Alexmcmillan, Author at Hard Drive

Will I Understand ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ If I Take a Shit Ton of PCP Beforehand?

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Camden Brazile

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has ballooned up a lot since the pandemic, and it has been difficult to keep up with the rapidly-produced content with comics, television shows, and multiple movies dropping with every passing year. Similarly, my drug dealer has really moved up the ranks after killing his uncle, and now has even more drugs available at frankly half the cost. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever could be one of the best cinematic moments of the year, but will I understand it if I take a shit ton of PCP beforehand?

The first Black Panther movie was such a cinematic triumph, it’s hard to not go back for the highly-anticipated sequel. Although some of the recent movies have fallen through the cracks with me, I didn’t see Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder was unintelligible once the MDMA hit and the Regal Cinema turned into an alien light show.

Everything that’s been revealed so far from the Black Panther sequel’s trailers, which I also watched on angel dust, seems a bit inconclusive. The movie’s primary antagonist is Namor, the Submariner, whose powers seem to include increased strength from living underwater, winged feet, and making my laptop melt into my skin as I float up to the ceiling and speak to the forest spirit that dwells in my attic.

While Black Panther: Wakanda Forever might be intelligible after doing a nearly-lethal amount of PCP, to help fully appreciate it, you really should consider catching up on some of the recent Marvel movies. So sit down, fire up Disney+, make some popcorn, snort a line, and power through four of them before your parole officer stops by for their home check visit this weekend.

Stormtrooper Swears He’s More Accurate When He’s a Little Drunk

Posted on November 14, 2022 by James Knapp

DEATH STAR — Rookie stormtrooper TK-684 recently professed to his peers that he is way more accurate with his standard issue E-11 blaster rifle when he’s a little drunk, skeptical sources confirmed.

“I know it probably looks like I’m a pretty shit trooper when I can’t even blast the rebel scum who are all neatly aligned in a corridor in front of me, but I swear I’m so much more confident with the trigger after I have a couple of cantina daiquiris in me,” explained TK-684, somehow visibly drunk on whiskey with his helmet still fully covering his face. “Do you remember that one guy a while back who shot the thermal exhaust port that was smaller than a womprat on the last Death Star? Yeah, I could totally do that, too, even behind the back, after downing a couple shots. Just don’t tell the emperor I said that.”

Fellow stormtrooper TK-845 disagreed with his comrade’s assessment that he’s a better shot when he’s “as drunk as Bothan.”

“684 always says this bullshit. If he’s not going on about how he could blast this or that while hammered, then he’s begging one of us for a few more credits to play “My Twilek Sharona” on the cantina jukebox again,” said TK-845. “Personally, I’m sick of it. I’ve had to pull that idiot out of so many fistfights with Wookies that I’m ready to just let him go and have his arm pulled out of the socket next time around.”

When asked for comment, Death Star HR representative Twondor Schochk laid out the Empire’s official alcohol use policy.

“Under no circumstances should any troopers be drinking on the job. This is an intergalactic, evil empire, not fucking space Mardi Gras!” lamented Schochk. “I swear to fuck, these army boys are the goddamn worst. Always thinking with their blasters instead of the conditioning software we implanted in their heads. If I could only get the Sith to understand their lack of discipline, maybe we’d have fewer random protocol droids with missing limbs on this space station.”

At press time, TK-684 was “pulling a William Tell” with the help of a terrified, trembling Jawa.

Westworld Cancelled After HBO Exec Finally Gets Around to Watching It

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Matt Shore

NEW YORK — HBO executives announced today that they are canceling tepidly-acclaimed sci-fi series Westworld after one of them finally got around to watching it.

The executive in question is Thomas Kochtgans, the network’s chief director of pseudo-intellectual programming, a self-dubbed creative visionary responsible for True Blood, the final season of Game of Thrones, and every episode of Lovecraft Country after the pilot. Reports from assistants at HBO, who wished to remain anonymous due to the psychotic nature of all rich people, suggest that as soon as Kochtgans decided to catch up on Westworld, a show he’d abandoned emotionally after the first season, employees outside his office heard loud groans of frustration amidst bursts of profanity and thrown Emmy Awards.

