It depends on how you define ‘need’, I think; most corporations are going to view ‘continually growing your user base’ as the definition of success, and right now, GamePass is doing a far better job at that with Microsoft than any of their exclusives are. In other words, ‘if you buy a Playstation, you do it because of…

I am always curious when these deals are made: it’s possible the Avengers coming to Playstation Now might have felt like a much bigger deal to Sony... if the deal was written, you know, a few months before the game’s actual release. The fact that a game with an expensive license like the Avengers - and the built-in…

It’s been long enough I honestly don’t remember how Anthem’s loot worked, exactly, just that it never felt particularly rewarding. (Though that was never my biggest knock on the endgame - the thing that ultimately made me drop it was more ‘there just isn’t enough to do, and what there is is kind of cumbersome’.)

I usually love sniping in games, and I just kept trying to ‘make’ it fun here (maybe it’ll be fun with higher-tier guns! maybe it’ll be fun with a different class!), and it’s just... not. Likewise, I may be a bit biased towards the Technomancer, just because I love a good turret, and from what I’ve seen of that skill…

Okay, so after a weekend spent playing all four classes, I wanted to expand on my initial reply: I think you’re right about the ‘division’ between the classes, but I think it has less to do with the actual class design and more to do with the fact that the longer-ranged guns just... aren’t as fun to use, both from a…

Well put.

And that definitely makes a lot of sense (especially given how frustrated I can be with Destiny ‘gatekeeping’ cool content behind higher difficulties/no matchmaking). The difficulty I seem to be having with Outriders - having played it a little more today - is that the ‘sweet spot’ in terms of difficulty just isn’t…

Yeah, I could definitely see that happening. (Reminds me of Destiny, where I’ll be comparing items in my inventory whilst also looking at my ‘stash’, and then accidentally stash something rather than equipping it, and have to spend five minutes digging it out again, because... I am a hoarder.)

I quite liked Anthem’s ‘pace of combat’... eventually, but you’re definitely right that Outriders is a lot more fun right out of the gate. I also think tying the various loot directly into the powers helps, but the guns still feel same-y and light-weight to me, which is where I was going to with the Anthem comparison.…

No worries; I appreciate it!

And that may be why it seems a little byzantine to me; I never played much Diablo (just not my favorite ‘type’ of game, in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay), so it’s all a little foreign at the moment. I’m sure I’ll figure it out, though!

Good to know; I was thinking more in terms of just ‘how the game feels to play’, in a moment-to-moment sense. From that perspective, it’s hard for me to shake Anthem - strap a jetpack on my Outrider, and he wouldn’t be that far off from a... ah... I forgot already what the player characters in Anthem were called. Javel…

Thanks for the clarification, on the ‘auto-loot’ system especially; I was getting a little annoyed at having to manually ‘grab’ each piece of loot, so good to know I can just turn that on and let the game do it for me! (I still find it a little annoying I have to ‘click’ each item if I want to see it in the field,…

Having just replayed a little bit this afternoon, I think you’re spot on that basically the LESS you play it like a cover-based shooter - the more you’re moving around and using your powers, essentially - the more fun it is. Which may mean I just drop the difficulty down a bit and play it like a superpowered wrecking…

You’re absolutely right in terms of ‘where the two companies are coming from’; I meant more that I see a lot of similarities in terms of gameplay mechanics and ‘gamefeel’ - in the games themselves, in other words. They both prioritize abilities over gunplay, they both have... unnecessarily complex systems in place…

Same way with cover-based shooters; for as popular as they are (by which I mean, ‘there are a lot of games that fit this description’, rather than ‘a lot of games that are popular because of their gameplay use this mechanic’), they never feel more than ‘rote’ to me. I love me some Mass Effect, for example... but not fo…

Yeah, I... really don’t understand Bungie’s aversion to matchmaking in harder activities. I feel like it grew out of the raids - which almost makes sense, given that (as I understand it; I don’t raid, myself) there are a lot of puzzles and such that require voice communication to do - but for some reason, that just…

My impression (playing solo) was kind of ‘yeah, just a standard cover-based shooter’, for sure, but I’m looking forward to trying it in co-op for this exact reason. (Which is where GamePass comes in handy - as a solo game, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up myself until it was on a pretty sizable sale, but GamePass…

Very curious how this one turns out in the long run. I got major ‘Anthem’ vibes off the demo - both in terms of ‘a lot of focus on a narrative that isn’t as compelling as it needs to be for that level of focus’, and in terms of the general combat, with the focus on regular ability usage (which is cool!) rather than…

I kind of find the idea of Bethesda staff and Obsidian staff (or inXile staff, for that matter) running into each other at Microsoft mixers or corporate retreats or team-building exercises absolutely hilarious, just conceptually. ‘So who wants to do a trust fall? Guys from Obsidian? Do you wanna trust the guys from…