Let’s hope we get an appropriate amount of rain tomorrow, because this sprint was just an echo of last year’s race here. You’d think it should be easy to overtake here but in reality it isn’t. Good lord I hope the next regs will be better for longer.

That Red Bull is a rocket on the straights, not much downforce on that set-up I bet.

I’ve been considering doing that. Which one are you using?

Hope you’re all well, and enjoying gaming lately. Again, all apologies for my absence from Lemmy lately :)

I do miss you and your content dearly but please don’t apologise for looking after your health!

It’s my favourite meme community by a mile, something about it just gets to me.

Please let us have a race tomorrow and not a runback of the 2021 fiasco 🙏

That… makes a lot of sense.

Great read. Curious that he didn’t bring up Alan Wake 2, I felt like that was an absolutely amazing looking game. Though I’m no HDR expert so maybe I’m not seeing something.

No problem, I love to espouse my opinions as I’m sure you can tell and I love talking about games in general. I especially love getting to recommend great games to other people, I get such second hand enjoyment from it every time.

To circle back to the very start of this conversation: I did eventually cave today and started NG+ of Mandragora. It’s so much more enjoyable than grinding out the last couple of areas of Blasphemous. Though now I worry my lack of discipline will lead to me never coming back and finishing it.

Very curious to hear your thoughts on Clair Obscur, for me it was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had the past decade or so. It won’t beat Disco Elysium as my favourite game of all time, but it might well make a strong case for the number two spot.

Clair Obscur has active combat elements injected into turn based combat. Attacks require QTEs to pull off successfully and most importantly - enemy attacks can be dodged or parried in real time. It feels much more like playing Dark Souls than a traditional turn based game. The gameplay designer uses to be a Sekiro speedrunner, and it shows. I will again almost insist on you giving it a chance, it’s very rare for games to come around that are works of art in this manner.

For what it’s worth: I don’t think BG3 is as good or as important to play. I think BG3 has a lot of flaws and doesn’t deserve the hype of “best game of all time”. It’s a fun game to play, but that’s it. It’s writing is “okay for a videogame” territory, but nothing more. It also falls apart in the third act in several ways.

Clair Obscur does imo deserve the hype. It is gaming as an artform in a manner that’s rare to see in a AA+ budget format. It also has a very strong prologue, which should fairly easily fit under Steam’s refund window. I suggest giving it a shot.

That’s a really fun story. I had no idea Bearman was dating a swede!

Any time!

I think - beside the DLC - the two things that are most hidden and most likely to be missed by a natural first playthrough are The Great Hollow and the Painted World of Ariamis, so feel free to look those up if you haven’t found them after you’re satisfied poking around on your own. But yeah as you’ve noticed the game is absolutely chock full of secrets.

Do make sure you get to the DLC too, it’s got some great content, as well as the most fun bosses in DS1 - with one of them being an absolute icon. Still won’t be very challenging compared to Elden Ring, but a step up from the base game.

For another indie game you might not have heard about Skald: Against the Black Priory was a surprise hit with me when I played it earlier this year. Cool story and world building, very concise and conscious of its budget limits so smaller in scope, probably a 16-20h game with no filler and no grinding. I liked it a lot, and it should play great on the Steam Deck too. Sort of a tribute to retro CRPGs but without the clunk of those old games. Combat was simple but fun, not overly complex. Beautiful pixel art, especially the splash screens.

I am way less high on Ghost of Tsushima than most people. I would never even consider a second playthrough. The game is way too long for what it is, which is essentially just a more polished garden variety Ubisoft open world game. There is not enough variety in it to sustain a what - 60h playthrough? The quest design isn’t interesting or varied enough and most importantly: the writing isn’t varied enough. You can’t have 60 hours of dialogue delivered in only a stoic, dour monotone. 15 minutes of Kenji spread over a handful of moments isn’t enough to break it up. Anyway, rant over.

Okay what else… Well, Blue Prince came out this year and is a contender for Indie of the Year - maybe even a potential Game of the Year nomination. I liked it a lot, a puzzle roguelite is an interesting concept and if you like note taking and screenshotting and escape room type puzzles you’ll have a good time with I think.

Otherwise I won’t be the first you see of this if you’ve been scouring these threads, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is almost a shoe-in for game of the year and the hype is most certainly deserved. Any gamer should do themselves a favour and experience it, not least to be able to participate in the zeitgeist.

I agree, but it’s what usually gets dredged up when this topic resurfaces every now and then.

I’m glad you’re having a blast with it, DS1 might still be my favourite From game even though I realise nostalgia plays a huge part of course.

Just a warning for when you get closer to the end: Dark Souls 1 has a ton of hidden content that you’re extremely unlikely to find on your own. You might want to look some of it up, because it does in fact include the DLC. Yes that’s right, From sold you a paid DLC and hid the entry to it in a way most people would never stumble upon on their own.

Oh, I haven’t played PoE in about that long too, I think. I used to play the temporary Hardcore leagues back when it was new, but eventually the feature creep started to get to me. Which also meant that getting back into it later felt like such a daunting task I never did. And then by the time PoE2 came out last year I was kind of over the Diablo-style ARPGs

I gave up on the game after a few days since without a proper story, the grind got boring very quickly.

Yeah, I couldn’t tell you what the story was either beyond being exiled on an island. I also have felt that in my older age I’m gravitating more towards medium-length games with a proper story that you can finish and put away, as opposed to the endless MMOs and grindy ARPGs I enjoyed in my youth.

It really felt like they were pressured into making it open world or something. I’ve said before that it’s a really good, cinematic action game that is stapled to an average open world backdrop, and the two halves work more against eachother than they work together.

If you can stomach the ludonarrative dissonance and maintain your suspension of disbelief though it’s a really good game at this point.

Few things are as satisfying as unlocking shortcuts during your first blind playthrough of Dark Souls. Kicking that ladder the first time, all those moments of “…wait this goes there?”, climbing back up into Firelink from the depths of Blighttown, having your buddy tell you about The Great Hollow and having your mind blown… It’s just a magical experience.

I get why people start with Elden Ring, but I wish more would just do DS1 first. If this is your first soulslike even the bosses will feel epic, but they really aren’t much compared to what the later games offer. Even the DLC bosses aren’t too bad, though one of them is truly iconic.

"So I think the sport, as we’re now in the budget cap era, has moved on to where we’re trying to have 10 independent teams from a sporting, from a political, from a technical point of view.

“I think they [Red Bull] are very much playing by the rules. I have an issue with the rules - and believe the FIA needs to address this.”

I mean, I agree with Zak. It’s a weird situation since I guess you can’t legally force Red Bull to sell Racing Bulls, but them having two teams on the grid is really not a great look for the sport regardless of how you slice it, unless you think they deserve it for saving the Faenza operations.