#but rogue is my fortnite skin so

[charaznablescanontoyota]

got tagged by @leonstamatis let's gooo

Rules: Make a poll of your favorite female characters (no limits - as many or as little as you want) and see which your followers like the most!

tagging uhhhhh anyone who wants to do it

[elfenphoenix]

Honest review of Dragon Age: the Veilguard so far

Positive: I like the map layouts, the exploration mechanics, and oh my GOD do I love the hair graphics. I'm still getting used to the equipment upgrade system, but I think I'll figure it out with time.

I haven't met all of the cast yet (outside of reading Tevinter Nights and listening to Vows and Vengeance), but so far they're pretty interesting! So far the least engaging has been Neve, but I think that's just because she hasn't shown very much strong personality yet? Which might BE her personality, but I'll see.

Negatives: i don't like the redesign of the darkspawn. They look like cartoons, now. Part of what made them so creepy/interesting was how they looked very much like twisted versions of the races that each variety came from, but that's all kind of gotten lost in the weeds, i think. They just look like generic beasties now. Like something fortnite would put out for a Halloween skin.

I'm tentative about the world state. I don't like that apparently my Inquisitor's love interest is more important to the narrative somehow than... idk drinking from the Well of Sorrows? And lore-wise i am uncomfortable with the retcon that the elves apparently just... all recognize that their gods are evil? Like that was a HUGE revelation in Inquisition so it feels kind of... dismissive? That everyone is just like "oh yeah the elven gods are EVIL we all KNOW it'd be TERRIBLE for them to return.

And now (true rant under the cut):

I hate the combat. I HATE the combat system. It doesn't feel different at all to play as a warrior versus a mage versus a rogue. The abilities all have different names and different animations, but functionally what you are capable of is the same. Which i don't like. The whole point of having different classes is to accommodate different playstyles, isn't it? I like to play as a warrior because I DO NOT LIKE FAST-PACED BUTTON COMBINATIONS. I like to play as a simple meat shield, cutting through enemies or taking the hits. And with every single other Dragon Age game, that was fine. But with the current mechanics, it doesn't fucking matter. Can't just use a shield--enemies have attacks that you HAVE to dodge. So there's combos for blocking and attacking, plus there's the stagger bar, plus the little aura that shows up when you're about to get hit, which you have to watch carefully becaus if it's YELLOW then you want to block but if it's RED then you MUST dodge... ALL THE WHILE your health bar is on the BOTTOM LEFT corner of the screen, nearly impossible to keep track of while you're ALSO keeping track of all that I've already mentioned. There is so much going on on screen at all times that by the time I remember what buttons to push I've already lost half my health or more. In many ways, the combat reminds me a lot of the Spider-man game, which is a very great game! Which I can't play. But what makes it a good game nonetheless is that it makes sense? Like, you're Spiderman, of course the gameplay is going to be fast-paced and reflex-based. If you don't like that, then play a different game. But what I always liked about combat in Dragon Age up until now is that it WASN'T like that, provided you chose a class that worked for you. It WAS the game i played because I'm not cut out for Spiderman. It still posed plenty of challenge without getting my fingers twisted in knots. And I know people will say "well hey if you don't like it then just turn down the difficulty!" But that's missing the point. If I wanted to play a fast-paced button combo game, I'd play something from Fromsoft. But I don't. Why? Because I'm not good at them. Which is why I play Dragon Age. I got to play an amazing fantasy RPG without feeling like i needed to "get good" just to enjoy the game. It's just... so incredibly frustrating to me that they took one of my favorite things about the franchise and just... destroyed it.

That's not to say that I don't understand the desire to make a different game than what came before. Inquisition had its issues, da2 had its issues, origins had its issues... and it makes sense to want to make changes and improvements, but this...

My friend told me that she thinks the changes are to make it more similar to Mass Effect. I can neither confirm nor deny, but I don't want to play Mass Effect! I want to play Dragon Age.

...anyway. tl;Dr I hate the new combat system and I wish bioware/EA didn't feel it was necessary. Not everyone wants every game to be complex button-combos.

