I’m baffled that they mismanaged to get the team that made this and Prey to push out Redfall? Man.
It wasn’t actually the same studio, Dishonored was made by Arkane Lyon while Redfall was made by Arkane Austin. Arkane Lyon are the ones working on the upcoming Marvel’s Blade game, however.
Playing Metro 2033 Redux at the moment, finally got my new gaming PC and Metro Exodus with full Ray Tracing has been on my radar but wanted to start from the beginning since I haven’t played this series before. You can clearly tell it’s made by ex S.T.A.L.K.ER. devs and sometimes you get weird almost deja vu, like the guitar playing around camp fires. Overall the setting and atmosphere is really cool. The lore seems interesting but the actual plot hasn’t been stellar so far. Gunplay is okay.
Just finished the Trolley Combat mission, and it’s been a hot minute since I played a level in a game that bad and unfun. Here’s hoping the final stretch is better.
In addition to this there is also occasionally the case where playing an extremely popular game right at launch lets you participate in the zeitgeist in a way you can’t really do if you wait a year and a half for a sale. I imagine whether this matters to you is extremely subjective, but I remember this being a big thing for me with both Elden Ring and BG3; being able to participate in discussions and discovery at the point in time when not everything about the game has been mapped out. Watercooler talk or chatting on Discord with others and sharing your respective findings during that early time when the Wikis aren’t filled in yet.
Good to hear that the DLC is different and better, I too finished GoT this last year and by the end I was so worn out by the game that I had zero desire to keep going into the DLC.
While it has good parts for sure, I think GoT is massively overrated by many. I keep hearing people say it’s one of the best games they’ve ever played and I just can’t see it. It’s a solid open world collect-a-thon with a fairly satisfying combat system but it’s way too long for what it offers and wears out its welcome pretty fast, especially since the quest design is so bland and repetitive. Almost all side stories are just “talk to person, go somewhere and kill enemies, return”, and main stories overuse walk-and-talk way too much.
The story is pretty mediocre and the consistently dour and overly serious tone makes the game a true slog once the novelty wears off. Kenji alone is not enough to balance it out.
The bossfight duels are cool though and good fun, often with really cool settings and gorgeous visuals, like floating lanterns in shallow water. I wish there were more of them, and that they were repeatable at will.
Alan Wake 2 is the reward for doing your Remedy homework, I feel. Like sure, the game is good enough that you can probably enjoy it if you just watch a story summary on YouTube and jump in, but it really has a different level of impact if you not only played the first one and Control, but are also familiar with Max Payne and Quantum Break.
I think what Remedy are doing is so cool and I’m glad they’re getting the recognition they deserve. It’s also a drop dead gorgeous game and a great advertisement for their Northlight engine.
Game of the year for me, despite having played BG3.
There is no way they actually gave “Most innovative gameplay” to Starfield. And on top of that Best Soundtrack to Last of Us Part 1? Did they change the soundtrack for the remaster? How is it even nominated in 2023?
As has been mentioned already, Disco Elysium should be right up your alley. Not exactly Sci-Fi but has very interesting alternative reality world building and suits your wishes perfectly otherwise.
Don’t be afraid to be wild and weird in dialogues and remember that failure is often just as good or better as success in this game (they pioneered a fail-forward type design). Basically, treat it like an interactive book and you won’t be disappointed.
I was so happy he got to return for that Ghost Recon cameo. I was pissed at Ubisoft for a while for replacing him for Blacklist, but then it turned out he couldn’t do it for health reasons and just wanted to keep it hush-hush.
I’m glad he’s doing better now, can’t believe he beat three different cancers.
This one hit hard, he was truly iconic. I haven’t played Max Payne 1 or 2 for decades but I still remember his performance vividly. I wonder what will happen now with both Alan Wake 2 DLCs and the Max Payne remake on the horizon.
I don’t play too many JRPGs but I watched the whole trailer. The story and writing didn’t convince me but I could believe there are some characters among the one hundred on offer that are compelling.
I do love the art direction. A really smart blend of pixel art and 3D that is perfect to appeal to millennial nostalgia. I wish we got to see more of the combat, but at least the game systems they previewed seemed failry interesting and a variety of mini games is always fun. I do love me some good fishing, and there was a card game too?
The art direction is on point and that goes a really long way. Hard to gauge how the gameplay feels from watching a video (though it looked a little basic and clunky?). If they deliver a good story and nail the humour this style calls for this could end up a surprise hit.
Best game i played this year was Alan Wake 2, though I can imagine it’s probably not for everyone. The Marvelesque “homework” you’re recommended to do before playing to catch all the references and understand the interconnected lore might seem daunting, but the world and narrative Remedy has built continues to impress me. A lot has been said already about how Remedy has been pushing innovation and mixed media, but I’ll also add how impressed I am with the level of writing in general. Not only is the narrative mind bending, but all the characters are compelling and distinctive and all the different styles employed are nailed perfectly and mesh surprisingly well, from the Noir-caricature Alex Casey monologues to the goofy Koskela brothers TV ads.
The worst game I played this year was Ghost of Tsushima. Okay hear me out. The game is beautiful, well optimised and the combat is solid and satisfying. The game is just roughly twice as long as it should be considering what it is. The story is only okay at best, but suffers from a consistently dour and overly serious tone which really starts to drag as time goes on. The only bit of comic relief is Kenji, and he is barely around. On top of this the quest design is 90% “talk to person, move to area, kill the enemies there, go back and talk again”. Main story missions overly rely on walk-and-talk and/or ride-horse-and-talk. There are a handful of missions with more to it than that and those are good, but there just isn’t enough variation to sustain interest over the playtime (especially if you’re attempting to do everything and thus have to chase down the Ubisoft level open world stuff). After about 10h playtime I was loving the game, but by the third act I was thoroughly worn out and bored.
The first 20 hours of Ghost of Tsushima. This game is absolutely amazing on all fronts. It’s just way too long with not enough variation. 9/10
I’m glad to hear someone else say this. I’m currently on a push to finish the game after having it on hiatus for over a year and I have to mentally force myself to keep going.
It’s strange because it’s a beautiful game and the combat is satisfying enough, but something about the story and the pacing just wore me out somewhere in the third act
I just love what Remedy did for the music, and I’m not just talking about Poets of the Fall. Having a bunch of established artists write original music based on a bunch of story related poems written by Sam Lake was such a cool idea and makes the end-of-chapter songs land so well. But the competition was tough, for sure.
I haven’t heard those comments about Game Direction but I can’t understand that at all. The direction is absolutely first class, from the tension-release work to the cinematic shots and framings to the double-exposure overlaps and the reality rewriting and dream logic of the Dark Place. It was a masterpiece in my opinion.