toxicitizen

That's not very surprising. You don't give that kinda work to your all-star team, you put the b-team on it or even outsource it. But perhaps even internally Origins is considered to be somewhat of a standalone or separate thing from the main series.

I'm guessing it's meant more as a Rocksteady Collection. They never really acknowledged Origins, going so far as to refer to Arkham Knight as the conclusion of their trilogy. Origins is in that weird spot for me where I thought it was decent but I'm mostly indifferent towards it. It didn't need to exist, and I almost kinda wish it didn't because of how it diminished my interest in the series. Kinda like Assassin's Creed Revelations.

I think it's because there's a misconception that we're getting remasters instead of new releases. I feel like most of the complaints are coming from folks who haven't the faintest clue about the industry and shouldn't even be commenting on it in the first place. Like, I've seen people on NeoGAF borderline outraged that Konami gets to "keep" Metal Gear after Kojima leaves. And seriously asking if Kojima owns the Metal Gear IP. And I'm like how in the hell do you guys not understand how this shit works?!

They're a cheap and easy way to generate revenue while they keep working on new titles, so I understand why they keep getting made. Besides, as a primarily PC gamer, they're kinda worthless to me. But I'm really not a fan of how reselling you a game has replaced backwards compatibility.

Guess what got delayed again guys! This time by an extra 3 weeks, based on the last date I posted.

So, after playing The Evil Within and the Resident Evil HD Remaster, I was a little bummed out. I enjoyed them both immensely but neither really felt very scary or tense. I just kind of figured that maybe horror games weren't as effective on me anymore. Then I started playing Alien: Isolation this week. Holy shit, this game is fucking awesome! I'm not very far into it but I'm already having a blast. I get so nervous sneaking around that when the xenomorph actually does show up, it startles the shit out of me! And it's not just the scares that are great. They really went all out in emulating the original 1979 movie's looks. I rewatched it prior to starting the game and they fucking nailed the look, the medbay in the ship you begin the game on looks almost identical to the one on the Nostromos and everything has this amazing retro futuristic style to it. It's actually kinda giving me System Shock vibes, which I am seriously digging. The music is also great at elevating the tension but it's the sound design that steals the show. I've been playing exclusively with headphones so far and I think I'm gonna have to play through the entire thing with them. And I'm not just talking about hearing the xenomorph crawling around in air vents here. When you hear the station cracking and twisting all around you, it really sells the illusion that you're in this shitty old hunk of steel out there in space. And not just that but also the beep-boops coming from computers, the crackling of electric panels, the hissing sound of doors or that creepy metallic noise the air vents make when they open. Sevastopol station just feels so alive and it makes for an amazing atmosphere.

The first step is admitting it. Now, if TV has taught me anything, the next step is for us to berate you until you break down completely and feel forced to change because of the intense peer pressure.

Resident Evil: Revelations 2. Or I guess Biohazard: Revelations 2, as my copy's main menu keeps insisting. They actually put the wrong depot up for the Steam version. It says Biohazard and everything, there's even a couple of splash screens with nothing but Japanese text on them. Seriously, how do you fuck this up? Anyway, I played the last episode tonight. Overall, it was pretty decent. It really doesn't compare to the mainline series in terms of visuals, production values and just overall quality, but for a 25$ spin-off it's not bad at all. I'm okay with a budget title for a spin-off but Resident Evil 7 proper better step things back up. Looking back, some of the episodes were kinda meh and the episodic format didn't really work. It's obvious the game was done, so releasing it weekly was completely arbitrary. The problem is that the plot is rather poorly constructed in regards to the format. So, the first couple episodes kinda felt like two hours of nothing happening and then a cliffhanger. The writing isn't all bad, though. If you're a long-time fan of the series' lore and history, there's a ton of fan service to be found. Barry in particular might as well just have cheese pouring out of his mouth whenever he opens it. "Who's the master of unlocking now?!" he exclaims after using a crane to smash through a big metal gate. You are, Barry. You most definitely are. As for the gameplay, the movement and speed felt a lot like RE6 but a little bit tighter. The combat isn't as deep as in RE6 but I didn't really mind that. RE6 got a really stupid with its combat, so I'm glad to see things scaled back a bit. No, I do not want to punch through half a dozen zombies and follow that up with a suplex drop. Also, I've seen people praising the game about the survival aspect and talking about running out of ammo, but that wasn't my experience at all. Although, to be fair, I did replay the first couple episodes a bunch of times because it had achievements tied to Playfire Rewards. So, I got a lot of practice early on and ended up with a significant reserve of ammo and supplies. But yeah, this was definitely worth my 40 bucks. Especially considering Raid mode, which could potentially keep me coming back to the game for a very long time. That being said, I'm ready for the next thing now, Capcom! Feel free to announce RE7 or that HD Remaster of RE Zero that everyone knows you're working on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're enjoying the game that much. I'm also enjoying it a lot. It's the way you praised it that kinda made me go "u wot m8". It's good, but it's not THAT good. See, this makes a lot more sense. RE4 was crazy influential, you can still feel its impact in action games to this day. And when you describe it that way I can see why it reminded you of TLoU but I still think it's a poor comparison to make when it comes to describing Rev 2. I'd argue that TLoU was more of a survival-horror game than anything the RE series did in the past decade (REmake HD excluded, obviously).

