Wormerine

Not many details, but I like the pitch. I am glad they are returning to Metro setting. While I enjoyed Exodus, and I think a shake up was needed at the time, I did felt it lost quite a bit of identity in the process.

cough, Witcher TV show, cough. I think it is obvious after IP being successful, but I don't find it too difficult to imagine a suit claiming it's too unfamiliar for mass market to be a safe bet - not that Witcher1 was a mainstream pleaser anyway.

Disagree.

Or levaraging unique backgrounds. Sandfall doubled down on their fenchness to their benefit. CDPR did well meaning into easter european flavours with Witcher.

Well, as a professionally trained and working classical musician I tend to contemplate those things more then is normal :-). Yeah, don't mean it as a honest criticism of E33 soundtrack, just finding it curious how well received it is and if it will have impact on OST expectations going forward. Seems people still respond rather well to good tunes, and those are difficult to pull off if you OST is set up to transition from one bit to another at any moment. As to classical bit - it's pretty well defined and pretty flexible as it is. I just think due to streaming services some folks treat "classical" as anything with acoustic instruments in them... or something old. Potentially an existential issue from my perspective, but what can you do.

I have thoughts on the subject, which I might as well use this as an excuse to express them. I mean obviously the OST is pretty darn good. But I keep thinking whenever it is a good "video game soundtrack". I think it's greatest strength is that it is being in a way very "old school". There is no reactivity here, no dynamic soundtrack, no smooth transitions from one bit to another based on players actions. That gives E33 OST an advantage, which a lot of older games had - you can write more traditional music (with full phrases and direction) and not worry about awkward transitions if, for example, player engages in combat halfway through it. I think it very much makes it a better music to listen then a lot of video games OST, but does it make it a better video game OST? I suppose I feel about a soundtrack the same way I feel about E33 story - it's good, enjoyable stuff, but I will always have more respect for soundtrack and story that supports interactive nature of the medium. Still, considering the uninteractive tradition if jRPGs I can't really fault it for being conservative. (though I am also a bit bitter by headlines calling E33 OST #1 on Classical Music Charts.... it ain't classical music. Like none of it).

Enhanced....?! WTF. No, I played E33 through gamepass before the update. I was planning to pick it up on GOG at some point and give it another playthrough at some point, but now I am straight up scared😅

My enthusiasm is cooling down for Ghost of Tsushima. It is a very, very good Ubisoft-style open world game, but it is a Ubisoft-style open world game nonetheless. Great "filler" for tired evenings, but not a main dish. Too repetitive and shallow for that. So I am leaving it for evenings when I can't be bothered to do anything more demanding, and am returning to Kingdom Come2 which I a bit abandoned as I focused of testing my new GPU. Good game that one.

I am not particularly strong in abusing character building systems, so I powered through him with parries. Yes, you can parry/jump everything. Party switch for phase3 really messed me up, as I barely used Sciel and Monoco throughout the game.

Well, yes. Even not as a long time Sc fan (played through it directly before Sc2), I did find mostly change in tone somewhat disappointing. I still like Wings of Liberty story stuff the most, and I think that's why I liked it best. I really disliked Swarm, and was completely checked out narrative wise for the Void. Still, pretty darn fun RTS campaign gameplay wise. I always meant to start playing Sc2 online at some point - never got around to it. ☹️

Wings of Liberty is still my favourite, but I loved Sc2 singleplayer campaign. I also like co-op mode in its own brainless grindy way. Which reminds me, I don't think I ever platinumed Legacy of the Void nor Nova DLC. Maybe should get back to it. God of War Ragnarok - it's a solid sequel. No real complaints beside what I already didn't like about GoW2018. Valhalla rogue-lite mode was an odd choice, considering how weak GoW combat and RPG systems are. Just spent enough time with it to see the story through and tick of achievements. Started Ghost of Tsushima, and I am loving it so far. The game looks stunning - I am usually not a "photo mode guy" but in my first session I already jumped into it couple times to better admire vistas. Gameplay looks simple but snappy and well put together. Movement feels good. Samurai epic vibe I like. Now I am a bit sad Sony cancelled sequels port to PC. ☹️ I suppose you gotta do, what you gotta do to justify SF5 price hike. Oh, played through Early Access of Solasta2. Not much content in there. It is still very janky and very charming. It seems they aimed to improve on weakest aspects of Solasta, that being a visual presentation and story - still, at this point I wouldn't recommend playing S2 for either of those reasons. I am a bit worried if they didn't loose a bit of their strength in the process - levels so far were far simpler and dungeons much... flatter. Without Solastas verticality and enviroment interactability, it felt a bit more generic - still, I know flying is in process of being implemented so maybe it will change in final release. Once again UI is pretty good, but with few complaints. They seemed to adopt something akin to BG3 chain system, and character boxing and custom grouping isn't a thing at least for the moment. That makes M&K feel a bit clunky to me, even if its still more efficient way to play. Controller felt much more natural, though much slower during combat. Still, I must praise UI design. I would think it obvious, but after a mess that is BG3 I don't think I will ever take decent UI design for granted again.

