AbsolutSurgen

I've been playing Witcher3 -- just finished the campaign and am playing through the DLC. This game probably has the best story of any game I have ever played. It constantly introduces (and re-introduces from the first 2 games) interesting characters, and puts them in novel situations. It is continually giving you moral choices, that both cause characters to react differently to you, and quests to resolve differently. Gwent is also probably the best mini-game I have played, and a significant improvement over the terrible poker dice from previous games. This game also has the best use of the Witcher signs -- I find myself using all 5 signs at regular intervals. I really wish the combat was better -- 80% of the combat situations can be easily beaten by following the same pattern, two light attacks, dodge backwards, cast Quen sign, repeat. Traversal is also disappointing -- I am constantly frustrated with Roach (and the racing mini-games, while not hard, are TERRIBLE) and travel by boat. Similarly, a lot of the quality of life (for lack of a better word) aspects are pretty disappointing -- nothing to let you know when you are close to an inactive quest, the encumbrance and weapon degradation systems are annoying, the loot is largely a waste of time, etc. Finally -- the technical issues, multiple crashes to desktop, occasionally not being able to dive underwater (fixed by exiting/re-entering the game), crashing during the Eredin battle unless I reduced my resolution to 1080p, more clipping than in any game I can recall. The good far outweighs the bad, and I am enjoying the game -- it is a really good experience. Based on my tastes, this is a game I should love -- and I wish I did -- perhaps my anticipation for playing it was just too high based on the "best game ever" hype. If you stick to the Main and Secondary quests, it can actually be a fairly directed game (ignoring most of the "?" on the map, unless you need them for a quest is probably a good way to play the game). I kept trying to play it like a Sony or Ubi open world game, and I think that was a mistake on my part - I enjoyed it more when I stopped trying to go to all of the waste-of-time copy/paste locations. The game really picks up at around the 7-hour mark, when you get to Velen.

Forza Horizon has some of the best "gaming feel" that I have ever experienced. IMHO, a lot of this comes down to the haptic triggers -- which rumble as you start to get wheel spin on acceleration and are starting to lock the brakes.

Not in order: Forza Horizon 4 Forza Horizon 3 Horizon Zero Dawn God of War AC: Odyssey Doom Rise of the Tomb Raider Spider-Man Destiny 2 Far Cry 4

I am not putting up RL2 as a gold-standard for anything. I'll wait to play the game to make any judgements. However, I am excited to see what they do with it. I am not an animator, so I am probably using incorrect terms. However, what I see in a lot of "pixel art games" is the tendency to not have a "transition frame". For example, in RL, when you fall off of a ledge, your sprite that has the cape hanging downwards is replaced by one with the cape pointing up. There is no frame that transitions cape down to cape up. The version of Spelunky I played (a long time ago, for a brief time) looked like what @Keyser_Soze posted. Clearly, it is possible to put great animation in a 2D animated game. It is also possible to put in great art.

Kotaku: The Last of Us Part 2’s Metacritic Page Shows How Broken Numerical Scores Are Screen Rant: Gamers Are Now Review Bombing The Last of Us 2 Again, IMHO, this game appears to be being review-bombed by two groups, not just 1 as had been suggested: 1) The typical gamer-gate crowd 2) The group who are upset about the storyline And again. We don't live in a world where users give "reasonable scores". We live in a world where people give user-reviews on the products they like on Amazon "5-stars", and Metro Exodus 0-stars because it is an EGS exclusive. User reviews are frequently not based on rational assessment of the "technical merits" of the game, they are often based on one (or more) issues -- "I hate that this game is only on EGS", "I hate that this game shows Russia in a bad light", "I hate that LGBTQ characters are shown in a positive light" and "I hate what happened to Joel, and how he was portrayed". IMHO, aggregated user review scores should be ignored by almost everyone (on Metacritic, Yelp, etc.) The problems in them are fundamental, and cannot be fixed.

The part where I talked about it being review bombed by two groups of people?

So you didn't even read most of my post then.

Rogue Legacy, Spelunky, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2. It was 16-bit plus. I don't believe RL graphics would not be possible on a 16-bit console/computer.

