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The quest for profits seems to always turn into an Icarus scenario. Something good becomes better and better as interest is generated, little guys make a name for themselves and turn into big guys, marketing explodes, big guys start buying up little guys, big guys start paying more for little guys, big guys get too big, margins become miniscule, ceo's and board of directors go from people within the industry to some flavor of investment banker, min max hits harder, creativity, innovation (in the sense of taking risks / trying something new) becomes too costly and we get Madden 75, Call of Duty 400, and a whole lot of vanilla flavored games, all be it on fantastic hardware with pretty graphics.

Not chasing bleeding edge technology affords Nintendo some liberties, but they still play it pretty safe with their games. They stick close to the Zelda, Mario, Pokemon staples (peppering in some pikmin, kirby, and DK) and haven't had a new IP of note since Ring Fit in 2019 and Splatoon before that in 2015. They took lumps with the Wii U, N64, GCN, and the Virtual Boy but have persevered and always put out great games.

I think Nintendo's business model will keep them in the console space while Sony and Microsoft are destined to dissolve off into the PC space. I've already decided to not buy a new Xbox or Playstation, despite having chased after each previous iteration. I just hope Nintendo continues to innovate, take risks on peripherals as well as games, and put out another Kid Icarus, Earthbound, 1080, wave race, excite bike, or better yet, the next unforgettable IP that'll be able to stand with the Mario, Zelda Pokemon tentpoles.

I found it difficult to make it through the first season and gave up on the series. Hearing the second season was better gives me hope. Outside of the "purists" that can't stand anything pop culture not made 40+ years ago, the only real complaint I've heard was about the pacing. I can deal with that now that all the episodes are out. I'll have to spin this one back up.

Its February and I'm still trying to start working on mine!

yeah, I've got a few of those...

how was it

Nope!

Its a late reply I know, I blame Helene (and some lazyness) but mostly Helene!

ugh, back to 40 as well

shoulda been paying more attention, it's back to 40 now

It was watchable but I did fall asleep at least 6 times trying to make it through the first season. The plot didn't add much to the mythos and the whole thing seemed really insignificant to the time lime. There was a semi expected tease at the end that I'd love to see fleshed out but I'm betting there wasn't enough love for this series to merit a second offering.

As of this writing its 80% critics score vs 17% audience on rottentomatoes. People don't seem impressed.

I did buy the set with all the swag but have so far left it sealed. I've been tempted to open it up and play but its not hit me yet. I may buy a used copy or get a digital copy and leave the deluxe set sealed. I'm also a little concerned at the Wario approach. I like mini games when there's a bigger game to it (mario party for instance) but when it's just small quick games I've not enjoyed. 

I think the steam sale really fell off when they stopped offering the limited time deals during the sale. I get it though, they ran some loss leaders or stuff at near loss to sway the public to their format, now that digital has a bigger portion of the market share and steam is a household name in the gaming space, they can afford to be greedier.

Despite all that I usually find something during these sales.

The price of entry is too steep for me on the older Pokemon stuff. I wasn't interested in it when it first came out and really never jumped in until X and Y. I've been collecting them when I can find them and they're not a fortune (so far only found Pokemon Emerald and the Colosseum bonus disk). I've played most since xy and really enjoyed Arceus the most so far.

Simple... Games like Faxanadu can be completed with a simple map, Metroid gets pretty insane. You've either got a great memory and sense of direction or you really put in some time, either way very admirable.

Still haven't finished it, I actually forgot to go back to it. I got wrapped up in a big change at work.

the new expansion looks like it may drag me back in

Games we've seen at every other steam sale are on sale once again yet somehow, I managed to spend money...

There is a featured Deep Discount where you can get some bangers for 2 to 4 dollars, but the vast majority will likely be stuff you've already purchased. I didn't have civ 6, Shadow of War, total war shogun 2, or disco elysium so I picked them up for a few bucks each. I also found a few more retro inspired games as well that I picked up. Below are some of the bigger ones I could remember. Games like battlefield and Ghost Recon had a few tittles and I couldn't remember which specific games were available, so I listed several more generic.

Frost Punk
Battlefield
Ghost Recon
Boarderlands
Witcher 3
Jurassica Park
CIV 6
Celeste
Batman
Assetto Corsa
Disco Elysium
Total War Shogun 2
Shadow of War
and a few more

Acolyte... lots of hate out there for this one but I've found it watchable. Bottom tier Star Wars certainly, but watchable. If Disney was going to do a show from the High Republic Era, they should have gone Yoda.

maybe it's my sense of direction but I stayed lost without a detailed map

I've loved and hated Metroid since I first played it. Great game play, cool theme, sick music and 0 hand holding. I've probably picked it up and put it down a dozen times since I was in grade school, never to beat it. I've tried it with friends, with Nintendo Power, with a game genie, and with all the help I stayed lost. Game FAQs got me close to finishing it in college but that stupid password system and having to start over eventually caused me to put it down.

Its been at least 20 years since I've touched the game but I'm trying again. The save state feature is making things much easier. I'm not stopping and restarting when something goes wrong so the frustration of getting knocked in the lava or getting ganged up on by a bunch of enemies is still there but being able to continue without having to kill myself and starting back at the beginning of the region will keep me from shelving the game until it's an antique.

