PWB April (Fools) edition 2025

Hello all. I never start these so felt I should contribute rather than freeload like usual.

Play

It's always Minecraft in our house, but particularly this week with the latest update (new variations of chickens and other animals!) and the film which we are going to see Friday.

Medal of Honour Allied Assault - Still working through this on my Rog Ally breakout station I have set up. Superb memories and really enjoying it.

Robocop Rogue City (think that's its full title) This is superb, it's so self contained with the levels but in a clever way, it feels like playing a lightgun games at times and they have really nailed the feel of the character and place. I have like a little 20-30 minute blast on this every night currently and it's perfect for that.

Championship Manager 3 - Been playing this on my channel now for about 2 months, it's such an addictive game and has seen my channel grow to the stage where I am nearly at 1000 subscribers. It started as a little mental health project that got me also zero views for the first view videos and now is getting me about 600 views a week and people regularly commenting and liking every new video, so that in turn makes it easier to commit time to it, which just makes it all the more enjoyable.

Want

Been looking into getting a 2TB drive for my Rog Ally, I only have the 512gb model and it's nearly always entirely full.

Switch 2 details.

To start AtomFall, was really excited for this but it was chaotic over mothers day (which is still an incredibly emotional challenge for my partner) and then my kid just refusing to ever go bed by herself currently and often being awake past 9.30pm at the moment, meaning free time and childless time has been utterly squeezed.

Evercade - some of the newly announced Neo Geo stuff looks good.

Bin

Can't think of anything currently.

Play

Atomfall is taking up most of my gaming time at the moment – things have taken a definite turn for the fun since I found a bow. I also finally followed one of the main story quests, so that's a new conspiracy carrot on 't mystery stick.

I do have to wonder about the bodycount I'm racking up, though. This village clearly wasn't all that big before the quarantine went in place, but I've taken down dozens of ne'er-do-wells. What was the original population here?

Want

Looking forward to the next thing on my GamePass watchlist, Expedition 33. It looks like a real marmite game (and some of its UI choices have already caused consternation in previews on youtubelol), but the combat looks spectacular so I'm keeping optimistic.

Bin

I don't know if I'm coming down with something, but I'm tired all the time – more so than usual. Could probably do more to improve my sleep schedule, to be fair.

I got a massive card for my ROG Ally, but the heat it pumps through the card slot is alarming (and of course there are plenty of reports of fried SD readers) so I too will be looking to swap the drive at some point….

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Atomfall - I had a moment last night where I stumbled across a group of people in a disused facility and they… warned me off? Then, as I backed away, they seemed scared and were asking one another if I'd gone. Such a small, simple thing, but I can't remember the last game I played where everyone wasn't either a super friendly NPC or a homicidal maniac the moment they saw me. Looks absolutely glorious too, and runs amazingly well. The lack of icon chasing and handholding is fascinating.

Avowed - after adding 64gb of RAM to my laptop, and using Lossless Scaling and various overclocking techniques I can now play this with only a few stutters. Thanks Unreal 5. It is great, but Atomfall does somewhat highlight that it's very VIDEOGAME. Like a horde of homicidal enemies literally 20ft from the town gates and watching guards. Still very enjoyable though.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst Went back to play a bit of this. It's really good. Quite of its time, but the traversal and confidence to do something a bit different is even more interesting in 2025 than it was back then.

Want
Expedition 33 looks amazing. Very much looking forward to it.

Bin
My partner has been in hospital in the Republic. I thought UK hospitals were in full collapse, but this also was like the end of days. Finally think the problem is sorted though, which is good. Quite eye opening how many EU nationalities there are floating about in hospitals and shops and in general. I sometimes forget quite how much Brexit fucked diversity in the UK (and indeed, why would you stay considering the sheer hatred on display). That said, I did hear a priest (A PRIEST) doing an anti-immigrant rant in the hospital canteen, which was quite something. I mean, if you pick up ONE THING up from the magical book of nonsense isn't it an appreciation for the poor/immigrants. Isn't that the point?

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I've been working through Mass Effect Legendary Edition and having a great time all over again. I'm almost finished Mass Effect 2 and it doesn't feel like an old game at all. The sandbox structure really works with the different hub worlds, story missions, side missions and occasional found missions. I'm looking forward to replaying Mass Effect 3 as I only played that one once and that was before they brought out the Citadel DLC.

