Hawke64

Finished Get in the Car, Loser. Discovered that Final Fantasy XIII was the inspiration, which explains the design and specifically the combat. That is to say, the narrative and the story are excellent, while the writing accurately represents what I think the manner of speech of the 20 years old people is like and the pixel art style is lovely. The story follows a party of 3 (later, 4) in a semi-fantasy setting on their way to save the world, with the party leader being the not-Chosen One (the actual Chosen One died) and the main character a healer/support. The combat and inventory management, on the other hand, are atrocious. The former breaks into the middle of dialogues, which continue afterwards like nothing happened and the party didn't spend 2 minutes punching robo-dolphins. In terms of the actual process, 1 key = 1 party member performing 1 action and waiting through the cooldown + switching between the item sets, similar to the Paradigm Shift in FF13 (it is a minor improvement). The latter is the most interactive and creative part (for the player) of the game. The party members' abilities are tied to their equipment and in order to slightly upgrade an equipment piece, several others (from ~5 to ~30) must be sacrificed. The equipment comes from the stores, where it is sold in randomly composed packs of 10. The next tier becomes available only after all party members have their current items upgraded. So, the only challenge was the bosses, with the last battle lasting 20 (?) minutes and having several (3+) stages. The issue was that the "regular equipment sets" (used for normal battles) did not work for the 3rd and the 4th bosses, due to their special attacks and quite a lot of HP. Thus, attempting, dying, and trying again was the way. The first boss had its puzzle aspect unrelated to the loadout, the second could be brute-forced, though it would take longer. In conclusion, nothing is lost from watching (reading) it on YouTube.

"The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) have proposed a new method for guaranteeing parental consent to help protect children's privacy online. The method involves "Privacy-Protective Facial Age Estimation" technology, which would scan an adult's face to confirm their age before they're able to consent on behalf a child". https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-ftc-wants-to-know-whether-you-think-facial-age-estimation-technology-is-a-good-idea I can't quite understand how anyone could think that this is a good idea or could work reliably on the technical level.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Tried to replay for a bit, spent an hour respeccing (from a rogue to an Aldori Swordlord) and just running around Drezen. The CPU does not like WotR much for some reason, though I can't remember if it was an issue when I last played. Since it's the GOG version, the game couldn't have changed. I suppose, the replay will have to wait a bit longer - I'd rather feel more progress during short gaming sessions. Anno: Mutationem (not the grand strategy series). Explored the starting area, fought the tutorial battle. The controls are partially rebindable, the mouse is not supported during gameplay. So far, it somehow reminds of Devil May Cry in terms of combat (directional attacks, though Anno:M has a separate key for dodge, like Bayonetta), but 2D and sci-fi.

Concentration loss on hit is possible to disable in the options, if it is too irritating. Not sure if it applies only to the party or to the opponents as well. Also, as was mentioned, there are feats to protect from it.

I think, PoE is closer to PF, considering its single-player and story-focused approach (though, with more combat*), D:OS was more on the multiplayer sandbox side with awful stylistic coherence (gore + humour; but the narrative was backed up by the MP/competitive aspect). So, the full VA, while it was high-quality, was a pointless resource sink. Owlcat seems to know that their target audience does not need the full VA, while Larian is currently going for more "cinematic" games. Neither is inherently bad, but they are different. *PF still was offering more roleplay than D:OS, despite the amount of combat and the additional systems. E.g. the Trickster route was different from the Angel one in both mechanics and specific story content. I guess, it is good that Ubisoft keeps reminding me to avoid their products. Also, I am curious how it aligns with the customer protection laws in the EU - removing time-unrestricted licences cannot be legal.

It is applicable to any game with cut-scenes. E.g. the spawning animation for the Fume Knight in Dark Souls II allowed to take 20% of his health bar before he started moving, while during Godrick's cut-scene in Elden Ring, the PC was listening patiently to his introduction. In regard to BG, it was possible sometimes to throw a fireball, thus switching to the combat mode and skipping dialogues entirely. In D:OS2, usually (not always), only the character who initiated the dialogue was locked into it, while the rest of the party could reposition freely (preferably, behind the foe's back or on the high ground). The drawback was that the battles were balanced with the meta-knowledge on who would spawn where in mind. From what I've played of Larian's D&D game, they went with the "cinematic" hard-locking cut-scenes. Fortunately, like in BG, it seems to be possible to start combat with a well-placed attack and skip the cinematics. Pretty much, yes.

