1822 Mourning Person.

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At this point they’re just torturing Mike with their nonsense.

I got an xbox one with some xmas giftcards then proceeded to have a mental breakdown that makes it impossible to play the game I have for it. so It’s been sitting silently for months. Today I realized I could get Overwatch if I wanted and see what the hype is all about, but I think maybe it will just suck. Can you guys argue pro and con for me?

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long time lurker/fan here. overwatch is GREAT if you play casually and are just looking to burn time with some fun shooting. competitive level stuff is the saltiest place on earth though.

I don’t know. Overwatch killed IAMARG!…

What’s IAMARG?

It was a web-comic that stopped in 2016, run by Andrew Gregoire. Looks like he stepped away to game and enjoy himself, not sure what else was involved in that decision.

I think it may have something to do with becoming a responsible parent and realizing that he isn’t as organized as he thought he was. So he just was not able to make any time for it since.

Did you pick up State of Decay? I remember you saying that was one of 2 games you’d be getting, I think? The second one is out in May, and is included in that $10/month game pass so you don’t have to fork over $60 for it. Might be fun to set up a few multiplayer sessions with readers, if you pick that one up too.

That’s the only game I wanted to play, but unfortunately when I get into these high anxiety times I can’t play it because it triggers some kind of weird panic response in my brain. It’s pretty annoying for a game I’ve enjoyed so much and play so much to suddenly not be able to enjoy it.

Yeah, I can appreciate that would be really frustrating, which won’t help with the anxiety at all. There are a lot of good games out for the XBox though that aren’t nearly so stressful, so don’t be disheartened. Maybe have a look and see if something a little less intense catches your eye for now?

Yeah, this! There are several great games for Xbox One; there’s Skyrim, and Fallout 4, and the game that may be the best thing Xbox One ever came out with: Sunset Overdrive. It’s like a Mountain Dew commercial that’s constantly trying to kill you with adorable mascots and hilariously overpowered weaponry!

It is an absolute joy. I have played it start to finish several times, and love how it so completely approximates a zombie apocalypse. Empty towns, lootable almost everything, and occasional influxes of heavily-armed assholes who want you to engage in morally questionable behavior!

If the idea of SOD intrigues you, look into “Dead State.” Basically X-Com in a zombie apocalypse. Very, very good IMHO. :)

My advice: rent first to see if you like it, then if you do… buy it.

I’ve actually fallen afoul of kusoge before. The Virtual Console had a game called “China Warrior” for the TG-16, and man did it STINK!

My advice is to play Mystery Heroes in the Arcade section of the game. You are randomly assigned a hero character at the start of each match and then everytime you die. So you get a chance to try everything out in a trial by fire scenario (in my opinion, thats the best way to learn). But try out each hero in the practice range to get a feel for them. Luckily everyone uses about the same buttons for the same things (with a couple of outliers). I mainly play on PC though, so I’m no good with controllers in First person, so I can’t give much more advice than that.

I was going to make the same suggestion. Mystery heroes gets your skill levels up fast across all the characters. I’ve played off and on with the X-box one since it came out.

Overwatch is good if you like arena shooters like TF2, even if you’re not that great at them. I’m one who typically becomes grossly outraged with my own lack of skill and incredibly frustrated with lackluster teams. With Overatch, however, I find this effect greatly diminished. I don’t know if it’s the pacing, the artwork, the relative short lengths of matches or whatever it is, but it doesn’t rile up my anxiety as much as most multiplayer games. Blizzard has also done a pretty good job balancing their maps and the Heroes are also been balanced out pretty well for the most part and they actively stay on top of it.

It can be addicting with the whole “One more match” thing, if you fall into that a lot, and the Competitive playlists can get pretty toxic at times, but much less so in Quick play or Arcade. It can also be frustrating to get a Hero to work right for you or find one that clicks with you, but it’s rewarding when you figure it out.

It’s not the end all be all of games with beams of light coming out of it’s ass like some people like to tout it as, but it is a solid, fun, and pretty game and a decent way to spend 30 minutes or 6 hours.

Ah yes, Overwatch.

Pros: multiple games modes to include the ability to create your own custom mode if you wish, wide array of characters so you can find something that fits your play-style and skillset, huge player base so finding matches even in off hours is usually not too big a deal. Has loot boxes, but they are cosmetics only; no play to win stuff like weapon upgrades, etc.

