#Timbrr rambles

[timbrrwolfe]

Ok so in my ongoing struggle of my laptop slowly losing its marbles, the worst offender is probably that it's constantly reading the right arrow as being pressed. And I only just now, after a few months of this, thought "Hey, what if I just disabled that key, specifically?" Because I'd considered disabling the whole keyboard but 1) it didn't work and 2) that could have its own problems given the fact that the power button is part of the keyboard. And because the other biggest problem is that the damn screen fell out and is only in place because the top is leaned slightly back at all times. Anyway.

It took me entirely too long but I realized that disabling just the right arrow key would probably be a much better solution than literally anything else. At least for addressing the symptom. Obviously the best overall would be to crack the laptop open and blow it out or otherwise fiddle with it and hope that fixes the root of the issue). But since I'm not gonna be doing that, essentially deleting the key on a software level was the answer. Which you'd /think/ would be something that's doable just. Baked into Windows. I mean, it's certainly a niche function, most people aren't going to be remapping or deleting keys. But still, you'd think it'd be possible to go into system settings and say "hey this key isn't working properly turn it off" But there's not. So you have to download a third party program. First one I tried just. Refused to open. Probably because it's been around since before Windows 2000 (though the site I got it from /says/ it works on Windows 10. Didn't for me). I shopped around, found a different one that seemed legit enough, and even had a page in Microsoft's Store so it's /probably/ less likely to completely ruin my computer. Hopefully.

Anyway excessively long story short I no longer have a right arrow key and hopefully this means I can actually interact with the internet in ways I wasn't being able to for a bit. Including making long rambly tumblr posts (since otherwise it just. Took the cursor to a place that wasn't typeable (definitely a word) and I could only really say anything via tags). Or watching a youtube video properly after opening it from discord or whatever.

Oh right I forgot that half the reason I made this post was that even with that key disabled it seems like my computer is registering....something? Being pressed? But literally nothing is happening. Nothing's being typed, my cursor's not moving around. Functions and locks aren't being toggled infinitely. The only reason I'm assuming it's happening is that my mouse cursor refuses to maintain its presence (because it disappears when I start typing) and stuff like "seeing a preview of a window when I hover over a program on the taskbar" isn't functioning properly. Which is. Annoying. But that's much more minor compared to all of the things that break or malfunction when you essentially hold the right arrow key down forever. So. It stays unless/until I magically figure out what the other "key" being "pressed" is. Or do something to try to address the root of the problem. Which. Eh.

#Timbrr rambles #I cannot express the depths of my aggravation this problem has caused the last couple months #but it appears to be over which means...well. it doesn't fix other issues that have been keeping me from writing but it's one obstacle down #really I could make a whole post on its own about how the latter half of December may or may not be very conducive to writing. #so we'll see how that goes.

[timbrrwolfe]

Alright I'm /pretty/ sure I already talked about part of this on here (unless it's sitting in my drafts which is also very possible) but I figured I may as well expound on what I was alluding to in the tags of this post.

So in 6th grade I had a habit of forgetting my pencil. Because I had a habit of forgetting a lot of things. Because I had undiagnosed adhd. So, when i was in need of a pencil, I'd sometimes have to borrow one from a teacher. And my homeroom teacher had a policy of requiring collateral when borrowing stuff (which like. Fair enough if he's paying out of pocket for stuff). And in one of those instances I used the book I had out from the school library (Goosebumps: Why I'm Afraid of Bees iirc) as collateral. And then promptly forgot to return the pencil. And somewhere in my kid brain which was terrified of getting in trouble for things, I thought something along the lines of "Oh no, now that book is gonna be out forever and I'll have to pay *gasp* a fine or even for the entire book, I can never use the library again." Which was followed up (at some point) by my bad habit of losing my keys leading to someone finding them and using the library card on them to borrow a bunch of stuff they never took back (including, ironically, a goosebumps dvd we already owned and, for some reason, some book on Hitler). So I stopped using the library nearly as much for a while.

Anyway, in 8th grade I got into a situation that was a confused mess. At my lunch table we were doing some banter, and I was just staring to get comfortable in jumping into these situations (because, as it turns out, I also had undiagnosed autism. Which also explains a lot). Unfortunately, in this particular instance, I made a(n admittedly convoluted) jab at someone that essentially boiled down to calling them ugly. Something along the lines of "your face is like a car crash. Horrifying but I can't look away". Except that instead of my intended target, one of the girls at my table thought I was talking about her and started SCREAMING obscenities at me. At which point I just kinda put my head down instead of like. Trying to explain the situation or any other kind of response. So, because there had been enough of a scene made that the rest of the cafeteria went silent, the teachers on duty naturally came over to find out what happened before fists started potentially flying. And so after some discussion in which I did nothing to defend myself, I ended up getting punished. By....being forced to sit on the outer edge of the cafeteria instead of with friends at the table. But the confusion doesn't end there, no no. See, the teacher (who had been a teacher I'd had) had me pick a number between 1 and 10. And I chose 7. So I had to spend 7 days on...The Perimeter. Except that I wasn't...entirely sure whether that 7 days counted the rest of that lunch period or not. And it was a Friday so that completely threw off my understanding of how long my punishment was going to last. As a bonus, it turns out the punishment wasn't much of one. I didn't mind being on my own, and I even got to get up and get my lunch whenever I wanted, instead of waiting until it was my row's turn to get up and get food. So I just...stayed there for the rest of the year for lunch (at least, when I didn't have "lunch detention" for being late. Which was mostly only a punishment because it limited what I was allowed to eat because for some reason they only let lunch detention kids get the daily hoagie option? I dunno, it was a very strange system. Also, I digress).

