Today's game is some more Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare. I did the Sasquatch quest today. This quest always makes me feel bad because the poor guy didn't deserve it. I tried to put him out of his misery, but accidentally still had the Explosive rifle equipped. I shot him and it blew up but he survived and ran away. I suppose he wanted to live so i let him go.

This isn't the first time i made this mistake because i accidentally shot a Sasquatch with an explosive rifle while hunting them too. With my tendency to make firearm mistakes, it makes me glad i don't have any interest in owning them in real life. My dumb ass wouldn't be able to trust myself with them. At least the Sasquatches death looked relatively painless? I'm not about to start googling whether being blown up instantly is a painless death but it was near instant so i hope he went peacefully.

I found out at the beginning of the quest that the God at the end of the story actually follows you throughout the entire game, and she's actually in this cutscene too. Another instance i realized was the one in Armadillo where she's looking through a window while talking to the sheriff. Far creepier shit.

After this i finally drove through the barricade into Mexico. Then i immediately went back after i caught a Retcher to turn it in for the quest. Then I went back to Mexico again to continue the main story. I doubt it will be the last time i cross the border though so i'm sure i'll end up there again.

CAST. FLY. FIGHT. COOPERATE. In intense 3V3 action-strategy battles, summon hundreds of creatures, cast devastating spells, and call upon the might of Titans to rise as the most powerful member of the community of Spellcasters, and shape the fate of the world. Together.

Looks cool.

Today's game is some more Undead Nightmare. I was doing the side missions i need to do in order to progress and i ended up finding War. It was a difficult job to break him. I don't think it takes more time for the Mythical ones but i did get bucked off the first time. Luckily i was able to get the horse wrangled up quickly and hopped back on, which was really lucky because i had some wolves hot on my tail.

I was also trying to get the Spitter for the Side Quest for the movie producer. I ended up redoing the tumbleweed graveyard, thinking i could just grab it and waltz out. Turns out when i saved it for last though, the zombie just decided it swallowed some fireworks and blew up on me.

I also saved all the towns as well. I thought having all them available for transport would be helpful, and i was right. It's saved a ton of time getting around. It made picking up the side quests especially easy. While i was saving this one particular settlement i found this dorky looking guy in a top hat.

I didn't realize i needed to do all this side stuff to progress the main story, but it does kind of check out. It'd be hard to do it as Zombie Marston. In a way though i'd suppose it's not really side content if you have to do it. Anyways, i hope to get the last few out of the way tomorrow.

A few days back I shared a post asking for suggestions on what PS2 games people here might recommend I play. Having not been one who played PS2 at any stage (it was a bit before my time), my experience with the systems and games is slightly limited.

What I did love though, was seeing how many here shared games they clearly loved, and who spent so long convincing me that what they recommended would be the perfect game. One thing I've learned...all of you in this community love the PS2!

Anyway, the only PS2 games I have played through have all been through PCSX2 - the ubiquitous and decades-old PlayStation 2 emulator. I've bumped the resolution, I've activated RetroAchievements, and I've applied HD texture packs. Each time I'm shocked at how amazing the games are, despite their age.

So, while I was setting my collection of games up I thought it might be nice to reach out to the PCSX2 team and ask if anyone wanted to chat about their experiences in creating and maintaining the emulator! Two of the devs (fobes and GovanifY) said they'd be more than happy to, and so I've got a little interview with them to share with you :)

If you're at all interested in reading it, the link is right here. The devs cover their history with the console, their history with developing the emulator, dev work in general, what the future will bring...and more besides. Hope you enjoy!!!

Today's game is Mario Kart 64. It's kind of spooky on Banshee Boardwalk, right? I actually just had a long day and wanted to relax (i've had my nose to the grindstone the last few days for an essay so i'm wiped). I tried to stay on theme for the month, it was surprisingly difficult to find something relaxing and quick to bite into. This was what i settled on.

I did get a little sidetracked against the actual racing portion with this light, For the technology at the time i wanted to see if it was actual lighting or if it just tinted the sprite yellow. I couldn't figure it out, but based on the lighting with the fish i think it might be a combination of both (notice the light glaring against the underside).

I also did bowser's castle which was the only thing close to spooky i could think of. I ended up stopping to look at the wall too. I think this one is just a baked in gradient though, Then again, i've seen some impressive shit on the N64 so it's possible. I'm not sure why they would though.

Several years ago I played Event[0]

It's a sci-fi exploration/"walking simulator" that sees you stranded on an abandoned luxury space vessel, with only the vessel's "AI", Kaizen, for company. You can free-type whatever you like, and Kaizen will respond as best 'he' can, being helpful or unhelpful at times, opening and closing doors for you, giving you back-story on the ship and the people on it if you ask the right questions.

I've been looking for other games that use natural-language interaction and really coming up dry. I found a couple of horror-genre PC-simulator games like s.p.l.i.t (creepy!) and the demo of No Players Online (which was really fun by the way) and while both of those showed fake "chat apps" in the screenshots which got my hopes up, they are 100% programmed where you just press (any) keys and a pre-determined message types out letter by letter.

I don't have my hopes up too high, because I realise that building this kind of interaction in a game is very difficult. It's probably not worth it unless it's the core focus of the game, and even then it's going to have big problems. Event[0] itself was terribly flawed, as it's clearly just using programmatic word matching, and often the responses are nonsensical or unrelated to what you asked.

That said, there were times it managed to shine, and in those moments it felt great, and I felt great for coming up with the right thing to ask, rather than being railroaded with predetermined options.

If you've got anything that might scratch a similar itch, please tell us about it :)

Main steam store page

I didn't even know it was a visual novel with turn based gameplay mechanics added in. I was pleasantly surprised as I was actually looking for a VN and wanted something unique. This was the unique I didn't know I was looking for. 🎁

This Next Fest runs until October 20, 10 am Pacific.

Today's game is some more Undead Nightmare. Look at that moon! I was out hunting for dessert sage for the Blunderbuss and saw it. I didn't realize it could get so damn bright. That's like "sky is super clear" levels of bright.

I ended up riding up to the river that borders where the second game's world is. I like seeing this kind of stuff. It's super fascinating to me. It appears at some point the river rose and became way faster. I wonder why? Maybe there was a dam built further upstream or something.

I ran into this guy who was feeding his wife who had turn. It reminded me a bit of John and his situation. Though, John didn't go off the deep end and start feeding Jack and Abigail people.

The final thing i got up to was the Paternal Pride mission. This is always the mission i remember from this DLC. something about climbing into the barn is just iconic too me. Though, this mission always unsettled me to be near the barn in the main game for some reason. I guess it just kind of stuck with me.

As i was climbing the barn i was kind of thinking about how i'd like to see a Zombie game that has Assassin's Creed's Parkour (the old one). I think it'd be an interesting combo assuming the Parkour is good.

And that's kind of all i got up too. Apparently the next mission has me going to Mexico, which i know is close to the end of the DLC. It's a lot faster than i had expected which is interesting. It's still a good time though, especially with all the side stuff added.

Do you find it to be a great successor and competitor to the Sims? Does it live up to your expectations as being a replacement for the Sims?

Look at that new stick!

The original thumbstick of the Steam Controller was always a bit imperfect. I bought my Steam Controller on day one, but a few years in, the soft-touch material on the stick started to flake off. That's gross!

Those flakes that rub off also don't help with gripping the stick. It already has a convex-shaped top, which I like less than a concave top. It always feels like I'm pushing the stick in some direction but my thumb is slowly slipping.

After almost a decade of putting up with this, I had enough. I looked around online and found that people had figured out how to upgrade that part of the Steam Controller, and it's actually decently easy and cheap.

Replacing the stick

It turns out the replacement sticks for the 8BitDo SN30 Pro fit perfectly in the Steam Controller!

The Steam Controller is held together with Torx T6 screws. I opened it up and carefully lifted up the mainboard, making sure not to harm the ribbon cable underneath. From there, I pulled the stock thumbstick cap off of the stick and slipped on the replacement one.

I now have a Steam Controller with a thumbstick that doesn't rub off and is even concave for better grip!

My notes on how to do this replacement yourself