Woolie’s wise words ring true even years later.

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…

Well needed to be honest. I love the original trilogy but they could do with a fresh coat of paint. I wish they’d touched up the animations too, the gunplay of the originals can feel quite… early 00’s.

Not sure this is the ideal long term solution but anything that combats Discord’s status of being an absolute information black hole is good.

Man, reading that old 2005 PC Gamer article really brings me back to older, better and happier times of gaming journalism too. It even mentions the bundled DVD with demos, mods and goodies you’d get each month. Those really were the days.

I think there is some memorable side content, and I don’t think there are too many main story sequences that are that bad. However, I agree with you that a fundamental problem no patch could fix is that the story CDPR wanted to tell marries really poorly with an open-world RPG. It’s often immersion breaking and it frequently messes up the pacing.

It almost feels like they felt pressured into including an open world from outside expectations when what they really wanted to make was a linear, cinematic action game.

Yes, plenty. This mod is what you want, but make sure to go into the comments and check the pinned posts. A user there has made an incredible compilation of essentially all the mods out there that makes the game harder and gritter. Just pick the ones that sound appealing from that list.

There are so many amazing mods that it’s easy to sink probably the equivalent of an entire playthroughs worth of hours into setting up a modlist. I have like 250 mods going or something like that.

Highly recommend it.

Boost is nice but I can’t deal with the lack of swipe gesture actions at this point in time. No other app has been a perfect substitute for Sync but after trying basically all of them I find Summit to be both the best right now but more importantly - the most promising for the future. Very active dev who is responsive and accommodating user requests.

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: