Wormerine

Yeah, it takes time these days for me to get into those highly guided movies. I am so used to having agency (or being guided seemlesly) that when game so restrictive and so heavy handed it takes me out. Had this experience with Red Dead2 and Cyberpunk. There is enjoyment to be had once one switches the brain off and arrears it more like a movie with audience engagement.

Ouch. And I hoped the game became less buggy since I played it :-). The drop in polish after Early Access area is unfortunate. Yeah, there was a vocal audience asking for Minthara (and especially Halsin) to become companions and be romancable, so I suppose Larian listened to the fans. Personally, I found Halsin's shift from camp follower to horny companion rather jarring. I didn't appreciate him harassing my halfing and not taking no for an answer. I feel like BG3 camp could use HR.

They are not “Origin story” companions, as you can’t play as them. There are also two more potential companions to come . yes, there is a gulf of content between Origins and Joinable NPCs, especially H and M. According to what Larian said early on there was supposed to be far more Origins than the game shipped with. The suspicion is that they proved to work intensive and they padded out the roster with joinable NPC with lesser interactivity past recruitment. I don’t think it is a terrible idea, but stitches are a bit too visible me for my taste (at least in H’s case - when I played BG3 it was impossible to have Minthara and Halsin in the same playthrough).

Hmmm, I can't recall a console, thirdperson/RTS ever being any good but I still like the concept of this one:

When Origins came out it was a much darker, morally grey fantasy setting - up to that point Bioware games dealt in very contrasting and simplistic saint vs devil options. And I think there were bits of Origins that delivered on the promise, but overall I am with you - outside endgy venieer it was still mostly a straightforward fantasy world. Each sequel seemed to me to move further away from the bits that I liked the most about Origins. Veilguard seems to continue in that direction.

The reviews are so all over the place: Eurogamer: "This is the best Dragon Age, and perhaps BioWare, has ever been." https://www.eurogamer.net/dragon-age-the-veilguard-review Matty echoes a lot of the same woes as Skillup (and PCgamer from what I have glanced): It seems to me that for people who liked Bioware's pre-Anthem output and wished for a "comeback" it's a big miss. Everyone seems to agree though, that the final couple hours are pretty darn good.

I like Mort content a lot, and find it informative, but to be fair it takes a lot for him to dislike a game. He just tends to avoid playing games that he knows he might not enjoy, sticks to a niche and IPs he enjoys to behind with. I generally find that whenever reviewer liked or disliked the game is an irrelevant bit - why they enjoyed/not enjoyed the game is of more interest to me. Reviews though, do seem to be quite varied when it comes to scores, but the criticism seems consistant. While Mort might have liked the game, his 40 minutes video only reinforced my suspicion that it is not a game I would enjoy playing.

Skill up isn't a fan. Curious what Mort will have to say. To me the question isn't "is Veilguard good or bad". To me it's "how bad is it when compared to Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition".

Oh, Man. I love that game. Not flawless, but nothing like that. Creating ice puddles for enemies to slipped on never gets old.

Alan Wake2 - Lake House. It's ok. Another short DLC (2-3 hours?), one bugged achievement that requirest tanking framerate to trigger. It's new enemy type is a highlight but also feel underutilised - perhaps it is a downside of AW2 barebone gameplay that there is only that much as one can do with it, outside shining light at enemies and shooting them. Story is ok, though on a simple side. There is also a teaser for Control2, but it feels far less clumsy than Controls: AWE DLC - the teaser bit isn't relevant to our adventure in the Lake House, so while missable it does feel tacked on. I assume that like "Night Springs" DLCs, "Lake House" can be triggered at certain point during main AW2 playthrough - and I think it will be fine as a minor sidestory and break from main AW2 story. Still, I found AW2 DLCs to be far weaker than Controls - again, perhaps because that title is much less gameplay focused.

I am not sure if I would agree. Death Stranding maybe, as celebrity cameos kinda seem like that game's identity. In Cyberpunk I found both Keanu and Idris (as well as other minor youtubers I recognised) to be distracting. Idris less so as I thought he worked really well, but Keanu was just off - I don't know if it's him or how Johny was written/structured in the game. Theoretically, I see nothing wrong - models have been used for quite some time, why not use recognisable models. Coming out from Alan Wake 2, while not exactly dealing with celebrities, they do use actors and recognisable faces in very interesting ways.

Hey, they added Henry Cavill to advertise their game in-game.

Remedy News: Lake House DLC for Alan Wake 2 comes out in a couple of days. Remedy's coop shooter set in Control's universe FBC: Firebreakers got a trailer and a talky video. Ehhh, Remedy's gameplay doesn't have a history of holding up withouts its narrative, so I am doubtful if they can deliver a fun 3 person coop. But we will see - maybe there are folks are Remedy who welcomed doing something not burdened by narrative.

Same, but I don't think I am still ready for it. Instead I dipped back into Shadow Gambit, finishing up DLCs, and probably will do some badges afterwards.