Before losing three whole days of my life (and counting) to Mass Effect I was having a fantastic time playing Paper Mario Origami King. It's just fun and funny, and it's always finding clever new ways to interact with the world even when all you can really do is jump, talk or hit it with a hammer. I'm almost done, I think I'm on the final dungeon, I just need to sit down and actually finish it.

Want
I'm just thinking about what I might play next. I have Dungeons of Hinterberg on my Xbox so maybe that. Or Pentiment.

Or there's this humble bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/games/dice-and-destiny) which includes Citizen Sleeper and Disco Elysium…

Bin
School. My 13 year old hasn't been able to attend school this year due to a combination of depression, other kids being little shits and teachers being unwilling to help. My kid was supposed to be going in to meet the school's additional support teacher today but they can't face it. So it's all a bit, "well WTF do we do now then?"

Or there's this humble bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/games/dice-and-destiny) which includes Citizen Sleeper and Disco Elysium…

That might be the best value 'hours of fun vs cost' bundle I've ever seen.

Bin
School. My 13 year old hasn't been able to attend school this year due to a combination of depression, other kids being little shits and teachers being unwilling to help. My kid was supposed to be going in to meet the school's additional support teacher today but they can't face it. So it's all a bit, "well WTF do we do now then?"

Sorry, this sounds awful. My first is due to start school soon, and I live in constant fear of not being able to protect them in that environment. The crumb of comfort I have is that, I can just about remember being 13. It won't be long until they're free to find their own group, and realise how unimportant school knobheads are. I'm still best mates with the group I found after leaving that environment.

Sorry to hear that, Bri, that sounds shit for all of you. Platitudes won't help, but I genuinely hope things get better in the long run.

PLAY
Still playing Red Dead Redemption, currently rambling through 'Mexico'. Still playing Sea of Thieves but, honestly, my enthusiasm for that wains because there feels like there's fuck all to do in it currently… the spark's gone, it's just the same things over and over. Dipping back into Binding of Isaac because I've not touched it in ages. Still tinkering with the Retroid Pocket 5 since I'm determined to make Model 3 games run at 60FPS (and doing so seems to have undone some positive work I did making Model 2 run perfectly).

WANT
Some rest. The last six months have been exhausting at work, and it won't stop any time soon.

BIN
Everything. The world is horrible right now, the cunts are running rampant with no-one stopping them and it just feels utterly pointless. It's all so bad. Burying my head in the sand does nothing, but it's better than being constantly bombarded with how awful everything is. This isn't where I want to be, and I don't see it ever getting better at this point. Minds are too poisoned, being a good person is apparently weak and bad, I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

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Shadow Hearts:Covenant - This is so far such an insane quality jump from the prequel, a game I really like, that if it keeps this up it'll be one of my favourite RPGs on the PS2. The combat in particular, took a really neat system with the Judgement Ring and really expanded on it.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - I have got my mechanic now! No flying but the mecha fantasy is real. I have found the more sidequests I do in a row the chance of me getting restless increases, feels like a chore sometimes but the minute you start exploring for probes it all changes

Valkyrie Profile - really want to like this but it's making it hard, I have little idea what I'm doing and why I have like 10 rpg towns to visit that do nothing, combat seems timing based but also I'm watching the same special attacks play out every single time. Will probably read up on some tips

Play

Avowed - this feels almost like a remake of Morrowind, with its amiable NPCs and weird fixation with mushrooms, but it's very enjoyable. It's like it's pretending to be an open world game but actually you're quite carefully led through the story, it means it's very well paced and the characters have far more to say about events than they normally do in games of this type. It looks spectacular too. My only issue is that the horribly complex character and inventory screens seem to have come from a different game entirely to the breezy adventuring that makes up the bulk of Avowed.

Stardew Valley - I think this is meant to be a chilled, relaxing kind of game but my gamer brain can't stop aggressively trying to min/max everything and as such I'm finding it quite stressful, wondering if I'm doing it "right" or letting opportunities slip by with every passing day. Broadly I have no idea what I'm doing. I like it though, it's like someone took the hundreds of Harvest Moon games that are all slightly unsatisfying for various different reasons and simply made one really good one.

