#irradiated screenshots

[irradiatedrosegarden]

jolie's quarters :)

[atombombkaytee]

Taking beautiful in game screenshots is easiest in the Glowing Sea ☢️

[spearxwind]

going into the south p/rk tag on this website is a trip and a half

[dreamertrilogyy]

nothing is better than this

[momo-shut-the-fuck-up]

Because i put him in the bin of course

I hate this momo sm he makes me so uncomfortable

[therobotmonster]

What do you get when the 6 Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman decide to pull a Brady Bunch and a Johnny Quest at the same time?

You Get the Bionic Six.

Impossible to find streaming in high quality anyplace, but a bunch of eps in pretty decent quality hit archive.org.

Decent animation, an earworm themesong that I am so frightened of I muted it while taking its screenshots. The Bionic Six is a lost 80s gem. Not like, a diamond or a sapphire, but like, at the very least a citrine, or a really nice tiger eye that's all polished up in a riverbed? Anyhow...

I joke about the premise. It's not Steve Austin, it's Jack Bennett. It's not Jaime Sommers, it's Helen Bennett. It was a serial number filing but it absolutely is someone's 6MDM and Bionic Woman fanfic where they got married and both had and adopted a bunch of bionic kids.

The story, however, involves Jack (already bionic) and his family getting irradiated by an alien spaceship (the 80s was a hell of a drug) in the Himalayas, with the family going comatose except for Jack, thus requiring the family's upgrades.

This explains why a bunch of children would be turned into cyborgs, but it does not explain why those upgrades came with superpowers. That seems to be down to the grandpa-figure of the group, Professor Dr. Amadeus Sharp Ph.D, which, I gotta say, that's a chef's kiss cartoon character name right there.

Putting both Professor and Doctor in front of your name is exactly what I'd expect from a guy that's like "these children are comatose... I think I'll give that one the magnetic repulsors..."

As for the family proper, you've got Bionic-1/Jack Bennet, the literal team dad who suspiciously has all the bionic powers you'd expect from Steve Austin, with a touch of Reed Richards gray on the temples.

You have, ahem, Mother-1/Helen Bennett, who doesn't have the Bionic woman's powers because they'd be redundant. But she is a lady in an 80s team cartoon so she's got... say it with me folks... psychic abilities!

Also, if I had a nickel for every brunette be-bobcuted supermilf in a red jumpsuit named Helen I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it does lead to some obvious crossover concepts that the r34 community have thus far failed to provide. I'd commission something but, as established, I've only got the two nickels.

She also stands out by having a codename that is calculated to make villains deeply uncomfortable with using it, thus putting them on the back-foot. Just takes every deathtrap situation to a weird place.

Their (at least initially) biological children, Sport-1/Eric Bennett and Rock-1/Meg Bennett establish the pattern of there being a bionic kid for every interest. Sport-1 has magnetic attraction-repulsion powers, and uses lamposts like baseball bats all day, every day.

Rock-1 was literally designed to be cartoon Cyndi Lauper and has speakers built into her shoulders for sonic attacks. She is also super-speed runs the fastest.

IQ/J.D. Corey is adopted, and doesn't do the normal naming convention. He's an unusual character in 80s toon terms, as he's both the smartest member of the team (per the codename) but also has the most powerful super-strength. You don't get the smart AND strong combo that often, and you'd expect the Sport-1 to be physically strongest but it seems he's more the Mario of the team.

Karate-1/Bunjiro "Bunji" Tsukahara is a foster kid who got dragged into all of this, and has both the most greatly enhanced super-agility and also actually knows how to fight without powers.

They also have a robot ape named F.L.U.F.F.I. who wasn't in every episode.

The story structure is an 80s toyvertoon take on Johnny Quest, with the whole family having toyetic super-powers and vehicles, and instead of a cavalcade of one-off baddies, you get a recurrent cast lead by Dr. Scarab, who is Sharp's brother, and is after Sharp's superior bionic knowledge.

Mad science, not even once.

I have vague memories of Scarab's pursuit of 'trionic' technology, which assumed both that the 'bi' in bionic was for 'two' (reasonably understandable assumption) and that that if two was good, three was logically better, while never really establishing what third thing was being mixed in (baffling even to my childhood self).

On top of his drone robots, called "Cyphrons" (not Cylons, Battlestar Galactica Lawyers, cyphrons), Scarab had a host of modified goons, most of whom where combinations of dumb, strong, and ugly.

