Dufniall

Plus wouldn't that lead to people frantically withdrawing cash? I know I wouldn't keep my savings in the bank at negative interest but just shove it in a fireproof safe at home. But yeah, interest now is horrible. I got quite a nice sum saved up and I gained not even 2(!) euros of interest. It's already costing more to keep my account open than I gain from interest. But apparently switching banks can be quite a hassle, and interest is bad almost everywhere. Even longer-term savings (like putting money away for 20 years) only slightly increases interest. It's a shame I know balls about investing, so probably we will just use our savings to quickly improve the house's energy label, that might net the most in the future.

I had some issues with my New Nintendo 3DS last week so I'm just going to post it here in case someone runs into similar problems. I was playing Rhythm Thief (installed on the microSD card) and the game kept crashing at the same point. I then tried to back-up the save data and delete the game from the 3DS menu in the hope that a redownload would fix the crash. However, the 3DS wouldn't let me delete the game, or create the back-up file. I tried deleting something else (an old demo) and that didn't work either; could not delete the demo. So I took out my microSD, copied the contents to another microSD, placed it in and tried deleting Rhythm Thief again. Now it worked! Redownloaded the game and kept the save file, so I could resume my playthrough and not another crash was seen. I took a closer look to the removed microSD card on my PC and I couldn't remove stuff from there, apparently write protection was on. Tried removing it via a couple of ways but I can't get write protection off, so my conclusion is the SD card is busted.

Yep, I agree. All four answers are correct, especially in the way you state the question and answers.

I completed a couple of games in the past week, so instead of saving it up until the end of the month I'll share my thoughts now as the memory is still fresh: Steamworld Dig (Nintendo 3DS) I was in the mood for a shorter game and I still had this on my 3DS unplayed, so it was time to finally start this game. It was originally released in 2013, I didn’t know it was that old! It received quite a bit of praise back in the day, and I think in some parts it still holds up, but it’s also been overtaken by other, newer indie MetroidVanias. I think most here have played the game or know it, so I won’t go into the details. Basically your goal is to dig as deep as you can in a randomly generated world, and on the go you will unlock upgrades that make traversing easier and digging faster. I liked the cycle of digging to acquire upgrades to dig deeper to acquire upgrades etc. Although it’s a bit repetitive, you want to keep going and there is always an upgrade in sight that unlocks new options. The game looks good enough, and the steampunk Western setting is pretty entertaining. It wasn’t a hard game, and it is pretty short as well. I reached the end after only 4 hours, so it’s a game you can easily breeze through. I think the puzzle segments could have been a bit more interesting/harder, and it’s a shame there is only one boss battle. Still, I’ve wishlisted Steamworld Dig 2 on the eShop as 1 was pretty enjoyable and I believe the sequel adds a bit more diversity so that can only be good. Rhythm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure (Nintendo 3DS) This is another game that has been on my 3DS forever (I think it was part of the 3DS Humble Bundle) but a game I never finished. I had around 4-5 hours of playtime on the clock, so I decided to end it once and for all. Rhythm Thief can best be described as Professor Layton, where the puzzles are traded in for rhythm games. You take on the role of Phantom R, a thief who ends up in a plot where Napoleon wants to regain power. The game takes place in Paris, and it is fun to see a real existing location in a game like this. Rhythm Thief as said has a lot of similarities with Professor Layton. There are animated cutscenes, locations are presented as static 2D images complete with medals and secrets found by tapping the right spot. The biggest difference is that this is a rhythm game, and not a puzzle game. These rhythm games use the 3DS in a bunch of different ways. There are touch games where you have to slide the stylus to do dance moves or play the violin, games that require button inputs and there was a game that uses the gyro as well. I noticed that with some rhythm games, I actually found it pretty hard to get the beat, and it took me a few tries to complete it. The game can also be quite harsh and a few mistakes already can lead to a failed game. The music is not always very catchy which is not helping. But luckily there are some good minigames as well, and the overall presentation, cast of characters and story is entertaining enough so all in all I enjoyed my time with it. I finished it in around 7 hours and after that I played around a bit to unlock 2 of the 3 extra chapters (the third one involves getting the A rank on all minigames and I wasn’t up for that yet). I’m curious if we ever get a sequel as the story leaves plenty of room for it, but I’m guessing no. Resident Evil 6 - Chris’s campaign (PC) After completing Leon’s and Ada’s campaigns in Resident Evil 6, it was time for Chris to shine. I enjoyed Leon’s and Ada’s story. Leon comes closest to the Resident Evil 4 feeling, especially in the areas around and under the church. Meanwhile Ada has a more stealthy approach which felt fairly fresh. Chris’s campaign was a bit of a mess though. No zombies, only J’avo and BOWs and most of the time you go in all guns blazing. I took down choppers with a grenade launcher, had a ridiculous car chase and experienced some bad QTE sequences with sloppy cameras. I can see how this game received mixed reviews with so much variation between the different campaigns. I can see what Capcom tried to do here and kudos for trying different approaches for different characters, but Chris’s campaign is a miss. Also he’s a pretty moody guy, cheer up Chris! So now I only have Jake’s campaign left, curious to see which way this pans out. Going by the cross-over moments with Jake in the other campaigns, at least I think he will have an interesting story.

