Browsing through the GamePass selection I just wanted an oddball game to play, somthing to diversify my pallete, and boy wad this it. Homestead Arcana from what you could suggest from the title, is a very simple farming game with magical elements although it's not a huge part of this game. If I'm being honest I wouldn't suggest this game for the gameplay. Although I found the loop of tending my crops and figuring out what's the most optimal way to use my crops to what dishes to sell was entertaining, So unless farming games are your mix I'd double check to see if this one is for you. But this game has a almost indescribable charm to it, its like a hidden gem wii game in the most respectful way possible. It has this "country" flare to it, everyone speaks In southern accent, down to the mail you receive. This game has a shocking amount of world building for a game of its kind that surprised me. I found myself reading letters often and notes scattered which I don't find myself doing often in games. The bad is definitely the "dungeon crawling" aspect of this game. To progress you need to go into these "Miasma zones" and use an item. There's no combat or even stealth. It's mainly avoiding the red circles. Extremely basic and I feel it drags down the game and makes it a chore to clear these areas to access new content.

I say it's a good 7.3/10. If you're looking for a chill game with charm sonthing to wind down with before bed do give this a shot. With this I'm curious to try out their catalouge and see how they've grown from this title.

I have spent the last few days playing Returnal and have just finished it today, I have to say I was expecting something far more from both the gameplay and the story.

Gameplay - I am not sure if the game was trivilised with mouse and keyboard but I did not ever really feel challenged. I died 11 times by the time credits had rolled, every boss except Phrike was a 1 shot affair. Once you figured out how things went in the first biome, nothing ever really changed. The gunplay and movement was very nice for a start, just not sure where the challenge was.

Story - This might be down to my lack of deaths as I know games like this need you to die in order to get the story but from my interpretation very little comes of anything you find. I was finding ciphers, alien language, cryptic tidbits but none of it amounts to anything. I may be mising some key points here but it seems that the story was essentially a fever dream that was left open to interpretation, if this is true this is perhaps the laziest type of writing there is. To me that is the developers saying "we have the start of an idea, can't expand on any of it so you decide what it means". It felt like the writers forgot what their own story was about so they just started being as abstract as possible from the midway point.

Please note what I am going to discuss relates to MLB the Show 23, but I am sure most of these features have been done even earlier.

I am a pretty casual baseball fan. I grew up watching some random games on TV, played some little league, and while living overseas I caught a few games in non-American leagues. I like the game and watching it when I can, but as a gamer, I just could never get into any MLB games or sports sims in general. Majority of them are overly slow, complex, and do a poor job of teaching new players the intricacies of the game, why it's fun, or provide a control scheme that's easy or fun to learn. That's when I decided to play MLB The Show 23 and get sucked in pretty quickly given the amount of options there are.

First things first, the game has a bunch of control options for batting, pitching, fielding, etc and they can range from the game basically playing itself for you (just time a few button presses) to overly complex where it feels like you have to enter a cheat code just to throw the ball. I opted for something in the middle and the game is fun to play. On easier difficulties I am hitting home runs with a little effort, and on harder difficulties I actually have to read pitches, yet it never feels frustrating or unfair. Because of this customization and good tutorials at the beginning, I can quickly get in and focus on the gameplay. It's surprisingly great, so even if you feel intimidated by sports sims, this one goes out of its way to help make it easier. This also applies to difficulty options. There's like a dozen of them ranging from braindead to what I'm sure is perfect play by the AI. There's a dynamic difficulty option where the AI starts on easy mode and if you play good, it slowly increases or decreases if you are struggling. Again, this does a great job to help you find the sweet spot of challenge that you can best handle, and I would hope other sports games do this too.

In terms of modes I haven't played much. There is your typical modes like franchise or single player career mode, as well as storylines where you play through Negro League storylines which is awesome and educational. I appreciate them putting in some real history here showing how the game has evolved throughout the early 20th century. My favorite mode would probably be the Road to October mode, where you pick a team and it's basically a simplified season mode. You handle finances and players a bit (or choose to automate it), and play certain games at certain points. Each team has a "story" to follow for the season, so great teams are focused on keeping their edge and winning the world series, while the weaker teams are just focused on making the playoffs or just rebuilding to have a non-losing record for their season. It has a mild "roguelike" twist to it which I think is great. I am not into managing finances or coaching, but I do want to do more than just play random games.

