Wormerine

Something to wash off the bitter taste of Mimimi’s shut down.

CYBERPUNK 2077. And Phantom Libery DLC Finished my 2nd (and probably last) playthough of Cyberpunk. In short I had a good time, much better when I first played it, and would recommend it now. The 2.0 didn't fix fundamental issues that I had with the game, but gameplay is much better, driving is passable, and the technical state is way better than it was year ago. While the game still has problems it became more "immersive" and as such I found it much easier to engage with the story. So couple notes: No has to accept what Cyberpunk is: it is mostly an act of passively watching cinematics with some combat inbetween. It not that disimmilar to Witchers. What makes me like Cyberpunk less is V. Lack of player agency means I am relying on V to fill in the voice, and he/she just isn't a compelling character. I am also not a fan of first person cinematics - and especially the ones that don't restrict your movement. Rather than more immersive they fell less immersive - characters I am talking to don't make eye contact as devs can't predict where I will be sitting. They do this weird acting pantomime with me watching them, which just fails to feel authentic for me. I also prefered Witchers more intertwined quest - Cyberpunks multiple linear narratives make it a bit more apparent how little agency the player has. It is not that much different than Witchers, who often gave you multiple tasks before moving the story forward, but it feels different. I also feel Johnny's relation ship with V lacks progression. Because his content is tied to quests rather V-Johnny relationship, their interactions feel erratic. When we end up best of chooms at the end, it doesn't feel like a natural progression of the game - maybe there is a set path which makes it feel ok, but in my experience V and Johnny kept switching between being comfortable with each other and hostile stragers throughout. DLC is good. Characters are strong, choices are interesting. Still, same issues with above. I never felt V was interacting with the characters you meet. More like I am an understudy watching other actors act on stage. And while I say good, it is also just more Cyberpunk. I might have hoped for an evolution - perhaps bigger complexity, and more intricate design, but especially main missions were mostly "on rails", making the whole affair rather passive. What I enjoyed the most was side content, as narratively new missions are much stronger than hustles in the base game, and they offer more freedom (or explore specific gameplay systems) more than story missions, which are leaning hard toward scripted events and cutscenes. I also appreciated repeatable car stealing events - reinforcing my feeling that Cyberpunk has more future as a GTA-like, and less so as an RPG. With DLC increasing V's personality I suspect Cyberpunk2 will lean more toward being an open world action game, with light RPG elements - even more so than it does now. CDPR did quite a job fixing Cyberpunk up. I still don't love it, but it is alright for what it is.

I am a Witcher. I have finally bought the Erdtree and redownloaded the Elden Ring. As I was waiting for it to finish downloading, the video popped up on my feed 😂. I will play the DLC first before Joseph convinced me that I actually didn't enjoy it that much. I need to decide now if I want to reload my old save and continue with the DLC, or replay Elden Ring.... I didn't consider replaying it, but than I booted it up and now I kinda want to. Eh, we will see.

Well, there used to be a time when one had to wait for NPCs to open doors for you. I liked it even less. Ideally, one would do a hybrid were NPCs will attept to do things, but players can also do them, but that would add variables that are likely not worth dealing with.

Humankind treated Civs as per-era choice. Layering different civ bonuses on top of each other throughout eras could be interesting. However, no doubt Civs will lose a bit of their identity. Curious how it will pan out in the end.

The actual video for those who want to see Avowed. Livefeed: * 01:30 - oh hi Matt Mercer. Is Sargamis an Aloth is disguise? Or what I prefer to think is, that there was a being with a powerful soul in the past with the voice of Mercer, and as his soul split overtime all that go a piece of it end up with Mercer's voice. * 03:10 - That's a weird camera angle unless we were playing an orlan. Cinematics seem to still need a bit of work. They seem a bit more elaborate than talking faces from Outer Worlds, but so far I prefered OW approach. *6:20 - I much prefer when games take time to create a consistant, understandable language, rather than clarifying what's interactable and what's not through intrusive icons. IF they are necessary, I wish they were part of some highlight feature (like Witcher's sense, or Cyberpunk scanning) rather than constant part of the world. *7:50 - attributes and skills look more or less as I expected. Looks alright *14:13 combat looks alright. UI gets busy indeed. Seems clunky, I wonder if it will scale better at a high resolution. Reminds me a lot of XBOX360 era with its overly large, clunky UIs. *20:30 - companion teleporting for the ability use... is it necessary? Couldn't he just attack from where he was standing? *22:10 - ok, so inspite of intrusive quest pointers, I do appreciate that there isn't one directly pointing you to a thing that you are not supposed to know where it is. *26:40 - animancers continue to be presented as complete maniacs. To be fair, Deadfire was better in that regard, but it is difficult to be on their side if they are presented like some fanatics. Looks alright. I think the game will look very pretty in action. Combat looks ok. Quest aroused my interest at the end, so that's a good sign. Definitely an Eora's game, and it seems they are continuing a lot of PoE1&2 threads, at least in this sidequest.

That's a common comparison, though I always felt it missed what Mafia was aiming for (at least first two). They were never "open world" games as such, but linear narrative games with openworld as a backdrop. As such, I always like Mafia games (at least first two) far more than any GTA title. Red Dead Redemption2 probably was the sweet spot for me, bringing strong narrative focus, and nice world texture through side activities.

If I knew they will post the whole thing later I would have waited 😂

Teasers galore

Seems like they are moving from Godfather to The Sicilian. I dig it. Mafia is a curious IP - I adored father original but didn’t care much for the sequels (I am still to play Mafia3). But, Mafia Remake was very good, so I am hopeful they will land this one as well.

Yeah, I am kinda confused why it exists - it didn't feel like they really had a take or an idea. The big pitch of "connecting tissue between BG1&2" seems to be slapped on top of a rather irrelevant adventure at the very end. The structure also just felt so very off. A very different game than Infinity Engines ones. I will definitely not include it in any of my future BG playthroughs.

I would love for Obsidian to do a Shadowrun game.

youtube algorithm recommended me this video [spoilers if you didn't finish either of the titles]: First of all I have to praise the youtuber (who doesn't seem to produce that much) on a pretty engaging and concise (in spite of its length) script. While I don't agree with everything said (combat gameplay system are pretty much discarded as not great, and I think there is a lot to praise there as well), I think it is a decent rundown of PoE1 main strengths as an RPG (as well as a bit of obvious criticism of BG3).

Turn on subtitles for English translation.

Tango Gameworks and Hi-Fi rush IP has been resurrected after being unceremoniously put down by Microsoft. This is thanks to Kafton, a Korean company, who acquired the defunct studio and its big profile IP. We will see if the spell cast was True Resurrection, or just Raise Dead. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/pubg-owner-krafton-have-acquired-tango-gameworks-and-the-hi-fi-rush-ip

Considering the reception, and how long it was shelved - I doubt it.

Allegedly Borderlands movie sucks very hard. I am shocked, shocked. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/borderlands

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/obsidian-entertainments-xbox-rpg-avowed-is-delayed-to-2025-heres-the-new-release-date Feb 18, 2025. Originally planned to release in November, alas it was moved allegiedly to avoid busy November for GamePass.

I was more thinking in terms Ghouls. And not refering to the Ghoul, but rather

Not quite gaming, but I finished the Fallout TV show. It's good! Way, way better than I expected. I was quite surprised how tight the script is, with good set ups and pay offs. I wish violence was used with a bit more purpose - as it is, it just style, and as such I numbed myself to it rather quickly, but am weary to recommed the show to some folks that I know might enjoy it otherwise. As for the future - there is perhaps an overarching consipracy thingy going on, that I am not a fan off. I fear the interesting potential of the wasteland (Fallout's wasteland, not The Wasteland) can get lost if there is a big, bad pulling the strings of the ENTIRE WORLD! I also feel like some lore might not be matching up, but frankly it's been so long since I played a fallout, and I skipped couple recent titles, so who knows (not me!).

And for 99.99% of the playerbase prob neither is Avowed😁 Well, will be curious to see what Gamepass will release in November.

Ok, now that looks much, much better than the awful thing they released a long long time ago. I still want to see more of how they are handling individual systems, but the combat seems more representative of the original game (do I spy awkward two handed stabbing with a short sword for unskilled fighter?) At the very least they renewed my interest.

Well there are far more games coming with each year. If that's the reason, than it is an ok one, especially if devs can find the use of the extra time (Hey, Obsidian, if the game is finished in November, I am more than happy to test it for you :-P). And being part of Game Pass lineup, it should important for XBOX to utilise it properly. Releasing Avowed in the crowded pre-christmas did seem like a risky choice. Or maybe XBOX is happy with it's 2024 and needs to pad out 2025 🤷‍♂️ Maybe they got a word that Silksong is dropping before the end of 2024 and know better than to compete 😉

Could be good, could be bad. lol I wouldn’t say no to Lost Vikings 3 or Rock n Roll Racing2 😉. King employees moving there suggest to me possibility of mobile spin-offs of more popular IPs, which just doesn’t sound appealing to me. Eh, we will see.

You can ride Torren now, apparently! I wonder how it plays now - it felt to me like it should be a torrent fight, with all the long running, and potential jumping over ranged attacks.