Keyrock

They have a turn-based mode? My interest level for this game just went up considerably.

You are a FIGHTER! You sweep across dungeons and caves with the faithful weapon in your hand. Agile and strong, you know that no matter how strong the magic of your foes is, it can never compete with the ever-reliant steel

I'm hoping that since Encased is a relatively little known game from a small developer they don't neuter the potentially crass nature of a low IQ playthrough, figuring they can fly under the radar where a high profile game from a big studio couldn't. /crosses fingers

Full release September 7th. Low IQ playthroughs were pretty great in old skool Fallout, fingers crossed that they can achieve something close to the same level of goofy fun here.

Chorizo & eggs. So greasy, so delicious.

That's completely missing my point, which is my bad for not making myself clear. The whole reason I was asking is that i don't want to have to play a specific optimal build, I want to be able to come up with some wacky cobbled together nonsense put together in my twisted brain and still be able to get through the game. Granted, vidya games and PnP are (sadly) not the same thing, but back in my PnP days my favorite and most memorable characters were decidedly less than optimal. In fact, my favorite character of all time was downright terrible going strictly by traditional stats for the class (thief). In a vidya game you don't have the same freedom to get creative and go "off script", largely because you don't have a GM to work with you, but I still like to play weird and unconventional builds that follow some wacky concept in my brain, rather than a spreadsheet that worked out all the math for what is most optimal.

Is there a casual/easy/wimpy setting for folks like me that don't want to min-max or is normal the lowest setting?

Having not played the previous game, is this one of those games where you have to min-max the bejesus out of your character, or can you make a character however you want and still get by?

Granted, an Adidas or Puma tracksuit would probably be kind of out of place in the Exclusion Zone, but still, that's not proper Gopnik style. 2/10, would not drink vodka with. /backs slowly out of room

I am so taking that quote out of context.

@MelusinaI can't give away my trade secrets. How else can I maintain my status as the guy posting weird, niche games nobody else has ever heard of and probably nobody else cares about? It took me years to build that reputation. On a serious note, I get some of my obscure gaming news from Niche Gamer. Word of warning: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT go into the comments section of the articles. If you do, I hope you have a thick skin and don't say I didn't warn you. They report on a lot of Japanese and Korean games, but not exclusively so. I would say about 75% of they stuff they post is of no interest to me, but it's worth browsing occasionally because I find some interesting games in the other 25% I might not find on a more mainstream site, where it would either get ignored because it's too, well, niche, or even if someone wrote a short article on it, it would get almost instantly bumped off the front page by 7 articles about the new CoD.

Now that I'm done with The Forgotten City, it's back to Chernobylite for me. In terms of creating an atmosphere of unease and apprehension The Farm 51 did a very good job. Oddly enough, the fact that combat is somewhat limited works in the game's favor in terms of tense, spooky atmosphere. It's got a really interesting story with brain-twisting mind-****ery, not dissimilar to what they tried to do, and somewhat succeeded, with Get Even. It's not S.T.A.L.K.E.R., though. I've encountered very few things I could say were anomalies, and I suspect they were scripted, rather than dynamic. I guess I'll have to wait for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 to see if anyone can recreate that magic again. Still, Chernobylite has been an enjoyable and engaging experience so far, just don't expect it to be S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

If I'm not mistaken, MCA is a writer on The Waylanders. The trailer doesn't show any gameplay, is it RTwP or turn-based?

Welp, now I know what hell looks and sounds like. That might have been the most off-putting trailer I have seen since the Ghostbusters 2016 trailer. I'm assuming this is supposed to appeal to the Fortnite crowd, which is admittedly a big crowd.

I will have zero interest in Marvel-COM if it doesn't have permadeath. There are certain games, namely X-COM and Fire Emblem, in which I consider permadeath an integral part of the experience. I will be quite happy if they make it an option to disable permadeath, other people can play the game however they want, but if the option to have permadeath is not there, that's a deal-breaker for me.

Kraid looks pretty awesome. It seems like the main villain is a Chozo, though it could just be a smokescreen and Mother Brain is pulling the strings as per usual. I imagine they're saving Ridley for the final trailer before launch.

I finished The Forgotten City, all 4 endings. If you are into time loop mystery/puzzle games then this is a very easy recommendation. It took me 12 hours to complete and 6 or 7 loops, I think. It can certainly be finished faster than that. I'm pretty certain you can't get the true ending in 1 go, but maybe in 2 loops, almost certainly 3. Anyway, it's not the longest game in the world, but I found the asking price to be very fair given the quality of the content; it's a super easy recommendation on sale. This is a very narrative-heavy game, there is barely any combat. Luckily, the writing is quite good and everything is voice acted, and voice acted relatively well. Kind of ironic that this started as a Skyrim mod, since the writing in this game blows the vast majority of Bethesda's own writing out of the water. Also, this game game has the distinction of achieving the sadly somewhat rare feat of having a really satisfying (true) ending. Anyway, for a small team making their first full game this is a grand slam home run. I am very much looking forward to what Modern Storyteller makes in the future.

It's a Swery game; Swery games are my jam. They're every bit as weird and creative as Kojima games, but 80% less pretentious and 300% more jank.

I'm all for a change of scenery for The Saints. Steelport was one of the dullest, most lifeless feeling settings ever. It's a testament to Volition's writing that they made SR3 work despite how piss poor the setting was. The shock value of how in your face and over the top that game was wouldn't have worked if it didn't have strong characters and witty dialogue. SR4 returned to Steelport and upped the ante with superpowers, which also didn't leave Volition anywhere to naturally take the series going forward. I'm all for rebooting the series and taking it back down to Earth. The target hopefully is SR2 or maybe something between SR2 and SR3 in tone. The trailer tries so hard to make the new Saints "cool" that they all come off like Poochie.

I should say that I'm an old geezer and it's entirely possible, probable even, that I'm out of touch with what's popular these days. For all I know, smug *******s are popular with the young uns.