Hey gang
So i made a few of these "midnight gaming" posts where i olay a different game each night past midnight, check social media for news and then talk about the game next day along with any news I saw. Its a neat thing born from a thrice coincidence thats has happened that im using to do a lil daily segment.

Now i wanna collect any thoughts you may have, any constructive criticism you wanna share? Do i talk too much about the game i played or not enough? Are the news part of those posts fine if they cover political news or would you rather i steer clear of them. Geniunely want some opinions on how to improve for this series.

I even allowed anons asks for the time being, just dont be rude.

Last night I played dead rising 2: off the record past midnight, checked socials and found... an article on how ai generative tools failed to make money (shocker) and that investors are losing faith.

So i got into the dead rising series with 2 on pc which had the unfortunate bonus of dealing with games for windows live. I was interested in the zombie sandbox where a lot of objects can be used as weapons, with 2 introducing combo weapons where you can duct tape a sledgehammer and fire axe together to create something that'll break bosses over your knee. Off the record was essentially a remix of 2 where instead of chuck greene, you have frank west from the previous game in a new version of the story along with some new combo weps, new bosses and the uranus zone area. I never really touched the story tho as i was more interested in otr's sandbox mode, which removed the time limit and added optional challenges. It was a nice way to relax and cheer myself up on some days.

There was one thing about dr2 that i feel is worth talking about and thats the protest group CURE. CURE is the group in the games story thats protesting against the gameshow terror is reality. They get potrayed as an expy of peta calling out the "inhumane treatment against zombies" which is often enough to generate an eyeroll from anyone, same from me but over time.... you ever think that CURE might be presented in that light because of media propaganda in that universe, being potrayed as a radical save the zombies group?

Early in the game someone mentions on tv "why would anyone wanna save those monsters?" but what if that wasnt the groups intent? That they werent against killing zombies as it is a necessity, they were just against the glorified, hyperviolent, televised way of doing it? The undead in dead rising were in fact people who are victims of a viral outbreak, their humanity torn from them, rendering them into monsters. In that universe its probably pretty fucked up that a show is being run where slaughtering these victims is a sport. In the same universe where if you get bitten, your life is dependant on an expensive as hell drug, where people will treat you as a bomb about to go off and kill everyone. I suppose it would've been neat for capcom to examine that and whole glorification of zombie violence but since there is the combo weapons, terror is reality as a playable game mode you can play and an onscrren zombie killcount. itd probably wouldnt mix well with the rest of the game.

So the news story i got is dated july 27th but the way i type these out is that i list a bit of news i've seen on socials that night, not necessarily whats happened on that night, but hey we get to laugh ai bros so thats all good.

So this futurism article I saw from twitter mentions what i sure most people already assumed, ai isnt making the kind of money that investors wanted. Its fair to sure that AI Gen tools are the new NFTs and as such are gonna be forgotten as a joke, shoved outta the way for the next tech scam innovation.

Anyways, see you all tomorrow.

So last night i played the 1st level of star wars: jedi knight 2: jedi outcast past midnight, checked socials to find... us congress recently voted to block a cancer research bill.

Yikes, lets start with star wars. Jedi outcast was one of my most played star wars game on the gamecube, it was one i sunk many hours into the multiplayer itself solely because it had bots allowing for a single player to have fun on their own. I played the switch version done by aspyr and it felt....off. Moving felt a bit slippy and aiming was tough, enemies moved rather quick at times and with a lot of weapons being projectile based, i often had a hard time hitting stormtroopers. That certanly played havoc with my memories of the game since i've hadnt had this much trouble mowing down troops with a blaster going full auto. Was it me, the game or the wired controller i was using?

So i decided to try running the pc version on my steam deck. Now steam does say it was "unsupported" but shockingly it ran pretty well, no problems at all. Granted i had to rebind the controls so that this pc game can play well on a controller, i used the community layout by wunderbred which is a modified version of hankopotus's layout with added mouse sensitivity and gyro. It felt slightly better? The gyro did help with aiming so i was able to play a bit better though it left me thinking. Is the aspyr port bad? I cant really make that call on one level right? Aspyr hasnt had the best luck with the fiasco with kotor 2s dlc and being kicked off the remake, not to mention their recent problem with the battlefront remasters. But the switch version ran well enough, albiet stripped down to only the campaign, but it does work? Is it fair critique to judge a version of a game based on the controls for that version? Is a game that has average yet serviceable controls that you can eventually adapt to, fundamentally worse than one that lets you rebind in any way that suits? Again, this was only one level, not really a fair analysis on either version but it was a thought that occured.

After finishing the first level on steam deck, i went back to the switch and replayed the first level again but on the console itself undocked and with the motion controls setting on. It played a bit better than with the wired controller, again tilting the switch worked well for aiming. In the end, i guess its something of a personal perference, maybe someone would have a worse time with gyro aiming and would rather use a plain controller.

Anyway long spiel over, now to news. So apparently the US Congress had apparently voted to block a bill for funding cancer research written by Biden called the Moonshot Initiative and there were excuses thrown around about money and what not but theres also tall about it being personal. Done out of spite to prevent a win for biden. Thats pretty dire and extremely petty if thats the case.

Heres an article from usatoday covering it

Speaking of dire and bills, have talked to your senator about opposing KOSA? Cause a full senate vote is coming up on the 30th tomorrow so please get on that. Anyways, talk to you again tomorrow.