Every Man's Sky

Alright, a whole lot of people have been talking during the last year or two about how No Man's Sky has actually turned into a great game now, as opposed to what it was at launch.

And I'll be damned if it hasn't actually done that.

Hell, it might've turned into my favourite game at the moment.

Let's back it up a little, though. In 2016, a company called Hello Games released a sci-fi survival game called No Man's Sky to great fanfare. That is, they provided the fanfare all by themselves, because the game was...nothing. It was basically interplanetary Minecraft with all the charm and flexibility carved out with a screwdriver and set on fire. Quality, however, wasn't the big problem.

Lies were. As mentioned, the developers hyped the game to the sky(No Man's Sky, presumably). Most famously, head of Hello Games, Sean Murray, did a long interview prior to release where he lied about some features that proved not to be in the game, and misled the public about others.

In spite of this, I bought the game, knowing its limitations. Fact of the matter is that I've got a soft spot for those types of games. So I played it for a good while. And it...sort of trickled down the drain. I like the game less and less as time went on, and there came a point where the game seemed completely and utterly devoid of quality. So I stopped playing.

Maybe I ought to note that I played the game in between sessions of ECT. No, I don't agree that getting electricity sent straight into your brain multiple times can have any impact whatsoever on one's enjoyment of a video game. So shut up!

Time went on, and now and then I heard murmurs about how the developers were intent on improving the game. I didn't put much stock in those rumours, to be frank. They couldn't release a good game from the start, what made people think Hello Games would be able to piece one together afterwards?

I think my attitude there was unfair. Most of the time, if developers release a shit game they just hunker down, pretend it's good, and maybe sue some people to push the blame over to them. Hello Games, meanwhile, decided to man up and make the game something that matched what the players expected.

Part of it, I can admit plainly now, was that I disliked them because they lied and released a crap game. And when I dislike someone for what they've done, my automatic instinct is to keep holding that against them. Unless they actually make amends, which is what Hello Games did.

In the end, I kept hearing so much talk about how great the game was now and how the developers had really pulled the game out of the gutter. So I decided to try it again.

This time, it was not the same game anymore. There were NPCs to interact with, interaction with other players, storylines, it just goes on and on. What impressed me the most, though, was that now the game had direction. You were taught things in quests, you developed your character with help from the game itself, it just flowed. It's still huge and completely free to explore, but now they've added the pieces that were missing.

Also, you can get a mech suit.

Jurassic Morons

You know, I've been meaning to write this little feature for a while now. The one stumbling block, however, was how to actually express in text just how magnificently idiotic the, so far, two Jurassic World movies are.

I mean, I could just rage on about them for page after page, but I don't think that would actually convey just how much I want to kick the writers of those movies in the genitals.

So, here's my plan: we'll pretend that the park is being visited by J. R. Sensibleguy. The reason for his visiting the park is the fact that the main reason why everything went to fuck in the previous movies is because either there was no sensible person involved, or nobody listened to the one sensible person.

In fact, the whole series can just be renamed to "Why the flying fuck didn't anybody listen to Ian Malcolm?!", but that's beside the point.

Mr. Sensibleguy is hired by the InGen board to look into the park, the management, the plans for the future etc, and see if any of it is fucking stupid. His main interlocutor in the park is the manager. Let's name her...F. G. Coquesoaker. This first episode is about how the manager handles the situation with the Indominus Rex. Enter stage right.

Coquesoaker: Let's face it; nobody is excited by dinosaurs anymore.

Sensibleguy: *looks out the window* What the hell are you talking about, the park is literally packed with as many people as can possible fit, and everyone is having the time of their lives.

Coquesoaker: Hrm...but we need to innovate, invent new attractions for the visitors!

Sensibleguy: Okay, fair enough. What's on the board?

Coquesoaker: Allow me to present to you...the Indominus Rex!

Sensibleguy: Oh, okay. What's the deal with that one, then?