[reypossum]

listen I don't play fortnite often, I didn't play it for like years but I found my old account and then I heard that gwenpool was coming to fortnite and I was like "Okay, I'll play as her! I'm really excited!" Cause yk I love gwenpool and they didn't do her dirty in it they actually portrayed her nicely

Now I have my Gambit hyperfixation here and I heard he was a skin in fortnite and so was rogue and I thought "cool! It was probably limited edition and I doubt they'll have him back in the store so"

Couple days later I was rewatching xmen 97 (probably for the like, 100th time) and I stopped and went on fortnite cause I just did idk adhd train of thoughts go brrrrrr

And I check the shop AND THERES GAMBIT AND ROGUE RIGHT THERE 😃

[fulcrum46]

Fulcrums Comic Reviews, Part 1

I have an addiction, and one I’ve been struggling with for years. It all started a little over 10 years ago, when my aunt bought me my first comic. Since then I’ve had a hunger, an insatiable appetite for what can only be described as men, women, and the third one in spandex doing things no human could or, perhaps, should do. Now, because I am once again bankrupt of ideas, I decided to pull the old “do a Letterboxd but for books in an evil way”, a move that no one has ever done or even thought of before, so there’s no reason to call it old. This one’s gonna be known colloquially as tonal whiplash cause I’m gonna go from saying things I actually sincerely enjoyed to utter and complete nonsense. It’s up to you to decide which is which. Review time!

New Mutants Classic - Chris Claremont, Bob McLeod

The New Mutants were a team I had long been intrigued by, though one that I wanted to read from the very beginning, which, for the uninitiated, is hard to do, at least if you want to do so physically. However after seeing it in a comic shop one day it was an instant get for me. To my surprise, the book immediately became a favourite of mine. The writing feels shockingly unaged, especially considering it was released over 40 years ago. The struggles of the teens in the book felt relevant to today, be that Dani Moonstars issues with grief and trying to stop vaping, Sunspot being bullied by the kids at his school for his skin colour, mutant ability, and his Fortnite account having no skins. The one that resonated with me the most, however, was Cannonball struggling to fill the role of leader as well as trying to quit always being on he dang phone. However, New Mutants is not without its flaws. Its age shows in the last 3 issues, which consist of the new mutants taking a backseat in favour of Marvel editor in chief at the time Jim Shooter being illustrated into the comic in an off puttingly realistic art style with far too many wrinkles and pleading directly to the reader to “please buy these stupid action figures of characters that we made up only to make action figures of them, they aren’t selling and if we don’t sell 80,000 units we’re gonna have to cancel one of Chris Claremont’s 8 books that he’s writing simultaneously” a move that despite my praise for the book, even I can’t defend. That said, I all of a sudden really want to buy an action figure of hit character R. U. Reddy and play with him till I can’t no more.

Batman: Hush - Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee

Despite being (to my recollection) the first Batman comic I’ve read, Batman Hush immediately shot to the top of my ranking of Batman comics and DC comics. It pulls from every corner of The Batman mythos, his childhood and origin, his rogues gallery, his complicated relationship with other heroes, and whatever he’s got going on with Catwoman and serves as a fantastic introduction to the character and the world around him. There is a glaring issue however. When someone whispers in comics, the speech bubble becomes a dotted line and the text inside of it becomes small. Now, I respect a dedication to an artistic vision, but significant text alteration makes me irrationally mad. The choice to have every character whispering was one that should have been vetoed by the editor, despite the name of the book being Hush. It undercuts emotional moments, when Batman is chasing down the Joker after he believes he’s just murdered *redacted for spoilers*, his thought process behind letting the Joker live after everything he’s done is truly one of the best written moments I’ve read, I just wish I didn’t have to break out my magnifying glass and do a Sherlock Holmes cosplay (because how else would one use a magnifying glass) to read it. The art in this book is another thing cementing it as an all time great to me as Jim Lee has long been a favourite artist of mine. In this case I’m almost glad the text is so small, as it allows for a greater appreciation of this art. It’s a double edged sword though as when I was marveling at this art, I absentmindedly held my magnifying glass too close to a sunbeam and it lit the page on fire, resulting in that page being destroyed, so I suppose I’ll never know why Bruce Wayne became Batman because I refuse to google it and there is no other media in which his origin is depicted.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight - Jed MacKay, Alessandro Cappucio

