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[personal profile] crossover_chick
Perhaps not quite as productive as yesterday, but still pretty good:

1. Catch up on the OXBox/OXtra in my Watch Later, as well as trying to keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check! See below –

A) Started with my beloved OXBox and OXtra just before lunchtime and continuing through the afternoon, beginning on:

I. “7 Weirdest Beat 'Em Ups We Swear We're Not Making Up” – side-scrolling beat-em-up games that are extremely, EXTREMELY weird. Like Night Slashers, where a man with cyborg arms beats up legions of zombies, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Death itself (on loan from Castlevania). Or Sonic Blast Man, who is a punching-based superhero who not only punches regular enemies, but will also punch trucks away from babies, giant crabs away from boats, and enormous meteors away from Earth. Can’t say he is not REALLY GOOD at punching! Or Captain Commando, where you can play as a literal two-year-old in a mech suit. XD I love it when these games don’t take themselves seriously. . .

II. “7 Folks Who Turned to Cannibalism Way Too Fast” – exactly what it says on the tin, people in video games who were a bit TOO eager to go down the “eating people” route. Fallout 3 got first mention with the citizens of Andale, who can’t even make a human meat pie that heals you more than pure radroach meat! There was also the “chef” in the space station kitchen of Prey (2017) (who killed the real one and apparently made him into “eel” soup), the Altruistic Cult of GTA V (horrible baby boomers feasting on the young with the help of Trevor – and who don’t realize they have a good thing going until they try to kidnap HIM and he wipes them all out because Trevor), or, if you believe a candy bar’s description, EVERYONE in Deus Ex (apparently chocolate is at least partly made of people now. Yaaay. . .). Perfect thing to watch before lunch, right? XD

III. “7 Great Games That Never Got a Sequel” – again, what it says on the tin, amazing games that were generally just not popular enough to get a sequel. Features such classics like Sleeping Dogs (a tense crime game about being an undercover cop) Grim Fandango (the game from Tim Schaffer that isn’t Psychonauts – about intrigue and mystery in the Land of the Dead (not that one)), L.A. Noire (crime solving as an asshole cop who will occasionally die in a tar pit if you don’t look where you’re stepping), and Bully (a Rockstar game about being a juvenile delinquent in a fancy school that Andy is very sour the studio ended up ditching in favor of the GTA series). To be fair, though, Jane mentioned in the opening that sequels can sometimes be so much worse than the original games, so maybe it’s better these are all missed opportunities. Can you imagine an Alien Isolation sequel that ended up being more like Colonial Marines? Bleh.

IV. And, of course, what I was really looking forward to: “Hitman 3 Chongqing! 3 Ways to Play! FLYING AXE! FALLING LANTERN! BRAIN EXPLOSION?” This is actually only part one of two, focusing on the first target in this Chinese city – Hush, a transhumanist hacker who is sneakily luring homeless people to his labs to do cruel mind control experiments on them with sci-fi technology. As per usual, we had a showcase of everyone’s unique playstyle –

Andy: Through careful wandering around and eavesdropping, he discovered the plot to lure homeless people in for experiments, disguised himself as a homeless person to get into the building, snuck around and disguised himself as a researcher to get up to the main lab, then disguised himself as Hush’s new favorite test subject to go head-to-head with him in “we’re going to sit in these scary sci-fi chairs and I’m going to make you raise your arms and get potentially-lethal headaches when you fight back.” One quiet knocking-out of an assistant actually concerned with safety later during a break in the action, and 47 was able to resist Hush so hard that – well, see “brain explosion” above. (Not that his head ACTUALLY exploded – it was kind of a brain explosion in spirit.)

Jane: Taking a more circuitous route, she accidentally got wrapped up in figuring out how you get to the second target – namely, a secret code used to sneak into a hidden ICA facility under a noodle shop. She got herself a chef’s outfit and the necessary code, then made her way around and onto the roof, where she grabbed some coveralls from a guard, and managed to disable a satellite array that was apparently important to Hush’s operation. Hush himself came out to investigate, with his bodyguard – after a bit of thought, Jane decided the best plan of action was to let Hush fix the satellite dish, then kill him by shooting down a lantern he’d have to pass under to get back inside. One accident kill later, she was back in her chef outfit, pockets full of stolen weapons as she prepared to re-invade the noodle shop.

