Hawke64

The Blackwell series. Finished. While it looks mostly (different games have slightly different styles) good, the logic of the puzzles often eluded me, while the story included a bit too many holes. Though, I do not play adventure games often. Also, the games should have been bundled together more explicitly - each of them is short and the story in the later ones does not work well on its own. Steelrising. I suppose, while the level design in Spiders' games has never been their strength, combined with the awful visual design (every surface shines) and terrible performance (at least, it stopped frying the CPU with the said CPU safely throttled), it is significantly more noticeable and does not make a good impression. On the positive side, the controls are rebindable, 5-button mice supported, the Assist Mode allows to disable losing "souls" on dying, which is convenient (considering that parrying with 25 FPS is rather challenging). Saints Row. Slowly progressing. So far, it seems like a very nice story about friendship and comradery (or PG13-appropriate gang violence in the US), which is rather nice. Death of a Wish. An excellent surreal action game with engaging combat and unique visual design.

https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-rpg-bundle The price is suspiciously affordable, but Fanatical is a well-known platform and (most of) the games in the bundle are good. Except Mortal Shell, but for this price, it is adequate. I will probably get the OST/DLC for the ones I like.

I actually would like to see the system implemented more widely in single-player only RPGs. Specifically in DD (the saving system was extremely poor, I would add), it was possible to create your own party via Steam Family Sharing and several accounts. Granted, every pawn had to be levelled up separately, and the behaviour respec books provided more reliable results than training.

I would add The Waylanders, though it is not exactly the best of the genre. The wishlist shows Sovereign Syndicate, but I can't tell if it is turn-based or not. The Way of Wrath, Worldstone Chronicles, New Arc Line seem fine? That is to say, there are few high-quality* party-based CRPGs in a fantasy setting at the moment. *have a professional writer and functional gameplay systems --- https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/that-189gb-epic-games-hack-may-have-been-a-scam-aimed-at-other-hackers Well, I still have changed my password.

Looking forward to DD2. From what I remember, MH combat was significantly slower and less responsive, while there also were fewer readable indicators of how well it was going (e.g. monster's HP bar) and the encounter design was not particularly fun (e.g. chasing the monster after injuring). The companion cats were cool, though. Can't recall if they could launch you on the monster, like fighter Pawns do.

Saints Row The active graphical settings are highly unlikely to be used by anyone else, so it might be not exactly representative. There is something amusing about this. The low visibility is intentional. The cat looks a bit off, but good enough for the first actual cat in the series.

Finished Sands of Aura last week and did that one side quest that kept resetting. Basically, you had to defeat a very sturdy mini-boss 7 times without resting and without closing the game while running through the whole area. In the end, it took 2 attempts and about 20 minutes with end-game equipment. Overall, it was a decent Souls-like, nothing exceptionally bad, though the story was not exactly engaging and the lack of target lock was rather inconvenient. The equipment-based character development system and the setting were unusual. Review (long): Started the Blackwell series and finished Legacy. The story follows a journalist and a ghost trying to send restless spirits into the afterlife. I can say with certainty that the progress made by the developers in all aspects is very noticeable when compared to their later games. (i.e. the game is short and the first puzzles make no sense). But the ability to combine ideas was rather nice and the pixel art style looks good. The wisdom of the Internet (PC Gaming Wiki, in particular) allowed me to overcome the EGS DRM on Saints Row and I was able to launch it through Steam. Which means that I do have a DRM-free version. The game runs worse than SR3 and 4, but it was to be expected. I haven't progressed far, but it feels like that the developers might have aimed at a younger audience. Still, the game is fun and I like the MC and the companions. Also there is a cat.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/epic-games-reportedly-hit-by-200gb-ransomware-attack-including-login-and-payment-info

Sands of Aura The maces and the combat style were an unusual combination. Also reminded of lollipops. The hugging thing is not a piece of equipment. After getting several of them, I noticed that they decrease the maximum health. The boss of the area Some got behind the textures. The boss of the area The fire that killed the FPS (the location is a spoiler): Got the musicians. Final bosses Endings

Could you please share what game it is? --- Sands of Aura. Found and killed Patches. Any verticality and this camera angle work odd together. Got stuck in an infinite fall. "You Need a Smith to Continue". Then who is that at the forge? A merchant. Edit. And the MC's default and only name is "Player".

