A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a 2023 Florida law that blocked gender-affirming care for transgender minors and severely restricted such treatment for adults, calling the statute unconstitutional....
Yeah I look forward to the few scraps they give us to sustain the illusion whilst they continue to help drag us further and further right. Precisely what happened in America.
Yeah his death (if I remember right) was when I realised that, yes, they have completely fucked this entire story up. He could’ve been interesting but they such with the utter shite that was tyreen.
Oh yeah, they felt that, I reckon, and they’ll keep feelin it too. Not often you encounter such distinguished swearers out in the wild west. Now if you’ll 'scuse me, I got myself a tense shootout unfolding like a poker game over here, hope you don’t mind.
I wouldn’t put Cillian Murphy even close to the same level as Keanu, who is universally recognised simply by his first name.
Vaas is the best FC villain, but then he dies in a quick time even (if I remember right?) before the end and you’re stuck with someone poor. Pagan Min was engaging enough and that game had the coolest setting and an amazing hand crossbow. FC5’s villains really worked for me, so I prefer those. The perfect FarcFry is, in fact, a combination of elements from these games, modernised. Instead Ubi is homogenising it into Assassin’s Cry.
This is stupid but thanks for working on those games, I love all of them. You didn’t work on 6? So you left and the series instantly fell apart? Clearly they should’ve kept you on!
God, I was absolutely loving Observer until I hit the generic “helpless whilst instakill monster hunts you, hide and run” bullshit started. Ruined the whole game for me.
This is a false argument. They ARE profitable when they bother to try and make a good one. It’s when they fill it full of mtx and drag every aspect of the game except the enjoyment out for as long as possible to try and convince you to buy shit to make it actually enjoyable after you’ve already paid full price. They don’t get create poor games and then complain they’re not profitable enough - bad products aren’t profitable because they are bad products.
That’s just another symptom of chasing perceived profits. If they were dedicated to releasing good products they’d understand retaining good talent that has experience working together is an important part of it.
Obviously that’s a pipe dream because they’re all vultures circling over a games publisher, picking off what they can until they can feast on its corpse, but still.
…but not before launch? The game launched and they weren’t there? So they released a game and there were only three servers available? Hours later they added a bunch of servers? AFTER LAUNCH? Is there another way I can phrase this so you realise how stupid it is that you’re defending it?
I recall there being plenty of talk about Helldivers servers. About a month’s worth. Meanwhile I haven’t seen a single person say this is the worst thing that’s ever happened or that it’s never happened before with other games, just that releasing a multiplayer game and only having three servers available is absurd. That and the apparently poor port at least on Switch detailed in another comment.
Believe it or not, shit happening before doesn’t change anything. Shit’s still shit. And we all already know the only actual obstacle to ensuring a smooth multiplayer launch (assuming a competently made game, of course) is paying for enough servers to handle the initial surge. They just prefer not to spend that money and present a poor experience to customers who buy the game at launch instead, because fuck them right.
I don’t own the game. It’s not a problem for me at all. It’s a principle, and a reflection of a publisher’s greed and disrespect towards its customers.
Do you know that people bought the game, downloaded it, installed it, sat to play it, and couldn’t because the publisher didn’t want to pay for the required servers for their most loyal customers to do so?
Sure, it’s good that there are servers now, but that’s the minimum I expect and I expect them there at launch. You know, so people who have paid money to play their game actually can. Far be it for me to think an online multiplayer game should have servers to play online multiplayer in when it’s available to buy.
Believe it or not it’s possible to gather information about things without directly experiencing it and I tend to do this with new games. I also already have the originals on steam.
Yes and it’s a multiplayer classic that they couldn’t play multiplayer in. It doesn’t ruin the game, it didn’t destroy the experience permanently, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s shit and only happened because of the publisher’s greed. No clue why you feel the need to defend it really.
[Edit] I also haven’t said a single word that even implies I’m an expert on it. I mentioned bugginess that I said I saw in a comment and talked about servers being unavailable. What level of star wars battlefront expert do you think I need to be to discuss specific star wars battlefront things like…bugs and servers?
But all people have said is that it’s buggy on switch (with screenshot proof) and that there weren’t enough servers for hours after launch. Is it you that’s overblowing it?
That’s just always online. Live Service is milking customers for more money on top of the already full priced game, because just releasing a product that’s good and is the best selling game of that year wasn’t profitable enough for the vampires at the top of the company.
That first paragraph is the most cringe inducing thing I’ve ever read. If you had written guttural sounds and whines you’d have sounded less stupid. Go and learn something you embarrassment.
If ignorance is bliss you must be literally the happiest being in all of existence. If you were even a touch smarter you’d be embarrassed enough by this exchange you’re losing to delete your comments, but you’re not.
