Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 1)

[ClothedMac]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/warfare-official-trailer-a24-2025-written-and-directed-by-iraq-war-veteran-ray-mendoza-and-alex-garland.1062330/page-2#post-133085640

I can't remember the last time I felt such a consistent "meh" throughout a trailer.

I'll see what the impressions are but this trailer doesn't sit well with me, as it positions these invaders as the underdog heroes that need to be saved from "the enemy." Just more American military propaganda.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/warfare-official-trailer-a24-2025-written-and-directed-by-iraq-war-veteran-ray-mendoza-and-alex-garland.1062330/page-2#post-133086861

I doubt a Garland movie is gonna be just that shallow

I might agree, if Civil War didn't just come out.

ZeoVGM has trouble following movies more complex than the MCU.

Had you put the reporters in spandex and capes ZeoVGM would call Civil War the political commentary this country needs.

[benji]

Who's begging?

Giving money to trans folk is the best thing you can do. Instead of posting about how one of them makes more money than you, you should try giving them money instead!

What about giving money to Hamas?

[BIONIC]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/today-i-find-out-if-when-im-gonna-be-homeless.1062594/

I don't know why I'm writing this but I guess just to calm my nerves by getting it out. So here's my story. I work a dead end retail job, as I've said on this forum many times. The pay is absolutely garbage. I'd love to have a better job but there's a few things that stop me from doing that. One of which is that for the last few years I've shared my car with a family member who also lives in the same place as me. Basically, they have the car for work during the day, I have it for work at night. Between the two of us we barely clear $1000 a week income. We're in debt, they have a credit card that has like close to $20,000 of debt on it, which is a close to $700 bill monthly. Beyond that, bills are split up between us. I get the gas and electricity. We split groceries and internet. They get rent and their credit card. Which is a system that just barely works. They cannot afford a car payment, mostly because of that credit card bill, which is why I'm still sharing my car with them and one of the reasons why it's harder to find a better job for myself (the other reasons are I never finished college, I have no skills, etc.)

As you can imagine, the last few years have been rough. With everything getting more expensive we can barely afford groceries. And before anyone thinks "well this is a video game forum, you can afford video games". Yeah, it's my one hobby and the one thing I spent money on. I don't go anywhere, I don't do anything else. Even then, I can only afford the few video games I do buy via pre-ordering at the one store that lets you pay them off over time. So like $5 down a month until it's paid off. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to afford them. I know that's not relevant but just in case anyone was thinking it, I'm not out here dropping $70 on a whim.

Anyway so this is where the housing situation comes in. In a lot of ways, we've been lucky. I live in the same place I've lived for most of my life, been here over 20 years. Now lets talk about my landlord. In a lot of ways he's been cool over the years. In other ways not so much, but I'll get there. So where I live is a house, split down the middle into two halves of the house and he rents out both halves. When we fist moved in here (I was a child at the time), they lived in the other half. But a few years in they moved to something bigger and rented out the other half too. Now as a landlord he was very hands off. This had it's pros and cons. He never really kept up with any kind of repairs and have always just ignored our requests until they were mandatory to fix. To be blunt for a long time this place was a leaky moldly shithole. The roof leaked, the basement flooded, the mold could never really be fully killed. We put up with a lot of stuff. Our oven didn't work for a few years and he didn't replace it until we had a gas leak and had to have officials come. The roof leaked and would pour water down into the kitchen that we'd have to capture in buckets. That he finally fixed earlier this year because a new law in my state required him to pass an inspection over paint (which he also never did in the past 20 years). I remember us telling him about a leak once (not the one in the kitchen, another one) and he basically told us he expected us to do those kinds of repairs. "Well, it's all about the quality of life you want to live", he told us. As if as renters we could afford to do repairs. There are other problems too but I won't list them all out.

That all sounds pretty bad. So what were the pros and why didn't we move? Well, we didn't move because we couldn't afford anything else. And the pros is that he was generally pretty cool about the money. He didn't mind if we were late with rent, so long as we did pay it eventually and he always trusted that we would (and we did). And as rent prices in my state raised dramatically, he didn't screw us over right away. A few years back he said that he was going to start raising our rent by $50 every year. A tough situation for us but also understandable, everything is getting more expensive and that includes for him. That kind of slow increase would give us time to figure things out. I felt lucky. Until August 2023. So, our lease renews in January of every year, our neighbors in the other half renewed in August. So last August they were told that they were being given one year and that in August 2024 their lease would not be renewed. They weren't given a reason but they suspected that it was because they were on a goverment assistancee program that prevented him from raising their rent past a certain point. They struggled to find a new place, just barely getting one secured through that government program apparently. They needed one more week to get their stuff packed and moved on. He didn't give it to them, he was in there putting their stuff to the curb the next day.