“I thought this was about a sexy fucking theme park,” Kochtgans reportedly moaned. “What the fuck is ‘Rehoboam’? Where are the Rehe-boners? I greenlit a show about treating actors like the filthy robotic sluts they are, and this is the thanks I get? Fuck you, writer-nerds.”

“You’re telling me there is a place called The Sublime, and it’s not just a fuck-pit filled with nude actors and baby oil? Why do you think we hired all those actors?!” asked Kochtgans at an all-hands meeting. “Was anyone checking in on this writer’s room, or did you just leave them to play with their Battlestar Galactica action figures and suck each other’s Philip K. Dicks?!”

According to those familiar with the situation, every executive in the room assumed that someone else was keeping track of Westworld, repeating that they recalled the first season being vaguely interesting.

“Oh my god,” Kochtgans murmured. “It’s like a fucking metaphor or some shit. Those fucking egghead cyborg writers made a show so boring our brains blocked it out like a firewall. Whatever, just get rid of it and let people blame Zaslav or whatever.”

Though the show is no longer in production, some assistants whisper of a place called “The Maze,” where lore-obsessed writers toil away, ever expanding Westworld’s convoluted philosophy and unsatisfying exposition dumps.

How to Parry & Counter Colored Attacks in God of War Ragnarok

Posted on November 12, 2022 by Daniel Solomon

Arguably the greatest of all of Sony’s gruff dad mascots is back in God of War Ragnarok, the spectacular sequel to the 2018 reboot. And unless you’ve been living under a rock all this time, you’ll know that the combat is no longer the pure button-mashing madness of the original games. This time around, Kratos will need know how to block, parry, & dodge to survive in God of War Ragnarok.

You’re gonna be chopping fools up across the nine realms, and to keep Kratos from getting his bearded arse handed to him on the regular, there’s a bit of learning to be done. Key to this is reacting to your foes’ stronger attacks, which are generously signposted and color coded this time around, and we’ve got you covered for strategies in dealing with them.

Read on for how to counter to yellow, blue, and red ringed attacks in God of War Ragnarok.

How to Parry Yellow Ring Attacks in God of War Ragnarok

These guard break attacks, denoted by a yellow ring as the enemy is winding up, are the most common special attacks that enemies use. And while a quick dodge is always viable, your choice of shield affects what your other options are here.

While using a shield with the parry ability, such as the Dauntless Shield, tapping L1 just before the attack hits you will send the enemy reeling backward and leave them wide open for a chop of the Leviathan Axe or swipe from the Blades of Chaos.

If you nail it on at the last possible second, you’ll hear a gong sound, indicating you’ve pulled off a perfect parry. This will stagger your enemy. You can find equipment to give you further boosts and bonuses for these perfect parries. Remember too that basic attacks can also be parried – they don’t need to have the yellow ring around them to get your counter on.

If you don’t time the parry right with these yellow attacks, however, you’ll be left with your guard broken and vulnerable to a follow-up attack. Make sure to get dodging as soon as you can to try and avoid getting hit here.

If you’ve got a heavier shield equipped, such as the Stone Wall Shield, you can just block these attacks by holding L1, which will in turn generate energy to power up your Shield Slam ability (double tap L1). Be mindful that you can’t keep on blocking guard breaks when your charge is full, though.

How to Counter Blue Ring Attacks in GoW Ragnarok

You’ll start seeing these attacks when you meet the elves of Alfheim a little further into Ragnarok’s campaign. The strategy for dealing with them is the same regardless of what shield you have equipped – you need to break the elves’ defense to counter them here.

This is done by getting in close and double-tapping L1 for a shield bash before the two blue circles close in. While you can also dodge these attacks, they’re worth shutting down if you’re within range to do so, as they usually have extra effects (such as an AOE) that’ll make your life harder if you go the evasion route.

