Gamescom! WOOHOO!

Gamescom 2016 is almost upon us. I'm stoked.

If you wanna watch some of the live coverage, IGN has it. I'm gonna check around more tonight and see if I can dig up any other live streams.

I'm still coming to understand Gamescom, as it is a bit different from E3. It's in Cologne, Germany, for one, but it also has an 'open to the public' component, as well.

It's bigger, in terms of attendance, but it's temporal proximity to E3, I think, has diminished its overall profile. It seems to have fewer pressers every year, but there's still lotsa great looks at games there.

It's also a chance for a lot of my favorite European developers, like Larian, Piranha Bytes, and CD Projekt Red to shine and get some love.

SERIOUSLY? This guy?

Oh, and Final Fantasy XV got delayed. Hmm. I have the game preordered, but I can't say that I'm really expecting a lot from the title. I despise the character design, I like that they added pause-and-play to combat after foolishly ditching turn-based, and the characters themselves seem to be somewhere between bland and melodramatic fucktards. Still, it's a numerical Final Fantasy, and I'm a slave to that series, so ...

But, I'm still looking forward to the game. I just wish it was coming to PC. YEAH YEAH YEAH, I know. You hate being able to tailor your gaming experience to your exact desires. Sure.

Anyway ...

FFXV will also be at Gamescom.

Hey, if you're not watching Dark Matter, you're part of the problem. Give it a look. I love this show.

I'm super-stoked for Nuka World. Give it a look.



Once Nuka World releases, I don't think we're seeing any actual big new games from MGS for a long, long time. Elder Scrolls VI is way, way down the road, and don't even bring up Fallout 5. Of course, it would be awesome to see New Vegas 2 from Obsidian. I'd greedily devour that shit. New Vegas is probably in my top 10 games of all time.

Games I'll be watching for at Gamescom:

Elex
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Dishonored 2
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Final Fantasy XV
Prey
Seven
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 3
Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor: Martyr
Watch Dogs 2

And, oh look, IGN has a couple unannounced games in their coverage. That's interesting. Hmm.

What about you? Anything that might be at Gamescom that's got you stoked?

Alright, that's enough for now. Yeah, I still owe you more Star Trek pics, I know. We'll get to that ... uh ... soon.

-Blaine

Oh, yeah, Dishonored is great

Something I've failed to mention on here lately.

During E3 week, I finally succumbed to intense pressure from a couple friends to finally give Dishonored another chance. I'd played a bit of it when it first came out, and maybe again, a year later, but hated the way it looked, and wasn't overly impressed with the opening.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I hadn't really given the game my full attention when I'd been playing it, and it really is a game that requires a fair amount of focus and thought while playing it.

So, I played a lot of it after the floor show at E3 closed, while I watched the Giant Bomb and Easy Allies late night streams, and actually fell in love with it.

Especially in a time in which every game now has gone 'open world' and 'free roaming,' Dishonored' very structured, very focused 'go to this environment and do A, but you can also stop and do B and C if you want, as well' approach is much appreciated. Additionally, the fact that the player can approach each of these situations in a number of ways is very cool. My approach to most things in life, is 'blunt instrument,' which was not going over too well in this game, given my shit FPS skills, so I quickly started using the 'Blink' ability a lot (stealth teleport), and started having greater success, and a hell of a lot more fun.

I started out the game yelling at NPCs for making me kill them because they saw me and attacked, to frolicking the rooftops over a bourgeois party, quietly slipping in, neutralizing a target, and slipping back out, never raising an alarm. I love this game.

In fact, here's this past night's stream of my latest mission in the game.

So, yeah, if you've not played Dishonored yet, I highly recommend it. I'm more of an RPG guy than a shooter guy, and this straddled the two worlds perfectly for me. It really let me play the game the way I wanted to. I think I'm close to the end, so I'll be sure to wrap up my final thoughts about it. And I cannot wait to play Dishonored 2 later this year!

-Blaine