And that's when we found out why. His intention is to redo the entire house, gut it and put new stuff in there, and get new tenants that he can charge way more money from. He knows that nobody will pay the prices he wants from the house in the condition it is in now and the work is too long and intensive to do while a tenant lives there, so from his perspective his only option was to kick them out. You can probably see where this is going. So six months ago after kicking them out he took us aside and suggested he might do the same thing with us. Basically, he needs more money coming out of this place. So he wanted to know if we would be able to move out too. I was honest with him, we can't afford that. I explained our financial issues and asked if there was any way we could work together to find a solution for both of us. I also mentioned that this is the only home I've known most my life and I don't want to move. But also that because of the shared car (and other reasons) the time I can work is limited so it's hard for me to find a better job (not that I could find one even with more access to my car but whatever). He told us he basically wants DOUBLE what we are currently paying. We can't afford that either. I mentioned the $50 increase every year we were doing and suggested maybe we could increase that amount so he's still getting more money and we still have more time to figure something out. He said "yeah, maybe, I'll have to figure it out"... and that was it.

After that he got to work on their side and it's been six months. Every day he's been over there, ripping up walls, drilling, redoing the roof, he put in a second bathroom despite it being a tiny half of a house with only two tiny bedrooms but I guess he can charge more if there's a second little mini-bathroom. I dunno. But every month when we hand him the rent he's made some comments like "yeah we're going to do this on the other side too" and whatnot, so he's made it clear he's not letting us escape this and just a further increase every year isn't enough. But he also never followed up after that first talk so I've been getting by on the hopes that for now he'll just accept increasing the rent a few hundred or something.

Until today, we got the text message "Hey I need to talk to you about the lease today".

I can think of three possibilities.
1. He's kicking us out next month.
2. He's giving us the one year to get out he gave our neighbors.
3. He's going to offer us the other side for double the rent while he works on this side.

We can't afford any of those options. We can barely afford what we're paying now. Hell, we CAN'T afford what we're paying now. We don't have the government assistance that our neighbor did. And the only thing that got them was a small one bedroom apartment they had to shove four people into. I don't know what we're going to do, we just can't afford any of it. I suppose there is always the chance he's going to just accept raising our rent a few hudred dollars but I don't see why he'd do that. The things he's said makes it clear he wants to do more. But we're screwed either way. I'm out here hoping for the least bad outcome but they're all devastating.

I don't know why I'm posting this here. I'm depressed and anxious and may very well be homeless soon. Guess I just don't have anyone to talk to about it.
Also like he couldn't wait until after Christmas? He couldn't give us the holiday? ffs
Well, I'll find out what's happening in a few hours, I guess. Gotta wait for everyone to be here.

Been living at the same place for 20 years taking advantage of the owners kindness. Shocked that after 20 years things change and now they face possible homelessness. What did they do for 20 years that they couldn't improve their financial/housing situation? Still working a dead-end retail job 20 years later?

Sounds like he got it figured out. He’s currently discussing much more pressing matters:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-did-sonic-team-ditch-lost-world%E2%80%99s-gameplay-style-after-one-game.1062894/#post-133089957

Because everyone threw a fit they ditched Boost. Despite Generations being the third 3D Boost game the common opinion at the time of Lost World was "can't believe they threw away a good formula right after they found it" and suddenly everyone convinced themselves this is something they always do despite Lost World being the only time they actually DID ditch a formula without innovation.
Edit: Even in this thread it's already begun

Unleashed, Colors, Generations, Forces, Frontiers, and Shadow Generations are all Boost games. Saying that dropping the werehog or the OC creator means throwing out their gameplay style would be like saying Zelda kept throwing out it's gameplay style because they didn't bring back transformation masks, ocean sailing, or the wolf form. Come on. Sonic has been iterating the whole time. Even the new open zone stuff in Frontiers is already being iterated on in Shadow Gens.

[benji]

How much do I have to donate to get Melody to make a post admitting to their debts?

