Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

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My weekend was so unbelievably boring. I left the house once, to go for a small walk. Other than that I stayed at home and… you guessed it, played video games. Had a right crack at Dragon Quest XI too. But for the second time in two years I saw someone outside of my “working life”. That was very fun, I introduced them to my virtual reality headset, and the performance they put in for $100 Bill on Hard Mode was so good it made me feel like a bit of an idiot! Doesn’t matter, I’ll have time to practice.

@Tyranexx Yeah, I was scrolling through some of the old posts @ThanosReXXX linked us to, and you mentioned your state, meaning I could guess your time zone too. Some of the posts you’ve… ehm… posted, were at well past midnight! I’m honoured to received them, while I am sorry it comes at the expense of about thirty minutes. I was both surprised and unfazed when no gameplay for Dragon Quest XII was revealed. Hilariously the Sonic reveal did the exact same thing a little over twelve hours later. A fancy graphic, but instead of a name, just “2022”.

Some of the footage from Horizon: Forbidden West looks amazing, but it’s no doubt been held back by the fact that it’s a cross-gen release, on both PS4 and PS5. I don’t know what I’ll do considering I can play games from both consoles, but I bought DiRT 5 in January for PS5 and the improvements were insane. I got my racing chair and wheel as well at the same time, so I didn’t use the DualSense for it, but the rare times I did use it, it felt so good. Especially the adaptive triggers. I imagine for more games it’ll have similarly good applications, like in shooters, to simulate recoil, or in… I dunno, Horizon: Forbidden West, with bow and arrow! (I realise I haven’t even felt the adaptive triggers in months because all the games I’m playing are PS4 titles…)

This collection can be the best chance for me to explore the Sonic franchise. While the Sonic Origins package is on paper more valuable than Super Mario 3D All-Stars, it’s not. Five games, yes, but five 2D games at that. I imagine it’ll be cheaper than SM3DAS, I’d guess either $19.99 or $29.99, because Sega did say that there’ll be extra content à la Crash N’Sane Trilogy. And I’ve also heard good things about Sonic Colours, so I too will wait for reviews and a discount to get me buying and playing that game.

I haven’t bookmarked it yet but things like avatars, virtual booths and so on are interesting enough. They do have forums too but we’ll see what it’s like there. E3 hype tends to make people go crazy, and the average gamer at E3 time rages like a man possessed.

A friend of mine faints when getting injections… it was quite shocking when hearing about it but when it was described to me I couldn’t say I was fully surprised. I still don’t have a good reading on how I recover from blood tests and vaccines, but usually I get a bit tired and nothing else happens. I don’t know why but I want to get side effects from my second Coronavirus vaccine dose, just so I can feel sick, in a controlled capacity. Call me crazy and yes, my reasoning is not that good…

Staying hydrated is very difficult. I usually forget to drink water all day. During my lunch break sometimes I’d take out my lunch and then realise; “oh no, I haven’t drank anything!” and then I’d down half the bottle in five seconds. I was very thirsty after my vaccine though, and it made me feel like my throat dried every half hour. If I didn’t re-use cups the dishwasher that day would be full of one-time used glass cups. And feeling dizzy while DRIVING?! That’s absolutely awful luck. At least you’re here… to tell the tale. I’d hope your state manages to get a majority vaccinated, I doubt IL is the one with all the antivaxxers…? The southern states seem more sus to me when it comes to thinking of the greater good. I imagine a good amount of people will seriously consider staying at home to work after this pandemic subsides.

I may come off very hypocritical but I really hope we get a Zelda collection. The base games are already good, and it would be significantly easier to port over the Wii U versions of said games. The reason the base Mario games were put in was because those were the only versions available so… damn this is enticing. I could get everything I want with this package, or it could let me down.. or it doesn’t exist.

