delitomatoes

3 big ones recently, this year was God of War Ragnarok, FF7 Rebirth and Jedi Survivor

Back when 3d games were new, tomb raider, prince of persia etc the traversal was the challenge, the gameplay.

Eventually they got watered down and simplified, now they are cleverly disguised choke points while the open world or boss ahead loads.

You'll notice the squeezing between narrow walls to separate 2 areas or a simple climb against a flat wall just before a boss. I think Uncharted was the first to do this as they moved away from climbing and focused more on combat and puzzles.

There is no reason to actually have the characters climb anything if it's not fun or there are better ways of traversal, GoW being the biggest offender here

Jedi Survivor embraces traversal more but still locks you out with invisible walls and floors that kill you

I think I might prefer the elevator loading screens from Elden Ring, at least you get to stretch out your fingers when waiting

They both good looking people, but I guess their chins got typecast

I missed the days of Uncharted and Tomb Raider, those games don't exist anymore, instead open world "everything games" have taken its place, AssCreed, Horizon, Fallen Order etc.

So Jedi Survivor scratches that traversal itch well, it has limited platforming sections and exploration, but enough to get the sense of wonder I had previously in the worlds of the old games.

It does a lot of things and takes inspiration from Souls likes, adventure platformers, hack and slashes, open world etc, but does none of it particularly well. This iteration focuses more on platforming and metroidvania as compared to the first game, here are some things that I wished were better.

1. It takes too long to get good. The setup at first seems very similar to Uncharted, solid platforming and combat wrapped around chunky set pieces placed in each act, however for some reason, Cal starts with losing all his abilities from the previous game and has to start again, you also slowly gain platforming abilities like air dash similar to a metroidvania. So you start the game feeling very anemic, a weak Jedi who can't do much but just gets pushed along the story.

The first point where I felt the game had potential was an amazing boss fight set piece on a desert planet, at that point, the initial hours of the game were a slog, probably only sustaining interest from Star Wars fans

2. It hates Lore I don't mean the canon and Lucasarts vs Disney and all that, I myself am not familiar with the "correct" story, by Lore I mean how things work in universe are not consistent or sensical at all.

In one part of the game, you put on an imperial disguise and depending on the customisable hair and beard style you have, you obviously look extremely out of place, the disguise is also of a high ranking officer, but the NPCs of lower rank look down on you.

There are several simple visual or dialogue changes that could have been done, for example removing the rank from the uniform or acknowledging that the designers thought about imperial ranks. There are also problems of weird architecture, random items scattered around the galaxy which I'll cover in my next 2 points.

3. Exploration with no rewards Speaking of items, the loot in the game is terrible, consisting mostly of cosmetics, so while you take on a tough platforming challenge, you may end up with not much at the end, this also really brings up the Lore part, like finding paint colours for your lightsaber in a meat packing factory, or force essences in random caves. Exploration is fun for its own sake and there are "audio tapes" of side stories when walking around, but again very uninteresting stories that do nothing.

4. Combat Lightsabers don't cut people in this game, behaving more like glowy baseball bats in combat and act like movie lightsabers in cutscenes. As many people have pointed out, the combat was probably started out as a Sekiro style parry into deathblow mechanic that was downplayed so that casual players could get into it by mashing. Only 1 stance out of 5 has animation cancel and the most enemy attacks are not well telegraphed, bosses are designed better, but they still take 20-30 light saber cuts to bare skin without so much as a scratch. The stamina and health mechanic doesn't gel and I wished they had designed a system that had the lightsaber cut off armor and limbs if they didn't one a one hit kill.

Force powers are not integrated well, being quite useless against strong enemies, obviously dark side powers are more flashy and easier to implement, but maybe we'll see it in the 3rd game

I did enjoy the puzzle sections of the game but it felt like it ought to belong and it completely different series altogether, the mish mash and inconsistent vision for this series really stops it from becoming one of the greats

Back in the day, Asscreed 1-4 and Far Cry 2-3, there were constant improvements and innovations in level design, mechanics, graphics, cool shit to do basically.

Recently the 2 "highly praised" Star Wars "open world" games essentially haven't moved the needle but are just Generic Game with a star wars skin

1. The new Open Worlds, firstly we have the Horizon Dawn killers, Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring. Exploration focused game design, unique mechanics include unrestricted interaction and massive dungeons hidden behind tiny doors. Honourable mention to Death Stranding where deep mechanics are overshadowed by top notch facial animation by famous actors

2. Hero shooters, not a fan, but probably huge improvements and gameplay mechanics in Apex, Overwatch, Fortnight, maybe someone could chime in

3. RPG, Baldurs Gate 3, an impressive step up from Witcher 3 where every choice is considered, voice acted, millions of lines of dialogue, every player thought predicted by the designers.

4 The indies - usually the place for innovation but recent indies are super polished for small teams, bug free, fully thought out, addictive game loop, Balatro, Tactical Breach Wizards, Animal Well,Thank you for Coming.

In summary i think the industry is just spread out across more budgets, team sizes and countries now, no longer are the days when western Devs come up with fun or innovative AAA games, the focus more is on casual appeal and form over function

It seems the general direction the internet is going and I'm all for it

Earlier in the film, we are told that Worst Wolverine wore the Xmen uniform out of guilt and to remember his lost teammates, Deadpool jokes about it.

In the finale, when Wolverine redeems himself, not only fighting to save the people in the void but also DPs universe, his chains (the suit) symbolically explodes showing that he is free of his guilt

Also this is a pretty good way of tying in the mandatory shirtless scene in a somewhat meaningful way even if it doesnt seem so at first in a movie full of call outs

First hour of the game I googled "Aloy Talks too much"

I just finished the Elden Ring DLC and the Tomb Raider remastered trilogy. These games are 30 years apart but share the same mostly quiet protagonists.

Lara is alone, doesn't try to solve the puzzle for the player in the first 5 seconds, let's the player explore and figure things out and soak in the atmosphere. Aloy is as chatty as Nathan Drake but she's just muttering to herself in the wild, she even narrates her actions like an audiobook

The constant hud and text over every in world item also ruins the immersion. Yes I get that you don't see items in Fromsoft games, you get that streak of light. But Horizon firstly hides the item in their busy environment design then forces you to press a button to prompt that streak of light, for immersion!

I search for movies like Inside Man and posts recommended Heat.

But there's pretty much just 2 robberies? In the bank scene, they wear masks but have their faces seen before they even put them on and just open the safe.

Reviews also mention this as a heist movie.

Is there a distinction between heist and robbery? I thought heists were like complex thefts that the people didn't even know that the money is gone

I just had an experience with a auto soap dispenser, sink, towels and dryer set in the same place in a public restroom, didn't have to walk to a shared dryer

Plus if electric cars become the norm, the streets will be quiet for the first time since the industrial revolution

For example the living room is a middle square and the kitchen and bed rooms are not aligned but just smaller squares added to the sides

I just realised that I have never seen or used it, neither crude oil of course, but there are more variants of it than this natural mineral that powers a lot of the world.

What led to you seeing or touching coal?