I just wish it were more like Wildlands just in a different setting. I really miss the mortar strikes, and squad sync shot, and what not - the stochastic terrorism that makes open-world Ubisoft grindfests so much fun.

I’ve been arguing, mostly unsuccessfully, to other readers here that Ubisoft’s microtransactions setup of late is benign compared to other major publishers - pay-to-win is confined to single-player, cosmetic-only in PvP, limited loot boxes, etc.

That’s a brilliant summary. He nails it - I particularly love the breakdown of how Fortnite is so fucking overrated.

The premium currency can be found in both FC5 and New Dawn, in fact with FC5 I acquired about $20 worth of it in a 40-50 hour playthrough - also if I remember correctly none of the items were strictly premium anyway, and they could be acquired through grind.

I think we’re kind of past the point where the existence of MTX in an AAA title is worth getting worked up over as opposed to the ins and outs of how they’re implemented within a particular title.

Which game in your opinion has the more obnoxious hammer-wielding enemies - Super Mario Bros or The Division 2?

Not foolish enough to try that, but definitely foolish enough to drop $100 on the gold edition just to be able to play it 3 days earlier 😉

What exactly does going Free-to-play entail here?

You think we’ll be able to keep up with the youngsters in San Junipero?

Thought the same thing at first, but if you look close on the left it casts a shadow. Guess his strap-on is in the wash.

Yeah but those are rarely if ever armed... I’m talking specifically about being able to spawn a rocket helicopter on demand. Try having that at your beck and call even in the middle of a battle and see how differently you play.

Truth. I just noticed recently while wrapping up Ghost Recon Wildlands that when a complimentary loot box drop made combat helicopter available in my “rebel vehicle delivery” option (cooldown is like 45 seconds or something absurdly low) that I was using it to skip over some brutal firefights built into story missions…

EA Access debuted in August of 2014. I included the last 3 years because the catalog was erratic the first two.

It’s an adult sneaker with a four year-old’s K-Mart shoe aesthetic.

I mean yeah, but you also kind of make it sound like they were never going to Vault it - this was going to happen eventually even if Anthem had sold 20 million copies.

As far as action games in the last 3 years goes, Anthem is on the low end.

Knew this was going to happen sooner rather than later, since Mass Effect Andromeda also went into the vault early after falling short of expectations critically and commercially - contrast that SW Battlefront II which wasn’t added until almost a full year after release.

There are, but it just doesn’t have the same draw as the old one - not sure what it is exactly, but I think it’s got something to do with the rewards and the progression being “improved”.

Same here. I was a fiend for commendations in the first game, and scraped and scraped to earn those even in otherwise new content-lean times. There’s no similar nag to pick it up again right now, but I’ll be very quick to jump back in when we get more.

My brother in law told me he plays NBA2K online with a guy who’s 33, lives with his mother in a nursing home (not sure how that works), and spends $100/month on VC. His only income is a $1,000/month VC check.