Final for now, noclip about Disco Elysium. Full playlist

No, I completely agree. It felt a bit wrong to go back to explore the world after wrapping the story up. Took a week of break before going back. So, as I said: pick your poison. Personally, I preferred to treat act3 exploration as mostly non-story post game content. They really should have some kind of scaling for the final area of the game.

Ekhm. I think it will depend on difficulty you play on and content you plan to tackle. I had a jRPG friend who finished crit path and a lot of side content on easier difficulty while not being good at dodge/parry. I am orettt confident there are encouragers in the game that one won’t be able to power through with stats - in fact the hardest optional boss completely bypasses your defensive mechanics. But thats „I want more combat content” and isn’t required for full narrative experience. Possible spoilers but this is what you have to deal with: Simon! Yeah, you can’t do more then 9,999 damage until you reach third act. So: Balance doesn’t become a major issue until act3 - essentially you can go to the finale of the game or do end game content. Advice I got was to do finale as soon as possible and explorer later. I sort of did it - finished companions quests first and then proceeded to the end. Unless they rebalanced the end game the final boss will be a pushover either way. It just depends how much of a pushover he will be - will you one shot him with your super ability or will you one shot him with a normal attack. Pick your poison I suppose.

Yup. When CO:E33 becomes challenging it is becoming Sekiro. Once you get to the end game hard bosses you will probably appreciate being able to take an extra hit or two before seeing game over screen, but from what I remember you can respec pretty freely anyway.

Yeah, I usually don't like jRPGs and I really liked this one. From what I remember stats are most relevant to weapon scaling - as to effectiveness of individual stats - meh, the harder the game gets the more dominant player's ability to dodge and parry becomes.

I don't think anyone posted it yet but a big shakeup at the top of Obsidian's corporate overlord: Phil Spencer is retiring, Sarah Bond is leaving. Matt Booty is still there and gets to be a "chief content officer" while the new CEO job goes to Asha Sharma the president of Microsoft’s CoreAI product. Proof will be in the pudding, but her background doesn't inspire me with confidence. The VergeInside Microsoft’s big Xbox leadership shake-upMicrosoft has a new gaming CEO

Yeah I will be waiting for a discount as well, especially that from the reviews I expect to enjoy the sequel less then the original. It’s also not an in-house port this time around so I will be waiting for specs and more importantly Digital Foundry’s port breakdown as well. Edit. Specs are out: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/death-stranding-2s-system-requirements-have-washed-ashore-and-theyre-pretty-reasonable /Edit. In other news: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/remedys-new-ceo-is-a-former-sports-betting-guy-and-ea-executive-who-aims-to-scale-remedy-in-a-way-that-builds-lasting-value/ I don’t like the sound of that, but with how financially unviable Remedy seems to be some form of downfall is inevitable. Not that being a successful studio saves anyone from being shut down these days I suppose. I hope Control: Resonant will be good. I really appreciate them as a studio, but I also feel they can be highly uneven in their output.

Hellblade2 What an odd… game? Tech demo? After beating the game I am not even sure if the combat is an actual mechanic or bunch of smokes and mirrors. The whole game is somewhat confusing as to what is interactable and what is a cutscene. It’s so inconsistent it really disconnected me from the experience. The story… is that the same team that did the original? S’sS had such a strong vision and purpose, but the sequel while has some promising concepts feels underdeveloped, poorly paced and just not as purposeful.

Heck yeah!