ROFL Never, good looking male butts are so rare in video games… I could never do that to Astarion, as I don’t find it particularly overwhelming. I see so many guys that have occasionally well-defined cheeks in pants, it’s a feature, not a bug. This was a Kinsey Scale 2 guy who was way too uncomfortable with how often his eyes drifted to Asatrion’s rear, as that digital man has a whole bakery.

I 100% did, as the weird torture porn-esque deaths bothered me. I could’ve played if that questionable design choice wasn’t made…

In first person, there is no issue playing a female lead for me. I just have an issue with the common thirst trap design which has been a default design choice in games. As a gay dude, I find that sort of objectification is gross (the same is true for lead men in games. Except in the games that’s the point).

Especially when the camera does that pan to that lady lead’s ass in third person…Its not the vibe I seek when playing a game. 🙃

Any game with a leading lady that is serving cunt without the objectification I can easily play. Bayonetta is an example of one such game, she’s a force of nature, it feels as if she has a strong sense of agency. She’s not been made just for the male gaze.

ROFL I never buy AAA games unless they are on sale, as they often come out broken and in need of patches…Any AAA games studio that hope for this are on a no-buy list by default. This is their way of saying they don’t want money for already mediocre offerings, they can have less sales as a result of being bitten by the greed goblin. I hope it hurts the bonuses of all those sleazy CEOs.

hurls a little in my mouth ROFL I hope not.

ROFL I guess these dudes want to live a power fantasy through Geralt instead of accepting the natural next step; since they are following the Witcher Books for the most part, Ciri was bound to be the lead character. I feel the Witcher 4 will be an excellent game, there’s interesting ground to cover with Ciri. The only bad thing will be if there is no first person mode, as I tend to avoid games with women as leads…I like to look at men from behind, not ladies. I hope the art team chose a design that doesn’t try to make her into a thirst trap (as that low-key makes me not want to play games with female leads).

Not on my end, but, I am on the lemmyNSFW instance. I can still see all the porn that I subscribed too.

Oof, yep this really does damage to my intention to buy his game more than ‘review bombing’ often you can tell if there is something fundamentally wrong with a game or not based on the actual content of reviews…Or if users are pushing for an adjustment. If there is a whisper of a trans or gay character in a game, there is so much pushback, so I don’t know what the fuck he is on about; Mahler is such a whiny snowflake, that probably needs to take his medication because his post history is looking a little sus. Like he unplugged from reality for a few minutes.

ROFL the more games go $80 to 90 dollars for a base game version, the more I wait for sales. 70 dollars was bad enough in my opinion, but this greed fueled jump is going to put off more potential buyers than it will bring in. It’s my genuine hope that this blows up in their face and will force them to price games reasonably again. Perhaps if the money they made in sales wasn’t mostly funneled into their overpaid CEOs and shareholders, perhaps they’d have more money to cover development costs and keep game prices stable. Sounds like a personal problem to me.

They were sued in 2019 by a Native American tribe over that, I haven’t heard much about the issue since. It’s likely they are merely being neutral in the situation now, as no one is throwing up a fuss. Still, it’s not cool behavior on the part of Valve.

I understand what you are trying to say, I feel like it’s not that old of a device in comparison to a Switch or Switch OLED. It’s still going to be a decent buy at the price point; I’m not overly worried about spending that much on a Steam Deck OLED. It wouldn’t take but a month of casual saving to afford a Steam Deck and given a lot of the games I buy are Deck Verified…It’s not a bad deal. This thing will likely be good enough for a few more years of play, particularly with indie games. Given that there is plenty of time for further consideration, I am leaning towards waiting for reviews of the Legion device I mentioned…On the off chance it is the better buy.

I’m probably going to get the middle tier of Steam Deck as it does provide a decent value; as I play a lot of farming sims and cozy games, the Steam Deck fills this purpose well for me. Better than my Switch ever could. I was also considering the Lenovo Legion Go S, but waiting for hardware and software reviews for that device is a smart move. As it could be an amazing device, or it could be fucking shit on launch.

