Mera'din

I'll probably still get it eventually because I liked the story levels in the beta a lot. I just didn't care for literally anything else they seem to be putting into the game so i want to give it a bit to see what kind of shenanigans they get up to with monetizing it before I put money down on it. Would be fun to play something with you again though. >_>

I did cancel it. It was before I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I still don't feel comfortable paying even $50 for it. The "challenge card" is not a traditional battle pass style of thing. You don't pay for the cards for the base characters, and there's no time limit on getting all the stuff. They're permanent and not a "seasonal" thing. The track on the card gives you some of the premium currency, and the cost of the card for any new character that comes out is 1000 credits ($10) and you get all of those credits back via completing the card. So if you complete the base ones then you don't actually have to pay anything to get the ones for new characters but yeah, I'm sure it's a mega grind fest to complete those. They still have the premium currency store using the credits too though that has skins not on the challenge cards so it's still a pretty shitty setup overall. I'm going to wait for a price drop and/or wait to see how they handle future content. All characters, quests, story, areas, etc. added will all be completely free so I get the need to make money from something but if they make additional cards for existing heroes that also have to be bought and it's not a "one time" fee per new character as a whole, I'm probably not going to touch it anytime soon. Paying for skins and emotes and other cosmetic shit up front is one thing (nevermind that it's still pretty lame after something like Spider-man as web said), but if they're going to effectively start double dipping, then I don't want anything to do with it.

I'll be getting it. I've had enough fun coming back to the game after nearly 2 years away and catching up on story stuff that I missed and this brings back one of my favorite characters (it's why I became interested enough to give it another go in the first place XD ). I've actually enjoyed this particular season, though looking back at and/or doing some of the other stuff they've done for other seasons though it's been REALLY hit and miss overall, so we'll see for anything beyond the expansion. There's some major story points they still need to hit on (mostly dealing with Mara and Uldren) that I may buy into if it goes that direction. If they pull some new character out of their ass though, I'll probably sit on it. It took like a year and a half for the Drifter (and half the other characters really) to become even remotely interesting and I don't think I could deal with that kind of foot dragging at this point.

I'm willing to give it a shot for sure with what I'm seeing there. The suit and cowl look a LOT better than they did in the stills and test shoot thing too which is good. They showed some stuff from James Gunn's Suicide Squad movie too and it looks 10x better than the first just off of the character roster alone. They also did a weird animated "teaser" thing for Black Adam which seemed like more of a reminder that it existed and the Rock was playing him than anything but still neat.

A'ight, now I'm fucking concerned. Apparently they (higher ups at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox) have fired Brian Mitsoda (lead writer and writer of the original game) and Ka'ai Cluney (Creative Director) and they have been replaced with a "Creative Consultant" to fill the role that the Creative Director previously performed. Official Statement: https://www.bloodlines2.com/en/an-update-on-the-organizational-changes-for-bloodlines-2 Rock Paper Shotgun has a statement from Mitsoda. This was not a "my job was done and I wasn't needed anymore" kind of thing it was out of the fucking blue and the writing team was on schedule with their portion of the game and he was not consulted about the delay. The firing appears to have actually happened PRIOR to the recent delay announcement which is even more worrying if I'm being honest. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/08/19/brian-mitsoda-has-been-fired-as-narrative-lead-on-bloodlines-2/ Brian's Statement:

Was actually talking to him about it last night. I knew the signature gif, and the avatar looked super familiar and I couldn't stop watching it so I asked him where it was from and the second he quoted the song I was like OH YEAH. XD

Square has also long ago established that they will take money from anywhere they can get it and advertise literally anything in a game no matter how fucking weird it is (ie: the entire "Cup Noodle" questline, etc. in FFXV) and have already shown that they're doing it with this. A set of exclusive skins has already been shown that is only available to specific cell service carriers (Verizon in the US and Virgin in the UK I believe) and another set is rumored to be a promotional tie-in with Intel (possibly for one of their processors). All of which boggles the mind. This kind of thing is normally thrown at consumable shit like energy drinks or whatever. Almost nobody is going to change cell carriers or buy a new computer processor for a set of game skins. Sony is also getting a bunch of other exclusive or timed exclusive content including non-cosmetic content so there was clearly a bag of money involved in this whole thing somewhere. To reiterate, this is the same company, through which, you effectively had to pay $50 to get this:

We should be good to get one more season before we have to worry with as well as its doing. After 3 is when Netflix likes to start getting cagey with their shows regardless of popularity. I'm about 3/4 of the way through Season 2 and it's been excellent. I also watched 'Cursed' which wasn't too bad but not at all what I was expecting. Learned later it was based on a graphic novel. Netflix seems to be going all in on green lighting things that are based on comics/graphic novels lately and they've almost all been really solid.

Indeed. Every time it moves I panic because it's always loomed around where Bloodlines 2 was likely to hit at the time and that series knows that kind of pain already (first one released same day as Half Life 2. )

The games release has now been delayed until 2021. Guessing Q1 probably. Have been expecting this since the announcement that Cyberpunk was being pushed to Nov. since that seemed the likeliest time frame for this game and they're going to avoid releasing anywhere near Cyberpunk like it was the plague.

