Games you look forward to

[673f4e83b8a62Kolya]

The last time I made such a thread it was about space sims and No Man's Sky was the one I was most looking forward to, I think. Heh.
But hope springs eternally and sometime's it is rewarded (Elite Dangerous).

So here's a game I'm looking forward to. It's name is Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice. It is being developed by London based Ninja Theory and should come out this year (8. August if Steam is to be believed).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3QSzmTdwd8

What captures me about the trailer is emotional impact of Senua. Right off the start it is far more personal than most game stories. It's about a loss that can be felt and fear and determination that follow in a believable way.

Do you have any games that you are currently looking forward to?

[673f4e83b8bf0Carrot]

I'm very interested in Hellblade too!  Also hoping Battle chasers turns out good.  Not as unique looking of a story as Hellblade, but I like the old school JRPG look with modernizations (is that a word?).

https://www.gog.com/game/battle_chasers_nightwar

[673f4e83b8dd5The_Atomik_Punk!]

Ditto to the above.

3 quick titles (without any subjective colouring) that I'm hyped for:

1. Paprium: Brand new Sega Genesis Beat em' up that'll run on real hardware. Think Streets of Rage II+ Guardian Heroes in a Cyberpunk setting:

http://www.paprium.com/

2. Phoenix Point. Adrian Gollop's spiritual Successor to his original X-Com, incorporating a post-apocalyptic setting merged with Lovecraftian Horrors:

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/phoenix-point

3. Underworld Ascendant. This one shouldn't come as too much of a surprise for a forum devoted to System Shock:

https://otherside-e.com/wp/games/underworld-ascendant/

[673f4e83b8f46Myagi]

Routine.

I guess you could say, adding it to an annual anticipation list is becoming... routine.   

[673f4e83b9073Kolya]

The Long Dark is currently on Steam Summer Sale and that's great because its sandbox mode is much fun a prolonged death from hypothermia. But the thing I'm looking forward to is when they eventually release the story mode on 1. August.

[673f4e83b9205Nameless Voice]

I was looking at Hellblade as well, the setup and setting look really interesting, but I was rather turned off by the fact that there isn't a single bit of gameplay footage at all on the Steam page.

One that sounds interesting and hasn't been mentioned yet is Vampyr.  A game set in 1918 London, where you play a vampire-doctor who has to make hard choices between saving people and becoming more powerful as a vampire.

[673f4e83b930eKolya]

That sounds like the game the devs of Life is Strange (also currently on Steam sale) where planning...yup it's them. Should have a great story if their previous game is to go by.

[673f4e83b96a8unn_atropos]

I was looking forward to a sequel to Beyond Good And Evil, checking if there were any news from time to time. To say that the information policy on this was shit would be an understatement. Just marketing blabla and hot air. Now that there is a new trailer and another video I'm sceptical to the point of not caring.
They seem to have big plans, lots of tech innovation, multiplayer online worlds and whatnot. Well, I wanted something with the charm and "magic" of the first game, not some overblown "ain't we the coolest?!".
But I'll try to keep an open mind now. For starters I like the 5th element vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDlG4T4gSUg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjrzemJvUCU

[673f4e83b9818icemann]

I look forward to:

* Assassin's Creed - Origins
* Beyond Good and Evil 2
* Cyberpunk 2077
* System Shock 3 (and maybe the reboot I'm divided on it).
* That Mario / XCOM game shown at E3.
* Vampyre

[673f4e83b994afox]

Cyberpunk 2077
System Shock 3
SSR
Escape From Tarkov

[673f4e83b9c25Kolya]

I finished Hellblade - Senua's Sacrifice today. What follows are my thoughts on it, so SPOILERS AHEAD.

The game did a lot of things that other games never try. Beyond the depiction of psychosis it's a game about loss and grief and coming to terms with it. Senua feels like a real person, even in all the disturbing nightmares we follow her through. On the gameplay side, the puzzles are creative and mostly not too hard. The battles are even fun and satisfying.

But the game also has some problems. Mainly it's too much of the same thing. Both in gameplay - which becomes repetitive - but also in terms of the story that is being told. It is one long psychotic break and Senua stumbles back and forth between fear and desperation. There are some glimmers of possibly false hope, but there's never a return to normality.
This is meant to immerse the player in Senua's psychotic reality but it raises some questions. How did she survive? She never eats or drinks, apparently for days?

And it actually made it harder for me to connect with her emotionally. I would have liked to play the parts that are only briefly seen in flashbacks. Her childhood and budding love for the chieftain's son Dillion. Her warrior training with him. That would have made her loss and desperation more graspable and given it some foil to contrast with.