My point in this whole story is that if I hadn't gotten spooked out of going to the library (both in-school and public) I probably would've read WAY more books sitting on The Perimeter for lunch for however long the rest of the year was. But instead I was mostly reading gaming magazines and game guides. Which, as an aside, I almost got more out of than playing the games themselves, depending on the game and guide in question. Like, Golden Sun was a pair of RPGs and (thanks to the aforementioned undiagnosed adhd) I did not have the attention span to play through them completely. Still haven't. Maybe someday. But I sure did read through the game guide a bunch. And spent a lot of time daydreaming about having different psynergy and using it in my day to day life. Which is why for a long time I considered Golden Sun one of my favorite games only to put 2 + 2 together when I was older and realize that a lot of my enjoyment was just in the daydreaming about it.

#Random Timbit #Timbrr rambles #I could wonder if the higher focus on games over books changed how my life might've looked but realistically #I was reading about games so much because I was interested in the games already so. Probably not #but it's not /impossible/ that it shifted the trajectory a bit. Like I'm sure I'd still play games but maybe I'd have less of a stake in it #if you know what I mean. Like I'd be quicker to drop games I'm bad at or whatever and read more now if I had read more books back then #But there's a few instances that I think about in that theoretical lens (and probably a great many more that I don't even think of) #and it's really not particularly worth considering anyway. But I do it anyway just because

[timbrrwolfe]

On the topic of gaming, I recently rented Super Mario Bros. Wonder from my library (shoutout to that being a thing I can do).

Historically I actually haven't been much of a Mario gamer. And the games I have played for any length of time have been 3D Mario games. Super Mario 64 (DS. Somehow missed the original), Super Mario Sunshine. More recently Super Mario Odyssey. And Also Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Inside Fury. Odyssey and 3D World+Bowser both also being library rentals.

But with 3D World and a limited amount of play of older Mario games, I'm not /completely/ new to 2D platformers. But I definitely prefer 3D platformers.

All that to say that the beginning of my time with Wonder was a little rocky. Not awful just...I was glad I was renting it. But then the game picked up. The levels got more intricate, I started getting badges to augment my movement (and I do love some augmented movement in games). And I got connected to the internet.

And the way the online worked was I think the best part of the entire game. Like sure, it's fun to run through a level and clear obstacles and figure out puzzles. But saving people who died, either by them flying up to you frantically or dropping a standee at the right place? That's a dopamine hit. Using the limited communication available (including standees) to help people solve those puzzles? Also very satisfying. Fulfilling even. I think the rare levels where you ran around looking for Wonder coins or whatever are some of the best show of the online gameplay.

It was probably more common back when the game was launched, but one day that I was playing I saved someone who had died, and they pretty much followed me through the rest of the level. Towards the end, I saved another person, though they went back (intentionally or otherwise). So I waited for them. And the first person I saved waited with me. And once the second person caught back up we all hopped on the flagpole together. Which is a thing I'd done before but not intentionally like that.

And then not long after that, in one of those puzzle levels I was able to drop a standee to try to hint at how to solve at one of the puzzles I'd figured out. When I /finally/ figured out where the final coin was I spammed the shout communication and got at least two more people to figure out where it was who I had also seen running around the level for a while. Which isn't even to mention the help that /I/ got while playing.

My point being fuck capitalism and the forces that be for pushing us to be competitive with each other when we should be working together to live life.

Anyway, I was kind of surprised because the badges I saw talked about the most were the parachute hat (which, to be fair, was part of the marketing), the vine grapple, and the one that lets you run on air for a few seconds off the end of a platform. So imagine my surprise when my favorite and most used badge ends up being the Boosting Spin Jump badge. Essentially a double jump badge. One I hadn't even heard about (though to be fair I didn't hear about most of the badges). But then I do love my air time. And this was definitely the most versatile of the jump augmenting badges.

The game wasn't perfect. It was pretty short (a pro or con depending on how you feel). For some reason you could buy duplicate standees? Nintendo why do you love doing this in your games? ...honestly that might be all I can come up with.

Overall a fun, cute game. Worth playing if you get the chance.

#Timbrr plays games #Timbrr plays Super Mario Wonder #Timbrr rambles #somehow this was only the third game I beat this year. Gotta step up the pace I guess

[timbrrwolfe]

I guess since I reblogged that DS menu post and waxed nostalgic in the tags I can do a little ramble about something related

My weird history with Pokemon. Well, it's not /that/ weird. But. Maybe inconsistent is a better word.

