dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️

My account is so old I have (or had, before they normalized the format) a four digit steam ID. I “owned” Half Life 2 for like four months before it released thanks to getting a code free in the box with my Radeon 9800 Pro back in the day. For a short and glorious flash of time in the summer of 2004, I was guaranteed a copy of the most hotly anticipated game ever, even though nobody could play it yet, and also owned an example of the fastest video card on the planet. Damned if I didn’t mow a fuckton of lawns and reinstall Windows and Outlook an a horde of septuagenarians’ computers to afford that card.

And no, they do not stop asking about your age.

Neat, but.

Even HL: Alyx left us with just as much of a cliffhanger as the end of HL2 Episode 2…

I’ve always considered the six switch variant more iconic, but my six switch one is also the one I’ve got that doesn’t work. So there’s that.

From squinting at it, all the blocks appear to be 8x8.

I already have it, and the source code. It’s too late for Nintendo.

This port scales the graphics down to the GB’s resolution. I imagine it takes a lot of CPU cycles just to rearrange the graphics data into the Game Boy’s 8x8 tile structure in display RAM. Either that, or it’s precomputed and the ROM is huge.

What would make anyone think they’re downscaling graphics in real time on the Gameboy of all things? The graphics have been flat out redrawn to better fit the Gameboy’s lower screen resolution.

For anyone wondering, here’s the first little bit of what 1-1 looks like:

Look at that doofy goomba.

INB4 “But Mario Bros. DX already exists.”

I dig how the graphics have been reworked and tile size reduced to provide roughly the same field of view as on the NES.

CIVIVI knives are generally pretty legit. Trust me, I can go much more mall ninja if you like.

This leaps to mind.

Knives are prohibited

Tru fax, I am never working where you do, ever, so long as I live. I’d melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, I’m sure.

Gee, for the same money… a digital brontosaurus for Orc Game that you need to pay a recurring subscription to actually use, can be taken away from you at any time, or one day the servers may simply be turned off erasing not only your “investments” but also your years of “work.” Or, I don’t know, a CIVIVI Hyperpulse with a groovy pattern welded blade that also happens to be a physical object you can actually hold in your hands and keep forever. Just to pick something out of a hat.

What a tough choice!

You can just send 'em back and buy something else. Amazon will take any damn fool thing back.

We could only hope.

Shout out to B&H. I bought my drone from them, and they offered the same model bundle at a slightly lower price than Amazon and also offered next-day shipping for no charge.

They also have a physical retail store and real live people you can call if you have a question, unlike either winding up talking to a chatbot or being redirected to Mumbai after a 45 minute hold.

I don’t know these guys from a hole in the ground other than that, but they beat Amazon and that was good enough for me.

Nah. Even if it’s local, I’ll burn my CPU cycles on what I want to, thanks. That’s like installing a bitcoin miner in your PC and claiming, “But it only runs in the background.” Fuck off and buy your own hardware, Microsoft.

Nope.

Back in the box and straight back to the store.

I’m interested to hear what the deal is now with all those damn “EcoATM” cell phone buying kiosks now, because to my knowledge those were operated by the same outfit (Outerwall) as Redbox is/was. Are they bankrupt, too? My local Dollar General has had one squatting in their foyer for over a year with an out of order sign taped to it and apparently nobody from the mothership has noticed or cares.

Those damn things are theoretically full of cash.

But it’s abandoned on their property. If you abandoned something on a commercial property and never came to reclaim it, eventually (probably quite quickly) the store management would dispose of it. They’re not going to keep it around stinking up the place forever “just in case.”

I’d doubt somebody could officially just unilaterally throw the thing away, but the business on whose property it’s parked absolutely has some kind of contingency to deal with crap left there by one of their vendors. Or they will if they’re a retail operation worth a damn.

This is in fact precisely what happens. LLM output becomes increasingly incoherent with each subsequent generation trained off of previously AI generated data.

I think the best way to approach Spiritfarer is as a somewhat cryptic expression if its core conceit: Thanklessly doing a bunch of repetitive chores for dying relatives who mostly act still like dicks towards you for your trouble, and bending over backwards to structure your time and living space around catering to them. The only reward for hard work is more work, and ever more specific and petulant demands. This inevitably evolves to all of your obligations piling up to the point that there literally aren’t enough hours in the day and your progress in your own life (or your boat) grinds to a halt. And when they finally die you’re stuck dealing with all their stuff, forever.

It’s an interactive metaphor. And while hilarious when taken as a whole, perhaps from the perspective of it all being an elaborate troll, it actually makes for a kind of lousy video game.

As much as the rest of the game is an exercise in tedium and complete disrespect of the player’s time and intelligence, the thunderstorm event in Spiritfarer is pretty rad, and definitely one of its high points.

At least the first time. The charm wears off after the 9th or 10th time you do it just because you need to grind for the one material you can get from it, and only from it.