Two games keep surfacing more than any other, Starfield, which landed a singular nomination for Best RPG, and Hogwarts Legacy, which got exactly zero nominations acros...
I watched some videos on it after it released and for about a week after my whole YouTube frontpage was full of Starfield-bashing (many with several hundred thousand views) so it’s definitely out there.
I’ve been hesitant to play it because I heard it’s existentially depressing and I don’t think my mental state is in a good place to deal with that. Otherwise I’d probably give it a go. I loved Return of the Obra Dinn and many people who love one of those games seem to also love the other.
It’s hard because it depends on the type of melancholy. I get what you mean about wistful melancholy and “good sad” if the stories are on the smaller scale. Human tragedy, personal failure, doomed relationships, lost love, that sort of stuff.
I have a harder time dealing with elaborations on an existential level: the ultimate end of all things, the futility of existence, the meaninglessness of life etc. I’m hesitant because I’ve gotten the impression this is the sphere Outer Wilds operates in.
For me, it’s the vast expanses of procedurally generated nothingness in Starfield that turns me off the most, especially combined with the menu-based fast travel heavy way you get around.
The magic of Bethesda games comes from their handcrafted open worlds, always full of things to see and explore and get sidetracked by. Its the feeling that kicks in when the horizon first opens up after you exit the sewer/vault/customs office and you realize that you can just pick a direction and start walking and you’ll come across something interesting.
Starfield doesn’t do that. You can’t just pick a direction and go, it’s all fast travel. And if you’re down on a planet you can, but there is no magic to be found because it’s all procedurally generated emptiness between copy-pasted points of interest.
In their ambitions to have a bigger scope than ever they sacrificed the very thing that made their games so compelling to begin with.
Much like Elden Ring last year, BG3 is a usually-niche game that actually broke through into the mainstream on the back of its sheer quality. I imagine it stands a good chance of winning, though I wouldn’t be surprised if TotK takes it (only disappointed).
There are some decent ones where you can find fragments of stories told through letters and/or environmental storytelling, but most of the question marks are just mindless monster nests, bandit camps and buried treasure. Skellige in particular is notorious for all the question marks in the water that are just vendor trash flotsam to collect.
In general exploration in TW3 would be more rewarding if the itemization wasn’t so scuffed. The only gear worth using is the Witcher sets (which you craft), which really lessens the excitement you feel when looting. There were so many times where I found a guarded treasure, defeated the boss and looked at a cool unique sword, only to realize its stats were beyond atrocious.
I wish I could play it, but I don’t think my PC could handle it, being right at the edge of minimum specs. Has anyone played it on a 2060? I can live with 1080p and no Ray Tracing but I’m scared of sub-30 FPS.
Forgot to mention I have a gaming laptop. So not equivalent of the 2060 in performance, although it contains the mesh shader support so it won’t literally refuse to run. But seeing as the desktop variant is minimum spec I’m not optimistic.
I think Welonz is great. She’s played Alan Wake 1, Control and the AWE DLC before so is well familiar with the story and always pays close attention to story games.
I’ve been hesitant to buy it out of performance concerns and have been watching her instead.
I was too young for this at the time, but I have fond memories of Dark Forces II and its FMV cutscenes, which blew my mind at the time. I hope they remaster that one too (though I’d love a full-on remake, if allowed to dream).
I bought Dragon Age: Origins on the recent GOG sale, and after spending a week or so assembling mods, setting up a load order and creating and fine-tuning a ReShade preset finally got to start playing it.
I’ve only done the prelude so far, but I’m really enjoying it. I’m hoping this series can keep me busy until some more content patches are released for BG3 for a second playthrough. It’s definitely scratching the same itch right now, with the added benefit of being unfamiliar to me. I’m actually quite impressed at how it holds up, though the difference in voice acting quality is definitely noticeable.
I like watching Let’s Plays for the same reason as you, and while it isn’t a group channel I heartily recommend Welonz. She is very thorough and approaches every game with great respect, usually giving a summary of her overall thoughts at the end.