Want

Assassin's Creed: Shadows has been getting some actual decent feedback from players and doesn't appear to have launched in a totally broken state, so it's only the knowledge that these games always drop in price really fast that's preventing me from picking this up right now.

Bin

I managed to get 1000/1000 achievements for Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii which is the first game I've done that for in a long while (and the first Yakuza game too). Pleased with that, but there's nothing more to be done there.

Donald Trump - why won't he just fucking die already? Honestly.

Separate note on schools - sorry to hear about your woes, Bri, I really hope you get this sorted soon. My son was bullied to shit in the last couple of years of primary school (smart kid being picked on by the local knuckleheads, basically, plus a nice dose of racism thrown in) and we were actually glad that Covid lockdowns saved him from the last few months of what had become an entirely miserable experience. We were lucky enough to be able to put him into a private school, not something we'd ever thought we'd do and it's wiped us out financially but it's been exactly the supportive environment he needed. I appreciate that's probably not an option for you but do you have the opportunity to look at different schools? They do still vary enormously in terms of the support they provide, and a different environment may be good for your kid. Regardless, as MPH says, 13/14 is pretty much the peak of school misery years and it does get better, honestly.

Assassin's Creed: Shadows has been getting some actual decent feedback from players and doesn't appear to have launched in a totally broken state, so it's only the knowledge that these games always drop in price really fast that's preventing me from picking this up right now.

I'm on the fence about chucking £15 at Ubisoft+ for a month to give this and Star Wars Outlaws a go.

Bri do they not have an outreach programme or outreach centre at the school or in it's chain? And does you son have an EHCP? He should be eligible for some home tuition if he does and you get it updated, or for the school to set up like a home ed online tutor if he would engage with that.

We are in the process of trying to sort some of that out. But it's very slow.

You can get an EHCP privately btw so may be something to look into or consider, seems to be more common that now due to the waiting times of councils doing it are bordering on neglect (not blaming the councils as appreciate it's a funding issue) - just need to find a private educational psychologist.

I still feel Secondary schools need a review or some kind of a massive change but unlikely to happen now as too ingrained and already failing.

Many of the students I teach were coping fine or not massively falling behind in primary and junior, it's always secondary school that causes the issues, disconnect and eventually apathy or poor behaviour that leads to them being excluded. My school effectively runs like a special educational needs centre now compared to when I started, and parents mostly no longer want their kids to leave once they start with us!

Thanks BMB!

I'll talk with Mrs Bloodaxe and may be back to discuss this more.

Sorry to hear about your woes, Bri. My daughter is 6 years old and I'm already worried about secondary school / KS3 / whatever the fuck it's called this year.

It's amazing how quickly the bullies present themselves, though. As far as I can see, the lack of action that the schools can / will take only enables that sort of behaviour.

Went on Slay the Spire today for a quick go for the first time in ages, and ended up staying on till my Switch battery died. Such an incredible game.

After someone here (Gar?) mentioned it a week or so ago, I've picked Shadow of the Tomb Raider back up. Took me about a half hour of repeated plunges to my death to remember the controls, but at least it reloads quickly. The story is nonsense, but it's pretty good at the puzzle/traversal stuff! I just wish Lara would shut up during puzzles instead of screaming "hints" at me every 15 seconds.

From what I remember, there are separate difficulty levels for puzzles, exploration and combat - I can't remember what they do but maybe upping the difficulty level for puzzles will get her to shut up a bit?

Also - are you playing the definitive edition? The DLC consisted of half a dozen puzzle tombs which were among the best bits of the whole game. I think if you've bought the game recently then it's probably included.

Yeah, it's the Definitive Edition.

A little late to the party on this one perhaps but I'm really loving Avowed. It's got a lightness of touch to it that games of this type so often lack, it's big enough to be worth exploring but small enough so it all feels hand-crafted, and overall it feels more Mass Effect than it does Skyrim (the fact that your first companion is literally Garrus definitely helps there).

