Mamoru Oshii v. The Brotherhood

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via Kotaku:

The filmmaker and genius behind the 1995 sci-fi anime classic has been documenting his eight year journey through Fallout 4’s post-nuclear (h/t Automaton), and it doesn’t involve following the main story which sees the player-made protagonist on a search for their child after they were abducted. Instead, Oshii plays by a self-inforced code of conduct, restricting who he interacts with while also seeing him collect a ton of power armor.

For Oshii, Dogmeat is his only companion. He allies with no one. He ignores the main story. And the Brotherhood of Steel are in for a really bad time when he comes across them. In his many articles on Automaton documenting his experiences with the game, he said:

Whenever I spot [the Brotherhood’s] reconnaissance units in the ruins, I stalk them from behind and take them out with my trusty .50 caliber rifle. I kill them all and leave no evidence. I’ve decided to strip them naked and leave them lying there in their underwear. They’re invaders, so mercy is unnecessary.

Warpless Midlife Mario, round 01

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Seems my midlife crisis has manifested in a desire to beat the original SUPER MARIO BROS without using a warp zone by the time I hit 50. I'm 44 now, so I've got a bit of runway. Other than the "no warping" rule, I'm also - since I'm playing it on my little NES mini (pork chop Nintendo, as I fondly call it) in The Shed and with it, the option of saving and walking away - instituting a single-playthrough rule: once I start, I don't stop until I die or win, just like those long evenings of perpetual failure that ended 20 years later with a (warped) victory and subsequent blackout drunken revelry. So, in that spirit, round one:

HELL IS US (III)

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Finished last night with a twinge of disappointment. After all the build-up, all the questing, all of the beautifully aimless wandering around ingeniously deceptively unopen open worlds, it just sort of... ended. Sure: threads were wrapped up, there was some solidly maddening end-boss combat, but it felt like only two acts of the game ended and that the third act was a quick rush through, a return with the elixir in a shotglass barely passed around. Didn't make me love the game as a game any less or dampen my desire to replay it at some point but still, damn. Remains a deeply flawed masterpiece of game art; closest I can approximate to it would be LA NOIRE, all those years ago: a ridiculously accomplished swing for the fences from gameworld luminaries that left me wanting more. Taking a break for a palette-cleansing brainless romp through something else (I really need to use that Switch 2 for more than MARIO KART WORLD and BALATRO: recs welcome) before deciding whether to go SILENT HILL F or wait another week for GHOST OF YOTEI.