[Garfield]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/today-i-find-out-if-when-im-gonna-be-homeless.1062594/

I don't know why I'm writing this but I guess just to calm my nerves by getting it out. So here's my story. I work a dead end retail job, as I've said on this forum many times. The pay is absolutely garbage. I'd love to have a better job but there's a few things that stop me from doing that. One of which is that for the last few years I've shared my car with a family member who also lives in the same place as me. Basically, they have the car for work during the day, I have it for work at night. Between the two of us we barely clear $1000 a week income. We're in debt, they have a credit card that has like close to $20,000 of debt on it, which is a close to $700 bill monthly. Beyond that, bills are split up between us. I get the gas and electricity. We split groceries and internet. They get rent and their credit card. Which is a system that just barely works. They cannot afford a car payment, mostly because of that credit card bill, which is why I'm still sharing my car with them and one of the reasons why it's harder to find a better job for myself (the other reasons are I never finished college, I have no skills, etc.)

As you can imagine, the last few years have been rough. With everything getting more expensive we can barely afford groceries. And before anyone thinks "well this is a video game forum, you can afford video games". Yeah, it's my one hobby and the one thing I spent money on. I don't go anywhere, I don't do anything else. Even then, I can only afford the few video games I do buy via pre-ordering at the one store that lets you pay them off over time. So like $5 down a month until it's paid off. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to afford them. I know that's not relevant but just in case anyone was thinking it, I'm not out here dropping $70 on a whim.

Anyway so this is where the housing situation comes in. In a lot of ways, we've been lucky. I live in the same place I've lived for most of my life, been here over 20 years. Now lets talk about my landlord. In a lot of ways he's been cool over the years. In other ways not so much, but I'll get there. So where I live is a house, split down the middle into two halves of the house and he rents out both halves. When we fist moved in here (I was a child at the time), they lived in the other half. But a few years in they moved to something bigger and rented out the other half too. Now as a landlord he was very hands off. This had it's pros and cons. He never really kept up with any kind of repairs and have always just ignored our requests until they were mandatory to fix. To be blunt for a long time this place was a leaky moldly shithole. The roof leaked, the basement flooded, the mold could never really be fully killed. We put up with a lot of stuff. Our oven didn't work for a few years and he didn't replace it until we had a gas leak and had to have officials come. The roof leaked and would pour water down into the kitchen that we'd have to capture in buckets. That he finally fixed earlier this year because a new law in my state required him to pass an inspection over paint (which he also never did in the past 20 years). I remember us telling him about a leak once (not the one in the kitchen, another one) and he basically told us he expected us to do those kinds of repairs. "Well, it's all about the quality of life you want to live", he told us. As if as renters we could afford to do repairs. There are other problems too but I won't list them all out.

That all sounds pretty bad. So what were the pros and why didn't we move? Well, we didn't move because we couldn't afford anything else. And the pros is that he was generally pretty cool about the money. He didn't mind if we were late with rent, so long as we did pay it eventually and he always trusted that we would (and we did). And as rent prices in my state raised dramatically, he didn't screw us over right away. A few years back he said that he was going to start raising our rent by $50 every year. A tough situation for us but also understandable, everything is getting more expensive and that includes for him. That kind of slow increase would give us time to figure things out. I felt lucky. Until August 2023. So, our lease renews in January of every year, our neighbors in the other half renewed in August. So last August they were told that they were being given one year and that in August 2024 their lease would not be renewed. They weren't given a reason but they suspected that it was because they were on a goverment assistancee program that prevented him from raising their rent past a certain point. They struggled to find a new place, just barely getting one secured through that government program apparently. They needed one more week to get their stuff packed and moved on. He didn't give it to them, he was in there putting their stuff to the curb the next day.

And that's when we found out why. His intention is to redo the entire house, gut it and put new stuff in there, and get new tenants that he can charge way more money from. He knows that nobody will pay the prices he wants from the house in the condition it is in now and the work is too long and intensive to do while a tenant lives there, so from his perspective his only option was to kick them out. You can probably see where this is going. So six months ago after kicking them out he took us aside and suggested he might do the same thing with us. Basically, he needs more money coming out of this place. So he wanted to know if we would be able to move out too. I was honest with him, we can't afford that. I explained our financial issues and asked if there was any way we could work together to find a solution for both of us. I also mentioned that this is the only home I've known most my life and I don't want to move. But also that because of the shared car (and other reasons) the time I can work is limited so it's hard for me to find a better job (not that I could find one even with more access to my car but whatever). He told us he basically wants DOUBLE what we are currently paying. We can't afford that either. I mentioned the $50 increase every year we were doing and suggested maybe we could increase that amount so he's still getting more money and we still have more time to figure something out. He said "yeah, maybe, I'll have to figure it out"... and that was it.