How to Counter Red Ring Attacks in God of War Ragnarok

You know you’re in for something when you see this pop up. These are typically deployed by the tougher enemies you face, and your play here is to just get out of the way. Usually they have a fairly lengthy animation while the attack is charging to give you ample time to do so.

While attacks with red rings can’t be parried or blocked, they can be interrupted by a few moves, including a well-timed burst of Spartan Rage on L3 and R3, or a fully charged shield strike following a perfect parry on the Dauntless Shield.

Now that you’ve got the strategies down, a bit of practice with the parry timing and learning your enemies’ attack animations will set you up for the rest of the journey to come in God of War Ragnarok. And once you’ve got that all in the bag, be sure to check out our list of the best Blades of Chaos skill tree upgrades to start dishing out big damage as soon as possible.

Sonic Frontiers Fishing Guide: Rewards, Tips, & Egg Memos

Posted on November 11, 2022 by Daniel Solomon

Is it really an open world title without a fishing mini-game? The answer is of course, no. And Sonic Frontiers is no outlier to this bizarre but welcome trend, hence our Sonic Frontiers fishing guide.

There’s some handy stuff to be earned in this little time sink – let’s get into where you can fish, how the mini-game works, how to earn the all-important purple coins you need to go fishing, and what rewards are available for getting involved.

How to go fishing in Sonic Frontiers

Fishing in Sonic Frontiers can only happen in certain spots, which are designated by a fish icon on the map, once you’ve uncovered them by completing the mission puzzles in the open zone.

Upon arriving there, they look much like any other portal to cyberspace, but instead of whisking you off to run in a straight line as fast as possible, you’ll land at a peaceful lake with the long-suffering Big the Cat, who’s only ever just wanted to chill with his rod. Bless ‘im.

If you want to rush straight to Big’s idyllic little hideaway on Kronos Island, the portal is on a cliff-face on the western edge of the peninsular here:

The location of Big's Kronos Island fishing location. As luck would have it, Big will rent you his spare fishing rod for one purple coin a go.

How to Quickly Earn Purple Coins in Sonic Frontiers

While Big’s rod tax may seem like a lot at first, the best way to amass purple coins is to keep on with the game until you encounter a starfall event, which happens infrequently at night. These are meteor showers which resurrect the open zone’s enemies, and litter the ground with collectible meteors.

The fragments then in turn give you spins on a slot machine which appears in your UI for the duration of the event, which is about five minutes or so. I personally netted about 250 purple coins in just one starfall. Compare this to the 20 or so I’d found out in the wild prior to starfall happening – it makes far more sense to wait out a starfall occurring while exploring other parts of the islands than spend your time hunting for purple coins.

How Does Fishing Work in Sonic Frontiers?

The fishing game itself is super simple – cast your rod, press the action button once prompted to reel in your catch, and then press it once again when the white circle is inside the red circle to hook ‘em in.

Each fishing area has around 25 or so things to catch, which Big will buy off you for between 1 and 12 tokens. These are then redeemed in his shop, which is detailed below.

It doesn’t take long to catch everything either – I netted all of the first areas’ goods in 32 casts, and that’s accounting for misses too. One pain point however is seeing your progress – this can only be checked from the open zone, at the portal’s entrance, which will give you a percentage completion marker.

Sonic Frontiers Fishing Guide: All Fishing Rewards in Sonic Frontiers

Sonic holding a tire after the Sonic Frontiers fishing minigame.

The big ones here are the two scrolls – they’re found in each of Big’s fishing zones, and unlock fast travel to the Elder Koco and Hermit Koco spots around the open zone. Note though that they must be unlocked for each of the game’s worlds before you can fast travel around them.

