So The Surge 2 came out on Monday, and I've been playing it a bit obsessively ever sense, and I just finished my first playthrough of the campaign. Definitely one of my favorite games to come out in a few years. Gonna rave about it for a bit here because I've gotta get this out of my system.

For those unfamiliar with the IP (which I would assume is most of you), the basic conceit here is that 60 or so years from now, not-Google developed some nanomachines to combat climate change, but the guy running the project was your typical mad scientist and shit went sideways, creating a quasi-grey goo scenario. You, the player, are some shmuck on an airplane that the original missile collides with, the plane crashes, and you wake up in a prison hospital wondering what the fuck just happened.

Gameplay-wise, think of it as sci-fi Dark Souls, with the same kind of checkpoints that heal you and respawn enemies, labyrinthine warrens that loop back and around on themselves to create highly complex and engaging levels, and so on. Where it differs is that they've done some really, really interesting things to the combat. Specifically, all the consumables in the game, heals, buffs, etc, are all powered by a "battery" system, where attacking enemies builds up a charge, but after a brief period of not attacking, the charge begins to drain. It creates a really neat risk vs reward dynamic, where you can't do the dark souls thing of just turtling behind a shield and waiting for the opportune moment, you've gotta always be attacking, and the more damage you take, the more incentive you have to attack even more.

In addition, loot in the game is done in a way I've never quite seen in other games. In that there is no loot drops; if you want a piece of gear or equipment, you need to find an enemy wearing it and literally cut it off them. The game's targeting does this thing where once you pick a target, you can then select a specific body part to attack, and once you've done enough damage to it, you can then spend some battery charge to, well, rip that body part off your target. If the body part you cut off is equipped with gear, then you get either the gear itself or, if you already have it, crafting mats to upgrade your gear, and that's how all the loot is done. It's even deeper than that though, because enemies also tend to have body parts that don't have anything equipped to them, which take more damage, so you're constantly making choices between saving time or getting more upgrade mats, and it's a truly fantastic system I'm hoping to see in more games.

The whole thing is a ton of fun and I strongly recommend it to anyone who's a fan of From's recent output. IMO, it sits right up there with Bloodborne for the title of best soulslike, and it would outright beat Bloodborne if not for the lovecraftian-steampunk vibe Bloodborne's soaked in.

 

Nice. Will add it to my list of things I'll play once I graduate.

 

This year's CoD has been getting all kinds of hype (from people who still, for some reason, give a shit) and now it came out that Sony paid for exclusivity on a particular game mode. Exclusivity itself isn't that big of a deal, it's the timeframe. The game mode will be exclusive to PS4 for a year.

Thank you, Activision, the Bioware salt mines have been running dry since Anthem disappeared from public consciousness.

An entire year.

A year from now, Treyarch will shit out MTX Ops 17 and CoD 2019 will be irrelevant. A year-long exclusive game mode in an annual series is bonkers. The subreddit is full of your typical "I don't like it but I'll still buy the game because shiny".

Every day now I dread seeing news of Microsoft inevitably joining the AAA trainwreck parade that has kept me entertained and horrified since 2012 and I will have to give up Minecraft. I think the new Xbox reveal is gonna be it. I just know they'll try to top their own pwnage from 2013 when they unveiled a gaming console as a smart TV platform.

 

I've been playing Surge 2 and while there is stuff about it that I enjoy, I can't say I love the location of the sequel. The first game was fucking perfect. Not to mention, industrial/factory settings like that tend to be underused, IMO, especially in terms of the sheer size of it. There was something really to it that appealed to me, no matter some of the other parts of the game that I didn't like.

But the sequel really missed me with Jericho city. It does nothing for me. Everything seems to be shiny and sunny and despite the devs attempt at portraying a ruined city or a city under quarantine, it doesn't really seem to actually give off a vibe of that. I like the level design, the way that you can explore them from so many different paths, but I just don't feel any love for the levels themselves.

 

I would actually agree there, insofar as I liked the first game's setting much better. The industrial-complex-in-slow-motion-collapse of the first game was goddamn amazing and I loved it to bits. Jericho City isn't nearly as memorable or engaging IMO. It's pretty much the only part of it where I feel the game took a step back from its predecessor. They tried to add more variety to the environments, which is fair enough that was one of the primary complaints from a lot of people, but it ended up creating a zone that just wasn't particularly great.

