Totally agree - I've really enjoyed the entirety of The Witcher and all of its DLC, but Hearts of Stone was the highlight. Yes, it was low-key and lower-stakes than usual, and it wasn't cluttered by tons and tons of unrelated sidequests and contracts and treasure hunts and all that. It felt very focused in a way that…

Man, I can't believe there isn't so much more discussion of Thimbleweed Park in this thread. I've been pumped out of my gourd since it was announced - for proof, you can check out my write-up on Paste:

I'm ~34 hours into MGS V, and I'm a little terrified that this could go on for over 100 hours. I'm already on Mission 22, though…am I just cruising through really quickly (I've done a solid number of side ops, really), or is there about to be a huge slowdown in momentum?

I'm on Mission 22 of MGS V, and it's definitely a change of pace from the narrative-driven games of yesteryear. Not a great one, either - I loved the tightly scripted plots of the previous games. That being said, the open world-ness of the game is about as good as it could be. As repetitive as it seems like it could…

I'm only about 8 missions into MGS V, and I'm already feeling that familiar "this is way too overwhelming" anxiety tickling at the back of my brain. I was working through one of the side ops (maybe the fifth or so?) but was having trouble completing it, so I checked out an online guide and discovered that there are…

I've done the same thing with The Witcher 2 over the past few years - not sure what the deal is there. Actually, I think I know what the deal is for me: I don't really enjoy the physical act of playing games on my computer, no matter how good the game is. As you said, the game itself is pretty great. I'm all the into…

I used to be a big fan of Kojima's bullshit writing back in the early MGS days, but I haven't landed on how exactly I feel about it in 2015. Honestly, there's not really enough of it to bother me in the game so far - most of my time is spent horsebacking around the desert, picking flowers, and catapulting wild animals…

Went nuts on Black Friday and finally bought myself a PS4 after years of waffling. That tends to be how I go about acquiring "next-generation" systems - I wait until they're not new at all anymore and then grab them up when the price has dropped and the game library has ballooned a little. I'm the anti-early-adopter.

Yeah, for me, it's really more about the awesome open world to explore than the mechanics of the horse riding itself, so no worries there. And I'd love to play a lengthy open-world game that I'm not relieved to finish (I know that feeling well) - that's how you know you've got a good one. I'm currently taking my…

Well, now I just want to play Dark Souls - thanks for getting me sidetracked. All of that sounds great, especially the boost in lore and character quests. The super-eerie citizens of the Nexus were always one of my favorite parts of Demon's Souls, so an increased emphasis on that sort of thing is right up my alley.…

VIII is the only one I've played, and I had to abandon it after a little while due to random-battle-related stress issues. I loved the idea of it, the cartoon-y graphics, and the open world generally, but populating a world that big with random encounters of that frequency was a bold move. It just stifled my impulse…

The way you just described it makes me want to go buy it (and a PS4, since I'm wayyyy behind catching up to this console generation) immediately. Galloping around aimlessly on my trusty steed in Red Dead Redemption and just enjoying the open world is one of my favorite video game experiences ever, and I'm in full…

I'm pumped about acquiring a PS4 and playing Bloodborne in the near future myself (I'm gonna super-late to both of those parties, so I feel you). I've only actually played Demon's Souls, and I loved it, but I've always thought it's weird that it is almost never mentioned in a conversation about the Soul's series. Are…

Yeah, good points all around. I actually don't have Orlandeau yet, but I've spent so much time wandering the map, hoarding gil, and getting these secret characters that I'm already in a pretty comfortable place deadliness-wise. The last battle to really give me trouble was Yardow Fort City with all of those Ninjas and…

That sounds useful - I'm on it. I wonder if there will ever be a time when Cloud showing up in a game is not the most incredible thing ever, and people just don't really care anymore. Given his recently announced Super Smash Bros. participation, that time is not now.

I'll be continuing to plug away at Final Fantasy Tactics this weekend. I've made my merry way into Chapter 4 and am in the process of gathering up all the secret characters. This time through the game, I'm determined to spend some time leveling up weakling Cloud into a full-blown badass so that I can actually use him…

This weekend, like most weekend nights, I'll be playing Final Fantasy Tactics.