So many great games mentioned, like Sins of a Solar Empire (will have to get back into it sometime), Homeworld, Freespace, and Galactic Civilizations. Thanks for reminding me of them!

Oh, and since we’re on the topic, here’s a great playthrough by Tom Francis that showcases how great the Galactic Civilizations II AI is.

Although, I have to ask: no Endless Space? Not even 2? I had a great time playing it, to be honest. Probably not as complex as the aforementioned GalCiv but it was a ton of fun for me, nonetheless.

I guess it has an apparent advantage over SC, in that it’s an actual game that released. How much of an advantage that is, I don’t know, as I never tried Star Citizen. To me, something that put me off Star Citizen (and as far as I know, the same happened with a lot of other people) is the funding model.

It seems straight up dishonest. It’s like they’re leading people with a carrot to a game that might or might not come out. And it’s been this way for years, now. Again, from the outside, it seems they keep eternally promising and adding (or trying to add) stuff to the point where the game is never going to be finished and, at some point, they either keep this model forever or are going to abandon the game. I don’t want to be too judgemental regarding a game I don’t even play or have been hearing much about these past few years but, honestly, it’s what made me stay away from it.

The whole legs thing would have been a nice to have, though.

To clarify, I’m not opposed to the possibility of you exploring a planet with your character directly on the ground. The thing is, the base game had some fundamental flaws, the lack of content being a glaring example, that the community pointed out as needed fixing and/or improving. But instead of actually addressing the problem, the devs went in another direction entirely. It’s like you said:

there’s just a very clear disconnect between what direction the ED devs took the game versus what the players wanted.

Couldn’t have put it better myself. I mean, if they listened to what the players wanted (at least the bigger and most obvious issues) and fixed their shit, and then added space legs (which was, itself, something hastily and poorly added), I think the community’s reception would have been much more favourable and we’d have a better game to play.

Disclaimer: It’s been 2 years since I last played this game so a lot might have changed (though I suspect it hasn’t).

Not sure if it counts as AAA but since you mentioned X4, I think Elite: Dangerous can be included as well. Honestly, I have a love-hate relationship with this game because I feel it has so much wasted potential.

Just as an example: the devs made a 1:1 replica of the Milky Way galaxy, featuring more or less 400 billion star systems. From what I could gather, it uses real astronomical data and you can travel to each and everyone of those systems. I’m not sure how much it has changed nowadays, but last I checked, around 99% of the galaxy was yet to be explored. Also, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but it takes months to go from the populated systems to the far end of the galaxy and its a massive, massive undertaking, where you sort of need to use external tools to plan your trip. And honestly, for me, the sheer scale, the possibility of exploring actual, real places, like the Galaxy core, and also the actual undertaking, is probably the best part of the game. Just going from the core systems to Colonia (which is the other cluster of populated systems) takes a good while, namely days, or even weeks.

But there’s a catch: there’s not much to see or do in these trips. You’re basically warping from system to system and you might stumble upon some really cool real life phenomena like a neutrino star or a hypergiant star or even a black hole (which does nothing to your ship, as far as I know, just gives you a cool visual effect). I’m going to be honest, when I first got to the system harboring the Betelgeuse hypergiant, it was so massive, I couldn’t see the end of it and thought I was going to crash into the star and lose my ship. There was another time where warped in the middle of a binary star system. Again, panic ensued. And honestly, these moments are memorable and stick with you for a long time. But they’re not nearly as a common as one might think.

And it wouldn’t be that bad if, again, there was more to do and see. To put it simply, most of the time, the game feels aimless and empty. You can trade, be a pirate, mine, but you’re doing it just because. Sure, there are community events where you can have an effect on the galaxy, but I don’t feel they have that much of an impact. I guess they were trying to change that with the addition of an hostile alien species but I’m not sure how’s that working out nowadays.

But even then, I could’ve tolerated all of this if it wasn’t for the consistently stupid decisions made by the devs. Instead of actually addressing the current criticisms of the game, they added fuckin’ space legs to the game instead, which nobody asked for. Adding insult to injury, this expansion, Odyssey, is (or was? Not sure how it is nowadays) an unoptimized mess. I had the game crashing on me so many times, I eventually got fed up and uninstalled it. The framerate was also very unstable as reported by a lot of people.

Oh, and they also stopped supporting the console versions. Not sure if they got some sort of compensation, honestly.

And yet, I still haven’t found a space game that managed to equal the highs that I experienced in Elite: Dangerous. I tried No Man’s Sky, X4, Everspace, and all of them came up short. I’m sure they’re great games but the game that makes me forget about Elite: Dangerous is yet to come. Although I should probably try No Man’s Sky again.

I started with Crunchbang in its final years. It was a great introduction to Linux, to be honest. It was also a very solid distro, as it was Debian-based.

But, sadly, it eventually folded. It still has a spiritual sequel in BunsenLabs but, in the meantime, I’d moved to Arch (btw).

