TwinIon

It's incredible that they screwed up the obvious solution so badly that they're going to end up lowering their potential future revenue share by 37.5%, and that's before you consider the loss of potential revenue from devs that avoid Unity because of this whole fiasco. Hard to recall a more impressive self destruction.

Finished the game, just have a few small things left. Overall this has been one of my favorite gaming experiences in a while. It's easy to wish for more since the first game was a bit longer, but this one is such a complete experience it's hard to be too upset with the package here. The story is fun and well told, with real stakes and big comic book swings. The combat is fun and constantly evolving. The world is huge and so much fun to get around. There are plenty of side experiences both substantial and bite sized. All of it flows together so well and is just such a joy to play. My only real complaints are the few bugs I experienced and the overly simple puzzle mini-games. I had a couple hard crashes, a couple more times I had to restart from the last checkpoint, and a few spots where I got stuck in geometry, but nothing that set me back more than a few minutes. I think the mini-game science puzzles are a good distraction and don't overstay their welcome, but they're still a bit too simple for my taste. I think most years this is probably my personal GOTY, but 2023 has been stacked and I haven't even tried BG3 yet. This is probably my favorite PS5 game to date and is right up there competing with the best Playstation has to offer. On to Alan Wake.

I agree. I also just think he only makes half a point and frames that half poorly. He repeats multiple times that "you don't want open world games, you just want the freedom you think they provide," but he fails to prove that in any meaningful way. He argues that open world games can give you too much choice, which I suppose is true enough, but that isn't intractable or inherent to the form. He shows that that even open world games can still restrict your choices in displeasing ways, which again is true enough, but it's also the status quo, so again, not necessarily a reason why we shouldn't want an open world game. Then he goes through some ways that open world games can best handle player choice while still nudging players in the "right" direction, which I don't disagree with, but again, isn't an argument for not wanting open world games. If anything, it's an argument in favor of well made open worlds. Open world games do provide more choice in a lot of important ways that players can appreciate and I think can make games genuinely better. If there's one thing this thread proves it's that it is difficult to add meaningful side content in a way that is actually additive to the overall player experience.

I've been praising it in it's on thread, but I think Spider-Man 2 handles side quests very well. Side quests are mostly discovered as you traverse the map, and they aren't all pushed at the same time, with different quests becoming available as you progress through the game. There is a good variety in what the quests entail, Some of them unexpectedly turn into longer quest lines that end up tying into the main narrative, others operate more or less on their own. The main story itself has built in breaks for side quests, giving you time to "just be Spider-Man." In what could be argued to be a downgrade, the biggest encounters in side quests are much smaller than they were in the first game, but that reduction in size keeps the pace of the game moving along, ensuring they don't overstay their welcome. While side quests of a certain type usually end up being fairly similar, they still generally spice things up a bit, adding new wrinkles to quests in different locations or changing them as the main story progresses. Overall it's some of the best handling of side quests in open world games to date. Not all of them are memorable or great fun, but even the simple distractions are a fine change of pace and short enough not to be annoying.

I definitely played some of the original game but did not finish it, nor do I remember it very well. The Remaster is $10 right now and I'm considering picking it up. Any thoughts on how well the first game holds up?

I remember that being a common sentiment at the time, but I just couldn't bring myself to play another MGS game after 2. I could appreciate the stealth gameplay and the clear care that went into the game, but I found the storytelling to be insufferable. The only MGS game I've played since is V, which I really enjoyed largely because the story took such a back seat to the gameplay.

I'm closing in on the end of the game and I just keep coming back to how amazingly paced this game is. It's a constant flow of new abilities, enemies, and twists in the story. Even the content that you've been doing the whole time, like the random crimes, evolve as the story goes along. The first game did this all pretty well, but I think they've really fine tuned it with this second entry. I think this game is better paced and more fluid than most non-open world games. I love the recent God of War titles, but I think this one does better than those even with a much more open world. I think it's right up there with games like Uncharted and The Last of Us in how well it keeps things moving, but it's more impressive given all the balls it keeps in the air.

