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I had considered streaming an entire playthrough of this one after hearing it wasn't very long. Turns out it's not very good, either! Platformebruary 2020: Ultimate Collector's Edition 1. Blasphemous 2. Duck Souls 3. Dune Sea 4. A Robot Named Fight 5. Sonic Mania 6. Izeriya 7. MagiCat 8. Runner3 9. Harold 10. Spirits Abyss 11. A Short Hike 12. Super Time Force Ultra 13. Touhou Luna Nights 14. Spark the Electric Jester 2 15. Serious Scramblers 16. PONCHO    My biggest gaming disappointments tend to be titles that have all the appearances of something I’d love, and then are no fun to play. As a fan of pixel art and puzzle mechanics, you can imagine this happens a lot. Sometimes the mechanics aren’t so much fun in practice, sometimes the art isn’t so good in motion, and sometimes there are other unexpected factors that ruin the experience. And sometimes, it’s all three. PONCHO had the look of an absolute gem to me, with wonderfully detailed art and the promise of clever platforming challenges. And then I played it. The world ended again, this time in a vague Calamity that left only robots to cast about in its wake. One of these robots is our chonky little friend Poncho, so named for obvious reasons. Poncho has something of a great destiny laid out before him, something to do with the Calamity and how the world may be able to move past it. But before that can happen, Poncho has to move past a lot of pits and walls. His ruined world is a tangle of precipitous drops and locked doors, and only by scouring its surface for keys and clues will he be able to find what he doesn’t know he seeks. At first blush, PONCHO appears to be a 2D collectathon, with you scooting around levels to find red gems and keys. The former of those can be spent at a trenchcoat-wearing robot (whom I assume is named Trenchcoat) to get more of the latter, but it seems most of the keys you need to progress can be found in the wild anyway. What complicates your travels are the three parallaxed layers that stages are found in. Poncho can shift into the foreground and background at will, allowing you a three-dimensional route around pits and walls. This is used to great effect in some stages, once you realize you can platform across layers by shifting mid-jump. That doesn’t mean the platforming itself is good, though. It wasn’t long into PONCHO that I noticed my controller presses weren’t always being honored. Sometimes my little robot would just keep going after I stopped pressing left, sailing into an abyss. Or sometimes a jump wouldn’t register at all, to much the same effect. Moving platforms had some wonky hit detection that would make the poor dear vibrate or become entirely unable to jump. This is on top of some poorly thought-out levels where the foregrounds cover up important platforms and paths in the background, making it even harder to get around with the janky controls. Even if you can wrangle your controller to do what you want, PONCHO just isn’t that compelling of a journey. I was expecting something metroidvaniaish or at least open enough to explore, but levels are all this weird in-between thing where you can wander to the left or right to find more baubles but still beat it in just two or three minutes. Along the way I unlocked some new powers, but they really just exist to gather additional forms of collectibles which you then have to replay old stages to get. There’s no reason to explore unless you’re a super gem completionist, and if you are then the controls are sure to frustrate your efforts. The screenshots might look good, and indeed the pixel art itself is lovely and the environments look great with the parallaxing effects. Later areas are very sparse, though, and the amount of repeat in textures and characters becomes extremely noticeable. I didn’t mind the sound design but that’s not exactly much of an endorsement, as it didn’t add anything to the experience. It’s kind of tragic what a hollow experience overall this one is, with its few bright points marred by a lack of polish and some actual glitches. I’ll never be able to answer the question of who is Poncho, but from what I saw it can’t be that interesting of an answer anyway.
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Feb 17, 2020 00:03
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Doctor Reynolds posted:This is a largely petty issue, but does anybody else have this problem where Steam doesn't align itself properly in fullscreen? It snaps back together if I go windowed and touch the resize edges. Just kind of strange!
