I’m in some serious trouble here. There are so many great games coming out that even if I could play games all day there wouldn’t be enough time to play them all.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
You won’t believe this, but up until just two weeks ago I hadn’t played a single game in the Uncharted series. Turns out, they’s AMAZING. I feel like this is what happened with the Assassin’s Creed series all over again. I never played them, then suddenly I had to buy them all and now I’m a diehard fan.
I picked up the Nathan Drake Collection (great deal)Â which contains the first three games. I’m bingeing my way through them now hoping to start up Uncharted 4 by the end of next week. Looks like the graphics are insane, and Drake goes full-spider-man. Â I’ll write up formal thoughts on the collection as well as Uncharted 4 asap. I can already tell you it’s worth playing.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants in Manhattan
This one came out of absolutely nowhere. Graev texts me the other day asking which platform we’re getting TMNT on. My resounding “huh?” was followed by a few “how did I not know about this?” followed by opening my wallet again.
Graev and I have played the original TMNT games for over 20 years. When did the original NES turtles game come out? ’89? So pretty much most of our lives have been filled with TMNT. Loved the original cartoon series. Turtles in Time is still one of our favorite games. Co-op and turtles? Count us in for Turtles in Manhattan.
Overwatch
I’ve been on a rollercoaster with Overwatch since alpha. I originally thought it was generic, but then I found my rhythm and started to play a little more with the characters. Despite it being an absolute 100% TF2 rip-off without the mods and community aspect of servers, it’s still a really great shooter.
Graev and I are both getting Overwatch as well. In fact, I think 4-5 people from our community here are getting it and we’ll all be playing together as much as possible over the coming weeks.
Total War: Warhammer
Here’s another game Graev clued me in to. I’ve never been a Total War fan, but that’s not because I’ve played the games and haven’t liked them — I’ve just never played them. I like Warhammer enough that I think I’ll give this one a try. Of all the games on this list, I think this is the one I might wait on. Looks good though. Anyone here played the Total War games and able to share some thoughts on whether or not a Warhammer version would be good? Sure looks fun…
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So yeah… games. Lots of games. Â I didn’t even mention the fact that I’m having a blast with Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, Clash Royale, and World of Warcraft (finally don’t hate my Monk now that I’m tank spec). I also have a backlog of at least 5-6 more games. Ack.
Playing anything fun? Picking up any of the games I mentioned?
Agreed. For me it’s Uthgard (which is still in beta), Total War: Warhammer, Overwatch and the WoW Legion beta. Someday I will get back to Pillars of Eternity, I swear.
I didn’t even know about the TMNT game either. We DVR the show for my kid and he watches it all the time, so I can’t imagine why I haven’t seen any ads for it or had him pestering me about getting the game.
The marriage between total war and warhammer is looooong overdue. It should work fantastically. Battlefield spells and flying units ought not be too big a deal for them to make work. They already sorta had spells with general buffs from their historical games. The spells just get much more interesting now.
Lots of games are comparable to Total War’s strategic map gameplay. No other games quite match what Total War games can do on tactical RTS battles. The scale and grandeur of a total war tactical battle is simply amazing to watch. History channel has used the Total War engine to recreate historical battles for their “Decisive Battles” show.
The fact that Total War is finally going after a popular IP is exciting. Warhammer’s not the only universe I’d love to see get the Total War treatment.
It’s the year of the Strategy game. Civ VI coming in november. Total War releases their biggest effort ever. Paradox released Stellaris last week and Hearts of Iron IV comes in June. Galactic Civ 3 and a new Masters of Orion are out. Good time to be a strategy gamer on PC. Bad time to be the wallet of a strategy gamer on PC.
The Total War franchise is wonderful… if you wait 5-6 months after each release.
They are absolutely known for releasing horribly buggy TW games constantly, since forever. But they do eventually patch them up to playable, so there is that!
