the_dog_days

Apparently I'm the only person who's played a bit. The gameplay is rough as sh!t. Because it does need balancing.

I haven't made a whole lot of progress with my new Elex 2 save though I did find some really useful mods. Including, Skip Opening Logos: https://www.nexusmods.com/elex2/mods/21 (Removes the THQ Nordic and Piranha Bytes logos on startup.) Brighter Flashlight: https://www.nexusmods.com/elex2/mods/40 (Makes the flashlight actually worth something while also making the nights seem darker because of the contrast.) New Hell Difficulty: https://www.nexusmods.com/elex2/mods/58 (This does a bunch of things. Some I consider more cheesy than good, such as increasing stamina drain of swings in combat and decreasing player character DPS, but it also fixes enemy AI aggressiveness so that they no longer look at you confused for a few minutes when you come barreling out of a bush into a camp of ratboars.) Create Ammunition Fix: https://www.nexusmods.com/elex2/mods/38 (Increases the amount of ammunition you craft per set to something more reasonable given the resources needed.) Upgradeable Potions: https://www.nexusmods.com/elex2/mods/37 (Makes it possible to upgrade your potions 2 LOWER = 1 HIGHER. Making it worth holding onto your lower tier potions to upgrade rather than sell mid game.) Brave Party Members: https://www.nexusmods.com/elex2/mods/64 (Increases follower AI aggressiveness.) and the one that holds a special place in my heart: Disable Level Scaling: https://www.nexusmods.com/elex2/mods/62 (Elex 2 has limited scaling for the alien enemy types and some humanoids. This removes scaling (for any enemies you've yet to encounter if uploading this in the middle of a save) and makes their levels fixed. Warning: the late game enemies are set to level 70. Which is well higher than the soft level cap of 36-37. This mod encourages and rewards you for playing longer. It's definitely not speedrun friendly.)

The only superhero movies I want to see:

Items are a bit lighter than they are in other games like Pathfinder or Baldur's Gate. Plus your weight limit goes up with each each party member until you have a full party and you get party members immediately after the tutorial.

You underestimate my literary addiction.

I only read the first four words. No need to thank me. It's the least I could do.

They got an absolute haul of picks for a non quarterback. I think it was a steal, and my Jets were trying to top the 'Fins in that trade. I'm thankful they didn't win 'cause of how much he went for.

'Fins just traded their childrens' futures for Tyreek Hill.

^Was hoping for more Neverending Story inspired.

I'm hoping they call the second iteration Steam Deck DP Edition.

Mine also still says 2nd quarter. Has since I reserved one 10 minute after reservations opened up.

I like some Warner Brothers games. I still think that Mad Max game was super fun if repetitive.

Usually when I get the urge to play a Bethesda game I then proceed to spend 20 hours getting my mods in order only to be completely over the idea within the first 10 hours of actual game.

Hopefully he didn't inherit his father's male pattern baldness too.

I'm playing on PC and have no idea what either the first or two look like on console, but on PC Elex 2 looks vastly better than 1. At first I couldn't see it because it's still a whole generation behind in graphics but then I looked at side-by-side screen shots and was amazed at how much better Elex 2 looked (I played both games on the same rig). Also, it's hard to love your son when he looks like someone sewed the head of an Elizabethan doll onto a Claymation extra.

Right, sooo, I uh deleted my Elex 2 save and started a new game. Again. I had 40 hours in that save. I had around 20 in the last one. A bug, which was patched halfway through my last save, lead me to believe that I was in a good place with a faction only to find out later that I really wasn't. That faction happened to be the one that I wanted to join. Honestly, if the UI had originally correctly told me the factions reaction I would've just rolled with it (I like having unexpected consequences for my actions in rpgs) but the bug just makes me feel cheated so I started over.

Since I already owned it and it just full released, I gave Black Geyser a whirl. Big problem right up front at character creation: you can't see your character model when picking out what your character looks like. There aren't many customization options (this usually doesn't bother me) but I had to tab back and forth between two different pages, scroll down to the bottom of the character description page to see what each hairdo is labeled as to know what my guy would be wearing. I think they did this because the character models still look bad outside of the environment of the game world. Probably didn't want players buying the game, downloading it, opening it up, getting to character creation and seeing the models, uninstalling, and refunding the game.

It is made with Unity.

Their own.

Honestly, they don't push the Berserkers as hard as they did in the first game. At least they're shown treating their new . . . uh, converts? like second class citizens. In the first game the only draw back to the Berserkers is NPCs b!tching about you using your jetpack (which they dropped for this game).

Elex 2: After about 25 hours I deleted my save a week ago when I realized that I accidentally sided with one faction over another long before I'd intended to join a faction. In my next save I cranked up the difficulty 'cause as far as Piranha Bytes games goes, Elex 2 is a little on the easy side. Since then I've put another 30 hours in and finally feeling like I'm ready to pick a faction.

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness is set for a full release on March 17: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1374930/view/3111426824836670909 I played some of the early access about (pausing--headmath) eight months ago. It was in pretty rough shape but from a glance through the steam forums it seems like it's been coming along well.

To be fair, nothing in their back and forth dialog remotely suggests that Caja is raising Dex either. Mostly it sounds like she dragged him around with her on missions and left him with her underlings. The real parenting sounds like it was done by the unnamed hunters in her entourage.

Yeah but it's easier to build a team when you're not paying one guy a 4th of you're cap space.