Leaderboard

Started last night (Series S) and I'm actually amazed just quite how woefully poor it is in terms of giving you any particular tutorial explainations (outside of basic controls). I've played loads of CRPGs and this is by far the worst at not really guiding you through the early game mechanics. I get that exploration & trial/error are somewhat fundamental to CRPGs, but not even being aware of how you trigger ABC in order to even do XYZ is really bad. So too it seems is how it commits you to making a skill check roll without any prior indication of the difficulty of the test (or showing you what modifiers you have that might aid you). Pathfinder Kingmaker & WotR always showed you prior to committing to test it's difficultly level and the character who had the best modifier, so you could then choose whether that was the best option to take or if you needed to potion up or level up before proceeding that way, but here it's really irksome that it doesn't (it's not even realistic that your PC wouldn't at least have a hint of an idea of this prior to committing). Argh - rant over. It all looks very nice and the first 3 hrs have flown by. Fortunately my missus has played it for 100s of hours so is giving me some game mechanics guidance (what's that, press up on D pad to quick select jump.....)

If no one minds I'll use this thread to keep a record of my great final fantasy franchise playthru. When I finish each game I'll make a brief review here and then copy and paste it when each subsequent game is completed, building a definitive list. I'll also give a bit of notice on my next game in case anyone wants to join in. I reckon I'll finish FF7 remake in the next couple of days. That will be my first entry in the franchise playthru. And because I'm going on holiday next week it might be a good time to break out one of the games I have on my Switch (even though I wasn't planning to play the games back to back). Won't get loads of time but can definitely get something started, especially on that 4 hour flight to the Canaries. So if anyone is up for it I'll be commencing with 6 on Sunday.

😂 To be fair in OG FF7, Midgar itself amounts to only an hour or two of gameplay. Junon is about 30 minutes. Costa Del Sol and Gongaga are ten minutes at the most.

I had to Google the film (Underwater) and realised I'd actually watched it... I don't even remember who was in it...😂... it must've been a drunken second film.

That's interesting and also pretty wild that they only decided upon what to do with said creature right before they went into post-production. Quite a lot of cool background stuff about this movie, it's unfortunate it didn't get a proper PR cycle due to Disney swallowing FOX and then Covid saying hello. And probably the Miller stuff, too. Some outlets might have unearthed some additional trivia if all of that hadn't happened.

Do a reminder post on Sunday about it and I may join a 6 playthrough.

Broken Roads reviews: PC Gamer - 64% Eurogamer - 2/5 Think someone had this for Fantasy Critic last year. Dodged a bullet.

I don't think the Dead Space Remake was ever gonna shift massive numbers and if EA thought differently they were deluding themselves... shame though as the Remake is actually better than the original and I would've loved to see what these guys could've done with the second game.

Here's the bit from the director of Underwater: https://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/3613015/underwater-director-shares-creature-concept-art-talks-got-monster-movie-exclusive/

Yeah, I don't want to be too harsh with it, didn't have the biggest budget and I think it was only the second or third fully-fledged movie from the director. Decent effort, but room for improvement. Athie was good, yeah. Wish they had switched his and Miller's role to be honest. Never heard about Archive 81 – sounds intriguing, I'll put it on the list for whenever I feel brave.

Underwater - there was a whole bunch talked about this on the HPL Historical Society FB group - mostly around how the director kept the monster's identity 'secret' from the studio. I sort of like the movie in some ways, but a cataclysmic ending would have been much more suitable. Mamoudou Athie was pretty good in it too, albeit much better in the Netflix adaptation of the Lovecraft themed series "Archive 81" - damn shame that didn't get renewed.

EEAAO, fantastic abbreviation, is on my list, but haven't been in the mood for it yet. My palette cleanser from yesterday was Underwater, which I can very easily explain as Alien, but in the ocean. Now I'm a bit of a horror pussy and also suffer from bouts of Thalassophobia, so watching a horror movie taking place in the Mariana Trench sounds like a poor movie choice, but it actually wasn't too bad. It's more of a creepy action movie than a pure horror flick, which might disappoint some, but at least guaranteed my survival. It's okay I guess. Compared to Alien it's derivative instead of visionary, but it's so close to its inspiration that the comparisons just can't be avoided. Without spoiling too much it pulls its enemies from the Cthulhu cosmos which I thought was a nice touch and gave it at least some desperately needed uniqueness. It does feature some nice shots and visually striking scenes, but a lot of it happens in underwater areas where you can't see shit. I will mention though, at the risk of sounding mean-spirited and disrespectful towards that entire situation, but boy am I glad TJ Miller torpedoed his career. Even before the allegations I just never liked watching the guy and this (his last movie appearance) reconfirmed it tenfold.

£12.49 in current sale. I have to know.

Yeah, the Spirit Camera is the one that I'd have said. There was a Pokemon game too I think, I might even have that, it was an eshop game