#I'm pretty sure I've checked all of his dialogue in Infinity Explorer

[thunderboltfire]

I would add jastey's Solaufein version to the list. It allows you to recruit Solaufein, the drow warrior from Ust Natha. It's not written with romance in mind at all, but it includes fairly expansive friendship route. There's a ton of dialogue, and sexual topics don't come up at all barring one instance, which is when Solaufein clearly states that it's not what he looks for and Charname can choose to never mention it again. In general he's a sarcastic, but surprisingly open companion, who (being a pure warrior class) hits like a truck. I recommend it with Lava's mod Eilistaree's Song, which add a new small location and a short questline with an opportunity to learn a bit more about the worshippers of Eilistaree.

Un-horny BG2 mods

Ok, so I often hear that BG2 mods are very horny--not denying that, but here are some horny-free BG2 mods that I enjoy. I'm only including Quest and NPC mods here. I'm also only including mods that I have entirely played through myself.

The White Queen, by Lava: a quest mod that allows player to visit brand new place - Silent Swamps - where something happened some time ago. Curious? Let yourself discover what lies under the layers of the mud, meet the White Queen and her servants. Also, the music is bangin'

I Shall Never Forget, by Lava: This Baldur's Gate 2 mod allows you to work with Orion - a mage who has lost the sense of his life. Either help him regain what he lost or let him die without the faintest ray of hope.

Southern Edge, by Lava: Southern Edge is a new district for Athkatla available from the very start, once you talk to Gaelan and hear his offer. You can get a Book of Intelligence as a reward for one of the quests, and there's a scribe who will buy your unneeded quest documents (like The Tome of Amaunator, the Noontime Ritual, the Book of Kaza, etc. It's a nice lore-friendly way to get rid of some items)

Ooze's Lounge, by Lava: The mod introduces a brand new part of Athkatlan sewers. You may now use the originally inactive grate in Slums to enter a locked part of the sewers and discover its dark corners. The mod offers three new areas as well as a couple of mini-quests, new items and graphics.

Yoshimo Romance, by Lava: Mod includes 16 timered talks with Yoshimo (pre-Brynnlaw) plus those fired by circumstances - including talk in Brynnlaw and at entrance of Spellhold. Those who love reading may also install additional portion of text - dialogues for both male and female players fired by in-game events. There's no horniness here; the most you can do is kiss his cheek once, IIRC

Everything else, by Lava: seriously, all of his mods are great, and none of the ones on his site are horny

Trials of the Luremaster, by Argent77: This mod makes the Icewind Dale expansion "Trials of the Luremaster" available to BG2:EE (v2.0 or later), Siege of Dragonspear and EET (Enhanced Edition Trilogy).

✨Adrian✨, by Rhealla: Adrian has lived an interesting life, for lack of a better term, though he's hoping to finally put his past behind him. Aside from his magic, he has a background in espionage and a decadent -- some might say romantic -- streak that has gotten him into trouble in the past. He once pursued (and ultimately wrecked) a political career with one of the most notorious organizations in the Realms, and may very much enjoy the opportunities for intrigue the Shadow Thieves have to offer... if you can drag him away from fighting with the Harper and the Red Wizard long enough to notice, that is. Don't let his alignment scare you off. He's the least evil Evil character in the game, and his alignment can seamlessly shift to LN. He does fine in my good-aligned playthroughs. His romance isn't particularly horny--he offers once, but you can turn him down just fine (and there are multiple ways to tell him no). He's by far my favorite romance and favorite NPC in the game; I am not normal about him at all; and I could probably write an entire essay about his character arc. Please do try him out

Sir Ajantis by jastey: With this modification Ajantis can be acquired as a member of the PC's group after the fight in the Windspear Hills (which was not changed by the mod principally). The player must first solve a quest to free Ajantis from Firkraag's ransom. You have the option to continue his romance from BG1 or start a new romance with him--I've done the new romance route, and I didn't notice any horniness.

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: Cult Following

So I played Borderlands 3 last night, checked socials later to find.... Atari have announced for winter the 7800+, a new version of the old console.

So Borderlands is a series i've followed for a bit, having played since the 1st game which was a bit a chore to get through. Most of that game was fighting bandits and wildlife for 80% while traipsing through the brownest scrapyards in the galaxy. Its

In my opinion the worst borderlands in the whole series... and my most completed game of them all. Funny how that works.

