I also dislike it, but it's easy to see why. Once something is both this widespread and user friendly it will become increasingly more popular in a positive feedback loop. Easier onboarding is so valuable compared to having to teach people your in-house engine.
I'm afraid we'll only see more Unreal games in the future.
Spaceballs is a timeless classic.
Ghost of Tsushima is one of the most overrated games of all time. It's a perfectly fine experience carried by solid combat and high polish, but far from being one of the best games of all time. The writing and acting is monotonously dour and the quest design is uninspiring, which wears you out because the game is also way too long for what little variety it offers. The open world is also your bland, boring, garden variety Ubisoft style.
Romances in BG3 are poorly written and realized and detract from the quality of the game. BG3 in general is merely "fine for a video game" in terms of writing. People also let the game get away with murder in terms of how much it falls apart in the third act.
Cyberpunk 2077 - despite all its flaws - is CDPR's best game.
Don't know why I'm not hyped about this game. It should appeal to me. I love a cyberpunky dystopia, retro-futurism is perhaps my favourite aesthetic and early 2000s influences should be prime nostalgia bait for me. But I've watched some trailers and it just isn't hitting the spot for me. It looks like it's going for more comedy, so maybe the humour comes through better in the actual game?
Can someone who played it fill me in? Is it actually good? Is the combat actually good? I heard mixed things from people during the betas.
My first exposure was when DDO went from subscription model to free-to-play but with microtransactions in 09.
At the time I thought it was a great idea as it ended up cheaper to sustain for me than paying monthly (since many dungeons were skippable and you could also earn cash shop currency by grinding) which led me to have a confusingly positive association with the concept of microtransactions for quite a while.
I'm happy for the people who enjoy it but I'm also very glad I got off this train. Sounds like it was at the right time, at least for me.
The graphics update looks good though and was sorely needed!
From looking at the GOG store it doesn't seem to be bundled with any patch, which is actually unusual for GOG. If you're interested I heartily recommend Restoration Project, Updated or RPU for short. It's a combined unofficial patch/cut content restoration that's very vanilla friendly and tidies up a lot of stuff left unfixed in the last official patch.
Yeah those Wanamingos are scary in the early game, definitely a place to come back to later. Armour can be tough to get as it doesn't typically drop as random loot. There are two leather armours for sale in Klamath I think if you've gotten a bit of money now.
I'm glad you're enjoying Fallout 2, it's probably my all time favourite Fallout! Are you playing with the Restoration Project?
I know exactly what you mean by that early game bottleneck. FO2 can be rough in the early stages between lack of equipment and the comically unbalanced random encounters. It usually swings the other way once you can survive big encounters and sell the looted weapons after.
How far have you gotten?
Instead of jumping on the Elden Ring DLC I've continued to be addicted to Esports Godfather to an almost worrying degree.
It's the clear standout surprise hit of the year for me so far, coming out of absolutely nowhere and ending up being my favourite game in quite a while. It's a MOBA-themed deckbuilder/autobattler/team management game, and while that sounds like a hot mess it actually plays really well - at least once you get past the initial information overload.
There are lots of fun interactions between cards, items, hero abilities and player abilities which in itself creates great replayability, and constantly changing rulesets keeps things fresh even during a run. The Backpack Battles esque training minigame itself is super fun to optimise when you start getting deep into a run and have more complex blocks to play with.
I heartily recommend it if you like deckbuilders (some passing knowledge of MOBAs might help). It's only €16 on Steam, and there is a free demo that covers the first couple of hours of a run. I recommend playing with AI difficulty on maximum for both card playing and ban/pick for the best experience (the game is a little too easy by default).
Vanilla Elden Ring felt pretty good in that regard (granted it's been a while since I played it). As I recall between weapons, spells, Ashes of War and Spirit Ashes you had a lot of tool choices and were free to sort of make the game as difficult or easy for yourself as you liked.
Sounds like they lost that aspect in the DLC, which is a shame.
I agree with you about BG3, but not about games in general. I think romance stories are valid narratives and can add to the experience if executed well.
The presence of sex also depends on the scope and intent of the game. Ultimately, love and sex are integral parts of the human experience. And some settings - like Cyberpunk - would be strictly weird and implausible without stuff like oversexualised ads and street hookers.
Honestly, the Larian writing style and humour would have probably been a better fit for Fallout.