Wormerine

Outer Wilds, aka. the best game in recent memory that I really should complete one of these days, is getting a DLC! Allegedly.

I didn't play either of LoU, but I do find it to be a common issue. It is interesting to watch a character in the film make all the wrong decision, but it does feel forced when the game forces you to do something you know is wrong and then slaps your wrist for doing that. I think one game that managed to pull it off is Spec Ops the line - thinking about unavoidable scene. And I think it hits as hard, as it is usually the point when people go through the motion without thinking and then realise what kind of game they are really playing.

Honestly, I really appreciate not having a cutting edge PC growing up. If I had, I would never use DOSBox, nor discovered some real classics. I gave a try to UFO: Enemy Unknown, Pirates!, Another World, Flashback, Deus Ex, Thief1&2, Systemshock2, and much much more purely out of necessity.

All you have to do, then, is become a Microsoft executive.

In what way? Personally, I think the new Hitmans are the best in the series. There is some stuff I prefer in the originals (like tone and atmosphere, though here Hitman2 is my fav), but I think new Hitmans finally fully realise the appeal of the older titles. I am curious what Bond game will be. While it’s easy to point how Bondesque Paris level in Hitman2016 is, I also doubt they will just do Hitman but with Bond - not flashy enough.

On top of James Bond game IO Interactive seems to be working on an RPG in a medieval+dragons setting. I am interested to see how non-Hitman games by IO will look like, but that said last time they branched out we got Kane and Lynch 1&2, which, while I never played, have rather awful reputation. I assume, though, that by now it's a different staff for the most part anyway.

I played Automata just recently, and from my experience it is nowhere near to being playable with constant sub 60 FPS drops (even if modding that was supposed to fix my issues). And according to recent RPS article Replicant is even more padded then Automata was. I will wait for deep discount on that one.

So with Titanfall2 being on sale, and me hearing over and over that campaign is really good I decided to pick it up. And yeah, it's awesome. I never liked CoD, Battlefield and such, but I am having a blast with this one. Funny how much movement and not having to aim down sights adds. I also dipped into multiplayer and, to my shock, I am having a great time. I love the balance between on foot soldiers and titans. Still in learning stages, but enjoying myself nonetheless.

Meh, a game of Spy vs Spy with my brother would do. I wonder if it would make more sense now, when I am double digits old.

I really want to dig out old Comodore64 from my parents basement and see if it still works.

Duh! There was a fig campaign and everything... even though the game is backed by Gearbox and was fully funded to begin with.

Huh, I assumed 007 project would eat up all their resources, as well as ongoing Hitman3 support. Playing Hitman2 at the moment - still have a lot to explore in the "2nd season" - while waiting for H3 to come to Steam. Damn, if not the pointless always-online-DRM it would be 10/10.

Before I start I should probably explain what I thought of OW vanilla. It's a fine, tight adventure. I like the world, I like the humor. It reminds me more of early Bioware titles, then what Obsidian has been known for - while there are multiple ways of solving quests, I find morality of OW black and white. I think I would find it difficult to not go for Good endings. Why would I? My character doesn't benefit of seeing the world burn, and I don't enjoy playing psychos. As such I don't see much replayability in OW story wise. Gameplay wise OW is shallow - adding "perks" as skills are leveled up is neat, but said perks a dull outside early ones which unlock additional systems. Leveling up (be it character or weapon) results in better stats, which is a very dull if it is the only thing that happens in an action RPG - character 1 and character 36 plays for the most part the same way. But none of it is a problem because Outer Worlds is shortish - If I remember well it took me about 35 hours to beat the original campaign. Midway through Monarch I was feeling disengaged, and after that there is finale and rush toward the conclusion. Overall, the game left me satisfied, but not hungry for more. Very KOTOR/Jade Empire experience. What DLCs do, is add a lot more Outer Worlds in this moment of me betting bored: between Monarch and the finale. Those are good, content rich DLCs, don't get me wrong. But I don't think Outer Worlds has depth needed to carry for those extra 15 hours. Peril of Gorgon is mostly combat, which at this point is a snooze fest - it's a constant loop of repetitive combat engagements, and looting things you don't need. Murder on E faires better, as it mixes all systems Outer Worlds has on offer, plus new "investigation" mechanic. Still, none manage to make gameplay interesting again, and storywise, they are seperate, very silly stories, even more one sided and over-characterised then the vanilla game (really, continuing base game after MoE feels like we are being serious again). I also felt both DLCs kept going for a bit too long. About halfway through you can tell where the whole thing is going, and you just wish the game would hurry up getting there.

There are woolly cows in DLC2. Even drunk woolly cows.

