PixlBit

You bring up some great points. I wonder if there could be some sort of indie RPG out there that could do what Ultima 7 did, but bringing in some of the advancements that have come since. That would be an impressive game, and makes me again sad that I missed out on so much of the PC gaming from the '90s.

I totally agree. I keep bringing up Saints Row IV and Shadow of Mordor, but those games were just so damn fun to play that I wanted to keep playing them. The Nemesis system in Mordor made even mundane quests thrilling because at any time a captain could walk in and mess your plans up. And Saints Row is just so over the top that it almost doesn't matter if there is an interesting story behind it. It's just icing on the cake that it has that, too.

I gotta say, Nick. Knowing your dislike of The Matrix and a lot of the games being lampooned here I really expected you to hate on this game. Glad to know you enjoyed it as much as I did. Like I said on NWP, I gave the original release 3.5 stars because of technical problems, but I'd give the upgraded version 4.5. Still one of my favorite games of the past few years.

You should really rectify that.

We're about to have a fight over Saints Row, aren't we?

I just became aware of this game yesterday. I'm interested, but I'm behind on these artsy games. I just bought Gone Home.

I have heard the grave theory, but I still don't see it. I'm watching it in Imax today and I will be keeping an eye out for it.

It's definitely open world fatigue for me, especially in games like MGS V where the world feels needlessly huge with not a lot to do in between the actual missions. The only open world games to really pull me in recently have been Saints Row IV and Shadow of Mordor. In the case of Saints Row the humor and robust create a character mode kept me invested. It was so awesome to play that game as President Jason Statham. As for Mordor, the Nemesis system was truly unique and needs an open world to work.

However, both games share a crucial point: they are around 25 hour games. I am getting sick of open world games crammed with feature bloat. I played over 13 hours of GTA V and 8 hours of MGS V, and in both cases I hadn't scratched the surface. Compare that to the previously mentioned games, where I was reading the halfway points by then. I logged 35 hours into Mordor, but that was because I got the platinum trophy.

I love this. I think we're going to talk about this on NWP next week.

I am just about to start Dark Forces II. Always wanted to play the Jedi Knight games.

Likely the lag you're feeling with SF IV is because it's the PS Now version. That said, if you feel that it's slow you aren't going to want SF V. It reminds me of Third Strike, where it feels like there are too many frames of animation per move, which slows everything down.

I love that Patricking a game as become a thing. I am probably about to Patrick Undertale. More on that in the next episode.