Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)
Play.
Avowed is still brilliant, and I hope it sells enough to keep this franchise alive. (The Obsidian CEO chatting about being around for 100 years had me worried… don't Microsoft own them? Presumably they're three months away from being closed at any moment.) It's a generous, beautiful game with crunchy combat and secrets falling out of its mushroom-filled arse. 20 hours in and I'm still actively seeking out fights, just because they're so much fun.
Pillars of Eternity. Same world as Avowed, same team, entirely different game. An Infinity Engine-style CRPG that's aimed squarely at people who played, and loved, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale etc. It's well written with cerebral combat and some lovely pre-rendered backgrounds.
Want.
Dragon Age Veilguard. It drops on PS Plus in a couple of days.
Switch 2. That new Pokémon game looks depressing, like a badly made mobile game from 10 years ago. We need some hardware with a little more oomph.
Bin.
FF7 Rebirth. I'm not sure I've ever played a game that respected my time less than this. I managed 40 hours, which is testament to how good the good bits are. But the lows, which make up about 80 percent of the game, are painful. I skipped large chunks of Gongaga. I left the entirety of Cosmo Canyon unexplored, didn't even unlock the Chocobo (after failing the 'minigame' twice). Fast forwarded through whatever was happening in the Gi cave. Made it to Nibelheim, but by that point I didn't care about the story, I just wanted the pain to stop.
It's probably just bad design, but most of the decisions feel genuinely aggressive towards the player. There's so much friction in every moment of gameplay, so much plodding non-interaction, that it's hard to see how this game came from the same team that made Remake. A spectacularly bad 80 hour game that could have been a great 30 hour one.
Gongaga is particularly egregious for me, because despite having the worst design and worst Chocobo gimmick, in the PS1 game it's like a town comprised of like, three screens. They could have kept the town, kept the character interactions that happened there but cut it out as a World Intel zone for the sake of the entire game and I doubt many people would miss it in that form.
A spectacularly bad 80 hour game that could have been a great 30 hour one.
A great 30 hour game is exactly how I'd describe the original, as it took me pretty much that amount of time to beat. Playing Rebirth and OG back to back is a good showcase on why fleshing out every last minute detail of your story isn't always to the benefit of the whole product.
Switch 2. That new Pokémon game looks depressing, like a badly made mobile game from 10 years ago. We need some hardware with a little more oomph.
I get opinions but… what? Hardware's got absolutely nothing to do with how Z-A looks, because it looks like a Pokémon game, it looks like Sword/Shield, it looks like Scarlet/Violet. That's how TPC wants its games to look now, visually, like a playable cartoon. It could be running on Deep Blue and it'd still look like that. Anyone hoping for Monster Hunter Wilds: Pokémon Edition is living in a dream world.
Comparing it to a shit mobile game? Come on, MPH, you're better than that.
Play
Like a Dragon: Yakuza Pirates in Hawaii - crazy name, crazy game. This spin-off has a deeply stupid concept - feared Yakuza boss Majima Goro has a bout of amnesia and washes up on the shores of Honolulu, where he decides to become a pirate captain - but in practice is a glorious riot of fun and colour and action, that distills all the best bits of Infinite Wealth and combines it with a Black Flag-style sailing epic to result in something quite unique. Majima himself is the best he's been since Zero, the combat system's had a definite upgrade, and it's hard to dislike a game that opens with a full-on musical number.
Balatro - this lives up to its fearsome reputation as some form of digital crack. It's excellent. And I'm spending far too much time playing it.
Want
I'd like to get Monster Hunter: Wilds but at the moment it's firmly in "when it gets a discount" territory and may even slip to "when the inevitable expansion comes out". Rise in particular didn't really get good until Sunbreak, and I always felt I missed out with World by never going back for Iceborne.
I'm still intending to check out Avowed but there are a lot of good games out at the moment and something's got to give.
Bin
I'm running out of words to describe how appalled I am by Trump, who appears to be running the US like some kind of Russian mob boss. Come on, cholesterol, do your job.
