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XsjadoBlaydette

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Roguelike mode in TLoU2 is preferred way to access the combat system now. none of having to deal with all that repetitive talking no more - straight to the shooty bangs and stubby hugs it is! Yes yes, I know: messages about cycles of violence received and understood already... gimme that there finely crafted combat system seeing as none of this is affecting the relentless real world cycles of violence anyway.
 

Piscian

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They changed it from Gold, in which I got 4, then 2 games a month, usually the types of games I can get from Amazon Prime just for being a member. But I built up a pretty good library from Gold over the last 11 years. Now Gold is gone, replaced by "Core?" which sucks. I will, sadly, let this lapse myself.
Somewhat tangential, but I seriously considered buying an Xbox Series X over the holidays, but their new game pass is so expensive and convoluted that I couldn't talk myself into it.

I get the distinct impression that both Sony and Xbox are trying to ride the streaming service train so hard that its going to bite them in the ass when people start "digital" cord cutting because of the exponentially increasing fees. Ill even put $20 on it right now Xbox will start airing unskippable commercials before you launch a digital game in the next 3 years.
 

gorfias

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Somewhat tangential, but I seriously considered buying an Xbox Series X over the holidays, but their new game pass is so expensive and convoluted that I couldn't talk myself into it.

I get the distinct impression that both Sony and Xbox are trying to ride the streaming service train so hard that its going to bite them in the ass when people start "digital" cord cutting because of the exponentially increasing fees. Ill even put $20 on it right now Xbox will start airing unskippable commercials before you launch a digital game in the next 3 years.
Also tangential: I think HBO (now, oddly, MAX) is doing commercials which you can skip for a fee.

Happily, in a world where competition is skyrocketing, we have other options. They're hosing themselves.

Handheld "PCs" can and will, I think, ultimately replace consoles within 10 years. I have about 1,000 Steam games (shame on me!) many of which I can play on my Steamdeck like its a Nintendo switch on TV. Others are entering the market place. Lenovo has a really cool one. Irked enough by it? Buy a laptop and hook it up to your TV if necessary. And more.

I admit, I want to see if PS5 has a pro edition releasing next year. Add a 4 TB SSD and, could be worth getting.
 

Piscian

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Also tangential: I think HBO (now, oddly, MAX) is doing commercials which you can skip for a fee.

Happily, in a world where competition is skyrocketing, we have other options. They're hosing themselves.

Handheld "PCs" can and will, I think, ultimately replace consoles within 10 years. I have about 1,000 Steam games (shame on me!) many of which I can play on my Steamdeck like its a Nintendo switch on TV. Others are entering the market place. Lenovo has a really cool one. Irked enough by it? Buy a laptop and hook it up to your TV if necessary. And more.

I admit, I want to see if PS5 has a pro edition releasing next year. Add a 4 TB SSD and, could be worth getting.
I have paramount+ atm. The only reason I do is that I got in on a year subscription for $35 and I really wanted to binge star trek. Thats said I was incensed to find out paramount+ does 30 second ads before every episode. Im literally about to just pirate and Blu-ray everything going forward. I'm so sick of this shit.
 

Bob_McMillan

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I heard the reason Percy Jackson was edited so jarringly was because they left space for ads. I don't even know if Disney+ has ads, but makes sense to me. Some of the cuts in that show felt like a high school student made them on Movie Maker.
 

BrawlMan

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I heard the reason Percy Jackson was edited so jarringly was because they left space for ads. I don't even know if Disney+ has ads, but makes sense to me. Some of the cuts in that show felt like a high school student made them on Movie Maker.
Wrong thread.
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
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I finished Chants of Senaar. Overall enjoyed it, though I did have to check a walkthrough at times. Once to finish one of the puzzles near the end of the game because it invovled a math problem using a numbering system I don't really understand very well(only used on one of the upper floors of the tower), and again to unlock the Good ending, because I'd missed one of the key pieces earlier in the game without realizing it. Well, I realized I missed one, I didn't know where it was so I searched all over the damn place looking for it and it was down a path I somehow missed because it was a little difficult to see and I hadn't been back there in hours. Once I found it I was able to unlock the true endgame.

