Fucking badass. This is the attitude we need from our representatives.

Man I would’ve been pissed if I saw this, and hadn’t finished Hades. What a spoiler!

I think the “A” picture is from one of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians movies. I recognise that sword.

Loved this phone. I had the Nokia Lumia 920 in yellow. Fantastic user experience back in the day, but unfortunately no apps.

The Game: Racism, bigotry, hatred, greed, and Christian Nationalism.

MAGA: I take bullet for you.

Okay, this is one of my favorites I’ve seen here.

Working through some more Pokémon Legends Z-A, with a sprinkling of Cyberpunk 2077 here and there.

It could happen to Steam one day. Definitely not any time soon. But as the company grows and ownership changes, there is the risk they could go public and IPO. After that point, it’s all downhill from there. However at this point in time and based on their history, GOG and Steam are both excellent platforms to do business with.

I didn’t start using GOG until I got a slap in the face with reality that I don’t own my games. I was ignorant and complacent back in the day when App Store purchases on Apple’s platform disappeared or I couldn’t download them again. “That sucks. Oh well. Damn.” is what I used to always say to myself over a decade ago. Funny that it took a beloved game - parts of it anyway - to where it finally sunk in how important digital ownership is.

Ubisoft is the company that taught me this valuable lesson. In August 2022, Ubisoft announced they would shut down legacy activation servers for their old single player games - https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/help/gameplay/article/decommissioning-of-online-services-september-2022/000102396. While multiplayer would disappear and was accepted (running online PvP servers for very old games doesn’t make financial sense), the termination of these servers would also mean that my DLC would disappear. I was a day one owner of Splinter Cell: Blacklist on Wii U, and I spent my hard-earned money buying all the content for it back in 2012. Ubisoft was going to take away parts of my video game on a physical disc sitting on my shelf, because if I tried to run the game and install the DLC, the console would make a call to an activation server that no longer existed and preclude me from accessing my paid for content. Now, all those video games sitting on my shelf from multiple console generations suddenly looked less permanent. How many of those single player games required online functionality to work? I always (and still today) buy cartridges and discs where possible because I believe physical copies are superior. Splinter Cell I purchased at least three times because I loved that game - on Wii U, on Uplay, and then on Steam. In 2022, Ubisoft shut down those activation servers and they took my purchases away from me forever. Now, I can only play parts of the game that I paid for. And Ubisoft doesn’t get my money any more (although they haven’t been for a long time since they keep release middling games).

Since that day, I learned a valuable lesson and have since directed most of my game purchases to GOG, where my GOG library has significantly skyrocketed past my Steam library.

P.S. - To this day, I still email Supergiant annually to beg them to release Hades on GOG, and show them the growing interest for their game in GOG’s Dreamlist: https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/hades-2020

This one along with the diversity wall mural at the FBI being painted over with gray paint.

The bundle is nice, but if you only want Wavetale, what you gonna do with all that Gunk?

Officially report your feedback to Apple here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/

This even works if you do it with your eyes closed. 🤯

My pleasure! Overall it’s a fantastic console - just not the right time to buy if you want exclusive first-party games. There’s hundreds of ports and idies though! We only purchased one because of upcoming tariffs, and somehow my spouse got in the retail lottery draw to purchase one right when the console launched. Had the console in our hands maybe two days after launch day. Ideally we would have bought one when the console hit about two years old and there were more games to play. But to me, it’s not a big deal since we’re patient (and we have other consoles and PCs anyway).

So far we have Donkey Kong Bananza and the upcoming Pokémon Legends Z-A game (it’s in the mail).

DK Bananza is excellent. It’s no Astro Bot or Super Mario Odyssey, but it’s a damn good game, and incredibly fun. I’d give it an 8/10. Pokémon… I’m optimistic it’ll be good overall. I’ve avoided spoilers so I’m looking forward to playing it once I finish my Cyberpunk 2077 playthrough.

Edit: Completely forgot about Mario Kart World or Tour or whatever it’s called. This one’s alright overall. Think I like Mario Kart 8 more, but I’ve been playing that once since it debuted on Wii U.

Edit 2: The console itself is very premium. Build quality is leagues better than Switch 1. Performance is very good and it handles games well. We play docked on the TV and my spouse plays it in handheld sometimes. Significant improvement over Switch 1. Would recommend it in the future once there are more games for it. We play PC, PS5, Nintendo, and Xbox.

You mean there’s another way?!

I own ~670 games on GOG and lease 292 on Steam.

I’ve played maybe five of my GOG games to completion. I’m a gamer, dammit!

Thanks. Finished doing research and reading more into this. As I understand it, CD Projekt Red (developer) promised no crunch time to employees, and then implemented it anyway for a period right before launch. Then did some mass layoffs after Cyberpunk launched while they struggled to right the ship and get the game in a stable state.

Never knew about this history which is sad, but I only grabbed the game since it was on sale a few weeks ago.

I do see some good happening there now. CD Projekt Red committed to no crunch time during the development of Phantom Liberty and offered it only as voluntary for employees, which was true and they met that commitment. They also stabilised the game. And finally the employees successfully unionised after the 2023 layoffs.

Small light at the end of the tunnel, but shameful practices with crunch time and abusing employees. No way in hell would I ever work 100 hours in a week for my job, severely and recklessly sacrificing my health and safety, even if it is “my dream job”. Companies need to delay their games by a few weeks rather than crunch their employees.

https://www.polygon.com/23909710/cd-projekt-red-union-layoffs/

I’m playing Cyberpunk 2077 now for the first time and having a great time. Sincere question: why don’t you have respect for players?

I have a Garmin fitness watch that only vibrates to wake me up. It’s mildly annoying since it is not as gentle as my old Apple Watch from many years ago. The Apple Watch’s vibration alarm felt like a finger gently tapping my wrist. It was a nice way to gently wake up without disturbing my partner. My Garmin watch vibrates entirely on the lowest setting. I can also hear it audibly vibrate, too.

Edit: fixed typos from mobile keyboard typing

This is the supported and safest method: a full reinstall of the Operating System.

The unsafe method is for a user modifying their registry while applying an LTSC upgrade patch to 10. Windows is pretty janky so I wouldn’t recommend this.

For anyone affected by this, I recommend backing up all your data anyway. If you’re hard stuck with Windows, pick 10 LTSC and reinstall the OS. You’ll be supported for several more years with security updates. Much better than picking the temporary bandage solution of enrolling in ESU and tackling the problem again next year. If you’re not stuck with Windows, pick a Windows-like and user friendly Linux distribution like Linux Mint and you’ll be good to go. Best onboarding ramp for ex-Windows users that need the familiarity of Windows and want a stable experience that “just works”.