👻Really Spooky Smith👻

👻Really Spooky Smith👻

@reallyseansmith.bsky.social

Author of Even a Dog Enlists, Why Not You? and Rank Absurdity: An Irreverent Military Memoir. Formerly a US Army, MI, UN, NATO, etc. guy. Currently a Regular Human Person goofing off on Bluesky. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Sean-Smith/author/B0B6KPP5XL

2.9K followers654 following15.6K posts

It's basically the platonic ideal of a game that seems brilliant if you're a reviewer rushing through it to make a deadline, but gets worse the more you play it or think about it at all beyond that.

QuoProQuid@quoproquid.bsky.social

bioshock infinite is on the very low end of mediocre and is not fun to play but i do think about it from time to time just *because* of the amount of anticipation there was for it and because this was supposed to be this big ambitious project filled with very incisive commentary

It hints at all kinds of stuff that seems smart but goes nowhere and says nothing. It has a gear and character progression system on paper, but your choices change nothing about the core experience of playing. "Pretentious" is an overused term, but It is literally pretentious.

Chasing masculinity through a field, but they keep stepping on rakes that are also masculinity, until they're rejecting the NFL as "woke" but defending bruléed French toast and mimosa brunch while hinting at carrying a gun.

This post is unavailable.

Reminder that Cyberpunk 2077 has a gang of cartoon vetbros who turned to racketeering under a veneer of performative patriotism, who you can shoot in the face while Johnny Silverhand talks shit about them in your head. "6th Street delenda est, choom."

You can go to their run down suburb, where they're having a day-drunk shooting contest because MUH SECOND AMENDMENT, beat them easily and then take the prize gun and wipe out several bocks of them with it. This is not hyperbole, it's literally just How the Game Is.

👻Really Spooky Smith👻 reposted

American conservatives are constantly bemoaning the decline of aesthetic standards and calling for a return to tailored suits and classical Roman architecture, but are now forced to defend the Cheesecake Factory. A constant tension between the Brooks Brothers patrician and the Kid Rock populist.

👻Really Spooky Smith👻 reposted

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s strongman leader Aleksandar Vucic has conceded defeat to a student-led movement in a seismic political shift.

Even as an amoral tactical maneuver...who is it for? Everyone whose whole personality is trans panic is already locked in for the GOP.

Erin Reed@erininthemorning.com

Josh Turek of Iowa, Democrat, comes out with one of the worst anti-trans ads yet. Not only is it an anti-sports ad, it proposes a ban on federal funding for gender affirming care. That would hit all medicaid and medicare patients, and any ACA federally-subsidized plans as well. Horrific.

This is beside the point, but also people don't go to The Cheesecake Factory because they think it's ✨️ fancy ✨️, they go because everything tastes like it has a whole stick of butter in it, because it does.

This post is unavailable.

👻Really Spooky Smith👻 reposted

Replying to @sharonk.bsky.social

"The marketplace of ideas situation has developed not necessarily to the right's advantage. We will therefore be moving to a Sakoku of Ideas."

👻Really Spooky Smith👻 reposted

Question for the history & geography hive mind: I'm editing a collection of letters from a soldier who served in the Mexican War. In several of them he refers to Richmond Hill, Kentucky. Where the hell is Richmond Hill, Kentucky?

Mass Effect 3 botching the ending so hard made everyone forget how much good game there was up to that point.

(Un)Dead Carl 🎃@deadcarl.bsky.social

The thing about ME2 is that while it doesn’t move the main story forwards, it’s excellent execution of the “putting together a team” conceit. What it actually moves forward are player companion stories, which are both satisfying in their own right and paid off in ME3

I get it, back when my nieces were little I was taking a nap and they Krazy Glued esoteric military valor signifiers all over me like they were Blue's Clues stickers.

Mother Jones@motherjones.com

When it came out that the Nevada Republican David Flippo’s campaign had falsely claimed he received a Bronze Star with valor, there was just one problem, the Air Force veteran, wore a hat with V-shaped emblems for years. His new explanation? His grandkids added the Vs without him noticing.

Defense News@defensenews-poster.bsky.social

US military needs ‘urgent revolutionary institutional change’ to prepare for modern war, Petraeus says - https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2026/10/23/us-military-needs-urgent-revolutionary-institutional-change-to-prepare-for-modern-war-petraeus-says/

Star Citizen's commitment to the bit is incredible, and the whole saga started in the Obama years, so it definitely was ahead of the "just keep scamming forever" curve.

Pete@eyebrowsofpower.bsky.social

Star Citizen is an exception though; early adopter of "everything is fraud or gambling", picking a niche audience of whales who are deep in sunk cost fallacy

I'm sure I saw some Disney cartoon or something when I was younger (The Rescuers, maybe?) but the first one I actually remember was the 1979 re-release of the original Star Wars.

Mark Thompson@markreckons.bsky.social

First film you saw at the cinema. The real first one, not the pretend one you tell people! Mine: The Empire Strikes Back, 1980, Wigan. We were near the front and I can still remember how massive the AT-ATs looked, looming over us out of the snow :) Film, year, where, and whatever stuck with you.

It's wild to me that Cyberpunk 2077 can look amazing and average like 80 FPS in gunfights without even using any frame rate boosting gimmicks like DLSS, and meanwhile Star Wars: Zero Company bottoms out at 40 and looks way worse all the time? (Game still good but FPS is pants for no reason?)