The Bard

There's a fine line between lame and actively infuriating, and I don't know what side the title of the game sits on. Just seems like a forceful attempt to be quirky. Hasn't "badass" made the list of adjectives that reached the tipping point five years ago and is now only used by middle aged businessmen in khakis to describe the putt they just made at the par five? Game itself looks fun though. Just call it Tembo.

Well that was a pretty good trailer, all things considered. Whoops.

Sure, and I was joking until @Shorty told me to take the tinfoil hat off, at which point I decided to superglue it to my head. Yup I'm super happy about it too, Fallout 3 was one of my favourite games last gen. But sometimes it's totally ok to laugh at ourselves.

Yes dude, but in a moment of self reflection it's possible to admit that something you love doing has things associated with it that are completely ridiculous. Every game of this size is going to wind up the advertising cycle to start with drip feeding us tiny dregs of information, and then get to the point where we're inundated with audiovisual trashheaps of screenshots, trailers, dev interviews and whatnot. Forgive my trespass; it's a little fucking ridiculous. E3 until very recently was the most absurd thing on the planet, where you were liable to run into a literal dog and pony show and were beset on all sides by women that had their tits hanging out for no reason. One year Capcom had a booth where you could go to get the company logo tattooed on yourself. Think about that for a moment; at something that's ostensibly supposed to be an industry event, you can go and get a corporate logo indelibly inscribed on your flesh. It takes a fair deal of hard headedness to deny that all of that is absurd.

It was fairly obviously a joke, but one at expense of the fact that the whole breadcrumb trail of teasers and teaser trailers is fucking ridiculous. Do you think there's going to be any worthwhile information in this trailer other than maybe where it's set and some basic gameplay details if you're lucky and only after vigilant observers have wrung the 20 seconds of fmv dry? There's something so ridiculous about all of us getting so hyped up about, yes, a commercial, that's going to offer the tiniest morsel of information. Especially ridiculous when they have the goddamn doomsday clock up online to count down to something they've obviously admitted to.

Yeah, people are getting excited about when a commercial will air. Capitalism squared!

I'd definitely say Triss. Finished her questline, shit got emotional. Keira's character model has some definite five o' clock shadow going. You trying to tell us something @Fierce_LiNk?

Cheeky Pulp Fiction reference in there that I saw coming a fucking mile off.

I'm enjoying the recurring Hamlet references. Jesus, I need a break: Just added another five hours. Guys I think I have a problem. If I don't post in the next 24 hours, someone come hammer down my door to make sure my retinas haven't been burned out from the screen glare.

That's awesome - especially like the strategic placement of Pinocchio's nose.

I'm on PC, but it's connected to my tv via a long ass HDMI cable. Seems way more something you want to play on your couch with a controller than quasimodo'd up all hunched in front of your monitor. I just like that it makes me feel genuine consequence for things I've done, often in small but incredibly convincing ways. I like the depiction of the world as a result of magic invading medieval Europe, where women are simultaneously some of the most powerful and abjected characters. I love reading the glossary and the books that I find lying around. I just feel convinced that world could exist, and cause and effect work there in a similar way to how they work here. Also it looks absolutely spectacular. For all the boasting Bioware did about choice being a fundamental component of the Mass Effect games, the way they went about it made it feel like an overblown caricature compared to the ease with which they do it here. My game boner is absolutely raging right now.

I know that ranking games is a bit trite. But the last week of playing this? Top three favourite games of all time with absolute ease. Cannot believe what they achieved with this.

Thanks man, after months of ruminating about it, that's single handedly made me feel so much better about it. Have no energy right now, but I'll hit you up for a chat soon as I get a handle on things.

@jayseven I feel for you man, it isn't even that bad for me - I can get by following my index finger across a page - and it's still absolutely terrifying. I'll try to get a referral, but I went to the gp and she told me to go to the optician. They couldn't find any nystigmus so the likelihood is that it's neurological. Could be myaesthenia, or Parkinson's from what I can tell. So could mean a lifetime of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors or l-dopa, with the side order of psychosis that it usually comes with. I'm hoping it's a simple deficiency of something. I know you read a lot, how're you dealing with wanting to read but not being able to? Will take you up on the drinking offer regardless!

So something weird's been happening with my eyes for the last few months where I'm having trouble moving them from side to side. I can't read properly, and have no idea what to do with myself all day. Doctors are literally the least knowledgeable people on the planet when it's not something you can figure out from sticking someone with a needle.

I'm being a shameful little shit and reading all the books and notes I find lying around for those tasty morsels of bullshit lore. It's actually remarkably well written so I don't feel that ashamed, but like, there's only so much zoological data you can read about fictional creatures before you feel your neckbeard growing in.

I bought this when it came out and I still haven't played it. Going to buy it obvs, so it can go unplayed until it's released for 4K pocket calculators thirteen years later.

On board with you on this though, one of the best rpgs I've ever played. Does the same thing Bloodborne did for action games, totally makes you revise the strategies you'd usually use in combat situations for games like this. Need to be so methodical, and think like a scavenger luring enemies into situations where you can inflict damage safely, use all your tools available and different ones for each enemy. Going into this after the last big RPG I played being Skyrim, it feels like the world doesn't just exist as a chain of quests designed to gratify my obsessive compulsion, but like an actual world. Obviously you run into the limits of the believability of that world in places, but its still better than any other game of its type so far. Big up mang, it's dope as fuck.

I got about ten hours in doing Blood and Broken Bones, until the quest with Keira. It just gets too demanding, especially when you're half an hour into a dungeon and your swords and armour break so you're chipping shavings off the enemies and they're taking ten minutes plus each to kill. So I pussed out and stuck it on normal. Legit can't wait for you to try Fallout 4 when it comes out. You're going to lose your shit.

I've got a couple of good replays saved, one of Nurburgring and one of Watkins Glen where I absolutely slew that shit. But I can't figure out how to upload 'em

This game has taken 40 hours of my life and I've done one campaign season. It's so so good.

I don't think my knowledge is acute enough at this point to even notice what those options would do. I do love setting the weather to thunderstorm and slipsliding a McLaren P1 around the azure coast (which I think is a fictional track?) The T80 looks super high end. I got this whole monstrosity

I know man I've kept as far from the genre as possible, but sometimes you try something new just for the fuck of it and it ends up being more fun than you ever thought it would be. It's the same with you and getting a PS4, and being able to try all those gaming goodies you never had access to before . I haven't tried something genuinely new to me for a long ass time so the novelty of this is tingling my giblets.

From the looks of it there'll be new tracks and cars free every month too. Just bought a fancy steering wheel as well. Really liking this, but it's also my first sim so I'm not going to have the worlds most informed opinion on how it compares to GT or Forza.

I'm teaching abroad for a month or so starting mid June, so I might be back just before the 25th, but I might also not. I'm definitely free any time in August though so that one gets my vote.