W♥M: Witcher

02/27/2025

12/12/2024

The Game Awards 2024

Game Awards 2024 Winners

Game of the Year: Astro Bot

Players' Voice: Black Myth: Wukong

Best Action Game: Black Myth: Wukong

Best Performance: Melina Juergens as Senua – Senua's Saga: Hellblade II

Best Family Game: Astro Bot

Best Fighting Game: Tekken 8

Best Narrative: Metaphor: ReFantazio

Best Art Direction: Metaphor: ReFantazio

Best Role Playing Game: Metaphor: ReFantazio

Best Multiplayer: Helldivers II

Best Community Support: Baldur's Gate 3

Most Anticipated Game: Grand Theft Auto VI

Best Game Direction: Astro Bot

Best Debut Indie Game: Balatro

Best Sim / Strategy Game: Frostpunk 2

Best Sports / Racing Game: EA Sports FC 25

Best Ongoing Game: Helldivers II

Best Adaptation: Fallout

Best Score and Music : Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Best Mobile Game: Balatro

Best Independent Game : Balatro

Best Audio Design: Senua's Saga: Hellblade II

Best VR / AR Game: Batman: Arkham Shadow

Games for Impact : Neva

Innovation in Accessibility: Prince of Persia

Best Esports Game: League of Legends

Best Esports Athlete: Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok

Best Esports Team: T1 (League of Legends)

Content Creator of the Year: CaseOh

Global Gaming Citizens: Laura Carter

Game Changer: Amir Satvat

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Game Awards

I normally don’t do live streams, but when I got home from work today, YouTube was heavily promoting the livestream of The Game Awards (happening at exactly the time I turned on my computer). …

Twenty One Pilots

Columbus, OH duo Twenty One Pilots arrived in downtown Kansas City at the T-Mobile Center, for their latest stop on The Icy Tour- what is very likely the most entertaining and energetic arena concert of the year. …

Snoop Dogg

On the 20th Anniversary of Snoop Doggy Dog's debut album Doggystyle, Engine Room Recordings released their tribute to the man with Doggystyle Restyled: A Tribute To Snoop Dogg, which came out . ....

The biggest video game award show, The Game Award, is airing/livestreaming right now with over 1 million watching the main stream. I’m very excited about this, because this is the 10th Anniversary of the show (which started in 2014 by Geoff Keighley). The show is broadcast live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Troy Baker at Twin Cities Con (09 Nov 2024)

They spared no expenses. Before the actual show, there was actually “an opening act” from Sydnee Goodman, a 30-minute showcasing some video game trailers and handed out some awards. Then, in the first few minutes of the actual show, they had Troy Baker (who we just saw in person at Twin Cities Con 2024) and Bethesda’s Todd Howard, with surprise guest Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford, presenting Best Performance.

Then we got a cinematic of the new The Witcher game, featuring an older Ciri. This looks incredible! As far as I know, this is the first time we’re seeing any glimpse of The Witcher IV, the sequel to the beloved Witcher III: The Wild Hunt.

No surprise, but the biggest action game of the year, Black Myth: Wukong, won the Action Game Award. There were advertisements for my favorite early access game Path of Exile 2 and forthcoming Borderlands game.

The cool thing about this year is that it seems the show is allowing creators to say more. It seems there are less sketches and jokes, leaving more time for the creators to speak more.

Twenty One Pilots, featuring D4VD and Royal + The Serpent, were the first musical guest, paying tribute to the steampunk action-adventure television series Arcane series. The medley features Royal & the Serpent starting with “Wasteland”, then D4VD singing “Remember Me”, and finally Twenty One Pilot performing “The Line.”

This followed by an appearance by Hideo Kojima, who is working on Death Stranding 2, as well as a live adaptation of Death Stranding from my favorite movie studio, A24. He introduced the Best Game Direction award… which Astro Bot won. I’m surprised at their second award, so I will have to check out the game soon.

More surprises: a new Turok game in the works. I can’t say I am a fan of the original game, but I do love that it’s based on a comic book, so the Turok: Origins game is now on my radar.

Best Adaptation went to Fallout (as I would have picked it). If they had announced Arcane, I wouldn’t be surprised, as that is a solid show. They made the right decision, Fallout was a great series.

Snoop Dogg performed a brand-new song, but towards the end he threw in some lyrics from his big hit song “Gin and Tonic”.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth won the Best Score/Music, and the creator mentioned that the game will come to PC.

Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul appearance was a surprise. I guess he actually stars in a video game called Dispatch.

It looks like the biggest winner of the night is Metaphor: ReFantazio, who won three major awards: RPG, Narrative, and Art.

Before Game of the Year was revealed, the showed a cinematic of Intergalactic by Naughty Dog (the creator of Last of Us).

Larian Studio’s head Swen Vincke (and winner of last year’s Game of the Year for Baldur’s Gate 3) was the presenter of the GOTY for the Game Awards.

