Finished Shadow of Mordor and figured I’d move on. I think I’m having more fun in War.
The level design is much more creative. In War it felt like a mostly open sandbox with a few notable areas. In Shadow it feels like every inch is designed with intent. Especially with how much height some areas have. It’s not a homogeneous wasteland or field, it’s large set pieces.
The skill tree feels a bit better too. In War you just slowly activate every skill and end up quite over powered. In Shadow you have to pick and choose which ones to activate.
The enemies feel a bit better too. There’s a lot more interaction with captains, which are much more creative with better dialogue.
Despite common sense I bought The Hundred Line at launch, but thankfully it is indeed a very solid game. To the point I spent 25 hours playing it over 3 days. It’s more or less a Danganronpa game, so it might be too cringy for some people, but having gained enough tolerance to those things it’s wonderful. Probably better than DR, but it’s apples and oranges in some aspects.
One “problem” is that the game is really easy, and the whole SRPG part is mostly to enchance the story. It’s still really fun, I think that like with Kirby they intentionally wanted a game that anyone can approach. And though I’m just getting started it also does indeed appear to have 100 endings, I ended up on the romance route from my first set of decisions…
So I’ve been playing Tropico 4 for a bit, and it looks pretty good. You’re always zoomed out, so you don’t need to have more than like 8 polygons for a limb.
I literally could not run cities Skylines 2 or KSP 2 at a good frame rate. Everything was modelled incredibly well and looks great, but that doesn’t mean shit if I can’t run the game. I strongly suspect that’s a big contributing factor.
In addition to this, they’re going to against their biggest competitors: the previous game. It’s literally the same game with more content, runs incredibly well by comparison, has a huge mod library, and is much cheaper to boot. Might not be as pretty, but it actually might not matter given what you’re playing.
I think there’s probably a lot of issues that contribute to this to be honest, but it feels like at it’s core it’s a fools errand to begin with.
I would sub in like maybe Darkest Dungeon 2 over Frostpunk? Less well received but still better than any of the other three. Both were distinct changes of pace, darkest dungeon just sold its soul to the epic games store and lost the bond you formed with characters over a long campaign in exchange for the roguelite shorter runs.
I had a decent time with it and probably would’ve played a 2nd run had the game not failed me because every faction (including the rebelling one) was too happy to pass the final law or whatever. They probably fixed that by now, but it was pretty souring.
Bethesda Game Studios has been on the decades-long trend of watering down all their proper RPG elements. Morrowind is significantly more jank in combat and movement than Oblicion. Oblivion significantly more jank than Skyrim.
However, Skyrim is over simplified compared to Oblivion in all of its RPG mechanics, and has removed a number of gameplay features that were previously present (e.g. Spell crafting). In turn Oblivion is itself more mechanically shallow than Morrowind, significantly lacking in such things as speech options.
The Oblivion Remaster is so more a reminder of something we’ll never get anymore; an open world RPG that isn’t as weighed down as Morrowind and not as over-simplified as Skyrim (though honestly complex NPC interactions need to come back from Morrowind).
TES VI will likely have better combat than Skyrim, but still incredibly dated compared to other games, and mechanics that can barely be called “RPG” anymore.
I see a lot of people downplaying the remaster as a fresh coat of ue5 paint. I’m playing the game, having disliked the original, and I’m loving it. I’m kind of impressed with what they did with the game, basically remaking the world elements in ue5 and leaving the gameplay as it was with minor tweaks. Fresh coat of paint feels more like rip out the drywall and do it again. Just leave the structure alone. Like, the electrical and plumbing is still there and feels the same but it looks completely different.
Games like this dont come very often, so if anything, this remaster and BG3 should raise the bar on what we should expect from a new TES game.
KSP2 is a unique situation, there are no improvements coming because the studio was shut down. I’m not sure the others belong alongside it. I have the most experience with CS2 and I can say confidently, even at launch, it was better than the original in a lot of ways. It was buggy and unoptimized, and lacked content, and it deserved the criticism it got for those reasons. Since then, most of the bugs have been ironed out, performance is way better, and they’ve released a bunch of content packs, several of the most substantial ones for free. Even at launch, I never wanted to go back to CS1 just because of how much better the road tools are. Now? No contest. CS2 is a great city builder.
On the one hand, I’m glad for the pressure that people with less patience than I have are applying to these companies to release their games in a better state. On the other, I think there’s a lot of unwarranted criticism and vitriol that goes along with it that’s disappointing to see.
The animals are my favorite part of sharing with this game. I took a picture of a Stingray and some sort of Shark today while i was playing and i’ve already decided that i want to use on of them in today’s post
I think part of the magic here is that you’re having fun, and it shows. You’re spreading joy here, bud. Like watching gaming through the eyes of a kid again, but explained with the eloquence of an adult.
Remaster -> Take same assets, enhance it (better textures, better shaders, etc.), add some QoL fixes (new hardware support, etc.), but the base (and most of the time the engine) stays the same. Remake -> Take same idea, redo it (new models, new technologies, etc.). May or may not have an engine change
Reboot -> Take same base, new ideas, and redo it (new models, new technologies, etc.). May or may not have an engine change
Edit :
A remaster example : Titan Quest Anniversary Edition -> Same game, remastered textures, add large screen support, among others.
A remake example : Oblivion Remastered (ironic name) -> New engine, new textures and models, but with globally the same idea.
A reboot example : DmC: Devil May Cry (the 2013 game)
Morrowind was my first Elderscrolls game. I loved morrowind and I would buy an remaster of it.
Oblivion came out when I was an adult. I sunk thousands of hours into it when it came out. It was my favorite game by far at that time.
Skyrim I didn’t enjoy. It was fine, I guess. But by the time Skyrim came around I started to see Bethesda change. Fallout 4 and then Fallout 76 sealed the deal for me turning from a Bethesda fanboy to a hater.
Overall, I do not believe Bethesda will ever put out another new original game that is polished or quality. Bethesda rips off their biggest supporters and lies to their customers.
That being said. I’m very happy with this remake. Because it’s been 20 years since I first played, I genuinely only remember a few strong moments. All the minor quests and even the main story I barely remember the details of. So, it’s nice to revisit the game as a more mature adult. I think they did a fantastic job keeping the feel the same but it looks great considering.
Can’t run it on my LegionGo that’s my only complaint. I’m happy with having bought the remastered version of Oblivion because I’m sure as hell never buying a new original game from Bethesda ever again. Not unless they do an about face.
Wasn’t there a couple of modders who was making the older elder scrolls game into the Skyrim engine? Wouldn’t it be easier on Bethesda to just hire them and other talented modders to do it?
bin.pol.social
Aktywne