Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@AgentCooper So you won't be getting Avatar then?
Perhaps try something a bit more deep, have you tried any of the Mimimi games (Shadow tactics, Desperados 3).
Also did you get your Far Cry 6 coop trophy with the Colonel? If not send me a message on PSN and I will download it so you can be done with FC6 once and for all.

@CaptD Haha no, even if I liked the ip (I can’t stand it)

I’ve let my plus run out and have no plans to renew, at least for the foreseeable future, but thanks for the offer friend.

Don’t get me wrong I have plenty of fresh experiences on the slate for next year but December is a bit of a hassle with parental and other human responsibilities, i needed something lowkey but I’ve ended up in a slump. Thanks for the recommendations. I’m just a bit exhausted with the formula, I might return to it in a year or two 👍

@AgentCooper I’ve found myself struggling to figure out what to play since finishing Jedi Survivor.

Game club was perfectly timed to get me to play Disco Elysium again. DREDGE then filled a nice gap of a fairly chilled, short game, and Like A Dragon Gaiden (etc etc) wasn’t immediately on my to-play list but I couldn’t resist jumping back into the franchise.

I’ve just started up Baldur’s Gate as I feel I should give another 2023 game to play but it took me a good hour of scrolling through my wish list and the PSN store before deciding to go for that.

@AgentCooper Relatable, buddy. It’s probably a combination of a game disappointing you (FC6) and a game being so transcendent for you that other games feel empty (DE).

I definitely have felt many occurrences of the latter. Sometimes a game just clicks and feels so refreshing and engaging, and then when it ends it’s like all other games feel anti-climactic.

In these instances I’ve typically found success with smaller games, indies, and games that are so far removed from the usual fodder that it makes it harder for my subconscious mind to compare it to the epic game I just finished. But yeah, even then, sometimes it just doesn’t pan out.

@Jimmer-jammer Hey man. My album well has kind of run dry. I feel like I have done enough for the time being. I kind of oscillate between different things I want to do. As a similar polymathematical type of individual I'm sure you know the feeling. Anyway, I feel like I have had enough of being a "creative", in this particular way, for the time being or maybe I just feel like I have run out of energy after this one. It could be that guitar is something I return to one day, but for the time being, it feels like that path is closed off for me and I should focus on gaming. Anyway. here is the small fruit of my labours, one song of two that I recorded for the jazz/hip hop album/ep that I was quite pleased with. It's only about two minutes long so I hope you can take the time to listen to and tell me what you think. As I say, I may return to guitar. I just don't know when.

I only really went back to recording recently because I felt like games aren't really that an emotional experience for the most part compared to other art forms, at least in terms of the hardcore RPGs that I tend to play anyway, I was looking for something deeper, more emotional, so I went back to music.

But now, after recording a couple of songs (the guitar was too loud in the mix on the first one, so I scrapped it) and putting my all into this brief two minute piece that I am sharing with you now, I feel like I have to now, conversely, return to gaming and just chilling out, now that my creative energies feel more or less spent for the time being. Any words of wisdom along with your critique of the music would be greatly appreciated.

P.S Sorry if this is a bit much for this type of forum.

Hope you enjoy.

Edit: I did finish that whole album of Free Jazz guitar music recently, so maybe that's why I'm feeling a little burned out as well.

@Thrillho Yeah man I hear you, it seems you landed well following JS though. Good luck with BG3, it has been hard to avoid the noise around that one this year.
@Th3solution @RogerRoger I think Disco Elysium was such a invigorating breath of fresh mountain air that it jolted me in realising, that while i have peppered my gaming time with excellent, sometimes almost essential titles, i had been falling into a trap of coasting through each title not really challenging myself enough to step out of my comfort zone. It would be unnecessarily harsh on reflection to lay the blame solely at FC6’s feet, the funk has been building for a while.

I’m currently into a melee build of Fallout 4 which has actually been giving some real moments of joy and excitement, so I’ll plod along with that for the time being and see how we go. Appreciate the pep talk gang 👍

@TheBrandedSwordsman Hey! Sometimes it’s just necessary to step away from a project, whether temporarily or permanently, for any number of totally valid reasons. No shame at all in it. In fact, I think it’s healthy. When we get too close to something, we lose perspective. When we lose perspective, we no longer have anything to say. This is the perfect time to listen to other voices until inspiration strikes. Chin up, man. Life, like music, is made up of movements. Often, not until the entire symphony comes together can we begin to make sense of the whole.

The song is very cool. I wish my fingers were that fast! From what I understand of what you’ve shared with me about this project, I think you’ve really nailed what you set out to do. I can feel the respect you have for your influences and I love the fearless earnestness in your approach. It’s raw, it’s honest and it rocks.

Thanks for tagging me! I really will check out the rest of your tunes when I can (I downloaded the free version of Spotify 😊). Always appreciate our chats on here. Cheers!