I didn't find that trailer nearly as impressive as most other UE5 reels, which isn't to say it doesn't look good. I never got around to Snake Eater, as I was never the biggest fan of the series, but maybe I'll give the remaster a try.

Reading through the complaint now, and the part that stands out to me is are the allegations that Meta broke the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). That should be a fairly straightforward case to make that is clearly violating a specific standard. Sure, there are nuances there with opt-in vs opt out, the amount of effort they're obligated to put into obtaining records and how exactly the data collected is used, but it's law that outlines what they should be doing and if Meta didn't handle all that correctly, these Attorney's General should be able to show that. The rest of the complaint is far from straightforward and seems like a difficult case for government to make. I'm sure that they'll be able to show that Meta built their business to maximize attention, but going on to show that Meta specifically developed harmful features that they knew were dangerous is a higher bar to clear. Some of the features they're specifically going after are Likes, notifications, and infinite scrolling. Those aren't so much unique harms that Meta employs as they are fundamentals of social media. There will be a lot about what Meta knows and when they knew it, but while whistleblowers have long since leaked some of the worse bits of their internal research, Meta has been putting out tons of other research to the contrary for years. It's easy to imagine Zuck on the stand saying that when he gets 1 data point in direction A and 5 points in direction B, he's more inclined to believe B. I'm sure there's plenty more in there that I might get around to, but I had to laugh at when they argue that Meta is "expanding the use of these new practices into new Platforms and domains. This includes, for example, Meta's Virtual Reality Metaverse, where young users are immersed into Meta's new Horizon Worlds platform;" I don't doubt that Meta is doing whatever they can to keep people using Horizon Worlds, but it's famously a flop that they've recently lowered their already low expectations on. Bringing up Horizon Worlds is like bringing up the Wii U when you're trying to show how successful Nintendo had been with the Wii.

I was thinking about that alternate reality where this story focuses on the federal agent that comes in to save the day and how difficult it would to keep that perspective from becoming a white savior story. Whatever criticisms one might have of the final product, I feel pretty strongly that it's not that.

I'm really loving this one so far. The action is awesome and the storytelling continues to be top notch. I really enjoy the combat and how everything is additive. I'm never sacrificing one ability to have another, it's always just adding more and more to my arsenal. If anythings, there are almost too many things, and I can sometimes get a bit lost in everything I have access to. The pacing of the game is really a tier above every other open world title and it's because of how well every aspect of the game gells together. There are main story missions with small story moments or enormous set pieces. There's a huge variety of side quests around the city that feel much more organic than in most open worlds, largely only popping up after you've gotten to a certain point and have explored the right part of the city. The variety there really is key, with some being very low stakes mini-games and others involving significant combat encounters. It's great that if you encounter a mission or side quest that requires a specific spider-man that you don't need to manually switch, just start the thing and the switch happens instantly. Then there's the traversal, which itself is effectively a mini-game to enjoy between everything else. I'd recommend turning the swing assist way down in the settings (I have it on 0). It doesn't make swinging much more difficult, but it does make it more rewarding. It's much easier to end up in the side of a building or just without enough height, and it makes those perfect combos of swings and glides feel better when properly executed. The wings are a lot of fun and really round out the experience of traveling around the city. I kind of wish the wind tunnels were a bit less obvious and maybe something discovered instead of being giant targets in the hud, but the actual experience of flying around the city is great. I'm constantly switching between flight and swinging and I'm having a great time. Even the fast travel really sells the whole pace of the game. It's so fast and fluid and you can select anywhere in a district you've unlocked, so if you do want to finish a story section right away and don't want to swing across the city, it's a great option to have. I've only used it a couple times, but man is it slick. The graphics are some of the best on the system, but there are occasional moments where things look very unimpressive. There have been a few times when things have been isolated and there just isn't much going on and it highlights some lower quality assets. Most of the time, there is so much happening that it's hard to appreciate exactly how good everything does look. I've also had a couple crashes, which is unusual for Insomniac, but thankfully none of them have set me back more than a minute or two. The Spider-man games have already been some of my favorite open worlds, and this third installment raises the bar in every way. Nearly every interaction has something extra to it that feels unnecessary, but still ads to the whole experience.

