I do agree that it's nostalgia-powered and fuelled by millennials with disposable income being a fertile market, but to me here's the weird thing: I think pixel art can look incredibly beautiful while the old early 3D game style looks like absolute ass (such as the OG FF7 screenshot above).
But I grew up much more on the latter than the former. There has to be more to it than just nostalgia.
They already walked back on it in Max Payne 2, which made me irrationally upset at the time. But in Alan Wake 1/2 the Max Payne stand-in Alex Casey had Sam Lake's face again... so, maybe?
I'm more worried about how they'll approach James McCaffrey's passing. He is Max Payne, but I feel like they will recast him out of sheer necessity (unless they really just stick slavishly to the originals and give them a fresh coat of paint).
Basically Homeless is an absolute treasure. The gas powered PC (and followup) are a personal favourite but all his build videos and his Stupid Setups are absolute gold. Using a printer as a monitor was another highlight.
Disco Elysium sits completely unchallenged at the top spot as the most meaningful experience I've had playing a video game. I resonated deeply with its themes and its main character as someone who has struggled with depression, addiction, obsession and trouble moving on. It's an astonishing achievement in both writing and in the use of a game as a storytelling medium, an one of the best ever examples of "video games as art".
The rest of the list is almost impossible to order, because there are so many different ways to rank them. Games I've played that I think are the objectively best? Games I would like to just sit down and play right now the most? Games that made the biggest impression on me as a person, especially growing up?
Regardless, it's probably any two out of:
Will probably add Expedition 33 to it in the future, but need the dust to settle on it first. EDIT: Hell, Blue Prince has a good shot at making the list too.
EDIT 2: Somehow forgot Dishonored 1&2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. It really is impossible to list just three!
Good-aligned "resist the Durge" works out better anyway imo and feels like the intended canon playthrough.
If you don't like anime, and you're too old to relate to teens anymore, and you might cringe at edgy youth fiction... Is P5R still worth playing?
I've heard some people really love it, but I've been very hesitant to play it for the above reasons. Also it's like 200h long so it's a big commitment.
I don't play D&D - in fact I don't play any TTRPG anymore (imagine having friends) - but I've heard a lot of criticism about WOTC's products, yes. A lion's share of it is about how unhelpful the official adventures are for DMs, but I've also heard the writing criticised from time to time.
I've heard good things about Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Curse of Strahd remake though.
Well, canonically Edwin gets punked by Elminster and lives out his days as a bar wench. And since they decided from the get-go to set BG3 a hundred years after the originals he'd be long dead, along with any other human NPC from the older games. Which, the fact that they started from the point of "let's set it 100 years later" tells you enough of how much they wanted to deal with the older games. Viconia is not the only thing in BG3 that gives vibes of disdain at worst and disinterest at best for the originals. Flail of Ages is a useless trash weapon randomly sold by a vendor, for fucks sake!
I wonder how many at Larian even played BG1&2. I get such a Wiki-research vibe from a lot of the callbacks.
Viconia and Sarevok had no reason to be in BG3 and by choosing to use WOTCs deplorably terrible supplemental product lore as canon Larian has now cemented those character portrayals forever, which was just pure character assassination.
Got it on sale semi-recently but haven't gotten around to playing it yet. Glad to hear you're enjoying it, I've only heard good things.
Don't mind me if I do wishlist that, that looks interesting actually.
I'm excited to finally get to Infinite, I own it but my backlog priority keeps getting reshuffled. I'll get to it this year (I think).
I've been wanting an action RPG Pokémon forever but this does not make me excited. Also not keen on buying Nintendo products anyway.