GooberEar

@GooberEar@lemmy.wtf

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It works for anything⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  To be honest, I’m so sexual-relationsing old that I remember when the word meme actually meant something before it was appropriated and adapted for use to refer to the digital images we share electronically after adding text over them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why We Love to Get Lost in Games: The Enduring Appeal of Metroidvanias⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  High five back at you, my friend.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I knew it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  As a gaymo, I’m just gonna say both of them are 1000000000000% percent hotter in this photo than in real life. AIRump got some biggass arms and bear-like belly, and Elmo barely look like actual Elmo because he has an actual human body shape.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Live fast⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You got to lick it before you kick it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Favourite Metroid game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The Super Nintendo Metroid game was/is my favorite, but I’ll admit I haven’t play most of the Metroid games, so I’m not a good judge.

  The NES game was a ton of fun, but I felt and feel like the SNES game was just all of that and then some, if that makes sense to others.

  I played one of the 3D Metroid games (the one on the Wii). It was fun, I enjoyed what I played. But it did not scratch the same itch, if that makes sense. In fact, I don’t think I even played that game to completion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Next week, Amazon is stripping away your ability to download your ebooks.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s my purely capitalistic problem with Amazon:

  A decade+ ago, I realized that major brands were using the site as their outlet store. I’d buy a pack of socks, and they’d be hideously deformed. I’d buy a few pants for work, one pair would be too small, one too large, and one would fit just right. I’m not fucking Goldilocks.

  The final straw for me was when my coffee maker broke. I ordered a new one via same day shipping, which at the time had a minimum order of something like $50. The coffee maker did not cost quite enough, so I added something random to the order so that my same day shipping would be free. Ultimately, the coffee maker arrived late (i.e. not the same day) and the decanter was broken.

  When I contacted Amazon about the issue, the agent said they could reship, but they wouldn’t send it same day so for that specific item it was going to take 3 - 5 days to arrive. They also tried to hassle me with a straight up return, telling me I had to take it to a UPS store, which at the time was 30+ minutes away.

  Ultimately, I pulled a Karen and told them to cancel my Amazon Prime, which they did. Only problem is, I was 2 or 3 months into the year long subscription and assumed I’d get a pro-rated refund. I did not. When I got back in touch with customer service, they told me that Amazon adds up the value of the “free” shipping I received, the rental value of the movies and shows I watched on Prime, and the value of all the other services included with Prime and if that total exceeds the remaining value of the Prime subscription, then no refund.

  They basically stole almost a year of Prime from me with no recourse.

  Scum company. I got a lot of hate for saying this back in those days. But at least now, a decade+ later, people are finally starting to wake up. Not everyone, obviously. But at least I don’t get hateful responses and DMs quite as much as I used to.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why We Love to Get Lost in Games: The Enduring Appeal of Metroidvanias⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m bookmarking this link so I can read it when I have the time. Having said that, it should be clear that I haven’t read the article, yet.

  For me personally, 80’s and 90’s 2D Metroid and Castlevania games were fun, but for me, something transcendental happened with the release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I’m 100% certain that I am incapable of truly putting it into words, but I’m sure a myriad of people have done it, and done it far better than I ever could. I bought the game on a whim because I enjoyed Castlevania 3 on the NES so much. Other than fighting games, 2D games were basically blasé for 90’s 32-bit systems like the original PlayStation. Truthfully, I’m having a hard time recalling at the moment why I decided to buy the game. But I’m absolutely 10010% sure it was a good idea and I’m honestly thankful to my teenage self for that decision.

  Modern Metroidvanias are fun, too. Truth be told, I gave up on Hollow Knight. I’m a patient, older gamer, so maybe that comes into play. But it eventually got to a point where it simply wasn’t fun anymore. I was confused about what I needed to do next and I wasn’t making any progress in the game. And then I had to set it aside for almost a year. When I tried to return, my memory had faded to the point where I really struggled to play it and make progress. That made me immensely sad. Once I realized that, I simply set it aside.

  On the other hand, I played all the Nintendo DS Castlevania Metroidvania games back in the day and even still own the original cartridges. Via Steam, I also played the Gameboy Advanced Castlevanias. They are so much fun for me. So much fun that I purchased the Dominus collection on Steam, which is essentially all the DS games that I already own.

