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Here we go (I wish I was downloading PT/Silent Hills instead lol 😥)

Saw this in TK Maxx earlier and couldn’t say no

Didn’t expect to be buying a new GPU so soon but my GTX 1080 decided to die on me on Monday after just over 3 years so a new one was needed 😭 Also Yooka-Laylee 2 🙌

Seems like I don't buy actual games anymore.☹️

I toyed with waiting for a sale but I could do with a quick busy game on Switch so I picked up Dragon Quest 3

@Maf 2 things. Firstly, sort your post out so that I don't see any more spoilers in it otherwise I'll just remove it. Second thing, start taking a few minutes to collate your thoughts so you're not posting in the same thread every 5 minutes

Ouch.

Yeah, I don't disagree at all with what he says about the business side of things and the priority that super hero films have in cinemas. That stuff is totally correct. I still take issue with some of the characterisations of these films, though. He talks about the films he appreciates as a filmmaker and a few of the things is themes, characters and paradoxes they go through. With Marvel films (to stay on topic) I think they have these. Scorcese goes on to imply that the films are mostly about set pieces but personally I usually think these are the weakest part of most Marvel films. I definitely go outside of them for those kinds of experiences. Where I feel the MCUs strength is in the characters. Whether people realise it or not I believe its why people come back: how they started, how they changed, the events changing how they interact with one another. It's broad, it's cartoonish (and I don't mean that disaparagingly) but it's there and an important aspect of their success. I get that it's like this because they know they have a large, younger audience to additionally accommodate for ( and probably mostly focus on). And it's the same with themes. Again, they are simple for the most part but there is enough to nerd out about and even realise that you've missed something when you decide to deep dive into the discourse. I just don't believe they don't meet this criteria of cinema. I think that's why I still don't buy his argument. But I totally get why filmmakers like him are frustrated at the amount of space left for films that aren't super hero films. That only streaming services are really left and it is sad. When I worked at a cinema I was frequently frustrated at the films that were passed up for some shitty example of one of these or having to show one of the better ones far too many times a day. It is ridiculous. But tl;dr I still think "Marvel movies aren't cinema" is not a good take. That's just me tho

It sounds a bit like your punishing yourself Maf by not playing around with all the mechanics the game offers you. Yes you don't need to use them, but they make the game more fun. Same argument can be made against MGSV and BOTW where you can get through repeating the same tactic over and over but you'll miss most of what the game has to offer that way.

'Bishop' is not exactly a hard name to remember. But then the rest of us probably dont suffer from narcolepsy

Managed to get Luigi's Mansion and Link's Awakening for £60. Be quick as I got very lucky (they hadn't put Luigi's Mansion on display yet and I nabbed the last Link's Awakening). On the 2 for £60:Luigi’s Mansion 3Pokemon Let's go pickachu.Splatoon 2Mario Kart 8Mario OddyseeYoshi Crafted WorldMario PartyMario Marker 2Zelda Links AwakeningMarvel Ultimate Alliance

Anyone seen this wrestling thing going around? Dave Lang (@JosephJBroni) Tweeted: Making wrestling games is hard It’s about a minute long and takes half of that to warm up but it’s pretty good

Of course. Striving for perfection is a trap set for artists and the best art comes from breaking the rules that allow perfection to exist. Expressionism, punk, post modernism. Unfortunately the viewer drafts new rules for everything as quickly as a medium can break them. Resetting the traps for hard working artists so they can go back to obsessing over them and thinking about suicide all the time. Also TLJ was so sad. I felt no joy from the cast and crew involved and the whole movie felt like a loveless chore. It is my personal belief that when Rian Johnson was a boy he was too poor to see Star Wars and his friends bullied him and spoiled the plots of the films. Years later he contacts them all and invites them to the premiere. The movie ends and he walks out on stage, speaking calmly and looking his friends in their dead eyes, "now I've ruined Star Wars for you too" and he leaves, vengeance achievement unlocked.

Great article. It's the sort of stuff I used to buy Retro Gamer for back when I read magazines. Then I saw the contributor bio at the bottom. Makes sense.

Tbh at this rate I'm thinking of installing Android dev tools on my laptop this weekend and debugging what the issue is 😠 Then when I do I'm @ every single one of you muthafuckers at strange hours so you get annoying notifications that wake you up. 😈 Anyway, if this game keeps being this good it will pip DMC5 as my game of the year. I strongly suspect it might turn bad in the final hurdle as Kojima games can tend to. But this is like a kind of BOTW feeling with this game. Not on the same level as it's obviously more limited but it's about something I've never seen in a game. Just being a delivery man guy, @OCH would love it (I'm not on mobile that's how that worked now)

So you haven't unlocked the Metal Gear Rex yet?

Spent about 5 hours with this yesterday and just left the first planet. I really like that sort of game design in open world games. A complete but bite sized chunk to get you ready for the rest. Places like White Orchard in The Witcher 3. As for the game, it's okay. Crushingly okay. There's nothing in the game I don't like but there is nothing I love either. The writing is pretty good and there have been a few funny moments but there hasn't been a character introduced yet that really connected me to the world and the world itself is your generic capitalism gone wild scenario. Which I like, I'm an easy sell on that sort of thing but it's been done so often that it's just okay. Combat is okay. Loot is okay. Graphics are okay. Character creator is okay. Skills are okay. Player choices are okay. You get it. I'll be putting some more time into it today so hopefully it just starts off slow because there is definitely potential but I worry that they have spent so much time on giving the player a million different choices that none of them really mean anything.

Graphics are pretty Had a great time just walking slowly in a straight line to this prepper guy in this volcanic rock looking place Want to go to Iceland for some reason now. None of this looks like America at all and it doesnt make sense the way environments are lined up but it looks very lovely

Do people care about Need for Speed anymore?* *He says as it because one of this year's best sellers.

That's what made Guardians 2 unbearable for me. Every remotely interesting character moment is immediately nuked by a cheap laugh. It's almost as if some focus testing told them that people who are not making happy noises at the cinema are not entertained. I think the entire franchise took a turn for the worst during that period. It got better with Infinity War but then they immediately followed that up with fat Thor and all this childish nonsense again.

New comic book day! Hulk becomes the last living being in the universe! Spider-Man has 2099 problems! But Mary Jane ain’t one as she gets her first ever solo series! Superman joins the marine corp! Hal abandons the GL corp! Carnage can’t understand why people don’t want their spines ripped out! Someone let Lionel Yu draw the X-Men so now they look like shit! Kingpin tries to figure out the best way to flush a dead body down the toilet! Human Torch gets tricked into a “science five”! And Sonic continues to fight off a robot zombie apocalypse! Yes, that is accurate! Favourite covers of the month

This couldn't be a better description for me. Even the intro credits seemed lifted straight from GoT. I'd agree with the consensus that the acting feels a little off too. I still think Lyra is perfectly cast, and McAvoy was a great choice for Asriel, but something didn't quite feel right to me. There are a few changes with the books, but I can see WHY they've done the things they've done. To be honest, given my love for the novels, the first episode didn't enamour me to the rest of the series, but the little Next On... trailer absolutely caught my attention. I'll be watching the rest because I know the story and I'm excited to see where they go with it, but I can also see a lot of people being turned off by it. Having said that, the first episode of GoT absolutely didn't grab me either, I just stuck with it because I'd heard it was great. Maybe this will be the same?

I'm about 25 hours in. I just cleared Monarch and am about to return to Terra 2, to a 3rd location. I'm enjoying it a lot, the flow and structure of the game has really clicked with me. Felix's special ability is so stupid it makes me laugh almost every time, the idiot. I don't use him all that often though. My go to team usually consists of 2 of Nyoka, Parvati and Max. I haven't used S.A.M yet, he hasn't really had much interesting to say.

