#need to fuck around more with the new weapon variations. the new shotgun seems fun

[sol-flo]

you can now canonically draw v1 in a maid outfit

#how did i not see ultrakill update yesterday #need to fuck around more with the new weapon variations. the new shotgun seems fun

[sorrelchestnut]

EVERYBODY’S PICKIN’ UP ON THAT FELINE BEAT, PART 33

Still not dead!  I’m just saying, this would have been a lot easier if I didn’t decide that this story suddenly needed to grow a plot.

Part 1.  Part 2.  Part 3.  Part 4.  Part 5.  Part 6.  Part 7.  Part 8.  Part 9.  Part 10.  Part 11. Part 12.  Part 13.  Part 14.  Part 15.  Part 16.  Part 17.  Part 18.  Part 19. Part 20.  Part 21.  Part 22. Part 23. Part 24. Part 25. Part 26.  Part 27. Part 28. Part 29. Part 30. Part 31. Part 32.

Title: everybody’s picking up on that feline beat Author: Sorrel Fandom: Fallout 4 Rating: Mature Warnings: None Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor Series: Part 3 of everybody wants to be a cat

  They creep into an abandoned building a few doors down from the Plaza and set up on the second floor, moving low and slow to avoid being spotted by either of the half-asleep guards patrolling slowly around the block.  Hancock’s better at keeping quiet than Deacon would have expected, considering the man’s run-and-gun style, but maybe he learned a thing or two when he was kicking around the Commonwealth with Whisper.  Even old dogs, etc.

  Once Whisper’s satisfied they’ve found the right spot, Hancock wanders off to explore, waving away Whisper’s hissed reminders to stay quiet.  Deacon raises his eyebrows at her, but she just tips him a shrug and kneels down to start unpacking her armor, so he decides to defer to her greater experience and does the same.

  They gear up with easy familiarity, Deacon tightening the straps on her chestpiece while she does up the buckles on her wristguards, and then Whisper turning around to return the favor, going to her knees and doing up the laces on his boots since he can’t bend over that far with the combat vest on.  Normally they don’t wear this much gear—Whisper prefers freedom of movement over being bulletproof, and since he has to keep up with her Deacon’s more or less come to see it her way—but normally they’re not going in this hot, either.  Whisper’s decked out heavier than he is, since she’ll be at the front drawing fire, but there’s going to be enough bullets flying around that neither of them are willing to take any chances.

  Once she’s kneeling in front of him, however, she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back up.  By the time she’s finished ‘adjusting his ammo belt’ for the third time he’s half-hard and trying not to squirm, darting glances at the door to the hall where he can still faintly hear Hancock moving around.  Not that they haven’t fooled around with witnesses handy a truly inadvisable number of times, but this feels- different.  He still doesn’t know the lay of the land between her and Hancock, and this’d be a bad way for the ex to find out about the new guy, if that’s the way of it.

  “Quit it,” he finally hisses, and she laughs soundlessly at him and gives his thigh a final friendly pat before straightening creakily to her feet, moving awkwardly under the weight of unfamiliar gear.

  He picks up her weapon and shoves it into her hands before she can get any more clever ideas.  “You be careful with that,” he says, nodding to the fully-modded shotgun Hancock loaned her, since even Whisper had to admit that her rifle probably wasn’t going to cut it for this one.  “Bet that thing kicks like a mule.  You’ll be bruised to hell tomorrow if you don’t handle it right.”

  “Teach your gran to suck eggs,” she says, with a look that says she catches his metaphor loud and clear.  “I know how to handle a shotgun.”

  He slides his own rifle back into its holster and raises his hand defensively.  “Don’t get grumpy with me.  I just want to see you in one piece on the other side.”

  Her annoyed expression softens, and she darts a quick glance at the hallway to make sure the coast is still clear before she darts forward to press a kiss to his cheek.  “Right back atcha, partner,” she murmurs, then dances back before he can decide he doesn’t care about Hancock after all and reach for her.  “You ready to do this thing?”

