Brody R Thompson, Author at Hard Drive

Introverted NPC Too Self-Conscious to Display Side Quest Icon Above Head

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Joe Tilleli

THE IVORY ISLE — A local Non-Playable Character of a medieval RPG reportedly refused to display their quest icon above their head after being too introverted to cause a scene.

“I just don’t want to bother anybody,” said NPC Preston Cromwell. “I need some big, strapping underdog hero to fetch me four apples from around town for me to make my stew, but I feel so bad inconveniencing anyone. Sure, I would give them some stew for their efforts, which would heal their stamina and health, but I’m sure nobody wants anything like that. It’s probably not even worth putting a large, yellow question mark above my head. I should just keep to myself, and stand motionless in my 1×1 tile until the evil is banished from the land by some hero. But no pressure, obviously. No worries!”

Other NPCs have tried to build up Cromwell’s self-confidence.

“I always tell him that he’s worth just as much as any other quest in town, but he has both a low XP value and self value,” said Ivory Isle Shopkeep Ruth Thanesword. “It can be hard to put yourself out there, offer up your quest or bounty to the world, but you can’t be afraid of rejection. Growth is understanding that even though your emotions may be hurt from your quest being turned on, you’re still physically unkillable due to the game’s design.”

PoonSlayer47, the prophesized hero of the Ivory Isle, explained his frustrations with the NPC’s self-image issues.

“Everytime I try to talk to him, he just shrugs me off and says he doesn’t want to bother me with a quest,” Poonslayer47 said. “I’m trying to do every quest in the area to level up before moving on, but he says that he ‘doesn’t want to be a burden’ and won’t let me fetch anything or kill any mobs for him. He’s also such a pushover, I barely need any speech skill to convince him of something. I would be more angry at him, but I just feel bad for the guy.”

At press time, sources reported that Cromwell disappears from the game entirely if the player has a party of more than four, as he just feels awkward being in crowds.

Struggling Artist Reclasses as Accountant

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Kevin Flynn

CHICAGO — Claiming that he made things too difficult on himself, struggling artist Tyler Dresden restarted his life progress by reportedly reclassing as an accountant.

“The current build I was working with just was too hard for me, so I decided to redo my stats entirely,” Dresden said. “Being a musician was fun in the beginning, but once I started facing the big milestone challenges like paying rent or getting a girlfriend I realized that the choices I made with my personal life skill tree had made it almost impossible to progress. Now I just sold all my equipment — my guitar and amps and such — to pay for night classes to become an accountant, which is a more boring playstyle, but it will at least get me to the finish line.”

Dresden’s character rework apparently came at the repeated suggestion of his parents.

“I told him for years that he could get way more career stat bonuses by picking an accountant like his old man,” said Tyler’s father Henry Dresden. “He wasted all that time tinkering with his homebrew artist build and now he has to start the accountant path from the beginning, but it’s for the best. Singer/songwriter is a subclass to mess around with at best, but if you actually want to have some survivability you have to at least go to trade school.”

Dresden’s artist friends were happy to add some class variety to their friend group.

“We can’t all be the fun class if we’re going to adventure together,” said conceptual artist Michael Anders. “Sure, it’s great to be the silly one with all the charisma who can try and charm people, but at the end of the day someone in the party needs to keep the lights on. I promised Tyler that in the next lifetime he can be a fun offclass and I’ll be a sensible one like an architect.”

At press time, sources reported that Dresden had attempted to grow up further by removing his proficiency in hacky sacking in order to attain an ability modifier in Microsoft Excel.

Do You Like Competitive Shooters but Miss Your Dad Yelling at You for Doing a Shitty Job Staining the Deck? Try Splatoon 3!

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Kyle Duggan

Shooters have been a popular genre for nearly as long as video games have existed. Multiple generations have cut their teeth on games like Doom, Goldeneye, Unreal Tournament, and Gears of War. Revisiting a favorite shooter or picking up a new one can transport you back to the good old days of playing split-screen matches against your buddies. If you want to feel some extra nostalgia next time you get an itchy R-trigger finger, and you have fond memories of that time your parents made you spend the first week of summer vacation staining the deck and still got all mad about it when you were done, try Splatoon 3.

Ah, this takes me back. I can almost smell the fumes.

