One reason I loved Ace Attorney, it at least got a few steps away from the “high school hero” tropes of everything else made in Japan.

They eventually retread that issue with Apollo and Athena, but they were there for a bit…

I think the unfortunate thing is, every country pretty much chooses one or more major world power to be their friend. If Cuba is not okay with the United States as their ally (and it’s reasonable, because we do some fucked up things to allies) then they’re going to pick something else.

Ukraine was guilty of the same thing. In WW2, they were sandwiched between Soviets and Nazis. In their case, they picked Nazi; but may have been unhappy about either choice.

Might be a fun place to post it, I had an idea for a manga:

A guy gets a date offer from a cute girl. He goes, but she never shows up. After hearing out a very vague apology, he accepts the offer for another date, and even then, she’s late and very apologetic.

Eventually, our hero pieces together that the mysterious urban legend of a heroic magical girl, who beats bad guys and disappears to nowhere, is in fact the girl that had been trying to meet him for a date.

He doesn’t confront her about it, forseeing she wants to keep the identity secret, but he also works out that in the panic of a fight, she could use some guiding advice. So, he dons his own mask, pretending to have his own powers, in order to help her out; forever keeping the secret of knowing her secret from her.

Wait. I’ve played a lot of Fatal Frame, and they only signify the Zero Lens by its kanji, and it’s not that square shape. So now I’m confused…

Maybe its ghost folklore origins put it more on the Chinese side?

I wish I could get on board with this initiative. I used to believe that to be MAGA, you had to be either incredibly cruel, or unfathomably stupid.

As things have developed, I was dismayed to realize: You have to be both.

A while back, I was actually okay with MS being semi forcible about Windows Update.

Most people overestimate their antivirus, and don’t realize that frequent updates are generally the most important way of keeping their system safe. And, to avoid turning computers into zombies for botnets, to keep the whole internet safe. Windows is the world’s most popular OS - it’s good for the world to keep systems secure.

And then MS had the gall to betray that responsibility of only shipping critical security patches by forceful methods. They started forcing people to Windows 11, pushing Edge back in as their browser, pushing popups and Start menu changes, and so on. For a thousand reasons, Windows Update has more notoriety in common with malware than the malware it’s meant to protect you from.

I think that joke continues with Office Space and The Office, doesn’t it? Always vague comments about paperwork, but no actual direction.

It’s not that I love my bike. It’s that I love the hundreds of unplayed indie games I bought on Steam more than I would love a car.

especially when steam could legit actually tell publishers they can’t kill their games when it’s sold through their platform.

Steam actually does take a hand in this to a degree. For instance, they don’t apply any mechanisms wherein a player who bought a game simply “cannot download it” anymore. They can’t do anything to force online servers to stay up, but for example: You can’t buy the Telltale Law and Order game anymore. I can still download it to my Steam account on any device, because I bought it when it was around.

Steam definitely did not popularize DRM - there’s a reason GabeN is attributed for the “piracy is a service problem” quote. He made Steam because the most common DRM systems of the time were a huge roadblock for gamers. In turn, he created a system that was appealing for both players and publishers; even if it’s not as consumer-open as GOG.

One of the best pieces of legislation in favor of game preservation is Stop Killing Games. Most people you talk with in /Games urgently support it. So far as I have seen, Valve/Steam have not done anything to stand in its way.

People definitely do defend “lesser evils”.

Like, immigration. A lot of people feel that people should not enter the US undocumented, trending towards high-risk jobs and disengaging from American systems.

But they’d rather have them around, albeit illegally, than hard-push the sociopathic idea we need a Final Solution that uses a masked, domestic terrorist network to collect anyone non-white into concentration camps.

Most sane people focus on solving big-ticket problems in the world, not putting hardline focus on lesser issues. Attacking Steam does not in any significant way resolve wealth disparity across the United States.

You can get some of the appeal of Flash games at Itch.io. Many people compile their little free games for Unity’s web player.

This was, in some ways, the life lesson from FFXIV: Endwalker.

“I’ll just hold off on the termination notice until you’ve finished writing it.”

A games launcher that allows you to log into an Epic account. Supports GOG too.

It mainly exists to make playing on Linux easier but I think it’s available for Windows.

I’ve used them for a bit, but literally never installed their launcher. Heroic saved me from those claims going to waste.

It’s a lot simpler than the picture, but I always felt fascinated by the 1st-story parking arrangement. A building just appears as a parking lot dotted with support columns and a single elevator/stairway room; and above is the entire building.

I feel like it would work well as one. We probably need more of it; that kind of “Intentional bad messaging” that gets people angry at the thing being advertised.

I installed this yesterday and couldn’t find one room related to video games that had any chat messages in the past few years. I put a message in anyway, but not optimistic.

Even with all the hacky annoyance CachyOS gives me, it is so refreshing not to get OneDrive or Copilot shoved on me in every window.