Hawke64

Vampyr A boss. No background or lore, just another vampire hunter standing in a warehouse, which I needed to cross, and seeing through the invisibility spell. There were two respawning mobs, who were possible to stun and bite, while the biting animation granted invulnerability. That is to say, the MC is biting a random foe while standing in fire is depicted on the image. It was a rescue side quest, where I needed to kill a vampire 11 levels above me who could 1-shoot me (on the screenshot). I could not rest and level up, because it would have failed the quest, nor could I kill the opponent (it was possible theoretically, I just could not do so). So I lured the lvl 27 vampire to the area with the vampire hunters. The vampire's AI switched to returning to his area, so he did not attack, while the vampire hunter just kept hitting him. "Choices". Chapter 3 spoilers

What I do like about Vampyr is the atmosphere and visual style, voice acting and facial animations (much better than Larian's), and the MC being generally nice and unintentionally funny. About a half of the game is spent asking people random questions about their lives and occasionally about quests. The cast is reasonably interesting and diverse, and surprisingly willing to talk about their love lives and childhood traumas to a random guy at night. Technically, the information gained increases the amount of XP from the NPC should the player decide to eat them, but doing so (eating them) also damages the District's health and blocks the good ending. On the negative side, only killing the civilians, including serial killers and gang leaders, has undesirable consequences. Slaughtering legions upon legions of vampire hunters is fine. Also, it is not possible to partially drink a civilian and let them be on their merry way, while insta-killing a vampire hunter by biting is not possible either*. Additionally, only some information leads to quests. So, you can't report the above-mentioned serial killer to the police or fix a patient's arm or encourage some criminal to become a law-abiding accountant. Still, overall, it is an enormous improvement over the developer's previous game, Remember Me, where because of the MC’s unavoidable actions, an assassin blew up a hospital and the MC herself caused a flood in several parts of the city. I can't quite recall if the MC was an antihero or not. If compared to other developers, the combat and controls are significantly better than in The Witcher 3, and the MC does not get stuck in book stacks nor suffers from falling damage. *The XP gains from a civilian range from 500 to 5000, while a vampire hunter, even if he was repeatedly stunned and bitten, yields 5. Which is weird logically - the hunters seem healthy enough, but it does make sense from the gameplay perspective, as eating the civilians is supposed to be tempting. While it is not the best game ever made, if you like action-adventures with light RPG elements, it might be an enjoyable experience. It is also on sale at the moment (80% discount). Edit. Forgot to mention, the only unique boss so far is the Vampire Boss #3. The rest started to appear throughout the city.

Vampyr. Due to the spoiler nature of the boss of Chapter 3, I shall refer to them as Vampire Boss #3. So, the battle started easily enough, with the boss hitting slowly and me counter-attacking. Occasionally, the boss was throwing up blood and spawning 3 delayed AoE areas, centred on the MC, while still attacking. At 70% HP, the boss ate the human who was sitting in the middle of the arena and regained their full health. The AoE attack pattern and length kept changing during the battle, ending with covering most of the arena in uneven patches, while the boss' normal attack speed increasing. Somehow, putting XP into the biting damage helped. On another note, the area design has become irritating - too many corridors, too inconsistent rules for movement. Why can I teleport only to some ledges from some angles, but not the others that look the same? Why can't I interact with gates in combat? On a funny note, the aggro resets when the MC enters a non-combat area, i.e. the foes just turn around and return to their previous positions.

Since Steam Winter Sale has started, has anyone played Cloud Meadow? I can see that it has erotic content, the question is it any good as a party-based RPG? That is to say, there are few titles I find both interesting, discounted, and possible to run (so no Lies of P or Tunic). Definitely getting Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood, though. Edit. Got Dread Delusion instead. Somehow reminds of Morrowind. Also sold 62 cards from the Steam inventory. No idea why they are still so popular, but can't complain in the context. Ghostwire: Tokyo is free on EGS today. Judging by the system requirements, I will not be able to run it on my main PC, though the storage space seems reasonable (26GB). Could try later, I guess. Is it at any point necessary to bite the civilians? XP-wise, the amount from the ones I can mesmerise (level 2) is too low and the vampire hunters and zombies have been sufficient so far.

The Outer Worlds Also got a reptile dog after the quest, though not a combat companion. Vampyr No idea why the citizens had more blood than werewolves and could not be bitten only partially. The werewolves could. Most opponents will return to their locations if kited too far and can be bitten repeatedly.

