thesquarepear

Uh, are you sure you didn't want to post this on the Comic Vine forums?

I didn't know there was a Chinese Mantis but I'm gonna bet on that winning.

Spinch is a fairly generic Mario-/Meatboyesque platformer with really upbeat art and music. Too bad I suck at platformers cause it certainly brightened my mood (available on GOG).

Thanks for the PSA. Hope nostalgia serves me right because apparently there's no way in hell IOI will make another.

Crysis Warhead was the peak of the Crysis franchise.

I still prefer original Far Cry (at least the two-thirds of the game without Trigen).

Wild speculation: Hunt: Showdown might not have been the smash hit Crytek needed so it's probably not the worst idea to release a version of Crysis that better supports multi-core CPUs. Much like Far Cry the open levels with destructable trees and huts are still novel today. My main problem with Crysis might be the suit that broke the stealth and challenge (and multiplayer too).

@squigiliwams: I imagine that's why the staff are so hesitant to engage directly with the community in an official capacity (EDIT: I mean it sucks being held accountable for an employer's every action when you're just trying to make ends meet). Thanks for being honest, I guess.

Funny how I was a subscriber at the last purchase as well and that seemed more bleak (Jeff selling out to the MAN haha) so I canceled my subscription.

Geek speculation follows:

Much respect to the developers/engineers/designers updating the site but it kind of seems that CBS-I put the site on a back burner as the unwanted stepchild (technology wise) of Gamespot for a few years after the rewrite to PHP in circa 2014. I would hope there might be a more future-proof plan to migrate to a reactive framework for the frontend if they get the resources this time? Having the backend game encyclopedia API that Twitch uses has to mean something right? Even if it means charging Amazon for requests (which I guess they already do)?

Anyways, good luck staff. I hope it works out if we survive 2020. If anything we might see interns again, right?

I only skimmed your post except the TLDR but that was kind of my issue with Kreia in KOTOR 2.

As much as people hype her character I felt like I never trusted her from the beginning but you don't really have the option to get rid of her because you're character is pretty clueless without her. Kind of the same with Phillipa or that sorceress? from the Witcher 2.

It's probably more an issue with interactive fiction in general that you need to do A LOT more work if you want to give the option of an entirely different branch so mostly a limitation in budget for voice over etc.

I don't know much about JRPG's but it's on Game Pass PC too so I might check it out. First the game, then the blog :)

So I got game pass and played through the opening mission on easy (hey, I'm a story guy) and have good impressions so far.

Though I will say even if they didn't have much budget I think they could find some better voice actors and improve on the sound design. Rangers also still seem like the most one-dimensional faction they always were, I guess. Looks like it's shorter to finish than Wasteland 2 so this one might hook me.

@efesell: Yeah, I think I might have a weakness for story over gameplay so if there are individual characters that I care for, then I will go out of my way for them. Whereas if there are choices serving gameplay I largely don't care and will choose whatever is convenient.

It's probably human nature to favor emotions over abstract politics so it felt natural to choose Mira over Kreia or Kaiden over Ashley (I'm not so sure about that now, though) than some abstract village based on politics.

Anyways sounds like the choices are more personal so that's a positive for me at least.

This might be the game that makes me get Game Pass.

I liked the style of Wasteland 2 but I got a little lost in the numerous skills and companions multiplied and I was disappointed in the consequences of choices (think there was a lost kid from a settlement with disease that was pretty inconsequential). KOTOR 1+2, FO: New Vegas or Witcher 2 are the gold standards of taking consideration of player choices for me (haven't finished Outer Worlds and I had a hard time with Mass Effect).

Anyways I've been playing a lot of Xenonauts recently so I've grown fond of turn-based combat but the XCOM reboots are too "buff anime" for me so I think I might even buy it full price on GOG.