Rich
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Post by Rich on Dec 10, 2023 8:08:20 GMT
Doom 3
Glad I've finally completed it after a couple of attempts back in the day. It's fun, but dated (expectedly) and far too long for what it does.
6/10
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Dec 10, 2023 15:48:06 GMT
Granted, it wouldn't be hurt by losing an hour here or there, but I do quite like most of the environments and it's more varied than one might expect considering it's mostly in the Mars base.
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malek86
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Pomegranate Deseeder
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Post by malek86 on Dec 10, 2023 17:13:06 GMT
Jusant (PC)
Didn't care much for the gameplay in the end - the demo was fun, but the full game almost never evolves from the demo content, so in the end you are always doing the same thing. Climbing and reading letters. The game is one of those that doesn't explain what the hell is going on and you gotta gleam that from the letters, but ultimately I didn't care much for that. So it's climbing, and I guess it's okay, if somewhat unwieldy at times.
But while it only does one thing, my god, it sure looks amazing while doing it. I must have taken like a hundred screenshots.
7/10
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Post by Trowel š“ó §ó ¢ó ·ó ¬ó ³ó æ on Dec 10, 2023 20:09:26 GMT
Hello Neighbor - 4/10
A fun idea in the old school cause-and-effect style, executed abysmally. It's got something of a cult following as a game played by young influencers on social media (some YouTube videos are at 70m+ watches), so my son wanted us to play through it; this is literally impossible without a guide as the gameplay and level layout is beyond obscure. Couple that with controls which simply just don't work at times, and you're left with an extremely unrewarding experience.
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Duffman5
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big cook, little cook welcome to our cafe
Posts: 1,332
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Post by Duffman5 on Dec 12, 2023 10:52:41 GMT
11-11 Memories Retold (ps5) 10/10
This is a truly wonderful story/game, centred around 2 playable characters (well 4 actually!) towards the end of WWI. You control Harry and Kurt, one a photographer, convinced to sign up to the war effort to take photos for allied forces and the other a German farmer who signs up to find his missing son who was serving and is possibly been killed, leaving your wife and young daughter behind in Germany.
There are 3 acts where you continually swap characters sometimes several times during any given section, you also control a cat and a pigeon in certain chapters. The art style is simply stunning and the voice acting is also stellar in addition to a wonderful score, you will recognise Elijah Wood V/O as Harry. I can't see how the studio could have improved the game based on the subject matter and the emotions it certainly stirred in me. I would really recommend. Bravo to Aardman & Digixart.
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JonFE
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Uncomfortably numb...
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Post by JonFE on Dec 12, 2023 14:22:34 GMT
Finished Lords of the Fallen, my 3rd Soulslike game in a year (after Wo Long and Lies of P); it must have been some kind of record, it usually takes me several months to complete one.
By this time, you probably heard that LotF is a good Soulslike game with some performance issues, but honestly they didn't get in the way of me enjoying this, to the point that I will start NG+ early next year; it was that enjoyable to me!
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Post by JuniorFE on Dec 12, 2023 15:03:54 GMT
Since I mentioned it in its own thread I'll put it here too: if you're (general you) just after the endings/unfought bosses, it might be better to just do "NG+0"...
You get to keep everything you have as usual, the world resets as usual and you don't have to contend with the more BS ways they increased the difficulty in the actual NG+ (removing certain Vestiges and such). Whatever benefits NG+1 may have don't seem to outweigh the annoyances...
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Dec 13, 2023 20:54:00 GMT
Bramble: The Mountain King (PC)
It's, as i expected, pretty much Little Nightmares (or Limbo if you wish) in a Nordic folklore setting. Except, whereas Little Nightmares was ultimately disappointing to me due to not going far enough with its artistic vision, this game goes and runs with it after a while. There is some quite striking visuals and some effective creepy imagery. The gameplay is more or less what you'd expect from this genre, with nothing really to make it stand out, but the visuals and also the sound design do help a lot.
It's 100% linear and pretty short overall. I do wish it had some reasons for exploring around, like in Limbo, but it still works as is.
