Wormerine

Yes, something I didn’t like about FiraXCOM was how pod activation was the most important mechanic on the game. You can go through a mission and not get a single shot aimed at you, or you can make last move in your turn, unveil one or two extra tiles and have a new pod or two take a shot at your squad.

I mostly agree, with coveats. I don’t think PoE story is “better told”. Too much of it is uninteractive, too much of it is told through NPCs talking at you and books abd too little through quests. But I do think it is a better story. What PoE2 lacks to me is personal hook for our protagonist. I never found Eothas destroying Caed Nua compelling as without experiencing this event in the sequel we get a “cutscene” and it is just not enough to care. It’s as if Mass Effect destroyed Normandy in a hand drawn cutscene rather than open with it. Similarly, reuniting our soul and confronting Eothas - it’s all confusing and impersonal and unrelatable. In PoE1 we experience consequences of the awakening and as we progressed we better realised what it could mean for us. In PoE1 it’s just “oh yeah part of your soul in in Eothas so keep close”. PoE1 had more relatable stories and dilemmas of companions which I think helped ground the god thread and give it resonance. Without it it’s tricky to care about bickerings of fictional gods.

Interesting. I own it on Steam and it is still on sale here in UK. From what I can find the game was/is banned in Germany? Would buying the game from third party sites not work? https://isthereanydeal.com/game/max-payne/info/ Edit. Apparently not. GMG regions for Max Payne don't include Germany. So weird. Seems like early 2000 violent video game panic ban, than never got reversed. Rockstar should do something about it.

I assume you talk about Sam Lake, the face of Max Payne/Alex Casey? First Max Payne used a lot of friends and family for its character faces, and Sam Lake, the director and writer and remedy ended up playing Max Payne: James McCaffrey was the voice (RIP). In general, Remedy likes working with same people so there is a lot of intentional and intentional cross-casting in their titles. James McCaffrey voiced Max Payne/Alex Casey, Director Trench in Control, "Thomas Zane" in Alan Wake1. Matthew Porretta voiced Alan Wake, and portrayed Dr. Darling in Control (and Alan Wake 2 I suppose). Shawn Ashmore played the protagonist of Quantum Break as well as sherif Tim Breaker in AW2. Courtney Hope also starred in Quantum Break and was subsequently cast as the lead for Control. One of the DLCs has a whole bit about it. Lance Reddick was also supposed to be a potential link between Quantum Break and Alan Wake2, but his unfortunate passing required Mr. Door to be recast. AW2 being a story about writer and his creations coming to life has a lot of meta stuff to it, and most major Remedy games are being referenced. Alex Casey, possibly fictional hardboiled detective, looking very much like Remedy's fictional hardboiled detective is one of such callbacks. God I love Alan Wake2. I am now tempted to reinstall and give it another playthrough.

Yes. And Vanguard anti-cheat Riot thing. If it doesn't scare you and want to dip in, send me a message and I will send you the code. I have such fond memories of XCOM2012. Sequel was a bit improvement, but I like the vibe of the first one much more. If you like the first playthrough well enough, Long War mod is worth giving ago. It injects much life and strategic/tactical choice to the game, though actual full campaign can get mercilessly long (spoiler: never completed one).

What are we talking about? Sam Lake? James McCaffrey? Ilkka Villi? Matthew Porretta? Are the some news about MP remake casting, or is it just about Alan Wake2?

Anyone wants 2XKO beta key? I got an invite and have three additional keys to spare.

Yeah, Moorwing was the only thing so far to which I died more than couple of time. I think Team Cherry are working on nerfing him a bit, as well as some other early game bits. Still, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Most enemies build on the same archetypes. Late game is definitely harder, but skill set from early encounters carries over. Are you sure something just didn’t click for you as to how the game works?

it seems they are utilising at least some of Hitman’s system. Perhaps, closer to Absolution - a narrative, linear experience with some occasional small scale freeform stuff. It seems you can’t kill will you get licence to do it - I supposed it is a good enough way of preventing players from killing civies as Bond.

Your write up made me interested in the game for the first time.

Hmm, that reminds me. I was struggling a bit with original crest. I found the dive attack to be frustratingly difficult to land. I have been much more comfortable with the game once I found another crest, which gave me a more conventional down attack.

Honestly, it's been too long since I played Hollow Knight1, but it might check out - I don't recall it being too tricky until end game and DLC stuff. Personally, I didn't have much trouble with any of the bosses yet (did my first fight against Lace in first attempt), and usually what gets me are random mobs when I run out of healing. Than again I play a lot of tricky platformers. I like it a lot. Couple first impressions: Base movement and skillset seems more robust than HK. It seems more linear - I remember Hollow Knight really opening very early on, and so far my options to wonder around felt rather limited. I don't know if it is going to change soon (maybe they simply want to feed player more skills before letting them loose on the world map), but so far I have been getting new skills in more regular intervals, and my progression have been more firmly gated by it. I remember there being lengthy chunk of time in Hollow Knight when I was just wondering around before I actually started to unlock new traversal abilties beyond initial dash.

SILKSONG! Less than £17. Noice.

Finished and utterly beaten Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Strong recommendation from me - the story is very very good. Good, well written chracters, story starts with an engaging hook and builds to something special. Gameplay is solid - for a jRPG I actually enjoyed it. There is enough variety to enemies, and active systems (mainly dodge and parry to avoid damage, build action points for your turn, and counter) keeps one engaged. Quite a decent amount of side content with some chunky optional dungeons meant to be done after the main story is complete. And while it is mostly what one would expect, for some reason they also have a 3 stage Malenia-style style boss which moves the game further from Final Fantasy or Persona and closer to Sekiro. I won't spoil any of his bull****, but let's just say it extended my playtime by a couple of hours. Anyway, it seems Veilguard was just dropped unto GamePass, so I will probably see what it is about next. Though after E33, new-Bioware writing might be extra hard to stomach. Perhaps, I will wait for Silksong as a palat cleanser.

That’s intentional though, no? With 12GB of VRAM or more my 3070 (allegedly) would still perform quite alright. Put just enough of VRAM for now on midrange GPUs and they will be outdated in a couple of years. Personaly I will be waiting for “the game” to upgrade my set up. It was lovely to have a massive backlog of cheap games to play when I build my current rig. And yeah, I don’t find current GPU offering to be of a particularly a good value.