Mera'din

So, how has everyone been the past 2 years? Since I last posted in here, Bloodhunt released and I actually really liked it despite it being a Battle Royale, to the point that I started making lore/story videos centered around the game since nobody else was doing it, got to know a number of the developers, was able to do a recorded interview with the writing team, and now the game has stopped development and is in maintenance mode because they kind of biffed their launch and took too long to fix the nastier bugs the game had and lost most of their concurrent player count. Swansong also released and it was decent. Nothing standout, but I enjoyed it a lot. And in all that time there was no real news on Bloodlines 2 other than "We're happy with the progress the team is making on it." from Paradox. Still no idea who the developer is. They never ended up saying because they didn't want them to have to deal with all the shitty people the last team had to deal with who were sending threats and what not. Understandable, but frustrating. HOWEVER, there is finally a light a the end of the tunnel. They announced not long ago that real news would be coming in September. They dropped all their physical preorders if people had bothered to keep them due to changes to their contents incoming (digital preorders were left alone though), and they purged the website and their discord channels of anything referencing what had been shown before (including emojis). They just announced today that the World of Darkness brand team will be appearing at PAX West, Sept. 1-4. Considering the game is set in Seattle, PAX is one of the bigger gaming conventions anymore, and they said news would be coming in Sept. I assume this will be where they announce everything, including who the new developer actually is and what form the game has now taken. I'm mostly interested in seeing if anything of the original story remains since the writing had supposedly been completed, and one of the big draws was the game having the writer from the original on board. I imagine the game is all but done though, so we may even get a release date. I seriously doubt Paradox would risk trying to hype this game up again without being sure there's actually a functional game to hype this time. XD

It's not a super long game, so if you have the money I'd say go for it. I got through it in about 8.5hr. but I play stuff super slow and idle a lot, so I'd say an average playthrough is probably around 6 hours. Unless you got a lot you're playing right now, you get definitely get through it at least once before Starfield drops. I'm much more worried about getting through Baldur's Gate before Starfield shows up. I'm at least 25 hours in and still not even as far as I was in the Early Access. Speaking of Starfield though, it looks like the preload is up (at least on the XBox app).

12.) Stray Gods What a fantastic game. It's a narrative RPG (leaning Telltale style game but more of an animatic/animated style), that is also a full on musical. Really interesting concept overall. Great voice acting, solid songs, though the audio mixing is a bit all over the place. Story was pretty fun to. Basically it works off the premise that gods (primarily of the Greek variety in this case) are real and have been living among us for thousands of years, though some of the "big" ones (Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon for example) are dead and gone, and the others are fading. The main character is a normal human who ends up with one of the muses dying in her arms and her power is passed to her and she gets dragged into their world and has to find out what happened to the former muse or she'll be executed for her murder. The choices seem pretty varied and many even occur mid-song and change what is being sung. Based on the achievements in the game, there are even whole songs you don't see depending on the choices you make. I'm curious to see how much the story could change as it seems to be better off than these sorts of games usually are. It was written by David Gaider who was lead writer on things like Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and all the Dragon Age games, so I'm expecting to see some interesting differences with some of the choices available.

I had heard there were different cuts of the movie that were shown in different theaters with subtle differences. Apparently that extends to the digital release as well, and some of what is in that release may or may not be the same if you saw it in the theater first. Someone compiled a bunch of them on twitter.

I didn't hate it. It was fine. Mismanaged. Story focused on wrong things. Basically the same sort of missteps we've been seeing more and more with Marvels stuff it feels like.

9.) (PSVR2) Beat Saber I had only messed with VR stuff a little via a friend letting me borrow the original PSVR for a month or two and playing Beat Saber on that was really fun (helped that it was just about the ONLY thing the shitty Move controllers lent themselves well to). Decided to splurge for my birthday and get the PSVR2 and when they finally released the upgrade to PSVR2 for it, I was super excited. Have been playing it quite a bit and actually managed to beat the campaign, something I didn't think I'd ever pull off when I first started playing it. Don't think I'll ever quite muster the skill to get the Platinum for it, but I'm honestly surprised at how much better I've got with it over time. Only downside is the music selection is pretty limited on the console side, but there's enough good stuff that I'm enjoying myself. Have actually managed to start playing consistently on Expert mode. It's a hell of a workout too. XD 10.) (PSVR2) Horizon: Call of the Mountain Got the version of the PSVR2 that came with this. It's the first "real" VR game I've managed to play all the way through. Not because it wasn't fun, but because I have limited time to play on it, and it took me a little while before I could play for more than 30 min. or so at a time. I've finally started acclimating to the VR stuff and have even been able to reduce the vignette settings when moving. Game was pretty interesting overall. The majority of it is basically climbing puzzles, but they were really fun honestly. There's set points where you fight machines and I thought those parts would end up being awful purely because I was expecting the shooting controls to be extra janky (insert flashbacks to Wii FPS games here), but it was actually set up pretty well. You have a quick dodge to avoid attacks, and the system has a pretty solid eye movement tracker that ties into the aim assist settings, so you generally hit what you are looking at which made it kind of fun to do. The graphical detail in the game was really great too. Made it a pretty solid experience compared to other VR stuff I've tried. 11.) Oxenfree 2 I have been waiting for this game for quite a while. Absolutely loved the first one and was excited to finally play this. I worried it would feel really samey, and wouldn't be as interesting since the "mystery" that made the first game so great is kind of already apparent, but they managed to do something unique with it still that kept it interesting despite having an idea of what was up. The way it tied to the first game was really cool too. It feels a bit more "shallow" than the original at the moment, but I've only played through it once and if it's anything like the first in that regard, it will take more than one play through to fully grasp the depth of the story and the effect your choices have. I'm looking forward to seeing if it holds up in that regard.