The main stand out being Madame-O, who is a cartoon femme fatale of the classic variety, who punctuates her sentences with 'Darling', uses a harp to shoot energy blasts, and can disguise herself as other people, because why be good at one thing when you can be confusing at several?

The animation is pretty good for the time period (It was a TMS animated show!) and it has that weird mix of self-aware and totally earnest that makes 80s cartoons fun.

It was, like most of them, an advertisement for action figures. In this case from LJN, the gimmick of which was they were G.I.Joes that were mostly made of die cast metal. A lot of the characters were pretty chunky, to the point that a FLUFFI could be bring down an assailant if you chucked it at 'em just right.

Oh, and the whole family could join hands to pull of Deus Ex Machina bullshit. It's a trip.

Go watch ya some cartoons.

[mesetacadre]

FAQ

Disclaimer: this FAQ is for avoiding repetition in asks. You can still ask me about these topics but only after you've read the relevant FAQ and you still have doubts, you want me to expand on something, or you're not sure how to apply these to your specific situation.

Are you telling me I shouldn't vote?

What can I do after learning about communism?

But what if i'm in the US?

What is marxism's relationship with intersectionality?

Do you have a reading list?

What do you think of this particular manifestation of the petit-bourgeoisie?

Can I DM you with a question?

What do you think of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact?

Your "glorious revolution" will never go anywhere

Should I torrent with a VPN?

How do I post as good as you do?

Why do you irradiate your screenshots? It's so there is no confusion which part of the post is a screenshot and which aren't. It's the same logic than the sea filter but that one distorts text too much and I think it makes text illegible

Also see the #seriousposting tag

[typosandtea]

Got tagged by @irradiatedpiratebooty (Thankyou!) to post some wips…. 😅

No pressure tags for: @sirmanmister @acorncoffeeformysweetheart @charliesvarietyhour @fuzzydreamin @bokatan :]

I’ve got so many abandoned sketches / concepts and very few wips that make it past that because usually by the time I’ve hashed out the sketch I’ve figured out if I like it and if i have the ability to pull off what I am picturing yet ahahah and the ones past sketch are often abandoned for ‘I cant figure out why I don’t like this’ rip

(I’ve also tacked a half written danse fic on the bottom!)

Some active wips✨ (Danse like its 2015, silly comic based on this post, sketch of Murphy and Nathan)

Some I’ll hopefully come back too??????????? (Tacky mug, Danse and Frankie in Far harbor (based on Night Letter by @/watchyourdigits, I paused for falloutober and never picked up again sorry :/ ), Sweetbrew fallout 76)

Proper abandoned rip (Danse as a dnd paladin (a request that I didn’t finish since the vibes are bad, sorry @/never-gonna-danse-again :/), and a silly comic based on this screenshot of mine)

And some writing since I’m trying to figure out how to do that yay ⤵️

(Untitled, unfinished) Danse, 2nd person, Danse is kinda oblivious, ‘How does Danse deal with loving and being truly loved by a railroad sole, even after the events of rr fallout 4.. (poorly)’

Dawes, Worwick, Brach and now Keane. All good soldiers dead too soon, too young, under your command. With a heavy heart you know now that soon you'll watch as you lose Haylen and Rhys too, before succumbing yourself to the ever growing tide of ferals that has been ebbing closer over the course of the battle, it feels like an eternity has passed since you saw Keane fall to the abominations, time seemed to have broken, though you know that its only been half an hour at most. If you survive the onslaught you'll have to organise a proper memorial.. if..

Reload. Aim. Fire. Assess the situation, update tactics. Breathe. Reload. Aim. Fire. Godless heathens! Rhys is injured! Breathe. Reload. BREATHE. Aim. Fi- Fire rains down on the ferals from outside the compound. Reload. Update tactics with Haylen, while more gunfire and another molotov begins to part the irradiated sea of scum. Aim. You catch a glimpse of them. Fire. The remaining abominations are dealt with swiftly, and while thankful for the well timed assist you can't help but to be cautious of them after all of the opposition your team has faced in the commonwealth. You ask them about themselves and they ask about you in return, thinking back you never got a straight answer out of them but no time to think about that now. Leading the way, you fill the silence with a debrief of Gladius' disastrous mission here, after all they had seemed interested in the Brotherhood, even if the sunglasses clad man with them had frowned. Arcjet brings more surprises, in both the unwelcome form of gen 1 synths, and the strangers' apparent combat effectiveness and familiarity with facing them. Between both of your combat prowess, the dilapidated laboratory is soon devoid of any synthetic 'life'.