So starting in Borderlands 3, I found a legendary grenade mod in one of the first vending machines you come across. I did the quest of fixing the vending machine for marcus and I find the legendary pistol infinity in a red chest... all before I even met the twins at the broadcast center... hmmmm I'm sure this wont devalue the excitement of finding a legendary in this game.

One of the biggest complaints you'll hear about borderlands 3 is that the writing is... awful... cringe... tries too hard to be funny. I think its because there was a push to make sure everyones line of dialogue had to be somewhat "funny". Its like the awkward kid who thinks people will like them if they're funny but they dont know how to be funny, so they just mimic characters they've seen that they think are funny in the hopes people will find them funny.

The Calypso Twins aren't great villians. Yeah everyone felt they were weak as antagionists. Infact thats something that the borderlands series has an issue with, they only had 1 great villian in the whole franchise, Handsome Jack. He was a narcissist, megalomaniacal, sociopathic jackass who will mock you in the early game and dehumanise you as a bandit. He very much hypes himself up as the saviour of pandora, destined to cleanse pandora of its bandit crisis which to him, is everyone on pandora who isnt groveling to him. He taunts you with glee as he watches you fall into his plan but then afterwards when you've assaulted the "bunker", you manage to land a serious blow against him, and he stops mocking you, instead makes it clear he wants you to suffer. His psychotic tendencies come out, unmasked, as he calmly tells you that once he awakens "The Warrior" he is going to go after everyone you've ever known before killing you himself, all in retalition to what you dared to him.

Jack was memorable, hateable and there hasnt been a single antagionist to match that level of vitriol. Steele in the first game didnt do much other than a couple of messages and dying at the end. Knoxx from the 1st games dlc was more interesting as an antagionist given how much he suffered under such incompetent, nepotistic leaders. The presequel had Zarpodon who was more of an anti-villian  and at the very least, a neat contrast to jacks descent in that game. The Twins just acted like cocky "haha funny, please laugh" kind of characters that dont have much beyond being sirens. But to gearbox's credit, the general idea of the main antagionists being based on streamers is actually a pretty neat idea.

Given the influence that a lot of online personalities have nowadays, with roving masses of fans supporting, villians who were influencers were a pretty great idea for an antagionist in the borderlands series. Just a straight up  literal cult of bandits who sees themselves as a family, supporting their "godqueen" as they wage galactic war on her behalf. Yeah that wouldve been a great way to explore aspects of streamer culture and even a bit on toxic family culture. Unfortunatly they didnt really manage to realise that fully and insteasd the Calypsos were just underwhelming.

So is there anything good about Borderlands 3? Yeah its hands down the best playing borderlands game. The combat in game feels more active compared to previous entries, I used to just stay behind cover and aim for weakpoints, occasionally using an action skill but in 3? I moved around a lot more and played more aggressively and I enjoyed that. The guns feel at their best with the unique gun quirks being fun to play with. And the skill trees? The fact you can choose from different action skills rather than just one with going down the skill tree opening up addons that can add more effects to your action skill and that the vault hunters in this being the most mechanically interesting. Yeah no this is honestly the best borderlands in spite of the dialogue and story.

And you can solve the dialogue problem in some way, you can look up on what files you need to remove to get rid of the dialogue on pc or you can just go into settings and turn the dialogue volume and subtitles  off and prepare to wait a bit during some sections.

Hopefully Borderlands 4 ends up playing just as well if not better than 3 and the dialogue becomes a lot more bearable and less trying to be funny... because the only thing thats funny is the movies rotten tomatoes score.

Anyway onto news. The entity that is currently puppetting the corpse of Atari has announced a new version of the 7800 for winter 2024: the atari 7800+.

So you know how Nintendo released the NES Classic and it created a whole boom of mini consoles aimed at exploiting nostalgia? It was pretty big withb a number of stuff like the psone classic, a c64 mini and even a small dos pc that can play the oregon trail. Nowadays thats died down though something does come along to try and capitalise on nostalgia again. But at the very least this one looks to have a bit more to it.

For one it comes with a wireless controller for your use, a new game for the console with the news that more games are coming soon and that the console works with any 7800 game along with any 2600 games. So if you're interested in retro gaming, I guess you might be interested.

Thank you all for reading. Wont be a post tomorrow as i'm going out tonight. Feel free to leave feedback or game suggestions, anons are currently on.