Latest gaming updates

 Per tradition... Russia, Israel, Hamas, all of their leadership, and some of their populace, could really benefit from some horribly painful/itchy STDs in their lives, at a minimum.

Here at home, though, things are mostly more pleasant, if you set aside the obscene heat courtesy of climate change, the similarly-obscene political climate, and the odd assassination attempt.  So... yeah.  Well, focusing on games for a bit, here's a few items in no particular order:

• A bit over 200 hours of playtime later, I've finished two runs through Book of Hours.  Two runs, because there are multiple endings - the "easy ending" (which is likely the most relatable for ordinary, everyday people that would be attracted to this game) and several "true endings" that take significantly more work to get.  I've enjoyed my time with the game, but, at a minimum, I want to take a break from it before I even think about diving back in.  It's one thing to let a game lead you on for hundreds of hours, but quite another to go in knowing that's what it will take, when there are so many other games out there.
• Looks like I never mentioned - I got air conditioning in this year, in the form of a heat pump (and not a moment too soon)!  Once I verified it was able to keep up with the peculiarities of my house, I finally went ahead and upgraded to an XBox Series X.  So, I now have access to all of my XBox One games, DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs on the same machine I use for streaming and current-gen games.  Oh yeah, more power too, theoretically, but it's not like my old Series S demonstrated any issues there.  Side note, Amazon has really gone downhill - I tried being cheap/responsible and buying one of their "in stock" refurbished Series X units from them, only to have them not ship, then try to move the delivery date on me on the day it was supposed to be delivered.  In the meantime, Best Buy put their new units on sale for nearly as cheap, but with a gift card attached as well, so that's where I went.  Yay, capitalism?
• Since I was testing capabilities, I went ahead and put in the disc for my XBox One version of No Man's Sky.  Side note:  Wow, looks like I haven't posted about that game since 2017, and there have been a fair few patches since then.  Good news, it looks to have auto-upgraded to the Series X version, so yay there.  Bad news, the latest patch hasn't gone live on the XBox ecosystem yet, so... I guess I'll give it another proper go, if/when I see it update.
• Well, assuming I'm not still embroiled in The First Descendant, of course.  Saw my brother putting in hours on this game over a couple of weekends, so I figured it was worth giving a go.  Briefly, it's mostly Warframe with a bit of Destiny thrown in for flavor.  It's decent enough for a grinding game, maybe lacks a bit of polish here and there (particularly in the localization department), but easy enough to spend a few hours in at a go.  Naturally, I'm waiting for the free-to-play cash spike to hit... but the battle pass, I'm not seeing anything I care about in the paid section so far, and I was able to negotiate Warframe's monetization to my satisfaction back in the day, so... maybe?
• If not, I've certainly got a list of "not worth picking up Game Pass for this, but I'll check it out when I get Game Pass next" games that's grown large enough that, maybe, I'll just get a month of that to winnow that list down.  Or, I've got backlogs on various systems, or, or...

Well, that's where I'm at games-wise at the moment.  Stay safe, stay sane, stay hydrated!

Sure, let's ramp this hell-in-a-handbasket ride up a notch

 Happy Bastille Day, for those of you who observe it.  Absolutely nothing of note has occurred lately, outside of the ongoing douchebaggery of Russia, Israel, and Hamas.  Nope, nothing at all.

Obviously, that's a lie.  Yesterday, somebody took pot-shots at Trump at one of his rallies.  Current reports indicate it was a 20-year-old kid, registered Republican, who took an "AK-style" rifle to a nearby rooftop and tried to snipe Trump, in spite of wearing glasses, from a couple-hundred feet away.  He's dead now, of course, so everybody has questions about who was he, why did he do it, that sort of thing... and the short answer is, it really doesn't much matter in the end.

