AAA Titles Overshadowing lesser known but better games

[CaitSeith]

Bias is unavoidable (specially from gamers and reviewers); it comes from gaming experience. Anyone who says they have no bias is lying (either to themselves or to everyone else).

I just want to play good games which i enjoy.

Which aren't necesarialy the same. Enjoying a game and being a good game are different situations. It's unlikely not to enjoy a good game; but it happens. However it's not unlikely to enjoy games that aren't good. Being enyoable isn't the same as being good.

Yes, it's frustrating to see games that you consider worthy of more appreciation than what it gets to be overshadowed by less enyoable games (ZombiU: been there, done that). But claiming conspiracy or ineptitude is silly (been there, done that). If you enjoy a game (and it's as good as you claim it to be), chances are that there are a lot of other people who love it too. No amount review scores is going to change that.

PS: Still, it's good to see people not always seeing AAA games as the high-end of game quality. A little of skepticism is healthy for an industry so dependent on hype, mass marketing and pre-orders.

 

[Athennesi]

Dragon'd dogma has a bit of a cult following, but it's still pretty overshadow by other open world ARPG, which is a shame since it can kick all of there butt and so much more fun to play (yes, open world does not mean the combat has to suck, imagine that!).

"Fun", "Boring", etc...are all opinions depending on personal taste.

I personally found Dogma gameplay incredibly boring...flashy, yes, but too much hitpoint bloat( to the point I yelled at the screen) and spam the awesome button and too little in what it "asks" of the player.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Dragon'd dogma has a bit of a cult following, but it's still pretty overshadow by other open world ARPG, which is a shame since it can kick all of there butt and so much more fun to play (yes, open world does not mean the combat has to suck, imagine that!).

I really like Dragon's Dogma, but I can still concede that games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 are all around better games. When I think of the latter two, I think of a smooth entry into a nice, big, polished world with a ton of stuff to do. When I think of the former, I think of some really awesome stuff burried underneath heaps of rusty debris, that you need to decide for yourself whether or not you wanna dig through it. And I don't blame people who choose not to.

Yeah you know I got DD on sale after reading so many good things about it, but I just kind of... let it go. It's very rough around the edges, which is fine, but I found it pretty obtuse and kind of pretentious in a way.

What I mean by that is, early in the game you leave your hometown and in-between there and the military camp there's an area with some wolves and then a large crowd of bandits between you and the objective. This is one of the first quests and the bandits utterly destroy you. After throwing myself at it a few times I looked online only to find someone explaining that that area was a "difficulty check" and you're meant to just run by them all as some kind of lesson. That really rubbed me the wrong way and it felt like the game as purposefully wasting my time. The extremely large health pools on some enemies didn't help either, making me feel like I was a weakling doing chores.

I don't know... I did play for a number of hours after that but then Dark Souls 3 came out and I never got back to it. I'm open to giving it another shot at some point.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yeah you know I got DD on sale after reading so many good things about it, but I just kind of... let it go. It's very rough around the edges, which is fine, but I found it pretty obtuse and kind of pretentious in a way.

What I mean by that is, early in the game you leave your hometown and in-between there and the military camp there's an area with some wolves and then a large crowd of bandits between you and the objective. This is one of the first quests and the bandits utterly destroy you. After throwing myself at it a few times I looked online only to find someone explaining that that area was a "difficulty check" and you're meant to just run by them all as some kind of lesson. That really rubbed me the wrong way and it felt like the game as purposefully wasting my time. The extremely large health pools on some enemies didn't help either, making me feel like I was a weakling doing chores.

I don't know... I did play for a number of hours after that but then Dark Souls 3 came out and I never got back to it. I'm open to giving it another shot at some point.

Yeah, I remember that quest. It's the one you get when you talk to the village elder, I think. Either case, I always avoid that quest until way later, because yeah, those bandits fucking wreck you, and I never even attempted to run past them. The best course of action is to fight the snake Boss at the first encampment you come across and then accompany the troops that later transport its head to the capital. It's way easier and gets you to the capital, which besides having shops also functions as a decent central hub to set out on adventures.

 

[Frankster]

I got my own personal example of what you describe: Pillars of Eternity eclipsing completely Age of Decadence.

But yeah, a lot of good, even great games go completely under the radar cos of attention hogging AAA games, best such games can hope for is cult status after launch by a hardcore few.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Bias is unavoidable (specially from gamers and reviewers); it comes from gaming experience. Anyone who says they have no bias is lying (either to themselves or to everyone else).

