bermuda

I bought a PS2 about 6 months ago from a coworker and finally got around to getting it working at a good enough resolution on my monitor. I currently have:

• GTA 3
• GTA Vice City
• Gran Turismo 3
• Matrix: Path of Neo
• Katamari Damacy
• Midnight Club: Street Racing

Any other suggestions? I know off the top of my head I want to get the SSX games, maybe some sports games, and of course the MGS titles that came out on PS2. Anything else?

I made a post on r/civ (Civilization games subreddit) showing a really funky shaped randomly generated river I saw and most comments were fine but one guy was convinced that I went through the comparatively monumental effort of opening the map editor and changing the river for karma, as opposed to just starting the game and taking a screenshot.

And just to top it off another guy saw the fact that my scout unit was in the far north of the map and went on an obscenely condescending diatribe about how "ackshually" I should be placing my units in the far south of the map because that way I can explore better and whatever the hell. Dude did not stop for one second to consider that maybe the scout that was in the far north was exploring the cool river and that I didn't waste any production points on him because I got him for free from a tribal village...

God every time I go on that website (because let's be honest not a whole lot of good communities here for what I'm interested in) I get excited to share something super innocent and then some total loser has to come and ruin it all.

So my roommate is a habitual cigarette smoker. He doesn't smoke indoors (thankfully) but he does smoke about every other night outdoors. I don't think he realizes that when he's done smoking the smell sort of... lingers on him and his clothes. Last night after he was done he was in the kitchen for a bit cooking. I came in this morning to make a sandwich and the smell was all over the kitchen and very pungent, it made me think some food was rotting. This kind of thing happens probably once a week, and while I'm kind of used to it by now I do want to have people over and have them actually be comfortable.

Apart from asking him to quit (I doubt it) is there any sort of concotion or thing I can make / spray / sanitize to get rid of the smell? Some days it's nonexistent but other days it's almost unbearable.

So, Croteam, the creators of the Serious Sam series as well as the Talos Principle game have just announced the sequel to the Talos Principle, The Talos Principle 2, is set to release a little over a week from this post, about 9 years after the first game came out. I was always a huge puzzle fan and so I loved the first game, as well as its story, so I've been looking forward to this ever since it was announced like a year ago. Just recently the team released a demo for the game, which is also quite astonishing in this day. I know the occasional game has released a demo here and there every other year or so, but I think I remember the last demo I played was Skate 3's back in 2010. I'm not quite old enough for it, but I do know that it wasn't that long ago where every game had a free demo. Sometimes they were shit, sometimes they were totally unique experiences, but they all allowed you to at least experience some part of the game before you bought it.

I don't know how to word this more properly, but it just felt so nice actually being able to play a game before it comes out, without having to be a famous youtube reviewer or having to attend a ridiculously expensive convention. I don't want to be too optimistic here, but I'm far more optimistic for the release after playing this demo than I have ever been for most other AAA releases that only show trailers and developer promises.

And not only that, but it also advances the story in a pretty spectacular way. The original game has multiple endings but the canon ending is sort of a cliffhanger and they expand on the story in that direction, so if you're a fan of the original and want to get a head-start on the game's story then I highly recommend checking it out.

Anyway, I like it when studios are at least semi-transparent like this. It's nice to see them put out something tangible that people can interact with before choosing to buy something. Who knows, maybe the full release will be the usual buggy mess next week, but after playing the demo I don't get that feeling as much.

edit: and to top of it off, even on medium settings this game. looks. amazing. It felt like something you'd see created by Cyan (another puzzle game company), not by the people who made Serious Sam

edit2: here are my key takeaway from the demo, marked in spoilers because well they are kinda spoilers:

You're looking at that right by the way. THREE freeway ramps!! I walked this last week and it was genuinely terrifying. The first freeway ramp when coming from the bus stop has NO pedestrian lights or signals.

Also those of you with good eyes will notice that there is NO SIDEWALK south of the bus stop. None. If you want to walk south on that particular street (which is 5 lanes btw) then you have to cross the freeway to get to the other side of the road.

(2nd paragraph) ...which would have put the development of TF2 11 years before the first Team Fortress came out. Nice one, Robin.

So I've been using youtube ad blockers since pretty much when ad blocker extensions were first available. Lately though I've been getting hit more and more with these messages that YT was sending out every 5 or so videos telling me that adblockers aren't allowed. No problem, just gotta wait 5 seconds to x it out and then close my video. The straw that broke the camel's back though was when instead of a close-able pop-up, they just posted it in front of a video and wouldn't let me watch anything until I disabled my adblocker.

So I disabled it and... wow. It's just so, so, trash. 2 ads before a video plus midrolls and every video ever. I tried listening to a playlist of songs and was getting a midroll ad every single time. Imagine trying to just listen to music for 3 minutes and getting interrupted by a commercial for a chevy silverado! Half the ads were for youtube premium and they specifically mentioned that it would get rid of all the ads. It just felt so damn predatory. I couldn't enjoy anything that wasn't already demonetized.

And you know I'm fine with ads I guess. I could live with an ad before every video, but the fact that I was getting upwards of 5 ads in a 10 minute video was just plain absurd. I also hate that youtube got rid of the yellow markers to show you when an ad was coming up, so now it's just out of nowhere and always interrupts a key part of the video.

E: I've been on Firefox for over a year.

What I mean by this, is instead of when you fail and are met with a game over, the game finds some way to keep it going. Instead of being forced to reset to a previous save or an autosave checkpoint, the game's story continues in an interesting path. Are there any games like this?

Asking because in IRL TTRPG's, a lot of DM's will find reasons to keep the story going, no matter how ludicrous because I mean.. that's why you're there. Do games do this? What are some that do?