miffy495

See, I had a fantastic time with it playing stealth first, and instantly switching over to dual Schockhammers or dual machine guns (whatever I had the ammo for) as soon as I got spotted. Proprerly upgraded, those things can stagger and drop one of those super soldiers in like 4 hits. They don't have a chance to touch you. As long as you whittle down their numbers before things get hairy, I never had any difficulty with the back half of the game after finding some upgrade packs. Also, if you take the compression vest, one of the perks that comes along with it is time slowing down when you're spotted a la MGSV, so if you're quick with a silenced headshot it's like you were never spotted at all.

What Remains of Edith Finch. Yeah, I cried.

Welp, I'm done. Holy shit I'm done. I am severely tempted to boot up The New Order immediately and replay both games on the Wyatt path now just fucking because. The game had NO DAMN RIGHT to be that good. I feel like if it weren't for Zelda, this would definitely have been my goty. Hell, I'm still tempted to say that it is, but I know that saying that right after finishing it isn't really fair. Besides, I still have the Champion Trials to finish in BotW, so I'm being reminded of how good Zelda is all the time now anyway. Still, a very nearly #1 kind of #2 here. I really do think I'll to a TNO/TNC playthrough next time I get a break from work. That was so good.

So I'm now in New Orleans, and really working hard to not get spoiled on things before listening to goty podcasts. This shit is amazing so far. I've also done every commander side mission available to me so far. I'm playing on Normal (or whatever the medium tier difficulty is) and I have to say, all of the people who recommend Easy mode for this game are really puzzling me. I find the Starbreeze/Machine brand of stealth to be immensely rewarding and fun. I play Wolfenstein the same way that I play an immersive sim, with the added security that if my stealthy-times go astray I can bust out dual schockhammers (obviously the best "time to get shit done" option in the game). Like that, I'm reliably able to whittle down the forces to something manageable before shit goes sideways, and then once shit goes sideways it's all good fun. I still die a bunch, but it always feels fair and I am always able to learn from it and kick more ass the next time. I have only once encountered any frustration at all in the game. This would be the court house, which I assume is the part that everyone complains about when they say "that thing halfway through". I will spoil nothing beyond the name of the building and the fact that stealth is not an option in this level. Because of that, I definitely had a lot of trouble here and ended up swearing at the computer a few times before finally finding a defensible position and cheezing the fuck out of it. Other than that, the game (and yes, even all of the side missions that ramp things up) has been smooth sailing. Those who had trouble/busted it down to Easy, what gives? If you play everything on Easy and that's just your style, I got no beef with you, but from the way that people talk, it sounds like those who recommend it in this one are also the people who would normally play other shooters on Normal or Hard. If you're in that boat, what is it about this game that made you switch?

To anyone who may be able to answer, I was wondering if it were possible to have a swearing-free cut of any of the episodes? I love the podcast, and some of the episodes would be great to share with my students when we talk about different historical figures. Trouble is, the kids are 10 years old and the parents may object if I were to play them for the class as-is with some of the language included. I understand that it's probably a bunch of work, but even as a thought for production on Season 2, I'm sure that I'm not the only listener who would appreciate a secondary "clean" feed. Just figured I'd put that out there. Thanks!

Man, the more I use it, the more I'm beginning to think that my goty for 2017 is actually "ebaying the ION drum kit adapter for Xbox One". Between that and Rocksmith, I think I spend about 3/4 of my gaming time playing music on real or almost-real instruments instead of actually playing games. The great part is, I'm watching myself get markedly better at both. I am now at a point where I can play almost all non-shred songs near-to-perfect on RS and just cracked my first ever "5 stars on an expert-level devil-horns-difficulty song" on my ION kit. Love it so much. While RS has been a big part of how I spend my time for a few years now (nearing 850 hours in the 2014 edition, had about 100 in the original before that), I hadn't used the drums in about 5 years before deciding to grab the adapter. So worth it. Honestly, probably a better and more rewarding experience than any "game" game that I've played this year.

I got a NES30 from 8bitdo. It's real good for that sort of stuff.

After spending a bunch of time going back into BotW for the DLC, I can now confirm that, yeah, it's my goty. Feels just like coming home to jump back into that world after not having done so since March.

That would be the meanest of all teases. Up there with Big Blue and Mute City being in Mario Kart now.

I'd be interested. Haven't played in over a year, but what the hell?

*cough*Pikmin*cough*

Petition to make the protagonist of the game be named "Anna Jones".

Well, Zelda's DLC is out now, so I guess I'm jumping back in over the next few weeks to remind myself of it and confirm it as GotY after all. Fun times ahead!

WHAT? Goddamnit, I spend 2 days at parent teacher interviews and I miss Bayonetta 3 getting announced? Off to hunt for a trailer! EDIT: YES. AND PORTS OF 1 AND 2 FOR SWITCH! IT IS A GOOD DAY! EDIT EDIT: Best comment on Nintendolife thread: "Nindendo'S Witch". Well done, commenters.

