CharlesReed

@CharlesReed@kbin.run
2 Post – 31 Comments
Joined 4 months ago

PI currently working out of Oakmont, Massachusetts.

Backup account for https://kbin.social/u/CharlesReed

I have only four more objectives to finish the season journey in Diablo 4: Season 4. Right now I'm balancing between running through nightmare dungeons to level up my glyphs and taking on Helltides.

I finished the main story line for Mad Max and only have to clean up the rest of the map. But I won't do that now, will probably just pop in every few days to do stuff.

Still Wakes The Deep came out recently, and I didn't know much about it other than it takes place on an ocean oil rig near Scotland and is Lovecraftian in nature. I was really looking forward to it, because usually Lovecraftian games center around a detective MC, so this taking place on an oil rig seemed like a refreshing concept, but I ended up extremely disappointed. It started off like Amnesia meets The Thing meets Alien Isolation, but unlike Amnesia, there's not any puzzles. And unlike Alien Isolation, there's not any combat or action. Just go here, pull lever, sneak there, have a little chase, flail through awful QTEs (and jesus, there were a lot of them). It made for a very boring ride with bland and shallow story where nothing is explained. The accents were fun though.

I picked up Subnautica again. I'm determined to actually finish it this time. I think my issue in my previous attempts was spending too much time working on building a massive base, so my plan is to just build necessities this round. I think it's working so far? Right now all I have is a moonpool with some storage, a fabricator, and a med station. I'm not sure how long to "story" is, but I feel like I'm making good progress.

I am both surprised and not that I got Denver, CO. I've been told before by someone that they initially thought I was from there the first time we met.

Subnautica. I always have so much fun exploring and crafting things, but then for one reason or another I end up putting it aside. By the time I get back to it, I've forgotten how to play so I end up starting a new game, only for the cycle to repeat. One of these days I'll finish it!

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kbin (at least kbin.social) has a nice little community, but we're holding on by a thread over there since we've been overrun with spammers and nothing is really being done to combat it. A good chunk of people have jumped ship because of it, but we're still trying to fight where we can.

I made an mbin alt, but I haven't really hung out enough here to get a proper feel of it. Honestly it feels like looking through a window to the rest of the fediverse. If there's any chill mbin (edit) instances magazines, I'd love to know!

Beehaw seems to have the most positive vibes, and I really like that. It seems small, but they're pretty active. I mainly enjoy their gaming community.

I think I interact the most with Lemmy, but that's probably because that's where most active instances are. You'll get a lot more different takes on there than anywhere else, some great, some not so great, but that comes with any site where you bring a bunch of people together.

Of course, these are from my experience and opinion. I'm interested to see others' takes.

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Nothing. Until he returns the 200 dollars he stole, I am holding onto that grudge.

Expanding a little on your point, I feel like a lot of people miss one of the themes of the book being "does forcing someone to be a good person by stripping them of their free will actually make them a good person?" I don't think Alex ever really regretted what he did, it's just for a short time he couldn't do it anymore. Even after they reverse his treatment, he goes and forms another gang. iirc The only reason he even thinks about stopping is because the violence isn't "fun" anymore. So yeah, not really a good guy.

Soma - This is such an amazing game, but it made me so mad that I would never play it again.

The Painscreek Killings - A really fun detective/mystery walking sim. You absolutely have to figure everything out yourself, as there is no hand-holding or hints given by the game. At all. But, like Return of the Obra Dinn, once you've figured out the mystery, there really is no sense in replaying it.

I was going to add some others before realizing I had a theme of mystery walking sims. I think that genre of games are pretty one and done kind of plays. They can be really great, but most don't give you a reason to go back and replay them, unless it's for achievements or something.

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Remedy Entertainment. From Max Payne 1 & 2, to Alan Wake 1 & 2, to Quantum Break, to Control, there has not been a game from them that I've played that hasn't been absolutely fantastic. They have not failed to miss so far.

I torrent old out of print books that I can't find anywhere else. The scans are usually pretty good. There was also a podcast I used to listen to called Caustic Soda. When they ended it, they released all of their episodes through torrenting so the fans could have them.

