Stovetop
@Stovetop@lemmy.world
- Comment on Day 358 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 11 hours ago:
Night and day difference between game Bill and show Bill, too. Both characters are interesting explorations of attachment vs isolation in their own ways.
- Comment on IGN interview w/ DK Bananza devs 11 hours ago:
Oh, banana!
- Comment on Microsoft has never been good at running game studios, which is a problem when it owns them all 6 days ago:
Agreed, I think it also hurts the games trying to even have a singular “villain” in the first place. Halo 1-3 had villainous figures, but I don’t think anyone was under the belief that just killing the 3 Prophets would solve the problem of the Covenant, or that killing the Gravemind would mean that the Flood would never be a problem again.
Halo relies on having compelling factions with clear purpose and ideology to act as antagonists in a general sense. The Prometheans in 4 weren’t bad, but outside of the Didact, they had no real purpose or personality. They were just an obstacle. I was really looking forward to the premise of 5 with the concept of going rogue and tackling the underlying themes of fascism at the heart of the UNMC, but then it just rapidly pivoted to some other garbage with Cortana and the Guardians which led to nothing in the end anyways. And so I didn’t even bother to play Infinite.
- Comment on Microsoft has never been good at running game studios, which is a problem when it owns them all 6 days ago:
Do you mean 343/Halo Studios or is 545 some sort of reference I’m missing?
- Comment on Day 353 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 6 days ago:
You can!
Worth noting for anyone looking to play both N64 games is that OoT Gerudo stay stunned indefinitely (until the area is reloaded) but the Pirates in Majora’s Mask who are borrowed from the Gerudo guards only stay stunned for a short time before getting back up.
This incentizes use of the Stone Mask, which can be obtained from the invisible guard by giving him a red potion. If playing the N64 version, he is located outside of Ikana Graveyard, which is a place that you can get to at that point in the game but many might not have bothered exploring yet. In the 3DS version, they moved him directly into Pirates Fortress so he’s harder to miss, but it does require just a little bit of stealth to get to where he is first.
- Comment on Microsoft layoffs are reportedly underway, with ZeniMax and King employees losing their jobs 1 week ago:
I just think it stopped being a good deal the moment they implemented their first price increase. That signalled that they’re willing to do what every other subscription service does and raise prices as arbitrarily high as people are willing to pay, with the enticement being that you can’t unsub or you’re left with no games.
If you have copious time for gaming and are always on the hunt for sometbing new, is it still a better deal than buying every game at release? Sure, at least for now. But the patient gaming strat at least gives me a backlog of affordable titles too long to finish them all, and I can also return to it at any time without worrying about titles eventually disappearing from a subscription catalog.
- Comment on Microsoft layoffs are reportedly underway, with ZeniMax and King employees losing their jobs 1 week ago:
I’m honestly surprised anyone still has it.
- Comment on ‘There Isn’t Much Sway Held by Past Success’: Baldur’s Gate 3 actors reveal it hasn’t boosted their careers 1 week ago:
That’s exactly it, they have the ability to go about certain scenes in different ways.
I still only have the Astarion/Cazador example, because that’s the only origin character I played as, but one moment I remember as different between Astarion as party member versus Astarion as player is the conversation with his former lover Sebastian before confronting Cazador.
In my playthrough with Astarion as an NPC, he basically auto-piloted through most of that conversation. He remembered who Sebastian was, it was somewhat touching, and the player was able to ask Astarion questions for context.
In my playthrough as Astarion as the player, you can navigate that conversation in different ways, but there are also certain things that are no longer a given. You actually have to roll to remember who Sebastian is (which I flubbed) and that changes the course of the conversation away from the NPC “default” conversation.
- Comment on Excel having a stab at dates 1 week ago:
- Comment on ‘There Isn’t Much Sway Held by Past Success’: Baldur’s Gate 3 actors reveal it hasn’t boosted their careers 1 week ago:
but if you play as any of the characters you barely hear them, or so I’ve heard.(haven’t done it myself)
This is the case. There are a small set of instances where the character might get a one-off voice line, but in general you’re left mute, even during high impact story moments where the character would usually get a spotlight (e.g. Astarion confronting Cazador).
It’s just a bit of a shame because you’d think people would opt to play characters they like because they want to experience more of them while playing, but ironically you get less that way.
- Comment on ‘There Isn’t Much Sway Held by Past Success’: Baldur’s Gate 3 actors reveal it hasn’t boosted their careers 1 week ago:
Agreed, I think it’s more that Jennifer English is out there putting in the work to get as many solid gigs as she can, BG3 being just one of several.
- Comment on It's too hot to think of why or how 1 week ago:
Chopsticks, unironically. Better than having salt all over your hands.
- Comment on Corporations are saving the planet! 1 week ago:
Not sure if this applied universally, but I remember for years and years the common knowledge was that plastic caps are unrecyclable for some reason, and there used to be separate bins to toss them at recycling centers. That’s no longer the case, so keeping the cap connected to the bottle is one way to demonstrate that they should be recycled together.
