It’s also great without mods. During my first playthrough, a tornado destroyed most of the village, including the school with every child in it. Up until that point, nobody had died. All livestock, all crops, every single house was gone. The only thing that saved the survivors just before the next winter was some fruit I had stored in the dock for future trade. I managed to get them through the following winter and they all lived to die from old age, but the village never recovered from losing the entire next generation. I was only able to stabilize the population; growth ended up being impossible after this disaster.

I love games that are able to organically create stories like this one.

You can’t really blame accountants for doing their job.

TIL that game has a rumored budget of 2 billion.

Sometimes, when I play a AAA game and something expensive is visible on screen (e.g. half of New York getting destroyed during that long quick-time event in Spider-Man), I like to shout “Production value!” at nobody, like that director self-insert kid in “Super 8” (2011).

I get a feeling I would ruin my voice doing this every time in GTA 6.

To answer your question, I think we would have to look at what music licenses usually cost. Some quick googling tells me that $7500 is hardly an outrageously low sum for a song from a middle of the road '80s band. They aren’t exactly Depeche Mode. I think they would have benefited far more from the inclusion of their song in this game financially (since it would cast them into the limelight again, providing streaming revenue and perhaps gain them new fans) than the little and likely very temporary publicity they gained from rejecting the offer.

-> https://i.imgur.com/PTq7u8a.jpeg

As well as several generations of teenagers before the current one.

On one hand, this does sound plausible, but on the other hand, Concord is such a disaster that said C-Suit idiots might legitimately fear that the mere existence of its episode could overshadow the entire rest of the show. It might be cheaper and more sensible to just write one episode off and, if there is any hint of an overarching narrative, fix this with a few edits to other episodes and maybe some quickly recorded voice over to bridge any possible gaps.

Now I definitely know you’re a Russian troll. This is exactly the kind of political apathy the Russian regime wants to establish in America after having done so at home years ago.

I seriously doubt that episode will ever be finished.

Got an article on this?

The two parties are nowhere near the same on this topic, there is no genocide being funded and the whole handler nonsense makes you sound like a Russian troll.

Voting for a third party candidate only helps Trump. They might as well just vote for him directly. The outcome is the same and if America and the world are unlucky enough to experience a second Trump term, then these idiots would strongly regret their decision. Palestinians wouldn’t be the only ones to suffer from this.

On one hand yes, but on the other hand, he also likes to cozy up to dictators to an alarming degree.

My mistake, I meant Al-Qassam. Thanks for the correction.

No. There are far, far more aid workers in Gaza than anywhere else relative to the size of the population. I thought I was pretty clear on that this is the reason. Aid agencies are by far the biggest employers for Palestinians. Now add in just how many aid workers in Gaza in particular moonlight at the Al-Aqsa brigades and you see why when Israel kills a few fighters, it’s not unlikely that they get someone who has a day job as an aid worker. It’s just like with “journalists” who are not just on Hamas payroll, but even imprison hostages in their household.

Faster hardware doesn’t always translate to better graphics. The PS2 is the second-slowest system of its generation, just ahead of the Dreamcast, but it’s capable of unique graphical effects that other systems and even the PC cannot easily replicate due to the PS2’s unique ability to quickly process huge numbers of transparent textures; only recent PC hardware can replicate this through shaders; it was impossible at the time. That’s why all ports of GTA San Andreas look dull and lack the complex effects of the PS2 original, even if they are better in some regards (like shadows). Mods can replicate this sometimes, but in case of San Andreas, this was only achieved in recent years - and I’m not aware of any other game having received the same treatment by modders.

This also applies to the Sands of Time trilogy. PS2 versions are better looking than other console versions and the PC ports. The best experience with it is through emulation. You get the high frame rates and resolution of the PC version, but the unique atmospheric effects that are only present on Sony’s system. Higher-res textures alone can not make up for this, let alone the ones you linked to, which just deliver ugly AI upscaling noise instead of actual detail.

Xemu is by far the least desirable option. Immense hardware requirements and relatively limited compatibility. It’s a miracle it’s functional at all. I would only use it for games that you cannot play through any other means - so the small number of Xbox exclusives that were never ported to other systems and don’t work through backwards compatibility on newer Xbox consoles. Midtown Madness 3 comes to mind. I’m glad I finally got to experience this forgotten game by the Battlefield developers - but it was barely playable at 640x480 on a Ryzen 5 5600. The experience reminded me of very early PS2 emulation and not in a good way.

PCSX2 is usually decent and has made immense strides in recent months, but it usually runs multiplatform games worse than Dolphin, which is the gold standard for console emulation. However, not all ports of games are better on Gamecube. While the console is more powerful than the PS2, the limited amount of storage on the system’s proprietary discs resulted in quite a few compromised ports (edit: and the PS2 has a few hardware tricks up its sleeve that no other system of the time can replicate, particularly in the effects department). Still, it’s usually the best course of action to try Gamecube/Wii emulation first and resort to PS2 emulation only if you’re noticing downgrades. There’s also the little issue with PS2 games that some rely on the controller’s analog face buttons for certain mechanics (e.g. short jumps, long jumps, throttle/brake, certain attacks), which are not present on newer controllers most people are likely to be using. Sometimes this can be rebound reasonably well, e.g. to a modern controller’s triggers, but not always.

All of the above also applies to AetherSX2/NetherSX2 and the Android port of Dolphin, by the way. On mobile devices in particular, the lower hardware requirements of Dolphin are worth keeping in mind - although lower-end devices are likely to struggle with Gamecube and Wii games anyway. This is not an issue on PC anymore; even basic PCs from over a decade ago will run Dolphin flawlessly, whereas PCSX2 can be punishing even on modern CPUs with certain games at higher resolutions. The original PS2 version of Shadow of the Colossus for example is so demanding that it’s actually a better idea to emulating the slightly enhanced PS3 port through RPCS3 instead.

For a good overview over current emulators, I highly recommend this wiki: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Just market your game as “retro hard” and you can get away with anything. /s

The percentage of aid workers killed corresponds roughly to the death toll among the total population of Gaza. The reason why in absolute numbers so many aid workers have been killed is that there is no other place in the world where there are so many aid workers relative to the general population, in part due to the fact that Palestinians are the only people in the world that have their own refugee agency, which runs many services that would usually be run by the local government, like school and healthcare.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/world/middleeast/israeli-hostages-autopsies.html

Interestingly, the IDF is less certain about their cause of death than the victims’ relatives. It’s worth stressing that relatives of hostages tend to be far more interested in explanations and solutions that are less, shall we say, negative towards Hamas. That they are not in this case is quite unusual.

Most dead hostages found in the strip so far were in shallow graves, with gunshot wounds from close up executions.