  He grins down at her, the fading curl of lust mixing with the heat of adrenaline to leave him pleasantly flushed and on edge.  Is it wrong to love your work?  Definitely not, when it’s this much fun.  “Always,” he assures her.  “Don’t forget to make some noise.”

  She grins back up at him, mischief dancing in her hazel eyes.  “Oh, I think I can manage that.”

~*~

  When you get down to it, this op isn't all that different from ones they've run with Glory.  Which isn’t a surprise; on the rare occasions they’ve had the luxury of extra backup, Whisper tends to lean towards her little pincer maneuver, in one variation or another.  Mind you, she’s usually on the other side of the equation, but hey, Deacon’s flexible.  And in all fairness to their Angel of Destruction, it takes a lot of bullets to keep up with the kind of distraction Glory can dish out.  Hancock could probably use the help.

  “We’re in position,” Whispers murmurs in his earpiece, and Deacon’s sharp ears pick up the faintest scuff of a booted foot against the cobblestone.  It’s easy to picture Hancock, crouched just behind her, his own shotgun at the ready.  “How’s it looking on your end, Johnny?”

  He glances down at the pair of cooling bodies slumped at his feet, all that remains of the guards posted up at the back entrance.  “Rocking and rolling, Livvy-love,” he chirps, just to hear her snort of amusement.  “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Awesome.  Be ready to go on my signal.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Oh,” and he can hear the grin in her voice, “you’ll know.”

  For a moment, all goes quiet, and Deacon, who has a fine-tuned sense of self-preservation and a lot of experience with Whisper’s sense of humor, braces himself.  Then, through his earpiece, he hears the splintering crack of a door being kicked open, following in very short order by a shout of alarm, the blast of shotgun, and the much louder blast of a hand grenade going off in close quarters.

  Deacon grins to himself as he pulls out his rifle.  Time to earn his keep.

  It’s a hard fight, but not the worst he’s been in, by a long shot.  Things do get a little dicey when all the commotion turns out to be loud enough to draw the attention of the cohort on the upper levels before they’ve quite finished clearing the ground floor, but nobody gets shot, which is all that matters.

  Well.  Nobody on their side gets shot.

  Well, nowhere important, at least.

  “Four hundred years, this thing’s lasted,” Hancock’s saying in a mournful voice, as Deacon makes his way back down from a sweep of the upper levels.  “Seen me through more than my fair share of firefights, and that’s a fact.”

  Whisper makes an annoyed noise under her breath.  “What’s your point?”

  “Ten goddamn minutes with you and I’m catching a bullet where a patch ain’t gonna cut it, that’s my point.”

  “Right, what was I thinking.”  Deacon can picture her eye-roll as clear as if he was standing right next to her.  “You know that was just a replica, right?  It wasn’t actually worn by John Hancock, American revolutionary.”

  Hancock’s scowl is audible.  “How the hell would you know, anyway?”

  Deacon peers over the balcony railing, to see Whisper kneeling next to Hancock, wiping the last of the blood off her hands with a spare rag.  “You kids having fun down there?”

  “Hancock’s just bitching because he doesn’t know how to duck.”  Whisper closes the medkit up with an exasperated look at Hancock, who totally misses the entire byplay in favor of craning his head to peer at the bullet hole in his arm she just finished stitching.

  Deacon smothers a snort.  “Well, it’s all clear up here.  Looks like everyone who’s anyone came down earlier when the party got started.  Place is a ghost town.”

  Whisper’s grin is so satisfied it’s almost postcoital.  “Now that’s what I like to hear.  You mind getting our shit from the hidey-hole?  I want to check out the lay of the land, and this one needs to let the stimpak kick in.”  Hancock starts to sit up, an outraged expression on his face, only to get shoved back down by Whisper.  “Yes, you,” she tells him.  “Don’t be a hero.”

  Deacon bites back a smile and tips an imaginary hat with the backs of his knuckles.  He’s not used to seeing Whisper fussing.  It’s oddly sweet.

  “I’m on it, boss.”

