Sledgstone

GG: yeah well im little impatient and usually spoil it with watching all the fight scenes on YT (leaked) while it was still fresh in theatres. forgot about it until it was free on amazon prime and i just couldnt watch it through bc i already saw the best scenes and know the ending as well so everthing else seemed dull 
sledge: ive heard that setting was suppose to be in WW2, but since gal godot's israeli nationality and movie studio wanted to avoid any controversials involving jewish ppl altogether so they just went with WW1 era. i know WW2 games and movies are overlydone and the movie turned out okay without it but still shouldnt have succumbed to pc imo
and i dont think i can take kristin wiig setiously as a villian after that bridemaids bathroom scene  
 

funny thing..fresh out of a shark game at the start i put on a full samurai armor and started swimming along the coast as soon as i saw the open sea. after 30 mins in, i realized jin cant drown lol..unless you drift far far away from land and it starts 30 sec countdown. those water tides and waves looked awesome from a cliff but i couldnt figure out how to work the damn camera so i didnt get any snapshots
beat the game yesterday but i ended up rushing it bc all the side missions are same and repetitive. basically you go to point a and b and kill all bandits and mongols..rinse & repeat. at first i was experimenting with all 4 fighting stances so it was fun, but enemies are scattered around the map and even at camps, it was hard to get them attention to attack me if they stood somewhat far away. i rarely used any ghost weapons bc it felt like cheating and towards the end i only stuck with a stone stance cause that was more challenging. it would have been great too if jin could learn to use mongol weapons like spear and shield. i liked the main story, especially fueding with straw hats and storming in to take back shimura castle but i just stopped caring about side characters like masako or warrior monk storylines and i didnt complete them all. despite that i had more than enough tech points so upgrading skill trees wasnt that hard. i also have made my mind about jins uncle early on so it wasnt a difficult choice when it came to make end decision
i was somewhat disapponted at its lack of monetary system (flowers? really?) and hunting was pretty much useless too. i know they were in war and game seems to  only focused on fighting but even gold was used for mere sword and armor upgrade so it felt somewhat incomplete. it would also have been nice if they had taverns/inns so day and night actually meant something bc jin didnt eat nor sleep. overall i liked it, if i have time ill play again and not try to rush it. well worth the money
 

I'll still always love the campy films.

this is getting ridiculous. first they try to blame that dollar bills are spreading covid but now with coin shortages. at grocery stores self checkout lanes dont accept money anymore, and cashiers put up signs that either exact change only or use bank cards only. and mandatory mask order is suppose to end next week, but i dont know what ill do if it gets extended again. like last week one of customers had threatened to report me for not enforcing all customers to wear masks in the store but i told him that stores have signs up at front windows and doors, its no longer my responsibility to babysit everyone. and then i told him to go ahead and call them and gave him stores number and address. he called and waited 30 mins until he got tired and left  he came back in like 3 times to buy cigarettes and drinks bc he had nothing to do while waiting. dont underestimate the incompetent work of houston police, buddy. they rank way up in one of slowest responding enforcements in the whole state lol. they never showed up

Destiny as a concept is amazing. Especially for the current console limitations. They just could never get accessibility or loot tables right at launch. The first was too inaccessible for casuals, and the last was too accessible for hardcore players. The concept it self is good, its really just the players that are the problem overall. Needing six friends all on at the same time for raids was only a big obstacle because rando groups via LFG sites demanded you had Gjallarhorn. The trifecta of PVP, Open World and Instanced content collided as casuals mostly farmed the open world which didn't have shit, while instanced content had all the best loot... which would cause you to get shat on in PVP if you only did open world. On top of that Strikes were mostly fodder unless it was the Nightfall which you could only do 3 times a week if you had 3 characters. 
But yeah these are all time sinks now made for people that are in their 20s, work a part time job in school etc. Its sad they're making it a cash grab too. These type of games are def going to start struggling and they need too. I don't mind cosmetic shops. I think The Division 2 had a pretty fair system for getting keys for free weekly. They only time you were pressured to buy any were timed events, but even then if you saved up your keys and didn't use them on the common stuff that will always be there, you'd still get a good run in. But some of these games take it too far.

I played 3 hours of the beta this last weekend. It was ok at first. This Avengers game noticeably takes place in a different timeline or yet another alternate Earth because this game has nothing to do with the established Marvel movies. The combat was decent, the campaign flipped me around between different characters while the beginning of the story was unfolding in a large kinda epic battle with alot of destruction. But then the plot gets a bit weird. A terrigen bomb goes off, creates alot of inhumans, the avengers get blamed for it and are disbanded. Tony Stark's assets are seized by the government... um.. I don't think he'd actually allow that.. superheroes are outlawed, 5 year time skip.. and some super high tech company basically takes over the USA and its called AIM. So AIM is the bad guys and they have an endless, and it really seems endless, amount of armed troops, robots, etc.
So the campaign continues, some of the missions seem good, but then abruptly the game turns into Destiny. This is basically where the beta ends the campaign but continues to show end game stuff. Theres a war table, holograph display, that lets you choose a variety of strike missions. Theres matchmaking or you can play solo with AI controlled characters. But I'm not kidding when I say its Destiny. All the strike missions are repeatable, all have difficulty variables (increased ice damage), you can choose the difficulty for better rewards, etc. Different boss fight locations, etc. will have no respawn zones like Destiny. You revive fallen characters like in Destiny. And there is endless gear, even for the Hulk. He equips nano gear that somehow gives him powerups but you don't see it equipped on him. And all the gear is endless to, with their own different upgrade variables, better defense against freezing, more offense with shock damage, etc. etc. Its a hack/slash/shooter/looter. I did one strike mission and it took a solid 30+ minutes. I don't think I'll like this game. If it was all just a campaign based single player like Spider-Man I'm sure I'd love it. But I have no interest in multiplayer looter games anymore. And all the combat starting feeling quite repetitive after those first 3 hours. I'm also not good with strike missions like that anymore. If I have to walk away from a game I want to save it and resume later.. but its strike missions so you better have the time to dedicate to it. I'm sure its only a matter of time before Avengers also gets Raid missions too. ehh.
Btw, skin shop galore. You can buy skins like crazy, because who wouldn't want to play the game with Hulk wearing a business suit. wtf.
 

It's crazy how we've been conditioned to think a tax return is just some type of bonus or free money. Instead of, you know, your money they government took too much of all year. With the tax cuts last year my return was a little smaller. I'd take no return and more money each week any day. People can always save their own money instead of relying on the government to take it and possibly give back some. 🙄
The tax code needs to change and be simplified to where the government takes exactly what's needed and do away with tax filing altogether. You get a statement at the end of the year, thats it.

So far Kinect Games are confirmed not to work.
That doesn't really bother me.
My expectations though still remain pretty low until proven otherwise.
 

Sadly though I think Ghost is going to be an odd outlier for the minimal to no UI approach (plus it's very obvious that SP designed the game this way because they were going for the Kurosawa feel and aesthetic). The gameplay and the sheer vast openness of the map and environment made it so a UI would hamper you more than help you (plus the game is breathtakingly beautiful and marring it with anything more then they did would be an atrocity). Plus, as you noted, they implemented a vast variety of things to hide what wasn't needed until you actually called upon it (I love the guiding winds mechanic and think more games need to implement something like it). Based on that little bit of gameplay footage I'm of the opinion Godfall needs a UI or they're really going to have to figure out how to implement some sort of minimalistic hp tracker because this type of game needs some way of tracking that stuff (I mean I'll dump on Destiny any day of the week but there UI implementation is crisp and, imo, the ideal way of going about a UI in a looter type game (though I don't like their quest tracker in the least as I think that's garish as hell and right in your face)).
Then again I'm still not all that impressed by what I see. It looks fun and I'd definitely be all about those dual blades but quite honestly I think it looks rather meh. Then again looters in general just aren't my thing anymore and I blame Destiny for killing that passion in me. Ever since playing it I just can't get interested or find joy in playing anything remotely of the genre (old school looters like D2 and Torchlight are exceptions because that's my jam, it's these new ones that lack anything remotely interesting for me).

I believe this is this studios first major game, and it is surprising since Gearbox has apparently helped them... but being a big release like this without being a major named studio, they probably don't have the resources to run a game as a service. It will be interesting to see the longevity of this game. They'll really have to make it in the spirit of Diablo 2 where there is enough variation to keep coming back.
 