On the motivations front, this was eminently foreseeable.  You've got a presidential candidate whose previously shown his lack of aptitude for the job, who talks about being a dictator on day one if he gets re-elected, getting backing from gas-lighting congressional members and a supreme court that, until recently, maintained a facade of impartiality.  Under those conditions, I'd expect at least one young hot-blooded sort to take a shot in any community, given the opportunity, be they military trained riflemen with an oath to uphold or "I'm pretty good at Call of Duty, I could make this work."  The lucky thing for Trump is it looks like he got something closer to the latter here.

But, again, why doesn't matter much here.  More important are the impacts of the act - which, again, immediately aren't much.  Trump got an ear tagged, which shouldn't be in any way debilitating, unless you want to take the very long odds that a man who was wanting to lead an assault on congress is the sort to get spooked by a flesh wound.  We've got a couple of dead people and a few wounded, but, while doubtless tragic for them and their families, only results in the loss of a couple of votes for the Republicans, tops.

Longer term, though?  This guy just created a touchstone for the Republican party.  Anybody who considers themselves a Republican for non-cynical, non-self-serving reasons, has a concrete event to point at and say that they are under attack from a shadowy "THEM".  Doesn't matter that the kid was a registered Republican, any number of excuses, plausible or implausible, can be made for why he was duped, or wasn't really a Republican, or maybe he was acting under orders from Democrats/the Deep State/Joe Biden, that sort of thing.  With the current pile of lies they're operating under, what's one more for the pile?  But this one, it's visceral (almost literally).  You've already got people like the Republican National Convention attendees talking about this strengthening their resolve to do what they were going to do already, and you know that, at a minimum, this will be used as a rallying point as Election Day comes closer to get people out to the polls.  Past that... well, I'm hoping I'm wrong, but this could easily be the start of a spiral of tit-for-tat political violence, all egged on by either Republicans deciding "the gloves are off", or external influence like Russian misinformation campaigns, or both of those and more.

Yeah, I really hope I'm wrong on that last bit.  Election season is bad enough without fighting in the streets over it.

So, I guess we're a nation of vibes now?

 Those fuckers.

Whoops, first things first... yeah, Russia deserves everything they're getting and then some, and both Israel and Hamas can go eat a bowl of dicks.

That out of the way... those fuckers.  Who else could I be talking about today besides the corrupt, regressive wing of the Supreme Court?  Not content to just let their precedent-breaking take-down on abortion rights fester, not even content to rule that bribery is OK, so long as the bribe gets delivered after the fact, they had to go that one step further.  They upended something truly foundational, the concept that nobody is above the law - and they did so without even the barest of cover in the letter of the law or the Constitution, but just based on the insane assertion that, sometimes, presidents need to commit crimes, and it would be an unfair burden on them to have to consider the consequences of those crimes in the heat of the moment.

OK, so, first off, I never want to hear anything coming from any of their pie-holes about "original intent" from the Constitution ever again.  Up until today, it was pretty straightforward - presidents shouldn't be criming, and, if they really had to, any of their successors could pardon them for it after the fact.  Now, it's strictly a question of whether they're using the powers of their office - if so, it's not reviewable, ever.  That's so far beyond the intent of the founders, it's in the realm of what they were actively trying to prevent, the creation of a king.

We are now officially beyond "respect for the rule of law", because this court has demonstrated that the law simply doesn't matter - if they want something, they'll make that something happen, regardless of what the Constitution or the laws actually say.  Something needs to change, soonest.  Impeachments, pack the court, heck... I do my best not to wish ill on others, but, if Biden were to use his newly-granted immunities to create a few openings in the court, well, I might not agree with that, but I'd totally understand.

Book of Hours - careful, you might get sucked in

 The traditional real-world update:  Ukraine aid went through (yay!), but the Israel/Hamas cease-fire didn't.  Well, at least we're starting to make noises about maybe not supplying arms to indiscriminately kill civilians with while Israel pursues their goals... I'd call that progress, but even that suggestion is getting some pretty harsh push-back here in the US, so we'll see what happens there.