I'd been led to believe it was quite a small game but I'm 22 hours in and only on the second major area so I'm calling bullshit on that claim. I'm also finding it quite tough at the moment so need to do some levelling and/or find some better equipment.

I keep signing up for betas of random games, so over the last couple of days I've played a few rounds of Wildgate, a new multiplayer shooter that was pitched in the article I read as "Sea of Thieves in space".

It's not entirely inaccurate; 5 teams of 4 are spawned in a massive area of open space, dotted with derelict ships, and alien planetoids, and the nominal goal is to find and escape with an artifact of great value. The catch is that you can only escape once the titular Wildgate opens, about 10 minutes into the match - so most of the time is spent exploring the aforementioned derelicts and planetoids, killing NPC monsters, completing mini-objectives to open a vault containing ammo and upgrades for your ship, so you can (hopefully) survive the shooting gallery that things descend into once the artifact is found. Alternatively, you can just gear up and try to be the last ship floating.

Where it really differs from SoT (beyond ship upgrades) is in the characters. It's halfway to a hero shooter, with each character getting their own passive effects that make them slightly stronger at ship defence, boarding, or repairs. Each character also has their own progress track (or "Adventure") that unlocks cosmetics, weapons, and ship types, although you can activate and level up any Adventure (and equip any of the unlocks) with any character. I don't know if these will be locked behind a paywall in the final version; I hope not.

I think it's good, though like a lot of these slightly more thoughtful multiplayer games, the quality of the experience varies wildly depending on the competence of your crew. A group who ignores the mini-objectives will very quickly find itself outgunned, but even if you do explore several locations, the random nature of the loot might not set you up particularly well, and the longer the game goes on, the higher your risk of being boarded while everyone's trying to kill the slime-monsters infesting an ancient obelisk.

The current beta ends tomorrow, and I don't know what the plans are for future playtesting; I'd recommend checking it out, if you think it sounds interesting, but whether or not I ended up making the jump at launch would depend greatly on the price and how many of my friends list were also likely to grab it.

Speaking of Skyrim, seeing rumours that an Oblivion remake will be dropping soon apparently, shadowdropped even, I'm not sure what to think of these rumours as I have no idea where people are getting these from but fuck yeah I think I'm all for Oblivion getting a second look in. It reminds me of hearing so many people saying Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is basically Oblivion 2 which is about as easy a hook as you could probably throw me which is also in addition to the game sounding rather good. I haven't played the first one and I'm not going to, which is all moot because I don't know if I have time to play the sequel anyway…but it does sound rather good.

All that is to say, with Skyrim getting re-released on everything under the sun, I can't be the only person yearning for a return to Cyrodil? It has some things better than Skyrim I think? Am I wrong or were the Daedric quests usually better than their Skyrim counterparts?

Right, Atomfall's going in the Bin. I'm playing on the easiest combat difficulty, and still getting increasingly frustrated by the repeated deaths to bullet-sponge enemies and endless fucking rat swarms. I'm plugging several shotgun shells point-blank into a [spoiler]'s face and still getting murdered by them in two hits. I've got upgraded weapons, unlocked a bunch of permanent buffs, and use every item in my inventory to prepare, but I'm still slamming into the same wall over and over and over. Stealth doesn't appear to be an option, as these bastards spot me as soon as I open the door.

It's such a shame; I was probably only a couple hours' concerted effort from the finish line, but all the fun has completely evaporated.

Suspect I might have had enough of Blue Prince as well. The RNG is miserable, and even now that I'm learning how and where to best use different rooms (and discovered a pretty significant mid-objective) I spend more runs making no progress than seems intended, waiting for it to spit out something useful that can unblock some hurdle or other.

On the other hand, I've started playing En Garde! on Steam, which I'd never heard of before a couple of weeks ago but is extremely charming. It's got an invincibility toggle which I've immediately switched on, making the combat less frustrating while still letting me use parries, dodges and environmental nonsense for my own satisfaction.

I've had En Garde! wishlisted for what feels like ages, but keep not buying it in the (futile?) hopes of a console version.

Oh, and I finished the story in Shadow of the Tomb Raider! Alas, I also hit an apparently-common bug that prevents a key upgrade-item merchant from spawning. So, of course, I did the reasonable thing and immediately started the whole thing again on New Game +.

