It's always a bad sign when you enter a new location and find most of the enemies are already dead. Not in terms of the game being broken, or even in terms of maybe you have dementia and just forgot you'd passed through here already, but it means that there's something so bad-ass lurking in the depths that it prompted everyone else to spawn already dead, out of fear. Or (as we later found out) it could mean that someone had already gone through this dungeon and stolen what it was you were hoping to find. Bastards.
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.
A new Partner Spotlight Sale is now live on the Switch eShop, including Skyrim, lowest price ever for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and more.
Obviously this game is going to be the bee's testicles but the one thing I really would like to know is how many opportunities to make decisions there are in this game. The best part of Fallout 3 to me was making choices that had real impact upon the world, however small. I loved Oblivion but looking at it objectively most missions were fetch quests, pure combat or some other 'go there, do this, come back' type of gameplay. I think I already read in reviews or previews that this game doesn't have the big Earth shattering decisions of Fallout but I hope at least they added the kind of little decisions like choosing how to handle the Arefu ransacking gang rather than just having to run in and kill them all.