toxicitizen

That's more or less where I'm at. And looking at Charles Martinet's credits on wikipedia, it sounds like he's done basically nothing but Mario. And he's great in the games but that's mostly short catchphrases and nonsensical idiot noises. Like, do people seriously expect that delivery would work in a 2 hours long movie with actual dialogue lol? For all we know, the dude may simply not have the range to do a normal role, let alone be the lead of a big movie.

I laughed out loud when Jay pulled out the 4090. The 3090 he shows is basically the same size/model as my 3080 and it's already so ridiculously massive. The thing barely fits in my gigantic case. Like, we're talking literally a few millimetres of clearance. The more info I hear about the 40 series, the happier I am that I didn't wait for it. I would need a brand new case and likely a new PSU as well due to the next-gen connectors these cards use. I'm not replacing my case within a year of building the PC and I sure as shit am not replacing my PSU for the second time within a year!

Alien Isolation is fantastic and it's a fucking crime that we never got a sequel. The campaign is a bit on the long side but there's just enough immersive-sim DNA in there for me to not mind. I've been meaning to give it a replay for years now although I don't think I'll have time for it this spooky season. Maybe I'll finally do Amnesia instead.

Tekken 7 Finally gave this one a shot because of the Tekken 8 hype. My first impression of the game was not great. It's so different from every other fighting game I've played this year. I mean, going from Street Fighter to Guilty Gear isn't that much of a paradigm shift. Guilty Gear is faster and crazier but they have a lot of fundamentals in common. Tekken is a whole other ball game, though, and it took me a while to get used to it. I played through the story mode, which is so insane that I actually had to stop and go on wikipedia to read the plot summaries of Tekken 1 through 6. Turns out this series goes hard on its nonsensical plot. Then I came back to it and it still seemed fucking insane but at least I had some kind of context now. I also watched Tekken Bloodline on Netflix. It's surprisingly decent. Not sure how much you'd get out of it if you're not already invested in the story of Tekken, though. Anyway, by the end of the story mode I sorta had a better sense of how to play so I picked Kazuya and started practicing some of his simple combos. Played online for a bit and it's actually pretty fun! I have no desire to try getting good at this, though. I've already put so much time into SF and GG that I don't feel like dropping them for something completely different. It's a pretty fun game to play casually and I'm happy to leave it at that. Oh and it has a pretty straightforward achievement list, which was a pleasant surprise coming from a fighting game.

Hey, we're back! I can finally post this. I've waited so long but it's finally here. ...although it's been out for a week and I still haven't started it. I really need to stop getting distracted by side-cases because at this point it's gonna take me another week to finish Judgment and then I won't have enough time left to wrap up Trails from Zero before Persona 5 comes out. I may end up keeping Zero for after P5R, to be honest. I mean, I've already waited like half a decade. What's another month or two?

Didn't they once send a PI to intimidate a modder or something? They'll probably hire a hitman this time lol.

They've actually become desperate enough to announce it Alongside like three more AC games. Which one of these projects will be the next Skulls & Bones-type disaster is anyone's guess! Personally, my money's on this one. It would be perfect. Everyone's been begging them for a Japan AC game just like they were for a pirate game after AC4. My prediction: announcing so many projects at once and so early that they only have codenames is pretty unlike them for their big IPs. This is them trying to either make themselves more attractive for acquisition or manufacture some goodwill to salvage their reputation. I would not be surprised in the least if most of these games never actually see the light of day lol.

