The Q3 gaming good times Forget Xmas, September’s where it’s at

Book some annual leave and exploit your accumulated sick days – it’s time to play the best games you’ll probably see all year. While Christmas is the traditional time for publishers to release the blockbusters, Q3 this year is an incredibly rich mother lode of games you really don’t want to miss.
Right now the team is heavily addicted to Baldur’s Gate 3 – at least, those of us that still haven’t had their fill of Diablo IV. This RPG is so good it’s being used as a poster child to guilt the rest of the gaming industry into doing better. Which is of course terribly unfair. BG3 has been in development for six years, and in early access for an astonishing three years. All plenty of time to make it perfect. If you want a truly gobsmacking open world with characters, stories and intricately detailed minutiae, you will not be disappointed. BG3 is the sort of game you can play for a year. But what to do when Starfield is released? Which is right now, as you read this. Anyone that’s fallen deeply into Oblivion or Skyrim knows that this, too, will be a game for the very long term. Both are RPGs, but will be very different gaming experiences, with the first-person visceral reality of Starfield appealing to those that don’t fancy the overview tactical stylings of BG3. Many will attempt to play both, I sure will.
But I’ve been slacking off on my BG3ing lately, all thanks to the remastered Quake and Quake 2 games. If you were gaming when the originals were released it’s damn near impossible to resist having a go at these now. Quake 2 in particular is just astonishing and is indisputably the new benchmark for remastering older titles. Besides having the original game plus two mission packs all enhanced for 4K and widescreen, and with new textures and lighting, there’s devilishly sharp new enemy AI that makes it oh so fresh – there’s also an entirely new mission Pack ‘Call of the Machine’ that could well be a 5 star stand-alone game.
And if you want something less AAA but equally cool, check out Dave the Diver. We have a review of this escapist delight on page 104. Like the Quakes, this one is easy to get into immediately and is nowhere near as intimidating as BG3 or Starfield. It’s a golden gaming time, people, have some fun .

From – BEN MANSILL

Download from:

NitroFlare

• Collectors Gazette – Issue 475 – October 2023
• Architecture NZ – September-October 2023