That doesn't really hamper my ability to enjoy the rest of the game though, so w/e.

Edit:
That said, if you're looking for ruined hellscapes, you're in for a treat later in the game. I don't wanna spoil it, but suffice to say, stuff happens and Jericho gets a facelift that's quite reminiscent of the final level from the original game. It's very neat and changes the feel of the city completely.

 

Greedfall sucks. There, I said it. It has good elements, but overall it just sucks.

I fully believe they could do a good game if they were given 10x the budget, but as it is an 'open world' RPG just doesn't seem anywhere near their abilities to deliver. The RPG elements are decent, but even the story is... not quite up to stuff (god, the companions). That they ask 50$ for this game is a joke.

 

Disagree it's a solid 7/10.

But opinions man.

 

I also feel like some characters really needed to have more of an impact, like Guthenberg himself. Man, I felt the guy had a bigger presence in the first game than in this one, where we actually got to meet him. And I miss Don Hackett and his voice plaguing me throughout the whole game.

Spoiler

I've already reached that part of the game. I still hold to what I said above about how the city simply isn't conveying the same feeling the first game did.

 

I am determined to find even a single decent RPG as of late and finally picked up Kingmaker. My initial opinion is that it's decent, but incredibly flawed. The entire character building is deep, but may god have mercy on your soul if you never played DnD/Pathfinder - I haven't the slightest idea what I'm doing, what's good and what's not and it is impossible to respec (not that I'd have more of an idea at lv10 rather than at lv3, but still).

Combat is dice-based, which I at best tolerate (EU4) but usually outright dislike (Kingmaker). The randomness is very big - sometimes you miss no matter what, sometimes you crit because of the dice rather than your build. It seems much more suited to playing with other players with DM weaving dice randomness into a proper story, but in a RPG game it's rather weird. I have failed four first persuation checks in a row despite having a charismatic character with persuation because I rolled like shit.

The story itself I cannot comment on, but I saw enough of the Good<>Evil alignment dialogue to have a negative opinion on it for this game. I started lawful evil with a general idea of having a benevolent public persona that fucks over people when it actually matters with a bit of machiavellan cutthroat business to the side. It fell rather flat on its face because just about every single 'evil' choice is 'evil stupid' rather than 'evil lawful' - acting like a shitheel to people I'd want to suck up to, random violence that would have everybody else doubting your sanity, greed in places where it makes no sense to be greedy or the 'kick-the-dog' variety of evil that would appeal to an edgy twelve year old. I hit level 5 and I feel actively punished for my alignment.

Disregarding the overly random nature of it, I do enjoy the combat. I usually play RPGs on hard and this time I went normal and with three people instead of six - meaning double XP for everybody. It works well, it looks well, the spells have proper gravitas and firepower and encounters feel reasonably balanced. Having per-rest spells instead of MP is trash, so I promptly modded it, but this is integral to Pathfinder so I probably shouldn't complain about it.

Graphics are good, very good even and are hugely beneficial to the somewhat whimsical feeling of the game. Spell effects are simply beautiful - a fireball looks like a proper fiery explosion rather than a piddly firecracker, a thunderbolt looks incredible, great stuff all around.

Voice acting is... I cannot make up my mind. On one hand it's really well done, but on the other I think it tries to take itself a bit too seriously. Almost every character speaks in an incredibly exaggerated and pompous maner to the point that you'll be rolling your eyes once in a while. It is also somewhat unfortunate that the bard that sometimes functions as a narrator is a squeaky gnome, and there is only so much squeaking I can take.
Solid ambient sound design, tho. Very immersive.

The story itself I cannot really comment on yet, but the general worldbuilding is decent. It's a bit of a kitchen-sink fantasy, but it's not bad enough to overly bother me (and I despise kitchen-sink fantasy).

All in all it looks to be a solid RPG, even if the byzantine character building is best left to professionals and I could really do with restricting the dice to maybe 1d8 rather than 1d20 for most rolls (and the alignment-based choices are fucking bullshit). Most of the problems are inherent to Pathfinder itself which just doesn't make the best RPG, but it's by no means unplayable.