What would happen if you murdered Biff? --- Get in the Car, Loser. Defeated the Act 3 boss and did not run out of fuel. Gameplay-wise, it is one of the worst things I've played, alongside Final Fantasy XIII, which apparently, was the inspiration. Story-wise, it is decent. Questioning whether my gamer ego can let go of something that unpleasant or should I hit the credits for my opinion on it to be "valid". Elden Ring. Found and upgraded a nice shield. Though, I might have to respec to make it more effective. Batbarian. Started the game. So far, I can tell that the controls are rebindable, the fonts can be switched from pixel style to dyslexic ones (I don't have dyslexia, but the last 2 games with pixel fonts were hard to read), the mouse is supported, the writing is funny. Also, there is a cute pet bat.

Elden Ring. Watched a quest NPC being fatally bitten through a wall by a dog t-Rex. Closed the game with Alt+F4. Looted the academy key and rode away from a dragon. Realised that blocking was not viable with the current shield - 1-2 attacks drained the stamina bar. Curious if it is possible to play sword&board at all. Get in the Car, Loser. Got through most of Act 3 with 1 macro, which was activating all abilities with 0.1 delay between them then switching to the next set. Hit the wall at the boss.

Murder by Numbers and The Elder Scrolls Online (base game) are free on EGS. (Was there a separate thread for sales?)

Elden Ring. Somehow, not as well-paced, enjoyable, or engaging as Blasphemous. The hand spiders are amusing, though. Defeated Loretta, then watched a dragon boss fleeing at half health bar while I was shooting at it from the safety of the nearby tower. Get in the Car, Loser. Despite a relatively interesting plot and social commentary, the combat outside of the boss battles can be bound to a macro seemingly without losses. The equipment system encourages it - each equipment item grants 1 ability, which are used in order in combat. The controls are only partially rebindable, and considering that the inventory management is a major part of the gameplay, makes the process rather unpleasant. The first boss battle required some tactical thinking and remembering how to switch targets.

The surface effects were more prominent in D:OS2, so one might have wanted to hit an oil puddle with a fire sword. I think, they were lessened somehow, the cantrips used to create them on contact. I guess, I'd prefer more typical actions (such as reviving a knocked out companion or hitting a foe instead of the floor) to be the default ones, with specific keys to access all available actions. I'm also curious how the stat unrestricted multi-classing is going to work and whether it will be possible to create the whole party at the start without running 4 instances of the game. Finished Blasphemous. Overall, a very well-made and good-looking action-adventure/Metroidvania. The combat, traversal, and exploration are enjoyable, though there are significant difficulty spikes in the DLC areas and the insta-killing spike pits are extremely irritating. Also, the "true end" version of Crisanta is an amazing farming point, as each stage counts as a separate boss battle. Review:

I think, it was quite similar in D:OS2. Also Solasta had less random junk items everywhere and generally better visibility (from fonts to GUI in general to environments). Though, the inventory systems are rather uncomfortable in both (few tabs and limited sorting).

It is somehow unsettling that ChatGPT can easily produce believable output, including explanations, for code, yet verifying/debugging it takes quite a lot of time and effort. Especially when the components described have been deprecated since the training data for it was acquired.

