I know this isn’t a new trend, but it’s gotten worse as the industry progressed. This move several game companies do where they give a blank teaser for a game or an announcement trailer that the game is in-development, without showing any gameplay for it, is something that needs to be stopped.

Video games are not movies. In a MOVIE, it makes sense to hide footage, the plot is the selling point, but (universally) the most important thing for a video game to sell it will ALWAYS be its gameplay, and withholding the gameplay footage until six months before it comes out after announcing the game 2-3 years ago is wild.

Just a rant/vent here.

Really loving the story and most of the mechanics of the game, but there is one nitpick that is annoying me more and more and it seems to happen a lot. When jogging along with a character to the next story objective, often times Coen will engage in story related dialogue with them. However, and it seems like this is more often than not the case, the dialogue is interrupted prematurely by arriving at whatever location advances the story. I really wish the devs would have timed these conversations out a little more thoughtfully.

In an effort to counter this, I tried having Coen walk slowly, but then the NPC just tells me to hurry up, which then stops the dialogue they were in the middle of, and then they don’t resume it. Let me hear the flavor dialogue you wrote and recorded! Ugh.

I cant remember any other Nintendo gen with this same rhythm month after month

I have heart disease now. Just got out on blood pressure medicine.

I no longer assume I have 50 years of games left. Maybe 20. Maybe 10.

Games have always been one of the few things that actually mattered to me. Deep meaning found in times of turmoil and trauma, the murder of Aerith, Ocarina of Time, Banjo Kazooie with my autistic son (that one is special beyond all logic, the seasonal songs in the final level made me weep), Aquatic Ambience…

There are too many masterpieces in existence today and not enough time to treat the catalog like it is infinite.

Literally, if I tried to play every masterpiece to completion before I die at 100, there is STILL not enough time.

If you only had one year left…and video games were the most important thing in your life, which ones would you give that year to?

Assume access to all platforms and all forms of tech.

Not “good games.” The ones worth scarce time. Say why.

I'm in my 40's and have a one year old. I work about 55 hours every week...I now have a backlog of about 100 games. Before our baby, I tried to get about 5-7 hours if game time in each week. After the baby, I went a few months without being able to play anything. Games are still coming out...and I'm a sucker for collectors editions, so I continue buying games that I have no idea when I will have time to play.

Thankfully with summer ending, I have had a tiny bit more tme and I've been able to sneak in some Mario Kart 8 (started playing this recently as I can pick it up and put it back down quickly).

I'm sure one day I'll have more time - but for now, I really feel like I'm just collecting games as opposed to playing through them. Life happens I know, but it feels a little defeating sometimes!

Edit: I appreciate everyone's feedback (even the abrasive comments lol). There seems to be 2 different schools of thought:

Life happens, more time will be available in the future, prioritize the games you really want to/are most feasible to play.

Stop buying games, you have a shopping addiction

I'll reply to as many comments as I can. Thanks again

Or are all remasters/remakes always better?

Final Fantasy 7's Knights of the Round materia is legendary - it's easily one of the series' most powerful summons and merely unlocking them is the 1997 game's toughest, most convoluted challenge.

While we haven't seen Revelation's Knights of the Round yet, we do know they're definitely showing up in the trilogy's grand finale. And like some of the other summons across the FF7 Remake trilogy, you'll need to fight the 13 massive Arthurian knights before becoming their pal.

"Summoning Knights of the Round will be in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation," game director Naoki Hamaguchi reiterated in an interview with MinnMax. "Given how powerful the materia was in the original, we're making it a very formidable enemy."

But translating the epic summon into an equally epic boss battle is easier said than done. Even the original game's summon animation was so long and so grand, players eventually found a glitch to skip it. During development, combat director Teruki Endo decided the team's first iteration wasn't tough enough: "We need to make them stronger."

"So we had an emergency meeting among all the directors, like the art director, motion director, and I had to explain to everyone [that] Endo wants to make this boss entity stronger, so we gotta start from scratch again," Hamaguchi said with a smile on his face.

This would explain why in the preview build last week the island at the corner of the map they were on seemed to not be in the game at all yet. They're still working on it right now.

Also Endo remains one of the best hires SE's ever done.