I just want to play good games which i enjoy.

Which aren't necesarialy the same. Enjoying a game and being a good game are different situations. It's unlikely not to enjoy a good game; but it happens. However it's not unlikely to enjoy games that aren't good. Being enyoable isn't the same as being good.

Yes, it's frustrating to see games that you consider worthy of more appreciation than what it gets to be overshadowed by less enyoable games (ZombiU: been there, done that). But claiming conspiracy or ineptitude is silly (been there, done that). If you enjoy a game (and it's as good as you claim it to be), chances are that there are a lot of other people who love it too. No amount review scores is going to change that.

PS: Still, it's good to see people not always seeing AAA games as the high-end of game quality. A little of skepticism is healthy for an industry so dependent on hype, mass marketing and pre-orders.

Very good post and POVs, especially about games being "good" and enjoyable.

So, with that in mind, maybe those who review games - and possibly the gaming community itself - has now become too "mathmatical", and not emotional enough, in how they rate a game? E.g. "in X game you can fly a dragon, it has an open world, the combat is good etc. so X boxes are ticked an thus the game is 'good'". As opposed to "this game moved me massively".

That's a common theme I see on forums. Games such as Alpha Protocol which have poor mechanics, and thus get slated by pros, viewed by some of the gaming community as a whole experience, not just an isolated set of components.

You're probably right in that there's not a concious conspiracy. But come on, how many games get released hyped up to mass praise, for people to finally accept they weren't anywhere near as good a year or so later?

I dunno, but probably no more or no less than people constantly telling me a game is terrible, only for me to not find it terrible when I actually play it for myself.

Maybe "conspiracy" is the wrong word. "Concious bias" would probably be a better term.

It's just very strange because nowadays most games I really thrive on are rated 6 or 7/10, and most 9/10+ games are massive let downs. I've no bias to any system, company, franchize etc. I just want to play good games which i enjoy.

So...play what games you enjoy?

I'm not dissing what people like and dislike, but it's hardly worth worrying about what other people think of what you like/dislike. Which is much easier said than done, but if your point is that you like different things than what others like...congratulations ,you're a human being, have a cookie.

Not being disrepaging, but you may be worrying too much about what other people like, and not simply just enjoying what you do.

Yeah you're right, my main concern is for gaming companies going under like some have when they don't sell as well as they deserve too.

To help combat that I've started (where possible) donating to game companies which produce games I enjoy. Only a few extra quid, but hopefully it helps.

 

[shrekfan246]

Yeah you're right, my main concern is for gaming companies going under like some have when they don't sell as well as they deserve too.

The video game industry isn't a zero-sum game. Mass Effect selling well doesn't take sales away from The Technomancer. Moreover, complaining about review scores is and always has been a fairly silly thing to do in the first place. What you should do is find a critic whose point of view mirrors yours relatively closely, and ideally find another critic who is aligned more or less opposite to you, and then follow them to get a decent picture of potential games you might like. Then, learn to stop caring about what games other people like. For instance, you're never going to convince me that The Technomancer is a good game. I tried to play it, because I wanted to like it. It left me feeling distinctly apathetic. But if you like it, then that's great. I'm glad that it provided you with something you desired.

 

[DoPo]

Yeah you're right, my main concern is for gaming companies going under like some have when they don't sell as well as they deserve too.

The video game industry isn't a zero-sum game. Mass Effect selling well doesn't take sales away from The Technomancer.

I don't think that's completely true. Not really completely false, either. It is more correct than it isn't but still, I'd like to address that:

Yes, it isn't a zero sum game, especially when comparing two completely unrelated products. Let's say FIFA 08 and GTA 5 - for one, they aren't even released in the same year and also the audiences for both games are different. Sales in one would hardly affect the other in any way. However, the closer the games are, the more competition would be between the two, say, Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 or Call of Duty and Battlefield. If the games target the same audience then one could very well hurt the sales of another, if they are released close to each other that can also have an effect.

Of course, that doesn't make the competition zero sum - if Joe Random buys the latest CoD, there is forbidding him him from also buying the latest Battlefield. Heck, you can even make the argument that if somebody likes a particular genre, e.g., shooters, then they might be more likely to get more games. However, that just really goes to show that the relationship between games is complex.

