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(No, I don't know the story behind why Pat is wearing clown makeup. He was wearing the wig that you can see to the right in the previously released clip, which I didn't make a post about because I didn't care about the subject matter).
So glad I never once bothered with Game Pass.
"The Xbox Game Pass price hikes are so bad, it literally crashed the membership site due to widespread cancellations"
Pat: "This is so weird. This is like a complete loss of understanding of how, like, a normal person works. Which is appropriate for Microsoft."
Pat, dude, that has been the case since at least 2013, back when Microsoft was trying (and failing miserably) to hype up that piece of dogshit X-Box One (or X-Bone, as I call it). So... damn straight it is "appropriate for Microsoft."
Sony's going to get so shitty when the X-Box dies, Pat? Are you saying that Sony isn't already shitty? Granted, Sony can certainly become way worse than they already are, once their only real competition, such as it is, finally gives up and quits.
Concerning AI in general, here is another Pat quote: "Hey, listen, man. Listen. Listen, Woolie. Woolie, listen, I need five hundred billion dollars in order to finish the 'puts everybody out of work' machine, so that they can all spend more money than exists in the world in a single year on it. Like, how is the... how am I supposed to make a trillion dollars on the 'puts everybody out of work' machine, without you giving me five hundred billion dollars right now?"
And Woolie talking about Zelda Williams asking people to stop sending her videos of AI Robin Williams is sad.
From the article:
"To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough', just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening," she continued.
"You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross."
She concluded: "And for the love of EVERY THING, stop calling it 'the future,' AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume."
"Xbox Game Pass deemed a failure, Microsoft fires 9,000 to pivot to AI, Microsoft abandoning the console market, and more!"
First CUPodcast clip I've bothered to watch in almost two months (despite the typically CLICKBAIT-y title and video description). It's still kind of weird seeing Ian clean-shaven and with short, almost Pat-like hair now. Still, regardless of Ian's hair length, I find myself agreeing with pretty much every word he said here. Nor did Pat say anything blatantly dumb in this one that I immediately and completely disagreed with, either (which he has done in some past CUPodcast clip instances).
As someone who hasn't touched anything X-box related since the 360 (and the only 360 I ever had was the original "fat" one, rather than the smaller "slim" ones), and who just completely wrote off X-box entirely when the X-Bone was announced with all of its myriad problems, and who never, even once, remotely considered anything past that (X-Box Series Whatever the Fuck, etc.)[1], all I can say in response, if Microsoft does leave the console market, is "and nothing of value was lost."
Also, yeah, if everyone keeps firing people and replacing them with AI, then who do they think is going to have any money to buy their fucking AI slop horseshit afterward? I'm not the first person to make that point, nor is Ian, but it's still a good point.
And, lastly, I've never once touched anything to do with Game Pass, and assuming it continues to exist in the future, I don't plan to ever start touching anything to do with Game Pass, either.
In the end, as usual, it all comes down to appeasing the almighty "shareholder," rather than the "end user" of the product. Shareholders, ultimately, will be the inevitable, inexorable cause of death for Capitalism, even as they were, are, and continue to be the heart, brain, nerves, guts, skeleton, muscle, skin, hair, and lifeblood of Capitalism now.
[1] - And not just because that's around when I, seemingly forever, abandoned all console gaming entirely. I mean, I still to this day occasionally muse about maybe someday getting a Switch (or, now, Switch 2) and/or some variant of Playstation, but since then, I have never even once thought to myself "Hmm, maybe I could get a new X-Box something or other someday."
The best parts of this video were the parts where they weren't talking about Sparking Zero or Dragon Ball, which were significant portions of that 47 minute runtime.
Yoku's Island Express
Jun. 19th, 2024 03:41 pmAll right, so, Yoku's Island Express (which is currently on an 80%-off sale on Steam, for $3.99 USD, until June 27) can probably be best described as "Metroidvania pinball." Steam says I played it for 10.7 hours, and the game save considers itself to be 100% complete (even though I didn't get all of the Steam achievements for the game, and since some of them are dumb busywork stuff like "toot the noisemaker 1000 times" or whatever, I probably won't bother).
You're playing as Yoku, a dung beetle, who arrives on an island at the start of the game to begin his (or maybe her, as I don't recall the game ever really specifying if Yoku is male or female) job as the new postmaster. Ostensibly, your job is to deliver mail and such, which you do over the course of the game, but ultimately your job is to save the island from destruction, as becomes clear pretty early on.
