General gaming discussion

You picked the lower priced (SMART price) option on the add to cart page.

I think this is an unfortunate result of the switch's success. Look at the Wii. Incredibly successful, and followed up with the Wii U which was a financial disaster.

Once it became obvious how well the switch had done, it wasn't any surprise they would go for crystal clear upgrade to keep that install base. It won't sell as well as the OG switch, but it's a solid bet

I'm going to be lazy and just post a HUKD link since that's where I saw this

A number of digital gaming encyclopedias for free on itch.io. Looks like you just need an account.

While the ones listed are free, others on the uploader's page are free but accepting donations. Haven't gone through them all to see what's available but look to be cool downloads for a tablet.

Played a little bit of First Beserker Khazan, beat the first boss after a few tries. Seems decent so far. First boss anyway felt pretty fair in that there aren't huge hesitations in hits and then quick swings (like Lies of P), but a decent cadence and speed in the attacks. Not a huge fan of what feels like an over-reliance on the charged heavy attack, but maybe different weapons or abilities will help negate that. Like the art style too.

I have just one more boss left. Love the game. Now that I’m at the stage where I’ve unlocked a significant amount of skills I’m putting together some crazy combinations. I’ve also modified my gear sets to get maximum health, stamina and damage.

For those playing with Spear, unlock all ‘trance’ skills when you can and use the Golden Set. Once you then learn how to reflect (unlock all the skills for this) and the games version of Mikiri counter you will take down most bosses easily. Thank me later

Also try and make an effort to collect everything and do the side missions. This will help improve your damage stats, and health recovery. There is a sneaky option in Khazan memories that you need to press square and you can improve your damage stats by a significant amount after each mission

Yeah I just beat Black Phantom after the three trial things, and I spoke too soon about weird hesitations in attacks. Wasn't too bad, but he definitely caught me out a few times.

But yeah, his stamina regenerated like mad so had to keep the pressure on. Decided to go dual wield so threw a bunch of skill points into it and got some decent flurry-type attacks which helped.

I had a moment where I thought something was buggy, and then it turned out it was just the rules being tricky. But yeah, with the book, everything fell into place. Speaking of unusual perspectives, I came across this article about games where you play as the monster – super interesting take: sacralium Made me rethink how some games are designed!

Just back from the PlayStation Concert in Dubland. Have to say, I quite enjoyed it. I didn't read about it beforehand, only that it was the PS games music live. I did kinda expect a full orchestra and choir, and the near €100 price tag kinda justified that thought, but its 15 artists, and some backing tracks in some places, and still sounded very good. Full would have been better though!

Soundwise, we were in Block E and while it did sound amazing for the most part, it was a bit bass heavy so some sounds were drowned out. Didn't detract from it though, still amazing. They played a few songs covering Horizon, Bloodborne, Helldivers, Journey, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us, God of War, Astrobot and Spiderman. You'd really want to know your soundtracks to fully appreciate it, I was kinda lost on TLOU ones except for the main theme. But all played really well, only 1 little non intrusive mistake the whole night (about 2 hours played in total), so really well done. 3 strings, 3 brass, 2 percussion, 1 synthesiser, guitarist, bass and 2 singers.

Lighting was mostly excellent. Simple but effective use of lighting, smoke and projection. There were also 5 see through screens that kept going up and down in front of the stage with additional projections, all depicting gameplay scenes/moving stills for each game. But I was often blinded, the side strip lights were very bright and often straight into my eyes. Everyone got the same. But didn't happen too often, and didn't detract from the overall experience. I recommend getting a seat as middle as possible. We were off to the side so some of the projections were off.

Was a bit pricey, and factor in the €30 in parking (we went early, €4.50/hr parking x 2 + €22 event parking), the €21 in tolls (3 tolls twice), the €50 in fuel, and the €100 ticket, it was an expensive enough day. We did eat in a place called Ruby's across from the arena, and that was amazing, and cheap for Dubland (€24 for a half rack ribs, 3 medium wings, pulled pork burger, chips, dip - highly recommended). Plus the traffic was unusually quiet, no traffic jams, always moving at max allowed limit. It was weird and completely unexpected.

The event itself was great, but the overall day and cost involved did take away from it. If it was on in Cork, or you live in/near Dubland, I'd recommend it. And that's my socialising done for another year!

I was scope out national concert hall for movie and gaming ones. Cheapnas chips compared to what Monke is saying there and it tends to be a full orchestra.

Defo less flashy though and rarely has screens so tends to be just music, last one did some command and conquer if I remember correctly.

Tempted by Khazan: The First Berserker. Had heard nothing about it but it seems to be a pretty well received soulslike focused on hand to hand combat.

But Lords of the fallen is tempting me too, version 2.0 looks to have done wonders for it.

But then Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is out in a couple of days and that’s a been on my radar for a while! Decisions, decisions…