I found her because of her VTM: Bloodlines LP, but her Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk ones are also fantastic.
I’m also a little sad that REDengine is getting scrapped after seemingly finally getting to a pretty decent spot, and I definitely wish there was more competition for Unreal.
That being said, it’s a very understandable decision given not just the capabilities and ease-of-use of UE5 but also its popularity, which means finding new developers competent with it is easier and onboarding is faster.
And as you say, it lets them focus on actually making games.
It took me two hours to read through that thing but it was well worth it. Fascinating article with some great insights into Chris Roberts, and seemingly as relevant now as it was in 2016.
If this was written by the Devs it would seem to confirm that Deepened Pact stacking with Extra Attack is intended. Seems absolutely insane to me but what do I know.
Apart from who you can romance it’s only down to preference. Many people say Fem V is the better voice actor, but having experienced both I would say they shine in different moments. I probably like Masc V better as Streetkid/Nomad and Fem V better as Corpo. Also, for some of the most charged moments during the ending(s) I liked Masc V’s delivery better.
I’d say to Masc V this time to see the differences.
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
Oh man, I had such a great time with Greedfall a couple of years ago. It has a lot of jank, but you can see the heart beneath it all and I really enjoyed the world building. The fact they consulted with linguists for their invented language and created a custom accent they made sure all the VAs for natives use was a great touch.
It’s not a AAA game, but if you take it for what it is you can have a great time. I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
I agree completely. I’m even very forgiving when it comes to bugs and performance - especially when it’s a studio I trust will address them - but the huge swaths of obviously cut content combined with the way the story wraps up really gets to me and left me massively disappointed. I too still love the game for the gameplay and Act 1 and 2, but it really didn’t stick the landing in my opinion.
Even just things like the reactivity of your companions stands out; in Act 1 you could barely sneeze without everyone at camp chiming in with a comment about what just happened while in Act 3 you’ll do massively impactful things in both main story and companion quests and be greeted by the standard “Well met” or “hello soldier” at camp.
And that’s not getting into whatever scraps of the stated 17k different endings actually ended up not getting cut or the sorry state or the epilogues. Not even all companions get one!
Over the weekend, Starfield players began to share reports of a strange paranormal infestation. There are asteroids in the game that, for reasons known only to gods and/or programmers, follow you from orbit to orbit, flying eerily in formation with your ship, and sometimes even accompanying you to a planet's surface. "In one of...
I’ve not really been playing anything this past week. I’m putting off a second playthrough of BG3 as I want to wait for at least one more major patch and some more mods to come out/get refined, but after seeing some of the fanservice for fans of the older games in Act 3 (both good and bad) I got the itching to play through BG2 again, including a full playthrough of Throne of Bhaal with Ascension installed this time (I rarely push through ToB after finishing BG2). I never did it before out of fear for the difficulty, but I see that the Tougher Battles module is optional in the rewritten 2.0+ version Ascension.
Naturally this was an opportunity to revamp my BG2 modlist, so the past week has been an exercise in frustration as I’ve been re-exploring the wonders of WeiDU and trying to figure out the correct install order of everything, which can be extremely finicky. Hopefully I’ll get to start playing this week.
The thought came to mind after reading a recent post about Baldurs Gate 3 here but it reminded me of the Japense only PSX game Mizzurna Falls where if you don’t perform a certain action early in the game you are prevented from getting a true ending. While this might not be a traditional soft lock because you can still progress...
Disco Elysium has a number of potential soft locks, though you kind of have to go out of your way to actually get into one. The easiest one is probably paying for your hostel room the second night. Usually a combination of decisions and unlucky dice rolls are necessary to actually get locked, and/or poor use of skill points (meaning you can’t spend one to re-try the crucial roll).
There is also a seemingly minor decision in a side quest that can make a certain check during the ending unwinnable and thus lock you out of one of the most impactful moments in the game.
I mean, isn’t vanilla New Vegas pretty famously unoptimized? I think its performance has less to do with your hardware and more to do with the engine (hence this mod).
