It’s funny, because I’m much more forgiving of BioShock 2 and even Dishonored’s DLC, which reuse the same levels but chop them up differently and have you approach them from different directions. In an open world, you can go anywhere, so even if they deform part of the map, it still feels like the same map to me.
At the time, Infamous seemed to get a larger share of the hype, but nothing about that game felt good to me, and Prototype felt great. Prototype’s protagonist might be one of the worst in all of video games, alongside Watch Dogs’ Aiden Pierce, but despite the video’s intro, his morality isn’t ambiguous; he’s the bad guy. In Infamous, every choice to be good or evil is so cartoonishly polar opposite that no one would struggle with the decision except for Cole MacGrath.
I get that I’m the minority with Infamous, but after going back and playing Sly 2 and having since tried Infamous 2, I think maybe I just don’t jive with Sucker Punch’s open world design, which makes me hesitant to start Ghost of Tsushima. And while I loved Prototype, alongside Crackdown, what I really wanted was that game again but in a different city, and both of those franchises reused the same city for their sequels, which would be like giving Mario new actions to use but having him run through the same levels all over again.
I think if they ever made a Pillars 3, they’d come up with a new system so that RTwP and turn-based aren’t two different versions of the same game. Or at least, if they were able to start a Pillars 3 right after Pillars 2, that seemed to be a direction that made sense for them. I like action points in theory, but they tend to lead to fights being very static, because attacking twice is basically always better than moving and attacking in the same turn, so when you always have a movement every turn, it keeps things more interesting to me. I’m definitely bothered by trash mobs, but Pillars 2 turned that knob way down compared to Pillars 1. Maybe the turn-based version of the game would have been improved by another slight reduction on that knob, but I still loved it.
Hell yeah! I’m trying to finish up the DLC I never got around to before Avowed comes out. Have you checked out the turn-based mode? I like it way better, and I’m surprised it works as well as it does.
Are you aware that this studio was already fully shut down by Microsoft and this company swooped in to keep most of it intact? No matter what happens 6-12 months from now, it’s better than if they weren’t purchased.
When a new game comes out, I’m compelled to play the earlier entries in the series first, so I got the Borderlands collection, and I’m playing through the first game now.
It does have split screen, and getting that mode in particular to run well is why the Xbox Series S version had problems coming to market. I can’t speak for how well it runs on PS5, but it had no problems getting certified by Sony.
There were several deviations from System Shock 2 along the way. And even if this one plays like that, I hope they nail the story stuff they’re going for. Previews have seemed impressed.
How about 2026? If you played Alyx, you’d know why it’s rational to expect HL3. And according to some datamining, they’re staffing up specifically for HL3. Granted, that could also make it a 2027 game, with how AAA games are developed these days.
I have. It does have base building, but it doesn’t really have choke points the way that StarCraft does. That doesn’t make it a deal-breaker, as I do enjoy that game. In fact, the way it has a controllable character that puts a controller-friendly speed limit on APM is something it has in common with Cannon Brawl.
I’d be happy if they pandered more to controller players without removing the decision making in base building, like Halo Wars did. I always look to Cannon Brawl as an indication of what RTS can still be (by which I mean, not exactly like Cannon Brawl).
Is this a modern/old dichotomy? Playing through Metaphor right now, I agree that they go with the old-school dungeon crawler approach, but Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII are definitely not modern, and I don’t think they’d fall into the same bucket.