I'm old enough to have started with Gen 1 back in the day. I got Pokemon Blue, my sister got Red (I have to wonder how much of a ripple effect it would be if it had been the other way around. I clung to Blastoise as a favorite Pokemon forever. If I'd had Charizard instead, with how much I already liked dragons...a lot could've changed. Probably most of it inconsequential. But.) I think I did manage to get to the Elite 4 but I'm pretty sure I never beat them as a kid. Honestly even reaching them is kind of impressive in hindsight considering how little I understood the game. I went back and did a solo run with Blastoise to beat the game properly as an adult.

Gen 2 gave me Gold, I think sharing Crystal with my sister? It might've just been mine, I forget. Cyndaquil was probably my first starter though Feraligatr ended up narrowly beating it out for my fave starter of that gen. I know I got to Kanto but I'm not sure how far I got beyond that. Doubt I even made it to Red, let alone beat him.

Gen 3 I had Ruby, then Emerald. I don't think I ever beat the Elite 4 in this one either. Though I played (and restarted) the game enough to contribute to my getting tired of my starter of choice, Blaziken. Gun to my head I'd probably say Sceptile's my favorite Gen 3 starter but I'm not especially connected to any of them.

The first three generations were probably my absolute peak of interest in Pokemon. I was into the games, the anime, /and/ the merchandise. Even a little of the card game though I doubt I understood it well back then. Looking back I can pretty easily remember feeling very intensely positive about the whole thing.

And then Gen 4 happened. I'm not exactly sure what happened. I'm sure my age played a part, given that I was ~14 when Diamond and Pearl dropped. Though it's not like I gave up Pokemon or video games or anything as "too childish". But I stopped watching the anime, and I wasn't engaging in much outside of the games. And then there were the games. Pokemon Diamond absolutely refused to work with my fat DS. I dunno why. I dunno if that was a common problem at the time. It was before I was using the internet regularly (in that way). Eventually I got a DS Lite (the one I mentioned in the tags of that other post). And lo and behold, it could run Pokemon Diamond. Too bad it was SO SLOW that I got SO BORED playing with it I couldn't even make it to the third gym. It probably didn't help that I pretty quickly hooked up the Action Replay, but even if I hadn't I don't think I would've lasted long in that game. No fire types except Ponyta and the starter? In the whole region? Ridiculous. And I cannot overstate how slow the game was. Even just doing the first few games I couldn't keep it up, but I've seen plenty of people discuss it retrospectively as well as a genuine problem. Anyway, I eventually dropped it without finishing it and kind of just moved away from Pokemon entirely.

And then Gen 5 happened. There was a weird celestial alignment situation happening with it. I was pretty well established in a nerdy online community, so I was more aware of games than I maybe ever was before in my life. And I was in general more active online. So when the game started leaking and getting streamed (on the primitive streaming sites of the day), and I hopped into a stream and as much time was spent watching other streams get bopped as playing the game, it was a wild time. Then I got my hands on the game itself. And it was FRESH. I was enjoying myself. I got as far as the third gym before it got stolen out of my DS. My /DS/ didn't get stolen. Just the game. To this day there's basically one (there's two, but the chances of it being the second person are basically 0, so there's one) person who could've and would've done it. But I didn't do anything about it. I just accepted my lot and sulked about it for a while. I /still/ haven't sat down and played through Gen 5 proper. I'm planning to when I do succeed at picking up a 3DS/DSi, but in the meantime, and in all the time that's passed since, I never have. From getting bored of the game to being excited to play and losing the ability to, I was in a bit of a funk when it came to Pokemon. I was pretty well out of it.

And then Gen 6 happened. Brand new console. 3D on the 3DS. An "upgrade" from sprites to models (I think they should've stuck with sprites but that could be a whole post on its own). I loved this game. I did so much with this game. I'm sure the fact that there were a ton of callbacks to Gen 1 was a factor, but I also just enjoyed the game as a whole. Mega Evolution was an interesting mechanic (especially as someone who had enjoyed DIgimon plenty as well). It was the first Pokemon game I beat on my first playthrough, as unimpressive as that sounds. But I was not a child who beat video games. And now I was an adult who did. Sometimes. And this was one of those times. AND I got into competitive battling! In a casual way, just for fun. But I was breeding, and raising and training Pokemon to be used together in a competitive format. Like my team of honestly kind of mediocre Pokemon easily handled a random person challenging me with 6 legendaries. It was a whole new game. I enjoyed the O-Powers, I enjoyed the restaurants for farming money and experience. The TRAINER CUSTOMIZATION? It STILL hasn't ever been as good as when it was introduced in X and Y. And the GLUT of battle formats. Double battles, sure. Triple Battles? Weird, but ok. Multi-battles? Where you brought 3 Pokemon and you had a teammate who brought 3 Pokemon and you played together against 2 other people teaming up? Incredible! Rotation Battles! X and Y were peak in so many ways (and bad in other ways, but I was way too busy enjoying what they were doing right to focus on what was mediocre). I was getting active on twitch as a viewer and chatter, and I ended up battling a lot of Pokemon streamers pretty regularly, testing out my goody little teams against other people who were raising competitive Pokemon. If the first ~3 gens were the peak of my enjoyment of Pokemon as a whole, Gen 6 was a much more narrow but maybe more intense period of enjoyment. I had so many friends and acquaintances who were enjoying the game together and I was digging into it more deeply than I ever had.

