I loved Death Stranding, but anyone else feel like that guy putting on the bandana might have been Kojima making a little dig at David Hayter?
The character design looks very reminiscent of the MGS Delta materials we’ve seen, and Hayter has been more open lately about how miffed he was when Kojima dumped him for Kiefer in MGS V. That coupled with how much promo work Hayter has been doing for Delta makes me think it wouldn’t be too surprising if Kojima was annoyed with him.
Very much same. I wish the Burning Shores expansion was a bit longer. It’s kinda hard to call it a must-play DLC, but it’s got some big stuff in terms of Aloy’s character development.
And now it’s gone, along with the expertise it housed from developing cult hits stretching as far back as MS-DOS games in 1997, through the iconic Shadow of Mordor, F.E.A.R., Condemned, No One Lives Forever, and The Matrix Online.
Fuuuck. That really sunk it home for me. Other than the Matrix, I played and loved all of those games. RIP Monolith.
The whole point of the Sword of Damocles was that the threat was always looming and Damocles didn’t know when it might fall. We know exactly when Microsoft says they are going to drop support. There’s a decent chance that they’ll push that date back due to slow adoption at least once.
This is more about rats not fleeing the sinking ship until the sea has reached the bow.
It’s a far cry from this guy’s situation, but I think I had five or six bitcoin back when I was mining in the early days. I cashed out when they were maybe $40-50 each towards a new GPU.
Sure, I could go nuts thinking about what I would do with the money now, but if I hadn’t sold at that rate, I probably would have sold at $100, or $200, or…
There’s no way in hell I would have had the discipline to “hodl” to this point, so I just get on with my life.
I’m completely self-taught when it comes to Linux, so I have some obvious gaps in my knowledge. I’ve looked for good write-ups on how Linux folders are intended for use and been unable to find a good resource. Thank you for sharing the official standard name. Reading up on it now.
I see No One Lives Forever in there. I would love love love to see those games listed and maybe even another sequel, but my understanding is the IP ownership is caught in limbo and very unlikely to ever escape.
Good point. I remember needing a pretty beefy PC to run Civ V at launch. Even coming back to it after a hardware upgrade, the game could get pretty chuggy towards the end of a playthrough.
Is this some New Social Media platform problem I’m too elder millenial to understand?
When I buy a game from GOG, it comes with the presumption that I will download the installer in a timely manner and store a copy on my local storage device. Assuming I have good backup practices, that’s really the end of the story. I can build a 100 new computers and install the game I bought on each one. GOG went bankrupt ten years ago? That’s a shame, but my installer works just as well as when they were kicking.
When I “buy a game” on Steam, I technically get an installer, but Steam isn’t going to help me keep it. Those 100 new computers are going to download that installer a 100 times. And if the 51st install comes around and Steam isn’t around anymore? Or Steam decides not enough people play this game anymore and it no longer makes financial sense to host the installer? Well, at that point I guess I’ll just regret not buying the game on GOG.
Hmm. I generally got my fill of JRPGs back in the PSX era and don’t play them anymore, but I would strongly consider making an exception for a new Breath of Fire game. BoF3 was my intro into the genre. Lots of fond memories.
State of Decay is one of my guilty pleasure series. I know it’s got its faults, but I keep going back to it once every couple years or so.
The standard difficulty just nails that dopamine cycle of grinding and reward, until you’ve got a thriving community that can hold off all threats until the resources in the map are totally depleted and it’s time to move on.
I could probably get a bit better at the game and tackle the harder modes, but that would up the stress factor and make me more likely to put it back down faster.
I’m glad Microsoft is dropping their internal releases on competing platforms now, because otherwise I’d probably never play the upcoming third one as a Linux and PS5 player.
If you have an Echo device, you can also ask Alexa to “thank my driver” and it will apply it to the most recent order on your account. Just did it for an order that came in on Monday and Alexa gave me the $5 spiel.
