It's a day after christmas miracle!

Irasshaimase!

My new card is great, it really is slightly better then a 980 TI at half the cost. But for some reason, right before I checked out Nuka World, it straight up murdered the load times in Fallout 4 for me. 30-40 second load times turning into at least a minute and the wastleand itself could be as long as 2! I'd barely put up with that if I'd first started but this was nearly a year after launch.

Mods didn't help, message boards didn't help, and I'd just about given up. As long I had my 1070, Fallout 4 was dead to me. The only thing I hadn't tried was putting it on a solid state drive. Seeing as the cheapest SSD worth a damn was $130, I had a problem. Mainly because just as many people who said that was the silver bullet said nothing had changed.

So on my wishlist it went. If it worked, great! If not, more storage space! Thankfully both were true. I'd go as far to say it runs smoother than ever. So much so that all my games are going on it.

Merry day after Christmas everybody!

How many fetishes are in this picture?

You do you, Tedderz.

...Because I'm seriously asking.

The PS2 reunion tour continues:

Christmas presents have cleaned me out, so I'm lucky I haven't touched most of my PS2 gems in almost 9 years. My old collection, with a healthy dose of emulator filters to give em' a new coat of paint, could keep me busy for months. Plus I'm curious how much Persona will have changed once 5 comes out. Though I can't say I'm pleased Atlus has given me this much time to catch up. April?! Seriously? It's been 8 friggin' years already! But I digress, because it's sh**y job story time!

I remember playing this during my landscaping summer job. I've been stuck on a mountain in 20 degree weather during a hail storm. I would have almost rather spent a summer there than at greenscape corporate landscaping. Pruning parking lot trees and 30 ft. tall holly bushes in record breaking heat. I woke up every morning at 4, starving, but dehydrated. I had to fight to keep down my oatmeal while my stomach threw a hissy fit. 5 days a week for 2 1/2 months. I still have lil' scars on my fingers from the holly bushes.

You should see what these f**kers do to leather gloves.

If Persona 4 hadn't been the tireless fount of positivity it is I don't know what I would have done. It's good to be back in Inaba, I just might play through twice.

Anyone wanna see what a gum graft looks like?

Everything tastes a little bit like blood.

"OOOOOOOH...... kayyyyyy." Is something I didn't want to hear my dental surgeon say while pulling length after bloody length of suture out of my mouth. Apparently my teeth are so close together under the gums I threw a consummate professional for a loop. But everything's good now. My gums are grafted and none of my molars will be falling out anytime soon. That's a relief. The Vicodin's not a bad deal either. My point is, I've lost a lot of traffic recently and you know what they say about journalism: If it bleeds it leads.

Last chance to bail. 

I sincerely hope that's not silly putty.

The Man in the High Castle Season 1 Review: Is New York Burning?

If there's one thing peak TV has taught me, it's that there is a finite amount of craftsmen in this world capable of making genuinely great shows. MITHC has a lot going for it. A killer premise, solid production value, and a firm grasp on how living under a foreign power would feel. That last part is the hardest nail down and it's worth watching simply because it's about time Americans get a taste of what it's like when the shoe's on the other foot.

 It aims straight at the heart of what would drive someone to commit acts of terror and I'm glad this kind of story landed in the mainstream instead of the indie scene. Though that has it's drawbacks. Serious drawbacks. No one talks about MITHC much because aside from 3 or 4 brilliant episodes, a whole lot of mediocre writing waters it all down.

If you love fedoras, crisp suits, and jackboots this show will make you loose. your. SH*T.

I'm gonna try to coin a phrase here: Law&Order-itis. When a show becomes so plot driven the dialogue becomes laughably bad. Case and point, halfway through the season the main couple has a fight that gets so heated one of them accidentally (acci-f**king-dentally) blurts out that she murdered someone recently. The only reason in the whole goddamn universe someone would say something like that is because the writer couldn't think of a way to move the story forward. Dialogue like that is the canary in the coal mine for bigger plot problems. Such as someone sneaking into an office to steal Intel almost once an episode. One time two office excursions played out simultaneously. If this show wasn't set in a genuinely well realized nightmare of a world I would be much more upset right now. But, Christ, the writers needed to figure out different friggin' things to do with it! 

The opening credits are something else. You really need to see it.

But there is a lot to love. Rufus Sewell's SS captain could have been a goosestepping stereotype, but he is ordinarily and horrifically American. Everyone else doesn't get in the story's way but hardly any characters are fleshed out enough to grab my interest. Though the folks involved in the obligatory Jewish resistance were lovely. The script really came together for those scenes.

