It came out just a couple of years ago, right?

Too much going on. It’s like they’ve just accepted and (mostly) implemented every single feature request they ever got without necessarily thinking about how it should work with all the other stuff.

I played PoE for a good few years around its release and had a lot of fun initially with the temporary hardcore leagues with new mechanics every time, but there is a good reason I haven’t come back to the game - and it’s not just that I’m kind of over the ARPG thing. Scope Creep has turned it into a convoluted mess to get back into if you’re been out of the game for a while (or never played it) and I say that as someone who typically enjoys complexity.

A very appropriate release to celebrate the 10th anniversary of TW3 (my god time fucking flies). Much like the author of the article I was always surprised there weren’t any physical editions of Gwent being sold. And again like the author, I hope it’s the Witcher 3 version of Gwent being sold and not the standalone. I want to re-live my degenerate decoy/spy shenanigans.

Of course, but if a game’s quality was typically inversely proportional to the review scores, wouldn’t that mean 10/10 reviewed stuff like Elden Ring and BG3 was garbage and the truly great games averaged 1-3/10? I’m just confused by the statement.

I uh… what? I mean, sure, some reviews are bought etc but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a superb game average 1/10 in reviews. Did I misunderstand you?

Witcher 3 had 96 minute days, which felt fine for that game. Any game I play for immersion usually ends up needing a mod though because timescales are often a problem. RDR2 shouldn’t have 48 minute days either, that one was even worse than Stalker 2.

If you play slowly and focus on immersion - and the game has survival mechanics - I find somewhere between 4-6 hour days to be perfect.

The SoD expansion was made by Beamdog some 15 years after BG1 was released. It’s admirable that they tried getting the original voice actors back, but otherwise the team behind BG 1&2 (and ToB) had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t get through it, and I have a hard time supporting the Enhanced Editions as is due to Beamdog inserting their fanfiction into them as well - though I recognise they’ve been instrumental in revamping the engine and bringing the games to a new generation of people.

Even for games with fast timescales that is insanely fast. You barely have time to take in the environment and scenery before weather changes and the sun goes down or rises again. You can start a gunfight in the morning and finish after nightfall. For a game that lives and dies by immersion it completely pulls you out - at least it does me.

Yeah I had to install like a dozen mods to attempt to even remotely address things, but it’s clear from a myriad examples that there was basically no QA testing done. From the bugs, to the fucked up balance to stuff like the day/night cycle being 1 hour realtime for a full 24h in game (!!!) there are just so many things that would have been brought up hour one of testing.

I’m a massive Stalker fan, and the state of the game pains me. What they have is so good. The world is beautiful and immaculately designed, the vibe and the atmosphere is all there. The guns feel good. The story is good so far with interesting characters and good performances (at least in Ukrainian) and the animations and presentation in main story dialogue quests has been good and immersive. Not cyberpunk levels maybe but good and a huge step up from previous games.

But man, there is so much that reeks of unfinished and half-done. They likely would have needed another year at least but I think they just ran out of money. It also looks like being forced to comply with console parity for the Xbox meant they couldn’t get performance under control and had to rip out A-life (or abandon it when it was clear it wouldn’t work on Xbox).

With how great the good parts are it pains me doubly.

It even ruined lots of let’s plays and streams of the game if you ever decide to watch any. It’s wild how intrusive they are.

Not to mention the fucking notifications for Epic Games Achievements are loud as all fuck and default to “on” every time you open the launcher so you have to manually turn on Do Not Disturb every time you launch the game or your immersion gets ruined every 5 seconds by an Epic Achievement notification ding (and visual on screen popup btw!)

Epic is just terrible. I wanted to bypass the launcher by using Heroic instead, but it wouldn’t recognize me having the Deluxe edition without actually installing the game through Epic and being logged in through their launcher. Garbage.

To each their own, I suppose. I love GOGs efforts, and I love the convenience of being able to purchase old games there and know they are pre-patched (sometimes with unofficial patches), made compatible with modern systems and play-ready. Their launcher/store is whatever, but I don’t think I’ve ran into any game where it’s required to run it to launch.

Bad customer service is unfortunate, however. I’ve never personally had to deal with them but that does suck.

And that’s very deliberate! There are a couple of key rolls very very early that have positive outcomes if you fail them. They’re supposed to teach the player that failure is okay. But it turns out many many people are too afraid of the dangerously red button and the low percentage number so they never even try in the first place, thus also missing the lesson.

Also that sequence you’re talking about is one of my favourites in the game, it’s so damn funny. Another classic failure is the ice-cop-hat-fuck-show.

It really is the best book I’ve ever played.

I actually think an argument could be made for Disco Elysium not being one of these games actually. I’ve seen people bounce off it because they went in with the wrong expectations. The game doesn’t really market itself correctly: it claims to be an isometric RPG and a detective game, but it could be argued the game is actually neither. Also lots of people miss out on a lot because they weren’t aware of the fail-forward design principle.

Might finally make me play it again, at least to fuck around with some new builds.

Dividing my time between playing STALKER 2 and modding it. There is a really great game underneath the surface - at least the potential of one - but it’s a shame it released in the state it did. The A-life offline simulation being turned off smells of console constraints and/or a forced release after they ran out of possibilities to delay further. I really hope they’ll be able to keep working on the game through patches because it has the potential to be truly fantastic.

Also still playing Deadlock, a game or two a day or so. It’s an often frustrating experience - as MOBAs tend to be - where matchmaking still has a huge impact on your fun, but the core gameplay is just so damn good. I just wish I was in a skill bracket where people are actually using mics and coordinating and communicating. Partly an EU problem though I’m sure.

A heathen I might be, but I still prefer BG2 over BG3. And Jon Irenicus might just be one of the best video game villains of all time.

No, but I would have if I had fewer hours played just to get a proper experience from the start and consequently less of an item stockpile etc. Grok’s less loot in stashes won’t apply retroactively for example.