Obviously, you have some experience trying to cover a surface with a dyed fluid in order to change its color, and you’ll find plenty of ways to do just that in Splatoon 3. Unlike during that brutal week of staining, you won’t have to make up imaginary games in your head to stave off boredom. Splatoon 3 has a full single player campaign, several competitive team-based modes, and a cooperative horde mode to keep you busy. You can even screw off from painting entirely to go play a tabletop card game, only this time you won’t lose driving privileges when you get caught.

Unlike MTG, Tableturf Battle is played in a sketchy alley instead of the back of the high school band room.

The variety doesn’t stop at game modes. There are so many different weapons and loadouts that you’ll never actually master any of them, just like you never quite figured out how to get between the boards with that flimsy sponge brush. For added realism, you can post about your favorite weapons and strategies on the Splatoon subreddit. Someone is bound to imply that you’re a moron, like Pops did when you painted yourself into a corner and got trapped there for, like, two hours.

Reddit may be toxic, but Splatoon 3 has an in-game community that’s just as lively and colorful as its gameplay. Walking around the game’s hub, Splatsville, is a blast, as you participate in its unique meme culture by checking out doodles made by other players and creating your own. Splatoon players are actually as weird as your dad thought your high school friends were, and you’ll never be bored by the content they create.

You are probably a better artist than me.

If drawing isn’t your thing, don’t worry – there’s other ways you can express yourself in Splatoon 3. You can deck your character out in the flashiest squid clothes and fashion accessories, all of which have stat modifiers to up your game. Spending an evening grinding through Turf War matches to unlock a new ability slot for your favorite shoes never feels like a waste of time, and it’s fun to build your wardrobe as your Splatoon career progresses. With plenty of options and a mechanic that allows you to re-spec specific items – albeit a bit slowly – you will always look fresh, like you did when you started staining the deck in your brand new Atticus T-shirt even though your dad specifically told you to wear old clothes. Luckily, Inkling paint washes right off, unlike Ready Seal Dark Walnut Exterior Wood Stain.

Splatoon 3 is one of the best multiplayer games on the Switch, and with two waves of DLC announced, now is the perfect time to jump in and get painting.

Splatoon 3 might be for you if:

You like multiplayer shooting games and want to try something off the beaten path.
Grinding matches to collect and upgrade gear is your idea of a good time.
You appreciate it when a game has a horde mode, but it’s not the main attraction for you.
You have a sense of humor and appreciation of whimsy, despite any deck-related trauma you might be carrying.

It might not be for you if:

You prefer shooters that have more of an edge.
Seeing that you didn’t evenly cover the entire map by the end of the match will trigger horrific flashbacks of that one terrible summer.

You can pick up Splatoon 3 here.

Did You Want to Send Harry Into Space While Playing Disco Elysium? Try Citizen Sleeper

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Ella Gale

Disco Elysium is a dreamy narrative RPG artwork about being a hungover fuckup solving a murder. You wake up in a rundown communist town in the middle of a labor dispute. You explore a beautiful isometric world and meet a host of characters ranging from artists and tweakers to fascists. It’s a perfect game, except for one small flaw: it isn’t set in space. Here’s where Citizen Sleeper comes in.

In Citizen Sleeper you’re also a mess waking up in a strange place. You’ve just escaped from a corporation that has transplanted your consciousness into a synthetic body and sent it into space to perform brutal manual labor. Now you’re on a ring-shaped space station; like everyone else, you’re just trying to survive.

Every morning, you wake up with 1-5 dice (depending on how well you’ve taken care of your body). You can spend the pips on tasks like working or exploring. You can eat space food and drink in space bars. As you play, new areas of the space station open up. You build experience. You befriend a vending machine and fight a program designed to erase unauthorized intelligence. During these early days, I often felt like I was just barely surviving.

Citizen Sleeper scratches the space opera itch of new horizons, new people, and what-ifs, although the space station here is a cold and frightening place. There’s a sense that the whole operation is barely holding out against the cold void. In addition to the base game, there’s at least one more piece of content coming out this year—the final segment of a three-part story.

Disco Elysium is a longer and more complex game than Citizen Sleeper, but they both have fully articulated worlds and complex characters doing their best to choose between bad and worse options. They both have unions, and are both interested in leftist politics without being preachy. You meet strange and surprising creatures. I was moved emotionally by moments in both games. Whether you’re on a post-war archipelago or a space station, in the end, it’s about the people.

