@humanity: Never played the Chalice Dungeons myself though I've watched some of them and they don't seem worth it. I'm surprised someone with such a burning dislike of procedural generation like yourself would have even bothered. The way NG+ scales just seems so foolish when I imagine many people would be perfectly happy blasting through this cool ass story multiple times with the character they've put effort into leveling. But to your point when enemies start one-shotting you it turns this super slick horror-action RPG into a visually stunning NES game where you die in one hit. I've heard The Old Hunters is suppose to be good but I've never played DLC for a DeDarkBlourne game except for recently playing Scholar of the First Sin.
Been loving the Beastcast these past few weeks. Bloodborne is absolutely worth beating once and yet doesn't feel nearly as satisfying to replay as the Souls games. New game plus seems especially ill-fitting for this game both naratively and mechanically. There are alternate builds sure but very few seem as user-friendly as the straight forward strength based ones. In my first play through I leveled myself into a Bloodtinge hybrid build before realizing too late how pointless that stat is. I managed to get through the game with the Rifle Spear but I think I would've been better served min maxing like most people. The style and lore are the parts of the experience that make that game great, there are just enough design flaws that prevent it from being my favorite of From's games.
To this day I'll never understand why Jeff has such a bee in his bonnet with regards to this game. Of all the bs he'll love ironically because of some loose affiliation with hip-hop or wrestling and yet out of all that THIS is the game that he'll go out of his way to bury as some sort of gross misinterpretation of either, as if that's a hill worth dying on.
Because of Vinny talking it up on the podcast and the collection getting a phat discount recently I actually bought the PC version. In the middle of a Hard mode Iron Man WotC run and am having a blast. Funny how this already great game could be made even better when it runs well, and loads quick, and hardly ever crashes. I had double timers turned on during my last WotC run on PS4 and it was too easy so I have them off this time and it feels just right.
I was gonna say you think XCOM2 runs rough on a PS4Pro Vinny, try playing through it w/WotChosen on a base console which is what I did. Even still I ended up playing a full campaign before WotC(but still with the tough Ruler enemies) plus one after it released and I can safely say it is one of my favorite video games ever. Even with the severe technical bumps on that version I became so enamored by the mechanics and encounter designs especially after the expansion. Building end game soldiers is unbelievably satisfying and I'm left baffled that GB as a whole were so tepid on it. I really should just bite the bullet and get the PC version at some point but I'm too much of a cheap skate, plus I still have a squad saved in the end game of a hard campaign if I ever want to play around with it.
If I could eat something endlessly with no downside I might say sushi. That's kind of cheating given the variety you could get but boy do I feel like I could feast on some sushi if I set my mind to it. Sans that I might say ribs, not sure if I have to narrow it down to a genus of rib, spare rib? I always like it when Mike's around. Something about his voice makes me think of the Home Movies version of Brendon Small. I keep thinking he's gonna talk about making Movie History or something. This episode was great! Keep up the good work!
2Mello was robbed yo! I'll be playing through Later Alligator in solidarity! I was gonna say some of those Hypnospace tracks sounded like they were done by the Wet Pets guys. I'm somewhat let down that Alex didn't bring up any of the "We all learned a valuable lesson" tracks from the end of side cases in Judge Eyes. The only omission that I would've said my peace about would be A Plague Tale's soundtrack. It's got a really great sense of foreboding to it that fits well the narrative of the game even though it perhaps doesn't blend particularly well with the mediocre game play.
I thought for sure Void Bastards would run away with Style. I guess that's what happens when you abandon Styyyyyyle. I think I agree with Story but MK11 being a runner-up seems nuts and propelled a bit too much by nostalgic appreciation. I liked that story too but c'mon.
I've said it elsewhere I firmly stand with Outer Wilds as a great choice for GOTY. Looking over the rest of the list it's probably one of the only ones I'd call genuinely special. Forgive me for wanting to root for the little guy, I thought that was one of the reasons people come to Giant Bomb, to support something niche and quirky. Regardless of how good the rest of the games on this list are giving it to another 2019 action game would feel kind of...shallow? I don't know man can't we just be happy for Vinny to finally get his fave game at the top? As much as I totally get the love for Control's style that game feels far too unoptimized on multiple design fronts for that to seem like a good choice in my opinion.
I can't lie, I'm not a big fan of Dan. He made me cringe way more than he made me smile. I feel bad for being an outlier because clearly lots of people in the community love the guy. I'll at least give him credit for contributing hours of content even though I rarely enjoyed any of it or his role in it. To keep from being overwhelmingly negative I'll say the site content he's done that I genuinely like are 1. the Hitman videos with Brad because it was the most engaged he's been with the game being played and 2. several of the edited videos such as E3 stuff and wrestler interviews. Hope he does well with what he does next since I don't think I could ever bring myself to value him as a critic or as an entertainer. Many apologies for the negativity. Good luck Dan!
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