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Beat this today. Turns out putting 20 hours into a game over 4 days is possible when you're lying around with a flarking cold. I really turned around on this. I think the first 5-ish chapters are a bit meh, then 6 to 10 are fantastic and the remaining might no be as good, but still really well executed for the most part. I didn't really feel like it dragged on too much, apart maybe from one Chapter that could technically have been a cutscene, but I presume they let it breathe a bit because it concluded Drax's character arc. Which I think is commendable. You can tell this was made during the height of the MCU's popularity with SE seemingly throwing just a lot of money into Eidos Montréal's direction and them basically going all out. It's rare, especially these days, to see such a 'complete' game from a third-party publisher. I even kind of made my peace with the combat. I still don't think it's particularly good but I went more accurately for weaknesses and staggers from a certain point onward and that makes rather quick work of most enemies. I also must have missed some tutorials early on because there's a two-button melee finisher in there I don't remember reading about and just finding out about through trial & error in the last third. Oh well. Midway through I also switched to ray-tracing mode because it's so sluggish to control anyway and wow, it's a really pretty game, even on my 2011 1080p TV. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, goddamn does it feel shit to control. For some people this might be nitpicking, but it actually negatively impacted the sightseeing aspect for me, which is obviously part of the deal here, because of the horrible deadzone in the right stick and whatever the hell Quill is doing when you move the left one. These additional transition animations that add an extra layer of delay to everything you input just need to disappear in the Nexus. I don't care how good the running animation looks if it makes controlling the character feel awful. Anyway, apart from that rant, this was a great experience. I think it's the characters that really sold it to me in the end – starting with that one dialogue between Quill and Drax on Knowhere, it becomes less of a goofball cartoon thing and embraces some more serious ideas and themes to better balance itself out. Some really good writing around key character moments, even Groot felt like a complete character here unlike in the movies. Beating this also made me realise what a shitty bunch of years this has been for the developer. First this comes out and it flops to no fault of their own, then they get sold to Embracer, who proceed to cancel their Deus Ex game and massively reduce their workforce so that they're now basically just a support studio. It's a shame to see, but I hope having this game on their CV helps everyone who ether willingly or unwillingly left land on their feet again.

Re Souls difficulty. I haven’t nailed this down yet but here is where I’m currently at in my thinking on why they’re not actually hard games I think generally there are 3 things needed to be good at games. Skill, knowledge and experience. These 3 things can be applied to every game ever (and skill is doing a lot of work here; speed, reactions, precision, decision making, creativity, talent, etc). But effectively I think all games require these 3 things and some games lean into one thing more than the other. Resi4 Remake was bought up earlier, I think that’s a super skill based game because of how dynamic and pressurising it is. And even though knowledge and experience helps, the fact that enemies react to the player and items drop variably makes skill, in particular decision making, the biggest component. For Souls games (Lies of P the outlier, Elden Ring kind of an outlier) I think the difficulty is made up of 90% knowledge. The few reasons I think this is firstly these bosses are old school pattern memorisation bosses. Once you know the pattern, for the most part they fall over. The only boss that sticks out against this is Ornsteon and Smough. And the only reason is because you’re trying to juggle 2 over lapping patterns at the same time and it’s why it’s easily the hardest thing in the game Another thing these games are mostly knowledge is I remember looking at a trophy guide and realising I would have to play Dark Souls 2.5 times for the platinum. And knowing that each NG+ the game levels up and gets much harder. But my first play through took about 80 hours, my second play through took around 30, and the last .5 for the material I needed was like a speedrun I was wondering why the times got so much shorter and was so much easier, and why some bosses took me hours to beat and now I walk in and deck them first try See memorisation answer from before. But also I realised Souls games are very simple games to play. Attack buttons, dodge button, hide behind shield. What more is there really? There’s a little bit of skill in quickly switching 2 handed to 1 handed. But it’s not exactly hard or a test of high dexterity and button combos. I think the game is so easy to play in terms of controls, there isn’t really much room for a high skill ceiling Some people do soul level 1 runs and some avoid shields, etc. But it’s still the same patterns to dodge in and out of, they’re just making less mistakes and upping the risks. It’s more skillful but I still don’t think the level of skill is that high. It’s much easier to practice a slow paced and predictable game that’s heavy on memorisation and dumb AI manipulation like Dark Souls compared to a highly dynamic, fast paced, and button heavy game like DMC The last thing I think Souls games aren’t really that hard is where the challenge lies in the game. The challenge is finding the answer, but once the answer is found it’s generally not difficult to execute. It’s just figuring it out and walking through the fog wall over and over again and breaking the fight down one move at a time. It’s more patience testing than skill testing. But once you know every move it’s just about executing. And again because of the controls and the way the game plays actually being really simple the execution or skill requirement isn’t that high. It’s just memorising the attacks, react accordingly, and it feels dangerous because you only get a few mistakes and you’re dead, but once the answer is found there’s not too much more to it Expanding outside just the boss fights. I think this is quite easy to explain. Blightown was really hard the first time. That stupid fucking rope bridge room in RE4 is hard every time I dunno. I’ve been sitting on this one for a while and this is my rough thoughts and conclusion of; Are Souls games really that hard to play, or is it just figuring out what to do. They’re so much more knowledge based than skill based