At any rate, basically some really "close" games might result in a negative effect for one. Reasons would vary but generally, for shooters (since I started with this example), one simply doesn't need all the shooter games, so Joe Random could get CoD now but skip Battlefield if the two are deemed "too similar". Another factor could be if one game is considered "superior" which I've heard mentioned about your very example. Now, I don't know how much truth there is to it, but I've certainly seen people say that The Technomancer is just trying to ape Mass Effect but falls short in many respects. This can very well lead to some people just going "Oh, I've played Mass Effect but if this isn't as good, I'm not going to play it". Not all - some, but still the fact is there, one game can affect the other.

 

[shrekfan246]

At any rate, basically some really "close" games might result in a negative effect for one. Reasons would vary but generally, for shooters (since I started with this example), one simply doesn't need all the shooter games, so Joe Random could get CoD now but skip Battlefield if the two are deemed "too similar". Another factor could be if one game is considered "superior" which I've heard mentioned about your very example. Now, I don't know how much truth there is to it, but I've certainly seen people say that The Technomancer is just trying to ape Mass Effect but falls short in many respects. This can very well lead to some people just going "Oh, I've played Mass Effect but if this isn't as good, I'm not going to play it". Not all - some, but still the fact is there, one game can affect the other.

See, I'm not going to argue that games exist in a vacuum; of course one game will impact another of a very similar style. But it goes both ways. If The Technomancer had been a more competent game, then the comparisons to Mass Effect would be a very positive thing to most people, rather than a curiosity that attained cult status with a select group of people. I know that I have a hankering for more science-fiction RPGs.

 

[K-sha]

not for me. almost all games I play are niche market, and i rarely get or care about any AAA games. Nier Automata will probably be the 1st AAA game I get in awhile, and I'm not sure if that's really an AAA game.

 

[Avnger]

If I'm reading the OP correctly, this a complaint thread about how a product with lots of advertising money behind it from a brand-name company is overshadowing a little-known company's product that has minimal to no advertising money behind it, regardless of quality?

Welcome to capitalism and the free market; this happens with all products in all industries. Not really much that can be done about it without finding a way to change how the human mind reasons unconsciously or extremely authoritarian control of the market.

 

[iwinatlife]

Bias is unavoidable (specially from gamers and reviewers); it comes from gaming experience. Anyone who says they have no bias is lying (either to themselves or to everyone else).

I just want to play good games which i enjoy.

Which aren't necesarialy the same. Enjoying a game and being a good game are different situations. It's unlikely not to enjoy a good game; but it happens. However it's not unlikely to enjoy games that aren't good. Being enyoable isn't the same as being good.

Last I check Games primarily goal is to pass time in a more enjoyable manner, so how can an enjoyable game be "bad"? If you enjoy the experience that is definition of what you find to be a good game. Because good, bad, enjoyable and boring are all very subjective. So if you dont enjoy a game it would not be good to you. If you do it is.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

Last I check Games primarily goal is to pass time in a more enjoyable manner, so how can an enjoyable game be "bad"? If you enjoy the experience that is definition of what you find to be a good game. Because good, bad, enjoyable and boring are all very subjective. So if you dont enjoy a game it would not be good to you. If you do it is.

Being able to make "good" or "bad" less subjective and more contextual is important when you try to explain why you recomend a game. The context of technical standards (i.e. bugs or game crashes affecting the experience), expected execution (content, model design or voice acting that makes sense) and the existence of more (or less) enjoyable games affect how good someone sees the game. There is also the "so bad that it is good", where big technical aspects are bad, general execution is horrible and lots of games provide a better experience in the same genere; but its fails are so absurd that it's enjoyably funny.

You'll have to pass me where you checked that. Because in my experience that isn't true.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

Mother Russia Bleeds came out, it was something I wanted for a long time, and it was good. I ain't mad in the least it getting buried amidst the morass. I'll hug it anyway.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Damn, I keep running across praise for The Technomancer lately. I guess I should check it out sometime.

