A Schedule of Play

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time hanging out in Elder Scrolls Online and talking with my friend Clockwork Bells or Bells as I tend to refer to her more often than not. I realize it is probably confusing given that I am most often known as Bel but I assure you that Bells is a completely different human being that is legitimate and not someone I just made up to entertain myself. Somehow we ended up getting on this kick of talking about the games coming out and release dates and it made me realize just how much of my year is already spoken for. In January I did a post looking forward into the year but at that point a lot of the dates were not necessarily set in stone. This morning I thought I would refresh that post and talk about some of the dates of specific things that I know I am going to be playing.

Outriders – April 1st

On February 25th we got our hands on a demo of this game and I am super engaged with it. I like its particular brand of run and gun looter shooter nonsense combined with a very Diablo 3 style build system. I am fully on board with this game and looking forward to the release date on April 1st. I think the demo was a pretty great call because this is one of those situations where a game is launching into a genre that has some pretty tarnished history with games like Avengers, Godfall and now the mostly cancelled Anthem. Putting a demo out there shows that they were confident in their product enough to let us start playing it ahead of time. The cherry on the top however is that some progress will be carrying over, but I have not gone grind happy like so many have because I don’t want to wear the game out before it even launches.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition – May 14th

I love Mass Effect and over the course of the years since its release I have played through it a number of times. I cannot believe how absolutely giddy I am about the prospect of playing through it once more, but this time with improved graphics and hopefully improved interface on the game that needs it the most… Mass Effect 1. Over the weekend I talked about comfort gaming and how often I revisit good experiences from the past as a way of salving mental wounds of the present, and experiencing Mass Effect all over again with fresh visuals is going to be one hell of a nostalgia trip. I pretty much expect to be doing nothing but playing this when it launches until I have exited the other end and am watching the credits roll on the third game.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood – June 1st

I’ve said this before, but right now I am having this renaissance with Elder Scrolls Online and on June 1st the next major chapter of the story is released with a whole slew of new content and a new zone. That said I am so far behind that I doubt I will actually be caught up by then, but I am going to make an attempt to at least get a little closer to being caught up. If nothing else I am sure there will be some trickle down effect that impacts me and my enjoyment of the game when this batch of content launches.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart – June 11th

This is finally one of the reasons why I actually bought a PlayStation 5 and it is coming out like six months after that purchase. I am hoping for the sake of many that by the time we hit this point in the year that it becomes a little bit more reasonable get a console. I am a huge fan of Ratchet and Clank and I am super looking forward to Rift Apart. Like this is a different sort of experience than playing a “forever game” like so many on the list. Similarly the Elder Scrolls experience is different than a traditional expansion launch because I am effectively at end game gear and have been for years now. So there shouldn’t be much of a conflict of poking my head into this game and playing the hell out of it.

New World – August 31st

This is another game that I am super on board with and looking forward to playing. If you too got caught up in the whole madness of Valheim, then I highly suggest you also put this game on your radar. While it doesn’t have the really cool building elements, it does have a lot of the same exploratory and resource gathering concepts. I played this game last year for the first time and fell in love and have been anxiously waiting to get my hands on it legitimately. There is part of me that wishes it had just launched last year as planned, but I know the game that exists today will be better received than the first version that I played. I am not at all into PVP and this game has so much PVE meat on its bones that I think it will keep most traditional MMO players happy.

The Plan So Far

That friends is pretty much all that I know that has a proper release date. There are lots more games that I am interested in, but for now this seems to be the tentative schedule that I am looking at as I progress into the year. Other bits of information that we know are the fact that Diablo 4 will not be coming out this year at all and it is starting to look like Vampire Bloodlines 2 won’t be either. I am certain whenever Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West comes out that it is going to take up prime gaming real estate. Currently Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis is also slotted for release which I expect will get on this list at some point as well. Right now there is a big gap that is the month of July and most of August but honestly I would probably be perfectly happy just to keep plugging away at Elder Scrolls Online pending we still have a presence in that game. I’ve never really done this sort of thing, actually tried to plot the course game wise through the year. We will see if in the end my year actually does look anything like this since I am very easily distracted. The post A Schedule of Play appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

A Schedule of Play

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time hanging out in Elder Scrolls Online and talking with my friend Clockwork Bells or Bells as I tend to refer to her more often than not. I realize it is probably confusing given that I am most often known as Bel but I assure you that Bells is a completely different human being that is legitimate and not someone I just made up to entertain myself. Somehow we ended up getting on this kick of talking about the games coming out and release dates and it made me realize just how much of my year is already spoken for. In January I did a post looking forward into the year but at that point a lot of the dates were not necessarily set in stone. This morning I thought I would refresh that post and talk about some of the dates of specific things that I know I am going to be playing.

