I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I relate to him but I do kind of like Harry. Yes, he’s not a regular “good person”, but he’s also much more complex than just a “bad guy”. He’s flawed, tragic and ultimately incredibly human. I think he’s a fantastic character, just like most characters in Disco Elysium.

Matrix still misses a ton of features to be a direct 1:1 Discord replacement. On top of that Fluxer has a familiar UI (it’s essentially just a Discord clone) and is simpler in onboarding (Matrix is still techy).

Federation and easy self hosting will be killer for sure. There is already a Discord migration bot and a Discord-Fluxer bridge bot I think. Future is looking hopeful.

Can’t wait until Fluxer is ready for full migration from Discord.

More buzz for Titanium Court huh? I am staying unspoiled so I can enjoy it later if it turns out as good as people say, but man I’ve heard so much talk about it lately.

Oh I am intimately familiar with Viva New Vegas and the general modding scene, I’ve spent probably several hundred hours over the years modding New Vegas. Hence my apprehension.

One the one hand F:NV is a broken mess that could seriously use a once-over… but one the other I shudder at the thought of all the mods this might break.

I think the BP parallels came from the combination of the art style, it being set in a vast mansion and a “daily energy” mechanic. I can definitely see it from the outside even though it seems like they play nothing alike.

I’m trying to keep myself unspoiled on Titanium Court as it’s getting such buzz about its writing and world building, but definitely curious. I liked the reveal trailer video though.

Definitely jump right in at Chaos Theory. One of the best stealth games ever, and actually maybe just games ever full stop. One of my favourite games at least, for sure. You may need to do some fixes if playing on PC, but it’s worth it - especially restoring EAX.

I don’t own a headset but my brother-in-law does and I’ve played some Pacific Drive VR at his place. It’s amazing, the game was meant for VR in my opinion. Would be even better with full native support of course so you could use your hands on the steering wheel and handbrake etc instead of driving with controller.

How is Seance of Blake Manor? I heard some people facetiously call it the first Blue Prince-like. But despite that I’ve heard nothing but good things.

Also heard some mumbles raving about how good Titanium Court is, so definitely keeping an eye on it.

If you have a headset for it then Pacific Drive is amazing with the UEVR mod. God how I wish it had native VR support.

Rise of the Ronin

Open world slop brainrot hit me just right (been over a year since my last game in the genre) and I’ve been thoroughly absorbed. After some stressful months I guess I really needed the free dopamine of collecting cats and clearing out the map.

That being said, the combat in this game is actually fantastic and just as good as people have been saying. I’m only at the very start of it and haven’t even begun to master the intricacies, but I love that there is a dojo you can train in and I will probably spend some time there practicing stance- and weapon switching. While the movelist seems restrictive at first, it expands quite significantly once you unlock the skills that let you seamlessly flow between stances and weapons and I need to sit down and memorize all the moves I actually have available in my loadout. Add to that stuff like jump-parrying to vault over the enemy, using the grappling rope or shurikens or the handgun…

It’s only been a couple of fights so far where I managed to get into some kind of flow, but those felt absolutely phenomenal. Great, satisfying parry in this game, too.

Now that you’ve played this you gotta play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory soon so you can compare the stealth giants in close succession.

Both DLCs are worth playing in my opinion. I think the first two Night Springs episodes are pretty weak, but the third one is great (at least if you’ve played the Remedy back catalogue - including Quantum Break) and the Lake House is just stellar.

HGSS is peak Pokémon.

Let’s see what kind of unbelievable powecreep they come up with to upstage Urshifu and the horses.

Lake House DLC was amazing, both a super tight horror chapter and a nicely written thinly veiled commentary on AI art.

Great writeup from my favourite video game journalist. Maybe one day I’ll actually play EarthBound, I kind of missed the boat on it back in the day.

I haven’t played myself because I don’t have friends to play with but maybe something like PEAK or Abiotic Factor?