Nah, just the sad message of “Pretty please love me (because we sunk a bunch of money into this).”
Nah, just the sad message of “Pretty please love me (because we sunk a bunch of money into this).”
One of the things I initially liked about Pixels was that I could uninstall/disable a lot of the proprietary garbage that would be mandatory on other phones. But now it looks like Google is abandoning that flexibility in favour of shoehorning Gemini into everything.
My only interaction with Gemini so far was telling it to kick rocks when it sent me an unsolicited text message. I also barely use Assistant to begin with. So once my current phone dies, I guess I’ll have to find something new.
The actual monetary loss to Air Canada (known affectionately as Fuckstick Flights Inc.) was insignificant, but the PR was bad.
Then again, I can’t remember the last time AC had positive press. Before that they forced a guy with cerebral palsy to drag himself off the plane.
Furthermore, there is an option to destroy the special “gift” if you can resist accepting it. However, all you get for doing so is a few brief lines from the Emperor. Your companions don’t seem to notice, and there isn’t even an quest log update.
I’ll fully admit to being completely ignorant about voting the first time I did it. I was politically disengaged for moody teenager reasons, but my parents forced me to go to the polling station anyway. I didn’t care to vote for any of the candidates, but was also worried that I would get in trouble if I spoiled my ballot because I hadn’t paid attention in civics (again, for moody teenager reasons).
As I said in another topic, this is the only way to play FF3 in its original form (or at least close to it) and in a language other than Japanese, outside of emulation. The DS remake is fine, but it is definitely a different experience.
I’ve spent some time with the first three, so I can give my opinion on those.
The FF1 remake is very different experience than the NES original. That version had a ton of minor bugs that gave that gave it a unique balance. Every subsequent remake, including the pixel remaster, has been an attempt to fix those bugs, and add modem QoL features, and then rebalance the game to try to keep the same feel. I think the pixel remaster is a good game, and comes closer to the feel of the original than some other remakes, but it is still a distinctly different experience. I’d characterize it as a different game wearing the same clothes.
The FF2 remaster, on the other hand, is probably the best way to experience that game. The Famicom original is notoriously unbalanced and player-hostile, but those problems are effectively bypassed by the simple inclusion of two QoL features: a map, and a one-button autobattle. It took decades, but FF2 is finally worth recommending to more than hardcore fans.
The FF3 remaster is in an odd situation, in that this is the first time a close approximation of the Famicom original is officially available outside of Japan. The DS remake from 2006 is a significantly different game, especially in the first couple of hours. I didn’t play as much of this one as the other two, but I can’t imagine it deviates too much in the later parts of the game. I would guess, though, that the more flexible save mechanics make the notoriously difficult final three dungeons much more manageable, though maybe more prone to soft-locking.
The Stone Angel.
It’s a miserable story about a dying old woman regretting all her life choices. It’s also required reading in Canadian high schools because the author is Canadian.
And then, on top of all that, my teacher absolutely insisted that its only major theme was “hope” and docked marks for having any other interpretation.
Protip: jump back in the water after you raise the level for the first time.
If that doesn’t make sense right now, it will in a few hours.
Canada’s military is small enough that there is typically only one officer with the rank of General (or Admiral if they are from the navy), and their position is the Chief of Defence Staff. I think a second General is appointed if Canada gets a seat on the UN Security Council, to act as the senior military advisor for the delegation.
There are more Lieutenant Generals (and Vice Admirals), and the CDS is appointed from their ranks when a new one is needed.
EDIT: To clarify further, there are multiple ranks with the word “general” in them. In order of increasing seniority, they are (with equivalent navy ranks in parentheses):
It took a lot of inspiration from Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, but the two games had basically the same creative team anyway.
I think those screenshots look like something closer to Ogre Battle or the recently released Unicorn Overlord rather than any RTS.
The story seems generic at first, but it goes places later.
One feature I really liked about this game was that you can adjust the encounter rate, even down to 0%. No in-game consumables or equipment needed, just an option in the menu. If you want to gain a few levels, you can crank it up. If you just want to revisit an old location because you missed an item, you can turn it off.
I’ve never experienced that, and I’ve definitely told Google Assistant to fornicate with itself on multiple occasions.
Octopath Traveller is a game I should have theoretically liked because I have so much nostalgia for SNES RPGs. Unfortunately, it felt more like a proof-of-concept demo stretched to a full-length game than a complete experience in its own right.
I’ve heard that the sequel is better, but I haven’t tried it.
I had never heard of Humane until I read this article. After also reading Engadget’s review of the thing, it sounds like an absolute nightmare to use.
Maybe I’m too old-school and impatient, but I’ve never been able to make voice assistants work for me. It’s a feedback loop: the assistant fails to do a task, so I become resistant to using it in the future. Even the thing I’ve used an assistant for the most, playing music out of a Nest speaker, seems to still be hit-or-miss after years of trying, and in some ways seems to be getting worse.
The gestures also sound awful. As with voice assistants, I’ve never gotten comfortable with smartphone gestures beyond the most rudimentary. I strictly use 3-button navigation on my phone, and I use Connect as my Lemmy app of choice because it allows me to disable all the swipe commands for upvote/downvote.
It’s the most accessible Paradox grand strategy game I’ve played.
That still means it’s as dense as pea soup, but its nested tooltip system makes learning the game’s key terms much easier.
Well, there’s the fact that outrage seems to drive more activity than other types of content. YouTube sees it as a more profitable option to advertise a Very Angry Gamer™ to you, even if you aren’t interested. I guess they assume that you’ll find something to watch anyhow, but if they will profit even more of they can hook you into the outrage machine.
Then there’s my personal hypothesis that in order to enable this, YouTube’s algorithm weights your demographics, subscriptions, and viewing history much more heavily than your manual inputs.
They are mostly a toy store now. Last time I visited a GameStop I was told they don’t even stock new games at release, except for pre-orders. There doesn’t seem to be a point in going there anymore.