Any gamers around here?

[Hydra009]

There's a new Starfinder game coming out!  (Currently, the only official game...)

So what is Starfinder?  It's basically Guardians of the Galaxy the RPG.  So how you feel about this game will largely depend on how you feel about that.

We have, in no particular order: androids, solar-powered monks with 4 arms, rat mechanics, lizard-klingons (my personal favorite), bug druids (my brother's favorite), adorable little 6-armed ewok-like things, a gigantic undead space navy that's creepy AF, and The SWARM.  You can play as a soldier, diplomat, bounty hunter, ace pilot, scholar, mechanic, hacker, etc.  Come to think of it, it's a lot like Star Wars, too.

You know that weird bar scene in Star Wars A New Hope where the bar is filled with all sorts of strange aliens, including one that basically looks like the devil, while a band plays jazz?  That's this game in a nutshell.

Oh, and the setting is nuts.  There was some sort of Dragonbreak then God gave everyone blueprints for cheap and easy FTL (I am not joking) and so now there's a mad dash for everyone to make contact with everyone and it doesn't take long for the bullets to start flying.

It's all absolutely insane and wonderful and it deserves to be more popular than it is.

[Blackleaf]

Apparently, the music the aliens play in Star Wars is canonically named jizz music.

[Hydra009]

I'm trying to join up with a Pathfinder group in a few days and need to do a lot of reading to figure out how this system works, but it seems pretty intuitive.

Here's my character:

In his youth, he was part of a small, regional army.  An outrider who would scout ahead and let the soldiers know about possible enemy forces, nearby freshwater and game, incoming weather conditions, etc.  Someone attentive to both the enemy and nature.  And by necessity, very solitary.  But he did have one and only friend - a young swordsman in the army who aspired to be captain one day.  On rare occasions, they would share meals together at camp and swap stories..

One day, after a fierce skirmish, a druid came to the camp to heal the wounded of both sides.  My character was awestruck by that sort of magical power and was instantly obsessed with learning it.  He briefly talked to the druid, who knew that he would soon make a life-altering decision.  The druid told him (intentionally vague) instructions on how to follow her to her grove.

That night, my character decided that he'd quit the army.  In the middle of the night, while almost all were asleep, he said one last goodbye to his friend and then snuck out of the camp, taking only his waterskin.  He was technically a deserter, which is a serious crime, but didn't care.

The journey had been arduous and he'd almost died twice - once due to lack of water near the mountains (he passed out from thirst and awoke near a small pond due to the croak of frogs) and once when a bear startled him from slumber (he tried to fight it off to no avail, but locked eyes and mimicked the body language and roar of the bear and eventually, it relented).  He walked a very difficult, meandering route through hills, around craggy mountains, and finally, deep into dense woods that he'd never seen before, that by all rights, shouldn't even exist.  That's where he met a small group of druids and learned their art, seeing nature through fresh eyes.

Then one night, they told him of a great threat to their order, told him that he must venture out once again and meet a certain person and the rest would make itself clear soon enough.

Does this work?  I was shooting for something fairly generic but would have enough for the DM to work with - maybe the old friend got promoted, maybe (probably) his people hold a grudge about the whole desertion thing, maybe the druids aren't too thrilled with him either, but figure that he'd be a useful agent in the world.  What is his current mission?  We'll find out!

[Hydra009]

I booted up my old favorite, Sins of a Solar Empire for a nice, relaxing game.

2vs2 on hard, because why not?  I'll tell you why - because I forgot I had an AI mod on this one.  Hard is like Insanely hard.  My ally was under attack the whole time and I couldn't do much to bail him out because I was under constant pirate raids.  Every time I attacked the territory of one of the enemies, the other one would attack my weak front.  I lost about 20% of my fleet every battle and even though I won every battle, I was so mired in enemies that I could never muster a breakthrough, no matter how hard I tried.

Eventually, I was fighting a war on four fronts and losing on three of them.  My ally slowly lost and I couldn't do anything about it.  :(

[Blackleaf]

People are finally starting to realize how scummy Nintendo has been. This latest Nintendo Direct broke people. $70 for a bundle of Mario Galaxy 1 & 2. Not remakes, not remasters, just the same old Wii games, with 4K upscaling and minimal additions. Or you can buy each individually for $40 each.

Oh, and they have new Mario Galaxy Amiibos too. For $40 each. That means if you buy the bundle and each Amiibo, you're paying about $150 + tax just for two upscaled Wii games. But it could be worse. The new Amiibo for Kirby Air Riders cost $50 each.

That's not all. The Virtual Boy comes to NSO next year too. I was initially surprised and pleased with this, until I saw that the accessory, which is required to play, costs $100. It doesn't even come with a controller. Literally, all it does is keep each eye from seeing the opposite side of the screen, so you get that illusion of depth. Even after buying that expensive piece of plastic, you don't own the games. You need a subscription too. Not even the standard subscription, but the more expensive NSO + Expansion Pack. But don't worry. They included a cheaper option for us poors; a $25 accessory made of literal cardboard.

Think that's it? Oh, you silly Billy. You forgot about the biggest ripoff under Nintendo's belt: Pokémon! This new $70 Z-A game, which isn't even out yet, already has $30 DLC! They literally locked content out of the game, just to sell it back to us. And that's not all. At least three of the new Mega Evolutions are locked behind ranked matches, and are timed exclusives. Meaning that on top of the $100 + tax you're already spending on the game and day-one DLC, you also need to pay for an active subscription to get the whole game.

Nintendo has officially lost the plot. They went from being the budget family console to being the luxury console. Just, you know... Without the luxury quality. They're the Disney of video games now, and that's not a compliment.

Real photo of people who actually buy all this shit: