Wormerine

Yeah, my experience with Starfield was more or less the same as with Oblivion and Skyrim. I installed in, played for couple of hours, and after couple weeks of not launching it, and realising I am unlikely to want to play it again any time soon, I uninstalled it. Didn't give it much thought ever since.

Zehir felt really oldschool to me - like playing a game from amiga era. I seems people aren't fond of it (which is understandable as it had to follow MotB), but I found it very charming.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/actors-union-sag-aftra-strike-deal-to-allow-ai-voice-replicas-and-video-game-stars-are-understandably-pissed

I would overall agree. I think Uncharted does story and characters much better than TR reboots, but TR sequels did land on a rather satisfying balance between cinematics and gameplay. Stealth, puzzles, combat and climbing is so, so much better and more robust.

Finished Returnal and main campaign of Uncharted4. So Returnal I am quite disappointed - not necessarily because it is that bad, but because I expected it to be the Sony port that will be for me. Roguelite third person bullet hell with little meta progression? Hell yeah. Unfortunately, outside audo-visual experience, I found it rather underwhelming. Procedural generation is minimal. While individual levels are swapped around, level layouts, and what you can find are pretty much the same, and enemy variety is pretty low, so runs do tend to feel the same. Biggest change run to run is what weapon you pick up (you can carry only one at a time: Booooo), and I found some weapons to be simply more effective than others. This is is even more visible for bosses, which will really make it really tedious if you enter the arena with a wrong weapon. I dug the atmosphere and story and first, but unfortunately it turned out to be a convoluted allegory for a very basic thing, rather than a SF story. Uncharted4. Reallly enjoyed the story and characters. Game looks mostly great. But god, what an awful video game. Shooting is really clumsy and basic, and I feel bad for criticising Jusant for it's straightforward climbing - compared to U4 it was boundary pushing simulator. Worste of all - I really felt like game part didn't belong to the story part of the game. The set up is so slow, and characters so human, that when Nate starts gunning down auction house security in cold blood, it feels very off. In general, the unending army of Shoreline, white grab ledges, and conveniently marked grapple points feel like an artificial addition to what is a pretty good animated action adventure flick. Oh, and I am still not sure if melee system actually exists or if it's a QTA mascareding as a melee system. But dang, I would watch an Uncharted movie. Well, not THAT movie.

If I remember correctly difficulty mostly just raises enemy health and attack, requiring more effective use of your skills. Complexity comes with story progression. Stuff like collecting ingredients for EMO Kids just helps in acquiring cards quicker. Speaking of which, look for opportunities to upgrade your character's base cards by combinging two of the same kind. Heroes don't quite show their capabilities until you upgrade their cards (I can't remember how early this mechanic get introduced, but it took me too long to figure out how impactful it is)

That BG3 just didn't resonate with me is a good way to put it. I didn't find characters endearing or interesting, I didn't find games premise to be well explored, I can't think of many choices that I particularly found difficult or interesting to make. Combat was a bit to messy for me to really engage with. A lot of systemic interactivity, but nothing that resulted in interesting problem solving. And just overall the "vibe" (visuals, music, character design) of the game didn't work for me. It's a very broad title, with many things to like and appreciate, but it felt like all promise and little payoff.

You do unlock new chess pieces, but unfortunately, combat does lack in complexity and variety. Combat is definitely the better part of the title, but outside novelty, I didn't think much of it. Harder difficulties do help. I remember normal being quite a bore. If you do well (stars of something of that sort in missions) you should unlock new difficulties farily quickly. You should be unlocking one anytime now and I recommend trying it out as soon as its available.

And, while I am sure that isn’t their intention, it felt a lot like posturing, as they limit writing content for minor NPCs after act1. It feels as if the game is puffing its chest early on hoping, few will look further. Not that I have issue with it per se - random NPCs in act3 having unique barks is pretty good anyway, but it doesn’t make up for unfinished story arcs, dodgy world building and messy plot. I am still far more impressed by Arcanum than Bg3. It just felt smarter, production wise, and more effective.

I remember it took me a while before I realised I can upgrade my weapons - game got much easier after that.

This is supposed to be a remake, not a remaster. I would imagine some rewrites will take place (it is Sam’s Lake first outing afterall) but even if not I would assume they would re-record lines. Audioquality probably isn’t up to 202x standards.

James McCaffrey, voice of Remedies Max Payne, Alex Casey and Trench have passed away. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/james-mccaffrey-the-voice-of-max-payne-and-alan-wake-2s-alex-casey-has-died#comments On a more selfish note, I wonder what it means for Max Payne's remake. Supposively Max will have to be recast now, and it's one of those castings that will be hard to replace.

I agree, but I also wouldn't discount an achievement that is making a mass appeal RPG. There is also the thing of Larian being independed studio making such a shiny AAA game, with their own creative stamp on it. That what I wish AAA would be, rather than suit driven cash shop. Just the other day I got a message from a coleague of mine about cRPG recommendions as he is wrapping up BG3. It's not exactly new to him - he owns quite a few of the classics, including original BGs, and just bounced of each of them rather hard. We even tried D:OS2 in coop, and he got fairly quickly bored of it. So BG3 did something right.

A yes, I did miss the trailer commentary (didnt' watch the actual show). Does sound un-Arcaney.

