I said any Call of Duty from the past decade as answer to the original comment, and I still think that is a solid candidate. However, another game I played recently that qualifies I think is Sleeping Dogs. Perfectly cromulent 7/10 GTA clone but ultimately not pulling up any trees.
The multiplayer is supposedly incredible. But I remember being extremely whelmed by the main game.
But it’s hard to remember the mid games. Because it is very likely that they didn’t leave any lasting impression.
And especially if previous titles in a series or from a studio were great a mid game would feel disappointingly bad. Although compared to other games they might actually still be considered great.
The original single player is so bad I’m certain it was just cobbled together as a demo of the engine and for inspiration for user content. Then the team had time to develope proper story with the expansions
Wizards of the Coast spent lots of time in meetings with Bioware to make sure every damn detail of D&D 3e was implemented according to the book. And even longer time micromanaging the campaign design. A lot of the scenarios are essentially repeats of the others - “do these four smaller thingies and then go kick the main baddie” - because getting that approved by WotC was easier.
Why are there so few D&D games these days? Why do video game dev houses want to make their own RPG systems instead? Well, they don’t want the headache of dealing with WotC.
Neverwinter Nights is the best PC game I’ve played, all thanks to the custom content the players made.
Bioware made the toolset and modding support a big part of the prerelease interviews and live demos. The message to the tabletop RPG crowd was “hey, you can finally build and run your D&D modules as a real DM-led multiplayer group experience online”. Probably the only problem with that marketing was that making modules from scratch was still an involved process and making usually needed scripting skill, so maybe the TTRPG crowd didn’t end up as enthusiastic as they could. But people still ended up making boatloads of great singleplayer and multiplayer-capable adventure modules! And the multiplayer persistent worlds were essentially like MMOs but in small scale.
I think the built-in campaign was more of a hindrance in retrospect, because if you hadn’t heard this, you probably expected another game like Baldur’s Gate 1/2. A lot of people went in thinking that the official NWN campaign was the main offering. The campaign was incredibly mediocre by Bioware standards because Wizards of the Coast was incredibly needy. They wanted high level of control, and essentially only approved a committee-built pile-of-meh plot, leaving Bioware to build something around that.
This, by the way, led to Bioware swearing they’d not work with needy licensors anymore and ended up designing Dragon Age instead.
(And if anyone is saying “wait, didn’t this just happen again with Baldur’s Gate 3?” Yes. Yes it did. WotC is basically impossible to work with.)
I really enjoyed 3 more than 2, despite never quite getting the hang of doing hook-gliding combos. Flying a heli with missiles in 2 was the game’s “I win” button, dodging AA missiles was pretty trivial, 3 doesn’t have anything as OP
This is an oldie, but Lords of the Realm II. I loved the first two, but had trouble with the third and ended up giving up, assuming it was a me problem.
Nope, the community pretty much unanimously hates it. It’s not a terrible game per se, it’s just very different from the first two, throwing out everything most people liked about the predecessors and not exactly succeeding at the new mechanics.
I’ve decided to build my own take on the best parts of all three, we’ll see if I ever finish it.
King’s Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity. Even as a kid, I felt like it was a very strange gore-and-action focus shift for the King’s Quest series. Only as an adult did I hear the story of executive meddling that lead to the complete tone and gameplay shift.
I’m sure there are lots of examples for me, but I guess one that comes to mind is 007: The World Is Not Enough for PS1.
Reading/hearing about it as an adult, not only is it seen as a poor follow up to Goldeneye, but also the PS1 version is the worse of the two releases, with the general consensus being that the N64 version is better.
Back in the day, though, I didn’t know any better and I loved it. I expect most people have games like that.
I used to sing Sub Terrania’s praises long before it was cool. That game is a gem. The development team was a bunch of demoscene madmen who were able to wring miracles out of the Genesis and eventually created IO Interactive, which went on to make Hitman and the upcoming 007 game.
Their later game, Red Zone, is a technological flex like nothing else.
This was such a nice read! I can totally feel that you are inspired by old video game magazines. Feels so fresh and your personality really does shines through 😊
Also gifs convey so much at a glimpse, no gaming site should use just Screenshots I’m convinced now 😅. No really, I got interested in a few games on the list just because I “felt” them way more than seeing Screenshots on some news site.
I love those posts, thank you so much.
With Captain blood and tridents tale we even have 2 pirate themed games today. I am surprised by Captain blood, I know quite some niche stuff in video games, but never heard of it.
The one click mods coming to gog are really cool, allows you to step in a curated alternative form of a beloved game without the hassle. I’m curious what we will get there. I could imagine a version for gothic 1, which is such an interesting game, but very clunky - but there are fan patches to address that.
Btw. I see an “Arari” where it should probably be “Atari”. Not to nitpick, but rather to express my appreciation for the post.
I’m also looking forward to the next remedy release, those guys are very special to me.
Again, thanks for the writeup, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also the wider look including the PS2 and gog office rooms. ☀️
Its kinda like a ‘test’ (the image itself, I mean!)
Typically I use a picture of a girl by an arcade machine, but after some few comments off and on expressing their dislike for it, I thought I might try something else!
Hey, the bi flag similarity got me to open the post when the girl in the arcade hadn’t. Wish I’d been reading these the whole time though, great stuff! I’ll definitely check out future posts, no matter which image you use. :)
Damn, sorry to hear about the nerve damage. That’s really rough to deal with. I hope you’re to lose yourself in Firebreak a bit next week; I’m also looking forward to it, and I’m assuming that while some of my friends will probably play it on Game Pass for a few days and drop it, I’m hoping at least one will stick with it for a while. And if not? I’m also intent on playing it solo. I love the Remedyverse.
As for my own gaming, I played a bunch of demos from some of the RPG directs from last week. Dreamed Away is looking to be a particularly inspired horror take on Undertale’s gameplay with Earthbound’s wrapper.
I was excited for the Space Marine remaster, but…I only played perhaps 1 hour or so…it’s super disappointing, but that’s on me for getting excited before it came out (again).
Firebreak is 100% my next ‘big’ excitement, I’m so ready to play it!!! I’m right there with you with the Remedyverse!!!
bin.pol.social
Ważne