Bloodporne

Alright, that's Returnal: PS3 Edition ...and yet, I'm intrigued!

This is the most excited I've been for a sequel since Dark Souls, no lie. I cannot fucking wait and I loved everything they showed in the trailer

2022...interracial marriage. Keep it real America

I thought Bly Manor and Midnight Mass were both borderline terrible so I'm having a hard time giving a shit what Flanagan does next.

This is starting to become a huge pet peeve of mine. Nioh 2 just broke me despite the fun core combat. Just so much...shit to micromanage. Granted, that's an extreme scenario but just kind of exemplified everything I'm getting tired of. It keeps feeling to me like games are being packed with micromanaging and endless piecemeal "increases" to avoid actually having to make the encounters and level design more clever and engaging.

I swear every time I've had a game with raytracing so far, I immediately turn it off for the performance. It doesn't seem worth it at all to me. It looks cool but not at the cost.

I frequently don't finish games these days. Main reason for that is that I tend to get really into games I like, explore everything available, read everything etc., then burn myself out on it by the time I hit the final stretch and move on. Also, a lot of games are just too fucking long for my tastes now. I much prefer a 10 hour game with replay value, I just get burnt on these 50+ hour epics or whatever. I just replayed Resident Evil 1 Remake and boy, that was the perfect length right there.

Then I think you'll dig Sniper Elite. I've only played 4 but it has great, open level and mission design that ultimately funnels you into exactly one thing: ...in very creative ways like X-ray vision rupturing their balls with a fat-ass sniper rifle from 500m out.

I still don't know why but I've also played through 1 through 3 and can't stand any of them. Nathan Drake sucks, the whole lame Hollywood popcorn pastiche plot and characters suck even more, the gameplay in general feels like a rote excuse for the constant set pieces and babbling characters. Naughty Dog are the Michael Bay of video games.

For that alone it should have all its remaining copies confiscated and burnt at the stake. I remember a lot of "Tomb Raider" being thrown around and when I realized all you had to do was hold up, and once in a while left or right, to platform, I wanted to break the disc.

That's what I read and saw in gameplay footage. I know it sounds dumb but I get real OCD-ish about seeing and doing everything in games so stuff like that really stresses me out. When games are too deep and open, it stresses me out, like I'm constantly unsure how to approach things because I'll miss out on a possibly "better" way.

Sounds like my Saturday night

That game had nothing going for it besides the great graphics for the time in my opinion. The "platforming" was hot garbage, the fire fights were terrible and there were too many fucking cutscenes. I'm still baffled people thought it was that great. If they have to remake it, which they obviously do, please give it to someone who can put gameplay that isn't shit into it. Maybe even...gasp...good platforming with actual stakes in a modern 3D game.

This is exactly what I enjoy about it and what kept me hooked. It does a few things very well and they create enough fun and emergent scenarios to have kept me entertained throughout the entire campaign. The level design is great and the mechanics are all very solid and quite satisfying. It definitely feels like a more old school and AA MGSV in many ways and I appreciated the narrower focus. I absolutely loved MGSV, talked about it a lot here, but yeah, I'm glad SE4 is a bit more "arcade-y". I haven't gotten into Hitman yet for exactly that reason, it seems overwhelming and like a commitment. Also, you'll see the more you play and get comfortable with its system but the mechanics can be pushed quite a bit and you'll be styling on enemies in no time with elaborate trip-mine setups and what not. Dealing with the armed vehicles is cool as hell too, you'll see what I mean. It's also very atmospheric which is a big plus for me. Check your guns' perks/upgrades by the way, they're just enough to be fun to engage with, no crazy challenges really. Glad to see you like it.

That's exactly who I sent to the grave, person you mentioned in the spoilers. Edit: Also, might be looking at this the wrong way but I find the "skill checks" in this game and the time limit frustrating. I've literally only passed a single skill check, if you can call them that. I'm not making dumb choices dialog-wise, as in just picking annoying answers to see what happens etc., and to me, much of what ends up showing on the list as detrimental and/or positive just doesn't seem to make much sense. Like last night I was asked to I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong but it seems really easy to lock yourself out of entire quest lines and like I said, I've exclusively failed the skill checks except one. Maybe the game expects me to play it several times? Maybe the idea is to feel like you're just bumbling around much like Andreas himself but yeah, it's a bit frustrating. Also, I didn't really fully understand the game's overall structure and system in the beginning and inadvertently wasted time not understanding how limited time really is and how many questlines there are. I had locked myself out of a ton of shit without knowing it. That being said, it's a rare game that gets better as it goes and I've come to really enjoy the characters and had a genuine reaction and sadness for a moment when

...much harrowing...much bad feelings. Sorry ND, I was busy styling on people with shotgun headshots.