Marc Spector is dead in this one, though the messages and tone of his solo series are continued in an exemplary way in this follow up book, which revolves around the now beloved new Moon Knight supporting cast. All the characters that were written so well and often even introduced in the 2021 series are maintained here. I struggle to even mention standouts as all the characters are written exceptionally well. Even Soldier gets something to do. However, as I mentioned, the aspects of this story that I enjoyed so much originally are emphasized here. With Marc gone, Tigra takes on the role of the self pitying character who won’t ever be loved (by the way she’s got a kid that hasn’t been mentioned in like 20 issues is he like ok?), Reese the one avoiding her feelings and most importantly, like Marc, all the characters depicted come to the realization that therapists are evil and are either supervillains or being paid by the government to spy on you. I look forward to volume two where we will be getting an entire issue dedicated to 8-ball, the former supervillain with a literal giant pool ball for a helmet who Marc almost killed but gave a second chance, the grieving fourth incarnation of Marc’s archnemesis, and Marc’s sentient house that tried to eat him. Only one of those isn’t real. You can guess which one but I’m not spilling you have to read Moon Knight 2021 yourself cause it slaps.

Canary - Scott Snyder, Dan Panosian

I read the last few panels of this with The Ecstasy of Gold from the good, the bad and the ugly score playing and it was transcendental. The way the artist on this one draws skies was weird cause every time it’s a solid colour and is never blue which I just think is a weird thing to do. Very Blood Meridian coded, if you like cowboy time or horror time I highly recommend this, severely underrated

Wonder Woman: Earth One - Grant Morrison, Yanick Paquette

Too woke.

Spider-Man: Kravens Last Hunt - JM DeMatteis, Mike Zeck

Why is it called Kravens LAST hunt if he has a hit movie that comes out after this comic in the SPUMC (Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters) that provided us such hits as Madame Web, Venom, and Morbius in which he will presumably be hunting? Is DeMatteis stupid? This cemented Kraven as a top 3 Spider-Man villain for me and when Sony inevitably bungles that movie I’ll never forgive them.

Wowee! I’m not even done with my stack of comics so there’s gonna be another one of these, hope you’re excited! Also the last part in the New Mutants one is like barely a joke. They derailed the last 3 issues and put in a motorcycle gang called Team America who went off and fought people who hadn’t been in the book up till then cause editorial mandated a crossover story with them to sell more action figures. It didn’t work and the action figure company went out of business. The New Mutants appeared once every five pages or so just so they could still say it was their book. Jim Shooter was a weird guy. R. U. Reddy is also the actual name of the main member of Team America.

[noellevanious]

i dont wanna hear stories about how kids are getting bullied because they dont have fortnite skins or bankrupting their parents because they wanted to get all the new Shitty Horror games with names like "The Careful Woggler Stalks". Does aynbody have stories about kids theyve interacted with talkin about games like splatoon. or like other cute stories about kids.

ill go my favorite recent event was when i was at a walmart and a kid really wanted a sonic action figure and his mom said he could only get one. and so she asked if he wanted a "Rogue" the bat figure and asked "do you already have a rogue?" stuff like that that reminds you there is wonder left in the world

[letstalkassassinscreed]

XDefiant By Ubisoft

Over the last few days I got to try the closed beta for Ubisoft's next free to play title, Xdefiant. And in this blog I want to share my thoughts on the game and how I feel about its future.

The first thing that grabbed me about the beta was, despite the few bugs and server issues there was a fully fleshed and decent-looking game. That offered a fun experience that left me wanting more, and in its state I don't think a full release isn't too far away. So what type of game is Xdefiant? Well from what I played it kinda feels like a cross between old school call of duty, and the tactical hero based shooting of overwatch. Essentially you pick a character from a roster of iconic Ubisoft ips, each with there own abilities, kit them with a weapon load out and then jump right In. The game modes available in the beta were simple base defence type modes and a push objective mode, there was also a linted hot shot mode that I didn't get to try sadly.

As it's a beta I'm happy with what was on offer as each game mode was fun, fast paced and the maps played out from some iconic locations and I enjoyed it. But I hope there is more expansion of the game modes at launch, I was actually hoping for a good old team deathmatch mode as I'm nor very good with objective based challenges haha. What I did enjoy a lot about the matches I played, was how fast paced and tactical they felt, there were a lot of moments where I had to choose when and where was the best place to drop my abilities. And as confirmed by one of the lead team members on twitter, there was a lot less bunny hopping so gun fighting felt fair and wasn't a challenge of how to hit a bouncing kangaroo with a gun. And this could be a big win for the game, as I feel games where players can bunny hop out of range is annoying.