8/10
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apollo
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Posts: 1,500
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Post by apollo on Dec 14, 2023 7:58:56 GMT
Dead island 2
Almost gave up due to how quickly you can die (even with character with higher toughness stats, I would say choose one with higher health)
but discovering you can abuse the block then counter, you can quickly kill most zombies. Also its better in co-op as someone can revive you and someone at work joined my game (some missions don't feel balanced for single player) overall its fun game and nice use of music during boss fights, game looks really good and the main npc characters are fun with the game falling into parody.
The side missions could of been better, lots of go here, search for item, kill zombie, they could of made them more engaging. Side missions are better when they use the LA/Hell-A setting. Over use of tanky annoying special zombies like the Butchers (who can heal quickly, PITA if there is 2 of the fuckers) They do introduce special weapons quicker than first game and riptide and iirc dying light 1. The games are not fun when you are using crappy standard basic weapons
For the game that was about 10 years in the making and no doubt restarted by the studio that made this, it turned out well. Games in dev-hell, often turn out to be a mess
7/10
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Post by Bill in the rain on Dec 14, 2023 8:48:18 GMT
I should probably have put this in here, not the currently playing thread:
Finally finished Alice - Madness Returns.
I basically loved the first half of this. I'm not really an expert in 3rd person combat games, so I can't compare it to ones like DMC, but I thought that all the parts were done really well (the combat, the platforming, the light puzzling).
It also looks gorgeous (despite being 12 years old (!!)) and has loads and loads of visual style. Everything is detailed and it has about 6 different 'worlds' each with their own totally different style. Some parts are super colorful, and yet it has this twisted dark horror game vibe going on.
Plus it throws in a bunch of curve-ball levels like suddenly you're in a 2d side scroller, or a 2d shooter. They aren't super polished, but the creativity and effort is appreciated.
All the main stuff works well, though it's a bit janky in other areas. (Like you have a power to shrink, but there's loads of invisible walls stopping you going into all the little gaps in the scenery that it looks like you should be able to enter). It was also rather crash-happy on my PC. I'd usually have to restart it about once per session.
The voice acting is really good. I honestly thought it had a bunch of famous actors in it, but looking it up I don't recognise anyone. The story is good, in that it's told in a very indirect way and you largely don't know what's going on exactly, but that all fits the vibe.
The problem is that it's just waaaay tooo looong. I think I clocked in at about 18hrs. Which isn't crazy long, and shouldn't feel too long in a game that has as many different worlds and mini-games as this one, but it really starts to drag at points. Cutting the entire thing down to about 14hrs would have really helped, but also just cutting down the length of each section would have helped a lot. Many times I got to what seemed like it'd be the end of a section, only for it to go on twice as long. None of the sections are bad really, they just go on a lot.
Which is a shame because, minor jank aside, I thought everything else was ace!
(very final section and boss battle was a bastard though. They actually put checkpoints between the stages of a long boss battle (yay!) but then you get saved on very low health and have to get through the last 2 sections in almost sudden-death mode!)
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Post by Bill in the rain on Dec 14, 2023 8:51:30 GMT
Hello Neighbor - 4/10 A fun idea in the old school cause-and-effect style, executed abysmally. It's got something of a cult following as a game played by young influencers on social media (some YouTube videos are at 70m+ watches), so my son wanted us to play through it; this is literally impossible without a guide as the gameplay and level layout is beyond obscure. Couple that with controls which simply just don't work at times, and you're left with an extremely unrewarding experience. Yeah, my kids pestered me to play that for years, and when they finally did play it they got fed up pretty quickly. I didn't even really try it myself. It looked mildly interesting as a trial-and-error mini sandbox game, but it also looked pretty janky. It feels like a lot of games aimed at youngesters these days assume you're going to be looking at guides or watching youtubers. I blame minecraft for starting it.
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Post by dangerousdave on Dec 16, 2023 14:36:53 GMT
I wonder if thisāll be my last completed game of 2023, but I have massively enjoyed my time with Rollerdrome. Its spin on the Tony Hawk formula actually managed to more accurately recreate my original experiences of the old PlayStation games than the Tony Hawk 1+2 remake did last year.
Whereas I beat that remake in a couple of hours (all challenges, all levels, both games), I had to learn and master an additional set of skills, which kept me replaying stages over and over again. Itās that challenge I remember most fondly as a teen, as it gives purpose to replaying the same stages over and over again. The pursuit of perfection.
