Mogster

1 minute ago, Festoon said:

 

Because it's "only" animation and nobody gives a shit.

There are lots of animated Star Wars characters, many of which have made the jump to live action.

The difference with these is that they've been specifically made outside of canon, with all the freedom that allows. I guess there's no reason some of them couldn't be used in the regular Star Wars universe though, as it would be no different to the other Legends characters that were reintroduced.

1 hour ago, MarkN said:

Lovely following this @Sprite Machine. Thanks.

 

Farscape is well worth a watch. It's nicely odd, and has a feel all of its own. I didn't watch it slavishly, but enjoyed every bit I saw. Is it on any of the major streaming platforms? Might give that a rewatch myself once I'm done catching up with my backlog if I can get at it.

Bizarrely you can stream it on Plex. I don't know if you need a Plex pass for that, but I'm guessing so.

I think The Peacekeeper Wars is on Prime, but obviously watch that after the main series.

51 minutes ago, Gotters said:

My concerns are the usual with mystery box shows, do they know where its going, is it going to suck when the reveal happens, when will they start ignoring the travel rules and be using the big slide to go top to bottom of the silo in minutes.

This is based on a book trilogy, so assuming it's sticking to the source material I'd hope all the questions get answered.

I haven't read them though, so couldn't tell you if the reveals will suck or not.

I was thinking it was about time I researched Farscape myself.

I remember the first season being a bit patchy, but overall it became one of my favourite shows. It managed to be very irreverent and silly at times but always managed to maintain the depth and drama required to make it compelling.

1 hour ago, Sprite Machine said:

I can't comment on The Expanse as I gave up after a few episodes.

It might be worth going back to. I liked it from the start, but I felt it changed a bit after the first few episodes and definitely stepped things up a gear. It's definitely one of the best sci-fi shows in some time, and no doubt owes some of that to Babylon 5.

1 hour ago, dumpster said:

When I stream from the PC, the sound still comes out of the PC speakers instead of the Steam Deck. I have to go upstairs to the PC and change the sound output device to Steam Virtual Audio Driver.  Anyway to do this on the deck? I'd much prefer to stay sat down.

I think if you found a way to minimise the game while streaming you would be able to access the PC's desktop, but you shouldn't need to do this. Streaming should automatically switch audio to the Steam Deck.

I don't know if it's worth switching back to the stable release to see if it's the beta causing the issue?

Windows should run a lot better from the SSD mind, although this would involve wiping SteamOS. That can be reinstalled though.

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing you wouldn't have access to any of the Steam Deck performance options to reduce the refresh rate and stuff, but you could certainly play Game Pass games.

Microsoft are reportedly experimenting with their own Windows views for handheld gaming devices too:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/13/23681492/microsoft-windows-handheld-mode-gaming-xbox-steam-deck

This does look like a very neat device, and probably a strong contender if you're sure you're only going to play controller driven games.

That said, other than its specs I'm not sure it's quite as attractive a prospect as the Steam Deck. The Deck's control options open the door to a lot more games, and if you really want to you can also install Windows for the sake of Game Pass and the rest. Even its specs might prove less of a draw depending on how it manages its battery life.

It's by far the best competitor to be announced so far though, and feels a lot less ephemeral than the six billion Ayaneo offerings.

I sold a bunch of stuff to CEX a while back, and was also trying to sell them a complete copy of SOTN. I had a similar issue in that they only had a listing for the Ltd. Edition in Mint condition, and would only offer the price for the standard edition which was £200 and something at the time. I took it back and sold it on Ebay instead, funnily enough for about £350.

I normally kept my stuff in near mint condition, including a selection of immaculate boxed GBA games the CEX staff were fawning over.  SOTN was bought second hand though, and while the discs worked perfectly they did look like they'd been cleaned with something.

Chaos Gate! I've had my eye on that for a long time.

Behold the episode titles:

I guess we now know which one is the Lower Decks crossover episode. 

8 hours ago, SilverCrow said:

Anyone had any luck or can recommend any settings on the Steam Deck
I played around 20 mins and at every cut scene it crashed and I had to hard restart the deck  

 

It's only one report, but the recommendation for Steam Deck play right now is apparently "don't".

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/star-wars-jedi-survivor-steam-deck

3 hours ago, Protocol Penguin said:

They were so different from the counterparts in DS9, they may have well been a different alien species. Easy enough to ignore. Again, it’s probably for the best that DS9 as a series has been written out of Trek lore, unlike the TNG lot.

The Great Link got a mention too, along with a contact there clearly implied to be Odo. 

DS9 also got featured to a much greater extent in Lower Decks, complete with Nanna Visitor and Armin Shimerman reprising their roles.

27 minutes ago, Protocol Penguin said:

Will do another DS9 rewatch at some point, as that was mostly uncontaminated, seeing as successive Trek showrunners pretend it never existed.

Well, this season of Picard referenced it several times and featured DS9's main villains for a large chunk of it.

23 hours ago, Stanley said:

I wonder whether they can get this one running ok on Steam Deck, with it being next gen only I am doubtful. 

Don't forget that "next-gen only" presumably means a target of 4K. The Steam Deck only needs to manage 1280 x 800. I'd wait and see, basically.