Citizen Sleeper might be for you if:

You love beautifully written games
You like games that are political but not preachy
You want to get to know complex characters

Citizen Sleeper might not be for you if:

You don’t like reading text
You’re more about gameplay than story
You think space is a lightless void that no one should spend time in

You can get Citizen Sleeper on Steam here, and it’s also available on Nintendo Switch & Game Pass.

Destiny 2: Lightfall Neomuna Action Figure Locations Guide

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Richard Tammaro

The Destiny 2 Lightfall Expansion is here and with it comes a new world to explore with plenty of secrets to uncover. This includes new collectibles in the form of action figures. There are a total of 9 of these to find throughout Neomuna. So are all of the Neomuna action figure locations in Destiny 2 Lightfall!

NOTE: As of the writing of this article, only two action figures can be found with more to be released throughout the Season of Defiance. This article will be updated as more Neomuna action figure locations become available.

Neomuna Action Figure #1

This first action figure can be found in the main building of Ahisma Park.

Make your way down to the bottom floor of the building and look for a Pouka mural next to a short staircase.

Jump through the gap under the staircase to find this action figure on some rocks.

Neomuna Action Figure #2

First, you’ll need to complete the Lightfall campaign on any difficulty to unlock access to this area. Once you have done that head to the Esi Terminal on the west end of Zephyr Concourse.

Continue down the linear path until you make it back outside. Turn left and head through the now open door near the mural of an eyeball.

Continue through this linear room until you are outside again. Then jump down the balconies to reach a portal back to the Irkalla Complex, where the Lightfall campaign ended.

Move forward through the hole in the wall and use the boxes to your immediate left to jump to the top of the wall, where you will find three cannons.

With a long range weapon, preferably a Sniper Rifle, jump to the end of the first cannon and look to the distance in the direction it is pointing to find a diamond to shoot. Do this on each of the three cannons.

After shooting the third diamond, the action figure will spawn in front of you on the final cannon.

Neomuna Action Figure #3

Head to Maya’s Retreat to the east of Liming Harbor.

Follow the path forward through Maya’s Retreat and into the large cave near the end. In the back left corner you will find a brazier to light. Interact with it to do so.

Now, return out of the cave and jump along the wall to the right, making sure to not travel out of the map limits. You should notice a platform down to the right.

Jump down and head into the cave here to find another brazier to light.

Finally, exit this cave and continue further to the right. You’ll need to jump over a large chasm, using a long jump or the new Strand subclass.

Head into this cave, light the final brazier, and collect your action figure from under it.

Neomuna Action Figure #4

For this action figure, head to the southeast corner of Zephyr Concourse.

There is a bar here with an interactable tablet behind the counter. Jump behind and activate it.

Now, patrons (angry Cabal) will begin to spawn in. You need to stay behind the counter and fend them off. If they get too close, or you come out from behind the counter the event will fail. You’ll need to activate the tablet again to retry.

Once they are all defeated, the action figure will spawn next to the tablet behind the counter.

Where to Place The Neomuna Action Figures

Each action figure can be placed in the yellow building to the right of Nimbus in Strider’s Gate. Once you are close enough, markers will appear for each specific spot to place them. So place them down and admire your collection!

Looking for more Neomuna collectibles? Check out our region chest guide for Ahimsa Park!

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty First Boss Guide: How to Beat it

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Noah Hunter

If you’re playing through Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, chances are you might be running into some trouble with Zhang Liang, who is the first boss of the game. For those who aren’t experienced with action titles like Nioh, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, or Dark Souls, fights like these can be challenging and tricky to master. The first boss of Wo Long has even proven to be challenging for experienced players.

Learning how this boss operates and performs is critical to ensuring you are able to complete Wo Long. Bosses like these frequently appear, and you must understand how to obtain victory by analyzing each moveset. We’ll dive into some tips and tricks for this boss, so read on for the perfect strategy against Zhang Liang!

How to Defeat the First Boss in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

By preparing accordingly before fighting, you can make this fight much less stressful. Zhang Liang appears at the end of the first mission, so throughout the entirety of the mission you need to increase your Morale Rank. To do this, simply collect all of the Battle Flags and Marker Flags throughout Village of Calamity (the first mission).

