GNamer Fantasy Games League (And your Year Four winner is...)

Even in the year of the Switch

(Unless your Cappa because them all being RPG's, the it's the worst year ever)

I wouldn't be against more pickups than initial drafts, pick ups are more dramatic anyway. Also I thought you hated pickups Balla

I'm keen for either as already a lot announced for 2021 and I've got a list of 25 games I might draft

I would play again although, much like last year, I have no idea what's coming out for 2021.

I still think it would be a good idea to allow Early Access games, or at least, to make it such that if a game you pick up later turns into an early access game then you can still score for that game.

Things are probably still going to be a topsy-turvy in 21 so I think allowing more possible scoring games might be a good shout.

I'll play again but definitely not feeling it that much after last year, thing more pickups will be the way forward.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

Also I thought you hated pickups Balla

Can't stand 'em. I genuinely didn't think there'd be enough games, but maybe if we all pick three JRPGs each we'll be all right.

I'll play again, and although I was fine with the 6/6 split between initial drafts and pickups, I'd be equally all right with a 4/8 or 5/7 split. 

I don't know what's coming out in 2021 either. I didn't know what was coming out in 2020...!

Yeah, I'm happy to move towards a bigger focus on pickups this year - should make the money aspect a bit more involved to boot. 4 drafts and 8 pickups sounds good to me.

Right, I'm going to put out a quick message on the Twitter group chat to double check everyone is still involved and then we'll get the show on the road!

Moyles already ruining things with his suggested rule changes

Sorry about jumping out. I'll be honest, I lost interest after picking my "funny company name" when immediately everything I chose was delayed until 2021.

Honestly I get that feeling Jim, I really do. I'll probably not be super-invested this year either, but I couldn't resist the allure of another forum game/daft company title.

Balladeer wrote:

Moyles already ruining things with his suggested rule changes

It's not bad though?

All done I feel happy with my picks especially Ratchet which on the site was the top pick.

Medium might be iffy but from the 14mins gameplay just shown looked darn good and really excited to play personally, so sort a Jimbob pick.

I am banking on my counterpick Hellblade 2 not coming out, if it does, it could be -30 or something.

I seriously considered counter picking Medium because I thought it looked bad. I don't know how old the footage I watched was but the character moved like she had a pole up her arse and she spoke with all the charisma of William Hague trying to advertise gravy. I decided not to in the end because it is definitely coming out this year. I reluctantly chose Monster Hunter Stories because it might not come out this year, if it does I don't see it being a worldie.

That being said, there was definitely a chilling atmosphere about it so maybe that'll be enough to see it through. I don't really follow upcoming releases anymore so it was actually quite nice just to see a lot of games that are on the horizon, there's a fair few I'm interested in for sure.

My dubious pick was Gotham Knights. I kind of feel like WB will have spent too much time on it for it to suck, and there's already a lot of polish about it from the footage I've seen. I love me a Batman game so I'm hoping it's good, but I can't say I'm into the co-op aspect of it. Nor the Assassin's Creed numbers everyone has over their head. Those Arkham games really thrived on making you feel like Batman, and a part of that was how little gamey abstraction was in them. Even when they did have gamey tropes like those Riddler puzzles, they made sense within the lore of Batman.

The Medium will also depend on who reviews it like if Gintendo got a code I wouldn't be getting Balla to play it but likely myself or someone else that thinks Silent Hill 2 is still a banger, because if they nail the feeling of playing that it do okay

Plus it's the first game that seems to do something next gen with two worlds at the same time due to the SSD, which could work in its favour or some might find it gimmicky

See that's another reason why I almost counterpicked it. I'm sure Silent Hills 2 still holds up, but how many spiritual successors end up being average? This is also the reason why I avoided that Left 4 Dead successor, whatever that was called. I'm sure it'll be a fun game but I don't see anything about it that isn't just Left 4 Dead with better graphics and a few minor wrinkles. As a genre, there's a fine line between a horror game feeling right and a horror game feeling wrong too, much more so than an RPG imo.

I could be wrong, but I would have thought that the gimmick has very little to do with it being on an SSD and much more to do with having the computing power to to render 2 worlds at a high resolution simultaneously. All an SSD does is make games load faster, and even then, if a console had an SSD for the operating system and hard drive for storage (as many computers do) then you would get almost the same speed as a pure SSD system for gaming.

I'm not sure, also, how I feel about what you say about the reviewing aspect of it. If the game turns out to be a let down, to the extent it lets down people who really dig Silent Hills 2, would those people be more scathing than someone who never played Silent Hills and who doesn't have strong feelings about the genre? I think as long as the people reviewing the game don't hate the genre then you'll end up with an average that isn't skewed. But personally I also think people who do dislike the genre should review it too - because if they end up enjoying it and can articulate why, then that is potentially really useful information for people that aren't into the genre typically.

I'm not a dev it's just what they've been saying and why Medium can be done on Series X and S remember, why not seen a Xbox One version of it.

I get what you're saying, I just look at Demons Souls now and how its been reviewed where I remember reviews of it on PS3 (Sterling infamously talks about his old boss with it) what's this then.

Aye, I counter picked it purely off of how I don't think it looks good & it was either that or Returnal, my only fear is their last game (Observer) did do quite well review wise.

I'm mostly pleased with my picks.

Going through them:

Guilty Gear Strive - buggered me in 2020 by missing that year, but hopefully the extra time to implement rollback netcode will make for a smoother online experience. ArcSys seem to be the new kings of fighting games after Capcom fucked it with SFV and MVC:I. Fingers crossed for high 80s here.

NEO: The World Ends With You - a total sentimental pick here and potentially a bit of a risk. I do wonder how the game will perform as the way the original worked with the DS is what made it special. I'm hoping it'll still score 80+.

Axiom Verge 2 - missed 2020, so hoping it'll make 2021 without much hassle. The original reviewed very well (high 80s) so here's hoping it builds upon that and maybe breaches into the 90s.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 - the real risk with this one is that it won't make 2021. Amusingly, I actually counterpicked this last year as I was rightly convinced it wouldn't make 2020. Here's hoping it comes out this year!

I'm interested to see if there's any sneaky week 1 pickups too.

I gambled unapologetically. Looking back on my choices I'm sure I made some mistakes (Bayo 3? ). Oh well...

Seen Cappa beat me to Psyconauts 2, how much did you pay?

And seen others been busy and Jay likely getting the wrong Forza, sure I thought we'd get Motorsport last year as it made sense and same could be said for 2021 but all the talk points to Horizon 5 instead

I think I paid £12? Same for Back 4 Blood, and Cyber Shadow looks decent for a quid.

I thought about a Forza game too, but couldn't predict what'll come out.

B4B looks good but what Muss was saying put me off a bit. Cyber Shadow is soon I believe, so get you points on the board.

Next week for Cyber Shadow, I thought about bidding for that myself but decided against it purely because it's a game I've been looking forward to for a long time and I just didn't want to be swayed by that alone.

masofdas wrote:

And seen others been busy and Jay likely getting the wrong Forza, sure I thought we'd get Motorsport last year as it made sense and same could be said for 2021 but all the talk points to Horizon 5 instead

I saw the rumour about FH5 coming before the next proper Forza, but it's the fact they've actually showed off FM for Series X that swayed me.