Itās an incredibly addictive game and the gunplay just adds even more flair to experience. If I had just one complaint, itās that the music seems to borrow heavily from real world tracks. So much so that they may as well have just tried licensing Donna Summerās I Feel Love, which has been stuck in my head for two weeks straight.
5/5
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Post by stixxuk on Dec 16, 2023 15:32:30 GMT
Just finished Cocoon, it was good! 8/10
Original and atmospheric setting, always looks nice, and some really creative puzzles that feel really well-engineered, and always just enough to get you thinking but never too tough. Some fun boss fights and secrets along the way too.
I had to look up one puzzle, but really I should've figured it out. Good game, recommended especially on game pass. I'd be keen for a sequel, or whatever the creators do next.
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Post by theguy on Dec 16, 2023 17:39:45 GMT
The Last Guardian
What could possibly make a combination of a wonky camera, unintuitive controls and janky mechanics better? An AI companion that's equally bad to command of course!
This game is agony to play at times. Part of it could be that it's 30fps, I'm no fps snob but the PS5 may have spoiled me and the sudden step back likely did it no favours. But only part of it.The rest is on the game.
It just feels terrible to try to do anything. I really wanted to like this, and having loved SotC, I thought I would. But it truly controls like shit. Animations are long and drawn out, controls are so all over the place the game has to show massive button prompts everywhere, nothing feels responsive and that's before I get into waiting on the AI so you can progress.
I don't get it. What's worse is that about halfway through, I came to accept much of this, and when I look at what the game is doing, there are some real nice ideas in there. I liked a lot of the puzzles, I liked the cinematic platforming, and even the premise appeals to me and largely delivers. It's far from unplayable, but I'm not sure there's a single time I actually looked forward to continuing my playthrough because it's a game that just feels bad to actually play.
And yet despite saying that, I don't actually hate the game. There is a lot of good here and if it controlled better, and I mean much better, I think I'd find the game to be quite good indeed.
I honestly can't recall many games like it, if any. It's a truly unique experience and I commend it for that, but I'm still not sure it was a good one.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Dec 17, 2023 14:01:35 GMT
I'm done with INDUSTRIA, a very short FPS in the style of Half Life 2.
The more surreal parts of the story were probably what I liked most about it. There are some weird shenanigans with time travel and such and there are surreal interludes in some kind of deserted library. Other than that there are some documents to be found for more background and our heroine communicates with the sole inhabitant of the city we travel through. That was ok, but went for a bit of unnecessary melodrama and the character has no real involvement in the plot.
The shooting was ok and the damage model of the robots was decent too, but there were only a few of them and the same is true for the weapons. Stock-standard and little choice. The sniper rifle felt unnecessary and the SMG merely seemed like a more wasteful Pistol. The game constantly just hands the player whatever s/he has just used up, which felt very gamey and just not elegant or leading to interesting scarcity. Part of the problem seems to be that the amount of ammo that can be carried at any one time, is very limited.
The atmosphere and environments were decent enough, but overall this just doesn't leave much of an impression.
Edit: And Arcanum (50+ hours) is done as well. Took a bit less time than with my sickly gunslinger dwarf the last time. It helps to have a group of angry children that violently disagree with anyone trying to touch my character. At maximum Charisma and with some followers not counting towards the limit I think we were eight people/dog in the group. Having Magnus around to build Balanced Swords with their good attack rate and me to build Charged Rings (+ Dexterity) for everyone, did help quite a bit earlier on and as I didn't really have any plans for my character outside of Charisma and Persuade I eventually also became a fairly competent melee fighter.
Persuade did enable me in doing some quests or doing them in a different way than per usual, but there were also some cases where I would have needed more Intelligence on top of that. At least that's the impression I got. Thankfully with the last boss it was just trying to guess which dialogue options were the right ones.
The last few sessions were unfortunately a bit more annoying than necessary as a certain character that I had resurrected earlier as part of his story, kept disappearing on me. And trying to change area just kept crashing the game once that had happened.