Yes and no. It's designed to be played with others it seems like, but you can turn off matchmaking and it gives you AI companions instead and as awful as that might sound, they actually DON'T suck. At least at the level of content I tried. That might not stick as well at endgame potentially but I've read that "99%" of the content can be done that way with no issues. Also, it seems like you can use matchmaking for everything though once again, may not apply to some endgame stuff. Haven't read one way or the other. Played a few things like that though because the matchmaking is broken as fuck right now. Hoping they get that sorted by tomorrow so I can try playing with people. One of the interesting gameplay things I found out about: Iron Man's ultimate ability is calling down the hulk buster suit and get in it. You then have the option of getting out of it and letting a teammate use it. Also, yes console. They made Spider-man a playstation exclusive character. :x Doesn't sound like a timed thing either. People are pissed. The reasoning behind it is absolute garbage bs too. https://www.ign.com/articles/marvels-avengers-how-spider-man-became-a-playstation-exclusive-character Honestly this reason is stupid enough and people are pissed enough I could see them backpedaling to a timed exclusivity though.

Got a code for the closed beta for Avengers since I had it pre-ordered on Amazon (popped up at a $50 price tag at some point and wanted to reserve the price) so have been playing that for a couple hours. It plays a LOT better than it looked during the original gameplay reveal which was a pleasant surprised. There are some small things that bother me about it (switching tabs in the menu taking longer than it feels like it should being one of the main ones), but it was pretty enjoyable. In the broader scope of game mechanics, it feels like it will be a super nice looking, AAA version of that Marvel Heroes Omega game that shut down a while back. Which is to say, looter style game where your constantly pushing for new gear. Combat felt really solid though and was a good variety of combos and some interesting looking skill upgrades and the little bit I played of the available characters made each one feel sufficiently different. Looks like there will be cosmetic microtransations for different outfits and nameplates and things like that, but they also have a pretty good variety you can earn in the game itself. Not optimal, but at least it's not all in on that shit. May actually consider keeping the pre-order at this point. So far it looks like there might be some decent depth to the game, but it's hard to say from the little bit you have access to. Interested in seeing more though. Before I was relatively sure I wouldn't get it, but this has convinced me to reconsider.

Still been tearing through content in Destiny 2 that I hadn't played since stopping a couple years ago. Been fun for the most part but I'm starting to finally run out of content that I can do by myself and/or with matchmaking and will have to start finding people for things. I've tried to narrow my focus to just finding all the lore items so I can get filled in on story stuff since that was always my favorite part anyway but there's going to be a decent amount of that out of my reach unless I find groups too from the looks of it. Been getting a lot of great stuff for gear though, and have been tripping over Exotic stuff left and right so that's been satisfying. They still time gate a lot of stuff though which is a bit obnoxious when trying to catch up on things, but with as much as there is for me to do, at least it lets me space things out and let me work on different things over time. Just hard to keep track of everything I need to do, and one set of lore books is basically going to be a 21 week process from what it looks like. Luckily, that's from content that's not being "vaulted" in November so there's no rush with it. Slowly been knocking out things on the planets they're removing as I go also. Don't know that I could keep this up if I had something else I wanted to play right now, but it's a fun distraction while I wait for something else to come out (or I decide I feel like playing one of the many games I haven't even started yet. >_> )

I'm sure it's purely from 20+ years of use at this point, but the Playstation controller for me. The design has remained relatively unchanged over the years and I prefer it over everything else by this point. Even bought an adapter so I can use a PS3/4 controller for my Switch.

Yeah, Detroit had a lot to it. Even after getting the plat there was still stuff on the flow chart I didn't have. As of the last time I played it, there was stuff that nobody had figured out how to unlock yet (a couple of them were likely just bugged). I'm sure everything has been figured out by now, but I thought that was cool. The game has some rough spots (because every David Cage game is a ridiculous, overblown self-masturbatory production), but overall it's easily the best that Quantic Dream has done by far and it felt like it had some REAL choice to it a lot more often than their other games. They did an excellent job with the characters and acting too. I still do a double take anytime I see one of the actors from it in a live action show/movie. XD I've pretty much just been playing Destiny 2 at the moment. Enjoying just finding stuff and doing random quests and stuff that I never did before while I can since they're locking off all the Year 1 stuff (and then some) when the next expansion comes out. I like a lot of what they've done with the game while I stopped playing. Still a lot of messy shit, but it is worlds better than it was at launch (imagine that, a live service game that was trash at launch and got better? ). Mostly just having fun catching up on story stuff I've missed out on since I've always really enjoyed the world building in the series.

I'm in the middle of 'The Old Guard' right now. Pretty cool so far. Watched 'Palm Springs' Saturday Night. Was actually pretty great. It's basically "Groundhog Day by way of The Lonely Island" and it was exactly what I wanted at that point. Not as out and out ridiculous as the previous movies they've done, and had some deeper parts that were kind of nice. All around solid movie overall. Also watched 'Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga'. Went in for a decent but throw away Will Ferrell movie and was not disappointed. Actually had some interesting story elements that they turned on their heads from what I was expecting out of a semi-cliche story so points in that regard. Had some pretty great bits in it. Not bad for a fluff comedy movie to waste some time on.