So I played this game ALL DAY and NIGHT and have come around on this game a lot. I don’t know if the early game is weak or I’ve just changed my mind about this whole thing but I really enjoyed playing it for the last 10 hours or however long it’s been. It’s hard to describe, because the gameplay is quite repetitive and doesn’t really change mechanically at all (Although there is a set piece style power up you get to do a few times which is amazingly silly) but the levels them selves actually ooze imagination and really keep pushing in more interesting ways the further you get. I won’t spoil anything but each level/floor has it’s own theme, and because it’s set in a hotel the first 4 or 5 are pretty predictable. It’s a foyer, a kitchen or a bunch of rooms. But when you start getting to level 8 or so they start to just fucking go for it. And not only do the themes get really interesting But what they do within those levels not only keeps the game engaging but also always really fits the style of that floor. I’m not sure if I didn’t appreciate that enough in the beginning, or they just get really inventive with it at the end, or a mixture of both. It is still very formulaic in structure, which I don’t know. They mix it up a little bit by having you go back to floors you’ve already visited for “story reasons”, but I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Clearly the game is trying to break itself up a little bit but just to go back to where you were before. I don’t know. Also not every floor is a winner. B2 and floor 7 are specifically not fun to play. It has not jumped into my top 5 or anything or I would even say is a “must play”, but it’s definitely better than I gave it credit for in the beginning and has gone from “Well made but not really for me” too “Actually a lot of fun and I like this a lot” I’ve managed to capture all the Boos and only about 6 more gems to find and then I can tackle what I presume is the final boss. Above Astral Chain, below Link’s Awakening

Ok, I apologise if I misunderstood where you were coming from. I do think a lot of others think that way and I mischaracterised you as one of those people. I get you, I think feeling pleasantly surprised is a nice feeling too. We disagree on BOTW but I’ll leave it there because you know my thoughts already on that game. I mean it could happen, I think me and you actually agreed on MGSV? So it is very possible I won’t like DS. But yeah, I get where you’re coming from. You know my thoughts on Giant Bomb so I won’t be tuning in, but I hear what you’re saying. I did try listening to the Bombcast around 2011 and I just didn’t get with them. I do like Waypoint and Kotaku though (particularly Patrick Klepek). Thats fair enough. We disagree on RDR2 but I respect your take on it and apologise if I mischaracterised you again here in regards to the negativity. Fair enough. We disagree over EZA but I’ll leave it there.

I would hope no one on here would enjoy shitting on a game and piling on but out in the wider internet there are - unfortunately - plenty of folks like that. I think there is a certain joy some folks get from a certain game they've taken a dislike to - for many possible reasons - getting a hiding in reviews. For example I think many Kojima fans loved that Metal Gear Survive got critically mixed reviews. I disagree with a lot of folks' opinions on certain games is all, so I produce counter-arguments to it, I like to give many games the benefit of the doubt whereas many others on here do not. If you think I get 'weirdly defensive' then that's fair enough, I just like to provide my perspective - which is often different and the opposite of others on here - is all. In this case DS hasn't been 'shit on' even. I think what frustrates me the most - if anything - is people saying the game has got divisive/negative reviews when it's got overwhelmingly positive reviews overall. I'm not 'defending' this game because it's been shat on, I'm trying to put forward that none of us have played this game and that there's more to read than Nathan Brown's tweets on it or Dan Rychart's murmurings is all, there's all these positive reviews just sitting there that no one has read, they've just been fixated on the very few negative ones. This isn't a MGSU situation where I'm sitting here trying to tell folks a 60MC critically mixed game that not a lot of people liked is actually a great game and worth your time. This is me saying there's more opinions out there than just the negative ones, and I think some of the takes going on are a little spicy considering none of us have played the game (and probably not many have read the many positive things people have had to say on it). ✌️

