Coelacanth

Thank fuck, absolutely bizarre it was granted in the first place.

Very short and sweet article. If anyone wants to read more there is a longer elaboration by the same author here: “I Told Him I Loved Him, Because I Do”. Worth a read.

I think I might have relapsed. Send help. Everything was going so well, I was playing through the Final Draft of Alan Wake 2 and having the time of my life, and then I clicked on a video YouTube recommended in my feed that looked interesting and the familiar old craving kicked in. Suddenly a week had passed by and I was deep in the rabbit hole again.

So this week I’ve mostly been modding STALKER: Anomaly. There’s been so many new mods and modpacks and even engine optimization released since I played it last and I’m having a blast getting reacquainted, this time basing my modlist on the H.A.C.R. pack which seems to be a flexible and solid base. I’ve already added about 30 mods to it.

I also have to give special mention to the mod and video that kicked it all off - TALKER. It transcribes your voice talking into the mic, and uses AI to give responses from characters in game and it’s actually just so much fun to use, especially for someone like me who loves the role-play and emergent narratives and storytelling of Anomaly. Right now I haven’t even started a full playthrough yet as I’m still tweaking parameters for the AI to fine tune the prompts given to each faction as well as adding to the list of unique personalities.

If you’re an Anomaly player, I definitely recommend checking out TALKER, even though setting it up is a little annoying.

Both NOLF 1&2 and Contract JACK are available on the website above, patched and fixed to work on modern machines.

YMMV but when I tried NOLF 1 for the first time earlier this year I sadly found the gameplay so poorly aged I wasn’t having enough fun to make myself finish it - despite the setting, theme and writing being quite fun.

I might give it another shot at some point though, it was a critic’s darling back in the day and I’d like to be able to say I have played it.

The upshot is that since nobody knows whether they own it or not there is nobody bothering to actively enforce copyright, so you can just download the games for free if you want on NOLFrevival.

Hah! I also actually related to him a lot actually. As someone who has struggled with mental health, depression, addiction, failure and clinging to the past I ended up resonating a lot with the protagonist as well, and Disco Elysium overall was a very emotional and impactful experience for me.

But even so, I never really felt like I was playing me like I do in self insert RPGs. But that was fine - the main mystery of the game is discovering your protagonist’s backstory and history and everything he is and has been through anyway.

One thing I will say: Disco Elysium is not a self-insert or blank slate RPG. You are playing as a very defined and distinct person, and you discover more and more things about him as you go. You can choose to emphasise certain traits that he already possesses, but you can never completely reshape him. He will always be who he is. A lot of people who want to “pick dialogue options that they would say IRL” end up bouncing off the game. I recommend trying to accept that you’re playing as an insane, depressed failure and commit to it.

I believe the final frontier for Linux gaming - apart from some niche cases - is multiplayer games with kernel-level anticheat. They are literally impossible to play on Linux, so if you’re into one of those then don’t bother.

The other edge case is modding. A lot of mods work just fine on Linux, but some just don’t and some - like those relying on Mod Managers and the like - might require more fiddling and specific tinkering. If you do a lot of modding it’s probably easier to stick to Windows as you know everything just works.

Otherwise you should be good to try.

Ghost of Tsushima is touted by some as a “game of the decade” candidate when in reality it’s just a somewhat more polished Ubisoft open world game, that’s also highly monotonous and repetitive for its very long playthrough length.

Act 1 one is very weak unfortunately, it’s a major flaw of the game. After one of the strongest prologues in recent gaming memory they whiplash the narrative into hours and hours of Gestral nonsense and completely ruin the vibe. And none of the main characters react believably to any of the insane bullshit - not to mention react to why they understand Gestral.

I’m glad I pushed through in the end and overall the game managed to stick the landing, but I was very close to abandoning it around the Gestral village.

Yeah I remember that. Definitely will keep tracking this game, sounds cool!

Ooh I remember hearing about that game last year. I was intrigued by the appeal of the premise of like, playing a bit part character in the universe so to speak. The idea of the “real conflict” happening between massively powerful factions and creatures in the background while you scuttle in their shadow felt very interesting.

Slogging through Cronos: The New Dawn, probably around the 60% mark now, maybe a bit more? I’m at the Hospital area, which I think is the final main area out of three. I have a lot of things to say about this game, and not too many of them are positive sadly. I’m really on the verge of dropping it and have actually taken a break from it today playing other games.

And it’s a shame because Cronos does have its qualities. It’s beautiful to look at, both visually stunning and with environments displaying immaculate art direction. The atmosphere is on point, and both the alternate-reality Poland with its brutalist nightmare architecture and the sci-fi future tech is fantastically realized - with the caveat that the “Travellers” the protagonist belongs to might be a tad derivative of Bioshock Big Daddies.

Where the game falls flat, sadly is the gameplay. First of all it’s a survival horror with a heavy emphasis on survival and a very weak “horror”. The game is not really particularly scary, even accounting for the occasional cheap jump scare. Instead it’s an absolutely gruelling action slog where the real horror is inventory management and ammunition scarcity. And this would have been fine if the action gameplay was good, but it’s just… boring, stale and uninspired.

