Super Smash Bros Next

[Thad]

Breath of the Wild felt like a legit escape when I played it a few months ago. It doesn't demand anything of you. It was good for my depression because it felt nice to just slip into a green world that I could just fuck around and ride horses in. Doubly so when I discovered Hawaii was in the game.

I don't know why I haven't finished BotW; I like it well enough.

I do like big fuck-you open-world games, in general. I've played a fair few of them, liked many of them, and finished a double-digit number of them.

(Where "finished" means beat the last boss and watched the credits until I got bored sitting through the slow-ass credits crawl. Fortunately, I have no compulsion to 100% anything and will happily say "no, fuck this" when there's a sidequest or challenge I'm not enjoying. No, Batman game, I'm not going to glide through those rings; you're asking me to literally jump through hoops.)

And my enjoyment of any given open-world game is usually based on how much fun I have just fucking around in the world. BotW scores high because there's so much shit to find and do. Spider-Man has the absolute best traversal mechanics of any OW game I've ever played; it's a total blast to swing around Manhattan.

Then you get into stuff like Reedus and the Fetus, and I really like the whole postapocalyptic delivery boy thing, and I even like the intentionally-cumbersome stuff like having to maintain your balance while you're carrying heavy shit, but I quit after awhile because I just hate being interrupted by black goo or having to raid camps or whatever. I'd like Death Stranding a lot better if it wasn't for the death stranding.

(Also, I don't mind the "soothe a crying baby" mechanic, but it's no longer unique to Death Stranding. Every game has "stop to soothe a crying baby" sections now; I just have to wait twenty minutes or so.)

[Friday]

and you can't delegate the soothing to your dog because the baby can't see her

[Thad]

Also the dog's response to the baby crying is to come get me.

[Brantly B.]

I guess video games aren't alone in the list of things that used to provide some comfort but now only ever make me feel worse.

[nosimpleway]

Reedus and the Fetus aka A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering

Trying to pick apart whether disappointment in Smultimate triggered this "man what would life be like if I could enjoy the things I enjoy" or if it was just the first symptom. Where do I find a psychiatric professional who gives enough of a shit to walk me through this, the one I'm talking to tomorrow sure doesn't

[Brantly B.]

How much do you think the problem is that nobody around you will share your enthusiasm for more than half an hour without trying to sell you a subscription to something?

[nosimpleway]

Oh, that's a separate issue. It's part of the reason why I don't talk to people in public but doesn't have much to do with what used to be my hobbies.