LazyBoy

Bloody hell Glen, sorry to hear about the insomnia. My brother used to have it bad, all I can recommend is no screens after 9, and plenty of exercise and books. Anyway appreciate the effort above, I'll fill some details in closer to the time.

Bought it. Its fucking great. Combat is good, and yes the story/characters/setting are the stars of the show, but shout out to the pacing as well. Every chamber feels like it could give you the opportunity to make this the run where it all comes together. Beat the first boss with the spear, going back to do it with sword now.

Just watched 25 minutes of gameplay from this, and was not impressed. Not really a lot of gameplay to impressed with - lots of talking, exposition, slow following of NPCs - but very little 'game'. Is that intentional - is this supposed to be more of a 'choose your own adventure' thing?

Got through Abzu in a sitting, and was more than a little disappointed, which considering I'm a big scuba diver and lover of animals is quite the condemnation. I get the Journey comparisons (which I loved), but Abzu comes out poorly in that comparison. For one Journey kept that mountain in the background throughout, visually indicating the ultimate goal of the titular journey. Abzu (maybe by fault of its concept) lacks this, and thus the story is a rather directionless progress through a series of rooms. This has a knock on effect for the music as well, which in Journey felt like a grand movement, broken only by planned lulls in the emotional narrative. In Abzu this is instead subject to the need for loading screens, and thus never really takes hold. Nice try though - bonus points for the whale sharks.

Saw Kajillionaire last night at our local indie cinema. Brief synopsis - black comedy about a mal-adjusted 26-old girl who has been bought up by piece-of-shit parents to be a thief/con-artist, and is suddenly forced into a relationship with a bubbly outsider. Really enjoyable little indie movie, with no fat on it whatsoever. Some great performances, genuinely unique, well worth your time. Only a dozen people in a 150 seater screen though. I really do fear for cinemas, hopefully some of the good ones make it through.

Is this worth the EUR25 then? At first sight I thought "ah, just another indie roguelike", but people are really hyping this up. How deep is the combat system?

Just finished the Norse God of War game. Not going to do a full review, people know all about it by now, and if you don't Mark Brown and Matthewmatosis do a far better job talking about the game then I ever could. Would like to pick out a couple things though. As anyone who has seen my posts on this forum will know, story pretty much ranks bottom of my list for things I give a shit about in a video game. This is not because I don't like strong narratives - I'm an avid reader and movie fan after all - but most games fail to (or most times don't even bother to) present the narrative in a way that takes advantage of the strengths of the medium. As such I have lost all patience for cut scenes in recent years (ruined Death Stranding for me), and even semi-interactable exposition scenes, the likes of which Half Life made famous, have started to grate on me now. And yet weirdly I found GoWs story carrying me through the game. To be clear I love the core combat system, even if I felt I had mastered it a little to too quickly. But the open world didn't work for me, the side quests were uninspiring and the pacing of the game really started to take the piss in the way it just kept coming up with different reasons why you couldn't move forward. And yet I really wanted to see what happened in the end. Kratos is a brilliant Avatar for my gamer rage, and the fact the whole game works as a single shot really reinforces that bond with him. That stupendous first scene when Baldur turns up was all I needed to get into the game and get my blood pumping. Then suddenly you got giant serpents and turtle houses and I'm sold. The kid had a real chance of being annoying but he had both a true gameplay value, and served as a clever exposition point (I especially liked how he would indicate when might be a good point to do sidequests, just like a hyperactive child might do). The dialogue was on the whole well written too - particular shout out to the arc of Kratos's poor story telling culminating in the tale of why he called the kid Atreus. Anyway good work all around. I want a sequel.

It needs saying again - the effort Sakurai's team continues to put in is unmatched. To go to those lengths to create a moveset with reflects the guest's game so well is incredible. The character looks very Pacman - you'll spend a lot of the match buying yourself time. I'm thinking Falcon as a counter - just rush them down, or one of the Link's and just keep the pressure on from a distance. Anyway, very excited to play him. I imagine the character will be a regular on the Yeet smash videos.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention - keep us updated!

Just finished 'Girl, Women, Other' by Bernadine Evaristo as part of my book club. Won the Booker Prize last year, and works more as a series of short stories (though there is a loose narrative thread) covering the black/female experience in Britain over the past 100 years by following a large number of characters. Whilst some of the stories were fairly fresh and drawn from perspectives I didn't expect, the majority were unsurprising and didn't tell me anything I couldn't of guessed with a decent amount of empathy and cultural analysis. What I will say is that the prose was beautiful, written semi-poetically and with a real eye to building and maintaining tempo. I ended up flying through the book in 2-3 sessions, which is not bad considering it runs to over 400 pages. Recommend if you don't need much of a plot from your books. As a complete change of direction I have now started 'The Power Broker' by Robert Caro. Won the Pulitzer in 1974, and is a gargantuan analysis of power as told though the story of Robert Moses, who pretty much ran New York in the 60s plus change. Loving it so far, but I imagine I will be reading it for a while.

I'll need a week before I can comment on United. Turned off after 3 cause I knew where it was going, and I didn't want to bring the inevitable rage into my house. Went for a walk.

There's a free version with ads on mobile - otherwise about 4 euros on steam or add free on mobile.

I'm hoping the next reveal is Sakurai himself. Not animated either - photorealistic like the first Mortal Kombat game. A hideous visual clash.

Ping me when you're good to go

I would say I can't believe the negativity, but it is the internet, and gamers are a spoilt bunch. Is there any reasonable objection to this apart from "but I wanted MY favourite character"? Is Minecraft a substantial part of video game history? Of course On a Nintendo platform? Far more than Cloud ever was A valuable addition to the actual game? Well the block placing thing looks truly unique, so yes. So what's the problem?

Great fun last night. We'd probably need minimum 7 to have 2 imposters, so lets ask around

Starting up now if anyone wants to join last minute

I think the answer will be using 'Push to talk' if possible, and only using it on meetings.

Here's a discord link so we can voice chat: https://discord.gg/uHTX45

Solskjaer's whole thing is high energy - its a simple tactical philosophy, but that doesn't invalidate it in anyway. You have better players than the opponent, so work harder than them and you should win. Problem is we are fecking exhausted, something that is mirrored by others team around Europe at the moment who have played lots of games - Munich and City being standouts. We haven't got the quality in depth to rotate, so we're kind of screwed. The solution would be having a strong transfer window, with more purchases like VDB who we can rotate in to give players a rest - for example Pogba has been full garbage since the start of the season, but he shouldn't be playing anyway (he's just recovered from Corona). Problem is the Glazers are in full on skimp mode, like they were for the 8 years after they bought the club. They probably think they don't have to spend anything - we got 4th last year so just do it again with the same players. That's incredibly stupid, but by the looks of thing the children of Malcolm are typical rich kids - useless a c**k flavored lollipop.

Right people we need numbers. Tomorrow (29/9) 19:30 - 20:30 GMT we'll be playing Among Us, which is basically Mafia/Warewolf, but digitized. I've never played it before so don't be afraid if you are a noob. Confirm to me here or in the Among Us thread (linked above) if you would like to join.

Tomorrow (29/9) 19:30 - 20:30 GMT. First time for me as well but it looks simple. Confirmed: LazyBoy @Sheikah @Rummy @Vileplume2000 @Nicktendo @Zell

I'm GMT+1, so 19:30 - 20:30 GMT? That work?

Yeah Cantona is me. Started well then got shit very quickly.

Tuesday evening?