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Early Snow Release
Feb. 9th, 2021 11:07 pmThe snow ended up starting later than they said it would, so I had to go in this morning. . .buuut, after it started ramping up around lunchtime, they made the decision to let us go around 2. So I had a couple of extra hours to myself this afternoon, which I will take. Could have done without the extra bullshit regarding credit cards that I learned about this morning, or the general bad mood I was in (didn't sleep particularly well last night, and -- well, I don't like going to work), but yeah. I'll take what I can get!
So, with the extra time, how'd I manage on the old to-do list?
1. Keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check – and with extras, thanks to the early release!
A) Home early? Why not indulge with a little afternoon OXBox/OXtra? I had –
1. “7 Really Stupid Game Overs We Couldn’t Resist Getting” – seven games that had a situation where it was really clear that doing this one particular thing would result in a game over. . .but given that sometimes warning someone about something just makes them want to do it more. . . XD To be fair, the very first one on the list was from Wolfenstein II and involves kicking Hitler on the face during an undercover mission. That’s a hard opportunity to pass up. Being warned repeatedly about activating a device that will devour all the matter around it to revitalize the earth (Fallout 3 and it’s G.E.C.K.), or reading the diary of a ghost who is specifically haunting the train because he’s worried about someone reading said diary (and doing it right in front of him – brilliant work, Paper Mario) and doing it anyway? That’s all on you, Andy. :p
2. “7 Bosses You Snuck Up Behind Like a Total Hero” – basically, when stealth HAD to be the name of the game, because otherwise you’d get wrecked. From gun-and-machete-wielding cannibals (The Last of Us, Ellie vs David), to evil sorceresses with lots of clones (Dishonored 2, the protag versus Delilah Copperspoon), to an old hero with lots of piercings and his eyes bandaged (Demon Souls remaster, you versus the, uh, Old Hero), if you didn’t sneak, you must repeat! From your last save, that is.
3. “Hitman 3 Berlin! 3 Ways to Play! NIGHTCLUB ACCIDENT! DRUG DEALER DISGUISE! KILLER DJ?” – hehehe, look what dropped today~ We’re up to the Berlin level, where 47 has to send a message to the ICA at a nightclub they’ve stuck a bunch of their agents in by killing five of said agents. And, as usual, we had a lovely look at just how different everyone’s styles of play are in this game:
I. Andy, stealthily infiltrating the general area as staff and setting up a number of “accident” kills (generally in the form of “shoot down this large object hanging over them”). He didn’t even enter the club itself up until the very end to check out oily dancing man in his thong. XD Five stars, Silent Assassin. (Bonus: finding the German “No Goose” sign spraypainted on a barrier, because 47 respects everyone’s favorite Goose.)
II. Jane, getting in by helping the guy looking for his “allergy pills,” then disguising herself as the local drug dealer before switching to staff and setting up a two-for-one electrical trap! As she herself put it, electrical kills seem to be her theme for this game. . .she also wanged one of her trusty screwdrivers into a guy’s head, and dropped a disco ball on someone before making her way out. Three stars, Clean ICA Agent.
III. Mike, knocking out the guy looking for his pills and getting upset that he couldn’t wear his outfit, then sneaking in and grabbing a barman outfit and refusing to fully abandon it despite getting repeatedly compromised. XD He smacked one of his targets upside the head with a frying pan and tried to drag him into noticers; repeatedly lured another target into a spot where he could hit him over the head with a gas canister, and then explode said canister to blow him up; shot down one of the same heavy objects Andy did – in view of people, so he had to flee arrest; and shot his final two targets while DJing after not-very-successfully distracting people with a light show. No stars, Black Cat. XD Ahh, that’s the Mike we all know and love. Also, the game basically gives you one agent as a kill for free at the start of the level (he’s just wandering in the woods on his own) – Andy and Jane both got the guy, Mike just knocked him out. His brief taste of Silent Assassin working against him there!
So yeah, that was a lot of fun. :D I don’t know how many levels there are after this – I think these are the only three Kevin’s played as well – but I’m looking forward to more whenever it shows up!