 

Divinity Original Sin 2 bruh, deals with most of the problems you list.

My major gripe with it is the turn based combat takes forever.

 

I sincerely hope Baldur's Gate 3 is more Divinity than Pathfinder

 

Just doing another run through on divinity and I find myself doing lone wolf builds just to save time >.> Hopefully Baldur's gate will have a speed up enemy turn option. Theres prob a mod for it in dos2, but I cbf looking.

 

As often as I've heard good things about DOS2 the combat looks so incredibly slow that I'm certain I couldn't handle it (even on lone wolf, full party is just lol). No joke, it should have an option to be about 3x of its current speed.

Got to the kingdom management stage in Kingmaker and the further I go the less interest I have in the game. There isn't much pulling me into the world and I literally couldn't care less about ruling over some dirty peasants, especially since it seems that I am automatically responsible for solving all their problems while not getting much of anything for it.

I thought the companions would be more involved, too. So far it's been somewhat underwhelming, which isn't promising.

 

Humble Monthly bundle has both the Spyro and Crash Bandicoot remakes for $12 ... and CODWW2/whatever else comes later I guess.

 

There is a mod for respeccing, and developers later added official respec.

Early levels are incredibly swingy. It is nature of Pathfinder until you get a little bit gear and your class abilities kicks in, you are one lucky crit away from death. This was why I pestered my DM to start campaigns at at least level 5. But you pass early levels fairly quick. I played Pathfinder for a long time and our DM never weaved dice. With a good build you do what you want to do. If you have a character concept in mind post here or pm me. I can whip up something. I was the min/maxer in my group.

I agree with this. Significant part of Evil chocies are too petty. But I suggest you to disregard alignment tags and do whatever you what. Also, playing a Lawful Good is absolute joy in this game. It encapsulates "Good is not Nice" trope perfectly.

Higher difficulties turn early game to an unbalanced mess. They give massive stat boost. You did yourself a favor with normal difficulty.

 

AI: The Somnium Files was surprisingly good. It's a visual novel-like game, like the Danganronpa series. Murder mystery kinda deal. It was expensive, but long enough to barely warrant the price. You should get ~30 hours out of it.

The plot was good. The surprises and twists kept on coming. You figure out some stuff out, but a lot of things and the path the game takes will surprise you. It had a good balance of serious drama, mystery and humor. Some of the plot things are pretty... out of there, think Steins;Gate, but overall it was pretty impressive. The big twist and the ending were pretty predictable, though.

The characters were good too. The main character was a tsundere straight man, but he was a grown ass adult. I liked him. Aiba was fucking awesome. Most of the cast was good, though fuck that otaku Ota with a rusty spike.

The gameplay... well, it's basically a visual novel where you can turn around and click things. But visually, it looked great. Very modern. The game has multiple routes with many branching paths depending on your critical decisions. The story can get quite different. You can replay any scene really easily, and you gotta beat it all to access the true ending. The game does recap when necessary, though sometimes twice in a row. It summarizes any info you get afterwards, just to make sure your dumb ass brain gets it. Eh.

 

Indivisible came out and now that I’ve finished it I can say that overall I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t perfect, dialogue felt clunky in a lot of places and battles could be a huge slog depending on enemy type, but running around and climbing walls felt great all the way through. Also, for as awful as mobs tended to be all the bosses were really fun. I really liked when a boss would stomp on me and I’d try a few different party combinations until I found one that worked. I kind of assumed going in that I’d just stick to the characters I liked, but I’m glad the game forced me to experiment with everyone at some point or another.

Anyone else have thoughts on it?

Spoiler

Dogs are good.

 

Just hit my very first little league home run on an MLB The Show game in six years of trying.

It was also #300 for my player.

