Witcher 3. (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Saturday, December 12, 2015, 00:24 (3058 days ago) @ Ragashingo

I actually agree with the "official" pick of the Witcher 3, despite never actually finishing it. It's still on the list (The Taken King got in the way, and I haven't made time to go back to it, yet).

Despite the fact that I'm getting more than a little weary of open world games, The Witcher 3 is a nearly perfect example of one. It really does it right. The world is very large, but has lots of unique and interesting areas, and is truly gorgeous (just barely loses out to Rise of the Tomb Raider for gorgeous vistas, for me, but Tomb Raider isn't anywhere near the size of the Witcher). I'm only about 50% through the main story, but it is varied and interesting, and it has the best side quests of any game I've ever played. They're all worth doing, which is a large part of why I haven't finished. I'm usually not a completionist and am okay with skipping side content, but I have yet to do any mission in the Witcher and leave it thinking it was a waste of time. The relentless updates and support from CDProjekt Red was amazing.

It's just a damn good game, but it's one that requires a bare minimum of 50 hours, and that's absolutely blasting through the story, judging from my experience.

I bounce back and forth on Fallout 4. I truly enjoyed it while I was playing, but I put it down about a week ago. I took my second character about halfway through the story again, then put it down. I haven't felt any desire to go back to it. It just didn't capture me the way Bethesda games usually do. I've put well over 200 hours into every Bethesda game since Morrowind (200 hours is the minimum for those games, I put well over 1000 into Morrowind). I don't see the same happening for Fallout 4. It's nowhere near my game of the year, even though I didn't even play that many games this year.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a great game. I'm not quite finished with that yet, either, but it has been amazing. Just an all around fun game. My biggest complaint with it is that the platforming makes me wish we had a new Prince of Persia game to play. :P

Halo 5 is likewise a great game (in my opinion). I think 343i nailed a lot with it, and solidly set Halo back on the right track. The gameplay is tight and fun, I think the story was interesting, and the multiplayer is great and seeing frequent updates and content drops. Sadly, I haven't played it as much as I want. I played some BTB last week just to check out the new maps, but that was my only play session in about a month. I'm going to have to try and make some more time for it in the near future (maybe after SRL is over!), maybe jump in on some HBO custom nights or something.