Currently Playing

[Wrathbone]

Just finished Star Wars Outlaws and both DLC. I played a few hours when it first came out and thought it had potential, but it was rough around the edges and there were some questionable design choices, particularly around the stealth mechanics. A year of improvements later and it was worth the wait - this is an absolute delight of a game now. It’s arguably greater than the sum of its parts, as none of the gameplay features are particularly innovative or remarkable, but they all hang together well, resulting in a game that is consistently good fun.

The stealth is where the most drastic improvements have been made. No longer are there auto-fails on detection, meaning you can blast your way out of a tight spot or flee and hide, or if you’re quick enough you can just sprint up to the enemy who’s spied you and lamp them. This is much more in the style of Han Solo muddling his way through a situation than the rigid Splinter Cell mandatory sneaking it was originally.

Aiding you is your critter companion, Nix, who proved to be not just invaluable and central to the game, but undeniably loveable. There’s a mission where you’re forced to operate without him and it hammers home just how important he is by not accommodating for his absence at all, which makes things much more difficult. The rest of the cast of characters is similarly excellent, with the sardonic commando droid ND-5 stealing the show. I found myself genuinely caring for Kay Vess and her ragtag acquaintances.

Outlaws has been so badly maligned from its awkward release that I fear we may never see a sequel, which is a tremendous shame because I think this may be my favourite Star Wars game since KOTOR 2. Nothing else has captured the feeling of being an itinerant space mercenary quite like this (and a cheating, swindling Sabacc player, which I became obsessed with to a similar degree as Gwent) - in many ways, it does a lot of what Starfield tried to achieve better than Starfield. And it’s Star Wars to boot, done very well indeed, with some of the most sumptuous Star Wars locations I’ve ever seen realised in a game. It captures the original trilogy feel perfectly, while seamlessly incorporating things from both the prequel and sequel trilogies, and it does so more effectively than Disney has managed most of the time. If anyone is still on the fence about Outlaws, I’d urge them to give it a chance now.

[Sly Boots]

Very interesting to read! I've wavered on picking it up a couple of times due to the negativity on its release, but if it's a right rollicking time now I shall check it out

[Wrathbone]

If I had any criticism, it’s that the space exploration and combat isn’t quite up to scratch, though it’s reasonable enough and isn’t a huge part of the game.

[Lenny Solidus]

It's kind of ironic that I've been eyeing up buying the game for a good few weeks now*, I do so wish they had delayed the game initially as I mentioned in a post from last year.

The negative reception it received perhaps while not being completely avoided because well we all know "Ubisoftbad" and I wish that could have been filtered through a little more to the ever-growing online praise I've seen for it overall. Over on the Guru 3d forum, more specifically, over there a dedicated group have slowly been coaxing others to give it a chance and many of those who did have been singing its praises, I always intended to buy it at some point but after playing the small demo I honestly can't say it shifted in convincing me to at the time. Quite the opposite, really. I don't think it's the type of game that lends itself to a hugely restrictive demo.

That said when you have a game that is now down to just £18 I'm going to purchase it later today but put it aside for a little while as I already now have several other huge open world endeavours on the go as it is, and I feel it takes away the magic somewhat playing more than one at a time. I did however pick up The Ubisoft Avatar game for the time being to try out the two-man coop play with Snowy and that game is unlike anything else I've seen visually (disregarding Horizon 2 which I've yet to play) though currently I'm awaiting the third person update for it coming later this month.

* That's an abject lie, I've been watching site prices for it somewhat feverishly since it released as the Ubistore has it listed for £60 for just the standard edition.

And bought.

Spoiler

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, I played it for about an hour last night, quite enjoyed it.

Main complaint is it took away the ability to bet on the racing in the starting area after half a dozen attempts. True, I'd failed every single one, but I was about to win soon, I swear! No, I don't have a problem... ¬_¬

[Wrathbone]

I did very nearly get banned from several sabacc tables for blatant cheating. Never got sucked into the racing as it didn't seem to have any strategy.

[Sly Boots]

I did very nearly get banned from several sabacc tables for blatant cheating. Never got sucked into the racing as it didn't seem to have any strategy.

So tonight I went on with the intent of playing for an hour or so exploring the first major city you get to... spent the majority of the time playing sabacc

[Alan]

Dishonored
I should have loved this but I bounced off it hard on release because LMB activaes your right and and RMB your left and my brain couldnt get past that! Playing it now on Steam Deck where left trigger woirks the left hand abd right the right and my brain is much happier! Oh and yeah, I do love it! Its a fantastic game. You could nitpick the more wooden story elements and such but the core gameplay loop is just great. I've reached the "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" so I'm not sure how much I have left but hey, theres a whole second game waiting for me after... oh and another half a game too! What a time to be alive.

[Animalmother]

Dishonored
I should have loved this but I bounced off it hard on release because LMB activaes your right and and RMB your left and my brain couldnt get past that! Playing it now on Steam Deck where left trigger woirks the left hand abd right the right and my brain is much happier! Oh and yeah, I do love it! Its a fantastic game. You could nitpick the more wooden story elements and such but the core gameplay loop is just great. I've reached the "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" so I'm not sure how much I have left but hey, theres a whole second game waiting for me after... oh and another half a game too! What a time to be alive.

Excellent games, especially the 2nd one. One of my proudest gaming achievements is making it through Dishonored 2 without killing anyone on the hardest difficulty.