DoctorEncore

Had to revive the thread to say that Walter Hill is making another Western and it has a strong cast. As I said before, I think most of Hill's films are pretty bad, but he has experience with the genre and a few certified hits under his belt. Despite most of his recent output being terrible, I'm still cautiously optimistic. Also, if you like Westerns, I highly recommend the limited series Godless starring Jeff Daniels on Netlix. It's superb and very under the radar. Probably one of the best series of the streaming era.

I'd be all over this game if they released a remaster. It sounds like the PC port is decent, although I don't game there much. Thoughts so far?

Yeah, that sounds very similar to what I'm doing. It feels like pure offense is better than a balanced or defensive approach. As for content, the game is absolutely loaded. I don't have the DLC, but the sheer amount of stuff in the base game is almost overwhelming. I can see why it ranks so high on so many lists.

I loved Tropical Freeze, but I just don't see myself busting out the Wii or 3DS to play DKCR. Here's hoping Nintendo remasters it and puts it on Switch. I've been really into Rogue-lites after playing Returnal, so I've been spending most of my nights with Dead Cells. That game is fantastic but really hard. I'm constantly getting better and unlocking items, but it's so easy to lose a 30 minute run with one mistake. I can see why people love it, but I don't think I'll play it enough to master. I've seen almost every level and was able to finish one run using the Gotta Go Fast aspect with a Nail, Ice, traps, and a focus on damage/Brutality for upgrades and mutations. For me, that's definitely the easiest way to play. I don't find the shields very effective or fun. Anybody else spend much time with Dead Cells?

Oh man, we had a couple of these. They were terrible! Haha.

Very cool thread. I love seeing all this oddball stuff. Pretty much the only resource for pricing is forums like this or maybe conventions and the occasional eBay sale. One notable item I have is a Timbuk2 Runner's Bag that was specially made for the release of Mirror's Edge. It was limited to 200 pieces, although it's surprisingly findable on the internet. Here is mine: And here's what it looks like (not my pics):

Thanks for the heads-up. I generally only collect NA versions of games, but I'll give it a look.

I would not recommend flattening them if they're already been unfolded and expanded. NES boxes can be finicky and you're probably more likely to cause damage than prevent it by flattening them. I'd just ship them in an extremely well padded box, like you would any collectible quality NES game.

I would pass. Settling on something with a plan to upgrade later just means even more time committed to the search. When I finally find that grail, I want to be done with it for good.

I thought Breaking Bad was good, but a bit overrated. In my opinion, Better Call Saul is the better show. I think Jimmy's journey is a lot more interesting than Walt's.

I knocked out a couple more indie games that were not on my backlog list in the 2022 thread. What Remains of Edith Finch (XSX) - 8/10 More of an interactive story than a true game, the tale of the ill-fated Finch family is an engaging and extremely well-crafted experience. You play as Edith Finch, a 17 year old girl returning to her childhood home after her mother's death. As Edith explores the ramshackle Finch manor, the player is transported into short gameplay vignettes which showcase the final, tragic moments of her family members' lives. Most of these short segments are interesting and feature inventive gameplay, although a few are overly simple, slightly lessening the impact of the strong ones. As you may expect, things do not wrap up neatly. In the final moments of the story, the player is left to ponder whether the family curse is a supernatural death sentence or simply a combination of mental illness, bad decision making, and worse luck. I'd highly recommend everyone give it a try, particularly if you already subscribe to Game Pass. This is videogame storytelling at its finest and will leave you with something to think about. Twelve Minutes (XSX & PC) - 6/10 Twelve Minutes is ostensibly a point & click adventure, although it does shake up the standard model with a heavier focus on dialog and character interaction. This is reflected by the presence of an A-list voice cast which includes James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe. Unfortunately, the presence of talented actors does little to save what quickly becomes a shallow, repetitive, and frustrating experience. The scope of the game is exceedingly small as the protagonist is trapped in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment comprised of 3 total screens for the duration. As seen in other "time loop" games (is this its own genre yet?), certain fatal mistakes reset you back to the beginning of the game's ten-minute loop (more on that later). As is par for the course, the player character retains memory of the events in previous loops, while inventory and other characters are reset. Having this information means you can speed through some portions of conversations, but if you want to test out new solutions to problems, you must repeat many of the actions you previously completed to setup that specific scenario. As you proceed through the story, this becomes mind-numbingly tedious. The puzzles are mostly logical, although there are many that require trial and error. This is not unusual for point and click games, but when you spend 8 minutes setting up a specific scenario only to select the wrong item or choose the wrong dialog option, it absolutely feels like punishment to set it all up again. The game would've benefited greatly from a quick save or checkpoint system; in fact, its exclusion feels like an attempt at artificially extending the length of a game light on content. As for the quality of the story, it's passable and there are a few strong twists to keep you hooked. As expected, the voice work is quite good. Overall, this feels like a game with a ton of potential and too small of a budget (or at least too little budget leftover after hiring the big name voice actors). So, why call the game Twelve Minutes, when the loop is ten minutes? To tell you that would spoil the game's biggest surprise. Instead, I'll just say that this game is for adventure game purists only and playing on a PC is a must. Anyone play either of these? Both are definitely interesting and I'd love to hear some other opinions.

