By split a gallilean moon, do you just mean see up to 4 moons separate from Jupiter? I’m pretty sure I can distinctly see them, at least with elbows on a railing or on some mount. I guess I’ll have to look tonight if it’s clear. I kinda only remember catching 3 at a time and not investigating further. I do have 20/15 vision so I guess that plays a role. Good point to remind me not everyone has my hawk eyes. I don’t catch much color though. Usually too small and washed out. It’ll have slight pink bands at best. I haven’t been able to note a crescent shape for venus, either. But I figure even cheap scopes can show my planets, so it hasn’t been my focus
+1 on binos. They’ve kept me happy because they fit in a backpack or carry-on luggage. I’m deep in light pollution, so viewing is best done with some travel. They have less magnification, but they’re as bright as a much more expensive telescope and there’s a certain value to having two eyes on the night sky.
10x50 is where I landed. Probably the same weight as your 7x50. While yes, the 50(mm) describes the outer objective lens, the key thing is really the lens on the eye side. Divide the aperture by the mag and you find that exit pupil size. 50/10=5mm, which is about the size of a dilated adult eyeball pupil - and they get smaller as you age. I’m guessing you have a Celestron or similar astro bino which has some advantages for this hobby. I am surprised at the ~$40 price tag, so I no longer want to recommend against it. Where I WAS going was that 7x35s would likely give a similar image from a reputable manufacturer while saving a little weight and being more likely to be found at a garage sale. But who could say no to $40 new 7x50s? As long as OP avoids those 20x50 boating binos or 10x25 hunting binos, they’ll be in good shape. My 10x50s are closer to OP’s budget because I opted for Nikon Action Extremes to survive my beach spot, hikes, travel, drops, and any other mishaps alike. Things go bump in the night so rubber coating and waterproofing was worth it to me
I’ve played Far Cry 2 through most of 6. If you don’t recognize particular references, there’s nothing that makes them substantial otherwise in the sea of creative, humorous descriptions of everyone/everything else.
I would say it’s similar with assassin’s creed, keeping it in the family of “ubisoft series gamers love to shit on”. The references are in the same style as other database entries, so you’re not missing anything if you’re unfamiliar. I’ve played 4 through Odyssey.
I’m trying to think of other series and keep landing on the same reasoning, actually. Yeah, I love having more basis for the lore in other series, but I don’t feel I’m missing much without every reference. I mean, Ace Combat was my personality for a few months when 7 came out, prompting me to replay 4 and 5 and buy Zero and 6. As others have said, the main thing is if you do choose to go backwards, things get clunky for both general game and specific series development reasons. Assin 4 was my most recent AC (tried 3, beat Unity>Ody, then beat 4) and man, parkour is tough. I gave up on 3 because it was so awkward and I was too old to learn at the elder age of like 23.
I gotta say though, Forza Horizon 1 remains my favorite. There’s certainly some nostalgia tied to it because it set me up for impossible expectations in the car community (especially now in the post-covid takeover bullshit). It had a more concise campaign and had some story attached to it. I’m up to 4 and it just drops me in like “this is just what you do now” and every race unlocks 4 more races with no end in sight.
NOx is not Nitrous Oxide and is not short for Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous Oxide is specifically N2O. NOx refers to both Nitric Oxide (NO) and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), both of which are far, far more damaging to health and atmosphere than N2O. NOx emissions are the reason diesel is generally nonexistent in US passenger vehicles - not even great mpg numbers have sufficiently-low NOx emissions.
Even if it included N2O, using nomenclature with a variable like “NOx” and grouping it all together as one inert byproduct vastly underrepresents harm. Imagine if you referred to another group as “COx” but saying it’s relatively inert and easily detected by way of a burning lung sensation but feeds plants so it’s not all bad because Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has that effect. Carbon Monoxide (CO) is completely left out of that description and will silently kill you.
Ace Combat 4 and 5 both made me feel awesome, then sad, then vengeful, and then awesome in their campaigns. They start as casual arcade styles, throw in some grief, grow the antagonists’ justification, then the skies start speaking Latin and you systematically destroy some megabase. I was fairly young, so now sad Spanish guitar riffs cause me grief when thinking about Yellow 4 and 13. Is that joy? The memory of a fairly casual arcade game weaving in a heartfelt tragic war story?
At risk of making this my only personality trait, Far Cry 2’s desert at night was a treat for me. I seek out similar experiences in real life now. It didn’t necessarily create that desire, but it was my first open world game, if I remember correctly. It didn’t make me jump for joy, it just made me feel serene.
I’m sure it was driven by the memes, but Portal 1 gave me a great sense of accomplishment. It was mild reaction skill with some decent logic puzzles. The build up, the turn, the fight, the final song. Quite a trip.
Overall most joy might go to Forza Horizon 1. First open world Forza title, first (for me?) open world racing game with decent driving mechanics, excellent variety of cars, hit me at my peak interest in house music and other EDM, showed me Colorado scenery I’d see IRL 10 years later, and the campaign was focused around the Woodstock of a [cars X EDM] festival. I wish that was real and I wish the scene would be respectful. But, unfortunately, you can’t control 300 drivers and prevent them from one-upping each other and making it dangerous and disrespectful. And you gotta pay for parking everywhere nice. See: h2o, ocean city Maryland.
Far Cry 2 brought me joy experiencing the open world format. I fell in love with the desert at night there and now I try to visit real life arid regions at night.