Saw it this weekend and it's another high quality Scorsese pic, though I wouldn't rate it among his best work. I do think this is the best that De Niro has been in a long time, and DiCaprio gives a performance up with his best ever. (I do have to mention that while Leo does have a babyface, can we stop pretending that he looks like a young kid if you just give him the right haircut? His age is never really important, so it's a minor quibble, but he's not in his 20s anymore.)

I agree with what you're saying, but it's not like this is my first AC game. I've played every AC game through to completion other than Valhalla. I got far enough that I had met Basim, but not far enough to have revealed the twist that this game's ending is predicated on. I also think this could have been a great way to try and introduce new people to the series. A smaller game that utilizes the core mechanics and goes back to the same setting as the original game could have been a great intro. As with all the other issues with Mirage, it basically speaks to them needing to move farther away from this being a DLC and more towards it being a worthwhile stand-alone game.

It's a real thing in that lots of people misremember things in a similar way. I don't think it's especially revelatory. It makes complete sense to me that if one person remembers something slightly wrong and communicates that to someone with vaguely similar experiences that the second person might accept that misremembered thing as truth. Especially for things like public figures and media that we all experience at arms length through TV or newspapers, it's not hard to imagine why lots of people get things wrong in the same way, even independently. I think it's similar to why people get so freaked out by targeted advertising and assume their phone is spying on them. How could the first google suggestion be for this random thing I was just thinking about? How could Facebook send me this ad for this service that I was just talking about? Because people are generally predictable and not the wholly unique special flowers that we think we are. That and we're noticing outliers and ignoring that Facebook showed you 200 ads that you completely ignored because they were not relevant.

When they decided that it wasn't going to be DLC, and when they sold it at $50, I think so. I'm sure you're right. If this had been cut down even more and was a $30 "Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Basim's Mirage" or something, I'd be inclined to think of it differently, but it's not. I suppose you can argue about different tiers of AC games, but to my mind there are mainline games that got full console releases, and then there are the various smaller spin-off games. Wikipedia organizes it that way. Still, even if you compare this game the other second tier games like Rouge or Syndicate, I think Mirage is the least of them, given when it was released and what it accomplishes.

I powered through to the end, completing a significant but not comprehensive selection of the optional content, and I think this is probably the least essential mainline AC game to date. Even though I really enjoyed Origins and Odyssey, I liked the idea of AC reducing scope and making an "old school" style AC game, but I think Mirage only succeeded in the former. Everything is smaller, but I wanted that reduction in size to bring with it a refinement that Mirage lacks. Almost everything added back to Mirage feels half baked or at least unimpressive. We get social stealth and a notoriety system, but both are simplistic and frustrating at times. It's not a bad game, it's just that we have so many better AC games at this point that there is nothing to make Mirage stand out. The basic gameplay is fine, and technically the game is very solid, but nothing about it made me feel like they made the most of this opportunity. I would have loved to see make better use of the space they had. Give us more interesting and impressive layouts. Give the player more options for how to approach situations, give us more interesting puzzles to solve, and refine the interior spaces so they make some kind of sense. It really doesn't help that I've been putting time into Cyberpunk, where interiors almost always give you multiple points of entry and egress while still looking like they function as the space they're meant to represent. A garage will have space for tools and offices in the back. A home will have a bedroom and a bathroom and an office. Sure, not every apartment in a megastrucutre is accessible, but what is feels real and provides various gameplay opportunities. Mirage does none of that. It falls back on a tiny number of entry solutions over and over again, leading us into spaces that have no logic and have no sense of place. How does anyone in Baghdad function when every door is barred from the inside?! Why not have doors that are locked, allowing us to find the key holder AND also allow us to break in through a window or find a hidden passage? In Mirage it's pretty much always one or the other. They don't even bother to combine the very few mechanics they do have in fun ways. I kind of love the feeling in Cyberpunk of having found a terribly circuitous way into a building only to find there was a straightforward path. The same goes for the even more limited puzzles. I love finding some crazy puzzle solutions in ToTK, but in Mirage there are almost no puzzle like mechanics, and what is there gives you no real gameplay opportunities. What would be the harm in just allowing us to pull shelving outside the tiny box provided? What's the worst that could happen? A player finds some new way to get into a room? Heaven forbid. I'm fine with shrinking AC games back to a more reasonable size, but in doing so they really spotlight the shortcomings of the game design that might be less troublesome in a more sprawling game world. I know the development path of Mirage didn't put them on track to do that, but it's still something that I would love to see the series pursue. Get better at giving us cool places to go fun things to do in them, and then think about expanding the game again. - Also, as someone who didn't finish Valhalla, WTF at that ending. I had to google an explanation and it only made me feel like they missed some story possibilities.

