IntrepidWombat

It's dark and early here at the moment - heading out for some trout fishing in about an hour with my son and pops.

Probably try to catch some of the Ohio State vs Illinois game today. The back yard needs my attention, but summer is definitely giving way to autumn, so it should be nice outside.

I'm going to continue my trek in Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles. Need to get some grinding out of the way to get builds in order before going too much further in the main story. I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to get the platinum - I'm leaning towards no given the grind required to do it.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

I used to love military shooters. Spec Ops: The Line is one that I go back to all the time. All of the new ones are just noise.

@DragonSlayer1759 This type of update was made for people who have finished the game - just fire up your save and go.

@8thDoctor Either that or something off the wall. Something like a concert or a crossover with a mobile game that nobody in the western hemisphere has ever heard of.

I forgot about Tales of Xillia remastered. Definitely one to consider.

Playing some more shade tree mechanic today - my pickup is in dire need of new spark plugs, so I'm going to finally knock that out (Nissan doesn't make it easy unfortunately). My truck turned 10 years old last month. It's basic as heck, but I do love it.

Gaming is going to be a return to Ivalice. I have noticed a few things about Ivalice Chronicles that I don't particularly care for over the original. I don't like how they implemented the steeper difficulty for starters. The new Formation screen UI feels like change for the sake of change - still getting used to it. I love the voice acting - it's very well-done. I'll play a few battles to grind Thief JP for the whole crew so we can start getting into those jobs that require Level 4/5.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

I haven't enjoyed anything that PS Studios has put out in years - but the easy response to this is, "Ok, then play something else." It's kind of like saying, "Man, I wish Falcom would cut it out and make something other than gregarious, trope-filled anime games." That's their identity. It's what they're good at. If you want those types of games, you buy Falcom. If you don't, you buy something else. I don't really understand the basis for the criticism based on that principle alone.

GoT is an all-timer. Great game. Zero interest in this one. Y'all have fun, though.

I listened to a streamer play Cronos while working. It seemed like it was a bit long and wore out its welcome with him - I plan on giving it a go when it's discounted a good amount.

I've spent untold hours in this game - the OST is the soundtrack of my early teenage years. It's in my personal top 5 ever - looking forward to revisiting with the facelift. My copy should be here by the time I'm off work.

@Andee Most of the talent that made Mass Effect and Dragon Age great have been gone for several years. A group of ex-Bioware devs are working on a game called Exodus that looks very Mass Effect-like.

I love this move - it was one of my favorite features of the XBox 360 controller, though the proprietary charger was the poison pill to that whole setup. It'd be neat if the redesign also had hall sensors, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've got three years of mileage on my DS5 that came with my console with no signs of issues. Even if it did have battery problems, I couldn't fathom spending $75 + tax on a whole new controller when $15, a screwdriver, and 15 minutes could take care of the issue just the same.

How weird are times now that we get excited for knockoffs of nearly 30-year-old games that we loved back then? I'm all for this.

Just a heads up, the text of your link says "Project Renegade" instead of "Project Retrograde."

Another busy weekend. If I get some time to play, it'll be circling back to Stellar Blade's NG+. I've bounced completely off of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth after about 35 hours. I'm unable to properly articulate my disappointment with that game. It's severe.

For my next RPG, Trails in the Sky First Chapter may get my full attention, but if I need a break from that particular aesthetic, I may instead finally play through Yakuza: Like a Dragon. We'll see.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Oh man, these dubs give me vibes from the first game - that has to be on purpose. They remind me of the old Kurosawa dubs. Can't wait!

I really wanted to like the first one, but the pacing starts to drag. When a normal battle has 3 - 5 enemies - all of which require multiple turns to bring down - it just makes the experience drag.

Meh. Dynasty Warriors 3 is a game I spent dozens and dozens of hours playing in my youth. That's a big maybe for me.

I don't even trust Kojima video games anymore! This is silly, but hey, you do you.

@LifeGirl No yellow paint?! How do I know where to go?

A straight port of 4 would suffice. It holds up.

Got dad moved out of his apartment and in with his new lady friend this morning. For a man knocking on 80, he's got some mad charisma. Got my mom's grocery order delivered and some stuff cleaned up at her place. Just threw the football (the American one) around with my son and have a few minutes before my niece is off work. I'll head over there to troubleshoot an intermittent crank-no-start fault. Should be fun.

Bought a new hammer drill so I can finally repair my toilet flange and get it mounted up correctly, have some other chores around the house to get done, some Steelers football to watch, and a block or ten of code to write while my IM won't be blowing up.