It's waterproof so I guess they wanted to show that. So yes, I think they did dip it in the sink!

Does it have anything to do with that Winx Club cartoon that was on Nickelodeon? Finished Alice in Borderland which was a pretty entertaining first season. It's not often I think this, but they could have dragged out the first half of the season in a whole season and made the second part the second season (without going into spoilers there are certain events happening halfway that leads to quite a different dynamic). The season ended with a major cliffhanger/open end so I'm hoping it gets a season 2 and this doesn't get the pull-the-plug treatment. Currently I'm watching The Queen's Gambit with the misses, and I'm enjoying it.

My mouse scroll wheel wasn't registering clicks anymore, so instead of doing the sensible thing and just buy a new mouse I got myself this combination (because you just can't have a non-matching mouse and keyboard!): Steelseries Apex 3 and Rival 3. Yes, RGB, finally! Joke's aside, it's nice to have a fresh keyboard as well as now I notice how stubborn my old one got. The wrist support is a nice extra as well. Didn't want to go mechanical for the keyboard because of the clickity-clack and the price, but so far it feels pretty good.

I think @Jonnas has struck gold with his guess. I googled the song and I didn't realise it was such a classic, covered so many times! About the podcast, good call to cut it in half because 3 hours would have been too much for one sitting I reckon. When listening myself I notice that after an hour I start to drift and loose concentration while listening, so often I cut my personal listening in 2 and listen about half on one day and the rest on another day. Interesting news about Astral Chain, I wonder what it means besides the fact that it won't show up on any other platform soon. How is it now with Bayonetta, is that in full Nintendo license or still split between Platinum and Nintendo? Anyway, it's an incredible game and I really enjoyed my time with it. To be honest I would be a bit hesitant seeing another developer use this IP but we'll see. I've recently played through DKC again and I share @nekunando's sentiment here that the first one is the best one. However, I have big nostalgia for that one as it's the only one I played on the SNES, the other ones I only played on emulators later on. So I'm going open into DKC2 soon and I wonder if my opinion changes if I turn down my nostalgia glasses! I drifted away a bit during the racing game/PS4 part, because I don't have much interest in either. I don't mind hearing about PS stuff though, despite being an Nintendo-themed podcast it's good to hear what "the competition" is doing. But since I don't have the system or the desire for racers I kind of buzzed out here. But all in all a good episode once again, it always brightens up a boring work day haha. Curious to hear the in-depth Zelda talk! I didn't quite get the end, are you planning to release this next week as 63-b or can we expect two episodes next week?

Some TV adverts have been posted on YouTube: Mom: "Mario and I have some history". Ooookay, TMI mom!

