Random video game news... Bring me a bucket, and I'll show you a bucket!

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

Weren't all the other games made by different studios? Might explain why it went so... off the style. I have a little more faith in this one.

Dontnod made 1 and 2, Deck Nine made Before the Storm and True Colors; they also developed the remastered version of 1, and will also be making Double Exposure. Dontnod said they were done with the series after 2, so...eh? Maybe it's a game series that'll always be a one-off for me, for largely inscrutable reasons.

As an aside, remasters of games that came out not that long ago and even on the same system(s) will always be weird and kind of scummy to me.

Edited June 10 by Bartimaeus

[Gorth]

6 hours ago, ShadySands said:

It's first person so I was never going to play it but I wish Obs the best

They do show off third person views too, so I guess it's like the Bethesda games? I.e. can zoom in and out, switching between first and third person view

[Wormerine]

20 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

More Avowed news. And more proof of how scaled down the game's been as development's gone on.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/06/09/avowed-story-companion-xbox-games-showcase-2024/

 

Considering it allegedly started as 4 player coop one could say it is getting scaled up. Playing devils advocate, Disco Elysium had one companion and it was great. We knew since last reveal that Avowed will not allow for certain expected behaviours (like not taking on companions) so unusually small roster doesn’t surprise me. What I am waiting to hear is: „what’s the upside?”. 

[Malcador]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/call-of-duty-black-ops-6-will-not-depict-911-treyarch-confirms/

I guess Americans are still sensitive after two decades.  Shame though, the media fuss would have been great

[MrBrown]

Looks more like previous Bioware games than the trailer. Like DA:I and the later Mass Effects.

Combat looks like what I'd expect when they said it's more into the ME direction from DA:I. Not sure which of the action the PC is taking is something triggered by the player, what is the consequence of some enemy action.

The city depicted, Minrathos, certainly seems more high-magic than anything in previous DAs, but I guess that's true to lore.

Certainly left me a more positive impression than the trailer.

Edited June 11 by MrBrown

[kanisatha]

With Carrie Patel now confirming that Avowed can be played switching between first and third person at will, and how the art-style and world look in the latest trailer, I am loving Avowed.

And this extended gameplay trailer for Dragon Age 4 looks fantastic as well to me. It looks very much closer to Origin than Inquisition, and I like both the way the gameplay is working and the art-style.

I'm so happy to have big, amazing RPGs back again without stupid turn-based combat. BG3 can kiss my brown ass. Avowed and DA4 both look awesome. And now with my new computer up and running, I can play them! Oh happy day!!

[HoonDing]

Not a game for epileptics for sure.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

It looks like Dragons Dogma. 

[Sarex]

It looks plain bad to me. Don't know who their audience is for this and which player base are they hoping to catch with the Dragon Age name.

[Malcador]

Looks like a decent MMORPG.

[bugarup]

Very hack'n'slashy. Eh, not gonna go upgrade PC just for this, but some day on 75% discount would. 

[Mamoulian War]

Which means hard pass for me. From the looks of it, the theme of the setting changed from extremely dark, with a little way how to affect the whole world in DA1, to another save the world theme park, like every other RPG. Anyway, this will never be release on GOG, so there is no need for me to get any hopes, that I might be wrong about my assumptions

[Lexx]

On 6/11/2024 at 1:53 AM, Bartimaeus said:

Dontnod made 1 and 2, Deck Nine made Before the Storm and True Colors; they also developed the remastered version of 1, and will also be making Double Exposure. Dontnod said they were done with the series after 2, so...eh? Maybe it's a game series that'll always be a one-off for me, for largely inscrutable reasons.

As an aside, remasters of games that came out not that long ago and even on the same system(s) will always be weird and kind of scummy to me.

Well great. That sucks. Also, those remasters sucked, imo.

[MrBrown]

4 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Which means hard pass for me. From the looks of it, the theme of the setting changed from extremely dark, with a little way how to affect the whole world in DA1, to another save the world theme park, like every other RPG. Anyway, this will never be release on GOG, so there is no need for me to get any hopes, that I might be wrong about my assumptions

I never thought Dragon Age was particularly dark fantasy, but now everyone on the internet seems to be saying it was.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

17 hours ago, Sarex said:

It looks plain bad to me. Don't know who their audience is for this and which player base are they hoping to catch with the Dragon Age name.

I'm in the position where I wish it was bad, it's so generic that I remember next to nothing about the gameplay a day later. I remember that the player is some kind of ninja doing superhero flick stuff and is being guided by a depressed middle-aged alcoholic dwarf to fight an uncanny looking albino twink elf, but there's just nothing specific that is interesting to recall. Maybe superhero fatigue has spilled over onto videogames that ape that kind of maximalist action spectacle.

[Wormerine]

6 hours ago, MrBrown said:

I never thought Dragon Age was particularly dark fantasy, but now everyone on the internet seems to be saying it was.

It was darker than what Bioware did up to this point. I suppose it depends what your context was when it was released. In Game of Thrones world, I suppose it is rather tame, but if ones reference was Lord of the Rings and previous Bioware game, than Origins was rather edgy (though, preceded by Witcher1).

[Sven_]

Well, I guess as to Origins, you could interpret characters bathing in over the top amounts of blood (and body fluid in general) as kind of a comedy rather than any darkness too.  