So with a lot of positive experience with the game, I feel the future is bright for this.little game but it won't be easy. First of speaking from a console point of view as that's where I play, there isn't too much competition for a free hero based shooter, the only 2 games I know of that feel similar are overwatch 2 and rogue company. But Xdefinet doesn't feel like any of them, it feels unique and its own thing, so with this in mind unlike Hyperscape that had to compete with other big battle royals, like fortnite, Apex legends and War zone. There isn't room for this game to fail by being dwarfed by bugger games, and this puts less pressure on the devs to try and do something better than what's on offer.

But there are 2 areas I feel this game could stumble with, the first is the biggest one in my opinion and that's transparency. For any game to succeed players and communities need a little transparency on bug fixes, known issues and updates to playlists and features. What I saw during the beta gave me hope, as the twitter socials were very active in spreading news about the server issues and responding where they can. If they can do this on a more manageable scale for them, I could see there being a tight knit community around the team that feels heard by the developers. The second issue that I know feels odd to be less important than transparency is monetisation. All free games need to make money as games aren't free, and with hero shooters there are 2 pitfalls that I don't want the team to fall into. First is the hero's only earnable through cash, this is a big issue as It can tip the game into pay to win territory. And pay to win is essentially how it sounds, giving advantage to players.with cash this can form a sorta of meta where non paying players use free heroes and skilled players with cash can use bought hero's. This creates an unfair balance.

The second pitfall is non-earnable currency. We can guess the bread and butter of this game's monetization will be cosmetics and battle passes. These have been proven to be successful and fun in certain games, but sometimes players may not have cash at hand to get a new skin or a shiny emote. So having events where players can earn currency could be useful then that way both paying and non paying players can invest in skins and potentially battle passes.

Overall I think this game is already on track to success, what I played in the beta was a lot. more than I expected. It was fun, fast-paced and tactical, there are also plenty of Ips in the Ubisoft portfolio they could.dip into, and this makes me excited to see what's on the horizon for this game.

[doubleddenden]

So the Direct in Review:

Overwatch for Switch: meh. Nobody really asked for this.

Luigi's Mansion 3: I'm honestly excited for this one. Let's the hope the individual floors aren't just tiny boxes. I'm definitely looking forward to the pirate ship level. I do hope I have some cash around Halloween

Super Kirby Clash: it's alright I guess. Seems weird to have 4 Kirbys and not Dedede or Meta Knight but whatever

Trials of Mana HD: I kind of want it, but I never played the others.

Return of Obra Dinn: eh. It's been out on PC a while I think.

Little Town Hero: ima be real, I'm a bit sour at this game because they definitely took time away from SwSh to work on this, and it definitely shows because it does look good. More info is needed tho. Tobyfox was just hanging out with Nintendo I guess

Banjo in Smash: don't have smash, but I do love Sakurai's laid back approach to explaining Banjo and Spiral Mountain. Tobyfox kicking Sakurai's ass in Smash is hilarious to me. Now if only Microsoft showed as much love to Banjo as Sakurai did. Hmmmmm.

Terry in Smash: okay? Funny trailer, but I don't really care much. Maybe they'll add girl Terry for another skin for shits n giggles.

More Smash DLC: Byleth is definitely coming at some point, as is a pokemon character or Little Town Hero character. Gotta get that promotion in babey.

Link's Awakening: cute

DQXIS: y'all can't do this to me I ALREADY BEAT THE GAME ON THE PS4! You can't just add new story and essentially an entirely 2d remake of the game on a new system! My wallet hates you. Maybe they'll actually add the reorchestrated music this time around.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions:#FE: I do want this. I've very much been wanting this. I just haven't gotten it yet because I knew it'd be ported to Switch with more shit in it AND I WAS RIGHT. Also "See-ah-da"??? I thought it was "ky-ay-da"?

Deadly Premonition 1 port: neat

DP 2: I was JUST talking to my friends about a New Orleans trip around Halloween. Like WTF. Kinda neato but hopefully they can escape the uncanny valley from the first

Divinity, Original Sin 2 Def Edition: eh... ok?

