Wormerine

Is it shorter? If my memory serves me well both games were in around 80h marks.

Josh Sawyer would be up for making Pillars of Eternity3 if he got a lot of budget fot it. So... still no hope for PoE3? https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/obsidians-josh-sawyer-wants-to-do-pillars-of-eternity-3-with-baldurs-gate-3s-budget

Who would make it, though? Would Arcanum IP made Tim Cain be willing to come back from semi-retirement? I also worry, if Arcanum 2 could even be as ambitious as the original was. Arc1 was probably too ambitious, but I am not sure anyone would be willing to invest into what made Arcanum special.

There are some class unique instances, but for the most part at best it makes a generic skill check a bit easier than ususal. I didn't find the game made me "feel" like my character is of certain class in the way, lets say, Deadfire did.

It was the first and only CoD I played. Respawing enemies really killed it for me. I remember trying to be tactical in one of ther missions, and I kept killing enemies for 15 minutes, before I realised the game will spawn enemies infinitely until I move forward. Very much smoke and mirrors throughout. I on the other hand jumped back into Titanfall2, as its multiplayer has been resurrected. Campaign is really solid for what it is. Multiplayer is so very good. And I usually don't like those type of games.

Than I would encourage you to give dedicated Stealth game a chance at some point. In games that wear multiple hats, stealth tends to be rather uninteresting. My suggestion would be (in that order) Thief2, Splnter Cell: Chaos Theory, Mark of the Ninja, Thief1 (though from all mentioned Thief1 is my fav, but it's a fanscinating mess mixing stealth missions with something closer to first person Tomb Raider).

Finished Lies of P. It's alright. Really impressive considering how new the studio is. I quite enjoyed it at first, though it overstayed it's welcome for me. Gameplay wise it felt like a mix of Dark Souls and Sekiro to me (I know Bloodborne is a commonly used reference, but I am still waiting for the PC port). Mostly Dark Souls, expept it relies heavily on perfect parries a lot - something I wasn't a fan of, as P felt quite sluggish to control, and enemies relied heavily on the annying long windup+immediate strike attacks, that are rather impossible to read, and require precise memorization. If there is another way one can play I didn't find it - at least as motivity builds (aka strength) bosses rarely have enough time for a safe strike. So it's been parry, parry, parry, until they stagger, and that try to squeeze heavy attack for a critical. As as far as I can tell that's a strategy for every difficult enemy in the game became rather boring. I ended up using Spectre's help (summonable NPC helper for most bosses) for couple of last bosses as I just couldn't be asked to repeat the dance. Spectre turn out stronger than I expected - both good at tanking, and dishing out damage, usually turning ball busting bosses into pushovers. Alas, I had to suffer through the last boss without an assistance.

Well, games they said they won't add to gamepass (so CoD, Diablo4). I am pretty sure it's open season for all the other stuff. I absolutely expect that bunch of the stuff will get dropped, like it did with Bethesda.

While Eidos Montreal Deus Ex's reboot/prequels are quite decent, I meant the OG 2000 Deus Ex. You know you, but what stealth games did you try? Honestly, I think most stealth games aren't just done very well. I really like stealth, but there is a handful of games I would actually recommend (Thief1&2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Invisible Inc. Mark of the Ninja, Mimimi's output. Also hitmans but I don't think stealth as a game mechanic is their strong suit).

@BruceVC Have you tried Looking Glass Studios output? I retroplayed their immersive sim titles (Thief1&2, Systemshock2 [1st one still being on my to do list]. Deus Ex by some of the same developers). All phenomenal games, that hold up very well. My gaming doesn’t quite go as far back as @Gorth’s and while I have fond memories of Comodore64 from childhood, not much there that stuck with me throughout the years. Probably the oldest games I still return to are from DOS era: original Xcom (UFO: Enemy Unknown) modded using open-xcom, and original Sid Meier’s Pirates!.

I didn't play much (too distracted with other games for now) but I do like the setting. It aims for pulpy adventure vibe (Indiana Jones, Mummy, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Rocketman, and probably the whole host of media those films based themselves on), and so far so good. I also don't like the mesh of turn based and real time stealth - whenever it is Baldur's Gate3 or Mutant Zero real time controls just aren't tight enough to be enjoyable. THAT said, so far Lamplighters seemed like the best implementation of the idea of the three. Honestly, I enjoyed my time with the game a lot, but reviews cooled me off a bit. Will wrap up what I have now, before diving into LL for real.

Welcome to Mimimi goodness. If you like it, Desperados3 is pretty much the same, but more polished and robust (and with pause!). Shadow Gambit ain't bad either, though it's more freeform nature made it less appealing to me.

Cocoon. The dimention hopping puzzle game. It's alright. I mean it is very, very well designed, but I didn't find it that fun to play for the most part. Puzzles ramp up very gradually, and the game does an excellent job in introducing concepts. However, I didn't find this puzzle game actually required me to do much thinking, until last few puzzles. I was more often amazed how devs found clever way for me to do what they need me to do, and take with me balls they wanted me to have, but I had very few "aha!" moments.

As they moved on to microtransactions filled live services it only makes sense to bring their games to a platform with a wider audience.

Both Witcher3 and Cyberpunk were mostly narrative action games anyway. If judged as RPGs both games were horrendous. From what I have seen of the new skill tree it seems like a big improvement - the old one was rather dull and not meshing well with action gameplay. Old system had a lot of nodes, but most of them were filler anyway.

So, Elden Ring DLC early 2024?

I played X-Wing Alliance only. I really need to dish out some money on a flight stick. I am itching to replay Freespace’s - those were amazing Space Combat games.

Narrative and gameplay just don't go together in BG3. Narrative designers seem to do their own thing, and system designers another. Wait till you see Halsin and Minsc's stats. I haven't thought much of the issue you brought up but I did wonder why I found the scene somewhat farcical.

Eh, ME2 did it better

I took a deep breath, slogged through UI maintenance, and continued with WotR. Finished the opening dungeon. Seems like a step up from Kingamer, so still there was a bit more repeat encounters that I wished they would be. I was almost impressed by opening companion choice, with both characters making compelling arguments for their stance - alas the pragmatic one turned out to be lying, psychotic monster. How unfortunate - they created a compelling decision, only to make it binary good vs evil.

76 is numbered as well.

I don't think RPS are that complex to play gameplay wise. PoE1&2 and Solasta did a fine job making UIs that help to understand and engage with the content. Perhaps Pathfinder and BG3 just assumes familiarity with the system - if you know what you are looking for finding it isn't easy. I don't enjoy getting new character and getting a vomit of disorganised icons and having to read up, memorise and organise them by function and resource. edit. I will probably get back to it once I am in a right brain space. Also some modding will be needed. I had the same issue with pathfinder where I found the camera to not zoom out enough.