 

 

Also, Fallen Aces is gonna be 9.99$ at launch on Friday! Are these guys in to get ripped? Indie gaming is shaping up nicely to be the next triple-A fun... now as to immsimish games as well, finally.

 

 

Edited June 12 by Sven_

[kanisatha]

22 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

I remember that the player is some kind of ninja doing superhero flick stuff and is being guided by a depressed middle-aged alcoholic dwarf to fight an uncanny looking albino twink elf, but there's just nothing specific that is interesting to recall.

I can very easily say exactly this sort of thing about BG3 and its cast of characters. <shrug>

For me, Varric is a character I absolutely love and consider one of the best-written characters in all of fantasy gaming. There are also several other characters from across the three DA games I love. But there are no characters, not a single one, from BG3 that I would consider well-written or worth remembering/caring about.

Edited June 13 by kanisatha

[Wormerine]

23 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

For me, Varric is a character I absolutely love and consider one of the best-written characters in all of fantasy gaming. 

That’s surprising to me, as I feel Varric would fit BG3 rather well. „A dwarf but beardless and sexy, with quirky attachment to his crossbow” seems like something Larian would be into. Well, aside from him being a short race with looking at Larian’s companion roster, seems like a no-no

Though I might be unable to decouple him from games he was in - and to be fair I do remember him, while other companions from DA2&3 are more of a blur. 

Edited June 13 by Wormerine

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

44 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

I can very easily say exactly this sort of thing about BG3 and its cast of characters. <shrug>

For me, Varric is a character I absolutely love and consider one of the best-written characters in all of fantasy gaming. There are also several other characters from across the three DA games I love. But there are no characters, not a single one, from BG3 that I would consider well-written or worth remembering/caring about.

Well you haven't played BG3 so that's not a surprise.  

[kanisatha]

5 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Well you haven't played BG3 so that's not a surprise.  

But as I've said often, I was one of the first to join the Larian BG3 foum after the game was announced, and have been very diligent in readings posts there and very active in discussing the game. And I have also watched a lot of hours of BG3 streaming. But whatever.

[Zoraptor]

Hmm. I Haven't played BG3 either, but on the evidence of OS/2 I'd have to hand the award for more memorable companions to Dragon Age as well. I played both Original Sin games more recently than any DA game, yet can remember nothing about the OS1 companions and very little about those in 2 (lizard man had a girlfriend, skellington was written by Chris Avellone, dark passenger in one of the girls?). There are also a lot less of them, so they ought to be easier to remember even if they were less the focus in Larian's games.

I didn't like Inquisition much as a game- if it were a colour, it'd be beige- but I can remember more of its companions, and not only that Sara's (?) face was melted into an eldritch horror. I haven't played Origins for ages and can still remember almost all the companions there, if not all by name ('old lady mage'). Of course being Bioware there's a fair bit of cringe that the memories hang on like Leliana singing or Morrigan's granny undies or Sara's face, but then the worst sin in writing is not being bad per se, it's being boring/ forgettable.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

But as I've said often, I was one of the first to join the Larian BG3 foum after the game was announced, and have been very diligent in readings posts there and very active in discussing the game. And I have also watched a lot of hours of BG3 streaming. But whatever.

That's a crazy amount of time spent on a game you'll never play. I don't even spend that much time on things I like.

[Gorth]

On 6/12/2024 at 8:30 PM, MrBrown said:

I never thought Dragon Age was particularly dark fantasy, but now everyone on the internet seems to be saying it was.

I would argue the first one sort of skirted the line of dark fantasy. They dropped that like a hot potato in DA2 though. Together with most things that made the first game good. Varric and Isabela feels like they’re “wasted” on DA2

[Sven_]

I'm generally rarely playing RPGs for companions anymore. Some of them are fun, some are not, but: You can only re-dress the same old corpse so many times. It's still the same corpse. I've already burst into a kind of rant about that here, so....  

I mean, even Jagged Alliance has more interesting stuff going on in some ways, like people bonding with others, whilst others would absolutely not be onboard if Y was involved.... then again, that's always been a cross-bred of strategy and RPG (God bless Sir-Tech!) Imagine if at all settling for a character would actually have drawbacks... like a super competent thief. But as soon as you meet him, it'd be clear that he can't keep his hands off shiny things on the possibly worst of occasions. And this not actually "scripted", but goverened by AI. That sort of stuff.

BG3 slightly had something like that going on, in particular with Gale. Not gonna spoil that, but that dude has a PROBLEM intially. And that problem wants to be fed. But apparently, they made it very easy during EA to deal with that problem. So it's a minor nuisance at best. Rather than something to actually consider.

It seems RPG companions throughout the years have become simply a feature and excuse for player wish fulfillment and entertainment rather than characters. Games making every single one of them bangable only highlight this "evolution". Then again, they ARE called companions, as in followers. You know, like Jesus had them. Or The Beatles. Or that Manson dude. Which seems all rather telling. Kinda like this:

"Hey you! I like your pretty face. You come with me.

You? You, too.

Sorry about you with the hat though. I don't like your big nose, so no thanks.

And for the record: I want to get real dirty with YOU over there before you're hitting level 7!"


Snooze... Anyhow, it's Friday, 14th of June! I want to do some taffin' and blackjack some goon heads! &nbsp; Where's my Fallen Ace release, New Blood Interactive? 

Edited June 14 by Sven_