Wormerine

Well there are far more games coming with each year. If that's the reason, than it is an ok one, especially if devs can find the use of the extra time (Hey, Obsidian, if the game is finished in November, I am more than happy to test it for you :-P). And being part of Game Pass lineup, it should important for XBOX to utilise it properly. Releasing Avowed in the crowded pre-christmas did seem like a risky choice. Or maybe XBOX is happy with it's 2024 and needs to pad out 2025 Maybe they got a word that Silksong is dropping before the end of 2024 and know better than to compete

Could be good, could be bad. lol I wouldn’t say no to Lost Vikings 3 or Rock n Roll Racing2 . King employees moving there suggest to me possibility of mobile spin-offs of more popular IPs, which just doesn’t sound appealing to me. Eh, we will see.

You can ride Torren now, apparently! I wonder how it plays now - it felt to me like it should be a torrent fight, with all the long running, and potential jumping over ranged attacks.

It seems people warmed up a lot to Cyberpunk. In my personal opinion the 2.0 update made it a much, much better game. I think it makes for a fine narrative shooter. Though, it wouldn't made into my list of favourite anything, and definitely not as an RPG.

Dang, I have such fond memories of CoH1. I am still meaning to getting around to playing the sequels. At least CoH2 was supposed to be good. Ha! I remember people not being happy how it negatively represented Russia. I wonder how it would be received in the current climate. I don’t think Relic is working on Space Marine2. From what I can find the sequel is made by Saber Interactive. I don’t know if there is any overlap in devs.

That’s true with controller as well - that’s a hard lesson everyone has to learn to survive Dark Souls2. Especially when fighting groups, locking on can be detrimental. With controller, however, you tend to target with left stick, rather than right. (Though funnily enough DS2 was quite crap in the regard due to using directional movement, rather than analog 360. What a weird, sloppy title it was). The only thing specific to elden ring that I can remember, were complaints about camera while riding Torrent - the camera auto adjust to the direction you are heading, so you need to keep holding the direction to keep looking that way. Perfectly natural with a pad, but I can see it being really tedious with m&k.

Investigation into what? Does Japan have a law against historical inaccuracies and loose adaptations? Shake in fear, Hollywood.

I don’t think we will see sentient aliens. That would open a can of worms and move Outer World toward different kind of space fiction.

I did play, but frankly I don’t remember much. Yes, first Shadowrun had a “tech demo”’feel” to it. Dragonfall was pretty light on plot - it was quite like opening of BG2 - you have intro, and overarching goal to gather money to progress main story and you do self-contained side missions to do it, and main story progresses in small revelations along the way. I felt that Dragonfall did world building best, and I really liked the cast of the companions (especially with extra content from Director’s Cut).

yeah, same here. I thought Dragonfall was brilliant, but I just found myself bored by Hong Kong. I felt the pacing was really off.

I have signed up for Gamepass when Outer Worlds came out and remain a subscriber until recently. It is great offer if one is interested in many titles. Play at least one game per month and you are getting a whole lot for each of your bucks. Honestly, my favourite part was trying those small, indie games that I would be hesitant to buy outright. Or trying out those games that I was curious about (like Starfield) but knew I won’t spend with them more than a couple of hours. But yeah, it is not a substitute for buying a game that I am very much into.

That’s some really wide bracket you are using to put those two games in the same basket. Otherwise, I am with you. The game looks better and better with each showing, and I am looking forward to

That’s correct as far as I know. I think some modding is possible, at least for selected titles, but if you like to mod games extensively than GamePass isn’t a great choice.

Blizzard Acquisiton fallout continues. Game Pass price hike arrives. PC gamers still get a very good deal with PC Game Pass being increased from $9.99 to $11.99. Console players will have a nasty pupil to swallow as XBOX game pass gets split into multiple tiers: XBOX Game Pass standard will cost $14.99 but will not include day one releases. Those will come with XBOX Game Pass Ultimate only, that will now cost $19.99 per month. CoD addition to the game pass makes more sense now. https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/9/24195312/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-ultimate-price-increase-standard-subscription

I think playing Souls with a keyboard and mouse will feel very unintuitive. I would recommend picking up a controller - some games just play so much better with it. I don’t have time to check it right now. But Mortismal tends to play all games with k&m. Probably have something to say about Elden ring I that regard.

I didn’t get to Phantom Liberty yet, but it sounds to me a bit like Mass Effect situation. A bad RPG, that later dropped pretences of being and RPG and became third person shooter with chatting and minor customisation.

Avowed Windowscentral hypepiece. No new info, I don’t think https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/avowed-interview-2024

In….. Pentiment?

I found it very cathartic to watch his riff on Fallout3 reviews, as I found them ridiculously inaccurate at the time. I haven’t felt as disconnected with reception to the game and my own experience until Baldur’s Gate3. And it’s not that people like it, and I don’t (that happens often enough), but that they keep praising the game for things it is clearly not good bad at. Interestingly, reviewer for Gamespot for who praised F3 for being “deep and involving” and having “interesting choices” was one of the writers for Baldur’s Gate3. Stays on brand at least. BG3 also thinks “do you want to kill a city full of people or not” is an interesting choice.

Unfortunately, New Vegas is there to show that there can be a decent RPG build using FO3 structure and tools. Not that FO3 is without any merit - it just isn’t quite there. Both in content quality and system design. PS. Anyway Fallout3 is Garbage and Here is Why

Sure, but I don't know why one would look for that in a game about adventuring and swinging a sword. There are PLENTY games on steam that trade in romance in a variety of flavours.

I tend to think that in Roleplaying games act of choosing is gameplay, not individual systems. It is where Outer Worlds was weaker for me than many of previous Obsidian titles - I didn't care how I solve the problem presented to me, rather than having an issue with individuals systems. On the other hand, all 3 of my characters in PoE1 infiltrated Raedtrick's fortress a bit differently for roleplaying reasons. Naturally, it would be better if individual systems were somewhat satisfying in their own right, but in an RPG I am more interested in them being used to build a narratively interesting scenario.

Well, I do think New Vegas is easily Obsidian best game to date. It is a shame you don't find as much joy as I do in their more flawed titles.

Well, yes, but the amount of cinematics in BG3 is tied to heavy rectivity (and they probably count stuff like same conversations for different races) rather than cinematics being a bigger part of the experience. Dragon Age origins I think was also proud in that extend - stuff like how much dialogue was voiced. It being full VO was the marketing point if I remember correctly. I am not sure if I posted it on those forums, but Larian did a GDC talk about their approach to cinematics.