Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I've, thankfully, had a good amount of entertainment to delve into of late. I've been playing Bloodborne for a while. I have not yet finished it, though I doubt my opinion will change me. Like the Souls games, it has a familiar feel of polish and neat environments with foggy lore and story. These games are generally great with their level design. From the gothic look of the places to the way they curl around on themselves, opening shortcuts back, the levels are one of the high points of the games. There's a real feel of exploration in pushing into a new area and a feeling of accomplishment opening a new path. Bloodborne perhaps loses a point because there are several areas accessible by losing to enemies and getting taken away, but it's still pretty great. The other big point I have to call out is the combat. I'm not sure any other series of feels so tightly tuned that a little player experience and a point or two of character advancement can make an encounter g...

I've long ascribed to the belief that "your right to throw a punch ends where my nose begins." I believe pretty strongly in freedom of choice so long as it isn't to the detriment of others. In recent years, I've boiled down my moral code to: Don't Be a Dick . Four words seems pretty simple, but there really is more to it. I started to realize that things like parking in one of my assigned spaces at home or pedestrians crossing against the light didn't annoy me so much because they were "against the rules" as because each little action like that taken without consideration for how it affects other people - and that is what actually gets to me about it. Checking choices in the moment for possible repercussions is not always easy to do. It's certainly far simpler not to bother. And yet there can be so very much value in doing so. If you think about it, the root of evil is a lack of empathy. I've argued before that there is no such thin...

So, I recently watched the season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. I feel a couple disclaimers are in order before I start talking about it. First, while I was perfectly aware of the old series as it tied into the expanded MotU continuity, neither that series nor He-Man was a top-tier interest for me as a youth. It doesn't have the weight of nostalgia that some IPs do for me. Second, I feel the current series is definitely aimed at a younger demographic. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's probably natural. It just projects a vibe to me that implies adult appeal is more incidental than, perhaps, the more recent Voltron and Thundercats outings. With that out of the way, I have to say I don't really get the early "this redesign is too social justice-y/'woke'!" outcry. I... guess that was about She-Ra herself wearing shorts under skirt and not showing cleavage? Whatever, it didn't come across as preachy or political beyond the typical th...

I admit I don't think very highly of mobile games in general. They aren't necessarily doomed to being bad, but they are working with a lot of technical limits - storage space, control inputs, small displays, etc. Combine that with the current ubiquitousness of the platform(s) and you have a market that sort of encourages low-effort cash grabs. Maybe that's why the loot box/"gacha" mechanics seem to have sprung up and flourished in that arena, making it a dangerous minefield of cheap/free games that can still suck a wallet dry given the least bit of opportunity. Yet, I'm still playing Fate: Grand Order more than a year after it started. And this without having spent any money on it, either. The temptation has been there occasionally, but I've had just enough luck with random pulls to get enough desired characters that I haven't purchased anything. Probably the most tempting of the deals offered is the "guaranteed 5-star" summons that come up...

So, I started with Into the Dark and went through the other five books in the series thus far. After suspending disbelief enough to accept the primary conceit of sailing ship-like interstellar travel, I was able to settle in and enjoy the ride. Things feel a little formulaic/predictable as the series goes on, but Alexis and her adventures remain a solid draw to me. She's deeply principled without being blindingly naive. She also carries the weight of her actions and definitely shows some PTSD signs after the first two or three books. The series has followed her from civilian to officer to privateer and back to a place that leaves some question as to what comes next. It'll almost certainly involve another ship, though, and misfortunes to pull through.

I had mentally filed the latest Spider-Man game as one of those games that is probably good, but not something on my must-play list. While reviewing the half-dozen or so games that I did want to play that didn't exist on PC, however, I saw an upcoming Black Friday bundle that would be available: a 1TB PS4 Slim with Spider-Man for $200. As I don't have a 4k TV, the PS4 Pro benefits would largely be lost on my, and that price point seemed like a more reasonable buy-in than the usual 50% more for the console alone. So, I started keeping an eye out for when the sale went live. I never got a notification from Amazon. The Sunday prior to Thanksgiving, Walmart showed it online, but the local one didn't have any PS4s at all on the floor and the staff wasn't particularly helpful. Swinging by Gamestop, though, they hooked me right up (admittedly, with offers of additional controllers, or club membership, but I can't blame the staff too much for pushing upsells). But about t...

I don't always know why Amazon recommends the things it does, but I guess such is the mystery of modern algorithms. I picked up Into the Dark alongside the last book while looking for cheaper options of "well, maaaaybe this will be decent." I think I'm glad I did. Now, there is a very, very large hurdle to overcome with the book. I really had to take a very deep breath and just suspend disbelief over some fundamental setting elements. You see, the setting involves a many-systemed human space society, but it borrows heavily on the Age of Sail for detail - from the provincial feel of frontier worlds to societal culture and more distinctly in space travel itself. Interstellar travel is conducted by transition to "darkspace" where ships use special sails to travel. The altered physics of that realm itself are there basically to justify starships that are largely sailing ships in form, and it's put forth that this is the most efficient way for things to be ...