Got a few levels of Mario yesterday before my son nabbed the cartridge, and cleared off to his grannies with it.

Knowledge can be a difficult thing to acquire in games. Even in Dark Souls. But I think it's the only hurdle. Once that knowledge is gained (and gets easier and easier to gain with every subsequent Souls game) there's not much more left to the game. Which I don't play Tekken. But I'm going to guess the same isn't true EDIT: Also the level of knowledge is different as well. Tekken you're saying you have to learn frame data. Dark Souls you have to learn, whoops, don't stand there

Got the Platinum after 13 hours. And I’ll still be keeping this on my hard drive, as there’s still lots to do. If that isn’t praise, I don’t know what is. I got rid of MK1 a long time ago. Tekken 8, is a definite keeper.

First (finished) books of '24 One from the backlog and a new arrival. The Junji Ito book (based on a Japanese collection of urban legends) is ..ok. Not one of the strongest Ito books, to be honest. One of the short stories amounts to a jump scare on a telephone pole. Another is basically Inspector Gadget (with zero context). It's very middle of the road, without a real standout story to recommend. 4/10 OPM Vol. 27 is a protracted fight sequence. There is a couple of B-plots (one for Saitama, another for Garo) but the main thrust of this volume is a fight between Tornado and Psychos (who is basically aiming to become a planet ala end game Sephiroth). The fight looks fantastic as you would expect. But some of it is quite hard to follow. Some panels are a little too small and detailed to be understood. Although I think this would be offset seeing it in motion. At least we are finally back outside again! Hopefully this arc should be wrapping up within the next two volumes. Fingers crossed. 7/10

I think the only exception I've played in Souls games is Lies of P. I didn't get very far, just past the Police man boss fight. But it's a game that demands you know how to parry and have good timing. So real game skill. Even if you memorise what the attacks look like. From what I've seen you can't just level up and throw rocks at people Which is the other thing about Souls games (and I mean this in a positive way) there's always an out if it's too hard.

Most games even with difficulty options have progressive difficulty. It’s the difficulty curve and why sometimes it’s not done well and people complain about difficulty spikes I think every game’s last boss is meant to be harder than the first one for example

Fuck off with your pc bullshit... I'm doing this on mobile...🥰

haha, thanks Maf! everyones picked some great games to be fair

I'm thinking of bumping AC Odyssey got ghost of Tsushima. It's more or less the same game only you can't end suffering in AC. Good shout on Octopath @Maf. I loved the first one, but frankly forgot the sequel existed. Maybe it's time to dust off my turn based skills.

Spider-Man 2 (the one on PS2/GC/Xbox) definitely was a highlight at the time. The freedom of movement was really unparalleled and I've seen people mention that they actually prefer its swinging mechanics to the Insomniac games. I really loved that game. Arkham City is of course up there as well, which I still prefer to its successors due to the more tightly designed Metroid-style gameworld. Sure, floating about in a city is fun and all, but it's the kind of thing every superhero game aims for. Asylum's design was probably a forced decision limited by a lack of engine knowledge and development budget, but, as it sometimes does, I think those limitations made for a better game. What I've always wanted to see is a She-Hulk game by Capcom. Basically Ace Attorney x Final Fight. It would probably feel completely disjointed and might not be that much fun, but the source material just lends itself too well for it to not be worth a shot in a 'money no issue' scenario.