This will increase your Fortitude Rank to Rank 10, which will allow you to retain a Morale Rank of 10 regardless if you die or not. This is extremely helpful and essential, as you will most likely not beat Zhang Liang on your first attempt.

Lastly, as an overall note, you need to be aggressive throughout this fight. Failing to do so will lead to you being unable to achieve victory. You might tend to want to play defensively, but don’t do this, as you will take too much damage and ultimately die. Being aggressive is the key to success.

The First and Second Phases

For the first phase of the fight, you should not run into any trouble. Like outlined above, be aggressive throughout this fight and don’t fall back to defend. If you’ve played prior Souls games, you will tend to want to play the defensive in a fight like this. Instead, utilize your light attacks to unleash plenty of damage against the first boss in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

It is important to note that while you should be aggressive, do not mash and spam attacks. You must be diligent and purposefully place each one, however, this does not mean falling back to be defensive. Zhang Liang can be easily defeated by simply timing your attacks right and being aggressive.

The second phase of this boss fight sees Zhang Liang gain a new attack range, which can be tricky after learning his range from the first portion of the fight. Here, you will need to prioritize defending. Each attack Zhang Liang inflicts is preceded by a lengthy combat animation, which you need to carefully watch. When the animation begins, prepare to defend and deflect the attack. As you defend yourself, quickly utilize light attacks to drain his health bar.

Once your Divine Beast Gauge has finished and is filled up, you need to activate it to end the battle. Zhang Liang will be defeated in a cutscene, which means you do not have to fully drain his health bar. When the Divine Beast Gauge is full, the fight is over when you activate it!

Looking for how to increase your Morale Rank? Check out our Morale Rank Guide here!

“This Is Almost Lynchian,” Remarks Man Looking at Photo of David Lynch

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Camden Brazile

TORONTO — Local cinephile Eric Fellows reportedly remarked that his situation had become almost Lynchian after looking at a photo of infamous actor and director David Lynch

“My God, this is, dare I say, almost Lynchian,” Fellows said, viewing a .JPEG of David Lynch on Wikipedia. “It’s so surreal, I can’t tell where the lines of reality begin to blur and the strange and the mundane have begun to seamlessly mix. This photo really reminds me of David Lynch, if you know who that is. Just on first glance, this photo clearly draws inspiration from things like Eraserhead or Twin Peaks, and it’s commitment to mystery and menace pays homage to Lynch’s early work. This picture is so open to interpretation, so vague and unpredictable, yet visually arresting. While I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, after revisiting this picture four or five times I can tell now it is a masterpiece.”

Fellows’ friends have apparently begun to tire of him comparing everything to the iconic director.

“Everything is Lynchian to him,” roommate Michaela Gryan said. “I can see his face change when he’s about to use the word, he thinks it’s so intelligent. I don’t know or care who David Lynch is, but I’m fairly certain that when our microwave broke it wasn’t ‘a Mulholland Drive pastiche.’ Ironically, after I’ve come to learn a bit more about what Lynchian means, the only thing that’s actually like a David Lynch movie is me living with him, which is a bizarre twisting of normal reality until I feel like I’m going insane.”

At press time, Fellows had reportedly taken to social media to recommend a book by Franz Kafka, which Fellows described as being ‘frighteningly Kafkaesque.’

Pedro Pascal Researched Role of Hungry Survivor Under Immense Pressure By Working at Naughty Dog

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Camden Brazile

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Off the meteoric success of HBO’s television adaptation of The Last of Us, Pedro Pascal revealed he researched his role of the hungry survivor under immense pressure by working at Naughty Dog.

“Role research is important to me, and the only way I could understand the crushing, inhuman conditions Joel is under was to work at the studio that made The Last of Us,” Pascal explained. “After shadowing a Naughty Dog developer for only a week, I completely understood how someone’s humanity can be eroded away from having to go through indescribable trials and tribulations on a daily basis. While there is no zombie apocalypse happening, spending time observing the scrappy, depleted souls of Naughty Dog employees taught me everything I needed to know about Joel.”

The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann says he admired Pascal’s incredible commitment to the role.