~*~

  Hancock’s nowhere to be found when he gets back ten minutes later, but he finds Whisper setting up in one of the back rooms, the one with no exterior windows and the really niche torture dungeon aesthetic.  The bodies are gone, but the smell of death lingers like a really oppressive shroud.

  “Nice place you’ve got here.”

  Whisper twists around just enough to smirk at him.  “I thought the meat hooks in the corner made for a particularly gruesome touch.”

  “Yeah, really sets the scene.”  He drops their packs just outside of the doorway and steps inside, carefully avoiding the still-wet smear of blood from where she dragged the bodies out into the hall.  “Where’s Hancock?”

  “Going through the den upstairs for any interesting scav.  Figured one of us should make some caps off this shitshow, and we’re going to be too busy to haggle anytime soon.”

  “Hey, if you’re waiting for me to argue, you’re gonna wait a while.  The man got shot in the line of duty, the least we can do is see he gets a decent paycheck out of it.”  He leans against the doorway and folds his arms over his chest.  “How’s our timeline looking?”

  Whisper finishes shoving a chair into the corner and wipes her forehead off against her sleeve before rolling it up to check her Pip-boy.  “We’ve got about ten hours left,” she says.  “Figure, two or three to get there and get in position, want to be there about an hour early, give another hour of leeway just in case they make good time coming over the bridge, so…”

  “Five hours,” he finishes.  She nods.  “Huh.  Flip you for first watch?”

  “Fuck that, I already told Hancock he’s taking care of it.  We’ve got a hard day tomorrow.”  She crosses the room, looping her arms around his neck and grinning up at him.  “We need our rest.”

  “Rest doesn’t seem what you have in mind,” he murmurs back, but it’s hard to pretend like he minds when he’s already got a hand hooked around her hip, his thumb rubbing against the fraying fabric of her jeans.  “You got designs on my virtue, partner?”

  She laughs huskily into the crook of his neck.  “That a problem?”

  He must hesitate a second too long, because she leans back, blinking up at him in surprise.  “Is it a problem?”

  Well, nothing for it.  Might as well go all in.  “Depends.  Is it going to be a problem for Hancock?”

  He can see the exact moment she figures out what he’s asking, because her vaguely hazy look of confusion morphs into a snort of undignified laughter.  “Oh, god no,” she says, grinning a little loopily up at him.  “No problems on that front, trust me.  Worst that happens is he gets high and wanders in to workshop your technique.”

  He can’t quite hide his shudder.  “That’s not as reassuring as it probably sounded in your head, pal o’ mine.”

  Her grin picks up edges around the corners, and she leans up on her toes, presses her mouth to the hinge of his jaw.  A second later, he feels her teeth scrape delicately, crosswise against the stubble, and a shiver goes down his spine without any input whatsoever from his higher brain functions.

  “Guess we’ll have to lock the door,” she murmurs against his skin, and he grabs her by the hips and pulls her up to his mouth, drowning his worries in her familiar taste.

  For tonight, at least, he doesn’t have to think about anything else.

#fallout 4 #deacon #deacon/sole survivor #deacon/female sole survivor #fic #update! #everybody wants to be a cat

[ghost-recon-wildlands]