Yeah, gold, platinum, diamond that's a music means, but if I remember correctly what each category means differs country to country. In gaming it refers to development milestone https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/P8R9SX3LGlQrlXuTuwAfQ/games-explained-from-game-engines-to-going-gold

"Going gold" used to mean that the game has been completed and put on a disc ready for duplication and shipping. What I assume that means here is that the final build have been finalized and they will be working on day1 patch till release. I assume that means the game has been certified for release on various platforms as well.

Finished Alan Wake 2 - by finished I mean my first playthrough. I thought ending scene was cut rather abruptly, and I hear one needs to complete New Game+ Called "Final Draft" to get the true ending. But considering how I enjoyed the game, and how much there is to digest I am looking forward to doing 2nd playthrough at some point. Brilliant sequel. I liked the idea of Alan Wake1 more than the actual game, and AW2 is a game I wished AW1 was. On top of that lovely ties to wider Remedy-verse, with direct links to Control, but also all of the other Remedy output. For a long time fan it is a treat - and more importantly it never felt to me like fan-service - I don't think I can name one reference that felt to be done just for reference sake. I was less impressed by AW2 first DLC pack - Night Springs. I mean, they are mostly non-sensical non-canon silly short stories, but they just did nothing for me. Non surprising as each story is very brief, and reuses pre-existing locations, but I just expected them to be a bit more weird and interesting. First two that is. I thought the 3rd one was pretty great and it is also one which might have actual story implications for Remedy-verse - though due to nature of the DLC pack it is difficult to parse what exactly we can take at face value. Time will tell I suppose.

Full interview with Josh S that's been used not so long ago for Avowed's promotional paned during Pax West. Didn't watch it yet, but from the title it seems that Josh's Pillars Tactics game is still being thrown around:

ALAN WAKE II About 5 hours in - got to play a bit with our titular protagonist. Man, I love this game so much so far. I thought Remedy found it's footing with Control, but this so far has been firing on all cylinders. I love the narrative and how they are using FMV's so far. I also love their callbacks and nods to wider "Remedy Universe". Gameplay is... servicable (very much Resident Evil2 Remake inspired, but much, much more shallow) but unlike, lets say Control, here combat and puzzles play 2nd fiddle to the narrative stuff. And with Remedy doing the narrative I can get behind it. For a game that takes soo long before you get to do "gameplay" (aka. Shoot) it's been really well paced. I heard Alan Wake II went all survival horror this time around, but outside the tense opening, I thought the game is quite similar to Alan Wake1 - armospheric but not very scary. And I am someone who quit RE2Remake, as I just didn't enjoy the tension and gore.

I love Guardian Ape - I think it's make or break Sekiro boss. I find his timings to be very satisfying to parry. He is not predictable, but there is a nice rhythm to his dance. 2nd phase is a kind of FromSoftware cruelty that I really appreciate. Not so much Guardian Ape redux, though it makes sense for story reason. I find it too tedious to be fun, though I think the power scaling doesn't make it as hard as it seems at first.

That's fine, but you should play Dark Souls1 once you are done with BG3. It's really, really good. Outside DS2 and some of the EldenRing Dark Souls diffculty is greatly exadurrated. It has a learning curve, but not an unpleasant one. That's all.

Yup, seen it. Tried the demo. It seems rather safe, but very competent. It's on my wishlist, as right now the que is wayy too long. Mimimi also sent a newsletter promoting the SS and hinted something Aiko's Choice related. I don't think it ever got a console port, so I assume that would be it. I started playing Shadow of Erdtree. ehhhh, not feeling it so far. Maybe I am just not in the mood for ER, but at the same time before I jumped in into DLC I played a good couple hours of base game with a new character and I had a blast. Shadow of Erdtree so far have been just tedious. Hopefully it will click sooner rather than later.

We do not know, though I am doubtful it is representation of a specific character - it seems to me to be more symbolic but I don't think we know much about the key artwork.

Is it possible? I can't be bothered to scan the skilltrees and decypher what each icon likely represent, but a quick glance at Wizard's skilltree looks very much like it mostly, if not entirely, consists of Wizard things. We know we use grimoire to cast a spell, so that makes us very much a wizard if we choose to cast spells. In the recend deepdive there was a mention that for Avowed they leaned toward "learnable" skills, so not things inate (Cypher) or granted by higher power (priests). So it is possible each tree is to a big extend similar to it's PoE counterpart, or at the very least is evocative of that kind of archetype, and the biggest difference is that you can freely dip between the three. Unlike PoEs, in Avowed we will play a heavily defined character, so certain classes might be more appropriate than others. For example Aedyr trains Arcane Knights. The Envoy might be one of such Knight (or Hunter if we go Fighter/Ranger, or Geomancer if Ranger/Wizard, or Arcane Hunter Geomancer if fighter/ranger/wizard ), or something conceptually adjecent. Those classes are also fairly neutral when it comes to believes and political alignment, so they wouldn't dictate our character's leaning. Edit. On a flip side, there is a companion skill tree as well, so perhaps companions will be able to provide a flavour of classes we can't play as?