But then after X, Y, and especially after ORAS, it all kind of fell apart. Virtually all the streamers I watched and battled with or against just kinda...stopped, after ORAS, if not during it. Sun and Moon came out, and I played them, and I enjoyed them, for the most part. But the magic was gone. And I was becoming more aware of the cracks in Game Freaks' development of the games. And if I was seeing cracks in Gen 7, Gen 8 with Sword and Shield just put it on full display. Despite being part of a group of people actually making content (podcast episodes and youtube videos) and being hype for Sword and Shield....once it was out? It just wasn't good. At one point in the story there's a big explosion and you get told to go to the next town to continue your League Challenge and let the adults handle it. Like ?????? We used to take down entire crime syndicates as a 10 year old! What is this "let the adults handle it" nonsense?" So Sword and Shield blew it wide open for me.

I ended up not picking up Legends: Arceus, not because it seemed bad (the opposite, really), but I just didn't have the spare money. Maybe I'll play it someday. Maybe I'll rent it from my library. Regardless, I skipped it. And if I skipped a reasonably good game, you /know/ I skipped what turned out to be a buggy, empty mess of a game in Scarlet and Violet. I very nearly rented it from my library but canceled my request for it. I might get to it someday but at this point I'm very content to just let it be and not get any more Pokemon games unless it's proven that they're good, and that Game Freak is doing something right with them. I'm not paying Game Freak to put out subpar garbage. Plenty of people are, but I'm not one of them.

#Timbrr plays Pokemon #Timbrr rambles #Timbrr rants #kind of a weak ending I know #but like. So's the mainline series at this point so #Honestly I didn't even get into spin-offs and all that. This was long enough as it was #But yeah from the unbridled enjoyment of a kid #to being so bored I don't even want to finish it #to being excited and having it snatched away #to being back IN FORCE. And having that fade away shortly after #and then realizing how bad things have gotten with the series and vowing not to get the new ones until something changes #It's been a roller coaster and I can't /not/ be aware of Pokemon or yeet the knowledge I've picked up over the years #but I am putting it down for the time being until it gets better

[timbrrwolfe]

My parents sort of alternate whether they stay home for Christmas or go visit my sister and her family. When they do visit my sister, I stay home. Both because it means we don't have to spend money on boarding the pets and because my sister and I have historically not gotten along. We're better (tm) now but I still have no desire to be under her house and hear her echo dad's favorite "this is my house" sentiment. Though honestly with how things have been going between my parents and my sister lately I might've ended up being a moderating influence if I had gone, because a lot of my social values tend to line up more with my sister's than my parents (the main break point being that she left The Faith while I still hold it, even if I'm not really...doing anything with it.) I think my parents mentioned having a hotel this year but with Covid very much still being a thing I also have no desire to travel and stay in one, so home I stay.

Which means that my Christmas is likely gonna consist of a lot of movies, some new some old, and whatever else ends up holding my attention, with a likely interruption of a video call with my mom so that my nieces and nephew can remember I exist =P

And honestly having my parents out of the house for a week or two so I have the house to myself is pretty much a vacation on its own, for me. So I get to have a pretty quiet and chill Christmas. The only real issue is that my parents left later than they intended which screwed up my Christmas media consumption plans so instead of watching movies leading up to Christmas I'll be watching everything on or after Christmas, alas.

Anyway Merry Christmas y'all

#Random Timbit #bonus that Christmas music has made me mega emotional this year #which is probably because of the situation in Palestine layering on top of music that's already nostalgic and emotional #But yeah I was intending to play through Batman Arkham Origins and that probably won't be happening now #...partially because I got a bunch of other games that I'd probably rather play. They're just not Christmas adjacent #Ok I wasn't gonna tag this with #Timbrr rambles #but then I rambled in the tags

[timbrrwolfe]

Well that was a whole tech troubleshooting journey I went on this morning.

Got a pair of the xreal air glasses recently. Realized while watching episode 1 of Percy Jackson this morning that the weirdly oversaturated color balance was also showing bad contrast ratios. Which makes even less sense since they're OLED screens, which should be better with contrast than anything else So I did through Windows settings, then online and find out that you can and should update the firmware for the glasses

That is not mentioned in the manual. I had no idea there were firmware updates. Had to open Chrome for the first time in at least a year to do the update (because the site said it only worked on Chrome and I didn't wanna potentially mess up the glasses) But once the updates went through, bam, it looked as it should've. Excellent. Still no idea why that wasn't mentioned in the manual (also there's still the issue of wearing them over my glasses until I sort out getting the lens inserts done up with my prescription, but whatever, expected issue).

