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I actually forgot that I even owned The Crew, I guess that it's been a while since I used Ubisofts launcher. I hope that the campaign gets some traction, there are active petitions going on now in the UK, Australia and Canada while there is a lawsuit going on in Brazil. I'm hoping to hear about options in the EU as Swedish authorities are useless here.

Well, they don't necessarily have to "take" the city. They just need to encircle it and then lay seige to it. They themselves are going to realize that if the point is to trade it away, then it makes no sense to expend the kind of resources it would take from them to capture the city. But it also keeps open the possibility that the Ukrainian defenses in the city simply collapse. Forcing the Ukrainian side to accept defeat/surrender on Russia's terms is ultimately the end-game for Russia. Their first strategy to accomplish this end-game was to try and take a huge swath of Ukraine, essentially all of Ukraine east of and including Kiev, and force surrender in this way. That did not work. Their second strategy was to try and coerce the Ukrainian side by threatening to escalate to the use of tactical nukes. That also didn't work, mainly because of the external pressure on the Russians, including even from their friends. Now this is their third plan for coercing Ukraine's surrender, born from their battlefield succeses in eastern Ukraine recently. And this plan is the one that has a really good chance of succeeding, especially because Ukraine's Western allies are "going wobbly" (to use a line from Thatcher back in the day), and because within Ukraine itself we now have political differences over war strategy and Zelenskiy is no longer seen as Superman.

There is no Light. It is an action-adventure. There are several paths to follow from the start, but they seem to be rather linear. I think, I have finished 1 out of 4 main paths. So far, I have turned off the music (at one point, it switched to rock, which, while nice, was not appropriate for actually trying to fight off the ambush) and tried to switch the difficulty to the easier one (I cannot tell if I have succeeded). The visual style is beautiful and expressive (pixel art), the controls are rebindable, and the bosses have been quite diverse and challenging*. There is a karma system, and I assume that it should go up. Which it does from picking the "correct" answers in dialogues and completing side quests (somehow, telling a pilgrim that their god was not testing their faith by murdering them was bad, while telling a random settler not to report on his brother being a rebel was good). The setting seems to be post-apocalyptic and dystopian - the population lives in the underground train network, but there is also magic, with the protagonist's current patron being some soft of murder god. I like the combat system in general, but not its combination with the encounter design and level layout. The actions are mostly quite responsive, but when there are several foes with different attack states (can or cannot be interrupted) gathered around, it gets very chaotic, considering the speed. I have not found a way to upgrade the HP and the health-restoring consumables are limited, while the weapon upgrades do not directly increase the damage per hit. Though, there are several weapons, which seem to be unlocked by defeating main bosses. In terms of level structure, it is not a Metroidvania - after choosing one of the paths, the progression is mostly linear with short side paths which may or may not lead to something (was not worth it so far). Nor there are any traversal abilities to unlock. The levels are rather difficult to navigate and for the areas outside of the main hub, there are no maps. Occasionally, the level borders appear only after you reach them. I will try to finish the game. *died several times to the second one before noticing that the thing was counter-attacking. Nothing before had been doing so and there was no indication that the boss was parrying me (aside from my HP going down).

There is no Light The game was insulting me. Ironically, the difficulty does not seem to affect the bosses. An escort side quest. Just as planned. The second boss. It took me several tries to notice that he was killing me by counter-attacking. The MC continues being unlucky in the cut-scenes. I guess, domestic violence is not unrealistic, but kind of dark for a passing line. Then again, the setting seems to be grimdark. Not a clue what it was or why it was there already dead. Reminds of WH40K. The Messiah. The butterfly lied - the children were in a no-combat zone. Speaking of, Samedi feels less irritating than Issun was, which might be mostly because he appears less frequently. Still would have preferred him being quiet, but there are worse chatty sidekicks.

Crazy stuff https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/full-scan-of-1-cubic-millimeter-of-brain-tissue-took-14-petabytes-of-data-equivalent-to-14000-full-length-4k-movies

Former Microsoft senior PR manager Brad Hilderbrand on recent studio shutdowns: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bradhilderbrand_there-are-two-reasons-why-all-those-bethesda-activity-7193668143305670657-wUSw?utm_source=li_share&utm_content=feedcontent&utm_medium=g_dt_web&utm_campaign=copy Gosh, I wish the Activision-Blizzard deal would have fell through, if that means the smaller, more interesting studios will get their heads chopped.

They're gonna need the biggest shovels ever to take a city of 1.5million

Steam keys (from HumbleBundle): Axiom Verge Death's Gambit (already own on Steam; it was a rather enjoyable Souls-like Metroidvania) The Knight Witch

There is no Light I suppose, the sexism is to indicate that they are safe to kill. I think, the setting is post-apocalyptic. The protagonist has a rather interesting manner of holding swords. It is nice that the story and the gameplay fit well together. The first boss. Aspire: Ina's Tale Islets The final island: Did the timed challenge. Sheepo (The screenshots cover the full game). Kidnapping the eggs of local population on the behalf of an intergalactic organisation. Most locals don't care, the relatives of the eggs, do, though. Late-game bosses and ending. Fallout 4 Far Harbor, ending: Xanadu Next

Finished Islets. In general, very nice mechanically, the story is not exactly deep, but nice. Review: Then purchased and completed the developer's previous game, Sheepo. Not as good as Islets, but generally fine. Review: Tried VtM - Swansong. It did not run on the main PC, judging by the error message, the issue is with the OS. On Steam Deck, the poorly-made saving system is significantly harder to mitigate, so probably will play on the spare PC some time later. Tried Xanadu Next. Refunded - between the screen flickering (resolved by running in the window mode), crashes (resolved by deleting the intro movie), the mouse-only movement (not resolved, and the boring combat (not resolved), it did not seem to be worth the time. Finished Fallout 4: Far Harbor. It was generally fine. The body-hiding part of the assassination was a bit ridiculous - with some luck, I could have disintegrated the body during combat. Tried Brain Marmalade, a platformer. Got stuck in 5 minutes. The controls are not rebindable, the resolution cannot be adjusted in-game. The art is fine, stylised like pen sketches. Started Aspire: Ina's Tale. After Islets and Sheepo, mind-numbingly boring. Looks lovely, but so, so shallow. The story follows a priestess who is trying to escape a sci-fi-esque tower. There are some light environmental puzzles, but they are not exactly challenging or engaging. Continued There is no Light. The protagonist is blissfully silent. Got repeatedly punched in the opening cut-scenes and I still don't quite get the logic, but the visual design is nice and controls are very comfortable and rebindable.

Variety - Roger Corman dead, Pionering independent producer and king of B-Movies

After some test, it seems that the +20 accuracy granted by the small shield modal works fine in the first version of your mod, until the 2.5.4 version. I found that the bonus disappeared with the introduction of the version 2.6. but I don't see why because there is nothing new that seems connected with "Binding Block" ... Neither has Xoti a perk or an item affected by the changes. I add that I have no other mod installed, community patch aside, that could interfer. Very straaaaange !