Vampyr. A functional action-adventure in the fantasy/historical setting, London 1918. The protagonist is a medical researcher and practitioner, who recently returned from war, was turned into a vampire, accidentally killed his sister, and trying to find the vampire who bit him. The controls are rebindable, though the consoles-first approach can be felt and the Tab key cannot be rebound (so I've been randomly opening the map while trying to lock on targets; additionally, the mouse movement is used to switch between them, thus, I do not use lock-on if there is more than one foe). Overall, the combat is functional - a bit float-y Souls-like with Blood instead of mana (can be drunk from humans and zombies; haven't seen anything too undead or mechanical to bite yet) and no free jumping (possible to get on some predetermined balconies). The developers seem to find implementing an adequate saving system to be too challenging, so manual saving is done through Windows Explorer after touching the crafting stations or travelling (on foot) between areas. I still cannot figure out if combat brings XP (there is a small delay between the kill and XP gain), the bosses so far have been the regular opponents with larger health bars. The District Stability system justifies that the MC is a doctor, so he can craft meds and distribute them, thus keeping non-combat areas standing. As I understand, the NPCs are possible to kill (somehow - can't draw weapons in the non-combat areas) and it affects the ending. The graphics, sound, and writing seem to be fine. I am somehow fond of the developer, got the game on EGS, and it required only 14.2GB of storage space, thus, I am satisfied with the experience.

Faster development cycle, less pressure from the shareholders, more artistic freedom, I suppose. The last Mass Effect was released in 2017 and the next Bioware sci-fi game does not have a release date yet. Looks like camera is zooming on his head/changing the FOV while he is being strangled to emphasise that Sarevok is Evil-aligned and killing a now-defenceless guard? So, Sarevok gets a face-obscuring helmet with horns, while the guard's face and emotions are shown. "Some days, only a narrative-heavy game will hit the spot, and this one packs a wallop. It's as gripping as any soap opera, and as well-tuned as a prestige-TV screenplay. Bravissimo -- for making us feel things!" I somehow struggle to picture any of these having much story depth, but the Souls-like probably makes people feel things and throw gamepads. Larian's game, though, made me feel "Whoa, I can jump!" and "Whoa, I can throw the bosses into chasms instead of listening to them monologing", so that's something. Is the dating sim any good?

The slightly-animated scenes looked better than the original 3D models (rewatched the EE intro on YouTube), while also more affordable. I suppose, the audio could have been edited as well, but it was fine overall.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/earthraiser/earthraiser-total-liberation An adventure (?) game about animal rights. Seems interesting enough. It has been funded and 45 hours to go.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/happy-holidays-with-gog-rpgs A GOG bundle from HumbleBundle. I already own most of the games on different platforms, including GOG, but it is nice to see a DRM-free bundle.

The Pathless. 4 bosses defeated. The game is very beautiful and the movement system has a good balance of fluid and responsive with the ability to move faster with some physical feedback (shooting talismans for speed boosts and stamina recovery). Which reminded me of training Acrobatics in Morrowind during travels by tapping the Space bar. Edit. Steam crashes every second time when I try to view and upload my screenshots. Can't quite recall after which update it started to happen.

I find it somehow uncomfortable when there is advertisement in the game itself. By the way, the text in the lower right corner can be edited in some of the configuration files. The Outer Worlds The Pathless You can pet the bird. Steam seems to compress the images a little too much.

The Murder on Eridanos. In progress. Somehow surprised at the number of assassination attempts the victim had survived before dying. After spending 2 months on LinkedIn, the writing seems especially touching and thought-provoking, while remaining humorous. I also remembered that I was not particularly fond of the combat and items, though, the former has been mostly avoidable so far. Spirit of the North. It is a walking simulator with light puzzles, platforming elements, and collectibles (bringing staves to skeletons). The protagonist is a fox who follows a fox spirit across a northern landscape. It is an impressive project for 2 people - it is playable, consistent, short, and it looks and runs fine. On the other hand, there are no rebindable controls, the controls in general feel clunky, the last area was a navigational nightmare, and I had one soft-lock. I also was unable to launch the EGS version through Steam, so there are very few screenshots taken. Still, it is significantly better than Lost Ember, another game with a fox following a spirit, due to the spirit being a silent fox instead of a narrator.

