I don’t see in what way having a PSN account would make Horizon Zero Dawn safer on PC.
But I also wouldn’t mind so much if the few PC games I’d buy from Sony were linked to my PSN account as I’ve been a Playstation gamer since the first console.
Still, I wouldn’t want every publisher to require an account to play…
I don’t see in what way having a PSN account would make Horizon Zero Dawn safer on PC.
It’s safer for Sony’s stock price, as they can report higher numbers of people on the PlayStation Network and greater “player engagement”. What, you thought this was about improving the experience for the customer? No one gives a fuck about them.
This game was the most AA shit I’ve ever seen. In the PS2 days it would have got a 7.5 average from most reviewers then it would have had a not-insignificant number of people pick it up.
They are delusional for thinking a UE5 asset flip is a AAA game.
If you don’t have a vision, don’t try to turn money into more money by making a game. Everyone loses. Dumping money on assets doesn’t make your trope copy/paste any better than the other million cheap Chinese clones on an app store.
Not at that price point, of course. Ultrakill has a sub 2 million USD budget, its one of the most critically praised games on Steam, and its not even finished yet. I can’t look up Steamcharts at work but I have good reason to believe its more than made back its production budget.
Live service games are starting to turn into a very expensive scam and if you can’t make a good single player game, you need to cut costs somewhere. AAA production budgets are just too huge and the product isn’t good.
Also EA has to understand more and more people have experienced their garbage launches and will skip their gold plated launch prices because of the risk you end up buying a lemon that is subsequently abandoned.
Making sure the gameplay loop is interesting and the game performs properly is important. Focussing on all the latest engine features that requires people to have top tier hardware is only good for marketing. Marketing then eats up a tremendous amount of budget without adding anything to the offer they make.
The last EA game I bought was Jedi: Fallen Order for $4, and I still felt ripped off, because EA adds a mandatory online connection check to every game they release now, including Immortals.
I’ve been a die hard fan of both Bond and Hitman for a very long time. This game has had my attention since its announcement. I platinumed Hitman 3 in like 2 weeks. Look forward to doing the same as Bond.
The hitman series is fantastic, but I will buy a PC and pirate a cracked version of this if they make online necessary.
I lost a lot of progress when I moved house and bought Hitman 3, couple of weeks waiting for connection and then when I get it it constantly drops the server connection.
This game is likely to be incredible but do not IO do that shite again.
I really really liked ME1 and 2. Sure, there are some nits to pick, especially with the act 2 gameplay (stupid mako, silly scanner), but they are great games.
ME2 is a good game in isolation, but I think it played a big part in getting Bioware where they are now.
ME2 saw them move far, far more into the action-RPG direction that was wildly popular at the time, with a narrative that was in retrospect just running in place (ME2 contributes effectively nothing towards the greater plot and zero major issues are introduced if it is excised from the trilogy). I feel the wild success ME2 saw after going in this direction caused Bioware to (a) double down on trend chasing, and (b) abandon one of their core strengths of strong, cohesive narratives. ME3 chased multiplayer shooter trends, DA:I and ME:A both chased open world RPG trends, Anthem chased the live service trend, and the first try at DA3 chased more live service stuff before Anthem launched to shit and they scrapped the whole thing to start over.
All while, of what I saw first hand (of those I played) or read about secondhand (of those I did not play) none of those games put any serious focus on Bioware’s bread&butter of well written narratives. ME3 in particular is a narrative mess, with two solid payoffs (Krogans + Geth-Quarians) and the rest being some of the worst writing I’ve seen in a major video game.
ME2 was great. ME2 also set Bioware on a doomed path.
ME2 vastly expanded the universe of mass effect from the very bare bones level of the first game. It makes the reapers into more than vague robot threat that kills the universe every so often. It established other races as more than basic caricatures. You can keep the basic narrative intact without it, but you lose the sense of payoff in 3 without seeing krogan as a dying race, geth as a sentient race that deserves equality, and the truly desperate nature of the nomadic quarians.
3 was pretty good until the final ending that was clearly rushed in establishing the full reasoning behind each choice. Yes it had multi-player tacked on, but it was clearly a rushed effort and cutting it wouldn’t have fixed the story. The multi-player is also the best coop gameplay I’ve ever played and nothing has came close to the feel. You’re problems with 3 and other Bioware releases seem directly related to the broad direction EA was forcing everyone down.
