forgotten_aria

I've past 200 hours in baldur's gate 3 and i'm still really enjoying it. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a video game this much.

( lots of babbling about bg3 )

I used to wear a fitness tracker, a withings 02. I chose it because I could wear it on my belt because wearing things on my wrist drives me a bit bonkers for two reasons. That tracker served me well, but at some point I stopped caring about steps and cared more about heart rate (especially with crossfit.) It did have a heart rate sensor, but because it was on my belt, you had to explicitly ask it to take a reading and hold it against your finger. I also couldn't wear it comfortably while sleeping and you had to remember to tell it you were sleeping and when you woke, which was slightly annoying. It served me well for a about 3 years including going through several holders.

Almost all of the new trackers, especially those with nice features, are wrist mounted. A few days ago I had an idea to wear the band further up my arm. This solves both the issue of it digging in when I type and the clamminess my skin gets underneath the plastic bands (because I can move it up and down as the day progresses.) I tested this idea with the band from my old one (it came with the option to wear it on wrist or belt) with success.

Doing a little research, I knew I wanted small and 24/7 heart rate. Eventually I settled on the garmin vivosmart 4 and I'm delighted. It is not only giving me the data I want, but it's comfortable enough I forget it's on if I'm wearing long sleeves.

Now if I could get the scale and the tracker to talk to each other, but because they are different companies, I think I would have to go through a third party that I'm not that happy with, so I guess my data will have to state separate.

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I've been trying some VR demos on the ps4 lately. One of the problems with VR is a lot of the games aren't very deep, but still sport a $20 price tag.

Statik is a puzzle game. The first puzzle (and only one in the demo) was ok, but it didn't really seem like a good use of the VR. I might drop $3 if it goes on deep sale.

I tried Ancient Amulator where you are killing waves of minions who are attacking your base. The demo included the archer and the mage. The archer was fun (after I played the tutorial) and would be kind of a nice way to unwind. The mage was very difficult to use (throwing things in VR seems to be something game designers are struggling to get right.) In the video they show the warrior throwing down this little melee dummy and then you swing your fists and the dummy follows your lead. That looks amusing. I don't see it holding my attention for long. I also have the problem that in the VR you are standing on a pestle and while this doesn't trigger the panic of my fear of heights, it does cause me to not move my feet AT ALL leaving me a bit stiff after a session. One of the things I like about beat saber is it encourages fluid, natural movements. I would pick Ancient Amulator up for $10.

Reviewers rave about Tetris Effect so when I heard there was a demo weekend, I was excited. Sadly I think either 1) I don't like a game making me try to feel like I'm on drugs or 2) I got enough tetris growing up or both because I really didn't get why people feel this game is worth the full price tag of $40. Very glad I got to try the demo to learn it wasn't special.

I realize I never wrote about Superhot VR other than a passing mention. They did a really good job porting it to VR other than the throwing issues state above. I have to warn people, though, it is not to be played by certain people, and sometimes not even me.

I waffled (as I often do) about getting PSVR. Beat Saber was a solid choice for me, because of the way it tickled my DDR neurons, but yesterday I tried the demo for Moss. The whole time I had this stupid smile as this game gave me experiences I've not had anywhere else. Back in the late 80s, I was one of the few people to adopt sega's 3D video game glasses. These were shutter glasses pointed at a normal CRT screen, alternating frames to each eye by darkening an LCD. Because classic TVs refreshed at 60hz, each eye was being shuttered at 30hz, which is quiet easy to see. I didn't care. I thought this was awesome and over the years I would often pursue 3D gaming from time to time (reminds me, I need to sell my old 3d monitor.) And I think the whole time I've been waiting for what Moss did.

It's not just the VR technology, though that's a starting point (quality of the motion tracking is is key.) It's that the developers of this game used depth and scale to an amazing degree. Quill, the mouse main character, runs around a small diorama right in your lap, but then beyond is this simplified, but amazingly complex forest backdrop. Luckily the game was forgiving of just taking a moment to look 360 around yourself after a scene change, because I did.

I haven't felt that sense of novelty and joy in a long time, so I am so happy I took the VR plunge.

A few quick thoughts:

Porchfest with School of Honk was amazing. At one point the crowd started dancing and it went from a performance to a party in that moment.

I have a harp gig (unpaid) first weekend of June. This was a friend trying to help me get practice at being a solo performing.

I made myself a patreon account, because why not. No, I'm not posting the link here because I don't want money from my friends, I want money from strangers.

The video game Overwatch launches today. I made an Overwatch remix using one of the character's sounds and got up the courage to post it to their Facebook wall. All this seems to have gotten me is a down vote.
( video )

Played Black Eyed Peas Experience for Kinect and it was pretty fun. The moves were very confined to a box, so not much leg movement, but it had a nice sense of dynamicness. There are little bright stars where I think it's really wanting you to hit the beat. I didn't find the feedback that useful, and had to figure out what I was doing wrong mostly on myself. I think I agree completely that if you like BEP music, it's a fun game, because they really have a lot of very heavy beat, dancable stuff. If you don't like their music, well, stay away from this game. The dances are also high energy, so you do get your body moving, which is nice.

One thing I didn't like is there's this big long intro where your avatar (mine was wearing heels, but was other wise a hot version of me) strolls in basking self indulgently from the fame of being the one chosen to dance with the computer-BEP.

Apparently it had a mic mode too. so I think I need to purchase a wireless mic for my xbox now.

Dance Masters is still the winner on the dancing games, but again, you kind of have to be able to tolerate benami music to enjoy it.

After my wrists are completely healed, I've decided that I need to look for good FPS PvP*. Back in the day I used to play a lot of CTF Quake with runes on a private server and loved it and I'm looking for that kind of thing again. I can look up game reviews for FPSes, but can't select based on their PvP quality. I also need a practice arena, since it's been a really long time, so I can't do one of those PvP only ones (like Team Fortress.) Also idealy, I'd like one that plays well with mostly keyboard or joystick controls, since using a mouse makes me unhappy. I don't own a xbox 360 yet either.

I think that list might have just made it impossible, but my friends know much, including which of the older games still have followings. So, any suggestions?

* if you don't know what FPS PvP is, then you likely can't help me. However, it means First Person Shooter Player Vs Player which is a genre of video games. CTF means capture the flag.

I'm still blown away by the beauty you can create inside a computer. Gorgeous entire worlds.

I finished heavenly sword. I was kind of glad it was short. I loved it, but I can't say I can recommend it to other people. There were at least three different play styles. The whole "after-touch" guiding of missles was nuts hard (it uses the tip sensors in the ps3 controller) and the reaction game parts made me feel like I was playing dragon's lair.

Still I liked it, and liked see the making of videos. They did a lot of work into the motion capture and let the actors have fun.