Could've fooled me. Except that both of those games are better than Rev 2 in almost every way imaginable. And if we're going down that road, then Rev 2 isn't much in the way of survival-horror either. It's your regular modern action Resident Evil. So I'm not sure where you're getting any of that from. Also, Rev 2 has puzzles? I guess I haven't played Episode 3 yet, so maybe it starts having them in that one? Because I haven't encountered anything that would qualify so far. Not that RE5 had a ton of puzzles or anything but, off the top of my head, the laser puzzle section in the temple from RE5 is more of a puzzle than anything I've seen in Rev 2 so far. Then why even compare it to TLoU at all? I mean, I feel like the similarities you're describing are superficial at best. It's not like the two games actually have anything in common in how they play and feel. And, I mean, comparing a budget title like Rev 2 to something as critically-acclaimed as TLoU in any way just comes across as preposterous, regardless of your intention. Fair enough, but again, you might wanna be careful which comparisons you draw because it seriously colors the tone of what you're saying. I guess what I'm getting from all this is that you made a whole lot of hyperbolic comparisons without really meaning any of them?

Yeah, in my original post my issue wasn't so much with Connor himself or his attitude but rather with how the Assassins as an organization didn't really have much of a presence in the events of ACIII. Like, the Ezio trilogy feels like a golden age for the brotherhood by comparison. In AC3, Connor's enemies just happened to be Templars, there was no reason for Connor himself to be an Assassin other than it was an Assassin's Creed game. The Assassins vs Templars theme wasn't actually relevant to the plot, it was just kinda layered on top of it because it had to be.

Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD. It's alright. Definitely way better than you'd expect any handheld spin-off to be, that's for sure. After playing that Arkham Blackgate game last year, I was prepared for this one to be painfully mediocre but it actually feels and plays like a proper mainline AC game. Just on a smaller scale, with less content and lesser presentation. And that's where I thought the game suffered the most. The story is kind of terrible. There's no proper introduction to who Aveline is, what her deal is or why she's an assassin. Missions just kinda start happening and for the first couple hours I wasn't quite sure what was going on or if the main plot had even started. I mentioned in my impressions of ACIII that I never felt like Connor belonged to or actually gave a shit about about the Assassin brotherhood and this was very similar, but somehow worse. The only other assassin in the game is Aveline's mentor and he's kind of a gigantic asshole for no discernible reason. Seriously, every single scene he was in just made me dislike him more. Whenever he said something, I instantly disagreed regardless of what it was about because, hey, fuck you, asshole! But overall, it's still Assassin's Creed so the gameplay was as compelling as it's always been. And it was kinda nice to play an AC game that didn't require me to invest 30+ hours into it. I did most of the side-missions but I was still able to power through the entire thing in a single week-end. And, more importantly, next time I feel like playing another AC game: it's fucking Black Flag time!

Yeah, I'm with Jack.

It's good to see at least Ethan's not completely fucking insane. If we're gonna do this, then it goes Rise/Naoto > the others >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Chie. Seriously, if it wasn't for Ken from P3 then Chie would be my overall least favorite character out of the entire series.

I played P4G. It's been a while so I forgot which one of the two is generally viewed as the superior one but I remember watching a comparison video and thinking the old one sounded less annoying.