As for better, lesser known games being overshadowed by more popular counterparts, here's a few off the top of my head, with the more obscure titles listed first (I don't think the more popular ones are necessarily bad, I just don't enjoy them as much):

-The Neverhood vs. Grim Fandango (where's my Neverhood remaster, EA?)
-X-Wing series vs. Rogue Squadron series
-Brothers in Arms series vs. Medal of Honor/Call of Duty (the WWII ones)
-Killing Floor vs. Left 4 Dead
-Cel Damage vs. Twisted Metal
-Death Road to Canada vs. The Organ Trail
-Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction vs. GTA III/Vice City/San Andreas (it's GTA with tanks, airstrikes and destructible buildings! What more do you want?)
-Saint's Row II vs. GTA IV
-Earth Defense Force series vs. most triple-A third person shooters ("E-D-F! E-D-F! E-D-F!")

It just strikes me as a little odd. For what it's worth I hated The Force Awakens too, thought it was awful, and there just seems to be a machine of hype & BS trying to brainwash us all into thinking good is bad, and bad is good?

Tell me about it. I think Rogue One is leagues better than TFA (I still enjoyed TFA, but it definitely could have been better in the story department), yet some review outlets seemed to have an irrational hate boner for the thing. I have no problem with legitimate critiques, but when the New York Times and RedLetterMedia (I normally like you guys and you're free to dislike it, but goddamn. You've dedicated one Half in the Bag, two Plinkett commentaries and a Podcast to bashing it. Give it a rest already) insinuate that it's only popular because brain-dead fans will watch anything, I can't help but feel a bit miffed.

That said, I don't think it's so much wanting to promote "bad" as it is promoting "safe." Most large corporations typically base their decisions on trying to reach the largest demographic possible, thus products are watered down and homogenized to make them as accessible and inoffensive as possible. There are exceptions of course, but typically they're slaves to bean counters, focus groups and the almighty chart.

I'm really bummed out by batteborn getting annihilated by overwatch. After the server emptied out I switch to OW, but the time to kill is so ridiculously low that I just can't get into the game playing with random. It's just so uninteresting to get randomly killed without being able to do anything about it.

Battleborn was already dead and buried when I started looking for a TF2 alternative (I've grown sick and tired of Valve's mishandling of the game over the years), so I had little choice but to go for Ovewatch. While it's managed to fill the void TF2 left, I have to agree with your complaints about the lethality factor. Say what you want about TF2's unbalanced unlocks and random crits, but you still have a chance to defend yourself most of the time if an enemy gets the drop on you. Overwatch on the other hand has too many "hard counters" that leave you completely boned. And don't get me started on ultimates, especially the bullshit AoE insta-kill ones. I hate when my team does everything right, only to be wiped during overtime by some asshole who held onto their ult for half the match while hiding in a corner (bonus annoyance points if it ends up being PotG).

 

[Danbo Jambo]

-Brothers in Arms series vs. Medal of Honor/Call of Duty (the WWII ones)
-Killing Floor vs. Left 4 Dead
-Cel Damage vs. Twisted Metal
-Death Road to Canada vs. The Organ TrailDamn, I keep running across praise for The Technomancer lately. I guess I should check it out sometime.

As for better, lesser known games being overshadowed by more popular counterparts, here's a few off the top of my head, with the more obscure titles listed first (I don't think the more popular ones are necessarily bad, I just don't enjoy them as much):

-The Neverhood vs. Grim Fandango (where's my Neverhood remaster, EA?)
-X-Wing series vs. Rogue Squadron series

-Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction vs. GTA III/Vice City/San Andreas (it's GTA with tanks, airstrikes and destructible buildings! What more do you want?)
-Saint's Row II vs. GTA IV
-Earth Defense Force series vs. most triple-A third person shooters ("E-D-F! E-D-F! E-D-F!")

It just strikes me as a little odd. For what it's worth I hated The Force Awakens too, thought it was awful, and there just seems to be a machine of hype & BS trying to brainwash us all into thinking good is bad, and bad is good?

Tell me about it. I think Rogue One is leagues better than TFA (I still enjoyed TFA, but it definitely could have been better in the story department), yet some review outlets seemed to have an irrational hate boner for the thing. I have no problem with legitimate critiques, but when the New York Times and RedLetterMedia (I normally like you guys and you're free to dislike it, but goddamn. You've dedicated one Half in the Bag, two Plinkett commentaries and a Podcast to bashing it. Give it a rest already) insinuate that it's only popular because brain-dead fans will watch anything, I can't help but feel a bit miffed.

That said, I don't think it's so much wanting to promote "bad" as it is promoting "safe." Most large corporations typically base their decisions on trying to reach the largest demographic possible, thus products are watered down and homogenized to make them as accessible and inoffensive as possible. There are exceptions of course, but typically they're slaves to bean counters, focus groups and the almighty chart.

