Microsoft is being aggressive with Xbox Game Pass, a subscription service that gives Xbox console owners instant access to over 100 games. While Sony doesn't really have an Xbox Game Pass equivalent, it has introduced a new PlayStation Plus program with the PS5 that greatly increases the value of the serv
One change that should definitely be made to how MGS5 handles this system, however, is the removal of the Fulton recovery balloons that makes capturing enemies very easy. Instead, players should have to physically take Mules and Demens to different facilities, possibly to a specific few that have the ability to rehabilitate these enemies, making each recruitment a much more intimate encounter. Given that the entire narrative of Death Stranding involves connecting Sam to the other characters around him as much as connecting the United Cities of America, having the chance to rescue people would really help drive those themes h
It is also the single best implementation of cause-and-effect relationships I have ever seen in a game. A lot of this has to do with the Pratchett-esque liveliness of the characters, but it can at least partially be attributed to how ambitious its long-term consequences are, too. You’re given a year to raise the arbitrary sum of 6.5 million gold, and you can do this by selling out allies, refusing to build hospitals, or working as a legitimate business owner in a cutthroat early capitalist industrial regime. No matter what you do, you’re going to be bitten in the arse somehow, which is always refreshingly real in the most tongue-in-cheek way possible.
For a game that is almost twenty years old, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind still holds up remarkably well. The tale of the Nerevarine and their adventures laid the groundwork for countless WRPGs since and the vast amount of customization and exploration will always make the game worth returning f
There was nothing quite like getting together with your mates and farting in some uppity noble’s face. Let’s have our dogs antagonize everyone in the village while we taunt them from afar. I loved growing great big demon horns and knocking about Bowerstone with people cowering in fear, not because I was especially dangerous or murdery, but because they knew I was going to be as rude as humanly possible before revelling in their misfortune and legging it off to ruin someone else’s
I’d like to go back to what I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. A month and a bit into Genshin and I’m still signing in on the regular. I’m dying for another Elemental Crucible-esque event where I can partner with random players and boot around some hilichurls in all-out cooperative mayhem. I know I can play the rest of the game in co-op, but again — I like the single-player parts being single-player. That’s a great thing about Genshin — it recognizes that balance between experiencing a story on your own and exploring the world around it with other people. I think that would be great for Fable in particular — maybe Bowerstone is an MMO-esque hub where you can flick a switch and all of a sudden, boom! Marketplace, flog your trinkets and bullshit for coin, the more you rip people off the better. Flick the switch back and all of a sudden, boom! NPCs are the only people bothering you, and you can just ignore them if you w
Perhaps all the options make the game seem longer in the beginning, especially on subsequent playthroughs. Players were meant to play this game multiple times to experience the different paths. Unfortunately, that can make the intro a little boring after a wh
Fable 3 is ten years old today. It’s not as good as Fable or Fable 2 — if you’ve read this far, you’ll know that isn’t the argument I’m making. The argument is that Fable 3 is an oddly unique game. Ten years later, I’ve yet to see anything remotely like it, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find something that is more unanimously ambitious than it is. Yes, there have been more impressive art styles. Yes, I’m sure another game has a far better skill system. But as a whole, nobody ever told the people making Fable 3 that actually, what they were doing was a bit too much. Actually, maybe more is not better. Actually, we can have property management and an entire monarch simulator lapped onto the end of an industrial revolution/medieval fantasy hybrid RPG, but come on. Do we really need full animations for baking pies and dog tricks? "Of course we do," came Lionhead’s resounding response in my imagination. "Otherwise it wouldn’t be Fable."