No, that’s exactly my point. Microsoft doesn’t exactly make it easy/cheap to be legit.
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For starters:
Most of the world is late-medieval; small parts are early-Renaissance, other bits are Bronze age to Stone age. No electronics, no steam engines, no gunpowder, minimal clockwork. There are parts of the world in which magic supplants technology to a significant degree, however.
To give an idea of the cultural background:
The magical catastrophe known as the Banestorm brought countless amounts of people and creatures to Yrth, including humans from Medieval Earth. And as humans tend to do, they soon expanded to take over most of the continent of Ytarria, displacing the native elves and orcs (the dwarves remained safe in their mountain fortresses). One thousand years later, Ytarria is dominated by the East-Coast Empire of Megalos (Catholic, powerful, sorcerous, old and corrupt), surrounded by various nations on all other sides. A significant minority of the Megalan population are goblins, of the green-skinned small-but-clever trickster variety.
South of Megalos lies the independent country of Cardiel (probably the most cosmopolitan society of Ytarria; as well as a nearly 50/50 Catholic/Muslim population, they also have small groups of centaurs and halflings and are one of the only places in Ytarria with openly Huguenot communities). Cardiel was formerly a Megalan province, and before that it was the mixed Islamic nation of al-Kard. West of Cardiel are the Sunnis of al-Wazif (ruled by a Caliph, and tolerant of magic: think Arabian Nights) and the Shiites of al-Haz (the nation guarding the Holy City of Geb-al-Din, controlled by the clergy, and intolerant of magic: think Saudi Arabia).
Technology in Megalos and the Islamic nations is medieval, while the semi-autonomous Megalan archipelago of Araterre in the far South is slightly more advanced (swashbucklers and foppish nobles duelling with fencing weapons, but still no gunpowder). Nearby is Bilit Island; Aztec society crossed with a Sinbad ecosystem. The Nomad Lands to the North of Megalos (Celt/Viking/Mongol: “barbarians” of all sorts) are closer to a Late Iron Age tech level.
West of Megalos is another ex-province, now the country of Caithness, where an unusual local interference with magic defends it against Megalan reconquest (and provides for a more Arthurian ambience than the magically-saturated Megalan culture). South of Caithness is the elf-infested Great Forest, while the mountains to the North hold the dwarf nation of Zarak. Further West the lizardmen of the Great Desert provide a buffer against the tribes of the Orclands on the west coast.
The nations of Ytarria are mostly at peace, but the last Megalan crusade was less than two decades ago, and a civil war has wracked Caithness for years.
Races available are humans (from assorted cultures and religions, ranging from stone age to early Renaissance), elves/dwarves/halflings (all fairly Tolkeinesque; elves are aloof and innately magical, dwarves are miners and tough fighters, halflings are good sneaks), goblins (similar to humans, but a bit smaller, trickier and more prone to magic), gnomes (kind of above-ground dwarves, not as militaristic), orcs (barbarian bad guys, killed on sight in most human lands), ogres (bigger dumber orcs, occasionally used as slave-soldiers in human armies) and reptile men (big and tough but also mostly seen as kill-on-sight monsters).
The campaign began in Cardiel, one of the more cosmopolitan and tolerant of the human nations. Humans or goblins of any culture would fit there, as would elves/dwarves/halflings/gnomes. An orc might get away with it if they’re careful to keep their identity hidden; ogres or reptile men are in trouble unless they’re part of a powerful noble’s bodyguard or somesuch.
The party is currently just over the border into al-Wazif, exploring a dungeon.
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Wound up getting Project CARS after all. Still waiting for the download…
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Except when your country tries to get everyone on Linux…
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Well, I have an idea for someone new to bring in (been looking at the game so far and I don’t know that I’d be comfortable taking over someone else’s character). I can give a background to you and answer the questionnaire, if that’ll help.I just don’t want to take over this thread to do it.
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Either PM me or post to:
The party is close to exiting the dungeon, so it shouldn’t be too hard to introduce new PCs.
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Update on this one… I’ve played 4 hours so far, and have definitely been getting my money’s worth from it (at the current price that’s a low bar, but still…). If a cross between an action RPG and a choose-your-own-adventure book sounds intriguing, then I’d definitely recommend it.