I’m always looking for inspiration, so playing FF games gave me strong incentive to start covering music there. In terms of RPGs I haven’t played a single game with bad or even just good music. Probably just the eye I have for RPGs, I tend to have a very clean experience with them, no bad ones. And you’re only playing two games right now, I can juggle seven quite well! Mental capacity and all

As I’ve said many times before I’m way too fast with games. Even I’m getting tired of seeing how fast I plough through them. I’ve played FF15 for seventeen hours and I could go to the final boss right now if I wanted. My entire party’s probably well levelled (40) and I’ve done a good number of quests. I didn’t skip any cutscenes or anything… I just win first try…? I doubt that’s it. But it’s a recent thing, I remember taking 60 hours to beat Xenoblade Chronicles X, and about the same for Breath of the Wild.

Xenoblade deserves being completed in its entirety. It’s so good… and funnily I didn’t even know what it was until 2016. Dad just had the game lying around and I thought to myself; “I’ll give this a go, see what it’s all about,” and I beat the game in six months. Rewrite that a bit and you have yourself a love story. Such a chance meeting but man it was so good playing it.

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I finally went through the photos from my day trip last Friday and uploaded some of them to PostImage for everyone's viewing pleasure. I hit three areas in the southern confines in my state; I was originally planning to hit a fourth, but it was a little more out of my way than I realized. Knocked that one out of my plans early lol. It was a very good day, but there was a lot of driving involved. That plus some hiking I did served to more than wear me out. XD I'll embed a picture for each stop apiece, but I'll stick to mostly thumbnails after that to keep the post from becoming too bloated. @ThanosReXXX might be interested in some of these images.

Stop 1 was at a small state park known as Ferne Clyffe. A coworker of mine suggested it to me some time ago; one of his hobbies is amateur photography, so he likes traveling around and getting pictures of scenes, animals, and abandoned or unique structures. It's a very beautiful area with a lot of bluffs. I hiked a couple of trails that were a mile apiece. I almost did a third, but...time. XD The first trail ended at a scenic area where there's a waterfall. Unfortunately, a lack of rain meant there wasn't more than a trickle. Still a neat area all told:

Waterfall trail images:

Besides the waterfall trail, I also went on a trail that went past a small cave. The bluffs were really tall here, so much so that you had to look almost straight up in some spots to view the top! (Or try to). Thumbnails below.

Stop 2 was brief - there wasn't a ton there as it's understandably remote and in an area prone to flooding from the Ohio River - but I stopped by Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site (Link to Wikipedia), a site where a chiefdom of the Native American Mississippian culture once stood. I'm more familiar with the larger Cahokia Mounds site near St. Louis from school trips as a child. There's a viewing platform and some plaques that explain what the visitor is looking at, but there are signs that clearly state not to walk onto the site itself. It's still an active archaeological site, so they understandably don't want people tromping around. It's fun to just imagine how the site had once looked centuries ago. Nobody knows why this site was abandoned in 1400-1450 CE, but it's suspected natural resources in the area were depleted.

This is a shot of an area where a plaza once stood, along with some of the mounds:

Additional thumbnails include more shots of the mounds and the plaques (they've dealt with some weathering; two of them face the sun for much of the day):
(This last one was taken along the road)

Stop 3 involved the town of Metropolis, a smaller, RL version of where this guy supposedly saves people from falling buildings and the villain of the week ( ):

Besides the statue, there's also a museum and gift shop of everything Superman. The collection is valued at roughly $2 million USD. I took many more photos than these, but these are the highlights. There were a lot of old toys, games, and other merchandise. Plus, one photo has the wigs from all four Superman movies in the 70s(?) as well as a Superman costume used in one of the productions. There were also dedicated sections for some of the shows, some Batman (<3) + other DC character memorabilia, Supergirl, and the Smallville TV series. The LEGO set (this was in the gift shop) is a pretty faithful recreation, minus the tiny figures in front, of how the building looks on the outside.

(Pardon some of the odd angles; I was trying not to catch reflections of my secret identity. )

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@TheJGG Actually, I tend to do my posting just before or after I shower, in the 8-10ish PM range depending on my evening. It's rare that I crawl the internet past midnight. I don't mind belting out the occasional long post; I used to sling out plenty of them during my text roleplaying days. The Dragon Quest XII reveal was about what I expected; the title was yet wasn't a surprise. I love it! I was hoping for at least a bit of art, but I'll take what we've been given for now. I still need to seek out the Horizon: Forbidden West footage soon. I'm sure I'd enjoy its predecessor as well, but I'm pretty sure we've discussed that one. XD Personally, I'd opt for PS5 games most of the time, if given the choice between PS5 and PS4, just to take advantage of the newer hardware. Still hoping to get my hands on one eventually, but I'm content to wait.

