What games are you playing?

[raekuul]

BNLC: MMBN2: FreezeMan scenario, about to build the Yellow Cure. Unfortunately my folders are kind of built around close combat so I need to find a renewable source of AreaGrabs.

Immortal Defense: Charged through the first campaign and most of the second campaign. It's all downhill from here though. I forgot just how much of a self-important ass Pal Wut Aa is.

Baldur's Gate: I think I'll actually play this for real again soon. I had the itch to play through story mode but I kind of just... want to play it for real.

[KobaBeach]

Code: Select all

it's me again
👋 
  \😔
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_/¯  ¯\_

actively getting mad trying to play legend of heroes 4 pc98. if you're gonna play a game where the saves are LITERALLY BUSTED AND MAKE YOU WASTE MONEY TO SAVE like this and xanadu use this

Enabling Savestates

A common feature with emulators is the ability to savestate. While on first glance this option is seemingly absent from Neko Project 21/W, it's actually just hidden away. This is to avoid users accidentally corrupting their game's files when savestating. Personally I've never had an issue with it, and since the PC-98 library is nicely archived in the Neo Kobe Collection there's really little risk to it.

• Open 'np21w.ini' found in this same directory as your emulator exe file. If you don't see it, you may need to boot and close you're emulator at least once to generate it.
• Add the 'STATSAVE=true' in a new line under the '[NekoProject21]' section and save.

Next time you open your emulator you should notice a 'Stat' tab that allows you to save up to 10 states.

[Matthew_Coco]

Played some Alcahest. I think I've reached the final stage! Also played some Ristar on the Game Gear (which is really impressive actually) and beat Gunstar Heroes on the Game Gear in one sitting. (also impressive)

[KobaBeach]

The Legend of Heroes IV (PC98) - ooouuuuuggghhhh this game is Shit. I had to do the intro like four times because I died twice without saving because you can only save by using tents to full heal, one costs 200 Rose, which in the Phildin area should require around 40 Pisca to exchange, or by resting at an inn which is like 10 Rose x party member for a max of 40 Rose (2 to 8 Pisca).

The deaths were: the first by getting murked by Patroller Birds in an early grind sesh, and second due to putting the game in auto for another grind sesh but alas, the AI in this is garbage, and the third I think I got owned heading to Tibri, while trying to help Shannon out.

My initial set up for Avin was number 69 from this page, as recommended by this blog post.

Choices:
>Vegetable dish
>Firewood gathering
>Large amount of wood (rather than wider cuts)
>White magic
>Run out the window
>Pebble kicking

Which results in:
HP Max 50
MP Max 48
ATK 21
DEF 20
SKI 21 (Skill Power)
MOV 24
MAG 21
MDF 18
WIL 15
Secondary initial spell: Confusion

First order of business was doing some of the easier quests. I delivered the Sapphie book back to the library for Daisy, and I told Kate to head back home for Yanque's sake. Got Barner to pay off his debt for the Item Shopkeep's wife's sake, and I prepared to take Robel's letter to Torino at Tibri. Upgraded my gear with the money I got from the first three quests, two Leather Armors for Avin and Mile and a Buckler for Avin. Met Shannon, delivered the letter, and went back to do more quests.

Helped the chief of the Phildin library with translating an ancient manuscript, all the words were effectively backwards and in katakana lol, warded off (couldn't kill ;;) the Beach Kargess, this one I had to go easy on, with a bit of savestating, so I didn't waste too much money reviving Avin. Leveled up a bit to Lv6 and Lv2 as Avin, and Lv5 and Lv3 as Mile (Mile was already at Lv3 but), and upgraded our gear to a Long Sword for Avin, and two Bezant Armors for both, as well as two Fine Shields for both before trying the Beach Kargess for real (actually upgrading Mile might have come later, 4get...).

Did the mining quest to find a Sapphire. Basically you had to check both ore walls in the deepest ends of the mining site, one of them holds an Emery, which is useless. I'd imagine which holds the Sapphire depends on which you head to first, that's how I'd program it if I was making a PC JRPG in 1996. The mine has very samey map chunks as do all of the out of town paths, but the biggest problem is the amount of encounters. Avin got decently strong fighting Patroller Birds in the rough mountain roads, so he was around Lv 7-8?