I do like the commitment to the idea of the Tower of Babel but one that continued to be inhabited from ancient times up into the near future. Maybe it could have been explored a little more bit it was a small dev team and it's based primarily around the different languages and learning them. There's also a big emphasis on the different cultures/levels not talking to each other, both because they don't speak the same language but also because they're generally isolated from each other culturally and some of them are rather xenophobic of each other(For example, the devotees of the first level are seen as "Impure" by the warriors of the second. The Bards of the third level sees the warriors in turn as "Idiots", as opposed to the warriors who see the bards as "Chosen ones".)

In fact, the good ending is accomplished partially by opening up lines of communication between the peoples of the tower and getting them to engage with each other again despite their different languages, with a message of "We're different and we have different roles but we're all in this together and we need to talk to each other". Notably there are certain issues that are fixed by getting people from one part of the tower to talk with people from another part to solve it.
 
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FakeSympathy

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Decided to get back to Lords of the fallen, was reminded of why I hated it, and perma-removed from my steam library without refund.

Shitty hitboxes, bosses that requires brute force and no other skills or strategy, light/dark world system that really bites you in the ass, annoying status effects, parry system that can go fuck itself, and no animation canceling,

I honestly don't care I blew away money on the game. Losing my sanity is not worth it
 
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Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
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Picked up the 10 dollar PS5 upgrade for TLoU2, sooooo playin' that again. It's not a substantial difference, but there's definitely some finish added - More detail, poppier colours, softer lighting. Even the soundmixing and button input has received some work. I've also noticed the facial animations, even on the in-game models, either being touched up or simply easier to read now.

There's also some changes to the enemy A.I. it seems. If you've played this game as many times as I have (yeah, I know I need help) you'll start to memorize enemy patterns, and notice when those patterns are shifted. In this remaster it's most noticeable during the first two enemy encounters that have both humans and zombies on the field - where you can trigger the zombies to start attacking the human enemies, always fun. In the PS4 version the zombies'd maybe get one or two kills before getting shot down, but in the PS5 remaster the zombies just annihilate the humans. It seems like the human enemies are less trigger happy and more prone to run and hide now during these instances.
 

Gordon_4

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Decided to get back to Lords of the fallen, then I rememberd why I hated it, and perma-removed from my library.

Shitty hitboxes, bosses that requires brute force and no other skills or strategy, light/dark world system that really bites you in the ass, and worst of all no animation canceling.

I honestly don't care I blew away money on the game; Losing my sanity is not worth it
Sometimes you just gotta take the loss, treat it as a learning experience and move on.
 

Bedinsis

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Played some Long Live The Queen. As long as you use a strategy guide and accept that you're gonna die and fail a lot (and that you can use the scroll wheel to unmake a choice) it is fun.
 
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meiam

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Started the dead space remake, I'm pretty late so everything about it as probably been said, but overall its pretty darn good and I like that took enough liberty with it to keep it fresh for people who played the original without changing anything major.

That being said, the game is way too aggressive at repopulating the area you've already been trough. It can happen for room that you've gone trough a few minutes ago, and can spawn high tier enemy (at least on hard, not sure if its different on normal). The big problem with this is that using the environment object to kill enemy without using precious ammo is a big part of the gameplay, but when you're going trough area you already did, most of the object that can be used have already been used, so its really rough to kill the respawn without using massive amount of resource. Buuuuuut, there's an easy solution, just run pass them, enemy are really bad at pursuing and since you're usually just going from point A to point B, you don't care about exploring the area you've already explored so there's not much reason to re clear. This, however, really damage the atmosphere, since it just feel like avoiding annoying co worker who want to have a boring conversation with you.

Other change is upgrade, you don't see the full node board anymore so you can't plan your upgrade ahead of time, you just kinda end up getting everything available, which is a bit boring.
 
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BrawlMan

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Started the dead space remake, I'm pretty late so everything about it as probably been said, but overall its pretty darn good and I like that took enough liberty with it to keep it fresh for people who played the original without changing anything major.