B) And in my actual subscriptions, we started with Call Me Kevin and more AI Dungeon! He upgraded to the premium version with better AI, not that it made THAT much of a difference. He wrote a long story about Detective Jim Pickens, who got shot with an arrow that pointed to a treasure inside him, then went to the library to research the treasure, got pulled into a side quest to defeat his enemy Toby Dick by setting him on fire and putting him in a fishbowl, then went inside of himself into an apartment building where he accidentally resurrected “Brenden” Fraser from his bones, turned into Jake Gyllenhall and did a buddy movie with him (causing Brenden to ascend to the moon with all the other dead actors), then cut his stomach open to pull out a chest and learn about triple stars. Which Kevin never got to hear about. XD Jim retired at the top of his career and became a singer, while Brenden came down off the moon to steal fish from a pet shop and was arrested. XD There was also a brief trip into “Survival Mode,” where Turg charmed/confused some goblins into giving him their weapons – and then started murdering them all, leading him to be tried for war crimes and beaten to death by the remaining goblins; and “Multiplayer,” where “The Protagonist” ended up morphing into Kevin himself, wrote a screenplay while off his medication, then sang a lovely song to help the Glee Club raise money for the Dark Carnival. ...Look, I just report on these things, I don’t understand them. XD
C) And then it was time to catch up with Gray! We had:
1. More Guts And Glory, with more impossible challenges! Including some pretty epic parkour challenges, a “championship” challenge that required quite a lot of dodging of mines and swinging logs, a “ludicrous speed” challenge that sent him flying around corners before dodging mortars, and a few challenges that were basically just “how much crap can we put on the board to kill the player before the frame rate completely dies?” Answer – not enough to stop Gray! XD Seriously, that last board should have by all rights beaten him with the amount of bombs and arrows and KATANAS being launched at him, but he somehow made it through alive! (And only came SIXTH on the leaderboard – how the hell did one through five manage this??) Masochism, baby!
2. More Happy Wheels, with more impossible challenges (as per)! We started off things with a ball kick featuring Pogo Man, knocking balls into places like “Masochismas,” “GrayStillWins,” and “God” (in the middle of the board, surrounded by spinny platforms – Gray got super lucky and bounced a ball right down the momentary gap). From there we had the traditional bottle flip full of yeet; a level of living spikes (poor Gray got scissored SOO many times); a “choose your poison: jet wall or glass break” level (jet wall was super annoying; glass break super easy by Gray standards); another rainbow set of jet walls; and a jet run followed by a van fall, which Gray ended in the most Gray fashion ever – headbutting the final van off the platform, with only one arm and one leg to his name, to yeet himself off it and win. Seriously, Happy Wheels character slowly headbutting a van off a platform while missing limbs is basically his channel in a nutshell in this era of “Impossible Challenges.” XD
2. Work some more on “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check – the rough bit has been revised. AKA, Alice tries to kill Fish when he first attacks her, only to discover that things that work on humans don’t work on him. And the poor girl doesn’t know he’s a vampire yet, she just thinks he’s a violent asshole. . . There’s a short but painful struggle for the door that she doesn’t win, which leads directly into her Embrace. I’m sorry, Alice, but in order to send you on lots of vampire adventures, first I have to make you a vampire. . .at least shortly you’ll have the pleasure of seeing him get his head whacked off?
