Withywarlock

The correct answer is Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide and its sequel. Hammer go brrrr, as the young people appear to be saying.

Rarely. If ever I do I'll take a moment to reflect on what I'm doing wrong, and if nothing comes to mind I question the developers' vision and ability to see it through. One such incident occurred throughout all my ~7 hours of Spyro 2: Season of Flame on the Game Boy Advance. I had the pleasure of completing that yesterday, and while it's a much better (read: playable) game than the previous one, Season of Ice, it suffers one major problem: it's isometric. Three of the four Spyro GBA games are like this, wherein you're playing a faster, deadlier game of Q*bert on a smaller screen with greater graphical fidelity, and you will be expected to make frequent jumps, glides and end some with a hover. It's hard to gauge the distance of a jump or flight without either side-scrolling or full 3D, so throw in high contrast assets and detailed levels and matters are made worse. I managed to complete the game without much complaining though, because the developers had set a precedent for Spyro's abilities early on, and any deaths were understandable misreadings of the terrain. Compare that to the woeful incompetence which is Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy, which has wildly inconsistent tests of character ability, and you wonder why Vicarious Visions were ever allowed to do anything outside of the much better Crash games on Game Boy Advance (barring the obvious Crash: Ripto's Rampage). Thank goodness Toys for Bob were left in charge of It's About Time, which is on my to-do list.

I was thinking recently I've not completed a game in a long time. It was Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War, which is kind of obligatory when buying a new CoD. Do the campaign so you've the faintest idea of what's happening in its on-going story in the new-fangled battle pass. Now I'm not overly bothered about which game I complete, I'm more there for the journey these days.

I used to make a point of getting the steelbook versions of games, which strangely could sometimes be found cheaper than the plastic counterparts at some stores (in the same condition too). Nowadays I don't bother, but they were a nice edition to one's shelf back in the day.

More often than not I don't like it (oversized pauldrons I'm a stickler for, too) but I can get behind it when it's so rare it's comical. Like in Dark Souls, you'll sometimes play the game on your own for so long in your standard Medieval stasis gear, that you one day come across the phantom of a player with a great ****-off sword that just makes me burst out with laughter because it's so unexpected, and seeing them swing that thing around is even more hilarious. I can suspend my disbelief when it comes to monsters and magic quite easily, as I could believe there's a biology and physics explanation for those things, but for weapons, I tend not to believe it unless they have some place in the real world. I am however slowly warming to the silliness sometimes found in anime-style games. Valkyria Chronicles was a nice way of dipping one's toes in the pool.... until the dirty great drill swords came along.

I doubt they're still recruiting given that was their only post from just under a year ago. That, and I doubt they're going to tell you if they're "filled up with toxic people" I'm afraid.

Without spoiling too much, the death of a character in Valkyria Chronicles: Remastered. We don't get to see much of them but they play a pivotal role in the gameplay and they provide further motivation for the rest of the team. Rewatching the scenes comparing the game and the anime show adaptation, I had to fight back the tears because it was so hard to see that happen again. I don't think I would've cried had the alternatives been implemented: the character is shot between the eyes, clutching a letter in the event of their death, or having them become sloppy (affecting gameplay in an already difficult mission) and they don't resolve their arc with another character.

I'm of two minds on the subject. Firstly, I think it's a good show of perspective from both the AI and their developer. Why are most creatures fighting to the death? Because they've no choice in the matter, or because they exist solely to give the player XP? I like that wild animals or bandits that are hungry might realise they're in a losing fight, run to lick their wounds and then fight again. In Ultima, to become the Avatar of the Eight Virtues, you cannot chase after and slay enemies that flee because it goes against the Virtue of Justice, quote, "Kill not a non-evil beast for they deserve not death, even if in hunger they attack thee!" On the other hand it's very annoying, and a lot of video games simply aren't made to have long-term consequences of letting an enemy flee. In the Elder Scrolls a fleeing enemy will only move about 20 metres away, huff and plead, and then proceed to attack. It's the exact sort of thing I'd expect from a LaFave Bros. sketch. Meanwhile in CRPGs, a defeated foe tends to either regroup and fight again later in the story, or thanks you for sparing their life and has changed their ways, et cetera, et cetera. In my current Dungeons & Dragons campaign I have the feeling that my singled-out character is going to be ambushed whilst performing his clerical duties in the graveyard alone (this isn't a euphemism, honest), and if it comes to a fight I imagine one of the foes shall run to report back to their organisation, given their recent scouting behaviour. Ironically my character won't be one to flee, unless a place of worship or funerary rites is threatened. If he dies at the oh-so-legendary status of a 2nd Level adventurer, he'll die defending a garden of Kelemvor.

