JasonM

I haven't tried MWO due to the aforementioned freemium nature of it, but I am very much big into BattleTech.

Have put hundreds of hours into the turn based strategy game, and currently doing a coop career in MW5 with all the dlc. Afterwards will probably start a career mode with mods enabled.

How is mwo, I assume it's PvP?

6 minutes ago, Baddar said:

They were some very poor Japanese penalties. 

That, but also Livakovic clearly doing his homework and knowing what corner players are likely to pick.

For goalies it's all mindgames and homework, and during a clutch shootout most players will go to what they know will work, figure that out and you basically tip the scales in your favor because either you get a chance at it or it forces the player to adjust which increases the chance of them fucking up the kick.

That's the scariest stopper/closer I have ever seen. The fact he chucks two types of trash at such an insanely high level is absolutely wild. On top of having 75 stamina, so he could basically get pulled out of the bullpen with minimal rest.

I suddenly feel like a boomer (despite being a 32yo) at someone mentioning Slade as "Some British band". 🤔

The writing had been on the wall for Mick for a while now, and it became obvious when his deal with Ferrari ended that his relationship with Haas had quickly gotten to the point where the team didn't see value in him.

Is it premature, maybe a little, but he struggled a lot and when Magnussen returned it became more evident that he wasn't delivering what Haas wanted.

There can even be made something of a case that he came in on his name, but I'd say that's a tad unfair.

Hulkenberg, who I absolutely adore as a driver, does not do anything for the future of F1, but Haas has made the decision that in their situation they simply don't want to deal with mercurial youngsters and prefer proven veterans. And Hulk brings that with him.

I don't see the man's podium drought ending soon, but good on him for getting back even if one has to wonder what Haas can even offer him, beyond a drive, but maybe that's enough for Hulk.

Should be an interesting situation, I expect them to get on, but there's still that simmering beef between KMag and Hulk that has to be addressed properly.

Anyways, I expect this to be the end of the road for Mick, he'll get picked up for reserve duties and name value somewhere, but I am hard pressed to see him get another seat unless he get lucky...

It wouldn't be Red Bull at the top if they didn't have their #1 WDC winning driver being a cunt to the #2.

History repeats itself.

1 hour ago, Bobfoc said:

Sports Story comes out next month.

I wasn't even aware that Golf Story was getting a sequel, this is awesome!

idk if this deserves its own thread, so i'm putting this here.

I know he had his issues both mental and with addictions, but man, 34 is no age at all to pass away.

22 minutes ago, LL! said:

I wonder if this is basically it for Kyrie. I think a lot of damage has been done and while there's obviously the possibility of that he stays because there's money to be made off him, I can see a scenario where he's removed from the NBA. 

Seeing he's only suspended for 5 games and will probably be back even with his extremely shaky apology, I think he really has to go full nuclear for the league to throw him out.

He's one of the league's biggest stars in terms of name and performance, and that will protect him from prosecution until his production falls off and his toxic personality starts outweighing his on-court performances.

Stuff like this just furthers the fact that it's all self-serving anyways. Kyrie apologizes because he's losing money, not because he's learned his way. The Nets only suspended him because it was unavoidable to save face in the most Jewish area in the USA.

But even the Nets felt like playing him for multiple games even as the controversy was stirring.

And the league's still practically sitting on their hands other than Silver saying he's going to talk to Kyrie.

Even the apology is filled with buts and poorly veiled support for the shit he's been peddling.

2 hours ago, METALMAN said:

The Abu Dhabi stuff is silly but It is quite remarkable that Red Bull are the only team that breached the cost cap regulations but still try to portray themselves as the victims.

If they want to break the rules people aren’t going to like that. They have to be big boys and suck it up!

Oh I agree on that, tbh.

It's a lot of noise anyways. Christian Horner especially is a shit stirring prick who can only talk with the backhand, but who is quick to victimize himself and his team when people come back at him.

The cap breach was deliberate, worker amenities being what put them over is just a strategical way to make the FIA look like anti-worker assholes for enforcing the rules everyone agreed to. It's them testing the waters to see what they can get away with, and what precedent will be set.

Losing testing privileges is a 'decent' punishment, but it's not a particularly great one for a team that is already pretty set in their position at the top of the order who already experience diminishing returns compared to smaller teams.