3.Get in a workout: Check! Another bike ride, another round with Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! Caught back up with Grills and Nick as they left the Prydwen – Grills fed, watered, and rad-scrubbed; Nick dealing with some of the NPCs making passive-aggressive comments. XD Out of the airport, it wasn’t too far a hike to the last police station they had to hit – it was in a flood zone, but fortunately the area was clear of Mirelurks, so the pair could go straight to the holotape, no issue. Grills took a moment to listen to them all and hear the story – mainly Eddie bitching about how this one idiot messed up a potential alliance between the North and South Boston gangs (Irish vs Italian), getting him whacked, trying again to secure an alliance, talking to his girlfriend, telling a reporter about a murder done (safety inspector for a public works project), and fingering his own cousin as a murderer while talking about a vacation to Ireland. With the story having unfolded, Grills handed them all over to Nick, who decoded the passcode and headed straight over to Andrew Station, where Winter was holed up – temporarily removing himself as an available companion at the same time! So Grills had his lovely, lovely Lone Wanderer bonuses back, yay. :p
Grills, meanwhile, took advantage of Brotherhood vertibirds to get himself to Andrew Station – which, hilariously, was actually right next to the police station near the Castle. Figures, right? At any rate, raiders had taken over the area, so Grills spent a little time clearing them out, both outside and in. Nothing too major beyond Nick nearly triggering some traps, Grills nearly being taken out by a Legendary Raider with a Quickdraw Radium Rifle (why is it the rad damage affects the players waaaay more than the enemies?), and Nick apparently picking up a big-fuck-off-legendary gun off one of the other Legendaries Grills killed, and Grills being unable to get it from him because, of course, Nick wasn’t a companion at the time. Ooops. XD At any rate, they got through those raiders and found their way to Eddie’s room, where Grills and Nick confronted him. Grills let Nick do most of the talking, putting to rest the ghosts of the past and using his new big gun to kill Eddie. Afterwards, Nick went on a solemn walk back outside, with Grills stealing Eddie’s gun (a Crippling .44 called “Eddie’s Peace,” har har), helping Nick take out a few more raiders, and finding a secret distilling room round the back. I left them exiting the station, with Nick walking to where Jenny (the original’s pre-War fiancee) was killed. I started watching that scene, but realized that it was a little longer to the end of the episode than I’d thought, so backed it up and left it for next time. Almost done with episode 50 though – and then it’ll be back to Far Harbor, I assume, given the next episode is called “Shipbreaker. . .”
4. Get tumblr queues done: Check, though not quite as many as I would have liked for VictorLuvsAlice -- then again, I had a LONG entry planned for Thursday as I updated everyone on my Fallout 4 Victor's shenanigans, and it took me a bit to get it sorted. But I have my posts for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday good to go on there, and I know exactly what I'm doing for Saturday and Sunday, so that's something! And I've gotten caught up on Valice Multiverse too -- one ask, one thread. That works. :)
So yeah, reasonably productive afternoon/evening, with a few fun videos watched and whatnot. :) This should help get me through the rest of the week -- that and me asking for a day off next Friday to give myself a little three-day weekend. (Which, given that we're due even more snow next week, might not be STRICTLY necessary, buuut. . .) As it stands, I need to finish answering DW comments and get off for the night. Not looking like the snow we got (which was only about an inch, whew -- still shit to drive in, though!) will cause any delays, but that might depend on how icy it gets in the morning. . .we shall see, I guess. Night all!
So, with the extra time, how'd I manage on the old to-do list?
1. Keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check – and with extras, thanks to the early release!
A) Home early? Why not indulge with a little afternoon OXBox/OXtra? I had –
1. “7 Really Stupid Game Overs We Couldn’t Resist Getting” – seven games that had a situation where it was really clear that doing this one particular thing would result in a game over. . .but given that sometimes warning someone about something just makes them want to do it more. . . XD To be fair, the very first one on the list was from Wolfenstein II and involves kicking Hitler on the face during an undercover mission. That’s a hard opportunity to pass up. Being warned repeatedly about activating a device that will devour all the matter around it to revitalize the earth (Fallout 3 and it’s G.E.C.K.), or reading the diary of a ghost who is specifically haunting the train because he’s worried about someone reading said diary (and doing it right in front of him – brilliant work, Paper Mario) and doing it anyway? That’s all on you, Andy. :p
2. “7 Bosses You Snuck Up Behind Like a Total Hero” – basically, when stealth HAD to be the name of the game, because otherwise you’d get wrecked. From gun-and-machete-wielding cannibals (The Last of Us, Ellie vs David), to evil sorceresses with lots of clones (Dishonored 2, the protag versus Delilah Copperspoon), to an old hero with lots of piercings and his eyes bandaged (Demon Souls remaster, you versus the, uh, Old Hero), if you didn’t sneak, you must repeat! From your last save, that is.
3. “Hitman 3 Berlin! 3 Ways to Play! NIGHTCLUB ACCIDENT! DRUG DEALER DISGUISE! KILLER DJ?” – hehehe, look what dropped today~ We’re up to the Berlin level, where 47 has to send a message to the ICA at a nightclub they’ve stuck a bunch of their agents in by killing five of said agents. And, as usual, we had a lovely look at just how different everyone’s styles of play are in this game:
I. Andy, stealthily infiltrating the general area as staff and setting up a number of “accident” kills (generally in the form of “shoot down this large object hanging over them”). He didn’t even enter the club itself up until the very end to check out oily dancing man in his thong. XD Five stars, Silent Assassin. (Bonus: finding the German “No Goose” sign spraypainted on a barrier, because 47 respects everyone’s favorite Goose.)
