#cindersaidathing

The void isn't like some special biome that's meant to have significance. It's the end of the playable area beyond which there is nothing to do. The game does not want you going into the void. They just take leviathans from elsewhere in the world and plop them in there specifically so the void isn't interesting by accident. Just a big monster you've probably seen before by now to chase you back into where the game is, go away, there's nothing for you here.

And here now, today, seeing the space mission of my dreams, seeing people go to the moon.... I was completely apathetic. I wasn't mad or upset or even like...bothered by it. I just didn't care. I was unphased. I muted all the tags related to it so I'd stop seeing it on my dash. Like.. it feels like I SHOULD care. I WANT to be excited... But I can't cheer for my country while it's enabling genocides across the globe. I can't celebrate how my tax dollars were spent on this achievement when at the same time they're also being spent to blow up children in the middle east. I can't get excited over the same government that's cutting aid and funding for organizations that would benefit the disabled for no reason other than cruelty.

Seeing the red white and blue in NASA's logo just reminds me that this incredible thing is being done by the same government that treats trans people as inhuman. The same suits who signed off on the funding for this mission are the same suits who want being neurodivergent to be punishable by death. The politicians cheering for the success of this mission cheered when Roe v Wade got overturned. It's disheartening. I can't be happy about it, because everything about it is just another reminder that our leaders would rather spend money on anything and everything else, than spend a single cent to improve the lives of the underprivileged. I'm sure whatever technological discoveries were made as part of this mission will have impacts that improve the lives of those people in years to come. A fat lot of good that does all the people who relied on income from government programs that got their funding cut, or that got kicked from those programs because the president thinks they don't deserve basic humans needs, who'll almost certainly die without that income. They'll never see the benefits of all that. Their lives just weren't important enough to our president.

I see all this and the only thing I can think of is how the lives of everyone I know, everyone I casually encounter in the streets of the rural town I live in, of myself... Just keep getting worse. Because no one in our government cares about you if you aren't making 10 figures a year.

You'd already been wowed by discovering 4546B. You'd already been amazed by its creatures and it's environments. Honestly I think Below Zero has a much better designed environment and much better creature design across the board than the first game, overall I prefer it. Even down to really loving the seatruck. But it didn't have the same magic as the original subnautica for me either, because I'd already experienced the original subnautica.

Below Zero can't help that you'd already been introduced to this world. Part of what makes subnautica 2 so incredible is that it's a totally new one, with a totally different feeling. They wisely made sure Proteus is as distinct from 4546B as it could possibly be, but even then it doesn't fully recreate the feeling of playing Subnautica for the first time. Because I've already played Subnautica for the first time. That's experience is a 1 and done deal. You can't get it back.

Here you can see a pouch, inexplicably fixed to her bicep over bandages, that cinder can only access with the parasite arm

The same parasite arm that took her months to actually be able to control

The same parasite arm that she still struggles to fully control

The same parasite arm she still doesn't seem to be nimble or dexterous with

I simply will not entertain the idea of giving my time to a game that would rather look a little bit prettier, maybe, if you really squint at it, than run decently on any machine that costs less than 1000 dollars. Triple A game companies wonder why they're losing market share, but to run the latest Doom game not only is it 70 fucking dollars up front, but you need a super expensive PC or the absolute latest of game consoles. Like at what point will gamers be over this shit? At what point do we insist the base cost of gaming not continue to skyrocket year after year for no real reason.

People complain about games made in unreal or unity looking the same but I can't tell 99% of games running with RTX apart. Is the shortcut really worth it when you end up sacrifice a major component of any games art style, the lighting, and making your game super inaccessible just because of the cost of being able to play to?

And don't hit me with "oh but as games get more graphically intense and larger they get more expensive to-"

Look at the fucking first week sales of games like Mewgenics. People don't care how conventionally good a game looks if it's fun to play. Look at the success and popularity of fucking Cruelty Squad, a game intentionally designed to be as retina violatingly ugly as possible ON PURPOSE, that people still absolutely love. The best selling game of all time is fucking Minecraft.

The only reason the price of developing triple A games has ballooned is because triple A studios want them to. They want their games to be more expensive because then they look more impressive to shareholders. They want their games to be seen as expensive premium products. And at this point I absolutely refuse to entertain it. Back when I had gamepass I played Doom TDA Abit, and honestly? Worst Doom game. It's slow as hell, not very challenging challenging (Doom 2016 is harder and as much as I love that game, that's not a good thing), the guns feel the least satisfying of the entire series (yes I'm including Doom 3), and they added 2010s shovelware ass VEHICLE SECTIONS to their fucking BOOMER SHOOTER.

You know wanna explore new games? Have you played Duke Nukem 3D? It's 5 bucks on Zoom-Platform (a totally DRM free game distributor full of classic PC games) and of you run it in eduke32 or build launcher, it plays like a dream. Still one of the best FPS games ever made. Because good games STAY GOOD. Good games remain extremely fun and enjoyable overtime. They don't magically get worse.

Give the Binding of Isaac a shot if you haven't already. It's my favorite game ever, Repentance is the greatest expansion any game has ever received (I will fucking DIE on that hill), and it's got hundreds of hours of content to sink your teeth into all with progression that feels very natural and remains fun the entire time. It's file size isn't even 10 gigabytes.

Try Fields of Mistria, Gunfire Reborn, Spiral Knights, anything Nightdive Studios have remastered, Selaco, Ion Fury (formerly known as Ion Maiden until they got sued by the band Iron Maiden), finally play subnautica for yourself after all these years watching YouTubers play it, try Bloodstained, my point is... There's SO MANY AMAZING GAMES YOU CAN SPEND YOUR MONEY ON. STOP GIVING TRIPLE A STUDIOS YOUR MONEY UNTIL THEY SHOW ANY OUNCE OF RESPECT FOR YOUR AS A CUSTOMER.

I don't even keep up with Triple A releases anymore. I do not care what EA, or Activision, or Sony, or Xbox, or Nintendo have next up on the docket. Not remotely. There's way to many dev studios who actually give a shit about their players for me to waste my time with the big name assholes nowadays.