Right? Like I see folks in this thread and elsewhere echoing some of the typical things you hear when Hollywood botches an adaptation. Things like “it would be better if it was faithful to the source material” and other sentiments like that.

However, in this case, the one aspect of the games that is easily translateable to film (the writing) seems to have aged the absolute worst. Self-referential Internet humor was a bold, unique aesthetic in 2009, but it’s been largely played out the 15 years since the og game released, or at least Borderlands’ take on that style of humor has gotten stale. Maybe the writing was better outside of 2 and Tiny Tina’s (the entries I played the most), but I sort of doubt it.

I would not want to be tasked with adapting Borderlands. Stick close to the source material, get flamed for writing something juvenile. Diverge from the source material, get accused of not capturing the spirit of the franchise. It’s an impossible situation.

Man, Trespasser is an example of a game with some pretty wild ideas about immersion and puzzle solving in a first person shooter game that the tech just wasn’t quite able to pull off. If anyone is curious there is a positively antique Let’s Play on YouTube that discusses the game’s development, its relation to the wider Jurassic Park franchise, cut content, and, of course, the game in context. I think it may have come from the old Something Awful forums, and it remains, to my mind, the gold standard for what I’d like Let’s Plays to be. Worth checking out if you’ve the time.

It’s not even exclusive to cats. Some days, you just gotta sound your barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world, y’know?

Are you running any mods, or rolling vanilla?

Can you be more specific with what you consider the “soul” of New Vegas? I would consider it to be its embrace of Fallout 1/2’s tone and canon, as opposed to the fairly clean break between the rest of the franchise and Bethesda’s offerings.

Good for Owlcat. Their Pathfinder CRPGs are excellent, and it’s always good to have more independent publishers out there supporting the genre.

I heard mixed things about The Outer Worlds. My recollection is that people were somewhat disappointed by it, but I can’t remember any real specific critiques (other than it’s scope being more limited than some people were expecting). Anyone have a take on the game they’d like to share?

Yes, I believe the figure they cited was that Google earns 73% of their revenue through ads. I imagine what they would have to do is bust up the ad services in addition to the various departments of Google. Each new entity formed gets to keep revenue from ads shown on their platform maybe? E.g. YouTube gets spun off into its own thing separate from Google proper. They get to keep ad revenue from what is shown on their platform, but they don’t get to touch any revenue from sponsored search listings, or from banner ads on other websites, etc.

That’s an approach that makes surface level sense to me, but I am neither a lawyer nor a business bro nor a tech bro. So, I don’t actually have the faintest idea if my idea bears any resemblance to reality.

I’m speculating, but perhaps the thought would be that separating Google Search from the rest of the company would deprive them of the alternative revenue streams they used to maintain their market position? If I remember the ruling against them correctly, one of the key pieces of evidence cited by the judge was that Google spent like 30 billion dollars a year to have 3rd parties use their engine by default.

I disagree with your assessment. To an average user, whatever winds up saved in their browser cache is there mostly unintentionally. Yes, it’s saving info from sites they choose to visit, but after that initial choice, the user is out of the loop. The browser saves what it needs to without user notification or input. I might even wager that most users are unaware of their browser cache, or don’t know what’s in it or how to access it. Therefore, I believe your metaphor perhaps confers too active a decision-making process on something that most people are completely unconscious of.

To be clear, the strawman average user I’m using here is me. I know I have a browser cache, I know vaguely what is stored in it and why, and I know how to clear it if I’m having certain issues. That’s about it. I sure as heck don’t treat it as an archive.

Hmm, so, last month I began to have issues with my Chromecast for the first time. I have an old 3rd gen Chromecast attached to my bedroom television (not a smart tv) for the purpose of casting obnoxiously long video essays to fall asleep to. After like a decade of essentially hassle free operation, it suddenly stopped being able to maintain a connection to my phone. I cast a video, and after approximately 10 minutes, the cast disconnects and I get a message on my phone saying “this video cannot be played in the background”. I’ve tried ever troubleshooting technique I can think of.

I know I shouldn’t attribute to malice what can be explained by other causes, but boy, seeing this news today sure makes me think about things like planned obsolescence.

While it’s possible that a different reviewer applied that hypothetical headcanon to the Burnout series, I believe you’re actually thinking of Ross’ Game Dungeon. Specifically the Trackmania Canyon video, not Burnout.

You’re making the same points as the article (and the devs), hence OP stating that what he posted is not the “clickbait journalism” that you appeared to accuse it of being originally.

If you were saying the other articles referred to in the headline are clickbait journalism, then I’m pretty sure we’re all on the same page. Your phrasing was just a little ambiguous at first.

Apologies, I’m currently in a storm shelter waiting for the weather to pass, so I’ve naught to do but unleash the unsourced head canon fire house.

My impression from the movies was that the ring WOULD grant power to someone who sought to use it for that purpose, if for no other reason than to make itself even more precious (ha) to the wielder. In the case of Isildur (who, as a Man, is implied to “above all else, desire power”), the Ring knew it was in a bind. Sauron just got yeeted into the shadow dimension, and it was in the one place it could be destroyed. It NEEDED Isildur to get him out of there, pronto. So, if Elrond decided to force the issue, my assumption was always that it would lend Isildur some fraction of the power Sauron put into it as matter of self-preservation. Furthermore, by granting Isildur a taste of its power, he could fall even more under its control because power is what he wants. More self-preservation from the evilest bit of jewelry ever forged. Finally, by the time this hypothetical confrontation between Isildur and Elrond would occur, Isildur has already fallen to the Ring’s temptation and rejected the call to destroy it. So, the Ring may not have any qualms about strengthening Isildur, as doing so would not endanger it at all.

Now, to contrast with Frodo (and Bilbo, to some extent). They do not desire power, and so the Ring’s biggest bargaining chip is rendered useless. Additionally, for 99.9% of the journey Frodo maintains his resolution to destroy the Ring. Granting power to Frodo at any point prior to those last few steps would be a risk to it’s existence.

It’s been a very long time since I read the trilogy, so I don’t know how much of this interpretation conflicts with legitimate explanations Tolkien gave in the text or in his correspondences, but it works for me within the context of the films.

Check it out for yourself, if you like. 22 minute gameplay demo. I think it looks neat, but I am not involved enough with the game to samee how these things interact with one another.

I dispute the premise that SBMM is a fundamental requirement for PVP to work, though obviously it’s become intertwibed with the genre that a game choosing not to use it is going to have a more difficult go of it to onboard folks.

There was a time before SBMM after all. A time of server browsers, admins with chips on their shoulders, GameSpy, and “unofficial” map rotations and rules.

Now, for about a billion different reasons, this model is not going to make a comeback and become king again. But, I just wanted to mention that MM is not as “fundamental” as your comment indicated.

Depends on your bunny rabbit stance, I reckon.

Oh my goodness. Thank you for pointing out the different VA. I knew something felt off, moreso than the new character models.

Also, I can’t help but feel like the updated Frank wandered out of the basement tier of fighters from a Street Fighter title. I feel like he should be chubbier and ruddier. I can’t speak for the direction they took the character in later installments but he always felt like kind of a goober schmuck whose “instincts” finally paid off. I like that characterization, especially in light of the game’s satire of clueless Americans.

I’ll keep an eye on this one. I never did get that achievement for killing the 53,000 zombies in a playthrough…

Love Ahoy’s essays. They’re so slick.

Seconding the other poster. Excellent write up; you distilled every rebuttal point I would have made to OP perfectly.