Big will also trade you tokens for the rewards in the table below:

Reward	Price in tokens
Portal Gear	15
Egg Memo	15
Memory Token	5
Chaos Emerald Vault Key	5
Red Seed of Power	2
Blue Seed of Defense	2
+20 Lost Koco	3
+100 Rings	1
+50 Skill Pieces	1

Sonic Frontiers: What are Egg Memos & How to Listen to Them

The unique find here is the Egg Memos, which are little voice logs left by the rotund baddie himself, and give a bit of flavor as to what he’s up to in cyber space, and shed some light on the mysterious Sage. These can be accessed from the Fish-o-pedia in the fishing zones themselves.

This shop is also a good way to quickly get your stats up, as the seeds and Lost Kocos are pretty inexpensive. I’d say it’s not worth spending your tokens on the rest of the offerings though, as they’re very easy to come by just playing through the game.

The final thing you can earn while fishing is a golden ticket. These will be dredged up from the water itself, and can be redeemed for any one of the items in his shop. Don’t be a dafty and trade them in for rings when the Egg Memos are right there.

Sonic Frontiers Giganto Guide: How to Beat The First Titan

Posted on November 11, 2022 by Michael Katz

Each island in Sonic Frontiers is capped off by an epic clash against a Titan. The first one, Giganto, makes a major impact by swatting Sonic like a fly in an early cutscene. Finding six Chaos Emeralds opens the true battle over the waterfall. The fight can be a little disorienting to first timers, but there’s a trick that makes it simple. Keep pace with our Sonic Frontiers Giganto Guide.

Sonic Frontiers Giganto Guide: Climbing the Titan

The first phase of the fight is more like a single large jump than an actual battle. The goal is to reach Giganto’s head and grab the Chaos Emerald on top. Zip over to his legs and wait for him to take a big step, then Boost into the grounded leg. Sonic can wall climb with the Boost button held down, and this guy is 100% climbable wall. The Asura enemy works in a similar way, so if you’ve fought one of those you’ll know what to do.

Try to hit him straight-on with your boost to travel directly upward. If you manage to pass through any of the blue rings on Giganto’s body, Sonic flies straight up, potentially far above the creature’s head. That’s what you want. Giganto’s hunched back (do some stretches, buddy) is covered with damaging lasers. A route through the air is the safest and fastest way to the Emerald. Use the on-screen indicators to guide your fall, and you can land right on it.

How to Beat Giganto In Sonic Frontiers: Super Sonic

Grabbing the Emerald triggers Sonic’s Super form. Here, Sonic can’t take damage, but he slowly leaks rings and loses if he hits zero. The goal is to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. The easiest possible method is to parry. Hold both shoulder buttons when Giganto starts moving strangely, and you’ll automatically parry his huge claw. Then, follow up with Grand Slam when the button prompt appears. It does so much damage, that after a few of these the boss is dead.

Giganto does a few strange moves, but they tend to be harmless thanks to parry. If you hovering in front of Giganto, he’ll almost always swing his arm at you. Every time, you can respond with parry and Grand Slam. Timing is lenient, and even if you mess up, you’ve only lost a few seconds. Sometimes he fires a huge laser blast. Deflect it easily by mashing the attack button during the prompt. He has a big bite that works the same way, but the bite can also be parried!

It looks cooler to use a wide range of attacks against Giganto, but they’re ineffective compared to parry into Grand Slam. For the quickest and safest win, parry is the way to go, every time. Enjoy the tunes as well, but be warned that there’s currently no way to re-do a Sonic Frontiers Titan fight. If you want to experience the spectacle again, you’ll need a save file from just before the fight.

God of War Ragnarok Blades of Chaos Guide: Best Skill Upgrades

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Parker Johnson

God of War Ragnarok is back, and returning along with Kratos is his first signature weapon: the Blades of Chaos. Along with these blades comes a whole new skill tree to improve the Blades even further. But, with a limited amount of XP, it can be hard to decide where to invest these points. We’ll tell you all about the best Blades of Chaos best skill upgrades in God of War Ragnarok, and why they’re worth it.

It’s worth mentioning that Kratos’ XP is shared between the Leviathan Axe, Blades of Chaos, and other available upgrades. So, if you like using the Axe much more, it may be worth it to leave the Blades in the dust and just invest your experience there. But if you like using the Blades, read on to find the best skill upgrades for the Blades of Chaos.