Now, as for what brought on the need to post... I've got Helldivers 2 that could be letting me scratch the first-person shooter itch (and, I still do, maybe one or two short sessions a week).  I've got Starfield that could be letting me explore a chunk of the galaxy (however repetitively).  I've got Baldur's Gate 3 that could be letting me push through a fantasy world to save both it and myself.  These, and many, many other good games vie for my attention.  Yet, lately, the main game I've been sinking my time into is a little oddity called Book of Hours.

On its surface, Book of Hours isn't much to look at.  Your actions pretty much all boil down to play card/item in slot (or, if you're lucky, multiple cards/items in multiple slots), wait for result, then claim the proceeds.  How they managed to take that simple mechanism and create "cozy 1920's upper-class British librarian and esoteric knowledge researcher simulator", that I don't know, but I'm glad they did.

So, mechanics aside, what exactly is it that you do in this game?  Well, so the story goes, there's a manor called Hush House, out on an island with a small village, that was a repository of all sorts of esoteric knowledge.  Was, because there was a fire that basically destroyed everything, and the last Librarian has gone missing.  You're hired on by the foundation responsible for the property to take what remains into hand, and get things back in order.  Things start out as well as can be expected, with you washing ashore after a shipwreck at the village, whose populace, due to historical reasons, is extremely distrustful of outsiders.  Of course, you'll need those villagers to help you even get to Hush House, never mind deal with clearing out the place... except, once you get there, there's no sign of a fire, just years of neglect, along with the protections left in place by past Librarians of course.  There's still plenty of books to be found, which you can catalog to get the general gist of what they're about, then study to improve your skills, hopefully, assuming they're not also somehow cursed or infested with something unpleasant.  Then there's various visitors and the like to deal with, some of which are involved with incidents in the outside world like you might find in your random Cthulhu-mythos stories, some just looking for research materials, and some you can use to further your own advancement (for example, you know a great many languages to start with, but not all of them).  Beyond that, well, let's just say there are more systems that (super)naturally come to light while you're playing, all coming together seamlessly to create something special.

I think what makes the game work is the subtle ways they use the simple systems to reinforce the world and your place in it.  Days and seasons pass, and the day's weather can have a significant impact on what it is you decide to do on any given day.  Cataloging the contents of a book is a single mid-length action, but resting outside of what you get back each day is a multi-step process (brew some tea, serve it out so you're not drinking the whole pot, then drink it and take a nap).  Heck, I've got a pile of dirty bedding in the groundskeeper's shack I'm using for home base that kind of drove my initial exploration of the manor, thinking I'd find someplace to do laundry or the like... but Librarians don't do laundry, that's something I'd need to get help from the villagers to handle, somehow, and I'd much rather spend that time trying to solve the mystery of this 15th-century tome to get a new skill or improve one I've already got.  Plus, of course, it's using time-appropriate British currency (pence, shillings, farthings, etc.), which makes keeping track of your mundane money all the trickier (and yes, that does mean there's non-mundane money as well).

I could go on (and on and on) about various details, small and large, that have made Book of Hours entertaining enough to keep me engaged and coming back, night after night, to get a few more days' efforts in, but I think I've said enough to let you decide if you're at all interested.  If so, definitely check out the link I put in earlier. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some research to get back to.

First new game on Ubuntu: Helldivers 2

 Starting with today's "shit state of the world" report... wait a minute, Ukraine aid has gotten through Congress, and Israel is making offers for a cease-fire in Gaza?  Well, it's a bit early to be calling either truly "good news", but one can hope, right?

Before I get into the main meat of this post, gotta give my updated take on Steam on Ubuntu in general.  The big thing being that, as of right now, anybody wanting to use Steam on Ubuntu should not use the "snap" version that Ubuntu offers as the "safe" version.  That's because at least one game, and likely more, misbehaves if you have that version of Steam installed, but works fine if you have Valve's official version installed - and since that game is No Man's Sky, that's kind of a big deal.  Other games I've tested include Bridge Constructor Portal and Everspace (both of which have Linux-native versions), as well as Skyrim, all without major issues beyond some graphics glitches when I try to push my APU a bit too hard.  Proton is a beautiful thing, and ProtonDB is a wonderful resource.

With a little experience under my belt, I felt safe enough to actually spend money on a new game, in this case Helldivers 2.  Yeah, I'm a little late to the party, but between making the move to a new PC and overcoming my resistance to having anything to do with Sony anything (see my earlier posts as to how I came to leave Playstation for XBox back in the day, if you're interested), I'm not feeling too bad about it.  Early is nice, but seeing how a business runs a game is nice too.

For those not in the know, Helldivers 2 is a futuristic third-person shooter set in a galaxy where you are fighting for "managed democracy" (read space-fascists) against hordes of alien creatures and automatons, in various missions with up to three other players.  Tonally, it's a weird sort of playing-it-straight-for-laughs setup, which is helped by two mechanical aspects of the game: all the missions are Player-versus-environment (PvE), and friendly fire is always on.  Part of the fun is just in avoiding (or not) taking out other players with some of the ludicrously powerful options at hand (think orbital strikes, auto-turrets, flamethrowers, that sort of thing).  And unlike most shooters, when you die, you don't magically respawn (or get brought back to life a la Destiny's space-zombie Guardians), but your replacement dives down onto the planet's surface... they may look a lot like your previous guy did, but the voice change and different patriotic "barks" make it clear that this is somebody entirely new.  The obvious reference point for all this madness is Starship Troopers, but it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't some Paranoia in the mix as well.

So, how's it play on Ubuntu?  Pretty good, or, as one of the ProtonDB entries put it, it doesn't crash any more often here than on Windows.  I'm enjoying it quite a bit, but the whole at-my-computer-desk thing makes it harder to play for extended sessions, especially once cats get added to the equation.  If it ever comes to the XBox side of the console space, I might just buy it again for $40, just to play it over there... but I'm not holding my breath, and I'm damn well not buying any PlayStation console to play it on now - bad enough that I had to set up an account.  Overall, I'd generally recommend this, outside of those people I know that just wouldn't enjoy anything shooter-y.

A farewell to Windows

 So, to gloss over the increasingly shit state of the world... Ukraine's in ever-more-dire straits due to Russia's invasion (and Republican obstructionism here in the US isn't helping), Israel's not done with Gaza yet... and decided that attacking an Iranian embassy in another country would be a good move while they're already distracted, which Iran (reasonably) took issue with, and decided to respond with drone attacks on Israel last night.  Looks like things are heating up over there, here's hoping we all live through any further escalations.

While that's all going on, I (as usual) am focused closer to home.  In particular, Windows 10 is going away next year, and Windows 11 is a product I don't want in my day-to-day life (outside of work, of course, can't escape it there just yet).  Looking over all the software I use routinely, the only thing that Windows really brings to the table is the ability to use all of my Steam library - you know, that pile of games I've acquired over the years where I've tried things out briefly, then promptly set them aside to come back to some other day, which never comes.  Even cutting that down in half, I've got more games in there than I'm likely to ever come back to, and, courtesy of Steam's Steam Deck efforts, more and more of them can be played in Linux without major issue.  With that in mind, I've assembled a new "daily driver" for home that's just getting a Linux install - if I ever have a burning need for Windows, I can buy it then.

Mind you, that's a lovely idea in abstract, but how well that turns out depends greatly on the state of the Linux ecosystem these days.  With that in mind, I decided to go with Ubuntu... but I've also got some rather new hardware involved (AMD 8700G APU, woohoo!), so I thought going with the recently-released Ubuntu 24.04 Beta would be a good idea.  Long story short, no - this is a "true beta", not a marketing exercise, and it only took a couple of reinstalls for me to decide to move on.