So I kept my hopes for the end. Of course she would never bring Dillion back but at least find some kind of peace and return to normality. But the moment this happens the game stops. Like we're not supposed to see her anything but a bloody crying bundle of fear! Thanks a lot. That ending didn't make the harrowing journey to it very worthwhile.

And besides, what will she do now? Her tribe massacred she has spent a long time running through woods and shipwrecks without ever meeting anyone. How will she live?
The extra cutscene you get for activating all the story-rocks hints that her father betrayed her tribe to the Northmen. Will she meet and confront him? I guess we will have to wait for a sequel to find out. But I could have easily done with halve of the hell-ride if I had gotten to see some of that. Her returning to reality and finding a way to live in it, which might prove harder than going psycho in the woods.

EDIT: I should add that the next day after finishing it I restarted Senua. She's grown on me. And the puzzles are much less time consuming now, which gives me more of a chance to enjoy the story and battles. 

[673f4e83b9d28icemann]

Of my above list I've since played AC Origins. Best game in the series so far, by a long shot.

If you head on over to TTLG I typed up a long review of it.

[673f4e83ba08bJDoran]

Cyberpunk 2077
System Shock 3
SSR
Escape From Tarkov

Replace 'Escape From Tarkov' with "The rumoured new Bioshock game (that hopefully has the environment/setting and game mechanics of Bioshock 1 and 2 rather than of Bioshock: Infinite)", and your list is the same as mine.

I don't really know many of the announced forthcoming games, to be honest, as I've not been much of a gamer for a while now (you know how it is, you go through stages when life is too busy or other interests crop up, then a few months later you're back saving the virtual Earth, or shooting up the virtual Wild West, or whatever type of video games you like.

[673f4e83ba1d3Kolya]

... and suddenly you notice: You're not good at this shit anymore: Your fighting reflexes suck, you forgot the complete keyboard layout of Homeworld, Lara's boobs don't do it for you like they used to and your back catalogue starts to feel like some kind of a burden.) But you know me, I'm not complainin. 


Just closing the parentheses for you, @JDoran.

[673f4e83ba4b2RocketMan]

When Lara's boobs don't do it for me like they used to I go and re-model Lara's boobs.

[673f4e83ba5c0Kolya]

Like a modern Pygmalion. That's the true modding spirit! 

[673f4e83ba727RocketMan]

Also, I know it's old but I just discovered it now thanks to this thread.  Observer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvK4l-nvWwI

looks interesting

[673f4e83ba803icemann]

Observer is excellent. Though the last 1/4 of it is half half. The rest is top notch.

[673f4e83ba9f5voodoo47]

not that I was really looking forward to it (or know it's being made, for that matter), but seems like Postal4 somehow happened.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/707030/POSTAL_4_No_Regerts/

I guess I'll be throwing five quarters at it as soon as it's on a 90% sale? P2 was one of the best shitty games I've played (P4 being a direct sequel, with the third game now treated like it never existed, as the attempt to outsource the development went terribly wrong - to nobody's surprise, I might add).

[673f4e83bac72Olfred]

I've never played Portal 3 so I can't say anything about it. The first two were quite entertaining.
Somehow P4 looks like they just used the P2 engine again.

[673f4e83badd4voodoo47]

yeah. if I remember the Postal3 situation correctly, they basically lost control over it (somehow?), and weren't even able to legally stop the release once they've realized it's complete garbage and better off scrapped completely. their official statement was "yeah, it's got the Postal name on it, but it was not us, and it's so bad it's not even a game, don't buy it/play it" or something along those lines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UajWzGByMkM

[673f4e83baee8Joyn]

Dying light 2
The outer worlds
New system shock games
Cyberpunk 2027
Monomyth
Medievil remake
Stalker 2
Spelunky 2

Still yet to play:

Sekiro shadows die twice
Ion fury

Cautiously optimistic for each

[673f4e83bafcficemann]

Since my earlier games listing post, both System Shock's have been quite disapointing. Now only Cyberpunk am I still looking forward to.

[673f4e83bb2a7JDoran]

Since my earlier games listing post, both System Shock's have been quite disapointing. Now only Cyberpunk am I still looking forward to.

You mean the screenshots/videos/publicly released information about SS1 and SS3, I take it? I have to ask, in case there's been a released alpha or beta of either of them that I've not been aware of.

Are you not interested in Doom Eternal? That should be amazing, though of course if the genre doesn't appeal to you then it just doesn't appeal to you.

I would also say that I'm looking forward to The  Elder Scrolls VI: Whatever It Will Be Called, but we know nothing about it, so we don't know how dumbed down it might be when it finally arrives.