So yeah, it's Metroidvania in that you're traversing a big open world area (with a few different "biomes" like "the desert area" and "the snowy area" and "the watery area" and such), finding new gear that lets you get to places you couldn't otherwise get too, and all that stuff. The Metroidvania part of the game is great.
And it's pinball in that you're very frequently encountering areas that are... well... basically just big pinball machines. The pinball part is... okay, I guess. It can be rather frustrating at times, especially those times when you know what you need to do to progress, but it's just a matter of getting Yoku and his/her little ball to cooperate. That said, even I managed to 100% the game (according to the save file, not Steam's achievement acquisition), and I'm not even really into pinball all that much. For the most part, I liked it well enough that I didn't ever rage-quit (though I did "this is exhausting, I'm done for now"-quit a few times). Basically, if you hate pinball, maybe avoid this game, but if you like pinball or, at least, are indifferent to it, then I would recommend this game.
Also... this might be one of those "better played with a controller, rather than keyboard" kind of games. Though, again, I managed to 100% it using keyboard, so... *shrug* (For what it's worth, it's also on consoles, like the Switch, PS4, etc.)
One hint/tip: when in doubt, try to find an explosive slug (it'll make sense eventually) and use it to launch yourself to a place that otherwise may look utterly inaccessible. The source of explosive slugs sometimes may be much farther away from the goal than other times, though. And it may take (more than) a few tries to properly line up the slug-side of your little ball to get the launch angle correct.
"And why exclusives have become a risky business"
Simply another bunch of reasons why the modern AAA video game industry needs to crash, burn, and die.
As far as exclusives are concerned, though, if Microsoft and the X-bone family of consoles were the leaders of the modern video game industry (which they most assuredly are not), would we really be hearing Phil Spencer whining about "the perils of exclusivity and walled-garden consoles" or whatever the fuck? I think not. He just wants Sony (and probably Nintendo, but fat chance of that) exclusives on his console. In the alternate universe where the X-bone consoles were dominant, it would be Sony begging Microsoft for access to their exclusives, rather than the other way around like it is here.
Granted, I fully agree with him that exclusives are fucking bullshit. It's just not for the same reasons he believes it.
Simply another bunch of reasons why the modern AAA video game industry needs to crash, burn, and die.
As far as exclusives are concerned, though, if Microsoft and the X-bone family of consoles were the leaders of the modern video game industry (which they most assuredly are not), would we really be hearing Phil Spencer whining about "the perils of exclusivity and walled-garden consoles" or whatever the fuck? I think not. He just wants Sony (and probably Nintendo, but fat chance of that) exclusives on his console. In the alternate universe where the X-bone consoles were dominant, it would be Sony begging Microsoft for access to their exclusives, rather than the other way around like it is here.
Granted, I fully agree with him that exclusives are fucking bullshit. It's just not for the same reasons he believes it.
Ignoring the "markdown in game prices probably wouldn't have been enough to sway people to accept the online only shit since any markdown would still have been more than buying used games even cheaper" bit... look, I don't care if they'd marked down the price to $0 per game or even -$60 per game (i.e. them giving me $60 per game to play their games on the X-bone), I still wouldn't have wanted the online only X-bone.
"You know, Don Mattrick really just shit in a bucket and gave it to Phil [Spencer] and told him to hold it, so I feel bad for him, but I don't think that the solution was for him to continue shitting into the same bucket and then complain that it's really heavy."
Pat always has the best quotes.
(EDIT) Oh, and they discuss this sort of shit a little ways into it, too. (/EDIT)
I care just as much about Game Pass as I do about the post-360 Xbox consoles themselves, which is exactly dick all. Worse than dick all, actually, because I'm actively antipathetic toward those things. As such, if Microsoft did leave the console market entirely, that'd be super great. But a world where Sony is the only console maker (and Nintendo, I guess, which is over there "doing its own thing," as Woolie said) would not be super great.
But... as I've said before, I haven't owned any video game consoles since 2014 (will be a full decade as of December 17 of this year), and I don't plan on owning any consoles any time soon, so this is all academic to me. As such, Microsoft and Sony (and Nintendo) can do whatever the fuck they want, I guess, as far as I am personally concerned. But then the shit they've already been doing over the past decade has been a big part of why I don't care to own any consoles. *shrug + weary sigh*
Not that that will stop me from continuing to rant about the things they've done and will do in the future, mind you.
