Darryk

Watched Immaculate and quite enjoyed it. Wouldn't call it a good movie but it's a decent movie but it was a decent horror movie and well, it's hard to find those nowadays so I'll take it.

Would Man U fans accept the kind of football that Tuchel teams play?

Gutted for Coventry. That offside decision was crazy harsh.

I was really hoping Klopp would get his fairytale ending.

99% of rockets shot down. Thank God for the IDF and their allies UK, Jordan (didn't expect that) and the United States — the greatest nation in the history of humanity.

Really hope it ends here and that Israel doesn't retaliate. I support Israel's right to defend itself but I don't want WWIII.

Dier said Ange doesn't do tactical work in training and it shows. Pass pass pass pass pass pass lose ball get counterattacked concede. Then to rub salt in the wound we're shit at set pieces. We've been figured out and will struggle top be midtable next season.

I considered Van de Ven our best player until today, but to be fair to him he's getting horribly exposed by Newcastle's brilliant counter-attacks.

I love Son but playing him deep is an exceptionally dumb idea.

Just now, House Cambodia said:

Been doing so well this season. Got found out?

I think teams figured us out in 2024 and we've been mostly riding our luck.

I find all the points made interesting. I do intend to play BG3 again when I get a better GFX card.

It's so easy for teams to tactically outclass us.

I'm really going over it in my head and trying to figure out what makes Baldur's Gate 3 so unique and special that people are reacting to it the way they are.

Looking at what I consider to be some of the most important characteristics of RPGs I can't find a single one where there's not another or many other games that are equal or superior to BG3.

For example:

• Length: It's one of the shortest RPGs I've ever played. Looking back, it doesn't feel like much really happened in it. Compare that to epic, globe spanning adventures like The Witcher 3.
• Exploration: The game's very linear and you don't actually get to visit that many locations. Compare that to the open-ended exploration of The Witcher 3, Mass Effect, and Baldur's Gate 1; and the rich variety of locations you visit in Baldur's Gate 2.
• Combat: It's fine. If you really like turn-based combat then year BG3 is the one for you but I think most people don't care whether it's turn-based or real-time, so long as it's fun and tactical.
• Characters: This is purely subjective. Lots of RPGs have great characters and if you think BG3 has the best then that's fine but you can't say it's objectively the best. Personally I found the Mass Effect 2 cast far more compelling.
• Character relations: Same as above. Most of the best RPGs have character romances and relationships. The interactions between characters in Mass Effect are every bit as cinematic as in Baldur's Gate 3. Sure, BG3 has some great moments like Wyl's dance, but so do all the other games mentioned.
• Story: Maybe this is harsh but I actually think BG3 is one of the worst in this category. Found the plot completely underwhelming. So you've got to save the city from a big eye. Whoop de doo. Compare that to the apocalyptical threats in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and the numerous sacrifices you have to make to win those battles.

So, that's my take on it. Ultimately I think BG3 is just a well-executed mishmash of stuff we've already seen plenty of in previous RPGs.

I'd like to hear the BG3 fans' takes on what it is makes the game so special and unique as to warrant the hype and accolades it's received.

20 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

So I’m accused of having recency bias, dare I say you guys who are naming all these decades old ancient RPGs are suffering from rose tinted nostalgia glasses ? 

The Witcher III is a recent game (at least for oldies like me) and I'd include it in my top 5. Significantly superior to Baldur's Gate III IMO.

10 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

BG3 is not just game of 2023 but also the best RPG ever made from a genre perspective (TW3 has better writing overall tho) 

IMO it's not even the best Baldurs Gate game but each to their own etc

I found it mostly intriguing.

Really like the premise and most of the scenes involving the aliens.

Found some of the characters really lacking in personality though. Loved Benedict Wong's cop and Liam Cunningham's character, but Auggie just had the same miserable expression on her face throughout the whole series.

Thought there was a lot of repetitive dialogue as well.

It has piqued my interest in reading the book.

Have any of the PS5 owners played Stellar Blade yet? There's a lot of talk about how...well drawn the main character is.

On 4/9/2024 at 2:41 AM, Poobah said:

Some people I know were picking out favourite game releases of each year of their lives (I didn't quite go back all the way though, had nothing for the first few years), it was pretty fun to research though I'm sure there were many more that weren't included in the various lists and wikipedia articles as they get increasingly barebones as they go back. Interesting how packed some years are (I had to pare down the list of honourable mentioned in some years a whole bunch) where in others I struggled to even find one game that I'd played and enjoyed enough to consider. Anyway I thought I would share it here for ya'll to judge and perhaps inspire some discussion/consideration of your own.

The rules I went by were that I had to have played it, and I would use the date that a game hit 1.0 if it was an early access style title, I would consider the games "as finished" in the case of games that got expansions/dlc/patches, and in the awkward transitional period where I was old enough to be buying my own games but where we still had these staggered regional releases I decided to use the UK date since that'd be when I actually got my hands on the game. Honourable mentions/runners up in brackets.