And the Zan Shen actually don't have strong lightning attacks in this version, which actually helps since the Poupils can be a bit of a pain. But both can poison you, which is bad. Used up my Tent that I got from the elder in Ourt to revive Avin after the first go, and went back to Phildin to cash in my excess Pisca and buy a bunch of Antidotes (max amount is 10 so 100 Rose). Round two went well though. We got poisoned a few times, including when heading back after finishing the quest but the Antidotes saved our bacon.

With the roughly 1000 Rose I had (600 from the quest's reward), I could get a Bastard Sword for Avin and recruited Martie. I think I gave him a Bezant Armor and Fine Shield too.

I'm gonna level up Martie to around Lv5 (he's already Lv5, so leveling up his black magic shouldn't be needed for a few more towns), the blog post I linked earlier suggests using 1000 Rose to recruit Muse and selling her equipment for more dosh than what it takes to get her into your team, when she's really not that useful in this version, and I'm gonna do that once I do the Ziziki Cavern quest to beat up the Syamseal Gang fuckers. I'll try to get a Bastard Sword for Mart and a Long Boomerang for Mile too, before heading to Prayerwood, behind Tibri (and then making my way to the Benequia Monastery).

The endgoal for party member #4 is noted lovable little shit/boy wonder Rael at Guia. Hard save set, but made a savestate after it just in case.