Choosing to debrief outside you stumble through attempting to compliment their outstanding combat abilities, for a civilian. You part ways after gifting them Righteous authority and an accepted invitation to join the brotherhood, much to the dismay of their companion it seems. On the walk back to the station you realise that you feel lighter than you have in months, if just a little bit crispier too.

Months pass and things have been going well for the soldier, their already good combat skills have been steadily improving, Maxon has promoted them already! They are turning into a model knight, albeit with some unorthodox choices sometimes, but you want them to succeed you know they can!

After a particularly gruelling day of clearing out yet another super mutant nest you mutually decide to camp out in a suitably defensible old house, "you're quite the soldier" you say for not the first time, casual conversation comes easily with them, easier than it has for you in years you realise with a pang. And so you tell them about Kreig and how you are pushing them the same way he pushed you, to grow into the potential you see in them, and then you apologise. For being like Kreig, pushing too hard without explanation or reward. The soldier is silent for a while, before replying, but you see a new glimmer in their eyes, of understanding. They take first watch, and you drift off to sleep easily for the first time in recent memory.

Much progress has been made in the brotherhood's hunt for the institute, with the both or you being assigned more missions near constantly it seems someone has noticed your effectiveness as a team. You've heard whispers of rumours and caught the occasional stares drifting around the prydwen, but you pay them no mind, speculative gossip has never been of any interest to you, especially not something so obviously false as those rumours, that would be inappropriate after all. Your thoughts drift to the soldier, and realise just how much they have come to mean to you and how little you've told them anything about you, how could you have been so selfish after they have bared so much of their soul with you? Their life prewar, the death of their spouse at the hands of the cruel institute mercenary, the hunt for a way into the institute and their overwhelming fear at what they will find there. How much pressure they feel from everyone to be the perfect soldier, you sigh internally thinking about that, you owe them an apology it seems. With your mind made up now you just wait for them to return and for a suitably private moment to present itself. The opportunity arises later that day, they have just returned to the prydwen after a week away, and much to your surprise beeline straight for you with a smile before even turning in their documents or missions. They seem to be oblivious to the stares and raised eyebrows of the mess's other patrons, and a round of suitably authoritative glares ensures they will remain so. Brandis just smiles, damn him.

You warmly accept their request to join them on a routine acquisition for Haylen, but you know by now that no mission will ever be ‘routine’ with them, not that you mind the challenge. En-route to the target zone you cant stop thinking about what you are going to discuss with them, how will you open such a sensitive topic with them? Its been a substantial period of time since you’ve spoken to anyone about back then, not that you could ever forget him, after all how could you when he haunts your sleep like some sort of sorrowful spectre of loss, guilt and pain.

Lost in your ruminations as you are you nearly walk right into the Soldier as they signal ‘hold’ and ‘danger’. Snapping back to reality while cursing yourself for your inattentiveness internally, you spot the obvious threat almost immediately: a roving band of super-mutant scum and worse yet, a suicider. Outstanding. Your friend signals for stealth and for a flanking manoeuvre, you never did understand their insistence on such quiet methods when you both have access to power armour, but you’ve seen enough of their handwork enough to trust their tactics, even with their continual overestimation of your lacking stealth capabilities. As quietly and you can in full power armour you move into position on the opposite side of the pack to them, shoulder your rifle and wait for their signal. You can feel your heart rate quicken in time with the warming thrum from your charging laser rifle as the anticipation and adrenaline flips the switch to combat mode. They don’t keep you waiting long as a well placed laser volley from them sets off the unsuspecting suicider right in the middle of the pack. As the stragglers stupidly turn in the direction of the apparent danger you fire on their backs with deadly accuracy. With the element of surprise now used to its fullest, you charge into optimal combat range as one of the remaining brutes correctly picks you as the bigger threat, Good. Its better if you are the target. A few more well places shots from the both of you and its over as quickly as it started, “Outstanding!” you complement their marksmanship and tactics as they walk over. You notice of the charred abominations still writhing nearby and you put it out of its disgusting misery with a well placed stomp.

