Wormerine

I mostly agree, with coveats. I don’t think PoE story is “better told”. Too much of it is uninteractive, too much of it is told through NPCs talking at you and books abd too little through quests. But I do think it is a better story. What PoE2 lacks to me is personal hook for our protagonist. I never found Eothas destroying Caed Nua compelling as without experiencing this event in the sequel we get a “cutscene” and it is just not enough to care. It’s as if Mass Effect destroyed Normandy in a hand drawn cutscene rather than open with it. Similarly, reuniting our soul and confronting Eothas - it’s all confusing and impersonal and unrelatable. In PoE1 we experience consequences of the awakening and as we progressed we better realised what it could mean for us. In PoE1 it’s just “oh yeah part of your soul in in Eothas so keep close”. PoE1 had more relatable stories and dilemmas of companions which I think helped ground the god thread and give it resonance. Without it it’s tricky to care about bickerings of fictional gods.

Interesting. I own it on Steam and it is still on sale here in UK. From what I can find the game was/is banned in Germany? Would buying the game from third party sites not work? https://isthereanydeal.com/game/max-payne/info/ Edit. Apparently not. GMG regions for Max Payne don't include Germany. So weird. Seems like early 2000 violent video game panic ban, than never got reversed. Rockstar should do something about it.

I assume you talk about Sam Lake, the face of Max Payne/Alex Casey? First Max Payne used a lot of friends and family for its character faces, and Sam Lake, the director and writer and remedy ended up playing Max Payne: James McCaffrey was the voice (RIP). In general, Remedy likes working with same people so there is a lot of intentional and intentional cross-casting in their titles. James McCaffrey voiced Max Payne/Alex Casey, Director Trench in Control, "Thomas Zane" in Alan Wake1. Matthew Porretta voiced Alan Wake, and portrayed Dr. Darling in Control (and Alan Wake 2 I suppose). Shawn Ashmore played the protagonist of Quantum Break as well as sherif Tim Breaker in AW2. Courtney Hope also starred in Quantum Break and was subsequently cast as the lead for Control. One of the DLCs has a whole bit about it. Lance Reddick was also supposed to be a potential link between Quantum Break and Alan Wake2, but his unfortunate passing required Mr. Door to be recast. AW2 being a story about writer and his creations coming to life has a lot of meta stuff to it, and most major Remedy games are being referenced. Alex Casey, possibly fictional hardboiled detective, looking very much like Remedy's fictional hardboiled detective is one of such callbacks. God I love Alan Wake2. I am now tempted to reinstall and give it another playthrough.

Yes. And Vanguard anti-cheat Riot thing. If it doesn't scare you and want to dip in, send me a message and I will send you the code. I have such fond memories of XCOM2012. Sequel was a bit improvement, but I like the vibe of the first one much more. If you like the first playthrough well enough, Long War mod is worth giving ago. It injects much life and strategic/tactical choice to the game, though actual full campaign can get mercilessly long (spoiler: never completed one).

What are we talking about? Sam Lake? James McCaffrey? Ilkka Villi? Matthew Porretta? Are the some news about MP remake casting, or is it just about Alan Wake2?

Anyone wants 2XKO beta key? I got an invite and have three additional keys to spare.

Yeah, Moorwing was the only thing so far to which I died more than couple of time. I think Team Cherry are working on nerfing him a bit, as well as some other early game bits. Still, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Most enemies build on the same archetypes. Late game is definitely harder, but skill set from early encounters carries over. Are you sure something just didn’t click for you as to how the game works?

it seems they are utilising at least some of Hitman’s system. Perhaps, closer to Absolution - a narrative, linear experience with some occasional small scale freeform stuff. It seems you can’t kill will you get licence to do it - I supposed it is a good enough way of preventing players from killing civies as Bond.

Your write up made me interested in the game for the first time.

Hmm, that reminds me. I was struggling a bit with original crest. I found the dive attack to be frustratingly difficult to land. I have been much more comfortable with the game once I found another crest, which gave me a more conventional down attack.

