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Games and steak and cartoon/fantasy violence
Ok, so this is about (some) games, and also food, and also what we've been watching recently.
I've been playing Diablo Immortal. I didn't really parse how badly it got dinged in the online press, but given that the market for mobile games is dominated by free to play/gatcha games (it is the first, it's also the second but only for a fairly minor mechanic however much it's been lambasted in the press).
For a free to play game, your way is blocked Suprisingly little by not paying any money (I have paid no money, not even google $, and I'm slowing down because I've gotten close to rising the target level and there are advantages for staying below it). If anything, I had the reverse issue for the first week or so of play--it's surprisngly hard to put down, despite (sensibly) having caps on how much you can farm per day (another thing people can complain about, but since the game has a sizable pvp component slowing things down is pretty standard--what's surprising is that with the exception of the one mechanic they've monetized ("legendary gems" -- a form of gear that acts as a power multipler and provides some minor-to-significant benefits depending on how well it fits your gameplay style), there's generally not a way to spend money to bypass the cap.
So maybe give it a try if diablo-style games are your jam--and you can get yourself to stop playing them when you want to have a life (the caps helps once you notice them. No point in over-running the thing that lets you eventually build your own legendary gems if you're already hard capped on it, and no point in playing just to level if you're actively trying to stay below the soft level cap). I get the impression that it's simpler than other Diablo games, but with with 6 legendary gear slots (which are not monetized, at all) which modify your 4 out of 8 regular abilities, each of which have 6 or 8 possibilities (which you can swap at will once you have access to them, and all upgrades transfer to new gear in a slot when you upgrade it so it's easy to play around with several different builds without losing anything), there are a huge number of interesting combinations--enough that weak legendary abilities early on can become really strong in combination with other legendary items.
And the pvp is very much "pvp as sport", so it's the fun kind where you get to go into an arena and compete with people, not the unfun kind where you flag pvp and people knock you over in a dark alley and take your stuff.
A couple of weeks ago, I installed the mobile version of Ni No Kuni (which I've enjoyed both the movie of and some of the original game), but, is another rpg that does not fulfil these aims. Unlike Diablo Immortal (which has a few timed events, but they repeat pretty often except pvp metagame stuff (which is opt-in) and one world event I'm going to have to carefully time if I want to catch since it's twice a day and 6 days a week), NNK relies a lot on events that repeat for like 10 minutes ever four hours, which was massively stressy, and also your character can basically constantly act and can mostly operate on their own with minimal direction, so the game tends to steer you in a "have my phone constantly playing this game for me which I periodically check in like a fantasy tamagotchi player", and it's basically full-on stress and time-eating despite the way you can quasi-ignore it while it plays itself for you a lot of the time.
Whereas while Diablo Immortal has almost-flawless navigation (my character would get stuck on the scenery and things, but it's not like it's doing things without you; auto-navigation only selects after you pick a quest and stops once you have someone to fight with or talk to), the fighting and often dodging is all you, so it's certainly a game you get to enjoy playing rather than being in constant grind with (the only moments of grind were the two bits when the game told me I was too low level to play the next part of the main quest, but that's also when I discovered the board of interesting stuff you could do while levelling up, so it worked out mostly).
For non-video games, well, there are a bunch? Aside from regular games like D&D on Thursdays and once-monthly Saturday games with Lee, there's a streamed game (except when I miss it which is like half the time) Saturday night, a Harlem Unbound game on around every other Friday, and it feels like [Unknown site tag]'s running like 3 games, two of which I'm playing in (Gumshoe, plus the third Good Society game wrapped and we're playtesting something else Gumshoey in that slot).
I've been skipping board games at Steinway (just felt irresponsible with the demi-surge in the spring) but it looks like friends are having gaming days a bit more regular so that might fill the gap a bit. Plus I've been reconnecting with friends to play online, so that's nice. A few recently played games are Copenhagen (new to me), Gaia Project, and Spice Road (don't actually own this so it's nice to be able to play it more regularly on BGA).
So, during the pandemic I've been getting in the habit of making meat, something I was often a bit trepedacious about, but...needs must. -mostly- this means I season meat on both sides and sauté it, possibly with an instant-read thermometer to help.
