Greatoneshere

I agree with you about Ghost's combat - very satisfying. I will say as someone who 100%'ed Horizon, the combat takes awhile to really open up, but once you have a number of weapons and types of ammo for those weapons, combat becomes very slick and satisfying and you feel very powerful though the combat never gets easy. But at first it's very simple. Honestly, same with Tsushima - as more and more opens up I find myself leaning more and more on ninja/ghost abilities, as it's just easier - once you can stealth kill 3 people at once and see via a flashing sign who else will see your triple stealth kill, it becomes my primary mode of combat (though if things go to shit or I get bored, I do go samurai). Also stand offs are great because if you upgrade that enough you can kill three people in one go in a stand off. Between a triple stand off kill and a triple stealth kill I'm slowly finding myself in less and less drawn out battles.

I am absolutely down to replay SMT III: Nocturne. I got to the true final boss but never grinded out the experience to finally beat him all those years ago. This is as good an excuse as any to pick things up 15 years later. Great game, will look gorgeous if done right in HD (as it seems). I wish it were on PC though.

Yeah, except these icons are worth going to.

They now have 13 studios working under them (essentially equal to Sony's 14 studios) so I'm very excited to see what all that talent has been working on. They snapped up some good studios these last few years.

Khotun Khan (cousin of Kublai Khan) is played by Patrick Gallagher, who you've all seen in at least something. He's pretty great in most roles, and I'm enjoying his understated, intellectual turn here (so far, I'll need to see more). https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0302466/?ref_=tt_cl_t4 His likeness is used for the character in game.

I don't own GTA V at all, in any way, shape, or form.

I am loving this game so far - about 5-6 hours in. The combat opens up a lot as times goes on, and the ninja/ghost aspect isn't janky, as of yet. The targeting can sometimes be wonky when you are surrounded by multiple enemies, but for the most part the combat is fast, fluid, and feels like an approximation of real samurai combat (in terms of weightiness and timing) and it's very easy to get pummeled by loads of enemies if one isn't careful. Fought two major bosses so far, the health bar was intimidating but once you master dodging, parrying, etc. it didn't take too long to take them down. Playing on the hardest difficulty, but it's still early days. The setting and atmosphere alone, along with the graphics and music, make the game feel special regardless of some of the more rote open-world design. I will say that everything being in game (follow foxes, birds, the wind, etc.) is great, it's just a shame that they put "undiscovered location" question marks on your map, which sort of undermines discovering the animals and following them, but whatever makes my life easier I guess. It's not like the game pings items in any area at least, so you still gotta search and explore for supplies and scrolls, etc. Also, I love how samurai and Japanese the game is in its gameplay. Inari shrines, golden birds, fox dens, haikus (there are fucking haiku gameplay sections!), flute playing with different song options, historic scrolls to give us legit background on both the Japanese and Mongol cultures, genuinely wrestling with the samurai code of bushido by becoming more of what samurai considered scum, the ninja, as Jin Sakai has to emply guerrilla tactics to win this war. Don't forget, playing the flute changes the in-game weather as well!

People didn't like Guerrilla Games and their Killzone games but then Horizon Zero Dawn happened, so you never know.

You are right about the user response, but critics overall (barring the strange ones like Vice or Polygon) have unanimously praised the game despite the option they had to cow tow to users. It has one of the highest critical video game ratings on metacritic, so I think at least reviewers understand the depth, etc. of the game that you're pointing out, for the most part. The common, average person? Don't ever expect anything out of them.

I ultimately figured it out - needed to go to "purchased" instead of "games" under library.

It means he has poor taste is all. Obviously he can do what he wants.

I had the exact same thought. He's a rich man, what the fuck is going on there? At least hire an interior decorator if you don't know what you're doing. Are those from the 80's? Is he at his mom's house?

I have to admit when I built my rig a few years ago and got it all working I felt like I had fucked the computer. It was an experience.

There's no question I'm playing this in color, and in English (unless they somehow fix the lip flaps, since I originally wanted to play this in Japanese).

I'm a completionist who prefers playing series in production order, so I get the instinct to play the originals first. I recommend you do. I never played Ascension, but I did play the main three games and the two spin-off games for handhelds (except I played the PS3 HD versions) and all 5 games were great. Definitely play the main three before the PS4 God of War, and if you're digging the series, play the two spin-off games if PSNow has them (they can otherwise be skipped). Have no idea about Ascension, no one's ever really liked it much but it is a hole in my game playing. As others have said, the PS4 game has by far the most depth in terms of characterization and story, but the old games are fun and do deepen the fourth game if you've experienced them. Just know that the old games are very dudebro Greece; 300 movie-style feel and vibe. It works though in being fun and over the top.

I can't seem to pre-install this game? I bought the deluxe edition.

I take this story seriously, but at the same time, his direction of Gotti was pretty much an assault on the audience.

I do definitely agree with all of this and had the same thoughts too whilst playing. I will say one very cool moment:

It's really good! The mood, ambiance, and atmosphere alone are stellar. It was on a lot of game of the year lists last year cause it is that good, I think. I definitely recommend it if you haven't played it.

I can agree with this. I didn't think it was stellar on hard in terms of enemy AI (the game was never hard, especially compared to the likes of truly hard games like Cuphead or Dark Souls) but it was good enough, is where I land I think.

And Malcolm Jenkins.

A lot of people are, objectively. It's really quite sad. I don't "love" doing anything - I wish the world and humans were better. It's sad because I want for more, not because I want things to be as they are (aka shitty). People are lazy, dumb, and typically make wrong-headed choices.

This. Watching on a smaller and smaller screen objectively diminishes the experience, and if one has the option to watch it in their TV room but out of sheer laziness chooses their phone, that strikes me as bizarre. But one takes what they can get - you watch when you can watch on what you can watch it on.

I had the same exact thoughts. Dynamic AI is hard to come by, and I felt the AI on hard (in this game) was about on par with MGS or Tenchu in terms of stealth, in good ways.

Man, John Travolta loses his first serious girlfriend to breast cancer in 1977, his eldest son at age 16 to a seizure due to complications with having Kawasaki Disease and autism in 2009, and now his wife of 29 years dies of breast cancer? Jesus.