The Soldier shows you the location Haylen specified on their pip-boy, its just on the other side of this small commercial district, if the mission goes smoothly you could be back on the prydwen by nightfall, sharing a whisky to chase away the taste of messes’ latest attempt at dinner. You both freeze as you hear the distinctive sound of laser fire nearby, one look and you both move towards the commotion weapons hot. At the first sign of creepy plastic and blue lasers you charge with an “AD VICTORIAM!” but you barely get a round in before mini-gun fire tears through the remaining machines. After ensuring that they were in the clear you join the soldier as they approach the heavily armed newcomer. You meet the strangers glare with a level one of your own, before they can say anything your friend asks what they are doing here, “kicking ass, though it looks like HQ messed up scheduling again” the stranger answers. Ah this must be one of their minutemen acquaintances, you had heard they were getting more active lately, and poor organisation is expected from the civilian militia. The strangely dressed silver haired minuteman explains that the subway has been overrun with gen 1 synths, your friend offers to help, “it would be an Honor to assist in exterminating these abominations” you agree, though this earns you a strange look from the minuteman. No matter. Unbeknownst to you the Soldier and the minuteman share a significant look behind your back. No pathetic synths stand a chance against the three of you as heavily armoured as you all are, you briefly considered extending the minuteman an invitation to join the brotherhood, though you reconsider when they lament the ‘deaths’ of the machines, such a naive outlook would never be allowed to continue in the brotherhood, don't they know how dangerous synths are? With the battle dust settled, “damn!, you’re one ass-kicking angel of death” the stranger compliments your friend as you all backtrack to leave the dingy subway, “agreed, outstanding work as always” you contribute, they are positively beaming at the combined praise. The minutemen leaves with more crude but positive words, its good to see that the minutemen have at least some capable fighters on their side, it is a noble cause.

The target artifact is soon acquired with minor resistance from some more mutants, but the hour is too late to return to the prydwen now. They suggest that a settlement nearby will be a safe place to camp for the night, you agree, and privately hope that the arrangements will be secluded enough for the difficult conversation you have planned. A short walk in the dark later and you both arrive at the small nursery and are immediately accosted by a group of hysterical settlers. Eventually the soldier calms them down enough to learn the location of the kidnapped one, an older man. The mutants are just across the road as it turns out, why on earth they have tolerated living a stones throw from these monstrosities for so long is a mystery, but at least the proximity makes for a brutally quick rescue, you both use the night to you advantage and the monsters are dead before they can even take up arms. The man is injured so you carry him, trusting your friend to have your backs on the way back to the settlement. You mentally resolve to make significant note of how much mutant and synth activity there is in this region in the next mission report. With the settler returned, sustenance and a semi-secure place to set up camp for the night acquired (to be continued oops, 1/4 affinity talks written, the 4th being romance dialog)

[donutboxers]

☢️☢️☢️

my friend told me to caption this: Irradiated bestie gone WRONG!! gone SEXUAL?!?!

a few edits of some screenshots of a fun little room i made, the original inspiration was that I wanted to make a bedroom for CiCi but it veered off more int apocalypse/ paranoid alien hunter so I just ran with it

this doesn't use any CC, it's not available for download since it's just a room and it has some funky stuff going on (like two separate rooms that only affect what you can see in the windows) but if anyone wants it let me know and I'll upload it for you :) this uses a lot of Batuu and Strangerville

[henrysglock]

Ramble...7? I think? Anyway: On the topic of Radiation

So. As per the ADHD. I was getting sucked into a morbid curiosity black hole re: radium.

And I found out about this guy, Eben BYERS, whose entire jaw fell off after being treated with radium in the late 1920s. (Disturbing image of Eben Byers below the cut at the very end for reference.)

So obviously I went "lol What the Fuck", because of course I would when something horrific happens to someone with the last name Byers, and when I tell you this guy and his brother (L and R respectively) are DEFINITELY from the ST Byers family??? But like...if the ST Byers were real people. I mean just look at them.

So of course I was like "Okay. Jesus Christ. WHAT is going on in the house of commons, because this is peak Stranger Things-type body horror", which landed me back in human experimentation territory.

Turns out, there was a whole raft of radium based shit going on, mostly between 1940-1970, mainly children being used as test subjects for nasopharyngeal radium irradiation (NRI), which was meant to treat a bunch of conditions.

