Wormerine

He is not with Obsidian anymore, and is working for Playstation. According to his Linkedin he co Sound Design Lead GoW:Ragnarok, or at least the final stretch of it. So unlikely.

Played a bit of Wo Long. Port must be the worst one I experienced in a long time. Nothing my 3070 couldn’t power through so far, but There are stutters and framerate isn’t smooth. I hear mouse and keyboard are atrocious but I play with controller, so can’t comment. I am lukewarm regarding the game so far. Didn’t play Niohs, so can’t compare. It feels sloppier and messier than FromSoftware games.

Levels in Celeste get pretty crazy, especially near the end. Love that game, but it requires some patience.

I am very not much to speed with FF games. I lost interest somewhere around VIII and just heard that MMO go very good, and XIII was a disappointment. I find YP’s view of FF IP interesting, as I thought it is a guaranteed gang buster seller, but I personally do see series as stale. Going action route isn’t really boosting my confidence - outside few exceptions I really dislike action RPGs, as I see action combat and stats as designs that clash, rather than contribute to each other. Still, “combat designer of DMC5” does peak my interest - not that I expect FFXVI to be a spectacle fighter, but maybe there will be a satisfying core combat there. I am also not on board with “dark” take - if it’s really mature setting, with interesting geopolitics I might dig it, but I had my fill of teen angst games. Still curious how the game will turn out and be received. Without PS I won’t have means to play it by a long time (if ever), so I don’t really have a horse in the race.

Return of the Obra Dinn Such a satisfying experience. Easily the best detective game I have played. In case you are unfamiliar with the premise - you get to explore memories of crew of a West India Company ship, and you need to deduce identity, fates and potential killers of each of the crew members. You need to correctly solve three fates for the game confirm those as correct - so cheesing the game would be difficult. A minor nitpic would be that solving some of the last fates will require abuse of said system - "I have couple candidates, so if I try switching them around and see what combination the game will confirm" - meaning it is actually impossible to exactly determine character's identity without confirmation system's existance. That said, to get there still some deduction and process of elimination has to be made, so I found it satisfying from gamey side (also my brained was also wired by this point to rejoice at the sound que of 3 fates solved - I should make it my morning alarm for a better start of the day). [edit]Just one YouTube video in, and it is clear enough that I missed at least some of the possible clues. So it is very much possible that all identities are solvable through deduction, but I just brute forced some of the final solutions[/edit] An actual complain would be that the secret chapter, unlocked only if all available fates are solved was underwhelming. If there was something meaningful to be found in it, than I have missed it.

Elden Ring got an expansion name and a concept art. Beyond that, all one can do is speculate Shadow of the Erdtree

Well, there is always beta branch, like they did with Witcher3. Honestly, even Witcher3 has some features I am looking forward to try out, I am not sure what OW:SCE aims to bring. I don't know, $9.99 feels like too much. That's not far from how much they charged for actual DLCs, and unless I am greatly underestimating changes to the game, it seems like a very steep pricetag for a very little improvement. I am curious whose decision it is. Microsoft's or Private Division's.

It's a remaster for PS5 and XBOX X/S (and PC while they are at it)

Outer Worlds (Obsidian alrigtish FPRPG, not the best game of all times Outer Wilds) is getting makeover next week. Apparently it won't be a free upgrade for those who own base game and both DLCs, so it is a bit of a bummer. It will be $60 and reduced price for existing owner - how reduced, I do not know.

I didn't try collossal, but did a quick sprint to Morgott for a final achievement using two greatswords (used katanas for my full playthrough). I can't say I felt a difference - jump attack seems to take more or less the same time regardless of weapons I used, and it is simply the best attack to use, almost at all times. I couldn't mix up single weapon swings as easily, but it hardly mattered as my jump attacks did more damage, and staggered enemies more easily.

It is finished. I am actually dangerously close to platinuing the game. I miss All arnaments and all talismans achievements, so I might see how much I am missing, and if I can hunt the remaining ones in my current save. More annoyingly I didn't get the achievement for beating Morgott.... I might leave it, if I feel like doing another playthrough (he culminates what I would consider the good content of Elden Ring, so going that far one day might be a possibility) or I might see if I can hunt down a pre-Margott save somewhere for a quick completion. Great game, but darn, the final areas and bosses really sour the experience. If the game would end upon reaching the Erdtree, and got some extra polish instead, I think it would be better off.

In corpo you have relationship with Jackie, yeah, but I thought it was a professional one. I did feel a more personal relationship always develops in the montage in-between the intro and act1.

MS has so little to do with XCOM formula that it really shouldn’t have an impact. That did give me pause, though Firaxis doing third-person “hand-out and-talk-to-heroes” was an even bigger red flag. Played couple hours - disturbingly little gameplay so far. Combat has potential, though it is difficult to say how it develops. It’s far more casual - and I mean in in terms of handholding and complete lack of tension, rather than complexity. There is cool stuff there - it’s a hybrid of card game but positioning and “board” does come into consideration, so it actually feels quite natural to play as a computer game. Surprisingly I don’t mind writing. It is stilted, and corny but so far it is not without charm. But there is too much of it, keeping me away from being able to actually play the game. In all it is decent - at least it’s quite one of a kind. I am not sure if I will be convinced to make a purchase once the free weekend is finished. One day, but probably not now. oh and it runs like ass - or rather it runs fine, until it briefly doesn’t. So far every mission summary happens at 2FPS per second. Texture loading, geometry popping in, sudden frame dips when skills are activated.

Jake Solomon has left Firaxis. I wonder what it means for the future of XCOM3, but as Firaxis has been succesfully iterating on each Civ installement with a different lead I am not too worried about it. Worth remembering that Enemy Within was developed without Jake's input and was excellent. edit. Midnight Suns has a free weekend on steam.

As long as one stands still and doesn’t actually play the game. My favourite part were cars crashing on smallest bumps, like rail tracks, as if it were a solid wall.

Yeah, Jackie is easily the most well rounded character and it’s shame to see him go so far. Personally his death didn’t work for me as 1) it was spoiled in story trailer for the game 2) most of our relationship was hinted at rather than experienced. I learned more about him during his funeral, than actual act 1.

I played too much of it throughout the years and it runs just fine on gog, but I will probably pick it up sometime later.

Ding, dong! Malenia is dead! That took quite a few hours. In the end I needed some internet wisdom to help me out. First, once I got couple time to the 2nd phase I realised that dodging the Waterfawl dance by distance alone won't cut it, to her increased aggression in phase2. Getting a decent shield drop and farming necessary runes to upgrade fortunately didn't take long. The 2nd stumble was her clone attack I mentioned, for which I just couldn't figure out the dodge pattern. Even after watching couple helpful videos I still didn't manage to dodge it reliably. Fortunately, after stripping my character out of his armor to afford carrying shield, two katanas and still being able to quick roll, and about 3 hours of trying Malenia tasted her first defeat (in this universum, of course). I must say, I started to enjoy fighting her near the end - I suppose that's what they cann Stockholm syndrome. She really demands using whole kit to survive, which I suppose is good for a secret ultimate boss. What isn't good is that those two nasty insta-death attacks, I think are very difficult to figure out what will not result in ones death. I am really not surprised that people who played on launch and didn't have access to guides spent 20+ hours on her.

Elden Ring. Finally reached infamous Malenia. Yeah, I see what the whole complaining was about. First of all, a lot of Haligtree was giving me DS2 vibe with game showing you a problem and than surprising you with almost guaranteed death trap. And progressing through those death traps on consequent runs being tedious. Malenia's first phase is actually quite solid outside the bull**** swirly attack - it feels that surving the phase depends how often and when she will decite to use it. Playing without shield means death sentence if she triggers it after what would normally be a punishable attack. Didn't make up my mind about the 2nd phase yet - I don't live long enough to get a feel of her moveset. Of course bull**** swirly thing is still there, but there also some other contenders right now - I find the attack where she flighs into the air and sends he clones to attack you really difficult to read. I feel like overall the fight lacks distinct audio. If more of her attacks were telegraphed through sounds, I think I would find it easier to figure out what she is doing. Like wind-up to the switly attack is silent, and one would think they would try to indicate what is coming. It feels like they also could imprive chaing of attacks. Getting the same, hard to dodge rush+slash 4 times in a row is not a fun experience.

Double Fine just released another documentary - this time about making of Psychonauts2 (the previos one was about Broken Age, which was very interesting considering how troubles this project ended up being).

Yeah, when you charge extra of an ability to play on release, you don't want that to happen.

Huh, Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t suck? I didn’t expect that…

I actually quite like Anniverary (not so much the other two). I was a teen when I played those, and gameplay taste when it comes to action games have been rather undeveloped. I tried to replay Legend couple years ago, and was shocked how poorly it played. From original games I really liked Tomb Raider1&2 only, and 4th was ok. However, the first "tomb raider" game I played, and one I have the most fond memories of was Indiana Jones and The Infernal Machine.

I am pretty much in the same boat, however, Shadow wasn't developed by Crystal Dynamics but Eidos Montreal (Deus Ex, Guardians of the Galaxy). As such, I don't hope that Crystal Dynamics will change the trajectory of the series, but yeah Rise was decent anyway.