After that he got to work on their side and it's been six months. Every day he's been over there, ripping up walls, drilling, redoing the roof, he put in a second bathroom despite it being a tiny half of a house with only two tiny bedrooms but I guess he can charge more if there's a second little mini-bathroom. I dunno. But every month when we hand him the rent he's made some comments like "yeah we're going to do this on the other side too" and whatnot, so he's made it clear he's not letting us escape this and just a further increase every year isn't enough. But he also never followed up after that first talk so I've been getting by on the hopes that for now he'll just accept increasing the rent a few hundred or something.

Until today, we got the text message "Hey I need to talk to you about the lease today".

I can think of three possibilities.
1. He's kicking us out next month.
2. He's giving us the one year to get out he gave our neighbors.
3. He's going to offer us the other side for double the rent while he works on this side.

We can't afford any of those options. We can barely afford what we're paying now. Hell, we CAN'T afford what we're paying now. We don't have the government assistance that our neighbor did. And the only thing that got them was a small one bedroom apartment they had to shove four people into. I don't know what we're going to do, we just can't afford any of it. I suppose there is always the chance he's going to just accept raising our rent a few hudred dollars but I don't see why he'd do that. The things he's said makes it clear he wants to do more. But we're screwed either way. I'm out here hoping for the least bad outcome but they're all devastating.

I don't know why I'm posting this here. I'm depressed and anxious and may very well be homeless soon. Guess I just don't have anyone to talk to about it.
Also like he couldn't wait until after Christmas? He couldn't give us the holiday? ffs
Well, I'll find out what's happening in a few hours, I guess. Gotta wait for everyone to be here.

Been living at the same place for 20 years taking advantage of the owners kindness. Shocked that after 20 years things change and now they face possible homelessness. What did they do for 20 years that they couldn't improve their financial/housing situation? Still working a dead-end retail job 20 years later?

Even worse..this was a place his mom rented when he was a kid, and he apparently "inherited" the lease on it  and decided to live such that he works just enough to pay for it and a few video games

[Potato]

TL;DR version:

-In a dead end retail job
-Shares car with family member
-Barely able to pay bills
-Lived in same place for 20 years that's apparently a shit-hole
-Landlord want to remodel property to get new tenants who can pay higher rent
-Landlord wants to talk to them about their rent lease
-Thinks upcoming talk will give them unworkable options and they will have to move out of place without anything else lined up

I'm. Just. So. Tired. 

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/today-i-find-out-if-when-im-gonna-be-homeless.1062594/

As you can imagine, the last few years have been rough. With everything getting more expensive we can barely afford groceries. And before anyone thinks "well this is a video game forum, you can afford video games". Yeah, it's my one hobby and the one thing I spent money on. I don't go anywhere, I don't do anything else. Even then, I can only afford the few video games I do buy via pre-ordering at the one store that lets you pay them off over time. So like $5 down a month until it's paid off. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to afford them. I know that's not relevant but just in case anyone was thinking it, I'm not out here dropping $70 on a whim.

That's neat, what's this?

Yeah it's one of those threads. Hear me out though. Between Christmas sales, Steam sales, B2G1s, and gift cards from family members... I was basically able to buy a bunch of the stuff I missed earlier this year (and a bit before, but we'll get to that). The only downside? I absolutely do NOT have time to play them all. Not one bit. I wouldn't have time to play them all in normal circumstances but this isn't even normal circumstances. I have basically one month because in February I'm getting Persona 3 Reload, Tomb Raider 1-3 Remasters, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. So this is really just... what do I prioritize during January?

So now I'm gonna list all the games I bought these past few weeks (and some before). Not even considering the larger backlog, this is just the new stuff. In addition, I'll say a little bit about why I may or may not want to pick them.

Persona 5 Tactica - Okay so this is one I bought at launch and just didn't have time for when I bought it. I love Persona (despite it's many issues) and I'm not necessarily sick of the P5 cast yet like some. But I never even beat Strikers, I'm not in love with this art-style, and it just feels very "spin-off of a spin-off". I want to play it one day, maybe that day should be now, but I almost feel like there will be a better moment for this. Maybe later on in 2024 before Metaphor comes out I can do a P5R-P5S-P5T marathon or something. But if people say this is a hidden gem, I could be convinced to try it now.

Fate/Samurai Remnant - Another game I picked up at launch. I played like an hour of it. I wasn't super impressed but I also didn't hate it either. But I haven't really liked anything Fate has done since... Fate/Zero. And this just kinda seemed like "what if the story of Fate/Stay Night was slightly dumber". But on the other hand, I've heard people say it's good. Maybe I should give it more of a chance. I did buy it, after all.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R - Also bought this at launch but this one I haven't even taken out of the plastic yet. I loved the PS1 original when I was a kid but I barely remember anything about it beyond a few major character/story beats. I think I would enjoy revisiting it in this new form. Only reason I might hesitate is I wonder if I would enjoy playing Star Ocean 1 first, as I've never played it.

