Andromeda is fine as long as you don’t compare it to the core Mass Effect trilogy. Ryder is no Shepard, and none of your squadmates are as memorable as Garrus, Tali, Mordin and the rest. But take the game as its own thing, and it’s a pretty good time.

Yep, Live Another Life is usually in my list too. I inevitably wind up downloading a mod that breaks the wagon scene, so it’s a life saver.

The first time I tried to run ENB, I had an older PC and I thought it was going to have a heart attack. I agree that it makes a huge difference in terms of the game’s looks, though!

Modding Skyrim is a rabbit hole that leads straight into the Mines of Moria. And the Balrog has opened an adult bookstore.

Nothing wrong with that answer! Skyrim can even be played in 3rd person, and there are mods to make 3rd person combat more satisfying if you get it on PC.

The last FPS I really got into was Overwatch, and my two mains (Mercy and Reinhardt) weren’t gun fighters. Some FPS games actually try to innovate, like Titanfall, and while I can’t get into them, I can see the appeal. But then there’s the Call of Duty and Battlefield series, which largely give us the same gameplay over and over again. I know they’re popular for a reason, and they continue to sell really well, but… yeah. I just don’t get it.

I thought “Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion” was a game trying a little too hard to be quirky, with an attention-grabbing title and little depth beyond one or two jokes.

That game… went places. Places I did not expect.

I played a couple of hours of the first game. The atmosphere and audio design were amazing. The core gameplay, though… it needed some work. Repetitive combat and lack of clarity in navigating the game’s world made me give it up. If the sequel improves on those weak spots, it could be very enjoyable. But yeah, the trailer told us very little about that.

Is Kotaku’s business model rage-baiting to generate clicks? Yes.

Is toxicity toward female gamers online a real problem? Also yes.

Some of my friends get annoyed when I take that stance, but it’s absolutely possible for both statements to be true simultaneously. I want women to feel safe if they want to try online gaming, and it’s counter-productive when sites like Kotaku constantly post fear-mongering articles about it rather than offer any solutions.

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President of the NUSA?

It sounds like they’ve backed away from making this an open world game like Skyrim, and are styling Avowed in a similar fashion to the Outer Worlds. I have mixed feelings about that… I was hoping we’d see a successor to the Elder Scrolls series, just in case Elder Scrolls VI gets stuck in development hell until the heat death of the universe. However, if the Obsidian devs don’t want to do open world, and think the game will be better without that expectation hanging over them, it’s probably best to trust them on that.

They actually brought back the Annoying Adoring Fan from the Arena in Elder Scrolls IV. Same voice actor and everything.

They’re trying hard to push it as the new standard, but not every publisher is doing it yet. It’s been tried before, and fizzled out because consumers stopped buying as much but unfortunately, it might stick this time.

$70 USD to play an open world Bethesda game on launch day is a joke. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s laughable that Microsoft and Bethesda think anyone should be paying that much money to beta test the buggy, unstable, maybe even unfinished version of Starfield we’re likely getting in September. You’ll be paying the most money for the worst version of the game, period. And this is coming from someone who bought Skyrim on launch day in 2011.

Even if Starfield is better than expected, and surprisingly playable on launch day, I have no doubt in my mind that it will be an even better game by late 2024 thanks to the modding community, and you’ll probably be able to get it on sale by then. Especially if you plan to buy it on Steam, where big sales events seem to happen every week. But I doubt Starfield is going to be finished in September, because Bethesda has been given a mandate to hit a product launch target determined by Microsoft board room executives. We’ve all seen enough games this year, especially on PC, that were practically broken on day one, and especially after Redfall, I have a feeling that Starfield won’t be any better.

I agree, BioWare does not need to be devoting its resources to SW:TOR at this point. It’s been out for a good, long while and the fact is, MMORPGs are not big money-makers these days. There was a huge wave of them in the wake of WoW’s success but none of them were able to achieve the kind of market success, player base or staying power of WoW. That ship has sailed, and it’s only appropriate to let the BioWare devs get back to doing what they do best.

I don’t have high hopes for the next Dragon Age game, but would love to be pleasantly surprised. They’ve changed directions so many times during the development of that game, so I’m expecting the end result to be a mess. Mass Effect gives me slightly more hope as a possible return to form for BioWare though, if they learn from Andromeda’s missteps and focus on what made the original trilogy (particularly the first two games) great.

It boggles my mind that anyone, outside of the far-right lunatic fringe, is still on that platform. I left months before Elon Musk showed up, because they weren’t doing enough to fight misinformation in 2020, and now it’s an absolute dumpster fire. I can only guess there’s something like the sunk cost fallacy at work here, and that’s why people are reluctant to leave.