Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Well, Kit's going on about Blue Rose and wanting to start up a game on Discord. So, I took a whack at character creation. Honestly? It turned out to be one of the most disappointing and depressing experiences in a while. Start with a character concept. Okay, that makes sense, but that's either really easy or really hard for me these days. In some games, I can get away with making a character mechanically and seeing how things fall personality-wise. When a game has some focus on goals, bonds, motivations, and relationships from the outset, though, that's not really an option. No solid idea burst forth for me (true more often than not, but it occasionally happens), so I decided I'd at least try going through the mechanics to see if anything gelled further. That process, I found disappointing. The game rules strike me as an odd combination of newer sensibilities (with baked-into-creation goals and such) and ones more befitting an RPG from the 80's (elements depende

Well... I don't generally tread blindly, at least, though I may still walk off a cliff... The cosplay possibility bug continues to nag at me on and off. I've done a good bit of online research about Mandalorian armor costumes. I may not be applying to any official fan groups or anything, but they have some good general guidelines like not having visible logos or zippers and such. But man, there are some things that rapidly spiral out of control. Helmet: There are a few generally-recognized ways to go.  - Using a cardboard/paper skeleton smeared with bondo epoxy seems fairly well recommended for doing it yourself. It ultimately allows a lot of hand-shaping possibilities. On the down side, it can be a lot of work and epoxies like this get into the realm of "you should be wearing a respirator mask when dealing with this stuff." That's much more daunting than I would want to get into, I think. - I've seen a decent-looking helm made out of foam. I'm

I watched a review of Alien: Covenant and... that's probably all I'm going to watch of it. It sounds like the worst aspects of Prometheus combined with an attempt to build out the back story of the monsters in a way that makes little sense, removes much mystique, and does it all in a way that doesn't mesh well with what existed before.  On the other hand, I watched a playthrough of Alien: Isolation, which takes liberties with the time between the first two Alien movies, but does it in a way that's more respectful and captures a more appropriate atmosphere. But I don't mind having not played it myself. A little more intense an experience at times than I tend to prefer.  I finished playing Prey over the weekend, and have a few thoughts to add. As previously stated, I like the gameplay, though the story itself isn't terribly interesting through the bulk of the game. It owes a lot in structure and atmosphere to System Shock 2, I would say. I feel like there'

Ah, what to say? The recent trip to Albuquerque was kind of nice, if tiring. I got to see GotGv2 again, which was good - though it did make me lament more the lack of similar family dynamics in most RPGs I've played over the years. Dinner was good, even if the Texas Land and Cattle that was a sort of tradition for my visits had recently gone out of business. Waffles the next day were good. Visiting a game/collectible store was fine. I slept very poor, though (and apparently snored). And dang but there were a lot of instances where I knew where I was going, but couldn't get there without several detours due to one-way and divided streets. I've been playing Prey some over the last week or so - it looked good enough. And I don't regret the purchase even if it's not as captivating as some games. It's fairly fun to play and explore and puzzle through things, but the central story is spread too thinly to grab me and pull me along. I'm still amused by the "

A pretty great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. It's got the fun, adventurous heart of the first film without being burdened by following conventional "superhero" plot - which is to say it's not another origin story (which is getting pretty worn out these days) and it's not really a second installment where the hero falters and questions everything before re-embracing their role. Rather it's more about family - some literal and some more figurative/adoptive. The banter is great. Young Groot is cute. Rocket is still my favorite, even if he does cause some serious trouble. I feel like I don't have a lot to say about Gamora, yet she doesn't feel so underused as last time. My only real complaint gets a little spoilery, and that doesn't actually take away from the movie much for me. Let's see if I can do a spoiler cut here... My complaint: Ego kind of devolves rapidly to mustache-twirling levels of evil at the end in order to give the group a

New digs... well, this is going to take some getting used to. Once again, I blame Kit - though this time just for the final push. I'd read about the ownership/management changes to Livejournal already. And while I don't feel I tend to say things that are highly offensive or particularly illegal, behind beholden to Russian censorship and laws is not particularly appealing. I don't hold many ideals with deep conviction, but "freedom of speech" is right up there. It's also one of the few legalities that actually make me glad to be a US citizen over, say, Canadian. So, with some effort, annoyance, research, and outside aid, I think I've copied over old LJ content. I'm sure some links and other special formatting has broken, which is unfortunate, but I'm not likely to go through several years of posts looking to fix all that. Not unless I get really bored anyway. We'll just see how things go from here...

I missed the System Shock games back in the day, and the first one is too painfully dated to even make the effort. I've tried play 2 before, and was turned off by both the old graphics and how incredibly cheap it felt, never making it past the first deck. Well, I gave it another chance, installed some mods to make the visuals more bearable, and had at it. I can see why it's a "classic." It reminds me a lot of the original Deus Ex in general appearance, feel, and flow (particularly how there are times it seems like the game could be nearing an end only to stretch out further). It's a shame that SS2 doesn't have the same multiple-approach freedom to getting around and solving problems. Instead, it's pretty linear in approach with a lot of backtracking between areas. Still, if you can get past the dated look, it's pretty good. And it's clear that is has influenced a lot of games since. One particular point of praise I'd offer is the sound. Eve