Now I’m picturing a video game version of the Disney Vault. “Play now through the end of the year for just $129.99* before GTA 9 goes back in the Vault for another decade! *Not including Microtransactions, Online Pass, BattlePass, Totally-Not-A-Lootboxes, or Megalodon Cards”
Remember that a huge number of Steam accounts exclusively play Free to Play games and spend no money at all. 6 of the Top 10 Most Played on Steam right now are F2P games and only one is from this year.
Going to second Midnight Suns. I’m a big XCOM fan, and while there were a lot of differences, it still scratched that same multi-genre itch.
I also played (in no specific order):
Hitman - World of Assassination - A whole hell of a lot of game in one package. Definitely the highlight of the series if it is your type of game.
Horizon Burning Shores - A worthwhile reason to go back to Horizon Forbidden West, though it was over sooner than I’d like. I’d feel better about the length if it was easier to miss the story, but anyone who goes from Forbidden West to the next game without playing Burning Shores might be caught off guard by the new character. (And I’mma be mad if they don’t bring back the new character!)
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut - Another YMMV game that will suck you in if you like good progression mechanics and don’t mind a slightly slower pace. And Hideo Kojima being Hideo Kojima.
Crisis Core - FFVII Reunion - You know the old school parenting style of making your kid smoke a pack of cigarettes so they want to wretch every time they catch a whiff of them? I accidentally did that to myself with JRPGs during the PS1 era. I thought maybe Crisis Core could coast by on nostalgia factor because I was able to enjoy FFVII Remake. Crisis Core was a big stinker though. The story hits every bad JRPG/anime trope you can think of (fucking Genesis… WOOF), and the quest design seems designed to embrace pointless backtracking and tedium.
Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty - I will argue until I’m blue in the face that while the PS4 and Xbox Series Whatever was a shitshow, the PC launch of CP2077 in 2020 was only a bit rocky. All the praises that people have been singing about the game since 2.0 and Phantom Liberty? They’re praising the same elements that have made the game great since Day 1. It’s just not sandwiched between T-poses and occasional CTDs any more. PC veterans who lived through rough launches of great games (like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines or, hell, Witcher 3!) were right at home. The Phantom Liberty Expansion was a great excuse to revisit Night City and remember why I fell in love with the game three years ago.
Slay the Spire - Because I’m going to hit A20 and kill the Heart with Silent eventually, goddammit.
Baldur’s Gate 3 - Because best $50 I spent in 2020.
No Man’s Sky - I waited until this year to pick up NMS and this was another one that sucked me in for a solid couple months. Hello Games has sunk years into making this game a great bang for your buck if you like exploration and building.
I played the balls out of the Dead Rising series through the third game. Definitely check out 2 if you like the first one. Off the Record is a fun retread of the second game if you take a break before playing it. 3 was a bit poorer received at launch, but on an SSD, it’s still a damn fun game.
Never got around to the 4th game. It sounded pretty soulless from the reviews
He will not be the first. Here is a good run down. Ironically, Ali isn’t even the first Luke Cage villain to get a second role. Alfre Woodard played the grieving mother who convinced Tony to kick off the events of Civil War.
Gemma Chan was arguably highest profile in terms of plot importance if you don’t count Agents of Shield and the Netflix shows… She played a named bad guy in Captain Marvel, then Sersi in Eternals. You’ve also Michelle Yeoh who played a Ravager in Guardians 2, and Shang Chi’s aunt. A bunch more had voice/CGI roles for their second appearance, like Linda Cardellini or Benedict Cumberbatch.
Well, half-elf. But yeah, pointy ears are a bit more appealing than green skin and short noses or red skin and horns, I guess. People are boring.
Here is the source article. It’s light on methodology. Are they going off of price of the game at launch? I maybe pay full price for a game once or twice per year. 50-70% of my unplayed games are probably from Humble Bundle/Humble Choice.