There's nothing else like MITHC. Aside from the script problems and the occasional absurd action scene, this vision of America is still haunting. I find myself thinking about it at work and in the car. Not that this specific reality is possible, (Hitler was fighting a war on 3 fronts, the Nazi's did a bang up job defeating themselves) but a fallen America is a hell of a thing to see. I'm not a flag waving, chest pounding, patriot but seeing Americans bow before Japanese secret policeman made me obnoxiously uncomfortable. That's not nothing and I'm willing to forgive several rookie screenwriting mistakes because of it. It's greatest contribution to 2016 was the dire warning that democracy is not guaranteed. That's something we all need to understand.

The Shame Curtain

It's... uhhh, Snake Eater. Swear to god.

Far be it from me to call JRPG's "shameful." But just in case you were worried about roommates walking in while you're in the bathroom and then you find them trying to sound out "CUR-AH-E-JA" Final Fantasy 12 had you covered. A black, soundless, screen that just says "PAUSE." What's paused? It could literally be any game ever made. Including ones with such things as baseball and football.

Not that there's anything wrong with liking JRPGs. Hell, I'm taking time out of my weekend* to write about it. But if you really need to hide this firaga lit light under a bushel, Square Enix won't stand in your way.


*Hurray service industry!

Something Familiar

Baltheir hangs out with a lot of young boys in retrospect...

I wasn't an RPG guy back in '06. I'd never really played one. It's only because Okami had sold out* that I even gave Final Fantasy 12 a shot. "This is supposed to be a big frikkin' deal" I thought to myself. "Might as well bow to all those perfect scores" Almost an entire winter break later I emerged a changed gamer. "These things can last 40 goddamned hours?!" I thought. "How was I so blind?"

Coming back to it 10 years later is like sipping a fancy cup of hot chocolate. Too rich to have all the time, but it's nice while it lasts. Also having it on an emulator means I can kick it up to double speed so grinding is no longer a pain. You never forget your first and 12 is long overdue for a second look. Reading old reviews now is hilarious. FF fans were disappointed in the scope of this game? They had no idea what was coming. 12 being easily twice the game 13 or 15 were. At least to me.

Thus begins my PS2 RPG reunion tour. Maybe when I'm done reminiscing I can get my PS4 fixed... but that might be a while.

*ironic isn't it?

The Chamberlain and Chance 50th Episode!

Chamberlain and Chance - In which we change our minds

Error ce-36329-3: PS4 not found.

......Christ.

My ol' Ps4 up and died on me yesterday. I'm stuck in a loop where instead of logging me in I get an error message. I've safe moded, I've reinstalled factory settings (which means 33 hours of FFVX saves are gone), and I'm still in the same loop.

I'm not saying FFXV slow roasted my hard drive, but the more forums I read the more it looks like HD failure. Siiiiiiiiigh.

This unavoidable side quest is brought to you by.....

Jesus Square, how deep in the hole are you?

Cup Noodles; when you're broke and you need a nigh lethal dose of salt to choke back your pangs of mediocrity. Cup Noodles.

Also when you're a major video game publisher in it's twilight years and you need to recoup something, anything, to keep your white elephant feed. Cup Noodles.

They are remaking the HELL out of Crash Bandicoot.

Like the corners of my miiiiiiiiind...

That... that is a budget. Looks a little rough around some edges but it's early yet. It doesn't even have a release date so I'm sure it'll look less floaty by release. But I don't need much of an excuse to play these again on a ROM let alone with a top to bottom remodeling. You have my attention N. Sane collection... but will you have a good review?

Things I've done while waiting to play Final Fantasy XV:

See Ignus, while everyone else caks about you keep your eyes on the road. That's why you're my favorite.

When fast travel first came out people wondered if that would hurt the "journey" of Oblivion. Instead everyone went "Oh... no, this is f$%%ing awesome." And hence forth, in most open world games you can go where you want, when you want. Not so in Final XV. You can pop back to your car and the last place you slept. That might sound reasonable, but more often than not I'm stuck out in the wilderness running back to a road for as much as 15 minutes. Not only that, but I have spent what seems like hours driving that car doing nothing while my in game J-pop boy band does nothing. It's like an Escher drawing of a complete waste of my time.

So I endeavored to make it more productive. Here's what I've been doing while I'm trapped in a imaginary car:

-Diced chicken sausages

-Sauteed spinach and mushrooms

-Ate tortellini with chicken sausage and spinach and mushrooms

-Caught up on unassigned sales emails. I lease apartments, you see.

-Resolved a complaint with Wells Fargo's fraud department. They seem real friendly these days....

-Planks. One minute planks.

-Transcendental mediation.  But to be fair I don't think I got very far.

-Asked Prompto to sit the hell down before he flies out of the f%$King car.

-Contemplated eternity

-Dusted a then recently discovered cobweb.

-Microwaved frozen fried rice

-Tried to open the equipment menu, realized the game only lets you use a shop* while you drive, and then screamed some less than courteous things about the baby Jesus.


* I'm pretty sure this is the game designer equivalent of a middle finger.