Octopath Traveler 2 - Okay now we're into the games I just picked up. I've heard a lot of talk about this being a hidden/neglected gem of this past year. I love turn-based JRPGs. I especially love the SNES, PS1, and PS2 eras of JRPGs. This seems to be clearly inspired by them. But tbh I've never been super wow'd by this team's stuff. I owned the first Octopath since it came out and only played a little bit of it. I wasn't sold on the idea of them being a collection of unconnected short stories. I've heard this improves and fixes all that stuff, but I still don't know if now is the time to try it out or not. It didn't fare well in that thread about it versus BG3 just now (of course, I've already played BG3).

Lies of P - Let's move away from JRPGs now and into action games. I heard this was "We Have Bloodboorne At Home", so... okay. I love Bloodborne. I don't love Sekiro though, so the stuff I've heard about the focus on parrying in this kinda makes me hesitate.

Armored Core VI - Never played an Armored Core before. I like robots though. My friend said it was his GOTY but he didn't play Alan Wake 2 lol. Seriously though, I will play this one soon. I just don't know if I want to choose it over any of the others just yet. It seems intimidating and I'm overworked right now.

Hi-Fi Rush - I love the idea behind this game. I want to love this game. I just bought it. I'm nervous that I won't have the rhythm required and I'll suck though. Plus I'm not sure if I should put time into this or...

The Entire Bayonetta Series - Okay this is where I'm starting to get silly but... hear me out, really. I love Devil May Cry. I've always loved Devil May Cry. I just never really got around to Bayonetta. Well, the Collector's Edition of Bayonetta 3 was half-off but I wasn't just going to buy that and not the others so oops now I own all four Bayonetta games on Switch. Should I dedicate my entire January to playing all of Bayonetta instead of anything else listed here?

The Entire Xenoblade Series - I really shouldn't even bother putting this here. This can't be done in a month. But I do own all of them. Should I at least play the first one now to get started and play all of them throughout 2024? Only problem? I liked Xenogears and Xenosaga... but I barely remember them. I know they aren't directly related. But still a part of my brain says "you should replay all of those first". I can't help who I am.


... And that's it. That's where I am. Of course I have a backlog like 400x this size. But I want to spend my January with one or two of these games. So, input/advice is appreciated.

[Garfield]

is the "family member" he lives with his mom or his brother? at first I thought brother, but now I think it's his mom 

[ClothedMac]

How does he have time to play all those games?  He's paying money to waste time.  I've bought less than $40 dollars in games in the past two years and haven't even played them.

[Averon]

Spent all that effort for video games and not on improving their tenuous living/financial situation? Instead of worrying about what video games to play, spend that time looking for a higher paying job and/or acquiring skills needed to get a higher paying job. The money spent on video games could have been used to take online classes, or buying books and resources to develop a skill like writing code.

[Potato]

That's why these cunts deserve no pity.

[benji]

Also PRE-ORDERING to pay off over time is A FUCKING TERRIBLE IDEA. This dude has lost probably enough money to buy twice as many games he doesn't play. 

[Uncle]

TL;DR version:

-In a dead end retail job
-Shares car with family member
-Barely able to pay bills
-Lived in same place for 20 years that's apparently a shit-hole
-Landlord want to remodel property to get new tenants who can pay higher rent
-Landlord wants to talk to them about their rent lease
-Thinks upcoming talk will give them unworkable options and they will have to move out of place without anything else lined up

I'm having a hard time parsing this, can you start each line with > and begin the whole thing with "> be me"

[Averon]

I mean, if you have to put fucking video games of all things on layway, maybe that's a clue that, unless you're like 8-10 years old, your financial situation's fucked and you need to put everything else aside and do whatever it takes to improve your lot in life.

[Besticus Maximus]

He's already explained that buying videogames is his only source of joy   it's like you chuds didn't even read his OP

It's simple. We need a solution that involves not spending less money on videogames, or moving, or getting a job, or a different living arrangement or indeed anything at all that constitutes a material change in circumstances.

[garamonde]

Still 9 days to Christmas and we already been gifted so much. God I love ERA. 

How does he have time to play all those games?  He's paying money to waste time.  I've bought less than $40 dollars in games in the past two years and haven't even played them.

If you have no money but still have a decent PC and you still choose to buy videogames, you deserve what's coming for you.

[Uncle]

It's interesting to me that this diversity push has only resulted in a more racist media depiction of black women. Literally can't think of a single modern game where the black woman was designed to be attractive. 

Elena in SF6 will probably be the first in a long time.

nintendo  

[Uncle]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/today-i-find-out-if-when-im-gonna-be-homeless.1062594/

As you can imagine, the last few years have been rough. With everything getting more expensive we can barely afford groceries. And before anyone thinks "well this is a video game forum, you can afford video games". Yeah, it's my one hobby and the one thing I spent money on. I don't go anywhere, I don't do anything else. Even then, I can only afford the few video games I do buy via pre-ordering at the one store that lets you pay them off over time. So like $5 down a month until it's paid off. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to afford them. I know that's not relevant but just in case anyone was thinking it, I'm not out here dropping $70 on a whim.

That's neat, what's this?

Yeah it's one of those threads. Hear me out though. Between Christmas sales, Steam sales, B2G1s, and gift cards from family members... I was basically able to buy a bunch of the stuff I missed earlier this year (and a bit before, but we'll get to that). The only downside? I absolutely do NOT have time to play them all. Not one bit. I wouldn't have time to play them all in normal circumstances but this isn't even normal circumstances. I have basically one month because in February I'm getting Persona 3 Reload, Tomb Raider 1-3 Remasters, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. So this is really just... what do I prioritize during January?

So now I'm gonna list all the games I bought these past few weeks (and some before). Not even considering the larger backlog, this is just the new stuff. In addition, I'll say a little bit about why I may or may not want to pick them.

Persona 5 Tactica - Okay so this is one I bought at launch and just didn't have time for when I bought it. I love Persona (despite it's many issues) and I'm not necessarily sick of the P5 cast yet like some. But I never even beat Strikers, I'm not in love with this art-style, and it just feels very "spin-off of a spin-off". I want to play it one day, maybe that day should be now, but I almost feel like there will be a better moment for this. Maybe later on in 2024 before Metaphor comes out I can do a P5R-P5S-P5T marathon or something. But if people say this is a hidden gem, I could be convinced to try it now.

Fate/Samurai Remnant - Another game I picked up at launch. I played like an hour of it. I wasn't super impressed but I also didn't hate it either. But I haven't really liked anything Fate has done since... Fate/Zero. And this just kinda seemed like "what if the story of Fate/Stay Night was slightly dumber". But on the other hand, I've heard people say it's good. Maybe I should give it more of a chance. I did buy it, after all.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R - Also bought this at launch but this one I haven't even taken out of the plastic yet. I loved the PS1 original when I was a kid but I barely remember anything about it beyond a few major character/story beats. I think I would enjoy revisiting it in this new form. Only reason I might hesitate is I wonder if I would enjoy playing Star Ocean 1 first, as I've never played it.

Octopath Traveler 2 - Okay now we're into the games I just picked up. I've heard a lot of talk about this being a hidden/neglected gem of this past year. I love turn-based JRPGs. I especially love the SNES, PS1, and PS2 eras of JRPGs. This seems to be clearly inspired by them. But tbh I've never been super wow'd by this team's stuff. I owned the first Octopath since it came out and only played a little bit of it. I wasn't sold on the idea of them being a collection of unconnected short stories. I've heard this improves and fixes all that stuff, but I still don't know if now is the time to try it out or not. It didn't fare well in that thread about it versus BG3 just now (of course, I've already played BG3).

Lies of P - Let's move away from JRPGs now and into action games. I heard this was "We Have Bloodboorne At Home", so... okay. I love Bloodborne. I don't love Sekiro though, so the stuff I've heard about the focus on parrying in this kinda makes me hesitate.

Armored Core VI - Never played an Armored Core before. I like robots though. My friend said it was his GOTY but he didn't play Alan Wake 2 lol. Seriously though, I will play this one soon. I just don't know if I want to choose it over any of the others just yet. It seems intimidating and I'm overworked right now.

Hi-Fi Rush - I love the idea behind this game. I want to love this game. I just bought it. I'm nervous that I won't have the rhythm required and I'll suck though. Plus I'm not sure if I should put time into this or...

The Entire Bayonetta Series - Okay this is where I'm starting to get silly but... hear me out, really. I love Devil May Cry. I've always loved Devil May Cry. I just never really got around to Bayonetta. Well, the Collector's Edition of Bayonetta 3 was half-off but I wasn't just going to buy that and not the others so oops now I own all four Bayonetta games on Switch. Should I dedicate my entire January to playing all of Bayonetta instead of anything else listed here?