As far as I remember, yeah, that’s essentially what happened. At first, the government and the police saw drug addicts as criminals in the eyes of the law, and tried to go after them, which is, as far as I know, what the US and a lot of other countries do.

As a Portuguese who was alive (albeit a kid) in the 90s, I can summarize this as we didn’t have enough resources (both human and monetary) to keep enforcing the U.S. drug war model. Since it wasn’t working and we were reaching a critical situation (like half of Lisbon in particular was filled with drug addicts shooting heroin up their veins), we turned to the experts.

The article implies this was a decision made from the beginning of this epidemic, but it was pretty much a last resort because the other model was unsustainable for the government. Not sure if we would’ve adopted it if we had US’ resources.

Also, just giving context here, not trying to diminish this accomplishment.

I guess, haha. Not like we care all that much, though, if it’s good music, that’s all that matters. When I listened to the song you posted, I was reminded of YUKI, although they’re quite a bit different. YUKI has more arrangements and incorporates more instruments into her songs. Also, her voice is a bit weird, being very nasal, but I really love it, makes her have a very unique tone.

Kenji Kawai is such an amazing composer. I didn’t know about that particular composition you linked to (and thank you for sharing, it’s great!) but I know he made soundtracks for both Ghost in the Shell animated movies, which are so, so good. Here’s what I think is a medley of the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack played live. It opens with Making of a Cyborg, one of the most iconic pieces of the first movie.

I also really liked the 2nd song! I’m not sure but is her name Hako Yamasaki? Just so I can look for more of her stuff.

Aside from Mad World by Gary Jules and *Everything’s alright" by Laura Shigihara, which have already been mentioned, I have a few off the top of my head:

• Keiichi Okabe - Weight of the World/English Version. Going with this one just because I’ve heard most recently. Every version is great, though.
• Nobuo Uematsu - Aerith’s Theme. Orchestral version for maximum feels.
• Nobuo Uematsu - Tifa’s Theme. I always liked the Advent Children version best.

Not much of a country music listener but I’ve really liked Townes van Zandt, namely because of a tribute album made by various members of sludge/post-metal bands like Scott Kelly, Steve von Til and John Baizley. It’s more on the introspective and melancholic side but I think it’s also a bit different from a lot of other recommended artists/bands on this thread.

In most games, when there’s an option to play as a man or as a woman, I generally choose to play as a dude because…I’m a dude. I guess it helps to immerse myself in the game but I never really gave it much thought beyond that. But in my second playthrough, if it’s something like an RPG or anything like that, I usually switch to a girl just to see different story paths, conversations, personality even.

Except for fighting games. I’ve been telling myself it’s because I love fast, rushdown characters like Millia Rage or Cammy. I even managed to fool myself into thinking it was because I used to do the martial art they’re representing, like Lidia Sobieska from Tekken. Which is technically true, they have to have a play style I like.

But along comes Granblue and I’m torn between two characters: the badass old man brawler that is Soriz and zoner archer lady Metera. And at this point, I can’t lie to myself anymore and will probably play Metera because she’s a woman and she’s hot.

TL;DR: I like women and they’re hot.

I’ll chime in and suggest PC, as you can probably get them at a lower price than on PS4.

https://downloads.khinsider.com/ is the best I’ve found so far. Some numbers:

• Total albums: 43,913
• Total songs: 1,325,601
• Total size: 12581

Off the top of my head, “Benny the Bouncer” on Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery. It should have been a B-Side of a single or something like that but it does not work on that album at all. For me, it’s just a goofy unneeded intermission before “Karn Evil 9” that I always skip.

Probably The Last Blade 2 for Neo Geo and Tekken 3 for the PSX. The former I actually ended up playing it on an emulator but it’s still worth mentioning because it’s such a great gem of a game. Here are some of the super moves just to give you a taste but there’s also match footage of top players on Youtube if you want. And you can also play it on Fightcade for free.

Tekken 3 needs no introduction, I think. Considered by many to be one of if not the best entry in the series.

Apparently these are actually pretty well-known covers but I only found out a few years after:

• Tina Turner’s Proud Mary is originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Judas Priest’s The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown) is a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song
• Whiskey in the Jar is apparently an Irish traditional song, so both Thin Lizzy’s and Metallica’s (and also the Dubliners’) can be said to be covers

No problem, thanks. This version is great, and while no one can truly live up to Piggy, Daniel Mongrain sure is doing a great job at replacing him in the band.

FYI, there’s no link. I only see their Nothingface album cover.

Guess I made the right choice, then, as I went with Wrath :).

I had one game-breaking bug where I had to install a mod to teleport out of an inaccessible area after the game deleted an elevator

That’s good to know, in case it happens to me as well.

And thanks for quick analysis of the writing. I didn’t actually ask but I was also curious about that.