(By “recycled” I mean most likely shipped to Southeast Asia to then most likely just find their way into the ocean)
- Comment on The Purge 2 weeks ago:
I thought they were implying “Purge the keep, snack the booze.”
- Comment on Death Stranding 2: On the Beach | Review Thread (92/100 OpenCritic) 2 weeks ago:
Stellar Blade is a 2024 game, so likely not GotY this year if it wasn’t even close last year.
- Comment on MindsEye Developer Build a Rocket Boy Begins Layoff Process Amid Disastrous Launch, Studio Sources Say 2 weeks ago:
I am seeing more and more of these “review bomb” takes lately, too. Dragon Age Veilguard getting review bombed because their game is too woke. Moon Studios saying they might have to close because trolls are review bombing their new game. Monster Hunter Wilds being review bombed on Steam because entitled PC gamers expect their games to be stable, I guess.
Too many people out there are deflecting legitimate criticism in favor of what are basically conspiracy theories—that there must be a concerted effort to specifically punish these developers in particular for the crime of releasing a misunderstood masterpiece. No one wants to accept the possibility that they just put out a bad game.
- Comment on So um, america just started another war in the middle east. We're going to need a shit ton more memes to distract americans from the nightmare they are enduring. Thanks in advance... 2 weeks ago:
We saved Palestine,
RedditLemmy! - Comment on Too many non-working holidays in America. 3 weeks ago:
I would, but I’m not really on any social networks where the intended audience would see the message.
- Comment on Too many non-working holidays in America. 3 weeks ago:
I’d love to see him say this on the 4th of July or Christmas.
- Comment on Stellar Blade on PC Hit 1 Million Sales 19 Times Faster Than on PlayStation 5 3 weeks ago:
More gooners on PC than PlayStation I guess
- Comment on PC Gaming’s Mascot Squad—who makes the cut? 3 weeks ago:
Could just go with Thrall for a Warcraft character. He wasn’t on the box for WoW 1.0, but he is basically the face of Warcraft as a franchise.
I feel like a WoW console release is destined to happen eventually, though, now that Microsoft owns them. We’ll have to see.
- Comment on NO KINGS! 3 weeks ago:
Just for some extra context, the character having a bad day was promised “a crown” (make me king) by this group of warlords he enlisted to support him. He proceeds to be such an unlikable shit for such a long time, they give him “a crown” by pouring molten gold on his head.
- Comment on When the riot squads come... 3 weeks ago:
Bystanders*
- Comment on Switch 2 Breaks Records By Selling Over 3.5 Million Units In Four Days 4 weeks ago:
I don’t think the Xbox One was a disappointment due to a boycott, I think it was just a product people didn’t feel the need to buy.
Sure, there was early controversy about the always-online DRM approach they planned to take, but it didn’t launch with that in the end. What killed its hype was just being US$100 more expensive than the PS4 and having no killer exclusives lined up.
- Comment on Inside the 'Dragon Age' Debacle That Gutted EA's BioWare Studio 4 weeks ago:
One factor might be just that Mass Effect came out first and was also Bioware’s last game before EA bought them.
The rest is just my opinion, but I do believe that Mass Effect simply told a better story (multicolored endings aside) and had a better cast of characters. Not to mention the fact that it was a single narrative across the three installments helped keep engagement up. And shooters were incredibly popular at that time.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
Sorry, should’ve clarified that this isn’t directed towards you, OP! Just at a lot of the other comments in here who are acting like someone else’s decision to buy an expensive gadget is a personal insult to them.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
Console wars stopped being cool years ago. Everyone has their preferences and favorites, no need to shit on someone’s fun because you think yours is better.
- Comment on Spiritfarer Developer Thunder Lotus Reveals At Fate's End, An Action Game With Dialogue-Driven Combat 4 weeks ago:
Spiritfarer was a masterpiece, hope their next game also succeeds.
- Comment on How often do you take him for a walk? 4 weeks ago:
I think it’s more the fact that kids weren’t really brought to busy markets/stores 100 years ago, nor were there busy streets full of cars everywhere. They stayed home or just in the local environment, and typically mom would also stay home to watch them and make sure they stayed out of trouble.
- Comment on The Switch 2: Is it worth buying? 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, ultimately it’s a matter of personal discretion.
Mainly I think we’re at the point where new consoles, now including the Switch, are more like upgrading your PC. Get the newer model to run existing games better.
Games are going to be releasing for both Switch and Switch 2 for a while, so there’s not much incentive to upgrade unless the very small list of Switch 2 exclusives is enticing right now. But if someone’s priority is playing through older games in higher quality now that it is possible to do so without pirating, there are a lot of reasons to upgrade.
It took several years for PS5 to get to the point where it was probably worth it for exclusives alone (and may still not even be there yet for many), but it was worth getting day 1 if there were PS4 games someone wanted to play at higher resolutions and/or framerates, and they didn’t mind the price.
Actually on the topic of price, also worth acknowledging that the market is a bit fucked, and existing consoles have only gone up in price since release, in complete disregard for earlier trends where they usually drop in price over time, so that could be a other reason for someone to want to get in on it early.