Mike: Finding an open window into the building, he climbed in, found himself a fire extinguisher, then proceeded to go on a bit of a rampage with it. XD I say “a bit of” – after failing to get a good line to make it explode to take out a pair of coverall guards, he ended up just using it to knock people out (as a heavy extinguisher is apparently non-lethal when flung at people’s heads). He disguised himself as a coverall guard to avoid too much notice, but people eventually began finding all these unconscious bodies, and the target was put into temporary lockdown. Once everyone had calmed down, Mike found himself with a decent line-of-sight at the guy down a hallway. . .so he grabbed a fire ax from the fire safety box, threw it into the guy’s head, then grabbed his fire extinguisher and legged it out a nearby window. XD Basically, a perfect Mike run.

So yeah, that was fun – and I eagerly await the second part! These things don’t usually come in twos. . .but then again, taking out the second target also involves hacking the ICA, 47’s former employers, sooo. . .

B) Then this evening, we had Call Me Kevin with Fallout: New Vegas being destroyed by a randomizer mod! XD This is one of those replacer mods – while it keeps some of the original NPCs and dialogue in place, weapons, clothing, and some other NPCs are all randomized. Doc Mitchell, the guy who patches you up after the starting cutscene and is responsible for your character creation, was in a Legion outfit with a space helmet, for example. XD And a dog in the first town, Goodsprings, was replaced by a radscorpion. I think my favorite replacements were Victor the cowboy Securitron being replaced by a gecko, and a random comedian in Vegas being replaced by a mole rat. XD Kevin did manage to make some progress, namely to his guy getting a lucky drop with a really good “unarmed” weapon (a giant deathclaw claw) and putting all his points into that skill as a result. He killed everyone in Goodsprings with the Powder Gangers, got himself a snazzy “Chained Prostitute” outfit (basically BDSM gear), found and killed Mr. House just sitting in the desert along the way, cheated his way to Vegas, and murdered a bunch of Benny’s guards before taking over his suite. And then the game crashed so Kevin couldn’t do any more. XD All good fun, though – I’d definitely watch more!

C) And then it was over to GrayStillPlays for a few more Guts and Glory impossible challenges! Just two today, because they were both MADE BY SATAN AND HIS MINIONS. One was from the same person who made the “down Satan’s intestinal tract” board, and was a techno-rave of pulsing pink lasers combined with circular saws (both loose and on fidget spinners), ice, spikes, spiked ice, and boosts designed to push you AWAY from every checkpoint. And the ending required you to burst through a gate and then yeet yourself into a bunch of landmines. Gray was speaking pure gibberish at one point, but eventually he got enough of his character to touch the circle to win. The OTHER one was vaguely pirate-themed and involved more terrible spiked ice, ultra-boosts to slam you into breakable walls and kill you, a thousand million billion cannons, and log pounder things. Again, Gray nearly broke, but he did finally make it to the end – and even got the top rank on the board! Always deeply satisfying to see that happen. :D

2. Do some writing – more potential tumblr posts, actual story snippets, etc: Check! After not being sure what I wanted to do for a bit, ended up revising the "Fallout of Darkness" story snippet I wrote where Victor finds the Shroud costume and has to put it on and play pulp hero for a moment – and then Alice shows up in the Mistress of Mystery costume and knocks him speechless. XD Very fun little scene – I enjoy writing Victor in “cosplaying dork” mode. XD And in “absolutely stunned by Alice looking awesome” mode too. Good stuff.

3. Play some more Sims 4 – Newcrest file, starting the McFlys' week: Check! Rather quiet start to their week, honestly – well, sort of. I didn’t have them leave the house as it was raining and thunderstorming pretty much the entire day. I’d forgotten how much Newcrest loves rain. *sigh* Also, the washer AND the dryer both broke on poor Jennifer while she was trying to catch up on the laundry, so THAT was fun for her. On the plus side, she’s leveled up her handiness and has upgraded the showers nicely, and I let her have a nice oat, milk, and honey soak after all that. Plus the kids are best friends now, Marlene’s an official Artistic Prodigy after fulfilling that aspiration, and Marty sold a jingle for $200 and licensed a new song, which is now up for an award. :) I have plans to take them on a Snowy Escape vacation, but in a couple of in-game days – the Starlight Accolades and Spooky Day have to come first!

