Quetzalcutlass

I followed Shamus Young's blog in 2007, and kept following him long after I dropped every other blogger. I didn't always agree with him (*cough* Dark Souls *cough*), but his reviews were the best and most in-depth in the business (seriously, his Mass Effect retrospective covers the entire trilogy and is longer than most novels). He had a way with words where even when he was arguing for/against something you hate/love, you'd still be entertained by the read.

His death left a void in my consumption of media criticism. I don't think anyone I follow is as articulate or entertaining as Shamus was. RIP Shamus.

I actually find people that are usually considered a 10/10 to be less beautiful than a solid 7.

This is more common than you might think. There's a reason "the girl next door" is one of the most popular archetypes.

The second one suffered from being extremely rushed. Much asset reuse. It also made the game more "action-y" because I assume some souless suit said that kids don't want tactics they want biff bam ACTION.

It also made every encounter consist of multiple waves, with enemy reinforcements popping into existence inside your party and rendering positioning nearly useless. It's like they were going down a checklist of ways to make combat less tactical.

I hope they bring back spells like Virulent Walking Bomb from the first games. That one would poison an enemy and make them explode when they died, and if any enemy nearby died to the explosion or within the next few seconds they'd explode too, and so on.

It wasn't the best spell, but it fit the "mages are one misstep away from becoming eldritch abominations" narrative and damn did it make you feel powerful when the secondaries went off and it turned an entire room full of enemies into mist.

The power grid does have a major point of failure, in that vital components are on backorder for years out so most places don't have the spare parts to get back up and running if widespread attacks on the grid occur.

Prey drive is no joke. My sister has a heeler/corgi mix, and taking her for a walk is an exercise in not dislocating your arm whenever she spots a small animal. She's adorabloodthirsty.

Oddly her other dog, a heeler/pit mix, is super chill with no apparent prey drive whatsoever. I'm pretty sure you could hold a baby bird in front of his face and he'd just sniff at it dumbly with his tail wagging.

Having owned a beagle, its brain looked more like the cat image but with "murder" replaced with ~~more food~~ "not food, but I'll eat it anyway".

Dogs think about food when they're hungry, or when food is present. Cats will stand on you and complain for hours because their food bowl is only 90% full and they'd really prefer it to be 100% full at all times, please and thank you.

Burger King chicken nuggets from the 90s, before the recipe changed to crap. If I had to pick a flavor that I associate with my childhood, this would be it.

The Angus Mushroom & Swiss burger from McDonald's. The Angus was the closest thing they ever had to a real burger, but they were too expensive for most people and were eventually discontinued. Fun fact: wages have stagnated yet their basic burgers now cost more than the Angus did.

It was also the only time I can recall them having a swiss and mushroom burger on the menu. It was delicious.

There's an entire song about this.

The thing is, Viconia and

Throne of Bhaal spoilers

Sarevok

had similar arcs in the previous games but I never got annoyed enough to not want them in my party. A character can be disagreeable without being insufferable.