## 2025-04-05 I'm glad I have been tuning out of the media cycle for games lately, because **Avowed** is a very good game when you don't have a dumbass in your ear telling you it should be like an **Elder Scrolls**. It's not - it's basically a first-person [[Action-RPGs|Action-RPG]] where you just explore and loot stuff to get stronger over and over again, and I'm fine with that. In fact, the game reminds me more of a Bioware game than anything else. It even has Garrus' voice actor play your very first party member! It's like Obsidian[^1] themselves wanted to draw the same comparison. I'm generally wary of FPS melee combat, but it feels great in **Avowed**, which is good because like I said it's what you'll be doing for most of the game. In fact, *all* forms of combat feel great. I've tried a little of everything because I'm indecisive, but whether you're slinging spells or living out your cutlass + revolver fantasy, everything has great [[Combat Sauce vs Mouthfeel|mouthfeel]] with a little sauce on top. There are perfect dodges and parries to play around with, and it all works out. Big fan. The plot is pretty good and well-written within the confines of what you'd consider "good writing" in videogames - i.e. it's more serviceable than a vast majority of games. Some characters be *yappin*, but you can auto-advance dialogue and read as fast as you want so you can get back to decimating the population of lizards that may or may not be sentient. Wanna circle back around to that point about the exploration by the way. Exploring is *so fun* in **Avowed**. I did not realize this game was secretly also a platformer. You do so much running and jumping around to find loot, it's a blast. The areas are all densely packed, which is what I want in my Open-Zone games[^2]. The joy of movement came as a surprise to me. Also of note is that I always forget how nice it is that with the higher-tier Game Pass subscription you can bounce from playing on your PC to your Xbox, if you have both.[^3] If the TV is free I'll get some time in with the game's well-performing 40FPS mode, and then maybe dig in some more on my computer on the weekend, when I don't hate sitting at my computer desk. Game good! Check it out. [^1]: The devs, not the app, heh [^2]: Different from "open-world," with a bunch of big areas that are connected by loading screens and with zero towers in sight to climb [^3]: I won my Xbox Series S in a Target raffle!