Coelacanth

What, you don’t cool your rig with liquid nitrogen? AIO water cooling is so 2010s 🙄

Would have preferred a regular livestream with all donations going to the Gaza cause rather than a paywalled stream.

Apparently Rule 34 art of said goblin outnumber art of all the rest of the cast combined. Not a review per se, but… at least the playerbase seem to share your enthusiasm?

Not included in the headline: new players will now only be matched with other new players until they achieve 4 wins. I don’t think this patch will have completely solved matchmaking (since they already admitted last week that MMR was not working well and that wasn’t addressed) but I think stuff like this, the behaviour system and low priority queue will have a great impact that was sorely needed.

Civ VI instead of Civ V? List automatically invalid.

Jokes aside it’s an interesting list and I like the idea of ranking based on “what’s best to play right now” instead of by historical significance or some futile attempt at objective apples-to-apples quantification - even though at the end of the day I think I neither agree with the selection nor the ranking. But there are plenty of good games on there with solid reasons of why to play them in their descriptions, so it’s a good read nonetheless.

Been playing a lot ofDeadlock still, finally getting a grasp of how to play it feels like. Took a while to understand priorities and what to focus on and how to execute builds. Still held back a bit by my aim, but found enough ability-based heroes to still be able to perform. It’s a very fun game! I can’t play too many games in a row because it gets intense and stressful, but I’m really enjoying it.

I’ve also been playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the first time as something more relaxing and story based. It’s been alright so far. Don’t think it’s been hitting the heights of the original Deus Ex so far, but it’s enjoyable enough.

Does it have enough games yet?

Bioshock is a fantastic game imo if you’re willing to branch out from military games. The story is wonderful, the setting is phenomenal and the shooting mechanics are very solid and fun. You can probably find the remaster for cheap, it’s often on sale.

Does BioShock count?

Post-cyberpunk is not a genre I’ve seen too much of, but this sounds cool! I hope they lean heavily into the psychological and philosophical angle in the writing. I’ll keep an eye on this one.

Might help a bit in lower MMR brackets, but it’s really the rest of his kit that’s so strong. The top players consider the ult build a meme. I think they barely use it.

Now, I neither play Seven nor am I a top player, but that’s what I’ve been told.

Seven with a 58.93% win rate over a 93.23% pick rate is crazy.

In one segment, I arrive to establish contact with a bunker only to find out everyone inside’s been killed—I slink around corners, cautiously search for a laptop, and await whatever butchered everyone to jump out at me—perhaps, if I’m lucky, with an ‘ooga booga’. Stalker 2 resists this urge, however, and it just made me even more nervous. This is a trick I imagine the full game’s going to use with cruel efficiency, after all, the monsters you can’t see are the most frightening.

This is what I love about STALKER, the lonely, desolate and tense moments. Jump scares are great and all, but the atmospheric deserted locations and the constant fear and anticipation is what really sets it apart. Few games do loneliness as well as STALKER.

As few? Don’t you mean “as many as”?

Yeah, when you first start playing you think it’s like 80% MOBA. But the more you play, the more you realise how much the shooter aspects are disproportionately important.

Each day I pray they go with Letho as protagonist going forward.

I’ll have to look into this, Greedfall was a very charming (if janky) AA game that I liked a lot and I’ve been looking forward to the sequel.

Alan Wake 2 was by far my standout choice for GOTY last year. I’m still bummed it didn’t win more awards, particularly narrative ones as I think it handily beats BG3 in that department. I love Remedy and Sam Lake, and I love them pushing the envelope of AAA games. It’s one to add to the example list of “video games as art” in my opinion.

I’m glad the DLC was great, I’ve been trying to hold off until I can play both at once but maybe I’ll need to cave soon…

Yes, it’s very very silly and is basically the complete opposite of what it should be. It should be the Olympics for Esports, not a bunch of mobile games tangentially related to existing olympic sports.

Not that I would expect better from the IOC.

That question was settled in the 90s.

Tell that to the IOC who refused to feature any shooters at the Esports Olympics because they’re “too violent” - they even forced Fortnite to make a target shooting mode for its entry!