toxicitizen

Doomenstein sounds like a kickass name for a German metal band. Anyway, I wasn't being entirely serious with my question. Just seemed weird to call Axiom Verge Metroivania when it clearly just wants to be Metroid. But, since you answered, didn't Metroid pretty much lay all the foundation to begin with? I know the "vania" half comes from Symphony of the Night but that came like a decade after the original Metroid. It's something I always wondered about. Like, what did Castlevania do to earn its half of the genre? It's not like it brought anything new to the table, at least, nothing that's commonly associated with Metroidvania games. The only thing I can think of that SotN had that Metroid/Super Metroid didn't is the loot system. I guess it makes more sense if you ignore the original and just assume it's from SotN and Super Metroid. Those came out a lot closer to each other and could be seen as having properly defined the genre.

Axiom Verge. Is it still Metroidvania if it's pretty much just straight up Metroid? Like, which part of the formula does the "vania" half refer to exactly? Anyway, yeah, Axiom Verge is basically someone that went "Remember that game Metroid? That was a good game. I should make that." It's actually a little bit creepier and weirder than Metroid, though, which I really dug. The price was a little off-putting initially but I thought it was worth every single penny. It's definitely one of the best games I've played this year so far. Go buy it now. I know Cowboy called it an early GOTY or whatever but don't let that put you off the game. I mean, even a broken clock is right twice a day! Also, kind of unrelated but the game got me thinking about this recent trend where game creators go to Kickstarter to pitch "Totally not [insert IP that defined my career]". That's not what Axiom Verge is but it might as well be, especially given how Nintendo seem to be uninterested in making more Metroid games these days. And, in that sense, I kinda feel like Axiom Verge set the bar pretty high for those games. I don't really give a fuck about Yooka-Laylee (or however the fuck it's spelled) because I never played or cared about Banjo-Kazooie, but I really want Mighty No. 9 and Bloodstained to turn out great. But if Axiom Verge is the level of quality they have to to meet, then I'm worried we might be in for some disappointment here. I mean, it's way too early to tell about Bloodstained but the most recent screenshots I've seen of Mighty No. 9 looked like fucking shit. The game might still be fun but visually it's just so bland and lifeless, especially compared to the concept art from the initial Kickstarter pitch. It feels kinda weird to be so negative in reaction to a game being great but nothing I've seen of MN9 has made me feel really optimistic. I dunno, maybe I'm just being a cynical asshole.

Invisible, Inc. Beat the game on Beginner, which is essentially the tutorial difficulty. It gives you a bunch of safety nets like mission retries and a rewind turn function (you still have rewind on harder difficulties but you're much more limited in how many times you can use it), so I think it's essentially impossible to fail completely. Or at least, you'd have to suck pretty damn hard for that to happen. Anyway, the game's pretty damn great, it definitely lives up to Klei's previous efforts. And that's no small feat considering how much I fucking loved Mark of the Ninja. It's basically a roguelike stealth XCOM, which is right up my alley. It's also the first game I bought as soon as it was available in Early Access (before it was even on Steam's EA), so it was nice to see it slowly coming together over time. That being said, it kinda reinforced my main fear with Early Access: getting tired of the game before the final version is even out. That's not quite what happened here, but it still had a small impact. Last time I tried the game was last fall and I played for something like ten hours before I decided to stop and wait for the final version. It was a blast because it was the first build I played that was starting to have a skeleton of a campaign. It was great to see how far the game had come since the initial build, which was little more than a prototype. The release version wasn't all that different from that build, it was just way more balanced and polished. So, when it finally came out this week, there wasn't really that "magic" period, it didn't feel new or special. I'd already gone through that phase a little less than a year ago, it almost felt like just replaying a familiar game after a big content patch. It's not a big deal but it's certainly something I'll keep in mind the next time I'm tempted to buy an Early Access game. Especially when it comes to story-driven games, which this one isn't. Oh and I still think Incognita was a much better title.

I've been up all night and now I'm just trying to stay awake as long as possible in an attempt to unfuck my sleep schedule. But it's 11 AM now and I'm getting kinda tired and bored, so I bought this. Hopefully it'll keep me awake for a few more hours.

