OXM UK: "When you spend most of your free time trying to squeeze in sessions with as many games as possible, it's not unusual to find yourself fiddling around with some catastrophically duff products. Worse than that though, are the game-breakers: titles that left me with a faintly fuzzy afterglow that I couldn't quite shake."
MW 2019 is five years old at this point and on previous gen hardware, but it is still the best looking Call of Duty game to date.
MW was an excellent videogame. They messed up Spec Ops big time, but aside from this it was a huge step in the right direction initially. Most notably, at launch it seemed to come from a very cohesive creative vision that was felt across gameplay, to story to art style/visual direction. It was also very notably written by prominent ex-Naughty Dog guys that quit almost immediately before release.
That COMPLETELY dissolved through post-launch content and the full pivot to a "cross-mode" narrative that completely obliterated the cohesion in overall story direction. Warzone then "became" the new face of Call of Duty and the franchise completely removed itself from anything remotely creatively "good". It is a pure money machine, so I kinda get why they're doing it....but I personally completely lost interest.
I would love to see Infinity Ward move off CoD and get to make their own product with full control. They clearly have some massive talent in their ranks but it's perverted by Activision's corporate interests.
Replaying Skyrim after 13 years is a reminder of the progress made in western RPGs over the last decade, but also what's been lost.
RPGs are often huge, sprawling endeavours. With limited playtime, we have to choose wisely, so here's the best western RPGs available today.
"I started playing games yesterday" the List... Meh!
How about a few RPGs that deserve some love instead?
1 - Alpha Protocol - Now on GOG
2 - else Heart.Break()
3 - Shadowrun Trilogy
4 - Wasteland 2
5 - UnderRail
6 - Tyranny
7 - Torment: Tides of Numenera
And for a bonus game that flew under the radar:
8 - Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Not only glorious jank, but the idea that the story can completely change depending on what you do, or say, or side with, makes it one of the most forward thinking games ever. The amount of story permutation is the equivalent of a Hitman level but in Story Form. And it wasn't just that the story changed, no, it was that you met completely new characters, or missed them, depending on your choices. Made Mass Effect feel static in comparison.
Alpha Protocol was absolutely glorious, indeed. And it was, and still is, more Next Gen than most anything out there these days. In this regard at least.
Pity.
Any proper Mario game. Oh, and from what I've played of it - Rayman Origins. Games used to be about fun. Nowadays, unfortunately, they're more about hard work.
Am I the only one who thought Bayonetta was overrated? I don't see what all the hype is about. It's a decent game, just not great.
How is Skyrim on that list? I think the author said he watched somebody play it for a while?
it's not the games themselves who are ruining gaming it's what the publishers and developers are doing.
Setting new standards for quality in a genre hardly "ruined" gaming.
My choices would probably be the "Souls" games by From (incredible games) and Mario and Zelda (with the exception of Okami from Clover) platforming and adventure franchises. Much of this is simply due to the incredible talent and creativity behind those series. Also, the level of polish they put into those games is impeccable.
CoD 4 is more difficult for me to include because of what DICE's work since CoD 4. Although it was fantastic when it was released, the genre has hardly been stagnant since then; rather, I'd argue DICE's multiplayer in BF games has surpassed CoD 4. Some BF fans might argue that BF has always been the superior online multiplayer FPS franchise.