They did indeed release a new engine optimization mod, separate to the standard mandatory-install Stewies Tweaks. The past year has been crazy for NV mods.
If I’m playing an immersive misery simulator like a heavily modded S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly then encumbrance and inventory space plays a vital role in not only immersion but also gameplay systems like loadout choices and how much supplies and medicine you chose to bring and what that means in terms of how long you can stay out and how much loot you can carry back to base.
In games like Starfield and BG3 I find encumbrance mostly meaningless and annoying, and just exists as a means to slow down early game economy by preventing you from picking up literally everything not nailed down and selling it off. And in the end I typically end up thinking there are probably better ways to accomplish this that doesn’t leave you with an annoying encumbrance system as a byproduct.
For me it’s probably Jazzpunk, but I liked Disco Elysium too. I’ve been looking for something to scratch that “Jazzpunk surrealist comedy itch” for a while and not many games have come even close.
It’s both the saddest game I’ve ever played and perhaps the most uplifting one. It balances the knife’s edge between nihilism and hope so well. It can also be hysterically funny, yes. It’s truly unique in terms of writing.
I’ve also watched some streams, and the performance hasn’t even been my biggest concern. I’m just… not interested? It hasn’t been gripping me. Even though there are these shiny new things and bells and whistles, it still just looks like another Bethesda game to me, but with a blander setting this time. Though maybe it’s more fun to play than watch. I just haven’t really seen anything that makes me go “goddamn I gotta get a piece of that”.
I have less experience with BG1 than BG2 since I don’t find myself itching to replay it as often. I did do a full playthrough of it five or so years ago, though. Not Enhanced Edition, though.
The encounter design really does feel aged and it can often be a case of the developers unfun/poor encounter design versus your attempts to cheese it. Line of sight/Fog of War abuse, stacking Skull Traps etc. There is also the tried and true method of blocking physical access to your team by a horde of summons and pelting away with arrows. Arrow of Dispelling is particularly powerful.
Most of the video games I’ve played were pretty good. The only one I can think of that I didn’t like was MySims Kingdom for the Nintendo DS. Dropped that pretty quickly. It was a long while ago, but I’ll guess it was because there were too many fetch quests and annoying controls.
I have a really complicated relationship with FFXV because while it’s an objectively pretty bad game, I enjoyed it way more than I reasonably should for a game of its quality. Maybe it was the fishing minigame.
I absolutely agree with the overambition being one of the downfalls of the game. They wanted to go too big and create some kind of multimedia “experience” where you had a movie, a novel and many many DLCs to spread the content over.
The end result is an empty shell of a game, and even after watching the movie first and pausing the main story at the appropriate points to play the DLCs (I didn’t play on launch and bought the complete edition), I was still missing context and having beats not land because apparently crucial backstory was meant to be told through the Lunafreya DLC that never got released because the game did poorly.
You can indeed drive the car, but you couldn’t on launch. You can even put on some monster truck off-road wheels, I think.
The Prompto thing is a perfect example of the game shipping as incomplete. I did as was apparently intended and stopped playing the main game when he disappeared for a bit to play his DLC, and it does give a much better context. The lines after he comes back would barely make sense if I hadn’t.
While I wasn’t hugely excited about Mitsoda’s thin-blood idea, I’m even less excited about being an awakened Elder. Also, knowing the heart and soul of the original will be missing does not fill me with optimism.
The content of the trailer gives me nothing to work with really, either. It will have first-person action combat, that’s about it, and it’s the last thing anyone excited for a Bloodlines sequel would care about.
I know characters, writing and atmosphere can be hard to get across in a trailer but I would have liked something more. The previous trailer at least had similar undertones to the first game, you could tell it had some of the same people involved and it gave me some optimism.
It Paradox wanted me to get me on board for this attempt they could have at least used one of Rik Schaffer’s new tracks for the trailer, but I assume he has been scrapped too.
Fallout 1 & 2 are absolutely phenomenal classic games, but they are very old school (they’re 90’s releases, after all) so you have to be up for that. Not just graphically, but game design too. If you’re okay with that, they’re really worthwhile experiences, and I might even prefer Fallout 2 over unmodded New Vegas.
