Author | Lightnews

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 19h

I say with deep passion,

grug

big grug energy

good lord

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 22h

Kirby Air Riders looks like the best game ever made

So excited

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 2d

To be clear I also really tried to love Starfield, it felt like it was going to really be my jam, but after 60 hours of bland quests, bland exploration, barely serviceable procedural generation (there's like 4 structures in the entire game that just get copy pasted verbatim?) I was left a bit hollow

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 2d

I imagine the corners were smoothed over to make a more mainstream experience that was antithetical to the core concept they initially worked with. And as a result you get boring Mass Effect with nothing planets.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 2d

I expect they quickly realised a realistic space RPG is INCREDIBLY hostile to players. A survival space game in a realistic universe would be basically the most hardcore survival experience ever crafted, and with the Xbox acquisition and the expectation that the game was gonna be the next Skyrim

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 2d

But instead Starfield tries to have its cake and eat it too. It presents an inherently fantastical version of space and then does exactly fuck all with it while using "realism" as an excuse.
I think Bethesda likely TRIED to do something more interesting with the game early on, however

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 2d

I think a Bethesda RPG that takes a much more "Space is actually terrifying and unknown and that's why we explore" approach would have been far more successful. You could play with the inherent isolation of interstellar travel and colonisation and the inherent unsurvivability of most of space

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 2d

Like Starfield *is* a pretty fantasy interpretation of space, a huge amount of planets have human scale multicellular organisms including trees and grasses, space travel is incredibly easy with barely any technical expertise seemingly involved, human colonies are widespread and there's space magic

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 2d

I think there's easily room for something astoundingly cool for a full-blown NASA punk more realistic take on space exploration and an RPG set in a realistic speculative future of space. IMO Starfield was unfortunately built like a more fantastical sci-fi RPG just without any of the cool stuff

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 4d

Loving Legends Z-A

Hate and I mean HATE the PvP game mode. Just the most unbalanced miserable waste of time. Everyone just one shotting eachother with no rhyme or reason and a score/progression system that feels basically random.

I got to Rank K, got the mega stone, and noped out.

Horrible

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 4d

Would I prefer the games look a bit better? Absolutely!
Would I like voice acting in major cutscenes? Very much so, yes!
Has that impacted my enjoyment of Z-A? Nope!
Easily the most fun I've had with the games since Legends Arceus, and it fixes almost every problem I had with that game too.
Love it.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 6d

Im having a wonderful time personally

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 7d

The biggest crime the film commits is being so obviously a set up for Tron 4 when its now less than likely to actually happen due to the poor box office performance.

I hope the film has legs maybe on streaming enough to justify continuing with it because I really do feel like I want more of this.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 7d

Embarrassed to admit I really enjoyed Tron Ares

Jared Leto is unpleasant to look at and listen to and the dialogue is consistently terrible but the audiovisual experience is absolutely stellar

Guess Im gonna be an Ares defender now

Deeply embarrassing

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Reposted by Katie "Oz" Payn

Kendra, scary version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social · 10d

You can't logic your way out of being burnt out. Unless you're me. Who should be able to do it and it's a personal failing that I can't

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 19d

100% agreed, we've got so many incredible third party controllers but they all have oldschool dogshit rumble

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 20d

Its got the vibes and I love that they tried to change and evolve the core of the first game but I do think it missed the mark in spite of it actually having some really cool and interesting mechanics and designs. Just falls apart a bit in the final product.

Still love Riders though 10/10

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 20d

ZG had so much potential and I feel it wastes a lot of it by oversimplifying things and balancing the game to be far too easy. I think Riders was probably too far the opposite direction for most casual players but ZG loses any real incentive to learn the game when you can win by doing very little.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 26d

This is what Ive been banging my head against a wall for between business stuff and future opportunities for future cool stuff

Dungeon soon!

The Aether @aether-mod.net · 26d

Up late working on dungeon bits and bobs

Will have more to share in the near future, likely concept art first but generation systems are coming along nicely so maybe some in-game structure testing too!

Cannot wait to get a new dungeon into everyone's hands

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 29d

With PSVR2 support no less! Xbox publishing more VR software than Sony at this point
Bizarre times

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · Sep 24

I think people generally will point to the teasers at the end of 3 and Federation Force but they are easily summarisable in a single paragraph so yeah it's not like he's a plot relevant character in the main trilogy or Federation Force, and his story in Hunters can similarly be summarised easily

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · Sep 19

But it also exposes risky players to a lot of high risk high reward gameplay opportunities.
When everything is the same level as you open exploration becomes Google Maps and gameplay becomes Cookie Clicker. Those things can be fun but it feels like a waste of potential.

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · Sep 19

Like if I want to try and take down a pack of weird crab aliens 10 levels above me I can just do that, and because the game is designed properly you're often encouraged to go into high level areas and find safe routes through them, which adds a cool gameplay experience for those avoiding conflict

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · Sep 19

There's so much more you can do level design wise and player storytelling wise when you put packs of unbeatable beasts right in front of the player's starting area. It makes you pay way more attention to the world and systems and gives the player way more choice for what they want to do.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · Sep 19

Xenoblade X being an open world entirely uninterested in level scaling and progression gating high level content is genuinely super refreshing and has reinforced my absolute hatred of level scaling in open world design.

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