Thursday Next

The last three are somewhat, but scope and delays not so much. Most AAA games have a pretty tight core loop, which is why most of them release on schedule. I can't fault CDPR's ambition, but I just have a feeling it will land like No Man's Sky did. A sort of "oh, this is *it*?" feeling. It will have its fans, but I don't think it will be a 9/10 rated must-have. I hope I'm wrong, if only because I've met CDPR folk and they are decent, like I say, just a gut feeling.

Decades of experience in the industry? Lol. Dunno. Just a gut feeling. The scope, the delays, the crunch, the corner cutting on some stuff I just think it's going to disappoint. The scope: Hacking, shooting, dialogue, driving, rpg elements, action elements, you cram all that stuff in and some of it will feel a bit naff which makes the whole product feel lower quality. The delays: coupled with the scope I get the feeling it's either feature creeping like a bastard and they're having to finish or cut stuff, which leaves the game feeling like it is missing something or is bloated and they can't decide which to do which means it will feel a bit of both. The crunch: critical bugs will be missed, quality of coding drops during crunch, and the above issues of scope are compounded. The corner cutting: Naming characters "Esquerdo" and "Certo" for "Left" and "Right" when "Certo" means "correct" not "right" as in handed, while that on it's own is a throwaway thing, it suggests that there is a lack of finesse/oversight within the project as a whole. Just like spelling mistakes in your CV don't mean you can't spell, they do suggest that you didn't bother to double check. All that makes me think that it's going to disappoint a bit. *shrug* I could well be wrong. It's not my bag either way, I just think it will disappoint based on the hype around it.

Correct choice I think. Cyberpunk is going to disappoint bigly.

The cynic in me says that most voters don't care beyond tribalism. Edit: But true, I guess there are a few swing voters who are capable of critical thinking.

Find it odd that US are going through the performative democracy of "hearings" for the new SCOTUS judge. Brett Kavanaugh's appointment showed that there is no point in the hearings. Nobody in the hearings is interested in background, commitment to justice, suitability to hold a seat in the highest court. They should just turn up and say "Red" or "Blue" and then skip to the vote.

Still need to beat Hell House on hard once more to get the final manuscript. But then I'm like done done.

e.g. Joe's Diner looks like a cheap, racist Five Nights at Freddy's knock off. Not surprised that it has been consigned to the dustbin.

Got the Gotterdamerung(sp?) so that's the second "hardest" fight in the game done (hardest is Jules by far). Just need to finish Hard Mode, gather the last three dresses and then tidy up any extra bits and I'll have my 25th Plat.

Maybe if you cut back on neon lights?

6/9 dresses acquired (nice!). QTE dance trophy also. Getting there...

So, am going through FF7R again to hoover up the trophies. So far am not finding it too difficult, I expect to struggle with Hell House. The MP/item restriction is tedious. I feel like they could have made hard mode = no items in battle and MP only recovered through benches, not with items if they really wanted to make MP management a thing. But to have essentially no MP recovery over a whole chapter is a bit strong. It means that you can't really use magic at all until the last battle in the chapter which makes combat a bit flat since you are restricted to attacks and abilities. The Dressed to the Nines trophy is a total PITA. You have to replay chapter 3, 8 and 9 twice to get them all and Chapter 8 drrrrrrrrrrrrrags.

What really blows my mind is the concept that a judge can be "republican" or "democrat" (I've used small letters as I understand they don't have an official party membership, more of a casual alignment). UK Supreme Court by contrast has 12 Judges, usually only 5 sit on a case, though up to 11 can (to avoid a tie). While they are all old, white, and wealthy and therefore (probably) mostly centre right leaning (by which I mean right for the UK, which is waaaaay off to the left in the US), they are still perfectly happy to hand out a drubbing to our Conservative government when HMG are acting up. I tend to agree with Ethan, I think the judiciary (in any democracy) try to stay out of Politics, and avoid following their prejudice as far as they are aware of it. Roe v Wade was 7-2 so I'm assuming that at least 2 "conservative" Justices were persuaded by the arguments on the day assuming the balance is usually fairly equal?

Is it Damascus steel? Or just made to look like it? On a similar note, I bought... a kitchen? I'll leave you to work out which was before and which was after. https://photos.app.goo.gl/sxQiYzjfAacQo3g39 https://photos.app.goo.gl/yCDwGNHDujZAJWsYA

Yeah, but Bioware still use the Bioware name and they are very much thought of as EA these days.

I for one am absolutely fine to not play Bethesda games. I think the only thing of theirs that I even like is Dishonoured, which I rate as "ok". So my feelings on this as a PS only guy is "nothing of value was lost". I wonder if Bethesda will no longer be given so much leeway for buggy, broken, dumpster fire launches now that they are "Microsoft"?

Pretty sure heating the oceans is not a great idea. Water stores heat pretty effectively, which is not really what you want in a warming climate. I'm gonna file this under "seemed like a good idea at the time".

So I got my pre-order via "Accessories Warehouse". I don't suppose anyone (British) has experience with them? I'm going to keep looking until hopefully John Lewis has a digital edition for sale since they have a free 2 year warranty, but at least I have (in theory) booked my spot.

Would have to be a game I got a platinum in since I have to really love it to go to that level. In which case... Horizon, GoW, Jedi Fallen Order, Sekiro, Control, or Tsushima (excluding niche titles)... can't think of any others. Of which I would say Horizon since it was the one that surprised me most. Sekiro is a close second. It's rare that a game "clicks" for me like Sekiro did, but I ate it up!

I can't remember the last game I actually bought... ? Oh, TLOU2 Ellie edition, but I got a code for that game too so ended up giving the discs to my sister lol.

I want the digital one. I can't get over how fugly the disc one is...

Like I said, it's not the lip-synching that jars. It's that it looks like PS3 level facial animation. The bottom half of the face moves realistically, the top half of the face looks like it has been botoxed. Compare to games like Horizon, Tsushima, TLOU, FFXV that have faces move realistically, the eyebrows/forehead move, the eyes blink etc. FFXVI looks like this:

It wasn't even that the lip-synching was bad. It just looked like old tech. The lips moved, but the rest of the face didn't. Like when adverts do babies talking or whatever. I guess having come from TLOU2 and Tsushima, my expectations are higher for that stuff...

The facial animations in the FF trailer were garbage (something I've noticed in FF7R too). The particle effects were very whizzy though... so there's that I guess? If it does play like FFXV then I'm ok with that. I think FFXII is in retrospect one of my favourite systems, I like that it is a sort of programming language.

Stop which bit? Cops killing black people? Or white-washing murderous cops by using their victims' criminal history as justification?

Thought the game looked interesting, but I seem to remember seeing a clip of the bosses and they were all just waifu pole dancers which seems a bit dull.