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Welp, you know where to find me

The VR version of Skyrim went on discount today, so that’s the last Uncle B will see of me for a while. The reviews recommended waiting until it was on sale because the game, out of the box, is complete shit and it would be a shame to reward the developers for it.

No kidding, it requires on the order of 150 after-market modifications to be a good game. Someone even wrote a program to download and install mod packages for you, though I don’t imagine it’s as easy as all that. My experience with mods is that about half of them break a game.

One reviewer said he gave up on the whole thing because he was spending all his time fiddling with mods. Sounds like a challenge.

I paid full price for Half Life: Alyx and I’m glad I did. Valve’s team deserves every penny. I’m playing it through with the developer commentary this time and I’m amazed at the care that went into building an exact user experience.

If playtesters weren’t giving them the reaction they wanted from a specific scenario, they tweaked and tested until they got it.

On the other hand, if a surprise popped up and testers love it, they leaned into it. In all, an extraordinary game.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Comments


Comment from Jon
Time: May 27, 2022, 7:30 pm

Good luck. I installed the super duper special edition on Steam and it wouldn’t let me craft.
Which in another game would be a minor inconvenience, but you can’t do the basic story without fulfilling the craft quest.

And then I went round and round with customer disservice where they told to do me the same instructions I had followed without success. This pleased me not.

So I uninstalled it and put it in my Steam game category for disappointments. Hopefully the VR version does not have that fault.


Comment from MrKnowitall
Time: May 27, 2022, 8:51 pm

Ahem… poke…nudge… Elite dangerous (original version) on sale from Steam for $7.49. It’s GLORIOUS in VR. Many play with Keyboard and Mouse only, but it’s even cooler with dual joysticks.

Lone Echo (from Oculus) is only 20 bucks too. Juuuuust sayin’


Comment from Anonymous
Time: May 28, 2022, 8:47 am

I’ve got a backlog! I got Myst and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (which I really liked on non-VR, but I recall a couple of the puzzles were tough). I still had a lot of No Man’s Sky to go, which I was really digging in VR.

If something good’s on the Steam Sale, though, I’m on it! Thanks for the recommend.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 28, 2022, 8:48 am

It’s coming to something when my own blog doesn’t remember me.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: May 28, 2022, 9:29 am

Hey, that’s nuthin!

It could have ghost banned you, or used your wrong personal amatuernouns 😋


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 28, 2022, 9:53 am

Oh! Elite: Dangerous is an MMO. Hmmmm…


Comment from MrKnowitall
Time: May 28, 2022, 11:45 am

True, Elite Dangerous is an MMO, but you can set it so you are the only real person in the universe, if you want. And even if you don’t, it’s a model of the *actual* universe, at scale (seriously!), so unless you go to “popular” places, you can be on your own, collecting stuff for your inventory and generally being piratical without let or hindrance except from the AI. Many modes of play – trader, fighter, pirate, cruise ship captain, explorer, etc.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 28, 2022, 4:50 pm

Oh, that definitely sounds like something I’d enjoy. I’m loving No Man’s Sky in VR, just pootling around planets collecting resources.


Comment from BJM
Time: May 28, 2022, 7:50 pm

@MrKnowitall…that’s it right in my wheelhouse..gonna grab it tonight.

I’m searching for a big finale to Her Stoatinesses month o’ birthdays and found this…I mean WTF? I had to share.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: May 29, 2022, 12:29 pm

Huh, still forming Bersaglieri units eh? (Sharpshooters).

I wonder if any of the old trotting gentlemen in the follow on at the end helped Rommel chase the Brits around North Africa (in turn being chased by the Brits back and forth across Libya and Tunisia)

And that last guy in the video, I thought Benito Mussolini was dead.


Comment from BJM
Time: May 29, 2022, 5:38 pm

@Durned…um I don’t think so anyone who fought in WWII would be in creeping up on 100 yrs old+ Italy has a thin veneer of sophistication, wealth and 1st worldly concerns…but peel back the façade and one finds feuds ongoing for millennia. We lived in Italy at the height of the Red Brigades…when I walked from our flat to the market square I was accompanied by two bodyguards with Uzi…that danger hasn’t entirely disappeared…the wealthy still live under siege…and there are no go areas in the south….where rebellion and outlaws lurk at the ready.

Same in the Balkans they still fighting over shit that happened under Philip II’s reign. We’re doing pretty well by historical standards…so far only one civil war.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: May 29, 2022, 8:47 pm

@BJM – I was too lazy to date the video 😁

But yeah, even assuming a youthful 17 year old in ’42 I guess it would be a bit much for a 91+ old guy to hustle after the band that day 6 years ago.

Looks like something you’d see in a Peter Sellers’ movie, like “After the Fox” doesn’t it?

But don’t destroy the narrative of a happy world everywhere but North Korea, Ukraine, Russia and the bad old US of A with these real life stories!
😋

Happy Memorial day all you other ‘Murkin bots!


Comment from MrKnowitall
Time: May 30, 2022, 3:46 pm

Pro tip: Exploring the universe in Elite Dangerous is improved by listening to either surf music or exotica lounge music on Pandora during play. Then again, I might have odd tastes – YMMV!

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