Sync. But it’s working now, confusingly.

Your link isn’t working for me but I see now that you already linked this community. Totally my bad, I apologise!

It’s a super useful place for finding new communities to subscribe to! I also heartily recommend !communities@ponder.cat

Yeah but it’s not really the same thing years later when most people are long finished with the game. Was the same with playing BG3 around release last year, participating in conversations with friends and strangers alike about discoveries in the game as it’s happening and everyone is talking about it and playing it at the same time. I’m sure similar things happened this year with Black Myth Wukong and Silent Hill 2 Remake to some extent, though I didn’t play those.

It’s not about spoilers so much as participating in the buzz and culture and community that only really occurs around release.

Still feels a bit pricey but I’m happy to hear about another season. Some day I might get one just to play the Lucas Pope game.

They threw out the original writer and composer, and seem to have changed most characters and the whole script. It also apparently plays more like Dishonored now.

While I admire the ideas behind patient gamers and think it probably works out really well for some people, I personally also enjoy participating in the zeitgeist from time to time. Playing Elden Ring on launch was fantastic - you really felt like you were exploring the world alongside everyone else as you’re finding Ashes and weapons that don’t even have wiki entries yet.

It’s also surprisingly atmospheric (and just a little bit tense) for a game with rudimentary LCD-style visuals, virtually zero animation, and minimal sound.

Have they… not played a Lucas Pope game before? How is it surprising at all? Obra Dinn already showed what he can do with 1-bit graphics and almost zero animation.

I’m sure they are and I’m sure they’re doing their best, but such a huge part of why the original has become a cult classic was Brian Mitsoda’s script. They had him on board and threw him out. I really wish I knew what was going on behind the scenes. Did he piss someone off? Was the functional parts of the game not… functioning? Or was the script really that bad? They seem to be keeping basically none of it, but the characters in the Chinese Room trailers have none of the charm of Hardsuit Labs trailers…

I think we’ll get a mediocre Dishonored-like with a Vampire theme that is Bloodlines only in name, and fans will forever wonder about and mythologize that Hardsuit Labs version with Mitsoda and Rik Schaffer (which may well have sucked in reality).

I have literally zero hopes. But then again all the things I wanted from the sequel are the things Paradox threw out when they handed the game over to The Chinese Room. And looking at the character changes in this trailer compared to the Hardsuit Labs trailers I can’t say I’m hopeful things have changed for the better.

The amount of April fucking 1st videos that would now be indistinguishable from normal videos alone makes the idea of upload date removal outright dangerous in my opinion.

What the hell am I watching

After my rather disappointing adventure with Metro: Last Light recently I ticked off another backlog game in the way of a third-of-a-trilogy I’m really looking forward to this week with Bioshock 2. I adored the first game back when I played it, and I’ve been really looking forward to Infinite, with 2 being a kind of red-headed stepchild in the way.

Overall I enjoyed it and found it alright. The novelty of playing as a Big Daddy wore off pretty quick, and after that it was kind of just “more Bioshock” - which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The setting was still fantastic, and using the Nvidia RTX HDR feature the game looked stunning. The voice acting was great and the shooter gameplay felt as tight and entertaining as the first game. Lots of plasmids that kind of sucked in the first game were surprisingly great here which was fun. I did kind of miss the hacking mechanic from the first game, though.

While I liked the story, it doesn’t really hold a candle to the first game in my opinion, but that is more of an effusive praise of Bioshock 1 than an indictment of Bioshock 2. It served its purpose and wasn’t in the way of me enjoying the game, though it’s not something I’ll think back on time and time again and heartily recommend like the first game, I think.

Finally - and most sadly - the game suffers extremely from instability. I even played the Remastered version, but crashes were frequent, sudden and unpredictable and from looking around online this is apparently a common problem. I tried all the various fixes online but only managed to slightly reduce their frequency. Very unfortunate.

Still, I’m glad to have played it and am looking forward to Infinite sometime in the future.

Wait YouTube is disabling upload date and view counter?

It’s such a great example of art direction versus graphics, honestly. Watching Skill Up’s review I’d often go “oh hey, that lighting looks pretty good, those textures look nice” etc but thanks to the Pixarified people it still looks like shit whenever a person is on screen. I don’t know why but the character designs make me think of cheap mobile games.

Finished Metro: Last Light last week. Have to say I didn’t really like it. Spoiler warnings below. The good bits were good, to be sure: the populated stations of Bolshoi and Venice were phenomenal and there were parts that harked back to the highlights of the first game - the early parts with Pavel for instance and some nice levels in the tunnels. Playing on Survival Hardcore there were passages that were phenomenally immersive and enjoyable, and I do love the world building around the communities in the metro.

The story just didn’t land with me. The political war left me completely uninterested and the love story with Anna was so half-baked I almost wanted to stop playing right there when the sex scene happened. I also didn’t really like the overly supernatural stuff like the River of Fate. It was also kind of hard for me to follow the logic of the narrative at times as it felt like Artyom was just kind of drifting around and happened to end up where he needed to be regardless. He also should have died like a dozen times, but I guess he’s a superhero.

The moral system left me frustrated more than anything now that I knew about its existence (I played 2033 completely blind). Finally, the boss fights felt terrible and really out of place in a game that should be about tension, loneliness and stealth. Artyom was too much of an action hero here for my taste. There wasn’t really anything like the great Library level in 2033. When he picked up a gatling gun at the end like a russian Rambo and fought off a horde of enemies I was rolling my eyes.

Still, I’m glad to have gotten through it finally - this was my second attempt - and I am interested to see what they did in Exodus as I’ve heard nothing but good things.

For now I’m taking a breather and tackling Bioshock 2, another backlog game to get through before being able to play Infinite, which is the game I’m really looking forward too.

Same, fucking hell. When did this become a socially acceptable norm?

Let’s hope the influence of this ham-sandwich man is waning too.

… my mind

Presumably

Yeah it’s funny now that you mention it but I don’t really remember the battle music if XV all that well. But I have stuff like Valse di Fantastica/Sunset Walz/Dewdrops at Dawn and Ardyn’s themes seared into my brain.