Glad to see a publication pushing back on the recent asinine comments and behaviors from CI.

An early proposal for The Last of Us 2.

I’m new to this too, but the slide deck they have posted seems a good starting place.

The NGI is an initiative of the European Commission to fund “researchers, developers, startups, and SMEs” who are aligned with the “aim to shape the development and evolution of the Internet” according to the principles of:

• protecting personal data

• ensuring privacy and security

• combating disinformation

• guaranteeing access and freedom of choice

• respecting fundamental rights

• enforcing ethics and sustainability by design.

I’m a little less clear on what the 16 projects are (which are listed on slides 6 and 7), but I gather they might be specific objectives, defined by the NGI, within which their funding is categorized, e.g., if you’re doing research on democratizing search capabilities, that research would serve the NGI’s “Search” project and would qualify for funding.

I’m making a lot of assumptions but I’m reasonably confident in them.

Sorry, I meant that, having not played the game, I’m not sure how much observations like Curly’s inability to see the details are something the game tells you directly and how much is your interpretation. I guess I mostly meant that your framing of the story is really cool whether you’re just repeating the story beats as they’re given or mixing in a lot of your own analysis.

Thanks for writing this up, never heard of the game and this was really interesting. I’m not sure how much of your write-up is explicitly textual, but the analysis is really cool.

Is that a Trump “Tim Apple” reference? I wouldn’t have even noticed if you hadn’t called it out.

Many noted a striking similarity to the case of Savita Halappavanar, a 31-year-old woman who died of septic shock in 2012 after providers in Ireland refused to empty her uterus while she was miscarrying at 17 weeks. When she begged for care, a midwife told her, “This is a Catholic country.” The resulting investigation and public outcry galvanized the country to change its strict ban on abortion.

But in the wake of deaths related to abortion access in the United States, leaders who support restricting the right have not called for any reforms.

My country’s aptitude for remaining entirely unmoved by preventable tragedies that utterly upend political trajectories in other nations has become one of our most globally defining traits.

Video clip of the comment and aftermath during discussion (via twitter): https://x.com/Acyn/status/1851085909435039789

“Are you a supporter of Hamas?”

“Are you a racist, violent person inciting violence against me?”

So close to great. I wish more developers were making environmentally detailed, high production value, single player linear games like Callisto Protocol. Just that little bit better executed to round out the total package.

I played the demo up to the first couple battles just to get a taste of how that works. No question, I am very excited to get my hands on it. I’m generally a sub-$20 patient gamer, but this is one I’ll be getting sooner. I’ll still probably wait for the holiday season to see if it drops down at all because I’ve got plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.

I loved it. I’ve since also played 100+ hours of Elden Ring and some other challenge-heavy games like Hollow Knight - I’ve thought about going back to Bloodborne with some experience under my belt because it really is a great game. But for me it feels like a lot to start over (and as much as I hate to be an fps snob, they never released a next-gen update and playing a game like this in 30 fps is a turn-off).

If I may, I’d recommend starting with the Demon’s Souls remake if you’re interested. Bloodborne was the first Souls game I ever played, and it was quite punishing. I got quite far and greatly enjoyed parts of it, but it was my experience that it was extraordinarily challenging for a newcomer. Among all the Souls and Soulslike games, BloodBorne is intended to be played aggressively, which is not a good starting point in my opinion.

It was actually Returnal that taught me how to approach challenging games, i.e., almost like a puzzle game in how you try new things to break through impasses. That being said, I also found the Demon’s Souls remake to be a much more forgiving entry point, especially if you play as a magic caster. MP is limited so you still need to engage in melee, but magic is a powerful tool to play things safe if you play smartly.

It’s also just a fantastic game with great level design. I actually kind of like the segmented levels with a central hub.

I gotta vent a little about Jedi Survivor - I really did not enjoy it much at all and am surprised it was so critically lauded. The combat aims for souls-like but is way too twitchy and glitchy to make it feel fun and rewarding. I came out of 60% of combat encounters feeling bored, 20% feeling relieved that some erratic imbalance or technical tomfoolery didn’t make me repeat it, and 10% feeling frustrated for the same reason but on the other side.

The same core issues affected the bosses too. I didn’t feel like the game earned my dedication to “solving the puzzle” the way games like Elden Ring and Returnal do.

Exploration was mostly fine in a zone-out kind of way but grew quite stale by the end, being the same vertical platforms and grapple spots on every section of every world. And the story too was just too out of focus. The whole Tanalorr thing was a late first-act development completely divorced from the course of the opening, and there was never a clear or necessary enough idea of why they wanted to get there to justify it becoming a priority to drive the story.

I still like the characters, but I was desperate to be done by the time I was fighting a notable turn-of-the-second-act boss, whose appearance elicited an eyeroll rather than excitement. I set the game to story mode at that point and just rushed the ending.

While that was going on though, I did play Animal Well all the way through (“layer 1” anyway), and that was extraordinary fun.

Oh, I also tried out the Metaphor Refantazio demo and that feels incredibly promising, especially with the incredible reviews it’s getting today.

Fatal Frame has gotten lost to history a bit, but I remember those games having the reputation as being the scariest that games have ever gotten when they were new.

The turn-based with real-time elements reminds me of Sea of Stars and Shadow Hearts, which are both excellent titles in my mind for this game to associate itself with. Looks really flashy too with the menu, camera movement, and slowdown effects (hopefully that wouldn’t get old with too much repetition).

Same here. Loved the setting and style, and the story and characters were admirably close to (the good) 3rd-person bioware stuff.

I don’t usually pay full price for games, but I was thinking of buying Greedfall 2 near release to support what they do. This puts a real taint on things.

It’s worth mentioning that article is from 2020, around the time she had started pivoting from TERF-lite to TERF-MAX. It was…reasonably possible to assume at the time, for someone who wasn’t paying close attention, that her opinions were still rooted in misguided concern rather than open bigotry.

She had only just posted her manifesto a few months earlier, according to Vox’s helpful timeline, which reads reasonably if you’re unaware of the multitude of false and misleading claims she parrots.

Same, though interested is an understatement. Prey is one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. I enjoyed Weird West, but it left me feeling more like a POC of what the studio wants to do than anything up to the actual standards of Arkane’s best.

If WolfEye fills the void of Arkane’s deplorable closure, they’ll get all the support I can give.

Tried The Ascent because of just how slick it looked in the previews I saw. And you’re right, the atmosphere is great. But I have a low tolerance for the looter shooter format and I don’t play much online coop, so I got real bored of it real fast.

Where have you been for the past 3 months lol.

why would i vote?

The power of your vote isn’t affected by someone…commenting on it…so you’d still vote for whatever reason you had before you were told that. Being told that your vote would be wasted on, presumably, a third-party candidate is just practical commentary. If you find yourself dissuaded by that, you’re not being suppressed, you’re just…childishly impressionable. Please forgive the insult.