The people targeted by MTX and lootboxes are slightly more vulnerable to addictive gambling*. The monetisation also destroys the design and quality of the original work, like can be seen with Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (currently available on GOG with 85% discount). Granted, most "games" that use those are trash with or without MTX. *https://www.ign.com/articles/heres-how-loot-box-addiction-destroys-lives Not the best example, as does not cite statistical research numbers, but suitable enough. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/please-stop-huffing-your-steam-deck-vent-fumes-valve-plead-as-players-obsess-over-new-deck-smell https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/how-does-time-dilation-set-exodus-apart-from-mass-effect-it-supersizes-all-of-the-choices-that-you-make Curious if they will be able to make it work. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/prince-of-persia-the-lost-crown-has-a-big-brewing-frenemy-battle-on-its-hands-and-it-cant-come-soon-enough

Started The Outer Worlds Halcyon DLC. The antivirus quarantined one of the files, so spent some time trying to figure out why the game was not launching. Spent an hour talking to people (and checking their pockets for access cards). The game looks gorgeous (might have something to do with running at 60 FPS), from style to animations, and the dialogue options are varied. I also greatly appreciate the static skill checks.

Thank you.

Act 3 (House of Hope) Act 3 (ending) Act 3 (Good Dark Urge unique epilogue)

Yes. While the controls are rebindable in both, Larian's game tends to reset the custom hot keys, 1-0. Some QoL features might be implemented later (some party management was added recently), I doubt that it will be as good as WotR. The cut-scenes do not work well with the immersive sim elements and the general plot clashes with D&D lore and occasionally BG1/2. Still, the critical path is much shorter than WotR, which encourages replaying it (to test whether the final boss can be defeated while dual-wielding salamis).

WotR very rarely tried to mess with the player* and was generally physically (rebindable controls, pause, etc.) comfortable to play, while the story was stylistically consistent for each Mythic Path and the companions, even of the opposing alignments, were cooperative. Though, I was not particularly fond of the length of a single playthrough, continuous updates (still ongoing, I think?), Season Passes, and especially the attempt to install spyware. Fortunately, GOG allowed to ignore the latter. *with that backer's turn-based quest, the puzzles, and the conditions to get an extra companion being the exceptions.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rogue-trader-is-the-first-warhammer-40k-game-ive-played-that-feels-genuinely-epic The RPS preview seems to be favourable. For those who have played, could you confirm that the system requirements are correct (storage space and VRAM, in particular) and, if you have experienced it, whether the overheating issue that was present in PF has been fixed? Considering how the previous Owlcat titles went technically and the presence of a Season Pass (which, as I understand, was not available for backing), I probably will wait for a few months. Still, looking forward to the game. MINIMUM: OS: Win10 Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 / Intel HD Graphics 630 DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 40 GB available space

Epilogues (Dark Urge) Epilogues (Githyanki) Epilogues (general) Act 3 (Dark Urge, Orin's questline)

Thank you for the information. I am happy to see a DRM-/MTX-/DLC-free game to get those awards. --- Regarding my playthroughs, played the epilogues for the existing characters, though the Dark Urge bug persisted, so currently trying to finish the run without the bug. Discovered that (spoilers for Orin's questline): Now they jiggle, by the way. Discovered when failing to respec a hireling and having to go through all visual customisation options (I do not know why these two different aspects requiring different NPCs were somehow connected). For the future reference, pressing "Random" populates all the fields and allows to close the customisation window and successfully respec the character. --- The epilogues include the dialogues with the companions (animated and all), short newspaper (Baldur's Mouth) headers for some of the quest outcomes, and the letters from the surviving NPCs (some are generic, some depend on the player's choices). The latest point to trigger the epilogues is final decision above the city. Otherwise, the unpatched scene will play out. Also, for some reason, Wyll called the gith PC "Lae'zel" in the epilogue.

Well, if nothing else, it seems to cover the violence (melee/magic)/stealth/persuasion approaches. So, technically fine. Curious if Banu Haqim can utilise the social and stealth aspects at the same time (will there be enough skill points?).

I agree with most of the points mentioned except these two. Ironically, the Evil, murderhobo-style, path is less developed than the heroic one, ranging from the fewer quests (the dead NPCs don't have replacements) to the increased difficulty. The only genuinely Good-aligned (CG) and sympathetic companion is Karlach, the tiefling barbarian. Also, Wyll, the human warlock, but the "I am the Blade of Frontiers and definitely not a warlock" thing might get on one's nerves. --- https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/skyrims-latest-update-brings-back-paid-mods-with-an-easier-way-for-creators-to-sell-their-work There is a suspicion that Bethesda broke the older mods on purpose, as only the newly-developed independent mods are eligible for the programme, but I would bet on negligence rather than malice. Also, the GOG version should not be affected by the developers' poor decisions post-release.

Wyll's companion quest. End-game. Epilogue.