I've not bumped the difficulty up - combat is kinda frustrating even on the default - but the exploration is pretty peerless in this; the puzzle tombs are exceptionally well-varied and clever, and at times it almost hits the vast, lonely emptiness that I was so fond of back in the original Tomb Raider in 1996.

Alas, the only way to stop Lara's repeated "hints" also disables the Instinct vision for interactables, and the lighting is occasionally so bad I don't trust myself not to miss everything important without it. Ho hum.

Don't know if I'll platinum the thing - if I do go through on the highest difficulty, it'll be after I've unlocked all the upgrades and best gear - but I'm not ready to be done with it yet.

All that is to say, with Skyrim getting re-released on everything under the sun, I can't be the only person yearning for a return to Cyrodil? It has some things better than Skyrim I think? Am I wrong or were the Daedric quests usually better than their Skyrim counterparts?

Everyone always forgets Elder Scrolls Online but it’s a fully-voiced RPG that plays perfectly well solo and fleshes out most of Tamriel in exquisite detail. I prefer it to pretty much all of the solo Elder Scrolls games.

Ah, I actually played it for a bit and you're right, as a solo game it's amazing. It was as an MMO where it left me somewhat cold but that might just be me playing an MMO that isn't spoonfeeding you a carefully constructed theme park experienceike XIV does. I just remember feeling really superfluous as a Tank in my first dungeon and on console I didn't see much chatting going on.

Suspect I might have had enough of Blue Prince as well. The RNG is miserable, and even now that I'm learning how and where to best use different rooms (and discovered a pretty significant mid-objective) I spend more runs making no progress than seems intended, waiting for it to spit out something useful that can unblock some hurdle or other.

I'm a bit torn on Blue Prince. it's clearly a game prototyped like you'd prototype a board game. It's a tile layer. It's essentially Castles of Mad King Ludwig/Carcasonne/Dream Home, stapled together (or indeed any one of a thousand tile laying boardgames). I find it quite moreish and I've played it for a few hours. There's a lot that's absolutely great about it.

But, the slow pace and the fact you could clearly present the game as an abstract puzzle from above is a bit annoying. It also forgets the critical rule of any live/die/repeat genre game. Make each loop quick, and if they're fucked allow the player to realise it quickly and restart. One of my criticisms of Slay The Spire is the glacial pace at the start and slow gameplay loop. Monster Train, in contrast, is a game that absolutely gets it right: gets going super quick, highly repeatable and has the opportunity to bail if the build isn't coming together. Blue Prince often involves lengthy backtracking before you know if you're doomed or not from the RNG. I do wonder, a bit like Microsoft Solitare, if every run is theoretically solveable, just some more highly unlikely than others and demand that the player would have to take a mad route down the room decision tree, or if there are a high proportion of runs that are impossible. I feel it's probably the latter (especially as upgrades and changes to rooms mean the challenge isn't static) which isn't great.

But, I do find it very compelling. Sort of slow food gaming.

Right, Atomfall's going in the Bin. I'm playing on the easiest combat difficulty, and still getting increasingly frustrated by the repeated deaths to bullet-sponge enemies and endless fucking rat swarms. I'm plugging several shotgun shells point-blank into a [spoiler]'s face and still getting murdered by them in two hits. I've got upgraded weapons, unlocked a bunch of permanent buffs, and use every item in my inventory to prepare, but I'm still slamming into the same wall over and over and over. Stealth doesn't appear to be an option, as these bastards spot me as soon as I open the door.

It's such a shame; I was probably only a couple hours' concerted effort from the finish line, but all the fun has completely evaporated.

The AI is pretty shocking in bits. I've found there's ways you can attack where the enemy simply can't path to you, or just gets confused and stands there. Which I have resorted to with the more difficult enemies. But it can be a bit brutal. I assume it'll be patched a few times, as I think if they can smooth the edges out it will be something of a cult classic.

Well well well

Hoping the less lush greens are a lightning thing but I need this right now

From what I've seen, it's looking a little soulless - not just in those photos but in others too. Oblivion's weird bloomy lighting was such a part of that game's identity that removing it just makes it all look a bit generic.

I think it's going to be on Game Pass though so at least we can all check it out for ourselves.

