Sven_

Doublepost, because on a different note: I hugely enjoyed playing Grimrock 2 a couple years back (puzzles, combat, atmospherics and all). Hadn't played it in years and re-installed. And was shocked to find that a) the download was but ~800MB and b) the installed game takes but 2 GB. Despite the game's textures still not looking that low-res at all. Nowadays even small indie games oft take 5-10 gigs, that's miracle work to me. Unsure whether there will ever be a Grimrock 3 (there was Druidstone after that, but one of the Fins seems to be working on Alam Wake 2 next). There are a couple similar games coming out in the upcoming months still. Such as Dungeons of the Amber Griffin, Fallen Dungeons and Skull Stone. Plus there seem to be a couple neat games since. Just about ten years ago, I was concerned that the type of RPGish games I enjoyed were all going to go away. And nowadays you have to consider which ones to pick up and which ones to shelf for later joy. (Solasta I only picked up recently also because I wasn't even halfway finished with Pathfinder WOTR -- a bit of Owlcat trash mob fatigue). Good times! In terms of gaming, at least.

Oh, I meant "stripped down D&D 5" as in "stripped down from previous D&D editions (and inherently so, Pathfinder). @Wormerine: That's well put. I think prior the only game that did this somewhat (albeit with a much more busy interface) was Temple Of Elemental Evil. Purely in terms of mechancis and engine, is was ace. Never liked the latter part of its campaign though (endless hordes of bug bears and the like). Plus the combat log was mandatory reading. Also, the main campaign is a fairly affair, but I have visited one location where you had two choices to tackle it (storm the front gates vs. find another way). Plus later on I could try via CHA skill check to persuate the Big Bad to just give me the quest item I was looking for. Didn't expect either. What's even more interesting is that the UI and stuff is also very robust already, and that they even implemented co-op as well as a campaign editor (Neverwinter Nights I hear ye calling). Mind you, these guys aren't industry n00bs. But still.

So, Solasta. Damn this is actually real good. That is if you can accept a game that's narrative-wise is less about having an epic story, and more about providing a bit of context to pretty fun tactical combat. (I was more invested in Icewind Dale's narrative than this, though, tbh, Icewind Dale DOES have a pretty decent story for what is essentially a dungeon crawl). The voiced banter on the occasion can be good for a smile or so every once in a while. It's also cool to play a CRPG for a bit of a change that: - doesn't need you to engage in repetitive buff orgies before like every fight - has fighters being fighters, rather than for the sake of "balance" let them cast non-spells left and right (this is a party game anyway, what does it matter if casters can do more?) - doesn't have epic +1 +2 +3 magic loot like everywhere, something that back for more traditional RPGs seems to have started with BG2 (my party is level 6 and still carrying standard weaponry) - doesn't have an abundance of talens and feats that mostly bog down to like a +5% increase in hit chance anyway (ok, there could be a bit more options, in particular on level-up) Mind you, a lot of this is down to the game simply being based on stripped-down D&D 5e, but the implemantion seems solid, the combat is fun, there's surprised to be had during travels as well, what's not to like? Also, the production values are on the occasion surprisingly solid for a game from a team of 20. If somebody would have shown me this beforehand, I couldn't have told whether this was BG3 or else (but then, according to Vincke, much of the extra budget of BG3 goes straight into cinematics... zzzz).

Noah Caldwell-Gervais? Yeah, he's pretty cool. One channel that should have more subscribers is Matt Chat. I can understand why he doesn't -- he covers a lot of oldschool (RPG) stuff, including in-depth interviews. Plus he's an academic more than an entertainer. There's no fancy editing, no joking, just a cool guy who loves RPGs, a camera and the games and developers. Still, yeah. Oh yeah, it's definitely not a game I'd recommend if you aren't into the mood for it. If you have the time, I'd recommend playing it during the holidays.... you'll understand later why.

It looks pretty bad in the video linked to above -- 23:30 mins onwards. (Mind you, whilst he seems to value the same things I do often, the guy's always fairly critical in general, still a stealth system that is "impossible to fail", even by deliberately attempting to **** up, that'd be pretty off-putting). I mean, the dude's blowing his disguise by shooting people in the face, and all he's ever punished with is the guards begging him to stop doing it over and over? And as he argues, similar to the quest design shown beforehand that scene (follow the arrow, done), it'd be fitting to the whole design principle of the game in general: The game being absolutely terrified of any player failure, his/her own discovery, or anything, rail-roading him/her throughout the story from start to finish. With dialogue checks also being meaningless as they'd be impossible to fail most of the time, perks being simple stat/carry weight boosts (which Obsidian had already corrected in NV vs FO3), ammunition and loot/crap in abundance and more. That's a sentiment (everything being weight- to meaningless) mass-expressed on a big German gaming forum I frequent also. Even if you wouldn't expect a super hardcore RPG experience, that'd be new grounds even for Bethesda.