As far as the Warhammer varient…. just O-M-G. I saw a dev video with him tinkering with the dwarven campaign map. Grudges and (kind of like revenge quests I guess?) a whole bunch of other interesting mechanics that have nothing to do with any of the other TW titles.
I think this merge will be amazing, because I see them putting a lot of the Warhammer universe into the game. If it was simply TW with warhammer characters, I’d say pass. But this actually looks amazing. I have pre-ordered already.
Side Note: Creative Assembly has REALLY started whoring up the DLC in their last few game releases. Enough to make even diehard fans sick. For instance with Warhammer here… you can get the Chaos race if you pre-order, or you can pay for the DLC later should you fail to have faith in them and give them money early.
For anyone not familiar with the Warhammer universe…. Chaos is kind of a core part of the lore.
So they are literally putting it in before launch (because you freaking have to obviously), and then cutting it out just to jab people for extra cash. A super duper dick move. But hey, DLC is the wave of the future! Yippee!
@Rawblin, they changed it so you can get the chaos warriors free as long as you buy during the first week it’s out, which is plenty of time for people to read reviews and make a decision before buying.
I do agree usually these games change a lot after 5-6 months either due to bugs or rebalancing, plus the DLC. And they will have quite a bit of DLC. New races are already planned (Bretonnians are confirmed Free LC, others are not confirmed for paid or free yet)
I would agree if you wanted to wait on one, that would be it. Nice thing is that, like the other TW games, they are adding modding tools so a lot of the things that people don’t like, you will find a mod to fix it. They are even releasing a couple mods with the release to basically make some of the things people disliked about whats been announced optional (main one being humans can only capture other human and vampire count cities but can’t capture dwarven/orc cities and vice versa).
@Keen: Overwatch I was kinda like you, I followed it a bit, but wasn’t super excited about it, and didn’t think I would even get it. Then I was looking for something to do on the open beta weekend and downloaded it on a whim…. and never stopped playing. I’ve never enjoyed a shooter (including TF2 which I played quite a bit) as much as I enjoyed Overwatch, and it completely surprised me.
I love that you haven’t played the Uncharted series and now you understand what you’ve been missing! 😉 I need to pick up that Collection since we haven’t finished the older ones due to our first gen PS3 dying.
Are you planning on playing No Man’s Sky on Steam when it comes out in June?
@Drathmar, Even with a week leeway… how dickish is it to put one of the core factions behind a paywall? It’s literally an integral part of the game and is something they already devoted all the time and effort into putting in. It isn’t like this is three months after the game releases and they decide “Hey we can add some cool new race people will enjoy that isn’t core, and people will pay the extra money and be happy!”
This is just them. Being dicks. Charging for shit they already put into the game, as DLC.
@Rawblin: Yes and no. I agree, a part of it is them.. being dicks. However they also want to add incentive to get people to either pre-order or buy early. A pre-order bonus is not an uncommon thing, and this isn’t the first game where it affects gameplay either. The only reason it’s dickish is because the chaos warriors are a big part of warhammer lore and would have been in your game regardless (just not playable). A lot of people got upset by this, which is why they changed it to you get it free a week after release if you buy.
Is this ideal? Not really, but it was a compromise they made due to the demands of the community supporting them. They still get the early adopter incentive, but people have time to get more info on the game before they decide to buy it. Reviews are already starting to come out for it, so there will be plenty of info by the end of the time for the incentive bonus. Which is important as a large portion of a games sales come in the first week so they want to make sure they sell as much as possible in that first week. Not only that, but when you can say a game sold super well the first week backed by numbers, that can also sway people looking at buying the game etc.
So, while I think it is dickish that they are putting one of the important lore races behind a pay wall, I understand why they are doing it. I also am giving them credit for actually trying to compromise with the community and changing it to being buying within a week of release. Not to mention the only reason we are getting modding tools also seems to be (and this could of course have been a ploy to make themselves look better by saying no modding tools then saying they would release them later) them listening to the community, which will be important to make the second and third games (this is planned a trilogy adding more areas/races like the skaven/elves/etc) better.