BUT THEN My mouse and keyboard weren't working with my Steam Deck properly. It was late when I was testing it so I figured I'd figure out what I could do about it the next day Several days later I finally try again. Can't find anything about drivers or linux programs to set up on the Steam Deck to make them work. So I borrow my mom's mouse and keyboard combo for a second to see if they work better. Nope! Same issues! And since it sort of works, sometimes, and don't just flat out refuse to work at all, I start to think it's not a Linux problem. Especially since the keyboard works when it's upright instead of laying flat. And only if I also don't have a hand on the top edge of it. I try a hub we have, but that doesn't work with the Steam Deck at all, basically. So I plug the dock into my Chromebook and hook everything up that way, since I know the keyboard and mouse work with that Ah Same problems. Alright, guess the dock is the issue then. I go looking for a firmware update, since that worked so well for the glasses. Nothing. Check the amazon product page, nothing there either But in the reviews, a one in a million helpful review that mentions of two of that kind of dock, both had the same issue, while a different brand of dock did not. They deduced something about the dock was dropping the range on wireless devices to basically nothing. Cool, alright, that fits my issues.

So that dock is going back and now I gotta figure out a new solution for that. Fun! (not fun)

#Timbrr rambles #The Steam Deck is proving to be more work than I was expecting tbh #though in fairness most of the games I'm trying to play on it are either not steam games or don't work well with a gamepad. So. #Sort of a less common use case I guess. Anyway. Hopefully I can get everything sorted out and jump back into BG3 fully soon.

[timbrrwolfe]

I am using the Google video website (youtube) on the Google web browser (Chrome) on the google operating system (ChromeOS) on the google laptop (admittedly Lenovo's but still a Chromebook) why the FUCK do I have any glitches with youtube ever? Let alone glitches that don't happen on my Windows laptop where I use firefox to watch youtube.

WHY when I click FULL SCREEN on a video does it make the video full screen but not CHANGE THE PAGE? So I'm just looking at a portion of the video zoomed into the regular frame. I have to pull it out of "full screen" and put it back before it actually blows it up the way it should. But only sometimes! Which I guess is better than all the time but sdlkflaskjf

I really need to just bite the bullet and figure out how to switch to Linux on that thing. I would've done it ages ago but the model I have came basically right after they changed how the security of it worked so it just straight up didn't have a way to do it, but I'm pretty sure there was a workaround found for it so I /can/ do it. Maybe i'll look into doing that over the next couple weeks

#Random Timbit #Timbrr rambles #like if I'm using your garbage products at least make sure they work with each other

[timbrrwolfe]

On the note of a couple of my recent reblogs, a book trilogy I've enjoyed a bit (enough to reread) is the Brilliance trilogy by Marcus Sakey. It's a series I jokingly refer to as "X-men but autistic" because it's a story about humanity being split when "Brilliants" start showing up and having elevated mental capabilities that leave "normal humans" in the dust. Things like being able to intake a lot of data and pick apart the patterns to make strong guesses about future movements, being able to pick up on cues without even thinking about it to know if a person is lying or about to attack or run, or even perceiving time more quickly so that the world seems to be moving in slow motion. But the flip side of it is that for the strongest brilliants, their powers are just as much burdens as benefits. Hard to relate to people when you can read patterns well enough to predict the stock market and rely on data to try to understand people. If you can tell when people are lying it's hard to form relationships because everybody lies. Moving through the world in slow motion is good for dodging attacks and whatnot but torturous otherwise. Anyway. The point I was going to make is that since I reread the books after considering autism in myself, it made me wonder what would be intensified to that level if I were a brilliant as they are in that universe.

Being able to read how people are moving to slip through a crowd without slowing down or go unnoticed harkens back to my high school days of having to get through the crowds in that packed building, as well as my penchant for going unnoticed in general. But I also see a lot of details and put things together quickly, which is arguably why I seem as intelligent as I am (also because I soak up info like a sponge when it's something I'm interested in). So that's a possibility. However, I think the winner would probably be 'memetics'. Because while I am awful at doing it on command (true of most things, to be fair) I do pump out quips or other smaller wordplay things that tend to be appreciated (or dreaded). Like I spend a lot of time in streams, and I've come up with a handful of raid messages that the streamers incorporate into their branding, or names for the community as a whole, or naming of an event/weekly kind of stream, etc. The compiling of ideas into concise and catchy little packages is much less interesting (compared to being able to being able to dodge hits like the world's best boxer or borderline read minds) but it's arguably more powerful, in that swaying public opinion on things is a very powerful thing.

...but even though I think it's possible that it could potentially be my power in that universe I'd still probably prefer something else. Maybe be the first person with time perception augmentation to be able to vary the strength at will so I can slow things down to deal with situations but still run normally (or close to normal) in the day to day. Though I guess it's worth considering that bouncing back and forth would probably have its own problems like being able to make yourself move competently when the world slows down and speeds up. Maybe just the reading people thing. Probably a reason why the main character was the guy with that ability.

#Random Timbit #Timbrr rambles #and no the irony is not lost on me that I'm hyping up my putting things into concise packages in a post where I'm also rambling at length #those are the two modes I have to work with alas

[timbrrwolfe]

Also on the note of me playing games, I gave the first Armored Core (for PS1) a try last night and boy That was not a particularly fun experience.