Avin is Lv9Lv5.
Mile is Lv5Lv6, iirc.
Martie is Lv2Lv5, iirc.

~~~~~~~

What do I feel about this game?

This game sadly relies too much on "tell don't show" at least in the intro and really skimps out on the road maps, they're all smaller, messier, hard to move in submaps put together in different arrangements, while giving too much detail to the overly massive city maps with ridiculous amounts of different elevation, which makes movement Mad Clunks. It's also just way too hard, it's Garbage!SaGa. I cannot recommend this, but I'll keep going.

I like the quest guild system and I'm glad it came back for Trails, shit like this just scratches the micro-goal part of my brain something fierce.

I got spoiled for this in the blog post but, it also completely fucks up the

Mile eats shit and dies

twist (spoilers for both versions lmao) which is something I cannot forgive when the Win/PSP version fucking delivered on that, and kind of inspired a scene in like... I think Cold Steel IV with a pivotal scene in AToV Win's ending, see the Gagharv references page in Kiseki Wiki (mind the spoilers).

Oh yeah I also got spoiled for this but uh.

Eimelle eats shit too

(spoilers for this version only I think). Why? I don't know. It's terrible and bleak, not even Arc the Lad 2 goes this pointless feeling in its bleakness and that game is Depresso Mode.

hes the angry.... flacom.... nerd

Played some Alcahest. I think I've reached the final stage! Also played some Ristar on the Game Gear (which is really impressive actually) and beat Gunstar Heroes on the Game Gear in one sitting. (also impressive)

Oh shit good job! I need to give Alcahest another go, I've messed around with it a bit, but it feels a bit more twitchy than I'm used to these days. Need to practice, shouldn't be too hard ^^;

Ristar on Game Gear is very fascinating, I really like the differences in region wrt levels. Stage 2 got a raw deal when it's so cute and original :c At least its ice planet (I'm going by the Japanese version term and not considering it the same as Freon) is still super cool and neat and epic and for the win.

Gunstar Heroes is super cool and I've been meaning to do a run where I don't just use the homing/laser mix at all for quite a while now. No real shame on people who use it, it's a tool to help less experienced or more casual folk get into the game, I just wanna give myself some more bite to the game. I actually haven't really played the Game Gear version, I'm very curious.

[thatguyif]

So now I'm at exactly 62.5% of the way through The Lost and Damned. Five eighths into this already. This is going to be a brisk runthrough, even going full completion, by the looks of things. I've already completed most of if not all the side missions at this point save maybe one or two minor things, rest of this is just going through the story missions (which I'm probably a little over halfway through?). I just got past

Johnny being forced back into leadership of The Lost after the second botched heroin deal

. While I don't know if I'll complete this over the long holiday weekend (seeing a friend tomorrow, then I have a picnic on Sunday (follow by possibly Civ V? WWE2K23?)...also need to buy some new jeans, prolly on Saturday), I see myself finishing before the 31st.

Honestly, TLAD addresses a lot of the problems I had with GTA IV. The friendship system is revamped so it's far less tedious. You only have two friends you have to juggle with, and their abilities are unlocked at game start, so you never have to worry about constantly hanging out with them or facing a decline in like/respect score. They also don't pester you while you're doing other things (though, there are fewer things to do in the game than in the base game, sooooo), so it feels a little more natural. They also added a cancel function on your phone so you don't have to worry about missing a commitment. Most importantly, though, the friendship event is more reasonable: Both of your friends show up regardless of who you call (you're in a biker gang, after all, and they're both members). You go to your event, do your thing. Then, you just hop on your bike, and it's done. No need to haul your friend's ass back to wherever they were. It just ends. Really stellar for drinking events, since you no longer have to worry about being caught drunk by the cops. On top of that, both both of your friends get their friendship scores boost. And finally, 100% only requires you to take them to all the events they can do, which are the same. No need to have a required score.

On top of all this...motorcycles feel much better to use (and it's much harder to fall off, something I found really annoying about bikes in the base game that I avoided them as much as I could). If you need a vehicle, you don't need to steal, you can just call your friend to get you a bike and he'll deliver it to you. There are only 50 seagulls to kill vs. 200 pigeons, and most are close enough to the street that you can just drive by and shoot one, then move on (and if you have cops coming after you, you're already on your bike and can get away). Some of the new weapons, particularly the automatic pistol, are very good and fun to use. It's got a decent mood going for it. The only major issue I have with the DLC is that bikes are much more susceptible to the game geometry, and I've been flown about more times than I can count.

Some thoughts on the story...

It's interesting that they establish a deep tension between Johnny and a good chunk of the club. The Lost is unique among OMGs for having open membership, which is probably the only reason Johnny is in it, alongside Jim (who seems to be mixed race) and Clay (who is black). But Johnny's tensions run deeper in that antisemitism is the source of the tension for him, a secular Jew. The club's main rivals, the Angels of Death, are blatantly white supremacist (and thus implicitly antisemitic...I haven't heard them explicitly speak about Johnny's Jewishness, but such things are part and parcel for whites-only groups like that, especially OMGs, in the real world). But just as much, his own leader spouts antisemitic commentary, as does said leader's lackey. It's not the cartoonish and buffoonish hatred of Neo-Nazism, nor the unfortunate overstepping that some Palestinian supporters do in their anti-Zionism. It's more...run-of-the-mill, speaking in banal but surly stereotypes. The type that just wears you down over time. I see Johnny sd incredibly wound up. But it ain't just that his leader is a heroin junkie who is impulsive and quick to anger much like Mikhail Faustin was in the main game, nor that his gang's now facing down a lot of heat from botched drug deals and increased warfare that makes. It's also years of enduring being seen as "the Jew." It's a compelling point of narrative that you don't see often. You certainly won't see that passing muster these days.