Ah that’s true, I realize it now that you put it your finger in it: ME2 is really a “let’s tour the universe” kind of story fleshing out the background of known races (and adding new ones) and places.
This is very true. And it’s ironic because when I saw BG3 I thought that bioware paved the way for it. They had everything to make a BG3 since kotor and nwn2, they successfully kick-started their own IP with ME and DAO, but they went on the path of ME3 and DAI instead.
They mistakenly thought the kotor and neverwinter nights ways were different. And then they failed at adapting to the openworld era.
I haven’t played it yet but would like to so no spoilers please, but from what little I’ve seen it just looks like reskinned and slightly upgraded D:OS2.
DOS2 is one of my favorite games of all time and i am somewhat suspicious that people think Baldur’s gate is some novel masterpiece when really it’s that Divinity is super under rated and relatively unknown by comparison. Can anyone who has played both games weigh in on this?
And if it is the case that gameplay is very similar, is it just the setting / writing that is much better in BG that makes it stand apart or was it just coincidence / hype that made this game succeed harder?
A lot of the great things in D:OS2 are present in BG3 and it probably wouldn’t be a success without them.
For an upgrade, Baldurs Gate 3 has great cinematics with motion capture and it feels like the dialogue writing offers more interesting, sometimes outlandish options. Often, winning a skill check just earns you a witty line, but it feels great.
I have encountered one remarkable situation were I really didn’t expect something to work, but I was able to play it out exactly as I would have been able, interrupting the main characters dialogue by switching to a companion and doing something and the NPC reacted as I had hoped.
It has been a while since I played Divinity: Original Sin 2, and I’m still in Act 1 of BG3, but from memory:
D:OS2 has fewer bugs and better performance. This isn’t surprising, of course, since it has had more time for polish.
From what I’ve seen so far, BG3 has:
More balanced battle mechanics. In particular, battles aren’t dominated by excessive surface/cloud effects or telekinetic barrel drops, and I haven’t yet had a fight where I felt unfairly disadvantaged by my party lacking one specific ability.
Far fewer instances of the targeting UI lying to me and causing frustration in battle.
More world to explore.
Richer lore, as told through books and journals all over the world. It reminds me a bit of Elder Scrolls in this respect.
More interesting writing. (This might be subjective, but I would be surprised if most people disagreed.)
More character depth.
More immersive voice acting. (For example, the voice actors almost always understand the context of their lines. They often didn’t in D:OS 2, which I found distracting.)
Better character animation (outside of cut scenes, some of which are a bit awkward).
The gameplay is indeed similar, of course, as it’s the same kind of game, from the same studio, using a revision of the same engine. But this one is IMHO better in almost every respect, and I think I’m more likely to play it again when I’m done.
i am somewhat suspicious that people think Baldur’s gate is some novel masterpiece
Novel? Not really, except maybe to people who haven’t played its predecessor, or good BioWare games, or D&D. More like an improvement on what came before it.
when really it’s that Divinity is super under rated
Where in the world have you seen D:OS2 underrated? I sure haven’t.
and relatively unknown by comparison.
Well, yes, that’s to be expected. D:OS2 didn’t have half a century of role playing game history or Hasbro’s marketing budget behind it.
Thanks for your insights. I meant underrated in terms of exposure. As you indeed pointed out, it’s highly praised by those who have played it. And it’s not a hidden gem by any means it just feels less zeitgeisty than BG is. I haven’t actually seen the numbers so that could just be anecdotal.
With your incidental review, I am excited to play it! Probably after Starfield though :)
Swen said that they had to pay Hasbro to use D&D and that Hasbro didn’t provide them with any funding.
I don’t think that precludes Hasbro from marketing the game. It might be interesting to see what promotional stuff they have had a hand in. At the very least, it’s on the digital games page of the official D&D site.
To be fair the game still had a huge fucking budget. You don’t have that many voice lines and get them all to also do mo cap and make a CRPG with that much content on a small budget.
