Just to test out image slideshow functionality, here's all of the umamusume I got during a run of like 100 pulls.

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It was surprising several months ago, and it's more surprising now, I am still playing Umamusume Pretty Derby. For the past few months my goal has been saving up carats for the release of Manhattan Cafe. Well, she came out on the 8th and I had something like 300+ pulls saved up, so I obviously pulled her (and like 5 three star umas along the way). Happy day! I am not going to play a game and not try to snag the gothy characters. I have yet to play her career mode, because I rarely do that these days in the game, but I am trying to do it... what was this all for if not to see her storyline?

In other news, PETA, which I donate to, really pissed off the Umamusume fandom today with this image, which is hilarious. I mean, it's true, horse racing is bad, people, no matter how you dress it up!

Two nights ago I beat Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. It was really great. I especially appreciated that it had a "very easy" mode that was indeed very easy. Compared to some other JRPGs I've played (like Tales of Arise) there characters were very memorable and I think the ending made the game rank up there with Persona 4 and FF7 Remake as far as truly great JRPGs go. I definitely recommend it. Looked great (compared to something like the newest Rune Factory on Switch 2) on PS5 Pro and ran great as well.

It might be hard to believe but I am still playing Umamusume Pretty Derby. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a great asynchronous game to play throughout the day slowly, or to play when you’re experiencing downtime in another game (for me this has been: between races in Wreckfest, and while I am dead and waiting for a revive in the BF6 beta).

Once you’ve trained enough umas and start repeating their career mode, the roguelike gameplay really kicks in and, honestly, it’s pretty satisfying. It must suck to be a kid and have no life because the time limits on how many careers and team trial races you can do have yet to affect me… but we’re getting close! Luckily I have so many other umas to train, I shouldn’t get too impatient.

My heart breaks for King Halo

Her mom was a famous Umamusume and her mom calls her saying shit like “Are you ready to stop being delusional and give up? Stop before you disgrace yourself.”

And with my expert training we’ve successfully proven that her mom is… right. She’s lost every race. Her career is ending in shame and embarrassment.

I had to abandon my PSI-only playthrough of System Shock 2 because I am a giant baby and the game is very hard. I was only an hour and a half into it, so it wasn’t a big deal. I respec’d as a Navy boy, like 41% of gamers on Steam, and seem to be going for a gun-focused jack of all trades with no psionic ability at all.

I’m finally past the point that I got to as a teenager, which means I got to Deck 4 and saw the (in retrospect, as an adult, obvious) big reveal. But even with some more careful choices, I am still finding myself getting utterly schooled by this game on normal difficulty. No wonder teenage Brad, who was bad at video games and impatient, bounced off it despite the wonderful everything about the game.

I’m not quite sure what I am going to do. The worms and the flies are pretty brutal and now there are zombies who can throw grenades at me. How the fuck is anyone supposed to survive this? I feel like I should go back and respec again as some sort of mutant melee tank hero, because you’re always lacking for heals and ammo.

Maybe I am just not playing smart enough. It took me a while to figure out I needed to play Prey (2016) as if I was really there, and I’m still not quite there with System Shock 2. I should be noting down which replicators have stuff I need and be doing more backtracking. The maps felt massively huge when I was a teenager, but now they seem quite small and it’s very easy to cover them quickly… so why am I so stubbornly insisting I never leave a floor except to get chemicals for research? I am being a silly goose.

Ah, well, we’ll see what happens…

Nintendo finally sent me an invite to buy a Switch 2, so against my better judgement, I bought one. (Backstory: Nintendo kind of pisses me off, from releasing underpowered hardware, to their terrible online play systems, to never discounting their games, to …)

But, you know what, Mario Kart World is pretty good. I expected to be pretty underwhelmed both by the overall gameplay itself (I wasn’t a big fan of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe) and the graphics.

In actuality, the gameplay is pretty great and appears surprisingly deep (if you want to get crazy into wall riding and rails), the tracks are a lot of fun, and the graphics are pretty good. Could they be better? Sure, but they do the job and the game runs buttery smooth and looks great on my OLED. The new Rainbow Road specifically is a joy to race on and a spectacle to behold.

Is Mario Kart World worth a full $500 asking price to get the console and game together? I mean… no… but that’s the Nintendo tax for you.

I’m 30 hours into Death Stranding 2 and I never want it to end.

The system shock 2 remaster is so fucking good. I just love this game and to see it so vibrant and smooth just feels good. And simply hearing it again, from the ambiance of the ship to the awesome voice acting… love it!

I’m eight hours into Death Stranding 2 and it’s pretty fantastic. There are moments where you’d swear they swapped in actual filmed video because the graphics are so good.

I had a good time last night just completing aid requests and picking up random packages to try to grow my connection level to in the first area. When I played the first game, I stubbornly avoided all the side content, so by the end of the game I hadn’t even unlocked the truck. So I’m trying to avoid making that mistake this time around.