toxicitizen

Word on the street is they're actually going ahead with Royal, which is mildly shocking to me but I'm not complaining. Then again, P4G did generate like 20 millions a decade after release so I'm sure that sent a message. They could probably get away with charging 50$ or so for Royal, if not straight up full price, so it makes sense they'd wanna strike while the iron is still hot.

As far as I can tell, this still hasn't been officially confirmed yet but the trailer somehow got out last night. Persona 5 Strikers day 1 on PC in the West! Hopefully that means Royal isn't too far off.

Stayed up until like 8AM finishing Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds the other day. I blame my messed up sleep schedule and coffee. Do not drink coffee at midnight. Or do, if you wanna stay up until 8AM reading Revelation Space, I guess. Stop me if you've heard this one before: millions of years ago, an ancient alien civilization was mysteriously wiped out right around the time they developed space faring technology. At the start of the story, one of the main characters is on an archaeological dig site unearthing some kind of marker said civilization left buried there. It's also the first book in what's called the "Inhibitor trilogy". Sounds familiar? Yep, this is the book Mass Effect ripped off! Well, not really. To be fair, the premise I described is essentially where the similarities end. The world of Revelation Space is actually way more grim and less Star Trek-y than Mass Effect. Incidentally (or not?), I also found it significantly more interesting. Which is fortunate because I actually bought the rest of the trilogy (along with another standalone book set in the same world) before I read a single word of this one. So a lot was riding on this book lol. Yeah, I never said I was a smart consumer. I was super tempted to just jump right into the next book (which would be that standalone one I mentioned) but it's a thicc boi and, with Cyberpunk coming in a week, if I can't finish it in time then it's likely to be all I end up reading this month. So, last night I decided to start the third Wheel of Time book instead. I started the series back in March and I've only read two so far, so I've been neglecting it for way too long. I wanted to at least finish reading the first box set by the end of the year. Really gonna have to focus more on it next year because these 14 books aren't going to read themselves. I also really need to finish Dark Tower already. I stopped after book 5 like a decade ago and I'm back up to book 4 now. I do want to read It before I reach the point where it becomes relevant though, which makes it a little daunting. That book is so fucking long lol...

Oh wow, you're right. That must have changed in one of the recent updates (I think the Xbox app and GP itself are both technically out of beta now?) because that definitely did NOT work the last time I tried lol. It would throw a warning that I could only install games to the same drive where Win10 apps get installed. I'm guessing it had something to do with them using the Microsoft Store download pipeline for GP. I could have changed the install drive for Win10 apps in general but I didn't wanna fuck with that and I wasn't sure what effect it would have on already installed apps. Plus, I didn't really want to install that stuff on my Steam SSD.

Gears of War 4 Since I just bought Gears 5, I figured I should at least play this one first. I had been meaning to do so all year but I kept installing it, not playing it, and uninstalling it because it takes like 130GBs. And since Gamepass games can only be installed to your Windows 10 drive, that means it was taking like half the available space on my boot SSD. Anyway, it was pretty fun. I'm not exactly a huge Gears fan, I had only played the original years ago because it was the only one they ever released on PC. I'm not sure what I expected from this one but that sure was some Gears of War. It honestly almost felt a little dated, but not in a bad way. This is PS360-era cover shooter through and through. If that's what you're in the mood for, I think Gears of War is about as good as it gets. My biggest issue was that I couldn't choose who I wanted to play as. I know if you play co-op the second player can play as Kait but I kinda wish I had been able to choose her in single-player too. This felt like her story more than JD's since she was the one with the most at stake in the story. Playing as Marcus Fenix's son kinda felt like a concession to their dudebro fanbase or something. The story was also kinda weak. Again, I don't know what I expected here, but the pacing seemed off to me. The way it all happens in one go, with each act leading immediately into the next one without leaving any breathing room for any of the events. It made everything feel kinda rushed, especially with the sudden ending and the way some plot threads aren't really resolved. Like it's implying that something big is happening but you're only following this small group of characters on this one little thing they're doing on the periphery of things. Which is fine, I guess, this could just be me having the wrong expectations for what a Gears of War story is lol. The game does make up for it with atmosphere, though. There's some really cool level design and creepy monster stuff in there, and the windflares were a neat little bit of worldbuilding. So yeah, not bad/10. Looking forward to playing Gears 5 in the near future.

Like, she was added into the game? What?

Oh wow, that's really cool. And it means they basically localized the game twice, which is no small amount of dedication. They really went all out on this one. This is also the first one to get an english dub since the original way back on PS2, right?

Of course, RIGHT after I post this, there's a Steam sale and I notice that MS and EA somehow never got the memo that discounts aren't supposed to be this good anymore. Seriously, can't remember the last time I've seen something like Gears 5 go that low just a year after launch. It just doesn't happen anymore.