Honestly, it's been too long since I played Hollow Knight1, but it might check out - I don't recall it being too tricky until end game and DLC stuff. Personally, I didn't have much trouble with any of the bosses yet (did my first fight against Lace in first attempt), and usually what gets me are random mobs when I run out of healing. Than again I play a lot of tricky platformers. I like it a lot. Couple first impressions: Base movement and skillset seems more robust than HK. It seems more linear - I remember Hollow Knight really opening very early on, and so far my options to wonder around felt rather limited. I don't know if it is going to change soon (maybe they simply want to feed player more skills before letting them loose on the world map), but so far I have been getting new skills in more regular intervals, and my progression have been more firmly gated by it. I remember there being lengthy chunk of time in Hollow Knight when I was just wondering around before I actually started to unlock new traversal abilties beyond initial dash.

SILKSONG! Less than £17. Noice.

Finished and utterly beaten Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Strong recommendation from me - the story is very very good. Good, well written chracters, story starts with an engaging hook and builds to something special. Gameplay is solid - for a jRPG I actually enjoyed it. There is enough variety to enemies, and active systems (mainly dodge and parry to avoid damage, build action points for your turn, and counter) keeps one engaged. Quite a decent amount of side content with some chunky optional dungeons meant to be done after the main story is complete. And while it is mostly what one would expect, for some reason they also have a 3 stage Malenia-style style boss which moves the game further from Final Fantasy or Persona and closer to Sekiro. I won't spoil any of his bull****, but let's just say it extended my playtime by a couple of hours. Anyway, it seems Veilguard was just dropped unto GamePass, so I will probably see what it is about next. Though after E33, new-Bioware writing might be extra hard to stomach. Perhaps, I will wait for Silksong as a palat cleanser.

That’s intentional though, no? With 12GB of VRAM or more my 3070 (allegedly) would still perform quite alright. Put just enough of VRAM for now on midrange GPUs and they will be outdated in a couple of years. Personaly I will be waiting for “the game” to upgrade my set up. It was lovely to have a massive backlog of cheap games to play when I build my current rig. And yeah, I don’t find current GPU offering to be of a particularly a good value.

I am not particularly immersed in what is demanding and what is not. What I am interested is if a game can run well enough on my PC to be enjoyable play. Dark Ages is the first game I tried and decided it is not worth to play on my current PC, even on lowered settings. I would probably pushed through years ago, but after playing for couple years action games with 60plus FPS, I just don't find it enjoyable to struggle through an action game while dealing with unstable framerate Edit. Well, also there was Monster Hunter: Wilds demo, but from what I understand it doesn't run well no matter the specs. Also after sinking quite a few hours into MH:World I can confidently say it is just not series for me.

On my 3070 I was able to run Avowed mostly ok, but unfortunately, I do start feeling the limits of my 8GB memory. I tried Doom: Dark Ages, and oh boy. That just wasn't worth playing with that performance. Technically I was able to push to 60FPS with heavy use of DLSS, but it definitely wasn't smooth 60FPS.

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.

From the management that brought you Disco Elysium:

Disco Elusium/ZA-UM drama part two. (Also part one as a reminder).

Yeah, I have seen it, but thanks for thinking of me anyway. I've been considering it, but frankly, there is no way I will play it anytime soon, so I will pass for now. I generally try not to buy games now, which I am unlikely to play right away, as I end up with endless backlog, that I never get around to actually playing. Speaking of fighting games:

Yeah, I have seen it from Mort's video. If they make it playable from a get go, it's a bit win for the game (which reminds me I STILL need to play it. I got close recently, as I installed it and modded on GOG, but didn't get to around playing the game). It seems D&D projects get some love in post BG3 era. Is it to much to hope for Neverwinter Nights3 to become a thing? Comeone Microsoft, you passed on the BG3, now let Obsidian have some fun with the IP.

Balance in SF6 is pretty good as well. Jinrai is just this annoying move with good pressure, mixup and little effective counter play. With its multitude of defensive options CotW probably won’t find it too oppressive. All I am hearing of CotW is good. It will be the game I will be looking into if I ever get bored of SF6.

Hobo Ken coming to South Town to terrorise it with Jinrai Kick. Have fun. Meantime is couple of weeks Sagat will bring his own version of Jinrai Kick to SF6 and even more broken projectile than recently buffed Ryu. Funfunfunfun

As I own the game already, I am waiting to see if the EE is worthwhile. Last I checked the copy I own on GOG worked just fine.