1991: Civilization (Sonic the Hedgehog)
1992: Ecco the Dolphin
1993: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the version I played was the GBC re-release but I decided to put it here (Doom)
1994: Final Fantasy VI
1995: Dark Forces (Rayman, Command & Conquer, Phantom 2040, Comix Zone)
1996: Quake (Super Mario 64 wins if I hadn't gone Uk release dates)
1997: Goldeneye 64 - a hell of a tough year but I played many of these later on whereas I don't think anything came close to the excitement I had at getting my N64 and Goldeneye which was quite close to when they actually came out (Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Final Fantasy VII, Ultima Online, Super Mario 64, Blast Corps, a bunch more)
1998: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Half-Life, Banjo-Kazooie)
1999: Pokemon Red & Blue (X:Beyond the Frontier Rollercoaster Tycoon, Rogue Squadron)
2000: Diablo II (The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Dragon Warrior Monsters, Pokemon Snap)
2001: Halo: Combat Evolved (FF IX, Max Payne, Pokemon Gold/Silver, Banjo-Tooie)
2002: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Neverwinter Nights, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 & quite a few others, what a year.)
2003: Metroid Prime (Wind Waker, Knights of the Old Republic, Max Payne 2)
2004: Half Life 2 (Halo 2)
2005: Guild Wars
2006: Nothing I like enough to include, Oblivion if I have to name something I guess
2007: Portal
2008: X3:Terran Conflict
2009: Borderlands (Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, Braid, Torchlight)
2010: Civilization V (Mass Effect 2, VVVVVV, Starcraft 2, Super Meat Boy)
2011: Minecraft (Portal 2, Skyrim, Bastion, Terraria)
2012: Guild Wars 2 (XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Thomas Was Alone, Borderlands 2, FTL:Faster Than Light)
2013: Path of Exile (Paper Please, Rogue Legacy, The Stanley Parable)
2014: Transistor (Divinity: Original Sin)
2015: Undertale. (Ori & The Blind Forest)
2016: XCOM2 & Stellaris tied (DOOM, Enter The Gungeon)
2017: Divinity: Original Sin 2 (Slime Rancher, Hollow Knight)
2018: Celeste (Into The Breach)
2019: Slay The Spire (Disco Elysium)
2020: Hades (Monster Train, Doom Eternal)
2021:  Lots on the "to play" list but nothing yet good enough that I've played
2022: Same as 2021
2023: Baldur's Gate 3

It's interesting how while my tastes have changed over time in some ways, they have stayed relatively the same in others, and while some of these picks are retrospective it's still possible to see a bit of a progression. I enjoyed shooty games a lot more when I was younger, but the seeds of my enjoyment of strategy and management games were sown early, and over time I've grown more and more interested in indie games and spurned AAA developers, as well as console gaming in general. I was mostly a Nintendo kid, though I had a Playstation and later got an XBox too as we can see with the inclusion of the first two Halo games as well as the two good (great!) Max Payne games in the honourable mentions.

1995: Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness

1996: Mario 64

1997: Goldeneye

1998: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
(This was an absolute banger of a year, probably on of the best in the history of gaming)

2000: Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn

2001: Baldurs Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

2002: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

2003: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

2004: Half-life 2

2005: Civilization IV

2006: Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

2007: Mass Effect

2008: Far Cry 2

2009: Dragon Age: Origins

2010: Mass Effect 2 (very close between this and StarCraft 2)

2011: Elder Scrolls Skyrim

2012: Dishonored

2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition

2015: The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

2016: Dishonored 2

Nothing really stands out for me after these years.

I forgot that was Ridley Scott. Definitely one of his better ones.

Feels like he makes 12 films a decade and most of them are meh.

You guys are on the ball with those thread title changes.

Well done to whoever changed the title

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

They were often works of art on their own! It was one of the things I used to really look forward to when opening a game, that and the map. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Lucasfilm games) had an amazing notebook that comes with it.

On a side note, I used to keep my Baldurs Gate 2 guide book that I bought and I would just randomly read bits of it for fun, reading through character bios and stuff was really interesting. I probably read it more than I played the game.

My favourites were the manuals for Blizzard games. I remember the Warcraft 2 manual had a description of each clan and I was obsessed with it.

2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Were the tutorials and manuals that much better in the good ol days ? 

Manuals were certainly a lot more fun. They had descriptions and art work and stuff, but you didn't really need them to figure out how to play the game.

Ironically Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were easier to learn despite being based on 2nd Edition D&D which was much more complicated. A friend of mine who never played D&D and hardly played games got hooked on Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, and to me that's a testament to how user-friendly those games were despite being quite complex under the surface.

16 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Sounds about right. All my friends who're in their 20s mostly play Minecraft, Fortnite, Warframe, Dota, or Apex Legends. It's rare among them to get them to touch anything single player, with the only recent exception being Cyberpunk 2077, which they explored due to word of mouth having been very good. Only a few of them have played the games that are my personal crack - Pillars of Eternity 1/2, Baldur's Gate 1-3, Pentiment, Solasta, CP77, etc. 

Yeah I can't convince my nephew (13 years old) to play any single player games except Mario. It makes me sad.

So many layoffs in the video game industry.

My brother at Blizzard Entertainment got a notification that his boss' boss wanted to meet with him and assumed it was to lay him off. Turned out his boss' boss just wanted to tell him in person that his boss had been laid off. 

Going by what affected us as kids, The Neverending Story scared the crap out of me.

Ridiculous offside decision. I thought it was supposed to favour the attacking side.