Upon starting the game, you are thrust into a situation where you have to destroy an enemy with 0 explanation of how the controls work or anything. So you have to figure out how to do anything and everything on your own. Which wouldn't be /that/ awful if it weren't for the fact that

The game was made for a PS1 controller, which is a thing that originally did not have analog sticks. So while I'm already pretty awful at aiming a shooter on console anyway, this was much, much worse. You aimed up and down with L2 and R2, which I didn't realize until after I was staring at the ceiling taking damage for a solid 30 seconds. Strafing was L1 and R1. Dpad did normal movement things. Which I guess is preferable to left and right strafing and L1 and R1 turning you but I dunno I hated all of it.

Having died and gotten thrown back to the menu, I took my hard earned experience in learning how to move and sort of aim and shoot and beat the first enemy mech on my second try, which put me into the rest of the game.

I do appreciate the rudimentary mech customization you have despite it being limited by PS1 era technology, and I'm glad that's very much still a thing in the modern games (which I may or may not give a try later after doing more research on the games because woof).

The final thing, and the reason why I ultimately decided to just not continue playing the game (for now?) was that of the two missions you're given as you start the game: The first is you busting up what is essentially people protesting development and The second is you busting up what is essentially striking workers. And given that I appreciate both of those things (and was already not that interested in playing a shooter with extra awkward controls) I just put the game down at that point. I dunno if there's a story beat where you realize you're doing dirty work and turn on your employer or whatever but at this point I'm not inclined to play long enough to find out. Might watch a retrospective on youtube about it though.

#Timbrr plays games #Timbrr rambles #I might've been able to swallow the missions if the gameplay hadn't already done a lot to put me off #and I'm not writing off Armored Core as a franchise entirely since I assume it gets better as gaming tech improves and all that #but yeah that first one is not for me I think

[timbrrwolfe]

Yesterday I finished replaying Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. The first time I've done so in around 20 years. And the first time I'd done so using secrets to link it with Oracle of Seasons. When I was a kid, I only beat Oracle of Ages, but failed to beat Oracle of Seasons because I couldn't coordinate my kid brain and kid fingers well enough to beat the final boss (I later ended up picking that save back up and beating the boss in like two tries). I knew I wanted to replay what are ostensibly my favorite Zelda games (and also I think the only Zelda games I'd really spent a ton of time with), as well as finish BotW, and maybe play through some other Zeldas like Minish Cap. And I wanted to do that before I played TotK (which I still don't have but hopefully will be picking up for my birthday). Alas, because I am the way that I am, I started this journey before TotK released, beat Oracle of Seasons in about 2 days, and then completely dropped the endeavor until now. Actually I was hoping/planning to replay the Oracles games on Switch Online but they only /just/ released them for the Game Boy section, months after I already beat Seasons. And hopping back and forth between how I played Seasons and playing Switch was way too much of a hassle (unless I played Switch handheld but eh. Maybe if I eventually play Ages into Seasons).

Anyway, all that to actually get to me talking about the games themselves. As a kid, I preferred Oracle of Ages. Probably because I actually beat it. Though I did prefer some items (mostly just the Roc's Cape upgrade to Roc's Feather because it quadrupled your air time or something). Having replayed them, that opinion has flipped. I like Seasons way more. With Ages, there is /way/ more backtracking and going around in circles. Which I guess makes sense with the fact that Ages is supposed to be more puzzle focused, whereas Seasons is more combat focused. Except that in several cases, the puzzles were extended beyond a single room and it was very easy to lose track of what you were doing and wander aimlessly trying to figure out what you were supposed to do before you realize that you had missed a completely normal door you'd just forgotten to go through or something. Really it started with the area of the third dungeon requiring you to go back and forth within a fetch quest to trade out items until you do something that gives you something that lets you avoid that back and forth. But it's also kind of baked into the time traveling aspect of the game as well, where you have to pop back and forth between past and present to maneuver around certain areas. My main point being if you're only gonna play one, I'd suggest Seasons. And while I can't be sure since I haven't done it in both orders, I might say that if you're gonna do it linked, maybe start with Ages (unless you're gonna go back and redo the first game after you link the first time. Play the worse game first unless you're playing it twice. You get the idea.)

Still need to finish up BotW and maybe hit up Minish Cap (though that's less of a Need before I play TotK and might make more sense to wait until I can pick up a 3DS so it can be part of me working my way to Link Between Worlds)

#Timbrr plays games #Timbrr rambles

[timbrrwolfe]

Ok I didn't really go into it with the tags of that reblog but now I'm thinking about it again so I need to rant about why Cirque du Freak's movie adaptation is so awful.

First, a thing that I was maybe a little bit wrong about at the time. John C. Reilly's casting as Crepsley. It was /ridiculous/ to me to see him cast as that character. A very serious, sometimes haunted character. And it's played by some comedy actor? Nonsense. Of course since then I've reread the series and realized that Crepsley had more comedy to him than I remembered. And obviously actors can have range beyond their popular roles and such. So I might've honestly been wrong to be upset about that casting. But it's hard to tell because of the rest of that trainwreck of a movie.

