PHJF wrote on Dec 28, 2022, 14:43:
The only “wtf this is hard” fight was malenia, who is optional. The others were pretty in line with past games.

Pretty fair assessment. I beat everything but Malenia, but that fight basically made me lose interest in playing further.

Sheesh, the game is already 120 GB, vanilla. My Laptop literally fears that game.

Jim wrote on Dec 28, 2022, 15:26:

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Dec 28, 2022, 15:19:
Wow, I cannot wait for Dark Souls-like (and Rogue-like) games to go out of style, I feel like it's ruined at least a decade's worth of good games.

Don't get me wrong, I have like 150+ hours in Elden Ring, but every game doesn't need to be a Dark Souls wannabe, or force the reuse of content via Rogue-Like/Lite nonsense.

not sure what you are on about, there are probably less than 10 games over the past few years that would count as "soulslike". That is much much less than "every game". Or maybe you mean "hard games". But that is a different thing. As for "nonsense" - play what you like, I don't see the purpose of complaining about genres you don't like.

Well, like I said, Dark Souls-like and Rogue-like, and I don't think anyone can honestly say those game types haven't influenced a lot of game development. I'd argue there are more than 10 in the past decade, as I said, but we're nitpicking at that point. I don't even hate Dark Souls itself, and I really enjoyed Elden Ring, but it's pretty obvious when other games (especially a lot of indie titles) are trying to copy that gamestyle. Difficult(in terms of severely punishing flaws even vs regular enemies) or at least technical combat, respawning enemies on death, lengthy runs between whatever their checkpoint system is, tons of grinding, etc. I don't think anyone can argue that Rogue-ish game design hasn't spread far and wide. It's about as bad as the DotA/LoL clones. Any of those games could have been something new and different (mechanically) and possibly been really great, but they chose to copy DS or Rogue-like design, and tried to follow the popularity and potential cash. Maybe "ruined" is too strong a term...greatly influenced? I don't know. My easiest example is The Surge series... holy shit those games had me so excited, but playing them is basically just another Dark Souls clone, just in the future. "Wasted Opportunity."

I recognize this is basically an old-man-yelling-at-cloud argument, but what the hell is wrong with those clouds anyway?

BicycleRepairMan wrote on Dec 28, 2022, 03:01:
I have never played last of us, but the show looks good. Makes sense to not have the same level/kind of violence as a game. I mean , imagine if Goldeneye , the movie , had the same number of kills as goldeneye the game..

I understand your point, but I hope they aren't talking about changing the nature/intensity of the combat, as well as reducing the total amount. I totally agree with any movie/show reducing the total amount of combat compared to any game the media is based off of, otherwise it'd make it impossible to do adaptations.

The brief statement in the article is a little ambiguous, I'm still going to watch the show though, and play the PC versions of the games whenever they get released.

Wow, good luck, guys! Although it does sound like quite a bit of senior Blizzard talent is already long gone, forming various other semi-Indie studios and already announcing other games, so the remaining employees might not have the influence they would have had 4-5 years ago.

Did Elon Musk have some sort of psychotic break, or brain injury or something? Just shut the fuck up and be a quiet multi-billionaire, for fuck's sake.

Ugh, Henry Cavill and his nerd hobbies.

He better be banging some models on the side, when he isn't painting overpriced miniature models!

It bugs me on a cosmic level.

Willow is really pissing me off, on a meta level. They have great actors, tons of money, and the original film was simply not that complex. The show is okay, but... it really feels like it was written as something else and they just shoe horned it into Willow, in a lot of places.

I did really like Kevin Pollak's cameo though. Overall they should have just made a new show in a new universe, especially since Val Kilmer is literally dying of cancer and cannot speak. It's depressing as hell that they keep referring to his character, like he's suddenly going to jump into the show from somewhere (*Disclaimer, I have not finished the series yet*)

Wow, I cannot wait for Dark Souls-like (and Rogue-like) games to go out of style, I feel like it's ruined at least a decade's worth of good games.

Don't get me wrong, I have like 150+ hours in Elden Ring, but every game doesn't need to be a Dark Souls wannabe, or force the reuse of content via Rogue-Like/Lite nonsense.

Ah, 2024. I remember, in the good old days, say... prior to 2016... that I felt relatively comfortable that society would still exist to the point where I could play a video game coming out in 2+ years.

Looking forward to Death Stranding 2, by the way!

Nice. I used to watch every Zero Punctuation review, now I only catch them sporadically. This one on Callisto Protocol is in top form though; a thorough drubbing of a wasted opportunity of a game.

