Cameron

@junkerman: The story is pretty bad. It's basically just a series of mini-stories that don't connect much. I thought the Bruz and the forest-god-thing(Nurnen?) quest lines were alright. There are a few good set-piece fights especially in the forest god quest line. If you're not enjoying the game though, I don't think it's worth putting more time in to see this stuff.

@frostyryan: Not really. Just watch the cutscene on Youtube. It's literally just a cutscene, there's no extra quest involved. I saw it through because I was still enjoying the core loop of collecting orcs until about half-way through act 4. It's absurdly long (like 20 hours) and is nothing but defending forts. No story in between or anything. If that still sounds like a good time to you then go ahead, but don't expect any kind of big revelation or reward.

I've only paid for them in some free-to-play mobile games. In most of those cases I've gotten dozens of hours of entertainment out of the game and wanted to give the developers something. I don't think loot boxes should be part of games that cost money, so I don't buy them.

It is nothing like You Must Build a Boat. That game has cool systems and upgrades. This game is just a confusing mess. If you're way into wacky for the sake of wacky (I'm personally super burnt out on this theme), this game has that in spades, but I don't think it's actually fun to play.

I'll echo the consensus here and say framerate. I've been going back and forth from Shadow of Mordor on PC at 60fps and Assassin's Creed Origins (I got it cheap) on PS4 at 30fps (though it feels way lower than that most of the time) and it makes Assassin's Creed feel terrible. It's also the main reason I havn't picked up a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X. I want 60fps, not more graphical effects and resolution and that's almost never the priority.

I played a lot of it too back in the Brevik days. I was always really impressed with the community at the time. It's the only online game I have every played that had a welcoming and helpful global chat. It's my most played game on Steam and I put about $200 into it over my play time, which is by far the most I've ever put into a free-to-play game.

It seems like the management took a gamble making the console versions. They neglected the PC version for years to make it, then screwed up the console launch by making everything way more expensive than it was on PC and not having all the content.

The PC community definitely turned against Gaz, but for mostly good reasons. They had a rough launch on PC, but they mostly made good on it in the second and third years. Then they consistently failed to add new meaningful content (other than characters) while they worked on the console version. To be clear, I'm not defending anyone who was a jerk to the developers, that's a shitty move in almost any circumstance. I'm saying there were good reasons for PC players to stop supporting the game.

Joke answer: Metal Gear Acid 2... but I'm only partly joking. Real answer: you already played the best one by a wide margin. I love the other games, but they all feel like shit to go back to. I imagine it would be even worse if you don't have any nostalgia for them. The only one I haven't replayed recently is MGS4, so maybe that's ok. However, if what you liked was the freedom, then Peace Walker is probably the closest to MGS5 in that regard. My personal favorite is MGS3, but I like the story and characters way more than I actually like playing it.

I'm not convinced it's worth upgrading to a new TV (assuming you already have a 1080p set) unless it's OLED. Going from plasma to LCD will be a step backwards for black levels, and since no one makes plasma TVs anymore, OLED is the only way forward. Local dimming helps, but I've only seen that on pricier LCDs. Not that black levels are everything, of course, but I hate the idea of buying a new TV that's worse at something than my current one.

It's not just Australia and the EU. They are often different here in Canada to. They are usually pretty close (sometimes they just tack a CA on at the end), but it can be a pain when you want the XTJEGLA4893782 and the only one you can find is the XTJEGLB4893784.

It might not ever hook you. I did the A-C playthroughs and just kept waiting for the game to get amazing. It never did. It's a good game, and I enjoyed my time with it, but it wouldn't even make my top ten for the year. The atmosphere and music are great, but I just didn't enjoy playing the game very much.

I think a lot of people get hooked on the questions it presents about consciousness, identity, mind, etc. Some of that stuff is pretty novel for a video game, but none of it is terribly original.

I assume the criticism is coming from people like me. I've played every previous GT (maybe not 6, it's hard to remember) and every Forza game. I like that style of racing game, but I never play online. I don't want to get really good at racing, I want to drive cool cars I could never afford around great looking tracks. I also want to be able to collect and upgrade cars. Those are the things I liked about previous GT and Forza games, not the simulation racing.

I understand that some people liked the simulation racing and never touched the single-player stuff. That's fine, but that's not all Gran Turismo is. If they wanted to make console iRacing, then they should have called it something else. Not having a number on the end doesn't mean I should expect it to be so substantially different from other games in the series.

My copy of Gran Turismo Sport is coming today. After reading more about the game, I'm going to send it back unopened. I knew they were focusing on online racing, but I didn't know that was to the exclusion of the single-player stuff. I was expecting a full Gran Turismo game. Gran Turismo has always been a bit up its own ass when it comes to racing culture, but that was easy to ignore and focus on collecting and upgrading cars.