Sands of Aura. Slowly progressing through the game, should be past 50%, unless there is another world map/new locations opening up. The game is fine, I suppose, not counting the top-down-ish camera angle. There are some character customisation, reasonably interesting equipment and their upgrades, some quests with light branching, etc. The story and writing are not exactly engaging*, but serviceable. The absence of stamina is welcome and the spell-like abilities are generally decent (e.g. teleporting behind a foe on hit). I think that there is some synergy between equipment, runes, and spells, but considering the upgrade costs, I am going to continue to use the starting swords and the armour set from the first non-tutorial area. Some of bosses are rather interesting, some are infuriating for wrong reasons. In particular, Einar and his ice ball bullet-hell attacks. After the first attempt, I improved my equipment quite a lot and just face-tanked the attacks. I don't understand how could one dodge the wall-piercing ice (the balls clipped through any obstacles), while also being pushed by invisible wind. * In terms of bugs, I got stuck between boxes and could not get out (quitting did not help, so had to get back to the "bonfire") only once. --- If anyone played, is King's Bounty II any good? Seeing a 90% discount this early is slightly suspicious (bugs?).

Thank you for the suggestion. I couldn't pick the process with Process Explorer, but Resource Manager told that the EDB.log and EDB.check are used by the system. So, I backed up the files on an external drive and removed them from C:. The PC didn't crash, and it seems to be fine. (I will have to do a clean reinstall at some distant point in the future. Somehow, it is easier with work PCs and Windows Autopilot).

I've noticed the free space on the (small) system drive decreasing and there are some odd log files in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer\Database, around 4GB of them. Are they safe to remove? From what search engines have shown, the EDB.log is a transaction log file and related to the Windows Start Menu, but that's it.

Saints Row 2 things that should have been advertised more and the reason why I will purchase it on sale on Steam (got for free on EGS; would love to get it on GOG, though). The character creator is amazing and is better than it used to be in the previous games (and already was very impressive back then). (Was going to post a screenshot with the prosthetics more visible, but the MC was also significantly less dressed).

Itorah The MC's facial expressions are excellent. Ending spoilers.

My condolences, Raithe.

Finished Itorah. It is a reasonably well-made Metroidvania. The story follows the last human (who is also a child) named Itorah and a talking axe named Koda (neither name appears too often) who are trying to find out what happened to the humanity and fight against the plague which is threatening the present not-humans (anthropomorphic animals, like Mickie Mouse, and living masks with limbs). The level design is functional - there are very few optional secrets and most of the maps must be explored in order to proceed. The movement controls are tight, rebindable (but limited to the keyboard only), responsive, and comfortable. All actions were executed perfectly. The character development system consists of health, stamina (required for some, but not all, attacks and actions, such as sprinting), the number and the potency of the healing items. In order to upgrade, some XP and material components (very few, fixed position on the map) are required, while the upgrades themselves can be done only in the main hub. Most areas loop back, and it is reasonably easy to reach the town on the way to the next objective. Since there is no fast travel, it is as convenient as it gets. From what I can tell, there is only one ending. The combat can be described as functional as well. There is 1 ground combo, singular directional and aerial attacks, and dodging (consumes stamina). The bosses are diverse and some of the encounters consist of running, instead of combat. However, they do not have visible health bars and there is only one difficulty. On the other hand, it is usually clear when the battle progresses and phases change. The saving system is checkpoint-based and there is usually one right before bosses. The graphics and visual design are beautiful - painted 2D images and backgrounds, though seeing the interactive objects occasionally was challenging. The soundtrack is rather good as well, the voice acting is limited to some noises to indicate who is talking. No bugs were encountered during the playthrough (Steam says 10 hours). Overall, it was a positive experience. --- Sands of Aura. After I've upgraded the swords, the game started to remind Diablo-likes, rather than Dark Souls. --- Saints Row. Created the main character. The range of settings (character creation, controls, accessibility) is amazing, though the DRM is not. I will probably get it on Steam on sale (would prefer GOG, but not available there). I am also pleased that it runs on my main PC, which I had doubts about.

