Mister Jack

Here it is! The full design!

Dying Light 2 It's better than the first game but it still has some of the same problems that are just inherent in the series. The biggest one is that you start off weak as hell and the first few hours can be kind of brutal because you have so few defensive options at your disposal. This really is one of those games that gets better after the first act because once you unlock some essential parkour abilities and tools along with a few invaluable combat moves then the game picks up considerably and becomes a lot of fun. Of course, whether or not you're willing to put in the work for that is going to vary from person to person. The open-world gameplay is the real draw here, not the story. The story is better than the first game, but that isn't really saying much. It has multiple endings but you should never expect a whole lot of production value in the endings when there's several different permutations. The characters vary from inoffensive to god-awful. Funny enough, the game clearly tries to push you into siding with the civilian Survivors over the authoritarian Peacekeepers, but many of the Survivors are such rude, ungrateful, dishonest assholes that I sided with the Peacekeepers purely out of spite. What's even funnier is that the Peacekeepers, with one or two exceptions, are all around much nicer and friendlier to you and show you proper gratitude for all the dangerous jobs you do for them. I'm sure it wasn't Techland's intention but I found it deeply gratifying to find some of those former NPCs who always lied to me, cheated me, or threatened me and literally stomp their heads into chunky paste. The story is really just an excuse to run around the city and kick zombie ass, which is fun once you're sufficiently equipped. In fact this is probably the best parkour system I've used when all is said and done, but it takes a while to get everything out of it. Combat is entirely melee focused. The game takes place 15 years after the fall of civilization so all the ammo has been used up and with the exception a disposable pistol you can make out of scrap there are no firearms whatsoever. There are bows and arrows but I found those better for starting fires or poisoning people than sniping them from afar. Fortunately there's more going on with the melee than in something like, say, Skyrim. Still, you do have to work to unlock the combat's full potential but once you do drop-kicking people off of rooftops never gets old. I guess the main takeaway here is that it's a good game that falls shy of being a great game and you need to have some patience to get the most out of it, but your effort will eventually be rewarded.

Maybe not here so much but I've seen plenty of purists who are livid that the game has cut things from the formula that have been there for decades. Held items, for example, which I can live without, and Individual Values, which thank fuck those are gone because they turn training into an absolute chore. They're also mad that the game has "only" 240 Pokemon, but I'll take 240 Pokemon with good animations and neat personality quirks over 900 cut-and-paste hack jobs.

You sure that wasn't just stuff that happened in the VR game?

I wish I could jump right into this one but I promised my friend I'd wait until we could do co-op so I only played the first couple hours to get past the tutorial. So far it seems promising.

I think I remember using some kind of exploit or cheap strategy to get through that no-hit challenge but damned if I can remember anymore what it was.

So I guess Sony is buying Bungie. Games will stay multiplatform. I don't give a shit unless they're making the next Killzone or Resistance.

Ubisoft has doubled down on selling NFTs even though everyone hates it but don't worry. They have officially said the only reason you don't like it is because you don't understand it.

This one goes way beyond messing up your game. With this exploit hackers could actually brick your PC, run malware, or even steal your identity so yeah, it's definitely in From's best interest not to sit on their hands this time.

Uh oh, a remote code exploit was found in Elden Ring for the PC, as well as every Dark Souls game for the PC. This is going to mean one of three things: 1) The game is delayed to fix the problem 2) A race against the clock at From to fix the issue before the release 3) Elden Ring launches with no online functionality (probably unlikely) I obviously don't know just how complicated it will be to address this, but currently all the Dark Souls servers are down with no word on when they'll be going back up so this definitely isn't something you can just hotfix but it's gotta be done.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus Yeah I played it early. This game isn't out yet so I'm going to put all gameplay related comments in spoilers in case anyone wants to go in completely blind. I won't talk about the story much either other than to say that it's fine. I mean, it's pretty basic for an RPG story and there's still no voice acting so you shouldn't expect much but compared to the handholding insult to your intelligence that Sw/Sh was it's practically Shakespeare. The main story took me about 17 hours to beat but the postgame/true final ending grind is going to take much, much longer so I figured I'd just post about it now. Now to discuss the gameplay. All in all, this one took me by surprise, especially considering how much I hate GameFreak lately. There is definitely room for improvement and innovation but if we think of this as the first step toward the future of the franchise then I might actually find it in my heart to get excited for Pokemon games again. With some fine-tuning and polish the next Legends game has the potential to be an all-time classic.

