Oh it’s not, dead, it’s just changed shape so we don’t immediately recognize it. This, for example, is an ad for about 5 different games.

Notice how the brands were mentioned. Notice how much more palatable this is as a delivery system for that sweet brand awareness. They’re making statements we agree with! They’re demonstrating values that align with our own.

Now look it’s video games so I really don’t mind. This is certainly nicer than what we had in the 90s and 2000s (which were occasionally hilarious but I digress) , but I still want to raise awareness a bit. Larian isn’t the only company that rolls this way. Thing is, they’re probably not even lying, but an executive at a company does media like this for a reason.

This is them “speaking to you.”

What specifically did you find janky? Except for the one CTD bug I encountered (and spent hours fixing) everything seemed pretty fair. I completed all ten main story missions with no major issues with difficulty. I died some, but was always able to figure out a way to approach each encounter that made sense and didn’t require exploits.

I’m not some elite gamer either; I’m a 41 year old dad.

Honestly felt it was pretty doable so long as you suited your tactics to the situation. This means you also have to build the skill of sizing up an encounter and selecting the right tool for it.

My problem with it was the thing that spit clocks. Took me forever to troubleshoot that issue and it was a hard crash to desktop type situation. Why that would be allowed to persist years after release is beyond me.

“Immersive Commerce” is the most vomit inducing thing I’ve read today.

He did say he was making Earth, so… yeah?

I think there’s a kernel of truth to it. A poor first impression followed by a subsequent recovery tells us that a game could have been good at launch, but was rushed out for various reasons. This practice of forcing the public to pay to be beta testers for a half finished product should be punished.

And nothing’s going to erase a garbage launch. It will always have been garbage and the shit launch will always be a part of the conversation about the game. Hence why we still talk about it even in games that have recovered.

You can’t patch history.

Might as well score a Steam Deck for the cost of a modern console, and then you’re not paying monthly for multiplayer and premium costs for games and you get mobility in the mix.

Having been involved in one of those wars, from a grunt’s perspective it mostly feels like this:

1. Follow FC to assigned position.
2. Observe slide show because there’s a zillion people in this system and time dilation kicked in.
3. Push butan when told over comms.
4. Explode for some reason.
5. Try to escape in pod, get podded because the UI is hard to use and TiDi makes everything weird.

Or my other favorite experience, ratting for money.

1. Fly expensive ship into system.
2. Target NPC ships in overview, blow them up while orbiting something.
3. Get attacked by pirates which is either one guy multi-boxing 12 ewar frigates or gang of roving pirates nobody bothered to deal with.
4. Lose expensive ship that nullifies somewhere between .5 and 2 hours of boring ratting.

Stealth bombing was pretty fun, I’ll admit. But everything else was a bunch of neat ideas saddled by the most profoundly boring implementations imaginable. It truly is spreadsheets in space, and not just for all the math, but because one of the most important UI elements for the longest time literally was a spreadsheet. And then they did this.

I set out to create a cyber ninja and aside from being unable to source good clothing options, it works as designed. That is to say, on very hard I die if fuck up with more than 2 bad guys around, sandie or no, so that feels right. I think optical camo was over-nerfed, but meh.

But if you combine the air dash, double jump, a katana, a throwing knife, and a few other things, it slaps. You feel very cool indeed when it all comes together.

Hacking feels more dangerous now. The way the hacks work means that when you go hot and start directly damaging your opponents you can’t just wait for everyone to die, esp early on. That said Netrunners are still gods, just gods that occasionally get someone to run at them yelling before they keel over at your feet. And you can still wipe 4 dudes out almost instantly from a long distance away.

Have not tried other routes yet because I hate playing through the beginning.

Off topic but I love that people still remember Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Now, 11 years later, it looks like the finish line for Squadron 42 may be in sight, although CIG stopped short of announcing a release window.

[Cue Laugh Track]

Frankly I think whether or not V survives is largely a headcanon thing. Maybe you head off into the sunset with the Caldos and find help. Maybe you knock over the space casino and buy yourself something like the Relic with all of your stupid new wealth. Maybe you turn into an AI and become a ghost in the machine.

