militantfreudian

Poop-related stories. I'm always glad when Alex interrupts those.

The two that immediately jump to mind are The Witch and Raw. I also just saw It Comes at Night, and while it may not be a conventional horror movie, I found it tense throughout. As far as conventional horror movies go, I think last year's Suspira would make for an entertaining Halloween movie, although it's nearly two and a half hours long.

I didn't play Hollow Knight for long, so I can't comment on that game in particular. With earlier Souls games, though, I think the intent was that by going through the level you accumulate more of the currency, which in turn, pile up inside the boss arena. It makes the trek to the boss a tense experience in and of itself.

I don't mind – in fact, often I enjoy – backtracking in games with worlds that have a good sense of place and that reward gaining mastery over the environment. Avoiding traps and enemy ambushes, learning how to deal with enemies more efficiently, and planning the fastest and safest routes to a boss felt satisfying in those games.

The infrequent "checkpointing" was kind of a novelty, a throwback to older games. I enjoyed it then, but I don't think every Souls-like game should make getting to a boss or traversing a time-consuming process, especially if it can't make it an engaging one.

I thought it was fortuitous that the game's – I guess now, original – release date coincided with my annual leave. The delay feels doubly disappointing as a result. It was the game for me this year, too, so I feel you. The first few months of 2020 were already jam-packed with high-profile video game releases.

@fear_the_booboo said:

The sad thing is that, because of the response it got on release, that game will always be overlooked, even though I think developers stand to learn quite a few things from it, especially Bioware in its current incarnation. To be fair, I wanted a game that followed in the footsteps of Origins, so I too was ultimately disappointed by DA2. I'd like to revisit it at some point though.

I don't know if maligned is the right word, but I liked Hotline Miami 2 a lot, whereas I felt like many thought it deviated from the original in the wrong ways. Dennaton tried to experiment with the characters and encounters, which resulted in a less consistent but more exciting and memorable game. I really appreciated that Hotline Miami 2 repeatedly forced me out of my comfort zone.

If you had asked me 6 months ago, I would've said Hyper Light Drifter and Darkest Dungeon, which we've learned now that both of which are getting follow-ups. I feel pretty happy about that.

I haven't played anything new besides Sekiro this year; it did consume me for a month or two though. This is self-centered, but I prefer a lean year like this with one or two games that really speak to me, rather than a year with a bunch of high-profile releases that I end up feeling ambivalent about as was the case with last year.

Video games' lowbrow status doesn't exempt them from being critiqued from a social or political angle, regardless of whether or not a game sets out to make a political statement from the outset. Video games, after all, aren't made nor consumed in a vacuum. So, yeah, I find the type of discourse Waypoint engages in to be of value.

I usually don't play games purely for escapism. I care deeply about cultural representations in media, naturally including games, and it has informed my thoughts on many things, from a news segment to a video game character. Although to be fair, plenty of harmful cliches and stereotypes go over my head, which, again, why I find outlets like Waypoint to be important, and why I found discussing video games – media in general – from different perspectives to be truly educational.

I don't think approaching video games from that angle has lessened my enjoyment of playing them — not in the slightest.

I've yet to grow tired of the combat in the Souls games, so I'm interested, especially since it sounds like a successor to Dark Souls and not a direct sequel. Normally, I would roll my eyes on hearing that a developer wants to make an open world game, but I'm curious if From manages to marry the interconnectedness and design sensibilities of their worlds to a more expansive space.

I'm not sure what the GRRM collaboration entails, so I'm sort of ambivalent. GRRM is clearly a good writer and does world-building well, but I haven't felt like Fromsoftware's past games were particularly lacking in that regard. There's always room for improvement though, so why not?

I, too, have been "chosen" to play the closed alpha. After a couple of hours though, I'm not sure Nioh is for me. It draws inspiration from games that I really like, but its giant skill trees and focus on loot have put me off a bit. That said, I do appreciate that there's nothing like it.

Based on my brief time with the alpha, the combat seems competent in the very least; I imagine some of the depth comes from mastering the Ki recovery mechanic. Although, as a gameplay mechanic, it's too abstract and it kind of doesn't feed into any "fantasy" that I have playing the game.