The enemies are just the blandest garden variety zombies you can imagine, the touted “merge” mechanic feels cosmetic at best and doesn’t factor in as much as you’d think and without a dodge button a lot of the fights are just running around kiting and waiting for a chance to charge up a shot and repeat. Most enemies are slow enough that it doesn’t even feel particularly thrilling, you’re not really in danger and are just waiting for them to go into an animation you can punish.

On top of that the ammo scarcity is so ridiculous that I often feel compelled to reload my last save if I miss more than two shots in a fight as I don’t want to risk getting soft locked. I know I’m not a god gamer and my aim isn’t the best, but it feels too harsh. And yes, I’m charging every shot to conserve ammo already.

On top of that the body-burning mechanic combined with the restrictions on flamethrower fuel dispensers leads to repeated situations of running back-and-forth between bodies and a dispenser for like 10 minutes straight, which feels like an enormously unfun waste of time and just adds to the endless tedium and frustration the game delivers constantly.

And it’s a shame because the story is actually kinda intriguing. It’s what’s kept me going this far. I do like the world building, the mysterious “Collective” you belong to has me interested still and when the story delves into some more philosophical musings occasionally I am enjoying myself. It could still all fall flat though, as this is a time travel story and those often devolve into timey-wimey messes full of plot holes that fall apart under close inspection. But so far I’m still wanting to see how it ends.

Finished Enotria: The Last Song and even did a quick NG+ run to get the secret ending and its achievement. Not going to bother with 100%-ing it, however. I really enjoyed my time with it overall. For a somewhat janky AA Soulslike it’s got a lot of charm and the Commedia Dell’Arte framing is great. Beautiful environments and some well designed levels, enough fun to be had with the skill tree, loadout switching, active abilities and elemental/status system. Not too hard (which is fine by me at this stage of my life) and short enough to not overstay its welcome. If you’re a Soulslike fan and can stomach AA games it’ll do the job if you’re done with the usual suspects. I still wouldn’t pay full price for it, but as part of the current €17 Humble Bundle it feels like good value and if you’re not interested in the other games in there then keep it in mind for a future deep sale.

Next I’m not sure. I started playing GRIME that I’ve had my eye on for a while and snagged recently when it was on an all-time low sale, but even though I can tell it’s really good it’s not grabbed me yet. Spooktober made me pirate Cronos: The New Dawn to try it and see if I like it, otherwise I have an impending Alan Wake 2 revisit planned. I still haven’t played the DLCs but I want to replay the Final Draft again first in preparation.

I feel like I’m the only one unexcited by this. It looks good and reviews well but 50ish hours of Ghost of Tsushima was more than enough for me. I don’t really have appetite for another helping of “more of the same”.

I’m playing two games at once this week, firstly I’m playing bits and pieces of Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword on my 3DS. It’s a really great game so far, super fun and surprisingly good at translating the mainline NG gameplay onto a handheld and using stylus input for controls. Might well end up one of my favourite DS/3DS games when I’m done with it. I’m about halfway through so far I think.

I’m also playing through Enotria: The Last Song on PC for the first time. So far I’m having a blast with it, after some initial information overload I’m finally starting to engage with the systems and am starting to really enjoy using the stances and elemental rock-paper-scissors. From what I’ve seen so far it does not really deserve its mixed steam reviews - yes, there is some jank and it’s plainly AA but there is a lot of good to make up for it. The world design is gorgeous, the level design is great with lots of verticality and the setting is so lovely and unique. I have heard it’s fairly short, and I do maybe concur that it might not merit a full price purchase, but I do think it’s worth wishlisting for a deep sale if you like the genre. I’m having a lot of fun with it so far.

250GB install sizes plus an additional 100GB shader caches. This is what the future looks like, buckle up.

Existing IPs, maybe. But the real point of this patent is to stifle innovation and preempt competition. No indie developer is going to dare enter this creative space anymore as they don’t have the resources to challenge Nintendo’s patent - even though I think this won’t hold up in court.

What if I answer The Noid?

I played Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time this week. Apparently Itagaki and some of the other ex-Team Ninja members who left after Ninja Gaiden 2 made it, so it felt like a natural next game after finishing the Ninja Gaiden trilogy.

I was very positively surprised by this game. Art direction is great, it has some very nice looking levels and apparently got both the original creator, some of the show writers as well as the original voice cast on board. Story isn’t going to pull up any trees but it felt appropriate for a cartoon and had some fun characters.

Gameplay definitely felt like it had Ninja Gaiden lineage, and felt pretty fun overall. Between the graphics and the ground pickups it felt a bit like a throwback to games of a bygone era. It’s a bit of a shame that many important combat abilities are gated behind the skill tree as it means the gameplay doesn’t make a great first impression, but it opens up and becomes a lot more fun as you start unlocking things.

Bosses were fun for the most part and felt appropriately balanced. Some fun designs and playing on Normal I didn’t need more than a couple attempts at most for each boss, which feels right for a game like this. Maybe the final boss’s vulnerability windows were a tad to small, but it was a cool boss otherwise.

Definitely recommend it if you’re interested in a more laid back and chill action game. Or if you’re a Samurai Jack fan, of course. Sadly I believe it’s been delisted from all storefronts but Epic, but you can of course always fly the black flag.