Game musings and news

[zaratustra]

For my sins I have finally, in 2021, gotten around to sitting down and playing Planescape: Torment, years after greatly enjoying the sequel.

There are no original reactions left to have, I assume. It struck me how rare it still is for a wizards and demons high fantasy world to really lean into the implications of the lore and play science fiction's game of following the rules all the way down the rabbit hole.

What surprised me most is how much of a regular D&D dungeon crawl it also is.

This is also true of the original Planescape tabletop book, which both pulls D&D into its grandest heights and also shows how ultimately limited it is as a system.

[mharr]

Maybe I accidentally found the best reading order.

[Friday]

I've said before that Torment is the best written videogame. I don't know if that's still true, but it's up there at the top for sure.

[Blossom]

I'll be playing this heavily starting Thursday. I assume the junk shop moneymaking was intentional if undocumented, but if the gold ingot trick is fixed, yeah I'd hope there's some alternate means to make money.

Update on this, the gold ingot trick is different, but works in a way that seems to be intentional now. Recognized that this was a good bug, I guess, so redid the shop so you can just make money that way now. Even an achievement for selling 50k of gold in one go.

[mharr]

I've said before that Torment is the best written videogame. I don't know if that's still true, but it's up there at the top for sure.

It's gotta still be top ten in terms of pure quantity of consistent high quality wordage. NPCs are stupidly forgiving of the protagonist's endless "name, job, quest" interrogations, but that's a trope of the genre, and games that have done it better since aren't pumping out one tenth as much dialogue.

In many ways it's not the same medium now. You could argue that, eg, Soma or Outer Wilds is higher quality writing but it's like comparing movie direction to a novel.

(Does the legendary hammer of firing lightning outta yer butt show up as an easter egg in this or any other game btw? It really needs to.)

[Metal Slime]

I've said before that Torment is the best written videogame. I don't know if that's still true, but it's up there at the top for sure.

Disco Elysium would be either a close contender if not its equal. Disco is just as insanely wordy too.

[pacobird]

Disco's standing on the shoulders of giants, namely Torment. I would say the only real contender that's not an obvious derivative is Nier Automata.

[mharr]

All of these have at least some roots in the authors' private tabletop campaign worlds, aye? (Likewise Discworld, I believe the Luggage was born as a comedy method of separating the group from their magical nuclear options)

[Mongrel]

All of these have at least some roots in the authors' private tabletop campaign worlds, aye? (Likewise Discworld, I believe the Luggage was born as a comedy method of separating the group from their magical nuclear options)

I'm not sure about the rest, but IIRC, Terry Pratchett described the luggage as being born when, travelling though an airport, he observed a large frowsy woman with a heavy, overstuffed suitcase clattering merrily along on undersized wheels which keep spinning every which way.

[Thad]

Sony reverses course, keeps legacy PlayStation online stores open
PS3 and Vita stores will remain available, but PSP will sunset as planned.

[Thad]

Review: Smelter - Strong Mega Man X-Style Platforming Forged With Extract Of ActRaiser

First I'm hearing of this but okay, you have my attention.

[Friday]

oh, good. It's on Steam too. I was worried after watching the review.

With checkpointing that occasionally feels a smidgen less generous that it ought to be, that can lead to a little frustration.

yaaaaaaaaaaay

but seriously, the review looks great. Also Megaman X wallclimbing stage design is an excellent addition to the Actraiser formula.

[atog]

From Bride.com:

[nosimpleway]

Oh yeah disc 2 might just go on and on and on with the talk talk talk talk talk but nowhere near as much as my wife hahaha amirite fellas

[Mongrel]

The real question is if MGS is better than chocolate.

[atog]

If Big Shell is actually a hard chocolatey coating

[JD]

Something like 50% of marriages end in divorce, but I only know one guy who didn't like MGS.

[beatbandito]

If Big Shell is actually a hard chocolatey coating

[pacobird]

my wife gets annoyed with me when I forget to buy something at the store but she has never once made me backtrack to the start of goddamn game to get a sniper rifle

[Büge]

uh oh mongrel