For all there is war, the games go on

Weeks have passed, and Russia hasn't steamrollered Ukraine yet, which is a pleasant surprise in my book.  Sadly, it doesn't seem any other nation has been inspired by Ukraine's resilience to take a more direct hand in thwarting Russia's invasion, relying instead on slow-acting sanctions coupled with weapons shipments to Ukraine to solve the problem.  While I understand the desire to not light off World War III, if all that's being accomplished is pushing off that light-off to some other guy's watch, after Russia has consolidated their gains from this invasion, that's not in our long-term interest.

Well, our course is set, and the rantings of one occasional blogger aren't going to change things any time soon.  I guess we'll see where things go.  I only hope that I'm wrong, and our leaders have cause for the faith they're putting in to their less-directly-confrontational methods.

So, while things degenerate over in Europe, life goes on here in the US, if a bit more expensively and with supply chain disruptions.  In my case, that means games, of course.

Destiny 2, I've basically dropped at this point.  I have Mass Effect 2 to continue plugging away at if I want shooty things to play, and, for all Destiny 2 is pretty, I just can't see myself doing the freemium "pay us for a year's worth of game at full price up front, then pay a quarterly toll to access more of that game you paid for, and maybe pay us some more for cosmetic items as well" model they've evolved into.  Maybe if they end up back on Game Pass so I can justify paying for one of those levels of monetization with the other games that I can check out, I'll give it another go.  Otherwise, if I want a pay-as-you-go experience, I have no shortage of such that I can mostly play for free otherwise, such as Warframe and Lost Ark.

Oh, that's right, I haven't said anything about Lost Ark yet.  It's a Korean fantasy MMORPG, recently localized for the US, with some good production values and years of content to explore.  I rather enjoyed what I've played of it so far, up to the point of getting a pet that hoovers up dropped loot for you (which, I have to say, the starting pet being a white bunny with saddlebags is an excellent choice, if only for the sheer cuteness value).  That's where I ran into their monetization model... basically, you can unlock the pet's inventory space (so it's not constantly cluttering up yours with trash), and get some other quality-of-life upgrades as well, for $10 for 30 days - basically, the equivalent of a subscription, which I expect from any MMORPG these days.  What I don't expect is for that subscription fee to be per character, not per account.  So, basically, if I want to play more Lost Ark, I would have to research what server I wanted to play on long-term, then decide on a character to play exclusively, unless I wanted to start spending way more than I could justify for the amount of play time I have.  Even so, the temptation is there... but there are always more games to play, so Lost Ark goes on the "maybe later, maybe never" pile for now.

Enough sad stories about monetization, how about a nice story instead?  I've played the Civilization series back since the very first one, and I haven't cared for the direction monetization has gone there at all, what with recent versions having their mechanics chopped up and spread out among multiple packages at a significant per-package price point, then with extra civilizations, leaders, and scenarios further split out and packaged up for sale.  That, combined with my dislike for Take-Two Interactive (who changes license agreements on games they purchase), which owns the current publisher for the series, has kept me from buying the most recent version, Civilization VI.  That changed when the game went up on Humble Bundle as a "some proceeds go to charity" bundle for $15.  Of course, by default, their "portion to charity" was slated to be less than $1 by default, which I found to be a bit offensive, so I swapped things around so the publisher got $1, Humble Bundle got their cut, and the rest went to charity.  As for the game itself... yeah, I think I like the changes I've seen so far, and I do want to play more, but this is another game that can be a real time sink, and I've got another one I'm playing that fills that role right now:  Elden Ring.

Yeah, as a rule, I don't buy games anywhere near launch date.  But, you combine an open world built for exploration, high marks from both critics and regular players, and some leftover Christmas gift money in my store account, and it was all but inevitable I would join in the fray.  That said, it's not like I've made major progress in the game so far, and it will likely be even slower going since I'm playing solo, but I've quite enjoyed my time as an undead bandit.  I look forward to seeing what I can tease out of the game, and how long I can hold off on looking at all the videos people are posting to be "helpful".

War returns to Europe

 I forget, who was it that said history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes?  That's what I'm thinking to myself, about 24 hours out from when I first heard that Russia had decided to go ahead and start its full-blown invasion of Ukraine.  Apparently, and unsurprisingly, Russia wasn't terribly deterred after the world's tepid response to their prior invasion of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, and is willing to bet that any response to a full invasion will still be a net positive for them.

Now, as belligerent as this post will sound, I have no desire for war.  Civilization is a much better option in my book, and I would choose that path in almost every situation.  However, civilization only works if all the groups involved are committed to working within that framework.  To use an analogy, it's rather hard for everyone to enjoy a game of poker if one of the players gets up from the table to go around and punch one of the other players.  Well, Russia just started throwing punches at our collective poker table, so what's our response?

