I’ve been very vocal about how much the homogenization of the game industry is a very bad thing. Yet, most unique games that are released get ignored and flop. I got into the playtest for Wild Gate, and I came away impressed, but with a pit in my stomach. I’m worried that yet another cool game will die because folks are too stuck in their own habits to give it the attention it deserves.
Giant Kings adds the ability to create factions led by a giant, however, it also expands the world in which you play quite a bit. Some of these additions are mechanical in the form of Fated Regions and Landmarks, while others are simple beautifications to the world generation.
For an old-time fan like me, Monster Hunter Wilds is incredibly frustrating because it’s simultaneously one of the best and worst games of the series. On one hand, the monster designs are excellent, the combat is more fluid than ever, the environments are beautiful, and the map feels like a living, breathing ecosystem.
On the other hand, half of those things are held back by extreme contradictions to the game’s design that clearly exist due to an absurd level of streamlining. I hate writing this review because I am absolutely going to be screaming into the void. I’m just an old man yelling at clouds, but I gotta yell just to let the screams out.
Avowed is an interesting beast because it’s a game I kind of enjoyed, but I was constantly nagged by how much better it felt like it should have been. That’s a step up from The Outer Worlds, which I thought was a badly designed experience from the ground up, but it’s still disappointing in its own way.
There is a kinship between the two titles, though. Just like in The Outer Worlds, entire mechanics exist in a play pretend kind of way. You can point and say that there is a purple squirrel doing the Macarena in the corner of the room, but it’s not actually there. That works for a child’s imagination, but less so for video games that you actually interact with.