This Week in Gaming (Week 31)

[TheLostSwede]

As we enter the month of August, July still has a couple of new gaming titles to offer of which both obviously are launching on the same day. That said, August starts with a bang and brings a highly anticipated AAA title. The rest of this week's releases is as always a mix of games that will hopefully appeal to at least one of you, since the past polls suggest that the TPU readership is a picky crowd to please when it comes to games.

Baldur's Gate 3 / This week's AAA title / Thursday 3 August
Gather your party and return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power. Mysterious abilities are awakening inside you, drawn from a mind flayer parasite planted in your brain. Resist, and turn darkness against itself. Or embrace corruption, and become ultimate evil. From the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes a next-generation RPG, set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.





F1 Manager 2023 / Monday 31 July
The intense world of Formula 1 comes alive for a new season in F1 Manager 2023.
Relive thrilling races and key moments from the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship in Race Replay, a brand-new mode which brings you even closer to the excitement and drama of F1.



Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition / Monday 31 July
The HUNT Returns... AGAIN! Play the original Cult Classic '90s FPS remastered in 4K Ultrawide with UNLIMITED frame rates, restored content, NEW episodes, a level editor, cross-platform multiplayer, additional music, new options and MORE. Make 'em EAT LEAD or they'll bury you in a lunchbox!



Verses of Enchantment / Tuesday 1 August
A magical card game where you duel wizards using AI generated poetry. Travel a rich world, meet fellow wizards, collect cards and build a deck that will inspire enchanting poetry!



Thronefall / Wednesday 2 August
With Thronefall we tried to strip a classic strategy game from all unnecessary complexity, combining it with some healthy hack and slay. Build up your base during the day, defend it til your last breath at night.



Project F / Thursday 3 August
"Project F" is a tactical FPS game that features 5-on-5 team battles over defensive targets on an auto-generated map. All maps are generated for each match and never to be encountered again.



Greedland / Friday 4 August
Introducing Greedland: A Top-Down Shooter for Fans of "Vampire Survivors" and Beyond
Epic Battles with massive enemy waves. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, "Greedland" delivers finely crafted enemies that swarm you from every direction, igniting an adrenaline-fueled gaming experience that tests your boundary of sanity.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Greedland looks like spiritual successor of Crimsonland.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Old school ROTT! Talk about a game I love. Not like my sig doesn't give it away

 

[Beer4Myself]

Have bought Baldurs Gate 3 already to play with my friends ... We had played Divinity 2 before and hoped that it played simliar. So the bad things first. The fighting feels very monotone espacially at the start, video cutscenes looks nice but it is annoying if you miss a part of the dialogue just because someone walked a step too much. i personally don't like the rest mechanic and the menu bar is .. lets say you need to get used to it. But the games looks great, you now get two seperate weapon slots for fights, you can sink in hours on the creation of your character alone (story character weren't a thing as we played) and you can still be suprised if you dont be careful enough. I'd rather play it in Single player.

 

[trsttte]

Rise of the Triad seems like a worse ripoff of the original Doom, no thanks I'll take the original that's also compatible with all the things

 

[mechtech]

Have bought Baldurs Gate 3 already to play with my friends ... We had played Divinity 2 before and hoped that it played simliar. So the bad things first. The fighting feels very monotone espacially at the start, video cutscenes looks nice but it is annoying if you miss a part of the dialogue just because someone walked a step too much. i personally don't like the rest mechanic and the menu bar is .. lets say you need to get used to it. But the games looks great, you now get two seperate weapon slots for fights, you can sink in hours on the creation of your character alone (story character weren't a thing as we played) and you can still be suprised if you dont be careful enough. I'd rather play it in Single player.

hmmm

I used to enjoy the original on playstation ith my buddy, but that was an age ago.

 

[konga]

hmmm

I used to enjoy the original on playstation ith my buddy, but that was an age ago.

The original wasn't on Playstation. You're probably thinking of the Dark Alliance spin-off game, which was a completely different type of game.

 

[evernessince]

Have bought Baldurs Gate 3 already to play with my friends ... We had played Divinity 2 before and hoped that it played simliar. So the bad things first. The fighting feels very monotone espacially at the start, video cutscenes looks nice but it is annoying if you miss a part of the dialogue just because someone walked a step too much. i personally don't like the rest mechanic and the menu bar is .. lets say you need to get used to it. But the games looks great, you now get two seperate weapon slots for fights, you can sink in hours on the creation of your character alone (story character weren't a thing as we played) and you can still be suprised if you dont be careful enough. I'd rather play it in Single player.

Those were my thoughts as well. They were forced by Wizards of the coast to strictly adhere to the DnD rules so that's why the game plays the way it plays. It'd dumb IMO to strictly force tabletop game rules on a video game.

I hope that they go back to the Divinity universe after this. It's not worth doing a BG game with such nonsensical restrictions.

 

[mechtech]

The original wasn't on Playstation. You're probably thinking of the Dark Alliance spin-off game, which was a completely different type of game.

correct...........................it was a long time ago...................

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Even though I probably won't end up playing it, I voted for Rise of The Triad just because of nostalgia - I remember being a kid in elementary/middle school, and a friend of a friend was a hardcore PC gamer. While he was raving about the OG Baldur's Gate, Monkey Island, Doom, etc., the rest of us were arguing about SNES vs. Genesis

 

[sam_86314]

BG3 is now the first game I've bought for full price since Cyberpunk 2077.

Kinda felt obligated to buy it since I "demoed" it and it's actually pretty good.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Those were my thoughts as well. They were forced by Wizards of the coast to strictly adhere to the DnD rules so that's why the game plays the way it plays. It'd dumb IMO to strictly force tabletop game rules on a video game.

I hope that they go back to the Divinity universe after this. It's not worth doing a BG game with such nonsensical restrictions.

ALL the BG games had to adhere to strict DnD rules, you should not have expected any less on this one.

 

[evernessince]

ALL the BG games had to adhere to strict DnD rules, you should not have expected any less on this one.

The last Baldur's gate game in the series was released more than 22 years ago and was done by a different developer.

It is not remotely unreasonable to assume a newer entry in the series would seek to utilize advances in processing power over that time.

In addition, not every game set in the Baldur's gate universe strictly adhered to DnD rules like Dark Alliance.

Mind you I find this line of argument in general missing the point. I'm a huge BG fan and I could not care less whether they strictly follow the DnD rules or not. The fun of the game was never down to the fact that they used DnD rules, it was down to the fact that the game itself was well written and well designed. Larian's past title in Divinity Origin Sin 2 has some great mechanics that are only possible in the video game format and not in tabletop. It makes sense the original BG games were using DnD rules because at the time processing power was limited and devs didn't really know what did and didn't work mechanics wise for video game based RPGs. The industry developed RPG mechanics for interactive games over decades.

On the flipside it's nonsensical to ignore those decades of evolution in RPG video games and strictly force rules not intended for the format. This is mostly being done to stroke Hasbro's ego, who has caught nothing but flak from the DnD and Magic community for their scummy actions over the past 6 years.

The story might carry this game, who knows. It would be in spite of the limitations that Hasbro / Wizards of the coast have placed on it.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Original ROTT FTY. The remake from a couple of years ago was a disaster.

 

[Chomiq]

I want BG3 to deliver, but my backlog means that there's no sense in buying it at launch.

 

[Zareek]

I want BG3 to deliver, but my backlog means that there's no sense in buying it at launch.

I'm in the same boat. I have too many games to play and not enough hours to play them. At the rate I'm going, it will be ten dollars when I finally get to it.