Couple things from Game Awards trailer roundup that caught my attention: Arcane is working on Blade game. Hopefully it will turn out better than their last Vampire game. I could be hopeful about this one: I don't know much about the IP, but I can imagine it being used to build a more traditional Arcane immersive sim experience with wider appeal due to Marvel. At the same time, I am very, very weary of Arcane at the moment after what I see as two major misfires. No Rest for the Wicked - a grim dark town down fantasy action (hack&slash?) from the folks who did Ori. I dig the art of the trailer a lot. Prince of Persia - I still quite like the look of this one. This trialer seems to suggest some Dark Souls influences? Not really something I want in POP game. Not that I don't enjoy a good 2d DS Metroidvania, but why can't we just stay true to the roots of the IP?

The DLCs are surprisingly pricey though.

Honestly, Bateman is a perfect BG3 protagonist. Just another narcissist psychopath into the mix. (wait, was BG3's original title Seven Psychopaths, but it was already taken?!)

I will probably come out more negative than I really am - I think overall I just didn't paricularly care or mind for the mechanic. I would hesitate to call it a soundtrack - you don't listen to the game's music, as far as I can tell the songs for the gramophone and unique to it, and dont' appear anywhere else in the game (as opposed to Supergiant's in game soundtrack playlists, that allows you to play a particular piece of a soundtrack that plays during the gameplay). Staying a puppet/becoming human wasn't a choice I was particularly invested in (in general Lies of P story felt pretty dry and uninteresting to me), so I didn't find gramophones to be particulalry meaningful addition. More damingly Songs were pretty bad IMO. Yes, they lasted 3-4 minutes, but in true pop songs tradition in first 30s you heard all there was to hear. Not uncommon, but also not something that IMO really made itself worthy being forced to listen to. Fortunately, one can put a gramophone and go around his business, so I would usually pop a new one and run around and do chores around the base - by the time I was done the song would be close to being over. So overall - meh. A cute idea, though.

I have no interest in ironman mode, but it seems Honor mode added some extra things on top (legendary abilities for bosses, some changes to ruleset to limit certain exploits). If roumors last night were correct, there is no way to recreate this difficulty, minus ironman mode, through custom mode. Apparently, though you can start in Honor mode and switch off perma-save by switching to custom - I don't know if it keeps other changes as well. Larian forum is down again, so I can't say if there has been any further updates. Eitherway, good update. I am tempted to reinstal BG3 and see a more proper ending to my campaign. Keep updates coming Larian.

Didn’t play Nioh, but player their more recent game “WoLong dynasty?” I thought it was pretty bad, and narrative was atrociously incoherent. I thought Lies of P was alright. Overstayed it’s welcome for me, but it was good enough to recommend. Not on the level of most FromSoft releases, but I probably liked LoP more than DS2. Some neat gimmicks, but they had little depth behind them. That said, for a studio’s debut it’s a really impressive achievement. As far as the plot goes: it’s still pretty light. I don’t think it adds much to the game - I never though FromSoft games would be any better with NPCs had cutscene saying “now you need to go to place X to find McGuffin Z”. Which is pretty much most that there is to it. You will have a better idea who you will be fighting and why, but I found myself caring less than in your usual FromSoft. DS1 was light on plot, but thematically rich, this one is the opposite. A lot of who, what, but not much “why”. Speaking of games with vague story: I picked up two Sony titles: Uncharted and Returnal. Uncharted will have to wait, but I gave Returnal a go. Eh, not feeling it right now. I thought it will be right up my alley - a roguelite with minimal meta-progression, acting like 3rd person bullet-hel. Initial impressions were great - the game controls great, fantastic utilisation of Dualsense rumble and adaptive triggers, it looks fantastic (though I had to turn off ray tracing in later stages, which made th game look much more plain:-( ). I do find the game rather boring so far. Procedural generation is very limited, so runs don’t feel distinct so far. They also take a very long time - compared to Hades when on full run could take about 30 minutes, here I easily spend an hour per zone. So far bullet hell was also rather generous though things do seem to be ramping up. So far, I am doubting if rougelite is a right structure for this titles - it seems it might work better as a more traditional linear structure. And while here is no blatant power grind, there is more subtle empowerment of the player. Early on you are set up to fail. That seems to be just how things are with roguelites that don’t quite have a depth and balance to ensure organic mastery. I do dig the vibes - it has a decent SF feel to it, and I wonder how the story will evolve. I just hope it won’t go full J. J. Abrams and do something trivial (like: this is just in your imagination dealing with pas trauma). It made me think of DS as it feels thematically dense, even if I am still not sold on it as a game. (If anyone else played it: FYI I finished “act1”, and reached second zone of act2).

From what I understand act3 is quite broken at the moment, but it should be addressed in soon to come patch 5.

Good! Read the books you find. Personally, I didn't fully enjoy PoE1 until my 2nd playthrough. I felt lore here isn't just a background, but it creates a basis for the world state of PoE1, and I found a lot of interactions more compelling with a better understanding of the world, and future events. Don't worry about gold-plated NPCs - those are backer reward related and aren't really worth your time. I like beginning and I like the end. I just think act2 is a bit of a bore. PoE1 is stretched thin (like butter scraped over too much bread), and it is most noticable in city hubs which should be brimming with content. That's where I got stuck during my last playthrough. Fortunately, White March is IMO the best PoE content, and it can be more or less played through while slogging through act2. That's where PoE2 is simply superior to me. While I wished for ending to have a bit more punched, in all my playthroughs I had a great time from the beginning to the end.

So much money, and yet they couldn't afford decent conductor to mocap