So far, outside of the less-than-worthless "thoughts and prayers" lines dribbling from the mouths of those who want to appear to care, but don't care enough to actually do anything else, it's been a mix of giving military hardware to Ukraine and applying limited economic sanctions to Russia.  Well, the hardware might help Ukraine somewhat (never mind that they're greatly outnumbered), but sanctions?  Seriously, you're trying to use a long-term pressure tactic to dissuade an immediate threat to another country's continued existence?

I'll set aside the all-too-apt comparisons to the lead-up to World War II that others are bringing up routinely, in favor of another, more recent conflict.  How about the first Persian Gulf War - no, not the one with the supposed weapons of mass destruction that had us invading Iraq, but the one where Iraq invaded its neighbor Kuwait, intending to take it over?  I don't recall us saying "oh, that's terrible, thoughts and prayers all around, and we'll apply harsh economic sanctions against Iraq."  Rather, we demonstrated that we object to forced takeovers of sovereign nations in the strongest possible terms, by using military force to eject the would-be occupiers.  The fact that we're not taking that path in the face of this invasion strongly implies that either that earlier response was driven by what we stood to gain from Kuwait, by how little risk we felt in putting our armed forces against those of the Iraqis, or both, and none of those answers reflect well on us.

But OK, I'll accept, for the sake of argument, that, this time, we don't want to put our people in harm's way for the well-being of our fellow humans.  How about some other, broader actions, rather than trying to target individuals and select companies within Russia?  Shut down their trade, restrict the ability of all their citizens to travel the civilized world, heck, shut down the Internet links to their country, since that seems to be a constant source of trouble as well.  Yes, any and all of those would cause us pain as well, but that's kind of the point.  The calculation the Russians seem to have made is that we won't do anything too bad to them, for fear of causing ourselves inconvenience and discomfort.  Right now, I'd have to say they seem to be right on the money.  Here's hoping I'm proven wrong in the coming days and weeks, for all I may not enjoy the side effects.

That's Mass Effect 1 down, on to the next

 I recently finished the Mass Effect 1 portion of the Legendary Edition trilogy remake.  While I'm glad I was able to go through the whole game once, thanks to the gunplay and companion AI improvements, the game itself was okay at best.  Some of that comes down to what they were able to attempt with the hardware available at the time, no doubt.  However, there were enough plot holes and failures of common sense scattered throughout, generally of the flavor of "we want to do this cool thing at this point, so let's ignore the problems with the setup needed for that cool thing to happen", that my suspension of disbelief was regularly broken.  Basically, if this was a sci-fi movie instead of a game, I would put this closer to Battle Beyond the Stars than Star Wars.

That said, I still have hopes for Mass Effect 2, now that I've started in on that volume of the trilogy.  Where the first game starts you off tied to both Earth's military and the ruling galactic council, with "I am the law" levels of personal power, the second makes a clean break with that by having a mysterious ship track down and destroy your stealth-enabled ship.  You manage to get some of the crew off safely, but you end up jettisoned into space with a suit leak.  Fast forward to you waking up, two years later, after a shadowy humanity-first organization named Cerberus (who you took out some unsavory projects from as side-quests in the last game) has given you the Six-Million Dollar Man treatment via their Project Lazarus - and even that is an early wake-up call, because someone decided to sabotage the facility's security bots, likely in a bid to kill you properly this time.  Surviving that, you find out about an ongoing issue that might be linked to the big-bad Reapers that you managed to stop last game, something the powers-that-be seem to treat as settled, while Cerberus is willing to give you an updated ship, some of your old crew, and contacts to gather more crew to investigate and deal with things as you see fit.  For now, your goals and those of Cerberus align... will that hold true throughout?

Simply put, the story of Mass Effect 2 looks to be more interesting than the story of Mass Effect 1, and there are mechanical changes between the two games as well, so the only reason to play the first game would be the story... and the second game includes an "interactive comic" that you can use to get yourself up-to-speed with the story from the first game.  All in all, I would say to give the first game a skip, and just start with ME2 at this point, if you haven't played either.

Now, it's just about time to show my face to the galactic Council.  It'll be fun to see how that turns out.

Giving Mass Effect a proper go

 The Mass Effect series of games has been around for a while (since 2007, if Wikipedia has it right).  I like RPGs, I like sci-fi shooty bits, and I've heard over and over that it has an amazing story.  So, why haven't I played the main series yet?

Well, for starters, I did try, once long ago.  At some point (it's been long enough that I don't remember exactly when), the original Mass Effect dropped below my threshold of cheapness, and I snagged it on Steam.  I didn't even make it past the first intro mission, whether due to the then-janky gunplay or the need to micromanage your teammates in the middle of combat.  I bounced off the first one hard, and the next two were continuations of the first, so I saw no need to jump into the middle of a series I had disliked from the start.

