Lexx

Today is release day.

More Bloodborne yesterday. Finished the Living Failures - wasn't really good, wasn't really bad. Made it through the fight with barely any hitpoints left. Did Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower right after and man, that is probably one of the most fun battles I had recently. Really nice, and I was actually sad to finish this one, because I really like to replay it. Also, awesome new clothes, probably going to roll with them till the end of the game now.

Them not mentioning who is working on the game is not a good thing in my book. They probably fear some huge backlash .. why else hide it?

The best thing about covid is that you can blame almost every delay on it.

I'm in episode 4 right now. After the first episode I was a bit meh, but it has gotten better now. Truth told, I already expect some weird / odd ending, because that's my experience with K-Dramas so far. Then again, Because This Is My First Life felt pretty good all around and it didn't had the need to add in some OH MY GOD twist in the end.

After 20+ attempts I finally managed to beat Ludwig, The Holy Blade. Was a huge pain and it cost me at least 15 insight. In the end I kinda just won by accident, because for some reason I've managed to land 2 visceral attacks on him before he was able to burn me to the ground (a matter of seconds). Thing is, the game can be easy if you are able to manage all it's mechanics ... parry and visceral attacks make it *a lot* easier. The problem is just that I am often unable to perform them in time. It's not even the input lag, but some actions don't want to trigger or trigger with delay. Example: I need to heal asap, but I also need to gtfo. What am I doing? I'll jump back quickly and heal up.. but the healing didn't work (I was still in the last frame of the jump probably) and in this split second I realize the boss will hit me again, so I try to jump once more, but then suddenly the healing triggers and I'm stuck in place and get hit ... Happens all the time. Kinda wish there would be some extra training mode, where you can just do stuff like dodge and parry without loading times and long walkways.

My project was just announced for release on november 18th:

I thought the drawing style is really good in JoJo. One of the fav things about it for me, even.

I mean, there is a reason why MS bought Bethsoft.

Yeah, I raged about it a lot when I started playing. Often the generic mobs are tougher and a much bigger deal than the actual boss fights. Then you suddenly have a boss that just keeps wrecking you like hell. The worst mobs are probably the brain suckers, right up there with winter lanterns(?). Really making me angry.

I mean, this version of Heresy is also more a throwback to the early days of Pretty Hate Machine, which were very different than the later stuff. Now I really wish he'd be going back to some of that, because the last few releases didn't really wow me anymore.. and I was a huge NIN fan who bought pretty much every release, even the weird Japan stuff.

I think they outsourced it to some whatever studio and then didn't bother with it anymore. The management in charge of overseeing the project and then handling the QA either had no experience or simply didn't gave a damn about it. Looks to me like a way too common pattern when it comes to big studios. Kinda doubt they had big deadline pressure.. Pretty sure their management thought this game is good to release and now it backfired.

My problem is more that Netflix keeps showing me always the same stuff and there is no easy way to find something different.

Aaand I just finished off the Wet Nurse boss in Bloodborne. Not sure if the fight was bugged for me or whatever happened, but ... all the boss did was swing the arms a little bit and I just had to walk to the back and whack with the Tonitrus. It didn't even enter another stage or something. Just died like it was nothing. Weird.

Yup, I also had to turn off all those extra effects like sharpening, etc because it would increase the input lag. There is still a bit delay, though, which adds to the pain. What's interesting is that not all games are affected in the same way. The last of us 2 is totally fine to play, and I don't have much of an issue in RDR2 either. My guess is those games were specifically designed around the input lag on modern TVs. It kinda explains the natural slowness that players experience when playing - pretty sure this is done to mitigate the effects. I also have input lag when playing pc games via HDMI on the tv, but here I mostly blame the 8m cable, which is very well isolated, but still too long .... HOWEVER, what I find very interesting is that MGSV has no input lag at all. This game plays on the tv exactly the same. No clue how they did that ... maybe the data footprint is much smaller? How come this game runs perfectly fine, but everything else suffers from input lag? I don't get it. That said, I've beat the Amygdala in 2 attempts. Bit of a miracle... also not. On my second attempt I've glued myself to its tail and just beat the balls with the Tonitrus until the fight was over. I barely took any damage at all. And just now I've finished off Micolash (with some cheesing, but whatever). Let's see where the game will bring me to next ...