(An aside: NRI is known to damage the soft tissues of the nose, and you know who has no fucking nose???

Vecna/Henry. Do with that what you will.)

One thing that really stuck with me, though, is that radium glows bright green. Sound familiar?

I know plutonium was mentioned, especially in regard to the manhattan project, where plutonium is depicted as glowing bright green. That said...plutonium is not a bright, glowing green in real life. This is plutonium in solution.

Either way, discussing this with Aemiron brought me around to looking at radiation in regard to MKUltra. Lo and behold...

Radiation treatments. In MKUltra. Which was canonically happening in Hawkins.

And then Aemiron brought up the point about Will and the Jaws poster, as well as The Thing, which evidently starts with the mouth when it turns victims inside out. Which, this all sounded an awful lot like the Flayed (melted) to me.

I don't have a point here, not yet, but I could have some absolutely horrifying ST5 Mike Vecna vision theories in regard to this weird coincidence (?).

One last thing about the Byers family (irl)? Eben's brother had a child named Nancy and a child named Buckley. Interesting on the names, huh?

--

Another thing that interested me while I was reading the case document (where the screenshot about MKUltra came from) was the Green Run project back from 1949.

Xenon-133 is an asphyxiant. You know who "officially" died from exposure to an experimental chemical asphyxiant? BARB.

There's already some radiation fuckery going on in Hawkins. But it just keeps going.

--

Along the lines of radiation in general, though.

The demogorgon, Henry's transformation, and just ST4 in general smacks of Chernobyl. If any of you have watched Chernobyl, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I have comparison pictures here for cinematography and character design, but also others under the cut (those ones are kind of gruesome).

What is going on here?

In conclusion: What on earth????????

And more importantly...what the hell are we going to see in ST5?

Eben Byers (Jawless)

Henry vs Vasily Ignatenko's Radiation Poisoning

(Plus the Demogorgon for good measure re: skin texture vs radiation burns)

[irradiatedrosegarden]

rude

[irradsky]

Irradiated Skies

So, this is a sideblog of @angrygonk dedicated to me making a game. What is it about? The best way will be to set the scene:

Dark clouds hang above the Reka Exclusion Zone, on some evenings still shimmering with the teals and blues of Cherenkov radiation. War has made it a barely habitable hellscape of atomic radiation, magic spill outs and chemical contamination. A place like that would usually be simply abandoned to rot, fall into obscurity, dissolve into another collapsed palace of wonders with nothing to look for inside. But this place… is unique. People come for a radio-signal. A legendary signal. Signal transmitted from the middle of nowhere. Ground zero. Some call it the voice of the gods, others a whisper of the Architect, many say it's a challange of a wealthy Piast. Some wait years to get a government issued permit to enter the zone on their own terms, some sneak in, deciding to mark themselves as criminals, some join already established crews that stop at a few outposts on the edges of the zone. All of them, drawn by the signal. All come for the signal, all stay for the scrap, some only pass through to trade. It is an ideal place for scavenging. And an ideal place to hide. Littered by a myriad of steel corpses, now integrated into the horizon line. Wrecks of airships, crawlers or mechanised lifters dot the ground as hundreds of people pass mere metres above them. Each piece of scrap carrying a story, each person weaving their own.

Technical specs is it's gonna be a low poly, stylized 3d game in Godot, models made in Blender, other than that idk what to say about it for now it's in early stages still.

For the brief lore, this is a fantasy world I and a couple friends created, it started as us playing LMoP and deciding to ignore the main storyline in favour of starting an anti monarchist revolution. This game happens 600 years after that, in a roughly cold war era equivalent, still fantasy world. I'll reveal more exact lore as we go on because I don't wanna exposition dump in the pinned post (we have a timeline of major events and it's like 5 pages, the sole list of relatively common guns in reka has like 30 entries and growing) :3.

(a screenshot of the current state included, i got rough lan multiplayer to work even!)

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Dont really have screenshots to go with this but we wanted to talk about the 'Dredd in OZ' arc, in particular just one casual thing with weird lore implications.

And that is that the outback is referred to as the 'radlands.' How did the Australian outback become heavily irradiated? The Mega City there isn't just set in Sydney, they still have the Opera House even, so it seems unlikely they were nuked. An earlier bit about World War 3 seems to imply is western states vs russian backed middle east(?) and was the conflict that escalated into the nuclear conflict that ushered in the Judges. Even if every other major city in Australia was nuked with the exception of Sydney, which would be weird, why is the outback itself so irradiated? Just nuclear winds from the actual targets? Can't imagine someone actually targeting a nuke into the outback, its not like theres people really there.