(EDIT) A comment from under the video: "'Competition is good' is true insofar as if 2 wild dogs both want to eat your balls they might start fighting each other long enough for you to get a headstart on them." (/EDIT)
Good thing this never happened, and was never even remotely likely to happen.
I don't care so much about Warner Bros. Interactive (though I still wouldn't want fucking Micro$hit owning them), but Nintendo in the hands of Micro$hit would be both a tragedy and a travesty.
I don't care so much about Warner Bros. Interactive (though I still wouldn't want fucking Micro$hit owning them), but Nintendo in the hands of Micro$hit would be both a tragedy and a travesty.
"Microsoft 'lost the worst generation to lose' with Xbox One, says Spencer."
Well, gee, I wonder why?
"Because of this, and languishing in third place, Microsoft decided instead of fighting a console war, it would instead focus on the cloud and subscription services like Game Pass with its new generation of consoles."
(Emphasis mine.)
Oh, right. That's why.
Yeah, even rumors of dumbshit like that is what forever killed any interest I may have had in the X-Bone, even if they may have ended up backpedaling on (at least some of) the dumbshit. I have, at least, considered getting one or more of the competing consoles (e.g. PS4, PS5, Switch, etc.) in the years since I got rid of all my older ones (even if I haven't actually done so yet), but not once have I even entertained the very remote possibility of buying another Microsoft console, nor will I ever do so, all because I was so soured on even just the concept of the X-Bone, along with this continuing dumbfuckery about "the cloud" and "subscription services" being baked into their later consoles or whatever the hell.
May Microsoft forever continue to languish in third place. Or, even better, get out of the console business entirely and spare us all their stupid bullshit.
Well, gee, I wonder why?
"Because of this, and languishing in third place, Microsoft decided instead of fighting a console war, it would instead focus on the cloud and subscription services like Game Pass with its new generation of consoles."
(Emphasis mine.)
Oh, right. That's why.
Yeah, even rumors of dumbshit like that is what forever killed any interest I may have had in the X-Bone, even if they may have ended up backpedaling on (at least some of) the dumbshit. I have, at least, considered getting one or more of the competing consoles (e.g. PS4, PS5, Switch, etc.) in the years since I got rid of all my older ones (even if I haven't actually done so yet), but not once have I even entertained the very remote possibility of buying another Microsoft console, nor will I ever do so, all because I was so soured on even just the concept of the X-Bone, along with this continuing dumbfuckery about "the cloud" and "subscription services" being baked into their later consoles or whatever the hell.
May Microsoft forever continue to languish in third place. Or, even better, get out of the console business entirely and spare us all their stupid bullshit.
Spiritfarer
Jun. 10th, 2022 12:01 pm(Consider this to be "part two" of the series of video game related posts I mentioned a few days ago.)
Spiritfarer. Available on Steam and GOG.com, as well as on Switch, PS4, and X-bone.
This is sort of a weird mix of platformer, adventure, city builder, and farming sim. You play as Stella (and her cat, Daffodil, if you do the local co-op thing, which I don't have the means to do) who becomes the new "Spiritfarer" at the start of the game. A psychopomp, in other words.
Soon after the game starts, you acquire a large boat, which is where you'll probably spend most of your time in the game. As you travel from island to island, you'll eventually meet several spirits who will join you on your ship (after you do a quest or two or ten for some of them). While on the ship, they'll give you additional specific tasks that they want you to do, such as building them a certain building, or giving them a certain meal, or bringing them a certain item, either one that you create yourself or one that you find somewhere in the world. You can build a bunch of different buildings and such on the ship, and after you build the right ones, you'll gain access to the ability to cook food, farm crops, raise livestock, smelt ore, weave fabric, and so on and so forth. There are also several different mini-games that you'll come across while traveling the world that will gain you unique items, such as literally catching lightning in a bottle as one example. And you'll need a lot of that stuff and all the other stuff you make or find in order to upgrade your boat, as there are some areas you can't get to until you have certain upgrades. Unfortunately, in particular the ones that let you reach new areas, some of these upgrades require "spirit flowers," which you only get after you take a spirit to the "Everdoor," which means it's not possible to have all the spirits on the boat at the same time. Also, throughout the course of the game, you will get Metroidvania-like personal upgrades, like double-jumping and gliding and such, which will allow you to get to areas of the platforming-stage-ish islands that you can visit that you otherwise would be unable to reach.
