WDeranged

Just reading the Daily Mail for my dose of xenophobia and paranoia, there's a two page muck raking article about Bowie's sex life, cringe worthy timing. "Wowie, Bowie. Dear old Angie has been quiet for years, but her painfully discreet ex-husband can expect some big ch-ch-changes to his peace of mind henceforth."

I've lifted the curse on Henselt and I'm looking forward to clearing the fog so I can get out of this location. Roche's Act 2 has felt like a drag so far but I did enjoy the hallucination scene, I'm pretty sure those weren't mushrooms though...and I think that chicken was really a **** (rhymes with frock)

I'd had Bowie on the brain for the past week so this is quite a shock, sad news

I recently read that.... So I knew that Oblivion was the last game created with TES' original staff on board, right? By the time Skyrim came out, not a single writer/developer from Morrowind and earlier was on staff save for obvious examples like Todd. This explains why Skyrim is so willing to take a dump on old lore and just not give a damn, as well as why the tone feels so different. Apparently, at least one guy remained on board for Fallout 3. Most of the older Bethesda devs left after Oblivion was wrapped up, but one guy hung around. That guy was Mark Nelson. Nelson was responsible for both writing and quest design, as one of the leads. This does so ****ing much to explain why...I mean FO3 had it's Bethesda-ness to it, don't get me wrong, but it still felt like it did an ok job of holding onto some Fallout elements, such as choice and consequence, SOME of the tone and writing, and just generally having quests that felt like someone put a lot of time and effort into them. Fast forward to Skyrim and FO4, generic radiant quests are in abundance. The simple explanation is because their quest designers have changed. I already knew their writers had started changing starting with FO3, was not aware their quest designers were aswell. So yeah, the jist of it is the simple truth that the same guys who gave you the hand crafted quests you saw in Oblivion or Fallout 3 are no longer working at Bethesda. Who's in charge of quest design now...? Hell if I know, but whoever it is apparently loves fetch quests and combat. Ehh you're basically right but I'd be remiss if I didn't stick up for Skyrim's general quality and charm. It may be missing fresh creative input of many previous writers but they stayed admirably close to what had already been established. It was padded out with fetch quests but the world was interesting enough to make the journey worth it, the game truly feels like a labour of love to me. With Fallout 4 it's as if they took all the things I hated about Skyrim and Fallout 3 (games I love) and turned them into the main attraction. It's every unfocused plot point in Fallout 3 + Skyrim's most soulless quest design, with a copy of Borderlands shoved up it's ass

The little devil in me would love it, the sheer comedy potential...I might even start watching TV again I suspect he'd be hamstrung like every other president, hopefully the more dangerous of his bat**** plans will come to naught anyway...bah, it's worth the risk I say.

I like Kylo Ren's character, he's a badass when he's in control but it all turns to **** under pressure. I think the mask came off a bit too soon though, figuratively and literally.

This was a problem for me too, you'll bump into some travelling merchants but all the shops are in Boston.

I don't know. It was a hologram in-universe, and it might turn out to be a "Wizard of Oz"-situation and he's actually six inches tall. Yeah I actually expect something like this, I'm just hoping they ditch the full CG for his character, too late to change the name though...

Force Awakens was a solid 8.5 for me. It'd be a 9 if not for the giant CG muppet Voldemort...I dunno wtf they were thinking there

I quite like the idea of preparedness but too often the game warps you away somewhere else and dumps you into combat. The only solution is to always be prepared and it's too much busy work, I've taken to saving my game constantly so I can always go back and buff up.

I'm enjoying Witcher 2 but I'm surprised how much W3 does better. Writing, voice acting, systems, combat, quests and their integration into the world are all much improved, though I'd say that W2 has the better art direction. One thing that's really annoying me is the inability to consume potions outside of meditation, the game drops you into a ton of scripted combat scenarios and often you have no chance without your potions

Doubly so, considering the wasted effort of trying to resolve it before the game decided it was time

It does actually get resolved. There's a scene where it all comes to a head, it's super unsatisfying though.

This is actually how a large amount of people on the Bethesda forums like to 'roleplay'. I've often thought they'd be happier with no story structure at all, looks like they're getting closer to their perfect game

Exactly, it wouldn't be so bad if higher level variants had new attacks or tactics. Still, it's better than the entire world being a levelled slog, leaves room for surprises and replay.

Witcher 3 is definitely one of the prettiest games I've seen, I think the skyboxes could be 'bigger' but on the whole it's quite stunning, especially Skellige. My only real issue with the game is the static quest levels, it sucks to find an interesting quest and realise it'd be a total push over because I levelled past it.

I managed to sort out (Wticher 2) framerate issues by forcing vsync in the nvidia control panel, it's running pretty sweet now. Funny how time marches on, I remember being blown away by this game's visuals and now I'm merely satisfied

No, the constellation (vomit) chart was actually easier to understand at a glance. They did at least keep the ability to hoard perks and spend them later, far better than forcing you to make a choice on level up.

I suggest you to go and play multiplayer if you never want to play that game again. Netcode issues or the fact that I'd get slaughtered in five minutes?

God, was I ever this bad at Age of Empires?

Here's a little story. Five years ago I built a very fast PC cos Witcher 2 was due. The game came out and ran like frigging ass so I forgot it existed and put 1000 hours into Skyrim and New Vegas instead. This year I built a PC for Witcher 3 + GTA IV, they both run beautifully, best ports I've seen in forever, so I think maybe my new PC will handle W2 better...no, no it does not

Grabbed Age of Empires II HD in the steam sale and played a few hours, I'd forgotten how relaxing it was.

You can fast travel. That's what I did if I had to go between two points on the map that would have taken like 10 minutes, real time, to travel on horse. The open world didn't seem like a chore exactly for that reason. First you have to get to the fast travel points. It's still annoying as hell. Also giving me extra menus to click through. You can get a mod which lets you fast travel from anywhere but you'll still have to manually discover the locations.

Just completed Grim Fandago Remastered, that game is still so bloody special, in spite of the bugs. Also finished the South Park RPG, the (genuine) highlight of the finale was me rummaging through a gay man's ****, dislodging congealed **** and scat with long lost vibrators