I quickly read through that article, so forgive me if I'm missing something, but I don't see what these guys are proposing exactly. He's not advocating for getting rid of it entirely: Maybe he's asking for essays? Seems like he's hoping a better solution arises without actually having one. Scientific basis of race aside, I think the question that matters most is: "does this data have value?" If so, then keep the question. If you have a better formulation that will provide more value, then change it. If there is no value, then get rid of it. I know someone who works with some researchers who did a lot of work on Sickle cell. For research purposes, they needed to find volunteers to donate blood samples. Part of that involved community outreach programs to raise awareness. This was in Chicago, so I don't think they had to try too hard to figure out what areas to focus on, but I'm pretty sure the existing Census data was helpful there. The article lists a few existing uses: So yeah, if you've got a better idea what boxes people can check that will achieve these ends in a better way, then great. Otherwise, it would be foolish to do away with otherwise useful information.

I held on to cable for a long time because of my TiVo, but then I got put on a YouTube TV family plan so I didn't need it anymore. The Tivo was a great deal at the time. It allowed me to put the Tivo mini boxes in different rooms to get cable without having to pay for extra boxes. It allowed me to stream my cable to my devices (though the app sucked and it didn't work that well outside of the house). It was also one box to watch cable and streaming services. Now, all those benefits are basically native to streaming, so there isn't much point. Besides, if I have to pick between the evil of ISPs and the evil of Google, it's Google every time.

I'm busting through this and while it does capture some of what I liked about the original AC games, there are some things that have been annoying me. One is that the movement feels like a step back from those games in form, function, and feel. While I'm sure there are more killing animations, it seems like animations moving through a crowd have been toned down. It was a bit odd just how handsy some of those OG protagonists get with random people, but it at least looked like they were pushing their way through a group rather than just gliding through. It also just seems slower and more difficult to free run. It's been a couple years since I replayed much of the earlier games, but Basim just seems slow and plodding, likely a result of the Valhalla engine. Too often I feel like a hulking Viking rather than a nimble assassin. My other annoyance has to do with the building layouts. I know this has always been the case, but for some reason I'm really feeling how "video gamey" the building interiors are. I was playing through a mission to steal something from a bath house that is in use and open to the public, and it was locked down harder than most prisons. Most doors don't open at all, most of them that do were barred from the inside, and a couple were blocked by a shelf I could move. I understand the realities of game design at play here, but it's pretty illusion breaking that every building is like that. In my opinion it also violates one of the things I always liked best about the AC games, which is player choice in how to approach situations. If there is only one possible way into every building, I feel like I'm solving a puzzle rather than breaking in. Instead of navigating a bath house or a library, I'm looking for that one open window I can throw a knife through to unbar a door. I'm not choosing between sneaking past guards at the front door or taking a path through the roof or finding a hidden entrance on the side, I'm just searching for the one annoying hole the devs put in this vault publicly accessible building. I also feel like the skill trees are really shallow. I'm often looking at my options to spend skill points and not really feeling like any of them would make a big difference. The very first choice was between three useful skills, but after that I've hardly cared. The penultimate skill on the "stealth" tree is to improve pick pocketing chances. Who cares? I'm enjoying it well enough, but I never feel like chasing after upgrades in this game. We'll see if I change my mind, but right now I'm rather disappointed with how this turned out. It's so much more "slightly expanded DLC" than it is a focused and purposeful AC game.

