Considering Ubisoft is struggling to stay relevant after saying players should feel comfortable with not owning games anymore, poor sales with Star Wars: Outlaws, and the controversy over their upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows game, I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to draw people back to their games right now. Achievements bring some replayability to their old titles.
An anonymous third person is interviewing Red and the wolf separately. We’re bouncing between their two interviews, seeing both of their reactions to the same situation.
The interview is a way for the comic artist to tell this awkward version of the Red Riding Hood story without actually showing it.
The situation is about the wolf “eating grandma” (a euphemism for a sex act). Which is why Red is traumatized by walking in on them.
The wolf is probably being defensive, hence why he keeps asking the interviewer to “listen.” He’s trying to make his case as plainly and directly as he can and he wants the interviewer to pay attention.
I mean, Disney put out a casting call several years ago for little people to fill the dwarf roles for a live action Snow White. But Peter Dinklage balked at it, claiming that it was oppressive to cast little people just because they’re little and not giving them serious acting roles based on skill or merit.
However, a lot of little people in Hollywood got mad at Peter Dinklage for ruining job opportunities for them, because they’re rarely cast for anything else and they had no problem taking the roles based solely on their height.
But it was too late; Disney pulled the casting to avoid controversy and now we’re stuck with this CGI abomination to replace little people in this film.
My mother used to work a state govt job. I don’t think she ever had a “take your kid to work” day, but there were a few times when she brought me into the office for the day. She was the manager of an entire wing of her building, so she could just bring me in anytime and no one said anything about it.
Her coworkers were always so nice and had apparently heard all about me because they all seemed to know me intimately. I sometimes wondered if her coworkers were only nice to me because I was the boss’s kid. But my mom was a genuinely nice person who was always looking out for others, so I wouldn’t be surprised if her coworkers actually liked her.
Sometimes I’d get tours of various offices, sometimes my mom would just set me up with something to do to entertain myself. I drew a lot in my childhood, and my mother would always put up my artwork in her office to show off to her coworkers.
My dad ran his own business and as long as I could remember, it was just him and his secretary renting out a large office space in the cities. He had a partner originally, but his partner died really young, so my dad was left with the whole company to run himself. Fortunately, my mom’s govt job paid the bills, so my dad didn’t need to make a ton of money with his small business.
Every time I went to my dad’s office, he would set me up at a computer near his secretary and I would spend the day either playing Wolfenstein 3D or Pac-Man. This was back in the early '90s, so you had to boot these games from a command line. The computers themselves were Windows 3.11 or so.
EDIT: I never had kids of my own, and I retired young, so I won’t ever get to experience taking my kids to work.
I was raised on skim milk, thanks to my mother who was constantly dieting throughout my childhood. 2% milk tastes like liquid ice cream to me. Skim is much more refreshing.
Also, it was fun to freak out my friends by hydrating with milk after exercising. Skim milk is mostly water anyway.
Ahh… at the time, I could only find it on PS2. I had never seen a copy for any other console.
Still, my statement stands. I need a PC port!
I’m atheist (and used to be extremely Christian once upon a time) and I’ve always celebrated Christmas. I’ve never seen it as a religious holiday, even though Christians try to claim it as their own. It was originally Saturnalia, and has more lore behind it that doesn’t line up with Christian beliefs. Like, who is Santa Claus in Christianity? They literally just took an already established holiday and claimed it for their religion to pull in more followers to their faith. Nah, I’m gonna keep celebrating Christmas without the Christ part. It’s a fun holiday that doesn’t need religion poisoning it.
Is anybody else just Not planning on gift-giving this year?
I’ve always been awkward about mandatory gift-giving situations, like birthdays and Christmas. I prefer to give gifts in the moment, from the heart, that people really need. Not gifts because the situation demands it from me.
As such, I tend to avoid gift-giving for specific holidays and events and tell everyone to avoid giving me gifts in return. I usually buy everything I want for myself anyway, and I hate receiving gifts I never asked for. What am I going to do with a trinket, or daily calendar, or a light-up desk toy? Maybe it’s the ADHD in me, but I like to plan and organize my home and other spaces, and receiving gifts I didn’t ask for messes up my structure. I don’t want to be a jerk, but if you give me a non-functional gift, it’s likely going in the trash the first opportunity I get.
My wife and I are already talking about getting a divorce (due to other long-standing issues) and things have been tense in the household for some time now.
Sounds like you have more on your plate than worrying about gift-giving this year. My recommendation is to give your kids and niblings (nieces and nephews) some simple gifts at a minimum. Don’t ruin their Christmas because the rest of your family are treating you like crap. They aren’t to blame, and they shouldn’t be roped into the drama. If anything, avoiding giving them gifts is just more ammo your family can use to turn them against you.