  I also played Bloodstained: ROTN. I know there’s a lot of criticism about the game, but I’ll be honest, I loved every freakin’ minute of it. I wasn’t a huge fan of the graphics, but the game play was exactly what I needed at the time and I don’t regret that purchase one bit.

  And to finalize things, nice to meet other Metroidvania lovers. We might not all agree on the nitty-gritty details, but it’s still neat to hear from others. Back in the 90s when I was absolutely in love with SOTN despite the fact that everybody else was hating on it entirely because it’s a “2D platformer”, it was hard to imagine that ~30 years later there would be entire communities of people who love these types of games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You can do it⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I just hate what’s being done to the Palletstinians.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Just saw this very important sign 🪧⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Makes you wonder why so many people want to go fishing in this spot to begin with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk just offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Why not make it an even 100 billion?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don’t panic, but an asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s around 1000 millimeteors

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll put an offender on blast: Max.

  A couple of months ago I subscribed to the highest tier, ad-free plan. Around a week into it, we started getting ads for different kinds of sports shows, interrupting the shows and movies at random spots just like traditional ads on television.

  First thing first: Back in the days when we road our Dimetrodons to school both ways uphill in fallen volcanic ash, we called it Cinemax and HBO was separate. And neither one of them had ads show up in the middle of their content because they were premium channels.

  Second thing second: When I contacted customer service about it, they actually had the audacity to tell me that those aren’t ads, they are previews for other content offered in their service.

  So to me, whether it is a bug in their system or the definition of ad has changed in the ensuing millennia since I first learned its meaning, the fact that there are even ads in premium media services like these is a prime example of enshittification to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Psst, the Americans are asleep, post some eggs⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh yeah? I’ll make my own eggs with blackjack and hookers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not Americans right now⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wait, I had eggs for breakfast and lunch today. How is this possible?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I do the vast majority of my gaming from November through February (i.e. “winter”). Outside of that window, I rarely have time to play, and even when I have time, I usually have other things I’d rather do. I probably have another month or so of my gaming season left. Things just didn’t work out this year.

  On the flip side, I managed to get about 45 minutes of down time this afternoon unexpectedly. So I fired up Doom (2016), which is the game I’ve focused on this season. I managed to make it to mission 12 out of 13, so I’m pretty close to the end as far as I can tell! It seems likely I’ll be able to finish it in a matter of days, so long as I can find the time!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I ain’t playin’ shit. I haven’t had any gaming time in over a week. I’m very, very sad. Perhaps tonight will be the night? Probably not, but one can hope.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anything tempting you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  What do you mean by tempting? Like are you asking about brand new games that don’t qualify for “patient” or just games in general? I’m not what most would call a gamer (I’m just an old dude that plays games sometimes) so I don’t know that a “Civ 7” gives me much context as to what’s being asked.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can you see yourself cutting off by a generation of gaming?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  No. To each their own, but I think that’d be a ridiculous stipulation to place on myself and it’s hard to imagine why anybody would want to do it outside of super niche reasons.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Still playing through 2016 Doom. In my defense, this hasn’t been a great year for carving out time for gaming. I realized a couple days ago that I hadn’t even played anything in over a week (Dec 30th was the last day I’d played a game). Sad times being an adult with responsibilities.