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Feb 17, 2020 00:28
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ultrafilter posted:Even if we come up with some breakthrough that lets us control those electron flows, we'll still be limited by the fact that information can't move faster than light. That's another reason why we can't increase the clock rate much more. The speed of light is super fast, but if you divide it by 5GHz, you end up with 6cm. And electrical signals only travel at ~2/3 the speed of light, so a signal might not even reach the other end of the CPU during one cycle
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Feb 17, 2020 00:42
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Cardiovorax posted:Yes, that's another problem that contributes to the dimishing returns of additional cores. All those extra cores also incur an extra overhead in terms of other electronics that are required to coordinate them and to transmit all the input and output they require and produce. It's the other reason why supercomputers are always so big - organizing the flow of all that piecemeal data to actually get a usable result out of it is almost as much of a challenge as just making fast hardware in the first place. oh yeah, I don't mean on the hardware side (except the whole cache synchronisation thing), I just mean when you're writing multithreaded software you're spinning a lot of plates, even if it's just on a single core. The logic is a whole lot less straightforward, you have to be more defensive about making sure it's ok to do a thing and making sure the data you're using is or even can be accessed safely (if not you gotta find another way to do it), so making full use of a bunch of cores means herding cats at maximum efficiency. Whereas a faster processor just... does all the stuff faster however you've implemented it you might see some developments in hardware and software to make this kind of stuff easier and more efficient though, if faster chips are basically a dead end and mo' cores is just where we're focusing everything now. Maybe including the stuff you're talking about (don't know much about the hardware side of things!)
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Feb 17, 2020 00:52
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whoever wrote children of morta's script needed to turn the "portentousness" dial way, way the hell back they could have safely kept it at a 6 or something and they've got it cranked up to, like, 13
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Feb 17, 2020 01:19
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Omi no Kami posted:How-ish long was it? The internet says 15-40 hours, and I'd totally be onboard for a long-rear end Metro game but I'm worried it'll turn out to be more, like, 10-15 1-hour hallways. I show 23 hours played and I tend to wander a bit, so I imagine a good player who is bee-lining the main story would be closer to 15.
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Feb 17, 2020 01:33
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All of these fun and interesting games and I keep playing Farming Simulator 2019. I don't quite understand why I keep coming back to it but I gotta admit it is pretty fun and satisfying building up a farming empire. I also now know lots of useless information that I will never need to know in my life like what a windrower is.
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Feb 17, 2020 03:29
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Given how solid and fun the core gameplay is in Synthetik, it's a drat shame just how bad some of the bosses are. Do not put bullet hell-style bosses in a game where your dash is on a multiple second cooldown and you have to pay attention to manual ejection/reload/unjamming while trying to shoot at the actual boss! The final boss is even worse because the room before it you are introduced to a mechanic where "floor lights up, you die" but then he has an attack where you get insta-killed unless you're on the section of the floor that IS light up, it's just that now it's green instead of purple.
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Feb 17, 2020 04:51
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Omi no Kami posted:How-ish long was it? The internet says 15-40 hours, and I'd totally be onboard for a long-rear end Metro game but I'm worried it'll turn out to be more, like, 10-15 1-hour hallways. it was 30-40 for me but I poked along pretty slowly and tried to see everything on the open maps. It's longer than 2033 and last light but not drastically. there are still plenty of ultra-linear sequences of following someone around, enough that I would say avoid it if any % of this is a dealbreaker to you, but there's less of this than the previous two games and it still has the great extended sequences where it goes hands off and you're on your own. despite the format change it's still extremely metro in its DNA, for all the good and bad that implies
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Feb 17, 2020 04:52
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Azran posted:Given how solid and fun the core gameplay is in Synthetik, it's a drat shame just how bad some of the bosses are. Do not put bullet hell-style bosses in a game where your dash is on a multiple second cooldown and you have to pay attention to manual ejection/reload/unjamming while trying to shoot at the actual boss! The final boss is even worse because the room before it you are introduced to a mechanic where "floor lights up, you die" but then he has an attack where you get insta-killed unless you're on the section of the floor that IS light up, it's just that now it's green instead of purple. I've never got very far but I like the game mostly except for the open arena bosses. Like the game's whole schtick is to be tactical and don't rush in but the bosses are definitely in defiance of that.