I hate Red Bull mainly because they use the same playbook as say Barcelona and Real Madrid, teams that never truly experienced hardships who portray themselves the perpetual victim of every minor thing that goes against them, weaponize their fanbases to strike against anybody who draw their ire, and are bad losers and even worse winners. And they look for every opportunity to bend and break the rules they agreed upon to suit themselves, whilst lobbying hard to punish everyone underneath them for doing the same.

On track, they're great, they deserve the success they fought for, but it didn't take long for whatever humility they learned to evaporate and the fumes to go straight to their head again.

6 hours ago, JasonM said:

Poor wording on Ted's part but he's not wrong. Lewis got robbed last year by a race control that was out of control.

Not the fault of red bull or Max, but it'll be a blemish for a while. But the sensitivity of their reaction does show that they have a very thin skin.

Having read some more into it, I retract part of my statement because there was apparently pundits saying on Friday that Verstappen should be stripped of last year's title, and thats honestly way out of line and thoroughly unprofessional.

1 hour ago, Chris2K said:

Good grief that was dull.

It's more exciting off track where initially Max, and now the entire Red Bull team, are boycotting any media engagements with Sky because Ted Kravitz said that Lewis was "robbed" at Abu Dhabi last year during the US Grand Prix race notebook. 

 

Poor wording on Ted's part but he's not wrong. Lewis got robbed last year by a race control that was out of control.

Not the fault of red bull or Max, but it'll be a blemish for a while. But the sensitivity of their reaction does show that they have a very thin skin.

3 hours ago, Lint said:

Yea, the multi-verse got weird there for a bit

Silly me, made a typo in my original. I wanted to say Gambon replaced the late Richard Harris as The Hulk.

Honestly, the times that a main character recasting worked out can be counted on one hand. The only ones I can quickly think of is Ed Norton/Mark Ruffalo for the Hulk, Howard/Cheadle for The Hulk, and the late Richard Harris being replaced posthumously by Michael Gambon for the role of Dumbledore.

None of those you can claim were THE lead character of their respective films or franchises. None of them were load bearing to the degree Henry Cavill has been to The Witcher as a TV Show.

Honestly, best they can do is end it on Season 3 and not even go down the path of Liam Hemsworth having to carry that lead weight around his neck, because it's an impossible task to replace what many felt was a near perfect casting.

It's honestly a shame, there's potential in the franchise, but recasting Cavill is just an impossible task, and they shouldn't do it.

Played through Wasteland 2 earlier this year and it's definitely a suggestion, but it has some levels of jank in places that shows that it was a crowdfunded low-budget game. The lore saves it, though, the story is about 7/10 for me and by the time I hit the last stretch of the game I was proper getting a bit jaded with it, partly because I made sure to do everything in the one playthrough.

Character creation also feels very overwhelming and underexplained, with a host of skills being presented to me where I had no idea what I would have to pick up and how they would work mechanically... Also, mild annoyances when I would inevitably find recruitable characters that had overlapping skillsets making those feel completely redundant. (i.e. My main techie having high computer skills, and the first major recruitable having high computer skills too... You only ever need one of each of non-combat skills.)

Anyways, my own gaming adventures.

Picked up "Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky" on recommendation from a few friends when I was looking for a story focused JRPG to play. It's from 2004, originally a PC game that was ported to PS3 before being localized to the US about a decade ago. I had never heard of it before, but I was intrigued by the graphics that look like a cross between Suikoden and Harvest Moon.

Having really enjoyed it thus far, it's quite whimsical but interesting. To my eternal happiness the game has a turbo mode so I can really zip through traveling and non-interesting combat at a speed much more logical.

Also been playing through the Tekken series, Started with 4 because I don't have the hardware or desire to go further back and the start of the PS2 era is a good enough place for me. Tekken 4 was fun, enjoyable, but when I booted up Tekken 5 after running through all the story stuff in T4 it blew that out of the water and made Tekken 4 look like a boilerplate dev demo in comparison.

Thus far of all the characters i've played, somehow the character I am gelling the most with thus far is Hwoarang both in terms of aesthetic (ticks every box 14yo me would've found cool as shit) and mechanics. He just works for me, even with his elaborate moveset where you can switch stances and all other sorts of crazy stuff.

