Great, more consolidation in the gaming industry. Still, Sony making some kind of big purchase felt inevitable once the Activision deal was finalized. I guess on the bright side Bloodborne 2 might finally happen? Or at least a remaster? But who knows with Sony.
That’s a shame. Rime was a great little game. Got it on a whim and ended up really enjoying it. Hope the developers can find work elsewhere.
Good. Still not completely sure about moving from one corporate site to another, but good to see more and more people are moving away from Twitter.
Doing things and not spiraling is about all we can do at this point. I suppose it depends on the things you care about or want to prioritize The massive cuts to government spending Trump has talked about are inevitably going to impact services like Social Security and Medicare so mutual aid resources are going to be important for a lot of people:
Mutual Aid Hub-Resources Food Not Bombs FAQ
If you’re concerned about what will happen in places like Gaza and Ukraine there are charities that are helping those affected by those conflicts:
Charity Navigator Gaza UNITED24-Offical Ukranian Fundraising Platform
Finally, if you are not in a position to donate money then there are ongoing election efforts that need volunteers. At this point that’s mostly ballot curing, helping voters sort out issues with their absentee or mail in ballot. Some of these ongoing elections are incredibly tight and making sure those ballots are accepted could make a difference, especially in low profile races:
This actually isn’t a terrible use of an LLM. It’s actually kind of refreshing to see a news story about a beneficial use of it in a very specific context.
Clicked for a game announcement. Got a political manifesto about art and culture. Not disappointed. Definitely interested to see how this develops.
Ridiculous, but depressingly unsurprising.
Pretty sure that is your cat now. Sorry, we don’t make the rules, the cats do.
It looks cool and I like some of the little callbacks to the original PlayStation, but I imagine the price for this is going to be ridiculous and that’s before the scalpers inevitably get their hands on them.
Kind of surprised it took this long to be honest. Also a little surprised it’s a patent lawsuit, but then again it might be easier to prove infringement on a gameplay concept you have patented rather than copyright.
Been bouncing between Wizordum and Void Stranger over the last few days. Wizordum is a fun “boomer shooter” that takes a lot of inspiration from games like Hexen and I’ve been enjoying mowing down monsters with fireballs and a magical shotgun. Void Stranger I’m still not sure how I feel about. Heard it mentioned a few times as a very meta game with a lot of layers. In theory I like games like that. Figuring out the core puzzle gameplay of moving blocks around has been fun, even if I don’t consider myself that great at puzzles, but the meta stuff is riding that fine line between being just cryptic enough to be intriguing to being so cryptic that I’m not sure how I’m supposed to figure this out without a guide.
Glad to see the campaign still going strong. Almost being past the minimum threshold requirement for seven countries is impressive. Hopefully it can reach one million signatures, even if I’m a little skeptical about the EU taking this seriously and passing a decent law. Still, anything that keeps the topic on peoples minds is a good thing.
Two weeks? That’s got to be a record for the shortest amount of time it took for a live service game to completely crash and burn.
Well, my expectations for this game were already on the floor. Guess it’s time to put them in the basement. I mean I want a good sequel to Bloodlines, but that’s looking less and less likely.
“We have looked at these difficult economic times and decided to make them more difficult for our employees by firing them all.” Nice. Always a great move. Also, I don’t see how they can say with a straight face that none of their ongoing projects or releases are going to be impacted by laying off the entire team. Even if they are just a publisher firing everyone and “restructuring” the company is going to have some kind of impact.
So, has Embracer officially surpassed EA’s killstreak of video game studio closures yet? They’ve got to be getting close.
I remember reading about this mod years ago when it was still in early development, can’t believe it actually has a release date. It’s always nice to see one of these huge Skyrim mod projects actually make it to release.
I have a lot of nostalgia for The Force Unleashed, but even playing it back then I remember thinking the combat was kind of rough. I can only imagine how dated the gameplay must feel for someone picking it up for the first time these days. The idea of being this unstoppable Force-user was cool, but from what I remember the game struggled to live up to that promise. Like pulling down the Star Destroyer. It was everywhere in the marketing to show just how powerful you were going to be, but in the game itself it was just this tedious section that dragged on longer than it needed to. At least that’s how I remember it.
I’ve been working my way through the Baldur’s Gate series after putting about ninety hours in BG3. BG1 was fun even if the story was a bit predictable and generic, although it did feel like playing through a DnD campaign. Really enjoyed Shadows of Amn, but Throne of Bhaal just turned into a slog at the end. I think the most interesting part of playing through the trilogy was watching Bioware’s style develop over the course of the three games. As someone who was introduced to Bioware through Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire I’ve always thought Bioware’s character writing stood out, especially in the old days, so it was a bit jarring to play through BG1 where the companions feel more like hirelings you pick up for their class rather than full-fledged characters. BG2 felt more like a classic Bioware game with banter, romance, and companion quests, although the Real Time advancement system kept glitching out on me. I was hoping to move on to Planescape: Torment after TOB, but I’m feeling burnt out on Infinity Engine games. So right now I’m trying to find something in the Summer Sale to serve as a palate cleanser.
Curious what industry standard Senator Warner is judging Valve against because a social media site, which Warner is comparing Valve to, being filled with Nazis and the far right feels like the standard, even if some sites at better at quarantining them than others. Also, “intense scrutiny” from Congress is kind of an empty threat at the best of times, but especially when Congress is about to be run by the sort of people who aren’t going to see this as a problem.