Hawke64

Completed the game today, it is brilliant. I could complain about the momentum during double jumps and mid-air dashes, but it is not significant.

Mortal Shell. It is an indie Souls-like. After Nioh, it feels incredibly slow and repetitive - there are very few types of enemies with extremely high density of them. Considering that there is not much customisation for the "shells" (playable characters), mowing through them seems pointless. The 3 bosses I've defeated (two of them were mini-bosses, one protecting a shell, another a weapon) were rather straight-forward - find one punishable attack and exploit it. The Hardening system (the MC turns to stone and becomes immune to damage) is an interesting and unique feature, though takes time to get used to. The locations seem to change after the corresponding boss has been defeated, granted I was just running through the one without much exploration, but I think the mobs were different on the way to the boss. I still have a very vague idea about the story, but a not-Firekeeper allows to level up and a giant chained bird-man asked to bring him glands. The MC is a spirit who is able to possess corpses, the titular shells. They have set HP and stamina, but the abilities are unique for each shell and require unlocking them. Also been playing Paradise Killer. It is a first-person adventure game with very few puzzles and a lot of dialogues. The story follows a detective who has been returned from her exile to investigate a mass murder. So far so good. Some mechanics are not obvious, but the game is delightful.

I've checked, the game works in offline mode (no Internet connection at all), but it took several attempts to launch it from the ConanSandbox.exe file - launching through Steam did not work. Most custom key bindings were broken. I haven't checked the mods.

Baiting his party one by one helped. SoD is quite similar to ToB in terms of design, I think. Both feature more points of no-return than the main games, though SoD has more cut-scenes, which in general I strongly detest - unless the PC/the party is/are literally bound, the game must not rob me of control (and the ability to throw fireballs into the fog of war).

Nioh 2. Defeated the Ancient Nyotengu with the power of 3 cats and several Yokai charging items. Fought the Nightmare Bringer again in a side mission. It certainly felt much less epic. Mass Effect 2. The cut-scenes are unintentionally hilarious sometimes - in the Lair of the Shadow Broker the MC switches guns with the camera angles (on a positive note, at least those are the guns equipped this time) and it is assumed that he does not wear a helmet.

Nioh 2. Defeated the Nightmare Bringer, which is the final boss of the final DLC. Turned off the VA by the 3rd attempt. Not bad, but completely irrelevant, as the boss didn't even slow down while talking, and distracting. Started a side mission to save some non-hostile yokai and keep getting obliterated by the mini-bosses. Somehow disappointing after the previous mission. Even more disappointing that the badger doppelganger (a summon) does not respawn after the first death.

It's open-world and classless, but otherwise quite similar to the OT. The most important improvement was the jetpack, which was awesome. The Vaults were fun too.

Nioh 2. Finally defeated (he fled) Otakemaru in the last DLC by using consumables and staying in the Yokai form for the second half of the battle.

They have, as far as I know. https://www.wired.com/story/gaming-industry-unites-russia/

I am curious how it is going to work with less party members. The main story of the DLC should not be affected anyhow.

I know that I have played and completed IWD (except "the expansion within the expansion" part, got burnt out at that point), but I cannot remember much about the game. I think, once the party turtled in a room and fireball'ed the incoming hordes of enemies and the wizard had a cat familiar. And there was an ice dragon at the end? Can't recall it being too difficult, though. My party included the MC and 5 pregenerated companions and I did not min-max (much). BG1 and BG2 certainly were more memorable and engaging (especially those sweet HLA). My PST playthrough is in progress. I've started it some time ago and will pick up again eventually.

GOG Galaxy is not required to run the game. I think it does not force updates, unlike Steam, but I haven't tried to launch WotR via GOG Galaxy, just downloaded the game from the website and blocked it with the firewall. Would suggest to keep the installation files just in case. Not sure from what point, but now gog.com offers only the latest versions of games to download, so switching between versions is possible only via the app.

