Wormerine

Will send you a private message.

Got a spare steam key for Double Fine’s excellent Psychonauts2.

Granted, most of my experience with BG3 is from early access and early 1.0 which might not represent what the game fully became, but at a time I found game's reactivity to greatly fall short of systemic freedom game seems to permit. A lot of events seemed to be scripted or assumed certain actions being game, so in general attempts of truing to engage with BG3 systems left me disappointed - that said, no issues noticed in my current playthrough - outside the dialogue options not being able to make up their mind if my Dark Urge has amnesia or not.

Yeah, for the last couple months I have been trying do my 2nd playthrough (honour ruleset, without perma death). I created a drow character and this time around I decided not to roleplay at all - be a passive passager and pick options that seem amusing rather then aim for any character consistency. I definitely enjoyed the game far more this way, got to discover couple reactivities I didn't know about. I also find myself less annoyed by the story - I know it doesn't go anywhere, and for some reason it makes it easier to endure - I also seeing it before, I don't feel obliged to sit through all of it. I installed some light mods - including fixed to hotbar and WASDa controls. WASDa actually transformed my experience - one I think it fixes some issues that mouse control has, and because it doesn't play like cRPG I am not annoying how inefficient and clunky party controls are. Still, got to ACT2 and the game went on pause. You know how some games are clearly flawed but still capture your heart and imagination? That is, to me, a complete opposite. On paper I like a lot of it, and it should be my type of a game, but I just find it a bit boring. It's a Bethesda effect to me.

Diving back into Zero Company. The game has grown rather stale. It's been really lacking chesspieces. StarWars has so many cool units, it's a bit shame (so far) that mostly all we get to fight are droids and coil dudes. I am not terribly fond of coils gimmicks - for one, they kinda look the same to me, so I keep having to check which unit responds with what actions (yeah I know they have icons but they are tiny, and I can't remember what Icon means what). I also feel that rather then forcing you to shake up your tactics, they reward using same tactics over and over again. Then there is Cly... she feels like she should be a secret cheat unit. Between her high mobility and insane damage output with pistols and electric darts she can pretty much clear rooms by herself as long as you can feed her decent amount of advantage. That's usually how round one looks if she is around (sorry for poor capture, haven't adjusted my software to 4k resolution): meh, it is still fun though. Just gotta force myself to leave Cly at home. I am also trying to finish Horizon: Forbidden West before diving into Control: Resonant. I really liked this one. I somewhat liked Zero Dawn, and Forbidden West is a great sequel. I wish progression was a bit more streamlined, and status effect more interesting. I also find few late game machines to be supremely annoying to fight (though maybe I still haven't found a right tactic). There is also a nitpick of mine - throughout the journey your will be unlocking couple tools that will act as keys - granting you access to new areas. However, those act only as keys, and have little or no utility outside clearing obstacles - that always feels like a copout to me. Story and character's is hit&miss. I quite like Alloy as a protagonist, and she has a stronger and more present supporting cast. The world and story toys with being interesting, but to me it just never dives deep enough to deliver. Some interesting ideas, some big leaps of logic, and tendency to use SF setting of the world like mystical magic where everything is possible if devs want it to be. Still I really enjoyed the base game and I am moving on to the DLC.

The game went a long way since launch. To me system redesigns (2.0) were far more meaningful plus additions to the open world made it feel less like a tech demo and more like a game. I will have to give it another go at some point. Unlike everyone else the expansion left me completely cold, but I will admit I simply wasn't in a mood for that type of game when I played it.

Oh, I knew there was something big I I forgot - Kingdom Come games.