Well, that's just... fuck. I'll give it a shot anyway, hopefully the lowered expectations will work in its favor. What was so bad about it? Story? Mechanics? As for Pier Solar, might not get to it for a little while since I'm not sure I'd be able to finish it before Witcher 3 next week, and even then I'd rather not play two RPGs back to back.

If that's the case, then I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention during those flashback scenes because I somehow missed that detail. Lol. That would make more sense, though.

Humble Weekly Bundle: RPG Edition I mostly got it for Pier Solar and, to a lesser extent, Rollers of the Realms. Pier Solar looks like a great throwback JRPG and I've been meaning to get it for a while. Never heard of most of the other games but I went for the 8$ tier because I'm curious about Agarest: Generations of War. I could use a decent SRPG on Steam. Actually, I could use Disgaea on Steam. But that's probably never happening.

Don't know if you guys heard but Konami actually did a DMCA takedown on that SuperBunnyHop video I posted last week. But Konami being Konami, their usual ineptitude got in the way and they couldn't even keep the video down for an entire day. George just made a follow-up. I really wonder why Youtube felt the need to get involved this time. This could set an interesting precedent.

Yeah, the main story is kinda disjointed and unfocused. I doubt I'll remember any of it 6 months from now. And, on a more specific/nitpicky note, there was one detail that made me go "wait, wat??" so hard that I actually had to look up Tolkien lore. I'm not a big enough LOTR nerd for this to actually bother me but you'd think that's the kind of details they're make sure to get right while making a game like this. And now I kinda feel like rewatching the LOTR movies...

Middle-Earth: Arkham's Creed Shadow of Mordor. So, uh, why was this anyone's GOTY? Seriously. Why? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not bad. Far from it. It was great to play this kind of game in a setting that's not Assassin's Creed and I'm glad to see Ubisoft getting some competition in the genre. Plus, having an actual combat system was nice for a change. The Nemesis sytem was a cool idea and innovation like this is always welcome. I also hadn't played a LOTR game in fucking forever (I think the last one was that turn-based RPG from like two gens ago, The Third Age?), so that was nice as well. But there was nothing about the game that really blew me away. The main story kinda sucked, which I understand was somewhat intentional since they wanted to focus on the "emergent storytelling" resulting from the Nemesis system, but I dunno. Even the Nemesis system wasn't quite the revelation I'd been led to believe it was. It's cool but imho it wasn't deep enough to carry the entire game. Halfway through the game, I was already sick of the intro "cutscenes" constantly interrupting me in the middle of combat. And I'd regularly end up having 2 or 3 of these assholes coming at me while I was already trying to take down one of them. That got old pretty fast. The good outweighed the bad and I'd love to see the system iterated upon and improved, but I never really felt like any of it added up to anything remotely close to a "story". And it had some annoyances that were hard to look past. Overall, it's pretty much the same game as Assassin's Creed, so I don't want to sound overly negative here. The game's fun as hell to play, it just doesn't really beat AC at its own game. It's kinda like Darksiders where it's highly derivative of other, better games but fails to really surpass them in any way. It borrows gameplay elements liberally but never makes any attempt to improve upon them, the execution is sometimes even slightly worse. Its biggest strengths are the Middle-Earth setting and the (flawed) Nemesis system and, I dunno, I just feel like there were much better games that came out last year. It definitely deserves to be on a top 10 list for 2014 but being the actual GOTY? Hell no. That being said, I'm glad the game was successful and I'll be looking forward to the inevitable sequel. There's a lot of potential with the Nemesis system, they just need to work on it a bit more.

I kinda wish Konami had a conference as well. I can picture it so easily: their top executives all on stage making a huge bonfire and throwing effigies representing all their IPs in it. And the entire time, the big screen is showing nothing but that gross goatse picture. At the end of the two hours presentation, their CEO walks on stage: "After the release of MGSV, Konami will be leaving the games industry. Fuck video games and fuck you!" *drops mic and walks away*

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. It's more of the same gameplay but without the character-driven hub stuff between missions. Which was arguably the most interesting aspect of The New Order, but it's not like its absence ruins the game or anything. Also, I was a little disappointed that The New Order did away with all the supernatural stuff so I was glad to see it come back, even if there's just the one enemy type. I'm kinda curious why they released it as a standalone game, though. The way it's split into two distinct parts, I wouldn't be surprised if it was originally intended to be two separate DLC packs, like Dishonored got. Anyway, if you liked The New Order you'll probably enjoy The Old Blood. It's kinda short but not excessively so. Took me about 6-7 hours, which seems reasonable for the price.

