Thank you for your detailed thoughts! I haven’t heard some of these critiques yet, esp from someone that is deep in on Rocket League, and they are very interesting. I agree that they really have to fix that net code if they want this game to take off. Hopefully they are furiously toiling away on that as we speak.

Yay this is so cool, and I appreciate the well-thought out “PEAQ”! Games as a medium need all the archive help they can get. My only crit is that, because this is a “history”, I would prefer a chronological list over an alphabetical list. Maybe Dot is working on making that an option, idk, but I appreciate the work all the same!

EDIT: Some Highlights for me:

• I appreciate the “H-rry P-tt-r” choice.
• This is my first time hearing about that hidden track on Guitar Hero.
• I did not know that one of the original Pokemon VAs was a trans lady!! Sososo cool
• AND she did a bunch of deeper voices in the Sonic games? Wtf she is so talented!!
• The Wolfenstein 3D and Doom drama was an interesting read.
• Honestly shocked that I did not know more about Rebecca Heineman and Jenell Jaqauys, given how prolific they are on this list. I am very immersed in games media, far more than the average gamer, and I really had no clue. I think that alone highlights how important this work is!!

Fun to read your detailed thoughts on the series as whole. Literally the only GOW game I have played is the 2018 reboot, and honestly I found it to be really cool and fun! The story ended up being a bit thin by the end, but I thought that it was really engaging and fun the first time through, as you are experiencing it. There were just enough twists and turns that I felt like i never knew exactly what was going to happen next. Even though I never played the OT, the moment where

was HYYYYYPE!!!

As a Dark Souls fan, I also found the slower pace of the combat to be pretty engaging. I played through all of the extra combat trials (idr what they are called) and beat all the Valkyries, so clearly I was enjoying myself. I liked all of the build options they give you with the loot and abilities. I remember beating my head against a few of the trials before realizing that a build overhaul made the trial trivial. Making builds is one of my favorite experiences in games, so I really appreciated this.

I don’t remember my exact feelings about the combat, but I remember my one major criticism was how slow Kratos turns around. They give you that input to do a fast 180, but when you are in a heated fight and you are getting surrounded by enemies, you can forget to tap it with all the other inputs you have to remember. The end result is it can feel like Kratos is resisting you as you try to spin around to hit some enemies behind you.

I know this one is a bit late, but I am hearing buzz about this game but it doesn’t seem like we’ve discussed this one here. “Rocket League without cars” is the tongue-in-cheek description i’ve heard, essentially getting at the idea that this is a soccer/football game with a lot of style that is also more accessible to people that aren’t football nuts.

The GBA SP could not arrive soon enough. Idk how the hell we survived so long on those dim ass screens. Playing outside in broad daylight was the only option.

Capped framerates are so frustrating. Wish they would just use vsync, which would lock to 30 but will jump to 60fps any time the hardware can handle the scene. Maybe it’s not that easy to do in some cases, idk.

If u go with this, OP, highly recommend a controller clip like one of these:

VGC did machine translate a Japanese interview, I wonder if the interview was more “colorful” in Japanese

yeah i understood what you meant, just was asking for your specifics. Which you also provided! So thank you, I appreciate the added insight

when you say “fresh”, what do you mean, exactly?

I tried airvpn, but found it confusing in some regards. ProtonVPN is easier to use and it has served me well, despite the recent controversy around it. The only real annoyance is that it randomly selects a new port to forward every time you connect, so you have to manually update that in your client. Quantum is a nifty tool that will read your ProtonVPN logs and automatically complete this step for you, if you use qBittorrent.

figured as much. thanks!

just double-checking - I can’t sign this as an American, right? I’m like 99% sure that is the case, but if I can help this at all I would like to!

Hey gamers, does 4 rounds of layoffs in 18 months mean we are winning the console wars yet?

It’s okay, don’t feel bad! This is the kind of political decision where I don’t fault anyone for making either choice. Boycotting Russia is noble, but so is supporting devs for making amazing games!

it’s not hard to imagine why a ban on conversion therapy is gaining signatures while a ban on killing live service games is not. Stop Killing Games is noble, but ultimately amounts to media preservation. Meanwhile, conversion therapy is literal torture of vulnerable children. Only hardcore gamers really understand the Stop Killing Games initiative, while most sane people will quickly sign anything that improves the lives of children.

seems really cool! I like the flexible interpretation of the “point buy” system that tabletop wargames use.

Developer Steel Balalaika is based in Russia.

Not so fond of putting any money into Russia’s tax base, though. No shade to the devs who are probably cool people, I just struggle with making this kind of choice in our shitty modern world 😔

SWD2 is so fun, just a nice, breezy lil metroidvania. Does the cool metroidvania thing where the endgame mobility upgrades make you feel like a ninja grappling all over the place.

this is a big ol’ bummer. understandable why they would struggle to get buy-in from stodgy old men, but disappointing all the same. I really thought they had a good chance when the campaign was kicking off, the excitement seemed to be there. But if even the EU won’t legislate this, it’s hard to imagine any other CPB taking up this idea. Maybe if we’re all still here in 10 years we can try again. Maybe there will be enough millenials in seats of power by then to make this happen. Or maybe the kids will be so used to live service games by then that a majority of gamers will just be blindly accepting the state of the industry.

Link to the original report by IGN (sorry IGN I read the article too fast)