Mythologue

L4D was a bit of a zeitgeist franchise. It seemed to capitalise on the meteoric rise of online multi on consoles, and landed in what I'd describe as the sweet spot; between 2007 and 2012. A lot of companies were experimenting with multi and online components back then, including Irrational, Criterion, Black Box, The Behemoth, etc.

I think we're past the experimental phase now. Multi is just a given. It's become a little ugly, in fact. B4B really wasn't brilliant, and does anyone even remember Evolve?

I'm not hoping for its failure, though. I loved L4D and played it obsessively. Here's hoping for a genuine revival.

I played Dangerous Driving quite extensively. I think I put in more than 25 hours and earned the platinum trophy. I went out of my way to climb the leaderboards and complete all of the survival events, end to end.

Wreckreation was supposed to be an evolution of that, and it was to some extent (physics and weight was much improved,) but plenty was just wrong about the game. It should've been more varied, there could have been more environments, and it critically needed to show that it was a major milestone for a company trying to claw its way from low budget independent to at least AA, with a big name publisher backing them.

Unfortunately, it was just too little, too late. Somebody commented on Reddit that their patience had run out. I wanted a lot more to come from these industry vets, but Wreckreation was the unfortunate result.

I guess it is what it is. EA might be the last chance to revive Burnout, and I don't fancy those odds.

"Let it die" indeed.

The Game Adverts

Make the world smaller, not larger. BG3 became one of the richest RPGs ever, and its world, overall, is actually pretty small. Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are two further examples of small but densely packed games, which only serve to further amplify deeper RPG components.

Beyond that, I hope that TW4 isn't all that much like BG3, with respect to its mechanics. Innovation comes with original ideas, or tweaks to existing ones.

I'm loving this game so far, but, just in my opinion, the voice performances are probably the weakest aspect. It sounds a little bit stilted to me.

I'm guessing that's the £650 - £800 price point locked in, then. I'm looking forward to seeing how it does, and I'm still very much interested, but anything in excess of £700 will place it in rocky territory for me personally.

The more I've been thinking about the Gabecube, the more I'm sold on the idea. It's not necessarily the console in and of itself, since that's not a huge selling point. It's the form factor, as well as the ease of access to simply plug and play what is essentially a PC. I've never really used a PC on a proper wide-screen TV before. Being able to play a whole library of cross generation games (the original Doom, to Fable, to Dead Space, to BG3, etc.) on Steam, coupled with emulation, then accounting for other software available on PCs, typically, all has massive appeal to me.

Even if it's priced higher than the PS5, I actually think it's worth it for all of the aforementioned, as well as FOSS, free online and custom servers, esoteric and obscure games, and gaming experiences, and so on. I'd happily put a price of £550 - £600 on that. But any higher might be a reach.

I didn't even know there was a second series.

@Darude84 It doesn't really. It proves that a controversial franchise is utilising AI for art. That's the farthest thing from proving that AI surpasses human art. I would argue it's the polar opposite, in fact; a heavily criticised franchise is the most recent example of generating "art," rather than creating art.

Also, yes. It certainly is.

@Darude84 To be honest, I don't think AI "art" is really a threat to artists. AI will threaten a lot of roles, but supposed artistry is extremely noticeable when fed to a generator. Good artists will always far outperform AI, because there are scores (if not myriad) nuances that are typically noticeable.

If it's open, like a PC in general, then it has a huge amount of appeal. If I can potentially install PCSX2, Duckstation, and other emulators to the system, as well as play PS games that seem to reliably come to PC these days, as well as my whole Steam library, on top of my RS14 CDLC, and all of that on top of additional software for productivity, as well as being able to play games online without a subscription, then yes. Absolutely. The aforementioned is worth sacrificing some power for.

"We basically just don't want you to play it lol"

Rumours about the much anticipated Knack 3 are coming thick and fast. Sony can only deny it for so long before the dam bursts.

It's a good game that really feels like it toys with the idea of being better than just good, and then decides to discard it in the end, entirely in favour of safety.

It's fine, has some great mechanics, and the world is surprisingly polished. In fact, I think FO4 might be the most polished Bethesda game I've played. It's weirdly clean.

But a lot of its quirks just really let it down. Voiced protagonist was a bold move but it just didn't work. You can't be a creepy gramps if your character sounds perpetually 30. The story is fine but honestly kind of weird, and going to the institute just makes the game suddenly appear far too clean than it has any right to be.

Stuntman was pretty broken when I played. I don't know if it still is, but it was just a few months ago that I tried.

I really wasn't planning on buying this anyway. Not right away.

@Kalime78 The game has an indicator to show where to turn.

Par for the course for the increasingly grotesque games industry.

Why should we be paying for it at all? I can play all my games on Steam for free.

@Questionable_Duck Isn't GTA VI something like the eighth mainline entry?

Penumbra is one of my favourites. Difficult to get into, but I think it's fairly rewarding if you're patient with it.

But I generally don't play horror games during Halloween anyway. It's easier to play them in the right mood, and harder to force yourself into that certain mood.