Alan Wake: American Nightmare. Finished. The protagonist is actually controllable and can reliably dodge, the variety of weapons and foes is much higher, and the story is on the same level. The NPC designs, animations, and cut-scenes are noticeably worse. Still, it took 3 hours to complete the story mode. Strayed Lights. Started. It was looking like a nice action-adventure about a spirit of light whose parts were scattered throughout the world. There are no spoken dialogues, but the visual design was very bright and clear (very orange, very blue, and occasionally purple). It promptly tried to fry my CPU, so I was rather happy that I got it in a bundle. Probably will replay on another PC later, though. Itorah. Started. A Metroidvania. The protagonist is silent, the battleaxe is talkative, the environments are beautiful. The keyboard controls are rebindable, mice are not supported at all.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/watch-out-prince-of-persia-theres-another-platforming-packed-metroidvania-coming-to-steal-your-crown A Metriodvania, a part of the EA Originals. The article compares it to the recent Ubisoft release. £18 instead of £50, uses Denuvo instead of Ubisoft DRM. From my experience (10 minutes), the demo runs, the controls are mostly rebindable, except the movement (several WASD presets for that, but no arrows or the numpad), the FPS drops are noticeable. I assume the latter will be solved upon the release. The story seems fine - a young shaman makes a deal with a god of death to bring his father back.

I've watched the 2:50 gameplay trailer. The dialogue options look disappointing, the rest seems fine. Might be fixed before release, but doubtful.

Agreed. I'd blame the lack of keys on controllers. On the other hand, Dragon's Dogma (originally a PS3 game) on PC allowed to use several abilities as combinations of keys, while Dark Souls, as mentioned above, allowed to scroll through spells (it was not convenient). Also, I think, in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the number of active abilities was 8. So, it can be done and, hopefully, will change before release.

Alan Wake. Finished the main game, started the DLC. The story is nice, the technical aspects of the gameplay, where the MC cannot hit in melee, sprint for long, or dodge reliably (might be the "git gud" thing) could be better. I suppose, the MC wasn't working out, unlike the Control MC, who could sprint indefinitely. In terms of structure and pacing, Alan Wake feels tighter than Control, though losing all gathered weaponry at the start of each episode was unpleasant. The music was excellent. Slay the Princess. The developers were quite compelling in their post, thus, I purchased the game on GOG. The art style and the voice acting (which I kept on, because the Voices/characters had too similar fonts, except the Princess) were very expressive and fitting, while the length of each scene aligned perfectly with my attention span. The most important aspect for me was how much the game reacted to my choices and how many branching paths were there. After finishing the game, I can confirm that there were many more than I have experienced (checked an achievement guide) and I would like to try some of them.

Could be context dependent, like, if (target==enemy) and (distance to the target>5 m) and (weapon type==melee), then (charge); or even something more simple. Not a new thing*, but if it is possible to program the conditions for the actions to be used, like it was in Dragon Age and PoE, it would be convenient. *I remember in Vampyr, teleportation, picking up items, and talking to people used the same key.

Probably old news, but the new games on Steam have started to explicitly state how the generative AI was used during the development. So far, 3 of anime-style products released today have it. Examples: I suppose, it allows to make informed decisions about purchasing them, which would be harder if it was a tag that could be added to the Ignore list (granted, mine is already full). E.g., DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is ML, so the text-based disclosure seems like the best solution.

I've been using it, though only JPEG can be uploaded as screenshots through Steam (which now crashes with a 50% chance when I open the Screenshots window). With the uncompressed files and, for example, Imgur, it looks much better. Control end-game spoiler.