silversaint

36 hours on normal to beat the game with all side content. My takeaway is 7.5/10 and FUCK Dementors.

Positives:
1) Gorgeous backdrops
2) Great aesthetic

Main Negatives:
1) the constant slow walk / shimmy, sometimes you load into a zone, then crawl under a beam, then shimmy through 2 crates, then shimmy across a beam....all in a row
2) the corridors, god the game is so closed off, even the "towns" are just a few corridors that lead to battle areas for side quests
3) boss health, they are just sponges and need like 30-50% less and it becomes just annoying when you start fighting numerous in a row
4) the padding. There are so many unnecessary scenes, short cutscenes (like 3 secs with 2 secs load in and out), boss fights, side quests, longer then needed dungeon, back tracking etc that I would estimate 10-15 hours could of been cut EASILY and the game would of been better off.
5) not being able to choose your party, its always pre-determined

After 8 hours of FF Corridor Remake I gotta say, the backdrops are gorgeous.

A new indie game came out earlier this week, basically an open world FF Tactics where you sail around on a ship (there is ship combat also). I started playing this game Monday and couldn't put it down and wanted to draw attention as its pretty unknown. Unlike FFT there are no levels or JP, just experience used to unlock skills, passives, and attributes (sword, fire magic, jump ability, etc). The story is pretty non-existent, but the exploration is incredible with a ton of unique enemies and can be incredibly challenging even on normal.

I think people are waaay too obsessed with Hitman with a ton of people expecting "Hitmas". One of the reasons people seemed to like the Hitman video was the content was fresh and the staff was excited over a new game for that year as seen by it being worse the next year. Instead of expecting a yearly return to a game you should want new videos involving the game released this year.

@liquiddragon: I think the content of the content and the format go hand in hand. If this format had some sort of real structure instead of having some games discussed for 1 hr, others 30 mins, some 10 mins, and some like 15-60 secs it would help. The games with shorter discussion times have no real discussion, more a gut feel of them being positive or negative. Even games with longer discussions can be hit or miss. Like the Destiny 2 discussion was more Brad wanting to gush about how he loves Destiny 2, as it must be discussed in every GOTY, and how great the gun play is while not even mentioning New Light and its reception (which was terrible at onboarding new players). Then during Disco Elysium Abbey of course has to comment how she dislikes the game because it lets you be a racist and sexist while just ignoring the players ability to actively reject those concepts (as Ben and Vinny mentioned with communism and facism) in the game and mold your character to be literally the opposite.

For the most part few of the games are really discussed and its more some peoples impressions, that depending on how much they loved or hated the game, can range from seconds to minutes or longer. I am unsure of what the point of these initial impressions are, but if they want to give time for games that won't be in contention for awards, then make that the goal. Limit these impressions to 5 mins per game discussed and have it be only games that you want to talk about that won't be potentially discussed for awards. Then we have a clear goal in mind with these initial impressions of getting the games the crew wants to recognize for the positive or negative, but that they either don't like enough or didn't play enough to argue during the awards debates.

I am not a fan of this format in the least. Same thing I posted in the Day 2 comments:

Not a huge fan of this 3 day like 12 hr podcast going over all the games they played, many didn't complete, but played. While I feel this is useful for the crew (forgot games, didn't play, never heard of the game etc) and would be a great supplementary podcast, it feels a far cry from a GB GOTY podcast. Without them arguing over a specific set of categories it feels so disjointed and irrelevant. Let alone as someone who listens to the majority of the two GB podcasts and heard about them talk about many of these games before I could just care less to hear about some of these games, especially those I highly expect to come up again in real award discussion later on.

Do I really need 10+ minutes gushing about Bloodstained when they did an entire playthrough video series, which insures it will probably be a GB Top 10 GOTY and heavily discussed in the real awards debates? No. I skipped the entire Outer Wilds section since its clearly in contention for GB #1 GOTY and god its 30 mins of discussion.

The DOTA Underlords discussion sort of highlights why I feel this format is bad. They discussed Underlords for 10 mins and accidentally briefly mention how TFT is way bigger, but none of them played TFT enough to discuss TFT. With 10 mins in this format I would of expected a comparison of TFT and Underlords(even at a rudimentary level), especially when TFT is arguably the superior game, same genre, and both came out this year within a week of each other.

@liquiddragon: I think in general the Crew just doesn't like story based games, especially if they involve any amount of actual length. They want games that offer bite sized chunks of mostly gameplay, off the wallness, or super blatant story.

Wow, wasn't expecting multiple minutes of pure hate for Metro Exodus and the comments the game looks just "fine". The comments on the pump ball bearing gun and how terrible it is, when this is BY FAR the best the guns ever been (I hated it in the other 2 games loved it in this one). The gun is now a silent sniper rifle meant for doing stealth, not for straight up combat in the clip they showed.

The game got super shafted by the anti-Epic crowd with tons of people railing against the game because it was the first major Epic exclusive and a lot of people forgot it existed thanks to that and being earlier in the year. I think Exodus is the best of the 3 Metro games, with a much greater lore focus thanks to all the optional areas. I don't think any of them enjoyed Metro to begin with and these post-apocalyptic games with a deep story / lore are not the Crews cup of tea.

I've only played the Witcher 2 and 3, plus read a ton of stuff on the wiki. I knew a ton of stuff, recognized a ton of the stories instantly, as just the story not when it took place, but felt the pacing and the story switching was terribly done. I assumed we started in present day and nothing told me we weren't still following present day at any real point. I was watching it all back to back and it took me til episode 3 to realize OH shit we are time jumping like crazy. I actively disliked the absurd time jumps and generally disjointed 3 character arcs.

I think Henry did a superb job as Geralt, his "FUCK" lines were hilarious. Foltest was clearly miscast, he looked like a complete mess instead of being all suave. I didn't mind Yen at the start (mishapen), but later on the actor simply doesn't fit IMO, she looks so out of place constantly. I liked the rest of the general cast though.

The entire season felt short about 2 or so episodes. The final episode had some incredibly slow moments (the first 15 mins) that felt like something from a middle season filler episode.

For a really experienced Witcher Fan (book and wiki knowledge) I think the series is an 8/10.
For a newcomer the series is like a 5 or 6/10.

I am still waiting for Control and Outer Wilds to come to xbox PC, but besides those 2:

1. FE3H

2. Metro Exodus

3. Sekiro

4. RE2 Remake

5. Days Gone

6. FF14: Shadowbringers

7. Disco Elysium

8. Outer Worlds

9. God Eater 3

10. They are Billions