You probably should just skip to AW2. The first game was pretty mediocre and got old real quick. AW2 has a lot more variety.

Every game developed or published by MS is either going to launch simultaneously on Xbox and PC or launch on PC first, then Xbox later. This has been the case for like the past 4 years.

Yeah, I’m much more interested in simulations that use procedural content to create interesting and emergent gameplay. Using procedural generation to create huge landmasses devoid of interesting content... not so much.

Yeah, the dubbing was really well done.

I’m not even sure what genre Trespasser was supposed to be. It had some bad combat, some bad platforming and some super basic puzzles. If we judge the game as an FPS, then it’s a really bad FPS. Tribes also came out in 1998 and has way more verticality than Trespasser. I mentioned Thief and MGS because they came out…

1. Which would feel “monopolitic” because we know how poor Sony’s offering is on their similar service, especially for new 1st/2nd party games.

Yes, preventative action, as in “we need to block this specific merger because it will increase the company’s market share to the point where they’ll have a monopoly.” That wasn’t the case with the Activision merger. Even with the increase in market share, MS will still be third place behind Nintendo and Sony.

What was great about Elba’s performance..? I can’t think of anything notable about it. He barely expressed any emotion and was monotone like 99% of the time.

I used We Happy Few as an example of a game whose scope and structure changed significantly during development. That game wasn’t a scam. Warframe is another good example. The scope of that game has increased significantly since it launched. Hell, look at Fortnite. It started life as a small, horde mode type game where…

It’s kind of baffling that Melanie Liburd was nominated for Best Performance when she couldn’t even maintain an American accent while Porretta and Vili not only played multiple characters with completely different personalities but also did an elaborate song and dance.

They use different guns and different guns play differently (e.g. a sniper rifle has a completely different playstyle than a shotgun). That said, I do wish there was more weapon variety. Where my rocket and grenade launchers at? Or flamethrowers or lasers? The arsenal is surprisingly mundane by loot shooter standards.

The Academy Awards have been around since 1929 and film as a medium holds far more prestige than videogames. Also, like you said, film has the benefit of celebrities. Videogames do not. The average joe doesn’t know who actually worked on any given game whereas actors are the selling point for movies.

Trespasser had poor level design at the time of its release (1998). It was mostly just large, empty areas with a few structures randomly strewn about. Half-Life, Thief, Duke Nukem 3D, SiN, Metal Gear Solid, etc, all had better level design in 1998 (or earlier).

Again, the game is in early access. It’s entirely possible that they’re going to expand the game’s scope over time. For example, We Happy Few was originally just going to be a survival crafting rogue-lite. After seeing the debut footage, players expected something more like Bioshock so the devs increased the scope of…

To be fair, the game would still have poor level design and AI and wonky physics and crappy combat even with improved controls.

The game is in early access so one could argue that missing features are to be expected at this stage.

I’m excited by how its success might convince AAA publishers to actually invest in CRPGs again. Will the next Dragon Age return to its roots? Maybe MS will greenlight remakes of Fallout 1 and/or 2? We might even see Pillars of Eternity 3 or Wasteland 4.

As someone who participated in the closed alpha, I can confidently tell you that the characters aren’t homogenized. Traversal is a huge part of the game and each character is very unique in that regard. Do they all use guns? Sure but the game isn’t solely about shooting. It’s probably 60% traversal, 40% shooting.

There needs to be a better definition of “ongoing.” To me, that means “live service” and that’s reinforced when you look at the other nominees which are all live service games.

Yeah, that’s an odd one. Also odd that Phantom Liberty wasn’t even nominated for best RPG when Lies of P was.