Category: Season 4

Another three months have gone by very fast, and it’s time to have a look back at some of the highlights. I decided to record this video in the first half of September, after seeing that my script had already become quite big. So, any important news that may surface in the second half of the month will be covered in my end of the year highlights video in December.

After putting out a review for Star Wars: Outlaws, the huge Destiny video and another review for Quidditch Champions, I needed a break. So I came up with this video where I talk about three random games.

September 9, 2014. Destiny was unleashed onto the world, and it’s safe to say that the world of video games has never been the same. To be brutally honest, the world of video games changes so rapidly that every few years, we get one or two games which change the market forever. What makes Destiny a bit unique is that it continues to remain at the top of its subgenre, which can probably defined as a shared world first person looter shooter.

Quite a few games tried to replicate Destiny’s success, but none of them succeeded at the same scale as Destiny. Probably the only other game that comes close is Warframe, which actually came out before Destiny, and has successfully survived for 11 years, but as a third-person, character based game, Warframe is in a league of its own.

This video is my tribute to the Destiny franchise, which has played an important role in shaping my video game hobby. This is not a summary of Destiny’s in-game story, so if you are looking for something like that, please consider visiting other channels like MyNameisByf or Myelin Games for a dedicated analysis of Destiny’s 10-year story. This video is more of a highlight reel of playing a live-service game over several years, dealing with the highs and lows that come with such a habit, and also talks about why I feel one needs to plan an exit point from such long-running games.

Gamescom 2024 recently came to a close, and after the death of E3, this seems to be the largest in-person convention in the industry right now. Until last year, Gamescom used to sit in a weird spot in the calendar, where it was too late to announce new games releasing in the same year and too early to announce new games coming out next year.

So poor Gamescom used to be left with focusing on games that were already announced. This year however, things have changed quite a bit, with multiple world premiere trailers being showcased at Gamescom . I guess part of the reason is that the summer showcase events have become way too crowded, and the game awards show in December is also quite crowded, so Gamescom currently feels like an unexplored area. However, it still has a long way to go before filling the gap left by E3, at least in terms of anticipation and excitement. With that said, let’s have a look at some of the announcements made at Gamescom that I felt were worth highlighting. These include a mixture of new and previously announced games.

Thanks to the old trick of virtually moving to New Zealand on the xbox, I was able to access Star Wars Outlaws at 5:30pm local time on the 26th. And so I was able to spend some time with the game, and decided to make another of my early impressions videos. I make these videos because they give me some breathing room to put out a full review at my own pace, while also taking advantage of the increased interest in the game during its launch window.

I’ve been preparing for Star Wars Outlaws all through August by playing the two Jedi games by Respawn Entertainment. I started Outlaws expecting a completely different experience, and that’s exactly what I found. In this video, I talk about my early experience with the game. I played four missions, spanning across two hours. While I believe there are no major spoilers, watch this video at your own risk.

August 2023 was an interesting month. It saw the release of one of the year’s most praised games Baldur’s Gate 3, and it also saw the release of one of the year’s most forgotten games – Immortals of Aveum. In April 2024, PlayStation plus members were given Immortals of Aveum as part of their monthly essential games offering. I immediately downloaded it and gave it a try, eager to see if the game truly deserved the criticism it received. To my surprise, the game got off to a good start, and I put in around 3-4 hours of playtime. However, the issues soon started cropping up and I uninstalled the game the same day.

Now, as we approach the game’s one year anniversary, I wanted to see if I could give it another try. Would I find the game bearable enough to finish it this time? And the answer is, not yet, but I think that’s partly because I continued my in-progress game rather than starting fresh, meaning I have lost touch with the game’s mechanics. This game has design issues that make it really difficult to keep playing after a long break. I will probably start a fresh game sometime after this video goes live, because I feel this game does have some merits, and I want to see it to the end. For this video, I wanted to summarise the story behind this game. A lot has already been said about Immortals of Aveum by a lot of people, and I doubt I can add anything new to the discussion. That said, I feel that talking about these things from time to time will keep the conversation alive about the direction in which the video game market is headed. Today I wanted to talk a little about my experience with the game, and also take a look back at the background for this game’s development, how it was received at launch, and what happened after the launch. The summary of the video is this: Immortals of Aveum may be a flawed game, but games like these is what the industry needs right now. I’m talking about a linear, single-player AAA production that doesn’t have any microtransactions or any extra monetisation model beyond the initial asking price. The studio which made the game is on life support right now, and I sincerely hope they pull through to bring another, hopefully smaller project to life.

Star Wars Outlaws is due for release later this month, so I thought this would be a good time to look back at the two games that a lot of people will use to draw up many comparisons. And most of us already know how it’s going to end – Outlaws will not get as much critical praise as the two Jedi games did, but it will still end up making a lot of money for Ubisoft, because the combination of the Star Wars brand and the familiar Ubisoft open world formula has a lot of commercial appeal.

Anyway, in this video, I will be talking about the two well received, single-player star wars games developed by Respawn Entertainment, and published by Electronic Arts. This is not a review of either of these games, and will feature heavy spoilers, including the ending of both games, so watch at your own risk.