[amwult]

i prefer irradiating my screenshots to putting them in the pool

[lyriumheart]

please im begging you to use something else to edit your screenshots to indicate that theyre a screenshot other than the water filter, it make things REALLY hard to read. irradiate them or something else just plEASE stop distorting the image

[cyberpunkpizzaman]

Games I’ve been Playing - Elden Ring, Fallout 3, and Breath of the Wild

It's been a while since I put together my last post about what I've been playing, but I have definitely not been idle in the intervening months. Here's what I've been up to!

All links in this post are Humble Bundle affiliate links. That means I get a small portion of any purchase made after using them. If you'd like to learn more about the Humble Bundle affiliate program, click here.

Elden Ring

I beat Elden Ring a month or so back, brute-forcing my way through the game with heavy armor and a greatsword. It's a massive game, and I feel like I've only just scratched the surface even after the many many hours I put into that run. I restarted almost immediately, playing as a mage and experimenting with glintstone sorceries. But in all honesty, I'm a bit burnt out on the game. As many discovered after an initial burst of enjoyment, the game really starts to drag after the fight with Morgott and I, like many others, was struck by an overwhelming sense of "really, there's more?" right about the time Crumbling Farum Azula popped up.

All of that said, I really enjoyed my time with Elden Ring. It was a real challenge, but I'm happy I played it. The world and the characters have intriguing depths and the moment-to-moment gameplay is tense and exciting. I just think the open world (and especially the addition of your trusty steed Torrent) breaks the tight pacing that does so much for the earlier Souls games. When most enemy groups can simply be avoided, it's often hard to tell how the game wants the player to approach situations.

Fallout 3

Playing on the Steam Deck! I first experienced Fallout 3 at a friend's house, watching him explore DC's irradiated subways on an XBox 360. Playing the game on the Deck is a wholly different experience, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. As a platform, the Deck promotes a certain kind of focus that I find incredibly compelling; multi-tasking isn't really possible, so the game takes center stage.

When I play games on PC, it's not unusual for me to have a podcast running in the background, or even a long YouTube video running on a second monitor. Playing on the Deck locks me in and focuses my attention.

I'm also having a good time with Fallout 3 itself! Much like my exploration of Oblivion last year, Fallout 3 feels like a clear first step toward the kind of multi-leveled, densely packed urban chaos we see in Fallout 4's Boston. The metro system's prominence feels more like a concession to technical limitations than anything else, with piles of rubble blocking progress along surface streets.

Tonally, the game's dialogue choices place the player at a remove from the game's world. You're encouraged to mess with the world and its characters, causing problems and drama wherever you go. You can, of course, avoid these options, but the game itself will essentially taunt you for being a good-two-shoes. It's a game that, despite the depth of its dialogue system and its world, wants you to engage with it as a game; to exert your will upon the world and its inhabitants in whatever way seems most entertaining.

Anyways, I'll likely have a longer write-up on Fallout 3 at some point in the future. I'm still fairly early in the game, and I've yet to tackle any of the DLC. More to come here.

Breath of the Wild

I have no screenshots for this one; I'll add some in the future if I can figure out how to get screenshots off the Switch

Breath of the Wild is my first Zelda game and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. I'm partly playing it for my wife, so she can see the story without needing to play the game herself. But I think I might have played too many open-world games. I can see the game's strength and the excellence of its execution in every mechanic; the game gives me so many tools I sometimes can't tell if a cheesed a puzzle or completed it as intended, and the world design itself is both nuanced and beautiful.

But I think I've climbed too many towers. I think I climbed too many towers by the time I beat Far Cry 3, and I'd definitely climbed too many towers by the time I beat Assassin's Creed 3. I've filled in more than my fair share of maps and I just don't know that I'm that into it these days. Skyrim's old promise of "if you see a mountain you can climb it" feels more like obligation than exploration. And knowing that each new heart means finding and completing four shrines makes me feel like I'm completing checklist items.

I think I might just not be cut out for these kinds of games right now. I'm going to beat the game and give it a fair shake, but I'm definitely flagging and I have been from the start.