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Feb 17, 2020 04:55
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Gay Rat Wedding posted:it was 30-40 for me but I poked along pretty slowly and tried to see everything on the open maps. It's longer than 2033 and last light but not drastically. there are still plenty of ultra-linear sequences of following someone around, enough that I would say avoid it if any % of this is a dealbreaker to you, but there's less of this than the previous two games and it still has the great extended sequences where it goes hands off and you're on your own. despite the format change it's still extremely metro in its DNA, for all the good and bad that implies Yeah I'm a broke-brain who, currently, has a solid 80 hours in Exodus between a "Ranger Hardcore", a "Ranger Hardcore (New Game +)" run, and most of a "Two Colonels" DLC playthrough. I actually didn't expect to spend as much time on the New Game + run as I ended up spending, but between some achievement hunting and the gameplay modifiers I ran with (crafting restricted to workbenches, increased radiation zones, tougher mutants) there went another 35 hours or something. No regrets, though. The Volga and Caspian sections really are the high points of the game for me, personally, because of how open they are. I guess Taiga's fine, too, but it plays out in a much more linear fashion even though it's the third "open" map. That being said, I've always really liked the second "spider" section where you're down to the lighter for most of the segment--something about lighting every torch to stave off the bugs, rationing my molotovs, and making incremental progress was weirdly satisfying to me. Bumbling around in the dark and trying to avoid getting eaten by mutants is the quintessential Metro experience. Colonel Miller's dumb as gently caress though.
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Feb 17, 2020 06:07
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The story is frankly pretty dumb but I don't think too many games absolutely nail atmosphere like Exodus, especially if you play with minimal hud.
Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Feb 17, 2020 |
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Feb 17, 2020 06:15
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Honestly it's not even the big ugly scorpion spiders that bother me, it's the little leggy guys in the webs used for scenery. I mean I say little but they're still facehugger sized. I just hate those little bastards because they are EVERYWHERE in Last Light and they just sit there and don't move until you come close and then they SKSKSKSKKSK away. It's freaky. Also earlier I mentioned a segment where it was just you and the game but I think I was thinking of Last Light. I haven't played either in many years.
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Feb 17, 2020 06:18
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It's really irritating watching units in Wargroove slowly, slowly creep into your range because the AI refuses to let you get in a shot unless it's one you have to pay for. And then they put gimmick levels in where you have limited units and don't change a thing about it.
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Feb 17, 2020 07:46
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CJacobs posted:Honestly it's not even the big ugly scorpion spiders that bother me, it's the little leggy guys in the webs used for scenery. I mean I say little but they're still facehugger sized. I just hate those little bastards because they are EVERYWHERE in Last Light and they just sit there and don't move until you come close and then they SKSKSKSKKSK away. It's freaky. There's a few in 2033. If alone means "not following a friendly NPC" then you're alone when you go through the communist/nazi war front as well as when you go through the nazi base on the surface and the nazi station some time after that (okay you do meet someone beforehand but he isn't actually around until after the level). You go to the Library with a couple of guys but you're on your own for the Library itself. I recall another section where you escape a nazi base but get separated from your rescuers and end up in a disused tunnel - I think that's before the part you have to carry the kid through the mole infested station.
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Feb 17, 2020 08:01
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Got Division 2 and enjoying it quite a bit. Is the DLC worth anything?
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Feb 17, 2020 08:57
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The total length of Metro Exodus depends on if you are interested in standing around and listening to people. There are interludes between levels and those tend to be 5 minutes of mandatory listening and then you can use a map to move on. You can also spend half a hour just chilling with the other people on the train. That also occurs in the levels themselves. I take pity on those who didn’t stick around for the Admiral’s tea party. Cream-of-Plenty posted:Colonel Miller's dumb as gently caress though. I love my gruff buddy from Diablo 3.
