Ah, my reflex is usually to go through on the next hardest difficulty, to take on the game at a more challenging level right when feeling I'm at the height of my powers. I am definitely not much of a 100%-er when it comes to trophies etc. but I do sometimes use the hypothetical next (immediate) playthrough as an…

Upvoted because:
- Awesome use of Katamari to achieve academic success! I wish I had been in my "gaming as mental structure" phase back when I was a grad student, a period was unfortunately defined by "set huge goals but have no tools for getting there".

That works, thanks! Of course now I will have to read it in the morning because holy crap, it's 2:30 am.

I'll jump in and say that increasingly, as I play more and more games at my more "mature" age (I'm just over 40), I find that video games are a really interesting way to structure my thinking about certain otherwise vague or fuzzy aspects of my internal emotional or mental life.

Link is busted when I try it (warning message from "VigiLink" which is not something I remember setting up in my browser, so…?)

Totally. I read where this game is like 35+ hours long. I don't think my mouse can handle that much feverish randomized clicking.

What Have You Finished This Week?

Well, this week has been freaking insane with work (though on the upside: more work = more money, which I desperately need since we are moving to a different city in two months). So, not much gaming has happened. Pretty much the same stuff I've been whittling away at for the last week or two:

By the way, I decided to just go for it and play on Hard with Advanced Edition features. So far my only difficulties are just what I'd expect from getting back up to speed and learning the new AE stuff. I've had a chance to try Mind Control, which is awesome (wish I could tell the victim which room to sabotage). So…

Thanks! I already knew most of this "in theory", but I am not always the most disciplined player (except in XCOM, ha) and I definitely have trouble sticking to best practices…especially your "wait to upgrade" advice. I'll try to be more diligent about that one and see what happens.

Ugh, yeah, that sounds familiar. I don't even remember how I got through that, exactly, except that there was probably a fair amount of save scumming… I do recall that I had to hang back more than usual and even hide soldiers out of the way (like behind that big divider in the middle) until they saw a way to get the…

Oh yeah, and lucky you to meet Kelly Sue DeConnick! I haven't been much of a comics reader since my teen years (though slightly more so now as I try to get my daughter into them— so far, the new Ms. Marvel is a win), and KSD's run on Captain Marvel a few years back was a revelation. A friend of mine who works at…

I was thinking about trying Comp again this season after a couple of starts where I got to like 5 losses and one draw, and then bailed because I felt so incompetent (my win/loss record in Quick Play is nothing spectacular, but way better than that). It's encouraging that a relatively hardcore player like yourself came…

Yeah, I am currently debating an XCOM 2 Ironman run (with DLC) vs Enemy Within and the Long War mod/redesign/etc. Decisions, decisions.

Yeah, I guess you'd say Enemy Within is XCOM 1.5, maybe? The original release (on this generation, obviously) was Enemy Unknown, and then they put out Enemy Within which was sort of an extension, but sort of an almost new game unto itself— a whole new aspect of the "story" with a whole new type of enemy, new maps, …

Sounds like a really thrilling finish, then. I've had a few moments in XCOM where the whole mission (and therefore, by extension, my fortunes in the whole rest of the game) clearly hangs on someone making the perfect 45% shot with their pistol from across the map, and hopefully scoring a critical hit… and they do.…

Wow, great work on XCOM 2. I haven't played it on Ironman but I'm definitely tempted, since a bunch of other people around here seem to be talking about the game a lot recently, and since I just finished my first-ever Enemy Within run on Ironman last week.

I got a bit of advice here and there about FTL but mostly it's been learning on the job. Someday I, too, will beat it. I'm way more motivated with FTL than all the other roguelikes (etc.) that I've tried and failed in the past.

Thanks! Kids are registered for schools and my wife is doing well in her various job interviews, plus we checked out the new apartment today and it's gorgeous (plus it's on 10 acres of wooded land that butts up to 100 more acres owned by the same landlord, and then after that, park land owned by a major university in…

Wow, that's a pretty great payoff. Did you choose the katana specifically because of that?