I get that, but you’re also not quite getting the full picture with this specific instance. The community on Reddit has been waiting for Silksong so long that they have been over-analyzing every single game convention for years to see if we’re going to get a release date, and had a heated debate over whether or not a blood sacrifice of a member of the community would bring the release. They’re a little crazy over there.
It kind of felt like the game was trying to tackle language as a barrier to entry in the same way that Tunic did, but ultimately failed to properly teach. The first language is learnable, but most of the others had extremely frustrating attempts to get the last few words. It fortunately tells you when the word is correct in your pocket dictionary, but if you haven’t encountered the item it references yet, you have to assign it what you think it is, rely on it, and figure out what exactly is wrong.
I get that it’s a puzzle game, but there’s supposed to be a moment of “Oh, that’s how it works” euphoria when you finish a puzzle, not a consistent “Seriously? I got it this wrong again?” and an encouragement for random trial and error due to frustration. It’s cool that there’s different languages, based on different existing language structures, but it felt like the execution of unraveling it fell flat.
Apparently there’s an Instagram account that puts these out.
Looks like the image posted is going through Nitter. https://twitter.com/TangoGameworks/status/1874259495783981205
Closest thing I could think of with Mario Kart (Raccoon City is at the end).
I got the first game for free and was blown away by how good it was for such a simple premise. I can’t wait for this one, I’ll probably be picking it up day one.
I like collecting achievements, so if it’s a requirement, I usually do. The last one was Silent Hill 2, which kind of doesn’t count. You start with nothing, and the only difference is that items appear when they weren’t there on the first run. I’ve done the FromSoft Soulsborne games, but Elden Ring had so much content that I had to take a long break before going back. The ones I’ve enjoyed most though are games that have upgrade systems that you can’t complete without a ton of grinding, like Ratchet and Clank (plus NG+ has the RYNO). They just can’t be super-long. I’m probably never replaying Persona 5, just because of the time commitment.
McGinnis with the GunGinnis build, and kudzu bomb Ivy. I really wish I found a third one I can enjoy.
Serious answer, I’m not sure why someone would run a VM to run just a container inside the VM, aside from the VM providing volumes (directories) to the VM. That said, VMs are perfectly capable of running containers, and can run multiple containers without issue. For work, our Gitlab instance has runners that are VMs that just run containers.
Fun answer, have you heard of Docker in Docker?
Regarding Elden Ring, I would argue it does the sense of exploration better than Hollow Knight, but only by a small degree. For every area, there’s no map at the start, and the entire map’s size is obscured since it only shows what you’ve traveled through. It gets bigger as you go, but it’s still obscured by a fog of war for areas that fit inside the map, but you don’t have a map fragment for. You can see on the map where you can obtain the fragment, but not how to get there. Most times you can just cut a straight line to it, but sometimes it’s a pain.
All that said, the thing it does better than Hollow Knight for exploration is a limitation of Hollow Knight’s map system. It’s split into different rooms, and each room has finite entrances and exits. Because you fill out the map through exploration, you’re going to know what you have and haven’t found.
Because Elden Ring gives you the entirety of the map, it’s both helpful and not. You can figure out (mostly) how to get from point A to point B, and you have markers for everywhere you’ve been. There’s two minor issues with that, though. It’s a 2D map for a 3D world, which means you end up with some locations not being properly shown, because they’re underneath cliffs. The second is that the map does almost nothing to show what places of interest there are. You have large buildings shown, but that excludes all the catacombs (dungeon areas) you can visit. There are areas on the map that are right there, but due to the topography you have no idea how to get there. Going by the map alone means you’re going to miss out on a solid amount of the content available.
It’s because the map is so limiting that it feels so good. You’re able to use it to figure where places are in directional relation, but you still have to look yourself to try and uncover areas. My first run, I prided myself on uncovering everything. I searched high and low, inspected the map to make sure I went to every corner, and really made sure I knew what was out there, and it felt amazing in terms of how much content there was and how much exploration you could do. I started a second run when the DLC came out, and found an area that, somehow, I had entirely missed. It took over a hundred and forty hours of searching, really searching, to get what I thought was complete, and it still wasn’t. It was a fantastic feeling on my second run.
Hollow Knight’s map is excellent. The gameplay is excellent, the exploration is rewarding and challenging. But the issue it has is that it only has those two dimensions to work with. Elden Ring really works to emphasize that third dimension when scouring for secrets.
I love McGinnis. I’m actually pretty good with McGinnis. But it seems that every other hero I’ve tried fails to click. Not really sure where to go with it, but the other two slots are always heroes that I hope will maybe work today.
No, that’s a stew. A coup is a long procession that’s waiting for something.
I genuinely enjoyed Arkham Knight, but those mandatory Batmobile sections are easily the most miserable part of the game. If we had those for an entire game, it might not be too bad, but most of the time you just end up using it to get from point A to point B. If you can put up with being stuck for a bit on those sections, you might enjoy it.
