sorophx

I know you can, I used Torrent for the invincibility frames you get when mounting and dismounting, and it does help to close the distance, because this is supposed to be a boss weak to physical damage, but I eventually killed him with ranged lightning attacks.

typical Elden Ring that's the last boss of the game, good thing it's not visible in the pic behind all the crap it threw at me.

couple that with the news of Humble Games closing because their investor found out games take time to make, and it's not a money printing machine.

finally got to Malenia in Elden Ring, attempting her pushed my total play time over 240 hours, and I have yet to even burn the friggin' tree. at least I'll be ready for the DLC once I get around to trying it.

That's what I like about V Rising, it's a really good ARPG combat system on top of a really good survival game. It's the one survival game I keep coming back to, I've had the most fun with it out of all survival games that have come out in the last 3-4 years, beats Valheim for sure. OK, I have never played any DS, but I have 40 hours in Sekiro on PC, and 2 hours in Bloodborne on PS4. Played Elden Ring when it came out for about 100 hours on mouse + kb, reinstalled this week to try with a controller, played for 2 hours, beat 2 bosses, slowly getting back into it. Anyway, I just couldn't play it with the default M+KB scheme, I kept pressing the wrong buttons due to thousands of hours playing various ARPGs. After rebinding all of the keys it became playable, and I actually found one thing that beats controllers any time: camera control - you don't even need to lock onto enemies it's so precise, and not locking onto some enemies actually gives you an advantage. Now playing with a controller camera movement is the one thing I am having trouble with, really hard to orient myself without locking onto enemies, and combat becomes messy against groups of enemies. People do get used to it, so my advice would be to stick to what you're more comfortable with and building up some muscle memory. One tip I'll give you that really saved me regardless of what input device you'd want to use: there are many UI interactions that aren't explained in the game at all but they make combat much more enjoyable, and I'd suggest you looked them up. For example, the item quickbar in the left bottom corner has two sets you can switch between by holding down the "Interact" button. So you effectively have extra 4 slots for consumables that are easily accessible without having to scroll through them. I have only my healing flask in the default slot, so I cannot skip through it accidentally, and the consumable button always heals no matter what. The mana flask, the mount, the summoning bell etc. - all are on the second layer of slots, all having their dedicated buttons, this setup greatly helped me with my combat flow.

looks really nice, apologies if it was shared already, and I missed it

Workshop still beats mod.io and similar half-baked services

I will not post pictures, but the fan art for those characters suggests otherwise

at this point only performing well by Microsoft standards matters, and probably even that isn't enough (see Hi-Fi Rush)

apparently Xsolla has to refund now, because BSG broke ToS with that release. people have been asking for refunds for ages, and now they just might get what they wanted

I vaguely remember a Bayonetta discussion here fairly recently, and I was watching a review of B3, and this part just killed me https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx_aM6egJfZfOjEJ1-IH_pHtN3Jntchd-2?si=nDkXjsXOmyJ_Zol0

it's made by Massive, so just like The Division and Avatar, it will be technically superb but mediocre in all other aspects.

isn't really news, since this game has been out for some time now, but it's really good, and all the Stellar Blade talk reminds me of it, so check it out, it's basically "John Wick the video game". Here's one of my fav clips from it: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxgVK-QnATXesUdsfOm3CZLP1e9guZulr6?si=EEH3dlRvUMySx9dE

I'd argue, that the real problem with Alpha Protocol wasn't bugs as much as the friggin' minigames, the underwhelming shooting mechanics and the ease with which you could cheese a lot of missions/bosses. I am certain that if a game with that kind of reactivity and better puzzles (something similar to The Witness or something) were to come out on, say, MW3's engine, it would be a masterpiece

the issue with RPGs is they're not chess, which was my original point exactly.

you're way too excited about Obsidian games, the perfect Obsidian fan that's not a bad thing

hot take: well done RTWP is miles above the best turn-based system, because it's happening on a computer, and we don't need every game to be a "tabletop-like". the computer can calculate everything very fast and just show me how the state changed, and it can do it continuously. I don't need to wait for the "enemy" to take its turn. it's a user experience issue rather than a fundamental combat design issue.

