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As an 80ies nerd I felt right at home in Night City. The setting's not for everyone though - not even for other 80ies nerds. Game's pretty good though, easily CDPR's best in terms of writing and thematic exploration. It's also everything a FromSoftware game would like to be when it comes to storytelling by item descriptions and little bits of lore found here and there - in addition to, you know, having an actual plot. Which is a little hole-y in the first chapter due to it being seemingly hit the hardest by time constraints (i.e. cuts). I am, generally speaking, not someone who replays games a lot, with two exceptions. The original Wing Commander and Cyberpunk 2077. That is not to say that I didn't like other games more (Ocarina of Time and Planescape: Torment come to mind, among others), it's just that there's something about Night City that makes me come back. In spite of starting with my least favorite RPG setup that there is: First person and open world. Guess it helps that Cyberpunk 2077's open world busy work is limited to randomly shooting criminals for bounties, and the storyline is rather focused and not bogged down by having a lot of - mostly irrelevant by the end - choices and consequences outside of deciding which ending you want, including the Phantom Liberty ones. The gameplay itself is, well, I guess fine. Netrunning is still as broken as it was in 1.6, except in different ways. LMGs are still fun to play with, but not really viable, Assault Rifles still suck compared to virtually everything else, and a bunch of little things here and there, but there's something about the game that made me play 550 hours already, and single player games rarely get that much time out of me.

I noticed that I've become like the Q continuum and the Q in them, as depicted by the Voyager epsiode Death Wish. Just an endless, dusty road with the same people who read a newspaper and every now and then talk about the same things - because everything's been said already.

Not sure if it's dead or not but I'd love to do one on Obsidian's accessibility features.

It didn't say the year.

Once again it is GamePass time. With Outer Worlds2 coming in October, and games I want to play piling up in gamepass I figured it's a good time to resubscribe and tick few of those off. So here is a list so far: 1) FTC: Firebreak - Remedy's Left4Dead-like. Ehhhh. It's not terrible, but also not particularly interesting. Gameplay is very basic, missions get old very quickly, and matches are either fairly dull (if everyone know what they are doing) or frustrating (if one or two people don't fulfill their roles). It's an ok time waster with a friend, but I think I had enough of it in a solo que. I might jump back again later after few updates, but I wouldn't recommend paying money for it. Sorry, Remedy. 2) I gave new Commandos: Origins game a go. Eh, didn't play much so far, but my impression isn't much different than from a demo - it seems like a clunkier, far less polished version of Mimimi's take on the genre. They just haven't presented any interesting challenges so far, and character kits seem basic. 3) South of Midnight - again not very deep so far. Look beautiful, and I like the vibe. Initial impression of gameplay is that it will likely not amount to much. Feels like a very basic action platformer thing 3) Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - that's been my main thing for the last two weeks. It's great! Fairly contained jRPG, with all that I like about genre but none of the tedium. Combat is straightforward but engaging. Vibe and story is the highlight - great soundtrack, compelling character writing, I am yet to decide on plot - it is shaping to be a bit more straightforward than I was hoping for, but we will see - I am confident a big twist is just ahead of me. Perhaps not a groundbreaking game, but with a lot of heart and passion. [edit. Ok, I like the plot now. Twist was good, in a thematically meaty kind of way.] 4) The Rogue Prince of Persia - it's really good. Sharp artstyle, and really enjoyable gameplay. They are also doing some smart story thing - not quite copying Supergiant's work in Hades, but still managing to naturally weave story into it's rogue-lite structure.

I played PoE recently again after playing Deadfire for a long time. I just think Deadfire has more ups and downs. This also has a lot to do with how you progress. Imo it happens more frequently that you run into encounters which you are either under- or overleveled for. For example if you do Hanging Sepulchers too early (which can happen if you follow the Benweth/Furrante quest line too rigorously) it will wreck you. And if you don't go to the Vallian Ambassy early and get to Poko Kohara late - it's a cakewalk. This can also happen in PoE - but it's not as open and therefore the risk of that happening is lower overall. I also think that PoE's begining isn't very hard compared to Gorecci Street etc. IF you really know what to do. The enemies are more "playable", meaning their AI seems to be a lot more limited than Deadfire's. Imo

In Grounded 2, walls can be placed at either 90° or 45° angles, allowing for a variety of structures. However, some building pieces, such as doors and their frames, don't follow this logic: they cannot be placed at 45° angles. This limits creativity and prevents bases from being harmonized with doors at diagonal angles. Proposal: Allow players to place doors and door frames at 45° angles, similar to walls. Thanks you !

https://www.polygon.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-release-date-preview/ Doesn't seem too impressive based on this preview

late to the party, but just wanted to add that IME in general normal difficulty deadfire strikes me as easier than poe1, and in fact original potd deadfire was easier than poe1. even outside turn-based mode, combat runs slower so you have more time to think about stuff or notice stuff. the earlier encounters are also balanced better (i remember getting wrecked in the temple or in a violent approach to raedric). that being said, like chaospread says, PotD + scaled + magran challenges is a whole other animal. def harder than poe1.

