toxicitizen

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Lmao oh God, why. Cold Steel I has like the least interesting plot of the entire series. As for the real reason I'm here. Kuro no Kiseki details and first gameplay footage! I keep forgetting the first Calvard game has already been announced... There's a third clip but it's in a weird aspect ratio and super low quality, so not really worth posting. I don't really understand the decision to have their gameplay reveal in silent, unlisted youtube clips but uh... sure. Also, that combat sure is different. It's taking a page out of Final Fantasy's book and turning into a semi-action game. edit: !!!

Yeah, what Bloodborne really needs is a remaster or, at least, an update to boost the resolution and framerate and fix the fucked up framepacing. Not sure what a full-blown remake just a single gen later could possibly add of significance, tbh. Ray-tracing, I guess? But that's just lighting and could easily fall under the purview of a remaster. The game isn't that old, the 3D assets are still fine lol. There's very little to gain in rebuilding the entire game from scratch.

Don't buy Valheim, guys. It's not a game, it's a fucking curse. I just stopped a 4h session with my friend and it's already calling back to me. I have to restrict myself to just playing on our common world because if I start playing solo I'll do nothing else with my life lmao.

Yeah, once I figured out which rooms I came through more often and just started dropping my shit on the floor there. Then at some point further on I'd find a new room that was more convenient and would do a few voyages moving everything there, the entire time asking myself "what the fuck were they thinking with this shit? how is this supposed to be an improvement?!"

Fuck me, that actually looks like it could be good. It certainly seems to nail the tone. Consider me intrigued.

Right, but isn't that for Hitman 3? Hitman 2 wasn't (and still isn't lol) on the Epic Store. The Epic store didn't even exist yet when Hitman 2 launched.

Really glad they're doing something new with the style instead of just making Octopath 2. It sounds like Octopath wasn't anything special but this aesthetic is really appealing to me.

Are you sure? I know for a fact that it wasn't possible at launch and, after some googling just now, all I can find is either still no or "you can move the profile folder and it will be detected but only work in offline mode". Do you mean importing the levels? Or maybe it was a console-only feature? It doesn't sound like there's an official way to do it on PC, at least.

Yeah, I get you. Hitman 2 repeated all the achievements for the first game and I didn't do them at launch because I had just finished completing the first game but I do intend to redo everything. Which is kinda why I didn't care about the EGS deal because it gives me an extra year to get around to it lol. And I vaguely recall reading that Hitman 3 is going to import your data, including achievements, but even if it doesn't I wouldn't be opposed to redoing it all a third time, tbh. These games are just so fucking good. I've been a Hitman fan since the PS2 days but this is the best the series has ever been.

Viking survival game with an emphasis on boss fights that just launched in early access and has been kind of blowing up. I was about to suggest it to my friends for our co-op gaming nights and it turned out one of them had already bought it so it was an easy pitch lol.

Yeah, that was WAY too blatant of a tease. If they're not actually working on Alan Wake 2 then, honestly, they're just being fucking dicks. If they are making it though, it absolutely WILL be that game Epic is funding and likely a lifetime EGS exclusive. So... that's going to suck either way.

Did you read the documents you found? If you didn't feel like reading all that shit I get that but it probably helps with understanding the lore. As for the TV thing, I guess you mean the little exposition videos all over the place? I dunno, I found them way less intrusive than being interrupted with "PREVIOUSLY ON ALAN WAKE" every goddamn hour lol. They always liked to fuck around with format, even Max Payne had the graphic novel bits. Control is pretty open, borderline a metroidvania, and lets you explore at your own pace. To me, it seems like the antithesis of their needlessly episodic storytelling from before. I guess I draw the line at intruding on gameplay? You're free to ignore the Dr. Darling skits although that's another thing that probably won't help with understanding what's going on. But yeah, if Control annoyed you then don't even bother with Quantum Break, dude. It's even worse than Alan Wake. You get the "PREVIOUSLY ON QUANTUM BREAK" stuff but also you have to watch 10-20 mins of actual shitty TV show episodes between bits of gameplay. Honestly, Quantum Break is so egregious that it's a huge part of why I found Control like such a significant step back on the whole TV thing.

The DLC is mostly its own thing and I found it kind of underwhelming compared to the main game. Mainly because I thought short-form content lost what made the main game so special to me. What did you find incomprehensible about the story? You're expected to hit the ground running early on but I thought it was pretty easy to piece together after a few hours. Given the kind of story this is, the stuff that's left ambiguous is either unexplainable by its very nature or more interesting if left that way. Also, kinda weird to see you bringing up the TV thing since I thought this was their least "TV-ified" game in a while. Alan Wake and Quantum Break were definitely guilty of this but Control was their most "gamey" game since like... Max Payne.

/thread

I may be done with the game but these still slap and I can't stop listening to them.

Good point. And I forgot to mention it but constantly doing jobs for the cops isn't, like, the most punk thing ever. Like, I get that V is a merc but surely they could've come up with something better for this. Early on I was doing everything stealth/non-lethal so it wasn't too jarring but at some point I realized I wasn't getting any kind of bonus for doing so, just making things more tedious for myself. So I just started killing everyone as soon as choking them out became inconvenient and uh... yeah. I was pretty inconsistent in who I killed vs dispatched non-lethally but these police missions in particular had this really weird undertone to them because of it. Like: Police dispatch: V, there's a mugging going on nearby. Can you check it out? V: Sure, I'll pop in real quick and murder everyone. Dispatch: ...... Dispatch: cool

Ha, good to hear I'm not the only one that does this. I always check for missables ahead of time and usually feel like an idiot for doing it. Like, I shouldn't worry about it and just enjoy the damn game lol.

