MrBrown

This explained it pretty well, I think. tl;dr, because no one reviews the actually bad games, unless they're notable for some other reason.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/sony-talks-buy-media-powerhouse-behind-elden-ring-sources-say-2024-11-19/

Several DLCs, early access games, remakes... https://www.polygon.com/480312/game-awards-2024-nominees-list-game-of-the-year

The downside of making a really popular game with lots of replayability (through modding), you can't just do the same again, you have to do loads better. I remember when they talked about Avowed in one of those big shows about games where they announce new stuff or new trailers, one of the presenters said "Why not just play Skyrim again?".

Finished Rise of the Golden Idol. Was pretty good. The connections between the cases to the overall story was as not as obvious as in the previous one, took me until the final cases to realize how it all worked out. Not sure if the changes in the UI were ultimately better or worse, but it didn't matter that much. Looks like there'll be at least 4 DLCs coming in 2025. Will buy them.

Don't forget 5$ more total if you want to upgrade to the deluxe edition, instead of buying it first. EDIT: looks like they removed the upgrade option, but it was there previously. Maybe someone noticed the math doesn't match. Or that they'd run afoul of laws somewhere with that.

Avowed on battle.net. I guess MS buying acti/blizz changed something. https://eu.shop.battle.net/en-gb/product/avowed

remaster of warcraft I and II https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/13/24295730/warcraft-remastered-battle-chest-1-2-3-reforged-upgrades-windows-mac-blizzard-battle-net

https://www.inverse.com/gaming/bethesda-strike-zenimax-xbox-microsoft

Games should have a "random but reasonable" button. I remember trying random in Outer Worlds, and everything that came out looked like a person who just went to a punk concert and then got beaten up.

I got that impression from DAVe. Mainly because the big plot seemed much more interesting than all the details.

I went to check on the Bioware fan forums what everyone there was thinking, and my main takeaway is that they like to call the game "DAVe".

70 hours, finished the game. Seems like there's some differences in ending, I think I got the best one, but not sure. Overall, I liked the game. For me it was probably the worst in the DA series, but it wasn't a bad game overall. Can't really compare it to modern AAA games since I don't play that many. Worst part was the writing. The overall plot was fine, and the ending too, but the more minute details weren't that good (the baddies were uninteresting, dialogue was often bad, quests were really repetitive etc). Or as good as previous DA games, anyway. A lot of Bioware fans seems to like the games for their writing, so maybe the game won't score that big with them. No real knowledge, haven't googled to find out. Exploration was good, but they started running out of gimmicks later on, and it got a bit repetitive. Thankfully the game ended soon after that. Combat grew on me. It's very actiony and flashy, so that might be turn off for older players. Maybe modern AAA games does it better and ignorance was bliss for me. Builds and stats seemed great, there were a lot of options and I could come up with lots of different ways to build my character. Buuut, since I really only played one, I have no idea if it's really that balanced. DA:O and DA:I were quite bad at that part (DA2 much better) so can't really claim it's Bioware's forte. The game tied up most of the plotlines from previous DA games, so it felt like they intentionally made it the last one... buuut, then So it seems they're keeping their options open.

DA2 famously had one for Anders. Can't remember if it was either not labeled with the heart symbol, or was just placed where usually the friendly(-but-not-that-friendly) option was. Don't think there were any for Inquisition.

I think DA:I still lets you play without connecting to the servers. Once you manage to start it once, anyway.