Coquesoaker: Well, it's huge and has lots of pointy teeth!

Sensibleguy: So does the T-Rex, what's so special about this new one?

Coquesoaker: Well...I mean, it's bigger, and has more teeth!

Sensibleguy: Right. Well, what else is special about it?

Coquesoaker: We don't know.

Sensibleguy: I...what? You don't know?

Coquesoaker: Nope.

Sensibleguy: But...how smart is it?

Coquesoaker: Don't know.

Sensibleguy: How strong is it?

Coquesoaker: Dunno.

Sensibleguy: How high can it jump?

Coquesoaker: Look, it sounds like I'm not getting through to you just how absolutely nothing we know about this thing.

Sensibleguy: These are important questions from a safety standpoint, how on earth can you safely keep the thing locked up, let alone use it as a park attraction if you don't know first thing about it?

Coquesoaker: Oh, we can't have that as an attraction. Way too dangerous!

Sensibleguy: So why the shit is it still alive?

Coquesoaker: Meh, it costs alot to develop, so we kinda cross our arms and pout over that one. Oh, holy shit!

Sensibleguy: *sigh* What's the matter now?

Coquesoaker: It's escaped! Look, there are claw marks on that wall.

Sensibleguy: Ooookay...but how did it get past the huge moat surrounding the paddock?

Coquesoaker: Don't have one of those.

Sensibleguy: *deeper sigh* Look, are those claw marks supposed to have come from that thing scaling the wall? Are you telling me it leaped, then clawed its way up like a cat that just barely missed a jump? And look at that monitor; the tracker says it's right there in the paddock!

Coquesoaker: The tracker is wrong. The I-Rex has clearly escaped.

Sensibleguy: Hey, before we do something (more) stupid, let's just check the cameras and look through the window at the paddock. Hell, it's tiny! And there is only one hiding spot; that clump of trees over there!

Coquesoaker: No, I don't need to look at anything, and it most definitely isn't hiding in that clump of trees just large enough to conceal an Indominus Rex! I will send in two people, completely lacking any equipment that would be able to so much as menace a house cat. Open the gate!

Sensibleguy: Tell me, you don't happen to have two gates, so that the animal will not escaped when you are letting those two people out or in?

Coquesoaker: Of course not.

Sensibleguy: Yes, I thought as much. It was an act of pure optimism to have posed the question in the first place. But...if you don't think the I-Rex is in there, then why the hell do you want to send two guys in to look?

Coquesoaker: Because it might still be in there!

Sensibleguy: In which case you definitely don't want to send them in there, because they'll make nothing more than a tasty snack for the dinosaur.

Coquesoaker: Oh fuck, it was in there! Close the gate.

Sensibleguy: Let me guess, the gate is slow as shit so the dino has plenty of time to run for it?

Coquesoaker: Yes, why?

Sensibleguy: Oh, no, nothing. I'm just beginning to see a pattern, that's all.

Coquesoaker: So, now the guard is dino-food, and the I-Rex is free as a bird.

Sensibleguy: What a shocker, who could've predicted it...

Coquesoaker: I know, right?!

Sensibleguy: Tell me just one thing: Do you have any way whatsoever of stopping that thing?

Coquesoaker: Oh yes; we'll send a bunch of guys armed with shock sticks and stuff like that, which obviously can't even hurt an animal that size, let alone incapacitate it.

Sensibleguy: I thought so. Oh well, first we'll have to do a full emergency evacuation of the whole island.

Coquesoaker: Nah, that'd cost money. Much better to waste a bunch of human lives. We'll just let that animal rampage for a bit, then it'll probably get tired and return to its paddock by itself.

Sensibleguy: *starts walking towards the door, then stops and takes out sunglasses* Here's what we're gonna do; we'll play it like Michael Crichton.

Coquesoaker: Why, what did he do?

Sensibleguy: *puts on sunglasses* Bombed the whole island to oblivion. [Exit stage left]