Not about videogames, but my master announced that our DnD campaign will be put on hiatus after the current arc is finished, as he doesn’t have time anymore to prep.
I’m considering mastering a short campaign, but it’s really difficult. I don’t like half-assing things and I end up spending too much time on prep, and eventually stop having fun.
It’s also a very heterogeneous group this time around, compared to the last time I mastered a campaign, which makes things a bit more difficult.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage doesn’t have anything exciting or new to offer. It’s a mixture of the worst parts of classic and modern Assassin’s Creed
without a doubt, it is the sharpest, most succinct entry in the franchise yet. With the best elements brought together throughout the series’ many games
I can’t speak about VC2 and 3, but 4 is pretty much the same as 1. The unbalanced nature of the game is part of the fun, for me. And if you’re willing to play the missions “as intended” instead of cheesing them with the attack-boosting orders, imo they provide quite the challenge (especially late-game VC4).
I’m playing Valkyria Chronicles. I think I’m about to finish the main story, though I have to tackle most of the extra content still (skirmishes and DLC maps).
It’s a bit strange, but once you stop looking at it as a strategy game, it becomes apparent that it’s actually a puzzle game in disguise, asking you to clear all scenarios in the most time efficient way, which usually translates to very precise troop placement and attacking enemies in a specific order.
I already played VC4 last year and it was a blast. VC1 has a bit less content and the QoL features from the sequel are sorely missing, but it’s still a lot of fun.
Content data: Video, audio, graphic, text, game level, account information, ad and other content that is requested and downloaded for the features, games, apps and websites you access online.
Network data: Network connections, IP address, requirements and speed of the connections."
Why the hell does HZD, a single player offline video game, need that data for?
Also:
Security data: Information necessary to detect and investigate malicious, unauthorized or fraudulent activity.
Legal data: Information required by applicable law and to demonstrate compliance.
Yikes.
I would have no problem with that if they allowed me to turn data collection off. But that’s just not possible, and you can only ask them nicely to only gather “limited data collection”, without any kind of information about what “limited” and “full” really mean.
MS, Sony, Nintendo and everyone else out there doesn’t care about trust, disagreements, or “playing nice”. They will do what is most profitable for them. Sometimes that means doing something pro-consumer, like announcing the backwards compatibility program or releasing exclusives on PC day one, other times it means buying out the competition and securing exclusive releases to fight off the competition.
The idea that Microsoft of all things would “play nice” with Sony, as if they were children playing together in the schoolyard, is absurd, and revisionist at its finest considering Microsoft’s history in and outside the gaming sphere.
On PC, HZD is a privacy nightmare with no option to turn off data collection - you either comply to full data collection, or “limited”, whatever that means.
Not only that, but the journalist extensively praised the game, too. Shawn touched a bit on the subject during his Cuphead video: Cuphead: The fake outrage.
The truth is, most gamers (and most people online, nowadays) parrot lies they hear on the internet without checking their source.
I love CrossCode so much that, after playing it on GamePass, I bought the Collector’s edition just to give the devs some well deserved money. And then bought it a second time on Xbox, just to have an excuse to play it again from the beginning.
It’s got tons of exploration, puzzles, and cute characters. It’s also, like, MASSIVE. I had about 60 hours on my first playthrough, and 15 more for the DLC. And the thing is, I never got bored with it. Gameplay is snappy and always gives you new tools to try, puzzles are well-thought and actually challenge you, and the platformer/parkour elements were the cherry on top, which easily adds hours and hours of playthrough if you’re like me and want to collect every treasure in all the maps.
And despite being a huge game with tons of skills and craftable gear to choose from, I’ve never felt like the game was forcing me to check guides online or shoehorning me into a very specific build. The game rewards skill more than stats, and level ups are not really important which means that you don’t ever need to farm.
I’m patiently waiting for the next game from the same devs. CrossCode brought me back to when I was a kid and games felt fun and exciting and trusted you to learn how to use the tools at your disposal, instead of the constant hand-holding experience that I always find on modern AAA RPGs.
I’m so, so, SO, excited for this. The first Talos Principle is my favourite puzzle game ever. The puzzles were intricate but always fair, the story was surprisingly deep for a puzzle game, and the locations and soundtrack were beautiful and relaxing. I recommend it to everyone who has even the slightest interest in puzzle games.
If the sequel delivers an experience that’s on par with the previous entry, we’re in for a treat.
I wonder what the story will be, though. The first one had a very satisfying ending, and I hope the sequel will build upon it in interesting ways.
A friend of mine recommended the first Dragon’s Dogma to me a few years ago and convinced me to give it a try. I fell in love with the combat system, but never went too far into the game because the story, dialogues and characters were dull and insipid and gave me no reason to feel interested in the game’s world.
It’s so difficult to find good RPG games with a good story nowadays. I don’t expect DD2 to radically improve in this regard, but I hope they will at least try a bit more in the story department.
So MS has predictably decided to abandon disc-compatible consoles to push GP sales (and bank on the MS Store).
I only bought the Xbox One S because of the backwards compatibility program. Going disc-less would kill the vast majority of my existing Xbox 360 library, including titles that are backwards compatible but cannot be purchased on the store anymore (such as Prince of Persia 2008, Ace Combat 6, and many more).
Microsoft will buy my teapottery if anti-trust regulations don’t keep them in check. And, in today’s climate, I don’t believe for a moment that anybody will make a reasonable attempt to do so.
I wasn’t sold on it when it was first revealed, but looking at it now, I kinda dig it. Seems to embrace the platformer elements a lot more than I originally thought, which I really like, and movement/combat seems very fluid.