Doom 64: someone needs to tell mister Beth Esda to shorten his speel. Just say Doom 64 for Switch, BAM, move on. Your speech ain't that important and neither are your weird hand movements

Rogue Company: as much as I like the idea of customization, its literally the same as Fortnite or any other fps released in the past 10 years.

Pokemon SwSh: I've got sour feelings at Game Freak and The Pokemon Company International for the mistreatment of their franchise, but I do like Camp and Cramaran, plus whatever that weird fish is. I am delighted to see customization improvements, and there's definitely enhanced animations: but not for for the pokemon. The player looks lively af, but the pokemon still rotate so stiffly. The currydex is... interesting. It does look delicious anyway but I would prefer if they just kept the simple Refresh feature from SM. Decent overall, but they need to show more improvement by next month to change my mind. Also... Polteageist... no. I do not want to drink your bodily fluids.

SNES ports with Rewind functionality: decent idea. Where's Earthbound?

Tetris 99: booooringggg

Mario & Sonic: okay look, when they first started this for the Wii, pretty much all fans agreed this wasn't the crossover we wanted. So why are we still doing this? Why not an actual cross over game with Adventure 2 and Odyssey gameplay to keep things simple? At the least, the 2d stuff is original.

Daemon X Machina: actually looks fun. I really want it.

Jedi Knight 2: so weird, but cool.

The Witcher 3: nothing new but impressive, moving on.

Ass Cred Rebel: Ass Flag and Rogue Ass: decent. I wonder if Freedom Cry will be included? 4 is definitely the best

Dauntless: interesting, if only it weren't just online.

Just Dance: look, another party game for friends I don't have.

GRID Autosport: meh

Farming Simulator 20: we're still doing this eh?

Ni no kuni: Wrath of the White Witch: shit yes, I actually want this.

NBA 2k20: boring just like every other crappy ea sport game, next

Call of Cthulu: interesting I guess. I wonder if this will have Labo VR or 3d rumble compatibility?

The Outer Worlds: neat

Devil May Cry 2: okay, I know there's probably a reason, but why is Nintendo glossing over 1's in favor of their sequels? I guess I get it if the first ones were bad but still. Neato tho.

Vampyr: this was kind of underwhelming to the point that I don't remember it at all

AC New Horizons: oh to be an AC fan. I wish I could get into these games. They look so appealing from the outside. I just don't handle non combat games that well. But hey, I know plenty of friends that will love this.

Xenoblade Chronicles def Edition: also another one I knew was coming eventually. Hopefully they include Japanese audio.

A thank you to @nickshutter for his guide to sort of help me remember these

Out of all of these, Luigi's Mansion 3, Ni no kuni, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Daemon X Machina, and Xenoblade Chronicles interest me the most.

I'm finding Pokemon is TRYING to grab at me, but I'm still not even 70% sold on it and they have to announce some changes or proper information on Home before I change my mind.

Incidentally, Missing from this list but also coming to the Switch in a month or so: Digimon Cyber Sleuth 1 AND 2. Really good, check em out.

Also missing: Metroid, FE 3 Houses Expansion Pass info, BoTW 2, and a rumored Mario Odyssey thing I heard a vague rumor about.

Decent direct overall.

[aux1]

The games I am currently playing:

I got an early birthday present from my brother. He gifted me a copy of Dead Cells. It’s a pretty good game. It combines two of my favorite genres, metroidvanias and rogue-likes/lites.

I also decided to get Duke Nukem Forever last night. It’s on sale right now for $3.99 on XBox. I had the credit on my account and decided to get it despite knowing it’s considered to be bad. And I now can say...yes...yes it is bad.

I also got the season 7 battle pass for Fortnite. I am liking the addition of ziplines to the map. And also the addition of “wraps” to customization. Weapon skins are always a good thing.

Then there is also the Williams Pack 2 for Pinball FX3. I already owned Party Zone in Pinball Arcade. I didn’t have Attack From Mars and Black rose, though. I like Attack From Mars...even if it is very, very similar to Medieval Madness. Black Rose on the other hand...that table seems to a have problem where you can lose your ball really, really easily. It makes playing it quite frustrating.

Then there is Burnout Paradise: Remastered. I played it a little bit, but I haven’t gotten back to it yet. I owned and played the hell out of the original...so that’s probably part of the reason I haven’t been really digging into it again.