This sounds brilliant. I might try it if I ever replay Skyrim. Celeste. Slowly climbing up. The story is picking up and the game overall is genuinely nice. Edit. Finished the main game. An excellent platformer with gorgeous art and touching story. Review: Elden Ring. Defeated Margot the Fell Omen at level 25 with a Scimitar +3, then Godrick the Grafted at level 40 with a Scimitar +4. The delay in rolling is very noticeable and irritating, so are the hard-coded menu controls, including the map. Which I had not known I could access out of the bonfires/sites of Grace, because the key was not in the settings. Wandered the Limgrave and Caelid areas for 2 hours, discovered the entrance to the Siofra river, ran away from several dragons and the duo of pumpkin head bosses, found another boat necromancer and killed it. I suppose, the locations are still as lovely as they were in Dark Souls 1, but the reskinned or simply copy-pasted bosses are somehow disheartening. The ones in ER strongly remind of Immortal: Unchained. Somehow Conan: Exiles, Dragon's Dogma, and even Shadow of the Colossus, not to mention The Elder Scrolls, had more engaging open-world structures than ER. There were quests, there were more traversal abilities, there were unique bosses. I suppose, I had had unreasonably high expectations, given the developers' previous games (which have become worse), the high ratings, and the price, hence the disappointment. Still going to finish it, though. The mods are on and I should be able to just run into the next main area, skipping the grind.

Watched the romance cut-scene on YouTube. The "bear" was a buff (half?)elf druid and anything above the age rating was covered by grass and twigs. Not counting the general weirdness of streaming emotional player-driven moments in front of a howling audience, it seemed fine. Curious if the general narrative style is closer to Baldur's Gate or Divinity (grimdark gore with "lol so random"). I was certain that Larian has toned downed the barrels and surface effects during the EA and D&D 5e should be relatively harder to break than D:OS. Though, I have not watched the whole show, only the articles and some clips.

The last Origin for Larian's D&D game has been announced. Now it is possible to integrate murdering random NPCs into your roleplay. https://www.pcgamesn.com/baldurs-gate-3/dark-urge On one hand, the more options, the better. On the other, why only CE? Also, now I am curious if it affects the child immortality there.

I generally prefer RTwP to TB and TB to the weird thing in Final Fantasy VII/7 (probably 7, the one with "select the menu option while on timer because hotkeys are hard"). My issue with D:OS was that the animations were unskippable (in WotR it was possible to triple the speed and, as painful as that one battle was, at least it was faster) and that only the combat area was entering the TB mode, so everyone else could randomly wander into it. In terms of encounter design, often something was appearing out of nowhere (e.g. the second wave of slimes in the oil pits) and there was no way to prepare except for the meta knowledge. Then all surfaces were lava (sometimes literally) and just finding a safe spot to stand was a problem. Though, I think, Larian has lowered the number of environmental hazards in their D&D game. Going to play it at some point, but likely in co-op. On a related note, Wasteland 3 had this amazing feature of switching between the players in dialogues (providing that the other player was in range) with 1 button. I strongly doubt that Larian will add it, so triggering dialogues with the rogue/fighter then reloading and putting the bard in front is going to be a thing. Elden Ring. Defeated a dog/cat statue boss, then went to another dungeon and died to 2 dog/cat statue bosses, then went to the main story castle and died to some guy with magic hammer. Then defeated a skeleton boss with a boat and ran away from a dragon boss. The two positive things I can say so far are there is a horned horse called Torrent and Torrent can double jump. Considering just modding the game and running the critical path. Overall, the open-world in Dragon's Dogma and Shattered: The Forgotten Subtitle was more enjoyable and engaging. They also were smaller and the PCs were less flinch-y.

Blasphemous. An incredibly well-made Metroidvania. Not sure if the gore and the religious aesthetics are supposed to make it more humorous, but they do. The visual design is outstanding and the controls are reasonably comfortable, though the insta-kill spike traps are rather unfun. Discovered that I can get more Estus Flasks by filling the empty ones at the blood fountains after the third (?) boss. Celeste. A very beautiful platformer. Despite the checkpoints being quite frequent, I activated almost all Assist Options by the end of the second area and didn't feel like I was missing anything. I guess, my reaction limit is closer to PoPTSoT than Celeste. The soundtrack might get slightly annoying, though.