Man, between this and various shows/movies getting removed from streaming, it is so frustrating to see.

Finally got the ng+ ending for Dead Space (2023), and... I'm not sure that I like it? It's not bad per se, but at the very least I wish it had been presented a little differently. There's something about it that doesn't sit right with me, and it makes me worried about a remake for 2. I thought about replaying it (again), but I think I'm going to let it simmer for a while so I don't get burnt out on it.

I've been trying to utilize GamePass a lot more lately. Thought Those Who Remain seemed interesting, but the controls were so jank and stiff that I couldn't enjoy it properly. Because of this, I thought it was an older game. Nope, 2020. After I kinda got used to the controls, I got bored. Just when I was thinking of quitting, I died. Which led to the nail in the coffin, the shit save system. I had to start all the way back at the beginning of the level I was on. No, thank you, I'm not running through all those rooms again.

Decided to try out Scorn even though I initially hadn't heard very many good things about it. Honestly it's way more fun than I thought it would be, but in a weirdly abstract way. The graphics are amazing, and the setting is fantastic, but that might be because I'm a fan of H.R. Giger. I'm not sure if it would have benefited more or less if there was a more fleshed out plot than... whatever was going on. Most of the game was me just going around doing "stuff". No other motivation other than to progress in its purest form. It's pretty nice if you dream about existing inside Giger's work, like an interactive art piece first, and then a video game second. The more I think about it, the more I like it lol. Although I will say in case anyone is thinking about playing it, the last act has a whole lot of what-the-fuckery for a game based off of Giger, plus some. It's definitely not for the faint of heart or those with certain triggers.

I don't watch movies that much anymore. They just don't seem that interesting nowadays, and I can't bring myself put that time sink in of just sitting. TV shows are kind of the same way. I don't really just sit and watch them unless I'm eating or with my friends. Books have also gotten away from me, but I'm trying to get back into reading. It's just a little overwhelming when I look at my unread pile lol.

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Man, Postal 2 is such a great time. I always start out with the best intentions of being "good", but by the Wednesday level I'm robbing the bank and breaking into every house that I can.

I love me a grilled cheese and turkey sandwich. Simple, but comforting. Although, turkey based sandwiches in general are a food weakness for me.

I am finally completely finished with We Happy Few, DLCs and all. It was a lot better and more fun that I really thought it would be, especially story-wise. The characters are surprisingly complex and gray while still be likeable. Sally and Ollie's stories were great. They weren't as long as Arthur's, and they didn't have as many side quests (that I could find), but it was still a good time. With differences in encounters between the main characters and going through the same areas, it kind of felt like playing the B story in Resident Evil 2. As for the DLCs, They Came From Below gives the game a fun little sci-fi twist. I liked seeing more of Roger and James. Lightbearer was surprisingly super short, and I wasn't expecting to hear Neil Newbon. We All Fall Down was by far the best DLC. It was pretty heavy, but did wrap up the ultimate fate of Wellington Wells pretty nicely. Also have to add that the music is so fun. I actually sat through the entirety of the credits each time because there were some great jams. Right now I'm dabbling around in Sandbox and Survival mode while I try to figure out what game to play next.

It's been a few years since I've played it, but I remember not being a fan of the female companion. To me it felt like she was just using the main character as a means to get to her goal and nothing more. I know that's an unpopular take (I've gotten into a couple light arguments over it), but I just could not stand her by the end of the game. The way she treated the MC just made the post-credits scene so angering.

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This is what I'm worried about. I love Alan Wake 1 & 2 and Control, and I'm looking forward to the latter's sequel, but I just keep thinking, how far can this go before it's either way out in left field or rehashing the same plot points?

I love the Resident Evil series, though I think Zero is actually my favorite. It has the best version of Rebecca and my favorite version of Wesker, plus we actually get to see him and W. Birkin interacting and being diabolical together. That, and Wesker Mode is really fun.

Resident Evil 5 is probably my second favorite, because imo that's the best version of Chris (edit to add that it's also my second favorite version of Wesker). I'm not a fan of how he was handled in Village, and I despise that they used the same VA that they used for Carlos in the RE3 remake. Nothing against the VA, it's just every time Chris opened his mouth in Village, my mind kept going, "That's Carlos That's Carlos That's Carlos".