I would argue that the second book is just as good as the first one and provides a fitting conclusion to the story. The quality drops off rapidly in the third novel and I just couldn't force myself to spend time on it. There's a very valid reason that Denis Villeneuve only wants to adapt the first two books.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm not really sure how he can maintain a profitable business based on the interaction you described, but somehow these types of people are out there.

I never played much of this one but I always thought it looked cool. I could definitely see it qualifying as a hidden gem. If the last two years are any indication, I'm sure @Reed Rothchild will have a new thread for 2023 ready on January 1st. These threads have definitely helped me to move my focus to playing rather than just collecting.

One of my all-time favorites. The second book is also excellent. I couldn't make it through the third, though.

I've got one pre-ordered, mostly because I like to collect these mini consoles. I doubt I'll get much playtime out of it.

Blemmyae! These are literally my favorite part of my entire collection. It took me a few years to gather them all, but it was worth it.

Agree to disagree. I do not think the game is particularly repetitive, unless you make it so. It sounds like you did a lot more side stuff than I did, which may be the reason you feel this way. As I explicitly noted in my write-up, bloat and repetition is a fair criticism of modern open world game design. However, that should only be a major critique if you are forced into the repetitive content by the mainline story or quests. When I play this type of game, I only do what I consider fun; being a completionist is masochistic in this scenario. This means that I often leave much of the map unexplored, but I'm okay with that. The goal of the game is to have fun, not fill in the blanks. Here is my map at the end of the game: For those unfamiliar with the UI, the dark red areas are locations that I explored and the bright red areas are unexplored. I uncovered less than 50% of the map and liberated less than 50% of enemy encampments. Had I explored the entire map, liberated every camp, and gotten every upgrade, I'm sure I would have felt the gameplay was repetitive. However the game is balanced perfectly so that you don't need to do extra content to see the credits roll. The game respects your time. It allows you to make the conscious decision to only pursue activities which you enjoy without punishing you. This is excellent game design. I think it is misleading and a disservice to potential players to levy repetition as a major criticism of this game. It is, in many ways, less repetitive than other open world games due to the variation in fighting styles and numerous sub-weapons, charms, and armor sets which allow you to change playstyle on the fly. The essence of fighting the Mongols may remain the same throughout the game, but battles at the end are quite different than they are at the beginning. It is a great game and deserves the many, many GOTY awards and nominations it received.

Not sure if joking or serious... The mainline quest in GoT is not something I would call repetitive and it still lasted longer than it took me to beat Returnal three times. That's not even counting the optional chararacter-specific quests and all of the Iki Island expansion, which are also quite good. You can completely ignore the repetitive stuff in GoT, but the repetitive stuff in Returnal is literally the whole game. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Returnal, but from a content perspective, Ghost of Tsushima blows it out of the water.