That being said, the game is way too aggressive at repopulating the area you've already been trough. It can happen for room that you've gone trough a few minutes ago, and can spawn high tier enemy (at least on hard, not sure if its different on normal). The big problem with this is that using the environment object to kill enemy without using precious ammo is a big part of the gameplay, but when you're going trough area you already did, most of the object that can be used have already been used, so its really rough to kill the respawn without using massive amount of resource. Buuuuuut, there's an easy solution, just run pass them, enemy are really bad at pursuing and since you're usually just going from point A to point B, you don't care about exploring the area you've already explored so there's not much reason to re clear. This, however, really damage the atmosphere, since it just feel like avoiding annoying co worker who want to have a boring conversation with you.

Other change is upgrade, you don't see the full node board anymore so you can't plan your upgrade ahead of time, you just kinda end up getting everything available, which is a bit boring.
The enemy repopulation is randomized. It's not the only thing randomized either. The further you get into the game, whatever earlier areas you go back to the lights May be on, off, constantly flicker on and off, or there will be a huge fog/smoke.

You may have gotten unucky, because I didn't have enemies show up that often in repopulated areas I was going back to. I admit that on my first run on normal, I didn't backtrack that much, but on my second play through I backtrack everywhere completing all the quests. Even then enemies didn't repopulate that often. I do admit that I did a new game plus on hard mode, but it wasn't that aggressive.

As for the upgrade paths, you can see them as you unlock more schematics for the particular weapons, so you're not completely locked off from seeing. They had to make adjustments considering weapons and schematics are put into mostly new locations or altered in some way. I actually don't have a problem with this.
 
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meiam

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The enemy repopulation is randomized. It's not the only thing randomized either. The further you get into the game, whatever earlier areas you go back to the lights May be on, off, constantly flicker on and off, or there will be a huge fog/smoke.

You may have gotten them lucky, because I didn't have enemies show up that often and repopulated areas I was going back to. I admit that on my first run on normal, I didn't backtrack that much, but on my second play through I backtrack everywhere completing all the quests. Even then enemies in repopulate that often. I do admit that I did a new game plus on hard mode, but it wasn't that aggressive.

As for the upgrade paths, you can see them as you unlock more schematics for the particular weapons, so you're not completely locked off from seeing. They had to make adjustments considering weapons and schematics are put into mostly new locations or altered in some way. I actually don't have a problem with this.
I dunno if it was changed with patch, but repopulation is very quick for me, for example, in the medical section, after completing one of the wing I wanted to go back to it to refill slow mo juice and use the workbench and I encounter maybe 2-3 enemy in the two room along the way, this wasn't a section that still had objective in it so I don't think they were planned, also when I ran from them and went back trough the same area they weren't there anymore.
 

BrawlMan

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I dunno if it was changed with patch, but repopulation is very quick for me, for example, in the medical section, after completing one of the wing I wanted to go back to it to refill slow mo juice and use the workbench and I encounter maybe 2-3 enemy in the two room along the way, this wasn't a section that still had objective in it so I don't think they were planned,
For the record, both of my playthroughs were in July and early August, and all the updates already happened and were done by that point. I played only on PS5.

also when I ran from them and went back trough the same area they weren't there anymore.
That's nothing new and the AI director at work. One time two Pregnants spawned in my first playthrough in a hallway. I reloaded a save, and went back to that same spot, and they were gone.
 
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FakeSympathy

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Starting MHW Iceborne.Yes, I am aware of how late I am to the party. But with how it's gonna be dry of release for me (No PS5 so No FF7 Rebirth for me), and with Dragon's Dogma 2 looking shady with the enigma drm, I thought it would be a fun time.

I killed the first quest monster, and the experience was frustrating but fair. I think the new area's coled weather mechanic is more of annoyance rather than strategy. I mean it really gets in the way if you don't drink the hot drink, and if you drink it seems to last the whole time you are out in the field. IDK, feels like it should've affect anything but stamina.

Otherwise, I've transitioned from Insect Glaive to Switch Axe, and I am starting to enjoy this weapon
 
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gorfias

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Pokemon Max Revive? Although I can't tell which game it is.
I'm waiting on something and doing some mindless messing around with Candy Crush and they keep awarding me that thing and I've no idea what it even is!

ITMT: waiting for the response I need feels like I'm being punked!