An aside: Weird moment of apocrypha in the intro, where we see Niko walking down the street in Alderney. He couldn't have been there at that point, since TLAD starts relatively early in the main game, when Niko is still stuck on Broker/Dukes/Bohan. (Jason, an enforcer, is alive at the start of TLAD, and his death by Niko in the main game for fucking Faustin's daughter is a plot point.) That said, the game is completely open at the start, disregarding the plot-induced barriers at the start of the main game that locked Niko up in the eastern third of the map. Sooooo...I dunno.

Anyway...I see this being done quickly. I will probably wrap up Bioshock Infinite - Burial at Sea next since that won't take long. After that...I won't start The Ballad of Gay Tony right away, as Fiesta season is imminent. Might just go through Pilotwings 64 to get it done. I would like to pick up and play 9 Years of Shadows before raocow starts that, since it is on my Steam wishlist. But TBoGT will happen at some point this year. And then...I can move on to other PC games in my backlog.

[Bean]

The thing's that sad to me is that the GTA4 expansion pack episodes were way more fun than the base game. It's like they totally forgot what made the GTA3 line of games fun and just released a poor sandbox while Niko was looking for someone or doing it for the right price for 80% of the game. GTA5 fixed that.

Anyhoo, Tears of the Kingdom. I should really beat one dungeon already before I get so far in that these skills won't have much use. I'm exploring a bit too much. Time to make progress. I just about have a completed set of clothes at this point

with one fairy blessing level to make them stronger

. Depends if I want to sell some goods or not to get those thousand rupee pants. I think I will.

[KobaBeach]

ballad of gay brony

Kingdom Farts 2 Final Shit - Beast's Castle and Olympus Coliseum cleared. Got the Chicken Little summon (don't feel like using it). So.

Beast's Castle was fun, but a bit too short. I really like the designs on the door and ballroom heartless, super cute and super kissable. I will say I kinda dug the lantern lighting minigame, but I wish it was more obvious that you needed Mrs. Potts to help sprinkle water. Also her speed is abysmal. I'm turning my back on my dislike of Reaction Commands, but I still don't 100% like that they're mandatory finishers, it'd be like Mortal Kombat not allowing you to kill an opponent and winning Round 2 or whatever without like ripping out their pancreas or something, it's so weird.

Also glad we didn't see Beast's ugly human form, that design really needed some extra time in the oven compared to the super good beast form design.

Olympus Coliseum was neat, I forgot what the Drive button was so I didn't really need it, and I didn't really use as much of my MP outside of an instance where I used Blizzard to snipe a fat boy heartless. Demyx was actually super easy, so I'm not sure if this is the battle everyone hates or if there's another Dance Water Dance bit, took me two tries but that's only because I didn't fully understand what Wild Dance did at first until a bit into the battle, it's an instant win button.

Auron seems to be more in character than some other FFs, though I'm not sure he'll even matter, which the others really don't either so. Phil is a snack. No further comment. A cat is Herc and Zeus are fine too. Cerberus was super fun and I kind of almost died a few times. I used some AP Boosts and the Str Boost I found here on Sora, plus one AP on Goof, so. The Hydra was Fine, I'm just shocked its model is so ugly. "Get up on the hydra's back" is a Dreadful Noise, but I feel like noted pedophile James Woods' voice lines during the Escape From Hades sequence were just as bad.

No offense to my boy Hades just I'm sorry the Soulless Mouse Corporation saddled you with a rightwing predator to give your voice.

Megara was the best character in Olympus, I wish she could fight too like Herc or even as part of a Reaction like Phil and Pegasus, but sadly I don't think that's a part of her character in the OG movie :c

Might play the PC98 version of noted shit game Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes II tomorrow. Also in the mood to try out Tenerezza on PC again, need to get past Duma's garbage fetch quests (at least the first two).

[Bean]

And now I have beaten one dungeon in Tears of the Kingdom. That was some of the most fun I've had playing a new game in years, both the actual place itself and even the journey just to get there.

[Matthew_Coco]

Oh shit good job! I need to give Alcahest another go, I've messed around with it a bit, but it feels a bit more twitchy than I'm used to these days. Need to practice, shouldn't be too hard ^^;

Ristar on Game Gear is very fascinating, I really like the differences in region wrt levels. Stage 2 got a raw deal when it's so cute and original :c At least its ice planet (I'm going by the Japanese version term and not considering it the same as Freon) is still super cool and neat and epic and for the win.

Gunstar Heroes is super cool and I've been meaning to do a run where I don't just use the homing/laser mix at all for quite a while now. No real shame on people who use it, it's a tool to help less experienced or more casual folk get into the game, I just wanna give myself some more bite to the game. I actually haven't really played the Game Gear version, I'm very curious.

