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Astro Bot is 2024’s highest-rated standalone game so far, according to Metacritic | VGC
  • 100%. I was just reading this week due to the Concord fiasco about how disastrous many of the live service initiatives have been and Jim Ryan's misguided influence in that regard.

    I am very relieved to see games like these succeed so spectacularly. Here's hoping the sales numbers follow.

  • Star Wars Outlaws Is A Crappy Masterpiece
    kotaku.com Star Wars Outlaws Is A Crappy Masterpiece

    Ubisoft's latest is the perfect example of the bewildering dissonance of modern AAA gaming

    Star Wars Outlaws Is A Crappy Masterpiece
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    Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - The First Preview [IGN]
  • The turn-based with real-time elements reminds me of Sea of Stars and Shadow Hearts, which are both excellent titles in my mind for this game to associate itself with. Looks really flashy too with the menu, camera movement, and slowdown effects (hopefully that wouldn't get old with too much repetition).

  • GreedFall Developer Spiders Respond To Allegations
  • Same here. Loved the setting and style, and the story and characters were admirably close to (the good) 3rd-person bioware stuff.

    I don't usually pay full price for games, but I was thinking of buying Greedfall 2 near release to support what they do. This puts a real taint on things.

  • GreedFall Developer Spiders Respond To Allegations
    insider-gaming.com GreedFall Developer Spiders Respond To Allegations

    Spiders, the studio behind Greedfall, has responded to the public allegations made against them by a union of developers at the company.

    GreedFall Developer Spiders Respond To Allegations

    Really disappointed in this response. I've got a soft spot for the first Greedfall, and Steelrising holds a prominent spot in my backlog. As they're a "AA" studio, I've had this idea of them as a scrappy, passionate team, but this response is tone-deaf and contentious, lacking any compassion for the concerns of the workers, favoring lukewarm platitudes ("we are determined to maintain an inclusive and stimulating working environment in which every talent can flourish and of which we can all be proud”) and even a clumsy advertisement for Greedfall 2.

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    Unknown 9: Awakening - Live Action Trailer | PS5 & PS4 Games
  • Thought this looked pretty interesting, but the gameplay trailer looks pretty rough. Reminds me of a 2010-era mid-budget action adventure. I'll keep an eye on it though, I'm not terribly picky about entertaining single-player games.

  • J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk Named in Imane Khelif's Cyberbullying Lawsuit
  • It's worth mentioning that article is from 2020, around the time she had started pivoting from TERF-lite to TERF-MAX. It was...reasonably possible to assume at the time, for someone who wasn't paying close attention, that her opinions were still rooted in misguided concern rather than open bigotry.

    She had only just posted her manifesto a few months earlier, according to Vox's helpful timeline, which reads reasonably if you're unaware of the multitude of false and misleading claims she parrots.

  • Arkane founder says Prey and Dishonored fans ‘will be happy’ with his new game [VGC]
  • Same, though interested is an understatement. Prey is one of the greatest games I've ever played. I enjoyed Weird West, but it left me feeling more like a POC of what the studio wants to do than anything up to the actual standards of Arkane's best.

    If WolfEye fills the void of Arkane's deplorable closure, they'll get all the support I can give.

  • PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for August: LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga, FNAF Security Breach, Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights
  • Personally, I am excited about Ender Lilies, it was on my wishlist, but don't care about other games.

    100%. I vaguely remember hearing about Ender Lilies a while back but it fell of my radar. I watched some videos after this announcement yesterday and it looks really great. I'm excited to try it out.

    As for the other two, I think I am permanently Lego-gamed-out, and I don't really understand what FNAF...is, and I haven't the motivation to bother. What little I do know doesn't seem up my alley.

  • Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 21st
  • Tried The Ascent because of just how slick it looked in the previews I saw. And you're right, the atmosphere is great. But I have a low tolerance for the looter shooter format and I don't play much online coop, so I got real bored of it real fast.

  • ‘Ballerina': Disastrous Screening for ‘John Wick' Spinoff
  • I view the first in a vacuum because the others actually harm it

    Lol I do the same thing! If I watch any of the sequels I view them essentially as fanfic. Your point about emotional payoff in the first is really good too. It's easy to forget watching the sequels that the dramatic core of the first movie was John's grief for his wife. The dramatic core of the sequels is little more, as I remember, than the convoluted bureaucracy and politics of John trying and failing to be left alone.

