I’d argue that if you make a game with a style, story, time period and even what the protagonist is that have entirely departed from the original content, you’re just slapping the original’s name on it to boost sales.

If they ever made a Halo game where MasterChief removes his helmet to reveal that he was an orc all along and that he’s now riding a literal giant warthog in battle wielding a stone axe, people would flip their lids over this. Especially since because of that the style and soul of the game people love is now dead unless they do a hard reset of the franchise. I think it’s the same there, except that the transformation was made gradually since Doom 2016 that people didn’t notice as much. It really looks like Bethesda preferred to do medieval fantasy games so they just turned the Doom franchise into it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure it perfectly capable of being a good game. But is it really a Doom game still?

It started as a sci-fi shooter. DoomMarine was just a human left behind to guard a ship with a pistol and ends up fighting the hordes of hell with an array of modern and sci-fi weapons. The only medieval elements you would see were when you were in the hell world. The back story was essentially he got assigned there as a punishment for punching an officer who was ordering him to shoot civilians. He was a human, representing humanity in a fight against evil.

Now with all the changes they made The Doom Slayer is a demigod being wielding medieval and fantasy weapons in an increasingly medieval-looking armor of alien origin with an insanely convoluted backstory of him being the twin brother of the devil or some BS I don’t know I just stopped caring at that point. He is completely dehumanized. The whole game looks and feels more like a fantasy game in a medieval world of magic than a sci-fi shooter.

IMO the creators of the Brutal Doom mod/campaign came up with a far better expansion of the Doom universe that stayed much more true to the source material. I’d love to see a high budget game made in that universe.

The more Bethesda milks the DOOM franchise, the more it looks like Skyrim

TL;DR: They probably haven’t actually contacted the authorities and it was likely made up by the customer service representative.

But there is a growing realisation that through age verification they are giving Apple and Google the power to decide who can access web services and who can’t and they’re clearly using it to make life difficult for anyone who doesn’t let them have full control of their personal devices.

Most people don’t use GrapheneOS to commit crimes. They use it to regain control over the device that they own and give the middle finger to all that data collection big tech is doing behind everyone’s backs.

It’s good training for when you participate in a riot caused by a drinking water shortage.

They will take money wherever they can. They took every penny there was from past and present people’s pockets in the form of stagnating wages, have pillaged the future generations in the form of student debt that can’t be paid back and destruction of the environment, have stolen from all three by transferring their expenditures to externalities that we all have to pay for and are now looking to loot our retirement funds too.

Billionaires don’t “create” wealth. They steal it.

We noticed when Musk was promising “Full self driving” to “come out by the end of the year” every year for over a decade now.

Pardon my ignorance but how do you know what DNS server to block?

On a pile of bayonets

I’m still bummed out that because of the floor battery pack the whole thing is still too tall like a crossover. Look at how tall these doors are. The wheels are enormous to visually compensate for the visual imbalance and it still can’t fully achieve that. That thing would have looked absolutely sick had they managed to let the driver sit 6 inches lower and adjusted the whole body accordingly.

Gaslighting you into making you feel guilty and then using it against you to control you. Using your natural tendency to try to be agreeable and second guess yourself against you. Belittling you at every occasion. Silent treatments. Criticizing everything you do. Openly sexist remarks. Accusing you of ruining everything you touch. Angrily ranting against you to themselves when you’re in a different room but loud enough that your can still hear. Scoffing at you randomly. Argue against everything you say, often with blatant bad faith arguments to a point where you don’t even dare to speak. Controlling everything you do. Belittling you in front of other people. Making embarrassing scenes in public. Ordering you around like you’re a dog. Dehumanizing you. Trying to guilt you into giving them money.

That lasted only a week. I fortunately had enough life experience to tell that what was going on was not normal and walked away. She had tried to break me as a person and turn me into a thing she could just order around and abuse at will. It still took me the better part of a year and several consultations to finally get most of the effects of her gaslighting out of my head because I still had the “what if I’m the problem?” thought constantly coming back and keeping me awake at night. I’ve stopped thinking about it every day now but I’m still not fully recovered. It is true that you can severely mess up a person without ever laying a hand on them.

You know the stereotype of the unhappy marriage where one side always criticizes and down talks the other and all the other side responds is a meek and dissociated “yes dear”? It is often used for comedic effect in movies or shows. But now I know this can be real and it is anything but comedic. This person’s life is a daily torture and they should be rescued from it.

“Wait, it’s all Africa?”

“Always has been”

🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

It blows my mind that the AI agents even had access to this to begin with.

You have to treat AI agents like potentially destructive work animals. You don’t let them roam into your house.

Time for Ukraine to blow up an LNG liquefaction plant or two

Piracy is now fully justified

That’s not a problem for you.

For those on the ground however…

Sounds like a very similar situation to car mechanics

It looks like someone dropped a very heavy cone.

Well yeah, it has become a way to leverage as much money as possible out of people because they’re controlling something people need to not die.

Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix