Wormerine

ZA/UM drama continues with ex-Disco Elysium dev suing ZA/UM for not quite clear reasons, possibly in attempt to regain rights to the IP as it was set DE in the same world as his book and table top campaign that predates disco and ZA/UM itself. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/disco-elysium-dev-files-lawsuit-against-the-studio-that-allegedly-kicked-him-out

Me too, but I am just on 2nd day. It’s easily the most stylish and snappy jRPG I played. It’s been weird so far, but I want to see more.

Does Elden Ring count as a cozy game? I find it cozy.

Nothing new though - the screenshot is from an old build that has been preview a while back. Edit: Direct leak to the image: https://imgur.com/a/rPzWUB3

Eh, everytime I hear her, I hear Bastila doing a weird accent.

I am sure you heard her on multiple occasions though. She did a lot of work over the years - once you recognise her voice once, it actually becomes really annoying. I would want rate like that. And I have to bring 20k in equipment to each session. Mob justice is idiotic, as all we have is hearsay from each side. Either way, I don't get what she wanted to achieve with the video, unless she has been harrased for not doing the role and wanted to deflect the blame somewhere else.

I dipped back into Elden Ring after a lengthy break. I find it harder and harder to find content that I haven’t done before. Fighting same mini-bosses for the x time really looses its charm. I think I finally finished underground sections which makes me sad, as it’s been mu fave part of the game (outside actual classing boss dungeons). I fought the Astel Naturalborn of the Void, which was first new thing in a while. I am over level 100 and most of my weapons seem to be maxed out. I feel like I am running out of progression as well, and there still seems to be a lot of the game. Playing some more Cyberpunk - I need to motivate myself to keep going, it bores me. Easily worst CDPR game so far. I am shocked how little there is to it and how poorly paced missions are. I didn’t expect CDPR to have uninteresting quests - that one thing that’s been carrying their games since Witcher1. There are some interesting ideas and characters here and there so perhaps they lack couple rewrites and re-designs. Cyberpunk is euro-jank, except euro-jank tends to have something interesting and unique at its core. Cyberpunk is a generic junky title with nice looking screenshots being all it can offer. Bugs and unfinished state aside, it just lacks creativity and that can’t be patched in.

Huh. In my multiple playthroughs of BG2 I don’t think I found this one either. Noice

Maybe it’s time to take a hint from Valve and look into this Switch emulator.

I do wonder how extensive “behind the curtain” changes are, though. Physics based characters, like Wrecking Ball or Doomfist never felt quite right in O1, while I found them to play very well in O2.

I have been playing some Overwatch2. It's a really good patch. New gamemode is a very natural fit for the formula and nice variation on "push the payload", new maps are great, new heroes are fun to play. Rebalancing so far seems for the better, and move to 5 v. 5 shakes things and I am curious to see how it will develop. The issue remains monatization with O2 becoming free2pay. Pretty much say goodbye to cosmetics as gaining anything through gameplay seems nearly impossible at the moment, and prices are unreasonably steep. It being free to play you will be always overpaying on top of rather high prices. We will how achievable new heroes will be. From what I gather so far, getting to required level in free battlepass will be rather tough feat to pull of within short timeframe given, and $10 for a new hero just feels a bit too much for me. At the same time, not gaving access to heroes is bound to sour the experience and switching to counter has been the game's staple - no matter what Blizz is claiming now, access to right heroes is still key. Pay or not pay, the progression just feels rubbish. Pay for battlepass, and then you have to grind away to get what you paid for - or pay even more before season ends.

Youth?

No? It's a bit too nebulous for me to be invested beyond "I liked Witcher games and GOG is DRM free".

Well, that’s different though. CDPR is a big company and Witcher games have been the biggest export product the country had. That means a lot of new jobs, a lot money flowing in and out, a lot of payrolls to tax. Every government likes companies that bring a lot of money.

That’s precisely a jump in thinking that I could never wrap my head around. Why would I be proud of something I have contributed nothing to? But a I think you are right that that’s a normal sentiment for most people. It’s just one of those things that keeps puzzling me

It’s nice that they did a great adaptation of books series I enjoyed as a kid. I never quite connected with the concept of being tied to something purely because I happened to be born on land within the same political jurisdiction as a company/artist/sports team. Really, in gaming what company location indicates is that most likely in that it relatively cheap to run a studio there. Not sure, if it is something I would feel particularly proud of.

That was crapped last year. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cd-projekt-red-are-doubling-down-on-cyberpunk-and-the-witcher

That’s a shame. They were something interesting and unique.

Oh Absolutely. I think Pentiment looks great. I am not giving up on Avowed just yet, but I also haven't seen anything to get my expectations high. A vague CGI trailer told me nothing of substance.

Grounded is coming out. Crafting/survival isn’t my thing, but I will probably check it out through gampass. If anyone wondered about lyrics #oldclassicalmemes

I finally booted up Cyberpunk for the first time. I created a male Corpo V. And finished the introduction (origin, plus first missions). I must say, the first impressions aren't great. The game feels very rough - there is something about movement, animation blending, way of interacting with stuff which so far feels unenjoyable. While the game can look nice in stills, it feels very janky when interacted with - weird body and cloth physics etc. I also already encountered some really visible bugs, like NPC t-posing when I got close to them, and in a scripted cinematics at the end of Corpo's origin sequence Jackie's head was spazing out which was a bit distracting. The intro bored me. Corpo's origin story was briefer then I expected. For a new comer to the setting I don't feel it managed to present the part of the world and forge a connection with the world/characters. I think it boils out to how uninteractive it was - even in Witcher3 opening I was immediately presented with some compelling conversation choices. Cyberpunk so far felt very on rails - and that putting aside two lengthy rides I had to sit through. I don't think that the experience of playing it was much deeper then if I watched it on youtube. I do hope it will get better. There have been moments of potential - I just wish I got to play the game in the last two hours.

Huh… once it out, could someone do that to Thief1&2, Deus Ex and Systemshock2, please.

Finished Gears Tactics campaign. According to achievements I have been playing it for almost a year (for total of 32 hours). I really liked the core mechanics - it's a nice spin on XCOM with it's own identity and neat little quirks. What drags it down is lack of variety and development - and I played "Jacked up" version with new enemy variants and extra party member, the original must have been very dull indeed. To explain my issues with the title I need to describe it in a bit. Structure wise it's essencially an XCOM without strategic layer. The main campaign consists of three acts with boss encounter at each one of them, with 6-8 story missions in each chapter and side missions between those. You have pre-made main characters (5 of them, including jack from DLC) and generated soldier. If story character dies it's game over, but random cogs can die like in XCOM. Most main missions require some or all of the story companions - side missions on the other hand force using more of your roster. WIth each act you need to do more sidemissions before proceeding (1 for main chapters, 2 for 2nd chapter 3 for 3rd chapter) and they are not skippable. You also can't use same unit twice - so starting with chapter 2 when side missions come up you can't progress by using your A lister only. My issue is as follows: With main missions requiring specific characters, there is no point of spreading the experience and items around - as such extra side missions become a waste of time. You train extra soldiers not to fill ranks if something goes wrong like in XCOM - you train them so you can send them on more "side missions" which won't contribute much to the power of you key squad. As such extra side missions feel like a complete filler padding space between main missions. Later on those side missions get modifiers and optional objectives, but I found those range from irrelevant to annoying. It doesn't help that missions variety is low. Honestly, the only difference between most of side and main missions is that main mission have some narrative justification and squad requirements - a lot of the time it is very much the same type of mission and map that you would be playing in side mission. I started to get bored in chapter 2 and once I got to chapter 3 wth 3 side missions to do per "story break" the game really started to drag. This repetiteveness could also be leveled at XCOM, especially Vanilla2. But I think GT showed me the value of XCOMs strategic layer - with ability to research and buy stuff between missions even doing a boring missions yelds a reward in XCOM. GT quickly started to feel like final hours of an XCOM campaign - where you have all that you need, and just wait for the game to end. You get experience and gain accessories for you Cogs, and some of the skills items you get can be very fun, but it is a very passive experience - items are randomised so you don't actively pursue anything. You just get stuff after missions. I also felt that classes and enemies had little personal identity - they all were based on the same foundation with a minor variation - I didin't feel like running with different squads or builds, or against different enemies really changed the gameplay. Still, a good solid foundation. Want to see GearsTactics2 in the future. Not a bad game to boot up every few days or weeks and do a mission or two.

Ha! i know how you feel. It is my common dilemma - going all the way to rescue poor Imoen only to say: “Sorry, my party is full”. I am sure Copper Inn must be at least somewhat more comfortable than Spellhold.

New DLC for Solasta is out November 14th, and includes Monk, Bard, Warlock & Dragonborn. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1096530/view/3270199639679222894