RIP Google Wave, you were a real one.

I thought that was a surprisingly interesting and nuanced read. Also, Cyberpunk 2077 could have actually been way more sexploitative if it would be true to its setting. Especially stuff like ads, which I found overall rather tame all things considered.

Also:

Hung, who works largely on sex games

nominative determinism strikes again!

IIRC the old XRay engine is open source (or the source leaked and the devs gave the okay for modders to improve it), so here’s hoping someone can reverse engineer and backport any major improvements this edition adds to the originals.

It was indeed leaked and given their blessing. That’s what spawned the OpenXray engine which is coincidentally what Anomaly uses. So the release of these remasters will have zero impact on Anomaly, thankfully.

However, there were many excellent regular mods for the original trilogy (Gunslinger comes to mind) that will probably break…

I wish the keeper of many fond childhood memories wasn’t a company I fervently wish would die in a fire.

All the detail, the world building and the little pieces of narrative, the puzzles within puzzles and the constant feeling of the game just opening up under you and always throwing things at you making you go “wait, how big is this game?” was just so cool.

I might be high on recency bias in my praise but I was thoroughly enamoured with it.

I get that on Blue Prince. Even with the RNG control you’re afforded late game you’re still heavily affected by the luck of the draw. I still think it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played.

If you’re looking to see the rest of the game through someone else’s eyes to get a glimpse of the remaining puzzles I thoroughly recommend Luckless Lovelocks playthrough on YouTube. It’s still ongoing but I’ve really enjoyed his note taking and puzzle solving.

Still on an extended break from Blue Prince, hoping my sister and her fiancé catch up to me eventually so we can take a crack at the final(?) puzzle together but they’ve been busy lately and not had much time to play. If you enjoy puzzles and haven’t played it yet you are truly missing out. I still think it will be in GOTY contention even with all the other heavy hitters this year.

In the meantime I’ve been utterly enjoying Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I’m probably over the halfway point now in the story, though I’ve been dragging my feet doing side content and optional bosses to extend my playtime. For once when it comes to a JRPG I wish it was actually longer. I could easily lose myself in this world, story and among these characters for 100+ hours.

Really recommend the game, though with the effusive praise it’s been collecting that’s hardly a surprise. Brilliant music, engaging combat, interesting story and well written dialogue that is superbly acted whether you go for the English or French. And all that for a €50 game?!

Interesting article. I especially liked this paragraph:

There’s plenty that can be said about the recent trailer, but if I had to sum up my own misgivings with it, it’s that it has an air less of “look at this cool thing we made, we can’t wait to share it with you”, more dick-swinging swagger, a cocksure sense of, well, you’re going to buy this anyway, here’s some absurdly good-looking beer to tide you piggies over.

A little late to the party this? But it’s an absolute amazing game. This year looks absolutely ridiculous for quality game releases. I was hoping this would be in for a shout of GOTY, but Clair Obscur is already giving it a run for its money and Death Stranding 2 and Silksong are on the horizon.

Regardless, if you enjoy puzzles and lore and piecing together a narrative from scraps Blue Prince is simply one of the best games ever made. You should seriously play it.

That’s fair I’ll edit.

Yeah the payphone is also up there, and honestly, opening the secret compartment in the ledger too. Which when you think about it, all those best moments are so missable. Completely psychotic by the devs.

And customizable automation can be a fun optimisation game in itself. I played through Dragon Age: Origins with the Even More Advanced Tactics mod and took great pleasure in setting up the tactics to be completely automated like a self-playing piano.

I’m thinking we’re sticking with games older than this year, as the dust hasn’t settled yet so to speak? Because honestly otherwise some recent entries would qualify for me. I’m thinking of you, Blue Prince and Clair Obscur.

I have a lower opinion of BG3 than most (it’s fine), but I absolutely agree that the Raphael boss fight and music was an absolute gaming highlight, and worth the price of admission alone.

Alan Wake 2 in its entirety would qualify for me, but if one moment has to be singled out then the We Sing chapter was something else. Honorable mention for

near the end, that was incredibly memorable.

Finally, and the real standout for me was the Final Dream in Disco Elysium. The most emotional, most impactful and heartbreaking and memorable moment I’ve had in gaming. And the most impressive seeing as Kurvitz (who wrote the scene) managed to distill the pathos and denouement of the entire game into three words to close the dream:

And these are the days that remind me being an older gamer with limited time can kind suck.

I am definitely very often on the border between frustration and enjoyment when playing this game. And that’s even just playing on Normal difficulty.

We had Balatro last year. Blue Prince released a month ago and is a bona fide GOTY contender from a tiny studio and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is possibly the best AA game of all time but sure, the games industry is dead. I’m convinced, back it up boys.

I’m extremely happy with my Fractal North and think it’s the prettiest PC case I’ve ever seen, at least that’s available off the shelves.

Makes sense to be honest. It was never intended to be as publicly available as it is at this point in time in the first place. Their hand just got forced by the leak last summer. It’s logical that the real testing is still happening in small scale with trusted people behind closed doors.

I really like your solution!

There are some high performance VA panels that are good for gaming. Samsung Odyssey Neo G7/G8 for example.

Are there really no mini-LED monitors in your country? I’m a really big advocate of them. As close to OLED HDR performance as you can get without burn-in and with better peak brightness. I’m currently using a Cooler Master GP27Q that I got for cheap as an opened box, which has been a really solid monitor for the cheap cheap price I got it for (couple hundred euros).

I think a 27 inch 1440p monitor with 2000+ dimming zones will be the sweet spot between performance and affordability, though none like that are on the market yet.

Even though I don’t think there should be a cap these days, 60 FPS is at least perfectly palatable. 30 FPS really is not, and it’s particularly jarring if gameplay is not capped but cutscenes are.