It's good to hear I'm not the only one who finds Chie annoying. The Persona fan base is kinda retarded with all that "best girl" crap to begin with but one thing I seriously do not get is the obsession with her. Her voice and personality just annoyed the shit out of me throughout the entire game.

Holy shit, that was fast. How long did it take you? My clear saves in Persona games are usually around 90 hours.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. It's more of the same, really. Which is to say it's very, very good. The two main things people have criticized are the level design (levels tend to be bigger and more open) and the way the story limits which characters/masks you can use on any given level. Neither of those things got in the way of my enjoyment, so overall I'm pretty satisfied with it. I'd even argue that the bigger emphasis on plot made for some truly memorable missions, to an extent the original never quite managed to pull off. I still have no idea what the fuck was going on the entire time, though. And holy shit, that final mission was something else.

Yeah, that's what I figured. The modern setting of Watch_Dogs is what interests me the most but I don't need a third identical game in my backlog right now. And 20 bucks isn't quite low enough to enter "fuck it" impulse purchase territory.

66% off on GMG + 23% off voucher. I've been eyeing it for a little while and that's finally a deal I couldn't say no to. I'm also really tempted to grab Watch_Dogs, which is currently 20 bucks on Steam, but I dunno... I'm not exactly in dire need of another Ubisoft Collect-a-thon™, I still have Liberation and Black Flag to play. And I'm not sure when I'll even find the time to play Alien, since I hear it's actually a pretty long game. Plus, I really need to avoid spending too much this month if I wanna be able to afford that GPU upgrade next month. I've settled on the GTX 960 and it looks like I'll be getting a code for The Witcher 3 along with it!

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty. I went into this one really wanting to love it and, at first, I really didn't. I realize now that trying to play a puzzle platformer notorious for its difficulty while sleep-deprived was a terrible idea. Thankfully, that didn't turn me off the game entirely, so I gave it another shot after I slept a bit and I ended up loving the hell out of it! I've never played the original, nor any of the other Oddworld games, so this was my first experience with the series. And man, they just don't make games like this anymore. This game just overflows with so much creativity, pretty much everything about its art design feels so unique and downright weird. I dunno, I'm having a hard time putting it into words but it was almost nostalgic, in a way. It kinda made me feel like a kid again. I'm really glad I picked it up and I really hope it sold well enough for them to remake Abe's Exoddus next. If they do, I'll be there day one. In the meantime, I have to go back and replay the game to save all 299 Mudokons. Because if you miss even a single one, you get the bad ending. Normally, that would irritate the shit out of me but I'm not even mad. I'm actually glad to have an excuse to keep playing it.

Yeah, no. I'm enjoying Rev 2 a lot for what it is, mostly because I'm a complete RE fanboy, but you have to be out of your goddamned mind to compare it to proper, well-made games like RE5 and Dead Space 3. Shit, to this day I still haven't played DS3 because the direction it took turned me off completely but it's still obviously of higher quality than Rev 2. Rev 2 is a budget title through and through. It's fine for its price point and fun for what it is. And I'm glad to see budget titles making a comeback. But in no way does it compare to any of the games you've mentioned, Kenshi. A game being fun doesn't automatically means it's a masterpiece. I enjoyed RE6 way more than I ever expected to, I had a ton of fun with it last fall. But I can still see that it's a complete piece of crap design-wise.

Or maybe no one cares enough about the game to bother going around spoiling it? I dunno, at this point I have no reason to doubt it. Besides, how could they possibly be trolling me? I haven't even posted in that thread... You could've just googled "neogaf the order spoiler thread" but here's a post that directly references it in big bold caps. (heads up for anyone else: it's a spoiler thread, so spoilers aren't tagged) Another possible explanation for the lack of info online could be that

Google didn't bring up much but

Holy shit, I'm watching the newest episode of Pre-Rec about The Order and they basically just spoiled what I assume is the core of the plot. And holy fucking christ, it's the stupidest goddamn bullshit I've ever heard. Is the game seriously about I mean, I... I don't even know what to say here. It just sounds so fucking stupid, like a premise someone would come up with as a joke. Yet somehow this got made as a AAA PS4 exclusive with a heavy focus on story and presentation???