Oh yeah, Alcahest is great. I still find dashing pretty weird to execute though and I've been playing this game for weeks now.

Indeed, Ristar on Game Gear is fascinating. Pretty cool what they were able to pack in that Game Gear cart. I did find myself just wanting to play Ristar on the Genesis though. Personally, I prefer Gunstar Heroes (GG) over Ristar (GG) simply because that's more my kind of thing but I'd recommend anyone interested to play them both at least once.

[thatguyif]

The thing's that sad to me is that the GTA4 expansion pack episodes were way more fun than the base game. It's like they totally forgot what made the GTA3 line of games fun and just released a poor sandbox while Niko was looking for someone or doing it for the right price for 80% of the game. GTA5 fixed that.

They're definitely more fun, but to a limit. One of this issues I had last night was maxing out on the Gang Wars. While getting to the percentage max (25) wasn't too hard, reward max (50) was a pain in the ass. They overdid things by just flooding you with enemies, particularly ones that throw grenades you can never see and get no warning about. I probably lost an hour or two just from wars that ended with a grenade killing me. It got a little tedious there.

I'm very near the end now, at about 94.66%. I'll probably finish it today, if not tomorrow. I'll give my thoughts afterward.

[raekuul]

Baldur's Gate: Started a Fighter/(Wild) Mage/Thief triple-class this time instead of my usual Fighter->Cleric. Figure I'll try something different this time (mostly going FMT because Bard doesn't get favorable weapon growth)

Battle Network 2: Freezeman down, time to go raid Kotobuki for real.

[Matthew_Coco]

Well, I've finally finished Alcahest. Overall, I enjoyed it! Some of the level design is a bit "eh" to me but everything else was really well done. I might play it again someday but not now because man, that game wore me out.

[KobaBeach]

th when the the when the when wehn

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II - lmao

Finished grinding to Lv8 outside Ralpha then boarded a boat to Yord so I could go and help Flora out of the fucking Royal Mausoleum. We fought Pulldarm and he went down after I cast Syles and wailed on him a bit, no biggie.

After speaking with Sonia, we were stuck not being able to leave the fucking country to get to Atlas' dad Selios (*tgcd loh1 voice* ahhhh dear prince logan), and Erion, as Flora's creepy as fuck pedo dad put out like a fucking APB to make sure she doesn't leave, and Atlas didn't have the fucking Republic of Moreston on speed dial for the Warp Leaf because he hadn't been there yet, don't ask me how that works. We couldn't sail there either because the rapids between Cedar and the Kingdom of Soldis are *sonic secret rings voice* The Wicked Wild.

So we had to get Board to fucking cruise us to Rudra in the Kingdom of Soldis privately, dude thought Atlas and Flora were eloping, I think, I wasn't paying full attention to the dialogue. Taking this detour, we headed to Baznune to talk to King Artos about Flora's visions that the goddess Freya was transmitting into her as she slept like electromagnetic waves entering your head, that's also why she went into the Mausoleum too.

Taking a detour from Rudra to Rishelle, we manage to finally get into the goddamn Republic of Congo, and make our way around to Nasoul, where... Well I wasn't paying full attention to the dialogue but I think Landeau was impressed by this one dude (actually their gender is partially ambiguous but!) who looked mighty tough and wanted to get to know him because, lbr Landeau is like the fucking garbage bad influence older brother who gets little ol milhouse ass Atlas into all sorts of dumb bullshit, but Atlas is just too sheltered to get corrupted. Flora's Yuna ig

Making our way to Phaette we go to speak to the village elder and find that the big buffo from earlier was at his house, and bumped into Landeau and crew all nonchalantly. Turns out their name is Cindy (yes it's not a cool name, this is pointed out) and it turns out they've lost their memories and can barely even speak, the poor thing. Aiming to get their memories back, we have our four man crew lined up for this game.

I've grinded up to Lv11 as Atl and Land, and Flor and Cind are Lv10. I'm aiming for Lv12 before I head to the Maw of Hades to fight Grogg Guard. But first I'll have to drop by Corks and then speak to Drake in the Wolf's Mouth cave.

EDIT: Oh yeah my biggest strategy for this game is like "make most of the magic charges correspond to Res (healing magic) charges". So I just have 7 Res in everyone's magic lists. it's still not an instant win button. Long story short you can only use each of the eight magic charges once per battle, or in the overworld. Regardless of where you use it, it only recharges in the overworld and towns where it takes roughly 14-15 seconds per charge. It's weird, but at least it's not FF1 and FF3's garbage Vancian Magic.

Tenerezza - This one is funny and you'll see why

Okay so I spent like half the time getting a bunch of Silver from the Golem in the Star Ruins, after getting em, and getting the fucking Map of the Cursed Forest from Duma! Cute ass fucking grandpa, but goddamn it! I felt like doing some more fetch quests. I started Keats' retrieval job for 5 Amethysts and I told Indy he could head back to Star Ruins. This was a mistake :}

I aimed for the Imps in the Star Ruins, but... I triggered an event with Indy, I didn't think of it much despite getting the Red Orb from him, so after I died, I got a cutscene. And I couldn't trigger the event. Missed on like four chained events, counting this one. Next time...

Getting the Amethysts, I gave them to Keats and got the Dragon's Eye. This will come in handy in further exploration of the wastelands, but I'm gonna do the Cursed Forest next. I've started Caroline's quest for Monster Meat, but it'll have to wait a bit. Gustave is so cute...