In other news, I made a brief return to online racing in GT Sport, as the LMP (Le Mans Prototype) cars were up last week, and they are my favourite category, next to the Super Formula single seater car. I really do love the racing with these cars. The LMPs are pretty much rocketships and have tons of peak grip at full load, but are pretty tricky to handle through and out of the slower corners thanks to their hybrid system. Meanwhile, the Super Formula car is also fantastic through the corners, and you need to be really brave to extract the maximum out of that car. However, with the Super Formula car, you deploy the boost system yourself, but it’s strictly limited, which makes it a great tactical tool, especially considering the fact that the cars are otherwise pretty much identical on top speed, so you can get a huge advantage by catching the guy ahead unawares and boosting out of the corner or down the straight.

Anyways, back on topic. It was Daily Race C, which is the longer one with roughly 20 minutes of race time. I did a couple of qualifying laps, didn’t really expect much, but started 3rd, was into the lead at the end of the first lap and and only lost that because I pitted too late, my tyres dropped off hard and I fell victim to the undercut – the driver behind you pitting earlier and getting ahead thanks to clean air and new rubber.

Consequently, I then had to spend the next four laps trying to plan my attack on better rubber, and ultimately made a move stick. In the end, I made no mistakes and won the race with the clean race bonus (which is notoriously hard to get on GT Sport if you’re not trundling along at the back).

It’s a shame the LMPs only come up once

 

Has anyone played The Outer Worlds yet? The reviews are pretty glowing for the most part.

 

I'm about 4-5 hours in, just finished the first city/zone/whatever and moved on to the second. So far, I'm really digging it. The major strengths, as expected, are the writing and the narrative freedom you're able to operate under. Everything is richly detailed and wonderfully written, with each of the characters being well-realized and very much feeling like actual people. And the freedom is great. There's so many different ways to handle quests.

Spoiler: Quest example

For example, the first 'real' main story quest is given to you by the mayor of the first town, where you have to go into a powerplant and reroute power from the settlement of rebels that got fed up with corporate rule and fled the town to do their own thing. And there are so many different ways to handle that. You could do the obvious, and do as he asks, or do the opposite and route power from the city to the rebel settlement, but you could also do things like route power back to the town, talk the rebels into returning to the town, and then murder the guy who gave you the quest and install the rebel leader as the new mayor of the town.

Or hell, you get the quest after walking in on the guy berating one of his engineers, and you could accept the quest, pull out a gun and kill him dead right then and there, convince the engineer he was taking advantage of her and deserved it, and then go get the part for your ship that the quest gatekeeps.

It's really quite fantastic.

The RPG systems are pretty good as well so far, with a fairly in-depth skill and perk system that has the potential for some really interesting builds, and the loot systems so far seem pretty solid, with the basic gist being that there's 'regular' gear that you are able to customize with various mod items you can find, and then special/unique gear that's got a fixed set of mods, but is much more powerful than the equivalent base item (for example, I have a unique revolver that uses heavy ammo instead of light ammo, and so does about twice the damage of the regular revolver, but I can't change its damage type like I can a regular one). It's quite engaging on the whole and I see a lot of potential there, though it will largely depend on how out there later game mods/uniques for how diverse the builds can get.

Along with that, the combat to use those builds in is also fairly fun. It's not the greatest, by any means; I've been on a Destiny 2 kick recently and it makes the shooting in Outer Worlds feel a bit sluggish and imprecise, but it does the job fairly well. I'd put the gunplay on a solid equal footing with Fallout 4, which is to say "it does the job, but it's not gonna win any awards". I haven't tried much with melee yet, but what I have done was fairly satisfying, if a bit floaty in the same style as Skyrim and Fallout 4. It keeps me entertained, but it's not what anyone should be coming to the game for, at the end of the day.

Which leads into my only real complaint: the UI, especially the inventory, isn't the greatest to navigate with mouse and keyboard. It was clearly designed with a controller in mind, with lots of tabs and nested tabs that you're supposed to move between and that just end up being clunky and unintuitive on PC. There's some real weirdness that I hope they iron out with a patch soon (for example, you can't select items in a menu by clicking on them, you have to hover your mouse over it and press E). It's nothing that can't be fixed, and certainly nothing deal breaking, but it's annoying and I quite hope they fix it soon. In pretty much all other respects, I'm quite happy with the game, and while I feel like I'm still a bit too early to give a real recommendation for it, my first impressions are overwhelmingly positive.