“Pedro has shown that he’s clearly willing to go the extra mile,” Druckmann said. “I’ve seen actors starve themselves, take drugs, or gain immense weight for a role, but to spend even one normal work day in the Naughty Dog offices is a death-defying stunt I’ve never seen an actor undergo before. When he approached me about entering the Naughty Dog offices, I was worried for his health and safety, but when emerged, he was Joel. In such a short time he learned volumes about loss and trauma, and when he is on set you can see the mysterious horror of his time at Naughty Dog in his vacant glances. I don’t think he’ll ever be the same.”

At press time, sources reported that while many developers are not able to escape the confines of the Naughty Dog offices, Pascal was luckily able to get fired by filing a sexual harassment complaint.

Toy Story 5 to Teach Children Powerful Lesson About Diluting a Franchise for Profits

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Camden Brazile

LOS ANGELES — With a brand new announcement of sequels, movie studio Pixar has confirmed the release of Toy Story 5, with the new installment to teach children a powerful lesson about diluting a franchise for profit.

“After doing a read-through of the script with the whole cast, I think Woody, Buzz and the gang will definitely teach all kids out there something profound about ruining a beloved movie series for money,” Tom Hanks explained. “I believe it’s important for children’s films to impart some sort of moral by the end, and Toy Story 5 will show kids everywhere that sometimes it’s best to let a franchise die with the third installment. Once I recorded my final lines for Woody, I cried like a baby in the studio. Not because it was a sad scene or I was done with the character, just because I knew that this would never be the end, and I’ll be voicing this digital cowboy until my body finally flatlines in the ICU.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger said the decision to greenlight the film came from a need to resolve the Toy Story saga’s overarching profits.

“Even though Toy Story 4 felt like a natural wrapping up point, we realized that so many dollars were going unearned,” Iger said. “We want to provide an emotional, cathartic resolution to the franchise’s domestic gross points, but don’t worry, even though it’s a sequel it will still capture the magic of the original’s box office performance. Kids everywhere deserve to see Woody and Buzz one last time, as well as purchase Woody and Buzz merchandise eleven more times.”

At press time, sources at Pixar revealed that they are willing to cancel the film entirely if everyone just gives them $11.95 right now instead.

If You’ve Ever Seen a Deer Doing Deer Stuff and Thought “I’d Be Great at That,” You Should Try Tokyo Jungle

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Jacob VanGundy

There are a plethora of games that let you explore neighborhoods in Tokyo. Persona 5 lets you explore Shibuya in between Jungian psycho-fantasy. In Yakuza, you can fist-fight your way up and down a fictionalized version of Kabukicho. Even Digimon Cyber Sleuth allows you to feel smugly superior to those basic Pokemon fans in a recreation of Akihabara. But only one game lets you explore a post-human version of the metropolis as a giraffe: Tokyo Jungle.

The magic of Tokyo Jungle is that it lets you inhabit a wide range of animals and live a gamified version of their life cycle. It’s a game designed specifically for people who get personally invested while watching nature documentaries. If the novelty of an arcade action game starring exclusive animals doesn’t appeal to you on a personal level, it probably isn’t the game for you.

There are two game modes in Tokyo Jungle: Story mode and survival mode. Both are different flavors of absurd. In story mode, you will run through a few missions as specific animals with overlapping stories. These missions range from a genuinely heartbreaking story about a pair of deer fawns looking for their mother to leading a revolt against a yakuza-style gang of dogs. It even veers into sci-fi in later chapters, as the extinction of humanity is explored.

It’s this simpler, narrative-free survival mode that really shines. The goal is simply to survive long enough to reproduce, playing as many possible generations as you can. There’s a simple joy that comes from being a cow trying desperately not to be eaten by a city full of lions and bears, or conversely from being a cheetah stalking a gazelle. The game’s simple combat adds to the feeling of animalistic fun, feeling satisfying but easy to learn. Most importantly it lets you play as any of the game’s wide variety of animals from jackals to elephants, each feeling distinct.

Over a decade after its release, Tokyo Jungle still feels singular in allowing the player to feel like they’re living a nature documentary. It’s the only game to understand the primal appeal of all gamers: to live the life of a deer.

I would recommend Tokyo Jungle to anyone who:

Gets personally invested in nature documentaries
Thinks they missed their calling by not being born a zebra
Wants more quirky games

I would not recommend this game to anyone who:

Can’t handle seeing animals die in games
Needs complicated combat

Tokyo Jungle is available on PS3 and PS5 via PS Plus Premium