RedEye9 wrote on Dec 22, 2022, 12:27:
Epic free games leak - 23rd December game is likely Encased
https://gg.deals/freebie/epic-free-games-leak-23rd-december-game-is-likely-encased/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/921800/Encased_A_SciFi_PostApocalyptic_RPG/

Nice, EGS' trend of releasing games I've bought in the past few months for free continues.

gsilver wrote on Dec 19, 2022, 19:42:
It seemed like his goal from day 1 was to destroy the company, so I suppose that he's saying "Mission Accomplished"

Only a truly deranged billionaire would spend $44 billion to carry out a grudge over being threatened to get taken to court to follow a legally binding contract.

Keep in mind, most of that $44 billion was actually other peoples' money; various Saudis and other venture capitalists, and probably some Russian oligarchs as well.

Braden wrote on Dec 19, 2022, 20:31:
Since I'm not a console gamer, I've not played any of the games yet. I have no idea how faithful the show will be, so I'm unclear at this stage if it will be full of spoilers for the upcoming PC port.

This is a valid concern, I'll admit, but at this rate it feels the first season of the show at least will be out completely, at least a year before TLoU Part 1 is out on PC, and probably the entire series will be finished years before they ever release PC version TLoU part 2. My memory for fictional storylines will get filled and overwritten by the time the actual games come out, is what I'm saying.

Hrm shit, I had actually wanted Sable, didn't get home at all yesterday before midnight to pick it up.

It is on sale for 50% off on GoG though.... hrm.

Cool cool cool cool cool, cool.

I'd maybe agree or disagree, if they'd put out the PC versions of The Last of Us Part 1 and 2.

This article reminded me that I never actually installed the EA App, I've been using the Origin frontend still. It still works as of today, if other people were also lazy to update.

However running the EA App installer DID just delete my Origin install.

Acleacius wrote on Dec 16, 2022, 20:07:
Yeah, only marginally interested in WarHammer certainly none of their games have become memorable.
Vermintide 2 was ok but constantly spawning waves is pretty much the lowest form of development, imo.
Coop, drew me in but bad development pushed me away.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Dec 16, 2022, 16:39:
...Plus, in recent years, WH40k has been co-opted to a certain extent by white nationalists and other extremists.
...

Seriously, is there anything I can read on it?

Well, you should go into WH40k knowing it was supposedly originally written as political satire, where everyone, even the humans, are various degrees of evil. However, like all satire, some people miss that and take whatever storyline as literal, so the overt racism/species-ism/genocide etc. drew in... the wrong kind of fan enthusiasm, at least in my opinion. I had some 'interesting' conversations with WH40k enthusiasts back in the day in game shops.

You can find all sorts of pro/con opinions about that online. I just don't like the recent number of Trump shitheads using WH40K stuff and God Emperor references, along with badly photoshopped political heads onto enemy bodies, etc. It's soured me on WH40k somewhat, I'll admit.

Here's an example analysis of WH40k The fictional racism, genocide, and fascism in the storylines really can't be argued. All of which can be fine, in the hands of great authors, writing clear fiction for enjoyment with a bit of a lesson included. At that point it becomes how vigorously people praise that sort of thing in real life, at least to me. YMMV.

BigVlad wrote on Dec 16, 2022, 15:10:
My only experience with 40k was playing the first Dawn of War game. I'm sure the universe is filled with cool lore, factions, characters, and all that. But I hate the 40k aesthetic. The mix of futuristic and fantasy doesn't mesh well with me at all. I thought Starcraft space marines were an improvement. Am I a bad person?

No, the extreme grimdark of WH40k that borrows heavily from late WW1 technology mixed in with low grade fantasy writing really isn't for everybody. I enjoyed some of the WH40k games, but it's always a "well this is pretty good, but it probably could have been better without the baggage of the license" type thing.

Plus, in recent years, WH40k has been co-opted to a certain extent by white nationalists and other extremists.

Even aside from that, Games Workshop seems like an extremely greedy (even for a corporation) group, and repeatedly harmful to even their own fans, threatening WH40k content creators with cease and desist letters all the time, or absorbing good projects like Syama Pederson's video series and basically killing it. ( Astartes video by S.P. )

So, good luck to Henry Cavill, I guess. I hope WH40k symbolism hasn't been taken over by shitheads in the UK, but it probably has there as well, so he might already know and not care.

Well shit, release the first two on PC already.

*EDIT* With good Mouse+KB controls!