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.
Outer Wilds. I played this game through PS Plus, and it is the best game I have ever played in my life. The gameplay, the puzzles, the music (!!!), the characters, the story, the ending. Just a masterpiece. I’m not even sure if it was this year or last year that I finished it, but the soundtrack was number 4 in my Spotify...
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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’m not convinced by what I’ve seen just yet, but I’m happy we’re getting a game at all and I’m trying to be hopeful. Every fiber in my being is wishing for this to end up a GotY slamdunk after all the developers have been through.
I loved Shadow of Chernobyl and I probably have a couple hundred hours in Anomaly so I will buy it regardless, not least to show my support.
There are so many other games to play that I’m still probably on the plan to postpone my second playthrough until the Definitive Edition comes out (probably next summer), but this is a much needed patch.
The way Larian describes the new epilogue, I’m thinking this is them re-adding some of the “17 000 endings” they were talking about pre launch. In any case, more and better epilogues were sorely needed so this is great.
Hopefully they can keep salvaging cut content and polish up Act 3 until it reaches the same quality of the other two.
It brings up some valid points about how the PeopleMakeGames video frames the issues, as well as criticizes how they press the creator of the IP very hard while being extremely lenient in their interview with the corporate suit who did the takeover.
While the PMG video is very impressive (at least the first half of it), it derails toward the end in a way that sadly might influence the opinion of many viewers. Even if the allegations are all true and Robert Kurvitz actually was a terrible boss who was a bit of a jerk and created a toxic workplace environment, that does not mean he deserves to have his IP stolen from out under him.
It’s not just AAA gaming but all over Hollywood too, has been for a while. Nostalgia is a powerful force and churning out sequels or prequels or spinoffs off of recognizable IPs is just less risky an investment than trying to make something new.
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.
Max Payne voice actor James McCaffrey has passed away (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
All You Need to Know About Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes in 6 Minutes! - Key Features Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Mouse is an upcoming FPS heavily inspired by old-school Disney cartoons (www.destructoid.com) angielski
What were the best and worst games you played in 2023? angielski
The title of this post made me think about the best and worst I’ve played this year....
Knokelmaat's Top 10 Patient Games of the Year 2023 angielski
Outer Wilds. I played this game through PS Plus, and it is the best game I have ever played in my life. The gameplay, the puzzles, the music (!!!), the characters, the story, the ending. Just a masterpiece. I’m not even sure if it was this year or last year that I finished it, but the soundtrack was number 4 in my Spotify...
The Game Awards 2023: List of Winners angielski
Here’s the full list of winners at TGA:...
Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1 (www.youtube.com) angielski
Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.1 Patch Notes (www.cyberpunk.net) angielski
What game company from your childhood do you remember with fondness?
I was thinking about how I remember Maxis fondly, and I got to wondering what other people’s experiences were like!...
Whats your favorite Main Menu music? angielski
I’ll start it off - Legend of Dragoon has my heart with this one...
Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.1 Announced for Next Week (www.ign.com) angielski
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl Has Entered the Final Phase of Development and Reveals New Trailer (techraptor.net) angielski
Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 Adds New Playable Epilogue With 3,589 Lines of Extra Dialogue, Much More (www.ign.com) angielski
About the Disco Elysium Investigation (www.youtube.com) angielski
Jamrock Hobo’s response to People Make Game’s investigation
What moment from a video game made you cry? angielski
For me, it was Princess Rosalina’s backstory in Super Mario Galaxy.
Kotaku Asks: How Soon Is Too Soon For A Video Game Remaster Or Remake? (kotaku.com) angielski
When should developers go back and remaster or remake their most popular games?
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.