Play
I picked up a ROG Ally on rllmuk (original white one). feltmonkey is suck an influencer.
I'm impressed. It's hard to shake the feeling you're playing a weird hybrid device that's just a laptop with a small screen pasted to two joysticks, but the absolute ease of just every single gaming store just working with no fucking about and the fact I can take it and a docking station and also do a sneaky Powerpoint on a work trip means it's just a far more comfortable device than the Steam Deck, when it always seems to be the case that you'll fire up a game it has run perfectly 15 times and then it decides to have a Linux moment.
The compactness (even with a protective shell it fits in a case significantly smaller than the Deck) means I think I'm going to swap over as I just can't be arsed sacrificing 18 pairs of pants and socks just to get the Deck in my rucksack (edit: not a euphemism). I do think the screen is a little small, the sticks feel cheap and I'd far prefer it in black, but for £260 with a dock and accessories I think it's a lot of device for the money. It also gave me three months of Gamepass Ultimate, which was nice, so net martcost of £260 - £45 innit.
Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)
Play.
Avowed is still brilliant, and I hope it sells enough to keep this franchise alive. (The Obsidian CEO chatting about being around for 100 years had me worried… don't Microsoft own them?
Haven't sales been mediocre/disastrous? I do wonder though if MS can just not panic if it'll have a massive tail. My son just started playing it after me badgering him and he absolutely loves it and is evangelising it to his friends. It could build momentum over a few months, but no game these days gets a few months, sadly….
Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)
Dragon Age Veilguard. It drops on PS Plus in a couple of days.
I should warn you it has wimmin and the genders in it, so it might make you really angry and forced to take to the internet to shout about how games should be about MEN and MUSCLES and GUNS like they used to be before all the NON MEN SPOILED EVERYTHING.
Haven't sales been mediocre/disastrous?
Aren't sales for Xbox exclusives that are day 1 on Game Pass always going to be mediocre at best? The benefit of games like this is how many people they attract to the service - and it's not going to be Avowed alone that does that but Avowed plus all the other stuff - so I don't know how you measure its success but it's not going to be through full price copies sold.
I got the impression some of the reports suggested sales and downloads on Gamepass were pretty poor. As isn't MS's revenue model either a flat fee or a variable one based on downloads shaping what is given to the studio (all moon money of course if they're an MS owned dev house).
I don't know, I don't think its been a smash hit either way. And some of the reviews have been scandalously sneery.
Starting this a couple hours early, so my post doesn't get lost. (Yes I'm a diva.)
Dragon Age Veilguard. It drops on PS Plus in a couple of days.
I should warn you it has wimmin and the genders in it, so it might make you really angry and forced to take to the internet to shout about how games should be about MEN and MUSCLES and GUNS like they used to be before all the NON MEN SPOILED EVERYTHING.
As long as the women are all attractive and want to sleep with me.
It's in the genre of RPGS where everyone wants to fuck you after about 4 interactions.
It's in the genre of RPGS where everyone wants to fuck you after about 4 interactions.
I'll pass, I play games to escape the real world.
Another quick play…
Star Wars Outlaws
Like a lot of people I'd been waiting for this to hit the inevitable £10 on key sites. But such is the blasted wasteland that is the modern game industry (and the fact I've really been enjoying Avowed and Eternal Strands and didn't really pay anything for them) the £30 on Steam was enough to make me get Outlaws.
I'd been enjoying some aspects of Jedi Fallen Order and been playing it a bit on PS5, but the lead is such a faceless twonk I wondered if Outlaws would give me a bit more WIMMIN IN MY VIDEOGAME and a similar Star Warsy experience without Jedi powers (boring) and the same old shit that's in a million Star Wars games.
And so far its been fine. I like the lead, the cute alien dog thing is cute and the gameplay is Uncharted meets every game ever, but works well enough. Graphically it's very nice, and I think the first game I've seen where Ray Tracing is enforced? It looks pretty good on the Rog Ally, but needs Lossless Scaling to get it anywhere near 60 but looks really impressive on a proper PC. I can't remember if there was a debate here or rllmuk about whether it looked shit or not. I'd say in places it looks really next gen, less so in others.