Keep the peace with the innocent bystanders, but I would totally forego gifts for the rest of your family. Save that money and buy yourself something nice instead. (Or save for a divorce lawyer if you need one)
By the way, I took these three screenshots in order during my gameplay. While reviewing them later, I thought they were hilarious out of context. Enjoy!
For single player games, I don’t see why players shouldn’t be able to play on their own pace.
Agreed, I always hate when games force me to rush an event or situation. I’m here to have fun! Let me enjoy it at my own pace!
Although I think the days in this game are plenty long enough. Just when I’m getting tired from running around, I realize it’s evening time in-game. It’s mostly morning that comes too soon. Once I’m prepped for the next day, I don’t have much time to run around and explore before it’s time to reopen the tavern.
I could just close earlier, but the more stuff I sell each day, the more money I have to work with for the next day. Upgrades cost money to unlock, so I’ve been saving up to expand the tavern. I haven’t bought any decorations and I only bought more tables so I can sell to more customers at a time. Although I don’t get enough customers to fill all the seats right now.
- Epic wants to be Steam’s direct rival, so their storefront has many of the same features, but it’s not as popular within the community. I honestly have no opinion about them.
I have an opinion on them. They’re a terrible company with anti-gamer friendly policies.
I have no problem with competition. It keeps businesses legit and cheap/reasonable for consumers. Heck, GOG does a great job as a companion storefront with Steam.
Epic Games could have tried to be competitive too and provide a similar or better platform for games. But instead, they wanted to corner the market and steal gamers from Steam, so they started pushing exclusivity contracts with publishers. New games would come to only their storefront for the first year, then release to other PC storefronts after that.
Then they started publishing games themselves, which kept them isolated to their storefront indefinitely. Even game series that were released to other consoles and PC platforms suddenly had a sequel that was stuck on Epic Games. I’m looking at you, Alan Wake II.
Or worse, buying up IPs and removing them from other storefronts, like Fall Guys and Rocket League.
They also tried to pull people in by releasing a new game for free every week (even AAA titles!), which was actually the coolest thing they ever did. But it doesn’t excuse all their other anti-gaming practices. If anything, it made me feel dirty using their platform.
I have never given Epic Games a penny of my money and until they decide to be competitive with Steam instead of just stealing the market from them, I will continue to boycott them.
I’m not alone in this mindset. Ubisoft was releasing games exclusively on Epic Games for a while and they’ve just decided that their newest Assassin’s Creed game will release on Steam, due to poor sales on Epic. Also, Alan Wake II had dismal sales because it’s locked behind Epic’s storefront. So a lot of other gamers aren’t willing to put up with Epic Games’ BS and their model is crumbling.
Epic is what happens when a corporation pops up expecting to make money off gamers. Steam is what happens when someone who is a gamer themselves and appreciates the gaming experience creates a store for gamers. I have given thousands of dollars to Steam over the years and have a massive library of their games. I only have a few free games on Epic and I won’t even install their launcher anymore. As a consumer, I vote with my wallet, and Epic needs to get with the program or go away.
I would highly recommend not starting with phone games. 90% of them are designed to be addicting, borderline gambling games, which you can collect or accomplish more things if you just pay them an easy $2 or more… which quickly turns into $20, which then becomes $50+. Before you know it, you’re throwing hundreds of dollars at what is essentially a repetitive unending game, just for the dopamine hit.
I know; my wife is addicted to these games and I see $20 charges to our bank account every few days. Nothing ever changes in her games. She never progresses anywhere and there’s no end to the game, but it gives her a boost on scores or collectibles or rare limited items, so she drops the money. It’s been especially hard to break her of the habit.
I got her to sign up for Steam on her desktop PC and I gifted her a few co-op games, and so we play games online together to give her something fun to do that doesn’t require spending money to progress. She used to be awful at FPS games, but playing with me gave her more confidence and practice, and now she’s pretty decent.
She really loves Deep Rock Galactic, because a lot of the game is just mining and resource-collecting, with only a little alien bug shooting. She plays as the engineer, so she can set up a turret and not have to worry too much about aiming herself. Plus, playing solo means she gets Bosco, the flying droid, to help her with combat and resource-collecting too. If I’m not around to play with her, she has all the assistance she needs to relax and enjoy the game. It was a very good intro to video games for her.
Lemmy is my main social media account. I also switched from Reddit when Spez killed third party apps, and I won’t go back. I use Sync for Lemmy on my phone and tablet. I paid for the lifetime Ultra account, because that’s how much of a “fuck you” I wanted to give Spez. I’ll gladly pay the $100 for an alternative ad-free app than use Reddit’s free app.