I have a Corsair Vengeance C70. Not my build but it gives you a better idea of how much space there actually is in there. And yeah, I don't think I'd ever mess around with replacing a GPU's cooler. My cousin once broke a brand new card trying to install one. He had bought two, so he still had one left but man, that was a lot of money going right out the window.

I was hoping I'd be able to last on my CPU's stock cooler a little longer but Wolfenstein: The Old Blood was pushing it to temps that made me very uncomfortable. I was tempted to go for one of those fancy All-in-One liquid coolers Corsair makes but I'm kinda nervous about them leaking so I stuck with air. Installing an aftermarket cooler like this is still the step that makes me the most nervous out of the entire PC building process. I just fucking hate it. But at least I knew what I was doing since I helped a friend install the same model in his build like a week ago. Mine was much less trouble to install than his was. And I actually did mine without taking the motherboard out of the case. Speaking of which, man, I fucking love my case! I don't think I could ever go back to a case that doesn't have cable management holes now. It just makes such a huge difference in how annoying it is to go mess around in there. And it's not like I even tried that hard to make everything nice and tidy, I just shoved everything through the holes. The extra space compared to my old one is pretty nice, too. Anyway, it's making a pretty big difference, so that's nice. Idle temps aren't quite as low as I'd hoped but Old Blood is down to much more reasonable temps now (mid 50s versus borderline 80s before).

and I guess technically also The game + all the DLC for 30 bucks over on Bundle Stars. The deal's been there for like a month but I decided to go for it at the last minute (it ends in a few hours). It ended up not being as great of a deal as it first seemed because of the exchange rate, but rumor is the GOTY Edition is gonna show up tomorrow. So, I figured this is the best deal I'm likely to get for the whole thing for the foreseeable future. And I kinda wanted a new game (as in not from my backlog) to keep me busy until Witcher 3. edit: Completely forgot this was coming out this week. I enjoyed The New Order way too much not to get this day one but the 25% off voucher on GMG was a nice additional incentive.

Broken Age. I know it's all the rage to shit on Double Fine these days, and Act 2 got a rather negative reception for some reason, but I actually enjoyed it a lot. Act 2 was a bit more obtuse with the puzzles but overall I thought it was on par with other DF games like Costume Quest, Stacking and the likes. Not mind-blowingly great or anything but still very fun and enjoyable with some funny writing. It's not as good as Grim Fandango, though. Not even close.

That's why I love GMG. They generally have pretty decent deals, especially on pre-orders. Arkham Knight is 43$ right now in their VIP section. And I have about 10$ in store credit. I'm holding off on buying since I can still potentially build up a little bit more credit through their Playfire Rewards program but I'll end up paying like 30 bucks for Arkham Knight. At that price, even if the game disappoints I won't regret pre-ordering. I wouldn't be surprised if they had the season pass for less than 20 bucks before the end of the summer. Yeah, I don't know what it is about them but they're just so much goddamn fun. I'm working my way through the Arkham City ones right now to clear the achievements before Arkham Knight comes out and I'm having a blast. Those campaigns are so much work, though. I've been at it for almost a week now and I still have a whole bunch of them to do.

So, after that idiotically vague reveal for the 40$ Season Pass, they've finally given a bit more details about its content. Surprisingly enough, that actually seems like a very reasonable amount of content for the price point. The most significant reveal being that we get a Batgirl story DLC. Of course, like any season pass, it's still not worth getting until at least some (if not most) of the content is out. There's no good reason to ever pre-order DLC.

After my last post I realized it was also 50% off on Steam. Figured better safe than sorry. Especially with the way the show was unceremoniously taken off the air, I don't think Activision will be too eager to renew that license. Of course, now I have to get up to date with the show before I can play it. It takes place between which seasons again? 2 and 3?

Having played and actually enjoyed it, yeah, wait for it to be sub 15$. It's good but not great. And it's actually coming to Steam in the near future, so it'll inevitably be like 5 bucks eventually. I kinda feel like I need to get Korra ASAP, though. It being an Activision licensed game, I'm nervous it could disappear any day.