Been listening to a lot of albums in the last few months. Fontaines DC - Dogrel Fantastic punk rock Irish album that has a very raw, natural sound that I love. Reminds me a little of Arctic Monkeys debut album but more punk-y. Some great grooves when they start rocking out that I imagine sound even better live. And nice softer songs too. I think these guys are gonna be huge. Sheer Mag - A Distant Call I guess the closest comparison I can think of for Sheer Mag is AC/DC. Classic guitar rock with lots of solos. I don’t think it’s as good as their last album Need to Feel Your Love, which i fucking loved, but it still sounds great. Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains Wonderful album that gets better every time I listen to it. It’s basically a new Silver Jews album. The songs are predominantly about death and David Berman committed suicide not long after its release, which obviously hangs over the album. But the music is mostly far from down tempo. Joan Shelley - Like the River Loves the Sea I said that FONTAINES DC’s music has a raw quality that I really love, and Joan Shelley’s album has something similar, only in the musical tradition of someone like Gillian Welch (whose album The Harrow and the Harvest is one of my all time favourites). I wasn’t overly taken with the album at the beginning, but then I listened to it directly after listening to the highly produced, “put-on” sounding style of Lana Del Rey’s new album, and the simplicity and natural beauty of it hit me like a breath of fresh air. Alex Cameron - Miami Memory Maybe not as good as his brilliant last album, Forced Witness, but still another great album by Alex Cameron. I love his sound. He always has songs that will make you want to dance when you listen to them, and great ballads too. There’s even a song that’s kind of a sequel to Thin Lizzy’s The Boys are Back in Town called “Bad for the Boys”. He has quickly become one of my favourite current artists. I still think that the next step for him is to flesh out his sound, possibly by adding more instruments and more band members. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen I liked Push the Sky Away but I have to admit I gave up very quickly on Skeleton Tree, but I love this album. The music is just beautiful, and very affecting, with many parts seeming to be addressed to his his son (who died at 15) directly. Big Thief - Two Hands Earlier this year, Big Thief released a wonderful album called U.F.O.F. Initially I was put off by a very pretentious review on Pitchfork which I guess influenced my reaction to the album when I first listened to it. But then when I went back a few months later and listened to it again, I was blown away by it. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d heard in a long while. It was definitely at a higher artistic level than their earlier (great) albums and I guess to an extent they sacrificed that first-listen accessibility. They created a kind of unique (musical) world with the beautiful guitar playing and whispered vocals. Their second album of 2019, Two Hands, goes back to the indie guitar rock sound of their earlier albums, but they have maintained the ridiculously high standard of UFOF. Two Hands just consists of one stunning song after another, with the centerpiece “Not” probably the best song they have made, but it makes more sense in the context of the album, where it is kind of the album’s emotional boiling point. I love this and UFOF, and they will probably be my number one and two albums of 2019, with the order just depending on my mood on the day.

That's a terrible reason to dislike something that's so obviously awesome...

I know but I’m not going to start a thread for non MCU Marvel films. Like who cares.

Played the first 30 minutes of it on Halloween just to play something spooky really and it is an absolute joy so far. Honestly one of the most jolly and charming games I’ve ever played. I adored the first two games and it is my favourite Nintendo franchise so it’s not exactly a surprise I like it but yeah, that’s my twopence anyway. It looks absolutely spectacular as well, it’s like a LM fans’ wet dream really. Everything I could’ve dreamt the 3rd game to look and play like after Dark Moon has been transferred into reality and then some.

It took me 12 hours to find out you can holster your weapon when not in combat

I’ve only played 3 @Nag but it’s like an isometric RPG dungeon crawler with loot. @Maf the games don’t follow on in story or anything, and this won’t be out until late 2021/2022 at the earliest, Diablo 3 is great.

Here’s that Tim Rogers video by the way folks if you want to check it out, he is excellent (no idea if there’s spoilers in it or not):

Loving the designs of the characters.

I'd kill for a complete Mass Effect Trilogy. Every game with every piece of DLC on one disc. Right now the series is an archivist's worst nightmare, I have the Collector's Edition of 3 and that included some, but not all, DLC and it was a redeemable code of course so all of that is linked to my Xbox account which might or might not survive the apocalypse. Just one disc, 1080p, 60fps, all the content, thank you.

Ireland is pretty small, it's basically Craggy Island. They'll find me eventually

It clicked for me last night and i'm loving it. I'm setting some rules for myself in this just to see how it plays out. My character is full on hand to hand combat, strong as an ox and dumb as fuck (always have to select dumb as an option). I'm choosing the most most morally questionable outcome of each scenario (obviously) and I have to kill every character I find on their own (I tried to murder an entire bar last night but got outnumbered). Nearly became unstuck in one quest as I could either help a character, or help a character trying to rob from them so I ended up sneaking up behind each of them and taking a hammer to their skull, which immediately lost me a side-quest. Lesson learned - use people, et reward and THEN kill them.