Outriders – April 1st

On February 25th we got our hands on a demo of this game and I am super engaged with it. I like its particular brand of run and gun looter shooter nonsense combined with a very Diablo 3 style build system. I am fully on board with this game and looking forward to the release date on April 1st. I think the demo was a pretty great call because this is one of those situations where a game is launching into a genre that has some pretty tarnished history with games like Avengers, Godfall and now the mostly cancelled Anthem. Putting a demo out there shows that they were confident in their product enough to let us start playing it ahead of time. The cherry on the top however is that some progress will be carrying over, but I have not gone grind happy like so many have because I don’t want to wear the game out before it even launches.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition – May 14th

I love Mass Effect and over the course of the years since its release I have played through it a number of times. I cannot believe how absolutely giddy I am about the prospect of playing through it once more, but this time with improved graphics and hopefully improved interface on the game that needs it the most… Mass Effect 1. Over the weekend I talked about comfort gaming and how often I revisit good experiences from the past as a way of salving mental wounds of the present, and experiencing Mass Effect all over again with fresh visuals is going to be one hell of a nostalgia trip. I pretty much expect to be doing nothing but playing this when it launches until I have exited the other end and am watching the credits roll on the third game.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood – June 1st

I’ve said this before, but right now I am having this renaissance with Elder Scrolls Online and on June 1st the next major chapter of the story is released with a whole slew of new content and a new zone. That said I am so far behind that I doubt I will actually be caught up by then, but I am going to make an attempt to at least get a little closer to being caught up. If nothing else I am sure there will be some trickle down effect that impacts me and my enjoyment of the game when this batch of content launches.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart – June 11th

This is finally one of the reasons why I actually bought a PlayStation 5 and it is coming out like six months after that purchase. I am hoping for the sake of many that by the time we hit this point in the year that it becomes a little bit more reasonable get a console. I am a huge fan of Ratchet and Clank and I am super looking forward to Rift Apart. Like this is a different sort of experience than playing a “forever game” like so many on the list. Similarly the Elder Scrolls experience is different than a traditional expansion launch because I am effectively at end game gear and have been for years now. So there shouldn’t be much of a conflict of poking my head into this game and playing the hell out of it.

New World – August 31st

This is another game that I am super on board with and looking forward to playing. If you too got caught up in the whole madness of Valheim, then I highly suggest you also put this game on your radar. While it doesn’t have the really cool building elements, it does have a lot of the same exploratory and resource gathering concepts. I played this game last year for the first time and fell in love and have been anxiously waiting to get my hands on it legitimately. There is part of me that wishes it had just launched last year as planned, but I know the game that exists today will be better received than the first version that I played. I am not at all into PVP and this game has so much PVE meat on its bones that I think it will keep most traditional MMO players happy.

The Plan So Far

That friends is pretty much all that I know that has a proper release date. There are lots more games that I am interested in, but for now this seems to be the tentative schedule that I am looking at as I progress into the year. Other bits of information that we know are the fact that Diablo 4 will not be coming out this year at all and it is starting to look like Vampire Bloodlines 2 won’t be either. I am certain whenever Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West comes out that it is going to take up prime gaming real estate. Currently Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis is also slotted for release which I expect will get on this list at some point as well. Right now there is a big gap that is the month of July and most of August but honestly I would probably be perfectly happy just to keep plugging away at Elder Scrolls Online pending we still have a presence in that game. I’ve never really done this sort of thing, actually tried to plot the course game wise through the year. We will see if in the end my year actually does look anything like this since I am very easily distracted. The post A Schedule of Play appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

AggroChat #140 – Games of the Year 2016 – Part One

Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen and 9 Games

aggrochat140_720

It is that time again.  Time for the AggroChat crew to attempt to narrow down a list of games for our Games of the Year show.  We have never actually been able to reach a consensus so instead we gather up a big ole list of games and talk about it each year as in a two part show. So six hosts… 3 picks per host… 18 games in total, or at least in theory that is the goal.  This time around it seems to have mostly worked out as we have 9 games per episode.

During this first episode we use up our quota of colons and talk about…

  • Pokemon Sun and Moon
  • Dishonored 2
  • Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
  • Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth
  • Destiny: Rise of Iron
  • World of Warcraft: Legion
  • Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
  • Ratchet and Clank
  • 80 Days