DLC2 is tuned for level 36 just fine. Starting enemies were pushovers, but later areas seem to be tuned for you being at Max. There was even one encounter I had to retry couple times. I don't know if there is any rebalance for the endgame (ala. PoE1) when playing with DLCs. DLC1 was definitely a bit undertuned, plus I gained over 10 levels in it. Not ideal as it's very combat heavy.

It's an RPG - you are not supposed to be able to pass 150 point checks, perhaps aside from one or two. Overall, I agree that some rebalance for DLCs would be nice.

There is no Pillars-Of-Eternity-character-reputation mechanic. Persuade, Intimidate, Lie are usually superior options (you gert what you want) gated behind a stat. I don't think I have encountered an unexpected consequence for one. Stealing has no consequence as long as you are not caught.

Deep into my 2nd Outer Worlds playthrough. More or less same impression as my first playthrough. I like it, but not love it. Gaming comfort food. As far as gameplay goes: solid foundations, not much build on top. Tried to do 3 different ranged "builds" and all end up feeling the same with just different thing sticking out of hand. Ended up respecking to long guns, as in my first playthough: between shotguns, assault and sniper rifles I feel it offers the most variety. As far as story itself goes it has "Bioware" problem - sure, there are other ways I could solve quests, but I feel there is an optimal solution to each quests. I could be an asshat, or make morally questionable choice but why would I, if there is a better way out? Finished Peril on Gorgon yesterday. It's not very good. Not that there is much wrong with what is in there - all of it is quite good, and quite a lot of it. It's about what is not in there - characters to talk to, choices to make. It has very Systemshock/Bioshock vibe, with almost everyone being dead, and us fighting through local threats and discovering how things went so wrong. Story is told mostly through terminals and audiologs - which means, that for the vast majority of the adventure the only interaction with other beings is a bullet to the head. Could work, if the game would take a way 10,000 ammo I have at my disposal, and find a way to make combat tense or interesting. Lot's of unique items to find, and some potentialy interesting science weapons, but with combat that easy, and me becoming so overleveled it's difficult to care. At it's very best it was like being in Edgewater again, with things not dying from one shot... but throughout the DLC I gained over 10 levels and got even more OP. Now I am overleveled for DLC2. Just started Murder on E. so we will see how it will develop, but so far unlike PoG it seems to focus on what OW does well. Looking forward to playing more of it. Finished main story of Yakuza Kiwami2. Silly good stuff, but Yakuza0 still remains my fav by far. I just don't know, if it's because it is the best, or if it was my first one. After I am done with it, the dilemma will be - continue to Yakuza3 and aim to finish Kiryu's story, or skip straight to Like a Dragon. hmmmm...

Metro3, but then they announeced fancier edition with RTX, so I will wait. Horizon Zero Dawn. Will play it some day.

I think animancer class could be very cool, and even better - an animancer companion! (We sort of got it with Ydwin, but as a sidekick her point view is underrepresented). The only thing I would be wary of, is how to impliment it without interfeering with how animancers work in lore. Summoning vessels is problematic - needs a harvesed soul to transfer into a vessel, and from what we know it is a delicate and difficult process - in short not something one can do in the middle of battle while conjuring mechanical bodies out of their arse. Perhaps, rather then summoning them out of thin air, they could have a singular permament vessel companion? Like rangers? One they could work on an improve as they level up? I could see animancer acting more like alchemist, if granades were fleshed out more.

