I had a lot going on in September 2020. In this video I recap what went on regarding my channel and regarding my video gaming life. Get ready for a video roundup, podcast roundup, “what I’m playing” roundup, and “what I’m reading”…also a roundup. (more…)
Author: Caleb J. Ross
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How to Play Mafia 3 in 4 Easy Steps
Mafia 3 is a crime game set in a fully explorable open sandbox 1960’s New Orleans proxy called New Bordeaux, so the first and most important step in finishing Mafia 3 is to yearn for a life in 1960s New Orleans.
Step 1: Yearn for a life in 1960s New Orleans
There’s lots to love about 1960s New Orleans. It’s got lots of hungry alligators and it’s got lots of bad guys. And therefore, it’s got lot’s of entertainment. As the old New Orleans saying goes, “Laissez les bons temps rouler”, which is French for Let the bad guys roll into the mouths of hungry alligators.
A LOT of your time will be spent feeding alligators. Which is to say a LOT of your time will be spent avoiding the actual game missions to instead feed alligators. Much of the fun of sandbox games like Mafia 3 or the Grand Theft Auto series or actual sandboxes is pushing the limits of the game’s systems to do things that the game designers didn’t expect the player to do. Except Psycho Phil, the Mafia 3 physics engineer. We’re all pretty sure that even though no mission tells you to, he secretly hoped players would line up dead bodies and drive over them like some sort of a classy and sadistic Monster Truck rally.
Playing period pieces like this will open your eyes to how far we’ve come with our crimes. Mafia 3 taught me that in the 1960s, anyone could wiretap a phone line using an easily accessible junction box, a crowbar, and some found parts. What kind of parts, you ask. Just, just parts. 3 of them, specifically. All you had to do in the 1960s was open a junction box with a crowbar, smoosh some parts in there, and boom, you now can hear your neighbors discuss dinner plans and you can use those plans to commit some kind of dinner crimes. Those dummies. Just giving out all that crime data.
Step 2: But DON’T yearn for the RACIST part of 1960’s New Orleans
The player character, Lincoln Clay, is a non-white person during a very racists time of a very racists part of the American south. This tension is what drives much of the player’s motivation during the game. If you’re cool with racism, you’re not going to like this game.
Mafia 3 is the fastest selling 2K game ever, so by the logic of capitalism, that means racism is dead, right? Yeah.
Oh, but those sales didn’t continue, and because the game cost so much to make, the game turned out to be a financial loss. Boooo.
Step 3: Pick your body piling spot wisely
The missions of Mafia 3 are repetitive. In most missions, you are tasked with killing a guy who sends waves of other guys at you, so you must kill them as well. Kill all those guys, then kill the main bad guy, and eventually you win the game.
The smart player will start each mission by choosing a place to hide all of the forthcoming dead bodies, then whistling to get the attention of a forthcoming dead body, then waiting patiently until the forthcoming dead body wanders close like an idiot who thinks a strange whistle is ever not a trick, and finally the smart player will make the forthcoming dead body a current dead body before throwing the current dead body in your pre-selected dead body storage area.
I’ve had park bench body areas, bathroom body areas, shower body areas, but my favorite is the gatehouse body area because, I like the way the small room makes the piled bodies look even more piled.
Mafia 3 is by far the best body stacking simulator I’ve ever played. And maybe even better than real body stacking, but it’s hard to say because it’s been so long since I worked at that tiny morgue.
Step 4: subscribe to this channel
I know that step seems self serving, but that’s what the game says to do. (dub over subscribe over recruiting boss). So you’d better do it. Remember all those dead bodies I talked about? Those guys didn’t subscribe. I’m not saying there’s a correlation, but I’m not not saying it.
Music Credits
- Pump Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
- “Edm Detection Mode” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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A Review of The Suicide of Rachel of Foster of (game review)
I heard that The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a lot like What Remains of Edith Finch, so I knew I had to play it because I love seeing games fail to be greater than the greatest game of all time. I’m probably approaching this game unfairly, huh? (more…)
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Playstation AND Xbox Both Lie to Us About How They Approach Console Generations
Hey Xbox and Playstation fans, I’m one of you, I love video games, and I’ve got some wonderful news to share with you. Xbox. Playstation. They both believe in console generations. They just lie to us about it differently. Maybe “wonderful” isn’t the way to describe that news, but it’s one less thing we all need to waste energy fighting about. (more…)
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I’m worried about Google Stadia
I like Google Stadia. I really do. But I’m concerned about what direction the game streaming service is headed. Specifically, I’m concerned because I DON’T KNOW what direction it’s headed. I’m concerned because Stadia hasn’t been vocal about where they are headed and what they want the platform to be. In this video I call attention to the fact that Stadia is lacking crucial marketing efforts, and I think that this void comes down to Stadia not having a stated purpose.
But this video isn’t doom and gloom. I think Stadia will be around for a while. Stadia just needs to do better at cultivating a fandom. Like I said, I like Stadia. (more…)
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Fallout 4 Taught me the Importance of Drinking Water…Really.
Kidney stones are awful. Lithotripsies are awful. Fallout 4, the video game from Bethesda, saved my life by helping me understand a basic bodily need in a way only my dumb video game brain could understand. It turns out, drinking water is a good thing in video games and in real life. (more…)
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How to Use the Google Stadia Service is 7.5 Easy Steps!
How can you play Google Stadia? It’s quite easy, actually. It is so easy, in fact, that I’ve boiled the entire process down to only 7.5 steps. Some gamers may even suggest that 7.5 steps is too many to simply learn how to play Google Stadia. Those people are probably right. You are lucky to have those people in your life.
In this video I show you how you can try Google Stadia and be gaming in less than three minutes…unless you are bad at typing. Then it may take you a bit longer than that.
Music Credits:
Edm Detection Mode by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4987-edm-detection-mode
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
