winsord

Lost Dimension for PS3. It came out just a couple of months ago, nobody played it, but it has a really interesting and unique gameplay mechanic that's really fun, though flawed.

It really doesn't feel like it'll come out here this year, but Atlus seems to keep repeating that it will, even as recent as a couple of days ago. I just bought a PS4, so I'll be ready if it does!

I absolutely adored Dragon's Dogma, and DDO is worth checking out for the sake of quelling some curiosity, but not to play seriously (at least, I found it too hard to deal with the language barrier to get too into it). I went into Dragon's Dogma having not known anything about it, then playing the demo the day before release and really enjoying it, to buying the game on launch day and beating it three times in the first couple of months following its release.

It has its issues, but it did some really unique and surprising things, and I'm really glad more people will get a chance to check it out soon. I'm hoping it does as well as Valkyria Chronicles managed to when it hit the PC late last year.

@dayoneadvantage: It was built on the MT framework, and the other MT ports have turned out quite well so far, so hopefully this will be good too. Also, I'd argue that WB has earned itself a worse reputation at this point than Capcom had during the GFWL days.

They put Yakuza 5 avatars up in the PSN store last week, so I was expecting it to be coming out here soon (they did originally say Summer). Hopefully December 31st is just a tentative date! I'd assume so, since it is a Thursday.

I would say a GTX 960 or an R9 380 is a decent bump up. If you've got the PSU for it, I'd say go for the R9 380, but both cards are pretty even if you get the 4GB variant. The 950 seems a little overhyped, it doesn't really compete at the 960's level, but it's a great card if your budget was limited to $170~.

@cirdain: Yeah, Algiers are pretty cool. I really like "But She Was Not Flying". Surprised you pulled that from that big list of albums.

Chelsea Wolfe's new album "Abyss" comes out on August 7th, and it's really good. Favourite track so far is the penultimate song, titled "Color of Blood".

The Helio Sequence's eponymous album came out just a little ago, but it didn't do much for me. Their last album "Negotiations" was pretty solid overall, but had some really memorable tracks for me like Downward Spiral. I was hoping the new album would explore that slightly shoegaze-y sound, but instead it's headed in a bit of a different direction, and none of the tracks have really stuck with me so far. Hoping it grows on me.

There was also the new God is an Astronaut album, "Helios Erebus", which is okay. Kind of felt the same way about it as I did the new Helio Squence. It's a solid album, but none of it's really hooked me hard like the opening track of Origins did. I think I like it more on the whole though, and Vetus Memoria is a great song.

The new mewithoutYou album "Pale Horses" is one of my favourites so far this year. The title track, D-Minor, Red Cow, and Magic Lantern Days are all standouts for me. It took a little for me to get into it, but it clicked after a few listens.

Muse's "Drones" has actually hit a bit of a soft spot for me. I think lyrically most of the album is pretty weak, occasionally quite cheesy, but the instrumentation tries to be a little more like Muse pre-Resistance. It's not a super impactful album, but I've enjoyed having it on in the car when driving to work; it sounds good played loud.

Sun Kil Moon's new album "Universal Themes" is alright. I really like the intro track The Possum, partially just because it's about Mark going to a GodFlesh show, but it's also just one of the better songs on the album. I feel like a lot of the people who liked the direction he went with Benji will probably be disappointed by it, but I think it's a good album overall.

Shamir's "Ratchet" holds up pretty well compared to the single he put out last year, On the Regular. Not really my usual style, but he's able to do some interesting things within the Pop genre and has a lot of fun with it.

Mew put out "+-", which took a little to grow on me, but I'm quite happy with it now. It was all running together to me on my first couple of listens, but everything feels quite distinct after hearing it a few times. The album's quite long though, so I could probably cut Witness and Clinging to a Bad Dream and be quite content. Water Slides has stuck with me the most.

After five years, Envy got "Atheist's Cornea" out the door and it hits pretty hard. They were able to do some pretty interesting new stuff while sticking with their general style from albums passed. Footsteps in the Distance is easily my favourite from this album.

Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld's - "Never Were the Way She Was" is really wonderful, even if it may not be for everyone; I don't think I could say enough good things about it. Certainly try, "The Sun Roars Into View".

The new Daughn Gibson and Elvis Depressedly albums I talked about in my last post both turned out to be great as well. Really good albums on the whole, lots of memorable songs from each; they're easily both in my top 10 of albums from 2015 so far.

And then there's everything else I've listened to from Q2, but wasn't really impactful enough for individual comment:

It's somewhere in the middle. It will require you to use the brakes and corner properly if you want to do well, but turning most of the assists on makes it very accessible (it even has auto-brake), especially with it having the rewind system. Most people start with a lot of that stuff on and just slowly turn things off over time, at which point the game becomes a lot more demanding of your skill. It's more realistic than most arcade style racing games for sure, but it's not on the level of Forza 5, Project CARS, or Gran Turismo 6 in terms of realism. The level above that would be something like iRacing or Assetto Corsa, which practically require a wheel to be fun.

Forza Horizon 2 would be my recommendation too, and there's a demo available on the Xbox One marketplace so you can try it first to see if you like it.

I'd be interested in trying it out. I was never really able to get into Terraria when it came out, but I also never had a server to play on, which seems kind of key to the experience.

It's just a streaming app, and it doesn't let you stream in landscape.