Soul Hackers 2 I'm not sure what I expected from this one but overall I really liked it. It sits somewhere between Shin Megami Tensei and Persona. It has more personality than the former and characters that are likeable and actually have their own personalities but it has nowhere near the style and production values of Persona. There's demon recruiting but there's no negotiation, it's a more simplified version of it. There's no social links but you do have a "soul level" with each of your party member that you can raise from various dialog choices and by going out for drinks with them when you unlock "hangout events". Once I was a few hours into it and had gotten a feel for what the entire game would be like, it dawned on me that this is actually a handheld game through and through. At first I assumed it was because the Switch version was the baseline they had to get it running on but it's not even on Switch lmao. But yeah, it really reminded me of those JRPGs I would play on Vita. Hell, downgrade the graphics a bit and I'm sure this could actually run on a Vita. The dungeons are fairly repetitive and visually simple. The main story dungeons each have their own theme going on but the big optional dungeon has got to be the most uninspired thing ever visually: it's all just blue cyberspace cubes as far as the eye can see. And you're spending a good chunk of the game running around in that thing because you keep unlocking new floors as the story progresses and it's how you get new abilities for your party members, with progress being tied to their soul level. Outside of dungeons is where you realize this was made on a shoestring budget, though. There's like three areas with actual geometry in them (4 if you count the safehouse but you don't get to run around in that one). And each of those three areas is basically just a single room with doors to various shops and facilities. Once you enter those, it's just a jpeg background and a menu. The shopkeepers don't even get a 3D model lol. I don't actually have a problem with any of this, mind you. It was just kind of a shock to see just how low-budget this game actually was, even compared to P4G which I replayed just a few months ago. Even SMTV on Switch looks more technically advanced than this. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me this game was made by the same team that developed all their 3DS games. The combat is more or less what you'd expect from an SMT spin-off. You recruit demons, fuse them, etc. In combat, you hit enemies weaknesses which adds demons to a "stack" and at the end of your turn you get a big attack that deals more damage the bigger your stack is. The usual stuff. Overall I had a decently fun time with it. If you like SMT games and don't mind low production values it's definitely worth a look. It was a good way to kill time while I wait for P5R to finally launch on PC. And hey, it was actually good enough to distract me from Spider-Man lol. Man, I fell off that game kinda hard. And I started Judgment two nights ago (and made it a point to try and finish SH2 last night so I could focus on Judgment) because I actually forgot about Spider-Man entirely lmao. Idk, I guess I expected more from it? Gonna have to try chipping away at it here and there to at least finish it. I think I'm fairly far into it so it shouldn't take too long.

Holy hell, there is so much shit going on in that trailer. This game is going to be insane. The single-player mode looks so fucking 2004. Like when Tony Hawk tried having a single-player campaign or something. I love it!

RIP my wallet but after waiting so long for them to come to Steam, I just had to... Think I'll have to try to finish Soul Hackers 2 ASAP (pretty sure I'm in the final dungeon anyway) and try to squeeze the first game in before Trails from Zero in two weeks. I can do this...

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R You don't really beat fighting games but I've gone through all the single-player content so I'm calling it done. This is a super fun game if you love JoJo. It's a pretty solid fighting game and it goes really hard with the fan service. I haven't tried all the characters but most of those I did try were pretty fun to play. Usually I'll try characters until I find one that works for me and stick with them but I can't really see myself maining anyone in this game. The roster is just too much fun to stick to any one character. I only have one minor nitpick and one major complaint. So, I guess the original release of this game was from before the anime really took off. So it's pretty cool that they went to the trouble of hiring the voice actors from the anime to (re-?)record the voiceovers. What sucks is that they didn't go the extra mile and license the music as well. That anime's music is so good and iconic at this point that hearing the actual character's voices without it made it feel like something was missing. It's a small thing and doesn't really impact the game's overall quality but I thought it really stood out. That was the minor nitpick. As for the major complaint, it's something that does impact the quality in a big way: the netcode. The game is basically unplayable online. If you set it to be the host and limit it to same region only you'll get plenty of matches that are perfectly fine but do quick match and holy fucking hell. At some point I had gotten so used to various degrees of slowdown that once I finally got a normal match it felt like the game was running in fast-forward. It's that bad. Concurrent player count on Steam alone has already dropped by like 50% in the two weeks since launch. Lack of crossplay means it's only going to get harder and harder to find nearby players to play online and lack of rollback netcode means whatever matches you can find will play like absolute shit. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this game dies completely before it even has a chance to be considered for EVO next year. Which really sucks because it's so much fucking fun! So yeah, this game is definitely worth a look if you're a JoJo fan but it's hard to recommend unless you're mostly interested in it for offline play. I'm treating this one as a single-player game, personally. I might hop back online for the occasional match but now that I'm done with the achievements I'm moving on. I was always going into it as more of a "fuck around" game, I never intended to try and get good at it like I did with SFV and am currently doing with GG Strive, but even if I wanted to it just wouldn't be feasible with that garbage netcode.

