There hasn’t been a lot of good news out of EA lately, but here’s some: the company just launched a bunch of classic games on Steam. The new (old) releases include nine games in total, spanning franchises like Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and SimCity....
I’m sure most of them have already been available on GoG for quite some time, I don’t know what took them so long to port them over competing storefronts.
I actually expect them to take the Warhammer approach. Saturate the market with so many titles that no matter what, the brand name will be on the homepage of everyone. Doesn’t matter if half those titles suck.
I have lots of great memories of watching Dragonball with my brother. I don’t watch anime anymore, but no doubt it had a great influence on both of us, and I’ll cherish it forever. His work will always have a special place in my heart.
Rest in peace, and thanks for everything.
My favorite games are Omori, Disco Elysium and Outer Wilds. I cried for hours at the end of those games, and I think the common point in them is high-quality emotional writing and stellar OST (music really affect me) and my attachment to the characters....
The Talos Principle, despite being a puzzle game, has a gorgeous story if you take your time to listen to the audiologs and read the files you find in the world.
Iconoclast is an action platformer with great story and characters. It takes a bit to become interesting imo, but it grew on me the more I played it and I remember it fondly.
Signalis is a survival horror game that combines a presentation similar to that of old school Resident Evil games with lovecraftian cosmic horror. The story is very cryptic and requires a bit of effort on the player’s part, but I really enjoyed it both for its themes and the characters (more than the actual gameplay).
A Plague Tale Innocence/Requiem are two action adventure games with an enthralling story, well written characters and a gut punching ending. The disease aspect of the story is not prominent in the first game, and the ending is satisfying imo, so you could stop there if diseases are a no-go for you.
I really liked Life is Strange 2 and its themes really resonated with me, but it is very divisive among fans.
I also enjoyed Haven’s sci-fi love story, and found it one of the best depictions of an actual relationship in gaming: where most games tend to end when two characters declare their love/share a kiss/whatever, Haven’s beginning is well after they got together and the entire game is them being together, talking and joking and stuff. If you’re a bit sentimental, you may like it.
These are just games from the current/last gen, but you can find other great stories if you are willing to play with an emulator or have old consoles lying around. Xenogears is a JRPG from the old PS1 days, and it’s still the best one of its genre. Oddworld Abe’s Oddysee is a puzzle platformer with very modern themes despite its age, and its mix of fairy tale-like storytelling and horror/splatter presentation is very unique and engaging. I still think of Rue’s story in Threads of Fate as one of the most emotional stories I’ve played as a kid.
I could go on, but I already listed waaay to much titles lol
Why is this a sigh of relief? Nintendo has bullied an emulator’s dev team and got $2.4 millions out of it. If I was an emu dev, I certainly would not be happy with this news.
The best approach is to play games that respect their customers by having no microtransactions, or a fair monetization.
Most games that respect these criteria are indie games. The devs of those games deserve your money more than any AAA company, and their games are often just as fun as those you played when you were younger years ago.
I played CrossCode a few years ago, and it’s been the most fun I’ve had in years. I don’t know about arcade fighting games, but surely there must be an alternative.
This is GREAT news. This means they can focus on making great original games and not be dragged into working on call of duty. Please just give me a new Spyro.
So, T4B splits from Microsoft-owned ActiBlizz… To keep working with Microsoft. Odd.
But anyway, they were one of the very few developers I cared about in the ActiBlizz group, so I’m happy to see them going independent. I hope it turns out fine for them.
I suppose this also means that Microsoft is not interested in having a new Spyro/Crash game? Otherwise, why let them split up?
The old WoT video game was surprisingly competent, and if you’re willing to forgive its FPS nature that turned the One Power into guns, there was a lot of love for the IP, with every “gun” referencing a specific quote from the books.
Definitely not what I’d expect from a WoT game, but far from a hack/fraud.