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Feb 17, 2020 10:22
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drat Dirty Ape posted:All of these fun and interesting games and I keep playing Farming Simulator 2019. I don't quite understand why I keep coming back to it but I gotta admit it is pretty fun and satisfying building up a farming empire. I also now know lots of useless information that I will never need to know in my life like what a windrower is. Congratulations, you are now an honourary German.
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Feb 17, 2020 11:53
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Antigravitas posted:Congratulations, you are now an honourary German.
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Feb 17, 2020 12:03
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lordfrikk posted:Got Division 2 and enjoying it quite a bit. Is the DLC worth anything? The Year One pass is an odd one, since its big thing was a week early access to content that's now freely available to everyone. It does have a half-dozen or so missions to flesh out the backstory more that are cool, and not having to grind out unlocking the new specializations is nice. The thirty dollar Warlords of New York one looks like it'll be worth it, but it's not out yet. New area, complete change to how the endgame works, all that good stuff.
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Feb 17, 2020 12:25
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drat Dirty Ape posted:All of these fun and interesting games and I keep playing Farming Simulator 2019. I don't quite understand why I keep coming back to it but I gotta admit it is pretty fun and satisfying building up a farming empire. I also now know lots of useless information that I will never need to know in my life like what a windrower is. How much does it explain what you need to be doing for non-farmers? I played some '17 and while it was pretty hilarious in MP due to it's janky physics (I can't really describe how funny it is to be workmanly delivering grain to a silo by sedately driving down a sheer cliff while on voice coms), it assumed we all knew exactly which farming tools we should be using for a given task, which could not have been further from the truth.
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Feb 17, 2020 12:39
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Darkrenown posted:How much does it explain what you need to be doing for non-farmers? I played some '17 and while it was pretty hilarious in MP due to it's janky physics (I can't really describe how funny it is to be workmanly delivering grain to a silo by sedately driving down a sheer cliff while on voice coms), it assumed we all knew exactly which farming tools we should be using for a given task, which could not have been further from the truth. I never played '17 but there are some basic tutorials on how to work everything, and a fairly decent help system that even goes into specifics on certain types of crops. The massive quantity of equipment available is pretty intimidating, but once you play for a bit you start to realize that you can ignore most of it for 'basic farming' and pick up new things as you go. There's also a ton of tutorials and such, but I kept referencing a few posts I found on 'just tell me what's best to buy and what it does early'. I'd be willing to write up a stupid newbie non-farmer guide to starting if anyone was interested. The janky physics can be half the fun. Last night I cut down a tree that was constantly getting in my way with a chainsaw and loaded it up into my grain trailer by hand. Parts of the tree were sticking out all over the place, and because I'm an idiot I took a sharp turn at high speed and tipped both my tractor and the grain trailer on its side spilling tree parts everywhere. I stayed in the tractor on its side and kind of curley shuffled it around in circles until somehow it got caught on the trailer and flipped back on its wheels, loaded it back up, and sold that tree at a sawmill for $3.5k.
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Feb 17, 2020 13:00
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Feb 17, 2020 13:09
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It ain't much, but it's honest work. *sprays pesticides on Monsanto crops, before proceeding to shred thousands of chicks*
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Feb 17, 2020 17:09
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I stopped playing it but for a solid week there I was hooked on FS19 and all I was doing was growing fast fields of grass and making/selling bales out of it and that was oddly satisfying.
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Feb 17, 2020 17:14
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Fanatical's bundle blast event is now live, with new bundles coming out fast. The latest as of this post has The Surge 1 as part of the $3.99 for the price of the bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/killer-bundle-12 The rest of the games aren't super great, but that's the lowest price I've seen for The Surge.
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Feb 17, 2020 17:31
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That is super super worth it. The Surge is one of the most unique souls likes out there. Super cool combat and leveling system.
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Feb 17, 2020 17:38
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Surge 1 has some pretty ugly structural problems but $3 is a very solid price for it.