Game of the Year went to Astro Bot, which was an absolute surprise to everyone.

Royal + The Serpent at Game Awards (12 Dec 2024)

Yours,

Weekend Gamer
[email protected]

09/04/2023

Weekend Gamer Update: Labor Day

Weekend Gamer Update:

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Games

Can you believe it? Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on the PC. I paid full price ($60) for this game in Oct 2020, and have played a demo or early access of the game. I maxed out my character, and have patiently waited for the full …

Baldur’s Gate 3

After over 60 hours, I finally made it to Act II. There are three acts in the game, and each Act, I felt could have been sold as three different games.

Act I set up the story and throws you in the outskirts Baldur’s Gate. All signs points to Baldur’s Gate, so the goal is to travel there… but getting there is harder than it looks. Act I basically is a giant tutorial on how to play the game. You have to solve the goblin crisis, the grove, and help inhabitants along the way. I tried to complete everything in the first part: killing the hag, killing the giant spider, saving Halsin … and murdering every goblin!

Act II, you are given several choices to get to Baldur’s Gate 3. You can travel through the underdark, you can try to go through Githyanki, and finally through the cursed land. Your companions’ stories also unfolds, with Lae’zel’s story the most compelling to me. Her entire belief turned upside-down… and even her god, the undying queen, is out to kill her.

Shadowheart’s story is no slack either… you have to make some hard decisions to keep her in your party, because fighting her will result in her leaving your party. You’re given an impossible decision to save both Shadowheart and the Nightsong… and, there is a way to save both of them! My first play, Shadowheart kills Nightsong. After reloading the previous save, I confronted Shadowheart and she got angry and left! I’m sorry, we can’t have that, because she’s my only cleric and a useful one at that! Finally, after various choices, I was able to reason with Shadowheart and as a result, save both of them! It’s the best scenario… however, I know most players will just “go with the flow” and continue the game.

Anyway, currently, I’m about 100 hours into the game… and I finally got to Act III! It’s been a long journey, and I have a feeling that it’ll end up being 150 hours when I finally finish the game. And when I see the credits roll… the first thing I want to do is start another game, with a different character build!

For those who are interested in checking out the game, I wholly recommend it.

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PlayStation

For the lowest priced, PS+ Essential, you only get three or four “free” monthly games… and the ability to play online games, just like the original PlayStation Plus. For $3 more, you can get PS+ Extra, which includes the monthly “free” games …

PlayStation

With the extra-long Labor Day weekend, that means more weekend gaming for me. Originally, my plans were to see Soul Asylum at the Minnesota State Fair, but having walked about 10 miles on the Second Day of the Fair and seeing that this weekend is going to be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit… I think it’s probably in my best interest to stay indoors and keep cool.

With the Labor Day weekend here, there’s actually a lot of sales going on right now. GOG is having an Autumn 2023 Sale, which includes the original Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, Cyberpunk, The Witcher, etc. A good sale, unfortunately, I own all those great games, so there’s not much for me… but if you are interested in those games, get it on sale and try them out.

Steam has a PlayStation sale… including, for the first time, a sale on The Last of Us Part 1. The game launched poorly on PC, and I wasn’t really didn’t love the television show… so I haven’t exactly been excited to re-play the game again. I bought the game when it was on the PS3, and re-bought the game for PS4. Do I really want to get it again for the PC? I probably will get it… but who knows.

Speaking of Sony, they recently announced a huge price hike in their PlayStation Plus subscription, with their premium plan going from $120 to $160. What do you get for the extra $40? Absolutely nothing.

On top of that, with the recent useless $200 PlayStation Portal (a tiny screen to stream games locally from your PlayStation 5), I’m not a PlayStation fan at the moment. I’m glad I never bought a PlayStation 5, instead going with Xbox for this (and next) generation.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

01/07/2023

Which Witch

Mayfair Witches

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Walking Dead

Are you excited that The Walking Dead is back? New episode, "The Suicide King", is airing tonight on AMC. This is just an announcement that you can start your pre-order for The Walking Dead AMC …

Mayfair Witches
amc.com

With the final 11th season of Walking Dead just aired in 2022, AMC is shopping around for a new IP to bring in new viewers. To me, it looks like AMC decide to put their chips in Anne Rice. Their first effort was Interview with the Vampire, based on Rice’s 1976 novel.

I only know about this Interview with the Vampire story through the 1994 movie adaptation, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Between this movie and its sequel, Queen of the Damned, I can’t say that I was that interested in gothic vampires. I do eventually intend to watch the AMC TV show of Vampire… but, at the moment, I’m in no hurry.

However, I am very interested in the upcoming Mayfair Witches show, mostly because I’m in love with leading star Alexandra Daddario. She was amazing in The White Lotus and was the best thing in Baywatch (2017).

While Mayfair Witches is the second series in the Anne Rice universe, titled “The Immortal Universe”, you do not need to watch Interview with the Vampire to understand Mayfair Witches.