Finally out! it's Early Access though, so it's sadly not the whole game. I probably won't dig into it immediately but I played the demo a while back and I seriously love what they're going for with this one, so I wanna show some support.

I've been in kind of a Marvel mood lately so I've been catching up on MCU movies. Here's some quick thoughts: Shang-Chi: Starts really strong but the second act gets kinda bogged down in exposition and the climax felt a little rushed but overall I really liked it. It doesn't register as a Marvel or superhero movie at all, and that was the best thing it had going for it. It starts out as a standard martial arts movie and just gradually turns into martial arts fantasy. 7.5/10 Eternals: I went into this one expecting the worst and maybe it's because my expectations were abysmally low but I actually really enjoyed it. It has pretty major flaws. The pacing is all over the place and even at 2h30 long it feels rushed. This one probably should've been a prestige tv show. I think there was enough material in the movie to fill a good 6 episodes or so. That would've given the large cast of characters more room to breathe and allowed the plot to carry a bit more weight. 7/10 Spider-Man: No Way Home: I watched this one the night before the game came out on PC, so I was definitely in a Spider-Man mood. I thought it had less substance than the first two Spider-Man movies but overall it's still pretty enjoyable. It mostly relies on the gimmick of bringing back previous characters but it uses it really well so it ends up being a pretty fun watch. The interactions between the 3 Spideys were the highlight for me. And Garfield's version somehow manages to steal the show even though his iteration was the worst one by far. So it was cool to finally see him get to play the character in a movie that's not complete garbage. Oh and speaking of stealing the show, I did not realize how badly I had missed Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin. He's so perfect in the role. 8.5/10 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: And, holy fuck, Sam Raimi is another one I missed. This movie isn't perfect by any means but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the way it gradually amps up the Sam Raimi-ness until by the end it's just a full-blown Sam Raimi movie. Also, I can't believe I didn't get spoiled on I hope Sam Raimi keeps making these movies from now on because, as much as I enjoyed the first Doctor Strange, this one was way more my shit. For me this was the Doctor Strange equivalent of Thor: Ragnarok. 9/10

Yeah, that's kinda why I'm so hesitant. I want one because it seems like it would be fun but if I'm gonna invest into a fight stick I'd like to get a decent entry-level one, at the very least. And I can't really justify dropping 150-200$ on something I may not end up using all that much. Especially considering how much I like the fighting pad I'm currently using. It wouldn't just have to be fun to be worthwhile, it would have to feel better for me than the fighting pad.

Fight not flight lol. As in fighting games. I imagine a flight stick would absolutely enhance the experience no matter what, yeah. But with a fight stick I'd be basically throwing all my muscle memory out the window. So I'd essentially be starting over from almost zero. Knowing myself, that alone would frustrate me more than anything lol.

Yeah, I'm only sort of casually into racing games but I bet a setup like that makes them even more fun. Can't justify investing that much for a genre I barely play, though. If I'm gonna shell out for an expensive peripheral, it's gonna be a fight stick. And even then I'm really hesitant to drop that kind of money because what if I don't like it.

God, the original anime had such a perfect soundtrack. I haven't watched the show or listened to the soundtrack in like two decades but I've been reading through the Golden Age arc since last week and this theme just came back to me and got stuck in my head.

Lol a bit? I love his games but the dude went too far up his own ass years ago and got lost in there. Also yeah, I'm very curious to hear what he had to say about The Looker lol.