To me, the biggest improvement in BG3 is how much looser the gameplay progression is. Since being just two levels behind meant death was all but certain in D:OS2, the path even on an “open” map like the Reaper’s Coast was still very much on rails. XP gain was so tight that side quests weren’t really optional, even to the point of discouraging roleplay by doing things like passing persuasion checks and then killing everyone anyway to squeeze every last drop out of the map. The first D:OS also really struggled with this until later in the game.
BG3’s first large map is a little tight, but even a new player can easily go off script and pick and choose what quests they want to undertake once they hit level 5. Encounters with enemies two levels higher can still be comfortable after that point, even three higher if the player has a good party build or has mastery of the battle system. And the player will want to, because the game is huge. It’s such a delight to just go, and it’s exciting to see Larian turn a major weakness into a strength.
But essentially, BG3 meets or improves upon every system in D:OS2. The dialogue scenes are the most flashy improvement, supported well by good writing, voice acting, and mocap. The only thing I found to be a step back was the soundtrack. I don’t think it’s bad, and there are some standout songs for sure, but D:OS2 really excelled in that area both in terms of the quality of the music and how it was used in battle (but then I’m a sucker for cello). It also won’t compare favorably to D:OS2 in its current state in terms of polish, but D:OS2 wasn’t exactly bug-free on release, either.
A big part of why this game is so big in the zeitgeist right now is because Larian was able to pounce on a lull in the release schedule. I’d call the pre-release hype for this game average at worst for that reason alone. Early reviews were beyond glowing, marking a studio’s successful graduation to AAA development with a game that has no aggressive add-ons or DRM. That will spur gaming enthusiasts to generate all the marketing you need.
It is a DoS game, except with DND leveling, stats, and combat mechanics. Many of the stuff I find weird or backwards always traces back to DND rules. The 5e? rule book gets mentioned a lot. I don’t play DND and knew nothing about it before BG3. Learning the new level-ups, stats, calculations, and mechanics in BG3 is learning DND. There are a small amount of Sorcery point spells in DoS, but most of the spells in BG3 are Sorcery points. The normal spells that don’t cost sorcery points are called cantrips, and there are very few of them. I wish all the spell casters in BG3 were warlocks, as they play the closest to DoS spell caster classes, but only get 2-3 spell slots per battle. That’s 2-3 spells they can cast per short rest. It wouldn’t be so bad if everything refreshed on a short rest. And warlocks cast spells at their max level too, so you don’t have to be forced to cast level 1 spells at endgame like the other spell casters. Also, warlocks are pigeonholed into using 1 normal spell (cantrip) all the time, eldrich blast. At least it’s powerful and fun to spam.
There are also a bunch of ritual spells, which are not labeled when looking at the level up screen. They don’t cost spell points outside of combat. Talking to animals spell is one, which is nice for roleplaying/talking outside of combat (and I highly recommend talking to all the animals).
Conentration spells are also a mence, because you can only have 1 active per character. Summon a cloud? Need concentration for that. Summon a fire or rock wall? Concentration. Cast a buff on allies? Concentration to maintain it. Use them, but they limit the interactions a lot.
Talking about interactions, there are far fewer elemental ground effects and interactions. Some are in the game, but you have to take like 2 turns to do damage because most surface effect spells don’t do damage. Explosive barrels are still fun.
That being said, the new common actions (jump, dash, push, dip, etc.) are a great addition to the game.
I recommend the game still, because it’s mainly DoS with DnD combat. The story is better, and like the witcher, has a lot of heart and soul poured into the stories (and lots of sex and nudity, which can be disabled in options).
Also avoid fextralife wiki. Use the bg3.wiki as that’s going to be maintained better. (I’m not going to be talking about the drama with fextra here).
One last thing. The game is easier than DoS, and gets easier as you progress. I hope there will be a harder mode coming.
I think the studios have been forcing it a lot in hopes of hitting the jackpot of the next big major game.
Rather I preferred when they made cornucopia of “risky” me ideas and lower budgets.
There are too many cooks in the kitchen as for example over 3,000 people work on call of duty. (From Google did not fact check further) I don’t understand how you could get that many people to work without deviation from the directors initial idea.
Here’s really important thing that the likes of randy don’t want to know. I would actually pay $80 for Baldur’s Gate 3, because that product is actually worth it. You can actually see where your money is going what it’s paying for.
But Borderlands, really? I was already not interested in this game, but why would anyone pay $80 for, at best, an AA game?
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