Wormerine

Is it, though? There doesn't seem to be much to combat - just slash and dodge (or hack if you are S9 as it's super OP). There are indeed some moves that I didn't know about (like dashing toward the enemy) but move set seems fairly basic. I know the super versed in Platinum combat, but while it feels like I have still a lot to learn about Bayonetta, Nier felt like I explored the depth of combat on my first playthrough. "mastery" seems come in the form of griding efficient programs, and crafting items, but I can't be bothered to max out, and don't feel the need to. I do still have S ranks on the arena to tackle - so far I didn't see anything new, just main game enemies gated via level requirements. Those on S rank are level 80 and when I attempted them last time while being on level 60 - I would barely be able to chip their health while they would kill me in one hit. One of the arenas is novel as you have to play as a robot rather then yourself - that mostly comes to dealing with limiting moveset. No, I am on my 3rd playthrough, where you switch between A2 and 9S. I actually really don't like third act. My favourite parts of NIer so far were main missions - proper platinum affair with good spectacle and fun boses. 3rd act feels like more sidequests - go there, kill mobs, get item etc. Honestly, first playthrough has been so far the most enjoyable - unless Nier hides a Pillars of Eternity class of a twist at the end that will make it all worth it. Why did you reload after failing checks? There is one that you need to pass (and, that is easily the worst part of the game) but other then that succeeding and failing checks is what game (and it's RPGness) is about. You don't get to complain about lack of RPG systems, if you activelly cheese your way through to bypass RPG systems. As to themes, I am not sure. Personally, I think the game falls apart once you cross the water lock.

I am nearing the completition of Nier: Automata. I must say I am somewhat disappointed. It's been ok, but unless there is a really great wrap up to the story (doing third playthrough finished available for now content for one character and will start another) I really don't get what the craze is all about. For Platinum combat is pretty weak - it's fine, but it's mindless, shallow hack&slash. I like most of the RPG systems fine, except the leveling - it just throws any combat tuning out of the window making enemies either too quick and too tedious to kill depending if you over or underlevel them. Story has been "meh". Multiple playthrough gimmick would work well for typical Platinum games, where combat has so much depth that first playthrough is just tutorial - here I was bored with combat by first ending, and it only got more repetitive. Story itself is... meh. So far, consequent playthroughs feel like meandering, doing mostly fetch quests, with occasional big events which fail to land properly due to lack of character development. Also sooo muuuch paddding. I still like it though. I am just disappointed. I also picked up Mafia:DE from Humble Store. To my surprise I am stuck on the race mission. While it is notorious I never found it too hard in the original - you can easily overake competition on first lap and then just be careful not to fall out of the track. In here so far it's been really hard to get anywhere. Best I can do is 6th place. The simulation also seems really unreliable. One some runs I can get to 9th place easy on the first straight. On others I won't be able to leave the starting 15th spot. And all I get to do is press forward. Even switch to pad for better control. Ufff, this might take a while. EDIT. I am getting better. I often manage to finish 2nd, but am yet to beat it. It seems that by the end of the 3rd lap for some reason the camera is yanked out of control and forces me to look for a racer behind me for some reason. Idiotic. Also enemy races seem to be untouchable - you can use them to not fall out of track, but try to push them out of the track and it is you who will be spinning like crazy. I remember there is a dedicated button for pushing enemies out, so maybe that's why but I can't quite figurte out. I think it's X but don't know if its PS X or XBOX X :-). EDIT2. It's over. That wasn't fun. So the "ram" key was crucial. Essencially, if doesn't know if you intended to ram an enemy unless you press X (PS4 cont) - have X pressed - you will push enemy away. Don't have it pressed and it's like hitting a wall. Stupid.

I actually found a leaked footage of Avowed. It seems to be set further into the future in some kind of dystopian setting. VO needs a bit of work though.

That devotion is what I don't emphesize with. Even though I liked/adored the Witchers. I make a point of not buying or supporting a game based on what it can become one day. There haven't been any concrete commitments from CDPR on what they plan to do with Cyb, and even if there were I don't trust roadmaps. What concerns me with Cyberpunk is not only technical issues, but the game itself apparently just being ok. To be honest "it's fine action game, with lifeless open world, and bad RPG systems" applies to Witcher3 as well, but W3 had a great character and superb narrative to make up for it. I hear Cyberpunk ain't bad, but it didn't seem to grab people the way W3 did. Personally, I am just disinterested in Cyberpunk. I have been from the beginning. I haven't seen or heard anything that would make me want to play it - except a desire to test how my 3070 would run it. Though already Nier showed me that poor optimization can make any game run like crap.

Eh, if CDPR actually fixes Cyberpunk then it will be fixed. For now it's on my list of games to keep and eye on but not to buy. Never was really - have been around for long enough to smell bullcrap - with that exception that Witcher3 smelled the same but turned out rather well (even if I remember wild promises being made pre-release as well). Whenever Cyberpunk if fixable remains to be seen - from what I am hearing it's issues run deeper then just optimisation.

Not a new thing for CDPR.They have been blackmailed before. They did the same thing last time.

Some additional info of what extra content we can expect from Disco Elysium: Final Cut https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/disco-elysium-the-final-cut-adding-political-vision-quests

I bought some games early on (Hades/Journey). I ended up rebuing them on steam due to better controller support. Now I just save myself money and wait for platform wide release.

Epic ain't slowing down on exclusives: Epic helps me to save so much money. It seems it ain't going to change. I just hope they won't grab something I REALLY want to play on day1.

I suspect when announced Avowed might have been in very early stages - I think the idea was to communicate what Microsoft owned studios are up to: very much like they like to do with consoles. But yeah, no fake gameplay demo showing like a game will hopefully look and play in 3 years time. As disappointing it is to not know more, I will take waiting over unreliable promises.