I've had a bunch of spare time lately as I transition to a new job, so I took advantage and knocked out quite a few games. Here's the skinny. Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut (PS5) Score: 9/10 This is easily one of the best open world games I've ever played and certainly the most beautiful. I truly did not expect to enjoy this game as much as I did, but the gorgeous environments, sweeping vistas, fantastic characters, and solid gameplay combine to create a truly unique experience. I mean, just look at that grass. It's amazing! Swordplay is a lot of fun and upgrades make clearing camps of nameless baddies quite satisfying. I also love that the map is kept to a reasonable size, fast travel is available from the start, and your horse is always ready to go. I'm all for things that make exploration and movement faster and more efficient. It suffers a bit from the usual open world bloat and the repetitive nature of its minor side quests, but that is easily overshadowed by the plethora of strong content. The story can be generic, but the characters are strong thanks to complicated motives and excellent performances from the actors. You really should experience this game for yourself, on PS5 if at all possible. Highly recommended. Returnal (PS5) Score: 8/10 At its heart, Returnal is a third-person action game with a Rogue-lite structure. That is, you always restart at the beginning of the game when you die, but you will carry some minimal progression between runs and if you progress far enough, will eventually start in a new area. Risk/benefit tradeoffs are everywhere and may cause a serious headache for those new to the genre. To those who've already spent a couple hundred hours in Binding of Isaac, you'll feel right at home. The gameplay is certainly the star of the show. Shooting and movement are intense and hectic, yet also poetic and balanced. When everything clicks and you're ziplining through the air while juggling alt-fire, consumables, and your primary weapon, the game becomes a magnificent symphony of destruction. There are also moments where you will feel completely outgunned, unprepared, and doomed almost immediately upon starting a run. Even with the occasional disaster run, the game generally feels balanced, so I never felt truly hopeless. It's tough, but I always knew I could find a better build that would help me power through, and I did. Even though I really enjoyed the game, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of content, slow progression, and limited upgrade variety. The game has 6 biomes which present some variation in the environment, but the use of preconstructed template rooms can be problematic. These familiar layouts are comforting and give you a strategic edge, but they get repetitive quickly. The weapons feel great and different "traits" are fun to explore, but some are objectively better than others and leveling them can be excruciatingly slow. Additionally, per-run upgrades can feel a little samey. There are a lot of different relics, but many of them are so similar that it feels difficult to customize your build. In theory, you can prioritize alt-fire, health, or melee, but there is a lot of overlap in all three. And since you have 15 slots for upgrades and five additional for parasites, most builds will be more generalized than specialized. After 15-20 hours, you'll probably start to feel a little burned out on the same weapons, environments, and enemies. Overall, I really enjoyed Returnal. It's a tough game, but mostly fair and very beatable (the final boss is actually a pushover). Given the lack of content, I think the developers probably should have targeted 20 hours for completion of weapon trait and alt-fire upgrades, but that's a relatively minor complaint. If you like 3D shooters and Rogue-lites, give this one a shot. The Artful Escape (XSX) - 8/10 This is more of an audio visual experience than a game, but it's got amazing artwork, great music, and a fun story. It's worth a playthrough if you're looking for something different and want to hold X to wail on your guitar. Death's Door (XSX) - 7/10 This is a decent indie isometric action game that fails to do anything exciting. The environments and enemies felt a little bland and the combat was not particularly fun. I'm very surprised about all the GOTY hype. In a world where Tunic exists, this game feels redundant (I know it came out first). Myst (XSX) - 7/10 I first attempted to play Myst about 30 years ago and I don't think I solved a single puzzle. Fast forward to 2021 and we've got a fancy new version to stump me. This update looks nice and I like how the environments inform the puzzles and vice versa. The quality of the actual puzzles varies greatly with a mix of enjoyable logic-based mysteries and some nonsensical headscratchers. The game relies a bit too much on obscuring the results of your actions or otherwise purposely withholding information to slow you down. Yeah, it's old school design, so I get it, but it can be frustrating. Still, I was able to solve all the mainline puzzles and finish with the bad Atrus ending without any guidebooks or help. However, I didn't want to spend several more hours re-exploring all the environments for a one minute cutscene so I just used a guide to finish up the good ending. Glad to say I've finally seen this one through to the end. BONUS: Myst-inspired artwork. I call it Ravings of a Mad Man. F that clockwork gear puzzle and rocket ship maze. A few games I wanted to play are leaving Game Pass soon, namely What Remains of Edith Finch and 12 Minutes, so I'll probably work on those next. Otherwise still just playing FFX and some co-op games with my son.

Looks like you'll be plenty busy after you finish the SNES rankings. You're officially a modern gamer. My favorites from your haul: Tomb Raider Definitive Edition Jedi Fallen Order Horizon Uncharted

Knocked out two big games over the past month: Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut and Returnal. GoT is one of the best open world games I've ever played and easily the most visually stunning. Returnal is great, although I think maybe a bit overhyped given the limited content and repetition. Look for my more detailed reviews in the Backlog 2022 thread.

Apparently so. This leads to major balance issues, but is super cool.

https://www.videogamesage.com/forums/topic/3584-docs-wide-world-of-gaming-picture-heavy-updated-may-25th/?do=findComment&comment=80450 Water heater expansion tank exploded on me. Unfortunately, the builders cheaped out (as they do) and didn't put a pressure regulator on the inflow from the city water. Over the course of a few years it slowly weakened the expansion tank and if finally blew. Thankfully I noticed it within seconds since I was brushing my son's teeth and the water pressure dropped immediately. There were a couple inches of standing water in the basement which caused a decent amount of damage to some semi-valuable items. Nothing that broke my heart though. So my advice: Get air conditioning and dehumidification set up down there before storing anything. Finish the basement as you standardly would. NEVER store anything on the ground. I'd recommend keeping everything at least 6-12 inches above ground. Get a water sensor/leak alarm Looking forward to seeing the project!

Wish I had more to contribute, but I'm 99% done with NES collecting. If there's ever a market crash, I'll be back to help though.