There's DLC out for Eternal Strands, which I didn't know was coming, so that's a pleasant surprise! Fired it up to have a quick look around last night, and spent more than two and a half hours just flinging myself around the new map. Really hope it did well enough to get a sequel.

Suspect I might have had enough of Blue Prince as well. The RNG is miserable, and even now that I'm learning how and where to best use different rooms (and discovered a pretty significant mid-objective) I spend more runs making no progress than seems intended, waiting for it to spit out something useful that can unblock some hurdle or other.

I'm not sure I'm getting this - I've played a few runs, assembled a random collection of rooms from the options it gives me, ended up blocking myself into a corner eventually and then restarted.

I'm seeing people talking about hundreds and hundreds of hours of content and I'm just looking at it thinking HOW??? But it's oddly compulsive, and I'm tempted to start making notes as I've uncovered a couple of bits as I've gone through, so there's something about it for sure.

I've got a few pages of notes, but a few of the rooms have now started requiring others to be present on the run, which means if I don't see them together it feels like a complete waste of time. Many, many more of my runs end with nothing accomplished than give me any sense of progression.

In a not very good mood I started yet another playthrough of the PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII and despite playing it through last year at some point I'm still having fun.

Also tried out the Wonderswan Color version of Final Fantasy IV (to see those wonderswan sprites!!!!)

It's in japanese so I'm not going to play it properly, and if I was going to replay FFIV I'd try the DS remake, but still a shame there's no Fan TL.

South of Midnight is an absolutely wild videogame for the current climate. It features a black female protagonist, with dreads (who isn't "conventionally" videogame attractive), in a deep south setting animated in a sort of stop motion with a sometimes dissonant, highly evocative folk soundtrack. In the initial few scenes it's largely women talking to women (and black women, no less) without a single man present. The husband has also been fridged, not the wife. It's like Republican nightmare fuel.

It's absolutely beautifully put together, the animations are flawless and the flat storybook cutscenes between chapters are lovely. The opening level has some really impressive set pieces. The entire thing has the feel of a team really having a cohesive vision and absolutely executing on it. The issue is, ultimately, the actual gameplay is utterly generic. It's Uncharted wall climbing (complete with a blue tint to show climbable ledges - though weirdly, and frustratingly, no grab visual cue to know if you can jump on something or not) and a sort of creaky, button mashing combat where you kill videogame gribblies to clear locked glades.

I'm torn, as it's so lovely to look at and you have to resepect the artistic risks they've taken, but it is stupefyingly dull in bits too….

Suspect I might have had enough of Blue Prince as well. The RNG is miserable, and even now that I'm learning how and where to best use different rooms (and discovered a pretty significant mid-objective) I spend more runs making no progress than seems intended, waiting for it to spit out something useful that can unblock some hurdle or other.

I'm not sure I'm getting this - I've played a few runs, assembled a random collection of rooms from the options it gives me, ended up blocking myself into a corner eventually and then restarted.

I'm seeing people talking about hundreds and hundreds of hours of content and I'm just looking at it thinking HOW??? But it's oddly compulsive, and I'm tempted to start making notes as I've uncovered a couple of bits as I've gone through, so there's something about it for sure.

I find it compelling - but I do think if someone generated a mod that let you click through the map screen and quickly do runs it would be a better game. The compelling part, I guess, is the rules on how certain things happen in particular rooms, depending on positioning or timing (and uncovering that), but it is a massive killer that the cycle to check if you're doomed or not is so long and the rules sometimes so diffuse and unclear that it's massively frustrating.

Oddly compulsive though as even when I'm shouting at it, I just click to start a new run.

Play. Dragon's Dogma 2. I think this is brilliant but it might also be crap. It's one of those Japanese games that's resolutely its own thing, an open-world RPG that has completely ignored the last 20 years of open-world RPGs.

It's got Elden Ring's aggressively confusing UI/item names, stunning visuals, terrible framerates, and it couldn't care less what you think. It is the way it is, and if you don't like it, screw you.

It's lovely that games like this exist alongside eager-to-please, paint-by-numbers Ubisoft stuff. Although on balance I probably have more fun with those games.