My only new complaint is that there seems to be a very fine line between blowing through a fight without getting a scratch, and getting completely trashed by the enemies. But, the checkpoint system so far has meant that dying only sets me back for the single battle that I was in at the time, so it’s not a huge deal (though, if I were trying for the achievement to get through an entire level without damage, it would be an entirely different can of worms).
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GURPS players now back up to three, which is enough to go with. But the more the merrier; if anyone else wants to step in, now’s the time.
All it requires is a couple of posts per week; if you want to step back out, it’s easy enough to arrange a heroic death.
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It sounds interesting to me but I have zero experience or knowledge of how it works. And I’d hate to drag down the experience for everyone else because i don’t know wtf I’m doing. Is it the kind of thing where I can read along and maybe join the next round once I feel less clueless?
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Sure.
There are no “rounds” as such, but new players can be added in whenever it’s plausible to do so (i.e. easy to do in the city, problematic when mid dungeon bash unless you can set them up as rescued prisoners or somesuch).
Have a look at the player posts on the narrative thread; an occasional post like that is all that’s required.
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I finally finished Persona 5 last weekend. After putting over 100 hours into it, my verdict is – yeah it’s pretty damn good.
Great presentation, great real-world setting (Tokyo! with stunning accuracy), gameplay, very accessible, cliched but still fun story, great characters, great dungeon crawling, wonderful music – all hallmarks of the Persona series. I’m already gearing up for a NG+ playthrough to work through all of the stuff I missed before and to try out the extras that were added to that mode. Definitely deserved of its high Metacritic score.
But, and of course there’s a but, I just didn’t like it quite as much as Persona 4: The Golden. Let me get this out of the way, I’m a huge fan of the Persona series. I’ve played Persona 1 on the PSP, I’ve played through Persona 3 three times – including O.G., FES, and P3P versions, I’ve played Persona 4 three times as well, twice on O.G., and once on The Golden (where I finally managed a playthrough maxing out every social link, and yes I am not ashamed to say I leaned on a walkthrough to make it happen). I’ve also played most the Persona 4 gaiden games – Arena, Ultimax, and Dancing All Night.
P5 has so much going for it – some of the most streamlined gameplay I’ve ever seen in a Persona title, wonderful menus and UX with so much style even the loading screens are great, and of course wonderful characters to get to know. But I just never felt the same connection with the characters that I did with Persona 4’s cast and that was a real bummer. I was also somewhat disappointed that there wasn’t more of a break from formula – I mean you basically had the same JRPG archetypes in every game ever. Yes, the character stories were great as always, but there wasn’t much in the way of surprise. Character arcs more or less started and ended exactly like I expected them to. That’s not to say the stories weren’t great, just that there weren’t many surprises.
This is especially disappointing given that Persona 4 had some very atypical character arcs including a male character struggling with his sexuality, and a female that presented herself as male in order to be taken seriously in her profession (I wouldn’t go as far as to say she was portrayed as a trans man but there’s some debate on this). In JRPGs, LGBT roles are often played for comedy or laughs; P4 played this (no pun intended) largely straight.
Sadly, P5 does revert to type by portraying a pair of homosexual men as flamboyant deviants that hit on Protag and his male friends a few times throughout the story. There’s also several portrayals typical anime-level harassment that left me feeling very uncomfortable, but they were thankfully few and far between.
The final disappointment is in the localization. ATLUS is well renowned for doing amazing localization for their games and P5, while certainly not bad, is just not as good as I’m accustomed to. More about that aspect here: http://www.personaproblems.com/. While there was nothing incomprehensible (this wasn’t Zero Wing or anything) or game breaking, I did notice this, and it was a letdown.
Anyway I can’t recommend this title highly enough if you’re into JRPGs. Despite my criticisms, it’s still a very, very good game. One of the best I’ve played in a very long time and I can’t wait to delve into a second playthrough. Despite the ‘5’ after the name, there’s no need to have played the other titles as they are all self-contained other than being in a shared universe and there being some occasional referential Easter eggs.
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Thanks for the review; I was wondering about it and now I will definitely check it out.
I’m so into Horizon Zero Dawn it’s not even funny. The story is compelling but it’s the world design that has really hooked me in; it feels like it’s a rare thing to see an original IP these days, let alone one starring a female protagonist that is pointedly not sexualized in an entirely original sci fi setting that goes out of its way to try new things.
