BrunoTheThird

@magnetphonics: Oh no way that is a great find, I'll definitely have fun digging into that, appreciate the recommendation.

My dream version would have a beautifully rendered monastery with day/night cycles and all that extra detail, but this will satisfy a lot of my wishes. Ooo, know what would be cool? If the friar's theories are visualized as a sequence of stained glass widow scenes.

Name of the Rose style detective game. You're a friar sent to solve a murder at a monastery in the mountains, where you will be entrenched for up to a year. Real time. You could solve it way sooner, but there would be zero hand-holding, so you will spend most days talking to witnesses, drawing objects/places/people of interest, confiding in/theorizing with your apprentice, and dealing with side-quests essentially, often from secret messages, and doing religious activities.

Yeah, something weird like that. Or Rock Band: ABBA.

It's so cool in concept and starts out as an interesting sequel in a wonderful location, but, it quickly becomes frustrating and the undercooked ideas and story started to slap me repeatedly in the disappointment gland before long. Also, the way it ends... One of the few times I've shouted, "That was the game!?" expecting 10-15 hours more to wrap things up.

It is functional with some occasionally decent writing and fun combat/stealth scenarios, though.

I will eventually try Cyberpunk out of curiosity at some point, but it may be patched to a degree where the story is the only questionable thing by the time I get round to it.

Dark Souls 2 is like the more colourful, quirkier little brother of the first one. It's not quite as consistent, and some of the locations don't quite stitch together so seamlessly in terms of design, but it's got character and heart for days, and its DLC is actually kinda great. I think the movement can feel more sluggish, the animations overly deliberate, but it was a design choice I had to accept and adapt to.

Fantasy-wise, it's much wilder, which is my favourite thing about it. It takes more influences from sources like Narnia, with an even greater focus on humanoid animals/animal enemies, kings and queens, etc., than the first one.

Trudging up to Drangleic Castle, glittering like an obsidian obelisk in the rain, after so much anticipation, is one of my greatest gaming memories, and it doesn't disappoint when you reach it. Looking forward to the stream!

@fisk0: Oh my god, those look amazing! Are they Swedish?

They sell them at one of the supermarkets here in the UK, Ocado, so I will try them out soon.

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I love Viennese Whirls and Viscounts.

It’s the soundtracks of games I find myself daydreaming about most often. The desperate drama in the strings of Shadow of the Colossus; the trip-hoppy industrial soundscapes of Silent Hill; the high-energy , joyful playground of Japanese electronic chaos in Jet Set Radio Future; the nostalgic, dreamy piano and music box twinkles of Kingdom Hearts; the thoughtful, dynamic swells and layered movements that perfectly reflect Cyrodiil in Oblivion. They all really nuzzle themselves into folds of my brain, as weird as it is to vocalise it that way ha.

I've only cheesed Seath and that massive dragon in DS2, but remember beating them legit later times with some simple strategies. DS3 was very hard but I didn't cheese it or the DLC. Hard but never feeling insurmountable. Sekiro was a tough nut but once it clicked, I found it easier than Souls.

For me, the hidden boss in Yakuza Kiwami 1, Jo Amon, was a feat of patience that I failed miserably at. It is a tedious and very long fight that I attempted a half dozen times before deciding it was not only a badly designed and dull boss fight, but an artificially difficult one. Big health bar, comes back to life, superhuman speed and damage output, constant health and heat management required, and takes about 10-15 minutes of this constant juggling to beat. It is pretty fucking hard IMO. I gave up more than I failed, I got him to his last bar once, but yeah, fuck that.

Science/Math/Tech: Numberphile, Computerphile, Periodic Videos, Sixty Symbols, Objectivity, DeepSkyVideos, PBS Aeons, Adam Savage's Tested, LGR

History/Logistics: Biographics, Modern History TV, Wendover Productions.

Music/Art: 12Tone, Produce Like a Pro, Point Blank Music Academy, HAINBACH, LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER, Rick Beato, Baumgartner Restoration.

Gaming: Summoning Salt, Cloth Map, Did You Know Gaming

Lighthearted/Comedy: Red Letter Media, Good Mythical Morning, Barnaby Dixon, Buzzfeed Unsolved

Cooking: Glen and Friends (love it when they try to re-create 1880s coca cola, the KFC formula, really old translated recipes from books that are falling apart, etc.)

I say Jet Set Radio Future every time a similar thread topic as this crops up, and that won't change!

The Darkness + Riddick HD Collection on PC.

A Mickey's Wild Adventure + Castle of Illusion remake by the Cuphead maestros.

@apocolypsedown: Yeah, same for me. I especially had an instinctive, almost cellular rejection of Prey's (2016) demo. The way it controlled; the grandiose opening credits where, "Bethesda presents," exists as a physical part of this fictional company's skyscraper for no apparent (yet) reason; the seemingly bland and unvaried enemy designs; the countless references and literal copying of Bioshock, etc. I really disliked it.

I bought it anyway, and -- my gosh -- as the gameplay depth deepened further with some super fun weaponry and abilities, and the mindbending truths start to materialize in the story, and the jump scares become more and more organic, and the potential choices start to feel twisted to the point of actual viciousness, and as Benedict Wong's wonderful performance as your brother spirals you in some complex directions on your moral compass, the thing just ended up perfecting the genre in my eyes.

I had a very similar flipping point with Arkham Asylum. From feeling it was this meaty, clunky, ugly block of sterile gameplay and storytelling to being convinced it's the best licensed game since Butcher Bay. Sometimes it's just the pacing of a game's first act that can throw off your ability to gauge its effectiveness. The journey in the midgame can quickly recontextualize negatives you observed initially and transpose then into compelling memories.