Keyrock

I'll give Far Cry 4 credit for one thing. The game had multiple endings and you could get by far the best ending in less than a half hour. I thought that was pretty brilliant.

That's my concern too. Are they going to shake up the formula at all, or will this be another reskin of Far Cry 3? Then again, the same (somewhat tired) open world formula can still work if it's executed really well and they make traversing the map really fun, as Mad Max proved. Now, they probably can't do the same level of upgrading and customizing your horse as Mad Max did with its car porn, but if Ubi manages to make horseback riding and combat from horseback really fun and integral to the game then it can work.

I've been playing a lot of HITMAN, mostly doing the escalations. For those not familiar, escalations give you new targets to assassinate in existing levels, sort of like the elusive target missions, but not quite as punishing (you can't save during the mission, like with elusive targets, but you can attempt the mission again if you get killed, unlike with elusive targets). Each escalation contract has 5 stages, the first stage is usually fairly straightforward (some are definitely harder than others), then with each successive stage they add challenges (extra targets or objectives, complications, restrictions on what you can and can't do, etc.) Mainly, I want to unlock most of the starting locations and items, which will give me more options when attempting stealth assassin runs on the main missions where I have failed to get stealth assassin thus far. Doing the escalations is a good way to do some of the challenges for each area and earn mastery points for unlocks while having different targets and challenges and not simply running through the main missions again and again.

Well, I'll keep an eye on it and we'll see how it's shaping up closer to the finish line. I guess my attitude toward this is cautiously optimistic.

Same. My Haswell CPU is still plenty good enough for now. I'll take a look at the market around the time Zen 2 and whatever comes out after Coffee Lake are out, which is scheduled for late 2018, but will probably be sometime in 2019, given the standard production delays.

Holy ****, there's a battle axe in the Marrakesh level in HITMAN! Some day I'll have to attempt a suit only, silent assassin, kill both targets with the battle axe run of that area's main mission. This will, obviously, be INSANELY difficult as wearing anything other than a soldier or security guard disguise means that if anyone sees you with a weapon they will freak out and alert the guards, and suit only means no disguises, plus, it's not like I can conceal a battle axe. To make matters worse, Marrakesh is freakin' packed with people. Still, I bet it's possible, it will just take some absurd stealth skill.

Well, damn. 16 cores. That's basically a server chip that's being sold for desktops. I guess this is AMD's answer to Skylake-X. Exciting times for the (loaded) enthusiast market.

I have Steam key for Steamworld Heist to give away. As always, PM me for the key, first come, first serve. Edit: And it's gone!

Lonzo's crazy ass dad will be a perfect fit in LA.

The Brooklyn Nets Boston Celtics won the draft lottery. I would imagine they will take Markelle Fultz, creating an outright frightening guard combo with Isaiah.

Really great bundle, and one that includes a bunch of games I don't already own (Steamworld Heist is the only one I do own). I'll almost certainly get at least the beat the average tier for Kentucky Route Zero, even if I won't play it until all 5 episodes are finished (so likely not until 2019 ). I am tempted to grab the $13 tier for Owlboy as well.

Comes out in 2 days. I guess this was a Kickstarter game, I hadn't heard of it until just now. Anyway, it's a sRPG with town management and diplomacy. It's from a Polish studio and has a nice hand-drawn aesthetic. Seems like something right up my alley, hopefully it doesn't suck.

I sure as hell hope IO Interactive doesn't get scooped up by Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo and Hitman becomes an exclusive title, that would suck (assuming the rumor that IO Interactive retain the IP are true). I want Hitman on as many platforms as possible. As for the rumor that season 2 is well into development, this seems plausible enough. They just did the "reboot" so they have the framework in place. As far as I'm concerned, very little needs to be changed for season 2. They can basically leave the game as is and just create new assets for new levels and characters and, of course, the continuation of the story from the cliffhanger it left off on.

It's as I thought it would be, a really tight series between the Celtics and Bullets where Washington ultimately ran out of gas down the stretch, on account of having to constantly play their starters huge minutes because their bench is so terrible. Hopefully the Celtics can take a game or two off the Cavs, though they'll obviously ultimately lose the series.

That was quite the comeback for the Dubs.

I wound up buying DiRT Rally as the free trial was coming close to expiring (the sale is still active for another day+). Freakin' fantastic game, absolutely worth the full $60 price tag and flat out highway robbery at $18. This might be Codemasters' best racing game ever, and that's really saying something, considering Codies has been making racing games for some 30 years. It's definitely their best racer toward the sim end of the spectrum since the glory days of Collin McRae Rally and TOCA. It's the most fun I've had with a racer in many many years, the last time I can remember experiencing this much joy playing a racing game was Burnout Paradise (which was a completely different type of racing game).

I'm really starting to like this Opel Kadett. I initially purchased a Lancia Stratos to use in the 1970s class, but wound up hating that car's extremely floaty handling, so then I scooped up this Kadett to use instead and it's much more to my liking.

I actually really liked the aesthetic of the Shadowrun games they did, but, yeah, the graphical fidelity in Battletech is on a completely different level.

Nonsense. There's no such thing as too much **** and ass.

Going through water sucks. Visibility = zero for about a second and a half, not to mention the momentary loss of any real control. Granted I could see a lot better if I did the behind the car camera, but that would be wussing out. It's c0ckpit view or nothing! Gotta take it easy over those crests. If you catch air while turning your wheels, or your car is a bit crooked, or you're not pointed at exactly where you want to go, you're gonna have a big problem.

DiRT Rally lives up to the hype. That game is freakin' intense, and quite hard, as it should be (turns out, rally racing is really hard). Bunch of different events, tons of different cars in a whole bunch of classes, and really good physics with tons of customization options. Plus, it runs really well.

DiRT Rally

You learn something new every day. Thanks for that, Majek.