FC5 didn’t have towers and FC6, as far as I know, has a single tower that makes a joke about it. I don’t beleive AC Odyssey had those towers, either. Can’t remember Origins. The tower mechanic was also only used to visualize parts of the map, sometimes with a unique goody at the top. It’s back to foot-based map discovery. The busy work here is talking about all the bullshit collectibles and similar scavenger mini quests. AC is full of chests and AC4 had some cave clearing missions and deep sea dive puzzles. You have to go to certain locations or complete a certain number of collectibles to unlock some equipment rather than relying on the campaign alone. 20 hours of story, 100 hours of fetch.
30s, New homeowner, wife, house needs repair, cars need repair, wallet needs repair, someone has to cook, full work week, 90 minutes spent on commuting. No kids or pets, but I feel we might have similar availability. And I’m always wondering the same because I’ll never have the time to play like I did as a teen. But, here’s what I have. PC and Xbox.
I generally play one story game at a time. I’ll play for a couple weeks or couple months. I just try to make progress and enjoy it for what it is, not set any goals. How would I know how much time I need anyway? Could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours per session. Something like Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, Tomb Raider(don’t worry, I have bigger triggers next). I’m hoping this month I “finally get around” to Fallout 3, NV, or 4.
I have other options, though, depending on immediate time availability. Some borderline storyless games (maybe with cosmetic reward progression) for the shortest of times or highest of mental fatigue (forza horizon, fortnite, rocket league, ace combat, borderlands). My two slow burn games are Valheim and Elite Dangerous. They both take probably an hour to get up to speed if I’ve been out of it for a few weeks, but I’ll be good for a week between sessions after that. I’ll sink 2+ hours per session into those. Regarding remembering controls, ED amuses me because I use an Xbox controller to play. Every button is mapped and there’s a combo for every (ABXY) + (D-pad or bumpers). 14 buttons and 24 combos. Putting the controller in my hand unlocks subconscious memory of most of them. Even in other games where crouch and jump are shuffled around, it only takes a couple mistakes for me to remember.
It’s not an impressive list, but I try to not beat myself up over it. I’m busy, I’m tired. I stopped being elitist about the Epic and Ubisoft bullshit because I don’t have time to waste giving a fuck. There’s 100 better similar games but this is what I’m doing. I’m sitting down for a good time, not a long time.
Another aspect I had to reexamine was my notion of productivity, progression, and entertainment. Did gaming fulfill a fantasy version of real “campaign” progression? Does the building and repair I do in real life actually contribute to the same feeling of accomplishment as beating a game? Does socializing in real life fulfill that need for story progression? So far… Yes. Mostly. The fantasy game version definitely looks cooler.
Only other comment is about not choosing a title. I wouldn’t play a game I started because I needed to play a newer game before I was left behind. I think it’s been 2 years since I last bought a game. I can’t keep up. I can’t finish what I have. So I more or less decided to work through my library for now. It’s hard to get over the fomo of skipping titles or being multiple titles behind in a series. But so what? I have hyped games from 2015. I have hyped games from 2020. And from 2010. And from 2005. I’m missing newer games hyped in 2023. But in 2026, there will still be hyped games. And 2030. And 2035. I don’t have the time for every title. So I’ll see what’s out when I have room again. For now, it’s just about 4 story game so cycle through. Doesn’t really help you decide, but maybe makes it easier to avoid not deciding.
The Thargoid war seemed pretty exciting. I did some ground-based ship battles and was decent at it, but I couldn’t commit the time for a space battle, for a titan battle, or for a foot battle. I can’t say I want to walk around my ship, but I’d take it if it meant a more realistic transition between ship and foot, though. I still pop in for quick pirate hunting at nav beacons. I’m always getting fomo about the latest credit farms but have given up on owning a carrier. I appreciate the bio exploration as an expansion on long distance exploration since the payout is comparable to casual combat, at least.
But yeah, ultimately, it’s a fairly empty game. Lots of space, little variation. Obviously I enjoyed it enough to put 1000 hours into. No regrets there. But I was very into the lore and community stuff so it was as much roleplay as it was gameplay
I’m guilty of this. So many times, I’ll see something at full price and say I’ll wait to buy it on sale. Then it goes on sale and I don’t feel like spending the money at all. Granted, I’m not trying to sway the market and screaming my bid, this is just my internal monologue. I have a backlog of games and a busy adult life, so it’s not like I’m game-poor. Just regular poor.
About 1000 hours in Elite:Dangerous, my most-played Steam game. Kinda bums me out that it was all 2020-2022 gameplay for the first 900 hours but I haven’t had time to get back into.
Valheim continues it’s slow burn at about 400 hours since 2020.
No times on Xbox games, at least not from the OS. Fortnite has probably become my top game there. Whatever. It’s not just for my entertainment. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey I think had somewhere over 200 hours in the save file time. I’d love to know how many hours I put into Forza Motorsports 4 when custom paint schemes was a technological feat. Ace Combat 4/5/7 also have a ton of replays for me since the bonus medals are so tangible. Far Cry 2 doesn’t have a ton of hours, but I was definitely infatuated with it circa 2010. That night time desert still calls to me
I don’t have time to be rushed like that. If anyone needs me between now and January 3rd, I’ll be parked in the deserts of Far Cry 2 at night with my buggy ignoring whatever petty need you have to admire the dark serenity and distant zebra yelps.