It's also a story-based game. Each spirit has their own tale, which you'll eventually learn as you get to know them. All of them are tied to Stella in some way or other, either by being a family member or someone she had worked with in the "real world." And, of course, the game being what it is, these stories are usually pretty sad in some way. The worst, or at least most hard-hitting for me, were the two that involved the spirit becoming stricken with dementia over the course of their stay on the boat (one was way worse than the other, and it reminded me too much of my own mother, as she was in the end). But all of them are pretty sad at the end, when you have to take each spirit to the Everdoor.
Honestly, for me, it was all about the day to day chores, like watering the crops or shearing the sheep or picking the fruit or milking the cow or cooking food for the passengers or whatever. There was just something relaxing about loading into the game and doing all of that stuff. Even after you upgrade your boat so that it doesn't move so slowly, you'll still usually have plenty of time to do stuff on the boat between moving from one place to the next, and that's even if you use the fast travel walrus, which I rarely did. And then, even when you arrive, nothing is forcing you to immediately leave the boat.
Mild spoilers after this point.
( Mild spoilers behind cut )
So yeah, I'd recommend Spiritfarer. I will say this, too: this is the only game, so far, for which I've separately and after the fact bought the digital artbook. (Any other game for which I may have gotten such a thing, I did so only because the version of the game I bought simply came with it already included, and I most likely would not have bought it separately otherwise.)
Spiritfarer. Available on Steam and GOG.com, as well as on Switch, PS4, and X-bone.
This is sort of a weird mix of platformer, adventure, city builder, and farming sim. You play as Stella (and her cat, Daffodil, if you do the local co-op thing, which I don't have the means to do) who becomes the new "Spiritfarer" at the start of the game. A psychopomp, in other words.
Soon after the game starts, you acquire a large boat, which is where you'll probably spend most of your time in the game. As you travel from island to island, you'll eventually meet several spirits who will join you on your ship (after you do a quest or two or ten for some of them). While on the ship, they'll give you additional specific tasks that they want you to do, such as building them a certain building, or giving them a certain meal, or bringing them a certain item, either one that you create yourself or one that you find somewhere in the world. You can build a bunch of different buildings and such on the ship, and after you build the right ones, you'll gain access to the ability to cook food, farm crops, raise livestock, smelt ore, weave fabric, and so on and so forth. There are also several different mini-games that you'll come across while traveling the world that will gain you unique items, such as literally catching lightning in a bottle as one example. And you'll need a lot of that stuff and all the other stuff you make or find in order to upgrade your boat, as there are some areas you can't get to until you have certain upgrades. Unfortunately, in particular the ones that let you reach new areas, some of these upgrades require "spirit flowers," which you only get after you take a spirit to the "Everdoor," which means it's not possible to have all the spirits on the boat at the same time. Also, throughout the course of the game, you will get Metroidvania-like personal upgrades, like double-jumping and gliding and such, which will allow you to get to areas of the platforming-stage-ish islands that you can visit that you otherwise would be unable to reach.
It's also a story-based game. Each spirit has their own tale, which you'll eventually learn as you get to know them. All of them are tied to Stella in some way or other, either by being a family member or someone she had worked with in the "real world." And, of course, the game being what it is, these stories are usually pretty sad in some way. The worst, or at least most hard-hitting for me, were the two that involved the spirit becoming stricken with dementia over the course of their stay on the boat (one was way worse than the other, and it reminded me too much of my own mother, as she was in the end). But all of them are pretty sad at the end, when you have to take each spirit to the Everdoor.
Honestly, for me, it was all about the day to day chores, like watering the crops or shearing the sheep or picking the fruit or milking the cow or cooking food for the passengers or whatever. There was just something relaxing about loading into the game and doing all of that stuff. Even after you upgrade your boat so that it doesn't move so slowly, you'll still usually have plenty of time to do stuff on the boat between moving from one place to the next, and that's even if you use the fast travel walrus, which I rarely did. And then, even when you arrive, nothing is forcing you to immediately leave the boat.