I can see the stealth loop getting old pretty quickly, but it's all breezy fun so far.
Play
I was a little unsure of Avowed initially, but 30-something hours in I think it's safe to say it's doing a lot of things right. This might be the first Bethesda/Obsidian game where I actually like all of the party members. Their stories, personalities and the conversations at camp are all tremendous, and even their combat and exploration barks are helpful. I love just wandering around the world looking for trinkets and monsters, or scrounging up enough materials to upgrade my current favourite weapon. Combat is snappy and never feels overwhelming even when surrounded, and I'm a little surprised at how often I wade in with a sword instead of hanging back, sniping.
I don't feel like I'm too far on the main story quest yet – there are too many excellent sidequests and diversions – but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lets me fully commit to the rebellion against the emperor who sent me here as his envoy. Aedyr has no business being in the Living Lands. (I am, however, also looking forward to trying a second playthrough as an unapologetic Aedyran zealot.)
Want
More time to play Avowed, mostly. I am, as usual, tempted by the new Monster Hunter, but I know how impenetrable those are and I'm really not sure I need that kind of complexity in my entertainment at the moment.
I'm willing to help if I can, also down for hunts.
And so far its been fine. I like the lead, the cute alien dog thing is cute and the gameplay is Uncharted meets every game ever, but works well enough. Graphically it's very nice, and I think the first game I've seen where Ray Tracing is enforced? It looks pretty good on the Rog Ally, but needs Lossless Scaling to get it anywhere near 60 but looks really impressive on a proper PC. I can't remember if there was a debate here or rllmuk about whether it looked shit or not. I'd say in places it looks really next gen, less so in others.
I can see the stealth loop getting old pretty quickly, but it's all breezy fun so far.
"Breezy fun" is about right, I don't think Star Wars Outlaws is the best game ever but it nails the licence, looks and sounds great and doesn't outstay its welcome. Its depiction of Tatooine in particular is the best I've seen yet in a game.
Strangely the only other game I've seen that enforced ray tracing was another Star Wars game: Jedi Survivor. And the Performance mode on console ran like crap as a result, to the extent that I think they finally patched out the ray tracing for that mode. It looked glorious in Quality mode though. I'm impressed that Outlaws has the full suite of 30/40/60fps modes on console, and they all look pretty good.
Did anyone else bother to grab the mobile versions of Knight of the Old Republic 1 and 2, since they're currently free through the mobile Epic Store? Since the Retroid Pocket 5 is essentially an android phone with controls stuck to it, I grabbed them and wouldn't you know it, they work out of the box with controller support. So, that's nice. 
Strangely the only other game I've seen that enforced ray tracing was another Star Wars game: Jedi Survivor. And the Performance mode on console ran like crap as a result, to the extent that I think they finally patched out the ray tracing for that mode. It looked glorious in Quality mode though. I'm impressed that Outlaws has the full suite of 30/40/60fps modes on console, and they all look pretty good.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle had forced ray-tracing too. I don't think it has any baked-in lighting at all, so it's not something you can disable.
the mobile Epic Store
Not available in the UK. One of the many Brexit Benefits we now enjoy.
the mobile Epic Store
Not available in the UK. One of the many Brexit Benefits we now enjoy.
Oh! Well, that's interesting. I didn't even think about that…
the mobile Epic Store
Not available in the UK. One of the many Brexit Benefits we now enjoy.
Yes it is. It's not on the play store, you have to go to Epic's website, but it downloads and works fine. I've got it on my phone and Odin 2, and both Kotor games on each as a result.
Incidentally, does anyone want a steam code for Sam Barlow's Immortality? I have a spare.
Now go get those games! 😁
Already done! I've restarted KotOR about five times in the last decade, though, and never made it off Taris…
Other than the Rancor, almost everything with KOTOR has been overtaken in my head by the sequel