Ironically, Christy/Eddy I genuinely struggle with when they're supposed to be the braindead button mash meta. I guess i'm just built different?

Only negative about Tekken 5 is the absurdly unfun and unfair final boss fight Jinpachi Mishima. The only character who can stun you through your block, and further throw a fireball that eats 70% of your health with one hit, which also is unblockable.

Probably will pick Tekken 6 up after this, before maybe going with Tekken 7 ahead of an eventual Tekken 8 release? Idk if i'll finish all of T6/T7 story things though, since there's a lot of stuff gated behind DLC there, and I sure as hell am not interested in paying just for completionism.

Nioh 2 is a great and fun timesink, but can also be brutally hard. Cautious suggestion for people that liked the Ninja Gaiden series and want its spiritual successor to be more crazy with more everything.

Technically you need to have played Nioh 1, but the story's so batshit out there that you can honestly just jump in and play it anyways.

22 minutes ago, Chris2K said:

The US start times aren't usually this late are they? 11pm for qualifying seems strange.

IIRC they pushed the times up to capture a larger US audience. 20:00GMT is at 12:00 on the US West Coast. In the past they had races basically in the morning and audience share suffered, now that F1 has gotten more appeal in the USA in the past few years they're trying to push the times up for that audience.

I wonder who they'll have on retainer if Logan fails to achieve the required points for next season.

There's only 25 points between him in third place and Vips in 10th, two DNF's and a spread of good performances from the people below him and he can find himself tumbling down and losing precious license points.

All but Enzo Fittipaldi have gotten one or more race wins this season, and Sarges best performances are from before the summer break.

This discussion has been a real paige turner.

3 hours ago, DFF said:

She-Hulk with the most unique finale in the MCU. Personally, I enjoyed the heck out of it. 

33 minutes ago, Hellraiser said:

And once again a Disney+ Marvel show fails to stick the landing. I didn't like that finale at all.

The duality of man

It's a 'two wrongs' situation, and both the Stewards were WAY in the wrong with putting out the recovery vehicle when there were still cars on track. That should never have happened and it's appalling that it did in Suzuka of all places, where this entire drive for safety got renewed after Bianchi's horror crash.

But I feel you can definitely criticize Gasly for going over 250kph on a rained out track whilst the race was neutralized. That was highly irresponsible for him for no reason other than to get to the pit lane quicker, even without the recovery on a live track that could've easily caused him to lose control and create an incident in which he could've gotten injured.

Like they're not equally bad, obviously, but it's not like Gasly should be absolved for his error in judgement either. Having said that, the semi-shitshow around the finish made a lot of people forget about what happened earlier and I wish people would bring it up more.

But now the news cycle has gotten to Red Bull's cap breach so everyone's quickly forgotten.

I genuinely doubt they'd make this kind of announcement only to bait and switch viewers in a few years. It's too committed and not enough 'nudge nudge wink wink'.

Both Reynolds and Marvel know that for as much goodwill they have that such moves will only create outrage and anger, and not the kind of attention they want, or even need to have at this point.

All the risk for little rewards, people will watch the film anyways because the character is massively popular and it'll be the first foxverse crossover, so there's no need to do bollocks to bring in people.

I don't want to care for achievements, but I still find myself twisting my own arm to play games in a certain way to get achievements, and I honestly don't know why. Maybe a sense of completionism, or just basic dopamines. It has genuinely destroyed my interest and desire to play certain games because I was too focused on playing that specific way rather than just enjoying the adventure.

But I also struggle with games like TES/Fallout because whenever i'd stumble upon some mid/late-game dungeon through random exploring it would immediately kill any interest I had to continue, like an instant disconnect and further inability to get back into it.

I also get way too engrossed in trying to 100% a game I enjoy, even if it means killing my enjoyment. I want to get all collectables, even if they're completely inane and the reward at the end isn't worth the grind/detour required. I have often found myself going "Before I continue the game proper, I want to get the collectibes", then by the time I got the collectibles I completely lost my desire to play further, and as a result never finished the game. On the flipside I can also not push myself to collect such things AFTER i finished a game, because I want the full experience and nothing else...

Anyways, long rant, but tl;dr for me is "It's complicated".

End of an era,

Nicholas Latifi definitely ranks somewhere among the racing drivers of the sport.