If I get a chance to play anything, it'll be Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter on PS5 or Chrono Cross (finally) on my shiny new G350.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

If I was their PR department, I'd be BEGGING Randy to shut his gob on social media. He's really making an ass of himself.

"It's well-optimized! Just buy a 5090, enable DLSS, and turn on frame gen! I promise bro, it's so well optimized!"

For heaven's sake, it doesn't even look that much better than prior games. It's still cell shaded.

I'll wait a while on this one. I'm not sold on the whole "Silent Hill Phenomenon" angle. Silent Hill is a place, but it's also Alessa Gillespie's story. Removing both Alessa (unless she makes some kind of appearance?) and the location means that they probably should have just given it another name, much like they should have done with SH4 (though they at least tried to make a tenuous connection by making the superintendent of the apartment James Sunderland's father). I can't argue with the weight that the name carries though and how it will impact the sales, so I guess we'll just see.

I burnt myself out on Trails after playing Cold Steel I through IV followed by Zero and Azure. I still haven't finished Reverie, but I'm really looking forward to this.

I have most of the games via free giveaways on the Epic Games Store. I believe the first one was part of PS+ about 10 or so years ago, maybe more. The humor is not terribly funny, and I didn't find the gameplay particularly compelling. These things are all pretty subjective - I get why some people would enjoy these games, they're just not for me.

The only thing Final Fantasy IX would have to do to be wildly successful is look exactly like Memoria Project. Keep everything else the same.

Wait, I thought they were tracking number of players rather than number of sales. I wonder why some track the former and others track the latter. Either way, excellent numbers for a brand new IP from a brand new studio. They should be proud of what they've done.

I love the PlayStation. It was 1998 before I got one, being a PC guy at the time. I got Resident Evil 2 with it and later got Duke Nukem 3D and Colony Wars. I knew of RPGs after borrowing Super Mario RPG on Super Nintendo from a buddy, but I didn't really dig in until a different friend loaned me Final Fantasy VII. I was hooked from there, and it remains my favorite genre. After that was Breath of Fire III, Final Fantasy VIII, Parasite Eve, Jade Cocoon, Legend of Dragoon - so many more. My friends and I played a lot of Tekken 2/3, Bushido Blade, and Medal of Honor. Good times! Thanks for letting me stroll down memory lane. I may have to unpack it and pop in my original RE2 copy to celebrate.

Will PS6 be anything more than a PS5 Super Pro? There's no reason to change the architecture at this juncture - I kind of imagine the games being more PC-like in that they'll continue to launch and be playable on a PS5 with lower settings, sort of in the way that somebody who bought a GTX 1080ti at launch nearly a decade ago can still have a good gaming experience.

A bit of Silent Hill 2 today when I can grab some time here and there. Enjoying a casual NG+ experience. It's very cool out today, so it will be a good time to get some things done in the garage and maybe think about oil changes in all of the small engines.

Tomorrow, my son and I are heading out at the crack of dawn to get some fishing out of the way with some family. I'll need to get same trout tackle today and some stuff for the cooler (Uncrustables and mini oranges are the best fishing trip food) while I'm out and about handling my mother's errands.

When it's time to settle in for the evening, some kind of RPG would be good. I'll have to see what strikes me - might go back to Rebirth for the story, but I'm just not looking forward to the Ubi-slop radio towers and box checking.

Just missing an option for, "What the heck is a Hollow Knight?" It sounds like the name of a game that definitely exists, but other than that, aI couldn't tell you a thing. It's been fascinating watching today's hoopla over the sequel, though.

Great news. The FC demo is excellent. I wonder if they'll do Crossbell. I'd settle for a reprint of those honestly.

@NeonTiger Sure - it's common in media to see a two handed pistol grip with the dominant hand grasping the grip with the secondary or support hand underneath. It resembles the way that American soldiers were trained on the 1911 platform during World War 2, but not quite. It's called "tea cupping" because the support hand resembles the saucer beneath a cup of tea. You can tell that Bond is tea-cupping by the way most of his dominant hand is covered by the fingers of his support hand.

Functionally, it doesn't do anything except maybe provide some stability, but even then, not much. A proper two-handed grip has the palm of the dominant hand a little more open where the palm of support hand also engages the grip of the pistol. The wrist of the support hand is locked which helps mitigate muzzle flip and enable faster follow-up shots. The thumbs of both hands are together and pointed forward, though some people prefer the support hand to be a little more forward - that's just down to preference and/or the size of the pistol. I'm probably doing a poor job of explaining it - if you want to get it from some of the best, Jerry Miculek and Massad Ayoob are possibly the beat in the world and have described this in detail on YouTube - I highly recommend both for anybody who's curious.