That's a very good point on the Sonic Origins package; I might grab it as well eventually, but once again on discount. I keep telling myself that maybe I haven't played the right Sonic game, that it'll all click for me someday. But it unfortunately hasn't yet.

Oof. Forums for the E3 booths? Even if those are intensely moderated, I think I'd stay far away from that part of the web. Some gaming fandoms can be pretty rabid in general, but E3 really seems to bring out some of the worst of that. I get passions can run high, but the internet seems to be home to overreactions lol.

My brother...does not take getting shots well. I remember a few years ago, when I was younger and still on my mom's insurance, that we were taken to get shots to protect against Hepatitis (Don't recall which variant). My shot went just fine, and they allowed me to leave for work. They still hadn't administered it to my brother since his heart rate was dangerously high. He does NOT tolerate shots...at all. He avoids them if he can. It's funny in a sense, because he can vaccinate livestock no problem. They say more side effects are common with the second Covid-19 vaccine dose, but no effects doesn't mean it isn't working. Everyone just responds to it differently.

Drinking water is natural to me anymore. I don't crave it exactly, not like some foods and the occasional flavored drink, but I automatically reach for it and opt for it most of the time. I very rarely stock anything else in my house besides milk. I totally get suddenly craving water when you realize how long it has been since you last had any. XD As for dizzy while driving; I wasn't on a busy road yet, nor was the dizziness severe. I just had enough sense to pull over in the quiet area I was in and wait for it to pass. I think we will hit a vaccinated majority here, though there are some anti-vaxxers as well. To my knowledge, few go so far as to think the virus is a hoax or anything crazy like that, but a few more are very reluctant to get a vaccine they don't believe is necessary. Similar to how people behave when it comes to whether or not they get a seasonal flu shot, even though the two illnesses are different. I think Covid-19 is here to stay and, while it certainly isn't the flu, I believe it'll also come and go in cycles.

I'd be fine with a Zelda collection, but whether or not I'd dive in right away would fully depend on the content on offer. I just know I'd likely cave and buy it at some point!

It's very rare that I play a truly "bad" game these days since I've become decent at screening for what I like and dislike. If I really wanted, I could juggle more games. Focusing on 2/3 at once is a strategy I adopted to actually finish games in my backlog as I was VERY bad about that at one point. Too, I try not to juggle too many story games at once. I can usually keep all the plot points straight, but all that coupled with my reading means that occasionally, one piece of headcanon crosses into another. Better for my attention span and sanity only to focus on a few at a time.

Conversely, I'm somewhat slow with many games, mostly the open-world or story-heavy variety. In games that allow it, I love exploring and going off the beaten path. Hello five more hours! XD Also, when it comes to games with a ton of text, I've carried over what's arguably both a good and bad habit from my reading: I read to absorb, to understand. It's like my brain needs to process text before continuing. Games that have voice acting help in this regard, but it's not perfect. I didn't used to be this way; it's an odd change my brain went through sometime right before or in my early days of college. I used to be able to blow through books and games like no tomorrow. I'm not sure if it's a change in focus or an adult brain thing. Or I'm just completely nuts. XD

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is, without a doubt, the best game I finished last year. Breath of the Wild wasn't technically finished until this year, so I can't directly compare them. XC:DE also came at a really good time. I was on furlough and certainly needed the distraction, though I didn't sink as much time into it as I would've liked thanks to other distractions RL.

Edit: Thanks for the compliments on the trip! It was a fun excursion, even if it was for the day. It got me out of my usual stomping grounds at any rate! It also hit three sweet spots: 1. Getting out in nature, 2. My general love of history, both recent and not-so-recent, and 3. Being a gnerd.