I think it has more to do with "density. an example: I was trying to read a book that's 380 pages. I had about 50 pages left when some stuff came up, and I had to put the book down for a month. 1 month later I come back to it, open the book at the page I left off and realize I don't remember who all the characters are except for the main character. so I just put the book back on the shelf. maybe I'll come back to it in a couple of years and start over. this is exactly what happened when I tried beating PoE, and PoE II for the first time. I would make a pause, not play them for a month or so, try to come back and realize I couldn't remember any of my builds, spells, what quests I still had to finish, couldn't recognize any of the NPCs etc. there's just too much stuff to memorize. and yeah, if I were to try and continue my latest playthrough of BG2, I'd have to start over because I don't remember what I was doing in the game. BG2 is huge, very hard to get through in one big session, if you want to 100% it. I restarted my BG2 playthrough at least 4 times back when it first came out, but then I had more patience, more free time and more focus. nowadays I wouldn't even bother and just watch a YouTube playthrough.

I want to say KOTOR II is the best game by Obsidian, but the state of that game makes that assumption very dubious. KOTOR II is the one I've enjoyed the most (so much so I finished it twice, which never happened with any other Obsidian game). would love to play a remaster with all the cut content properly restored. but yeah, objectively, I think, the label of "THE BEST" should be reserved for New Vegas. would love to play a remaster using the latest Bethesda tech. would love to play some D&D on the Pillars of Eternity engine (yeah, I know it's Unity, I mean the isometric backgrounds, optional TB combat etc.), maybe NWN3 could happen? a man can dream. as an aside, I don't know what it is about PoE II, but I tried going through it twice and dropped it in the middle both times. that game is too big for its own good. Tyranny is pretty cool, but I can't beat it, too hard in the later stages, I just don't get the progression system. honestly, I crossed out Obsidian after learning that they were developing Outer Worlds, Grounded, and Avowed, with no hint at isometric games in between. expected a lot more from Pentiment. that game just makes it too easy to miss stuff and accidentally finish the game early. I just didn't understand why stuff happened to my character, what actions led to it, so I was frustrated all the way through. but maybe that's because I played it shortly after getting into Persona 5. anyway, in my ideal world Obsidian would be hard at work making Dungeon Siege 4 with full-party combat (mules included!), isometric NWN 3, and KOTOR 3.

kind of crazy that Arma 3 is still going, while Reforger barely makes any progress. we stopped playing Arma 3 because no matter what upgrades to our hardware we made, the game would still run rather poorly, showing its age. honestly, I expected BIS to go all-in on DayZ as a platform as soon as they released 1.0, but I guess that doesn't make sense to them, which is unfortunate.

not to derail the thread but while you owned "nothing" in the USSR, you didn't pay for it either. I don't think that's the model Ubi execs have in mind

probably because they don't get to make Bioware games in Bioware anymore.

This drove me insane in both Original Sin games, so much so, that I actually gave up on BG3 as soon as I saw it had exactly the same combat. for a game that is touted as having "the best turn-based combat" it feels extremely sloppy and imprecise. not sure what the problem with making combat have a grid was, for example.

love the FF discussion, but guys... is someone forcing you to use Roman numerals when discussing these games? I spend half the time deciphering what part exactly you're talking about anyway, the best FF game is obviously 9, as it should be since it's the last FF game with heavy involvement from Sakaguchi AFAIK. but I am kind of sad to see FF 12 (my personal favorite) not getting any love from you guys. as for FF 16, "played" it on YouTube, and my very short review follows: voice acting is great; CGI cutscenes are amazing; story is unbearably bad, writing in general is just weak (too many coincidences convenient for the plot, if you know what I mean), main character is written as an idiot for some reason, very unlikable; visual design is strong; combat is generic as hell, Eikon battles are unnecessarily long. reminds me a lot of FF 13 for all the wrong reasons.

heard that D4 open beta fried several 3080 Tis, so beware. as for the Stalker 2 leak, I found out about it on the social network (VK) it happened on, there's a huge thread with screenshots and concept art. not sure what the leakers actually wanted to accomplish with the leak itself, as far as I can tell it's free publicity for the company, as the concept art looks amazing, the map is huge, and it actually makes the game look better than it probably is, so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if the leak was orchestrated by GSC themselves for brownie points