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Post by dfunked on Dec 17, 2023 23:18:01 GMT
RDR2 (SX) - 9/10 Absolutely loved it once I got into the sedate pace and clunky controls, but it could have really done with some more heavy-handed editing... I certainly didn't expect there to be another seven or so hours of epilogue to get through before I saw the credits. It still looks and sounds bloody great, and the amount of detail that they cram into the world is incredible, especially considering you won't see a huge chunk of it on a typical playthrough. All of New Austin being in the game but you're never actually pushed towards it by a mission just seems insane. Plus there being no way aside from using cheats to get back to Guarma. Some absolutely great characters in it too, with Sadie's transition into total badass being a highlight. I hoped that you'd be able to carry on as her at the end, but we got boring old John instead. Fist fighting is just plain awful (especially when story missions force you to do it), and fishing can get in the fucking bin.
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Post by richyroo on Dec 19, 2023 10:10:32 GMT
Baldurs Gate 3 - 10/10 (I think everything has already been said about this game)
The Expanse (A Telltale Series) - 6/10 Started off quite strongly and its a well made game. But ultimately this is one of the most shallow Telltale games that I have ever played. If it wasn't for the license with the TV series then this would have been a 5 out of 10 at best. I picked it up for about Ā£7 on release and I wouldn't of wanted to pay any more than that. I was dubious beforehand as I know this is Telltale in name only, and my fears were realized.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Dec 19, 2023 10:21:14 GMT
That's a shame about The Expanse, as I thought the trailer looked pretty good. Not watched much of the show, so I was hoping it'd be good enough to play even without being a fan. Seems not.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Dec 19, 2023 10:29:36 GMT
Baldurs Gate 3 - 10/10 (I think everything has already been said about this game) I dunno - I'm quite looking forward to bichii's review
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Post by richyroo on Dec 19, 2023 13:37:49 GMT
That's a shame about The Expanse, as I thought the trailer looked pretty good. Not watched much of the show, so I was hoping it'd be good enough to play even without being a fan. Seems not.
Yeah if you are not really a fan of the show, I would say stay clear. You spend most of the time just walking or floating about different ships, with not much else in-between except for a few pieces of dialogue. Episode 1 started off ok and I was genuinely intrigued at the time, but the story ended up being incredibly shallow and it was all over far too quickly.
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Post by richyroo on Dec 19, 2023 13:44:08 GMT
Dead island 2 For the game that was about 10 years in the making and no doubt restarted by the studio that made this, it turned out well. Games in dev-hell, often turn out to be a mess
7/10
Have you played Dying Light 2 at all? I am interested in how this compares.
I gave up with Dying Light 2 as I got bored with the open word formulae. I am interested how this compares with its smaller, more focused areas.
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apollo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,500
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Post by apollo on Dec 19, 2023 14:04:00 GMT
Dead island 2 For the game that was about 10 years in the making and no doubt restarted by the studio that made this, it turned out well. Games in dev-hell, often turn out to be a mess
7/10
Have you played Dying Light 2 at all? I am interested in how this compares.
I gave up with Dying Light 2 as I got bored with the open word formulae. I am interested how this compares with its smaller, more focused areas.
No, not yet. I got the impression DL2 is very serious and also bored with the massive open world. I do like the smaller areas and the less serious take of the genre
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Post by dfunked on Dec 19, 2023 22:23:23 GMT
Gris - 10/10 An absolutely lovely journey. Gorgeous art direction, haunting soundtrack and it'll stick with me for a long time. The central theme of grief is pretty evident, but to me that fucking bird was anxiety personified. I guess it's all pretty intentionally left wide open to interpreting however you want to, or just ignoring it all and enjoying the game itself. Decided to just watch the hidden ending on YouTube, though. As much as I loved the game, it just didn't feel right dipping back in for a few hours to find x hidden MacGuffins. My time with it was done. Their next game will be an instabuy for me.