Or maybe you develop natural charisma and an impressive cock, who knows.

Point is they left it vague and uncertain on purpose in several of the good (ish) endings. I get why, but it always felt kinda cheap to me. But it IS a noir story and those aren’t known for fairy tale endings.

I feel like most of it is private ownership. The minute you enter the CEO/Board of Directors ecosystem with investors to pay and expectations of eternal growth, everything turns to shit.

Luckily nobody said there were zero well design AAA games, only that I don’t much care if the big studios eat each other. You can always make another studio. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again. This isn’t like car manufacturing where startups face overwhelming costs and regulatory burdens to begin work. Get some capital, hire some good devs, come up with a thoughtful concept, and people will pay for it. Shit, they’ll pay for virtual goods with no expectation of seeing a finished game (coughStarCitizencough).

but there are experiences that cannot be replicated in the indie sphere at the moment

The key phrase there being “at the moment.” And frankly the reverse is a lot more true for more enduring reasons. AAA development is entirely too invested in graphical fidelity at the expense of everything else and entirely too beholden to shareholders to take meaningful risks.

I do not give one tiny, insignificant shit what corpo entertainment goons do to each other or what hats they wear and neither should you. Blizzard as you knew it has been dead for years. This acquisition means nothing. The people that made the Blizzard you knew great can make their own company and probably will if they’re still working. Stop caring about companies and start caring about the human beings that make good games. Remember their names, look at who they work for.

Game dev has to grow up just like Film did and you can expect the same market driven patterns to emerge. Indies take risks, the big boys iterate on the formulas they establish, and occasionally they stumble into something legitimately good. So it goes.

But for every big budget film that’s good, you’ll have a dozen Michael Bay style 'splosion and lens flare fests. That’s the expected pattern.

Do people still like the shambling husk that is Blizzard at this point? I’ve been playing their games since Rock N’ Roll Racing and they’re not even close to the same company anymore.

Let them eat each other. I’ll be over here playing indie games with actual depth, real care, still getting updates for free years down the line.

Edgerunners was a better story than the game, honestly. You’re not missing all that much if you don’t enjoy the gameplay.

Why? The CCP is a defacto stakeholder in all Chinese companies. No fucking way am I installing anything they control.

Edit: Oh God the more you read of this article the stupider it gets. Shame on the Guardian for publishing this garbage.

The truly horrifying combo is Battlemaster+Gloomstalker+Thief with a couple specific hand crossbows and the sharpshooter feat. All that Dex + 15 AC from Yuan-Ti scale mail they sell at last light means 4 attacks per round each and 20+ AC.

Oh, and stealth, and lockpicking. Astarion? Never heard of him.

Had to use a bonus action for something? Then you’ve got battlemaster ranged moves to fear, trip, or disarm. It’s disgusting.

Really? I thought he nailed it too.

Sean Bean also voices most of Civ 6 and it’s glorious. Say what you will about it from a mechanical perspective but I can’t find fault with his voice lines. He gets to read some of the greatest quotations from history and for the most part he nails it.

Consumers don’t set prices and if he can’t convince people his games are worth more, that’s on Capcom’s marketing team.

This just smacks of “we’ve tried nothing and nothing is working.”

hipsters who hate everything Apple

If anyone needed conclusive proof that the word “hipster” is now functionally meaningless, here it is.

THIS IS THE FUTURE LIBERALS WANT /s

I think you meant IF.

Squadron 42 when?

I’d call him a pussy but he lacks the warmth and the depth.

I think a lot of games struggle in their final act. Often it feels like cut content forces writers and developers into conclusions that are unsatisfying because they feel rushed and incomplete. So maybe you’re just playing the good bits? Think of the last game you played where the ending felt truly satisfying. Doesn’t help that everyone’s trying to shoehorn live service microtransaction bullshit into their games.

Call of Duty and Battlefield currently define the FPS genre, signaling a trend towards realism

What version of reality does this author live in, anyway?