Who all's going to PAX West? I'm not super interested in going, but I do live near Seattle, so I'm stoked to see anyone who's going to be in town <3

I also screenshotted that for later use lol

Some details about my runs: - No Fast Travel (See more of the world this way) - No Romance (FemV and MascV are basically married so I can experience a protagonist with a stable relationship) - Efforts made to return to apartments to sleep, shower, and eat - MascV = Nomad/FemV = Streetkid

You're correct. You could also sum it up like this:

Fell in love with diegetic radio in Fallout 3. Gillean Jordan is on TV and the Radio, then pops up to cover large story beats, and it's awesome. I don't know if I've ever seen this done enough or if I just can't get enough. It's one of the cheapest, most effective ways to make a world feel alive.

He has a tendency to drop thoughtful, empathetic takes amongst the terrorist rockerboy mini-manifestos. You'll be on a gig and suddenly he'll give a therapist level analysis of someone's emotional state. It doesn't feel like it comes from nowhere, but from the hidden places where he's vulnerable.

I didn't like Silverhand, at first. You're no supposed to, but even still, I found his early personality off-putting. He's written as a pretentious dickhead, and it lands. But as he mellows, your dynamic with him becomes weirdly intimate, and by the later parts of the game, I really liked seeing him

Because, in the visual language of video games, the Nomads are raiders. And you can argue that they are in CP2077, but that argument falls apart when compared to the methods of any other faction. So you're allowed some nuance in their motivation and the reality of their existence.

The Nomads are growing on me. MascV has the Nomad background, but I was worried the city/badlands contrast would be over-simplified like similar dynamics usually are, but I dig 'em. You can get the culture and how they survive out in the scrub and why they would want to.

This man is 89

We love Rogue. We want a cool older friend.

Like, come on.

I know the parade is meant to be a visual set piece, to drive home just how beautiful the game is, but, you know, like, fucking mission accomplished.

The Mox have such sick art.

(spoilers) Okay, that's a really fucking good joke. It was weird he was called Scorpion, like it would be weird now, then he dies and it's tragic, then this gag. Using real-world info to tell a joke no one in the scene will get. That's like a great Fallout joke.

I like Panem. Usually, someone young with authority issues is painted as broadly wrong. Their inexperience is highlighted and made inferior to age and experience. But Panem is right, and she succeeds through aggression and calculated risk-taking. Then she's rewarded. Not with money, but with trust.

Johnny Guitar here has an alternate look that I like a lot more than the default. Pondsmith's OG Silverhand was more glamrock, makes sense if you grew up through the 70s, 2077's is a visual punk gestalt, but Silverhand was born in '88 and carries a messy bitterness that fits the early 2000s scene.

It had a weird grounding effect as I explored the world. Any time we'd see him it'd be like "EYYYY MY BOY"

A fellow mohawk guy, I decided he was MascV's cousin and would take opportunities to integrate him into play. Turns out his ass is everywhere.

I was going to play these distinctly separate, but they got connected through Cousin Chase here. NPCs seem like they're random, but there are some stock builds that repeat and are given random names. I call them day players. Once you single one out you start to see them more often.

I wondered how gender shifts the experience, so I loaded a parallel game with a MascV. To change things up, I went Body and Tech, with a focus on blunt weapons. Figured she could be cool and smart, but more fragile, and he'd be strong and handy, but dumb as a brick. I'd make choices accordingly.

Then I just started hanging out in the world, making use of the robust in-game camera. With no 3rd person view, it's helpful for distinguishing your V from dialogue V.

I immediately became a clothes horse. It seems like CP2077 has a library of clothes all of the NPCs wear and the shops pull from that pool, which means if you see it on someone else, you can probably find it. I personally became enamored with open fur-lined coats.

Originally, I was just going to do a FemV Netrunner. The pink curly hair was randomly assigned during character creation, but I loved it so much it just defined the rest of the character, pushing her into speccing Intelligence and Cool. I don't know why, but I focused hacking and throwing knives.

Just watched the 1936 post-apocalyptic film Things to Come and I'm starting to see where they got the entire idea for the Institute in Fallout 4.

Watched Titanic again, and the Cal apologia that started to come out of me...

This is a bit of an old handbook, but this should still work

Santigold's "‎Master of My Make-Believe" has one of the sickest album covers, and a personal favorite of mine. I just love that everyone in the photo is her.