Skip to the bottom for TL;DR.Let me preface this, because I know I'm gonna get comments saying "then why play the game" and "who gives a shit about realism" by saying that the game for the most part is fun. Yet the more I played it, and the farther I got the more glaring it's flaws became. Having played enough of Wildlands to render a verdict, and having explored every nook and cranny of Bolivia, I'd like to express my opinion of the game.It is a serious disappointment, on many many levels.What I see is a game with massive potential, a huge open world with co-op capabilities, tactical stealth and shooter elements and a variety of ways to approach objectives.All of that is wasted by a mix of poor design choices, a just didn't care attitude, oversights, bugs, frustrating gameplay and a "get out the door as fast as possible, quality be damned" attitude that Ubisoft has been guilty of in the past.Let's start with the story. Ubisoft had a great opportunity to do a ''Shadow of Mordor'' style story: depending on which cartel branch you took out first, it could change the game world. Take out Security first, the rest of the cartel becomes disorganized and less competent in combat (because you took out their trainers and camps and commanders), take out Influence first, the cartel radio stops broadcasting and the cartel's grip on the country weakens somewhat. Take out Supply, and Security beefs itself up in response. Take out UNIDAD HQ in Flor De Oro, their patrols become less frequent.Nope, Ubisoft instead goes for a shallow, uninspired story in which none of the characters are given any meaningful backstory, it's just "X character is bad because Y reason, go kill him/her." It just feels hollow, there's no impact. I felt like there was no meaningful progress to the story as we dismantled the cartel piece by piece. The ending of the story (the true ending that is) literally makes your efforts mean nothing. I won't spoil it, but yeah, everything you did? Doesn't mean anything. It's such a cop-out.The world doesn't change and react to your actions. You take over a base carefully with no detection? It makes no. damn. difference. That base will be repopulated the next time you load your game or if you travel to another province and back. The SAM sites respawn, and cartel members remain in a province even if you cleared out the buchon. It has no impact and basically is a middle finger to your efforts.Honestly, in my honest opinion the world is a little TOO big. The provinces look nice from a distance, but up close structures repeat and the civilian AI doesn't react to its surroundings. Bases have no variety; its almost always variations on a few buildings, one tower, guard post, alarm. I ran into a civilian in Koani (the salt flat province in the northwest) bundled up like it was extremely cold, and I saw civilians dressed for summer. In Inca Camina, the mountainous, cold province. The fact that planes fly at a snail's pace means it can take anywhere from 10-15 minutes to traverse from end to end.Gameplay wise, Wildlands does some things right, it does a lot of things far worse though, and unfortunately those things end up ruining and weighing down the game:*The attachment system is a mess and its clear that the devs simultaneously didn't care, and half-assed the whole thing. I talk about it more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GhostRecon/comments/5zhk7o/the_attachment_system_in_this_game_makes_no_sense/*To add, some weapon attachments are in the wrong place and not where the text says they are, which is a huge oversight. There's also multiple copies of the same attachment. Why? I found a folding buttstock in one province and another for the same weapon type in another. Why not just consolidate them into one?*The weapon variety is weirdly inconsistent. There's only three non DLC shotguns, not that many pistols, a good selection of ARs, but LMGs are lacking and the devs could have added far more SMGs.*In addition, a lot of weapons are locked behind a paywall, which just smacks of greed. In fact, you can buy all the weapons and attachments if you want to.*The combat system is okay, but lacks elements that should logically be in the game (blindfire, human shields, low run to cover)*The co-op system in my experience is sloppy and glitchy, requiring multiple disconnects and reconnects so we can see each other in game. When it does work, its fun and enjoyable.For a game that calls itself a tactical shooter, it has a lot of errors. Your character throws grenades at a pathetic range, reloads weapons by pulling the charging handle with their shooting hand (highly discouraged, especially in Special Forces), there's no +1 chambering when reloading mid-magazine, your character will loudly yell when they kill an enemy with a weapon, etc.*Reload animations for weapons are incredibly samey and lack any variety (ACR reloads the same as the TAR-21, MP5 reloads the same as the Scorpion Evo 3, etc), pistols don't even lock their slides back or display accurate pistol mechanics.*Vehicle physics are laughable sometimes. Cars handle like they're on ice, APCs slide around and motorcycles are basically unusable. You shoot the tires of a truck, it explodes. Somehow.