The Entire Xenoblade Series - I really shouldn't even bother putting this here. This can't be done in a month. But I do own all of them. Should I at least play the first one now to get started and play all of them throughout 2024? Only problem? I liked Xenogears and Xenosaga... but I barely remember them. I know they aren't directly related. But still a part of my brain says "you should replay all of those first". I can't help who I am.


... And that's it. That's where I am. Of course I have a backlog like 400x this size. But I want to spend my January with one or two of these games. So, input/advice is appreciated.

sounds like 17 games at $500 to $1000 to me...

a backlog 400x this size, you say?

[Potato]

is the "family member" he lives with his mom or his brother? at first I thought brother, but now I think it's his mom 

Definitely his mother. He wouldn't be ashamed of living with his brother, but he's gone out of his way to obfuscate the relationship.

[Uncle]

Spent all that effort for video games and not on improving their tenuous living/financial situation?

I remember arguments about renting on both gaf and era

"no dude you don't get it, renting is amazing, you get to be so flexible not being tied down to one forever home and you don't have to take care of home maintenance, surprise expenses like stuff breaking down"

[benji]

He's already explained that buying videogames is his only source of joy   it's like you chuds didn't even read his OP

It's simple. We need a solution that involves not spending less money on videogames, or moving, or getting a job, or a different living arrangement or indeed anything at all that constitutes a material change in circumstances.

I'm not seeing a lot of the "allies" organizing to abolish capitalism.

[ClothedMac]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/watched-the-speed-racer-live-action-for-the-first-time-jesus-christ-it-did-not-age-well.1062159/#post-133049766

I dont have any evidence but this feels transphobic

[BIONIC]

My family is dying please help!

Spend less on kideo games.

No.

[Jansen]

I can't even

[Hap Shaughnessy]

My major Christmas present is going to be getting our cat fixed, I have a refurbished computer that's less powerful than a new tablet, and a last gen Xbone. You are an adult, get over it.

[Averon]

I can't even

These are the same people that love to call others grifters, by the way.

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/today-i-find-out-if-when-im-gonna-be-homeless.1062594/

I don't know why I'm writing this but I guess just to calm my nerves by getting it out. So here's my story. I work a dead end retail job, as I've said on this forum many times. The pay is absolutely garbage. I'd love to have a better job but there's a few things that stop me from doing that. One of which is that for the last few years I've shared my car with a family member who also lives in the same place as me. Basically, they have the car for work during the day, I have it for work at night. Between the two of us we barely clear $1000 a week income. We're in debt, they have a credit card that has like close to $20,000 of debt on it, which is a close to $700 bill monthly. Beyond that, bills are split up between us. I get the gas and electricity. We split groceries and internet. They get rent and their credit card. Which is a system that just barely works. They cannot afford a car payment, mostly because of that credit card bill, which is why I'm still sharing my car with them and one of the reasons why it's harder to find a better job for myself (the other reasons are I never finished college, I have no skills, etc.)

As you can imagine, the last few years have been rough. With everything getting more expensive we can barely afford groceries. And before anyone thinks "well this is a video game forum, you can afford video games". Yeah, it's my one hobby and the one thing I spent money on. I don't go anywhere, I don't do anything else. Even then, I can only afford the few video games I do buy via pre-ordering at the one store that lets you pay them off over time. So like $5 down a month until it's paid off. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to afford them. I know that's not relevant but just in case anyone was thinking it, I'm not out here dropping $70 on a whim.

Anyway so this is where the housing situation comes in. In a lot of ways, we've been lucky. I live in the same place I've lived for most of my life, been here over 20 years. Now lets talk about my landlord. In a lot of ways he's been cool over the years. In other ways not so much, but I'll get there. So where I live is a house, split down the middle into two halves of the house and he rents out both halves. When we fist moved in here (I was a child at the time), they lived in the other half. But a few years in they moved to something bigger and rented out the other half too. Now as a landlord he was very hands off. This had it's pros and cons. He never really kept up with any kind of repairs and have always just ignored our requests until they were mandatory to fix. To be blunt for a long time this place was a leaky moldly shithole. The roof leaked, the basement flooded, the mold could never really be fully killed. We put up with a lot of stuff. Our oven didn't work for a few years and he didn't replace it until we had a gas leak and had to have officials come. The roof leaked and would pour water down into the kitchen that we'd have to capture in buckets. That he finally fixed earlier this year because a new law in my state required him to pass an inspection over paint (which he also never did in the past 20 years). I remember us telling him about a leak once (not the one in the kitchen, another one) and he basically told us he expected us to do those kinds of repairs. "Well, it's all about the quality of life you want to live", he told us. As if as renters we could afford to do repairs. There are other problems too but I won't list them all out.