January update! Jurassic World Evolution (PC) At the beginning of this month I finished the main campaign with 5 stars on all islands. I’ve written my impressions before in the 2020 thread and my opinion hasn’t changed since, so I’ll keep it short. Basically, Jurassic World Evolution is a very entertaining, good-looking game that is pretty light on the actual sim part, but does a very fun job in running your own Jurassic Park. I’ll definitely pick up one of the DLC packs in a sale just to have a reason to go back to it. Sonic Generations (PC) This title was sitting in my Steam library ever since I picked it up in a sale. It’s the first time I’m playing a Sonic game on PC, so that’s new! In Sonic Generations, someone is messing around with a time-altering monster. This leaves Sonic’s friends frozen in time, and the blue hedgehog himself crosses paths with his old self, meaning you get to play two different Sonics throughout the game. This also introduces the main gimmick. Old Sonic goes through 2D levels old school style, while new Sonic tackles the 3D version of the same world. It’s a pretty cool concept, and in the end I even liked the 3D levels more, although they sometimes suffer from control issues leading to stupid deaths. You can breeze through the game fairly quickly, although there are plenty of challenges to undertake. Basically, after finishing the 2D and 3D levels of a world, a number of challenges unlock. You then have to tackle a challenge to get the key to the boss. You can choose which challenge and you only need to do 1 per world, but if you want to complete them all you can stretch your playtime. I didn’t bother to go for full completion, but just did a couple of challenges that seemed fun. With all of Sonic’s friends on board, and also 2 versions of Dr. Eggman/Robotnik, there is quite a bit of funny banter and fanservice. All in all I enjoyed my time with it! Horizon Chase Turbo (Switch) Another game that I finished in separate playtimes, sometimes months apart, is Horizon Chase Turbo. It’s a great retro arcade racer, and I love everything: the music, the graphics, the playstyle. It’s just that I can’t play them too long in one go as it gets quite tense in the later missions. Definitely worth picking up though! Donkey Kong Country (Switch SNES app) This was one of my favourite SNES games, and it was a nostalgia trip to go through it again. I enjoyed it a lot, but it does show its age more than my other favourite SNES game Super Mario World. Mostly due to the weird hitboxes and the fact that the graphics are much more impressive on an old CRT screen. Loved seeing the end game credits again, forgot that it was pretty funny. Onwards to DKC2! Also: Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition (Switch) I picked up Bulletstorm in a quite recent sale, mainly because of Londragon’s praise on the N-E Café podcast. It’s a first person shooter, and the Switch version has the added bonus of playing as Duke Nukem. I saw mentions however that it is best to play the normal campaign first because otherwise the story might become a bit incomprehensive. Well, this is a game you don’t play for the story as that’s flat of a pancake. But, you do play this if you want an 8-hour long rollercoaster of a game that rarely slows down, DOOM style. The gunplay however I liked better than that in DOOM, as there is so much crazy stuff you can pull off. Besides your arsenal of weapons, you also have a leash and a substantial kick. This basically means you can drag in enemies/objects and/or kick them around. It leads to some crazy situations, like leashing in an explosive barrel and then kicking it to an enemy. You can also leash enemies into fences, kick them in cactuses and whatnot. There are also a bunch of weapons to collect and use, with a primary fire and a charged fire. You start off pretty standard with a machine gun, a hand gun and a shotgun, but later on you pick up some weird stuff. No lasers though, only ballistic weapons which is pretty cool to see in a shooter set on a distant planet. Also worth mentioning is the skillshot system. Pulling off crazy kills awards skillshots, and gives you points. These you can spend in drop pods where you can buy ammo or upgrade your weapons. Some skillshots are tied to specific weapons, where others are more in general. The negatives? Flat story, repetitive enemies and way too much swearing. The ending wasn’t very satisfying either storywise. But as a crazy blow-off-steam-and-kill-everyone kind of game this was definitely what I needed and I breezed through it. Will probably go through it with Duke soon! Manticore: Galaxy on Fire (Switch) This game has been in my library for so long now, it was time to finish it. Manticore is a space shooter which I think was originally a mobile game. Each level consists of roughly 3 parts, a mission (escort, take out objects, stuff like that), a boss fight (basically a dogfight against a stronger ship) and an exploration phase where you can freely fly around the level to find ship parts and intel. The reason I dragged this out so long is that there are quite some levels, but they are pretty repetitive. So it’s best enjoyed in a couple of missions every time. There is some fiddling around to do with upgrading ships and weapons, but all in all you are constantly playing similar levels while going through a forgettable story. I kept playing it however because it plays well, looks great and I just like space shooters like this. Worth it if you can pick it up in a sale and like the genre. Oh, I also finished What Remains of Edith Finch, so a reminder to myself to share my thoughts for the podcast! And currently I'm playing Xenoblade Definitive Edition, Resident Evil 6 (after enjoying Leon's and Ada's campaign, Chris's campaign is not very good), NiGHTS, Star Wars Pinball, and Steamworld Dig. So I hope I can scratch a bunch of these game off my February list.