The one where the bloke asks "what is a man? A miserable pile of secrets! But enough talk, have at you!" multiplied by 5.

It wasn't, no. I bought them numerous times for numerous systems, mostly used, not because of any remaster. Though they did have numerous editions with different amounts of DLC, if I recall correctly.

I like Mario Kart 8's idea of different levels of automation. For instance, it could hold down the acceleration for you but you couldn't take shortcuts and I don't think you could boost either. If a game made it so you can only stick to the road, or perhaps automatically brake/swerve out of the way of danger, that might help too. It's not as advantageous as people had first made it out to be, but it was annoying that it was set as the default option and wasn't made clear at launch.

The ones with the least and most people that are part of them, respectively. I've no concrete explanation but it's my experience that the bigger a fandom, the more hostile it becomes, likely due to players wanting to be seen, heard and think they matter in that community. Whereas smaller fandoms want people to talk to and have a level of respect for one another, on the grounds that they have a similar interest and don't want to rock the boat. I believe similar things could happen here if this forum, as any forum could, ended up getting "too big." Too small and it becomes an impregnable clique. Too big and it becomes a mess with sycophants wanting to be be seen and be promoted to moderator, and such.

The earliest example I can think of this was Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer. I like having a number of copies for that because it means the world to me, and I fully appreciate being called selfish when I say I want to buried with it. The collectors can try take it from my cold, dead hands. Other examples include Mad Dash Racing, usually because I keep forgetting I own it, Crackdown, The Godfather, and Fallout: New Vegas, all because I love them that much and keep wanting to replay them.

Chelsea Monroe-Cassel does a great job of converting the fictional ingredients into real world items, and honestly upon looking at a lot of them I've no idea how they could do a better job of substituting them. Being a medieval-stasis fantasy setting, the Elder Scrolls one is fairly easy to replicate and substitute. The problem is, as said earlier, is that being from the UK a lot of them aren't available in my country or would be hard to get without going to international shops and supermarkets. My criticism with the Fallout one is that it's basically cooking homemade alternatives to all the processed junk in that universe, which honestly I can't object to if it means people are making (sometimes) healthier foods from scratch. But you don't really need to this particular cookbook to do that, save for a few that are radiation-themed. ^^

I think it depends on how enthused I am to partake in it. I might never get around to learning it because I don't think crafting suits the game, or it's an unnecessary timesink, or it's thrust upon me at a time I don't fancy looking at a tutorial for it. Because crafting systems can be so varied, from Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn's where it can be your entire experience in the game, to Fallout 4 where you can make a house out of some honey and duct tape, it's hard to say how quickly I can get along with each individual one.

At a wild guess, it's probably because your depth perception has changed so suddenly and dramatically. In typical video games when you mount up, you're not controlling your player avatar so much as you're now controlling the mount itself. And horses are very different animals to us bipedal humanoids, so their locomotive mechanics and where their head is will be harder to adjust to with that sort of camera. Similar problems are in World of Warcraft where - for all intents and purposes - a mount is just a movement speed buff, and you're still in control of your avatar with a different model. You might know where your feet are unmounted, and therefore can walk up to a ledge without much fear of falling off, a mount is a lot harder to guage. because you're looking at it from the rider's perspective, not the mount's wherever their limbs might be. As far as I can tell it's all about perception. In third person you can see which way your horse's body is pointing, which legs are going in which direction, and where the weight is when jumping, rearing up, or receiving an attack. In first person, because you're focussed on what's in front of you rather than underneath you, you have to do a lot more guesswork. The camera and the horse's body not being in the same places might also disrupt things too (as in nearly every non-VR game the character's entire body turns because their neck is frozen stiff). That's a lot of words to say I don't know.

I almost, and I mean very nearly, had to give up over 100 hours of Pathfinder: Kingmaker progress because whilst travelling, the main quest timer ran out, and I struggled to find a save where I could get to the final destination and finish the game. The further into that game you go, the closer you have to watch the clock, especially if you invest more into your barony. I love Owlcat Games, and what they're currently doing with the new Pathfinder game, but they simply weren't talented enough to pull off a game that had so many features that ultimately conflicted with each other. Kingmaker's the exact kind of content a sequel should get, and Wrath of the Righteous a third game.