  Anyway, I’m hoping I finish the game soon. I don’t know if it qualifies as “patient gaming”, but I bought the Castlevania Dominus collection in 2024, which is the PC/Steam collection of DS Metroidvania Castlevania games. I played these games on the DS back in the day, still have them and my old DS, but I’m looking forward to playing them again. I mostly game on the Steam Deck these days and I think these games are a good fit for that hardware. They’re all really fun games that I look back on fondly, so here’s hoping I can get started on at least one of them in the next few weeks or so before my gaming season comes to an end.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I started playing one of these on the Wii many, many years ago. I think it was the original. It was a lot of fun. I don’t think I beat it, nor was I heavily invested enough to remember names and strategies, but it was cool to play an RPG that I didn’t get to play when it originally came out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's 2025 now, what are the games you'll be starting the year with?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like Eternal might not be my thing, but who knows. One of the reasons I choose Doom over Eternal initially is because Doom lets me take my time and explore when I want to. Eternal seemed like it was go, go, go cortisol, cortisol, cortisol. And that was well above my limit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sonic Galactic Is So Good "It Could Stand As An Official Sega Product"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I would love a super casual sonic-esque game that you could just mindless meander through without having to worry about falling into environmental hazards or bumping into enemies. Basically just complete and utter freedom to blast through a level without having to think too much about it and not having to fuss with a lot of different controls/buttons. Wonder if anything like that exists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In 2025, People Will Try Living in This Underwater Habitat⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Build them as connectable hexagons. Learn from the insects, they’ve had a half billion yearsto figure out what shit works and what shit don’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it possible to design a social media app or service that rather than focuses on farming engagement, it tries to promote quality content?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s possible, but it needs to strike lightning to be at the right place and the right time in a proverbial sense, for it to be successful longer term. Everybody’s trying to meet a metric in this world where clicks and views and conversions are easy to measure but something like quality is difficult to define at its best and impossibly subjective at its worst.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How many games do you manage to play at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  During the few months of the year I consider to be my “gaming season”, I mostly stick to 1 game at a time as my primary focus, but I’ll often have a game or few on the back burner that I’ll work into the schedule now and then.

  This year I’m focusing on the Doom remake (Doom 2016) as my main game. To be honest, the game is stressful for me, so even though it’s been an absolute blast for me to play, it’s nice to have some alternative games to switch over to after I’m done with Doom.

  I agree, it’s very hard to keep up with the stories when juggling multiple games at the same time. Almost as hard for me, if not harder, is keeping up with the controls. Every game is different. Games in the same genre can and will have vastly different control set-ups. Even games in the same franchise / series can have different controls from game to game. Yuck.

  So, the control aspect and the story aspect are part of my inspiration for my secondary games. Right now I’m playing Halls of Torment. I guess there’s a story? But it doesn’t seem super relevant or necessary to keep up with. This game is in the same genre as another secondary game I play (and the main one from last year) called Vampire Survivors. Controls for both of these games is super basic. As I mentioned, if there’s even a story line to them, it’s irrelevant to my enjoyment of them.

  I also have the Castlevania Dominus Collection which is includes all the metroidvania-style Castlevania games from the Nintendo DS. I played all of them back in the day on original hardware, so there’s a great deal of “recall” in terms of controls and story. And this is probably one of my favorite genres of game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DOOM® CAPTCHA⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Well I think I’m a robot. Couldn’t do the things that it’s asking me to do. So I guess I’m a robot. Beeboo beeboo boop beeboo beeboo bee boop.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's 2025 now, what are the games you'll be starting the year with?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m still trying to finish 2016 Doom, but life has been literally Deck blocking me for the past few months, so it’s been slow going.

  If i finish that game in the next few weeks, I’m going to go back and give Doom Eternal another second chance again once more. I’ve given it a try a number of times, just like I gave 2016 Doom a try numerous times with no luck. However, this year Doom suddenly clicked for me, and I’ve been playing it every chance I get (which is not much or often), so I’m thinking that may translate into finding a bit of love for Doom Eternal, even though I know they are very different games with different approaches to game play.

  If that doesn’t work out, then I’ve got a few games that I’ve technically “started”, but I haven’t gotten very far in. So, if and when I decide to pick them up again, I’ll either restart them because I’m not far along enough for it to make much difference OR I’ll continue playing but it’s so early in the game that it’s basically the same as starting from the beginning.

  One game I’ve just recently been dabbling with is a slightly older game called “Halls of Torment”. Similarish in game play to one of my other favorites “Vampire Survivors”, it seems like a lot of fun. I’ve also recently purchased the Resident Evil 4 remake and it’s a nice dose of nostalgia even though I much prefer the wiimote controls of the Wii version that I first played it on.

  I’m going to be honest, Hades II hasn’t really clicked for me yet and I’ve given it lots of tries. The first game had me hooked almost instantly, so I was hoping to find that same connection with the sequel. So far, it’s not happened. Having said that, I saw that there’s a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game in a similar style as Hades, so I got that to play. So far I like the game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Splintered Fate, but I’m not far enough along in it to have a strong opinion.