Haven. I heard that there was a major update, so I reinstalled the game. Unfortunately, the update's content is not accessible on the saves from the previous versions, so I just spent 3 hours hunting an optional boss. By "hunting" I mean leaving the game running and switching to other windows, while waiting for the boss to spawn. Apparently, it could appear only on the islands without camps, because when I started to run in circles around the base island, the signs of it (roaring, screen-tearing effects) were present there. When I sat next to a campsite, there was nothing. I defeated Beruberu on the first attempt, though it took all my healing supplies and some of the buffs. Also the game is slightly more fun to play without dialogues (or any story content). The music is nice, the graphical style is nice, the gameplay is more or less fine, though it can be frustrating at times (when you try to find a specific path/"flow thread"). Allowing to rebind the controls for the right hand and craft several items per session are the most significant improvements. On another note, it is incredibly annoying that the "release first, patch later" philosophy is so prevalent even among independent developers. Like, can you just complete the game before launching it? On the other hand, at least they support it for free, unlike the triple-A publishers with their MTX DLC. Though, for both cases waiting for 1-2 years and purchasing with 50+% discount is the best approach. Edit. Nioh 2. Playing through the side content of the second DLC. Met a ninja cameo character, who proceeded to murder the PC repeatedly. Then fought another boss, who strongly reminded of Vergil from Devil May Cry, with much more success. I would like to add that Nioh 2 - Complete Edition seems to be actually complete and has not tried to force-update itself during my 3-month-long playthrough.

EA released all ME2 DLC for free (can be claimed via Origin, downloaded from https://help.ea.com/en/help/faq/dlc-for-classic-games/#masseffect ). I've started another playthrough with all of them. Reached Omega. So far so good. The dialogue wheel is one of the worst things happen to RPGs, though. On the other hand, the mining mini-game is somehow enjoyable, but likely to turn to grind in a few hours.

As far as I know, the only children who might undergo surgery without their consent are intersex (it is an umbrella category which can include variations in chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and other sex characteristics that do not fit the typical medical establishment’s definitions of “male” or “female"; 1.7% according to the UN statistics). I can't find the list of countries where it is banned. https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/07/25/us-harmful-surgery-intersex-children Welcome. Social transition and hormone blockers. They do not have access to surgeries. Considering the levels of abuse towards LGBT and gender-non-confoming (i.e. not only trans) youth by their biological parents, if the parents' wishes include only the parents' ambitions, but not the child's happiness, they should not have been parents in the first place. https://galop.org.uk/resource/lgbt-experiences-of-abuse-from-family-members/ An anecdotal story from 2018, but gives perspective (regardless of the child actually being gay/straight/cis/trans, he was killed because of his parents' homophobia). https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/mom-pleads-guilty-murder-8-year-old-boy-thought-be-n848741

If a child can access cancer treatment should they have cancer, they must be able to access puberty blockers if they have gender dysphoria. For the reference, 12 year olds get neither surgeries nor HRT. Blockers only prevent the default hormones, which trigger the default puberty when the person stops taking the blockers. For younger kids only social transition, i.e. clothes, hairstyle, pronouns, is available, which obviously have 0 physical consequences. Thus, the only people threatened by trans youth having access to healthcare are transphobes (who'd rather force the children to commit suicide), not just cisgenders who are not affected by it anyhow. On another note, cis people do have their gender-affirming healthcare, TRT/HRT for the people with low hormone levels and implants for breast cancer survivors.

The Waylanders. Completed the second playthrough, which took less than 10 hours. The ending slides played as they should, unlike the first playthrough, though I am unsure what exactly caused it. Another bug encountered is that I was unable to talk with the companions after completing their quests and there were 2 more random crashes.

Is that not typical for the genre? To highlight early main story beats, without spoiling late-game too much, and the differences from the previous game in the series. In this case, transforming into the summoned demons. Several Baoynettas within one game sound like fun (thought that the red witch was Jeanne at first). The new MC somehow reminds of Nero with that jacket and the hook.

Agreed about the grind and too much filler. In AC: Unity and Syndicate I played only the critical path and it was decent, but too similar to any other AC game. Probably, the same for Far Cry. I guess, I am not the target audience for triple-A, as I strongly detest grind, filler, "cinematic" cut-scenes, ridiculous file sizes and most of all GaaS, DRM and MTX. --- The Waylanders. Reached the second Act (again). The second to last difficulty does not seem different from Normal. I hope that the companion quests for the newly-recruited team member will work correctly this time.

Participated in review-bombing Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD, which if I remember correctly was an average AC (played once in 2014), and which Ubisoft tried to take away from the people who had purchased it. The game is available on Steam again, though the note on the store page now says: "DLC for this product and online elements and features will become unavailable, as of Sept 1st, 2022. The base game will continue to be playable" (previously it was that the game itself will not be accessible). I find it increasingly difficult to rationalise purchasing any Ubisoft game in the future. Then again, they haven't released anything I'd be interested in for quite some time. Playing Nioh 2. Reached the second DLC (which is included in the PC edition from the start), got chewed by a demonic cart.