The overall tone of the movie ended up being more comedic than the series. Not that there weren't funny moments in the books, but the books really dig much more into the horror and emotion that the movie completely lacked. I have to assume this was an intentional choice to make the movie more marketable to kids en masse. But I'll save the rant for that kind of decision for another day because it's its own whole problem. The point is that a lot of the soul that was in the books was cut out for the movie. For one example, in the first book there's a scene were Darren's death has to be faked so he can go off as he becomes a vampire. And he struggles with the fact that he has to leave his friends, parents, and his sister. And then we see him struggling through being paralyzed to appear dead but still being able to hear his family's pain both upon finding his body and at the funeral, and how he has to lay there for a few days, paralyzed in his coffin, thinking about it. In the movie he's playing a Gameboy in the coffin to pass the time.

So I might've been wrong about John C. Reilly but the overall tone of the movie was abysmal and that casting was probably symptomatic of that.

And you might think that a movie adaptation, if it was going to pull from more than the first book, would just take from the first few books. It probably shouldn't, because it's already losing space to go into things, but it's not the worst thing. The worst thing, is to not just pull from the first book, but to pull from the latter half of the series with a MASSIVE spoiler of a twist. Which is what the Cirque du Freak movie did. This awful movie took a spoiler from at least halfway into the series to pad the runtime. I have to assume they knew they were only going to make one movie for the whole series because there's 0 reason to pull this otherwise. I mean, there's 0 reason to do it at all, but I can at least see the logic there, even if it's dumb. So if anybody's first exposure to the series was the movie, or someone watched the movie before they got to that point in the series, they got spoiled. And for what? A marshmallow popcorn adaptation of a much more rich experience. Not to say that Cirque du Freak is like....a literary masterpiece. But there's /so/ much more heart and soul in the books than the movie.

Honestly I've probably forgotten a lot of what the movie did wrong (I wouldn't be surprised to find it pulled more from later in the series that slipped my mind, and mismanaged it). Maybe I should rewatch it just to see how bad it is with a fully developed brain (and then reread the series as a palate cleanser)

#Timbrr Rambles

[timbrrwolfe]

Just a little mainline Zelda game tier list. Figured I'd make it now for posterity as I intend to (eventually, at some point) play through more of the series, and I wanted to have a record of where stuff stood in my mind before playing. TL;DR I have a bias for both 2D zeldas and newer games in general. Longer explanations under the cut for anybody who wants to read my ramblings

The Oracles games are my favorites, with Ages being one of the first games I ever beat, especially without cheating (though I did use a game guide. Miss those things, honestly. Online walkthroughs just aren't the same). Breath of the Wild does a lot of things right but there are some things that very much annoy me (weapon degradation being the main issue that some of the other issues kind of have their roots in), but overall it's a pretty good time. Ignore that I'm technically about halfway through it and still want to finish it before Tears of the Kingdom comes out even though I don't expect to get that right away (because money). Link to the Past is the only other one I've actually played at length, and despite never finishing it, it was a pretty good time. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that I played the GBA port. Just not quite as good as the others, though it's been a few years since I played it so maybe I'll replay it before I redo the tier list. TotK does look interesting, and while it still keeps the weapon degradation it's got some stuff to mitigate that (hopefully), so I'm definitely interested in getting it. Link Between Worlds is very much on my radar but that's gonna require me to pick up (ideally) a New 3DS/XL(LL) since my own 3DS XL broke years back and I missed it at the time. Minish Cap has been on my list for a while, and I even played a little bit of it but got distracted and haven't gone back to it. Still, I expect if I give it a proper chance I'll enjoy it, and I intend to do that some point soon. Link to the Past I also wanna get to, though I'm not sure which version I'll do. Maybe I'll get the Switch version and play through the OG first to see how it compares.

Windwaker honestly probably should be in the middle haven't played tier, on further reflection. I haven't played it but honestly I've seen a lot of it played so I don't think it would hold my attention to play through it myself. Also it seems like a refinement of OoT and MM which is both good and bad. Twilight Princess through Spirit Tracks I don't know a ton about but what I've seen of gameplay or heard about them haven't really appealed much to me. The Four Swords Adventures games I basically know nothing about, and Triforce Quest I know even less about.

It's a bit disingenuous to say I haven't played some of the games in the final tier, but I definitely haven't put much time into them. I gave OoT something like 20 minutes years after it's initial release but I think I missed the boat on how stunning it was to have huge 3D environments after years of smaller 2D games. So without that aspect of spectacle the gameplay didn't grab me much in the short time I spent with it. Maybe if I had played it alongside, for instance, Banjo Tooie, I'd feel differently about it (since I enjoy Banjo Tooie a lot despite being similar games outside of the tones and details) Majora's Mask is basically just more of Ocarina of Time, with a more sinister atmosphere. So, similar issues, with the added obstacle for me in that it's a game with a countdown, which give me hives. I've also seen at least parts of these games played so it's not like I have 0 idea what they're like. Having said that I'm not completely closed off to the idea of playing certain versions of the games. (Unofficial PC port of OoT, 3DS remakes of both) Zelda 2 I gave about 10 minutes, had no idea what i was supposed to be doing, and never went back to it. The OG is a similar story. Plus, as I said, I am very biased against older games in general. I don't play games to overcome difficulty (if it's fun I'll push through a challenge until I beat it but a lot of older games are hard without being fun. So.)