I think what we will disagree on, is whenever stuff that Kingmaker added brought game to live or made it feel more artificial. To me it was the second one. It constantly took me out of the game and made me think "what the devs were thinking?!". I never felt that "immersion" was a point. In fact, most of my complaints came from an artificial design. My gold example of why I dislike Kingmaker so much and it's various silly systems is as follows: I am killing time between story missions and am cleaning a map that I just finished doing main mission in. Suddenly I get a message popup that I have a kingdom event. I trek couple hours into my territory so I can see what it is: and behold, Amiri wants to talk to me! Amiri who is in my party.... ok, let's trek back all the way to the capital. I have no teleport in nearby town yet, so have to spent 24 plus going back. Plus camping that takes a bit too long forcing me to show results of character actions every time, and encounters that I will farm, because, hey, I really need more XP. I get back to town and do my chores, go to my throneroom, and Amiri comes and says "Yo, talk to me in the tavern". First I have to load back in into kingdom management map to dismiss the stupid notification "you have talked to Amiri! Good job!", then load back to throneroom, go to tavern and Amiri says" "Hey, can we go to a place, pretty much around where we were when you first got notification, that there is a new event in capital?". So we trek back to where I was to start with, to exerience 5 minuts of actual content... What pops up to me is not how immersive the game feels, but how poorly implimented missions are. And that's how I feel about other stuff - if as a adventurer I had to make a decisions about how much supplies to take, I would probably sent scouts ahead first, you know just so I don't starve to death accidentally. I would probably hire a servant to stand in my hall, and take stuff I want to sell and sell it for me. I would order wounded companions to heal themselves if they happen to stay for weeks in town. If I want to take a companion to do a quest, but that I would exchange him for someone else, I would just tell the other guy to meet me in a day's time at a meeting point - not wait two days, for companons to exchange themselves. If I am leaving town I would appoint someone to deal with troubles, rather then have everyone sit on their asses waiting for me to come home. I would appoint someone to focus exclusively to research curses, and let someone else act as my advisor. I will say, that resting in general is a tricky subject in those games. While I personally feel, PoE1 implimented it best, I haven't seen a really good implimentation. IMO structure created by Bioware in Baldur's Gates doesn't really gel with per-rest casting and resting system. In BG1&2&3 resting is just too easy to do, PoE2 has resting almost as an obligation , Kingmaker has rather punishing resting system but fails to provide information and choice to make it fun. PoE1 managed to limit resting through a semi-logical limitation, while at the same time giving devs a set amount of player available rests to pace it properly - in my opition it achieves all Kingmaker tries to, just better.

I somewhat agree. I was constantly switching between the two. I thought BG1&2 worked well in RTwP, but systems there were much simpler. There is so much happening at all times in Pathfinder, that I found RTwP just didn't cut it - not for a party of 6, at least. That said, padding and repetitive encounters hurt far more, if one doesn't breeze through encounters. Pacing of PoE2 in turn based was off, and playing Pathfinder is more like playing PoE1 in turn based... probably even worse. So, I actually think Kingmaker did a horrible job with those. 1) encumbrance - Combined carry limit nicely mixes and "stash" idea but still limits it somewhat. So it's good? nah. I think if you create carry limit you can do it for: immersion - see BG1&2. It's mostly hassle free, and I don't remember ever needing to leave something importnat behind. BG1 has few unique items, so if you can't carry something its not a biggie, and BG2 provides bag of carrying around the time, you might start running out of space gameplay - what you take with you is of importance and you have to make choices. Kingmakers leans into the 2nd one, yet fails to make gameplay out of it. You don't have information necessary to make decisions, so you kinda need to carry as much as you can, or know what you need thanks thanks to walkthrough/previous playthrough experience. And considering how ruthless the game is, you might find yourself without items you need requiring a tedious treckback or reload. I also hated having to fiddle with inventory everytime the game required me to descreese the number of NPCs in my party. Not to mention having to guess how much your party can carry when at your base, as the UI won't tell you as you don't technically have a party. A system without a meaning nor purpose. 2) camping - I liked it first time it appeared. No depth, no choice to make. Bonuses might as well be automatically added to remove tedium. Once the shine of (oh! I can assign NPCs to do things) wares off, it simply wastes your time. 3) food requirement - I do like the system itself - more NPCs, more food required. Again, game fails to designed around it. It is player's decision to decide how much food they will carry, and yet they don't have information on which to make this decision. For the most part of the game food is useless. Except couple dungeons where a certain amount of rests is strongly encouraged. Not a problem with metaknowledge, but it's a horrible first time experience. 4) stat debuffs - I don't know. I found them to be a pain in the arse and nothing more. I disliked those in BG2, but they were far and few inbetween, and at least they were set up properly (like the game didn't sent you to vamprie den, without teaching for first what you can expect). Maybe in a better designed campaign I would have more appreciation for them.

Finished! 182h 04m clocked I can confidently say, that it is the most joyless, tedious and frustrating cRPG campaign I have even played. It probably should have been closer to 200h, but I cheated like crazy for the finale. Once I realized Nyrissa's ?castle? is artificially padded to 6 maps ( even NWN1 wasn't that bad) I just launched bag of cheates and cheated my way to the end. Frankly, even that way it was tedious and boring, but at least it took me 5 hours to reach the end credits. Done. Disk space cleared for something else.

Trailer's VO seems to reference Woedica, and banners support it. If I remember engravings on the swords were translated to something very Woedica-like as well (Oathbinder?) While it might be pointing toward us starting as a more defined character (battlemage in service of Aedyr?) it might as well be not be as defined. Having the choice of all races would certainly be welcome though it does bring a set of exciting, but possible problematic design issues (like character height). But as you said it's all speculation. We know nothing of Avowed, except it being in works.