That isn’t what I said at all, but I can’t expect you to understand that I suppose. What I actually said was that if you were even slightly smarter you be so embarrassed by them that you’d delete your comments. Not sure why you think I’d want them deleted, the longer they’re here the more embarrassing it is. Or would be, if you weren’t so dense.
Practice some reading comprehension, judging by your comments you should start with Mr Men books, that’ll be about the right level for you.
I’m not talking for anyone, so you seem to have gotten a little lost again. It’s ok, go back and re-read, do it slowly and sound the hard words out loud so you can work out what they are. Maybe you’ll extract some of the actual meaning from the word, then you can finally make a comment that actually follows a conversation instead of this weird straw man about someone “not made for the internet.”
And dude, the conversations I’m responding to are literally right there above my comments, where is it you think that stupid line of thought is going? Everyone can see what you said. Are you struggling with object permanence as well?
You don’t think the body count reinforces revenge being bad? With the looks of terror on their faces as Ellie slices their throat, the cries of “Sheila!” or whatever when you blow Sheila or whatever up, the dogs whining at their dead owners’ sides, seems to me that all of this feeds into revenge being bad. You see the cost of those actions too, whole settlement aflame as Ellie hunts down Abby, slaughtering everyone in her way whilst Abby is trying to walk away from it.
You’re a killing machine in that game, but everywhere you go the violence is always extremely messy, upsetting, and visceral, and Ellie has pretty severe reactions to it as well in cutscenes. Both Ellie and Abby even say hateful and petty things under her breath whilst you’re taking them out, hardly presenting them in the best light whilst they’re slaughtering people in their pursuit of revenge. Enemies beg for their life when you grab them, Ellie has to be talked down from murdering a pregnant woman. At one point she tortured, brutally, a woman who looks a bit like Dina. I’m not sure the ludo-narrative dissonance argument applies here, surprisingly, despite basically being Rambo from a gameplay perspective.
Now Uncharted? I love those games, but you destroy legions worth of bad guys, it’s ridiculous, and in a serious narrative Drake’s charming affableness whilst doing it would have to be a cover for a full on psychopath or something. There aren’t many action games, especially shooting, where this argument doesn’t apply really. It’s just somewhere you need to suspend your disbelief. That or only play games where you kill a reasonable amount of people? What would that be? 15? Even that seems high, but 12 hour game a game where you only defeat 15 people isn’t an action game.
Action-RPG colossus Elden Ring is reportedly getting a free-to-play mobile adaptation with in-app purchases, which takes inspiration from miHoYo’s Genshin Impact. It’s being published by Tencent, who apparently acquired the licensing rights to Elden Ring back in 2022 and put a few dozen people to work on a prototype, even as...
Listen if you want to piss away money on transient shit you are welcome to go and do it, but the person missing the nuances here is you. The industry moving towards these models is negatively affecting gaming as a whole and it’ll only get worse, even if you’re too blinded by tacky skins to notice the reason why.
So you’re saying that if Microsoft hadn’t hoovered up another company due to being creatively bankrupt, almost two thousand people would still have a job?
Basically all games have review embargoes. If you’re lucky it’s before release and you get the code even earlier, but there’s almost always a date you can’t publish before.
The issue you’re looking for is not sending code out before release so that there are no reviews at launch, so they get more people buying it blind instead of consulting a bunch of negative reviews and deciding not to.
If you’re looking for similar games to move onto, Baldur’s Gate 3 is in its own tier, right at the top of the genre. Not only that but it’s a step forward mechanically and presentation wise for the whole genre as well. In this game I once threw an angry hyena at an enemy. Later just threw enemies at their friends.
Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous are both excellent as well. Especially Wrath, though still with the aged style graphically speaking. You can cast touch spells through weapons! In the second one I became a lich queen with an army of undead, it might be my favourite CRPG ever because of that. It’s awesome.
Divinity Original Sin and its sequel are also brilliant, made by bg3 Devs Larian on their own ruleset. I’m currently replaying the second one with my sister (yep, it’s co-op), we are both playing undead. We are healed by poison and damaged by healing. Very cool.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is incredibly detailed in combat though, so much so that it takes sometime to wrap your head around it. I’m addition to pushing and jumping, which both sound so simple but have a huge effect on gameplay, there’s also environmental things that you just don’t think of because in other games in the genre it isn’t an option. As an example, there’s a giant spider that wanders around on webs and summons smaller spiders from eggs, you can sneak around to destroy the eggs before combat to stop summoning and destroy the webs whilst the spider is on them to cause it to drop and take extreme damage.
So you’re right that character building may be better in Pathfinder - I really do love casting touch spells through weapons, it’s great - the combat in Baldur’s Gate 3 is far more interactive and dynamic. It’s also way more accessible.