I'm almost willing to put money on that. There is no way, absolutely no way, they somehow redesigned the Ishimura to be even particularly interconnected, let alone a puzzle box like RE2R's police station or something. My opinion...there just won't be full-on "level" cuts and big loading screens when traversing to different area with the tram, that's it. They spin shit like crazy with their phrasing, look at TLoU Part 1. Absolutely agree with you too that they'll say whatever is furthest from the word linear because open world reigns right now. Biggest thing Dead Space could've used would've been an overhaul to the fetch quest "mission" structure. That was even criticized at release and to me that would've been the coolest shit to introduce a Prey style mission log and send you on your way in the Ishimura. What they've shown though is absolutely 1:1 with some goofballs arguing online that it isn't because this room on the right is now slightly bigger and that door is now on the left. Get outta here, nobody means that.

To be clear, I love the game particularly for the gameplay, it's fantastic. Much of the "I feel bad for what I've done, my emotions" type of stuff gets sillier the more seriously they take it when juxtaposed with the insane rampages you go on to me though. There are just many small moments that made me laugh like that. Not saying they should've done differently, that's ND's whole thing, but I personally find that the more videogames try to be realistic and have Hollywood style emotional gravitas, the sillier and jarring small moments like that become. But anyway, I'm not sure there was anything in that game nearly as funny as Isaac just kinda standing there completely unfazed while everyone is slaughtered. What makes it funny to me is how hard they're clearly trying to make Isaac a more real character.

I said it above but I hope they don't pull that TLoU remake bullshit in terms of marketing speech and we end up with a 1:1 remake with like four added side rooms and some slightly revised layouts to rooms making up these "big changes". Having just replayed Resident Evil 1 Remake, seeing footage like this and TLoU Part I is even lamer. Take the original concept and run.

I forgot to roast this part because the more videogames try to be logical and "realistic", the more I notice shit like this and find it funny. TLoU2 was a total jarring-nonsense-videogame-stuff fest as well and I would never notice it in a game like The Evil Within or whatever. Isaac has a meltdown seeing a small blood stain and even when stomping on a box goes UUHGHHG AAAHHHH like a maniac, yet his boys get literally torn apart by The Thing monsters and he's just hanging out.

This just makes me think of TLoU remake because I haven't seen anything new in their footage yet despite them talking about having added areas and so on. I'm weary of that because TLoU sure took a lot of fucking liberty with their phrasing pre-release. "Expanded exploration!" somehow meant 1:1 remake with some bullshit trinket somewhere, you knew what you implied there, marketing team. I think I still have Callisto Protocol disappointment hangover and bitching at Dead Space for it.

I flip-flop so hard on this for some weird reason. A page back I'm like fuck yeah, Day 1, then I watch this video and my reaction is pretty meh. I want a faithful remake, absolutely and I certainly don't want cuts but I think it's the nearly 1:1 nature of what they've shown that feels a bit like how lame I thought TLoU's remake was. Dead Space is definitely great but much like TloU1, I think it could be vastly improved in terms of encounter design and some other aspects. I think I conveniently forget stuff like "every five minutes a Necro pops out of a vent and goes BRAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" when the rose-colored glasses come on because I kept wondering if they couldn't have found a way to just update some of this a little and still keep it in spirit. Definitely an entitled gamer type of moment where it seems like I don't know what I actually want but have shit to say.

I love these threads at this point.

Man... I absolutely behaved like an ass in the first act and just sentenced an innocent person to death. I told that fucking archdeacon EVERYthing like a wimp. Feels bad when you see their head roll. Also, man am I relieved to see that that wasn't the entire game. Was about to get mad. I'm definitely enjoying it so far but will admit a lot of that is down to the amazing art. I think it's good but definitely a bit tedious at points since there is much small talk and it's not nearly as consistently interesting conversation-wise as Disco Elysium for example. I also wish this had more music. The ambient sound design is great but it often sounds like the music is just turned off to me? I'll wait to judge it until I'm finished but not really quite as engaging nor great as I expected so far.