Surprised people aren’t more positive about this. I’ve only put a few hours in so far but absolutely loving it! So far it’s exactly the game I’ve been wanting since Fallout 3. Already got a few decisions I’m not sure how I’m going to choose between. Love the scenery and design and hooked into all the little stories in a very short amount of time. great game so far.

I went back and finished this. I skipped over a lot of the social stuff between the tutors and students in the second half since it was a bit all over the shop and some of it was clearly meant to take place before the time skip. Just under 45 hours total. Only ended up losing one character by the end, RIP in peace Alois. I enjoyed a lot of it but also feel like pretty much every aspect of the game could be improved upon and wouldn't be surprised if this got a revisit from Nintendo at some point to tidy it up. It was far too easy which they seem to have realised about three quarters of the way through when they just keep on saying, "surprise! Enemies behind you!" So you have to roll back a bit if your backline is too exposed. I would agree with 7 out of 10. A handful of the relationships with the different character carried the game and the plus side of the combat being very easy was that it was a very relaxing game to play.

Finished it after 99 hours. I’d give it 7/10, but it’s closer to a 6 than an 8. It’s not a good enough game to justify its length. But there are some great ideas in the game, and the central story is very good (although the journey is more satisfying than the destination). I think Part 1 was definitely better than Part 2 (I saw in the IGN review that scored it a 9.5 that they called Part 1 “the first half” - it’s definitely not the first half, it’s more than that). Like I said earlier, I think Part 1 alone could have been a very good game and then they could have put more effort into Part 2. The length was an issue and Normal difficulty could do with some serious rebalancing, especially in the mid to late game (for example rare monsters becoming complete laughing stocks who can’t even inflict damage on the lowest level enemy grunts). But I don’t want to dwell completely on the negatives because it’s the kind of game I’d like to see more of, just done better.

That's my only genuine complaint about this so far (haven't played the Impossible Lair yet though). So many stuff can only be reached by jumping off an enemy and they never respawn. I don't know how many times I've had to kill myself just to get another shot at obtaining a coin. Nintendo has been doing respawning enemies in 2D platformers for decades now and I suspect it's for exactly this reason. So weird to see Playtonic consciously choose to not do this because there's no way this is an oversight.

Why does Jason Schrier keep on delaying so many games?

Zombieland: Double Tap This is how you do a sequel after a long hiatus. Almost as good as the original (which I think very highly of, barring one scene) and given it's been a decade since the first film, the returning cast still play off each other really well. It is strange how Jesse Eisenberg doesn't seem to have aged in ten years? The new characters are all quirky, funny and endearing in their own ways too. The biggest surprise for me? This film doesn't rehash the original plot again, as similar time elapsed sequels have done before (TFA comes to mind as one of the bigger culprits). Really enjoyed this and got a few genuine laughs from it too. 8.5/10

So I managed to get all the other achievements except the one for unlocking all other achievements. According to Google it’s bugged. Which makes sense because no one else has got it either Hopefully unlocks in a later patch or something. But oh, well, game is as complete as I can do it. Running through on NG+ and tearing everyone to shreds was really fun.

Lootboxes are just shite. Instead of unlocking what you actually want, you’re left praying to the random number generator gods. Even worse are the ones where you can get duplicates. So good on COD for not bothering with them. Though I’ve no doubt they’ll still find some way to fuck it up. This is Activision we’re talking about.

i can't help but say his name like the "mmm Danone" yogurt advert. He is a good actor though.

Paul Dano is one of the best actors around tbf, and he does have a habit of picking good stuff to be in

Some Pokémon seem to have special Dynamax forms because apparently that feature didn't look stupid enough already. Case in point:

I think the notion of being offended pre-dates the internet age... I don't think I've played any games that are overtly sexist, I can see why some would feel uncomfortable with the portrayal of war in games... I'd find it interesting to get the takes from people who've served how they feel that's shown and how it makes them feel. Me personally, I've never felt that strongly that I've stopped playing a game... I think my biggest reaction is a very strong eyeroll.