Well, if the bleeding edge is out, then stability is the name of the game... so, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS it is.  The end result is... better, but nowhere near consumer-grade.  Just to call out the issues I've run into so far:  I had to install a terminal-based program to get my audio working properly (I've got a 5.1 sound system that I've used for decades); AMD's graphics hardware drivers involve installing a package using Ubuntu's built in tools... followed by a script in a terminal; Ubuntu's Steam package reacts badly to maximizing its window on the desktop (as in, nothing displays outside of the menu bar, even if you revert screen size); and my personal favorite, their preferred update method resides in their "store" app, which, when I try to update it, won't update because it's in use, and there's no method there to schedule updates for, say, the next restart cycle or anything like that.  All in all, it's easy to miss the (relative) polish the Windows experience provides these days... but it's not enough to make me switch back to Windows just yet.

It's the start of a new Linux adventure here.  Much as I like to keep things simple, especially when it comes to computer gear and the like, I have to admit to being a little excited to see how things go.

Mixed bag: terrible reality, too-good fantasy

 Over two months since I last posted?  That's a bit too long - things tend to back up and fester over those sorts of time frames - so, let's get cleared out a bit, hey?

First, yes, Israel/Hamas is still going on, and still causing untold horrors among the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip.  Since both sides are basically full "we can't let the other side exist any longer", I don't expect to see that change any time soon, no matter what pressure anybody else brings to bear.

Then, there's Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  It's been two years since that mess started, and it's going much like I feared back when it started.  Hell, we're still finding new "sanctions" to apply against Russia two years on, which means what should have been a sharp rebuke has instead been a measured display of disapproval, which isn't going to dissuade anybody who's already initiated a war on their own.  Worse still, not having any "skin in the game" for this war means that it's more politically palatable for our own fifth-columnist party, the Republicans, to try and obstruct what little aid we would otherwise be giving.  And for anybody that disputes that characterization of Republicans, let me remind you that it's a bit over 3 years since they tried to overthrow the government, since when they have done exactly nothing to clean out their ranks, instead obstructing even basic functioning of the government in the House of Representatives... at this stage, anybody running for (re)election under the Republican banner is part of the problem, not the solution (unless you think the solution is overthrowing the government, of course).

Well, with all that off my chest, time for a bit of tonal whiplash.  I've played a bit more Baldur's Gate 3 (for those of you "in the know", I've made it across the lake in the Underdark), and I can safely say that, from all that I've seen so far, it's a good game.  A very good game.  Honestly, too good of a game.

What do I mean by that?  This is from the point of view of an older adult, so your mileage may vary, but this is the first game I've played in a long time that holds my attention strongly enough that I can't reliably stop a play session at a scheduled time - yes, basically every time I've played, I stayed up way past my bedtime.  So, being a "responsible" adult, that means that I can only really play BG3 on the weekend... and Friday nights are pretty well spoken for, so that really means Saturday night only.  But, life's never simple like that, so anything that disrupts that schedule (like, say, a return bout of COVID) means I have even less time to play.  In and of itself, a nuisance, but not like there's much to be done about it.

However, it gets worse.  As good as BG3 is, it impacts my ability to play even remotely similar games.  For example, I've still got Wildermyth listed in my "Games that have my attention" section, and it's true, I really do want to play more of that game... but, it's a party-based fantasy tactical combat game at its core, so all I would get out of it right now is a constant reminder that I'd rather be playing BG3.  It's not a total wash, since I can still play some more "sufficiently different" games like Starfield and Slipways to round out my gaming time, but it's a large footprint of my games that I'm basically locked out of until I either finish or grow less enamored of BG3.

So, that's where I'm seeing things now: real problems nationally and globally, while I deal with the very definition of "first world problems" in my play time locally.  Well, better days will come, I'm sure... but of course, I'd rather have those better days right now, thanks.