Just my personal thoughts on the series. I like certain kinds of things and not other things.

#Timbrr plays games #Timbrr plays LoZ #not sure how much use that tag'll get but #Timbrr rambles #Timbrr does tier lists

[timbrrwolfe]

Currently having a minor existential crisis over the fact that I considered myself a gamer growing up while having had SO FEW GAMES for every console/handheld I had. Like, I knew I didn't have that many games. I had a handful of N64 games, a good amount of GBC and GBA games (I guess because my parents thought handhelds would make it more likely I'd go outside? Might've just been that they were cheaper, I have no idea). A decent number of GBA games I suppose. A few Wii games. etc. etc. The one that managed to short circuit my brain for a few minutes was DS.

I've been going through retro catalogs lately to see what I missed out on, what looks interesting, all that. I missed out on (S)NES entirely, and their era of games isn't particularly interesting to me in general. Some good and interesting games, but a lot of games that reviewers just dig into "this game was SO hard." GBC and GBA were systems I had...not a /lot/, but a fair amount of games for, and I was passingly familiar with a lot of the ones I didn't have.

DS though...there were a ton of games that I just fully missed out on. Which got me thinking about which games I /did/ have. I eventually landed on 7 that I could remember, only one of which I ever beat. Granted I think I was a little more into Gamecube and even started playing City of Heroes during the DS era. But it still blew my mind to realize how little familiarity I had with the DS library. Even the games I had heard of as good (some in retrospect) I never had. And the ones I did have? Not good. Pokemon Diamond, Wario: Master of Disguise, and whatever the DS Viewtiful Joe game was? All slow, or boring, or otherwise didn't hold my attention. Even now I have no desire to go back and give them another chance. Nintendogs was cute at first but that wore off fast.

Super Mario 64 DS I beat, and have fond memories of. YGO World Championship 2010 I sank time into since that was right around when I was being very casually competitive with YGO. And Pokemon White I probably would have beaten (and even had it be the first Pokemon game I did beat) had it not been stolen out of my DS somehow. I still need to take time to play through it in full honestly.

But I digress. For some reason it really threw me for a loop that even lists of "best DS games" I was getting pelted with titles that I had never even heard of, and do look like fun. Truly an era I missed out on. I think in my brain it's also tied to 3DS which I /know/ I missed out on gaming with friends during. I had a couple popular games, to be sure. Pokemon X, ORAS, Smash 3DS. But I had a few friends who were very into AC:New Leaf, or Tomodachi Life. Things like that, which I just fully missed out on. So I think that sort of missed opportunity nostalgia linked up with the realization that I missed out on a ton of DS games (especially since there were games those same friends talked about a ton. Conversations that I couldn't really take part in). That was an era of my life that I considered myself a gamer, but I had missed out on a /ton/ of borderline cultural touchstones. And I guess that's what's got me shaken about it.

#Random Timbit #Timbrr rambles #anyway nostalgia is a drug and a poison #but yes every day I am reminded how lackluster my social life has been =P

[timbrrwolfe]

"Man, my mood just dropped, I wonder why"

*goes on a losing streak in a card game*

probably hungry

definitely tired

Hmm...what could it be.....?

#Timbrr Rambles #it is a mystery #who could say?

[timbrrwolfe]

...Also it made me realize how much I enjoy strategy as the focal point of a game. Like I /knew/ that, on some level, to some degree. Especially considering how I've been looking into board games lately in general, as well as games like Marvel Snap and other card games. I guess I'm just so used to thinking of the games I play as more action games that I tend not to think of the strategy element.

This despite the fact that I tend to play Cyberpunk 2077 soooooo slowly because I try to stealthily get up high and out of sight so I can figure out how to wipe out every enemy in the area without even getting noticed. And despite the fact that I never end up sticking with strategy rpg (or whatever genre of games Fire Emblem, XCOM, etc. fall into) for long enough to make finish the story. Maybe just because the story aspects tend to slow down the game enough to break my already fragile attention span. It might be better to do something a little more like Fire Emblem Heroes where there's a little story but the bulk of playtime is just going into a map and doing the battle, ignoring the gacha aspect. And maybe that's part of why board games have been catching my eye lately. I can get in, play the games (possibly multiple times before stopping, depending on the game) and I don't have to worry about /needing/ to play through a long, full story. Like with Cyberpunk, where I have one character sitting just before the final mission of the game and another that's got a fair number of hours sunk into it as well. And I enjoy just walking into an area, parkouring around, and defeating all enemies. But because the story's there there's more of a need to play beyond just....playing? If that makes sense.

#Random Timbit #Timbrr rambles #ANYWAY I dunno I got some thoughts I gotta process about it all I guess

[timbrrwolfe]

Social media is so useless

#Timbrr rambles #this is the distilled form of a post that I was considering making but will probably just journal about instead for various reasons #Screaming into the (specifically digital) void is sometimes cathartic but probably I should simply not