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From: Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: I bought Avowed at full price, for feks sake
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2025 09:43:31 -0800
Organization: i2pn2 (i2pn.org)
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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

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

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's on PC game pass so if you're dying to try it but aren't sure you 
can always pay for the month for $12.

-- 
-Justisaur

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