JasonM

Roleplaying!

I saw some footage of Matchpoint and I wasn't certain if I liked it because it seemed like the players had a lot of 'warping into place' whenever they'd go hit the ball and it looked a bit hokey and unnatural. Did you experience that playing the demo, or maybe I was mistaken seeing developmental footage? I definitely hope it'll be good and as @Bobfoc mentioned also has a good meaty career mode. I currently mostly play Tennis Elbow 2013 on PC, but that game series has never been a looker and is ever the clunker in terms of looks (although I love the gameplay, still).

[rant incoming] Having done International management in this save (once getting Poland to the WC final and winning the euros with the Netherlands), my biggest frustration with it is that it just isn't fun or engaging in any way. - Scouting players straight up sucks and it takes a lot of setting up to get a decent picture of what you're working with. - There's no interactions whatsoever between games, other than the odd player whinging they weren't called up, or the odd player asking if they should flip nationalities. - There's zero prep, no training during international breaks, and it's extremely hard to impossible to get tactics familiar even if you call up the same group every time out. - It has no real hook that makes it even interesting to try aside from club management, because all you're doing is calling up a group, playing 2-3 matches, then processing a few months to do it again. There's nothing to keep you busy, other than the aformentioned tedium of making sure scout report/national pool is still up to date. It's extremely shallow, and it hasn't seen much or any focus from SI for as long as I can honestly remember. I think I could boot up FM05 and have largely the same thing going on with international management. But the latter is also just FM in general, where there's quite a few upgrades all around, but there's also still so many things that have barely or had no improvement at all in the past seventeen+ years. And also a bunch of systems that lack the granularity it needs to really work. Like why is youth intake a complete lottery, for example? Every team IRL has a philosophy in scouting/recruiting, why is it near enough random what you get every year? Fuck, Total Club Manager 03 had more depth on the youth system than FM has now, in TCM you could even set up overseas academies and look into pre U-18 youth squads. I'm not saying TCM was a better game than CM4 or FM05, but they actually had features back then that aren't even in FM22 now. Why are almost all stats exactly the same as the Championship Manager games? I know they added advanced stats like xG, but with near enough none of it being saved from year-to-year, what's the point in giving advanced stats when clubs irl track that stuff over significantly longer periods than a singular season. You can't even have something like "Top 100 scorers in Premier League history" lists, it's just THE top scorer and fuck every other player that isn't him? Compare that to a game like OOTP, which tracks EVERY stat over every single season, from youth to seniors and everything in between. Set pieces are some of the most dynamic and important aspects of football, yet in FM it's still shallow as hell. You can only have a singular corner strategy per flag and there's no real flexibility in what you can do. I can't slot a player on the edge of the opposite side of the box, I can just pre-set them to very specific places. Free Kicks are even worse, with many teams having all sorts of different routines depending on the situation, you can't even set a routine on free kicks on the sides of the box, only in front of it. It's truly wild that a game this focused on accurate football has neglected these aspects. Some parts are even a step back vs. CM0102, in that game you could set up defensive and attacking positioning, even to a level of granularity where you could tell players how to position themselves based on where the ball is. in FM22 there's only guesswork in what the roles and all the instructions will actually give you. And those four things are just what I can think up right now. And don't get me wrong, I love this series and this game, I got near 600 hours on a singular save on this year's title. But the more I play this game and this series, the more frustrated I get about the very selective (and underwhelming) improvements.

Holy moly Fernando Alonso showing why he's still one of the best.

Politicians who have the legislative power to do something about the environment but choose not to Vs. Racing Driver who on his own has only a voice to call for change. And as Chris mentioned, Vettel knows that it's hypocritical to call for these things when his team is driving in a Saudi blood oil competition, but that doesn't take away the fact that these politicians are the bigger cunts for not pushing for change when they do actually have the power to. TL;DR - Those politicians need to do less whinging at people and more doing something about the climate crisis. But they won't do it, because the lobby's too far up their ass.

General opinion was that it's fun and interesting, but too short a story compared to UD/TQ (which themselves aren't exactly the longest games). It and the rest of the Dark Anthology are more so a case of giving you multiple smaller stories with a different cast every time, rather than one bigger story like you got with Until Dawn and you have with The Quarry. If you can find the bundle of the three released TDA games around $30-40 then that'll give you a good amount of fun, but dropping 30 bucks on a singular title in that series is a bit too much in my opinion.