I was finally able to beat Martyr Logarius in Bloodborne. Holy crap, what a piece of work ... Took me probably 20 attempts or something like that. Most of the issues I blame on the input lag.. hitting a button and not seeing a reaction fast enough, or losing a split second in reaction time can make a huge difference in the game. Also a big part of the fight is very random and depends on the boss position... you need to stay as close to him as possible, but if he is near a wall or roof corner, you are f'd. Funny enough, in the end it was best to use the Tonitrus, hit him twice fast, dodge to the side, hit him twice again, dodge to the side, etc. do some emergency healing in-between, rinse and repeat. If his position was not super crap, you could chain the attacks to get his hitpoints down super fast.

Their writing style is very noticeable. I guess Before the Storm still turned out ok because it's staying very close to the original game. But everything after is like a train that keeps derailing. Not sure if a Dontnod game at this point would be better, though. After all they made LiS2 and then Tell Me Why and Twin Mirror - the later two I have never seen anyone ever talk about.

The new episodes didn't wow me that much, but I kinda expected this to happen - they are basically just a bridge to the final episodes, setting things in motion, and not resolving anything. Hate having to wait another week now. Ugh.

Inverting the roles is a pretty good point. Imagine the characters would be raving about going to their awesome All Lives Matter-parade and hanging patriot flags all over the house. People would rip it to shreds. Hope the next Life is Strange won't be made by Deck Nine, because clearly their tumblr-style writing has lost me. That said, the remakes of LiS1 will release in february 2022, so yay, I guess.

Haven't played LiS2, because the whole premise kinda turned me off all the time, so can't really say anything about it. IMO the big problem in the new games is that the writers looked at the statistics and saw that everyone goes for lesbian romance, so now the games are all about being gay. It's so horribly preachy about it, honestly, if I would know any of the characters in real life, I'd probably avoid them at all costs, because they are so obnoxious. And what makes me the most angry about this whole thing is that pointing it out makes me feel like a bigot. I don't care about gay stuff, I don't care if people are in a same-sex relationship, if I play their games I also run into into the same-sex romances and have no problem with it, hell I even welcome it being a theme in games... But Deck Nine doesn't treat it as if it's normal, they treat it as if it's a hip lifestyle. It's so damn in-your-face with it, it's horrid writing. Just compare it to FNV, which took these elements as completely normal and didn't make a fuss about it at all. That's how it needs to be done. Now why do I write such big walls of text about it instead of just ignoring it and moving on? Because I want to like the games. It's the kind of stuff I want to play, but with good writing... and they haven't delivered good writing since Before the Storm (and even that was already a bit borderline). Big sad.

A great day for mice!

Makes me wonder how it feels like to stand in a place like that and just seeing wide, flat, absolutely nothing like in that photo above. Really can't imagine that, because no matter where in germany you are, a place like that simply doesn't exist. There is always a house or wind turbine or the autobahn or something else civilization.

I finally got around to play the Life is Strange 3 bonus chapter "Wavelengths". It is ... ok. Nice idea. Bit preachy at times, often cringe writing like LiS3. I hate how they shove the "gay stuff" into the players face. It's never shown as something normal, it's always this huge special thing that everyone makes a big deal about. I get it, you are gay. I already understood it in the last game. Jeez. Don't know.. feels like Deck Nine is moving the franchise into the wrong direction. I liked the more down to earth kind of thing in LiS1. It had the right mix of hipster and fantastical murder mystery about it. Now it's just ... I have no idea. Not it, I guess. The actual story of Wavelengths is ok and I'd say well executed, considering this is basically just a short and cheap DLC. Can't expect huge things with such updates. Same deal as the Before the Storm bonus chapter was. People who complained about it make me roll my eyes. That said, turns out I really seem to hate the Alex character.

Online component usually can be completely ignored, and the game saves on exit.

I heard people were raging about it more than the original ending.