crispy4000

Blacksad: Under the Skin on GOG.com WWW.GOG.COM A dark corruption scandal in the heart of the New York City's underworld for charismatic

You mean Blizzard Albany? The Blizzard support studio?

The staff numbers are hugely telling about what type of operation Microsoft is running now. No one should have any illusions about them being disadvantaged anymore.

I like the idea of many people in a settlement giving you vague clues to a side quest rather than quest markers and explicit directions. I'd want to hear rumors about something mysterious happening in the woods up there. Then piece together what actually happened myself.

Repeats (?) next week, F.I.S.T. and Turnip Boy.

Designing a game so that people who will use Youtube could use it a bit less is counterintuitive. That's the type of FOMO I wish developers would ignore. Also, if a game feels empty unless you turn over every box for secrets, that's on the developers. Because modern games generally don't do a great job building side quest NPCs into memorable characters. In their location, in presentation, or in personality. This is the way, IMO. Don't hand hold the player. Instead, make us think a quest-associated NPC is notable when you find them.

Christmas season starts pre-Haloween because stragglers don't practice enough to get it together otherwise. - signed, piano teacher

I don't buy consoles based on where the games are cheapest. But I'll buy much less on a system if what I'm interested in never drops below $40. Nintendo's lost a lot of business from me this gen. Not that they care. In any case, I'd own more switch controllers by now and maybe a dozen more of their games if they weren't so arrogant.

I'm sure I'd love it enough to miss it when its gone soon enough, so I'd rather not.

Yep, I'll take that as a compliment. Nintendo has lost me on their multiplayer games since going paid online. I've only ever subscribed for the vouchers, for ToTK and Pikmin 4.

Goes live in 10 min from this post.

For brand new games, two for $90 is actually a stellar deal. Especially when new PS5/SeriesX games go for $70 apiece. What he’s not mentioning is the Nintendo online subscription, which will run you back another $5 or so if you buy them in the same month.

I feel like it’s more carrot on a stick oriented today generally than hard-to-find, rewarding secrets. Go chase that map icon, after all, a FAQ won’t spoil that for you. Go talk to the character with the ? or ! symbol above their head for a side thing, that probably will reward you with money and some needless shit, but you’ll be helping the people! Oh hey, check out at that land feature we’ve designed by committee to have an utterly benign reward that won’t put you at too much of an advantage, because it wouldn’t be fair to the players that missed it. Don’t forget to play dress up with all the cosmetic options we have for you, go exchange your tokens for that! I’ve enjoyed several games that have done some variation of this. But it really is getting tiresome seeing so many AAA games go down this route. The obsession with cosmetics and granular loot upgrades as a motivator needs to be dialed back.

Just another thought: I long for that time when side quests were more secrets than handholdy, directed quest lines. That change probably came about because designers just thought everyone would just look up YouTube tutorials anyways. They wouldn’t be wrong… but something is lost for those who just want to be surprised about something tucked away under some perspective hidden passageway.

Decided to close submissions at the end of this month.

More FFXVI, wow this game is great. I’ve finally pegged it. This has all the marks of what I expected, but didn’t quite get, from Dragon’s Dogma. Plus the crazy high Final Fantasy production values. There’s some big faults to the lip sync that keep it from feeling super polished. But if this wasn’t a game from a major franchise, I’d be here rooting for it as one of the secret best games of the year, at least from what I’ve played so far.

Mario Wonder and RPG are probably the closest to me caving. But I don't feel the need to buy new releases for the rest of this year, short of some crazy Black Friday deals. The backlog of games I fully intend to play is too large. I could see FFXVI and Pikmin 4 alone taking me through the end of the year. Maybe I'll throw Miles Morales and Ori 2 into the mix if I can. FF7R Part 2 is only 4 months away too...

More FFXVI, game continues to impress me. Also playing NSMB Wii occasionally when the kiddo is up. Appreciating what I already have and whatnot. It's not bad, certainly better than NSMB2 on 3DS which I dropped early out of ambivalence.

Save 100% on CRYPTARK on Steam STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM Cryptark is a 2D sci-fi shooter where you take on the role of a heavily armed privateer seeking to earn government contracts by boarding deadly alien space-hulks. It's up to you to strategize a plan of attack, pick an equipment loadout, and destroy the central core to be victorious.

The Evil Within 2 is free next week as well, if you missed it prior giveaways.

Skull Island: Rise of Kong Review - IGN WWW.IGN.COM A boring, buggy, totally unambitious game that isn't even interesting in its failures.

Do not look away, you witness a king’s revival, and the birth of his new world.

That part takes like 5 minutes max. Its the voting that can be a longer ordeal, but how long depends on the size of your list.

I'll leave the voting open for a little while yet, since I know some interested parties haven't finished voting yet. @stepee for one