*Your character has the resiliency of a wet paper bag when it comes to vehicles. Light tap? You're down on the ground.*Character customization is great, but camouflage doesn't do anything and is useless. You could wear all black at night and get spotted as easily as wearing green in Koani.*Ammo pool limits don't come out to even amounts. 68 rounds for a sniper rifle? 225 for an assault rifle? 45 for a shotgun? How does that make any sense?*Sniping is less than optimal, you can't snipe very far and bullets drop like cannonballs (I can visibly see the bullet falling out of the sky).*There are an insane amount of bugs, some of which could have been fixed if the game had more time. They're all listed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GhostRecon/comments/5xw6qg/megathread_feedbacksuggestionsbugs/I myself have fallen through the map, had my motorcycle launch itself into the atmosphere upon hitting a pebble, had Kingslayer files not appear on the map, had my character model spaz out while running, had dialogue constantly repeat for missions I had long completed and many, many others.*The helicopter physics are atrocious and the plane physics lack basic controls that every open world game before it has had. Like, how did Ubi think this was a good idea?*Enemies are unacceptably omniscient, to the point they can spot you in brush from half a mile away, while facing the other direction.*No helicopter fast-roping.*No non-lethal options (even knocking out counts as a kill)*Movement options are limited (no quick dive out of the way, no jumping, no forward roll or side roll)*No door breaching.*Can't move bodies.*No wire-cutters for fences. Fences may as well be concrete walls.*You can't switch back to earlier rebel drop vehicles once you upgrade them. Want an armored SUV but have level 3 rebel drop? Fuck you, you get a helicopter and you will like it.*No flares for aircraft. SAM coming your way in a medicine helicopter? Hope you can dodge.There are so many gameplay elements missing, it's almost weird given the series pedigree. Ghost Recon is known for tactical realism and variety in tackling objectives after all.Rebel missions become useless once you have fully upgraded abilities, yet they keep spawning in each new province. They're the same missions, over and over and over again. It could have been made so once a rebel mission is completed, and that particular rebel ability is fully upgraded, instead it gives you 5000-7500 of a resource. As it stands, I have ''no'' incentive to do those missions. There's no variety in Supply Raids, its the same "steal helicopter/steal plane" over and over.In fact, let's talk about the missions. They're incredibly tedious and samey. Each province has the same subset of missions and rebel missions; there's no variety, no difference. Blow up this, tail this person, kill that person, rinse and repeat. Rebel missions could have had some variety depending on the province and geography. A train intercept mission (missed opportunity there, fighting car to car on a train while a friendly helicopter flies alongside providing support would be fun) is one I would have liked to see, given the abundance of trains that make their way through.One of the most glaring flaws in this game is the dialogue. Sweet Jesus, the dialogue. It repeats and repeats and repeats so many times, it's grating. I got tired of hearing "the music that makes your culo bounce up and down!" very quickly, to say nothing of "this medal has a coca plant on it. That's kinda cool", but the worst one is "what are we waiting for? There's gotta be more of us than them. Charge!!!" Apparently everyone in Bolivia has maybe 2 lines, and they repeat them Infinity1000 times in an hour.I came into Wildlands with elevated expectations; I enjoyed the beta, and I wanted to give it a shot. Dicking around in co-op was a blast. It seemed like a fun game, and catered to my gun aficionado/Special Forces dressup desire. Yet it's so clear that Ubisoft fucked up majorly by releasing a beta/demo a week before release, and then not using the beta to fix anything.What they should have done, and should do moving forward for future titles, is release the beta, vacuum up all the feedback and delay the game for 6 months or more (with an October/November release) and polish the game to fix as many bugs as they can. They did not do that with Wildlands. They released a buggy game with shallow elements, when they could have fleshed out so much, made the world vibrant and interesting and reactive (to a degree), and made sure the game ran smoothly and played well.Should you get the game? In its current state, its hard to recommend it. If you can overlook its flaws and same-y missions and endlessly repeated 2-3 lines of dialogue, there's fun to be had in co-op. I'd wait for Ubi to patch and fix bugs, but there's the possibility that they may never fix the issues that Wildlands has. I hope that's not the case; there is a solid game under all of what I mentioned, it just needed a few more months of polish.TL;DR: Wildlands has a lot of bugs, and the story sucks. Also has a bunch of flaws and should have been released in September/October, not March. via /r/GhostRecon

#reddit #ghost recon #ghostreconwildlands #wildlands #ghostrecon #games #gaming