I'm really bummed out by batteborn getting annihilated by overwatch. After the server emptied out I switch to OW, but the time to kill is so ridiculously low that I just can't get into the game playing with random. It's just so uninteresting to get randomly killed without being able to do anything about it.

Battleborn was already dead and buried when I started looking for a TF2 alternative (I've grown sick and tired of Valve's mishandling of the game over the years), so I had little choice but to go for Ovewatch. While it's managed to fill the void TF2 left, I have to agree with your complaints about the lethality factor. Say what you want about TF2's unbalanced unlocks and random crits, but you still have a chance to defend yourself most of the time if an enemy gets the drop on you. Overwatch on the other hand has too many "hard counters" that leave you completely boned. And don't get me started on ultimates, especially the bullshit AoE insta-kill ones. I hate when my team does everything right, only to be wiped during overtime by some asshole who held onto their ult for half the match while hiding in a corner (bonus annoyance points if it ends up being PotG).

Great shout and thanks for the recomendations.

Agreed with TFA Vs Rogue ONe paragraph too. For me the balance is way out of proprtion now.

And definitey check out The Technomancer. It's flawed but still, IMO, awesome. It's been a long, long time since I felt absolrbed by a world as much - Dragon Age:Origins & Mass Effect 1 probably the last games to do so. You can tell it's not got the budge they have, but it satisfy's in various ways which they did but few have since.

One thing I would say is that I find the Rogue fighting style makes a lot of difference to how much I enjoy it. For me it's head and shoulders above the others, so if the combat isn't clicking make sure you try that first before giving up.

Yeah you're right, my main concern is for gaming companies going under like some have when they don't sell as well as they deserve too.

The video game industry isn't a zero-sum game. Mass Effect selling well doesn't take sales away from The Technomancer. Moreover, complaining about review scores is and always has been a fairly silly thing to do in the first place. What you should do is find a critic whose point of view mirrors yours relatively closely, and ideally find another critic who is aligned more or less opposite to you, and then follow them to get a decent picture of potential games you might like. Then, learn to stop caring about what games other people like. For instance, you're never going to convince me that The Technomancer is a good game. I tried to play it, because I wanted to like it. It left me feeling distinctly apathetic. But if you like it, then that's great. I'm glad that it provided you with something you desired.

Not sure I agree chap. If I've only ?60 to spend on games then that goes to games which I'm influenced into thinking are the best buys.

Surely that's a common approach everywhere? Surey there ae tons of people with finite resoutceswho have to choose between one game and another?

 

[hermes]

Sighs...

Listen, there is no conspiracy. What you are seeing is the power of marketing, word of mouth and production values to saturate the conversation. The reason why more people talked about DOOM than Strafe is because a lot more people were waiting to play DOOM, were talking about DOOM, uploading videos about DOOM, also the DOOM team has a dedicated marketing team whose job is to makes sure you are aware of DOOM, the budget to plaster Times Square with DOOM posters and the audience to make every reveal video about DOOM one of the most watched videos on youtube. Finally, a lot of publications have a limited staff and have to focus their effort in covering games that people are anticipating (which will be: DOOM or every one of the dozens Greenlight FPS that came out that week).

As I said, it is not a conspiracy. Just the conversation being dominated by what people what to hear about. It is not exclusive to video games either. We had 2 movies with Samuel L Jackson on the same week on 2012, but I doubt many people could name the-not-Avengers-one. "They are watching" came out the same day than "Batman v Superman"... maybe it was a good movie, maybe even better than most things in theaters (probably not, tough), but how many people do you think went to see it? how many of them posted on forums or uploaded review videos? how many pages dedicated to movies made a single article about it?

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

It all boils down to marketing.

The big generic AAA game studios have millions of dollars to pour into ads and stuff, and the hype machine often leads to reviewers giving some of these games way more of a happy ending than they deserve. It's not a "conspiracy", it's marketing and hype machine stuff that leads to otherwise great games from lesser studios getting ignored.

It's why studios like Nine Dots can come up with something really special and get ignored. They had a customizable space-shooter arena type game that was incredible...Dead in 2 months. They have a game upcoming that looks like Morrowind meets Dark Souls and there's barely any fanfare. :s

I'm currently 15 hours in to The Technomancer, and I'm absolutely LOVING it. Yes it's flawed, but the overall experience it brilliant.

