Garwoofoo

Play - Expedition 33 - yes I'm a little late to this one but holy hell, that has to be the most engaging opening couple of hours of any game I've played in YEARS. And you weren't kidding about the music. I've no idea if it'll be able to keep it up but I am absolutely enthralled so far.

Avowed

This seriously outstayed its welcome, and that's a real shame because there's a lot to like here. But it feels like playing the same 15-hour game four times in a row, and what was fun and appealing in the first area had seriously lost its charm by the time it came to fourth time around. The whole of the second half of the game felt like padding, and when the final area was followed up by not one but two huge linear sections full of constant combat, it was only really stubbornness and sunk time that propelled me to the end.

If this had been half the length, I'd have remembered it as a really strong game. It's beautiful to look at, it's got memorable characters and the upgrade system is great. Hopefully over time I'll remember the good bits more than the bad. For now I'm mostly relieved I can move on.

It is Gears of War Remastered Remastered though which is kind of becoming a trend. A decent game, but like the re-release of Metroid Prime, should have been a remaster of the whole trilogy.

Another month and off we go.

Play

Avowed. This is a game that does almost everything right - it looks fantastic, has decent world-building, great combat, interesting upgrade paths and entertaining characters - yet it's relentlessly, almost aggressively 7/10 and I'm not sure why. I think it's the pacing - it's quite a plodding game, really, despite everyone constantly screaming at you about the Dreamscourge, and every area plays out in exactly the same way as you methodically work your way through side quests to upgrade your equipment before you tackle whatever the story has in store. It also goes on far too long, I've just started the fourth area and it really should have ended by now. I like it - on a mechanical level at least, it's lots of fun to play - but it's hard to imagine people getting really excited by it and I'm kind of ready for it to be done.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - I'm at least ten years late to the party on this one but it's really great, a point-and-click adventure from the minds behind Phoenix Wright that must have been absolutely astonishing on the DS and still looks pretty impressive to this day. It's funny, puzzly and has some of the best animation I've ever seen in anything. Lovely stuff.

Want

I'm increasingly keen to finish Avowed so I can get stuck into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 before everyone moves onto the next exciting thing. Game Pass really has been nuts lately, I've barely been able to touch half the stuff I want to play; maybe it's just too many huge RPGs coming out all at the same time.

I'd still like to get Assassin's Creed: Shadows - I'm guessing no-one here has bought it? It's an Ubisoft game so it should begin plummeting in price right… about… now.

Bin

Game prices, console prices, subscription prices - everyone seems determined to price us out of everything right now. I don't see how it's sustainable. When even us middle-aged, middle-class nerds are starting to look at £700 consoles and £80 games with raised eyebrows, you do wonder how on earth younger people are going to pick up the gaming habit. Shit cellphone games, probably.

And oh god the state of the world right now. The apricot hellbeast they somehow put in charge of the USA is still on his demented rampage and as I write we're about five hours out from the result of local elections which will probably mean Farage's smug froggy features all over the press for weeks and weeks. I used to think we were making some progress in the world - I don't think that any more.

Also also, even though the gameplay engine itself for NuBlivion is still Gamebryo, the graphics engine is now Unreal Engine 5, famous for taking what would have required a basic, mid-range PC and elevating the requirements to a ultra-high end system because the UE5 engine is so laughably unoptimized and slow. Please use any other engine than UE5, developers.

You're right but also it's worth bearing in mind that UE5 appears to do a lot of heavy lifting for developers and we're starting to see some big games coming out now with AAA production values made by relatively small teams: stuff like Expedition 33, Avowed and indeed this Oblivion remaster. I can understand why teams are using it, and if it allows them to turn out great games more quickly then I'm all for it. (Or maybe it's just the fact that in general the consoles handle UE5 quite well, I'm not really coming at it from the same point of view as you).

Either way, original Oblivion still exists and is perfectly fine - this new version is really just a marketing tool for the next Elder Scrolls game, I guess, but if it encourages more people to play this then that's not a bad thing.