toxicitizen

Looks kind of underwhelming for a mainline FF, imho. I'm surprised it doesn't seem to be cross-gen because at first I thought it was a new expansion for FFXIV based on how the characters looked. Then again, if not pushing the tech side of it means they focused on actually making a good game with a good story this time then that's perfectly fine by me.

Control but also Alan Wake and, fuck it, Quantum Break too, I guess, even though that was a month ago. So yeah, my anticipation for Control sent me into a bit of a Remedy binge. Man, I love this studio. I replayed Quantum Break about a month ago and honestly don't have much new to say about it. It's a ton of fun, I'm still salty it didn't get a sequel and it's the real Max Payne 3, don't @ me. Those TV show episodes are still the worst thing about the game, though. I mean, look. Every time I replay Alan Wake I make it a point to stop and watch every single one of the Night Spring episodes in their entirety. They're great! And I also loved the hell out of all those Dr. Darling videos in Control. So it's not like I don't get or like what they're going for here, but fuck if I know why they thought it was a good idea to break up the gameplay with boring, 20 minutes long episodes about characters that ultimately barely affect the game. I'm assuming it has something to do with the TV boner Microsoft had at the start of the generation but it just doesn't work. Anyway, I burned through Quantum Break in like 2 days so I ended up deciding to replay Alan Wake as well. I waited until the last minute though, so I didn't manage to finish it in time for Control's launch and only got around to playing the last episode today, because I finished Control last night and wanted to at least finish replaying the base game before doing the AWE questline. Alan Wake is one of my favorite games ever and I almost wish I hadn't replayed it because it had been long enough that I had forgotten a lot about it and it didn't quite live up to my memories of it. I still thoroughly enjoyed it once I got into it but it was kind of a shock at first. Time has not been kind to this game and its flaws were way more obvious to me now. The good is still so good, though. I just love the atmosphere of this game. I stopped not just to watch every episode of Night Springs but also to read every manuscript page I found. Also, that rock concert set piece is still the coolest fucking thing ever (or at least it was, I'll get back to this in a bit). It's not mechanically interesting or impressive in any way, you're just fighting off waves of enemies. But everything about it just makes me go "FUCK YEAH!" every damn time. It especially helps that Old Gods of Asgard fucking slaps in a wonderfully cheesy way. I was actually looking forward to it the entire game lol. Not gonna bother replaying the DLC episodes. I probably would if I was still waiting for Control but they don't really add anything to the game and aren't that great. So that brings us to Control. It was a long year waiting for this to get out of Epic Jail but boy was it ever worth it. It has everything I love about Remedy's games only it's about twice as long as they usually are, has a borderline metroidvania structure with an open map full of hidden areas to find and it's basically an SCP Foundation game. I mean, what's not to love? I also love that Poets of the Fall got an entire room dedicated to their usual cameo song this time lol. Much like Alan Wake, I fully immersed myself into this one. I read every document, watched every video, and listened to every audio log. And even after 20+ hours I want more. There's just something about Remedy's games, going all the way back to Max Payne, that feels like they were made specifically for me. I feel like Sam Lake just gets me, man. I went in with pretty high expectations and the game still somehow managed to surpass them. Also, finally going through the Ashtray Maze was an incredible set piece that topped even the rock show from Alan Wake. The weird and impossible level design alone would have made it a blast to go through, but they didn't stop there. The fuckers knew what they were doing! When I entered the maze, put on the walkman, and was treated to a new song by Old Gods of Asgard, I knew I was about to experience something special. Now on to the DLC. I think I'm gonna have to take it slow and savor it (which I've been doing with the main game) because I'm not ready for this ride to end. Especially since, this being a Remedy game, I don't expect to ever get a sequel...

I think it was just Ubisoft that couldn't be bothered to resolve them. I've only been vaguely aware of this but it sounds like Scott Pilgrim's creator had to get personally involved to get things moving.

Goddamn, that is some tacky garbage. Also, RIP @The Cowboy JRPGing Poet's bank account.

What MetalCaveman said. I remember always turning it off at this one corridor with windows on both sides. IIRC a helicopter starts shooting at you, the windows all explode into pieces and the game always slowed down to a crawl lol.

Good to know! Also, I can't remember, was Catalyst a reboot? I'm wondering if it's worth replaying the original first since it's so short. I can probably run it with PhysX on without killing the framerate now, too.

EA finally added achievements to most of the games they recently put on Steam so I grabbed this while it was on sale. Gonna play it once I'm done with Control. Lack of achievements wasn't going to stop me from getting it eventually but it made their big return to Steam seem like such a lazy half-measure that I felt no rush to grab them anytime soon. Like, all of these games already had achievements implemented, it was just a matter of adding calls to the Steam API. Even Jedi Fallen Order only just got them along with the rest, which is ridiculous since it was on Steam at launch. I might actually give Dragon Age another shot now. I bounced off of Dragon Age II pretty hard once I realized it was all going to be set in that one fucking city, but Inquisition seemed like it could be alright. I'd bite for like 10 bucks or so.

I did it, I held off for the entire year. I can finally play this, guys Also I waited until the last fucking minute to start my Alan Wake replay so I'm not actually done with it yet lol. Gonna try to play one episode while the game downloads and then likely gonna have to play the last one after I finish Control and before I start its DLC. Probably won't bother doing the Alan Wake DLC.