Yeah, that's why I said it's only skipping Steam for now. There's no way this is a permanent exclusive. Yep, this is what makes the timing of this hilarious. Announcing an exclusive the same day they essentially announce the death of the platform.

Yeah, there's also the lack of enemy variety. You can only be scared by black goop monsters so many times. I think the scare factor of the game peaks once you go down to the basement of the main house. After you leave, it's your typical actiony modern RE. That's why I'm so excited that RE Village is clearly drawing from RE4. RE4 stuck a pretty good balance with giving you over the top firepower but still keeping you on your toes and having some tense moments even in the late game. I really hope Village does the same.

Cyberpunk 2077 Finished it yesterday but I still had one ending left, which I did today. Overall, it's undeniable that the game has failed to live up to expectations. Even on PC where it was in a much better state, it still fell short in many ways. That being said, I still had a hell of a good time with it. It didn't consume my entire existence like Witcher 3 did but I still played it for over 100 hours spread out over almost 2 months and it never overstayed its welcome. I'm honestly looking forward to giving it another go as female V in the future and hopefully by then most of the (patchable) issues will have been ironed out. Some issues simply aren't patchable, though. The main quest has a strong start but a weak finish. That final mission, whichever path you choose, is super underwhelming. Only one of the missions feels like a proper climax to the story (the Johnny one) but then the epilogue can leave things on a weird note depending on a choice you have to make. The one that's arguably the happiest ending feels disconnected from the rest of the main quest and the one that the main quest has actually been building towards the entire game is just... well, not gonna spoil it but lol. It really makes me wonder what they're planning for the expansion DLC because some of these feel like they're basically setting things up for that. Although it would be kinda weird to release a DLC that's like "Oh yeah if you didn't choose this ending fuck you lol". I mean, it's easy to just reload and do the right one but still. As with Witcher 3, the side-quests steal the show. Kinda. Some of them have meaty questlines and are super interesting. The Peralez one might be my favorite one out of the entire game and it actually leaves things up in the air so I REALLY hope one of the big DLC is going to follow up on it. The Panam/Aldecado questline is fairly lengthy and has some strong moments, but ends on a bit of an anticlimax (especially if you don't go with the ending path it opens up). The Judy questline is also really solid but the Kerry one is more like a funny diversion and I have to assume the River one had major cut content because it's literally just one mission. It's a really good one but man, that felt like it could've been so much more. ? Other than that, the one aspect of the game that didn't disappoint is the open world. The way gigs (basically really short missions) are seamlessly integrated into it is just fantastic. You're walking around and get a call from a fixer that somewhere nearby there's XYZ that needs to get killed/stolen/destroyed. So you head there and sneak in real quick, get that shit done, and get the hell out. They're really straightforward but that gameplay loop alone could've kept me going for another hundred hours. The actual main quest missions had some really good sections for the stealth fan in me but those gigs were just crack delivered in short and sweet bursts. I really hope the free DLC will add more of these cause I couldn't get enough of them. I could do with fewer NCPD scanner missions, though. Those were little more than glorified "combat encounter here" markers and there's already WAY too many of them as it is. So yeah, it wasn't quite the 12/10 revelation I was hoping for but I'd still give it a solid 9/10. Not exactly mind-blowing but it was very my shit, warts and all. Hopefully, if they ever make a sequel (and the earth hasn't burned up by then), they'll be able to deliver a better execution of their vision. As it is, it honestly could benefit from one of those Enhanced Editions they did with the first two Witcher games.

Judgment, that Yakuza spin-off, is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X and, uh *checks notes* ....Stadia. That's right, it's skipping Steam (for now) because of a Stadia exclusivity deal. Also, in other Stadia news today: I'm not even mad. The timing of this is honestly hilarious. Enjoy the three copies you're going to sell, Sega, I guess...

This combines two of my favorite things: rich assholes getting fucked over and Simpsons memes.

2021 is off to a strong start as far as my reading goes. Finished it last night and oooooh boy, that sure was a Stephen King book. Last summer I said about The Stand that it was "the most Stephen King book ever" but yeah, no, this one is that. If you told me that the last third of this book was written during a 3-month long coke binge, I would believe you. Which makes it all the more impressive that at about the same length as The Stand (roughly 1150 pages), it's significantly more cohesive and focused. The Stand is a meandering mess (albeit a very good one) but It is much more focused and, imho, actually nails the ending. Build-up, climax and everything. Which is always nice in a Stephen King book. Like you're usually in for a good time regardless but a solid ending is a nice bonus. The Stand took me 5 weeks to get through and by the end of week 4 I was so fucking ready for it to end. It wasn't bad or anything, the length was just starting to get to me. But I flew through It in just 3 weeks and I'm honestly a little bummed out that it's over. I still haven't watched the second of the recent movies (probably gonna rewatch the first one tonight so I can watch it tomorrow) and I'm really curious to see how the final confrontation will be handled in that one because in the 90s tv miniseries it was laughably bad and, while it works in the book, I'm honestly not sure it's possible to make it work on the screen without taking some serious liberties. The book goes full Lovecraft with cosmic/psychic bullshit and it's the best thing but it's essentially a psychic battle and the closest visual approximation I can think of for what's going on is, like... Like I said: cocaine. Also, it didn't occur to me to post it at the time but what the hell. I completed my goodreads reading challenge for 2020 despite getting a late start! Full list in spoiler tag if anyone is curious. Starts at the bottom. And yes, I read Annihilation twice. I waited too long to read the sequels and it's really short so I said fuck it and just reread it. Set it to 52 this year since I'm starting on time and shooting for a book a week seems reasonable. I expect to lower as the year progresses, though, because I have quite a few massive books that I want to read in the near future, including 3 by Neal Stephenson that are all 1000 pages monsters. And It has already put me like 3 books behind schedule lol.