Bjorn

Simple solution, just ask him to take a picture of every item he thinks is associated with that puzzle. It's not like there's that many items, or that it's terribly onerous to take a screenshot.

I don't blaim OR at all for selling to Facebook, I fully understand both the personal and professional implications for their team. But I still find it the grossest of all possible acquisitions.

Yeah, I'm feeling the same way. It's kind of amazing that all three of the Souls games, while so similar, also stand on their own in interesting and different ways. I learned something tonight! You can manually aim long range spells with the binoculars and fire in binocular view. I was struggling with some super tough NPC Black Phantoms in I was trying to manually aim a Greater Lightning Spear by lining up the shot first with the binoculars, and figured I'd go ahead and try and fire, and it worked! Dropping 3 spears on one of them before he could reach lock-on range made that fight way easier. For those of you looking for a challenge, this area is pretty awesome (see spoiler for area). I also backtracked and messed around in the Doors of Pharos, which is a second area associated with the Rat Covenant. I also fought the boss of the Doors of Pharos. I died more against that boss, and usually within 10 seconds of the fight starting, than I have against all the rest of the bosses combined. It's by far the most elated I've been when I've taken down a boss in this game.

Fucking gross.

I initially thought it was disappointing as well, but after playing around with the system a bit and respeccing twice, I think it is an overall good move. I feel like it makes the difference between the classes of weapons much bigger, while both stats fulfill different purposes. Dex also boosts Poison and Bleed proc rates, so there's a lot to like about Dex, it's just not straight damage.

NICE WORK!

I actually agree with you to some extent about the combat in Infinite, it's potentially much better than most people think, and I've had some mild curiosity to try the combat DLC to see what that's like. But I don't think it starts to shine until mid-game, which is a shame. I also think that some of the criticisms you had for the original Bioshock apply to BI. Maybe on 1999 the game pushes you, but below that, you can just pick a few guns that you like and focus on them. There are also some really game breaking gear combinations starting around mid-game that render everything else obsolete if you choose to go that route. I do suppose that's dependent on getting that gear, since it's randomized. That's being really dismissive. I'd argue that a lot of people have been very clear about what they wanted, and it's not unreasonable. A world you can interact with more. A more coherent story. Less racism. An Elizabeth who isn't just a walking vending machine, gameplay wise. More gameplay elements besides murder and dumpster diving. On that last one, sure Bioshock was mostly the same, but Columbia feels like a city that you ought to be able to interact with in a way that Rapture didn't. Ultimately, I can pin my disdain for the game squarely on the handling of the Vox Populi and Daisy. I certainly have other criticism and problems, but I can't really think of a game that made me more angry and more uncomfortable (and not in a good, interesting way) than BI did.

I just saw in my media player that this 'cast is filed under the genre "Garbage". And the sample of the corrupted cast sounds like it needs to be remixed into something epic.

One thing to realize, if you haven't yet, is that they changed how scaling works in DS2. Dex scaling now gives significantly less of a damage boost than Str scaling. Dex weapons certainly still have a powerful place, given their speed and move sets. I'm just trying to give you reasonable expectations of what an A or S scaling Dex weapon will gain. And weapons with balanced scaling (C scaling on both) will benefit a ton more from Str than Dex. There are some weapons in the same class with similar move sets (like Halberds) where some have Dex scaling and some have Str scaling. In those cases, the Str versions will be superior in almost all ways. It looks like you can get up to 6 Soul Vessels on a playthrough though, so plenty of opportunities to experiment. I had new thoughts on how to handle PvP this morning with my Malformed Skull, just need to change up my strategy a bit. The amount of equipment that affects casting time actually opens up several strategies that wouldn't have been viable before. Can't wait to try it out tonight.

Actually, there is a third option, one that I think is finally emerging, which is to have quality games journalism and reviews happen outside of the enthusiast press. I've been relatively surprised over the last year or so about how often I have found myself on Forbes (and I really dislike Forbes as a publication), the New York Times or NPR reading about games. It's becoming much more common to see games of all stripes, from AAA blockbusters to indie darlings featured in traditional media outlets. Treating them as serious pieces of artistic work in a billion dollar business, the same way film gets treated. These traditional publications are more separated from the influences that the enthusiast press has. They are not dependent on industry advertising. Their reader base does not come to them solely for gaming news. The probably don't particularly care about getting free games. The big names have enough power to give the finger to a publisher or PR rep if one were to try to bully them (which is far less likely than what happens to the enthusiast press). The aren't ever going to review the sheer volume of games that blogs do, but could still have an influence thanks to being separated from those pressures.