Its big issue is that it has to follow up on Arkham City. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s following up to one of the best superhero games out there. If you’re not invested in the story, there’s no harm in dropping it. Play something you’ll have fun with.
To preface this, I don’t really like JRPGs. Especially turn-based ones. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate them, it’s just that a lot of them have had, in the past, an emphasis on things like grinding over gameplay. This might not be true for more modern ones, but considering I largely avoid the genre, I don’t know.
All that said, Sea of Stars does everything so right. I remember playing Persona 5 and having a blast, primarily because of the story and presentation, but Sea of Stars not only has that, but does everything it can to keep you immersed.
Combat is turn-based, but you have the opportunity to time button presses to attacks to do extra attacks. I know that sounds not amazing, but the combat system also requires attacks of specific types to stop an enemy from doing a special attack. Nail the timing, and you can interrupt an attack completely. Fail, and you either have to brace for it, or find another way around it (and early game, that’s not an option most times). Likewise, timing the button press when getting hit blocks damage, and with an item early on, it also recovers MP. The game goes all in on rewarding you for actively playing instead of just sitting back and clicking through menus.
Plus, the traversal is just so great. Yeah, an isometric game has great traversal mechanics. It feels weird saying that, but it does. Almost every screen has multiple layers to move up and down, making it feel like a real world instead of just walking from point A to point B. Plus it encourages exploration of those layers for cooking ingredients and treasures, which are hidden away in secrets, but if you’ve played enough games you generally know where to look.
This is also going to sound kind of like more weird praise, but there’s no bullshit with needing to find several keys spread across the world to go back to one location to get a chest. Everything you see can be obtained if you can figure out how to get to it, with literally one exception that I’ve found in the first right hours. The puzzles aren’t that hard, and as long as you’re thorough you can find everything.
Regarding the story, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s presented so well that it’s still entertaining. It’s almost relentlessly positive, and even the darkest parts are handled in the manner of “we’ll get through this” instead of “this is hopeless.” It’s good, but it’s not the best I’ve played (though given everything else, I wouldn’t be surprised if it improved later).
I have no idea if you’ve played, or even heard of, a GBA series called Golden Sun. It feels a lot like a spiritual successor to it. But the thing that keeps me playing is that not only is the gameplay fun and the story entertaining, but it seems to absolutely value your time. No grinding, you’re capable of maintaining your party through good combat decisions, and limited backtracking. You’re not there to play a game, you’re there to experience a journey, and it keeps you moving forward. I love this game, but I feel safe saying that you could buy this on Steam, and figure out in the two-hour return window whether or not it’s for you.
At the moment, Sea of Stars, but I need to get back to Dave the Driver and finish up the Among Us DLC for Vampire Survivors. And also need to finish Unmetal. And then I’ve also got this metroidvania bundle I got from Humble Bundle to finish. And Beholder 2. Jesus, my home screen is one long waiting list, and I’m still just playing other stuff.
I want to second Graveyard Keeper. I’m 99% sure I didn’t automate it as well as it intended, but it’s a lot of fun. The removal of the hard sleeping hours of Stardew is the biggest plus of the game, aside from the setting.
High-level overviews of a couple big scandals:
Sexual harassment/assault cases:
Hong Kong
Diablo 4 expansion
The first two were lifted from the controversies section of Blizzard’s Wikipedia page, and they have more information in the linked pages and articles in those pages. For more information, I’d suggest reading there.
Personally, the way the sexual harassment has been handled has stopped me from touching their games. They’ve shown no remorse aside from being caught, they’ve been accused of shredding evidence during the investigation, and instead of addressing the issues, were instead upset that they weren’t approached privately before the public lawsuit. Instead of showing a willingness to reform, they appear to be entirely concerned with preventing financial damage.
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Ignoring whether or not AI is able to deliver the same quality as humans, it boils down to that capitalism views human beings as a unit of work. So many of those units of work are necessary to achieve a product. AI is supposed to cost less than humans to produce the same amount of work.
Humans, however, aren’t just a simple measurement of what they can put out. Your worth isn’t tied to your productivity, or the amount of capital you have. Those factors might affect your total worth, but capitalism would have you believe that these are the only metrics that matter. Creative activity has been a staple of humanity throughout history, and it’s now a job where you can produce something that has some semblance of soul attached to it.
So when it comes to replacing artists with AI, there’s the offense that companies are trying to stifle what artists can get work by replacing them with versions that are mimicry, at best. I’ve seen fantastic works of AI art, but every single instance of it used by companies is replacing a creative human job for the sake of saving costs.
But AI doesn’t do a good job at most things. It has a terrible record of answering questions accurately, self-driving technology isn’t yet to the point where it’s been deemed safe, and we don’t have robots at the point where they can replace a human doing something as simple as stocking shelves. But what it can do, really well, is imitate art, whether it’s drawing, or vocal performances, or to an extent physical performances. People are worried about artists because those are the jobs affected right now. But the minute those other jobs are able to be automated away in a cost-effective manner, you’ll see people pissed about that, too.