I have not read the novel, but I have some comic book adaption of The Witching Hour (with some great John Bolton cover art), so I’m somewhat familiar with the first novel.

It would seem that the new television series made some drastic changes to the story. First of all, they future jump the story, so everything takes place in the modern age (people talking about Uber driver and Minecraft just makes me cringe).

Another thing is they removed an important character in the novel: Michael Curry. Instead, AMC decides to create a new character called Ciprien Grieve, which combines Michael and Aaron Lightner.

I can’t say that after watching the pilot, that I’m that excited to see the rest of the series. The pilot doesn’t really clue you in where the story is going, why we should care about anyone, and what are the rules of these supernatural witches. The only thing it does is set up some of the main characters, primarily centered around Dr Rowan Fielding. Maybe it’ll get better with the second episode.

Mayfair Witches will air on AMC on January 8, 2023.

The Witcher: Blood Origin

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The Witcher

The second The Witcher season is upon us! Man, it’s been so long (the first season aired in 2019!), I have forgotten much of the first season. I do recall that I loved it… however the critics hated it because they just couldn’t follow the three different …

The Witcher: Blood Origin
netflix.com

Netflix’s The Witcher spinoff series, The Witcher: Blood Origin is universally hated by fans and critics.

There are several reasons why no one likes the new television series… from my perspective, it just comes down to a poorly written story… and completely unnecessary. It has nothing to do with the Witcher… and, in fact, if they remove that name in the title, you can just treat it as a dumb fantasy about some elves.

When Witcher star Henry Cavill announced that he is stepping down as the Witcher, I read it was because the writers of the series was not respecting the source material. Based on watching The Witcher: Blood Origin, I’m going to agree.

You see, the regular Witcher series are based on novels by author Andrzej Sapkowski. His story and characters are from Polish myths and legends, combined with J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth fantasy creatures of Elves, Gnomes, and Dwarves.

Instead of adapting one of Sapkowski’s novels, the Blood Origin creators decides to make up their own story to explain the origin of The Witcher. That does sound pretty cool, but when you watch it, it’s pretty awful. It starts with two characters meeting randomly after a failed assassin attempt. Their journey takes them to find Michelle Yeoh, the last of the Ghost Clan, and then they randomly meet other characters who bumped into them walking in the road. The seven outcasts join forces to fight an evil empire… and accidentally created the very first Witcher.

While I don’t hate myself for watching Blood Origin, I think I could have just skipped this. I have enjoyed the regular The Witcher television show, and I love the video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt… I just felt Blood Origin was a waste of everyone’s time, and not worthy of the Witcher name.

01/10/2022

Gamer TV: Witcher and Arcane

12/09/2020

Cyberpunk 2077

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Games

When The Witcher television show came out last year on Netflix, there was a massive uptick on newfound fans playing the game again. That’s because, like the game, the show was very well done and had a compelling story. …

For some odd reason, Best Buy, allowed me to pick up my pre-order for Cyberpunk 2077 video game for the PC. The game is not officially out until December 10, 2020, on a variety of platforms: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and even on Google’s Stadia. The best part is that if you have an Xbox Series S/X or PS5, Cyberpunk 2077 will run on the new console.

To understand why this game is one of the most overhyped game since their announcement in May 2012, you have to understand that it is mostly based on the game developer, CD Projekt Red. They made the Witcher game series, and, by far, their finest hour with Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Even though I personally own Witcher 3 on the PC, I have gone back and re-purchased them on the PS4 or Xbox, simply because I love the game and wanted to help support the developer.

When the hit Netflix show, based on the books (and video game) of The Witcher came out in December 2019, it introduced a whole new generation of fresh gamers to CD Projekt (they boast that Witcher 3 had a 554% sale increase that month!) It is that new fanbase, combined with the old school fanbase that drove the massive interest in CD Projekt’s next game, Cyberpunk 2077.

Based on hearing that they’ve hired Keanu Reeves to play Johnny Silverhand, and seeing early game footage using REDengine last year, Cyberpunk 2077 became one of the highest anticipated games of all time.

Unfortunately, Cyberpunk missed a few release dates. Originally set for April 2020, it was delayed to September. Naturally, everyone understood because of the COVID-19 situation. However, when September rolled around, CD Projekt delayed the game to November (just in time for the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles launch). Of course, they missed the November launch, and ultimately, they locked in December 10, 2020.

That’s where we come in… I picked up the game a few days early, and already downloading the massive game as I write this. I’m very excited to finally play this game… however, I already know that there are a ton of bugs, according to various game reviewers with early access to the game. I’m sure with ongoing patches, the game will be nothing less than amazing, but at launch, there’s bound to be some game-breaking bugs. Still, I don’t care. This is CD Projekt’s new game, after Witcher 3, and I am just very excited to try out something new from this game developer.