I’m really in no hurry to finish it; now that I’ve levelled up a bit and can hold my own against the larger enemies, I’m taking great pleasure in spending hours at a time hunting and exploring.
As is often the case in games with stealth mechanics, I’m having a lot of fun not trying to hide at all and deliberately walking into crowds of enemies, spear drawn and actively trying to get their attention.
That said, I think Mrs Cynical was a bit taken aback last night when I went full Sarff Landan and shouted at the TV. Reading a book as she was, I don’t think she was expecting me to bellow “CMON! DO YOU WANT SOME? BECAUSE I’M WELL IN THE MOOD FOR IT!” at a herd of robotic cows, even if they were getting ready to charge me, nor was she expecting me to mutter “yeh mate, fuckin thought not” as the last one decided it had had enough and legged it.
You can take the boy out of London…
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I’ve been playing mostly driving games this year for some reason (I don’t actually drive, but it’s fun in a game).
Grand Theft Auto V, in story mode, is excellent. I see why it won so many awards and stuff. I’ve talked to some people who only played it briefly as “I just drove on the sidewalk and ran over hookers”, but if you actually play the story, the characters are fleshed out, the transitions are great, the interactions during the cutscenes and drive-time conversations are good, the setting is fleshed out even to what plays on the radio or shows up online when a character uses a computer or their phone, there’s some real weird stuff, and some fun easter eggs. I tried online play, but it was glitchy and people were hacking it, so it wasn’t as much fun as it could be.
Then I tried Euro Truck Simulator 2. I liked that so much I bought a steering wheel and pedals controller for it. It’s relatively slow-paced and relaxing. Pick a contract, tune the radio to a station you like, and cruise across the European landscape. Between drives, you use your money to buy new garages and trucks and hire new drivers to grow your company. But mostly, it’s just kicking back, relaxing, and listening to music while the countryside rolls by. A great way to relax after a hard day’s work.
The third was Rocket League. Soccer played by cars in an arena. But the cars can drive up the walls (and even briefly across the ceiling before gravity kicks in). And they have rocket boosters and the ability to jump, so you can jump, boost, and fly to hit the ball in the air. There’s also a basketball and hockey mode and another ‘dropshot’ mode where when the ball bounces on the floor it makes holes. This is about the opposite of Euro Truck Simulator 2 - a pure adrenaline rush, but brief, 5 minutes per game. So it’s easy to just play a game or two before dinner or whatever. It’s set up as an e-sports thing, and they have tournaments with serious prize money, but I just play for fun. I’m not that good against humans, but I can really beat the AI. And sometimes it’s just nice to score 20 goals in 5 minutes.
My tastes tend to come and go in cycles. Not sure what will be next, I’d guess most likely wargames then RPGs, but I still have some adventure and horror games that I haven’t played much yet.
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I was supposed to get a copy of that when I picked up my PS4 recently but they’d run out 
definitely on my list though. Nice to see that Guerilla have finally worked out how to add a decent character to good gameplay!
Just finished the first two Destroy All Humans! games that I picked up from a bundle a little while ago, solid 7/10 games that know exactly what they are and do it with humour. I miss Pandemic 
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I love Pandemic. I’ve tried a bunch of its offshoots and variations, and some are better than others (the new Cthulhu Pandemic is very clever) but the best by far is Pandemic Legacy, which I would say is one of the best board games I’ve ever played, and easily the best “legacy” game. Permanently destroying cities, tearing up cards, opening sealed boxes to unveil new items that completely change the game as you go… it’s a time investment, but it’s worth it.
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Ah, my mistake. I’m not a video gamer at all.
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I was really into Rocket League for a couple of months when it was newish. I also found it was a huge adrenaline rush, which is not always a good thing. 
I stopped playing a bit before they added all the various game modes.
Currently playing Project CARS (I’ve learned to skip events involving certain car types because they feel completely wrong and are frustrating as hell), Diablo 3 with the Necromancer expansion (officially now, not just beta), and started Nex Machina but it’s currently crashing after finishing the first level of the second world.
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“Oh good! An American Muscle Car series set entirely on street tracks! I was just thinking how bored I was of cars that have a turning circle smaller than that of an aircraft carrier!”
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I want to try out the new Cyrodiil mod for Skyrim, but Sony are not allowing it for the PS4.
My game life needs are pretty small.
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