The thing is, though, I've not done a lot of beef. Hamburgers, of course; I did those all the time growing up, so I'm fairly confident about my burgers. But supermarket beef...it's either pricy and not all that great, or cheap and really not great, so I've mostly just gotten cheap meat and ended up stewing it (I've also upped my stew game, so that's not alltogether a bad thing) or long-cooking it in the dutch oven to soften it (that works pretty well even for the toughest cuts, but it's basically stovetop bbq, whereas I like good steak rare).
However, we -do- have a butcher in the neighborhood. So we visted the other day and picked up a porterhouse. steak. For $24 (at around $1/oz), so I was a bit nervous about screwing it up. Advice online said to bring the center up to temperature in the broiler or oven over time, and then finish it in a cast iron pot.
But..I didn't do that. I've noticed that thick pork chops cook just fine just searing them in a cast iron pot with a little oil; the heat of the pan is plenty enough to get to the center of the meat if you're not too cautious. So I did that, figuring that if the outside cooked too fast, I could just drop the light, put a top on my skillet and slow-cook it long enough to get the center to rare.
And....it was great. Basically restaurant quality, for less than half the price. Yum, will do again.
Ok, we've been seeing a lot of fantasy violence--we've watched like five wuxia dramas in their entirety (Madien Holmes, Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, Once Upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain, Word of Honor, and The Untamed), and all were excellent in their own ways. Lingjian Mountain was the sleeper -- it's a B drama that takes itself not seriously at all, but it really came into its own by the end, to the point that I really hope it gets a sequel.
But I mentioned cartoons. We have watched some pretty great ones, like B: The Beginning (a police procedural thriller, more or less), but what we're currently watching is Psycho Pass. I'd previously started the virtual novel and bounced off it, largely because it mostly consists of long periods of hitting next while the computer talks to itself (I'm told this is a very common reaction and yes it totally has this problem), but the anime is very good, presenting an interesting pre-crime dystopia premise with enough deftness that you can almost believe it's a utopia...while still rooting for the pro-society heroes more than their (right for the right reasons but violent enough to make them largely unsympathetic anyway) enemies. We're just heading into the finale of the first season (the only one Hulu has, may need to turn elsewhere since apparently there are two more seasons), so no spoilers!
Also, the single-season Ingress anime is...good? I was surprised!
I've been playing Diablo Immortal. I didn't really parse how badly it got dinged in the online press, but given that the market for mobile games is dominated by free to play/gatcha games (it is the first, it's also the second but only for a fairly minor mechanic however much it's been lambasted in the press).
For a free to play game, your way is blocked Suprisingly little by not paying any money (I have paid no money, not even google $, and I'm slowing down because I've gotten close to rising the target level and there are advantages for staying below it). If anything, I had the reverse issue for the first week or so of play--it's surprisngly hard to put down, despite (sensibly) having caps on how much you can farm per day (another thing people can complain about, but since the game has a sizable pvp component slowing things down is pretty standard--what's surprising is that with the exception of the one mechanic they've monetized ("legendary gems" -- a form of gear that acts as a power multipler and provides some minor-to-significant benefits depending on how well it fits your gameplay style), there's generally not a way to spend money to bypass the cap.
So maybe give it a try if diablo-style games are your jam--and you can get yourself to stop playing them when you want to have a life (the caps helps once you notice them. No point in over-running the thing that lets you eventually build your own legendary gems if you're already hard capped on it, and no point in playing just to level if you're actively trying to stay below the soft level cap). I get the impression that it's simpler than other Diablo games, but with with 6 legendary gear slots (which are not monetized, at all) which modify your 4 out of 8 regular abilities, each of which have 6 or 8 possibilities (which you can swap at will once you have access to them, and all upgrades transfer to new gear in a slot when you upgrade it so it's easy to play around with several different builds without losing anything), there are a huge number of interesting combinations--enough that weak legendary abilities early on can become really strong in combination with other legendary items.
And the pvp is very much "pvp as sport", so it's the fun kind where you get to go into an arena and compete with people, not the unfun kind where you flag pvp and people knock you over in a dark alley and take your stuff.