I’m not even a Star Wars fan, but I spent a lot of time with the PS1 Phantom Menace game as a kid. Some of its levels (Naboo and Tatooine especially) felt surprisingly open world for a game of that era.
pretty much the title. i have played most of sierra, lucasarts and telltale catalogues so if you are suggesting one of their games i’ve probably already played it. it doesn’t have to be a copycat, homage or in the same style as these companies’ games either, just that it must satisfy the vague definition of being an...
Have you tried the titles from Amanita Design? They’ve made quite a few old-school point-and-click games, with hand-drawn graphics and cute stories despite the characters never talking.
I wonder what took them so long to make a response. The community was turning against them and they took an entire week to tell them that no, they do, in fact, want to keep making video game consoles.
Nothing announced in the video is ground-breaking, nor did it require so much time to prepare.
(Honestly, Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush going multiplatform in place of Starfield is a huge win for PlayStation users lol)
The point is, Xbox is performing very badly, with the latest metrics suggesting not only that PS5 blew them out of the water, but also that XSeries is selling less than its predecessor. Coupled with rumors about exclusives going multiplatform, people feared that it meant that MS didn’t have enough faith in the brand to keep going, and that Xbox would end like Windows Phone.
The concern was real and, in my opinion, perfectly justified. MS telling them to wait a week for an answer, without dismissing the rumors was the weird part. They saw the community on fire and said, “This is fine”. All-around incompetence.
Those games are already available on PC, nobody was freaking out about that. People were wary of MS exclusives being ported to other console platforms.
Consoles live and die by exclusives. Porting those over suggests a lack of faith in the brand and would be like admitting defeat. It wasn’t clickbait rage journos baiting people, it was people reading the room and realising that the Xbox brand wasn’t as strong as they thought.
You don’t need to defend exclusives or become part of a cult to understand how the market works.
Exclusives are a big part of what makes a console successful (not the only one, mind you, but they certainly play a role in convincing people to buy a console), and porting them over to the competing console would be like admitting defeat for MS.
Although fanboys certainly exist (on both sides), a lot of people weren’t being cultish. They were simply concerned for the future of Xbox and re-evaluating their choice: why buy a console, when I can buy the competition and play all its games plus other exclusive titles? Why invest in a digital library if there’s no guarantee that the platform will keep existing?
So being scared that Xbox is going to disappear is stupid, the consoles might, but Microsoft has been transforming Xbox into a platform for years, starting with the release of windows 7 when they introduced XboxLive for windows alongside halo 2.
If Xbox disappears, so does your digital library and other purchases (some games you can buy once and get on PC as well, but last time I checked, they were few and far in between). I can see that being a concern for people that bought into the Xbox ecosystem for the last few gens.
Spent a good chunk of my childhood playing Sacred 1. It’s aged very poorly, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone nowadays, but I still think that the world design and environmental storytelling were some of the best I’ve found in a videogame.
For example, at the beginning of the game, orcs are migrating from the desert and attacking human settlements. When you progress, you discover that they aren’t doing it because they want to, but because the undead army is forcing them out of their land. And when you progress in the northern part of the world, there’s a completely optional region inside the forest, where you can find a few hastily made orcish settlements - but you only find women and shamans, because the men are fighting at the front. There are no dialogues, quests, books or anything telling you that, it’s just something that you infer from the environment.
It made exploring the world and finding its secrets fun, even if there wasn’t always a reward.
(There were also a metric ton of easter eggs, from tombstones mentioning LotR characters to receiving sunglasses as a reward for chasing rude orc visitors from a tourist island… it was a wild game)
I’ll go counter-current here and say that it was a fun game. IGN review sells it really well, and I had fun while playing it. I’d say the main problem of the game was releasing in a year already full of big-name releases, and a marketing campaign that was too quiet - I’m honestly surprised it cost $40 million, because I only heard of the game by pure chance.
Welcome to DnD, where the martial/caster disparity is a feature, not a bug. We’re actually really, really bad about balancing our content, please buy our overpriced rulebooks that offer very little guidance on how to actually use them.