Yeah, it's pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. Especially once you get good combat skills that let you mop up mobs of weaker enemies. That and the story is actually pretty good, generic villain aside. There's some interesting character arcs too, and a same romance that just kinda shows up that's so damn sweet I felt BAD turning the person down (it also felt like it came out of nowhere, in a good way).

Anything made by Spiders makes my ears perk up. Of Orcs and Men and the Styx spinoffs are all incredible (if flawed) stuff.

-Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is the second best Advance Wars game, and its darker tone is to its benefit, not detriment.

I'll take that second place and raise it to first. The story is actually goddamn compelling, with just enough of the old advance wars humor to offset the grimdark and turn the game and story into something really great.

Not to mention that I vastly prefer the way CO powers are handled in this game. Now they're actually a strategic investment and I love it.

The older games kinda felt waaayyy too campy/cheesy and unbalanced for me to really give a damn about, aside from maybe the first one.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

It all boils down to marketing.

The big generic AAA game studios have millions of dollars to pour into ads and stuff, and the hype machine often leads to reviewers giving some of these games way more of a happy ending than they deserve. It's not a "conspiracy", it's marketing and hype machine stuff that leads to otherwise great games from lesser studios getting ignored.

It's why studios like Nine Dots can come up with something really special and get ignored. They had a customizable space-shooter arena type game that was incredible...Dead in 2 months. They have a game upcoming that looks like Morrowind meets Dark Souls and there's barely any fanfare. :s

I'm currently 15 hours in to The Technomancer, and I'm absolutely LOVING it. Yes it's flawed, but the overall experience it brilliant.

Yeah, it's pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. Especially once you get good combat skills that let you mop up mobs of weaker enemies. That and the story is actually pretty good, generic villain aside. There's some interesting character arcs too, and a same romance that just kinda shows up that's so damn sweet I felt BAD turning the person down (it also felt like it came out of nowhere, in a good way).

Anything made by Spiders makes my ears perk up. Of Orcs and Men and the Styx spinoffs are all incredible (if flawed) stuff.

-Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is the second best Advance Wars game, and its darker tone is to its benefit, not detriment.

I'll take that second place and raise it to first. The story is actually goddamn compelling, with just enough of the old advance wars humor to offset the grimdark and turn the game and story into something really great.

Not to mention that I vastly prefer the way CO powers are handled in this game. Now they're actually a strategic investment and I love it.

The older games kinda felt waaayyy too campy/cheesy and unbalanced for me to really give a damn about, aside from maybe the first one.

Morrowind meets Dark Souls? Crikey that sounds right up my street. Can you give me some moe details of te game please, no idea what t is?

And on that, I'm wondering if there's any way which gamers can help and influence things? The community seems so scattered, and core gamers who'd recomend games such as The Technomancer, Morrowind, Pillars of Eternity etc. get burried beneath the IGN & AAA hype machine. Could Someone like Yahtzee or Jim maybe help smash through the AAA whitewash?

ANd yeah, I've just been playing the Technomancer again now and I just can't get enough of it. It's that whole feel. Like an eposodic series of something like Dune, Battlestar Galactica or Buck Rogers, it really takes me back the Dragon Age Origina, Mass Effect 1 days of role-playing where you actually had to think a bit. Still plenty of room for iprovement, but massively enjoyable.

What I wouldn't do for an RPG where it's got a modern feel & look, but old school "values" such as no quest markers, and no "safe" dialogue structure etc.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Morrowind meets Dark Souls? Crikey that sounds right up my street. Can you give me some moe details of te game please, no idea what t is?

It's called Outward.

https://www.ninedotsstudio.com/outward

If you check the youtube channel, there's an hour and a half long stream of them playing the game and showing off the mechanics they've completed and stuff, before they eventually start showing some of the areas and mechanics that aren't "complete" yet. XD

And on that, I'm wondering if there's any way which gamers can help and influence things? The community seems so scattered, and core gamers who'd recomend games such as The Technomancer, Morrowind, Pillars of Eternity etc. get burried beneath the IGN & AAA hype machine. Could Someone like Yahtzee or Jim maybe help smash through the AAA whitewash?

Aside from getting massively popular and constantly looking for weird new things and covering them massively? I don't really know. :s

I would really love the more obscure gems getting more coverage.