As is usually the case with games from this era, look for the unofficial patch and the Restoration Project, too.
For those who have pre-ordered it is already here, the rest have to wait a little longer. Starfield is finally here! Have you bought it, why or why not? If you’ve already played it, what do you think of it? We are very curious!...
Patch 2 came out yesterday and was supposed to address some Act 3 issues. Have you played since then? I’ve also noticed some bugs in Act 3 but nothing gamebreaking thankfully.
Yeah I feel this too with games that really hit me. You get so invested in your character and your playthrough that you don’t want to let go of your save, so instead of committing down the last stretch of main quest you maybe boot it up, scrounge out a fight somewhere or do some small remaining side quest, then run around town mindlessly a bit and shut down the game.
I had that happen with Cyberpunk earlier this year and I’m feeling it starting to set in with BG3. The allure of a second playthrough is stronger here, though, so that might help me stay the course.
There are people who have hungered for a new Bethesda Game^TM for almost a decade, and Starfield will ladle out another big helping, and I’m happy for them that they have many hours of enjoyment coming.
I’m just, kind of full, when it comes to that dish.
Was it the engine or the ruleset? It’s widely accepted that D&D 5E is sorta hot garbage at higher levels so I was assuming that’s what Larian was referring to.
Epic narratives have their place, but if you follow the 5E rules they don’t work well mechanically.
Fighting actual Gods in D&D should be fairly comfortable for a party of level 20 characters, which is part of the problem. The way the scaling of character power compared to enemy power works, fighting a group of goblins on the dirt road as a level 1 party is magnitudes more challenging than fighting an actual God as a level 20 party.
Is it just me or is the whole Karlach romance EXTREMELY well done? I know I’m a big ol’ weird softie and your mileage may vary, but it had me laughing and crying and cheering!...
I would have been interested in seeing it but my save was completely hardlocked out of it. In contrast to basically every other character she never ever came on to me (middle of Act 3 currently).
I must have done something in the wrong order, I’ve heard others have had trouble with it as well.
The romances could do with a bit of an overhaul, in my opinion. Feels like several of them have weird pacing, and so many characters go from 0-100 in the blink of an eye. You say a single affirmation to Halsin and he acts like he’s been in love with you his whole life and you’re soulmates. Dude, I just offered you a drink at a celebration out of common courtesy.
With every other NPC being so horny it’s actually been refreshing to have Karlach just behave like a buddy in my playthrough, but in general for the Karlach romance to be so fiddly you need to follow a guide to not lock yourself out of it just sounds… poorly implemented.
That would explain it, though not make it any less poorly designed. I also picked her up just at the very end of Act 1 and already had plenty of the item needed.
I remember the time when I was really excited about this game. The original writer and composer were both returning, it looked so promising. But we all know what happened, and after Rik Schaffer himself said the soul of the project left when Brian Mitsoda was fired my expectations are firmly settled at the bottom.
On Starfield And Hogwarts Legacy’s Single TGA Nomination Between Them (www.forbes.com) angielski
Two games keep surfacing more than any other, Starfield, which landed a singular nomination for Best RPG, and Hogwarts Legacy, which got exactly zero nominations acros...
From Outer Wilds to Core Keeper and a new Shantae, here’s everything announced at Indie World - Polygon (www.polygon.com) angielski
Here Are The Nominees For The Game Awards 2023 - Game Informer (www.gameinformer.com)
The Game Awards announces its 2023 nominees (thegameawards.com) angielski
Community voting is up as well. There are 31 categories this year....
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's open world is inspired by The Witcher 3 and Horizon (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
“Final Fantasy 15 also gave the development team valuable experience.”
Grown Adult Coward: 'I'm OK With Just Watching Alan Wake II' - Aftermath (aftermath.site) angielski
One of Star Wars’ best FPS games is getting remastered in February | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of October 22nd
Hey all! Whatcha been playing. I am recovering from surgery and have been playing a ton of Mario wonder. Loving it so far 😊
Can anyone recommend let's play channels or streamers wherein a group of multiple people play single player games together?