AFAIR both the dialogue (with Florian) as well as the journal was pretty explicit about this. It's one of the few "critical" decisions/challenges of the game later on as well: You have to make a decision which leads to follow, as going after each takes... time. As such you're not going to see it all. There's a multiple-choice dialogue though usually later on, like: "This will take a bit of time. Are you sure you want to...?" I recently compared Pentiment to Jordan Mechner's "The Last Express". Reason being: They're both narrative/adventure games, have a unique art style, not much in the way of traditional "puzzles", a historical backdrop, murder/mystery -- plus portray a confined space where time passes. In "The Last Express", it's only actually real-time. The game takes place aboard the Orient Express on the verge of WW1. Passengers aboard that train move throughout the train just as the player's character. Naturally, you can miss stuff and make bad decisions. To lessen frustration, they had implemented a feature that actually allows you to rewind time at any one point. The sense of place due to this (the confined space with finite characters, the time passing and the world not standing still just for you) is still pretty unique to this day. It's kind of a PC cult classic. No wonder "The Last Express" hadn't seen much imitators though, as back then it was a colossal flop with a then huge budget behind.

I was intrigued when I read about the whodunnnit DLC. But then I wondered whether that even works, considering that the game railroads you this much. If that plays out as shown in the video, where the "detective work" is basically following a marker, then that's such a waste. Speaking of which, I'll definitely do a 2nd run of Pentiment (have already casually started, but not progressed much into act 1.

I tend to come back to this channel, as usually this guy shares a lot of my tastes and views. But back then, this bit alone was enought so shelf The Outer Worlds for the time being for me. The quest he shows may not be the perfect showcase for the entire game. But it's still pretty damn hollow (21:45 mins ins, if the linking didn't work correctly). Why is this even a "quest" when it literally boils down to following an arrow where to go? Unless it's a tutorial kind of thing, maybe. But even then that's pretty meh. (What follows about the "stealth" "sections is almost worse).

It's the only AAA RPG of the past ~15 years I played and enjoyed without any reservation (well, with the exception of the so-so gunplay). Luckily I've yet to play all the DLC yet, and they're said to be some of the best ever developed. But look what's happened since even with Fallout in isolation. (The devs of these games increasingly develop RPGs for players who aren't actually that into the once core values of the genre in an attempt to ever increase their target audience). Fallout New Vegas should have spawned at least a few AAA games that tried to top it at its own game -- but no. Speaking of which, I've yet to play Outer Worlds too. But what I've seen about it, it seems a stripped down and lesser version of NV (and there's even a quest compass leading you all over the place like witcher sensing breadcrumbs, despite the game not even being open world as such -- bugbear of mine). As there's more choice now than there was when NV came out, I went with different games so far.

It's not a bad game, and yeah, some of the design is cool. As said, the interface and HUD is AMAZING to this day. It's fully integrated into the game experience, with everything shown in a very non-instrusive way, rather than how things have evolved since. It's as if Looking Glass Studios and their gradual evolution to Thief had died for nothing with games CONSTANTLY reminding that you're just playing a stupid video game. Dead Space: Next-Gen AAA Gaming (this isn't actually Elden Ring, but a popular mock of how Elden Ring would have looked liked had it been developed by Ubisoft et all).

The combat and stuff in Dead Space was much inspired by Resident Evil 4. A game which admittedly I also didn't particularly like outside a few moment to moment thrills (the initial arrival in the starting village is thrilling, as was the game really good at capturing what it must be like to be hunted by a mob.) (RE7 was a welcome surprise for me in that series, but with 8 being a cross between 4 and 7, I'm not interested.)

Outside the amazing interface/HUD (which sadly hasn't caught on), and a few funny limbs cutting, Dead Space has always been what System Shock was like had Michael Bay been responsible for it. It was so linear, so flashy, loud, dumb and so repetitive so fast, I never fully finished it. No wonder it was such a big hit tho.

@kanisatha Given OtherSide's heritage, my immediate suspicious would be an Underworld-style game: (Ok, they already did Underworld Ascendant, which didn't fare too well). Which COULD also actually be pretty cool though, with distinctive D&D classes providing distincintly different playing experiences, such as on System Shock 2. Have there been any more news on this so far? Their own website doesn't even list the game yet (or I'm blind). Re: Voice-overs, insterestingly, Solasta seems fully voiced too. Despite not even having companions as such... Will be interesting to see what Owlcat will do with their new Warhammer game.

