I looove Marmite!
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The first giraffe thing is right at the beginning of the game, and you don’t actually have to do them to complete the game, it’s completely optional. I think there are 5 total. It’s helpful to reveal the map before traveling to an area yourself, but you can just ignore them if you want and travel using wavepoints and the signs in the game world.
You’ve just got to ignore all the side quests and focus on the main quests, the story is worth it and the main quests aren’t that difficult. The hardest main quest is actually in the middle of the game where you fight the first fully functional deathbringer at the grave hoard (level 18 I think). If you can complete that quest, you can beat the entire game easily. Using mounts and fast travel is vital for the second half of the game too.
Horizon Zero Dawn has a terrible mid game grind that can catch you out and make you never finish the game.
Battlefield 4 was terrible on release and almost unplayable for the first 3 months before it became one of the best multiplayer online shooters. Battlefield 3 multiplayer was actually quite poorly balanced and people are blinded by nostalgia. Battlefield 2 has some wonky vehicle mechanics and terrible voiceover lines, especially the Chinese voice actor was terrible.
Gran Turismo 4 has a lot of understeer by default in the handling model when using default setups, Gran Turismo 3 has a poorly structured campaign and prize/reward model. Gran Turismo 6 is basically a patch for Gran Turismo 5, with a worse campaign mode. Gran Turismo 5 took forever to release and was still unfinished upon release, the scope was just too massive for a game that came out in 2010.
The final boss race in Need For Speed Underground 2 is a massive dissapointment, it’s literally the easiest race in the game, the rubber banding by the bosses in NFS Most Wanted makes certain blacklist boss races almost unplayable (I’m looking at you Earl), and NFS carbon has a mediocre open world map compared to previous installment. NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 released unfinished and the open world functionality was never implemented as intended, open world was just restricted to free roam. NFS Rivals was just Hot Pursuit 2010 with the open world functionality completed and fleshed out, honestly the games should have just been combined and released as a finished single game instead of rushing Hot Pursuit 2010.
For the Uncharted franchise, 1 is good despite it’s shortcomings because without it the series would not exist. 2 was the peak, 3 only exists to set up Nathan Drake’s marriage to Elana the rest of the game is just average to bad, and 4 despite being a great game, ends the way it does because Naughty Dog wanted to retire the series after the creator left. Which is sad because I would gladly play more Uncharted games.
See this is the exact liberal nonsense I’m talking about. How is Trump “subservient to Russia and China”? Because he views continuing the war in Ukraine as no longer in the United States’ interest? And China? I thought Trump was all about tariffs on Chinese goods and starting a trade war in his last term. I don’t see that as subservient, that’s confrontation. A negative confrontation that just hurt everyone globally, but maybe necessary from a third world perspective, waking up the third world to the reality of the United States and it’s economic warfare. If you’re talking about dialing down the temperature against China in his upcoming term, that would be because the US benefits from Chinese imports and can’t wean itself off of them due to a lack of domestic manufacturing and industry, and because China needs a market to sell their goods to as domestic consumption + exports to the rest of the world can’t make up for US consumption, so they’ll give in to US demands. I fail to see how such a position is “pro China” it’s just self interest.
You have to stop viewing politics through the personalities of world leaders as if it’s some kind of Hollywood movie, and view the material reality. If the USA is no longer interested in pursuing a certain action or decides to escalate on another front in the next four years, ask yourself why is that the case, instead of defaulting to “Trump crazy stupid strongman dictator selling out the USA”. That kind of liberal analysis is not helpful and will leave you lost. Never underestimate your adversary.
For example in Greenland, many people were going on about how Trump is some big idiot that wants a country that looks big on a Mercator projection. Meanwhile, the United States secured a large rare earth metals deposit in Greenland, stoping Chinese mining companies from getting the rights to it. The US company that bought the rights to the rare earth metals deposit signed a contract with the United States Department of Defence to process the metals. While everyone was distracted by Trump talking nonsense, the US pulled of a heist and exerted more political pressure on its allies. When one hand is doing something (in this case Trump’s loud mouth), always look at moves the other hand is making (in this case, the US DoD getting more control in Greenland over their mining deposits). If you fail to do so, the jester will rob you blind. In this case, a large deposit of Rare Earth Ores in Greenland, China excluded and Denmark further vassalised.
Given recent events, I really don’t see how bending the knee to Trump is any different than bending the knee to the Democrats, especially Biden who committed genocide for 15 months. It’s just another capitalist bending the knee to the world hegemon in the United States. Trump is just more straightforward and bombastic about the USA’s position in the world as it’s hegemon and it’s demands, forcing ordinary people, especially liberals in the United States, to confront that reality directly, whilst under Biden that was obfuscated by flowery language and decorum. I guess that decorum and flowery language was enough for US liberals to “turn off” so to speak, and go back to brunch while the world burns.
At least PSN was free 15 years ago, now you pay and it still sucks ass. And I say this as a PlayStation fan.