Today’s game is Halo. I actually meant to get some proper gameplay screenshots today, but today was the day I did the “Group Photos” photo shoot I had wanted to do. And it actually took way longer than I had expected. It was like wrangling cats.

I took away their ability to kill each other, and you’d think that would stop them from finding joy in attacking each other. But I think my friends started finding more joy in being able to pummel each other without killing each other. I can’t say I didn’t find it funny though. Even after an hour, seeing one of them try and pummel the other was funny.

One of their favorite tricks they discovered was being able to toss a grav lift into the vehicle I had placed down as set dressing and flipped it over and over in the air. I guess a vehicle suspended by a grav lift doesn’t eject you because one of my friends was in the warthog at the time and was getting spun around and around.

Us messing around did produce some photos I like though. This is one of my “ReShade edits”. That being one with some ReShade filters to make some nice effects like Depth of Field and such, And I got this one I’m a fan of. I got it while one of my friends were trying to blast us with a Spartan Laser while I was trying to get a photo of us all together on the big fan on Last Resort.

Anyways, since this is what I’ve seent the last few hours doing, not only just wrangling my friends into position, but also taking the photos and editing the ReShade versions, I didn’t play much of anything else. So I guess today is more of a exercise in personal art rather than me discussing the game. Still. I suppose my friends, being part of the playerbase, are part of the game.

Today’s game is Soul Silver. I spent my time prepping making a checklist of just how many of each Pokemon I need to catch to make a living Johto Dex. So hopefully this time it’ll be a whole lot easier.

I went ahead and setup retroarch this time to play while I fix up my DS. So far it’s been smooth sailing. One complaint though.

Retroarch has been mangling some of my screenshots for some reason. This one came out upside down. But I had some come out completely black except for a purple bar. It’s really weird. I’m not sure what’s up.

Now to actually talk about the game? I have mixed feelings about Johto as a whole. I love the region’s layout. Except the National Park. But the Pokemon I’ve never been a fan of. It just kind of feels like more Gen 1 Pokemon. Which yeah. It’s a sequel to Gen 1 so it makes sense. But I’m not a big fan of Gen 1’s Pokemon either. Maybe Snorlax, Vaporeon, and Vulpix?

But the sprite work on Soul Silver is gorgeous. That’s my favorite part here. Gen 5 may have pretty animations but Soul Silver is really pretty to the eyes in a static way.

The screenshot got trashed as well but I also like that the Pokemart sign spins. It was a detail that admittedly makes me laugh a little. I don’t know why. I guess seeing something so city-like in a little country-like town is just funny to me.

I’m already 3 Gyms in. Tomorrow I’m gonna try and push for another 2. Maybe even 3. I shouldn’t need too search too hard for most the Pokemon relievingly. So it should be a short list to collect for the next few routes.

Today’s game is Assassin’s Creed Liberation. It’s been burning a hole in my storage space going unplayed as of late. So I thought I’d finish the story tonight and try for collectives. So far it was a pretty quick experience.

I will say the story kind of had me at a feeling of “what just happened”. It just feels like it kind of lost me a little.

I like that I got to go to New York and meet with Connor. Though. When it said New York I thought it meant the city. I was a little disappointed. The frontier section I got to play through though was fun.

I really liked the last Citizen E segments too. Something about parkouring towards him through a Animus that’s falling apart is a cool scene. Plus I love the Animus we see in the game. It made for a cool backdrop.

Finally, all that’s left now for me to do is to get the collectibles in this game. Which should be easy because there’s not a lot. I also need 100% synch but that shouldn’t be too bad. There was one mission that gave me trouble and that was the last so I should have it mostly in the bag.

Today’s game is some Halo. I wanted to take it easy tonight, mostly because I had to be up early in the morning. So Halo was how I chose to relax. Somehow even the PvP sessions are relaxing to chill in. Well. Usually at least.

I got out in a Griffball lobby for the very first game. My friend I was playing with got disconnected though so it was just me in public matchmaking with 7 strangers for this game. I didn’t realize Griffball was even an option in Matchmaking but I guess it is. We ended up tying after one of our teammates kind of betrayed us and huddled in the corner with the ball I guess? The enemy team seemed happy to let them do it and we can’t really betray our teammate so I guess that’s that

We ended up playing rally until the matchmaking ban was lifted. Or at least that was the plan, then others joined and we decided we’d just go play a Free for All game. Still. Rally was kind of interesting. I can only tolerate it for so long but it was an interesting change of pace.