Either is a good choice, but I give the edge to Baldur’s Gate 3 because, well, every single line is voice acted and motion captured, and the freedom you get in the story is astounding. It’s such a profound improvement, a night and day difference from the basically everything else in the genre.
I think it’s simpler character creation-wise because DND has gotten simpler in the same area, definitely seems much less complex than before.
Wrath is going to be my favourite for a very long time I suspect because of the Lich thing. I’ve always wanted that since playing DND games as a kid and it’s the only game that allowed it. Then it went above and beyond, I could reanimate almost anything, it was great.
Oh yeah, you’ve got to go full chaotic evil for the lich. I revived Staunton Vane (it’s been a while now, that’s the dwarf with the tragic backstory who works for evil woman whose name I’ve forgotten I believe) as an undead, I had a few lich only companions who were undead (they don’t talk much though, most of them whine about being controlled if I remember right), my city was dark and almost desolate, filled almost entirely with undead subjects. My councillors, the ones still alive, were a bit terrified and hopeless. By the end my Lich was so good at supporting the undead characters that I started to just go with a full undead party. Poor enemies must’ve been terrified.
It was incredibly macabre and grim, of course, but it was so damn cool.
The ads on that page are so shit that I stopped trying to read three paragraphs in after I tried to close the popup, floating, and auto playing video and the x didn’t work.
Trump challenges Biden to cognitive test but confuses name of doctor who tested him : NPR (www.npr.org)
Refers to ''Ronny Jackson" as “Ronny Johnson”
A Florida law blocking treatment for transgender children is thrown out by a federal judge (apnews.com)
A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a 2023 Florida law that blocked gender-affirming care for transgender minors and severely restricted such treatment for adults, calling the statute unconstitutional....
Dune: Awakening – Story Cinematic (The Vision of Paul Atreides) (www.youtube.com)
Borderlands 4 is Reportedly 2K’s Big Summer Game Fest Reveal (wccftech.com)
Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios Group is closing the Montreal studio it acquired just 8 months ago (www.pcgamer.com)
Leaks Show Assassin's Creed And Rabbids Coming To Ubisoft's CoD-Like Shooter (kotaku.com)
Mark Hamill will voice The Joker in Multiversus (www.videogameschronicle.com)
Not really my type of game but hearing Conroy and Hamill together would be nice.
Fallout 4's next-gen upgrade: bugged on Series X/S, disappointing on PS5 and PC (www.eurogamer.net)
Batman: Arkham Shadow | Official Teaser Trailer (Meta Quest VR) (www.youtube.com)
Xbox Reportedly Working to Release Next Fallout Game "Sooner Rather Than Later" (comicbook.com)
Rightwing US website that spreads election conspiracies declares bankruptcy (www.theguardian.com)
Far Cry 7 will star Cillian Murphy, leaker suggests (www.eurogamer.net)
Silent Hill 2 Remake's Main Character Seemingly Redesigned, and Fans Are Actually Pretty Happy (www.ign.com)
Biden support drops dramatically among young men (www.latimes.com)
Baldur's Gate 3 studio confirms two new projects: "Will be our best work ever" (www.eurogamer.net)
If AAA is No Longer Profitable... Make Smaller Games | A16Z Games (10:11) (www.youtube.com)
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection Launch Is a Disaster - IGN (www.ign.com)
Trans youth will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers, NHS England says (www.thepinknews.com)
Trans youth will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at NHS England gender identity clinics in a new “blow” to gender-affirming healthcare....
WB Thinks ‘Hogwarts Legacy 2’ Should Be A Live Service (www.forbes.com)
Sweet Baby employees incite harassment campaign against Steam curator (archive.ph)
DL: nichegamer.com/sweet-baby-employees-incite-harass…
A Year Since Its Release, Sony Seems to Have Abandoned PlayStation VR2 (www.ign.com)
Last of Us director Neil Druckmann says he doesn’t think he has many more big games left in him (www.videogameschronicle.com)
Elden Ring is getting a free-to-play mobile version with in-app purchases (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
Action-RPG colossus Elden Ring is reportedly getting a free-to-play mobile adaptation with in-app purchases, which takes inspiration from miHoYo’s Genshin Impact. It’s being published by Tencent, who apparently acquired the licensing rights to Elden Ring back in 2022 and put a few dozen people to work on a prototype, even as...
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League Review Overview (opencritic.com)
Let’s see where it goes.
Microsoft quarterly gaming revenue up 49% following Activision purchase (www.eurogamer.net)
IGN: Where's Our Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review? (www.ign.com)
Playing Pillars of Eternity for the first time
I’m really enjoying it so far. I’m solidly in the middle of Act 2 and about to start The Winter March part 1....
I was already intrigued by this Disco Elysium-inspired, D&D-based RPG where you play as the world's worst cleric, but its demo blew my expectations out of the water (www.pcgamer.com)