My biggest problem with this is that I don't know why Aquaplus thought tying fetch quests to progressing in the story was a good idea. Especially how you technically have to deal with the Golem enemy who hits like a fucking truck. As an aside, I'd have really appreciated an Escape Rope type item, because jesus christ getting back to town when you're like, inside the Star Ruins... Fuuuck. Getting HP restores from level ups was clutch as good healing item prices are a bit steep, 100 gold for a single one, and the 40 gold one is very paltry.

This is also a game that runs on Dragon Quest rules, do you get sent back to the save spot (your bed) or do you reload and get your money back? You also get saves in dungeons, but you have to pay 500 gold, you very rarely get this from drops as money is treated as its own separate drop rather than something you get passively from defeating an enemy. It's best to just collect scrap iron and sell it to the lady in the Shangri-La item shop.

You have to pay the same amount to use your recipes at the save spot (the little wandering merchant girl), and also have the necessary ingredients. And the inventory is limited. Oh yeah and this may be because it's Aquaplus' first 3D game [citation needed] and it was 2003 but. No camera controls....... help

I cannot in right mind recommend this to anyone, I think Bowl of Lentils or like Pasokon Deacon said this game was the bee's knees but... Nah. It's cute. If the character designs intrigue you (they're so good...) then go ahead, but if you want a good game, I'd rather just stick to Gurumin, it came out the next year but like. I haven't played it but it looks like light years away.

Lesson of the day? Never help an archaeologist.

an piece of ship.png (732 Bytes) Viewed 31 times

[thatguyif]

And so, The Lost and Damned is done. Flawed, but fun. If there were two things that stand out to me since my initial thoughts, it's: It's far more buggy than even base game, and the narrative...eh.

The bugs in this DLC far exceed what I saw in the base game, with a lot of crashes (including a replicable crash involving getting on a specific motorcycle outside the clubhouse), a bunch of wonkiness in various spots, and occasionally, Johnny's model refusing to load (alongside the map). It really derailed a lot of sessions on this.

The narrative, though...it's kind of sad. It feels like the makings of a excellent tragedy are there in what is essentially the fall of The Lost, but it gets lost (no pun intend) in its inability to really connect with the player and execute its vision in a meaningful way. It's too brash and detached for its own good. Part of the problem is that Johnny, whose issues I noted previously, is too hardened an individual to really be a good lead, let alone a tragic hero. They threw on so much scar tissue on him that all that's left is caricature. The hardness seeps into everything he does: There's not a single person he doesn't throw an insult at, even in casual conversation—though he takes offense when somebody does the same more often than not—and his mood vacillates between apathy, bitterness, and rage. Not much of a range. But the thing is, that's all he is, and there's nothing really more to him as this DLC develops. Even Niko, who couldn't shut up about America sucking, had many moments where he was more than that, and he did develop, despite everything. Johnny just feels incomplete, with a lot of the threads that could make his character more interesting just left floating. Moments of vulnerability, moments of depth: They weren't really there. Nothing fundamentally changed about him, even though so much changed around him.

And that's sad. There's definitely the materials necessary to make this into a great story: A hero trapped between loyalty to his OMG and an acute awareness that the leadership will cause the club to implode, a leader whose drug habits and oversized ego are destroying him and everything around him, loyal friends and nasty traitors, a former love falling apart as a junkie. But they never really meld well, and never make for a compelling story. A bit part of this goes back to that incompleteness: There really isn't dialogue that really connects these people in a meaningful way that make their interactions bear some significance. It all feels kind of aimless. The best example of this comes at the end, when Johnny finally confronts Billy and is about to kill him. There's a moment where Johnny hesitates. That could've been a brilliant moment, a brief segment where we see Johnny stop being the hardened biker. But it's never really exploited in a narrative sense. It's too rushed to have that moment. Billy just falls without any sort of gravitas or catharsis. Then afterwards, Johnny talks about all the reasons he had to do it and the fate of The Lost...but he's just talking to himself, and in the same voice he's used throughout this DLC, with none of his Lost brothers responding. It feels so awkward to watch.

Additional thoughts:

Further proof of all this was they didn't really do all that much with the fact that Johnny is Jewish. This is very evident in the mission at the museum, where they make the exchange with the diamond brokers, all of whom are Jewish and some of whom are Haredim. This could have been a point where they made his Jewish character something more than a point of denigration, with a simple "shalom" or using his brashness as a means to subtly relay his identity. But he says nothing. In fairness, the scene in question is from the original game, and it was not redone for the sake of the DLC (I heard that Niko's VA felt burned by Rockstar, and refused to do anything else with the franchise). But even so...there's not even a comment in the DLC-specific sections of the mission acknowledging that detail. Frustrating, really

Still, it was a fun DLC, and it did make serious improvements to the GTA IV experience. From what I've heard, The Ballad of Gay Tony is the better of the two. So maybe things will improve. We'll see.

With the amount of time I have left in the weekend, I may sneak in Bioshock Infinite - Burial At Sea, Part 2. We'll see.

Otherwise...I continued Pilotwings 64, and got Perfects in Class A, alongside the Cannonball game that unlocks. I can see why Pilotwings is not fondly remembered: Hang-gliding suuuuuuucks. Ah well. I'll keep at it.