The Queue: Nothing could ever replace you

Nobody tell Rutherford, whose middle initial does not stand for bear, that I’ve been doing Prey with my cat. It’s bound to be awkward and all, but come on, Leech. Be cool, okay?

Also, what’s the deal with Spirit Beasts. I understand that they don’t want their healing to be too OP, but I swear, one 30 second cooldown heals me for maybe .5% health over 10 seconds. I’d report this as a bug but I’ve been feeling exceptionally suspicious as to whether things are genuinely bugs, or if I’m just doing everything wrong.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the Queues, and we’ll answer .5% of them.

Harandir really and truly burns my beans (this is my attempt at euphemism) for several reasons, all of which boil down to: why not Beast if Beast shaped? The Hunter issue is solved, eventually, because you can find a book which allows you to tame them, eventually. Apparently. I have not yet been so lucky to get this alleged drop, but I have not truly pursued this because I am just hacked off enough to penalize myself out of sheer spite.

But those same now-Beasts are still plants, so there’s a great big expanse of lovely animals that I can never skin. I have a better time as a skinner in Elfland than I do the primal Land of the Lost, which seems just wrong.

I hope Herbalists are proud of themselves.

It very much depends on the game. Even as I uncover more and more of the story of Titanium Court, the nature of its gameplay and the overall feeling of being lightly unhinged means that I can pick it back up without issue no matter how much time has elapsed. By contrast, I have a tough time picking up those loot-heavy Survival games because I will inevitably say to myself, “haha, why am I even keeping this?” and as soon as I throw it away I find out exactly why I was keeping it. It’s rare and it’s a part of an endgame build.

In the middle are games which have a deeper, more in-depth gameplay, but encourage copious notetaking, either within the game or without. I can drop and pick up The Long Dark in part because there’s a space for journaling in the game itself. While you can pass time manually, the nature of its weather means that it makes a lot of sense to sit a minute and journal out what resources you have in a particular location, what your goals are, what your next steps should be. Then, the weather might clear, or it might get far worse. Similarly, I’m pretty confident that I can pick up Blue Prince again and be immediately right back where I was the last time I played, because of my massive ongoing multimedia spreadsheet which was necessary to just completing the game the first time.

I would guess and assume that BG3 is right between these, with all the drawbacks and none of the positives of both of these, especially if this is your third or fourth runthrough to a specific purpose. Are you even trying to smooch the right NPC? Who knows.

The second half of Wicked.

aaaAAH-AH ah oh AH-AH AAAH-OH-AHHHHHH~

Nailed it.

I had Chipotle for lunch, so nothing. Still full. Kids had grilled cheese and baby carrots like the good lord intended for childhood.