That all sounds pretty bad. So what were the pros and why didn't we move? Well, we didn't move because we couldn't afford anything else. And the pros is that he was generally pretty cool about the money. He didn't mind if we were late with rent, so long as we did pay it eventually and he always trusted that we would (and we did). And as rent prices in my state raised dramatically, he didn't screw us over right away. A few years back he said that he was going to start raising our rent by $50 every year. A tough situation for us but also understandable, everything is getting more expensive and that includes for him. That kind of slow increase would give us time to figure things out. I felt lucky. Until August 2023. So, our lease renews in January of every year, our neighbors in the other half renewed in August. So last August they were told that they were being given one year and that in August 2024 their lease would not be renewed. They weren't given a reason but they suspected that it was because they were on a goverment assistancee program that prevented him from raising their rent past a certain point. They struggled to find a new place, just barely getting one secured through that government program apparently. They needed one more week to get their stuff packed and moved on. He didn't give it to them, he was in there putting their stuff to the curb the next day.

And that's when we found out why. His intention is to redo the entire house, gut it and put new stuff in there, and get new tenants that he can charge way more money from. He knows that nobody will pay the prices he wants from the house in the condition it is in now and the work is too long and intensive to do while a tenant lives there, so from his perspective his only option was to kick them out. You can probably see where this is going. So six months ago after kicking them out he took us aside and suggested he might do the same thing with us. Basically, he needs more money coming out of this place. So he wanted to know if we would be able to move out too. I was honest with him, we can't afford that. I explained our financial issues and asked if there was any way we could work together to find a solution for both of us. I also mentioned that this is the only home I've known most my life and I don't want to move. But also that because of the shared car (and other reasons) the time I can work is limited so it's hard for me to find a better job (not that I could find one even with more access to my car but whatever). He told us he basically wants DOUBLE what we are currently paying. We can't afford that either. I mentioned the $50 increase every year we were doing and suggested maybe we could increase that amount so he's still getting more money and we still have more time to figure something out. He said "yeah, maybe, I'll have to figure it out"... and that was it.

After that he got to work on their side and it's been six months. Every day he's been over there, ripping up walls, drilling, redoing the roof, he put in a second bathroom despite it being a tiny half of a house with only two tiny bedrooms but I guess he can charge more if there's a second little mini-bathroom. I dunno. But every month when we hand him the rent he's made some comments like "yeah we're going to do this on the other side too" and whatnot, so he's made it clear he's not letting us escape this and just a further increase every year isn't enough. But he also never followed up after that first talk so I've been getting by on the hopes that for now he'll just accept increasing the rent a few hundred or something.

Until today, we got the text message "Hey I need to talk to you about the lease today".

I can think of three possibilities.
1. He's kicking us out next month.
2. He's giving us the one year to get out he gave our neighbors.
3. He's going to offer us the other side for double the rent while he works on this side.

We can't afford any of those options. We can barely afford what we're paying now. Hell, we CAN'T afford what we're paying now. We don't have the government assistance that our neighbor did. And the only thing that got them was a small one bedroom apartment they had to shove four people into. I don't know what we're going to do, we just can't afford any of it. I suppose there is always the chance he's going to just accept raising our rent a few hudred dollars but I don't see why he'd do that. The things he's said makes it clear he wants to do more. But we're screwed either way. I'm out here hoping for the least bad outcome but they're all devastating.

I don't know why I'm posting this here. I'm depressed and anxious and may very well be homeless soon. Guess I just don't have anyone to talk to about it.
Also like he couldn't wait until after Christmas? He couldn't give us the holiday? ffs
Well, I'll find out what's happening in a few hours, I guess. Gotta wait for everyone to be here.

Been living at the same place for 20 years taking advantage of the owners kindness. Shocked that after 20 years things change and now they face possible homelessness. What did they do for 20 years that they couldn't improve their financial/housing situation? Still working a dead-end retail job 20 years later?

So they have known for at least half a year that this was going to happen but he did fuck all about it

[D3RANG3D]

Is this whole #resisting really just resisting to grow the fuck up and getting a job?

[Uncle]

because I HAVEN'T cut ties with my extremely toxic trump-supporting family, I'm going to be getting cute gifts from the kids AND I get to enjoy giving them amazing gifts and watch their eyes light up, for which there is no greater feeling

 

[Taco Bell Tower]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/its-a-shame-sony-seems-to-be-gatekeeping-retro-console-merch.1062231/

Does the OP know what gatekeeping is?