Half Life 2 base now includes the Episodes and they have been delisted. The only thing in The Orange Box now really is Portal, since Lost Coast is also delisted and TF2 is free. Still a great deal tbh for one game, but you don't need it for basically any item in there.

Not even just that. I can't speak for Edinburgh, but in the area I live in in Glasgow we've had random fireworks go off during the day for weeks leading up to Guy Fawkes. One big explosion every now and then. One day, still bright out, I was walking home and almost hit the deck because one went off so close to me out of nowhere.

After Guy Fawkes it has been less frequent, but still happens, at very odd times. You can even check news and see that it's been an issue for a while. E.g.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j87zneq4vo

It stresses me out a bit, and I spend most of my time in my own home, with decent soundproofing. And I'm not a sensitive endangered animal.

So I'm not sure what might make you not feel lonely or anxious. Things like how directly you control the characters with you could he factors I imagine, so I'm just going to list a bunch of things:

A shorter one, but Star Wars Republic Commando. You're a commando unit and work as one.

Dragon's Dogma, either Dark Arisen or the new sequel.

Mass Effect series.

I don't know if Earth Defence Force would be like that or not, at the end of the day your NPC allies could be hit or miss (literally, depending on the weapons you use).

Not sure how you feel about party-based RPGs, but there are tons of them.

I'm wondering if RTS games with campaigns would feel right as well. StarCraft's campaigns have a lot of people constantly talk to/around you.

The Lego games?

Stardew Valley?

Can't really think of indie games at the moment.

Games I haven't played so I don't know if they apply: Persona? Space Marine games?

Not even the denomination is named. I know a trans person who is religious and looking to become clergy because their church is open like that. We don't know anything about these people and their beliefs or why they became priests.

Besides, your unedited message makes it sound like they deserve to go to hell simply because they had drugs or gay sex, not for any other views they had.

There is. Newer EA games, anything with Epic Online Services (but especially with a login), etc. They get negative reviews fairly consistently.

Some older games get overlooked, but even then adding in a third party software (not even necessarily needing an account) often lowers a game to a mixed rating on Steam for recent reviews.

Three games came to mind just now, for slightly different reasons.

Similarly to others, just for feeling good: Earth Defense Force (whichever release, really). While it's great to have a challenge in the missions, getting through the game, finding a good mission to farm weapons on, then using those fun weapons to destroy horses of insects and aliens is just so fun. And some missions can feel a bit BS with the weapons you might have available normally.

I would also actually say Baldur's Gate 3. I know a lot of people enjoy the tactical side of things, but my opinion is that the DnD 5e ruleset kinda just sucks for a video game. I play it as a TTRPG, it's fine. But I found rolling badly in something my character's meant to be good at just so frustrating. This let me actually explore the story and world my own way, which was way more fun to me than restarting combat because I got unlucky.

That one might be controversial, but I was also speed running completion because I wanted to know conclude the story and see the world, but something about the game just didn't click for me.

And finally, because I think it's a fantastic game that deserves attention (with the best soundtrack I've heard in a while): Rabbit and Steel. It's a brutally hard roguelike bullet hell that's based on dungeon raid boss mechanics from FFXIV (which I haven't played, but that's what everyone says). The difficulty will make you want to not play it, and for me stuff only really clicked once I unlocked my penultimate class. I can now heat Hard fairly consistently, but it has taken a lot of runs to get there. No shame in admitting that those started from Cute and Normal and involved me grinding out all the unlocks by charging through Cute difficulty.

So really, the summary of this far too long reply is: just lower the difficulty when it's frustrating or keeping you too much from getting to the fun stuff. You can always try again on a higher difficulty later.

Just to add some even longer time goals to the other replies: you could get all achievements for games that have them. Though some of those, like the ones for Civ 6, are excessive. It could give you ideas or shorter term goals to work towards, then you can decide if you've had enough at any point before 100% if things get too BS.

Yeah, I had the same thoughts after his comments on Sargeant giving 100% and falling short.

Like ok, yeah, maybe you're right and it's not just the car not suiting him or him not having experience in a competitive F1 situation, etc. But I don't think it's good to just plain say he's underperforming on every metric and "you can see on his face he's giving 100%".

The honesty is great and necessary, but going too far in the brutal way, as you said, just leads to him looking like a toxic asshole.

Not to mention all of this being done publicly puts extra pressure on Colapinto since now he knows if he doesn't perform well he might just be remembered by another Vowles public statement about his lacking abilities.

So the kerbs were made flatter seems to be the main point in the article? Isn't this the track where the previous sausage kerbs led to multiple cars being very dangerously flung in the air?

We'll see how the chicane change goes, but as much as I like the historic layouts, sometimes you do just have to update things. Especially when the cars aren't the same as they used to be.

A survival horror about dinosaurs can't exist because an action game that includes fantasy dinosaur-like creatures does?