That's a good point. I could definitely see them going that route where Playstation still gets last year's CoD but the new yearly release is only on MS platforms.

I got my hands on Pokemon Legends Arceus before the release date. I won't spoil anything here since it's so early, but I will say that so far...I'm enjoying it! Yeah, holy shit, a Pokemon game I'm actually having fun with. What a miracle. The last three Pokemon games I tried playing were so slow and tedious that I dropped them before ever beating the story, but I think I might just stick with this one to the end. It is a little rough around the edges in some respects, of course, and it's far from a 10 out of 10, but compared to Sword/Shield and the Diamond/Pearl remake? This is feeling much closer to what I want Pokemon to be in this day and age. So far it's feeling like a good first effort and I hope Legends becomes a spin-off series.

They could also do what Sony used to do where the Playstation will still get the games and the updates but Microsoft platforms get everything new first for a few months to a year. Seeing that MS owns Activision now it's not like they'll have to make any more deals to get timed exclusivity on their content or DLC. Of course, I still kind of expect them to yank CoD off of Playstation eventually. 70 billion is a lot of money to spend and then not change things dramatically.

Monster Hunter Rise So this is kind of dubious in terms of whether I "beat" it. I've not nearly finished all the game's content, but I killed this game's flagship monster and saw the credits so I'm going to consider that good enough to at least post about it here even if I still have lots left to do. I've played the game for about 25 hours so far, which isn't much time to see the credits for a Monster Hunter game but it's long enough that I know how the game works and how I feel about it. This is by far the most accessible Monster Hunter game yet, so if the others were too complex for you, including World, then this might be easier for you to swallow. Kamura Village is smaller than Astera in MHW, but that also means it's easier to navigate and most of the important NPCs you need are all right there in the same spot. Quests are divided into two types: village quests which are strictly a solo affair and hub quests, which are multiplayer focused. Solo hunting, while not a cakewalk, is still easier than it's ever been before thanks to the fact you get to take along not one but two NPC companions to help you in fights and you can mix and match between palicoes and palamutes. Speaking of which, there are four main features in this game that make it different from the others. First are the palamutes, which are giant dogs you can ride around to traverse the map faster. For better or worse, you no longer have to track monsters to know where they are on the map so you can easily hop on your palamute and ride over to the fight in just a minute or two after spawning. Palamutes also help you in fights and can be given special equipment to assist with healing, buffing, or debuffing. When you also bring along a palico or a second palamute, just having extra targets to get the monster's attention can make your life a lot easier when you need to heal or sharpen. You're only allowed to bring one companion if you are doing multiplayer, but that number used to be zero so in a full hunt you'll have four hunters and four pets all going after the same monster, which can admittedly get chaotic. I'm hoping Capcom patches in the ability to turn off the attack effects for other hunters so there's less flashy anime shit going on during a multiplayer hunt. The second new feature is the wirebug, which is pretty much a grappling hook except it's a beetle that shoots wire. What sets this apart from normal grappling hooks is that the beetle doesn't have to attach to anything to be used. You can use it like a normal hookshot too, but since beetles have wings you can also use your wirebug to swing or launch yourself no matter where you're standing, which is great for setting up aerial attacks when in previous games you'd need to find a platform to jump from in order to use them. I can't stress enough what a game changer this is, especially since aerial attacks are often the best attacks for many of the game's weapons. There's a short cooldown on the bug after shooting it twice so you can't spam it endlessly, but it's still pretty generous. Wirebugs can also be used for special weapon based attacks that do mounting damage. What is mounting damage? Well that leads into the third new feature. Monster riding! This is far from the first game where you can mount the monsters, but in previous titles mounting was mostly limited to stabbing them until they fell down or making them run headfirst into a wall for big stun damage. In this game, the wirebugs are used like reins so that when you mount a monster you can actually control its movement and its attacks, which means you can make it attack other monsters. Once you've done that, the two monsters are likely to start fighting with each other for a while which not only does a ton of damage to both monsters but it also creates lots of material drops and gives you precious time to heal, buff, or sharpen while they're distracted. It's super satisfying when you can pull it off, and as long as you remember to use attacks with mounting damage it's not too hard to do. Last but not least is the last big new feature: switch skills. In Monster Hunter World and every other MH game I tried the weapons all have their own gameplay style but for each one there's usually an optimal flowchart when it comes to which attacks and combos to use. You'll probably find an attack string that works for you and then use it for the rest of the game. In Rise, however, every weapon has three attacks that can be switched out for a different attack, which can completely change how you use the weapon. For example, I went through the game using the sword and shield. The default combo for the circle button on my controller was a series of shield bashes, which is great for stunning monsters if you hit them in the head. However, you can switch this combo out for one that does multiple stabbing attacks, and since I was using a poison sword this meant multiple hits that all stacked poison on the monster. From what I can tell, there's no universal "right" or "best" way to set up your switch skills for each weapon. It all depends on your personal preferred gameplay style and even then I could see myself switching them up again depending on the monster I'm fighting. It adds a lot of strategy without being too complicated for newbies to grasp. Rise might not be as big or as pretty as World, being a port of a Switch game and all, but it's definitely the easiest to jump into and do a few quick hunts when you have some spare time. I am totally addicted and plan on getting my rank up as high as I can so I'll be ready when the Sunbreak expansion comes out.

Only Sony and Microsoft know how long Sony's deal with Activision lasts regarding early or exclusive content. Five years? Ten years? However long it is, Microsoft seems to have every intention of honoring it. After that, who knows.

This sure would be a great time to do a full unveiling of the PSVR 2, Sony. Or to announce the PS Now successor we all know you're working on.

To add insult to injury they're not even going to fire Bobby Kotick. What the fuck, MS.

I was actually looking at CDkeys to see how much Monster Hunter World + Iceborne cost on the PC, but this was on the homepage for less than two dollars. I couldn't resist a sale like that.

This is starting to become a thing with websites and especially shopping apps but I hate it when a place makes you play some little time-wasting game to get a discount. First of all, these games are never fun, just tedious. Second, I play games because I want to have fun, not because someone else is holding my money hostage. Just stop making me jump through hoops and give me the fucking coupons already!

Having a great time with the PC port of Monster Hunter Rise. I'm so glad I waited because with so much action going on, sometimes with four hunters AND four NPC companions all attacking the same monster at the same time, I can't imagine trying to run this on a Switch. I also like that this game feels different enough from World to be its own thing and not make World obsolete. At the same time there are some things World does better and some things Rise does better, which makes both games worth playing in their own right. World has better graphics, bigger environments, and better multiplayer while Rise has better combat, more mobility, and cooler weapons and armor. I can't really definitively say one is better than the other. Not yet, anyway.

Mine isn't the exact same but I've been quite happy with my Asus monitor so far.

Steam version. Can't wait.

I don't know how I forgot Elden Ring. I already have it preordered on Amazon and I literally never preorder games anymore.

Definitely PSVR 2 for me. I actually have some VR games sitting unplayed right now because I want to wait and experience them the right way with proper controllers and a better headset. I'm also really crossing my fingers that VR modes on PS5 games will become a lot more common. I was playing Far Cry 6 with a buddy of mine last night and we were both talking about how the series is pretty formulaic but even if nothing else changed a Far Cry 7 with a VR mode would make it feel like a whole new game.