The Waylanders. Replaying it as a Mourian Ranger, as I was often switching to a ranged character during the first playthrough. The differences so far include that none of the companions wants to talk to me after completing their loyalty quests (2 left, so it might change later), but I was able to recruit the last companion, whom I had missed (the cut-scene had not triggered) on the previous playthrough. It might have something to do with the order of completion of the main quests, but not sure. Also, my lore-wise immortal ranger has been repeatedly called a mortal, which suggests that the story was written with a human MC in mind. On the other hand, after gaining the title of Mil Espaine, the MC is only Mil Espaine (whatever that it, the Wikipedia article and the in-game encyclopedia did not help me to figure it out).

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ubisoft-to-turn-off-online-features-for-some-old-games-meaning-players-lose-access-to-dlc Shouldn't expect much from Ubisoft, but removing access to legally purchased products (in this case, DLC) is new. Also, it highlights why supporting DRM-free platforms is preferable. Speaking of, Assassin's Creed 1 is available on GOG (though, it has no DLC, thus not quite the same). So, if Ubisoft was not Ubisoft, they could release older games with all DLC included there, instead of remasters.

The Waylanders. After replaying a short part of the second-to-final quest, it fortunately got unlocked and I was able to locate the path to the corrupted troops I was to slay. The boss of the quest had very lore-friendly stats, as it was a human, though it also meant a rather short battle, 5 vs 1. Then the game offered an important story decision and it was reflected in the ending slide (there was 1 ending slide in total, thus it was the most important choice for the ending). The final quest consisted of 3 boss battles in a row. The first slightly depended on a side quest (if you complete it, the boss has 10% less HP and is half-transparent), the other two seem to be the same regardless of any dialogue choices (there might be something different depending on another side quest and romance, but I was unable to test it, as I would have to replay most of the game and the above-mentioned companion quest was broken). I replayed it twice and noticed that it was impossible to change the party despite the dialogues saying otherwise (the second time I got stuck only with the PC and the mandatory companion). In general, despite the story being quite broken and linear, the locations and builds very minimalistic, and the game having numerous bugs of varying severity, the Waylanders have some charm and I somehow enjoyed it. It is nowhere close Dragon Age and completely different from Pathfinder (not counting the bugs, though in this aspect, the Waylanders lead, undoubtedly), but it is worth one playthrough (~22 hours) if the player does not mind the bugs (i.e. recommended for £15 or cheaper). On a positive note, I like that there are different body types and they depend on the class of the character. It is really immersion-breaking to see wizards and fighters being equally buff. Edit. A small, yet amusing detail about the first boss:

The Waylanders. I've reached the end-game and the main quest has softlocked. I will try it again later from an earlier point. Not counting that "small" issue, it has been quite fun, several (2, to be exact, but one of them twice) previous decisions have been referenced, however insignificant they were. Also another companion quest turned out to be impossible to complete. This time the game kept crashing at one specific point in an unremarkable tunnel. I tried teleporting through the "crash zone", sending the character and switching to another, and turning the camera away while running with the same "Fatal Error!" message at the end. Considering that the exit was on the other part of the corridor, the only way to get out was to reload one of the previous saves. If anyone has any suggestions for the softlock, it would be most welcome. Judging by the Steam achievements, I am 2 quests away from the ending. Stopping now would be most disappointing (unless the ending shown in the video is the best and truest one).

The Waylanders. I have encountered 2 side quests that were impossible to complete, one for the unrecruited companion (who needed to be in the active party in order to progress the quest), the other for a recruited one (the post-quest dialogue did not trigger). One cut-scene for another quest was shown as a black screen with "Sequence LS_032_003_LorencioDefeated_B" at the bottom, but the quest was finished successfully. Fortunately, the main quest line has not got locked (yet). The story is becoming jollier and jollier as the party advances, though the main objective for the last main quest was to gather the scattered party, i.e. not to progress the main objective. Side note, most of the side quests have taken place in different places of the same location - only the relevant for the quest paths were available and the rest blocked. While it is not exactly bad, being able to progress all of them at the same time would have been more convenient, but much harder to code and test.