Stellar Blade

At 50, I would likely have picked it up day one but on the day RE4 remake was like £15 so 70 quid can kiss my arse.

It does actually look pretty cool and I was always going to get it but I’m not going to lose sleep over saving a few quid and it getting a few patches under its belt before I pick it up.

I had a free day yesterday, so ended grabbing it using some PSN credit from Shopto, so it cost about £61, which felt slightly less egregious.

Stuck in a good few hours and it’s alright so far. Managed to get the “for god’s sake, what the fuck are you playing now?” moment out the way early doors.

Running round the wasteland doing tedious odd jobs at the moment.

It’s very much 6 or 7/10 territory, depending on what is currently happening, so far. Has some nice ideas, the combat is decent enough, and the exploration of the more contained zones is good fun. I like the fact it’s dispensed with the stupid “lose your shit and have to chase after it if you die” tedium that every action game apparently has to have these days. Plus difficulty levels is a great option if needed, although it’s hasn’t been too hard so far on normal.

It does feel quite clunky though. Button presses feel like they don’t register at times, the jumping / platforming sections are wonky, and the open world bits are pretty budget, with the same 3 enemies lumbering around in jittery groups. It looks nice at times and then a bit crap but shiny at others.

The story seems to be telegraphing itself completely and if you told me the script and voice acting was done by AI I wouldn’t be remotely surprised, it’s terrible.

The sex pervy-ness wasn’t too bad at first, but then I hit a point where I got a seemingly 12 year old companion complete with jiggle physics and straight after met a royal guard whose armour is basically red lace lingerie and some gusset armour, which was just ffs.

I made a yellow kill bill tracksuit for Eve, thinking that might help cleanse my mind, but even that’s just designed as a reverse cameltoe vessel for her ass.

Anyway, it’s fun enough but definitely one for a sale.

Word of caution to anyone playing the full game: don't be a fool like me and sleep on to your upgrade materials like I did.

I somehow missed the whole upgrade system until after the second main boss and had 3 weapon upgrades (which would have helped with that boss) along with a new suit when I reached that construction site camp...

It is deeply funny that before the game's release, it's biggest supporters of incels and gooners were constantly telling you the game was at risk of bad reviews in order to tank the game's release, only for it to come to near universal acclaim and now they're the game's biggest detractors, willingly taking video of their disgusting selves to claim an internal design change is external censorship. All for a thin piece of fabric over some outfits when other more explicit costumes exist plus the fact that you're staring behind the character for the majority of your playtime anyway. I do believe it's an internal change too, there's a Chinese dress they had originally where she wore just that, the legs are bare, but now they added stockings and that outfit jumped from a 4/10 to 9/10 easy, it just looks way better.

One complaint I had seen is that after going into water, Eve doesn't come out of it wet, she's bone dry. Which is an odd detail to leave out as most games do it now, but the fact that it's a game breaker for this guy clearly lets you know their intentions going into the game and again it's just funny to see these ones being constantly denied by the game to edge themselves too and become the game's biggest detractor

It's so true, if not this then they would find something else. They want to be oppressed victims so badly because fighting the war against the perceived big bad is the only thing to give their life meaning. The only thing that would have been the ultimate is if Stellar Blade was actively woke. Eve turning to the camera saying 'Trans rights are human rights' or something

The outrage has kind of all passed me by to be honest. I've never seen the allure of bug-eyed porcelain dolls with breasts augmented with the contents of several rowntrees jelly pots so it never gets much more than an eye roll from me. If the game is all right I'll put up with it, which to be fair it is in this case.

But again though, there hasn't been really much outrage, I've seen far more noise from people complaining about the imagined outrage than actual outrage.

Hence all the goal post shifting when the reviews failed to be hyper critical as they expected.

Korean society has some very oppressive beauty standards combined with a very large plastic surgery/entertainment industry. Men are also really conservative, especially those below 30 ironically (more so then those between 30-50). It also has a huge private credit card debt problem (Squid games hints at these issues). It means a lot of toxicity in a society and pressure to reach the top.

I do find it ironic the way K-pop is embraced by (left) people while simultanously its idols have to embrace the most toxic environment and dehuminification in the global entertainment industry.

There's a show on CBBC about kids becoming K-Pop Idols, and it does feel a bit weird to me that they've made a show which is mostly the usual CBBC thing about being good and overcoming obstacles, but is also set in a sanitized version of a rather oppressive industry. They mention a few things like not being allowed to date, but in a very sanitized way, rather than the main character saying something like 'What the fuck?! That's insane.'

New updates out now including boss rush mode. Two outfits were added which were the "uncensored" versions of costumes that has the guiding censoring hand of Sony slapped on it. To me this is just confirmation that it was a design change after all considering this came out and it got through Sonys certification, but apparently to the anti censor now it's because the game is out Shift Up is free to stick it to Sony and release whatever they want onto the game now. I made the mistake of asking why Sony would censor some outfits when the skin suit is intact only to be told the skin suit isn't explicit at all as she's fully covered so...