Yeah, I’m just convinced that the designers actively hate the martials classes. Even in the playtest for the new edition, after 10 years of people pointing out the martial/caster disparity, it took them over a year to write a somewhat decent skill set for martials.
(Link away! I’m always interested in homebrews for DnD. You should also consider posting it in the c/dndhomebrew community if you want more visibility. I still don’t know how to link Lemmy communities to users from different instances, but you should be able to access it from my post history.)
From personal experience, by the time casters have depleted all their spell slots, martials are low on health as well, making the balance finicky at best even if you’re having multiple encounters per long rest. The game is balanced in a way that makes it impossible for martials to shine: you either play with few combat encounters, thus allowing the casters to shotgun their infinite spell slots at the enemy, or play with multiple combat encounters per long rest, which has martials on death’s door because their HP drop faster than the casters’ slots.
It’s also difficult, from a narrative perspective, to fit so many combat encounters in a single day, to the point that I honestly don’t think it’s possible unless you subscribe to some form of gritty realism ruleset (7-day long rests, long rests in safe zones, long rests at the end of a narrative arc, etc…).
It happens every time. Pokémon Sword/Shield and Scarlett/Violet had the biggest launch in the franchise’s history despite being (justifiably so) heavily criticized by pretty much everyone online.
People shit on microtransactions and always-online games but the top charts always show online multiplayer games are among the most played.
It doesn’t make the criticisms any less valid; it just means that the general public is usually ignorant of them.
On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series […].
When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.
Sure, Joanne. “My interest in this was only professional, because I was writing a book where the serial killer is a man cross-dressing as a woman that kills other women”. We know how it ended.
She then proceeded with a very weird anti-trans statement:
When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. […].
As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman […]; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.
I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria.
“I felt non-binary too, but I’m not trans, so you aren’t either!”.
For reference, desistance is a real term that refers to people who changes their mind about their gender dysphoria, and, although further research is still needed, she is probably citing real sources. It’s also strange to insert that knowledge in a post where she’s supposedly trying to convince people that she’s not a TERF, among the “five reasons she’s worried about the new trans activism”, whatever that means. “I don’t hate trans people, but anyway, they aren’t real and you are preying on children”.
She then ended her wall of text by alluding that all trans women are actually men who want to prey on women (never mind that, if a man wanted to become a sexual predator, he could just… Do that, instead of faking gender dysphoria? Like, a man who wants to sexually harass someone isn’t stopping at the “girls only” sign. He’s not a vampire). But hey, before that she said that she cares about trans women, so I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.
So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.
That’s the simple truth of a person who should really talk to their therapist about her trauma instead of writing bullshit online.
If agreeing with known transphobes, erasing trans identity, and putting trans women and sexual predators on the same level isn’t transphobic, I really don’t know what is.
Considering the glacial pace of modern AAA game development, I don’t think it’s odd that they want multiple games in development at the same time to ensure a steady release schedule.
We don’t really know what these five games are (if they really exist at all), but if they diversify the offer with a mix of first person, third person, remakes of old titles and maybe yet-another-attempt-at-bad-online-RE-that-nobody-wants, which is what they’ve done so far (RE7, RE2make, RE3make, Resistance, RE8, RE4make), I think it’s a good thing.
Divinity 2: Original Sin is a wonderful game with an engaging combat system, great exploration, and an intriguing story with fun and memorable characters.
I never finished the prologue because the game forced me to fight the cute doggo. After telling me its name and asking me to find it.
You can’t save the dog. You can only convince it not to attack you, but (a) the dialogue doesn’t trigger if you progress too much before talking to it, (b) the dog and its pack turn hostile on you if you proceed with the game. The only option you have is basically to ignore them, and it’s too sad for me :(
It’s a free-to-play mobile gacha game. Therefore, it is trash. That point simply cannot be argued. It’s not up for debate. If you’re here to debate that point, please don’t even bother. All mobile games are trash. All free-to-play games are trash. All gacha games are trash. Again: there is no debate about that....
