We’re already up to like half the number of layoffs for all of 2023. What an absolutely brutal industry. 

You’re so right, and that would have fit great too, since you just got done mowing through a whole compound of random dudes—which felt like an odd thing to tack on the end of the game for me. Instead, if you have Ellie go through that compound, while injured, taking out people she has no connection to at all, just to…

Seeing Abby step away from the cycle of violence, and then having to control Ellie for a whole other section because she had not yet had the same reflection, was the point that I was ready to put the game down—I could see where it was going at that point. In the final fight I tried to not fight Abby, but the game…

Yeah as a fan of the original Prince of Persia and Flashback, I loved the first Tomb Raider games when they first came out, because they felt like those games, but 3D (at the time, “X game, but 3D” was often enough to sell me on things lol). The platforming was painstakingly deliberate in a way I was down for back…

Honestly the 360 era has a fair number of games that fit that category—not the best, but definitely not bad! Like the Captain America game? Yes, it’s heavily influenced by Arkham Asylum, but it isn’t awful, and Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan even reprise their roles as Cap and Bucky. Ubisoft made a TMNT game based on…

Yeah I still have that follow up on my xbox 360! And I totally agree, it’s fine, but doesn’t quite hit the highs of the last one. 

This is true, though having played it a bit, I will say that they did each have a sort of learning curve that felt unique, more like Destiny 2 classes, where they’ll all basically get you where you need to go, but how they do that is different. But yeah, still less unique than Avengers, where some characters had…

Yeah, but it’s also got the same problem as Avengers, where certain things are just different enough (in Suicide Squad’s case, it’s the unique traversal mechanics of each person), that it makes you wish the game wasn’t built around supporting all of them, so it could go deeper on the fun mechanics. I remember playing…

It just feels like Star Wars is stuck in its own imagery. It’s like the creative forces behind it think about what fans want to see first, come up with “cool” scenes, and then try to pin story to that imagery/those scenes. Andor was the only one to do it right, and it’s because they put characters first, Star Wars…

Ehh, plenty of games targeted at kids are still great for adults. Super Mario Wonder was incredible, and I had a blast with Kirby and the Forgotten Lands—both games I enjoyed, as well as my kids (one of which is an actual 12 year old). The PS5 Ratchet and Clank was another hit with both me and my son, so I do think…

I was 12 when the original Pokemon Red and Blue came out. I saved up my allowance to buy Red, and I dove all the way in, collecting them all.

lol I am playing God of War Ragnarok right now. I put it at the second to lowest difficulty because I’m just here for the story and the awesome set pieces, but boy do I wish they’d shut up with the puzzles. Like please, give me longer than five seconds before someone goes, “Maybe you should throw your axe at this!”

Yeah I also thought it was totally fine. I played all the games when they came out, even read the first Halo book way back in the day—but I’d say I’m a gameplay fan way more than I am a lore fan. I found Master Chief to be more compelling within the first two episodes than he is in literally any of the games. I…

I was recently replaying the one of the PSP God of War games (via an emulator) and made liberal use of the fast-forward button, both in cutscenes and in gameplay.

Oh thanks for the update! I saw when they launched, but I’m currently at my limit for the number of podcasts/blogs/creators I can support financially, so I didn’t give it much thought. I’ll have to check them out now that I can read some!

Yeah I accidentally clicked on it trying to open the comments. Every day I wonder if this will be the day I stop visiting this site, but it’s hard to kick a 15 year habit. 

I played the Mafia 2 remaster earlier this year when I picked it up super cheap in a Steam sale (or maybe it was in a bundle?). Honestly it was a breath of fresh air. I remember when it came out it was criticized for being kind of sparse—there’s really not much to do in the open world at all—but years later, when so…

heh I feel this way about so many of the Disney+ shows. I didn’t make it past episode 3 of Ahsoka, because the show seemed to be mostly scenes of people walking very slowly and gazing at things, while saying the names of things that only the most extreme fans would know about.

I’m glad I got married long before online dating, because I would be annoyed that my actual height of 5'11" would read as code for “I’m much shorter.”

So I played the last two Assassin’s Creed games (Mirage and Valhalla) with WeMod on, and it lets you open your map, create a waypoint, and when you close the map, you are on that point (you have to turn on god mode first because the game doesn’t account for elevation differences, so you could fall out of the sky).