I'm maybe 25-30 hours into it. It's preeeeetty good y'all.
It is bar none the best looking game I've ever played. The world is so believably naturalistic it still blows my mind every time I play it. Best (and most) weather and time-of-day lighting effects I've ever seen, they have an uncanny ability to capture that damp, dark feeling in the air before a rain storm or the splendor of a blazing sunset while you gallop across the plains. People are going to lose their shit when they dig into this and realize how goddamn fucking good it looks all of the time. It's not quite photorealistic but in the right conditions it's probably as close as I've seen.
It's the most real-feeling or plausible game I've played, if that makes sense. Everything reacts to you. Even moving through the underbrush, all the plants bend and rustle as you walk through them in a way that just seems right. The amount of detail they put into everything is jaw-dropping, and not just visual detail but behavior. I made camp in the mountains one night and soon after a wolf started plaintively howling really close by, like close enough to spook my horse. Just this weak, sad sound, over and over. I crept toward the sound of the howling and pulled out my binoculars to see this lone wolf repeatedly raising its head at the moon. I'm like, this is never gonna work, my horse is going to be gone in the morning, so I carefully put an arrow through its head. I move up to skin it, and only then do I see that there's another decomposing wolf at its feet. It was mourning its dead mate. I felt like an asshole. Still took that pelt though, that's cash money.
Haven't been back to my gang's camp in at least an in-game week, or done any story missions in that time. Just been out there playing Outlaw Simulator 2018, hunting, living off the land, meeting people, robbing them, gambling, exploring. The world is fucking gigantic, I haven't uncovered half the map (and not just because I'm wanted in at least one state.) Between the time of day and weather, the hunger mechanics, the need to keep your horse cleaned and fed, the ability to make a camp out in the wilderness where you can cook and sleep, you can get into a rhythm where it feels like you're living a real cowboy life out there day by day. There's a mindboggling amount of side content and what feels like dozens of little ambient situations to get into. I haven't seen one repeat yet. One time I found a fella wailing on the side of the road about a snakebite, so I stopped and sucked the venom out of his leg because I was feeling charitable. He said thanks and ran off and I forgot about it. Like five hours later, I was riding through town and there he was on the porch of the gun shop, hollering at me to go inside and pick out anything I wanted, on him. Sure enough I go in there and the price on everything is $0. Game is good.
Also Arthur Morgan is probably my favorite Rockstar protagonist. He's tough and confident, and world-weary and fatalistic about the outlaw life. Talks a ton of shit to everyone but he's also really self-effacing. He can turn threatening on a dime. Great contrast to that dope Marston, and it's entertaining to hear them snipe at each other all the time when you cross paths. One time he stuck a stick of dynamite in a pile of pigshit and made it rain all over the farm of a guy who pissed him off. Fun dude.
It is definitely a Rockstar game. If you hate GTA or the first Red Dead, specifically slow walk speed and very long skinning and cooking animations, and a ton of systems running under the hood that don't always explain themselves (I'm almost constantly "underweight" because it's never clear exactly how much you should be eating), this probably won't change your mind. Whatever, I tweaked the controls till I got them feeling pretty good, and it's worth putting up with the quirks. It's one of the most memorable, unique open world experiences I've had with a game, definitely right up there with Skyrim and Breath of the Wild. Maybe the best, hard to say with so much left to do.
We're gonna do a spoiler-free stream of it in a few hours just to (cow)poke around and cause havoc in the world later this morning if anyone wants to see it.
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28 unfsNo More Credit Card Debt!!
For the first time in years no more Credit Card debt!! Just made the last payment of $1200 to bring my last card to a zero balance! :)
Fuck that feels good.. now all I have is a car loan and mortgage!! -
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28 unfsThat's some prime E3 real estate you got there Shacknews.
http://chattypics.com/files/shackbrowseUpload_ysvd7yqklf.jpg
https://www.resetera.com/posts/7570250/ -
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28 unfsMy paper is out!
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/413/eaao4583
On the cover too! Woo! This is probably the high point of my academic career. Anyway, there you go, I had to post somewhere.
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28 unfsSo how’s this for ya: today was my final interviews for this job. I came out to CA because they are having a conference and all the leadership is here.
So I interview with the guy who would be my boss, and then his boss. Those went well. Then my final interview is with the new head honcho. He walks in and... it’s a guy I worked with in our first jobs out of college 18 years ago. We literally used to go drinking in DC together after training classes.
So yeah the 45 minute interview was 20 minutes of shooting the shit and him going “have a good flight back. I’ll have HR get you an offer ASAP”. -
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