And here's the link to Reflections Lie

youtu.be/6yYZ4dc8t4w?...

Happy New Year!

I think a lot of people are feeling that way, myself included.

Cheap laptops usually have no separate graphics card/chip and that's probably the culprit here. Or having 8Gb of RAM

Pathfinder WotR says to hell with that, throws a DnD 3rd ed inspired system at us in the form of Pathfinder 1st ed, with more isometric/3d blending and removes so much of the crap that made BG2 horrible to play. It's honestly great and the nostalgia is strong.

By the time we come to BG3, we're on DnD 5e and the maps are large rendered 3d expanses, rather than stitched together maps using a travel system.

This resulted in a cool game with fan made levels some of which were as good as the main game, but all the levels felt squarish and samey as they were built by the engine.

However, we never really got a BG successor with 3rd edition. Instead, we got Neverwinter Nights, an attempt to do BG with the new-fangled 3D models that were just possible. Maps could be created in a basic level editor using those assets.

For those with nostalgia, BG and BG 2 were both isometric games with 2D painted backgrounds using Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, or DnD 2nd ed for the kids. AD&D had many problems that DnD 3rd ed fixed, including Thac0 and multiclassing.

It's still beautifully animated and the vistas of sea and islands are striking, the stubborn pride of locals in the depression comes through and the sheer physicality of flying is well communicated.

A puzzling film in many ways, where the main character being a pig is never clearly explained, almost incidental to the plot and the main sea pirates that are taught are shown to be better gentlemen than many proper gentlemen would be.

Porco Rosso continues the anti-fascist theme in Italy with Miyazaki and sea planes. It's given birth to the phrase "I'd rather be a pig than a fascist" and is one of the least known films of Studio Ghibli.

It's a fun and timely film, both because of the success of Helldivers 2, a brilliant game that clearly takes inspiration from the film, but also due to the direction of modern politics across Europe and the US.

Starship Troopers is a sci-fi classic that takes a satirical look at Fascism. It features lots of scary aliens swarming over poor humans as they die in horrific ways and you're always wondering how any of the brass that is in charge can be so stupid as to send people down and hope for the best.

Everything remains fine 😞

* One person did, technically

And no one went to jail* or got punished. The pay of CEOs has continued to diverge from the rest of the workers. I keep seeing reports that only a fraction of the financial industry actually does anything productive.