Looking forward to this game. I preordered it yesterday. I already missed so many awesome titles this year (re7, nioh, nier, horizon, most of which i'll probably get later), but this one i feel i must play (Space horror is one of my favourite genres and i'm also a huge Dishonored-Fan).
I haven't spoiled anything for me yet, besides the 1st gameplay trailer. I really hope the story is not gonna end with: "Hey it was all a computer program and you're basically asleep the whole game".
@RSM-HQ: Yeah that's one of the good things Ds2 taught me: Shields are obsolete. I use the caestus on my Dark/Pyro (SL85, with only +7 weapons, +3 special weapons on ng+, kinda my challenge character, i beat ng with only +3 weapons, +1 special weapons and i recently beat ng+ including the ringed city with +7 weapons) but on my other mentioned characters (both SL 120 on ng++, ng+++ respectively) i use the parrying dagger, mostly for cosmetic reasons (Raphael was my fav hero turtle when i was a kid, haha). Of course caestus and daggers are all infused with simple to regen Mana (or FP as they say ;) ).
Getting Darkmoon Blade is difficult for a lot of people. I got it on 3 of my 4 characters. The 1st one i got the weekend after release when just a lot of players were playing and i got summoned every 15 min. Then i made a character especially to use darkmoon blade (it looks so cool) and made sure i didn't level up too much or upgrade my weapons too far until i got it. With it my onikiri & ubadachi have over 500 AR. That's pretty sweet for a dual weapon that's relatively fast as well.
Noice!! I loved Dead Nation (those freaking cutters!) and now i'll get Alienation for free! Cool, looks like every once in a while there's actually something worth playing in the free games (aaah, transistor :) ). Not dissing Abzu here, but i'm glad it wasn't the other way around with America and Europe.
@RSM-HQ: "Like you, gameplay rules all..." Aww thx man, what a nice thing to say :D Kidding.
Yeah i watched a whole outlast playthrough on Playstation Access and it was fun to watch but i don't think i'd enjoy playing it myself. i downloaded ether one some time ago, when it was free, and it sounded really cool, but i got bored so fast. It had an interesting engaging underlying theme somewhere (reliving old memories or memories of other people), but it was way to obscure for me and the gameplay was mostly reading and putting stuff together so i only played it for an hour or 2 before deleting it.
The Ringed City is also more my style. Seeing Midir go down for the 1st time after several tries was an exciting moment. And the game just has so much replayability. What builds are you using or which ones are your favourite? I mostly use my high dex dual katana weapon buff melee build (he can use a lot of other cool weapons too, but onikiri & ubadachi are my favourite) or my high int moonlight greatsword & spells mage. and with the new Great Soul Dregs i had to try a Dark/Pyro-build, which does good damage but relies too much on spells for my taste, plus she gets one-shotted from a lot of heavy attacks.
@dr_derogatory: No i haven't, that's why i tried to just use Horizon as an example and shared my views on open world games in general without tying it only to Horizon. I actually heard a few times that Horizon's gameplay is pretty neat and it is one of the most polished open world games out there. I'll definitely try it out (after i finally finished Dishonored 2 without powers, but i might get Nier first, because it seems to be an even more gameplay focused game), though i'm still expecting to get bored at some point before its story is finished. From the gameplay i saw it reminded me a lot of a far cry game (different enemies, weapons and setting, but still the same overall feel).
@scottyp360: Totally yeah, maybe use the term "keeps me engaged/excited" instead of "fun". I get a lot of my excitement out of beating challenging games like e.g. Dark Souls or Darkest Dungeon, which also can be frustrating from time to time, but on the other hand if i'd play a game like Dark Souls and i would never die the game would be a lot less exciting.
i agree. The last few indie games i played (don't starve, darkest dungeon) had me hooked more than the last "big" titles i played, because overall indie games are just stronger on the gameplay. Or i should say they focus more on the gameplay and not so much on the cosmetic stuff. Sorry for the blablabla, the point is: gameplay makes or breaks a game, wether it's an indie game or the new big FPS.
But it always comes down to: is this fun? Which in my case mostly relates to the gameplay. When the 1st trailer for Horizon was released i thought "wow, this could be a really cool game, i like the setting, i like the idea and i like the heroine (sucker for red hair)". Then gameplay was shown and the closer it came to release the less excited i was. In the end it turned out to be an open-world game, which in my humble opinion often have the worst gameplay out of all games, since so much ressources are spent on creating a believable world and just loads of stuff to do (sidemissions). Gameplaywise i'd say open world games go for quantity over quality, which is why i usually get bored halfway through such a game.
Point is: Gameplay makes or breaks a game, wether it's an Indie title or the newest biggest badassest FPS.
@videogameninja: i think it also depends on wether the game has an online component and how important that is to you. It's very exciting (for me) to play a new Souls game around its release, because there's just so much coop and competitive play going on. It's still a great solo game though.
This year though had a lot of interesting releases with re7, Nier, Horizon and the upcoming Prey. And they are all SP, so i might just indeed wait a bit and get them at the end of the year at a reduced price. There's nothing really to miss out on with these games, since they're SP. Even better i might get eventual DLCs included.
@silversix_: Ashes by itself was a very good piece of content. Leveldesign and enemies were awesome and there were some cool new weapons (spells not so much). It was just VERY VERY SHORT for the price, which is why everybody was kinda disappointed with it (including me).
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