That sounds like saying you wouldn't have space for Resident Evil because of Fallout, and those arguably have more overlap than Dino Crisis and Monster Hunter in their settings.

I mean I could be wrong, I haven't played Dino Crisis (though I intend to at some point), but from what I know and have heard it's not that close to Monster Hunter. People have been looking for AAA Dino horror-type stuff for ages. They wouldn't bring up Dino Crisis instead of Monster Hunter in those discussions if they filled the same niche.

The moral low ground? Willingness to pay for exclusivity, allowing crypto games, that sort of stuff?

People opening it once a week sometimes to get a free game?

Yeah, I don't see what Randy is on about, but that guy says a lot of bullshit.

So they just compared averages/peaks and said "it's just your perception being used to too hot weather, it's not unusually cold".

Fair, but that feels very superficial. Was the temperature variation higher than usual? More/less rainfall or humidity?

This is not to say our perception isn't warped by climate change, but climate change isn't just higher temperatures. Normal weather patterns changing, more extremes, etc.

I don't have the time or will to check on that, but I just feel making a 3 paragraph article on a complicated phenomenon as weather and climate is just a bit lacking.

Ah oops, I meant to say "in the headline". I agree, his tweets were disgusting and I think they should've been highlighted more from the get-go. I just dislike that the headline as it is makes it seem as if the SNP possibly overreacted or reacted in a pro-Israel way. Feels like it's misleading by omission.

Would've been nice if they added the little tidbit in the headline that said Gaza posts were specifically denying what is happening in Gaza is genocide.

John Mason stripped of SNP party whip after 'unacceptable' posts claiming events in Gaza 'not genocide'

Maybe remove the unacceptable quote if that's too long. And suddenly some might not go in with the idea that maybe it was because he made a pro-Palestine post.

I mean if you know John Mason you probably wouldn't assume that, but I think it's healthier for journalists to presume you don't know all the MPs and MSPs.

*: edited to add that the info should've been added in the headline

Jesus fucking Christ people. Yes, this is an unfortunate decision from Switzerland. You dislike it, fair. Calling the entire country and/or everyone who lives there monsters, a disease, etc though is insane.

Can we maybe not use fascist rhetorics like blanket demonising and dehumanising statements about entities we don't like?

I've also said this before and I'll say it again: names of suspects and even convicted criminals should not be shared unless necessary*. That just makes no sense for rehabilitation as it opens people up for judgement in a court of opinion. Justice is the job of the justice systems and should not generally involve the wider public.

Could there be issues with the judgement or other events where the only way to achieve justice is via the press? Sure, probably, but I don't think the default should be that if I google the name of someone I can find if they or someone with a similar name (and god forbid, appearance) were involved in a crime.

*: unless necessary here can cover cases like trying to find an individual on the run, or when their previous crime is meant to exclude them from specific lines of work, although even that should be on a need-to-know basis imo, not public info.

I'll just add that Fidesz (the right wing governing party) started out centrist in 1990. In 2010 they'd moved towards the right, but in a lot people's minds they were one of the big, reasonable parties since the end of Soviet control. And also just in general "the opposition".

The social democratic governing party also was inept and admitted as such (see Őszöd sleech).

So what happened was the left side of the spectrum lost all support, and what in many people's minds was the centrist or centre-right opposition picked it all up. Just over half the votes gave them a supermajority and from that point they gradually attained complete control over all institutions as a result.

Labour, LibDem, Green together also would have a majority, and hopefully people would vote tactically for Labour if all the right wing votes would go to one party as well, though you never know. So I'm not sure I agree with that part of the analysis.

Otherwise: yeah, it's at least as, probably more, accurate to say Tories lost, as it is to say Labour won.

By the way the votes fell, 38% seem to have voted Tory or Reform. Ignoring how people would vote differently if the system were to change, that to me implies proportional voting would still see the right wing lose. Not nearly as much as they did now, but perhaps more securely.

I just hope Labour will think of this similarly and actually do something to make sure we get a system where that 38% doesn't overcome the rest and leads to a Tory or even Reform government.

Yeah, I don't think that coalition situation is likely to happen. Under FPTP, it's too risky for the voters to try manufacture.

That said, if their popularity massively tanks and polls show they'd lose big, I could see Labour introducing it just before the next election. It would be a huge boost to their popularity.

I think the main issue I have, and likely many others too, is how strongly it is phrased. If he thinks he'll die in the next 5 or 10 years... fine, I guess? But that's unlikely, and with how things have shifted just in the past 25 years, making a statement like this seems arrogant.

Is that overanalysing a one line answer to a question? Probably, but that's what a politician gets and the effect of modern media.

Not to mention how the population and especially Labour supporters have turned pro-EU so he'll likely alienate that part of his base. Strong stances are seen as better, but I really feel sometimes he should take a softer approach.