Yeah, this wasn't nearly as fun as I was expecting. It had some good moments to it overall, but it felt more like a vehicle for getting Fury "back in the game" than anything. The Skrulls were just a vehicle for that and it felt like a wasted use of them (and Talos). They could have pulled one of a half a dozen comic plots to achieve what they were going for here. It honestly also felt like something that should have had more time to breath. The concept really needed to be woven into at least 1 full phase of MCU stuff to build suspense. Like if the whole "Harvest" thing would have been used as a after credit thing in End Game or something instead of feeling tacked on here, and things like that (though I get why they didn't want anything post credits for that movie honestly).

Yeah, after FFVII Remake, and even FFXV (thought I wasn't fond of the magic system in that one) it felt a bit meh. I do like the switching between elemental powered ability things, that feels nice but everything feels so spongey. Probably one of the pitfalls of it being made by people who are used to working on an MMO. There are definitely a lot of MMO vibes to it in places that aren't necessarily always a detriment, but don't often seem to do it any particular favors other.

I assure you I am actively playing it at the moment. Not sure how far am I in at this point but probably not terribly far. Having 4 kids means I have limited time to use my TV/Playstation. X_x Even got the fancy collectors edition for this one. XD It's been pretty fun so far. Story is interesting if very Game of Thrones feeling. Not sure I'm a huge fan of the combat at the moment, but the Eikon battles are a hell of a spectacle at least.

Yeah, I'm more excited for this one than most of the stuff that's come out lately. Genuinely looking forward to it.

I am way more excited for this than I probably have any right to be.

I could see them rolling back some of the shit they changed in this patch. It's bad enough people are legit uninstalling, and the game is getting review bombed because of it. Almost every article and what not that I've seen about it too points to the Sorcerer stuff specifically because yeah, they needed help, not to be pile driven further into the ground. They're apparently going to be doing a live stream to talk about the patch around 11am (PT) Friday, so we'll see if they intend to roll back any of the shit then I guess. I feel annoyed that I didn't play more before the pulled this, but since I have a ton of shit to play still, I guess I can just hold out until they start getting their shit together before going back to it. XD

I got it. Still somewhere in Act 1. I was only semi-enthusiastic about the game in the first place and bought it because I got a really good deal on it, but this last month along with the next few are so loaded with stuff I want to play that it quickly got shuffled into the corner since I know it's not going anywhere, and may actually be improved enough to be straight up fun. Not falling for the trap of dumping 500 hours into it and then being so burnt out that when they add the things I actually wanted I don't want to play it any more (looking at you Diablo 3 Paragon system). If my wife finally decides to start it up, or I have someone else to play with I might wander back over to it in the interim, but at the moment I still have Jedi: Survivor, FFXVI and Oxenfree 2 to keep me busy and Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield and some other stuff right around the corner.

8.) Bramble: The Mountain King Nice little atmospheric horror game based on Nordic folklore and fairy tales. Gets pretty gruesome at times, and has this nice unsettling vibe through most of the game. Story was interesting enough. Had a lot of fun with it. Wasn't terribly long, maybe 5-6 hours, but I like games like that when I don't have a lot of time, or as a palate cleanser between all these stupidly long games. XD

7.) Ori and the Blind Forest Fun platformer game. Or would be if the controls on the Xbox app version weren't completely fucked. Had to play it in windowed mode in order for the cursor to appear to direct one of the attacks that it makes you use constantly during the game for the super intense platforming sections, and there was no option to keep the mouse pointer from leaving the game window, so I was constantly veering off and clicking outside of the game which messed me up a lot. The game just flat out wouldn't recognize a controller for some reason either. Other than the frustrations, it was a pretty fun game. Some challenging parts that took some repetition to get used to. Definitely not interested in trying to 100% it, but was fun enough I'll play the 2nd one at some point.