That's the weakness of the game's "loop". Running from place to place and triggering dialogue is basically the name of the game. And some kind of "backtracking" is a given in any game that doesn't treat its gameworld as levels, but a confined space (System Shock 2, Prey, Alien:Isolation too, and that's wonderful in there). The "reward" of this is that you are getting as familiar with this place and its characters as if you had actually kinda "lived" there. And there's a payoff for that in the end, without spoiling. However, maybe some sort of fast travel from the map, say from town to abbey and stuff, would still improve things a bit. As would (optionally) highlighting on the map where the crucial path lies, and what your next stop is to progress things further. It didn't bother me enough to become a major annoyance, as the game is this decelerated an experience in general. I heard from some that they had finished this in like 10 - 11 hours. Personally it took me ~23-24. Not only did I backtrack to check for whether there was new (optional) dialogue. On the occasion, I simply stood in the game's forest, and listened and adored the ambience... I recently described Pentiment as less of a traditional game, and more of a mood experience.

It's a bit meta naturally, but I figured similar as well when thinking about higher level benefits. It's kinda nice that they have marked skills that don't come to any use in their campaign, that said. For the time being, I have picked rogues. Both so far skilled similarily. The "front line" consists of two fighters, so a really rather simply setup. For both of the fighters I picked the protection fighting style. So I tend to have them stand next to each other, so that attacks can be succesfully blocked by either of the two. Whilst the fighters engage in the frontline, it's the rogues dealing their bonus sneak damage from aback. So far works like a charm, but obviously, there's bound to be ambushes and stuff later on. I have to admit it's kinda refreshing to play a game / party in which I don't have to go through lenghty repetitive buff routines like every fight. Kinda reminds me of playing BG1 in that way, with D&D 5e scaled back from 3e (or Pathfinder) either way. Naturally, there's not much to pick on level-ups... but I also kinda enjoy that whilst melee/fighter types have their own unique stuff, they're not quasi-wizards as in some other games, throwing spectacular non-spells left and right, just to "make up" for that they aren't actually casters (PoE does this too). This makes classes a bit more unique too. In a party game in particular, what does it matter anyway if not every class has the same amount of "equipment" to chose from?

With Obsidian I knew -- with inXile I was under the impression that they had massively scaled down prior to going Kickstarter and were being "burnt" prior, similar to Larian (who equally grew much larger again post ca. D:OS2). Naturally, California is also a pretty tough area for an independent studio likely. Will be interesting to see how Owlcat fares in the long run. However, I'm puzzled that inXile immediately jumped back to AAA -- when it's the space in between AAA games and Kickstarter / indies is what's pretty much unoccupied. I used to put it that way: The (Western) RPG genre is pretty much split in two. On the one end of the spectrum you've got barely a handful of developers (most of them the few who survived the 2000s RPG crash) who are ever growing, targeting ever larger audiences to the degree that their games oft play very similar to Assassin's Creed or any other action blockbuster game on the market. On the other end, there's the Kickstarters and indies, oft doing either Dungeon Crawlers, BG- or Fallout-lookalikes. BG3 may bridge a few gaps with its blockbuster-style presenation, and there's also a few companies such as Piranha Bytes, still busy trying to reclaim their Gothic heydays. But generally: Where's the in betweens? Even the kind of games Bioware succesfully used to make whilst transitioning from Baldur's Gate to eventually Mass Effect, they're basically gone. E.g. NWN, Kotor, DA: Origins.

Finished Pentiment on Saturday, cozy and refreshing an experience (I'd like more "traditional" games to take a few cues off it, RPGs included, such as the focus on a single settlement/location and how time and possibly your actions impact that over the course of things). Unsure if that is a sign of things to come though. This was a project apparently 30 years in the making in some form or other. And somebody (Sawyer) pushing really hard for it for years and years. Initially I was also puzzled why inXile a) went back to a big publisher in MS and b) doing triple A games. Their crowdfunding success/es and Wasteland comeback was all about doing things independently, and on budgets that didn't dictate huge sales numbers just to barely break even. Don't know what's changed since. But overall, yeah, it's definitely good that bigger studios / publishers aren't exclusively tied to crowdpleasers anymore. In particular in the RPG space and similar. The exodus of much of the Western (PC) RPG industry around the 2000s is still felt. Including the rift it's caused in between a (very few) devs getting bigger and bigger and their games increasingly catering to action/adventure crowds -- and the indie/crowdfunding scene. There's a huge space in between that's not much being catered to anymore. Speaking of that space in between, A D&D Gothic-style game done right could be great. Or Ultima Underworld, or... wait, that was what Descent To Undermountain was supposed to be back then, right?