BG3 definitely, I just thought the story was a mess 🤣 (on my 2nd playthrough now.. currently frozen in act2…). I don’t think they are much of “RPGs” but Witcher3 and Cyberpunk have strong narrative component with choices. With even less on “choice” side, Expedition33 was really pleasant jRPG style title. I also wouldn’t discount - FromSoft titles. I personally find worldbuilding and small story bits to be very important aspects of those titles. Cutscene watching isn’t my preferred way of delivering narrative these days anyway. edit. More on Beth/Obs: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/bethesda-say-new-underlings-obsidian-will-retain-their-distinct-creative-identity-despite-no-longer-being-as-free-to-work-on-their-own-creatively-distinct-series

I might have sold better, but would surely lead to massive backlash. When Obsidian Fallout was announced I expressed a concern that unless they cooperate with Bethesda and use their Creation Engine I don't think they have capabilities of delivering a Fallout game fans of the IP expect, modding and all. Now, I get that Asha is all for milking strong IPs, but will Obsidian just form Call of Duty-style studio pumping out games within Bethesda IP, in-between main entries? Maybe, but Bethesda publishers has a good track record in shepherding more creative projects as well. I really struggle to guess "good or bad" news from this announcement, as from my perspective it really could be either. All depends on direction and role envisioned for Obsidian. Maybe they will do Fallout and maybe they will continue as a more separate entity supported by Bethesda, the way ID supported Machine Games. Or maybe they will be tasked with ungrateful task of patching holes in Bethesda's RPG release schedule. And who is to say that I can't enjoy and Elder Scroll game if it's done by Obsidian rather then Beth. What I am curious is: It's probably too much to hope that Avowed2 will be allowed to be finished? From one of JS videos on XBOX cuts

I was about to write that. Now, while I haven't been a fan of Bethesda Game Studios open world RPGs, they did seem to care well for studios at Bethesda Softworks. ID Software, Machine Games, Arcane all produced fantastic titles. The question, is, of course what is the mandate now with Microsoft new leadership. Obviously ID was rather ruthlessly gutted. The worst case scenario is that Obsidian becomes delegated to support studio to BGS output. Thought, what it means for now, I think, that Obsidian's Fallout game might aim to be a "proper" modern Fallout title. Creation Engine it is, then?

uu Silksong! The question to me is why Blizzard made this trailer. I agree that addition of the date is unusual but its goal might simply to make it clear that we won’t be seeing more about the game anytime soon. Very early trailers (too early) aren’t that uncommon - more like statement of intent then actual advertisement for the product. It could be for players, it could be for investors and brand it could be to boost the recruitment and attract right candidates. Maybe Blizzard is just experimenting with releasing trailers and giving an estimate of when we can except, rather then previous track record of XBOX trailers for games we still are waiting for. (Oh Fable - that was first revealed in 2020). Speaking of XBOX maybe they are trying to distract everyone from mass layoffs by buying Kojima and announcing bunch of new games in well liked IPs that are a long way off.

Sure, but then again at what stage of development is Starcraft2030 at.

Virtua Fighter6, Pragmata, Avowed, Elder Scrolls6.

I must say, I don't love ZCOM as much as others so far (16 hours in, just recruited Jedi and Bounty Hunter). Lack of strategy layer really drags the game for me - lack of goals, decision making, barebone upgrade system, the game just lack context to make what is fairly simply and repetitive combat rewarding. XCOMs always thrived on this constant loop of tactical combat and strategy layer, and I don't think ZCOM changed design enough for the combat alone to carry the experience. That said I like it. It's alright. It feels authentically Star Wars which is not something one can take for granted these days. They translated familiar units into tactical combat very well. Characters are well defined, even if the plot haven't gone anywhere just yet. I watched a bit of Clone Wars way back, but I didn't care for it, and don't know what Bad Batch is so maybe I am also missing some connection there. To completely bury my reputation I also thought Republic Commando was pretty mid 😅 edit. haven’t vibed with a Yahtzee review so well in a long time.

I was wondering about it. I thought Diablo4 did fairly well. The question was: was it too live-servicey, or not live-servicey enough?

I honestly have no clue what it is. All I can find is "open-word shooter". Is it singleplayer? Planetside-like? Do I even care, if it is not RTS? I don't, at least until I see something I would actually want to play. That they call it simply "Starcraft" is more worrying to me. I didn't expect Blizzard to actually make Starcraft3, but if they reboot the franchise using it's original branding, that means to me they don't even foresee an RTS sequel as a very distant possibility. Or maybe the game is in such early stages that they don't even know what to call it yet.