A couple of weeks ago, I installed the mobile version of Ni No Kuni (which I've enjoyed both the movie of and some of the original game), but, is another rpg that does not fulfil these aims. Unlike Diablo Immortal (which has a few timed events, but they repeat pretty often except pvp metagame stuff (which is opt-in) and one world event I'm going to have to carefully time if I want to catch since it's twice a day and 6 days a week), NNK relies a lot on events that repeat for like 10 minutes ever four hours, which was massively stressy, and also your character can basically constantly act and can mostly operate on their own with minimal direction, so the game tends to steer you in a "have my phone constantly playing this game for me which I periodically check in like a fantasy tamagotchi player", and it's basically full-on stress and time-eating despite the way you can quasi-ignore it while it plays itself for you a lot of the time.
Whereas while Diablo Immortal has almost-flawless navigation (my character would get stuck on the scenery and things, but it's not like it's doing things without you; auto-navigation only selects after you pick a quest and stops once you have someone to fight with or talk to), the fighting and often dodging is all you, so it's certainly a game you get to enjoy playing rather than being in constant grind with (the only moments of grind were the two bits when the game told me I was too low level to play the next part of the main quest, but that's also when I discovered the board of interesting stuff you could do while levelling up, so it worked out mostly).
For non-video games, well, there are a bunch? Aside from regular games like D&D on Thursdays and once-monthly Saturday games with Lee, there's a streamed game (except when I miss it which is like half the time) Saturday night, a Harlem Unbound game on around every other Friday, and it feels like [Unknown site tag]'s running like 3 games, two of which I'm playing in (Gumshoe, plus the third Good Society game wrapped and we're playtesting something else Gumshoey in that slot).
I've been skipping board games at Steinway (just felt irresponsible with the demi-surge in the spring) but it looks like friends are having gaming days a bit more regular so that might fill the gap a bit. Plus I've been reconnecting with friends to play online, so that's nice. A few recently played games are Copenhagen (new to me), Gaia Project, and Spice Road (don't actually own this so it's nice to be able to play it more regularly on BGA).
So, during the pandemic I've been getting in the habit of making meat, something I was often a bit trepedacious about, but...needs must. -mostly- this means I season meat on both sides and sauté it, possibly with an instant-read thermometer to help.
The thing is, though, I've not done a lot of beef. Hamburgers, of course; I did those all the time growing up, so I'm fairly confident about my burgers. But supermarket beef...it's either pricy and not all that great, or cheap and really not great, so I've mostly just gotten cheap meat and ended up stewing it (I've also upped my stew game, so that's not alltogether a bad thing) or long-cooking it in the dutch oven to soften it (that works pretty well even for the toughest cuts, but it's basically stovetop bbq, whereas I like good steak rare).
However, we -do- have a butcher in the neighborhood. So we visted the other day and picked up a porterhouse. steak. For $24 (at around $1/oz), so I was a bit nervous about screwing it up. Advice online said to bring the center up to temperature in the broiler or oven over time, and then finish it in a cast iron pot.
But..I didn't do that. I've noticed that thick pork chops cook just fine just searing them in a cast iron pot with a little oil; the heat of the pan is plenty enough to get to the center of the meat if you're not too cautious. So I did that, figuring that if the outside cooked too fast, I could just drop the light, put a top on my skillet and slow-cook it long enough to get the center to rare.
And....it was great. Basically restaurant quality, for less than half the price. Yum, will do again.
Ok, we've been seeing a lot of fantasy violence--we've watched like five wuxia dramas in their entirety (Madien Holmes, Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, Once Upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain, Word of Honor, and The Untamed), and all were excellent in their own ways. Lingjian Mountain was the sleeper -- it's a B drama that takes itself not seriously at all, but it really came into its own by the end, to the point that I really hope it gets a sequel.
But I mentioned cartoons. We have watched some pretty great ones, like B: The Beginning (a police procedural thriller, more or less), but what we're currently watching is Psycho Pass. I'd previously started the virtual novel and bounced off it, largely because it mostly consists of long periods of hitting next while the computer talks to itself (I'm told this is a very common reaction and yes it totally has this problem), but the anime is very good, presenting an interesting pre-crime dystopia premise with enough deftness that you can almost believe it's a utopia...while still rooting for the pro-society heroes more than their (right for the right reasons but violent enough to make them largely unsympathetic anyway) enemies. We're just heading into the finale of the first season (the only one Hulu has, may need to turn elsewhere since apparently there are two more seasons), so no spoilers!
Also, the single-season Ingress anime is...good? I was surprised!