STALKER 2 was the biggest surprise for everyone.

Still no Elden Ring though.

 

I'm super excited for Hellblade 2, but now I have to decide whether it's worth buying an Xbox for that, or take the plunge and finally get a proper PC.

 

Fatshark have just announced Darktide



Pretty much no details. The trailer makes it look like you start as four arbites/guardsmen, but the splash looks like Sniper/Ogryn/Guard/Techguard. I'd be happy with either, after the fun I've have in Vermintide 1. Self-directed career progression might be nice, in the vein of Dark Heresy, but if they get decent pregenned builds (like Vermintide 1), I'd not have any major complaints.

 

I just sprouted an erection that isn't gonna go down for weeks. This is exactly the game I wanted when I first played Vermintide 1, and given how completely fantastic Vermintide 1 and especially 2 are, I am entirely on board with Fat Shark for this.

 

The post-game really is something else. I finally completed Chapter 9 today, and my death counter was 2,972 - only about 400 less deaths than all 8 B-Sides combined, and twice as many as the regular versions of all 8 levels. Immensely satisfying in the end though, cemented Celeste as my all time favourite platformer.

 

Thought I was reading this in TOMD and got a bit concerned for you.

 

My understanding was that basically everything will be backward compatible by release, assuming you aren't trying to play Hello Kitty Island Adventure or something you will be good, it's just that not all the games will be able to be "boosted" versions capable of utilizing the increased PS5 specs.

 

Just finished Ghost of Tsushima

Spoiler

Fuck that ending hit me right in the feels, but I killed the fuck outta him regardless.

Pretty great all round and an awesome way to end a generation.

Not perfect though, and there were some glaring faults IMO. Things I want to see in the sequel:

• Bin the Uncharted style platforming. It has no place in an open world. I want to be able to climb and explore everything, and I want my grapple to hook everywhere. I'm not a big BOTW fan, but they got open world exploration right.
  
• This may seem shallow, but they really need to put more work in animation and cutscenes that aren't the main characters/ plot ones. At times it felt cheap and rushed, which really stuck out given how amazing the world looks.
  
• I'd like the loot to mean more. Let me interact with the world in more meaningful ways. Maybe rebuilding a base or temple etc.
  
• More meaningful side content.

I'm sure I could think of more but it might sound a bit nitpicky. I loved this game and can't wait to see where they take it.

 

I don't think that's entirely correct. Sony said they're making sure the top 100 PS4 games will be fully playable at launch, and they're working with developers to make the full PS4 library backwards compatible over time. Given the library is 4000+ titles, and that the task of porting them all would be monumental, this let's me assume that the PS5 was built with rote PS4 emulation in mind.

Read this update on the og PS5 blog post:

They've tested hundreds of titles so far and expect the the overwhelming majority of titles to run with no problems. That said, they haven't tested them all yet.

So sure, you can probably put any ps4 disc in and it will run, but there may be glitches in titles that aren't on the approved list.

 

Finished the first Hitman game and am now playing the second one. Good news is they included a photo mode, if you have an Nvidia GPU, in this game. Bad news is you can barely move your camera around in said photo mode. What in the absolute fuck? Why would they do this?

 

So, just hit Act II of Ghost of Tsushima. The difficulty spike was real. Was not expecting that. Straw Hats are annoying.

 

Well they are the protagonist's pirate crew, you can't expect them to be push overs

 

Low health though.

Think like a Ninja, not like a Samurai. Throw a kunai or sticky bomb XD

 

yeh. Kunai are life

 

Baldur's Gate 3 pushed out of August, I Cri...

Apparently release will be announced on Aug18th...

Been on a bit of a CRPG binge lately. Got Pillars 1&2, Pathfingder Kingmaker, Torment TON and Tyranny for around 50 bucks on GOG... I guess I'm sorted until BG3 is ready lol...

Not a huge fan of Pillars 1 atm, the combat is really clunky. I prefer the Divinity combat system, but it's still fun.

 

I hope you don't burn out. That's a lot of crpg.

I've played all of those, and my personal ranking would be PF:K > Pillars 1 >= Pillars 2 > Torment > Tyranny.

Tyranny had a nice concept but mostly felt like wasted potential. It was also pretty short, and combat was insanely imbalanced, at least on release day. Still a nice, good game.

I'm always surprised to hear how divisive Pillars 1 is. It's mostly an old school DnD adventure. The backer npcs are annoying, and I guess there's a bit too much reading sometimes.

Pillars 2 is a direct sequel, so I do recommend finishing Pillars 1 first.

 

Finally got the chance to play Horizon Zero Dawn.
So far I'm really enjpyomg every second.

Alloy is a cool character that becomes endearing the moment I started playing as her as a kid.

Love all the cool robot animals.

World-building has been top notch.

The weirdest thing though, is that while I was playing, I couldn't help but think, "Man, this game really looks like Assasin's Creed Vallhalla."

 

I get the whole DnD adventure thing, but in a tabletop game, you're not controlling every character, your friends are. The micromanaging is a bit much given how much combat there is. There's also virtually no AI control and the map is super small, so you're constantly funneled into narrow spaces and trying to maneuver the correct characters into the front - it's almost more RTS than RPG at that point...

It just feels designed with hatred for a group in mind, lol...

Another thing that exacerbates this is having to wait for your party before leaving the map. I just tried to stealth through a camp to get to the commander and NOPE, not allowed. My non-stealthy allies will run straight through after I ninja's my way to the boss... Just frustrating.

Wish there was a Lone Wolf option like there is in Divinity. That's my preferred play style.

 

^You can play the whole game solo. There is even an achievement for going it solo on the highest difficulty.

I am always surprised at the diversity of opinions on those games. I've seen people love PFK and Tyrrany, but hate the rest, have wildly different opinions on Pillars 1&2, or, like me, got a bunch of good things to say about most of them, but never getting into PF:K. I tried to play it at release. I tried to play it after it got patched a bunch. But I never really liked the game enough to sink a ton of hours into it.

 

Probably because despite being crpgs, they're quite different. It's not a problem for me, since I've played almost every crpg and liked all of them, but for people who don't love the genre as a whole and just like certain aspects or have strong preferences, they love some but hate some.

RTwP vs. TB. 6 man party vs. 4 man party vs. solo. Combat focus vs. story focus. Fantasy vs. sci-fi. Traditional vs. modern. Complex vs. simple. The games really are different. Pillars 1 and 2 are almost different beasts, almost as much as Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2.

I like Pathfinder: Kingmaker the most out of those because it's the most traditional and orthodox, DnD-style crpg. A true spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. That was my first experience with the genre, and what I like the most. Fantasy setting, long story, large party, deep system. The launch was an absolute disaster, but they've patched and updated it admirably.

Pillars 1 was a divergence of the DnD formula, with its own, sometimes needlessly complex lore and dialogue dumps, and a simpler system, but it still played like the old games, just in a new sandbox. Pillars 2 was a re-imagining in a more modern form, which had its advantages and drawbacks. As is the common case with sequels, betters graphics, less soul. Too bad it sold so badly we're unlikely to see a Pillars 3.

Torment: Tides of Numenera tried to be a successor to the classic Planescape: Torment, but fell short. I did appreciate how meaningful dialogue was in that game, but it was just too... short and basic. I can definitely see people like this the most for the dialogue system and sci-fi setting, though.

I think that both Pathfinder and Divinity: OS are great paths for modern crpgs. We'll see how BG3 does.