So Miranda will loose the little remaining "characterization" that she had . Shamelessness of butt shots was quite hilarious on my latest playthrough, though.

Holy crap, Dishonored2 levels are great. It probably has weaker narrative, and gimmickiness of levels do make it less reliable and therefore immersive (I believe that stealth work best in familiar surroundings). That said what good gimmicks those are. Clockwork mansion was already pretty fun, but I just finished the time traveling level, and it's just pure excellence. I think I will also have to do "no power run" of Dishonoreds one of theses days. I feel that our outsider powers are so robust, it's easy to play in a boring in repetitive way. WIth most of powers being off, I found myself digging into mechanics and enviromental interactions, in a way I never done before.

88GB. Pretty chunky early access.

IO's James Bond project will not star a film James Bond, but rather IO's own. Studio director hopes for it to be a start of another IO trilogy https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/io-interactives-project-007-could-be-the-beginning-of-a-bond-trilogy

Aaaaaaand, of course, I failed a will check as soon as I got access to a PC that could run the bloody thing. Played for some 10+ hours as of time of speaking. That said I am glad I did! I am enjoying the game far more, then I thought I will, and am looking forward to the full game. My biggest worry comes from some clunky UI, mainly because that is what they used for Divinities. But while I found Div2 frustrating and tedious, I find BG3 really fun, even in its rough state. I also thing they give out disadvantage and advantage a bit too easily, and hide real mechanics a bit too well.

Yeah, I didn't have a great time with Hong Kong - definitely not as good as with Dragonfall. I appreciate they tried to go for more sabdued and talky mission design, but I don't think Shadownruns systems were deep enough to support so much non-lethal gameplay. So much of Hong Kong consists of running from one barely interactable conversation tree to another. Also really cute touches from Shadowrun (like reading forums and such) really overstayed their welcome in HK. I thought Dragonfall pushed Shadowruns systems as far as they can go. They would really need to build a deeper engine to beat it.

Just came over this video (ha! YouTube will probably be recommending me PC building vid for a while!). In case time stamp won’t work it’s: 17:40. Seems like single cable will most likely be ok, but it will draw more power then it was build for.

Eh, is it? Isn't Shadow helmed by Eidos Montreal who contributed multiplayer for previous games? TR and Rise were Crystal Dynamics, and I am pretty sure, they moved to Avengers and Shadow was handed to Montreal (I don't know individual designers/programmers/writers though).

And there is Tomb Raiding! Like a lot of it so far. What should IMO be the main point of the series, in previews two games felt like the afterthought.

Couple things: Main focus: Dishonored2. I have mixed feeling about it so far. Beautiful as ever, and with my shiny new RTX3070 I don't feel optimisation issues this game is supposed to suffer from. Really creative levels, and Emily's skill set I think is more universally useful for both lethan/non-lethal aggresive/stealthy playstiles, making it very flexible kit. Much more so then Corvo from D1, where going for Low Chaos, meant barely using his skill set outside Blink. I also like how you can knock people unconcious in aggressive ways (melee combat, attack from above). Makes the game more varied then just sneak and choke. That said, narrative so far has been fairly mediocare. I goes through similar beats as D1 but with less convictions. Also trying to top D1 means it's less reliable. Stealth games, I think, work best when they are set in relatable settings - D1, while fantastical, used understandable locations. D2 so far, while presenting really cool locals makes it difficult to relate. Clockwork mantion, which I did yesterday, was quite a showpiece but felt very alien and thefore sneaking wasn't very compelling. D:OS2 - started another playthrough, this time with a friend. As I suspected, I am having a much better time with it in coop, then I had in singleplayer. I also picked up BG3ea, but I didn't spent enough time with it to have an opinion. So far it feels like D&D and Larian design are clashing a bit. I played a bit of Shadow of Tomb Raider - mostly for benchmarking and testing the GPU. That said, I am surprised how much I have been enjoying it. I heared good things about it (or rather things I would like - Lara having personality this time around, more focus on combat&puzzles then mass murder etc.) but I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Writing has been pretty good, gameplay flows better and isn't interupted every 5 seconds, and game has patience to build, set up and pay off, rather then constant Bay-noise that was TR1&2 reboots. I will definitely finish it, once I am done with Dish2.

You might not be able to buy RTX3080, but you can buy shoes with it.

They also are supposed to allow to import H2 progress into H3 engine, unlike H2, were I had to do all H1 content from scratch to unlock the items, correct? Eh, it would be nice, if one were able to take advantage of engine upgrades and smaller install size on steam too, though I guess that, again we need to have access to hitman 3 to do so. Still, I don't mind having an extra year to play some more of H2, while waiting for Epic-free release of H3.

First build of mine. Special thanks to @Humanoid& @ComradeMasterfor suggestions and help! CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600x 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 Dual Radiator Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming b550-Plus RAM: Corsair Vengance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 – 3600 CL18 System SSD: Crucial MX500 250GB 2.5’’ SATA SSD Gaming SSD: Samsung 860 Evo 1TB 2.5’’ SATA SSD GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 Aorus Master 8GB OC Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow ATX Power Supply: Corsair RMx 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular Monitor: Gigabyte G27Q 27’’ 2560x1440 144Hz Keyboard: Logitech G413 Mechanical Keyboard Mouse: Logitech G502 SE Freesync/G-sync are just the most brilliant invertion. I don't know how I lived without one before. Then again, before I was rarely able to run games at 60FPS not to mention above that.

Pride and Accomplishement. Seriously, what's up with that?

Uuuuu.... new Doom is on my "to play" list. Maybe I can run Doom remake on one screen, and original Doom on the graphic's card.