Wormerine

It doesn’t matter too much. Just different intro and more talking during the missions.

Once they started to expand the story I started to enjoy the game less - it shipped from realizing a grim, corporate, exploitative reality, to being over the top riddiculous.

Best D&D 5e based RPG on the market gets new DLC in about an hour - a new campaign, Lost Valley allegedly priced, at $12.99/£10.99.

I installed "Tunic" through gamepass - your ususal indie Zelda "inspired" with a touch of DarkSouls top down action metroidvania thingy. First impressions didn't thrill me - combat is just servicable, and game offers little direction (sort of - on that later). I got really annoyed when I read a sign, only to be greeted with made up alphabet. That made up alphabet also greets you in inventory, item descriptions etc. Pretencious right? Well, actually not. The guadance and tutorialization of that game is pretty unique - you can find individual manual pages in the world (like actual old-school manual). Those will include map areas (sometimes with what looks like penciled in notes), objective lists, and explanation of controls and individual mechanics, story summary. Those are also mostly written in made up gibbrish with occasional english words - plus hefty amount of pretty illustrations and button promts. I suspect that devs played original Zelda in Japanese and wanted to translate the experience of figuring things out through limited information. It really works. Everyonce I find myself stumped, only to study manual pages I found for a bit, only to figure out a new mechanic, or path I didn't notice before.

That's simple to answer I think. Avowed have been revealed very early so Microsoft can tease all the great things that are to come in upcoming years. Afterall, they have been buying a lot, but not much came out so far - aside from some titles that hasn't been fully made under Microsoft. Hopefully we will get some details soon.

For me Elden Ring leans into exploration and discovery far more then any of the Souls I played. However, I have been worrying for a while about the thing JosephA in his video mentioned - that once you know what's there you don't want to do it again, because most of it is not great content. I really won't mind replaying any of the legacy dungeons I did in Elden Ring so far - but those smaller caves and ruins? Not knowing what one will get is the only thing keeping those from being a snooze fest. There is already far more repetition then I would like and I still have a healthy chunk of the game ahead of me.

I do remember Hades dragging on when trying to wrap up some remaining story archs, though it is difficult for me to say how it works in 1.0 - I have been playing since early Early Access so I have burned through new story content rather quickly in 1.0. Gameplaywise Hades wasn't strong enough to keep my attention, but it was mindless and satisfying enough to keep going to see the story content. It's really impressive how many unique lines Supergiant put into the game and to how many variables the game responds. I never farmed in any Souls - I feel the series do a good balancing act. If an area kills you over and over again, by the time you beat it you will have accumulated enough souls for a decent boost in powers. If one doesn't struggle and redo the content, then the progression will be slower and game will become more difficult. Of course, one can intentionally lower difficulty by overleveling themselves, but I never found it necessary or desirable. That's part of the charm no? NPC quest isn't something you ticked off in every game, it's just side stories that you may or may not see through the end - usually with grim ending, fitting the game's tone.

EH, I expect they just got burned by first attempt. They made the project public already, so they confirmed it is not abandoned, but they will keep it out of public attention until it develops further.

Never had much issue with it, but then again as a profesionally trained violinist I do consider my hand dexterity to be above average. The worst thing was jumping in Dark Souls, but I got used to it. I do agree that there probably must be better way to add buttons though - I am pretty sure some controllers, like XBOX elite, have extra buttons at the back of the controller.

Bounties so far have been the easiest way to make money.

That's actual ****ing violin! It's not that hard is it, Hitman3. It doesn't sound like complete **** when you use the actual instrument.

It's on my to-do-list. I waited for Director's Cut for dualsense5 support. I have to many massive open world games installed at the moment to add this one to the pile. How is online component? Do I loose much by waiting? From what I understand stuff our build can appear in my game. Does it mean that if I wait for too long then logging in will result in bunch of stuff appearing in my game, or does it more organically appear with story progression?

Combat is essencially twin stick shooter - from what I played it's been pretty alright. Playing with controller. On a sidenote:

I will be curious to hear what you think. I am dipping into it for a while now, and can't get into it.

Did what seems like "tutorial" section of Weird West. First impressions a very promising indeed.

Suicide Squad delay made want to dive back into Rocksteady's Arkham games. Played through Asylym & City and currently playing Arkham Knight. I liked Arkham City much more then I remember liking it years back, but it could be because I had already low expectations when it comes to the story. The games still IMO get weaker with each entry, but honestly even with its narrative flaws AC isn't all that bad - it could be because Origins and Knight set the bar much much lower then Asylum. I really don't like Arkham Knight - and it's not because Batmobile (which while the weakest addition to the games in all three pillars of gameplay: puzzles, traversal, combat, stealth) nor it's astonishingly poor story, but all the small things that really annoy me - UIs being so much worse then previous titles, taking away convenient access to gadgets and adding two mission wheels which are still surpassed by map and the game is so so dark. I don't mean the story being dark, the game being literally dark. Large maps, which all blends together because how black everything is. I struggle playing the game unless it is late in the evening - recognising enemy types or seeing what weapon they are carrying is very difficult. Considering brilliant dark "Batman Animated Series" look of Asylum and City, a more photorealistic look of Knight does disservice to the game. I also found some stealth arenas to really not work properly - maps are too busy and contextual actions don't work well if your character can interpret your imput in multiple ways.

He was also completely wrong about Doom: Eternal issues. He doesn't have too much weight with me when it comes to RPG-likes (he rarely covers them) and from what he said it is very possible that he played the game in the most boring way possible. With WW being on gamepass there is really no reason not to check it out. It's downloaded already so will probably give it a go tonight.

Hmmm, two of my go-to reviewers have rather conflicting takes on Weird West: ACG rather liked it: SkillUp didn't: Meh, only one way to make up my own mind.

Ah yes. Not legacy dungeon big, but there is fun to be had in them.

Most of Obsidian games launched in a rather poor state - their recent releases suffered from it as well, PoE1&2 became what they are months after release. They have been doing well in the very recent history. The smoothest launch Obsidian had were Outer Worlds. Hopefully this trend will continue, though I would welcome a bit more junk if it results in a more memorable title.

It really turns me off that they decided to use only brief sample of writing and it's cliche: "I have got a bad feeling about this".

I never had any issues with navigating Control. I am pretty sure the game heavily points to you that you should use elevator to access new areas.

True, but so far it is unknown if Avowed will in any way try to continue plot of PoE1&2. Eora has couple other things it's been leaning on - including it's more "modern" setting then your average D&D like, focusing on politics, colonisation - arguably already PoE2 had more interested in those, then souls and Gods stuff. What if we get a watcher companion to give new player glimpse into metaphysical aspect of the universe, to introduce that stuff? Or one of the old companions will return, introducing us to secred discovered by the Watcher - acting as a continuation for series fans, and "What happened in PoE1&2" in game source for newcomers? At this point direction Avowed could be taking are endless. And even if PoE1&2 were laser focused on Gods, souls and reincarnation Avowed could be a way of fleshing out different aspect of the world.

I don’t think we will be a Watcher, and I disagree that Watcher identity has been key to Eora’s appeal. While our role as a Watcher was key to PoE1 narrative, I didn’t feel that way in PoE2 - our identity was surpassed by Herald of Berath identity - and sure, while being a Watcher has been use as a plot device I feel it’s role could have been replaced by any other plot convenient excuse.