I think it's worth separating out a few different issues at play here. One issue is the ludonarrative dissonance between the story being told in an urgent main quest and the gameplay experience of knowing that there really is no real urgency and thus being able to take all the time in the world to help a random NPC find their lost cat. The other issue is the way so many open world games simply inundate the player with an endless amount of activities, most of which are of a relatively low quality as compared to the main quests. Personally, I'm less bothered by the latter problem than most seem to be. I'm not a completionist, I don't care about trophies or scores. I'll take part in side quests when I'm enjoying spending time in that world or it seems the reward is worthwhile, but if I don't enjoy a type of sidequest, I'm more than happy to simply ignore them. Personally, I'd much rather creators pad their games' length by adding in 100 copy-paste side quests than by putting a bunch of low quality filler into the main quest. Ideally the gameplay itself is enticing enough that I'm doing side quests just to enjoy the process, but even when that's not the case I think there is a place in these massive games for the more bite-sized content provided by all the optional activities. Sometimes as a player it's nice to have the option to do something small that you know won't spiral your game session out longer than you have time for. Sometimes it's nice to have bite sized encounters available to try out a different build or a new ability. As long as you're not locking great material behind something tedious, I think having a bevvy of options is usually a good thing for players, and at worst it's something to just ignore. The narrative issue is more difficult, but I do think we've seen it done well. The GTA games often get credit for spawning the side quest hellscape that dominates modern gaming, but the newer entries have done a great job of balancing the main story with the side content. The stories aren't usually so urgent that it wouldn't make sense to take part; to the contrary, the main quest usually has built in lulls specifically put their for players to explore. I feel like both Cyberpunk and Horizon do this as well, though I agree that the primary driver is such that it makes any break seem narratively difficult to justify.

Haven't gotten around to season 2 yet, but really enjoyed the first. Shame it didn't get picked up for a third.

The trial has been going on for a little while now, and while I've been following it a bit, it's been a bit anti-climactic in that the fraud seems pretty clear and the defense isn't doing a great job. Basically everyone around SBF has already plead guilty to fraud and is testifying against him, and I don't think I've seen a single update that bodes well for him.

I didn't realize that they're only showing this on the weekends. An interesting move that makes a lot of sense but I wouldn't have thought about. It's amazing how Taylor Swift's popularity has taken off this last year or so. Yeah, she has been an A-list celeb for years, but this last tour has seemingly pushed her into a tier of her own.

This is why I keep trying to get on a jury, but I haven't made it on one yet. Got close this last year, but after voir dire my number was too high so I didn't make the cut. Even through that process though, it was pretty clear the poor defendant was going to lose. The defense attorney seemed to have no idea what they were doing; completely skipping their opportunities to ask potential jurors and needing constant reminders by the judge how things worked and what order the process happened in. Meanwhile, the prosecution was really on point, asking insightful questions and connecting with jurors on the nature of justice and what kind of proof would be required to convict. It felt like just through voir dire I knew what the nature of the evidence was and that some chosen jurors would be sufficiently swayed by it. I never really doubted the power of money in the courtroom before that, but seeing a competent lawyer working against someone so hapless really hammered home how screwed a poor person would be.

I never really had any doubt that Insomniac would deliver with this one, but still waited on my pre-order until reviews as a point of principle. Any improvement on the previous games is more than enough to sell me.