General gaming discussion

one armed dwarf wrote: »

For me tho I prefer to play a small number of games over and over.

I'd be the opposite. I like to see as much of what this sprawling medium has to offer as I can, so I most appreciate games that get their ideas across succinctly (although obviously there are long, epic games that deserve to be long and epic). That's why it maddens me that so many modern games - AAA ones in particular - waste our time with hours and hours of filler, and also why I tend to drop out of 'forever' games and multiplayer-centric ones fairly quickly. There are exceptional games I do replay or bump up the difficulty for a bit, but it'd be a rare game indeed that would tempt me to NG+ (Bayonetta, perhaps).

There's no perfect length for every game, only individual games which are the perfect length for what they are. Sayonara Wild Hearts is a one sitting masterpiece; Return of the Obra Dinn hasn't an ounce of fat on its body and you'd get through it in a weekend; Outer Wilds is 20-25 hours of pure magnificence; a Soulsborne game will consume 50-60 hours of my life without me noticing the hours tick by. But modern AAA games in general - whether that's FF7R, TLOUII, or the innumerable open world content-athons - more often than not are far longer than their ideas justify. The exceptions are welcome - Half-Life Alyx was the rare franchise game that filled the hours with worthwhile ideas, and Resident Evil of all series has kept things pretty focused recently.

As I've said before, I feel we're at the point where I'd love to see developers start considering smaller, cheaper projects - such as Uncharted Lost Legacy - rather than the overextended €60-70 epic that has regrettably become the norm for even games that don't need to be that long.

pixelburp wrote: »

Detective / murder mystery games seem quite a rare breed; wonder why that is, if it's just too niche a genre or if mechanically it's hard to actually develop and codify the shoe leather involved in detecting. Or have I just missed them among the shovelware on online stores; "The Sexy Brutale" was one of the few I've seen that did something beyond visual novel or point n' click style games.

Return of the Obra Dinn showed up and redefined the genre

pixelburp wrote: »

Oh yeah, forgot about that; though probably because that colour scheme / art style is the single big reason I've not played the game. Very headache inducing for me...

There are a bunch of visual options in the game that could help you in that regard - they don’t fundamentally change the art style, but certainly scope to change the colour scheme and the like

If you do get past the visuals, can’t recommend the game enough - truly and immediately one of the all time greats, and just the most inspired realisation of deduction and detective work in any game. Hard to go back to ‘press R for detective mode’ after it for sure :pac:

Been playing a bit of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension for the past few nights and it's been a grand old time indeed. It's a sequel / expansion to a free game from a few years ago (I haven't played it). You've likely played these sort of twisty, meta-spoofs before with the likes of Pony Island, Frog Fractions or The Stanley Parable, but this one still has plenty of fun tricks up its sleeve. An awful lot of thought and affection has gone into the different sections you encounter, and there's lots of rule breaking and fresh design ideas while still being deeply indebted to the point n click classics of old.

Certainly well worth the tenner from my 90 minutes or so with it so far

Heads up for anyone that might be interested that the just released new Total War game is randomly (and by randomly I mean 'publisher was handed a sack of money with a dollar sign on it') free on the Epic Game Store until lunchtime tomorrow. Remnant From The Ashes is also free from today as part of their weekly giveaway, plus the Alto Collection (port of some very cool and chill mobile games - no idea how they'll translate to PC).

The Last Guardian is low-key one of the greatest games of all time - truly beautiful experience to play through, and at least on a par with the transcendent Ico (I’ve always been a little bit cooler on SotC, which is still magnificent). A remaster for PS5 could be a really, really special thing.