These days I barely even buy the few games I do want to play. My secret: spending all my money on books instead. Seriously, I can't fucking stop. I already have enough of a backlog to last me like halfway through next year but I keep buying more. So I'm really in no position to judge you. ?

Dude, sto-- Well, as long as you realize you have a problem... I have a feeling the best way to help you is probably to force you to play that last one in its entirety before allowing you to buy or play anything else. Like the video game equivalent of a dad catching his kid with a cigarette and making him smoke the entire pack.

True but I'm not familiar with this publisher. They could end up being region-locked. And even if not, the ports might be complete garbage or have ridiculous online DRM (like the old Chinese ports) that makes it all a pain in the ass. Not exactly an ideal scenario.

Crossbell coming to Steam but... They also have pages up for all the Sen games, the first two being the KAI versions. As far as I can tell, none of them have the english loc. Just Chinese and Korean.

Completely off topic but this thread wasn't very active over the years so going back just a few pages was kind of a blast from the past. So many names I haven't seen in years. You guys remember FDS? Man, that guy was such a fucking dick lol.

Ah ok, yeah I don't really look at game reviews anymore tbh. I've come to realize they're completely useless to me. These days I just kinda know what I'm interested in. So either I'll buy the game regardless of review scores or I'll take a quick glance at metacritic and opencritic to know if I want to wait for a sale.

Yeah, this is one of those things where they're branding it like a fresh start and PR says it's a "perfect entry point for newcomers!" but if you ask fans they'll tell you you absolutely should not start there. Kinda like Cold Steel III. Basically never fucking trust PR. It's why I'm so annoyed they're dropping the 7 for the western release and trying to pass it off as a reboot. It's really not.

Enjoy it for both of us, man. I refuse to jump ahead, so no buying it for me until they put Y3-6 on PC.

...once the price drops a bit.

Wrapping up Witcher 3 just one achievement short of full completion was too annoying, I had to get my fix somewhere else! Also, freeing up that much space when I uninstalled it felt pretty good. So getting to uninstall these two as well served as extra motivation.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Well, ~10 months later I've finally reached the end of the Path. This is technically for Blood and Wine but I don't think I ever made a post for Witcher 3 proper, so here's the whole thing. It's been so long since I finished the base game that I don't really have much to say though. It was pretty incredible and completely consumed my entire existence for a solid month. The main story was kinda eh but a lot of the side-quests are fantastic and the world itself is just so easy to lose yourself into. I will say the main story loses a lot of steam near the end. After you find Ciri, things build up to a climax at the battle of Kaer Morhen but things just keep going from there and it never quite manages to get the same kind of momentum going. Then the actual climax feels a little unearned comparatively. But all in all, a fantastic game and I'm not sure what I could possibly say about it that hasn't been said a hundred times before. Hearts of Stone is just a damn solid quest line. It's honestly up there with the best from the main game, I was kinda surprised. It all takes place in the base game's map, though, so it doesn't feel as meaty as an expansion. Blood and WIne, though. In my Control post, I was going on about how story DLC that takes place outside the main game usually sucks and man does this one prove me wrong. I thought the main quest wasn't quite as good as Hearts of Stone but considering there's a ton of new side-quests, witcher contracts, a whole new tier of witcher gear and an entirely new area to explore (and a gorgeous one at that), I really can't complain. I'm really glad I post-poned this one until I had read the books, though, because I feel like I got so much more out of it now. They're not mandatory by any means but there are frequent mentions of Geralt's last time in Toussaint along with a major character from the books that shows up, so there's a lot I would've had no context for. Ultimately, Blood and Wine is like the Witcher 3 experience in a nutshell. It's to DLC what Witcher 3 was to RPGs for me: way longer/bigger than I'd normally want but I really didn't want it to end. Also, I've never regretted not playing on the hardest difficulty more than I do right now... When I started, I was worried Death March would be too frustrating but about 50 hours in I realized that if you do all the side-quests and witcher contracts then you end up so overleveled that the game becomes ridiculously easy. Guess that gives me an excuse to do New Game + at some point in the future. Ideally after the ray-tracing update drops and once I have a card that can run it.

I decided I should read more short fiction and the place I get my books from has all their Stephen King on sale for October. So, I did the natural thing: went completely overboard and bought most of his short fiction collections (along with a few of his novels that I really want to read.) The ones marked in red are those I already had. I also got this collection of 100 short stories by Ray Bradbury because you gotta have some Ray Bradbury. Can't just be all Stephen King all the time.

Goddamn, No Man's Sky?! I can understand some healthy skepticism but those are some abysmally low expectations lmao. Can't say I see where you're coming from at all. Especially since we've seen some pretty elaborate gameplay demos of Cyberpunk whereas the whole NMS thing mainly revolved around people deluding themselves into thinking there HAD to be more to the game that they were keeping under wraps for some mysterious reason. At this point, all I can say is that I sincerely hope you're as wrong as I think you are.