I need to pick up the Nathan’s Drake collection too, I’m wondering how I have never played any of them. They look like totally my kind of games ! I can’t tell for the first three games, but the Thief’s End is great for streaming, I’m having way too much fun watching Jesse Cox playthrough.
By the way, in case anyone missed it, Overwatch will launch Monday night, not on Tuesday as previously announced. Servers should be up at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT.
TW:Warhammer will most certainly be worth buying, as it looks like the absolute perfect marriage of a great engine with the world’s best IP, and they actually used that IP to impact the gameplay in very meaningful ways.
Some of the combat preview videos have me drooling, and it’s been forever (Ok, Fallout 4) since I’ve been dying to play a game based on pre-release info. To me they nailed how each faction fights, both strategically and visually (undead shamble, orcs smash, dwarves do dwarf things).
I agree that the DLC for this game is going to pile up, as Warhammer has a ton of factions (hell, not a single elf race is included), plus generally the TW games also do campaign and other smaller DLC additions; but if the game is as amazing as I expect it to be, I won’t really mind. Some games are worth more than $60.
Never enjoyed Total War but am grabbing TW Warhammer, that setting really does it for me. One of the few games I can’t wait to spend more money on DLC (Lizardmen!!)
I tried the Overwatch beta, felt ok. I don’t care for any of the characters, and the shoehorned story makes absolutely no sense in the game. With a ton of game modes and the balls to make asymmetrical teams, PvZGW2 seems to me far and away the best class shooter of 2016. I don’t feel like Overwatch does anything better, unless you are a fan of seemingly random moba-esque heroes.
I still need to get to Dark Souls 3, Banner Saga 2, Bravely Second, FE Fates, and I just started The Wolf Among Us. So little time indeed :\
I don’t want anyone to misunderstand my ire with the launch DLC. I am not opposed to actual, meaningful DLC for games after they have launched. Devs worked longer and put in more stuff a few months after the games release? Awesome, bill me and send the content!
But when you just lump it on as a DLC at launch…. there are so many foul words that come to mind to describe people that would do that crap… blech.
It’s not much different than card collector games. You buy the starter kit, but you can buy booster packs from day one. Just a different business model, love it or hate it.
@Gali, not really. Your comparison would work better if we were comparing a card collector game to say a tabletop game (like Monopoly).
And even then, it still would suck. Can you imagine buying a Monopoly box, and then having to later purchase the player tokens, hotel/house tokens, extra funny money? Of course you can’t imagine that. It’d be stupid.
PC Games are (supposed to be) a finished product. We accepted DLC originally because it was additional content for said completed games. But these days people expect DLC to be anything and everything.
It’s acceptance like that that is screwing us over as consumers.
@Rawblin: Your analogy falls short though. You make it sounds like you can’t actually play the game without the DLC, which is not true at all. The game is full and complete (including being able to play AGAINST the chaos warriors) whether you buy the DLC or not. All the DLC does is make it so that you can play AS the chaos warriors. It’s not like they aren’t in the game at all if you don’t have the DLC.
It’s like the overwatch preorder… you preorder you get a skin. Something nice to have but not something needed to actually play the game. In this case it is a bit worse in that it is locking a race that should be fully playable behind DLC, but then Total War games have always done that. Look at TW: Rome 2, it had (iirc) the greek city states behind day 1 DLC.
But again, Gali’s analogy is actually more on the nose than yours. You can play Total Warhammer without buying the DLC and the Chaos Warriors remain in the game, you just can’t play as them.
You can actually play as any faction in the TW games since the beginning of the series. People have been unlocking them on their own.
Not a single thing is going to change the fact that they are charging extra for something they already made, added in, tested, and had ready to go for launch.
Fight the power, say no to bad cash-grab DLC.
@Rawblin: They ban any mods and makers of mods that unlock cultures that they release as DLC at least since rome 2 if not longer so that’s not true any more.