Although this is early stage development footage, and there probably is all of that.. the lack of UI might be the way of the future. If you ever play Ghost of Tsushima you'll get to experience a game, that in my opinion, is the first to successfully implement the environment as the UI. The lack of clutter on the screen while not having to check a map or objective every 3 minutes really added to the experience. It wasn't perfect, but I'd like to see this strategy for more non competitive games. Tsushima had the HP/Resolve meter in the bottom corner and that was it, aside from special objectives progress when doing camps/strongholds. Any abilities/weapon menus only popped up when you pressed the button to switch, and there was no need for a minimap with the the guiding winds, and ludicrous draw distances you could see. Maybe it was a little less convenient at times, but climbing a tower or cliff and looking around, or seeing a smoke plume, or other type of signal from ground level, really enhanced the experience rather than looking at menus and symbols.

Lol!! i had no idea what it was called or how to play until now. early 90s back in korea, kids at school started to bring these pogs and they got annihilated by thick square paper called ddakji (its a similar concept but playing rules are different) bc we didnt know what to do with them. the ones with these pogs cried foul bc they were losing so badly against ddakji and tried to amend them as a prize for winning the most ddakji. but eventually found em useless and started to give them away. one of kids at my TKD class gave me like 20 ninja turtle pogs (both cartoon and movie pics on em) and i thought i could sell them or something. since my uniform had no pockets, it kept falling off one by one when i was practicing kicks and eventually my instructor picked one up and hes like wtf is this lmao..i seriously thought i was gonna be in serious trouble bc some adults back then didnt like us playing with foreign stuff. i was sweating like crazy but luckily he didnt pursue who dropped them. after the class was over, i tried to sell them but no one wanted them so i gave them away to a little kid living next door to me. i even had to convince him that they were valuable otherwise he wouldnt have taken them granted we didnt know much about american cartoons and movies so they faded away within a month or so without gaining any popularity

i ordered it this monday (under $60) and got my new copy just yesterday in mail. it arrived fast considering it was estimated 2-3 wks delivery time. i was surprised that price dropped pretty quick too bc i was tempted to order it when it was like $120..several days after its launch day..thinking itll take forever to drop its price like how ff7 remake sellers tried to screw ppl w/ price gouging for over a month. good thing i was occupied with other games and waited a week otherwise i wouldve been mad lol. i only played for like 15 mins so far. so far so good

If I have time tomorrow I'll try to dig mine out. I had a carrying case for my pogs. We were obsessed with 8 ball pogs. Which is funny to me since it was probably a cocaine reference but we just thought it was a billiards reference. But yes there were metal slammers and plastic ones. The plastic ones were triple the thickness I guess to make up for the weight... but they were still half the weight of the metallic ones. You were at a severe disadvantage not having a metal slammer.

I posted this before finished it so warning.. he throws up.

I got platinum on this game. It's only the second game I've ever gotten all the trophies for. Thats how a feel about it in the end.

Maxing stances doesn't help outside of avoiding getting hit (Auto parry on spear guys is pretty useful). It just keeps you on an even playing field. Now that you're in Act II you'll start to notice it. Shield and Spears, and eventually sword guys will start staggering you before you can fully break their guard to land strikes, by Act III they'll parry too. Even with a broken guard they'll recover faster. I was heavy on the smoke bombs like you at your point, but after a while I did a lot of Bow and Blowguns to thin out crowds. Kunai are always handy as well as you've noted. The blowgun is the single best weapon in the game. In act 2 there is a middle grassland and an area in the northwest to farm the darts, by Act III they're everywhere. The hallucination darts are what I was talking bout earlier. Pop a spear guy and he'll single handedly take out 3-4 other guys.
I recorded this after a few runs of this happening.
The real ease comes from the mythic abilities being able to be performed in duels. Once you get Heavenly Strike and Dance of Wrath, you can basically just go easy mode and open up with a lot of damage, pocket a few resolve in case you need to heal and when they're low enough pop them again and finish it. Things become even easier when you get Way of the Flame and the final stance of the game half way through Act II. If you go into a showdown fully loaded, its over in seconds... mechanics need not apply. Way of the Flame can't be blocked like the others and it uses ammo instead of resolve. So you can just mercilessly brutalize the opponent. I'd pop one, get regular strikes in, and pop the next when their guard returned. It's extremely busted tbh, but it does make you feel super powerful. It doesn't bother me like it will probably some people that like challenge.

Edit: Yeah I felt the same way as you did and picked that ending. You're feelings will be even more validated after you take the second castle.