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wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,417
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Post by wunty on Dec 20, 2023 10:56:43 GMT
Moons of Madness
Reviews have been not exactly glowing for this so it was with some trepidation that I started it. Loved it in the end. It has it's weak points and - crucially for a horror game - it's not particularly scary but there's a few brilliant sequences that stick in the memory. Thought the puzzles were all pretty good and practical with nothing causing a roadblock at any point. The third act felt a bit rushed and the plot was a bit needlessly convoluted at times, but overall I liked where the story went, particularly a left turn half way through that took me quite by surprise (despite it introducing a short mandatory stealth sequence that wasn't exactly a high point). Yog-Sothoth / 10 Amnesia: RebirthI started this straight after The Bunker but think I had PTSD from that came so didn't get too far into Rebirth before putting it aside. Had the urge to go back to it and I'm glad I did. I understand it's got it's fair share of detractors but I fucking loved it. An early highlight included the whole Fort sequence, but there was constantly somethign going on that I didn't expect, including forays' into Roman ruins and an alien landscape. The plot was far more straightforward than I thought it would be so my simple brain could actually understand what was going on. I liked The Dark Descent but didn't love it. This though, stands alongside The Bunker, just below Soma in my own little ranking. In fact, these three games are pretty much some of my favourite horror games ever I think. The onyl negative I have is that the monster deaths don't really penalise you. In fact it's the opposite. You get nudged forward a little bit after a lengthy animation. The plus side is this this alleviates any potential annoyances with failing sections, but the trouble is that this results in you not really having any fear of the enemies. It's flipping brilliant though / 10
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Dec 20, 2023 12:53:33 GMT
I had my issues with Rebirth, but the post-apocalyptic alien world was really fascinating. Not quite Soma's ocean floor, but still really good.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Dec 20, 2023 12:55:08 GMT
I dropped Rebirth relatively early on, I think, it was in the Fort. My impression was that you couldn't actually die - no matter how much noise you would make and how close the enemies supposedly were, it never felt like anything jumped at me or what else. That kinda put me off after a while.
The Bunker though, it's the opposite. This game wants me to die so it can laugh at my corpse. It is quite exhausting sometimes.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Dec 20, 2023 14:28:56 GMT
Only played Amnesia 1, but that was exhausting.
Loved it, but never really felt like playing another Amnesia game after it.
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Post by harrypalmer on Dec 20, 2023 14:49:05 GMT
Baldur's Gate 3 - 10/10
An absolute behemoth that will take over your life if it clicks with you. The most immersive immersive sim I've ever played where the illusion of choice and consequence feels completely convincing.
A wonderful story with vibrant likeable characters. Every quest is important and has repercussions throughout the game.
There are niggles, Act 3 is still a bit broken here and there, the combat started to feel a bit laborious to me towards the end and the UI/inventory is pretty bad, but absolutely none of those things detracted from the experience.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Dec 20, 2023 22:05:30 GMT
Amnesia: The Bunker
You are trapped in a bunker with a big monster hell-bent on tracking you down and smashing your face in. Any noise is potentially a death sentence. Lights keeps you safe(ish), so you better find fuel to keep the generator running, but know that however much you will find, it won't be enough. Locks and other obstacles block your progress. Those damn rats swarm the most inconvenient corridors.
Survival horror in its rawest form, pretty much. Kinda like Alien Isolation, but more focused and more relentless toward the player. You are left to your own devices from the start, and there's only one safe place in the entire map.
It's all very tense, though in its quest for the purest survival horror experience, I think it makes a couple mistakes: for one, the generator is so fast to run out of fuel that, after a while, you stop seeing it as a relief. Rather, it comes off as something that you'll only turn on when you absolutely can't help it, and you'll rush all over the place when it's active, thus calling the monster to your position, which defeats the whole point. In the end I almost never used it. Also, with only one real enemy (rats feel more like architecture obstacles), and very little puzzle variety, it can get old fast in spite of its short length.
Even so, it's not enough to change the fact it's a return to form for the series.
8/10
Kudos to the composer too. There's very few tracks in the game, but the music that plays while you are moving around in the dark... that slow drone... it's still in my head even now. It won't go away...
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Dec 21, 2023 16:06:50 GMT
I dropped Rebirth relatively early on, I think, it was in the Fort. My impression was that you couldn't actually die - no matter how much noise you would make and how close the enemies supposedly were, it never felt like anything jumped at me or what else. That kinda put me off after a while. The Bunker though, it's the opposite. This game wants me to die so it can laugh at my corpse. It is quite exhausting sometimes. I did get the same feeling. The scripting was way too transparent at first and the constant interruptions with the game introducing characters and switching the method of delivery was annoying as well. But it didn't take too long until I was too terrified to be thinking that clearly anymore.
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