@Jimmer-jammer Thanks man, I really appreciate those comments and compliments, I'm glad you liked the song. Especially what you said about fearless earnestness, I was partially inspired by Sonny Sharrock for that solo, and he put something about fearless playing in his mantra, so I'm glad that came off well. Maybe I will return to guitar one day, who knows? . Anyway, how is your own music/film work going?

Hopefully you will like the free jazz album as well, it's obviously somewhat less accessible, though, but I'm stlll quite proud of it.

Appreciate the chats we have on here too. Nice one.👍

Well this looks like another wonderfully bonkers game from Daniel Mullins.

And that’s SungWon Cho (YouTuber and voice actor, including Ratatoskr from GoW: Ragnarok) in the live action parts.

More rants incoming from me about game titles 😅 —

If there was to be a subtitle (or a subtitle of a subtitle…) for God of War Ragnarok that I would have completely avoided it would have been “Valhalla”. Is it me or does that seem like a dry choice? The Norse mythos oversaturation is bad enough and so to reuse Assassin’s Creed’s nomenclature seems just… creatively devoid. But turnabout is fair play since Ubisoft writers did the same thing with the AC Valhalla DLC entitled “Dawn of Ragnarok” 🤷🏻‍♂️
(I realize Ragnarok and Valhalla are central concepts in the Norse Universe, but it just struck me as an odd choice)

Likewise for Monster Hunter and the word “Wild.” A Monster Hunter clone recently came out called Wild Hearts (already a bland title), and somehow the MH team feels like the best name for their follow up game is… MH Wild. 😅

I guess it’s okay. Obviously I’m no expert. Call of Duty has been recycling the word “Warfare” in all their games for years and perhaps the blurring of which game is which helps them all sell so well. 😜

@Kidfried I wonder the same. Perhaps it depends on the studio and publisher. For example, something tells me that Kojima has full control over what he titles his games because he tries to make them clever. Another example would be the Ratchet & Clank games where the double meaning of the subtitles is too clever to have been done by a boardroom of marketing strategists. 😅

But there is probably sales data to say that certain familiar words trigger interest in the lay community, like those you mention. Odyssey, Legend, Saga, Legacy, Fantasy, etc. Whereas us enthusiasts who play a lot of games are more confused by similar sounding titles.

For example, another one that took me by surprise recently was how they went with “Immortals of Aveum” when we recently had “Immortals Fenyx Rising”. Neither was a huge game but having Immortals as the first word makes it awkward when you shorten it. Like if someone says, “I played Immortals all weekend and it was awesome”. …which game? 😅

@Ennui It’s a sequel to The Legend and Legacy of the Fantasy Saga. 😄

@Th3solution I hear a spin off is in the works called Weird Loop Dead West.

@Jimmer-jammer After a burst of creativity I bit the bullet and got back on the horse and recorded and uploaded the rest of the tracks for the (now EP, formerly album) record man. It's available on Spotify now, and thanks for your support, I think it probably may have made a difference!

Edit: Completing each track felt like completing the level of a video game, similar to that at least, truly "gamification" in action.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3CFRPQgm9Alc1upEpWjbcz?si=e...

@Th3solution Hey buddy. Just a word of warning for you, and sorry if this is a bit late, but I believe you mentioned playing God of War: Ragnarok at some point. The people on reddit (usually a good source of information) mentioned it being somewhat inferior to the 2018 game, due to too much time spent playing as Atreus rather than Kratos, and it being somewhat of a lackluster experience in general. Anyway, I know it got good reviews but, hey, this is what the PEOPLE are saying haha, anyway if you have played/do play it please let me know what your experiences are/were with the game.

Best,

TBS

@TheBrandedSwordsman @Th3solution I personally thought it was better than GoW 2018. The Atreus parts are fine and you don't play as him that often.

@MightyDemon82 I see, I might reconsider giving it a go then.

@TheBrandedSwordsman Yeah, it’s a matter of ‘when’, and not ‘if’ I play GoWR. But it is curious to me how a game was so hyped and got 10/10 and GOTY nods, and now through revisionist history has been critiqued like it is. Nevertheless, even if it were to be inferior to the first game, that still could mean it’s excellent, because that 2018 game is just so fantastic.

My thing is they I’m waiting on either a significant price drop or perhaps a PS+ release for it. I’ve waiting this long, so I might as well hold out for when it drops to the ‘Greatest Hits’ range price-wise. I have so much to play in the meantime.

@Th3solution Ah, nice. I think that I'll give it a shot myself based on what you and @MightyDemon82 have said about it. Like you say, the 2018 game was very good, I personally loved it, so even a slightly diminished version of that would still be an enjoyable game.

@Jimmer-jammer Haven't seen you on here recently. Assume you are busy with the holiday season so I will just wish you well for when you read this when you get back. Can currently imagine you driving a truck across Canada swigging from a coca cola bottle, leaning out the window, singing "Holidays are coming!" 🤣