After having finished Pentient, I just bought Solasta for a bit of change in pace. Initially I wanted to go with something a tad more experimental. One or two melee characters alongside a group of "expert archers". No natural casters. I once played through Icewind Dale I think entirelly with a group of casters exclusively. Not an expert with D&D5eish, I'm wondering which class would make that archer. Fighters could. Rangers could, with the added bonus of gaining a few useful spells (plus at level 11, apparently getting a bonus range attack, need to recheck. Then again, not sure how much you level up in Solasta's main campaign). Rogues could -- even coupled with a sneak attack bonus which can be quite easily triggered.

TDPs (and actual energy consumption) ever going up, unlike with CPUs Sizes ever increasing, unlike with CPUs. Heat...... Prices... At this rate, I'm going to keep using my 4GB 1050ti until either it stops starting up. Or until an ~8GB card comes out assembled from "leftover parts" no doubt and sold at a reasonable price. Luckily I barely play any AAA blockbuster games pushing hardware anymore as there's this paradox that with each generation, it needs more and more people (and higher budgets) to do just that. Higher budgets == lower risk games. (Plus, there's barely any PC exclusives actually pushing PC hardware to their limit anyway... there's only so much gain from increasing details and resolutions for game experiences that else would be fundamentally the same game as on a console. Heck, even enthusiast YT channels have started publishing how going "ultra details" would be just "dumb"). In a sense Nvidia and Co. have found a way to sell ice to eskimos truly. (And that's not a dig at enthusiasts -- it's that the mainstream has accepted what's happened on the GPU market in the past ~10 years).

Finished. This was an "experience". If you're unsure, save this one for the holidays, thank me later. Nassau-Saarbrücken DLC next?

I stopped playing this about a year ago (bought it upon release). Was I think about halfway through chapter 2. Played exclusively TB, mind, which contributed to my experience. If there's one thing I'd change about Owlcat games is that they really really love their combat. None of WOTR was as bad as late-chapter Kingmaker. But I can still picture them going over all of their maps once finished, seeing empty spots, and placing paste&copy mobs there. Less (but more unique) would be so much more, it's unfunny. If their games had stats like the IE games or POE had, collecting the number of enemies slain, their numbers wouldn't be merely through the roof. They would be through the sky. (Nothing may ever come close to MM6 in that regard though). Will still continue playing at some point, mind. Enjoyed Kingmaker too (and enjoyed its initially more grounded narrative, WOTR is a power fantasy from the very start).

Pentiment wouldn't have been possible without Game Pass, says Obsidian's Josh Sawyer | Eurogamer.net

I wonder what the expectations are on the commercial end of things. This is clearly a passion project. E.g. del Toro doing "At The Mountains Of Madness" for realz (though that's probably a bit too "mainstreamish" a comparison, considering that Lovecraft is a fairly established fictional writer -- but you get the idea). But for all the accessibility in terms of mechanics, this is as almost as anti-mainstream as you can get, even within the adventure/CRPG niche: - 16th century Holy Roman Empire - no action, boobs'n'monsters - main character is a scholar of the finer arts - woodcut printing instread of raytracing (un-state of the arts!) Ok, there's murder going on, just like in Freddy VS Jason. But it's all steeped into 16th century Central European politics, religion and life of the not-so-party. And this seems to show in the low number of Steam reviews already. It may be a miracle that this was actually green-lit though, so that's already a huge success (except for upper management, perhaps). German media outlets from outside the gaming bubble start picking up on it anyways. "Pentiment": Adventure-Game im mittelalterlichen Bayern | BR24 BR.de, fittingly, is part of the "Bayrischer Rundfunk".

I've actually been getting used to it by now. There's also a few neat touches in the audio conveying emotion and character, so... But you could likely make it optional comparably easily. I really like the game's audio design. Not sure if whether that was in parts a budget choice -- but that there's no permanent soundtrack makes the game world feel pretty "naturalistic" despite the stylized art. The ambient sound is pretty good in general.

Two things I'd like (RPG) developers to take from this: - games don't need to have quests travelling the world, hell, there and back again. There's huge promise in the concept of having finite sets of characters, as well as locations. And showing how they grow and change throughout the day, the months, the years. In particular in games about player choice. 1990s instant classic "Day Of The Tentacle" was all about showing the same location and "changing" it throughout the ages. I'm actually reminded of "The Last Express" though, a game set solely aboard the legendary Orient Express. It involes a unique art style, mystery, murder and a historical setting as well. Albeit mixed with "real-time" events, giving the illusion of living NPCs moving through the train as you move as well (to lessen frustration, the game has a feature that allows to go back in time in case you've screwed up or missed something). The Last Express' sense of place is still pretty unique today, despite being released in 1997. - historical scenarios can work. That's nothing new, but there's only so many elves, zombies, space ships, power armors and more recently cyberpunk gear you can deal with before growing tired. (Admittedly, in a CRPG setting, even zombies could be somewhat fresh again -- see Dead State a couple years ago, but that's another topic entirelly. )