God of War Ragnarok: The Best Skill Upgrades for the Blades of Chaos

In short, the best skills in the skill tree for Kratos’ Blades of Chaos are:

Vaporize Frost
Immolation + Furious Immolation
Scorched Earth
Spinning Chaos

Vaporize Frost (Best God of War Ragnarok Skills)

This one is pretty simple and self-explanatory. With this skill, Kratos does bonus melee damage with the Blades against frosted enemies. This skill is perfect for players who like to use a balance of the Axe and Blades. Apply frost to enemies using the Leviathan Axe, then follow up with the Blades for massive damage with this helpful skill.

Immolation + Furious Immolation – Best Blades of Chaos Upgrades

Immolation is another great skill to beef up the Blades’ damage output. Performing melee attacks quickly without taking any damage powers up the Blades of Chaos, making them inflict extra burn damage on every hit. While Immolation is active, it will also give a boost to Kratos’ Luck and Runic stats.

To boost this effect even further, consider investing in the further upgrade of this, Furious Immolation. This allows you to press L1 + triangle while Immolation is active to enhance the Blades with exploding attacks. In this state, the Blades will also charge your rage meter faster.

Scorched Earth

This gives you a new attack to use by heavy attacking (R2) during Flame Whiplash (mashing triangle). This attack creates a large explosion in front of Kratos, knocking any enemies in the radius into the air. This is arguably the best way to start a combo for the Blades of Chaos, and a great crowd control ability to boot. This is especially enhanced when combined with the sweeping light attacks of the Blades to keep the combo going.

Spinning Chaos

One place the Blades of Chaos pale in comparison to the Axe are their range. A good ability to help combat this is Spinning Chaos. By dodging in and Light Attacking (R1), Kratos uses a leaping cyclone attack. It doesn’t quite make up entirely for the lackluster range, but is a great way to close the gap on faraway enemies safely. The skill Hyperion Grapple can make up this distance as well, but relies on being close enough to hit an enemy with the ranged attack.

Those are our choices for the best skill upgrades to invest in for the Blades of Chaos in God of War Ragnarok. These skills will help make Kratos a capable combatant against everything the Nine Realms throws at him and Atreus during their journey.

Tesla Employees Enjoy Moment of Peace While Elon Distracted With New Toy

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Andy Holt

AUSTIN, Texas — Exhausted workers at Tesla, Inc. have been enjoying some quiet time to themselves while their little rascal Elon Musk is busy playing with his new toy, Twitter.

“Don’t get me wrong, we love our baby boy more than anything in the world. He’s precocious, energetic, and some of the stuff he says is downright adorable,” said engineer Harriet Garland, who normally spends several hours a day occupying Musk so he doesn’t hurt himself on the machinery. “But it’s nice to have a chance to get some actual engineering done while he’s busy playing with that nifty Twitter thing. Look at him. He’s fascinated.”

Other employees are using the time to knock out some chores at the Tesla headquarters, including cleaning the break room.

“We can probably take this opportunity to throw a few of these out while he’s not looking,” said Tesla office manager Frank Jones, removing several of Musk’s crayon drawings of cars from the refrigerator. “Last time he caught us taking one of his ‘cool car ideas’ off the fridge, he threw a huge tantrum. I had to hold him for a few hours and tell him what a smart boy he was until he calmed down. He’s a handful, that’s for sure.”

While everyone at the company is grateful to have him occupied, some feel it’s unsustainable to need a new toy every time Musk gets antsy.

“Honestly, we thought The Boring Company would keep him occupied for longer than it did,” said assembly line worker Teresa Landry. “We had visions of him digging holes to his heart’s content, but he was back in the office within a week, running around with a paper plate like a steering wheel and saying ‘zoom zoom.’ Kind of a waste, if you ask me.”

At press time, employees were passing around one of Musk’s recent Tweets, just to make sure he’s safe and having a good time.