This is not starcraft3. It’s a shooter.

From what I understand they argument is "it won't affect many players as barely anyone uses it". Which begs a question why create universally bad PR by limiting their play time 🫠. It seems to me like XBOX's leadership is scrambling for a way to squeeze extra $ out of the service. Aggressive price hike didn't work out, now they try different avenues. steamDB is a database, tracking price changes, concurrent players, updates etc. https://steamdb.info/

Yeah, ended up rebuying the game. Enjoying it so far. With some tweaks I managed to squeeze 60FPS+ performance. Still looks great. I don't have high hopes for ZCOMs future. If staff was furloughed that means they don't have stuff to work on - that to me indicates no next project, be it further work on ZCOM, or something else. Unless the game did well enough to change EA's mind, but I suspect at this point it is one and done deal. As to what happened at Firaxis - Midnight Suns under performed but it was still a really solid title. ZCOM reminds me more of it, than XCOM (albeit with far, far better writing). I suppose 2k just didn't want to fund another project like that. What happened with JA3?

Star Wars: Zero Company successful launch is a bit marred by behind the scenes troubles: Eurogamer.net"Most" of the developers behind critically acclaimed Star...Legal documents reveal that developers behind Star Wars Zero Company were furloughed ahead of the game's successful launch.Allegedly 80% of stuff were furloughed shortly before game's launch, though that is not what shocks me. It is a newly founded studio, I doubt they have much of a war chest. It seems to me that the game went over budget and run out of funding shortly before launch - would also explain some of it's troubles. Hopefully, game did well enough for money to flow into the studio and the stuff be paid. The reports of disagreement and lawsuit between the owners is a bit more worrying to me.

I mean they are mainly third person shooters and I am pretty sure there is auto-aim feature to make it really easy. Personally, I didn't care much for GTA5 (the only one I played except for the original way back when). Story didn't do much for me. RDR2 though, that's a great western game.

Yeah, with framegen I was able to get 100-120FPS, and I thought that will make the game feel great, but I still found it janky. It might be UX rather then just performance itself, but I must say I just didn't enjoy interacting with the game. Though, to be fair, I endured far worse with XCOM2. I think the main issue for me is, that from what I understand X-COM3 it is not. I picked up the game more of fondness of some of the dev's team previous work, then my own interest in ZC, but opening mission made me regret spending £40. I still have Jagged Allience3 in my library that I haven't touched and Phoenix Point to return to, and those to seem far more up my alley.

So, with 32GB of ram and 5070Ti the game still doesn’t run great. On high settings in 4k using balanced DLSS, I get very unstable 60FPS - bouncing between 50-80. And just the whole thing feels like it hitches every once in a while. Didn’t get too far into it, just first couple tutorial encounters. Decided to refund it for now.

I enjoyed Witcher books as a teen, so I am not objective here. Geralt is fantasy Clint Eastwood, and I think he makes for great protagonist for the game. Opinionated enough to be a character, removed from society and conflicted enough to support a light RPG. I love Geralt as a character - I find him snarky in a very relatable and adorable way. Then again, it is difficult for me when my adoration for the character from books ends and game's Geralt begins. CDPR take on the character certainly isn't 100% to my liking, but it is faithful enough for me to embrace him. I should also say that I always played Witcher with polish VO. To me polish actor's take on Geralt sounds a bit less artificial. I honestly, loved all three games, but third one is the one I played only once so far. I replayed the first one countless times. 2nd just a few times. The third one - I think it is the best one, but it is also too big? I remember every bit of W1&2, both good and bad - Witcher3 is a bit of a blur. I also struggle these days to get into games with little player agency. I had this issue with Cyberpunk. I can still enjoy those games, but need an adjustment period to be more passive and enjoy the ride. Back when my main diet was Bioware, Witcher was far easier to slip into.

Higher minimum requirements? I dunno, it's been too long since I played W3 to know differences. I suppose I might finally be getting around to doing 2nd playthrough at some point in the future. Also: