Wormerine

"That was about as useful as a bump on the pickle". I quite like that Eora is populated by a wider range of accents. Dyrwoodians (and Readcerian's) using American accents felt appropriate considering certain similarities between once real life colony of a distant world power. While it is no PoE1 cast, I have warmed up to PoE2 companions, especially after reputation was tweaked (and even more so in my recent playthrough, where I slowed down reputation gain even further - though it did prohibit a few inter-party banter to trigger) so they won't all try to pounce on my poor Watcher as soon as they join the party.

Yeah, honestly, during my first playthrough I was rather lukewarm on PoE1 - I liked it, but thought story was meandering. But, that final reveal ties things up so nicely, I ended up immediately starting 2nd playthrough, doing a very compressed playthrough reading every single ingame book I could find and backed the sequel without the hesitation. I just hope Avowed will be on the level.

Nah, they know very well what's what. They just WANT to do live services as hooking players through rewards systems is more reliable than having to make a good game people like.

Game Awards Best Fighting game winner of 2022, and Game Awards Best Fighting game nominee of 2024 (huh?), Multiversus is shutting down in May. It will be playable offline for those who download it, but it will not be downloadable anymore. https://www.polygon.com/gaming/517406/multiversus-canceled-shut-down-date

Pre-Avowed playthrough of Deadfire completed. Used some light mods, mandatory Community Patch, plus XP rebalance, which worked pretty well. I think this is a playthrough I enjoyed the most. Small narrative additions and DLCs, I think make Deadfire much stronger narratively, and enough time has passed for me to be able to assess it with a fresher pair of eyes.

Eh, honestly, Sapkowski is just a Polish guy, who doesn't care much for videogames. He has a formal, direct way of speaking which comes out as critical or negative when translating into English. There are bitter undertones to the English article, that I don't sense at all when reading the original. All he says about games and CDPR is very respectful, and praises them multiple times but he just doesn't throw empty praise the way english speakers would do. He didn't play Witcher games, and is familiar with "graphic materials" only - which could be screenshots, or trailers or snippets of the game. What he does though is draw a clear line between his work, and CDPR's adaptation. He isn't critical of their work, he just considers it to be its own thing. A new work based on his characters, not a continuation of it - and as someone who read all the books - he is absolutely right.

My google-fu tells me that it was a DLC on consoles, so it is possible you played a version without it. Apparently it was always part of PC KOTOR (looking at screenshot it looks familiar, but my memory if the game is fuzzy by now).

GOG, is my prefer launcher, and I quite happy they added Galaxy - I find downloading and updating games through it easier, and I also manage other storefronts through it. But yes, unfortunately, GOG doesn't secure enough new releases for me to buy from the regularly. Even with smaller titles they tend to get them slower, and they usually don't announce what will add to their storefront and when. KC:D2 might be the first time I see GOG announce release ahead of time like that. So many times I bought game on Steam only for it to get GOG release later. And yeah, most publisher seem to avoid non-DRM releases - I was so disappointed when Hitman2016 released on GOG briefly (got pulled back due to backlash), but was still tied to online server. Yeah, me neither. It's installed on my PC, but waiting for its turn (with Avowed coming out it will probably still be some time before I get to it). I didn't think my PC could run it well when it first released, and while it's been on top of my "to play" games since I build a new rig I never got around to playing it. I think I am aging.

More importantly Kingdome Come2 is coming to GOG in "spring". WIll happily wait for that release (and hopefully play the first game until then).

OP payed far closer attention to bounty text than I did, and I 100% appreciate his commitment to roleplaying. That said, my current PC will do anything for a bit of a coin, so it not much concern for him :-P.

Huh. Someone liked this comment so I reread what I have written over 6 years ago. After a playthrough with each faction I don't agree with any of it (aside from Principi I guess). Above is definitely what my first PC thought, but I had very natural and genuine playthroughs with PCs who supported both Huana and RDC.

Yeah, considering the new star system thing, I was surprised how "Outer Worlds" Outer Worlds2 trailer felt. I suppose it's more efficient to build on what you have, than start from scratch.

It has both 1st person and 3rd person modes.

I have no idea how SteamDB works, and what those changes could mean. It is a bit late for the another delay, but they could follow AssCreed:Shadow, and move out of the February - Feb is rather stacked with big releases.

No, the game end on modern age, however, that form what I understand reaches up to 20th century events, and we don't have information/futuristic age. So perhaps in an expansion? I wouldn't count on simple update as new age comes with new systems and it's own civs. . But on launch the game will have three eras, with the last one being modern. With how ages became it's own mini-Civ games with their own mechanics, I wouldn't count it against them if they treated Ages as expansion material.

It’s not an interview - just writing around some bullet points from Josh’s video, which they thankfully posted in “the article”.

Jeez, they still work on this game? Checked the story and amount of DLC is impressive/terrifying. It even has monthly subscription, which considering the price of the DLC might be fairly good value proposition 😁. I tried Stellaris couple times. Tend to loose interest after couple sessions.

Shouldn't it say "most complete package since VI"? I can see the writer is clearly in the CivVI hate train, but it did launched really well rounded as far as systems go. Eitherway, CivVII looks intruiging. It promises a much needed shakeup and I am curious how it will turn out.

looks good. I finally installed KC:D1, and am looking forward to trying it out within the last couple months. I will probably wait till I am done with Avowed though.

Oh they know Mai's fanbase. The written updates have been drowning in innuendos. Below are all official updates from Capcom:

Yeah, there is something about characters design which doesn’t work for me. As to cutscenes, from what I understand they mocap movement for actors performance, but faces animations were build using a library of expressions. Considering the sheer volume of cutscene produced, the quality of them is impressive. They did feel rather…. bland to me. Still closer to classic Bioware’s conversation (unexpressive short/reverse shot), rather than a cinematic feel of something like Witcher3 - though of course, Witcher didn’t have to deal with such reactivity, custom PC and vac hanging conversation spots. still, I question value of a cutscene if it isn’t compelling to watch - I know I am in a minority though.

Mai!

So Jagged Allience3 is being offered in this months Humble Choice. I remember some people here played it extensively. How good is it? Worth picking up by a non-JA fan? (I bought and launched JA2 a while ago on steam, but never spent a meaningful amount of time with it).

I suggested before that it is Microsoft's way of adding "value" to Gamepass after hiking the price on consoles. "Look how many AAA $70 releases you get". On a sidenotes, it seems the floodgates have been open and games are in general pushing what they can charge.

Hmmm, Elden Ring reward system in a nutshell. Play not for the reward as most of the time you will be left disappointed.