I’ve made a conscious effort to start doing this in conversations in general instead of opening up a browser tab. Yeah, “just google it” is a thing, but asking is often enough if you’re not in a hurry, so why not?

When it comes to semiconductors, there’s always another grift.

Unfortunately, after AI, it’ll probably be military drones.

They overhauled the skill system in 2.0, and the major bugs like police spawning were fixed a while back. There might be some stuff from early marketing that still never made it in. I know the rail transit system was one of the common talking points, and it’s in there now, but I wouldn’t call it an essential part of the game or anything.

That said, I first played it after 1.3 and I can’t say I ever felt like it was outright incomplete. It’s probably still the most technically impressive game I’ve played and it’s a fun sandbox. Solid writing and voice acting, too.

I lived out this way once upon a time and miss it dearly. I never did get as far north as Tillamook Bay, but I have great memories of Lincoln City and Newport. Imagine my reaction when this game was announced, hah.

The photo in Chloe’s house of Arcadia Bay is one of Garibaldi, just mirrored. For plausible deniability, of course!

Freelancer would have been fresher in memory 15 years ago, and that’s one that had seamless intra-system travel. Gameplay in Freelancer even flowed better than NMS for getting from orbit to orbit and having encounters or discoveries along the way. It just didn’t have the on-foot gameplay. I had the same problem with loading screens in Everspace 2. Killed the flow. Whoever tries to do this again is going to have to make sure transitions are minimal.

And that’s what I don’t get about Starfield, conceptually. With this project scope, you’re not competing well with NMS for ship-to-foot or orbit-to-surface transition, you’re not doing better than Freelancer–a 20+ year old game–for all the in-space stuff, and the procgen hamstrings you with all the “Bethesda magic” their worlds are known for. It’s like someone said “let’s do Daggerfall in space” and went rigid top-down design with it, retrofitting whatever they could along the way to make a functional game around the procgen.

Yeah, goes back a ways! I feel like it has a knack for resurfacing after I’ve completely forgotten about it. I like what I’m seeing here with the gameplay.

It’s ridiculous, and like they said, a bit too easy to break the game with. Just stack a couple multipliers and you’re one-shotting anything.

The Great Ace Attorney! Just finished the third adventure. I’m a huge fan of the original trilogy and was skeptical this would measure up, but it’s been a brilliant evolution of the series so far.

It’s fairly one-note at first, but you will get options later that will allow you to soak some hits. Make sure you’re keeping your pictos updated.

That said, yeah, in a game with a fully developed dodge and parry system, you’re going to be expected to at least dodge almost everything when playing on high difficulty.

LT: I knew pretty early the scope of the universe, the level, and the script, so I made my dream soundtrack. For example, I would take a level and would want to write three environment tracks, two battle themes, and one boss theme. I do that for the whole game and — one by one — I’d write the track for five years until the end.

This is what’s so nuts to me about this soundtrack. It’s not only quality; it’s quantity too. Those who have played the JRPGs that inspired this game know: for the entire game, you get a few regular battle themes, a few boss themes, and a final boss theme. Some of the consensus top soundtracks in the genre aren’t this big. Yet this single composer did multiples for each level. Only the biggest projects in the genre get this kind of treatment.

I’m glad Broche gave Testard so much run for this game, and gave him the tools to make it sound great, too.

Mine does, yes, and it has a great inter-library loan system, too. As long as it hasn’t come out recently, I have access to a big chunk of the Switch library.

Unfortunately, it looks like going forward that it’s not software costs that are going to be the biggest problem, it’s hardware. Adjusting for inflation, hardware has never been this expensive this late in a generation in my country. Not even the PS3.

For me, FTL: Faster than Light still hasn’t been topped. Hades II might get there, though. Disco Elysium, Ikaruga, and Papers, Please are also high on the list.

This was ultimately my least favorite release of the series, but I agree that the “choices matter” element of the game is quite strong. I always appreciate a lower budget game like this really going for it in that realm.

The story hasn’t aged well for me–this game’s initial plot hook would have looked a lot different after 2020–and it’s sad that the atmosphere of the game feels quaint today. A lot of what the two go through is disturbingly commonplace among persons of color in the US, but then they have this cult chapter of the story that stretches suspension of disbelief well past the breaking point. I’m still annoyed at its inclusion, which I think undercuts the (very important) greater message the story was trying to tell.

This sounds ambitious for a small studio. It doesn’t help that both Northgard and Dune: Spice Wars felt feature-light to me, maybe due to their signature genre blending.

Could be they’ve scaled up (and trust me, I’m yearning for more space games in the AA category), but too many of these projects are shooting for the moon and falling short. I’d love to see a stretch of releases with smaller scope–like Everspace 2–that the industry can build on, because space games are not where they were in 2000. Chris Roberts is off in his ivory tower doing his thing, and the big devs are either planetbound or obsessed with procgen.

Just started Disgaea 1. For whatever reason I’ve bounced off this game half a dozen times since first trying it all the way back at release, but I’ve more or less settled into a groove with it now.

Having a good time with it, though I’m wondering if I should pick up a manual or something somewhere. Kind of obtuse systems and details I’d normally be able to get out of the UI, but not here.

Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop was amazing. Not for everyone and probably a little too difficult in a couple spots, but the writing and atmosphere is impeccable. Absolutely nails the vibe it’s going for.

Absolutely gorgeous game with an equally bad gameplay loop. Kinda sad.

Following up on this conversation since I just saw this PC Gamer article:

I played a whopping 23 city builders in 2024, and here are my 5 favorites

How is Stormgate innovating? Genuine question–I’ve been avoiding it largely because it looks so much like StarCraft (and Pottinger even calls it out specifically in the article as something not innovative).

I’d add They are Billions as another evolutionary branch that’s doing something different. Starting to see some clones of this formula.

That said, I don’t think Against the Storm or Manor Lords are the kind of games Pottinger is talking about. Against the Storm doesn’t even have combat. Those are more in the city builder realm.