The inherent appeal of gacha games is always cute anime girls/pretty anime boys. I doubt anyone will find any of these games appealing to them if they don’t like the art style in the first place.
I haven’t played Honkai or Genshin Impact, so my understanding and knowledge of both games is fairly limited (mostly hearsay from people who actually played them), so take the rest of the message with a healthy dose of salt.
I’ve heard the production value is excellent compared to most other mobile games: for the low price of $0 (gacha microtransactions excluded, of course) you get a full open world game with nice graphics and animations and a fully fledged story (I’m unsure how good that actually is and from what I’ve seen I’m inclined to think “not much”, but it probably appeals to anime fans).
I’ve also heard that you can play Genshin Impact for free and still get the characters you want if you’re patient enough, which is not something that can be said of most gacha games. The PvE nature of the game means that you don’t necessarily need the best lv999 S-rank character to compete with other players, and can enjoy (most of?) what the game has to offer for free, which means that you don’t need to engage with the gacha aspect of the game if you don’t want to. I don’t know if that applies to Honkai as well, but considering it’s a very similar game from the same software house, I’d say it’s possible.
In conclusion, I don’t think the game is worth checking out if you don’t like anime and/or mobile games, but if you like any of those and are a young person without a stable income, a f2p open world game with bells and whistles such as nice graphics and animations could be appealing. Although, as I said, my opinion is mostly derived from hearsay and a quick glance at YT to check what the deal was about, I won’t pretend I really know what I’m talking about here.
Sure is, and I never said otherwise. I doubt that people playing those games care. If they are playing those games they probably like them and are okay with the idea of supporting them.
Okay let me start with two heavy hitters right from the get go and don’t forget these are only personal oppinions and I absolute understand if you like those games. Good for you!...
Skyrim never “clicked” for me. I remember hearing awesome things about it: a vast open world full of things to discover, the ability to create my own character and build it however I wanted, the option to influence the world around me with my choices…
In practice, I found myself in a very big but mostly empty world, full of copy-pasted uninspired dungeons with randomized loot, and no matter what character I chose to build, the combat system sucks and the AI never tries to do anything more than mindlessly walk towards you (and get stuck on the scenery). I was never able to immerse myself in the world because everything was so drab and insipid: generic characters living in generic cities talking about generic things with a very bad dub.
Choices never matter because the game insists on spoon-feeding you everything it has to offer. You can roleplay as a barbarian and still become the headmaster of Hogwarts; you can side with the romans or the vikings but the world doesn’t change aside from the uniform of the guards patrolling the cities you visit; you can ignore the dragons roaming the land and they never do anything, because they are just random encounters in the world without any kind of personality or goal aside from turning up and being a minor annoyance to the player.
The modding community is great, but even after spending a few hours installing a dozen or so mods, I was never able to escape the jankiness of the original game: it was still Skyrim, just with a different coat of paint (and a few less bugs and horrible UI decisions).
Reading about the overall reception of Starfield, I felt like I was going crazy, because everything the people say about that game, I already felt about Skyrim fifteen years ago. On the one hand, I felt like my feelings were being legitimized; on the other hand, I still don’t understand why people forgive Skyrim (and still play it to this day) but hate the new Bethesda game so much.
Had a friend unironically trying to convince me that Palworld is evil because it brainwashes people into liking human enslavement and shooting at civilians.
His favourite game is Pokémon, a game where you bond with your fire lizard by pitting it against other animals in a government-sanctioned tournament.
Of course he’s also one of those people who spends hours lamenting the state of current Pokémon games, while also buying both versions of each game at day 1.
I played it on gamepass, then bought the Collector’s Edition simply because I wanted to give some money to the devs, and then bought it again on Xbox with the DLC just to have an excuse to play it again.
It’s a wonderful game choke full of content (especially if you like the collect-a-thon aspect of the game), the combat system is amazing, and there are tons of skills available across four different branches for each of the four+1 elements, which means it never overstays its welcome because there’s always something new to unlock and play with. But most of all, I loved having a game that isn’t afraid of giving you hard puzzles without a companion or an annoying thinking voice explaining everything to you before you even had a chance to look at the damn thing.