Mild spoilers after this point.
( Mild spoilers behind cut )
So yeah, I'd recommend Spiritfarer. I will say this, too: this is the only game, so far, for which I've separately and after the fact bought the digital artbook. (Any other game for which I may have gotten such a thing, I did so only because the version of the game I bought simply came with it already included, and I most likely would not have bought it separately otherwise.)
Tags:
This article is from back in March, but I only heard about this today... i.e. that the Denuvo malware is (or will be, if it isn't already) also in console games as well as PC games. The article is about PS5, but it's almost assuredly on X-bone as well. (And even if it isn't on X-bone, I'd already sworn off ever buying another Microsoft console years ago for other, similar reasons, anyway, so whatever.)
*shrug* Oh well, all the more reason for me not to be interested in modern consoles at all, I guess.
*shrug* Oh well, all the more reason for me not to be interested in modern consoles at all, I guess.
Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition
May. 2nd, 2021 10:04 pmJust finished Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition. It's pretty cool. Shades of old-school SNES RPG (intentional, of course). The story is fairly typical, i.e. you're playing as a normal person who gets wrapped up into a huge "save the world" plot, but it's still pretty good. (It's technically not a "you're the chosen one" plot, as basically anyone could have stumbled onto the MacGuffin that got the plot rolling, but... yeah, it's pretty much an "only you can save the world now" plot. In any case, as with most stories, it's the little things, the details, that make it unique, even if it's not super-original overall. And... I've long been a believer of the notion that originality isn't exactly the be-all end-all of storytelling, anyway, so I'm not sure why I'm harping on this point in the first place, really.)
I thought at first it was just going to be yet another of the roughly forty billion or so RPG Maker games you can find on Steam lately (not that it necessarily would have been a bad thing if it had been), but it's got more than that going for it. Helps that the Enhanced Edition was remade in Unity with new stuff that wasn't in the original. The original RPG Maker 2003 version is included as well, at least on PC, but I haven't played that version and probably won't.
I thought at first it was just going to be yet another of the roughly forty billion or so RPG Maker games you can find on Steam lately (not that it necessarily would have been a bad thing if it had been), but it's got more than that going for it. Helps that the Enhanced Edition was remade in Unity with new stuff that wasn't in the original. The original RPG Maker 2003 version is included as well, at least on PC, but I haven't played that version and probably won't.
Lair of the Clockwork God and Devil's Kiss
Apr. 4th, 2021 08:57 pmJust finished Lair of the Clockwork God. It's a sort of sequel to Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentlemen, Please!, though you don't really need to have played either of those two for this, as the story of Lair of the Clockwork God (which is full of British humor and heavy satire of modern video gaming and other current events) is stand-alone. The first two are still pretty cool though, so I'd recommend them, too.
So, instead of being a pure point-and-click style adventure game like the first two games, this one is a weird little hybrid platformer and adventure game. Dan has apparently moved on from his adventure game roots and is now a platform character, i.e. running, jumping, and, eventually, shooting. Ben, however, steadfastly refuses to get involved with all of that running and jumping claptrap and sticks to the old-school adventure game ethos of looking at everything, talking to everybody, stealing everything that isn't nailed down (and sometimes even if it is nailed down), and combining those things into other things and using them on everything else. Given that both of these guys exist in the same world, it makes for some fairly unique gameplay. Or, rather, two different styles of otherwise bog standard gameplay mixed and mashed together in a unique way. It's pretty cool. Some of the platforming is actually pretty tough, though I never bothered to try lowering the difficulty setting, and as such, I can say that the game isn't too awfully hard.
Oh, and there's a prequel game to this (and the other two, I suppose), in the form of a visual novel, called Devil's Kiss (which you get free if you buy Lair of the Clockwork God), that tells the tale of the first meeting of Dan and Ben and their first adventure together. At one point in Lair of the Clockwork God, a password is needed which can only be obtained by playing Devil's Kiss. Or, you know, by looking up the solution online, which I ended up having to do, despite having played through Devil's Kiss three times prior to starting Clockwork God, as I had no real desire to reinstall it and replay it a fourth time just for a password, even if it would've only taken maybe half an hour at most. The password was, in retrospect, stupidly simple (thatsthejoke.jpg). Basically, if you play Devil's Kiss, pay attention to Dan's dog's name, Dan's locker number, and Dan's mother's maiden name. In fact, honestly, I'd say it might be better to play Clockwork God up to the point where you need the password, then play Devil's Kiss, then go back to Clockwork God.
