Pfft, next you’re going to be selling me on the idea that we’re all made of carbon

You’re not alone. Just like with the Goauld!

Honestly one of the best games I’ve played recently is the Stanley Parable and that game is a couple of hours of poking around a quirky but literal office. Would happily buy that 60 times over one massively mediocre rpg.

This has been exactly my feeling for the past decade or so. I love open world, when you have a good concept and a solid story. But corridor is the best way to convey that story and keep the player engaged.

For me, Assassin’s Creed is the ultimate brilliance to rags example: corridor gameplay that became an open world as you progressed in the early games. Which evolved into the meandering, mindless stories of the more recent games. I genuinely have no idea what Valhalla was supposed to be about lol. I finished it, but it was 120 hours I’d rather have back. A corridor style for the late 2010/20s games would have made all of them far more interesting, as they were phenomenal concepts imo.

All this to say, I don’t mind some impactful world decisions that affect story arcs, but bring back the dang corridor and stop hiding behind massive content dumps… Damn it!

This may have missed the point of your asking, but I wrote it so I’m posting it lol my apologies if it’s not what your looking for:

I’m gonna advise a thought on what I had to do. I love being informed. But I reached such a level of depression and anxiety of the future that I had to do something.

So I stopped. I told myself it doesn’t have to be forever, just a break. Took about 2 weeks of much less news consumption, forced myself to be brain-dead as much as possible. It led to a few conclusions:

The world turns. No matter what you do, ppl do insane shit. Taking a break for you doesn’t mean stupid shit stops happening, but it makes it less the center of your world. You don’t have to own it.

Life is about a lot more than what’s going on in the news cycle. I have friends who never look at a newspaper, and they’re far happier than I am overall. Just a thought.

The kicker - I still knew what was going on. The media milks a big story over days and weeks, so you can easily come back to your favorite website and pick it up quickly. Haven’t missed anything that I could have changed regardless haha.

A great comment I saw a while back: put down the phone for a few days, and you realize it’s still 2005 outside. The world is boring, but blessedly so. For your health, let it be 2005 for a bit.

Now, I just read the headlines unless something really grabs my attn. Reading the news makes many problems that aren’t yours a you problem. Overall, I’ve realised it’s the little things that make life better. Do the little stuff - help in your community, give the homeless guy a fiver, call your mom, ask the cashier how her day is (and genuinely care about her answer). If you’re up for it, maybe then undertake some of the actions other ppl are suggesting about political action, volunteering, etc.

You can’t pour from an empty cup, my friend. Take care of you first and the world becomes a little better ☺️

I would even argue the controversy about it is the point. It’s art. It’s meant to make you think about things you might not ever consider, and in the case of No Russian, it’s the horror of committing a terrorist attack. Imo, it’s an intentional but valuable (both financially and ethically) lesson in what art can do

I also fully support this boundary!

In the wordle world, this is almost a big enough deal to make an x, formerly known as twitter, burner account and post on the NYT page. Just a little jab in the stomach that other ppl will see

I didn’t know this was something I needed. Stolen!

This was an excellent breakdown of the American elections system, thank you

This turned into a Bond-esque naming of Game Pass

Shitty company tries to justify its existence

Must be fun winning evolution off the hop

Whoa. My mind only serves up “Elf”

No no no no no. These guys don’t get a glow-up, they’re already too damn pretty

Turtles: The Pinnacle of Evolution.

Waiting on the inevitable “wait til you hear about crabs” response 😁

Unlike humans, who are notoriously limited in their housing choices by an evolutionary disadvantage known generally as, “the market.”

Or beat him to within an inch of his life, as the case may be

Yeah this is my experience as well. I don’t have much technical knowledge about it, but Firefox with ublock seems to be the enemy of captcha and CloudFlare

Duuuude the animorphs. Absolutely freaking wild story lol I completely forgot it existed. When transformers go human with some wild consequences haha