I once made the mistake of saying Mirror's Edge was a brilliant game apart from the ugly, style-clashing cut-scenes and boring story which you are better off skipping (it's true). Caused terrible offence to the story writer who, whoops, was present. I haven't played 2013 Tomb Raider, but it's the same writer (worth paying attention to these things before I shoot my mouth off again).

I don't even think it was her fault the Mirror's Edge story was boring, it's just that Mirror's Edge is not a game that needs a lot of story, especially not pace-breaking talky exposition. Still, I guess it's no fun to hear somebody opine that a game would be much better if your contribution was cut and replaced with nothing.

Anthony Flack wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 4:33 pm I once made the mistake of saying Mirror's Edge was a brilliant game apart from the ugly, style-clashing cut-scenes and boring story which you are better off skipping (it's true). Caused terrible offence to the story writer who, whoops, was present.

Oof. Were you unaware that she was the one responsible, or did you just put your foot in your mouth?

Mirror's Edge was (is?) also on sale, but I've already spent too much of money I don't really have, so it'll have to wait. I've never gotten over the fact that it would look so much better in third person though. It would be nice to at least have the option.

Oh, I didn't even think about that, I was just giving my opinion about Mirror's Edge.

I still think it's a terrible fit though. This enigmatic, minimalist game needed an enigmatic, minimalist story, not exposition-heavy sci-fi dyzzztopia wiffle waffle acted out by cheesy flash toons. They should have handled it more like Portal.

I finally got my Steam Deck. Damn, it's as cool as people say. I haven't even done anything special with it other than install some games and play. It's pretty huge, but feels really light in my hands. Only thing I'd say is when it runs certain parts of Elden Ring, you can hear the fan, but I only really hear it because I had the audio barely on cuz my kid was sleeping near me. Anyone else get a deck or slated to get one or just curious about it?

^ I'll probably wait for V2 to come out, or pick up a used one.

Adam P wrote: Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:59 am A friend talked me into getting Hollow Knight. It’s awesome but also so fucking difficult.

I took an extended break after about 70 hours of play time. I came back to it about a month ago, restarted, and discovered that I was both substantially better at it and finding it incredibly enjoyable. I finished the 100%+ completion in under 20 hours earlier this week and now am attempting an any% under 10 hours.

I got about 95% of the way through Hollow Knight but kind of lost interest very near the end and never bothered to complete it, which is unusual. Not sure if it was the fact that all the DLC content was included that made it feel like a little bit too much. I guess I should finish it sometime. It is a really good game. And large.

Hollow Knight needs about 50% more benches, and to have them right next to boss fights and major platforming nightmares.

My suggestion is to start the game over. Sounds crazy, but with a lot of play time invested you pretty much only have really challenging stuff ahead. Whereas if you start over, there’s far less exploration needed and much of what was initially frustrating on the first playthrough comes much more easily. I really feel like half the challenge of Hollow Knight is beating yourself up over the extreme difficulty of some of the early challenges and the mental snowball effect.

Alternatively, practice beating the shit out of various bosses in the Hall of Gods.

My next quest is to find something that falls somewhere between Metroid Dread and Hollow Knight on the difficulty scale and that engages me as much as both of those games do.

Adam P wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:34 pm My next quest is to find something that falls somewhere between Metroid Dread and Hollow Knight on the difficulty scale and that engages me as much as both of those games do.

Good luck and let me know when you find it! The Ori games (i forget the full titles) were both pretty decent Metroidvania games, but neither were as good as Hollow Knight.