I hope one of Capcom's upcoming remakes is Code: Veronica. I nabbed it on Xbox a while back, but man, I am not made for those old school tank controls, so I never ended up finishing it.

That's how I got around to playing it recently too. I spent way more time than I should have wandering around just looking at stuff.

That's ok. Different people have different tastes! Tbh the band is kind of generic in general, but that hasn't stopped them from worming their way into my ears lol.

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, he was not very smart, but she did not really help either lol

I've been using Google's Gemini to write cover letters for job applications. Just plug in the job description, do a little proofreading and tweaking, and boom. It's made the process so much easier for "personalized" cover letters.

I've been working on Diablo 3: Season 31 off and on for a couple months now, and I'm kind of over it. I made it all the way to the Conqueror chapter, but I keep getting repetitive and useless legendary drops, even though I'm on higher Torment levels. I'm at a plateau that I'm just not that interested in crossing. I don't know if it's because the class I picked or the build or what, but I think I'll just call it here until next D3 season. It's like a complete polar opposite of the fun I'm having with Diablo 4's current season (which we finally got pets for!).

I thought Kona 2: Brume would be a separate story than the first that I played a few weeks ago, but nope, it picks up exactly right where the first one left off. Story wise this game is a lot more interesting and linear than the first, even though it goes in some weird directions and still leaves unanswered questions. I did feel like I was actually learning the story as I went along, instead of going until the very end to have it all laid out for me. I did have to look at a walkthrough for one area because there was a ridiculous amount of back and forth over and over for that size of a map that I kept getting confused on where to go and what to do. ::: spoiler spoilers? So many unanswered questions! Like does Carl have radiation poisoning now? If not, how did he avoid it? What was up with the meteor? Why did it make people react the way it did? The scientists couldn't make the blue pieces red, but then it suddenly didn't matter because the core was red? How did the guy turn into a wendigo? Was it because of the meteor, or was Carl just hallucinating him as such? The Cree angle kind of felt pushed aside, it almost feels like the aliens meme. :::

I felt the need to have a FPS after my recent bout of non-shooter games recently, and I was in the mood for F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. It's been a couple years since I've replayed this for the thousandth time, and it's still a great time. I absolutely love the entire F.E.A.R. series.

Still working on Diablo 4: Season 4 and Mad Max

I think lemmy.world is letting kbin interact with them again. It was on 'read only' about a week ago, where kbin could see stuff being posted from lemmy, but anything being posted or down/upvoted from kbin wasn't going anywhere. But I noticed today that some kbin users were able to successfully post to lemmy again. Though, I don't know if that means the problem is fixed or not.

Funny enough, that's actually how I'm working on getting back into reading too. I really liked Trigun and Trigun Stampede, so right now I'm slowly working my way through the manga. And then after that I have a couple other manga series that I want to check out.

Mine's just a band in general; Motionless in White has been growing on me after I've been putting them off for so long. Their cover of "Somebody Told Me" is fun.

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I've been rooting for Cody Rhodes to win Wrestlemania on Sunday, and he did. Plus with a (very brief) appearance by The Undertaker, my favorite wrestler. I was in the path of totality for the eclipse yesterday, so I go to see it. It was pretty freakin cool. Today is nice, dark, and rainy, my favorite kind of weather. Between those three, I'm in an excellent mood.

Jujustu Kaisen x Resident Evil 5 Curses kinda act like zombies, so as long as Chris can see them, he'll be fine.

Finished F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin and even played the very short DLC Reborn.

I am in love with the Alan Wake 2: Night Springs DLC. Overall it was really short, which is understandable for a free dlc. The stories fit the right tone for the game and for Night Springs à la The Twilight Zone, as well as fitting in with each episode's playable character's backstory. It makes me excited for lore drop that's going to come with The Lakehouse in October.

I got sucked into a conversation with a close friend of mine about Furiosa, and it put me in the mood to replay Mad Max again. I played it earlier this year, but fuck it, I'll play it again because I love it.

I'm virtually meeting up with some friends to catch up. Other than that, just lounging around.