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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • Kingdoms of Amalur is pretty decent! Not very complex in the RPG department but a big high fantasy world to explore. The combat is very action oriented and you can play a lot of different builds. Pretty satisfying, too! The game is a bit older (ten years or so) but got a re-release two years ago. So, the graphics are a bit dated but not ugly. The art style saves it imo. I enjoyed it a lot when I played it last year!




  • I am close to finishing The Outer Worlds. The game has a somewhat mixed reception when it comes up in discussions online and I think it’s mostly because the developer Obsidian made New Vegas and Outer Worlds apparently is the worse game. So, I never played New Vegas and therefore can’t compare the two. I do enjoy my time with Outer Worlds very much!

    • it’s basically the same formula as Fallout 4 but in a humorous space setting with better gunplay. Or, alternatively Borderlands with a ton more talking and decisions and worse gunplay. In any case a lot of shooting and looting.
    • different builds are possible but not as significant different as in Borderlands. But since it’s not a massively big game it didn’t matter that much to me. After a couple of changes I kinda kept investing mostly in my handgun, my companions and personality skills to pass more skillchecks.
    • what I like: the stories the game tells! Be it the main quest line or quests for factions or your companions. All have a nice sense of humor to them without getting too silly. For example there is a dude in a wurst factory and you get sent there to end whatever he is doing there (hint: it’s more than producing wurst from spacepigs). And there are a number of ways you can approach this: guns blazing, trying to sabotage the factory or sneak in and just kill the guy.
    • also: great soundtrack and overall sound design! The jingle that plays when you level up is just great!
    • also: while not a massive big game there are a lot of different places to go and explore. From abandoned settlements in some sort of desert to a big city where only rich people live and everything in between.
    • meh: so many drinks, lotions and food items that give you different boosts. Problem is that there are so many different items it’s hard to keep track which one does what. I abandoned pretty much all of them and only kept Adreno (restores energy).
    • meh: fast travel can be annoying because most of the time you have to fast travel back to your ship and then from there select another planet/spacestation and then land your ship and then again fast travel to wherever you need to go to. So it’s potentially three (not very long, though) loading screens if you need to go someplace different.
    • decisions do matter in quests but the general direction of the story is set.

    I say: if you like stuff like Fallout, Borderlands and generally combat heavy action rpgs, this game may be right up your alley. And since it’s kinda old at this point it’s also pretty cheap most of the time.


  • I played Rogue Legacy and Dead Cells combined at least 150h and only a bit of BOI. I know that in RL the shtick is that with every new run another one of your family is the character. And in Dead Cells you just use a new body every run. The stories in those games aren’t very elaborate and the games would just be as good as they are without story.

    Hades is different in that the story parts of the game are an important part of the experience (you go around and get to know a lot of different characters and find different ways to upgrade stuff) and that the main character Zagreus doesn’t really die - he is also a god. When you lose all hp you just get transported back to Hades and almost everyone there has new tings to say and the relationships develop over time.

    I don’t know how to explain it better but the main idea of a roguelite is clearly there the execution is way more elaborate and story heavy than RL, DC or BOI. Slay the Spire is on my imaginary backlog of games in need to play before I die.



  • I mean, if you phrase it that way, sure. Just a dude in his spare room. But then again, aside from the fact that he makes probably 20 000 dollar a month alone from his Patreon, almost everyone who is interested in video games knows this man’s name for way over a decade. More like two decades, actually. And while he certainly hasn’t anywhere near the same visibility as he had at Gamespot or Giantbomb, way more of the people who do follow him, actually pay him money directly. Reach alone isn’t what’s important these days. And yet, Jeff still has the potential to influence a lot of people who do not directly give him money. He also has a podcast, he streams and has 170k follower on Twitter. And if he has a very contrarian take on something, it will get noticed. Maybe not as much as 15 years ago but still noticed.

    A bit of a ramble, sorry! I guess it triggered some memories of me listening to Giantbomb with him, Ryan, Vinnie, Alex and Brad while going to work or cleaning the house. Bombcast was pretty much the first podcast I regularly listened to.





  • While I guess you ask because you want to know if the story of the first is important to the second and I can’t answer that because I only played the first. But If you like hard but rewarding Metrodvania games and you are interested in the weird and interesting religious/horror pixel aesthetic I say: definitely play the first Blasphemous!



  • I agree 100% with you! Just a tiny thing I’d like to add: Ubi does, aside from some shitty practices, microtransactions and a ton of stupid money grabbing games, actually makes also a lot of good games. Their “Indie” games series form a couple of years ago had some games where you could feel the love the people making them put in. Valiant Hearts will forever be one of my favorite gaming experiences be!






  • I try Sync since it got released, so for the past 48 h, on and off without paying any money. I haven’t had a single ad since then. I don’t use any VPN or ad blocker on my phone. Don’t know why that’s the case. Maybe because I have the appearance set to list?

    Anyway, I really like the app! It really feels the most polished app by a mile to me. Yet, Voyager (as of now “only” a web app) feels also pretty polished, it just has a lot less things in the settings I can tweak.

    As a former RIF user (and I really never used anything else on my phone for Reddit) it still feels a bit weird to hop apps but at the end of the day that’s the beauty of the Fediverse: there is just so much choice and if you like Sync enough you have plenty of ways to give money to the dev, just as there are ways to donate to devs of the other apps you like!

    Sorry for the tangent!