Mate of mine got it because he loved Until Dawn (and also liked the Dark Pictures Anthology, but a little less), and survey so far is that the game is definitely fun and hits all the right beats that Until Dawn did, but at the same time it doesn't really captivate them as much as UD did for them, partly the story itself and partly the characters in it. But as a whole it's a fun game, and YMMV on whether you'll like the story more than UD since i've heard opinions go both ways on it. ACG also did a review on it and noted that it's quite heavy on bugs, and again YMMV on how those will affect your enjoyment. They did note there's quite a bit of replayability in how the story changes depending on who lives and dies and what choices are made throughout.

Blow the team up, tbh. I don't see how we can continue on without Boban.

It's been a bad week for Top 10 players in general. Daniil Medvedev and Auger-Alliasime were beaten last weekend by (then) #205 Tim van Rijthoven at the Dutch ATP250.

Especially Persona 3 where you shoot yourself in the head to summon your persona.

I've seen people describe Persona as 'Pokemon for grown ups', and whilst that's an extremely reductive way to describe it, there's some merit in that. There's two aspects to the game like Bobfoc described. The first aspect is that it's something of a (school-)life simulator, you go through a schoolyear and have to engage in improving personal skills, get passing grades, and form social bonds with over a dozen of characters. Then there's the dungeon crawling aspect that drives the plot forward, you go into a demonic world (every game has a different plot hook for it) and go through a dungeon to reach a goal that varies per game. (In Persona 5 it's making bad people fess up their crimes, in Persona 4 it's saving innocent people from certain death). During the dungeon crawling you fight monsters, you can recruit some of these monsters to upgrade your own arsenal of spell power, and you level them up. (hence the pokémon description). It's very unique, and definitely not for everyone. But I am a big fan of the franchise all the same, having finished another playthrough of Persona 4 a few months ago. Also glad P5 Royal is coming to PC now, I played through bits of P5 but a save game corruption kinda killed my interest dead and I never came back. A shame it's P3 Portable and not P3 FES, but I heard that Atlus no longer has the source code to the latter, so it makes sense they release Portable instead.

Spa for many years was basically the go-to track for most Dutch fans, especially since Max Verstappen showed up and started succeeding. Now with the Dutch GP, the importance of Spa has lowered for Dutch fans since they have their own. It's still a massive loss, though. Zandvoort absolutely sucks for racing, and Spa has been one of the iconic F1 tracks for as long as it has existed. But I also like the idea of seeing Kyalami back on the calendar, I don't know if it's ideal for F1 (the last few corners are really tight.), but in a global F1 there has to be at least one race in Africa along with the other continents, and Kyalami is the best circuit for that. I'd rather a few other tracks made way, but money talks and Spa by all accounts have struggled for it for a while now. It befell the German GP, and I guess Spa is now the one on the chopping block.

I mean near every other team is willingly letting their drivers take 6G shocks to the head with the insane porpoising going on, so I guess there's your answer. In general, there's not a single team that wouldn't push the absolute limits of the safety regulations for a competitive advantage. It's a nature of the beast, and the drivers themselves aren't in a position to say no, and they're also focused on maximizing their competitive edge. Unless race control or the FIA mandate more aggressive safety measures, no team will willingly implement any themselves.

My definition of perfect might be a bit more loose, but these are my albums that I can listen fully and never tire of. Spoiler warning, a lot of rock. In no real order. . ...Like Clockwork - QOTSA | This album just has everything for me, and all ten songs just hit for me. . Them Crooked Vultures | Talk about taking your only shot and hitting a bullseye. Homme, Grohl, Jon Paul Jones got together and made an album that might not be the most influential, but definitely is the most listenable. . Royal Blood | In a way getting it this good on a debut album has meant that Royal Blood has had a hard time growing further from it. Having said that, they have continued growing all the same. But this debut outing still is the best top-down album they made, with all ten songs being absolute bangers. . Turn Blue - Black Keys | El Camino got me into the Black Keys, and Turn Blue made me a true believer of them. Absolutely brilliant album. (Let's Rock gets pretty close, too) . Californication - RHCP | Blew my teenaged mind when I first heard RHCP, and whilst it took a while for me to fully listen to any album, Californication is rightfully seen as one of the best rock albums ever made. . Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen | There are so many options for the Boss, but this one probably gets the nod because it effectively put him on the map. Just a great album that has literally everything, including the most accidental pop hit that is Dancing in the Dark. Like a fine wine, the older I have become the more this album has started to appeal to me. . Vegas - The Crystal Method | The wildcard pick in many ways, and the only non-rock pick from me, but Vegas is the best electronic music album ever produced and I will die on that hill. From the energetic (and late 90s overused song) Keep Hope Alive to the near trippy (and aptly named) Trip Like I do, this album is an hour of perfection.