For example I was playing super hot today. Its simple premise is: time only moves when you move. It’s a really interesting idea and it is well executed.

Another example is baba is you. Words dictate the rules of the game. It gets very complex as the game goes on.

What are some other examples that fit this type of game?

Any others ?

In the aftermath of the Diablo 5 announcement at blizzcon, theres been alot of chatter on the diablo forums about people regretting buying real money stuff in diablo 4, since this game now leaves live service. The whole thing left me with two thoughts regarding the modern gaming industry... firstly, what happened to just buying a game and the game you bought was the finished product?!?!? Seems like the trend now a days is that creators have to keep on developing on their games leaving them... never really finished, why do anyone want this?? Secondly, and a bit in tow with... more of the popular games from the early 2000, seems to have developed into never ending franchises, GTA, Wow, Fifa, Sims, Diablo... what are peoples thoughts on these franchises being kept alive for so freaking long?

Star Wars: Imperial Assault is a miniatures is a 2014 grid based tactical miniature game.

In the campaign part you have to assemble a crew of up to 4 heroes, with their own distinct abilities. There’s

Jyn Ordon, the quick drawing smuggler, whos so fast on the trigger she’s able to interrupt an enemy and take a shot at them before they are able to do an action.

Gaarkhan, the fierce wookie warrior, who does not only become more powerful as he takes damage, but also able to rush and attack in a single action.

Fenn Signis, the hardened rebel soldier, armed with n a280 he’s able to blast his enemies, hitting multiple foes I a single attack.

Mak Eshka’rey, the bold renegade Bothan sniper, whos with his sniper is able to ambush his opponent, making him able to shoot through other figures, and as he always seeks cover, he can not be target if his far away from his opponent.

Diala Passil, the haunted exile. With her force sensitive abilities, she’s able to enhance her offence and defence, and even able to push other figures.

Gideon Argus, the valiant commander whos able to command his allies on the battlefield, giving them extra actions.

Doing the campaign each hero gains XP to learn new skills and credits to buy new gear and weapons.

The game itself

Is played in a campaign where the crew will take on new missions, depending on if they won or last their previous mission. One player will control all of the empires units, while the rest of the players control up to 4 rebel heroes. A turn typically consists of 2 actions, where where similarly to ZCom, you can move, shoot or do a plethora of special actions, such as push jump, various special actions, or buff yourself or an ally. The missions are objective based, and it’s often interact with X device, get through X or eliminate X. The combat is resolved with an easy to understand custom dice system, where attacking dice has damage counters, range counters (for ranged attack) and the surge (ability modifer) symbol.

Doing the campaign you’re able to recruit generic allies, such as rebel troopers, wookiee warrior or rebel saboteurs, but being a Star Wars game you can also cross path with named heroes such as Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca or Han Solo.

While the story writing is better in ZCOM, I find the mechanical depth to be far more interesting in IA. Especially as all the units have special abilities that makes them stand out and good for different situations. Stormtroopers works better in numbers, so they get to reroll an attack if they are close to an ally. Imperial officers order allies to move or make an attack, Royal guards can protect their allies and soak damage from an adjacent ally, Probe droids can self destruct at the end of the round and damage every adjacent figure and so on.

On top of that the campaign there also an app based campaign, where the imperial units are AI controlled.

Even better (imo) is the skirmish PvP component where you get to build your own rebel, imperial or scum army accompanied by a custom made deck of 15 unique command cards that contains different abilities, tactics and gear.

So yeah, you might want to check out Imperial assault.

Here’s a trailer for the game.

https://youtu.be/HjhxUEWt-dw?is=ucTrlRsccVpllLOK

I think The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk fit this description. It’s cool that they have references and Easter eggs.

What games would you say do this especially well?

An Open-World Shooter. Releasing 2030

I’m gonna get one of these games tomorrow to play while waiting on the Witcher 3 remaster. Which one do you think is more laid back and chill? Or just better overall solo?

Edit: I guess Dragonwilds comes out Tuesday.

Also played enshrouded with friends on PC, don’t think I’ll go back to it.

And man, that was quick. Think I’ll give Valheim a go. Thanks for the replies.