randomsnark

The linked article mentions that one of the predator types merged into the dragon is raptors (as in birds of prey, not velociraptors)

You might enjoy crpgaddict, a blog that is playing through every computer roleplaying game in chronological order, providing scores for each one on various metrics. The reason I bring him up is that he doesn't rate on a curve, or give things marks for being "good for its time" - if pool of radiance scores higher than skyrim, it's not because it was influential or good for its time, but because he thinks it's outright better regardless of age (just an example - I'm not saying he would actually rate those two games that way, and he has not rated skyrim). There are early 80s games that he remembers fondly and had a huge impact on the industry that he rates as like 23/100 or whatever, because the scale leaves room for the Witcher 3.

It takes a long time to get through all those games, so he's currently up to the early 90s, having updated his blog regularly for over a decade. But his list of highest rated games might be a good place to start.

Oh, and while we're talking about old-ish RPGs that would score well on his scale, I might as well mention Morrowind and the Baldur's Gate series (before 3, obviously), which he won't reach for a long time but has been known to hold up as solid examples of the genre. Personally I still think Baldur's Gate 2 is great. I'm also a big fan of the quest for glory series, which crpgaddict has rated, but might not make his list of top scoring RPGs, because they're a hybrid adventure/RPG, so not all of their strengths appear on a scale designed for pure RPGs.

As someone who didn't play them back in the day, I feel like SotN holds up but Super Metroid doesn't. Just as another opinion. I couldn't really get into metroid fusion either. To me it feels like the moment-to-moment action gameplay is too clunky in the early metroid games I've played, even if the exploration element is neat. I did enjoy playing SotN for the first time a couple of years ago though. It's been a while since I played either, so they're not totally fresh in my memory - I guess it's possible that I'm just more forgiving of clunky melee combat than clunky shooting.

Tangentially related, always amuses me how "metroidvania" has become the genre name, when originally it was just a way that reviewers poked fun at the big change between SotN and earlier castlevanias. They were like "this isn't what I expect from a castlevania, it's a great game but maybe they should have named it metroidvania", and the name stuck. Another odd fact about that terminology is that according to interviews, the SotN designer never played metroid - they were inspired by the non-linear exploration with different routes opened up by items/upgrades in Zelda games (although obviously adding that to castlevania's platformer gameplay makes it more closely resemble metroid). So it should probably be considered a zeldavania.

Large language models (chatgpt etc, basically any of the AIs you've seen recent headlines about) aren't especially good at distinguishing true from false claims. It's one of the biggest weaknesses that AI researchers are actively trying to find solutions for.

V

part of the appeal is how bad I am at both the gameplay and the lore

I was literally just thinking about this, like a few minutes before seeing this post. It sounds like for some reason this political usage of "weird" is working, and annoying me is a small price to pay to stop Trump. But it does bug me, mostly because anything the left starts using, the right will eventually appropriate, and then it will spread and get widespread use outside of politics. I can see it becoming like "snowflake", which used to mean "special and unique", and then started being used in political discourse to mean "oversensitive", and is now being used everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if this trend means that a couple of years from now, "weird" is a very popular go-to insult even outside of politics, which will habituate people to associating weirdness with negativity (not that people need any incentive to do that).

Obviously it's a better outcome than a lot of other things that can result from politics, but it's irksome now and I can imagine the world being mildly more uncomfortable for everyone who doesn't conform to mainstream social standards in a couple of years than it is now.

Tl;Dr - sounds like you're thinking exactly what I was thinking, down to the mild-to-moderate level of discomfort and the acknowledgement that it might be necessary

M

Mine (as of last week) is Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1. Asperger's syndrome is the old name for the same thing, mostly ditched because it doesn't make sense to just decide that an arbitrary segment of the same continuum of symptoms needs a whole other name (especially when people on the border between Aspergers and Autism would get a different diagnosis depending on who you asked, because it was so poorly differentiated). Some people also object to the name because Hans Asperger worked with the nazis, but it's mostly because it doesn't make sense as a separate category.

Level 1 can be referred to as "High functioning" or "low support needs". I've seen some people say we shouldn't say "High functioning" any more, but I don't see a real problem with it, and my assessor used the term so apparently it is still used by some professionals. "Low support needs" is also commonly used (and seems more common on up-to-date official material), and some people prefer it because instead of categorizing people according to the function they can serve in society, it thinks about people in terms of how much help they need, which is less dehumanizing and more compassionate. Just like Hans Asperger, there are nazi-related objections as well - apparently the term originates in differentiating "high functioning" people who could serve a role in society from "low functioning" people who would be sent to the gas chambers. Nobody who was personally affected by those implications 80 years ago is actually objecting to the terms today though, so I don't really see why it should matter.

Basically, "High functioning autism", "low support needs autism", "level 1 autism spectrum disorder" and "asperger's syndrome" are all the same thing. The official diagnosis in most health systems is Autism Spectrum Disorder, but you might find it useful to specify that you're high functioning, and if you're talking to someone who isn't up to date on the terminology it may be easiest to tell them you have aspergers, because they might think that "autism" only applies to level 2 or 3 autism spectrum disorder (people who have much more visible symptoms and a lot more difficulty with day to day life, often including intellectual disabilities), which might confuse the person you're talking to.

I just say I'm autistic and have autism spectrum disorder level 1, because I like using the official terms for things and am comfortable explaining if the person I'm talking to has misconceptions, but I think it's fine to use whatever terminology makes things easiest for you. I also use the term "high functioning autism" if I need to explain what Level 1 means.

(While we're really getting into the weeds about terminology, there are people who prefer to say "I'm an autistic person", not "I'm a person with autism", because it emphasizes that autism is a core part of who they are, not something separate that they have. There's also people who prefer the opposite, because they want to emphasize that they are a person first of all, just like everyone else. Some people also prefer to call it a condition rather than a disorder, to show that there is nothing wrong with being autistic. I don't think I've seen anyone who has these kind of preferences actually get mad about it though, as far as I can tell people are pretty accepting of whatever works for you)

Probably Wayne Gretzky? I don't even know anything about ice hockey and I know he's supposed to be the most dominant player of any sport. Like he and his brother have the record for highest combined goals of any pair of brothers: 2,857 by Wayne, 4 by Brent. If you take away all his goals, he'd be the highest scoring player of all time on assists alone. There have been 13 times when a player has scored over 100 goals in a season in NHL history: Lemieux (once), Orr (once), and Gretzy (eleven times in a row). He retired last century and still holds 57 records. I'm not gonna keep picking out examples but there's a bunch more facts like this that sound like the old "chuck norris facts" meme but are actually true.

"If you don't know anything about ice hockey why do you have all these facts on hand?" - I remembered seeing this kind of list before so I did a quick Google.

Edit: I'm seeing some different exact figures for some of these, but the general principle stands and I'm not invested enough in hockey facts to nail down which numbers are exactly right.

new zealand has the most per capita superlatives of any country in the world per capita

Again? This was a headline in January as well. I guess people are gonna get mad every time they perform it now, and we'll get news stories every time people get mad.