II. Jane, getting in by helping the guy looking for his “allergy pills,” then disguising herself as the local drug dealer before switching to staff and setting up a two-for-one electrical trap! As she herself put it, electrical kills seem to be her theme for this game. . .she also wanged one of her trusty screwdrivers into a guy’s head, and dropped a disco ball on someone before making her way out. Three stars, Clean ICA Agent.
III. Mike, knocking out the guy looking for his pills and getting upset that he couldn’t wear his outfit, then sneaking in and grabbing a barman outfit and refusing to fully abandon it despite getting repeatedly compromised. XD He smacked one of his targets upside the head with a frying pan and tried to drag him into noticers; repeatedly lured another target into a spot where he could hit him over the head with a gas canister, and then explode said canister to blow him up; shot down one of the same heavy objects Andy did – in view of people, so he had to flee arrest; and shot his final two targets while DJing after not-very-successfully distracting people with a light show. No stars, Black Cat. XD Ahh, that’s the Mike we all know and love. Also, the game basically gives you one agent as a kill for free at the start of the level (he’s just wandering in the woods on his own) – Andy and Jane both got the guy, Mike just knocked him out. His brief taste of Silent Assassin working against him there!
So yeah, that was a lot of fun. :D I don’t know how many levels there are after this – I think these are the only three Kevin’s played as well – but I’m looking forward to more whenever it shows up!
B) And in my actual subscriptions, we started with Call Me Kevin and more AI Dungeon! He upgraded to the premium version with better AI, not that it made THAT much of a difference. He wrote a long story about Detective Jim Pickens, who got shot with an arrow that pointed to a treasure inside him, then went to the library to research the treasure, got pulled into a side quest to defeat his enemy Toby Dick by setting him on fire and putting him in a fishbowl, then went inside of himself into an apartment building where he accidentally resurrected “Brenden” Fraser from his bones, turned into Jake Gyllenhall and did a buddy movie with him (causing Brenden to ascend to the moon with all the other dead actors), then cut his stomach open to pull out a chest and learn about triple stars. Which Kevin never got to hear about. XD Jim retired at the top of his career and became a singer, while Brenden came down off the moon to steal fish from a pet shop and was arrested. XD There was also a brief trip into “Survival Mode,” where Turg charmed/confused some goblins into giving him their weapons – and then started murdering them all, leading him to be tried for war crimes and beaten to death by the remaining goblins; and “Multiplayer,” where “The Protagonist” ended up morphing into Kevin himself, wrote a screenplay while off his medication, then sang a lovely song to help the Glee Club raise money for the Dark Carnival. ...Look, I just report on these things, I don’t understand them. XD
C) And then it was time to catch up with Gray! We had:
1. More Guts And Glory, with more impossible challenges! Including some pretty epic parkour challenges, a “championship” challenge that required quite a lot of dodging of mines and swinging logs, a “ludicrous speed” challenge that sent him flying around corners before dodging mortars, and a few challenges that were basically just “how much crap can we put on the board to kill the player before the frame rate completely dies?” Answer – not enough to stop Gray! XD Seriously, that last board should have by all rights beaten him with the amount of bombs and arrows and KATANAS being launched at him, but he somehow made it through alive! (And only came SIXTH on the leaderboard – how the hell did one through five manage this??) Masochism, baby!