Eventually, Mass Effect: Andromeda came to be, and I eventually gave that a go, hopeful that the intervening years had improved the experience.  Mechanically, it was a vast improvement over what I remembered from before.  Story-wise... eh, it's fine, nothing earth-shattering, but certainly not the modern marvel I had been primed to expect from glowing reviews of the previous games.

Now, the original trilogy of games has gotten the remaster treatment that's all the rage these days, coming out as the Mass Effect Legendary Edition.  This remaster got decent reviews, and I caught it on sale, so I figured it was worth one last try.  So far, I'm pleasantly surprised.  I started with the first game (naturally), and, while there are some bits that definitely show their age (primitive terrain and over-reuse of level maps especially), the gunplay and teammate AI is greatly improved.  Not only did I manage to get past that first level, I've only rarely had to revive a teammate after they've gotten overzealous in their pursuit of the enemy.

The story, though?  I can't say much about that yet.  Basically, I've taken to doing too many side-quests "while I'm in the area" to properly focus on the main storyline.  The bits I have seen have some potential, but mostly seem to cover some well-traveled ground (corrupt officials, corporations pursuing profit over safety, legality, or common sense, deciding whether your loyalties lie with yourself, your species, or the greater good of the galaxy, that sort of thing).  The overarching setup of "the ancient scourge is going to destroy us all, unless YOU put a stop to it" isn't exactly fresh either, but there could be some wiggle-room in there for a good story overall.

In short, if, like me, you bounced off of the original Mass Effect series because of its mechanics, the new Legendary Edition could be worth a go, if you find it on sale (or want to try it out as part of Game Pass Ultimate on the XBox ecosystem, of course).  Now, will it hold my attention past the launch of the Witch Queen expansion for Destiny 2?  That, we will see.

What's Cookin': Apple Pie

 Well, it's only been, what, a decade or so since I've done one of these posts... but frankly, I haven't exactly done a lot of exploratory cooking in that time, and this is the first thing I've made in a long while that I've said "I need to hold on to this recipe for later."  That said, my initial attempt's results were less than ideal (due to massive pie crust containment failure), so consider this a starting point for your own experiments.

For pie crust, I'll leave that to you, since you likely already have a favorite double-crust recipe to use.  Again, if I wasn't clear, you probably don't want to try this as your first pie, since you can practice on pies that take less work, like blueberry pie.  That all said, to the recipe!

Ingredients

• 4 lb. (about 6 large) "pie apples" (Granny Smith is the go-to here, but any firm, tart apple works)
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 c brown sugar
  
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t ginger
• 1/4 t cardamom
• 1/4 t nutmeg
• 2 T cornstarch
• 1 T butter

Equipment

• Large ("bigger than you think you need") bowl for mixing ingredients
• Knives and/or other tools to prepare the apples
  
• Glass pie plate
• Baking sheet
• Parchment paper

Procedure

•  Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples (I used a mandoline slicer for 1/16" slices, but anything up to 1/4" would probably be fine), and put the slices in the bowl.
• Sprinkle the salt, sugars, and spices over the top of the apple slices, then use your hands to mix everything together, coating the slices as thoroughly as possible in the process.
• Let the apple mixture rest at room temperature for one hour.
• While waiting on the apple mixture, prepare the lower half of your pie crust in the pie plate.
• After the hour wait time has passed, add the cornstarch to the bowl and mix again.  You will notice that the apples have shrunk, and there is a large amount of liquid (about 3/4 c) in the bottom of the bowl - this is normal.
• Pack the lower pie crust with the apple slices that will fit, level to the brim of the crust.  Unused slices can be discarded (or, pan-cooked and used as a topping for, say, ice-cream).
• Pour what you can of the collected liquid in the bottom of the bowl over the top of the apples in the pie crust.
• Cover the pie with your upper crust.  In my case, I tried doing this with a standard "full cover with vents cut after" method, which failed fairly spectacularly.  I would suggest doing a lattice crust with plenty of vent room for this pie.
• Line your baking sheet with parchment paper (cooking spray is handy to make it behave), then place the assembled pie on the sheet, to capture any spill-over.
• Bake the pie in a 400F oven for 75 minutes... is what the original recipe called for.  I'm going to say you should start checking on the pie at least 10 minutes beforehand.  The goal is to see filling bubbling up through the vents (or, if you prefer the scientific method, an internal temperature of 195F).  With the long cook time, over-browning is a valid concern, so you may want to employ aluminum foil to help with that.

After a few hours of cool-down time, you should have a very tasty apple pie (as in, even in its imperfect form, the one I cooked is easily top 10 of any apple pie I've had, ever).  It's a shame that prepping the apples is such a chore, otherwise I would strive to make this my go-to pie.