Playtron can keep their GameOS, anything associated with Cryptocurrency is a hard pass. I remember a lot of cryptobros were financing the fuck out of Playtron. Naturally, this is a product I consider dead to me. I will buy a Steam Deck from Valve, as they aren’t actively trying to scam their potential user base with Crypto nonsense.

As I said: Nostalgia has me in a stranglehold, that’s the only reason why Oblivion Remastered was first on my list. I had a craving for Oblivion again; Clair Obscur being priced reasonably means I can buy it this payday! Though, I will finish Jedi: Survivor before starting a full playthrough of Clair Obscur.

I can’t wait…Though I got a backlog of games that currently are in progress, so I won’t be playing Clair Obscur immediately. Modern games are simply hit or miss, if it’s made by a big studio…Often it’s a blueprint of what’s trended a few years ago because games are so much bigger, it takes a while to make them.

I feel Indie devs have the most freedom to do something unique, interesting, and fresh without super long development times. I’ve been choosing to play cozy or indie games as of late because a lot of the mainstream games haven’t caught my attention too. Hell, right now I’m playing Oblivion Remastered, and it’s got me in a stranglehold of nostalgia. It’s basically the same game but with a prettier aesthetic (there are some graphical issues that need resolving due to the quirks of Unreal 5). Nothing that Bethesda would be able to produce today that’s a right mix of banal, goofy, lore heavy, and fun.

Yeah, when I was watching Valhalla I noticed the strangeness of the narrative…They did try something different, making each region a self-contained story. The pacing wasn’t terrible either, it’s just that they didn’t try hard enough to make certain areas of the game better. That’s what hurt Valhalla in my opinion, the wealth of very average writing; the fact they had smaller mysteries could’ve been awesome had it been better executed. Ironically, that’s similar to how Odyssey handles the cult; you don’t figure out the leader until the post game, after killing cultists who weren’t part of the main story. I feel Valhalla’s story structure was inspired by Odyssey, most regions have their own self-contained story that connects to the overarching story. Except Valhalla goes for smaller mysteries in place of the overwhelming amount of Side Quest that Odyssey has (still not finished with half of them, thankfully they can be done post game).

I feel the modern world story should be handled with a bit of care, to make that a particularly memorable experience. Going out with a bang is better than ending on a whimper. Walking sims aren’t bad in their own right, but Ubisoft wouldn’t let a writing and dev team handle it with the care it needs (not until they figure out why Larian Studios is so beloved).

That’s why I fault Ubisoft itself…The developer team is only as good as Ubisoft allows their devs to be. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a breakout hit, as that is an example of a dev team that is free from the oppressive weight of a corporation. I’m going to be buying Clair Obscur because I want to send a message that more games from their team would be appreciated!

AC Origins was a return to form for them, since the Brotherhood days (great story, glitchy climbing and parkour). They trusted that their main historical protagonist would thrive, so the story they told was solid. AC Odyssey had issues because they didn’t trust in Cassandra being the historical MC; Alexios felt like an added on character because they thought a female lead wouldn’t sell well. The more recent games were mid because the narratives felt kinda messy; I watched a play through of Valhalla in parts it wasn’t great, Mirage had a lukewarm response, and AC Shadows had some writing issues (two MCs go from having beef to suddenly trusting one another two hours in). Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed team has fallen asleep at the wheel, the storytelling isn’t quite up to snuff with the latest games.

I feel the modern world story should’ve been resolved, as it interferes with quasi historically accurate storyline (one can only approximate in these situations, we will never have the full truth as it’s lost to time). The modern world story has dragged on for far too long and needs to be put to rest; we need a game set purely in the modern era, to resolve what is happening. I’d love to see AC games that spin into exploring approximated history, without the burden of a world ending in slow-motion…

If only Ubisoft actually cared.

Larian Games is one of the few that actually care about their games enough to assemble a team for making coherent stories!

EA or Ubisoft could never, even though their bottom lines would be improved by making games with compelling stories.