A good comparison of right vs wrong is Keanu Reeves as John Wick (correct - his weapon handling is S-tier because he puts in a lot of range time and has had training) vs Scarlet Johanson as Black Widow (not a good look for the directors to not have this covered).

This is a minor thing for most people, but when I see things portrayed in media that I know a thing or two about, I tend to get overly critical. I've spent the better part of two decades in telecom for example - it makes my eyebrow twitch when cop shows have people tracking down suspects by banging on a keyboard and TrIaNgUlAtInG tHe SiGnAl. Christ. I'm also a guy with a good amount of training in pistols - it bugs me in video games when the basic grip is not only wrong, but it's wrong in the way of "someone who did no research beyond vague recollections of bad Hollywood films from the 90's." Yes, I know it's little, and yes, I know it's stupid, but it makes me think that if they've got Bond tea-cupping a pistol in a promotional shot, what other crap did they get wrong?

Cronos smells like a game that will be $30 by Black Friday. I'll nab it then. Thankfully this has been a light year for my tastes with Expedition 33 being the only new game I've played. Plenty of backlog time. Hopefully I can finish one more before Sky FC comes out.

I don't know about y'all, but it has cooled off a lot here in the southern US. I have some things to do in the yard. I need to hop on my work PC for a few minutes to get a few ideas into my notes. The dishwasher has a leak, so that'll be a focus.

I got to the end of Soul Hackers 2 last night. It was the bad ending, but I think I have all of the enjoyment I want out of it for now. I could go back to it at some point, who knows?

Fantasian is on deck next. Pretty sure I'm at the end, and I'm also pretty sure I need to grind a bunch on the boss that I'm on. I also have the demo for Lost Soul Aside and need to finish out the demo for Trails in the Sky.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Oh, now I double want to play this game. I love PS1 era everything, including the voice acting.

I'll dig in when it's $29 brand new and all of the performance issues are cleaned up. I love Snake Eater to pieces - bought it on launch for PS2 and just devoured it.

I imagine with this being a game focused on the painters, what would make a lot of sense is a game focused on writers. The cat's out of the bag on the major twist, so the story would have a different feel to it, but I trust this studio.

I'd be interested in how the sales drop and overall sales compare with PS4 ,PS3, and PS2 and the same points in their respective life spans.

Cold Fear was well done. It was the "Resident Evil 4 at home" kind of game that did some really nice things with water effects and tight spaces. I hope a revival would be approached with care.

Yoshimitsu and Kunimitsu are both weapon-based fighters too - they've been in since the beginning. They also have done crossovers with Noctis who had a sword and Negan who had Lucille. It wouldn't be totally unprecedented for Eve to come with a sword.

Mom hasn't been able to drive in a couple years, so I bought her car. Bought a new battery for it yesterday, and it needs a new canister purge valve. I'll throw some air in the tires, seafoam in the gas tank, check the oil, and take it for a spin. Also need to hunt down a parasitic battery drain, swap out the cabin filter, and scrub the interior since she smoked in it. Yuck. After it's all good to go and it's had a bath, my niece is going to drive it. Should be a good vehicle for her. So, I guess you could say I'll be playing "Shade Tree Auto Mechanic."

On PS5, I'll work my way through the demo of Trails in the Sky and poke through games in my backlog to see what sticks. I really want to finish some of the RPGs that I dropped like Soul Hackers 2, Fantasian, and Metaphor.

If I'm feeling RPG fatigue, I could just bask on the beauty that is fixed camera angles, tank controls, and mutated bio weapons and see if I still have it in me to do a sub 2 hour no damage run of RE2.

Have a fantastic weekend, everybody.

Simple ports of MGS4 and Rising would be fine. MGS4 still looks and plays incredible.

I must be a sucker. I love these games. This one looks fantastic.

Love the soundtrack already. FFXII is one of my favorites. I'd like to see more.

What great timing. Just finished Expedition 33 - tried to go back to Soul Hackers 2, but it's so bland by comparison. The Sky demo should be a great pallet cleanser. Might even last me until the full game comes out.

I bought both on PS3. I'll be curious to see if I can just go download them, but without any enhancement at all, there are much better ways to play these games.

I still haven't played this game. Not sure why, I just haven't been able to get into it. I ran through MGS and MGS4 again a couple years ago (the latter holds up so well), but I came away from those satisfied and moved on.