Solid advice, and this is why I’m always really glad when Microsoft ‘announces’ these things well ahead of time (even when it’s done in this sort of cheeky, marketing-speak fashion). There have been a handful of others that I pre-ordered, only to find out that they hit GamePass on the day the game came out, sometimes…

I mean, I’m sure they do - the question is more ‘how are those profits calculated’? Can I make sure a developer gets paid just by downloading a game? Are they getting paid more the more I play it? Or is it just a lump sum up front, and the only ‘benefit’ the developers get from me downloading/playing their game is a…

Absolutely; I’m just happy it’s coming to GamePass, because that seems like kind of a ‘best of both worlds’ solution - I’d assume downloading it on GamePass is, on some level, support for the devs, even though I’ve never been quite clear on exactly how developers get paid when it comes to GamePass... and it means I…

It’s definitely something that differs from gamer to gamer, sure, though I think that’s an interesting example, just because my first From Software game actually was Bloodborne, and I went back to the earlier games afterward with no problems, which I probably wouldn’t have done without Bloodborne. (Which I still think…

Came here to post the same thing!

I’ve always been really curious about this as well: is it a lump sum payment? ‘Times downloaded’, or maybe ‘hours played’? Or a combination of the two, where it’s a lump sum up front, and then maybe bonuses when certain benchmarks are hit?

I enjoyed it as well, but I’m a little concerned about just how much it reminded me of Anthem. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing - the moment-to-moment gameplay of Anthem wasn’t bad at all - but in terms of ‘games that ultimately left a sour taste in my mouth’, it’s hard to avoid.

I don’t think it’s anywhere near the best Bethesda has to offer, but I do think that part of the reason fans of the older games don’t like it as much is that Bethesda was kind of trying to ‘dumb it down’ to appeal to a broader audience, and, well, they succeeded. Which is why I do think it’s a good ‘on ramp’ to the…

Yeah, I’m honestly going to be a little surprised if I wind up loving it - I know it has its defenders, but some of those ‘quality of life’ improvements introduced in Oblivion (and then refined in Skyrim) can’t be overstated. Even going back to Oblivion after Skyrim sometimes has me going ‘man, I really miss x, y, or…

Ah, man. Poor Crow. Poor Holliday, too, come to think of it. And yeah - that’s exactly the sort of stuff they’ve been doing so well this season, that sort of incidental character building that really helps ‘sell’ the emotional beats of the main narrative.

Part of how hard it would be ‘to go backward’, I think, is just going to depend on how well an individual can do that in general - older graphics and clunkier controls aren’t necessarily a deal-breaker, especially to someone who was playing games during that era, even if they never played that specific game itself.

I adored it - and I’m not usually big on the whole ‘roguelike, permadeath, repetition is the name of the game’ thing, either. To me, the best part about it is how much more focused the characters are - because you’re constantly bouncing between five characters, they all play into certain specialties, unlike Yu, who…

To be fair, Microsoft does offer a discount on games before they leave the service - so I think their notion is that, if you like a game enough to buy DLC for it, you’d like it enough to flat-out buy it before it leaves GamePass.

That’s true; it’s all of ten percent, I think (or as I call it in my neck of the woods: ‘sales tax’), but it’s better than nothing. And honestly, as far as ‘things I want to encourage game studios to try by giving them my hard earned cash’, DLCs as ambitious, self-contained, and just flat out cool as Mooncrash are…

Exactly. Fallout 4 isn’t where I would tell someone to start if they were coming from RPGs, either - even modern, streamlined RPGs like BioWare’s stuff - but coming from more ‘traditional’ FPS games, I feel like Fallout 4 is actually a pretty great introduction, in part because of some of the problems long-term…

And that’s definitely a legitimate knock - but I think, in terms of ‘introducing the series to someone who’s only played traditional FPS games’ , that’s actually kind of a help. Fallout 4 seems bare-bones to us in terms of that sort of mechanic, but to someone who’s coming from Destiny or Call of Duty or something -…

Same here: I started in the genre with Resident Evil 2 (rented from Blockbuster!) and fell in love, and it definitely seems weird to me that RE fans - or at least, fans of that RE4 era stuff - wouldn’t enjoy TEW: viewed as Mikami sort of evolving that RE4 formula on a parallel track from what Capcom was doing, I find…

I’m actually weirdly ambivalent about Bungie dropping down the grind; on one hand, yeah, like you said, forcing me into that grind just so I can ‘get to’ the new content is obnoxious. But on the other, the grind is... pretty much the only reason I engage with some of those basic activities like regular strikes, and I…

I go back and forth on those two games: I love the over-the-top art design, but the over-the-top narrative just leaves me cold. I love some of the structural and gameplay mechanics - especially the ‘sort of open world areas’ from the second one - but there are also chapters I find rote, repetitive, and kinda…

Mooncrash is the best; I’d definitely rank it over base-Prey, and probably over Dishonored 2, as well, in terms of ranking Arkane games - and again, like you said, that’s not meant as an insult, they’re all fantastic games.