raincoastgamer

[raincoastgamer]

So Team Cherry accidentally went too far and made a whole new game instead of the Hornet DLC.

I mean, I’m happy. Just look at it! Holy shit this looks so good! They’ve learned so much making their first game and I can’t wait to see how this changes things up.

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Nunchuks, Ceaseless Top, Deep Breath+ and All For One.

My turns just... kept going. And going. And going. Not even Time Eater could stop me, come the end.

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NEW SUPERGIANT GAME ALERT THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

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White Lady, o root and bough, witness to a broken age, What dreams do you dream midst your verdant cage? Pale Queen, o kingdom's mother, holding close His shining soul, Might this Hollow Knight play its long lost role?

[raincoastgamer]

Absolver PvP be like

Windfall vs Windfall: A graceful dance, each prospect moving to avoid the other’s strikes at the last moment. One gets the impression that each moves to fill the gap left by the other’s dodge.

Forsaken vs Forsaken: A pair of martial arts masters, each probing their opponent’s defenses in turn, trying to find a gap they can exploit. There’s a solid physicality to the way each parry freezes the action for just a heartbeat.

Khalt vs Khalt: two tough guys taking turns to hit each other until someone falls over.

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I saw the original and was instantly struck with inspiration. I was not, however, struck with video editing skills.

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Protip: always coordinate hats with your palico for max style points.

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A Spiky Roller Boy was sighted yesterday without his spikes and apparently having difficulties rolling.

"Lookit him wiggle his legs! Lookitim! He can't even roll! He's adorable!" says local monster hunter.

At the time of publication the Spiky Roller Boy had apparently been able to attach new spikes. More on this story as it develops.

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I’m trying hard to buckle down and let the E3 hype just wash over me. I want to remain focused on my personal projects (I might actually have a novel in the works holy shit) for the time being but I can’t help but get caught up in some of this stuff. DOOM Eternal? A new non-Souls game from From Software? Devil May Cry 5 (old Dante best Dante fight me)? Actual gameplay (???) from Death Stranding? A new trailer for Cyberpunk 2077?

I mean... damn.

[raincoastgamer]

Android: Netrunner is a superb game which not only had a design which went way beyond "two guys hit each other with monsters" and into the glorious realms of "I know you know I know you know that I think you know I think this is a trap", but also inhabited a setting which was a truly brilliant example of Cyberpunk done right in the 21st century. The questions it raised and discussed around the issues of artificial intelligence and artificial humans far surpass some recent examples I can but won't name. It maintained the core of Cyberpunk: how society's problems will be exacerbated by technology, but recognized that this didn't have to mean a Blade Runner rip-off.

This future was a dystopia, but it was colourful and bright with hope. In the Flashpoint cycle of card packs, the story involved the Corporations going batshit after a hacking incident. Thousands of innocents are caught in the crossfire, collateral damage in the all-out corporate war. And yet the best of humanity emerges as well as people fight to get the truth out, uniting across class and racial divides to make a difference and speak for those caught under the corporate boot. The same technology is used to both oppress the masses as well as let idealistic individuals make a real difference.

The setting was refreshingly global as well. The main setting of New Angeles is in cyberpunk Ecuador. There's an entire set which takes place in cyberpunk India, and the latest set revolves around the politics of a new space elevator being built in cyberpunk Uganda. Visibly white people are in the minority in the character pool, and yet it feels totally natural. This is just what this particular future happens looks like, not a cyberpunk America but a whole cyberpunk world.

Not only was this setting global, it was quietly but powerfully and subversively progressive as well. The playable character pool is a 50/50 split between men and women, not counting 1 non-binary gene-tinkering transhuman and 1 eldritch AI. On top of that, queer and trans characters weren't being tossed in as token nods towards 'diversity'; they were just a fact of life this world, as valid as anyone else. Sunny Lebeau, one of the most powerful Runners in the current meta, is a middle-aged lesbian mom who stress-tests cybersecurity for a living. How often do you get to say that?

And this game is being discontinued in October. The setting lives on in the other Android games, but Netrunner was easily the most visible and popular, not to mention mind-bendingly brilliant facets of the IP.

This is why we can't have nice things.

[raincoastgamer]

One of the greatest card games of all time is being discontinued.

Well fuck.

[raincoastgamer]

If you didn’t charge down the bridge and cry a battle cry at this part then I’m not sure if you’re human.

Personally I feel an urge to charge into the teeth of Ragnarok and single-handedly tear the jaws off of Fenris world-eater when I hear this but that could be just me.

[raincoastgamer]

It is said that there is a group of spectral exiles bound to the very fabric of the Book of Rites itself, forever trapped. Judged for crimes unforgivable, they are doomed to assist eternally in the cycle of Rites. Never to be redeemed, never to be Liberated, never to return.

Forbidden Knowledge, from the Pyre Original Soundtrack, by Darren Korb.

[raincoastgamer]

On this day four years ago, Supergiant Games gave us the one, the only, the unmatched, the magical...

the hum button.

(video credit goes to Rock Paper Shotgun)

[raincoastgamer]

Sometimes I wonder if I spend too much time immersed in the culture and language surrounding video games on the internet. And then I run into a channel like TierZoo here and feel immediately vindicated in all of my life choices.

This channel takes the idea that life is just one big video game and runs with it. Evolutionary eras aren’t just periods of time marked by the proliferation of certain forms of life and bookended by extinction events, they’re game expansions. The history of life isn’t the result of changing environmental conditions feeding into evolution and vice versa, these are the attempts of a clueless dev team struggling to issue balance patches. Life isn’t organized into arbitrary branches on the vast tree of life, rather this is a complex system of classes and factions. Everything has stats, skills, perks, exploits. Every ecosystem and environment is a different server with a different community and set of rules. And in this cutthroat life-and-death meta, we must maintain our tier lists.

He also made a video in which the Pistol Shrimp becomes the equivalent of the infamous “Basscannon” or “Big Daddy” Dark Souls PvP build/meme, so there’s that too.

This is a very specific intersection of interests which for some reason has become catnip to me. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to ponder the viability of side-neck builds in the turtle meta.

[raincoastgamer]

May the Fourth be with you!

[raincoastgamer]