Oh damn, that's smooth as hell if that's true. I can totally get behind that.

I THINK I might know what he's talking about, but it's hard to say based on a pure time mark because I tend to play games slower than other people. I also don't think I came across anything in particular that pissed me off to ever stop playing (though I did take a couple breaks due to just how overwhelming depressing the tone of the story is 95% of the game) or that I felt changed the scope of the game. The tone of the game is pretty consistent (which isn't a good thing ultimately I think), and it more outstays its welcome than anything IMO. I still consider it a good game, it just needed some better editing at the very least. The game is fundamentally better than the first by pretty solid leaps over the first one imo (though quite a bit easier most the time at least in part due to them making so many improvements), but from a story perspective I think it falls a bit short of the first in tonal quality and focus. Also, mild gameplay spoiler strictly about enemy types: Depending on how you feel about depictions of violence to animals, you may not want to bother. It's not a deal breaker for me, but I know it can be for a lot of people and as soon I saw an enemy with a dog at one point, my first thought was "Well I see where this is going and it already feels unnecessary".

16.) The Last of Us Part 2 Well that was certainly something. Gameplay improved upon in almost every way (except character skill upgrades) over the first, it has the most amazing Accessibility features I've EVER seen in a game, and I can honestly say (ironically enough) if THIS one had an online multiplayer mode, I might actually consider it (assuming they didn't drown half the trophy list in ridiculous BS for it). The story was a bit... much? It was like 5-10 hours too long at least (think my original playthrough of 1 was like 20 hours? This one was 40). Not that I don't love long games, but the story REALLY lost focus by the end and should have ended before the last 'section' of the game (which seems to be the general consensus), and it felt even longer because it was a mostly miserable experience emotionally. The only saving grace were pretty much all of the flashback scenes in that regard. Not to say that I didn't like it, I enjoyed it quite a lot. Visually the game was beautiful, but it was SO hyper violent that there was a lot of tactless and tasteless stuff going on. If I headshot a dude, I REALLY don't need the ability to find his corpse and see exactly where and how big of a hole I made in his head with ridiculous detail (to name the least of it). Considering some of the controversy Naughty Dog has been having to deal with, this level of detail is beyond unnecessary imo. There was a particular fight scene where I can only imagine the expression on my face as I went through it. It went from fun to obnoxiously unpleasant pretty damn quick in places.

Starting Sunday I get my 10% pay back they they took like 3 months ago, so yay for that. And then they're immediately going to start making us clock out for lunches now which is a loss of about 3.5 hours per pay period (and also completely cock blocks a majority of the overtime we get) which more or less amounts to a 5% cut sooooo we get 5% back? >_> Interested to see how this goes considering some of our shifts only have 3 people on them at any given time (used to have 5). Because the second I clock out, my radio is off and I don't care if something starts on fire, they can fuck right off until that 30 min. is done. In the broader scheme of things, we've loosened up a bit. We don't really GO anywhere anyway, but our parents have started visiting again in limited capacity. Minnesota has been... OKAY with everything. We have a decent number of weird jackasses, but nothing as ridiculous as I've seen elsewhere for the most part. No generalized mask requirement yet, but most businesses are having their employees wear them.

Yeah, the game is looking better with everything they show. the 'Braindance' stuff alone has super interested.

Started up The Last of Us 2 yesterday. Game is beautiful and I feel like they've really improved on every aspect of the game so far over the first. Only thing I don't care for is the character upgrade system. In the first one you can upgrade whatever particular thing you wanted and now it forces you through a 'tree' of abilities and you have to upgrade things down the line of stuff instead which I find annoying. I absolutely don't need to be able to craft shit faster, thanks. >:| Also have been playing a little bit of Destiny 2 again. The last expansion was on sale and I haven't played in a year so I figured what the hell. Might as well catch up on some story stuff before the next thing comes out since that's story I've been waiting for since the original game. Waiting a year is apparently the way to go from a game mechanics aspect for the game because everything that drops is an upgrade. Don't have to worry about shit and can just enjoy the story and there is more than enough to do without it turning into a dumb grind-fest. XD

So release date has been pushed back again, from September to November.

15.) Persona 5 Royal Jesus I think that was longer than P4 Golden. 225 hours. Got the platinum in one play through though so that was nice. Not nearly as grindy as Golden was (or the original P5 for that matter from what I've seen of its list). Great game though. Combat mechanics were stellar. Overall, I think I liked it better than 4 though it felt like some of the more intricate story elements got flubbed a little (mostly with the added stuff for Royal). All around enjoyable experience. Also did end up playing through Last of Us: Left Behind. Solid little DLC story. Easier than the main game overall, and it feels like it ended in an awkward place but it was a nice distraction while waiting for Last of Us 2.