Examples include: Scary Game Squad, Gamegrumps, Team Double Dragon, and the like....
18+ Assassin's Creed Mirage Players Frustrated With Chromatic Aberration That Can't Be Turned Off (www.ign.com) angielski
Cyberpunk 2077 director says studio's switch from REDengine to Unreal Engine 5 'isn't starting from scratch' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
$600 Million And A Decade Later, Where Is Star Citizen (exputer.com) angielski
Baldur’s Gate 3 – Devs share most popular, powerful, and unconventional multiclass builds (blog.playstation.com) angielski
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty — Official Launch Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion - 25-09-2023 (lemmy.world) angielski
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
I'm so glad I waited nearly 3 years to play Cyberpunk 2077, but I dread the fact that this is our new normal (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
How did we get here?
Starfield players are being haunted by asteroids (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
Over the weekend, Starfield players began to share reports of a strange paranormal infestation. There are asteroids in the game that, for reasons known only to gods and/or programmers, follow you from orbit to orbit, flying eerily in formation with your ship, and sometimes even accompanying you to a planet's surface. "In one of...
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 17th
New thread!...
What games had easy soft locks that prevented you from either progressing or getting a true ending? angielski
The thought came to mind after reading a recent post about Baldurs Gate 3 here but it reminded me of the Japense only PSX game Mizzurna Falls where if you don’t perform a certain action early in the game you are prevented from getting a true ending. While this might not be a traditional soft lock because you can still progress...
This Fallout New Vegas Mod rewrites over 1,000 functions to improve performance and reduce load/save times (www.dsogaming.com) angielski
Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 Revive Age-Old RPG Debate About Encumbrance (www.ign.com) angielski
Starfield and Baldur's Gate 3 both weigh the player down with encumbrance. Love it or hate it, it seems like it's here to stay.
What's the funniest game you've played? angielski
For me it’s probably Jazzpunk, but I liked Disco Elysium too. I’ve been looking for something to scratch that “Jazzpunk surrealist comedy itch” for a while and not many games have come even close.
Starfield's Numbers Surge in Early Access - Insider Gaming (insider-gaming.com) angielski
Starfield's numbers have swollen in early access on streaming and gaming platforms - and the global release is yet to take place.
The Unlikely Development Of The First Splinter Cell (www.gameinformer.com) angielski
How an unlikely crew of inexperienced game developers created one of gaming’s stealth icons.
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 3rd
New thread! Whatcha all playing! I’ve been playing more blasphemous 2. Really really into it 🙏
Bethesda hired a Skyrim modder to create the "lighting and clutter" in Starfield (www.gamescensor.com) angielski
Not counting games that were unfun because of bugs, what’s the most unfun video game that you’ve played and what made it unfun? (kbin.cafe) angielski
Most of the video games I’ve played were pretty good. The only one I can think of that I didn’t like was MySims Kingdom for the Nintendo DS. Dropped that pretty quickly. It was a long while ago, but I’ll guess it was because there were too many fetch quests and annoying controls.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 - Official 2023 Announcement Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
This game is apparently NOT dead!
What games have you played due to FOMO? angielski
FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out....
[MEGATHREAD] Starfield - Your experiences! (cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com) angielski
For those who have pre-ordered it is already here, the rest have to wait a little longer. Starfield is finally here! Have you bought it, why or why not? If you’ve already played it, what do you think of it? We are very curious!...
Starfield Review Thread
Game InformationGame Title: Starfield...
Starfield - Review Thread (87/100 OpenCritic) angielski
Game InformationGame Title: Starfield...
Larian says it’s discussing potential Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
[Spoiler Warning: Baldurs Gate 3] Karlach romance angielski
Is it just me or is the whole Karlach romance EXTREMELY well done? I know I’m a big ol’ weird softie and your mileage may vary, but it had me laughing and crying and cheering!...
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 release date potentially leaked (www.dsogaming.com) angielski