Games and mixed feelings

 Having a backlog of games is less than ideal for a number of reasons, but one of the top reasons has to be that time marches on.  Sometimes, that just means that advancements in technology have rendered elements of any given game stale by the time you get around to playing it (assuming you ever do).  Sometimes, it's a bit darker than that.

In this case, I was looking for something to scratch my itch for exploration, and none of the current crop of Game Pass games was quite what I was looking for.  Looking at my backlog of XBox One games, next up in the queue was Grow Up, a little low-poly affair where you, as a humanoid but not-too-bright little robot, get to roam around a planet-scape, acquiring different abilities while you pursue your goals.  Importantly, you start with the ability to grab things with your hands, with independent controls for each hand, which allows you to climb... basically, whatever you can get your hands on.  Perfect for what I was looking for, I went ahead and installed it and fired it up.

Which is, of course, when I saw that the game was produced by Ubisoft.  Historically, I've generally liked Ubisoft games, some more than others, but they're one of a few game industry companies in the midst of a very public round of employee abuse allegations, where their response has been, basically, to throw a couple of people under the bus, make noises about needing to change, then do little in the way of visibly pursuing the change they need to make, almost as if they're hoping that the news cycle will move on, and they can just get back to business as usual.  Here's a recent Kotaku article, if you want to start digging into details on your own.

So, yeah, I played the game over the course of a couple of days.  It's no masterpiece, but it's a fine little game for what it is.  I wish I could recommend you track down a copy and buy it on the cheap, but I can't, in good conscience, say you should give any money to Ubisoft, or even support the used market for their games, as things stand.  But, if it's in your backlog already, maybe dust it off and give it a go.  I polished off the main thrust of the game over 2 days, had my fun, and now that's one less landmine sitting in my backlog.

Starting the long goodbye with Woot

 Being a creature of habit, I find it good to stop, review, and reflect on some facet of the everyday in my life every so often.  Little could be more everyday than my daily web-surfing routine, and, during this particular holiday weekend (which sees a ritual feast in celebration of who and what we have that we are thankful for, followed by a frenzy by many to get more stuff they can't live without), considering my shopping choices has to be high on the list.  Those two considerations meet squarely at Woot.com.

Ah, Woot.  Once upon a time, it was a fun, quirky little site (founded in 2004, per Wikipedia).  One deal a day, generally on something tech/geek related.  You never knew what you would find there, and much of what was presented there was actually good deals on things you might want, if you fit their niche.  I did, and I found it glorious.  Not that I bought more than a fraction of what they offered, but I came to understand the popularity of things like QVC among other segments of the population.

Well, if success breeds one thing, it's a desire for growth.  They started offering wine deals in 2006, which I figured would fall by the wayside with the various state laws involving alcohol, but it persevered for over a decade.  Next came daily T-shirt deals in 2007, and that brought me in all the closer, as the shirts were similarly tech/geek niche oriented.  It's no exaggeration to say that Woot t-shirts were a major part of my wardrobe for well over a decade.

Of course, growth not only calls for more growth, but it also attracts a certain sort of business professional with a certain mindset.  You know the type, "appealing to a broader market will increase revenue", "reducing costs will increase our profit", and of course, my favorite, "you're leaving money on the table if you don't do X".  More sub-sites, starting with kids in 2009, were launched, and Amazon acquired Woot in 2010.  While at the time I feared there would be a sudden shift to turning Woot into Amazon's surplus site, those changes happened much more slowly.  More noticeable were things like t-shirt quality taking a dive (which was of course spun as providing customer choice, once the option of paying more for a quality shirt was added).

But, fast or slow, things progressed to where they are today.  You have several daily deals, but they seem to be just highlights of select items in vast seas of dreck that Amazon wasn't able to push through their regular website.  Plus, those highlighted deals seem to come back fairly often... whether that's "due to popular demand, we sourced another batch for you to have a go at" or "we're going to keep putting these up until we manage to get rid of them", I'm in no position to say, but, from what I've seen, I would bet the latter.  Even the t-shirts have taken a dive, not in physical quality this time, but just in composition - the vast majority seem to be nothing more than pop-culture mash-ups these days.

Suffice it to say, Woot has changed, and not for the better, in my opinion.  Looking at my order history, I haven't ordered anything from them in the past year, and for quite some time before then it was only shirts that kept me coming back.  So, yeah, Woot is now out of my daily visit routine.  I'm on their email lists, so I'll still get offers for a while, but it won't be that long before I get the urge to reduce my marketing email load, and, barring something unexpected happening between now and then, Woot will be part of the "I don't need your emails any longer" group.  So, goodbye Woot, it was fun while it lasted.