So far my biggest complaint is that I knocked it down to Casual because it was too difficult, and now that I've gotten to grips with the mechanics and want to bump things back up to Normal, I can't. Again, a decision from the 'fuck you' school of design.

Everyone was all over that game for a while then it felt like people turned around and said 'y'know, I think DD1 is better, more content blah blah' and now I don't know whether to start DD1 or 2 first

Well a few hours in and I'm hooked on Oblivion already, even though the dungeons are all copy pasted, something about the exploration here still draws me in (which is more than could be said about Starfield at this timeframe, what a piece of shit honestly). The nice thing is I am so Skyrim brained at this point I keep expecting to run into Skyrim things and then it's like 'Oh right' which is a nice change.

It was going really well for me last night. They've altered the colour palette, which is a shame, but otherwise I was right back in 2005. This morning, the game won't load. I can't think of a more fitting Oblivion tribute.

I can't believe they missed the opportunity to do the funniest thing and release new Horse Armour DLC for the remaster.

I liked Oblivion a lot (more so than Skyrim, I think) but I'm getting my fantasy nonsense fix from Avowed at the moment so can't see myself starting another one.

I can't believe they missed the opportunity to do the funniest thing and release new Horse Armour DLC for the remaster.

There was a pretty prominent shot in the reveal trailer of an armoured horse, which I assumed was a nod.

I liked Oblivion a lot (more so than Skyrim, I think) but I'm getting my fantasy nonsense fix from Avowed at the moment so can't see myself starting another one.

I can't imagine that the first-person combat in Oblivion is going to be as good as Avowed's.

I can't imagine that the first-person combat in Oblivion is going to be as good as Avowed's.

It's not.

And yes, the first stable I came across gave me some free horse armour.

Turns out the freezing this morning was shader compilation, which they forgot to put a loading screen in for. So the game just hangs for 10 minutes. I do love a bit of Bethesda jank.

I can't believe they missed the opportunity to do the funniest thing and release new Horse Armour DLC for the remaster.

I liked Oblivion a lot (more so than Skyrim, I think) but I'm getting my fantasy nonsense fix from Avowed at the moment so can't see myself starting another one.

The special edition comes with horse armour DLC.

It seems like a decent remaster from what I've played so far. But Avowed really just does what it does better these days.

I can't imagine that the first-person combat in Oblivion is going to be as good as Avowed's.

It's not.

And yes, the first stable I came across gave me some free horse armour.

Turns out the freezing this morning was shader compilation, which they forgot to put a loading screen in for. So the game just hangs for 10 minutes. I do love a bit of Bethesda jank.

It precompiles all the shades at the first load doesn't it? There are other places too?

Combat isn't great but I quite enjoy watching everything drop like a sack of spuds as I crack them over the skull with a mace. Loss of the Skyrim's kill cam is a bit rough for me though but I'll take being able to equip a sword, shield and magic at once.

I can't imagine that the first-person combat in Oblivion is going to be as good as Avowed's.

It's not.

I wonder how much time Bethesda have spent debating ripping out whatever combat engine they've built for Elder Scrolls 6 after Avowed came out and showed everybody how it's really done.

Has anyone seen/played Kingdom Come: Deliverence? The directional blocking thing alone looks like it'd make combat a ton more engaging, let alone anything else. As much as I can play this and Skyrim just fine, if ES6 is the same I'll be pretty damn critical I think.

I can't imagine that the first-person combat in Oblivion is going to be as good as Avowed's.

It's not.

And yes, the first stable I came across gave me some free horse armour.

Turns out the freezing this morning was shader compilation, which they forgot to put a loading screen in for. So the game just hangs for 10 minutes. I do love a bit of Bethesda jank.

It precompiles all the shades at the first load doesn't it? There are other places too?

I downloaded a new GPU driver last night, so it was just doing the initial load again, without telling me.

On the techy side of things, I couldn't normally give a crap about ray tracing, but the 'hardware lumen' mode on this is beautiful. Outdoors at least. Indoors I can't tell the difference. But it makes my 4060 cry, so I'm playing it capped at 60fps with motion blur on and a controller.

This remaster face lift is nice but I'm pretty sure Skyrim still looks nicer. 🤔