The next few weeks hit my wallet pretty hard... JoJo is going to lack rollback netcode, of course, because Bandai Namco gonna Bandai Namco. I still can't believe they actually just announced Dragon Ball Fighterz is getting it. Fighterz 2 must still be pretty far off (or not planned at all) because otherwise I can't imagine they would bother after all this time. Either that or ASW figured out a way to add it easily/cheaply enough through their work on GG Strive that BN was willing to sign off on it. That might explain why they're not doing it for Tekken 7 too but I imagine they're focusing on the next one right now. It would be funny as fuck if it turned out to still not have rollback, though. I'm still not sure if I wanna try getting through the first Soul Hackers before the sequel comes out. I own a physical copy for 3DS and I actually went through some boxes to find my 3DS and charge it but I might be too busy to get it done in time. I really hate skipping instalments in series, though, and it sounds like it's reasonably short by Atlus standards, so I think maybe I'll just start it and if I'm not done in time then I'll just hold off on starting Soul Hackers 2.

How the fuck are you going through these so quickly?! I know TIS-100 isn't that long, the only reason I never finished it is that every time I pick it up again I start over... and then I eventually stop again lol. But Shenzhen I/O is pretty long IIRC. It took me longer than Exapunks to beat, at least. Wait, let me guess. You don't waste hours on the solitaire minigames, do you? As I was typing that and looking at my playtimes and achievements, I realized that could totally account for it.