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Feb 17, 2020 17:40
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So a while back I set forth to look for the ~artsiest~ game on itch I could find.To my surprise I found one that actually resonated deeply with me - The space between. As someone who has a fear of intimacy-the topic/theme of the game- and generally likes psychological games this one of the best ones I've seen.The atmosphere created by the slow pacing (a single line of dialogue lasts for what feels like 10 seconds and there's no indication telling who said what) , the austere soundtrack and the sort of creepy characters/topics is goddamn beautiful in the same sense that sleeping in a really cold room is calming.The aforementioned confusing and slow dialogue leads to a headspace of introspection and is a really clever way to get the player to think about talking to yourself/imagining talking to other people and what these activities say about you. At the completely opposite end of the emotional spectrum,yesterday I finished A short hike And the childlike enthusiasm felt in the characters and throughout the whole game in general is the most sincere and innocent thing I've seen in a while.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:08
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explosivo posted:I stopped playing it but for a solid week there I was hooked on FS19 and all I was doing was growing fast fields of grass and making/selling bales out of it and that was oddly satisfying. 30 year old me: if I cut these video game trees down and plant grass there I can get two more passes which means 4 more video game bales of silage
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Feb 17, 2020 18:14
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OutOfPrint posted:Fanatical's bundle blast event is now live, with new bundles coming out fast. The latest as of this post has The Surge 1 as part of the $3.99 for the price of the bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/killer-bundle-12 King of Fighters and Wonder Boy remake own really hard, both are better than The Surge.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:15
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zedprime posted:12 year old me: what excuse can I use to get out of cutting the grass this week? Same except both of them are 30-year-old me
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Feb 17, 2020 18:42
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Baller Time posted:It ain't much, but it's honest work. *sprays pesticides on Monsanto crops, before proceeding to shred thousands of chicks* If it gives me +10% yield I will shred any amount of chicks. explosivo posted:I stopped playing it but for a solid week there I was hooked on FS19 and all I was doing was growing fast fields of grass and making/selling bales out of it and that was oddly satisfying. I literally just finished doing this. $250k worth of silage sold, time to buy a new horrifying looking instrument of death and maiming. As a plus, it might also help me cultivate my fields or something.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:49
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OutOfPrint posted:Fanatical's bundle blast event is now live, with new bundles coming out fast. The latest as of this post has The Surge 1 as part of the $3.99 for the price of the bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/killer-bundle-12 I'm having a real "Th-this is my bundle! It was made for me!" moment with this. I mean, I own The Surge 2 but not 1, KOF XII but not XIV, most of the Sherlock Holmes games but not Devil's Daughter, I've been wanting to get Wonder Boy, and I love SNK games.
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Feb 17, 2020 19:09
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It's definitely the best bundle I've seen on Fanatical in quite a while. All-around recommended and great value for the money.
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Feb 17, 2020 19:20
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Terminally Bored posted:King of Fighters and Wonder Boy remake own really hard, both are better than The Surge. I haven't played either, so I didn't want to comment, but those may have sold it to me despite only playing The Surge and SH and the Devil's Daughter, and Devil's Daughter was not spectacular. The next bundle is all moe VNs if you want to get your Travis Touchdown on.
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Feb 17, 2020 19:30
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Okami HD _LKE9-DKAT9-BPWQ_ Number of kingdoms in Westeros+1
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Feb 17, 2020 19:58
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pentyne posted:Okami HD Nabbed this, been meaning to give it another go since I never finished it back on the PS2. Thanks a bunch!! 
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Feb 17, 2020 20:11
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OutOfPrint posted:Fanatical's bundle blast event is now live, with new bundles coming out fast. The latest as of this post has The Surge 1 as part of the $3.99 for the price of the bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/killer-bundle-12 The Sur*e: E*Q9C-DX633-70DF9 Sh*rlock: PKGPA-K0*QF-PITJ8 You're welcome! Hogama fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Feb 17, 2020 |
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Feb 17, 2020 20:14
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| # ? May 28, 2024 03:38 |
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Hogama posted:The Sur*e: E*Q9C-DX633-70DF9 Thanks for this.
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Feb 17, 2020 20:15
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