49 minutes ago, JohnC said:

If I remember past comments right, this may disappoint some.

 

Murray Gold is back.

Mixed feelings I think. On the one hand he could be a bit overbearing, but he also wrote some absolutely amazing stuff for the show. I can remember a while bunch of themes from his last run, and precisely none from the Chibnall era.

I think, like RTD himself, it will be interesting to see what he brings to the site after such a long break. It's a shame we're not getting someone totally new to the show, but it's nice to know we're in a safe pair of hands.

I was wondering how long Power Rangers ended up running for, so I checked and it's somehow still going, and about to enter its thirtieth season. I thought the movie a few years ago was supposed to be a revival of a dead show, but clearly the show's doing alright.

Is it actually still popular with kids? MMPR seemed to be huge when I was young, and my brother and I ended up with a bunch of the toys as well as building our own combinable Lego zords. 

I liked both, but kind of inversely. I didn't have any expectations for Picard despite hoping for an improvement on the first two seasons, while I was quite excited for Mando.

After a couple of episodes of each, I found myself really looking forward to each Picard episode while kind of just watching The Mandalorian because it was on. I never failed to enjoy an episode, I just didn't really love any of them.

Oh, and I voted neutral on the two franchises. Star Trek has had a special place in my heart since primary school, and while I liked Star Wars back then it didn't feel like an amazing universe I could get lost in like Trek. I think Wars more or less took its place during the Trek wilderness years though, and now I think they've evened out. 

I'm still using Pocket Casts and really like it. I'm. Not sure what I'd want to change if I could, but that might just be because I'm so used to it.

I think I've got a perpetual license though.

@Garwoofoo The robo-Picard thing was always a bit vague on the details, but it's definitely a biological body. It was explained to Picard that it would even age like a normal human body, conveniently.

2 minutes ago, Sprite Machine said:

Got a few 'feels' in the finalé, and Brent Spiner continues to be an absolute delight and captures all versions of Data to perfection.
There was a little too much nostalgia bait with the

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closing shot of the poker table (fuck's sake, do something NEW!)

and then bringing back

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Q again! Like, this show just cannot let anything die. Emotional exits mean nothing because anyone can come back again!

 

 

But the main thing that struck me is how bad the writing is. Characters acting like they've already read the script (the whole 'saying goodbye before going into the next scene' thing), and then later with the heroes about to

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be blown up in the Queen's chamber and the Queen comes out with "even if you do somehow survive this, you'll always be alone", like she's read the bloody script and knows they're about to be rescued at the last second. Panto villain nonsense.

 

The family themes are hammered pretty hard throughout this season, but it's such a retcon.

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Sure, this crew essentially became a family for a few years, but Picard saying he joined Starfleet to find a family he didn't have is such bullshit. Firstly, because he was never like that -- even inside, that was not his character, not his drive. Secondly, he bloody had a family on Earth that he didn't give a shit about. Even Seven uses the same thing in a speech at the end ("I'm not asking you to die for nothing, think about your families down there!") as if saving the whole galaxy is not a noble enough goal.

 

And everything else that bothered me.
 

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Jack is removed from the interface but the message still transmits until the cube is destroyed. Why?

Who put his borg costume on him?

Never finding out who the Changling boss was.
All the death and destruction across the fleet being forgotten.
The Enterprise-D not being remotely like its old graceful self, so what was the point of bringing it back other than "ooh, look at the lovely bridge set" for a few minutes?)
The Titan being renamed Enterprise at the end (did the Enterprise-F get destroyed, or are there now two Enterprises in active service?
Killing off the best new character and promoting Seven to captain when she's been in Starfleet for, what, a couple of years? The whole "she's great because she doesn't play by the rules" schtick. No, you know what, just once I'd like to see a character do well who DOES play by the rules!

 

And finally, it's yet another series finalé where thousands of ships are all on screen simultaneously firing lasers and it's soooo boring now!

 

An improvement over the BAD season 1 and OFFENSIVELY BAD season 2, but it's now done. I honestly don't give a shit if they ever make any more, and the praise this season has got from some quarters is baffling.

I watched Once and Always this morning, which felt fitting for a Saturday. It was good fun, daft but played completely straight.

It was also quite forgettable, but I'm not sure you could ask for anything too deep from something like this.

47 minutes ago, Stig said:

Well I loved the 3rd season even if it was silly, a little shit in places and drowning in memerberries. Felt like a proper send off to TNG that Nemesis never was. The final credits with the music was lovely.

 

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Calling the Titan, the Enterprise made little sense though considering it's already a Titan class. I thought they were going to call it the Picard, thay feels like it would make much more sense.

 

Regarding that ship

6 minutes ago, Hexx said:

 

Prodigy has something like "Go fast!" and Lower Decks "Warp me" or something.

I must have blanked out those two.

They're going to have to get very creative if they're determined to force a catchphrase for every captain.

One thing I hope we don't see more of after this is

Just now, mexos said:

If S1 & 2 is a bit meh could you skip straight to S3 and pick it up?

100% yes.

The only thing you sort need to know from season 1 is

Otherwise it's almost better that you haven't seen the rest. There's an important character to Picard from the first two seasons who shows up at the start of season 3 then is never mentioned again, even though Picard really should be worried about her.