I also use Imgur, although it’s been suffering from enshittification ever since Sarah and the team sold it. I can’t even save a post without getting a pop-up asking to subscribe to the user or follow similar content tags. Or downvote without being asked if I want to block the user or related tags. Just let me do the thing and move on! Stop trying to customize my experience! I’m still able to block their ads, thanks to my VPN service, but they built a dedicated ad space at the bottom of the app that I can’t make go away. So a section of the bottom of my Imgur screen is unusable black space. I miss being able to use my full screen to browse images.
I still have Facebook, but only because everyone I know from my childhood until now is there and it’s my main way of staying in touch with people. If I dump Facebook, I’ll have practically no one left in my life, except for my sister, wife, and maybe two friends. If I need social engagement concerning something going on in my life, I’ll post it there. But I don’t use it much.
I have LinkedIn and spent years keeping my profile up to date and super detailed, expecting to need some good references and a solid history of experience and accomplishments. But then I retired at 38 years old and found out I don’t need to work anymore, so it’s just been collecting dust for the last 2 years now. I still get the occasional request to connect from someone offering to help me find a job (I’m a veteran), but I don’t need their assistance. I’m quite happy being retired young.
I have a Discord server I built for my closest friends to stay in touch, but only 2 people regularly interact on it. I subscribed to maybe 30+ other random servers, but I mute pretty much all of them so I’m not inundated with Discord notifications all the time.
I have Twitch, but mostly used it to stream the games I’m playing when I’m bored. I’m happy if I get 1 or 2 views. I do it just for the fun of it, not to build a following or anything.
I have NextDoor, but there are thousands of people in my town who use it regularly, so it’s hard to stay in touch with my “neighbors.” I mostly ignore it unless I’m trying to find suggestions for something local.
I made a Bluesky account last year; got an invite from a friend before it opened up to everyone. But I hardly ever used Twitter in the past. I always felt like it was pointless unless you were a celebrity with tons of followers. So I’m having trouble thinking of ways to use Bluesky now.
I have Instagram, but only because Facebook merged my account with Instagram when they bought it. I’ve never used it, not even to browse others’ content there.
I made a Snapchat account in high school, but never used it. That was over 20 years ago. Back then, Snapchat was just used to share selfies, and I didn’t like taking selfies so I had no use for it. Is Snapchat still a thing?
I had a MySpace account when I was a teenager, but I guess the site got sold sometime in the past decade or two. I kinda forgot about it, and the last time I went to check it out, it was a totally different site and didn’t recognize my login anymore.
I made an account on Pixelfed last year to share pictures, but I don’t really have anything to share right now. I only remembered I had the account because I just now found their app in my phone.
I use Patreon, mostly just to follow a few people I know and support them.
I worked as an IT guy in the military, and we were explicitly banned from using TikTok when it became popular, because it was a Chinese spyware program and they didn’t want it stealing data on US military members. When you installed it, we found that it embedded itself in your phone in a way that was extremely difficult to fully remove, then granted itself full access to your phone and started trickling your data to Chinese servers. It was a massive security vulnerability, which is why President Biden pushed to block TikTok from the US. But the app was so popular, he got a lot of pushback and it never got blocked. It’s still wildly popular, but I’ll never touch that program.
Not at all. I believe the game was actually made for English audiences because the speaking animations seem to match the English subtitles and look like a bad dub in French. There is a lot of French in the background, but it’s more like immersive world details. The important stuff is either place names that are explicitly mentioned, like the Saint-Michel Rotunda in the first screenshot, or written in English. Heck, I think there’s more English in that first screenshot than French.
Yeah, that $950 was already 2 years of payments, which OP was complaining about “investing” in his games. Where are they coming up with an additional $200 per month?! At that point, why not just invest that $200/mo and keep enjoying your games?
EDIT: OP changed their math literally a minute after I posted this. It makes more sense now.
Oh my god! I used to read Sam & Fuzzy about 2 decades ago when I was a teenager! I didn’t realize the strip was still running. It got weird for a while and the main characters disappeared for about a year of strips, so I kind of lost interest. I wonder what’s happened in the last 20 years. It looks like it was rebooted about 15 years ago, and I don’t recognize any characters in recent strips.
For Karl!
The Driller I regularly play with has a nasty habit of abandoning our group to go drill tunnels where we don’t need tunnels. He’s always looking to take shortcuts directly to his objective instead of following the caves.
Then, when we’re trying to run to the drop pod, Molly will just go straight up one of his tunnels in the ceiling, where we can’t follow. Then we’re frantically running around, trying to find another route to the drop pod without Molly’s flags.
Oh, and he fights every large bug with C4, nearly killing us all in the process.
I’ll get there one day… but it’ll be a while before I have the free time and motivation to slog through it again.
Good to know, thanks!
I love that the photo is grainy, as if there’s so much radiation in the air that he can’t get a clear picture of it.