What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

That sounds pretty cool but I have next to no trust in Ninja Theory...especially after Enslaved, which was just terrible. But there are some cool concepts in this. Maybe this weekend I'll check it out.

It's incredible how deceptively deep A-Train 9 is. I was making money, owned over fifty subsidiares and my city had reached a population of one hundred thousand. Sure my train network was way under capacity and I was heavily in debt but both of these issues seemed minor. It seemed fine until I realized how poorly managed my game is:

a) One of my commuter routes is so long that trains take three days to go around it
b) I have designed all my routes as commuter routes, leaving no room for faster trains
c) My city has massive coverage issues with big gaps in the middle
d) Train lines are mostly parallel to each other making transfers difficult
e) My biggest commerce poles are not connected to each other
f) Had I quadruple-tracked my main lines I could have done three times the work with a tenth of the effort
g) I've expanded stations only to leave tracks to nowhere

This game might have a steep learning curve but it's certainly worth it. Here's a picture of my city.

Erik Twice wrote: a) One of my commuter routes is so long that trains take three days to go around it
b) I have designed all my routes as commuter routes, leaving no room for faster trains
c) My city has massive coverage issues with big gaps in the middle
d) Train lines are mostly parallel to each other making transfers difficult
e) My biggest commerce poles are not connected to each other
f) Had I quadruple-tracked my main lines I could have done three times the work with a tenth of the effort
g) I've expanded stations only to leave tracks to nowhere

You made Los Angeles.

After 570 hours of Fallout 4 I took a break and dove into Skyrim. There's a firm familiarity between the two (seeing as FO4 was ported from Skyrim more or less*) though with enough annoyances in the UI (and of course no VATS) that took some time to get over. Still, it's been a comfortable transition and there's a lot of cool stuff to poke around in. Sure, one hole in the mountainside is pretty much the same as the next but I'm having fun playing Thief with sneak archery and generally wandering around looking for stuff to do.

I can't see myself sticking with this for another 550 hours but I'm enjoying it so far.

*people joke about Vertibirds always crashing near you in Fallout 4- they're re-skinned Skyrim dragons and follow similar behaviours.

Dark Brotherhood stuff in Skyrim is very fun, and it's basically a quest in itself just to find it.

Yeah I've been running around in the snazzy pajamas they gave me.

I didn't even know it was possible to spend 570 hours in Fallout 4. Bethesda games typically dry up if content after 130 hours or so.

Well, I'm used to making my own entertainment so the sandbox works well for that and I am still finding new places and things that they stashed in the game. Besides that, Fallout 4 has this "settlement building" aspect that you can delve into if you want to which is basically a giant Lego set for making buildings and defences and shops and stuff and I could spend an evening just building in that.

I've been playing some FTL again, I streamed a "bad ships run" yesterday in which I took awful ships and tried to win with them, without success. The problem is not that they are bad, per se, it's that they don't work. As in, the best course of action with them is to sell everything that makes them unique. Still it is very fun and some bad ships are fun in their uniqueness.

Streaming was fun too! Jeb actually joined in which I really appreciated. That said my English wasn't up to par, I was tired and kept thinking in Spanish. I still don't know how to handle languages while streaming. Twitch, like most other internet services, is designed by and for monolingual people so there are no easy ways to stream on several languages or to two different audiences :/

I've been really interested in Hellblade recently. It's got a good buzz, and what I've seen on streams look like it'll be a fun 8-10 hours. While I'm still pondering whether to get it, it did remind me that I got one of Ninja Theory's older games, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for peanuts in the Steam sales.

If I had to strip this game down to the essentials, I'd call it "Ico meets Prince of Persia." You play as Swole Andy Serkis in full Gurn Mode, and you're climbing, running and fighting to help yourself and the female NPC escape a future ruined New York City, populated (so far as I got) mostly by security mechs. The combat is very "Arkham" like (my only other frame of reference for the style of X+Y button attacks) where you swing a bo staff around, with kill-move closeups providing Maximum Gurn as Serkis' digital face pushes into the centre frame.

The Ico part is that you have this mostly passive female character that you direct with a menu to run to you, or cause a distraction, etc. So in that sense you're given control over this otherwise docile female NPC. But! In a narrative twist, this NPC had slapped the equivalent of an explosive collar on you at the start of the game, to secure herself from any threat you present*, and also to secure your help. So narratively you have this dichotomy where you (Serkis dude) are telling her what to do, in order to keep you both alive, but the ultimate power rests with her. It's an interesting way to skirt the issues of passive female sidekick. Maybe they want to have their cake and eat it too, I can't say yet, but I liked the concept.

I haven't got very far in the game but so far it's been a pleasant combination of puzzling out tactical approaches to each area. Navigation is (so far) pretty obvious, with strategically placed pipes, poles and handholds. The tactical element is in when to use your own, or your sidekick's distraction actions to draw fire to/from you. Then there's the button mashing combat which feels solid and kinetic.

I've had a good time with it in the couple of hours I've spent so far- already good value for the couple of dollars it cost. Not too shabby.

*There's a nice moment in the opening of the game, where you're running through a crashing space ship through security doors, trying to reach escape pods. In one scripted moment, the woman closes a door in front of you, and you hammer on it, pleading with her to open it. The "camera" cuts to her perspective, and you see this hulking brute of a man hammering the door with his fists and yelling inaudibly. You get a sense then of the threat you appear to be to her, and of course it sets up the game-mechanic convenience of attaching the two characters via the slave device later.

That sounds very nice JEM. I have it in my library. Have to find time to play it. BTW, the collar matches the folklore. The monk had Sun Go Kong wear a crown that will squeeze his head if a specific prayer is recited.

I should have said it was a head-band thing, just seemed easier to reference shock collars etc.

Anyway, I got pulled back into Fallout 4- the game that keeps on giving. I played over 350 hours before installing any mods, now I have 50 or so. Everything in this picture except the glasses is a mod. Character mesh, skin, tattoos, eyes, hair, hat, mask, clothes, pipboy and AK74M rifle. I also run an overhaul mod that changes combat to be more dangerous (and re-implements ballistics for projectile guns), reworks all perks, changes NPC factions etc. I'm also in the middle of running through a mod someone made that adds a whole bunch of extra quests based around a building and characters they created. Sure it's not as polished perhaps as the Bethesda stuff, but I love how these games let people create more stuff.

All of you should buy PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds so we can squad up.

I fired up DOOM again last night. I've had some video game ennui lately, nothing has been doing it for me. But then, there again, is DOOM in all its glory. It is almost perfect. There is no watching, only doing. The upgrade mechanics are not overwrought and overcomplicated. No microtransactions. There is no boring, lame ass and uninteresting "crafting". No side quests. It doesn't try to force you into multiplayer lobbies with 13 year old future alt right motherfuckers. It's all killer and no filler.

It's made me want to circle back to Wolfenstein, there's a two pack coming out next week with both of those, I'mma get it. I think it will be therapeutic Especially in the current political climate where suddenly bona fide Nazis are in positions of power.

You will love that. Both of the recent Wolfenstein games are excellent. They aren't non-stop action like Doom, but the boss battles are better and the characterizations are very good. B.J., in particular.