No, I don't believe so. It's difficult for me to say because I've played games for so long, it's only with being in a relationship that I've come to really question why. When I'm with my partner I simply don't think about games at all, except when my darling asks me questions about them. That's often met with "is there anything you don't know about games," which makes me rather glad those decades of playing have paid off. I used to be worried it's an addiction, but take away my games and I'll just find something else to keep my eyes, ears and fingers occupied with. I guess it's just because I'm bored. A theory I have is that because I'm autistic, I seek and avoid certain sensory experiences, so video games cover a lot of those for me. I have difficulty reading books due to my ADHD, so video games being my preferred medium help me enjoy certain stories, but also appreciate when some simply don't translate well to my preferred medium or would work in another. I couldn't explain any of this with really any elaboration, I'm simply not medically qualified to speak on why this is. Quite simply, I'm a nutcase. I'm trying to review my thought process now though. I guess I just go with the genre I want, typically requiring a story or some sort of structure and goal, and seeing where it takes me. Sometimes I just want to turn off my brain and say "I did this," and sometimes I want to become deeply emotionally invested in a story, its characters and its setting. I struggle to articulate, I'm afraid.

In an episode of Let's Drown Out, I fail to recall which one, Yahtzee Crowshaw had described Hitman as 'the point-and-click adventure game for psychopaths' or some such, and that makes me think that I'd prefer all the more options. In the old point-and-click-adventure games, you could very easily end up hitting a point of no return because you missed a key item, and it's the sole means of moving forward. That wasn't a bug, it tended to be either an oversight or a malicious means of telling you to look harder in the 'pixel hunt jamboree' as Yahtzee had also described one such game (I'm fairly certain that was from the Dreamweb episode.) Whereas in Hitman, and other such games, you have options. You can be as elaborate, destructive or sneaky as you like. You can even fail a task successfully by just going up to the poor sap and blowing their brains out if you so choose. Hitman is a fantastic case study of "creativity stems from limitations." The limitations come from the physical environment, such as the map size, cover, witnesses, hostiles and target accessibility, and not from your arsenal or a single item required to solve the puzzle. Leave that for Larian Studios, or the tabletop.

I would've thought the reason they're trending is because no sod can get the new consoles! 🤣 In all seriousness, there's no time like the present. Coronavirus has had an impact, however small, on game and hardware production and distribution. I was tempted to write an article about how you can't get many new and decent games, so you might as well dig out those ones that're gathering dust in the attic. Wii Sports is just as fun now as it was all those years ago, and I'm sure a great many games sitting in the loft are too.

The Playstation 3's Lair singlehandedly killed the console's hope of seeing much use out of its gyro controls. The idea of the game being you were a dragon rider, and would fly around in a series of action-strategy missions. It was very interesting, and what little I played of it had shown clearly shown the devs they knew what they were doing, thematically speaking. Alas, playing was bittersweet: the gyro controls were dire, and it wasn't made clear enough that they were recommended rather than mandatory (as you could use the standard controls, but most people were too disappointed to continue on).

I think I prefer to be the chosen one, but I like to do mundane things within that setting. I get a chuckle out of the common bandit thinking that they can defeat, say, the Champion of Cyrodiil, who has felled men, mer, and ungodly creatures. That he's gonna be the guy who mugs the Grand Champion of the Imperial Arena in as close to a fair fight as those two could get.

I myself have not, but the food would be as good as the ingredients, measurements and the temperature you're going to cook them at. The book can't make them taste better than your ability to follow their instructions (and it's not like they're particularly perculiar dishes either). I'm sure my stepmum would have been able to immediately say what will and won't work because she's had more cookery experience than I have years being alive. I might have to try some next week and get back to you on that, though. I need to get back into baking. This is all assuming I can get the ingredients anyway. A lot of the stuff in some of the earlier books, namely the WoW cookbook, required things that are rare or non-existant in the UK, and if you substitute too much it ends up tasting completely different to the author's intentions. I can barely do a video of talking in front of a camera without a script, how I'd do a cookery video I've no idea.

I have a different perspective: if I want to play the game, I'll play it, regardless of its visual state. It might take a few attempts over the course of years, but I'll get there in the end because it'll do something that clicks. And if the graphics are worse and I can still make sense of it, that's the game providing me context through its cohesion. That's one of the greatest compliments I could give a game's graphical fidelity and art style: if I can clearly understand what I'm looking for despite its lower visual quality, and how quickly I did so. There's nothing weird about anyone's enjoyment of a video game, and least of all their visuals. ^^

I almost went to one in Scarborough (a coastal town in North Yorkshire, England) but my partner and I hadn't been able to make time as we were only there for the day. That and I'd spent all my pennies on our food. Oh, to have played a nice romantic game of House of the Dead...