2. More Happy Wheels, with more impossible challenges (as per)! We started off things with a ball kick featuring Pogo Man, knocking balls into places like “Masochismas,” “GrayStillWins,” and “God” (in the middle of the board, surrounded by spinny platforms – Gray got super lucky and bounced a ball right down the momentary gap). From there we had the traditional bottle flip full of yeet; a level of living spikes (poor Gray got scissored SOO many times); a “choose your poison: jet wall or glass break” level (jet wall was super annoying; glass break super easy by Gray standards); another rainbow set of jet walls; and a jet run followed by a van fall, which Gray ended in the most Gray fashion ever – headbutting the final van off the platform, with only one arm and one leg to his name, to yeet himself off it and win. Seriously, Happy Wheels character slowly headbutting a van off a platform while missing limbs is basically his channel in a nutshell in this era of “Impossible Challenges.” XD
2. Work some more on “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check – the rough bit has been revised. AKA, Alice tries to kill Fish when he first attacks her, only to discover that things that work on humans don’t work on him. And the poor girl doesn’t know he’s a vampire yet, she just thinks he’s a violent asshole. . . There’s a short but painful struggle for the door that she doesn’t win, which leads directly into her Embrace. I’m sorry, Alice, but in order to send you on lots of vampire adventures, first I have to make you a vampire. . .at least shortly you’ll have the pleasure of seeing him get his head whacked off?
3.Get in a workout: Check! Another bike ride, another round with Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! Caught back up with Grills and Nick as they left the Prydwen – Grills fed, watered, and rad-scrubbed; Nick dealing with some of the NPCs making passive-aggressive comments. XD Out of the airport, it wasn’t too far a hike to the last police station they had to hit – it was in a flood zone, but fortunately the area was clear of Mirelurks, so the pair could go straight to the holotape, no issue. Grills took a moment to listen to them all and hear the story – mainly Eddie bitching about how this one idiot messed up a potential alliance between the North and South Boston gangs (Irish vs Italian), getting him whacked, trying again to secure an alliance, talking to his girlfriend, telling a reporter about a murder done (safety inspector for a public works project), and fingering his own cousin as a murderer while talking about a vacation to Ireland. With the story having unfolded, Grills handed them all over to Nick, who decoded the passcode and headed straight over to Andrew Station, where Winter was holed up – temporarily removing himself as an available companion at the same time! So Grills had his lovely, lovely Lone Wanderer bonuses back, yay. :p
Grills, meanwhile, took advantage of Brotherhood vertibirds to get himself to Andrew Station – which, hilariously, was actually right next to the police station near the Castle. Figures, right? At any rate, raiders had taken over the area, so Grills spent a little time clearing them out, both outside and in. Nothing too major beyond Nick nearly triggering some traps, Grills nearly being taken out by a Legendary Raider with a Quickdraw Radium Rifle (why is it the rad damage affects the players waaaay more than the enemies?), and Nick apparently picking up a big-fuck-off-legendary gun off one of the other Legendaries Grills killed, and Grills being unable to get it from him because, of course, Nick wasn’t a companion at the time. Ooops. XD At any rate, they got through those raiders and found their way to Eddie’s room, where Grills and Nick confronted him. Grills let Nick do most of the talking, putting to rest the ghosts of the past and using his new big gun to kill Eddie. Afterwards, Nick went on a solemn walk back outside, with Grills stealing Eddie’s gun (a Crippling .44 called “Eddie’s Peace,” har har), helping Nick take out a few more raiders, and finding a secret distilling room round the back. I left them exiting the station, with Nick walking to where Jenny (the original’s pre-War fiancee) was killed. I started watching that scene, but realized that it was a little longer to the end of the episode than I’d thought, so backed it up and left it for next time. Almost done with episode 50 though – and then it’ll be back to Far Harbor, I assume, given the next episode is called “Shipbreaker. . .”
4. Get tumblr queues done: Check, though not quite as many as I would have liked for VictorLuvsAlice -- then again, I had a LONG entry planned for Thursday as I updated everyone on my Fallout 4 Victor's shenanigans, and it took me a bit to get it sorted. But I have my posts for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday good to go on there, and I know exactly what I'm doing for Saturday and Sunday, so that's something! And I've gotten caught up on Valice Multiverse too -- one ask, one thread. That works. :)
So yeah, reasonably productive afternoon/evening, with a few fun videos watched and whatnot. :) This should help get me through the rest of the week -- that and me asking for a day off next Friday to give myself a little three-day weekend. (Which, given that we're due even more snow next week, might not be STRICTLY necessary, buuut. . .) As it stands, I need to finish answering DW comments and get off for the night. Not looking like the snow we got (which was only about an inch, whew -- still shit to drive in, though!) will cause any delays, but that might depend on how icy it gets in the morning. . .we shall see, I guess. Night all!
