jdreyer wrote on Mar 25, 2022, 21:23:

Coalfax wrote on Mar 25, 2022, 16:00:
yep.. another -wake me when its on Steam- here. Exclusives are just bad for the consumer. The publisher gets their bag of money and screw the playerbase... sigh

I bet your boycott Amazon too, since the third-party series The Expanse is a Prime exclusive.

That's about the dumbest thing I've heard. Sci fy CANCELED expanse. Amazon PAID to keep it going.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Mar 18, 2022, 20:24:

PHJF wrote on Mar 18, 2022, 19:22:
...I made a big ol pot of chili last night...tons o beans...

You did not succeed in making chili. You succeeded in making bean soup.

That's funny, and here I thought the dish was named chili because it is... made with chili peppers. Or did I say I'd made chili con carne?

Or just... Don't eat meat! I made a big ol pot of chili last night, piled high with the good stuff. Tons o veg, tons o beans, tons o flavor... Top that sucker with avocado.

50+ hours and I just want to keep playing. Nothing on the map to guide me, just wandering around discovering crazy shit all the time.

Good luck with Godrick. I ended up leaving him to go explore then wrecked him utterly after eventually returning.

Wordle 265 4/6

🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I wasn't aware battery fatigue really affected non-tablet kindles.... I charge mine maybe once every novel I read?

The tiny optional dungeons are very boring and samey, but the core "dungeons" are great. I spent like four hours alone in Raya Academy. And exploring the overworld never gets old.

The problem is I was in a position to use "ruble"... And it said it was invalid. Yet rupee somehow is?

I'm trying to convince a friend to sell me a 2070 for $400... he never uses the thing and I want Elden Ring at max settings!

Did some coop with a friend, we went down this random elevator somewhere... and opened into this sprawling underground cavern with ruins everywhere and deer roaming around. Like Blackreach in Skyrim. Very impressive.

I get definite stuttering, but I assumed it was my old-ass PC. Nothing unplayable as of yet. I did have one crash in ~3 hours.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 24, 2022, 03:29:
Man, things in Ukraine going to shit. Why is Putin such an asshole?

Because (many) Russian people like him. Ours is the country that elected Trump, remember, who is both an asshole AND a colossal fucking douchebag-moron.

The problem I have is that most games seem to be reviewed by a mixture of people who are either fans of the genre, who are biased and more willing to look past the shortcomings of the game, and some who just enjoy the game for what it is, who are not as biased and not so forgiving of the shortcomings.

This is the sixth game from a studio who make nothing but this type of game. Obviously any reviewer with any merit has already played at least one of these games and can use that as a benchmark for the new one. And any gamer who hasn't been under a rock for 13 years knows roughly what to expect from Elden Ring.

The PC Gamer review suggests that while the game is great, it ultimately isn't different enough from Dark Souls. Still a great game, but not the best thing since sliced bread... which is undoubtedly how I will feel about Elden Ring when I start playing it later. Demon's Souls was the entire reason I bought a PS3: a genre-defining experience that couldn't be had anywhere else. I'm just lucky they started porting to PC (even if the ports are never great).

Quinn wrote on Feb 21, 2022, 09:47:
Monster design also looks horrendous. The devs must have a collection of jars. One jar has a label with "head" on it. One with "torso". Another with "limbs" and one with "weapon". In these jars are post-its with household items written on them. Devs take from these jars. Slap them together. Add some design elements so it somewhat makes sense as a monster and done. We've got this random ass monster that's ridiculous more than cool, but people somehow love it.

You're kidding, right? The gaping dragon looks slapped together? They look exactly like they are supposed to look, like hideously corrupted versions of existing people / creatures... which is what all the enemies in these games are.

Dark Souls is popular because if nothing is ventured, nothing is gained. "The fall" of modern video games is epitomized by Prince of Persia wherein the player is handed a literal do-over button so there is never any risk of failure to the player. Not surprisingly, this results in a super fucking boring game, and most major single-player games have taken this unfortunate mechanic to heart. Died in a fight? Here, start right at the entrance do that room again. Missed a jump? Here, respawn literally at the same ledge and try again. All my favorite games of the past few years have been ones that eschew this trend; Dark Souls. Dead Cells. Project Zomboid. X-Com. Hell, even Phasmophobia, a very approachable game, does not return equipment lost upon death.

People love to say "I'm just in it for the story," so many games now have a difficulty option that removes *all* difficulty. Hey guess what, games have shit stories. If you just want a story, read a fucking book. There are tons of great books. Dying and failure are core components of video games going back to their inception in arcades, where fucking up literally lost you a quarter.

And every big update since Synthesis made performance more worse, because they did not optimise anything, just piled more and more things up in the rendering queue.

That's what killed it for me. Not only was performance completely unacceptable, but the game crashed left and right the last time I played it (last year).

Drazula wrote on Feb 16, 2022, 12:24:
Can someone explain to me something... why do you support (or don't support) a game launcher? I thought gamers supported the games they like (ie the developers)? If a developer gets a bigger cut from one store instead of another, why wouldn't you purchase from the store that gives more to the developers?

To me, supporting any launcher/store seems nuts.

Because the heads of Epic are douchebags and promote anti- competitive policies while bitching about everyone else's "anti-competitive" policies.

I mean Wheel of Time was absolutely terrible sooooo...

you gonna get a shot every four months? Sheesh.

Yeah that five minute stop at the CVS I drive by every single day once every four months is reaaaalllllly a deal breaker.