don’t exactly know how these jobs worked which leads to…let’s just say inaccurate emulations of Office Worker, Chef, Convenience Store Clerk, and Mechanic jobs.  This is a good example of a game that would suck if not for being in VR.  There’s something that’s a ton of fun about throwing crap around and screwing with people in VR.  The game has a great sense of humor as well.  However, the game is light on content (a major pain point with most early VR games) and some of the jobs get repetitive.  Still, it’s a good game to show to people who are new to VR and want to see what it’s like to use motion controls to interact with the environment.

Call of Duty Jackal Assault (PSVR) - A free game in which you pilot a ship in space and shoot down other ships.  The detail in the ship is great and space combat is way easier when you can look separately of aiming thanks to VR.  However, it only lasts about 5 minutes, which I guess is fair given it’s free with no strings attached…outside of the massive terms of service you have to read prior to playing.

Star Wars Battlefront (PS4) - I bought this on sale for less than $8 because of the VR experience coming soon.  I never bought it originally because it seemed like every other modern shooter I don’t like where only a couple of shots can kill you and you have regenerating health…and that’s exactly what it is.  It can be fun from time to time, but I just suck at it and given the offline AI is stupid, I can’t really get any better either as there’s no good way to train.  The VR mission is pretty nice, but only 20 minutes long and features some absolutely horrible voice acting for your playable character that tries its best to ruin the mission.

Bound (PS4/PSVR) - I bought this because it was 50% off at the same time I was picking up Battlefront and it’s got a VR mode and I’m starving for VR content.  It’s very artistic like Journey, but the more platformy gameplay makes it feel more gameplay based.  Also, the fact that it’s very immersive in VR really helps.  Hell, I’d probably have liked Journey a whole lot more if it were in VR as well.  I haven’t finished this, however, because the VR camera was kind of rough at launch.  They’ve since patched it but I still haven’t returned to it because there’s been pretty much nonstop games I want/put tons of time into this year.