If it's too free form or too "sandbox" people are going to get bored with it quickly unless there's co-op, half this stuff in Watch Dogs sounds like it'll only be fun if there are other people to experience it, notice how much more fun GTAV is when there are other players involved?
Yeah I loved the first game it was groundbreaking at the time and I must have played through it half a dozen times but the second didn't grab me at all, the loot system just seems broken to me compared to the first.
Plus the first game was a far more screwball type of story and you were mainly fighting outlandish monsters and insane bandits not boring robots.
Good points about DA:2, the game was full of interesting characters, it's just that Hawke wasn't one of them, I felt the same about the Witcher games, awesome world, mesmerising supporting characters and plotlines but held back by a boring main character.
Mass Effect works because Shepard is basically a blank slate, then you have all the other "silent protagonist" RPG's, they work because you're tasked with playing a role and developing a character, not unrav...
It's nothing to do with "culture" or how ordinary people view nudity and violence, Australia, Germany and the U.K don't have unlimited freedom of expression like the U.S. So if a person or a group of people do decide to take offense at something in a game they can actually make a publisher or a developer's life miserable, sue them, get the game banned etc.
I like the Dragon's Dogma party system, the hired pawns are actually useful on missions because as they level up they gain knowledge of the regions and the quests and drop hints. Granted they're annoying sometimes but if you save up and hire some high level pawns for the more difficult areas it's well worth it, plus they warn you of ambushes, point out loot and resources, it's not a perfect AI system but it's not bad.
Dragonborn was like a sample platter of ES lore, you got a little bit of everything but none of the individual elements were particularly satisfying.
I thought Dawnguard was OK, it was at least on a par with my other favourite quest line in Skyrim, the Dark Brotherhood.
We got some free DLC with Mass Effect 3 didn't we?
Hearthstone is ridiculously addictive too, I've deleted it from my computer because I had that same feeling of falling into a vortex like I did with WOW. I can see how it'll make millions if enough people get hooked on it.
Pandering to Liberals who hate games and gaming anyway was a mistake, these "risky" themes ended up falling flat because it's impossible to transmit things like "Anti racism" via a video game, much less a shooter where after each sermon you go and blast, behead, burn and electrocute enemies for ten minutes.
I've played it too, it's fun but the paid content is a rip off so I don't play it anymore.
Amnesia is pretty spooky the first time you play it.
Eeep, this was meant to be a reply to BitbyDeath below.
It's only boring if you're playing with children or people who are impatient, they get wiped out in the first few minutes, then the people playing properly are overwhelmed by superior numbers. Three kills is a good score in this game, more often than not you'll get one or none, it's essentially a class based shooter but one in which the classes have very strict roles which you can't mess about with, if you try to be a jack of all trades you're either going to be sittin...
Lego Sex And The City.
Yeah I thought Bioshock Infinte was shirt too, the fact that the DLC is equally shirt just goes to prove...
6.Great level design.
Nier was a sad story altogether, I'm a pretty hard case and even I had a lump in my throat at times.
I mostly play RPG's too but the only reason I sometimes play the competitive shooters are the leveling systems and character customisation .The reason I don't play them all the time is that once I hit prestige or the level cap I'm no longer that interested in continuing because there's no incentive to set aside the time to play.
A lot of it was aggravating and overly fiddly too, like the skyhook mechanic for example and the enemies were uninteresting compared to the splicers. The Andrew Ryan story at least made some sort of sense but the Infinite story is a mess and it's full of holes and silly 21st century Liberal tropes that don't fit the tone of the fiction.
GTA Online is one of the very few multiplayer games which has actually repelled me from playing just purely on it's content and gameplay. Example: I don't play Counterstrike because I suck at it, so that's down to me but it's impossible for anyone to suck at GTAO because it's not based on skill it's just so shoddy and poorly thought out that a generally skilled player of video games is just as likely to lose a race or a deathmatch as a non gamer. Take the mission "...
Yay, another griefing simulator like GTA Online, internet assholes rejoice!