The Witcher is the only game I’ve ever rage quit and then rage uninstalled. There’s a mission a number of hours in where bandits get you into a swampy bottleneck, while one shoots you at range and the “Pain” animation stunlocks you into dying at the hands of his minions. Fuck that game. Live is too short to grind through that shit :P
It still has some rough edges, even after the major updates. I liked the Panam ending a lot, arguably one of my favorite game endings ever, but the police spawn and logic is still terrible compared to the likes of older GTA games, and the cars still feel gross to drive. Just Cause 2 had better vehicle handling, and that’s a title from 2010.
Nothing went wrong. Remember the era where every sequel was straight to DVD? Who remembers The Lion King 2? How about Brother Bear 2? Sonic Adventure 2?
It’s difficult to iterate on a piece of media that was written to be a standalone entity.
The only exceptions really are when stories are split into multiple games (such as halo 1-3)
Even though Larian did a great job modernizing pieces, D&D 5E is just really crunchy and outdated, imo. Larian’s own Divinity Original Sin 2 had a largely better combat, magic, and armor system, even if it is a slightly older title now.
Physical and magic armor, spell cooldowns (prevents spell spam and constant short and long rests), advanced elemental and cursed surfaces, and diversified healing and combat magic make characters more flexible.
5e’s rest system is good for taking care of (what was) useless food in inventory, moves the story along, and provides good places for more natural relationships. D&Ds lack of flexible healing and spell slots means a lot of annoying enemy encounters, however.
I’m on my second playthrough of both titles right now. BG3’s story is awesome. :)
BF1 with standard issue rifles was great. One week had standard issue only, and it was a ton of fun, but a lot of people whined because it was “too hard” lol. (Getting shot generally killed you instantly).
BF1 was also one of the only games where shotguns were as powerful as their IRL counterparts. Once again, people complained that they’d get dropped by a shotgun 3x-4x the range of a video game shotgun. People didn’t realize that shotguns have an effective range greater than 2m IRL, lol. Unfortunately, all the standard weapons were nerfed, all the prototypes or three person guns were modified to be one person, and buffed. And unfortunately, that was the last game patch, so things were left horribly imbalanced in an otherwise amazing game. Still, WW1-era fighting and ship tactics still work.
Judging by all the shark card crap they jammed into the last GTA, I fully expect them to shovel a bunch of crap in to make more money: $70 base games, deluxe editions, DLC, micro transactions, social club integration, required internet connections, all of it.
I miss the old GTAs before they got greedy.
It’s not very arcady, and has a bit of a learning curve, though a HOTAS helps a lot. It’s a lot more simulation-esque. Not as much as MSFS, but closer to that end. Combat, exploration, mining, tourism, rescue. It’s a 1:1* replica of the Milky Way in about 1,300 years. Trailer for context: https://youtu.be/YESNObZJTgQ
It will blow your nuts off in VR, especially the Ship Launched Fighters (SLFs). One of the coolest VR experiences I’ve ever had, particularly near the center of the galaxy where the stars are much more dense than in our portion of the Milky Way.
*Some stars had to be removed near the center of the galaxy because they are so close, it makes it nearly impossible to navigate between them. On older computers, the galaxy map in the core of our galaxy will make your computer lag. Yes, we have that many stars IRL.
If you are the simmy type or like space, Elite Dangerous is insanely good, but has a learning curve up front. It’s the only game I’ve put over 1,100 hours in and still haven’t explored everything.
Subnautica is another game I can highly recommend.
If you wanna play games with friends (Elite is also MP), The Forest is a great game to bond over.
Black mesa is another banger.
Black mesa is worth it, full price. I played both the OG and black mesa back to back. Fantastic game!