4. Get in a workout: Check! Back on the bike for another session with Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! I caught up with Grills on the road to his next destination, Echo Lake Lumber – but Jon decided that, so long as he was passing by Eden Meadow Cinemas (a drive-in theater much like Starlight, only with a working projector), he might as well kill all the ghouls there. A feat easily accomplished by sneaking into the main building, going out onto the roof, and then flinging molotovs into the crowd of ghouls watching the previews before killing what was left with his vast array of guns. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, honestly.

Satisfied in that job complete, Grills continued on his way and reached Echo Lake Lumber, which – well, for a lumber mill, had quite a few extras in the same area. A little cafe, a museum, what looked like stadium seating for something or another. . .I’m not sure of the history of the place, but I’m starting to think it was more of a tourist destination over an actual mill. At any rate, there were plenty more ghouls there, including two Legendaries – one up in the stands, one in the bush. Grills took them both out and checked their gear – the stands one had an Assassin’s Rolling Pin, which Jon mockingly praised to the skies (though, weirdly enough, took, as a later stop at a weapons workbench showed – maybe he thinks it would be funny to put on the wall?); the bushes one had a Hitman’s Western Revolver (MUCH better, though that same stop at the weapons workbench revealed it wasn’t QUITE as good as his Two Shot Advanced .44, ah well). After that, he proceeded inside and killed all the ghouls there – and was promptly met by Malcolm, who praised him for killing the “shamblers” and said that, as a reward, Grills could leave alive. Turned out he was a slightly-less-gone Trapper, who – when Grills explained he’d been sent to clear the place out for Far Harbor – was amenable to the idea of paying Grills not to mention a cannibal owned it. Grills was like “no deal” and killed him in one hit with his Poisoner’s Combat Shotgun. Another good day’s work!

With that sorted, Jon decided to send Grills back to the Nucleus rather than continuing his southern sweep of the Island – he thought that getting DiMA’s memories out of the Command Center would be a better way to end the episode without it going too long. He assured the guard outside that Atom would shield him, headed in, popped into that room with the weapons workbench I mentioned earlier to check his kit, then started disarming the laser traps before noticing the sleeping turrets above. And then he started going on about how shooting at them wouldn’t do anything, but would be a good way to grind up his criticals, and started doing just that –

Yeah, shooting at them does something. Namely, destroying the one he shot at and waking all the others up. Grills SOMEHOW survived that initial barrage, but then a Legendary Colonel Gutsy bot showed up and he got murderlated. Fortunately Jon had taken a moment to drop a save at the Nucleus as well, so he didn’t have to start from too far back. This time, he just went ahead and took care of all the turrets right away, and used some shots from his Two Shot Advanced to take out the Gutsy. Which then exploded, forcing Grills to flee before he got exploded too. Only thing it had was an Auto-Stim Metal Chest Piece – I might have appreciated that, but Jon didn’t, as stimpacks are less useful on Survival. He was much more interested in the bunk room behind the Gutsy’s corpse, as that had beds that could be used to drop a save. Left him in there – we’ll see how he does against the rest of the robots between him and DiMA’s memories next time!

Not too shabby at all! I also got my sheets changed, and I'm currently doing a little light RPing over on the Valice Multiverse while chatting on messenger on Victor Luvs Alice. Gonna answer my DW comment now, and then -- well, just chill I guess. It's Saturday Night, I can do that. :p First though, the new to-do list:

1. Watch Call Me Kevin and Jon's FO4 YOLO episode

2. Edit the gift fic that I need to queue for Tuesday

3. Play Alice: Madness Returns (though I will allow myself one (1) attempt at getting Fallout 4 to launch, as I recently updated my graphics card drivers)

4. Get in a workout

Eminently doable, I feel -- especially since the YouTube section is so small! Nothing in my Watch Later, so nothing else I feel I NEED to see. Though I'm sure stuff will pop up tomorrow, it always does. . . And yes, I did see "needing to update your drivers" as a possible reason for why Fallout 4 might crash in a loading screen, so -- one attempt. If it doesn't work, straight to A:MR. *nods*

But that's for tomorrow -- right now, I'm off to do commenty stuff. Night all!
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