It has few to no redeeming qualities, honestly. Not to mention the super forced Spider-Man tie-ins (to all 3 versions, technically), at least one of which even the director didn't know was put in I recall reading.

I don't think it's possible for another movie to hit such a prestigious level of bad that it manages to get meme'd back into the theaters and even got the main actor from the movie to poke fun at it (especially one that seems a bit touchy about his work otherwise). Though I don't think it's possible, I want to clarify that I am absolutely here for it to happen again regardless. I DARE the universe to do it again, if we're being honest.

I don't know how they managed, but this trailer somehow made me even less interested in this movie. Sony needs to give up with these weird "Spider-Man villain, but without Spider-Man and being a sort of good guy!" movies they keep doing. Someone sold their soul and somehow managed to make Venom work. The rest of these just... do not seem like they'll end well. At least this has a chance of being more entertaining than Morbius, I guess?

6.) The Last Case of Benedict Fox Was a fun little Metroidvania style game. A little lighter on combat and heavier on puzzles than your typical faire here, but that suits me fine. Story was interesting enough, and had a bit of a Lovecraftian vibe to it. Puzzles were pretty solid and decently challenging and worked well with the Metroidvania back-and-forthing through the maps. Decent game length and progressing felt pretty smooth. Some of the platforming was a bit spotty, but nothing so frustrating that it became a burden. Made for a nice distraction.

5.) Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened I've always enjoyed these Frogware Sherlock Holmes games off and on over the years. They're always slightly janky but never prohibitively so, and they're a fun relaxing play. This is one I actually backed this one on Kickstarter since a Sherlock meets Lovecraftian horror type story seemed interesting. Actually had no idea it was a remake of an older game. This one carries off of their "reboot" series though that started with Sherlock: Year One (which I haven't played yet). Based on things I've read, this one is a bit of a let down compared to the original, but as I have no played it, I rather enjoyed it. Some interesting puzzles, and story even if some of it felt rushed and a little disjointed. I enjoyed myself. May have to grab the original at some point to see how if the claims hold true.

I loved the way they did the High Evolutionary. No sob backstory, no attempts to shine a light on a brighter side to what he's doing/done. Just sheer, irredeemable, egomaniac. A sympathetic or relatable villain is nice sometimes, but there have been far too many lately. I've missed this sort of character popping up once in a while.

From what I've been seeing online, it sounds like Adam Driver may have got the role for Reed Richards. I was really hoping we'd see John Krasinsky again for it, but Driver could work I think.

4.) Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line Man, this was fun as hell. I love me a good rhythm game to begin with, and being Final Fantasy themed was just a huge bonus. I have the original 2 games on my 3DS and always enjoyed them, so it was nice to see one finally get released on console, and they did not skimp on it. I think there was well over 300 songs, and my only complaint with how it was set up is that some of the songs I really wanted were only part of the "Deluxe" version, which was a little annoying. At least they had an upgrade for it. This thing seriously covered pretty much every FF game out there too, including newer stuff like Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins. The DLC they're putting out branches into some of Square's other games too like the Saga series, Nier, and The World Ends with You which is pretty cool, though I would have preferred they do some of the really good alternate arrangement stuff they have for other FF music, like the piano pieces or more Black Mages stuff (they had 1 or 2 of theirs in the deluxe version at least). Overall, I really enjoyed myself with this. Was a hell of a nostalgia trip too. After playing it, it was really difficult not to commit to playing through at least every main line FF game again. XD

Took my son to see it. Was definitely better than it seemed like it would be. Also, that's the first time I've seen a line going out the door to get into our small town theater since the 90s. O_o Definitely agree on Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong. He was one of the ones where I was like "this seems like it will work" but it just didn't. Didn't feel like he was really trying that hard. Christ Pratt still definitely just sounded like Chris Pratt most of the time, but he seemed like he was at least trying, and it didn't feel like a distraction. The rest were pretty great overall. Definitely loved all the little references and stuff too. The story being simple really worked for it and let them fit in a lot of stuff they might not have otherwise. The Luma was definitely my favorite character. I loved that it never even explained it or why it was like that too. Also watched Dungeons & Dragons last night. It has a few issues, but overall it was really well done. Wasn't feeling it much in the first 1/3 or so of the movie, but it improved pretty quickly after that and ended up being a lot of fun by the end. There's a lot they did right in it overall, so I'm glad they finally figured out how to make stuff like this not suck between it and Vox Machina. XD

3.) High on Life This game started out pretty fun, but it wore out it's welcome pretty damn quick. The jokes got to be a bit too much after not long, or in a lot of cases felt like they were trying to hard. It had it's moments, but overall it was just fine. I have to say the fact that they paid for the rights to put 3 full length campy, B-list horror movies into the game was pretty damn funny though. I actually stood there watching them for more time than I care to admit.