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.
I’m convinced they had Cyberpunk win it because they don’t have a “Best DLC/Expansion” category (yet) and felt like Cyberpunk deserved to win something for the way 2.0 and Phantom Liberty revitalised it.
BG3 winning the GotY was something we all could see coming I think and even though it’s not my personal pick I’m hard pressed to argue. It’s a great game, it opened up many in the mainstream to a new genre and Larian is a great company with consumer-friendly policies. It’s hard to be mad.
I’m very glad Alan Wake 2 got a couple of awards, though. Hopefully this recognition means Remedy keeps pushing the boundaries and keeps going with their crazy mixed media and weirdness. We need someone doing innovation in the AAA space.
I am a little pissed they lost out on best music to FFXVI though.
When was the last major Rockstar release that came out simultaneously on consoles and PC? Max Payne 3 maybe? I assume it will be console exclusive and then PC a year later.
I don’t know, I think it’s more down to personal preference than that. I get that competitive FPS players want to push frame rates as high as possible, but for me personally I have the exact opposite opinion as you. I have no real need to chase hundreds of FPS, at a stable 60 games feel smooth enough (maybe my eyes are bad). On the other hand, several games have a dramatic improvement in presentation with Ray Tracing on, in my opinion, which I value a lot. Both Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2 for example look notably better with RT on.
I forgot, you also probably want to get a modded timescale. I made my own custom one, but if you use vanilla you risk getting on the train at midnight and coming back home at sunrise. Here are some to choose from if you don’t want to set up your own.
I used the modded Metro System for my playthrough along with a mod that adds basic primary needs (hunger/thirst/sleep). Many of my favourite moments were realising it was late after doing a gig, hopping on the metro and watching the city as I rode back to the apartment for a night’s sleep.
Small things like that really help me with immersion, so I’m really happy they added this officially.