Great game, easily top 5 NES games, top 3 if you could switch between ice beam and wave beam without having to go back and pick the other up. My only grip so far and honestly a rapid-fire controller really negates the need for the wave beam. 

bad batch is great too.

The Resident just hit Netflix. I'm usually not a preechy Dr. drama fan but this one works for me. New Amsterdam is probably the only other recent one that I've put much time in. Nothing before or after has been able to touch House though.

29.99 on amazon right meow!

I've tried tons of different Linux distros on old, outdated stuff with some success. The tinkering required to get everything working as advertised can be extensive and for me usually becomes the reason the piece goes back into the junk pile. It's awesome to see some of that old tech back up and rolling.

Did you give up or did life get in the way?

X-men 97 has gone a long way in repairing some of my confidence in Disney's ability to progress beloved IPs. Going back and watching the 90s x-men series was great fun, except for the last little bit, the animation really fell off a cliff. Yay for budget cutting!

I leaned hard into Diablo 4 early and have a several leveled characters, but I've not been able to jump back in. The end game got really repetitive, and the first two seasons did little to impress.

Is anyone still playing this, and if so how's the end game now? I'd love to jump in again if there's reason.

I ended up putting the 5800x in my computer and giving my 3000 series to the daughter. Even with the bios update I couldn't get it to work on her board. There were some posts online where some people were able to get it to work on the asrock board and others couldn't. I'm guessing Creepin is on to something, and this specific board may have been an earlier run, where the newer revisions were capable, and the older ones couldn't do it. Complete speculation, not worth spending any more time on it!

It seems like small gains at best. I don't notice a difference in the daily operation. I can play the newest Warhammer and Starfield now without turning the graphics down to toaster but it feels like AM4 is getting log in the tooth.

Thanks guys!

No spoils this year and work got in the way of any real revelry. I did spend the day before pre-hangover / post dehydration drinking and playing a ton of online sports games with some friends I went to UNCA with. It was reminiscent. Work wasn't horrible either, I got to talk to the guitarist and bassist from First to Eleven in the hotel lobby at 2am. They'd just played in Charlotte and were on the way to Iowa. 

Either I've been really lucky in the past or I've just ran across a really odd board.

The whole fam (there's three of us) got computers either bought or built around the same time, almost exclusively using AMD. All are socket AM4. I've upgraded processors two or three times now and it's just been take old one out, put new one in, bios figures it out and computer is running...

This most recent Christmas project didn't follow suit.

my daughter's mobo is an asrock a320M/ac. It came with a Ryzen 3 and it's been fine until recently. I found a ryzen 7 5800x on sale for a reasonable price and gave it to her for Christmas. I put it, and this sweet noctuna cooler on her pc and went to fire it up... lights and fans all good, no hdd, video card, or cpu. Cables good, everything seated properly, eggnog still nonalcoholic, no joy!

After trying everything imaginable I went to ASRocks website. Vermeer cores only work with bios p7.20. well f it all i didn't update the bios because the last several iterations said not recommended if system is running stable. Simple fix, put old processor in, update bios, swap out... The old processor is still stuck to the stock cooler and I cannot get it off! already bent a few pins trying to pry it. may have to get the hair dryer out, this thing is glued.

TLDR - I thought AM4 CPUs worked in all AM4 motherboards. Guess that statement comes with a * now. Will be playing with a heat gun and something to straighten pins tomorrow...

its amazing how long a game can stay in the backlog.

Really odd delivery window on this one, December 5th - January 14th!

I finally watched the series, and it's held me better than most of the more recent Star Wars offerings.

 Shoe-horning social issues into their IPs seems to be Disney's main focus, for better or worse. As a lover of rock / metal, comic books, video games, and a bunch of nerdy stuff, I'm not turned off by social / political messaging in the media I consume, it just can't be forced (expect more), or a hinderance to the media itself. Ahsoka has achieved this better than most of Disney's recent offerings. It's probably the most girl-power Star Wars yet but the cast makes sense. Disney didn't just pick out every female Star Wars character and toss them together with no real reason for those characters ever to share space (get it, space). This cast has a reason to be together and it works, nothing feels forced (last one, I swear). What I can't understand, and Creepin alluded to it when he mentioned Ahsoka being stoic, is where's the emotion.

This thing between Ahsoka and Sabine didn't generate the tension I feel it should have, Syndulla felt the same no matter the situation, and Sabine while being a little more dynamic still seemed to fall flat when compared to the situations she found herself in during the series. Heck, every Mandalorian in the Mandalorian series seemed to portray a better sense of emotion despite quite often hidden behind armor.

Detractors hating because of the girl-bossin' aren't looking at it very fairly. If anything, that got tuned down a little. Ahsoka isn't a force monster like Rey. She doesn't win every fight, neither did Sabine. The other side complained because it wasn't girl-power enough. 40 years, 11 movies and a half dozen or so series and this is the first with a predominately female cast. "But sadly, Ahsoka wasn't exactly passing the Bechdel Test." (https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/ahsoka-female-characters-star-wars)

The show was good, definitely worth a watch. The period between the Clone Wars and the Force Awakens has tons of storytelling avenues I want to go down. The events in Ahsoka were in my mind huge. The series didn't adequately portray the emotion and gravitas these events merit. I can't decide if I blame that on the writing or the acting.