Re: I bought Avowed at full price, for feks sake

Rin Stowleigh wrote:

On Sat, 22 Feb 2025 09:43:31 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
 

On 2/20/2025 5:20 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:

>
And the real shocker is, no regrets so far.  In terms of action combat
in a single player fantasy setting like this (which isn't really my
genre), I really haven't seen something like this in quite a while.
>
First I want to say I had no intention of paying full price for this
game, I can wait forever for single player games since
matchmaking/lobby filling is not even a consideration.
>
I bought it mostly because [1] I found out someone I knew reasonably
well wrote the entire soundtrack for it, and [2] it looked kind of fun
and combat-mechanics focused which will draw me in much faster than a
game where a few tens of millions of dollars have been spent on
"story" that's been out-woked to Sweet Baby Inc or whaever.
>
About [1] I've never met him in person, he's quite a bit
younger/greener/less experienced than me in all aspects of life, but I
have had enough conversations with him to know that I've had
substantial influence on the choices made in his music career
(especially regarding gear purchases which I know he struggles with
financially).. , and I've learned a great deal from him (as I always
do from music buddies), so there was absolutely no way I was not
supporting him by purchasing the game whether I liked playing it or
not.  He does tend to be a bit of the type to talk because he loves to
hear his own voice, and there is a YT video out there where he is kind
of giving himself attaboys...  but in terms of the soundtrack itself,
the appropriateness for the game (and what I always look for, the
production value), I think he recognized the value of the opportunity
early on and stepped up to the plate appropriately, so kudos to him on
a job well done!
>
About [2]... I guess going into things with the expectations of the
kind of changes we've seen over the last few years sets us up for
going "wow" when we see something better than the usual crap?  I
definitely got a nice surprise here.. where I really feel the
difference is simply combat that's actually fun.  I'm not going to
tell you it's necessarily as fun or impactful as Dark Messiah of Might
and Magic back in the day, but it reminds me of that in the sense of
the overall immersiveness of the combat itself.
>
It's not a perfect game by any means.  It comes in woke very quickly
with the character creation thing (He/She/They pronouns), and very
early in the game makes sure that every female or female-like being
you might encounter is so far from sexy or fuckable, that it seems
like an intentional-yet-subliminal libido passiviation mechanism,
designed to be sure you never get distracted from anything but the
game.  Did they hire Kim Belair to design the female characters?
Rodney Dangerfield used to joke that if you want to look fit, make
sure all the friends you hang around are only fat people.  I think
this is Kim's strategy to game design -- to downplay her own
unattractiveness by making sure everything else has trouble meeting a
lower standard.
>
It also has bugs..  pretty severe if you go wandering about the map,
climbing rocks and such.  You get into bad terrain clipping shit that
quickly lets you know the game patches aren't ready for that.
>
Mack from WorthABuy is correct that the world feels "too clean" and
(my description not his) too Avatar-Movie-Like.  But I got used to
this much faster than I thought I would... and I remembered from the
Zelda games on Switch, not everything needs to look realistic to be
fun.  The art in this game is fun, you just have to be willing to let
your eyes adapt to it.
>
So there ya go.  I'm now a chump who has spent full price for a game,
with absolutely no chance of refunding it. :)  Most of you should
probably buy this game too, if your machine can see it in all its
glory and at a nice framerate.

>
First impression from watching the trailer on the steam page is it seems
to be a Skyrim type game.  We could sure use more competition there.  I
might pick it up on sale eventually.
>
To compare to Skyrim from the reviews,
>
[x] bugs
[x] mostly boring quests
[x] mostly boring npcs
[x] mostly pointless dialog choices
[x] simple skill tree
[x] mostly attack by left clicking

 There are some similarities to Skyrim I guess but the art style alone
makes it not feel anything like an Elder Scrolls game.  Overall combat
is probably better I'd say?  I'm adding a question mark because I
haven't played Skyrim in a long time -- and it is an old game by now
so maybe not a fair comparison in some regards.
 

Of course I haven't played it yet to verify.  Most of the negative comes
from people expecting it to be like Path of Exile which are the same makers, or like some other games with more action combat instead of RPG
combat. If you take those out the reviews are pretty positive.
>
I don't see much mention of the 'woke' bits, certainly not in the
negative reviews, so it's not getting review bombed for that (unless
it's because I'm not seeing those due to Steams algorithm which is a
distinct possibility.)  I looked up the female NPCs, at least half of
them look o.k. to me, but yeah the other half look manly.  I didn't
really notice to begin with but after taking a close look, I can't unsee
it.  I don't know that it would bother me.  Have to wait to see if
modding will be available.

 I can't say it bothers me during gameplay.  Games were never a source
of tits and ass for me in the first place.  If all the females were
homely because it was an accident or just an art style specific to
this game, it wouldn't even be an issue worth talking about.  But it's
that undercurrent... the feeling that you know why it's the way it
is... that's annoying.  Not annoying enough to not play it if the
other aspects of it grab you, but it's there.

There were some relatively hardcore games for the Amiga, but on the ibm pc it's like how fucking long do I have to play this game before someone shows some skin?

I like the art for the cover for it, the in game stuff looks pretty
enough, but nothing special.

 Playing at 1440p with visual quality maxed out and framerates of
150-ish, I will say it's definitely a visually appealing game.  It's
just that it's very over-the-top fantasy... stylistically it kind of
reminds me of Avatar (the movie, not the game, only ever saw the
movie).  I generally find things that are relatable to the real world
to be more immersive, but that's just me.  For those with an
imagination that does well with fantasy themes I'd say yes, it's a
pretty game.
 

I've been keeping an eye on it, I'll probably pick it up if reviews get
better, or it's mod-able, eventually if it gets a discount.  As usual
with almost every single player game (or even many multi-player) give it
a year and see if they manage to iron out bugs and improve content, and
state of modding.

 It will eventually go on discount, and honestly I wouldn't have paid
$70 for a single player only game like this if it weren't for the
personal connection to the soundtrack creator.

So you said...
             What enormous self-control!
--
No heebies, creepies or hallucinogenics It's the height of paranoia
Male, white, mid-to-late thirties