Video Games

Probably would if I didn’t feel like dabbling in Elden Ring! But they’re pretty grindy and not the sort of thing you can just buy a carry for. Might see if there are any speedy rotations going tonight, though.

I don’t know how you feel but this league was one of the best yet for me. The new mapping system with the voidstones > juggling influence and managing conquerors. The atlas tree is such a game changer in keeping the game fresh.

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Yeah, I think it’s even better than Ritual, and I played the shit out of that league. The game is in a really good spot right now. I could quibble that the new bosses are too easy (outside of the sludge land which is just stupid), and the Archnemesis mechanic is unintuitive when it comes to finding components you want (like, it could be pure RNG where you can play any map and get the components eventually, or know you need to run particular maps to get what you need, but the unhappy middle where you need to know where to go but may still need to run a dozen maps to get the component you want kinda sucks, and there’s no guidance other than dozens of iterations of dozens of maps or reading the internet to indicate this), but those are my only real complaints with the league and state of the game. I guess they’ll also nerf scarab abundance, but man, it feels awesome to have the +EV thing to be to just use them rather than being priced to sell them to someone with a more sophisticated and juiced setup than you have.

There’s a lot to love, though. The top of the metagame isn’t suuuuper diverse, but there is a lot that’s pretty good. It’s not just aurastackers, stat stackers, and cast on crit. Defenses are in a good spot. Re-speccing your atlas depending on where you are in your progression feels great. The voidstones boosting maps was an A+ change. Getting all your atlas passives in every map instead of 1/4 of them in each 1/4 of them feels amazing. Almost never needing to trade for maps in order to continue early progression is better still. Brainless alch and go mapping is really rewarding. Heavily optimized juicing is also worth it. Almost all league mechanics feel profitable if you make the obvious investments, so you can just invest in what you like to the degree you want without feeling like you are falling far behind people focusing on others (like Harvest dominated in Ritual league).

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I have an NVIDA GEFORCe RTX 3070 laptop driver, but I don’t remember how much memory it has

My wife used to play Crash Team Racing and Bust a Move on Playstation with me.

(she’s still alive - the “used to” just means she does not play video games)

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Fuuuuuuuuck

I know nobody plays sports games after the new version comes out, but Prime Gaming has Madden 22 for free on Origin right now. I haven’t played Madden in a million years - played the mobile version for a couple years a while back - but I’ll pick this up and see if I can have some fun with it. Maybe the Packers can win in the playoffs with me at the helm.

I haven’t played a lot of open world games, but what I liked about BOTW was you could see something from far in the distance and get there eventually. Might not have a lot around you at first and I liked that?

Most time I put into an RPG was FO3 and that’s very different.

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So I just discovered this is a Jazz song from 1978…

My mind is blown

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Elden Ring spun off into its own thread here.

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/elden-ring-friendship-circle/7669/156

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Damn, did they sue and get a piece of that chedda?

Well, the cool kids just started Forbidden West

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Anyone here collect / play retro on original hardware? Trying to weigh the pros and cons of selling everything I have versus HODLING. Most of my favorite consoles are emulated quite well now except N64, so it’s not like I’m totally locked out from ever playing them again. In fact, I’m already using emulators b/c I don’t feel like hooking all of it up.

I haven’t played in a while because my wife has taken over our home office during COVID, but I was collecting pre-pandemic. Nothing individually pricey and mostly focused on gathering up consoles rather than trying to get tons of games.

I collect to keep, not sell (though seeing the Virtual Boy’s market price makes it tempting). Even if I never/rarely play them, I like just being able to see all my consoles.

I also have some of the mini consoles like the NES classic and do use a Wii as an emulator, especially for stuff that is expensive, like GameCube games. For Dreamcast, I haven’t worried about trying to collect much because of price, so I’ve downloaded and burned lots of discs.

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What is Virtual Boy going for now? I only knew one person who had it and played it one time before it became collectible.

Pricecharting says a complete system is $564. Last time I checked it was $700, but I bet it fluctuates a lot because of small sample.

Mine is complete in box, almost unused. Got it for $20. Definitely my prize purchase. The pack-in Mario Tennis was included and the guy threw in another game (boxed) for kicks.

Where and when did you find it?

It’s definitely a rare piece that you don’t see much. I have a Sega CD Version 1 CIB which Pricecharting thinks is worth close to $1k. Can’t emphasize enough how unbelievably shitty that system is and how the price is driven strictly by its rarity. My recollection of it was that it was extremely finicky and didn’t even work 100% of the time. The actual playable ones are the V2 and CDx, but considerably more of those units exist. So that’s a system I’ll consider selling.

Craigslist four years ago. It was an odd journey.

Guy said he had a mint Virtual Boy in the box. Don’t remember what the original price was, but when I e-mailed him, he said he had an offer for $120 and would like it sold by the next day. I told him I could match that - I didn’t feel like getting into an e-mail bidding war - and he agreed to sell it to me.

So we set a location and time at a gas station. I waited an hour and he never showed up. He had my cell, but I only had his e-mail address. I e-mailed him a few times, but he never responded. He wrote back that night to apologize and we decided to try again the next day.

I also asked him to confirm that the system worked and he said yes. He got it as a gift in 1996, played it a couple times, then boxed it back up and it’s been in a chest ever since.

So I went to the same location the next day and didn’t see him after 25 minutes. I e-mailed him and he wrote back, saying he was just there. After maybe another 20 minutes, we finally met. The guy said he thought he saw me earlier, but wasn’t sure if it was me. Umm…my dude…I told you what kind of car I was driving and you could just come up and ask.

At any rate, we popped some batteries in and guess what? The screen didn’t work properly. I looked it up and it’s apparently a fairly common problem and an easy fix, but I didn’t feel like spending $120 on it. I said thanks, but no thanks.

He offered to drop the price to $100, but I said no. We shook hands and he left. I sat in the car a few minutes and called my wife and he returned to tell me that he was going to list it again on Craigslist the next day for $80, but he’d sell it to me for that right now. I said no again. Just didn’t feel like dealing with it.

The next morning, I saw his new post. $20. I immediately e-mailed him and said I’d buy it. As it turned out, my son was sick from school that day, so I threw him in the car and we went back to the gas station. The guy came around the corner - apparently, he lives nearby and doesn’t have a cell phone, hence the shitty e-mail communication - with the system in pillow case.

I bought it for $20 and that was that. He threw in an in-box Vertical Force, which Pricecharting says is worth around $50 right now. The entire system is complete with documentation, warranty card, and everything. It just has that video issue, which is apparently caused by adhesive on a couple ribbon connectors drying up. It can supposedly be fixed by heating them up in the oven or even with a hair dryer to remelt the glue. I’ll probably try it at some point. For now, the box is just on display in my office.

All told, we e-mailed back and forth more times than the number of dollars I paid.

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Lmao craigslist crackheads. Screen thing should be easy but ffs don’t put it in an oven plz.