kawadec

Randomly stumbled onto Gizmo's work a couple years back and was immediately intrigued. This kind of horrorcore trap metal, or whatever the appropriate terms would be, is something I keep sleeping on way too much.

Off-and-on Elden Ring with friends, via the Seamless Coop mod. It's WIP and quite glitchy at times, but totally worth it for removing vanilla co-op's limitations. Been cycling through a few different characters, with builds based on various Fate servants --- Ushiwakamaru with a light load katana build (I am not Let Me Solo Her, so this isn't going very well), King Hassan with a heavy load Strength/Faith black flame build (versatile thanks to the stats, the fact he has both armor and an optional greatshield makes for good survivability, and heck he always seemed like a more anime-ish Soulsborne character anyway so he fits right in), and most recently Elizabeth Bathory who will be more breath/voice focused to go with her dragon characteristics and musical aspirations. I guess a polearm weapon would be most fitting for that last one, though Liz is a popular enough character to have multiple variations (Lancer, Saber, Caster, etc.) to base her combat around, we'll see what shakes out.

Over time it seems I've gone from a palm grip to more something akin to I guess what the graphic on the last page calls either an extended finger or pincer claw grip, going toward one or the other depending on how intense things are getting. As the number of buttons on my mouse increases (this one has been my go-to) it's helped if I keep my fingers and thumb arched a little so they can more easily move between everything.

Aside from the obvious answer of Doom 64, I also have a big soft spot for the first Turok, for a lot of the reasons already stated. Just a really good run n' gun experience with platforming that isn't too bad, some good enemy animations and music, and of course plenty of fun weapons. Though I never played Descent, I did get to enjoy Forsaken growing up and have to give it a shoutout, both the PC and N64 versions (since they were indeed different, and it's cool that the Nightdive remaster merges the two).

Very good point, I should definitely mention that, rather than playing the DOS version, I was running it through the BStone source port for WASD controls and the such. Apparently it was originally made for Planet Strike, but works well enough with Aliens of Gold as well, aside from a few minor audio things such as the weapon jingles not playing.

Huh, and here I thought I was the weirdo for shying away from the BFG. For me the combat comes down a lot to using the right tool for the job --- shotgun for sparse or distant fodder, chaingun for larger groups of fodder, chainsaw for pinkies, rocket launcher and SSG for the big boys, and plasma rifle for whatever needs to be both stunlocked and killed quickly (some overlap exists in these categories of course). There's enough variety and effectiveness among these weapons that I just never feel the need to deal with the heavy ammo cost and slow fire rate of the BFG, when a longer yet still tolerable amount of time using the other guns will also clear a room in a way that's more fun than one or two left clicks.

Pistol: "What is my purpose?" Me: "You kill one shotgun guy." Pistol: "...oh my god." The chainsaw is my go-to for pinkies, and at least the fist is a viable way to save ammo once you got a Berserk in your system. Unfortunately the pistol is just a worse chaingun and not much else. I don't blame 64 for giving us a shotgun 2 seconds into the first level, nor Eternal for cutting out the middle man and just making the shotgun our actual first weapon.

Earlier this week I was in a bit of a funk, and as a way to give myself something to do that wasn't the crushing grind of Warframe (not that I could have played much of it anyway, since my internet cut out a couple hours later for the rest of the night) I returned to Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold and played that. Over the next couple days I finished what remained of that game's 60 levels, then got the sequel and beat that. Something about the simplicity of a good Wolfenstein engine game was something my brain needed at the moment, I guess. But yeah, if Wolfenstein 3D but sci-fi and with new bells and whistles added to levels sounds like your Jam (get it, because the developer was called Jam) I give both a solid recommendation.

One thing I've heard from those who are left-handed is that, since a lot of things are designed for right-handed use, they often become a bit ambidextrous to some extent out of necessity. So I could see him using his left hand by default for pistols and the such but right hand for things that would be awkward to handle otherwise.

Been getting back on my gacha nonsense again by going through more of Fate/Grand Order's story. Finished the Agartha chapter --- wasn't a big fan of the writing, though I did finally warm up a little to Scheherazade by the very end, and the stall team I've been putting together really paid off a few times, so fun was had. Feels nice now having three developed strats to try given the situation (stall team focused on survival, buff-stacking zerker team designed to take out bosses as quickly as possible, and a buster-crit team with survivability in between the two). Moved on to Shimousa, which I hear really kicks people's butts and requires you to have a balanced roster to make it through the bosses (no borrowing a friend's servant to fill the gaps), so time to see where my weaknesses lie I guess, heh. Worse comes to worst, there's an event starting tomorrow I can farm a shitload of materials from to get a necessary person up to snuff.

Finally getting around to Ion Maiden Fury. I've tried a couple other Build Engine games (Shadow Warrior and Blood) and unfortunately decided they weren't really for me, but this might be one I play through to the end. Satisfying guns and combat, nothing frustrating me so far about the enemies, and I'm a sucker for tracker music.

All these people posting SSG as their "newest" waifu, as if they haven't had pin-ups of it in their bedroom since they were 12 smh

The roster of Hell/Cabal hybrid enemies in Bloom (a Doom/Blood crossover mod as the name may suggest) are a group of baddies I enjoy getting chewed up by repeatedly. They have less of the BS things that kept me from getting into Blood (namely the hitscanners' lightning quick reflexes), while still remaining far deadlier than Doom's vanilla offerings. Imps that can throw both fireballs and evil spirits, fire-breathing pinky-hounds, cacogoyles that can block attacks, slime archnotrons that do splash damage, the list goes on. All I can say is let's be glad Davoth and Tchernobog never swapped ideas at the water cooler. Also, I dunno if back-ports of modern Doom enemies count, but I love bringing 2016/Eternal's Knights and Barons into the classic setting. It's one thing when those two are basically just imps with more health and damage, and a whole other world of "oh shit oh shit oh shit" when they're sprinting and jumping at you.

The way I picture the Doomverse setup is kinda like a bicycle wheel, where Hell is the axis, Urdak is the tire, and the spokes in between are the myriad of mortal dimensions (dunno who put that idea forward first, but I swear I read that description somewhere and it made enough sense). Doomguy was born in one "spoke," and after killing the Sister Resurrector got yanked from Hell into a different one that had its own Earth with a similar history (similar enough to have its own UAC at least), but with more direct involvement from Argent D'Nur and especially the Makyrs. Personally I liked the idea floating around back in the 2016 days that the Doom Slayer was a different guy --- a Night Sentinel who sold out Argent D'Nur to revive his son (so yes, he would have been the Betrayer the lore talks about), was betrayed by Hell and went on a one-man wrathful crusade from there for vengeance and atonement. But hey, if their goal was to make Eternal as hype as possible by confirming the "Doomguy = Doom Slayer" theory, I can't say they failed at all at that. Of course Id can't seem to make up their mind on the lore of new-Doom, so who knows how accurate the current theories are (or how much will be retconned with the next game). But I guess one advantage of the multiverse setup is that it's pretty easy now to assume Doom 3 slots into one of the other mortal dimensions, with yet another Earth and UAC mucking about with risky technology.

Used to be a generous cream and sugar kinda guy, but in recent years I took an interest in cutting back the calories in stuff and switched to no cream and just a hint of sweetener, ended up developing a taste for that as well. I still maintain the heresy of going decaf a lot of the time though, just due to too much caffeine messing me up instead of helping.