Yeah, between just Destiny 2 and Warframe, I have sunk hundreds of hours into the genre. So it's not like I have anything against it, really. It's just not what I wanted from this series at all. I've also come to realize that the genre may just not be for me. I enjoyed my time with both games but I find the prospect of going back to either kind of daunting. When you get to the grind and start thinking about doing dailies and weeklies or whatever and going for end-game gear it just starts to feel like work to me. And when I inevitably stop playing, I dread coming back because it just feels like I have to commit so much time to it if it's gonna be worth it. So yeah, very much not looking to get into any more of these GaaS-type loot games. thanks! I just wanna punch goons as Batman or whoever else and occasionally take a break from punching and look for shiny green question mark trophies.

Wow, as someone that was super into the Arkham games, neither of these interest me at all. At least, based on those trailers. Such a bummer that they're both co-op focused, too.

I caved and drunkenly bought Fall Guys last night. No regrets, it's so much fun. Not sure how long it'll manage to keep my attention but so far I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Now I just need to convince my friends to buy it...

Wow, that is cool but I hope the internal mechanism isn't built cheap because I can just picture someone not realizing what's happening and just trying to force them lol.

Yeah, I'd love to hear Ethan's expert take on this. It seems like an obvious bad faith tactic that should get thrown out but I have no idea if that's actually how it works legally. Tim Sweeney comes off as a delusional asshole but surely Epic has competent legal counsel advising them here. As much as I'd love to imagine Tim Sweeney making this insane legal maneuver that is guaranteed to fail, there's just no way that's the case lol.

True, it's all relative. But Epic is still big enough that its CEO is a billionaire so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ While Apple losing is objectively the better outcome, I'm not rooting for either of them. I'm just enjoying the bloodshed. Worst case scenario, Epic takes a massive hit. Oh no... Besides, it's hard to root for someone that's so clearly acting in bad faith. And that's not even getting into how fucking gross it is to co-opt 1984 imagery and manipulate/weaponize their fanbase of children.

Don't know if you guys have been following the recent Epic legal drama but if not, short version is that Epic introduced their own payment method for Fortnite bucks to circumvent Apple's and Google's rules and fees and promptly got booted off both of their stores. They conveniently had lawsuits ready to be filed, so this was clearly a calculated move on their part. Essentially: And turns out Apple is having none of their shit lmao Challenging the walled gardens of companies like Apple is clearly not a bad thing but I just don't have it in me to root for Epic. And not even because of my dislike of the EGS. They're neither the good guy nor the underdog here. They like to frame things as them fighting for a better status quo but Tim Sweeney is a massive hypocrite and clearly just thinks he should have access to those platforms without having to play by the rules. So this is just hilarious to me.

Yeah, between this, the insane value of Game Pass and basically acknowledging no one likes their shitty Windows store and putting their games on Steam, they're making a lot of the right moves lately. There's zero reasons for me to ever buy an Xbox, especially at this point, but they're almost making me want one lol. Of course, then my cynical brain turns on and thinks that they're only doing all this because of how hard they faceplanted this gen. If they somehow get back on top next-gen, I don't know that I'd expect to see this trend continue. And with all the studios they've acquired in the last couple years, that would seriously fucking suck. From a PC gaming point of view, they're in the best position they've been since like the 90s. I really don't want them to backtrack and start doing dumb shit like GFWL again. I put up with the Xbox app because of Game Pass but, I mean, it's still not good...

Didn't you recently come to some big realization that PC gaming isn't for you anymore? Either way, my response would be that you should know better. ?

Yeah, that's shitty for sure but as someone only getting to play the game a full year late and repeatedly hearing console players say the EGS is "just another launcher", I'm having a hard time having any other reaction than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Steam release is finally confirmed for August 27! And it's a complete edition with the DLC as I was I hoping it would be! If it's priced right (or has a reasonable launch discount), then that's gonna be an instabuy for me.

Damn, if it was their one launch flagship title then it must be in a pretty bad state. I actually forgot about the creative director leaving. Yeah, there's no way this was due to the graphics backlash alone.

Yeah, that's obviously what happened. I imagine they considered things and decided to delay to work on the graphics a bit. Was that the only major launch game, though? I know a lot of the games from their acquired studios are gonna be coming in a few years but surely Halo wasn't the only big one? lol

Couldn't stop, too many deliveries to make! edit: Oh and while I'm here I was hoping this would keep me busy a little longer while I wait for Control's Steam launch but I just burned through it in two days. I already had a bunch of powers unlocked from my first playthrough, though, so that probably made it a bit easier despite this playthrough being on hard. Oh well, guess I'll just have to replay Alan Wake too... ?

↑ actual location of where I picked up my last memory chip. It was perfect, there was a song that started playing and everything. Kojima knew! On a more serious note, I guess preppers aren't just fucking idiots in real life. They're annoying as shit in this game, too! Getting these motherfuckers to join the UCA and then get five stars with them was the grindiest part of this by far. Also, I'm really not sure what happened here because I played through the entire story without any issues but at some point the game decided to shit itself and in the post-game I started constantly running into freezes with a "Now loading..." message. Sometimes I swear I couldn't go five fucking meters without getting another one, it was maddening! It was clearly a data streaming issue because it only happened when I was ziplining or driving, like I was moving too fast for the game to keep up. It's weird because I never experienced anything like it during the story and I have a feeling maybe something in the game's data started degrading or something because I also started getting crashes every now and then.

HOLY FUCK IT'S HAPPENING!!!!! Can't wait for the Steam release. Only a few more weeks. Sounds like the Horizon port is pretty rough, so I may just keep working on Death Stranding and wait for this instead.

That's kinda hard without a PS4. ? For now I'll just have to settle for Horizon on Friday. The closer to launch it gets, the more tempted I am to pull the trigger despite the outrageous price...