Man, I still think the WiiU is secretly the best Nintendo console. Backwards compatible with so much of the best they've ever done, and had that same vibe the GCN did for its original games: "Fuck it, we're behind anyway, so let's do a bunch of crazy shit and see what sticks." So good. I also loved The Last Guardian when I played it in January (technically 2017!), but it really does fall to the same problems that SotC did. Hugely ambitious, greatly affecting, damn near triumphant when it works, but so clunky that those triumphant moments sometimes only actually work the fourth time you try to do them. I lost count of the number of times that an otherwise amazing moment fell flat because the scripting broke. That said, anyone with a PS4 should at least give it a punt to see if it's their thing now that it's surely a lot cheaper. As for my own personal GotY 2017, I'm having a hard time answering that. I have loved my Switch and everything big that I've played on it (except ARMS, which was kind of a wet fart). Splatoon 2 has been great, Mario Odyssey is incredible, Mario Kart 8 was really fun, even little stuff like Golf Story I loved a bunch. I think that in terms of how much quality gaming I got out of it, and just with respect to the amazing craft that went into making it, Zelda: Breath of the Wild is probably my GotY as well. The trouble is, I find I'm not as passionate about it as I thought I'd be back in March when I was playing it. It was amazing and super involving when I was lost in the world, and I spent over 100 hours getting every last damned shrine, but for whatever reason my memories of those hours feel muted. I still intend to go back and do the DLC when that comes out, but I'm honestly not that excited to do so when I think about it, and I have no intention of going back and replaying the full game any time, as I have with every single other Zelda except for Skyward Sword (and still plan to do with Skyward Sword in the near future, having gone to the Symphony of the Goddesses tour last weekend and having my interest rekindled). The change in format was necessary for the series, and I think made for a phenomenal game, but it just didn't hit me in the same way that Zelda usually does. And I say this as one of the biggest Zelda fanboys out there. Outside of the Switch, 2017 games I've played are few and far between. The full list: I got all of the endings in Nier: Automata and loved that damn game. It really is something special. I played some of Horizon: Zero Dawn, but fell off it pretty quickly outside of the tutorial world. Maybe I'll go back. I just finished New York in Wolfenstein 2 and am really looking forward to seeing where that goes. I loved how different from other shooters The New Order's encounter design was, and New Colossus seems to have picked that up and run with it, so I hope that the complaints that most people have had about this stem from trying to play the game like a shooter rather than whatever the fuck it is. Either way, finishing it before listening to GotY podcasts is my personal homework as soon as winter vacation starts, and I really look forward to it.

Since it was published, that book has been a standard for 5th grade novel studies. The kids love it. I shall get the word out to my colleagues in Humanities.

So I am intent on playing this before I listen to any GotY stuff because from everything I've heard it will probably be in at least a few conversations and I don't want to be spoiled. That said: I played the first game and saved the salty Scottish man. I hear that saying you saved the kid may actually lead to cooler shit in both the first and second games. The first is a wash, but when I load up 2 for the first time and am asked: should I lie?

Didn't the team make Prince of Persia 2008 between AC1 and 2? I remember thinking at the time that they may alternate years and being really excited at that prospect...

Cuphead is very difficult but never insurmountable, in much the same way as a Contra or similar was. It is something which require replay after replay and memorization, not lightning fast reflexes. There is definitely a rewarding feeling to seeing yourself get a little further with each attempt, and a huge swell of pride and "that's right, FUCK YOU" when you finally pull off a win. It's actually been really interesting to me to see kids take to this game. They love it. I work with ten-year-olds, and they know that I have it as well so they like to swap stories at break times. I have one boy in my class who has been playing it nightly since the day it came out and is just up to the final phase of the flower boss. He's playing it almost exactly the way I played Contra 3 when I was his age, and it's neat to see. Blew his mind that I could beat 6 bosses in a sitting last Sunday. The fact that he's taking it slow doesn't dampen his enthusiasm though. He's making Goopy LeGrande fan art and seems to have latched on to that character specifically as a favourite. This makes me very happy for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Good times.

I KNEW there had to be a thread for this game already! "Coming 2014" hahaha. Anyway, I cleared world 2 tonight and am proud of myself. Here's a tweet about it: https://twitter.com/Miffy495/status/929218881498914817 Also, how the hell does one embed a tweet?

I actually hit my 400th moon a few minutes ago and it still felt like an achievement. Some of these late-game ones are damn hard.

Without spoiling too much, once you see credits there is a WHOLE lot of new content that opens up. It's actually pretty amazing how much they can wring out of this game. If your concern is density, you will enjoy post-credits a lot. Over hype is certainly an issue here, but I didn't have that as much of a risk because honestly, Mario is a distant third Nintendo franchise for me behind Zelda and Metroid, so the most I ever get hyped for a Mario game is "I will play and probably really enjoy this".

I now have just shy of 250 moons and am about to go and This is a Good Game.

I was lying in bed getting ready to sleep last night with a quick wind-down game of Picross, when lo and behold my entire friends list is booting up Odyssey. So then, of course, I am too. Played to the landing on the Sand Kingdom last night, then through about 40 moons of the Sand Kingdom and 20 of the Woodland (Wooded?) Kingdom tonight. Initial thoughts: Charming, beautiful, etc. Wonderful pretty much everything aesthetically. I don't like that the Bullet Bill controls are camera relative but sometimes also not? This is one of the only situations where I feel like tank controls would be a huge improvement. I found a painting in the Sand Kingdom which randomly teleported me to a secret star in New Donk City, which was a pretty cool glimpse of what seems like a much later level. Holy shit this game just gives away moons like candy. So yeah. Very much looking forward to continuing on with this. @Roderick, I also tapped my Waluigi but it just gave me some coins. Do you have to do this at the shop or something? I'm currently dressed in the explorer outfit from Mario's Picross, which is awesome, but would always be a Wa brother given the chance.

Already preloaded, but gotta wait until after work tomorrow. Very excited!