If it worked anything like the GLOO Cannon from Prey, I would have been satisfied even if it were the only major innovation in the episode.

I dunno, that name rolls off the tongue nicely.

Have you played Obsidians other works? They love deconstructing tropes. It’s what they’re known for, aside from top-tier writing and being screwed over by their publishers.

• Pillars of Eternity has a cleric party member who’s a bitter old man that openly hates his own god.
• Alpha Protocol is a clusterfuck of factions allying with and betraying each other, and remains the single most reactive RPG ever made (nearly every choice has consequences, sometimes thirty hours later). It’s hard to recommend though because the gameplay is terrible and it’s probably their buggiest game (it was rushed out the door by Sega, who refused to pay for post-release patches).
• Tyranny puts you into the shoes of an executive officer in the Evil Overlord’s army after they’ve already won. I haven’t played it but I’ve only heard good things.
• And of course New Vegas brought the Fallout series back to its morally gray roots by having all sides be terrible, but giving compelling practical (if not moral) reasons to side with them anyway.

That perk you get from Brianna in KOTOR 2 that lets you add your wisdom modifier to AC when unarmored would have worked wonders in KOTOR. It’s weird that Jedi can’t get the definitive monk class trait in the first game.

Actually, a mod like Tale of Two Wastelands that combines the two games’ content would be amazing. They fixed so many balance problems in the second game (then snapped balance in half over their knee with the crafting system - as is tradition). Porting those improvements to the first would be sublime.

If the amount of explosives you use doesn’t replace your current problem with a new, even larger one, you didn’t use enough explosives!

Clearly the problem was that you didn’t bring enough grenades!

That final gauntlet of infinitely respawning enemies in the Star Forge must have ended so many non-Jedi/Sith challenge runs. If you don’t have crowd control abilities and high enough DPS to get rid of one group before the next makes it to you, they will wear you down.

On the other hand if you DO have force powers (which the developers clearly balanced the endgame for) and a decent team, it’s a cathartic march of triumph as you blast your way through dozens of what used to be somewhat challenging enemies while Malak panics in the background.

The first KOTOR feels like it belongs in the original canon. It’s basically a perfect Star Wars movie with a bunch of game padding around it. It’s the most “Star Wars” Star Wars outside of the Original Trilogy.

KOTOR 2 did what Rian Johnson tried to do in deconstructing and subverting the usual Star Wars tropes, and did so a million times more competently than The Last Jedi. With the Restored Content mod it’s one of my favorite pieces of media ever.

I found that the initial euphoria helped me get out and do things I normally wouldn’t (like catch up with friends and family I’d lost track of over the years), and the satisfaction from that helped keep me naturally happy after the false euphoria faded. Your mileage may vary, but actually getting things done for once helped a ton with my related disorders like anxiety and depression and things weren’t nearly as bad even when I started feeling normal again. And remember, the medication’s ability to let your brain feel motivation doesn’t fade, only the euphoric feeling.

The danger I see is that I think I need to up the dose to match the euphoria from the start, while I actually need to get to the point where it’s 0 % euphoria, 100 % noradrenalin.

That’s one of the main things my doctor warned me about when I started taking Vyvanse. He said that even though it might feel like your medication isn’t working as well, to not to chase that rush because it won’t actually help your symptoms and you’ll quickly become tolerant of the higher dose as well. All you’ll accomplish is paying more for a higher risk of side effects.

Not to mention if you appear to be a drug seeker they might decide to switch to a different, non-controlled medication that doesn’t work nearly as well as what you’re currently on.

Also a constant feeling like a hundred bucks, better than many recreational drugs.

Be aware that the euphoria is a temporary side effect and will only last for a week or two. The “actually being able to do things” part will remain, but feeling like a hundred bucks is due to the drug literally being an amphetamine and will fade as your body becomes tolerant of the dosage level you’re taking.

Evie became a rich adventurer badass married to Brendan Frasier, so it worked out alright for her.

Mouse, because the first thing she did when I brought her home was fall asleep on top of my computer tower.

Edit: more cat tax. I wish I had a better camera at the time.

My previous cat loved chin scratches, the harder the better. She’d throw her whole body weight down on your fingers, to the point I worried about hurting her. When she jumped up on something, before doing anything else she’d make sure to visit the corner and rub her chin against even the sharpest edges with distressing force. I swear she was a masochist or something.

Cats are weird. I miss her.

Edit: blurry cat tax.

Let’s follow this adorable family of, I dunno, weasels or something. We’ll name every one of the dozen kits and give them each individual narratives, which will make it even more traumatizing when all but one of them are horribly killed and eaten on camera.

- Nature documentaries

I can’t run Doom, but I can run Level 9, “Fuel Station Launch”, from Dark Forces 2, down to which extra enemies spawn and what items are removed when playing on each difficulty level.

It was on an old demo disc and I must have played that level a hundred times as a kid.

I’ve owned my personal domain for five of the last fifteen years. Should I be happy or embarrassed that no squatters grabbed it during any of the several times I let it go unrenewed?

I’ve seen code with binary data (such as icons) baked into constants. I can’t wait for the three hour narration of base64 encoded pngs.

They canceled the GTA V story DLC after seeing the success of GTA Online, and their long-time head writer and producer resigned. I have little faith that GTA6 will capture the same spark that their earlier games had.

Genie was locked up at 20 months old. I don’t think they locked her up because of her mental illness. They locked her up because of their mental illness. I reference Genie because she’s the most documented “wild child,” which is a completely disgusting term.

I was going off old college memories - after looking it up, it sounds like her father thought she was mentally disabled and began/increased his neglect because of it, despite her only outward health issue being delayed walking due to a hip problem.

Also re: “wild child”. I agree, and thanks for pointing it out. That’s what they were called in my books, but catchy rhyme aside it’s a horrible way to refer to a victim of such abuse. I’ll edit my original comment.

Language is universal to all humans, even though it is multifaceted. Humans also have massive brains that require extra care to bring to fruition in comparison to other animals. Language is one of those things. You can learn other languages at any age, but you first need learn a language.

It would be fascinating to know what inner thoughts look like without the construct of language to frame them in. Unfortunately there’s no ethical way to find out, short of uplifting a non-sapient species and asking them.

Given the success of foreign exchange students, I’m willing to bet the age factor is much less important than people claim.

People bring up the “wild children” that had trouble learning to speak when first introduced to society, but usually fail to mention the reason they were neglected/abandoned as children was due to mental disabilities, so they aren’t really a viable data point.