So, instead of being a pure point-and-click style adventure game like the first two games, this one is a weird little hybrid platformer and adventure game. Dan has apparently moved on from his adventure game roots and is now a platform character, i.e. running, jumping, and, eventually, shooting. Ben, however, steadfastly refuses to get involved with all of that running and jumping claptrap and sticks to the old-school adventure game ethos of looking at everything, talking to everybody, stealing everything that isn't nailed down (and sometimes even if it is nailed down), and combining those things into other things and using them on everything else. Given that both of these guys exist in the same world, it makes for some fairly unique gameplay. Or, rather, two different styles of otherwise bog standard gameplay mixed and mashed together in a unique way. It's pretty cool. Some of the platforming is actually pretty tough, though I never bothered to try lowering the difficulty setting, and as such, I can say that the game isn't too awfully hard.
Oh, and there's a prequel game to this (and the other two, I suppose), in the form of a visual novel, called Devil's Kiss (which you get free if you buy Lair of the Clockwork God), that tells the tale of the first meeting of Dan and Ben and their first adventure together. At one point in Lair of the Clockwork God, a password is needed which can only be obtained by playing Devil's Kiss. Or, you know, by looking up the solution online, which I ended up having to do, despite having played through Devil's Kiss three times prior to starting Clockwork God, as I had no real desire to reinstall it and replay it a fourth time just for a password, even if it would've only taken maybe half an hour at most. The password was, in retrospect, stupidly simple (thatsthejoke.jpg). Basically, if you play Devil's Kiss, pay attention to Dan's dog's name, Dan's locker number, and Dan's mother's maiden name. In fact, honestly, I'd say it might be better to play Clockwork God up to the point where you need the password, then play Devil's Kiss, then go back to Clockwork God.
Subnautica
Jan. 6th, 2021 05:02 pmI just finished my playthrough of Subnautica. (Also on PS4, Switch, and X-bone.) It's pretty cool.
Basic gist, the starship you were on crashes on an alien world that is almost entirely ocean and you have only what's on your lifepod and what you can find on the planet itself in order to survive and, ultimately, escape. Lots of exploring, lots of crafting, some base-building, vehicles. There's a story line, which is mostly (but not entirely) through PDA logs you find, radio messages you receive, and scans you do of things as you play.
And, of course, almost the entire thing is underwater. I don't know what it is about video games that take place mostly underwater, but I just really like them. Any game that lets you do stuff in underwater environments, even if it's not necessarily the main focus of the game, is cool, in my book (e.g. Aquaria, Ecco, Minecraft, and such).
Now I'm just waiting for the sequel to come out of Early Access (and, of course, to hit a sale similar to the one I got for the original). (EDIT 2) And if you care, here's my post about the sequel, as well. (/EDIT 2)
Oh, and here's a Cuddlefish (with my base in the background), eggs for which you can find and hatch:
(EDIT) Image embed removed and replaced with a link, because Google Photos always shits the (em)bed. (/EDIT)
Basic gist, the starship you were on crashes on an alien world that is almost entirely ocean and you have only what's on your lifepod and what you can find on the planet itself in order to survive and, ultimately, escape. Lots of exploring, lots of crafting, some base-building, vehicles. There's a story line, which is mostly (but not entirely) through PDA logs you find, radio messages you receive, and scans you do of things as you play.
And, of course, almost the entire thing is underwater. I don't know what it is about video games that take place mostly underwater, but I just really like them. Any game that lets you do stuff in underwater environments, even if it's not necessarily the main focus of the game, is cool, in my book (e.g. Aquaria, Ecco, Minecraft, and such).
Now I'm just waiting for the sequel to come out of Early Access (and, of course, to hit a sale similar to the one I got for the original). (EDIT 2) And if you care, here's my post about the sequel, as well. (/EDIT 2)
Oh, and here's a Cuddlefish (with my base in the background), eggs for which you can find and hatch:
(EDIT) Image embed removed and replaced with a link, because Google Photos always shits the (em)bed. (/EDIT)
Tags:
"CD Projekt Red has apologized for the Cyberpunk 2077 launch issues on PS4 and Xbox One."