I second the sentiment that the first episode of Ms. Marvel was great. Perfect introduction of a great character. It had that Spider-Man feel to it, whilst being very much inherently different in so many ways. I hope the other five episodes will be as fun as this one is! The art-direction also felt akin to Into the Spider-Verse, and it really helped make it stand out and pop.

This is the first slam I have ever seen, and after years of hearing and knowing how great Nadal is, this final really hammered home to me how effortless he makes it look. Utterly astonishing to watch someone dismantle his opponent in such a clinical fashion.

Death road to Canada... Oh wait

CRPG stands for "Computer Role Playing Game", nowadays it basically means games that are based in some form or fashion on tabletop RPG's like D&D, Pathfinder, or other rulesets. Or games that have their own ruleset, but heavily inspired by tabletop. Historical examples are Baldurs Gate 1/2, Planescape Torment, Neverwinter Nights, Arcanum, KOTOR1/2. Modern ones are Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Pathfinder Kingmaker/Wrath. There's also a few that could fit into the CRPG group like Disco Elysium, or Fallout 1/2, Dragon Age: Origins, Wasteland 1/2/3, Divinity: Original Sin 1/2, Shadowrun, Underrail. They tend to stand out having turn based or real-time with pause gameplay. Rulesets based on or inspired by tabletop rules, and more in line with what one would expect of playing in a tabletop setting. (dice rolls, limited use abilities/spellcasting, etc.)

Spoiler-free-ish list of stuff to keep when you find it.

The heart of the anvil is a part of Harrim's personal quest. But I wouldn't be surprised if you left Harrim at home after two minutes of hearing him be Dwarven Eeyore

Is it?

I think the worst aspect for the management is that a very specific path is required for the secret ending. Another thing about the advisor I only realized until much-much later, you can hire custom characters from Anoriel, and these characters can be turned into advisors. Which is a bit bland, but can help if you are serious about sticking (close) to your allegiance with every choice you get, and the story companions will excuse themselves from their advisor role if you make decisions going against their desires/alignment a few too many times. I had Lander walk out on being my regent because I decided against him one too many time, and it left me with a hole in that position because Valerie and Octavia where already in other positions. Very frustrating.

Yeah, I really liked Kingmaker the crpg but the kingdom management was novel but ultimately just slightly arbitrary busiwork. I actually restarted today as a lawful evil sorcerer. I really feel this game doesn't penalize for running a non-good alignment and still give you a different experience.

Good on Checo for getting the bag, he's a really good fit for Red Bull at this point in his career and especially this year he's shown to be the perfect driver to pair with Max Verstappen. He's drama free, but he can get the maximum out of the car and that's going to be worth its weight in gold as Red Bull aims for the WCC along with another WDC. But this pretty much should end Pierre Gasly's involvement with Red Bull after this season. He's stuck around in the hopes of finding his way back into the Red Bull seat, but with Checo on board through 2024, that leaves him completely dead in the water in terms of career choices. The only issue is where he might go, the only drives I can see open up soon are Vettel's seat at Aston Martin and maybe Ricciardo's seat at McLaren. The first one would be a big time step back competitively even compared to Alpha Tauri, and the second one is nowhere near a guarantee that McLaren will move away from Ricciardo. There's also a tiny chance that Lewis or Fernando might retire, but honestly I don't see either of them hanging up their boots this year or even next year.

I know you're sarcastic, but still fuck you for saying it. I legit don't care for the Champions League anymore. It's just all teams with fuck-you money nowadays.