  • ‘Ballerina': Disastrous Screening for ‘John Wick' Spinoff
  • The best moment in the entire franchise is after the assassination squad is sent to his house in the first movie. I saw it in theaters and fully, unconsciously anticipated that when the police strobe lights started flashing through the windows, that we would get a tense scene of John Wick attempting to distract the cop and send him away without the bodies being discovered.

    When instead he opens the door wide, and the cop casually peers past his shoulder, and just asks, "you working again?", it's such a delightful, comical, surprising reveal. The concept worked best when we as the audience expected the world to function familiarly, and it could playfully subvert those expectations in small ways. They dove so deep into the capital-L lore beginning in the second movie, that we no longer expected the world to function familiarly, and thereafter stopped being surprised.

    The first flick is a bonified good movie. The rest are, varyingly, titillating scenes of artfully choreographed and executed action set pieces loosely strung together by indulgently juvenile nonsense.

  • Box Office Grosses May Surpass Pre-COVID Levels in 2026. That’s the Good News…
  • forecasts ad revenue to hit $1 trillion

    I didn't go to the theater for a few years due to both the pandemic and a new baby. When I did return for the first time last year, I was truly shocked at how many ads there are now at the major chains before curtain draw. It used to be ads before showtime, then trailers when the lights dimmed at showtime. Now it seems like there are just as many trailers as there were before, but intercut by an equal number of ads, so the time between showtime and actual movie start is ridiculous.

  • Forget the tired franchises, a new wave of horror movies will make us jump out of our seats
  • Best theater experience I've had by far was seeing The Descent on release. In that crucial mid-movie moment, the whole theater freaked out, and after things settled down I saw someone climbing back over the seat they'd apparently jumped over when it happened.

  • Enotria: The Last Song Demo Impressions

    Has anyone played the Enotria demo? I played about 15 minutes, getting just outside the tutorial area. I've been playing Elden Ring a lot lately and...Enotria just feels bad to play. Credit to the developers for the interesting setting and concept (masks and loudouts), but it's frustrating that it's such a direct copy of the FromSoftware formula. The combat mechanics, UI, enemy behavior, sound design, and level design are so egregiously imitative that its comparative shortcomings in all those areas are hyper-noticeable.

    I haven't played many non-FromSoftware soulslikes like Lies of P or Steelrising (or even, candidly, most of the actual Souls games - just BloodBorne, Demon's Souls Remake, and Elden Ring), but I'd hope they were more taking inspiration and doing something meaningfully different that you can't get from a brand-name Souls game, rather than settling for what feels like a Kidz Bop version of the real deal.

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    Got a Switch today, need some recommendations.

    This is my first Nintendo system since the NES. I've never been a big fan of their first-party properties when I've played on others' consoles, although I am interested in the Switch Zelda games.

    We got Mario Kart 8 and Let's Go Pikachu for my son (the Switch is for his birthday). I might try Let's Go Pikachu but don't really care for Mario Kart. I'm keeping an eye on the Ori games too.

    What I'm mainly interested in is Switch games that you can't play on the PS5 (which is my main platform). I don't really do mobile gaming so the Switch will pretty much be a home console for all intents and purposes, so I'm also not really affected by games that are "good for Switch mobility" like Hades (as an example--I already own that on PS5).

    Thanks!

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    New ‘Matrix’ Movie In Works At Warner Bros From Drew Goddard
    deadline.com New ‘Matrix’ Movie In Works At Warner Bros From Drew Goddard

    Drew Goddard, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Martian, has been set to write and direct a new Matrix movie at Warner Bros.

    New ‘Matrix’ Movie In Works At Warner Bros From Drew Goddard

    I started rolling my eyes before I saw Drew Goddard's name, who apparently approached WB with his own idea. He is an incredibly gifted storyteller and I believe his passion for this world is sincere. I'm pretty excited to see what he has in mind.

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    Shredder's underrated introduction from 1990's live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

    I watched Mutant Mayhem over the weekend (which was great). I haven't watched the 1990 movie in years, but I was suddenly reminded how powerful this scene is for what is ostensibly a silly action movie for kids: the elongated shadow, the percussive score with ominous electric guitar accents, the camera tracking down from its starting position to sweep in behind him, the light gleaming from the blades on his helmet as he slowly turns to scan the room, and the ritualistic unrolling of the cape from his shoulders. All in a single, imposing 75-second take.

    Great stuff.

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)CO
    ConstableJelly @midwest.social
    Posts 12
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