This doesn't surprise me at all. The modern video game industry gonna modern video game, after all. CD Projekt (Red or otherwise) is not, and has never been, the messiah of the modern video game industry that far too many gullible dupes try to make it out to be. To steal from one of the comments under the above video, maybe they should rename themselves to "Seedy Projekt."
Ian is totally right. It's deception. It's absolute bullshit. And Pat's "crossing the Rubicon" point about no longer being able to rely on consoles to provide a consistent experience is a good one, too (if a bit behind the curve, because that's been the case for a while now, if not necessarily to such a huge degree as this).
What Remains of Edith Finch
Dec. 4th, 2020 09:43 pmThe game. (On Steam and GOG. Also consoles.)
Not going to say a whole lot, because of spoilers.
It's a really short game. Steam says I spent 2.6 hours on it (though I have a few achievements I could get, if I want to bother, which might add another 30-60 minutes to that, maybe [EDIT] 3.1 hours total, after getting the last four achievements I'd missed [/EDIT]). It's a "walking simulator." Mostly. There are... I don't want to call them "mini-games," because it kind of feels like it cheapens them to call them that... There are... "gameplay interludes" interspersed through the main "gameplay" of just walking around and looking at stuff.
The story (including, especially, the gameplay interludes) is kind of fucked up. Not really in a "horror"-ish way, but sort of? More surreal than horror, I guess. Fucked up in a good way.
I figured out what was probably the main "plot twist" almost immediately, though, simply by looking down at my character after starting the game. I won't say it here, in case it isn't as obvious as I thought it was, but... yeah, anyway. It didn't detract from the game at all to already know what the "big twist" was, and they pretty much all but come out and tell you about halfway in, anyway... and it's not really all that big of a "twist," to begin with.
In any case, I'd recommend it. It's pretty cool, at least if you like story-focused "walking simulator" games that you can finish in just two or three hours.
There is also a a game that might be a sort of sequel/prequel to What Remains of Edith Finch, too, or some people theorize that it could be, but I haven't played that one yet, myself, so I don't know for sure.
Not going to say a whole lot, because of spoilers.
It's a really short game. Steam says I spent 2.6 hours on it (though I have a few achievements I could get, if I want to bother, which might add another 30-60 minutes to that, maybe [EDIT] 3.1 hours total, after getting the last four achievements I'd missed [/EDIT]). It's a "walking simulator." Mostly. There are... I don't want to call them "mini-games," because it kind of feels like it cheapens them to call them that... There are... "gameplay interludes" interspersed through the main "gameplay" of just walking around and looking at stuff.
The story (including, especially, the gameplay interludes) is kind of fucked up. Not really in a "horror"-ish way, but sort of? More surreal than horror, I guess. Fucked up in a good way.
I figured out what was probably the main "plot twist" almost immediately, though, simply by looking down at my character after starting the game. I won't say it here, in case it isn't as obvious as I thought it was, but... yeah, anyway. It didn't detract from the game at all to already know what the "big twist" was, and they pretty much all but come out and tell you about halfway in, anyway... and it's not really all that big of a "twist," to begin with.
In any case, I'd recommend it. It's pretty cool, at least if you like story-focused "walking simulator" games that you can finish in just two or three hours.
There is also a a game that might be a sort of sequel/prequel to What Remains of Edith Finch, too, or some people theorize that it could be, but I haven't played that one yet, myself, so I don't know for sure.
Timespinner
Sep. 13th, 2020 08:26 pmJust completed my second playthrough of Timespinner (on Steam and GOG and consoles), which came pretty much immediately after the first playthrough.
It is a Metroidvania game, which takes place in a sort of fantasy/science fiction hybrid setting (though mostly fantasy-ish, I'd say). You play as Lunais, a girl who has been trained to be a Time Messenger, someone whose job is to go back in time to warn their clan of nomads of impending danger (when said danger would have been otherwise fatal to the clan). At the start of the game, the clan is attacked by the emperor of Lachiem, a star spanning empire, and Lunais is accidentally transported to their homeworld, when the operation of the titular Timespinner is interfered with. Eventually, she gains the ability to travel back and forth between two different time periods at will, on her quest to avenge her clan... or prevent them from ever being in danger in the first place. And as the story goes on, she finds out that things are more complicated than she thought at first.
So yeah, it's a pretty awesome game, I have to say. SNES style graphics, modern music appropriate to the setting, and the gameplay is pretty tight. I'd say that it is easily as good as Bloodstained or any of the IGAvania games (though you're not going to be getting souls/glyphs/shards/whatever from every single enemy in this game like you do in the later of those). I didn't run into any bugs, either, which is nice, for a change. As I said, I just completed a second playthrough, on Nightmare difficulty, in which enemies just hit way harder is all, and aren't really that much more difficult to kill, other than that, but then I was at like level 85 or some such by the end of the normal playthrough anyway, mainly because I went through the optional, randomized dungeon that opens up at the very end of the game several times before actually finishing the normal playthrough. (I'm not touching the "Nightmare, locked at level 1" option, though.) Also got all the Steam achievements, if anyone cares about that sort of thing, though I'd have never gotten at least one of them if I hadn't simply looked up how to get it.
There are four endings total, three of which you can get on the first, pre-new game plus playthrough, but to get the last requires another playthrough on new game-plus, since you have to make a choice at some point between one of two options. I saved the option that I felt would change the timeline the most for the new game plus playthrough, and I think that was a good decision.
In any case, I will be very interested in any potential sequel to this game (or perhaps another, separate, but similar game made by the same people).
Also, the game is very LGBTQ+ friendly, which, of course, obviously, has a bunch of homophobic/transphobic fucktards in the Steam forums and elsewhere whining about "SJW agenda" and such bullshit. Basically, according to them, "gaem has too much ghey therefore bad gaem." You know, like how it usually is with those dipshits.
Obligatory TVTropes link, though I'd recommend not looking at that until after playing the game itself.
It is a Metroidvania game, which takes place in a sort of fantasy/science fiction hybrid setting (though mostly fantasy-ish, I'd say). You play as Lunais, a girl who has been trained to be a Time Messenger, someone whose job is to go back in time to warn their clan of nomads of impending danger (when said danger would have been otherwise fatal to the clan). At the start of the game, the clan is attacked by the emperor of Lachiem, a star spanning empire, and Lunais is accidentally transported to their homeworld, when the operation of the titular Timespinner is interfered with. Eventually, she gains the ability to travel back and forth between two different time periods at will, on her quest to avenge her clan... or prevent them from ever being in danger in the first place. And as the story goes on, she finds out that things are more complicated than she thought at first.
So yeah, it's a pretty awesome game, I have to say. SNES style graphics, modern music appropriate to the setting, and the gameplay is pretty tight. I'd say that it is easily as good as Bloodstained or any of the IGAvania games (though you're not going to be getting souls/glyphs/shards/whatever from every single enemy in this game like you do in the later of those). I didn't run into any bugs, either, which is nice, for a change. As I said, I just completed a second playthrough, on Nightmare difficulty, in which enemies just hit way harder is all, and aren't really that much more difficult to kill, other than that, but then I was at like level 85 or some such by the end of the normal playthrough anyway, mainly because I went through the optional, randomized dungeon that opens up at the very end of the game several times before actually finishing the normal playthrough. (I'm not touching the "Nightmare, locked at level 1" option, though.) Also got all the Steam achievements, if anyone cares about that sort of thing, though I'd have never gotten at least one of them if I hadn't simply looked up how to get it.
There are four endings total, three of which you can get on the first, pre-new game plus playthrough, but to get the last requires another playthrough on new game-plus, since you have to make a choice at some point between one of two options. I saved the option that I felt would change the timeline the most for the new game plus playthrough, and I think that was a good decision.
In any case, I will be very interested in any potential sequel to this game (or perhaps another, separate, but similar game made by the same people).
Also, the game is very LGBTQ+ friendly, which, of course, obviously, has a bunch of homophobic/transphobic fucktards in the Steam forums and elsewhere whining about "SJW agenda" and such bullshit. Basically, according to them, "gaem has too much ghey therefore bad gaem." You know, like how it usually is with those dipshits.
Obligatory TVTropes link, though I'd recommend not looking at that until after playing the game itself.
"Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2"
Jul. 10th, 2020 12:39 pmHuh... I had no idea that they were even working on a sequel to Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (i.e. the prequel game to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night... which I guess this new game is as well), but... there it is. How about that. That said, I never finished the first Curse of the Moon, so... *shrug* I'll still most likely get this one someday, even so.