Petman was hiding in their closet, and his power source disrupted the recording. He was watching, learning, waiting.

I am terrible at SL120 duels! Only won one out of about a dozen last night. I respecced to try the hex that prevents other players from casting, which is really effective. But it's a pretty fair stat investment to get there (20 Int and 42 Faith). If I were to do a NG+ run and get as many spices as possible, it might make it more justifiable. It worked flawlessly in one battle. A guy switched over to his pyromancy flame and didn't notice his magic was disabled. He made the failed casting animation (looking at his flame in bewilderment), and I crushed him halfway through that animation. I ended up facing melee fighters in most of the rest of the duels. I love my Malformed Skull for PvE, but I'm just not sure it's the right weapon for PvP. It doesn't have the length of some of the other great weapons, which makes it much easier to dodge. I had a 4+ minute match against a Twinblade user where neither of us could hit the other one. When its got Sunlight Blade on it and it hits though, it's like bringing down a brick wall on someone. On the story side, I took down the fourth Old One, so I guess I'm ready to head into the end game. I can't say that I've really picked up that much about the lore and story so far. Bits and pieces, particularly those calling back to DS1, but I don't have any coherent idea what's going on. Your comments on weapons do have some truth to them. Now that I have more upgrade materials available, I've been experimenting a lot more with weapons. Just early on, the very limited Titanite made me want to horde what I had and not upgrade willy nilly. I've got a half dozen +9 weapons and one +10 now. I actually really like the new durability system. Keeping a good backup weapon is necessary for low durability weapons, and a good idea in general. Plus the mentality of thinking about multiple weapons because of durability has encouraged me swap weapons a lot more depending on terrain and enemy. Plus I keep fire, lightning and poison weapons in my inventory if it looks like they will be appropriate. On your last spoiler:

They are still skunked phrases due to their pronunciation/spelling. If there is someone in the conversation who wants to be pedantic, the conversation will devolve to arguing about how to pronounce/spell them rather than the content of the original statement. The same way that a phrase like "begs the question" will devolve into arguing about its meaning. Oddly enough, I tend to be a traditional grammar Nazi in a lot of ways, but not my forte, just deserts and begs the question don't bother me. It seems like the traditional versions of them are already past the tipping point of passing into extinction and its not worth the energy to try and maintain them.

It's pretty typical in the news industry, every newsroom I was ever around always used graph as shorthand for paragraph.

Sometimes though the loud minority are bringing up legitimate issues that the general majority are completely blind to.

That is really awesome!

I didn't watch BG until years after it was finished, so I already had some warnings not to expect an ending that would blow me away. And I wasn't particularly disappointed when it didn't. My expectations were low, unlike my expectations for BI. Instead of just repeating that, why not explain how it's a great game? I won't even argue or anything, I think I've said everything I have to say in this and other threads. But there haven't been many positive critiques of the game around here for awhile.

No, you're not alone. One of my best friends loved the combat in TLoU, to the point that he restarted the game on Hard as soon as he finished it on Normal and completed it again right away. He and I usually have very similar tastes in games, but that was one where we really diverged.

Sorry man, I really don't intend on taking down anyone else's enjoyment of it. There just hasn't been another game that made me as angry as BI did while I was playing it.

I learned something today!

Holy crap, I had missed this. Amazing. And it raises the question, why don't we have a dedicated Jeff Goldblum thread around here?

It has had some public false positives over the years, as recently as last month. These mistakes tend to only become public when a significant number of people are affected by the same issue. No one has the slightest idea how many small or individual false positives have happened over the years. Still, stuff like VAC is better than having nothing at all.

As far as I know, there is no impact at all from any choice or action you can take. I only played it through once though, so I could be wrong.

Yeah, PvE builds at this point won't fare well against the super focused PvP builds, unless you are a master. You could try going offline for a bit to build up some humanity, then go back online to try the invaders again.