Just bragging about my dad real quick: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxEp... Back in the 90s he worked on a system that helped people with degenerative vision conditions. In many ways it's a precursor to modern AR technology, but it's wild to see what existed over 30 years ago!
Correct on both counts. You can have an n-way mirror backed by n or more disks. And yes, I am referring to specifically the ZFS feature referred to as RAID-Z expansion. Attaching a new disk to increase available space in the AnyRAID works just fine.
No, but I just put a hold on it in my ILL system!
I have to advocate for it. This game is a beautiful gem, and I cannot recommend it enough. It will absolutely be my pick for the Hugos this year.
But these little touches really make this game, to me, a masterpiece.
I know this is not going to be a universal opinion. I love funny touches in serious stories, I love urban fantasy, I love tactics games and puzzle games. I am dead center in the target demo for this. But because I am...
To give just one example, the developer commentary, when enabled, is a physical object in the world. When you pick it up, it starts playing. You can then *throw the tape recorder at people*. They didn't have to do that! And if you do, the commentary *pauses*! That was so not necessary!
The pace builds beautifully over the game, and it never drags. The corkboard interstitials remind you of the plot if you've forgotten it, but even if you don't there are cool moments that you will appreciate if you're paying any attention at all.
Details: The details are what makes the game shine.
They have fire! They are memorable and special and wonderful, even if they're annoying and terrible. And the game gives each character moments to shine, so you have the space to appreciarte them.
Writing: The story is very solid. There are mysteries, twists and turns, and incredible surprises.
number of factors to dial in the difficulty level and type that feel right to you.
Characters: The characters are, to a one, fantastic. I started DA:tV before restarting this game, and I said, out loud, "Oh right, this is what good character writing feels like". They have personality!
And every single one of the characters is fun to use and play with. Even the weakest of them has incredible tools that let you pull of amazing things.
I also have to give a shoutout to the difficulty system, which is deeply tunable. In addition to the difficulty presents, you can tweak any...
And it ties beautifully into the narrative! The ability makes sense (mostly) in the context of the world.
And you need the rewind feature, because there are so many incredibly deep interactions between abilities. The emergent complexity makes for incredible moments of discovery and fun.
(If you could roll back shots that can miss, the game becomes a save scum simulator), and you need to have challenging enough levels that the ability to play a turn until you get the "best" outcome doesn't render it trivial. But it's just *so good* at letting you play around.
The ability to roll back an arbitrary number of steps, all the way back to the start of the turn, gives you so much room to experiment and explore with your character's abilities that it's a little crazy it hasn't been embraced before. I understand why; you need to have deterministic gameplay...
But very solid songs from top to bottom. The audio effects are great, which is good because you'll be listening to them a *lot* of times thanks to...
Gameplay: This game's most unique trick is the rewind feature, and honestly playing any other tactics/puzzle game feels weird now.
designs, the level designs, the effects, and the art are all lovely. They talked a lot (in the dev commentary) about hitting the critical point in the phase diagram of Cool/Silly/Tactical, and they hit the bulleye.
Sound: The soundtrack is filled with extremely solid music; nothing revelatory...
If someone asked me to recommend them a video game, and I didn't know that much about them, this is the game I would recommend. It has a lot going for it, which I'm going to break down.
Graphics: The art is not in a super elaborate style. The visuals are not photorealistic. But the character...
Best game entry: Tactical Breach Wizards!
I talked a lot, when I wrote the review for 1000xResist, about the writing and the story and the art. I said, and I still think, it is an excellent piece of art.
But TBW is one of my favorite games of all time. And *being a good game* is pretty important!
Final ranking: Lower Decks, My Favorite Thing is Monsters, The Deep Dark, Monstress, We Called Them Giants, The Hunger and the Dusk.
We Called Them Giants: The art style for this one is also very cool. It's colorful and vibrant, with strong imagery. The story itself is fine; enjoyable, entertaining, but not amazing.
The CYOA structure is a cool choice for a graphic novel, one I haven't seen many times. And it functions beautifully with the story it's telling; the medium reinforcing the plot is a really beautiful touch. And despite the restrictions of the medium it manages to have real pacing and plot.
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way: This one is very fun! The art is dead on for the style of Lower Decks, and the writing is good enough that I was hearing it in the characters' voices. So it started off with a strong foundation, since I love Lower Decks.
Really immerse you in this being the drawings and story of a young artist. The story itself is compelling, though the mystery elements feels a little weak. But the rest of the writing and the plot makes up for it. My major complaint is with the ending; it feels extremely abrupt. There's no closure.
progress takes forever. But the sights and moments along the way are still more than enough to keep me enjoying it.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2 by Emil Ferris: This one is really wild. The art is stylish and very effective; the pencil-hatched drawings in a faux college-ruled notebook...
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed: Monstress has a solid history by this point. The art is gorgeous and the story is deep and winding. Possibly too deep and winding? While from moment to moment the story feels reasonably paced, looking back at it there's so much going on that it feels like...
straightforwards. And for some reason every third word is in bold, which is distracting. I'd probably read more if it was out now, but I'm not sure it'll stick in my brain for long enough to wait for the next entry.
the rhythm throughout. The art is simple but effective, but the writing and the plot are what make it good.
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1: A little tropey, but fun. The start of a fantasy epic, set in a world on the brink of collapse. The art is very good, though the writing is a bit more...
I'm gonna toss all of Best Graphic Novel in one thread, because I don't have quite as much to say about these:
The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag: It's a harrowing reflection on queerness, responsibility, and being forced to grow up too fast. The story starts off with a good hook and keeps...
I am definitely looking forward to the conclusion, and to seeing what Jacobs does in the future.
Some of the plot twists were not as strong as I had hoped; I could tell some moments were supposed to be bombshells, but the didn't quite land. But the story doesn't depend on the strength of those moments to work, so it's not a critical issue.
For a first pair of books, they are really excellent.
Some aspects of the setting are pretty interesting. The technology of the setting feels very magical, despite being clearly sci-fi. And I think it works well; the "casters" are an interesting blend of wizards and hackers, and the tech serves the story, rather than the other way around.