Thank you for the suggestion. I will look into it, though installing BIOS images correctly might require slightly more experience than I have. Edit. It seems Asus actually locked the voltage settings in one of the updates (I doubt that the files for a different model would work for mine): https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/qdvyui/asus_undervolt_unlocked_for_model_gl704gw_via/

I am looking for a safe way (software suggestions and step-by-step guides) to decrease the CPU temperature while being able to use the notebook for gaming (Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3) and ML (e.g. XGBoost). Asus ROG GL704G, Intel® Core™ i7-8750H. The CPU reaches 90+C under stress. The goal is <80C without blue screen, ~45C when idle. The notebook has not been used much and changing the thermal paste at the moment is not an option. I have not found the CPU-related settings in UEFI/BIOS. I have tried to decrease the performance via Control Panel/Power Options, but it did not change anything, and to undervolt the CPU with ThrottleStop by -125mV (cores and caches)*, but it led to hard crash and 3 blue screens. The monitoring software is HWMonitor. Could try with smaller steps (-50mV), though would prefer to know more about the process first. *the guide used: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-undervolt-cpu-guide/ Edit. Found an official Intel software (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/17881/intel-extreme-tuning-utility-intel-xtu.html), which lists CoffeeLake as supported, but not the exact CPU model. If anyone has experience working with, the information would be most welcome.

Chests, not barrels. Barrels are single-use, chests last for the whole game. From what I've heard, there should be less surface effects than in D:OS, though, as you've said, meta is still recommended (getting everyone into stealth and on the higher ground before starting combat). I guess, there should be less obvious exploits in a year of active updates. Then again, they might be features, not exploits. Edit. The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk is free on EGS.

Finished The Last Hero of Nostalgaia (pronounced as Nostal-GA-ia). It is an action-adventure/Souls-like. The world is dying and only the main character can save it. The controls are rebindable, the progress is saved on exit. Can't exactly recommend or not recommend, thus not posting it on Steam - the combat is clunky and the backtracking is uncomfortable, but the location design is memorable and the weapon upgrade system is unique. Though, I had to edit the save file to enable fast travel (after trying to backtrack through the woods) and to fix a failed side quest (the time limit and the need to backtrack were not clear). Review:

I think that the puzzle or stealth elements don't work well with more active action platforming. E.g. Guacamelee is an excellent platformer/metroidvania, but has no puzzles or stealth. Same for Celeste (the game is very impressive, but I don't think I would be able to play it without the Assist Mode). The Last Hero of Nostalgaia. It is a purposefully junky Souls-like. Some systems are simpler, some are more intricate. The location design feels a bit linear (the path forward, a dead end, a shortcut), but nice otherwise - there are reasons to return to the previously visited areas, but I have not unlocked the fast travel system yet (if it is present in the game). The second boss battle was ridiculous (might have something to do with me trying to use a new sword and repeatedly misjudging the attack range) - several very different stages, including a group, and the save point was far. Edit. Reached the Wilds (woods). The place is a labyrinth and it is connected to the previously-visited areas.

Finished Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. It is as good as can be expected, though the technical quality of the Sands of Time was higher. I think the boss battle against the twins was bugged (the Eye of the Storm ability turned off after one hit), I fell ~12 times on the jumping plate in the Middle Tower (it did not throw me far enough to reach the dagger-holding point), and there are quite a few differences between the pre-rendered cut-scenes and in-game graphics. Mixed feelings about the idea of accepting fixable mistakes*. The total playtime is around 5 hours, including 20-30 minutes away from keyboard. *

Somewhere in the middle of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. A few things I've noticed only because I'm playing through the series sequentially - the sound design is better (VA, music, and random noises are separated mostly correctly), the targeting is much less forceful, and the boss battles are somehow more diverse (might be because of the QTEs, though - no giant griffons* this time). On the other hand, the graphics and animations are poorer and the gallery unlocks are not exactly immersive (the "Sand Credits"). *it was odd that the only boss faced during the infinite Sand period did not have any Sand-related gimmicks (like slowing down Mahasti in T2T). Purchased The Last Hero of Nostalgia after playing the demo. It is a Souls-like with a very unfriendly narrator, similar to The Stanley Parable. The controls are comfortable and mostly rebindable and the progress is saved on exit. Will continue after finishing the trilogy.