Cons: Blizzard game, and as such Blizzard player community. Add that on top of the usual personality issues induced by competitive ladder play….

Comp is one of the saltiest places on earth; followed by quickplay. If your character choice does not align with the current groupthink zeitgeist you are probably going to get all sorts of abuse and reports filed against you.

Which is why I recommend you spend your time in Arcade unless you have really thick skin and low blood pressure. Or you really like salt.

Mystery Heroes is one of the most popular Arcade modes and as a permanent spot in the Arcade mode selection due to that; it has its flaws but it voids 90% of the community induced issues that other modes the rest of the game can have.

Have you tried The Witcher 3?

I’m not familiar with the series really.

It’s one of the best RPG series I know of, but the bar to entry for the first two games is quite steep. It takes two forms–firstly, esoteric game systems (Witcher 1 in particular); secondly, figuring out WTF is going on. All the information is there if you read the in-game books and the stuff in the journal, but it’s very much jumping in on the deep end.

The pros of the Witcher series are threefold: 1) Amazing writing and characters. 2) Unique game world that draws on a slightly different Zeitgeist than our usual Western fantasy. 3) Continuity of your save across the trilogy, just like Mass Effect.

From what I’ve heard, while having played the first two games beforehand is appreciated, you can play the third without much loss. In your experience, is it true ?

Personally, I’ve only played the first and I loved it to bits. Its fighting system is indeed unusual, which an experienced gamer might find frustrating, but it’s not that difficult: I have little experience with the genre (being myself more of a puzzle-reflexion, point&click kind of gamer) yet I finished the game on normal difficulty.

I must admit it’s not for the gameplay that I kept playing, though, but for the mood and the stories.

I never really play the first two games much. In my opinion, you don’t lose much if you havn’t played the first two (having played it on the Xbone), if the story details are that important, then look them up online.

…”you can play the third one alone without much loss”. Frigging air-head who forgets to write all the words…

Unrelated-

I’ve just found out that the toy store [chain], Toys R Us, is going out of business. I’m kind of sad to hear that, but they’ve been struggling for awhile.

It’s kind of like this- there used to be an A + W root beer [R] fast food restaurant, near me, but that place went bust, + I can no longer go to it. Sometimes it’s sad to see a place go, a place that you had a lot of fun going to. :(

Sometimes it is just the changing economic times in an area [a franchise dies] and sometimes it is just gross incompetency in upper management [Kodak] – more times than not it is the latter.

Just look at what happens to small multi generational businesses. At some point there is nobody in the next generation willing/able to continue onward.

TRU’s issues are more related to the leveraged buyout back 2005 (or so) as much or more than anything else. It just saddled them with so much debt that it hindered there ability to get thru a cycle of incompetent management. If it were just the fact that they had management that was unable to compensate for market changes *OR* the debt load they could have had a chance to turn it around. As it is they failed to adapt or be competitive for ages now, I am somewhat surprised it took as long as it did for them to fail. I expect Sears will be next (not a shock to many) as the guy that owned Kmart and bought them has been sucking it dry for ages now, this is another company that has actually hung on long than I expected, but they owned more real estate and product lines that have been pillaged drawing out the process.

I actually work at Sears, and they throw around the word ‘restructuring’ all the time. Over the last couple years we went from a bustling staff to a paper thin layer of coverage that barely gets the job done. And floor staff gets the blame for not being able to compensate for it. It’s all corporate sucking as many dollars as it can out of its stores till they wither out and finally close. I gel with their mood over the whole situation, nothing to really do but ride the ride and wait till it hits a wall or jump off. (Currently trying to jump off, lol) I just get tired of the BS. Poor Mike is trapped on a raft of optimism waiting for the scapegoat to come sink it, while our managers just feed us crap to either scare us or assure us that we’re both fine and need to work harder to keep our jobs. Whatever they think will keep their own raft afloat.

Sorry, not being a gamer, I can’t suggest anything. My latest game console is an Intellivision I’ve had since, I think, 1983, with an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons cartridge.

Not stressful…

Wow, that brings back memories, I wore out three Intellivision consoles, along with repairing/rebuilding many controllers. it was my go to until I got my first Amiga. I was a local celebrity when I wrapped Astro Smash.

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