Yeah, by that point I already felt like I was seeing a completely different Quill than in the movies but that moment really cemented it. I honestly cannot imagine Chris Pratt's version saying that line and it coming across as sincere or in-character.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Okay, this one actually surprised the hell out of me. I had heard good things around the time it came out but, unlike Jedi: Fallen Order, there wasn't really anything about it that especially appealed to me. I heard the writing was good and GotG is probably my favorite subseries within the MCU but that's about it. The initial reveal was pretty meh to me and, while I didn't have any issues with the character designs (they sure as hell seemed better to me than Avengers), making it a third-person shooter where you only control Star-Lord seemed like a disappointing choice. I wanted to give it a shot anyway, though, but I was waiting for a deep discount and even 30 bucks is more than I was planning to pay for it. This was a total impulse purchase because "hey this would be a perfect game to play while I wait for the Spider-Man port!" Early on it was more or less what I expected. Kinda fun and the writing and characters seemed good but the combat wasn't really that interesting. I kept playing but it seemed like one of those games that's fine but that I end up being distracted from and never coming back to. Then I kept playing, got deeper into the story, unlocked more abilities for the Guardians and... holy fuck, how did this game get so fucking good?! The third-person shooter combat looks deceptively boring because in reality controlling all the Guardians as a team is key. I knew you could give them orders but what I didn't realize was that you're really controlling the entire team as if it were a party. In a way, it reminded me of Brutal Legend: Star-Lord is more like a cursor that just happens to have guns and his own move set. Once you unlock more abilities for the team, things get way more interesting and finding ways to combine the Guardian's various moves to take down strong enemies super quickly is just a ton of fun. The writing is also shockingly good. I'd honestly put it up there with the Gunn films. Hell, in some aspects I think it even surpasses them. The plot itself is really solid and surprisingly long for this kind of game. There's so many twists and turns and basically all of it is set up perfectly. What seems like a throwaway line early in the game can turn into a major plot point later on. I don't remember the last time I played a linear, story-driven, single-player game with this meaty of a campaign. My one complaint about the story would be that it feels like there's a missing cutscene at the end. Without spoiling anything, it seemed like just a short bit showing things going back to normal would've gone a long way towards making the ending feel more "complete". As it is, it comes off a little artificial and sudden how you beat that one boss and then it's like "Yay, you won!" without really acknowledging everything going on outside the boss room. Like, think in Guardians 2 where you see these quick cutaways that show what Ego is doing on various planets throughout the galaxy. It seems like something like that was missing. It didn't even need to be completely new locations, just show things going back to normal in a few places you've already visited over the course of the game. I imagine it was probably a budget thing, though. So it's a minor complaint, it just really stood out to me. Then there's the characters, which is the main area where I find the game surpassed its MCU counterpart. I found both Drax and Gamora way more likeable in this. I feel like the game showed me a side of them that the movies didn't. Drax in particular felt like more of a full character instead of being relegated to more of a comic relief sidekick role. Rocket came across as an even bigger asshole to the point where I actively disliked him at times, which allowed moments later in the game have a bigger impact. Groot is, well, Groot. But the biggest difference for me was Star-Lord. Keep in mind I've never read the comics, so I didn't really know anything about the characters other than what's in the MCU movies. So I don't know which version is more "true to the character" and, frankly, I don't really give a shit. All I know is that I found Game-Quill to be massively more likeable than Movie-Quill. And it's not like I hate Chris Pratt's Star-Lord or anything. The game just makes him seem like a self-centered, juvenile asshole in comparison. Like, he is a juvenile asshole, even in the game. That's part of his character. But if you go out of your way to go through all the optional conversations with the Guardians, Game-Quill is also a dude that seems to genuinely care about the Guardians and has the ability to be thoughtful towards them and even help them on a more personal level. The movies tell you the Guardians are a family but the game shows you that they are. That's not a knock against the Gunn movies, though. Obviously the game had way more room to develop the characters and a big part of me liking the game versions more likely has to do with the fact that I got to spend like 20+ hours with them as opposed to just a couple of 2 hour long movies. One point where the Gunn films are better is the music choices. There's some really fun licensed tracks in the game but overall I still think Gunn handled that aspect better. That being said, props to Eidos Montreal for going above and beyond and outdoing even Remedy here. Alan Wake and Control had a few Old Gods of Asgards songs but Guardians of the Galaxy has an actual full album for Star-Lord and it honestly fucking slaps. I'm starting to think that putting a fictional heavy metal band in your game is a surefire way to ensure I'll fall in love with both the game and the band. About halfway through the game I found myself humming some of the songs because they were stuck in my head and I started listening to them outside the game. Zero to Hero in particular is my fucking jam! Also, another one with no hassle: I had heard this game was janky in how chapter select works and how collectibles are tracked, so I was using a guide early on but I found that to be a miserable way to play the game so I stopped after a few chapters. Fortunately, it gave me enough of a sense of how the collectibles were hidden that I found enough of them on my own to get the 65% you need for the achievement. Late in the game I also paid attention to combat achievements and got most of them before I was done. So at the end I only needed to use chapter select for two combat achievements and a handful of outfits I had missed. Thank fuck the outfits save as soon as you collect them, though, because having to replay the whole game would've been painful. It's great but it's also very story-driven so even just doing partial replays of a few chapters was annoying as hell in how many unskippable cutscenes or slow sections there were. Having to do a second full playthrough immediately after would've probably soured me on the game a bit. I'd definitely love to replay it eventually, though, if only to see some of the alternate scenarios your choices can lead to. So yeah, this one was a massively pleasant surprise. I was disappointed that Eidos Montreal made this over another Deus Ex but now I'm honestly a little sad this one probably won't get a sequel. At the very least, now I'll be willing to give the benefit of doubt to anything they make. I still need a new Deus Ex, though...

Oh, I see. I never got the impression that Trevorrow departing had anything to do with the TLJ backlash but I never followed the situation that closely to begin with. Or I could just be misremembering.

Was Rian Johnson ever planned to direct Ep IX, though? Trevorrow was initially attached to direct but I don't remember Johnson ever being. I thought it just went directly to Abrams after Trevorrow left. Like, at this point it's likely not happening anymore but at the time Johnson was set to make his own trilogy. It would be weird to fire him from Ep IX over fan backlash but then give him his own trilogy.

Is that what happened? I thought they gave it to him after Colin Trevorrow was fired and/or left the project. It sounds like there was a ton of studio interference, though. Like, I'm not the biggest J.J. Abrams fan or anything but it is by far the worst thing he's ever done. I can't imagine even on a bad day he'd make something that fucking unwatchable unless he was forced to do dumb shit. Like, say... bring Palpatine back with no prior setup whatsoever.