“That’s our boy,” one of them said, tears forming in their eyes. “He looks so happy.”

Call of Duty MW2 2022 Ranked Play: Everything You Need to Know

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Kanishka Thakur

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is getting a ranked mode with a host of multiplayer options next year. Treyarch is handling the development of the new mode and it will arrive sometime in Season Two of the multiplayer mode unless any delays happen. Ranked play will allow players to have a sense of progression and you can expect rewards every ranked season. Here is everything you need to know about ranked play in CoD: Modern Warfare 2.

CoD: MW2 Ranked Mode Features

Here are all of the features that are coming to the new ranked mode:

Multiple competitive modes
Ranked skill divisions
Visible skill ratings
Top 250 leaderboards
Competitive rewards

The developers had revealed that the game will not receive ranked mode at launch prior to Modern Warfare 2’s release. Fans who have been waiting for the mode to come out will be relieved to hear that ranked is coming sooner than expected.

With ranked coming to Modern Warfare 2, League Play in Black Ops: Cold War and Vanguard’s ranked modes will be retired this month. If you have any rewards left to be collected, you should complete them immediately.

Ranked will follow Call of Duty League rules and we can expect the mode sometime in Season Two. the leaderboard feature will showcase the top 250 players on each platform. With Treyarch being in charge of the new mode, fans can expect some solid matchmaking and progression structure.

Treyarch previously designed ranked modes for Call of Duty: Vanguard and fans loved the feature. More details about the mode will be revealed closer to the mode’s release.

How to Improve in CoD: Modern Warfare 2’s Ranked Play

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2’s ranked mode will be a culmination of the best part of what CoD has to offer to its players. You will have to rely on your teammates more than ever before, and others will expect you to work with them as well. Even before release, here’s some ways you can prepare to excel in ranked.

Communication is Key: Communication plays a key role in ranked play. Unlike Call of Duty’s casual modes where you can carry a team on your own, ranked is a different story altogether. In modes like Search and Destroy, you need to talk to your teammates and coordinate pushes.

Since players will be matched with other players of the same skill level, things will get more and more difficult as you climb up the ranks. You do not have to micro-manage your teammates, but a few helpful callouts can go a long way in helping your team win a game.

Find Teammates to Play With: Ranked play is a whole lot easier once you have teammates to play with. Get on Discord servers or ask around in communities to find players who can help you out. Creating strategies on the fly during a game can be difficult. But, if you have pre-determined roles and know what to do on each map in a coordinated squad, things get a lot easier.

If you have a dedicated group of friends to play together with, you can assign roles for each player and try out different strategies to see what works best for you. The Call of Duty community is massive and you will have no trouble finding like-minded players who will be willing to climb up the ranked ladder for those prestigious rewards.

Play Around The Objective: Sometimes, the best way to win a game is not by getting frags, but by playing the objective. Each game mode has a different set of objectives and focusing on the objective is what wins you games. Work with your teammates and do your best to coordinate plays and help your teammates. Being a lone wolf can be detrimental to your team and cause you to lose a lot of games.

Optimize your Gameplay Settings: This seems like an obvious idea but you would be surprised to find out how many players ignore their gameplay settings and play with everything on default. While Modern Warfare 2 is designed to be a next-gen title, fancy graphics do not win you games.

You should try to optimize your settings and get the most frames per second (FPS) possible. Adjusting your sensitivity or your controller settings is also important as it can help you find what works best for you. You can even play around with color blind settings as they can often help you discern objects even through the visual clutter.

Don’t Forget to Have Fun: At the end of the day, it is just a game. You should try to have fun and not take the game too seriously. There is a fine line between playing seriously and taking the game too seriously. If you lose sight of what makes Call of Duty fun for you, you can easily get tilted and start losing games.

Call of Duty: MW2 Ranked Play Release Date

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s new multiplayer season will kick off on January 23rd, 2023, and ranked mode is expected to launch alongside it unless there are unprecedented delays. More details about the game mode will be available as we get closer to the launch window.