Nappi

Already discussed and buried in the Books, books, books thread, but now that we have a separate forum for books discussion I guess we might as well have a separate topic for this service. So, anyone using Goodreads? I have found it a good way to keep track of my read and to-read books as well as to discover new titles and authors. Anyway, Idle Thumbs Book Club has its own – much unadvertised – Goodreads group. And here is I.

Inventory stuff was probably my biggest problem with the game upon release, and even then it didn't feel worse than, say, Fallout 4. When I started playing the game again my inventory size was 60/160, and at first I thought that I had done some thorough cleaning before I quit playing, but I later realized that things are just much better now.

Oh my god crafting elements no longer have weight! Retroactive game of the year 2015.

Ok, good to know. Thanks!

Well, I guess I will play all the side content then. Is there a point-of-no-return where a bunch of side-missions fail? My next story mission is Ugly Baby.

Hadn't noticed those. Could you provide a link to a couple of those? So far, I have bought House of the Dying Sun and Batman: Arkham Latest.

Yup, turns out CD Projekt is not on Rock Star's level when it comes to stuff like this. Thank god. Red Dead Redemption had very similar mission where the ending turned out to be exactly what you (and me) were expecting.

That pearl diving thing was the most interesting side quest I finished because the ending was so non-game-like.

Yup, inventory management was pretty annoying before that. Also, there seems to be an alternative (tighter) movement response option now. Cool!

I got back to The Witcher 3 because of all the good things I have been hearing about the DLC. I quit playing last year a few hours after reaching Skellige. I liked the game a lot but I exhausted myself by doing pretty much all the side quests near my level before progressing the main quest. There is a shitload of content, and I think I will have to go against my usual approach and simply skip some of the side quests in order to see the main game through. Anyone found a list of the more interesting or rewarding side quests? Also, I got a shitload of messages the first time I booted the game after my hiatus. Seems like the developers are still pretty good about updating their game post-launch. I missed most of the notifications though, because I was too busy being excited about the storage chest.

I saw The Lobster last year. I agree, really interesting movie. There was stuff that I really did not care for, e.g. but overall I felt positive about the film, because it was so thought-provoking.

Yup! I don't think I have ever heard anyone use that term before, so my reaction would probably have been similar.

Oooh.. The latest story arc of The Adventure Zone seems really promising! It even has a map.

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/giant-bomb-live-at-e3-2016-day-03/2300-11382/ From 1:39:00 on starts out goofy as hell (with, yes, people making inside jokes and talking over each other), but ends up in a very different place. It is quite a long segment though, and does not feature that much industry insight per se. I haven't had time to watch much of the content apart from that either, so I cannot make any other recommendations.

I made an avocado halloumi burger with pesto, tomato salsa and devil's jam. Tasted great!

I just tested the demo today. Runs super well, and the gameplay seems quite fun. I don't think I will buy the full game, though. I guess this sort of hectic FPS is not for me anymore.

And again The Avalanches - Wildflower (July 8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=799I89T4OjE

Went through the upcoming album releases list on Metacritic to see what to expect in the few upcoming months. Some highlights: DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall (June 24) Róisín Murphy - Take Her Up To Monto (July 8) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree (album) and One More Time With Feeling (cinema experience?) (September 8) http://nickcave.com/music/nickcaveandthebadseeds/skeleton-tree/ http://nickcave.com/films/one-more-time-with-feeling/ (Expecting this to be even darker than usual in light of recent events in Nick Cave's life)

There was some good stuff this E3. I'm slowly going through the announcements, but so far the games I'm most excited about are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of Far Cry 2 and Dishonored 2. Breath of the Wild looks to be the Zelda game of my dreams. Definitely going to dust off my Wii U for this one. I only watched bits and pieces of Dishonored 2, but since the actual gameplay looks quite similar to the previous game I'm pretty confident that it will be super fun. I also love the idea of using colors. Watch Dogs 2 looks nice so far even if some aspects of it are quite cringeworthy ("Here we use our 3D PRINTED electroshock gun to stun this guard"). The original got a lot of "I'm so fed up with open world games" flak upon release, but I actually liked the core gameplay quite a lot. I'm not a big fan of third person action shooter gameplay so I appreciated that I could approach many of the infiltration missions as puzzle boxes where I could take down most of the guards remotely with my sick-ass hax skills. Watch Dogs 2 seems to feature a much broader toolbox for that kind of stuff, so the gameplay could be a lot of fun. I also skipped the newest Ass Creed and Farcry games so I should be ready for another Ubisoft open-world tower climbing game. Deus Ex Mankind Divided looks great. Death Stranding looks weird as hell, and at first I had no idea what the actual gameplay is going to be like. Fortunately Hideo Kojima explained everything on Twitter. I only now realized that Microsoft seems to be committed to releasing "exclusive" titles on both XBOX One and PC Windows 10. As I have never owned an XBOX, I have previously ignored announcements for stuff like Forza and Halo. Now I'm actually looking forward to playing Forza Horizon 3. I'm not sure what to think of The Last Guardian now that it has a release date, except that the boy's face is weirdly blank.

Well, New Bordeaux, but anyway. Clearly modeled after New Orleans.

I watched bits and pieces of the E3 gameplay videos and I'm now officially cautiously optimistic to optimistic about the game. I loved the original game, especially the ultra slow way in which the story gained momentum, as well as the setting. Many people were probably seriously annoyed about the slow pacing and slow cars, but for me at the time it felt really refreshing. I'm sure the gameplay doesn't hold up at all, but my first playthrough of Mafia is still one of my fondest memories in gaming. I liked the sequel as well. I was surprised that they still dared to sprinkle the game with slow, uneventful story moments (e.g. driving a body to a dumpsite only to find out that you are not ambushed on your way there). Many reviewers and players seemed to be really pissed off by the fact that they built a city with nothing much to do. This did not bother me because I had another way of looking at it, i.e. that Mafia 2 is a linear, story-driven game that happended to be set in a modeled city. My goal was to see the story through, not go bowling with my cousin. Of course the game still had its issues. The gunplay still didn't feel quite as tight as it could have felt, and some of the missions were seriously annoying (looking at you harbor-warehouse-molotov-cocktail-party mission). Mafia 3 seems to be ramping up the action 500%. At first, I was really sceptical about this decision, but if the gameplay feels as good as it looks in the videos, I might still be up for it. The setting looks brilliant, the choice of the protagonist is intriguing, and the apparent (partial) focus on stuff like the KKK and the super-racist parts of relatively recent history of the USA might be really refreshing if also brutal. There is still a chance that the gameplay is not up to par, and that the story turns out to be a letdown or downright gross, but we'll have to see. Please, please, please be a good game. I really want to drive around New Orleans listening to the sweet music of the 60s. ("M has come to" I guess?)

Yes, it was a goof about how messy the release of this game was. I wonder if we got the "Six campaign missions" of the original intro pack (Paris, Sapienza, Marrakesh) already.

If you have any questions about the release strategy of Hitman, please consult this handy infographics:

Amazing! The title screen, the VHS effect, and the live action figure stop motion all look so good!

Nice Blendo of The Last Express and Doctor Who. Also, good work on that art deco poster!