I personally don’t understand how people play RPGs no console. I don’t mean this in an arrogant or aggressive manner, back in the day (most of 2000s) consoles completey fucked the PC game market.

These days it’s irrelevant, the market is so huge that one can play tons of unique PC only RPGs and it doesn’t matter what Obsidian or Bethesda are doing.

In context of RPG, consoles make it difficult to have skills systems, include text, allow modding (I still play Fallout 1/2 and Arcanum every few years, more than a quarter of a century later) and do result in UI/UX inefficiency which in turn limits themes and approaches that can be used in world building.

One just has to at VTMB 1 (computer focused) and VTMB (cross platform, but UI is console based and game design was console focused).

I got both Death Stranding and Heavy Rain for pretty cheap, but that was 5+ years after release.

I wouldn’t pay full price. if you waited for 3 years, you can wait some more for a better price. And unless you insist on top of the line blockbusters and are not interested in any thing else there is an infinite ocean of games with all sorts of concepts and new takes on existing formulas.

That being said, I guess if you want Spider Man, you can only get it from Sony? There are no “Arthropod-man” indie variants, are there? Or is that a no-no for US comics book (and games based on US comic books) fans?

At last! I am only 5 hours in, but I really liked what I saw. But combat didn’t agree with me, so I started looking for mods and then I find out a turn based mode is in development! So I decide to put my run on pause.

I will probably start a whole new run.

I strongly prefer turn based for isometric CRPGs. There is always third person for real time combat in RPGs.

I would even argue turn based plays to the strengths of the isometric perspective.

They definitely want to sell hardware and have closed platforms built around their hardware.

But that’s not as easy to do as it was even 10 years ago.

The nature of gaming is changing and it’s more difficult to differentiate based on hardware alone. You have indie games which tend to be multi-platform, you have Roblox, Fortnite, PC specific games have also become more common.

And it’s difficult to manage hardware costs and show meaningful graphical quality improvements. Hardware subsidies in the first few years of a new console are basically not viable anymore.

Even Nintendo’s handheld dominance is being slowly challenged (their games are extremely expensive on a relative basis).

Like dead headless chickens or like chicken who have no issues with ending lives?

I don’t know if making the painting for this kind of game tedious and slow is a good idea. It’s authentic, but not everything needs to be authentic in a video game.

I like the art style and the attempt to mimic medieval art styles, but I find the cell shaded faces to be distracting and annoying. Particularly when I open the screenshots almost full screen.

It’s a worthy attempt at something different though, both in art style and how the medieval tapestry format has been transformed into the baseline gameplay area/map.

The thing with 4x/Civ is that I only got into the genre in university (via Civ 3 although Civ 4 was out for a few years), even though as kid I played all types of games of different genres (back then any time you got access to a game, you just powered through it).

So I am probably not that much younger! :)

MicroProse is definitely legendary and not only because of Civilization/Master of Orion/Master of Magic, they also made X-COM, Transport Tycoon (in addition to Railroad Tycoon); foundational releases for their respective genre/styles.

It is a big achievement to develop a whole new genre and launch the penultimate series in said genre (Civilization and 4X); doing this several times is worthy of respect.

The review for Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness (2000) on Steam (91 positive, 116 negative) and on GOG (3.3 with 56 reviews) suggests it’s not total trash.

And it’s made by Microids, a relatively well known studio in the adventure games space. They made a bunch of early 3D euro-adventures starting from the early to mid 2000s including; the Syberia series, the Atlantis series, Amerzone (which recently saw a remake released).

My personal favourite is Post Mortem (2002), which is a bit formulaic, but I like the 1920s Paris setting.

A lot of their games are not on GOG and while you can find them without too much difficulty, I suspect some don’t run well and require modding. I am personally curious about Road to India: Between Hell and Nirvana; I like the setting, even if the main story seems somewhat cliche.

VPN sure, it can be annoying.

I didn’t know Reddit blocked access when you don’t have an account. It works fine on desktop without logging in, on mobile web for some content they lie about “this content has not been reviewed”, but one click on the view desktop mode suddenly makes this a non-issue. Could be a geography based restriction.

P.S. I am not saying they are lying about the review status of content, they are lying about the reason for not showing content on mobile without logging in.

I should have added that link to the post body text (did it just now). I usually do it on autopilot for Steam/GOG store pages and trailers.

Not if there is no impact on your console platform if a given market segment would never spend money on your platform in the first place.

I bought Death Stranding and Heavy Rain on PC, I would not buy a Playstation just to play those 2 games.

It’s their call of course, I think the era of consoles as a siloed platform is slowly coming to an end.

Great game, but the PC port UI is comically bad and lazy. It so bad on 32 inch monitor.

Interesting to see Sony commit to what is essentially the classical PS2 style console model, when it’s increasingly looking less viable (rise of indie games, relative increase in PC share, inability to subsidize console devices, decreasing returns on graphical improvement costs).

I wonder why Sony didn’t go through with something like a 4-5 year delay before release on PC (it seems that was their plan). One would assume this would allow them to target two completely different parts of the market.

I am really curious if this decision will be explained (at least at high level) in their financial reporting or perhaps even in interviews.

I remember hearing about that one, but I never played it myself.

For me MicroProse will always be associated with publishing Pizza Tycoon.

Pretty niche association, but I discovered Civilization and 4X much later and I’ve never played the original Railroad Tycoon even though I like railroad management game genre.

The lore of this game seems to be that after a massive asteroid hit earth, dinosaurs, elves, dwarfs, wizards and zombies somehow appeared in a post apocalyptic earth.

A bit campy, but could make for a fun setting and narrative experience.

How do you define a browser game? Do you mean a web app game that uses idle/incremental mechanics?

From my understanding, this is not an idle/incremental game.

And the UI is almost like a stylistic adaption or perhaps the only economically viable option.

I hesitate to adopt a label for game I haven’t played but the Steam page and the article do mention a big focus on complex strategy and economic system.

I think the art style holds up pretty well even today. A strong creative direction, as well as integration of visuals with gameplay, story and atmosphere is what defined good graphics for me.

I would argue by that definition SimCity 4 (from 2003!) can hold its own against any modern city-builder:

I was wondering how come they were giving away Elden Ring for free… :)

The combat also caught my attention, don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if some long forgotten game did try something similar.