Looking forward to playing it. But I've got way too much to play through right now. Just bought Wreckreation and I haven't even started it yet. Never mind E33, Oblivion Remastered, Borderlands 4, Lisa, OlliOlli World...

I'm making an assumption here, but I'm guessing that most gamers appreciate the low key touches in music, rather than the grand, sweeping orchestral scores. Josh Mancell came to embody some of these themes of nostalgia, as one such example.

But that's not the sort of music you listen to in a packed venue and before live performers. You listen to it in your bedroom or during studies or work, or on the bus, or something like that.

The sole thing I want to know about this game is, how much of it is just raw solo play? I'd love to see split screen as well, but I don't think that's very likely.

@LifeGirl To be honest, I don't think we'll even live to see AGI. It's a bubble, and a string of buzzwords. I'm just waiting for the penny to drop for others who don't yet see it as something else besides a shiny, attractive feature on some product packaging.

@JAMes-BroWWWn It can't, and probably never will.

I don't love or hate Fallout 4, but it was this game which taught me that the franchise seems to have had enough. It's mostly spent, ideas have been realised, and I don't think there's much potential left.

Elder Scrolls should be the focus right now. TES VI is probably about as globally anticipated as GTA VI. I don't think there's nearly as much excitement for a new Fallout.

Deltarune for me. I've been playing it on and off, now having mostly just started chapter 3.

Borderlands 4 and Unrailed with the GF.

I also want to see if I can get The Crew Unlimited working at some point, maybe this weekend.

@Rhaoulos You seemed pretty serious to me.

@Rhaoulos I would say that's absurdly unlikely, but this is Amazon we're talking about.

That is one ugly controller.

@Matthewnh Fable is hugely nostalgic to me, and seriously one of the best RPGs I've ever played (even by today's standards.) I know it might be hard to access for some, especially exclusive PS gamers, but it surprises me that some people have just never touched it.

It's available on Steam and can probably be run on an advanced potato. Highly recommended.

As for the remake, I'm not sure about that. There's the reboot, which will probably just be an out and out new game, and Anniversary, which came out a good while ago.

They predicted it using gyromancy

For no reason in particular, I picked up WWE 2K25. I don't watch wrestling. I don't really know the first thing about it. But I wanted to play it. So I bought a game I know almost nothing about with subpar reviews on Metacritic. I haven't really regretted it so far, though. Played it with the GF and will be playing it solo soon to check out other stuff.

We also played Unrailed. Strange game but very clean, reactive, quirky and quite a lot of fun. Great frantic "couch co-op."

As for other stuff, I tried NirvanA Initiative. The series is so bizarre and packed with innuendo but the plot is legitimately unsettling and dark. I've heard that it gets even darker later on.

On top of that, I just found out that the revival project to bring back The Crew launched about a month ago. I might have to look into it.

This obsessing over graphical fidelity is sort of a relic from 2012/2013, right? Does anyone really care any more?

If it's so flimsy that it broke in transit, it was never worth more than £30.

Cyberpunk is one of those rare RPGs which I've never felt motivated to play through more than once. The game felt a little too streamlined. It was fun for the first time, but I can't stomach going for an additional run.

I like the PS5 for what it does (especially fast loading and the crisp UX) but it's a really expensive piece of nothing special. I can't recall the last PS5 game I played that couldn't be played on the PS4.

I'm less bothered about the choice and more about the fact that every role seems to have to be filled by a recognisable name these days. Why not let someone have their breakout role as Lara Croft?

All that said, it is Amazon, so of course, it's naturally ghoulish.

It's the first and only MGS game I've played, and it's mostly just okay. The world just wasn't very interesting at all. Intro was great, sort of like The Evil Within.

But the rest? Eh.

I don't remember much about the game, but I do recall that it was mildly entertaining. Not brilliant, but a good time waster. I'll consider the remaster only if it counts the physical edition for the discount.

@Laliob There was actually a GOP bill proposed recently that would have banned prawn o graphy. Can't say that screams "woke" to me.

I felt that it was a lot like the Arkham games going by the brief gameplay showcase. Skywalker's open sections were quite entertaining, and combining the Arkham level structure with LEGO feels a bit like how Undercover was basically LEGO GTA.

Quite looking forward to how it turns out.

The PS5 hasn't even really successfully outshone the PS4 yet. It's not a matter of if Sony are going to release the PS6 at the expected time (around 2027) but more a matter of if they really should.

Personally, I may have been alright skipping this generation entirely. It's been massively underwhelming.

I enjoyed FH4 (especially the setting) but I'm starting to find the festival component tired and forced at this point. It seeped into The Crew with The Crew 2, and I feel like it's ruined the whole arcade racing atmosphere since.

This looks utterly abysmal.

I could never get into it. The world is sort of ugly and the voice acting is subpar. The combat is unintuitive and the control scheme, in general, is unnecessarily clunky. It's a weird game, all in all.

@ozkrmz Brands don't usually work, because they don't typically allow for proper deformation in collisions. A game like Burnout needs proper warping of car bodies, like in Flatout and Wreckfest.