The articles I have read suggested he lied to a woman about not being married, and had a relationship with her for over a year. I suspect that Ubi has asked him to take a LOA while they do an investigation. If he hasn't done anything inappropriate in the workplace, he may return to work when the "embarrassing PR" blows over. I don't believe what is described in those articles are grounds for termination in Quebec.

@Greatoneshere @SaysWho? Did you even read the Kotaku and Forbes articles I linked to?

My son saw that "gun" mod and really wanted me to use it. While it might be fun for a second-run through, I think I will try to stay closer to the original intent for my first...

1) I think people should be smart enough to recognize I was talking about the style of pixel art used in the original Rogue Legacy, not anything that has 2D art. Can anyone clarify what the commonly accepted term is for this, so I don't confuse people going forward? To be more specific, I am tired of pixel-art graphics that: - artificially constrain the numbers of colours on-screen - use pixels (or voxels) that are visible, and way too big for modern resolution screens - use excessive tiling of background elements - use far too few frames of animation Older hardware had physical constraints that forced this in the past (i.e. limited memory, limited colour pallettes, limited # of colours onscreen) -- modern gaming platforms don't. 2) FWIW, Rogue Legacy 2 is 3D made to look 2D

Something older, like Dragon's Crown looks infinitely better, to me, than that.

These accusations are more than that. IGN apparently was filled with fucktards at the mid-level management level.

I view it as a lazy art style that is trying to prey on the nostalgia of gamers. Just do good art. We no longer are limited by the hardware of the 80's and 90's.

Mass Effect didn't get negative reviews because of LGBT relationships. It got negative reviews because people hated the ending. That was my point. 1) It is easy to assume that everyone that doesn't like the game is a an incel neo-Nazi facist small-dicked asshole. And a number of them are. 2) There are also a lot of people who have an irrational attachment to a certain character, are pissed about what happens to them and are willing to review bomb. (Read the resetera spoiler thread if you don't believe me.) This is what the kids do nowadays. "I don't like something. Post negative review/post on social media." Is it so hard to recognize that everyone who is upset with this game is not a homogenous mass of assholism?

There are a series of former IGN editors/staffers posting on Twitter. I think it was Kallie Plagge who started it. If you recall, it was Kallie's accusations about Steve not reacting to accusations of sexual assault against another editor that got him fired a few years ago.

I couldn't be more sick of pixel art.

Was Mass Effect 3 review bombed because it had LGBT characters? While I am sure there is a group of people that were very angry when they read the plot spoilers. [Plot spoilers for the first few hours of the game follow:] I only got a lot bit into this video from Alana Pearce (sp?) (I only watched because Jeff Cannata was in it), but Jess seemed to be infuriated at how the character referenced in the spoilers above was treated. The whole "if you don't like my video game, you are a racist, neo-Nazi incel bigot" is kind of myopic, because there is a whole group of gamers who are raging for a very different stupid reason.

People often given "0" reviews when they are angry about something. Which is why user ratings can be very deceptive. Almost no user review is worth reading, or is well thought out -- why would the "0" reviews be any better?

Entering early access on Steam and EGS in about one month.

I've heard really compelling reasons for why people do, and don't like TLoU2. I think everyone agrees on the quality of the graphics, voice acting and environmental design. However, I have seen vastly differing opinions on the combat and story. We do live in a world, where when people are "upset" they give it the lowest possible rating -- even if it deserves something higher. You see it on Yelp and Amazon -- why wouldn't you see it on a Metacritic review. I have no doubt that some of the review bombers are SJW-hating incels -- but after reading just a couple of the low reviews, it is pretty clear that at least some of them are very upset with the direction of the story. And, given that many of the main plot points were spoiled weeks ago, its pretty easy to understand why those folks may have put in reviews before they had played much (or any of the game). It is fairly easy to get games early in some places, there may have even been a group that played through the game as well. However, the sentiment that "anyone who doesn't like the video game I like" is a racist, SJW-hating, Nazi incel is just comical.

https://store.playstation.com/en-ca/product/UP9000-CUSA00553_00-THELASTOFUS00000

A Sample...

Is that the PS3 version they are showing?