I have finished Blasphemous 2. In terms of the moment-to-moment gameplay, it feels like an improvement, though narratively, the story wrapped up in the previous game, while the ridiculous number of various collectibles and the changes to the character’s builds somehow spoil the enjoyment. The game is still breathtakingly beautiful and the bosses are varied and challenging. I purchased the game with the DLC, so while I might not have noticed all differences, the clearly DLC-specific areas consisted mostly of the arenas, i.e. I could not proceed without murdering several waves of recoloured foes. The platforming challenges were mostly doable and the new weapon (1) functional. The bosses, however, were irritating, though the (probably) new spells helped greatly in dealing with them. I have also finished Planescape: Torment - Enhanced Edition. It runs well and there is a wide range of accessibility options, such as item highlight and font size. The unlimited number of manual hard saves and the ability to pause at any time were present in the original version as well and it is good to see them. Some cut-scenes were missing subtitles, however. Admittedly, without seeing why dialogue options are available or locked and because of the very limited class selection and character customisation in general, it is not the most engaging RPG-labeled game I have played, while the ending(s) is unsatisfying. Nonetheless, it is an important part of our history and it is welcome to see it to be available and accessible. I have started Elephantasy: Flipside which I’ve got from the Queer Games Bundle 2025. So far, it feels like Tunic, but with more hardcore platforming. The game looks lovely, the controls are customisable, and the map feels quite large. Partially, due to large chunks of it being inaccessible at the moment, as they require various traversal items I have not found yet. To be precise, I think I have found the main questline and the said pile of items, but I can hold only one at the moment, with the limit increasing as I progress with the game. There is some form of fast travel available from the start. The in-game map, unfortunately, is not quite helpful - it is monochromous and I cannot leave markers on it. It is 3D, though. I might proceed with it a bit longer or try another game from the bundle.

How are you so sure the US would fight Russia over Ukraine?

You think Trump has a sense of humour? Ok.

Borderlands 4 "min. requirements" include Intel Core i7-9700 / AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 16gb ram and RTX 2070 / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, with 100GB SSD space. Recommended = 3080 gpu. And ofc probably that's for 1080/60fps. And UE5 engine. And Denuvo this time. Especially annoying (to me/some others) in this case because BL's graphic style did not need uber upgrading re: graphics/lighting/shadows. It was never going for realism etc. Don't know if they're offering RT but BL definitely doesn't need that either. No one played BL series for the uber graphics. I'm sure I can still play it at 4k/DLSS/medium or something, like I usually manage to do, but hubby's out of luck till he upgrades (if he does). A ridiculous $130 "super deluxe" pre-purchase version for what amounts to the "seasons pass" of yore. So they've doubled the price basically for the season-pass dlc/extra chr. classes/other post-release content ($60 vs $30). I wonder if post-release, the separated pack pricing will still = $60ish or it'll end up being more. Or maybe they'll price it into 20 different dlc. each new area/mission dlc, $20x4, extra chr class, $20x2, etc. Wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, sale-price for sure.

Today I visited this forum and posted a bunch of YT links, since I od'd on k-dramas for the moment and went back to random YT. Hubby got his round of back injections - the ink they used to make target dots on his back is quite persistent, hehe - but it didn't do anything for him. Now he's waiting for the appointment call re: the 2nd round/attempt. He's pretty discouraged/depressed re: life right now, etc. I've offered to sledgehammer hubby's foot or something, so then the back pain wouldn't be on his mind anymore, but he didn't seem to go for that idea

Yup.

I'll wait for the 8-part Netflix documentary.

You wanted a simulation of the current events in the US?

You don't blame the audience for not getting the joke of a comedian. But in this case it's not particularly funny. The "humor" here more closely resembles schadenfreude (presumably accompanied by malicious laughter by the audience). It's German humor, perhaps, but humor doesn't translate well.