  And my trusty, reliable back-up plan if nothing else works out? Castlevania Dominus Collection. The Castlevania “Metroidvanias” are my favorites. I’ve played all of these DS games on the original hardware, but it’s been so long since I played them, it will be like starting anew. Except in this case, there will be no question as to whether I will enjoy the game or not since I played them all before and loved them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I still don’t think companies serve you ads based on spying through your microphone⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not saying it’s completely 100% not possible and has never happened in the history of human technology, but the situation is not as ubiquitous as most people seem to think it is.

  Don’t get me wrong, collecting and inferring personal information is happening on an epic and ubiquitous scale these days, but for the most part, it’s not the microphones on your devices that are doing the data collection.

  Pretty much all my older relatives are completely convinced their phones are listening to their day to day conversations and serving up ads based on those conversations. One of them came to visit me for a week over the summer. One night we had been talking about having asparagus for dinner, and as evidence that their phone was listening to us, the next day they showed me that their news feed was filled with asparagus recipes. Another night, we were talking about one of their medical conditions and the drugs they were taking, and the next day they showed me that they got notifications about a prescription drug for that condition. On another day, we had been talking about a specific actor’s filmography and all their movies that we liked, the next day their streaming video app was suggesting a bunch of content from that actor.

  I can understand why this seemed pretty convincing that our phones were listening to us, but consider the simpler explanation.

  I live in a rural area where there’s not good cellular reception, so for the most part, our phones are connected via wifi to the same internet connection. Essentially, every device on the property has the same external IP address. So, when I looked up asparagus recipes on my laptop later that night because I wanted to surprise my relative with that specific dish, and when I Googled the prescription medication the relative was taking to see what the side effects where, and when I looked up that actor on IMBD to see what all movies they’d been in, that pretty much gave all the advertisers all the information they needed to start targeting ads and recommendations to folks sharing the same IP address.

  Occam’s Razor being what it is, I assume that’s how things went down versus all our conversations being constantly recorded and uploaded to the net to be interpreted and used for the purposes of serving ads.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lazy scientists announce there are probably several kinds of squirrels but they move too fast to be sure⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I used to live across the street from a park that I jokingly named “The Island of Misfit Squirrels”.

  Most of the trail was through wooded areas, so lots of trees and therefore lots of grey squirrels. However, I’d never seen such a dense and high concentration of mutant, diseased, or disabled squirrels. There were squirrels without tails, squirrels with hairless tails, 3 legged squirrels, squirrels missing eyes, albino squirrels, squirrels with curly hair, squirrels with bald heads, squirrels with weird tumors growing out of their backs, squirrels with … well you get the picture. And these were not rare sightings. Pretty much any trip to the park was a guarantee you’d see a misfit squirrel of some sort.

  One of the squirrels with a missing eye had become very brave (or very stupid) and wasn’t as afraid of humans as it should be. If you weren’t on it’s good side where it could see you, you could easily get close enough to pet it before it would scamper off. I watched some people throw down some kind of food for it, but they came in from the wrong side and it did not see what they’d left. Another squirrel scampered over and was scarfing down the food before the one-eyed squirrel noticed. Seemed like the moment it realized there was food and it started moving, a hawk just came out of nowhere and snatched it up. Some lady coming the opposite way down the trail also saw this happening and let out a screech like she was being branded by a hot iron, it was so loud and so sudden that it spooked the hawk and it dropped the squirrel. After it landed, it hopped back up almost immediately and ran off to climb a tree up in the woods.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  From what I gather, the general consensus is that Doom Eternal is the better of the two most current (at this time) Doom games. That opinion is fairly consistent from reviews and posts I’ve read.

  Doom Eternal is a go-go-go-go-go never stop moving always be shooting kind of game, as far as I can tell. IIRC there are even in-game hints that pretty much say “don’t sit still”. I’m just a super casual occasional gamer, so the always under attack game play in Eternal is a bit much while I’m also grappling with learning the controls since I don’t really play first person shooters.

  So for that reason, Doom is currently a better fit for me and my preferences. The game play is broken up into exploration that’s punctuated with enemy encounters. And the encounters are largely set-up so that I can take on enemies at my own pace. Slower, more calculated, gives me time to think things through and consider strategy.

  Also for some reason, the gyroscopic aiming wasn’t enabled by default on the Steam Deck when I tried Doom Eternal. There are some settings I can adjust that are supposed to enable it, but I haven’t spent much time testing those out. If I can make those work for me, then I suspect I’ll have a much better experience with Eternal than I’ve had thus far.