If you're dying instantly, then you're simply not learning from your mistakes. Which is when these games are at their most punishing because yeah, you're essentially banging your head against a wall. That's not the way to play them. Also, Kenshi is right. Most enemies can easily be run past (and won't follow you very far). Running back to a boss can usually be done in a minute or two at most if you've already explored the area properly. On the flipside, just because you can't appreciate how well designed these games are doesn't mean that people that do are exaggerating or wrong.

Dark Souls doesn't have a health penalty, though. There's nothing stopping you from just staying in hollow form all the time, it even allows you to "opt out" of getting invaded. That's something they actually felt the need to rectify in DS2. They also brought back the health penalty for death and nerfed the Estus Flask. Ultimately, it ends up making very little difference all things considered but it was a big source of frustration for me early in my first run. Keep in mind most of what I say is meant to be about Dark Souls, not Demons. It's been way too long since I played Demons for me to really comment on it.

Oh, the same issue Ethan has then. I wouldn't really call it backtracking and I personally don't see what the big deal is but okay. I mean, I kinda get it. It's just something you really need to get over if you're ever going to enjoy the game. Having played both, I gotta disagree here. I don't think Dark Souls is particularly harder than Rogue Legacy. Obviously the skill set required going from a 3D action RPG to a 2D side-scroller is completely different. But they're actually both very similar in terms of difficulty curve. Like I said before, Dark Souls really isn't that hard. Especially not after this long with all the wikis out there. Pro tip: early on, upgrading your gear is more important than leveling up your stats. And if you want to turn on "easy mode", go for a dex build and upgrade a weapon that scales well with dex. Oh right, you haven't played Dark. Yeah, I'll grant you that one. Dark Souls actually fixes that with the Estus Flask. It's an healing item you get early on that starts with five charges and gets refilled every time you rest at a bonfire. You can upgrade both how much health it restores and how many charges it holds (up to 20).

I haven't played Bloodborne so make of that what you will. But literally every single thing I've seen or heard about it makes it look pretty much identical to the Souls games.So, it made little to no sense to me when people that disliked Dark Souls were excited for and now claim to enjoy Bloodborne. Kinda makes it sound like they went into Dark Souls looking for reasons to hate it or just weren't willing to give it a proper shot. Or maybe that's just the power a console exclusive has over fanboys. I dunno, I seriously don't get it.

Well, Rogue Legacy is a much simpler game. So there's that. I'd also argue that there isn't much backtracking in Souls nor do you need to actually farm to get through the game. But YMMV, I suppose. Dark Souls is a lot more complex than Rogue Legacy but the basic structure is very similar. Dark is more open than Demons, so after the tutorial you get dropped into the "open" world and you can go whichever way you like. In Rogue Legacy this is limited to up, down and right (iirc the Maya, the Darkness and the Forest, respectively?) and each area has its own boss and difficulty level. In Dark Souls, it's less straightforward but the overall idea is the same. It's obviously much bigger but there's a recommended logical order to tackle the areas in that creates a reasonable difficulty curve. As long as you don't make the mistake of picking the master key as your starting gift, the game vaguely guides you through the early areas. A good way to put it would be that Rogue Legacy feels a bit like a demake of Dark Souls. It strips the concept down to its core ideas. Also, unlike Demons, there are a lot of shortcuts to unlock and the level design is kinda brilliant in how everything is interconnected, so you never really need to backtrack all that much once you get familiar with the layout. And like in Rogue Legacy, the more you level up the easier everything gets. By the end of my first run, I'm usually powerful enough to blast through half the game on NG+ in just a few hours. The one major difference is that you lose your souls upon death whereas in Rogue Legacy your get to keep your gold. But you do lose anything you don't (or can't) spend when you reenter the castle, so it's not like that's drastically different either. I've had a lot of "wasted" runs in RL because I died and didn't have enough gold to buy any upgrades. I don't really see how that's different to losing your souls. It actually seems a bit less forgiving, even. Overall, I find Dark to be significantly better than Demons but that's not something everyone agrees on. So, I hesitate to say you should give Dark a try considering how much you hated Demons but it's definitely possible you'd enjoy it more.