Wormerine

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?

Played a bit during EA, need to return now when irons finished. Seemed like nice, streamlined HoM&M Yup.

I would recommend finishing Phantom Liberty. The opening mission is indeed awfully long and artificially scripted but rest of the campaign is better. There is also a pretty good story branching, IMO much better than it was in Witchers, as divergent events are actually a natural consequence of V decision, rather than alternative universe where unrelated things change. I also like Phanto Liberty’s new ending the most. I found it most thematically interesting. and as you progress you will unlock more Mr Hands quests and I just found those to be most entertaining content in Cyberpunk. oh, one extra note - boss fights still suck hard. While combat got better, it is not good enough to provide “fun challenge”.

Something to wash off the bitter taste of Mimimi’s shut down.

CYBERPUNK 2077. And Phantom Libery DLC Finished my 2nd (and probably last) playthough of Cyberpunk. In short I had a good time, much better when I first played it, and would recommend it now. The 2.0 didn't fix fundamental issues that I had with the game, but gameplay is much better, driving is passable, and the technical state is way better than it was year ago. While the game still has problems it became more "immersive" and as such I found it much easier to engage with the story. So couple notes: No has to accept what Cyberpunk is: it is mostly an act of passively watching cinematics with some combat inbetween. It not that disimmilar to Witchers. What makes me like Cyberpunk less is V. Lack of player agency means I am relying on V to fill in the voice, and he/she just isn't a compelling character. I am also not a fan of first person cinematics - and especially the ones that don't restrict your movement. Rather than more immersive they fell less immersive - characters I am talking to don't make eye contact as devs can't predict where I will be sitting. They do this weird acting pantomime with me watching them, which just fails to feel authentic for me. I also prefered Witchers more intertwined quest - Cyberpunks multiple linear narratives make it a bit more apparent how little agency the player has. It is not that much different than Witchers, who often gave you multiple tasks before moving the story forward, but it feels different. I also feel Johnny's relation ship with V lacks progression. Because his content is tied to quests rather V-Johnny relationship, their interactions feel erratic. When we end up best of chooms at the end, it doesn't feel like a natural progression of the game - maybe there is a set path which makes it feel ok, but in my experience V and Johnny kept switching between being comfortable with each other and hostile stragers throughout. DLC is good. Characters are strong, choices are interesting. Still, same issues with above. I never felt V was interacting with the characters you meet. More like I am an understudy watching other actors act on stage. And while I say good, it is also just more Cyberpunk. I might have hoped for an evolution - perhaps bigger complexity, and more intricate design, but especially main missions were mostly "on rails", making the whole affair rather passive. What I enjoyed the most was side content, as narratively new missions are much stronger than hustles in the base game, and they offer more freedom (or explore specific gameplay systems) more than story missions, which are leaning hard toward scripted events and cutscenes. I also appreciated repeatable car stealing events - reinforcing my feeling that Cyberpunk has more future as a GTA-like, and less so as an RPG. With DLC increasing V's personality I suspect Cyberpunk2 will lean more toward being an open world action game, with light RPG elements - even more so than it does now. CDPR did quite a job fixing Cyberpunk up. I still don't love it, but it is alright for what it is.

I am a Witcher. I have finally bought the Erdtree and redownloaded the Elden Ring. As I was waiting for it to finish downloading, the video popped up on my feed . I will play the DLC first before Joseph convinced me that I actually didn't enjoy it that much. I need to decide now if I want to reload my old save and continue with the DLC, or replay Elden Ring.... I didn't consider replaying it, but than I booted it up and now I kinda want to. Eh, we will see.

Well, there used to be a time when one had to wait for NPCs to open doors for you. I liked it even less. Ideally, one would do a hybrid were NPCs will attept to do things, but players can also do them, but that would add variables that are likely not worth dealing with.

Humankind treated Civs as per-era choice. Layering different civ bonuses on top of each other throughout eras could be interesting. However, no doubt Civs will lose a bit of their identity. Curious how it will pan out in the end.

The actual video for those who want to see Avowed. Livefeed: * 01:30 - oh hi Matt Mercer. Is Sargamis an Aloth is disguise? Or what I prefer to think is, that there was a being with a powerful soul in the past with the voice of Mercer, and as his soul split overtime all that go a piece of it end up with Mercer's voice. * 03:10 - That's a weird camera angle unless we were playing an orlan. Cinematics seem to still need a bit of work. They seem a bit more elaborate than talking faces from Outer Worlds, but so far I prefered OW approach. *6:20 - I much prefer when games take time to create a consistant, understandable language, rather than clarifying what's interactable and what's not through intrusive icons. IF they are necessary, I wish they were part of some highlight feature (like Witcher's sense, or Cyberpunk scanning) rather than constant part of the world. *7:50 - attributes and skills look more or less as I expected. Looks alright *14:13 combat looks alright. UI gets busy indeed. Seems clunky, I wonder if it will scale better at a high resolution. Reminds me a lot of XBOX360 era with its overly large, clunky UIs. *20:30 - companion teleporting for the ability use... is it necessary? Couldn't he just attack from where he was standing? *22:10 - ok, so inspite of intrusive quest pointers, I do appreciate that there isn't one directly pointing you to a thing that you are not supposed to know where it is. *26:40 - animancers continue to be presented as complete maniacs. To be fair, Deadfire was better in that regard, but it is difficult to be on their side if they are presented like some fanatics. Looks alright. I think the game will look very pretty in action. Combat looks ok. Quest aroused my interest at the end, so that's a good sign. Definitely an Eora's game, and it seems they are continuing a lot of PoE1&2 threads, at least in this sidequest.

That's a common comparison, though I always felt it missed what Mafia was aiming for (at least first two). They were never "open world" games as such, but linear narrative games with openworld as a backdrop. As such, I always like Mafia games (at least first two) far more than any GTA title. Red Dead Redemption2 probably was the sweet spot for me, bringing strong narrative focus, and nice world texture through side activities.

If I knew they will post the whole thing later I would have waited

Teasers galore