I think for photo editing the most wished feature is a proper screen, with a high sRGB and Adobe RGB %. I'm not hardcore into photo editing, but as I understand it the higher the % the closer it is to "the real deal", which is especially handy if you also want to print stuff. That way what you are seeing on the screen is closer to the print-out. For the rest Photoshop is not the heaviest of programs, so a middle-of-the-road processor can get you a long way (Intel i5 or Ryzen 5), with say 8GB or 16GB RAM. If you are going for content creation a proper graphics card is handy as well. Most of the high RGB screen laptops are focused on content creation, and are therefore often bundled with a proper graphics card and higher specs, but this is costly. There is currently a whole market focused on content creation and more and more brands are putting out creation laptops: https://www.msi.com/Content-Creation https://www.asus.com/nl/Laptops/For-Creators/ProArt-StudioBook/ https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/conceptd-home https://www8.hp.com/us/en/workstations/zbook-create.html Basically the whole idea of this is Windows trying to get market share from Apple for this user scenario. You can also invest in a separate monitor that is designed for photo editing, and you can do with a run-of-the-mill laptop if you stick to Photoshop. Or indeed, buy an Apple. They are expensive, but they have good screens, and stuff like Photoshop is well optimized.

That's a very abstract interpretation of What Remains of Edith Finch

I finished Caliban's War, book two of The Expanse series. Book one was good, but after book two the series really clicked. I love how James Corey takes the physics of space travel into account, such as growing up in low gravity, travel under high G, space radiation and communication delay. I can see how this would make a great TV series. The action scenes are pretty well-written and would translate perfect on TV, while the politics of it all adds to the depth of the story. Definitely want to watch the show but books first. Now I'm reading Do What You Want: The Story of Bad Religion. It's the official bio of this legendary punk band, and I love reading about the history of the alternative music scenes. Not far enough in though to give a verdict if this is one of my favourite bios.

I've started and finished this today. It'll take a bit to come up with a good write-up but for now I can say... wow.

Anker is a good brand for USB hubs, and they have a bunch of top loader ones. Also depends on how many ports you want and if you want only USB-A or also USB-C on it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=anker+usb+hub&rh=n%3A340831031%2Cp_89%3AAnker&dc&qid=1611221744&rnid=1632651031&ref=sr_nr_p_89_1 Ewent also has some top loader ones. Curious by the way, what do you use for the green ambilight there?

That middle DK at 4:48 looks a lot like the one from King Of Swing. Haven't watched the full video yet so don't know if they mention it, but it wouldn't surprise me if they used this art for KoS.

Thanks! I've send you an invite. That should cover my "make 3 friends" research goals!

Cheers! Send you both a friend request. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention was I also like a bunch of the QoL updates, like how it's much easier to bulk transfer and appraise Pokémon.

I've reinstalled Pokémon Go a while ago. Mostly because I needed to transfer some 'mon to Let's Go to complete my Pokédex there. But, I saw plenty of new stuff going on in Go that I decided to keep it on my phone and give it a go again. I missed a couple of generations of new Pokémon, countless events, buddies and Team Rocket. So plenty of catching up to do. It's nice to be able to battle some NPCs in the form of Rocket grunts (and even Jessie and James). It's also pretty handy to be able to hatch eggs when the app is not open but it is still counting my kilometres walked. Anyone here still playing? I need 3 friends to complete a field research, so let me know if you want to become friends, I'll send you gifts.

All Mario games are simulations, so all these Marios are fake. I mean, no human being can be the best in saving princesses, go karts, tennis, golf and so on. It would also explain how he can have so many lives. It's all digital, all virtual. Mario still exists in the real world, living in some New York apartment with his Italian-American brother. After a day of fixing the plumbing in shady buildings all over the city, he straps into his VR seat Ready Player One style to live out his dreams.

Nice clean desk there @Happenstance. Never saw one of these laptop stands before but I like them, very minimal. Seeing as how your speakers are set, do you work like this or do you swivel the monitor to the center when working/playing? Surely this should still be covered under warranty?

Just a reminder that the Mario 35 Splatfest is this weekend!

I already installed What Remains of Edith Finch, so I may as well change my vote from Gone Home to What Remains of Edith Finch.