I want to see pokemon red/blue/yellow absolutely fully maximum modernised. I want to go through the world in VR. I want to throw the poke balls into battle for real stashed on my belt. I want to be able to yell commands to a living, breathing pokemon dancing around in the arena.

HappyHolograms S18 e10

Watching short exceptionally addictive videos on social media

South park called it like 10 years ago, but I do wonder how many games aren’t selling now because people want to watch their favourite Internet star play it instead of playing it themselves.

I want to get on my high horse about kids these days, but if they’re basically all at it then it’s not them that’s the problem, it’s just that I don’t get it. Which I don’t.

Yeah I feel a little bad for them. Here in the UK we had mad protests about the Iraq war and it didn’t do shit. Even if they cared, which I’m absolutely clueless about, they had no chance.

I’ll still want it, I’ll feel a strong sense of FOMO if I don’t, but I don’t really care any more. After seeing how much money GTAO was making I strongly suspect they’ll put a lot more focus on that. In my opinion gta online sucked a lot of ass. It was fun as a playground to hang around with friends in, but as an actual game I’d rather we’d have agreed on any other game to play. I would never load it up to play by myself.

I hope I’m wrong and the story mode slaps, but at the super-premium price it’s going to end up costing i won’t justify it.

I’ve never heard the term trail shift before, but I can’t see anything other than that that implies unpaid labour. You’re right to check though. If you’re seen as a troublemaker for that, they’re not a company you’d want to work for anyway.

Bureaucracy moves pretty slowly i think. We’ve got another few years to find out for sure.

I’ve heard people say they won’t make HL3 until the next big leap in gaming is here.

1 was with us into “true 3D” era

2 was with us into physics engines

Alyx was with us into VR gaming.

3 will be with us …?*

I’m excited to find where we’re going. Gaming has been pretty stale for a long time. Sure we’ve had plenty of games that have got very clever with what we have, but we haven’t had a major leap in a long time, they’ve just been getting a bit more polish and shine each year. Short of deep-dive VR I honestly don’t know what could be next.

*Possibly actual AI? A world filled with characters that are actually intelligently responsive rather than just following a set of predefined behaviour patterns? Vortigaunt teammate that learns from you? Thinking about where we’re at technologically I have been wondering how long until AI is ready for implementation in games. Maybe this is it?

On the one hand, maybe it might be considered a little scummy for a megacorporation to financially abuse people, but the important point here is how dare you try to enjoy your life.

Wow, stars really are just like us.

I feel that. I’ve had it a few times where a girl is walking in front same speed and direction for like 5 turns. I’ve had to go completely the wrong way before and make myself late for fear she’ll phone the police that she’s being followed.

She’d be justified in the fear, I’d be nervous if I were them, I just hate that that’s the world we’re in.

Depending on what problems you’re talking about, I think everyone is to blame to some extent. For example global warming is largely due to humans producing more and more energy to keep up progress, and here we are spending it on basically useless discussion.

I was idly thinking about this the other day, how absolutely lonely it must be in say North Korea, where if you’re caught by the regime to be thinking the wrong thing you’ll get killed. I’d know its bullshit, but I’d be terrified of speaking out or asking questions, incase the person I’m speaking to is an agent of the state, or will suspect me of being an agent and inform the authorities incase I’m testing them.

It must be awful not knowing who’s a secret police, who’s a gullible rube for buying the propaganda and who’s just hiding behind forced conformity.

I don’t think many of them will believe the propaganda, but I bet the ones who do will be the happiest. Or least miserable I guess.

I’ve installed Myst around 10 times and I haven’t gotten anywhere with it. I refuse to look at solutions because its a legendary puzzle game and I will not be beaten by it, but also I’m not at all sure what to do at all. I have never solved a single puzzle. I’m never even sure what’s interactive or not, or if I’m even looking at a puzzle or just seeing clues where there are none.

I should try it again soon…

Necessity. I didn’t have much of a support network so when mine got so bad I could no longer work I just let everything slide until I ended up homeless. At that point I absolutely had to go through all the motions and that means meeting a lot of people and pleading your case and so on.

Minecraft, slay the spire, civilisation, atomicrops.

Balatro could have been a contender but I lost interest suddenly and unexpectedly.

I know its not the same thing, but we’ve completely done away with the barter system. Way back in the days of yore people would be swapping things for things, and then money came along and they were like “whaaaat you want to take my stuff in exchange for a few little discs?” And now it’s totally normal.

I’m watching absolutely zero spoilers for it. It’ll still be there when I can get the gear together.

I’m with you there. Except for the “might check it out”.

I definitely 100% no questions asked will be all over it. If it’s real. Which it isn’t.

I’ve only played 3 games of it, but they’ve all been close so far. I suspect the window for fun has already passed.

Overwatch is fun every time there’s a new completely game-changing shift. At its core it’s an incredibly fun game, it’s only because its so competitive that it loses all the joy. As soon as a new iteration is “solved” it stops being fun.