Is it particularly more your fault that things don’t better in Souls games than in any other game in which you are meant to save the world? I think the only difference is that in the Souls ones and others like them, the world is already horrible and needs repaired in some way rather than on the verge of becoming horrible

Interestingly Elden Ring went for quite a different direction. The world is, unquestionably, still an enormous mess that would be horrendous to live in, but they’ve left in far more of the beauty. I particularly like how every so often you hear hostile NPCs playing music or singing if they haven’t spotted you yet, and how there’s a little puzzle side quest about a painter; people are still making art in this ongoing apocalypse. One important allied NPC even actually openly makes an argument that the world is worth preserving if it looks like you’re going for the “destroy everything” ending

Of course the atmosphere and gameplay are still heavy going, both in the Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. I get why that wouldn’t be for everyone. It’s like playable Cormac McCarthy stories, except you can punch your way out of most of the misery if you get it right

I’d be very surprised if “cartoony style” and “low-tech vibe” is not describing Wilds. I assume the bit about respecting of time is something to do with the various timed events in each loop like Ash Twin. I don’t agree with them in the slightest, but I assume that’s what it is

I’m not sure I’d count Outer Wilds as a space game (assuming you mean something in the vein of Elite Dangerous), despite it objectively including a lot of space travel. It’s a detective game, the point is to unravel a mystery

Could you talk a little more about the aesthetics thing? I have no intention to pick a fight with you or tell you that your opinion is wrong, I’m just curious because I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that about them before

Also yes the no pausing thing is very frustrating

The gear would not have saved you. The game gets substantially more difficult as you progress, even accounting for your character getting stronger, and if you don’t do a decent job of levelling up appropriate skills that will compound the issue. The starter gear for most of the classes is actually perfectly viable all the way to the end of the game for most players too, it’s not notably weak at all

I love Elden Ring, but I can absolutely respect why it wouldn’t be for everyone. No sense in playing it if you’re not enjoying it, the point is still to have a good and/or interesting time

The transition happens at the exact moment that my fingers first touch the popcorn

I had to go back out after giving it to him, and when I got home an hour later he had simply curled up and gone to sleep exactly where he was

You take the high road And I’ll take the low road And I’ll be in Scotland before you

Wait shit someone’s going the wrong way here

It’s normal for CG artists to do their best to make their work look like real life and not CG, though. Death Stranding is clearly attempting to look as realistic as they can manage

I’d guess pilot goggles rather than VR

No, not quite. Cargo cults didn’t worship the vehicles, rather the notion of the abundance that they brought. The famous Melanesian ones in WWII happened in societies in which gift-giving was already the key to social power; when WWII came along, both the Japanese and Allied forces brought unbelievable quantities of supplies to the islands and then also intentionally handed out a lot of stuff in order to play into that social practice. It was enough that some locals interpreted it as a sign that they could return to their old ways that had been suppressed under Christian colonial rule, the first signs of a coming new age of prosperity

Anyway all that is to say that no, uncontacted tribes can’t have cargo cults because part of the formation of a cargo cult involves contact

Seems like we’re not entirely sure, but the most widely-accepted theory is that Portuguese sailors heard a Sinhala name and got it a little muddled when telling others Europeans about it

One British guy who got captured there while working for the East India Company wrote that it was this, except for that Europeans intentionally named it after Christopher Columbus because it already sounded really similar

In video form https://youtu.be/YRCmmJZRyJs

Wikipedia has a couple of them! Sigourney Thayer was an American theatre producer born 1896, Sigourney Trask was an American missionary born 1849, and Sigourney Bandjar is a Surinamese footballer born 1984

Let’s be real we all already ignore electrum and it’s nowhere near as stupid as this

A bit of a niche one: I am a big fan of the TTRPG Lancer, and a popular meme format is describing things in the game by cutting and pasting bits of the rulebook like a classic ransom letter

Yeah, it’s the name of Aragorn’s sword

The sand which Sam the Witch panned for riches on the strand which spans, to wit, from headland to ridge

It is! We could use redcurrants, blackcurrants, and blackberries though