It immediately became one of my favourite games ever, and it’s a shame that not enough people even know of its existence.
1:22 - Obsidian Entertainment, Avowed. Release date: Fall 2024.
They show the game’s world, the combat system, and touch a bit on the quest system and dialogue options.
9:22 - Ninja Theory, Senua’s Saga Hellblade II. Release date: May 21, 2024.
They talk about the story and theme of the game, show some cutscenes, and touch a bit on the combat system. They also delve into the sound design, and some behind-the-scenes about the setting and motion capture.
They talk about the combat system, monster design, and show a glimpse of the mount travelling across the open world. The final segment is dedicated to the soundtrack, and how it changes to fit the moment-to-moment gameplay.
25:12 - Oxide, Ara History Untold. Release date: Fall 2024.
They talk about wanting to revolutionize the genre. They show procedurally generated biomes, and mention the attention to detail that went into crafting different cultures and societies from all around the world. The system is deep, requiring the player to explore and make choices that will change the society and the world around them to achieve different win conditions. No mention of Xbox, so I guess it’s still a PC-only release, at least for now.
33:10 - Machine Games, Indiana Jones and the great circle. Release date: 2024.
Hey, look, Todd Howard makes an appearance. There’s some cutscenes, but they show gameplay as well. It’s a first person adventure game set between Raiders of the lost ark and The last crusade. Dr. Jones is shown exploring ancient ruins, vast deserts, snowy mountains and the Vatican, following the trails of a man who stole a relic from the Marshall College and fighting some nazis along the way. But they also talk about the puzzles, which will take centre stage. Seems cool. The last bit is about the behind-the-scenes of the animators and composers, and they also talk about the other characters that will be part of the story.
It’s a bit strange that only one has a fixed release date despite all of them supposedly releasing this year, with the biggest offender being Indiana Jones that only has a generic “2024” release date. That being said, they all showed glimpses of gameplay and different environments, suggesting there’s at least a good chunk of the game already built. I could definitively see Indiana Jones being postponed, though (not a prediction, just saying that I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened).
Avowed seems ok. I’m not a fun of first-person fantasy games (I like looking at my character performing sick moves in cool armour), but they certainly know what they are doing and the gameplay looks fun and snappy. Unfortunately, apart from the combat system and one limited character interaction, they didn’t show too much of the gameplay to give me an idea of what the moment-to-moment gameplay will be, so I’ll suspend my judgement on this one for the moment while I keep waiting for more info.
Senua’s really good, but I never had any doubt about this one. It looked good when they first showed it a few years back, and it somehow looks ever better every time, despite this being the third or fourth trailer I’ve seen in as many years. It gives me the impression they really care about crafting as much a polished game as they can. I’m very optimistic about this one.
I love that they spent half the time dedicated to Secret of Mana talking about the cute critters. I loved every second of it, I’m a sucker for cute animals lol. Unfortunately I always find action JRPGs to be hit and miss: sometimes the game drags just too much and the gameplay ends up boring me before I finish the game. I’m not talking about this game in particular, it’s just a generic statement on the genre, and it’s just a “me” thing, feel free to disagree. Anyway, I’ll keep my eyes on this.
I always love strategy games, so I’m curious about Ara History Untold, which I hadn’t heard before today. I’m not going to lie, I was not entirely impressed, but it got me curious.
About Indiana Jones, I’m already looking forward to playing it, no doubt! I hope the focus will be on puzzles and exploration, as they promised, instead of combat, but I am hopeful they’ll do a decent job.
EA just added classics like Dungeon Keeper, SimCity 3000, and Populous on Steam (www.theverge.com) angielski
There hasn’t been a lot of good news out of EA lately, but here’s some: the company just launched a bunch of classic games on Steam. The new (old) releases include nine games in total, spanning franchises like Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and SimCity....
Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast have "about 40" video game projects in the works (www.gamefile.news) angielski
If there’s that many, one of them better damn well be another Shandalar game.
Akira Toriyama has passed away at the age of 68 (en.dragon-ball-official.com) angielski
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/12911947...
Looking for emotional game recommendations angielski
My favorite games are Omori, Disco Elysium and Outer Wilds. I cried for hours at the end of those games, and I think the common point in them is high-quality emotional writing and stellar OST (music really affect me) and my attachment to the characters....
What are some good games with *zero* replayability? angielski
I want to try and play some more games. That feels more fulfilling if you play games that you can finish and be done with....
Yuzu developers agreed to pay $2.4 million in damages to Nintendo to settle their lawsuit (storage.courtlistener.com) angielski
Everyone in the emulation scene can breathe a sigh of relief.
Microtransactions angielski
I don’t know about you chaps but I absolutely detest the modern approach companies have with their franchises and games....
Crash Bandicoot 4, Spyro Reignited Trilogy Dev Toys For Bob Is Splitting From Activision (www.gameinformer.com) angielski
This is GREAT news. This means they can focus on making great original games and not be dragged into working on call of duty. Please just give me a new Spyro.
The game magazine that spent two years taunting a Final Fantasy VIII hater (ff8isthe.best) angielski
I really like this new blog. Reminds me of ukresistance.
"Cards of Eternity: The Wheel of Time”, Wheel of Time themed card game, announced (www.businesswire.com) angielski
This bit has me both 🍿 and 🤣 :...
What Ever Happened to the Original Baldur's Gate 3? (yt.artemislena.eu) angielski
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection - Announce Trailer | PS5 & PS4 Games (www.youtube.com) angielski
What adventure games do you recommend? angielski
pretty much the title. i have played most of sierra, lucasarts and telltale catalogues so if you are suggesting one of their games i’ve probably already played it. it doesn’t have to be a copycat, homage or in the same style as these companies’ games either, just that it must satisfy the vague definition of being an...
Kingmakers - Official Announcement Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Are there any games like Diablo but not Diablo because Diablo? angielski
EA flop Immortals of Aveum reportedly cost around $125 million, former dev says "a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea" (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
Personally I would not call Immortals of Aveum an AAA game. 😅...
Xbox is still committed to making consoles, says boss Phil Spencer (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
What's your big "Oh, THAT'S how I do that" moment? angielski
I remembered a good brainfart of mine and wondered if anyone else had one to share....
Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023's best-selling game worldwide (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
First game you played angielski
Title says it all, what was the first game you remember playing and had fond memories of?...
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There are "five Resident Evil games in development right now, including Resident Evil 9", leaker claims (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
I don't know if I have the strength to do it (lemmy.world) angielski
DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH – State of Play Announce Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Can someone explain to me why Honkai: Star Rail is treated as something other than trash? I keep seeing posts about it, all over. angielski
It’s a free-to-play mobile gacha game. Therefore, it is trash. That point simply cannot be argued. It’s not up for debate. If you’re here to debate that point, please don’t even bother. All mobile games are trash. All free-to-play games are trash. All gacha games are trash. Again: there is no debate about that....
No More Avatar Reckoning, it has been cancelled (gengamer.in) angielski
Which games do you dislike, but the rest of the world loves them? angielski
Okay let me start with two heavy hitters right from the get go and don’t forget these are only personal oppinions and I absolute understand if you like those games. Good for you!...
The Pokemon Company releases a statement regarding Palworld: Inquiries Regarding Other Companies’ Games (corporate.pokemon.co.jp) angielski
Here’s a archive link, archive.ph/oT1L6
Your personal Masterpieces angielski
Hello Lemmings!...
Xbox Developers Direct angielski
I really enjoyed the Xbox Developer Direct....
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered - Official Launch Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
ACE COMBAT 7: Skies Unknown – Announcement Trailer – Nintendo Switch (youtu.be) angielski