Our final game of the night was Odd Ball. I like this game mode. It feels like even on low player counts there’s always action because you know where it is. On other game modes it’s very easy to get lost and not find the action. Especially on low player counts. That’s not really an issue here and I like it. Anyways. Tomorrow I’m gonna try and finish up AC Liberations. It’s been burning 40 GBs in my Hard Drive and I’d like those back please.

Today’s game is Daikatana. I have heard that this game is basically not good. I had a left over handful of quarters though in my Steam wallet so I decided to pick it up. To really see how bad it is. I even decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and install patches and all that stuff.

First of all this game is so fucking green. You ever see that Episode of Futurama where they go to the Slurm Factory? I’m thinking that but it’s Mt. Dew. Like. It’s super fucking green.

My second gripe is the loading zones are bad. Half Life had them too but they felt fast. Even on a SSD I could be waiting a solid 30 seconds for it to load. And if I pass back over the line on accident i have to wait again.

Enough complaining about the design though. What about Gameplay? It’s okay I guess. It’s not the worst thing I’ve played. I didn’t feel like there was any way I could tell my shots were hitting. And the game felt really hard. But also that might not be fair to the game because Half Life felt really hard to me too. So I’m not really the person to trust with that. I will say the story seems kind of interesting. At least what I could pick up through my glitching audio.

I ended up getting to this door way and I kept getting my ass handed to me by these bird things and then an even bigger set of birds. I can’t figure out what to do. I’ve died here like 20 times now and no dice. So I ended up calling it quits. I want to try again eventually because I would at least like to get a decent ways in before forming any sort of opinion. So, did “Romero make me his bitch”? Eh, the jury is still kind of out.

Today’s game is some Halo PvP. Admittedly today after a single match I was more focused on taking photos in theater mode than actually playing in lobbies. Partly though this is because I’m working on setting up stuff to take a Group Picture of my Halo Group. It might sound Tacky but I’ve got a inkless photo printer and I’d love to have a picture of my group in there. Some of us have moved away and it’d be nice to have that as a way to have a photo of them.

Anyways, sentiments aside, I really love these photos. I usually don’t share the ones with ReShade on. But in the case of this one I feel the presentation is best with it on, and I’m really proud of it. Without the Depth of Field layer it all just kind of blends together.

Anyways. This match, although the only one, felt kind of special tonight. There wasn’t a particular reason, just a lot of memorable things. My favorite was when I was driving the warthog, and a guy hijacks it but I sent it over the edge right as he stole it. Then, right as it goes over I get rammed from behind by a ghost and end up going with them anyways.

I also just straight up got my ass kicked here though. There was this one pair of players that dominated the entire time. It felt like they were nailing all their shots with the Gauss Hog. It was honestly impressive how they could snipe me across the map with the gauss hog.

A lot of the match I spent taking out the larger vehicles. I found I wasn’t standing a chance against the enemy in direct combat so I tried to make myself useful and take out their vehicles. I like Big Team Battle for that. It feels like even without being super skilled like older players you can still bring aide to the table.

Anyways, it just felt nice to be back in the metaphorical saddle for Halo. I love this game. I missed playing it. I hope soon to get my friends together though. Not just for the group picture but for some PvP as well.

Today’s game is Breath of The Wild, on the 3DS. I saw someone post a link online somewhere, and despite years of experience handling cyber security on a personal level, there was a little voice in my head that was saying “Just a peak. You’ll know it’s probably safe it’s a .CIA file”. Turns out. It was safe. And it’s beautiful in a “This looks like shit but is genuinely impressive” kind of way.

I ended up breaking out of the Great Plateu which you can’t do in the og I think. I took a stroll on down towards Zora’s domain to see if there’s anything there. As I went on things got trippy fast.

The most interesting part was that Water? It was gone. It was actually kind of cool to see what I assume is the land under the water since I think it was a import of the official map. It was cool to run around down there.

As I was walking I noticed this tower in the distance looming over me. I didn’t think there would be one. All the map is visible so why would I need a tower? If I wasn’t short on time I would have gone over there to see what’s up with it.

Eventually though, after nearly 40 Minutes of walking and climbing and dramatically sliding down empty rivers, I reached Zora’s Domain. Or, what’s left of it. It was genuinely unsettling in a way to be in a place that normally feels so populated but has vanished off the map. It’s like the rapture came and took not just the people but the building and water too.

I explored around for a bit to see if maybe it just needed a bit too load in but couldn’t seem to get it to load in. So i left it. I want to go see that tower next but 40 minutes was all the time I could spare on this. I’m hoping whoever is developing this updates it because it’s genuinely very cool.