Overall I recommend casual baseball or sports games fan to give this one a try and see if the controls and accessibility help suck you in to actually enjoy the sport more like it did with me. I have tried recent Madden or NBA 2K games as well, and they have not done a good job of the fundamentals of their sports like this one has, so I appreciate that.

Welcome to the Bi-Weekly Thread!

Here you can share anything that might not warrant a post of its own or might otherwise be against posting rules. Tell us what you're playing this week. Feel free to ask for recommendations, talk about your backlog, commiserate about your lost passion for games. Vent about bad games, gush about good games. You can even mention newer games if you like!

The no advertising rule is still in effect here.

A reminder to please be kind to others. It's okay to disagree with people or have even have a bad hot take. It's not okay to be mean about it.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a turn based CRPG developed by Larian Studios. Released in 2023, BG3 answers the question of what kind of pajamas do heroes wear. If you answered BDSM chest harnesses, you are correct.

We play as a protagonist of our choosing, recently captured through no fault of our own. After our hitched ride crashes, we soon find ourselves in a battle for the fate of all reality as ancient horrors have returned once again to plague the world. An average afternoon for heroes on Faerûn.

Gameplay is similar to most RPG's. Combat is turn based and is loosely based on the DnD 5E ruleset. Outside of combat you can use weaponized snark in dialogue to bypass combat provided you don't flub your roll to seduce the demon lord. And of course loot everything not tied down so you can fill your inventory with an endless supply of scrolls and potions you'll never remember to use.

The Good

Immersive Sim purists will tell you that a game needs to be first person to qualify. BG3 makes a strong case for that being nonsense. For one thing it nails the 'clever protagonist' requirement with room to spare. It constantly throws problems at you with enough solutions to those problems to make Minecraft jealous.

What really makes it great is not only do you have all these different options for how to tackle problems, but it consistently comes up with new problems, keeping things fresh. Part of the fun is later looking up how other people beat an area, seeing all the different ideas they had and realizing you're not as clever as you thought you were because you just killed everything.

The second aspect is the projection of yourself. It's so easy to fall into a roleplaying groove. I was more than just a blank slate hero. I had goals, ambitions, a history. I found myself carefully considering, "If I were me...what would I do?" I don't think I ever had to make a choice I wasn't okay with, which is so incredibly rare. I was able to be the pragmatic hero I was meant to be.

The Bad

Combat has, hilariously enough, never been DnD's strong point. Especially in computer game form. DnD is designed with the idea that a DM who knows you can specifically tailor challenges to you.

In a computer game there's no social contract that says not to munchkin your character. If you want to rest after every fight so you can get back all your upcasted fireballs, there's nothing stopping you. While early game you might get creative with using terrain or locking enemies behind doors, by mid/late game combat is mostly just stab, stab and stab some more.

Worth noting of course that it's still fun. Most RPGs are like this. Eventually you hit a certain point on the power curve and it's just not worth getting out of bed unless a purple worm is eating half the city. Telling when the worst thing I can think about the game is "It has the same issue with combat all other turn based CRPGs do."

The Ugly

If I ever need to do a seminar at work on sexual harassment I'm going to make a save right around the time everything in the game begins hitting on you and make people play it. Finding out that everybody you know isn't with you because of your charming personality and mutual desire to slay monsters but because they all secretly want to plow you like a cornfield gets old.

Not a terribly big deal but I would love if these RPGs with romances had an option at character creation for "Your companions will respect that you are in a relationship with someone." I've been banging the elf lady since act 1, loudly, every chance I get so it's pretty awkward when the wizard asks if he could get in on the action.

...Maybe he can watch.

Final Thoughts

Few companies manage storytelling quite like Larian does. That they managed so many moving parts and had it make any sense at all is nothing short of brilliant. There are some minor gameplay issues but if you've played any CRPG before you're used to it. Overall any complaint I may have is easily dwarfed by just how much fun it is. There are also precious few co-op RPG's that aren't an MMO and Larian has like 30% of them. Though it might be a little awkward if you're playing with your Dad and you make a certain deal with...well, I skipped that cutscene pretty damn quick.

Interesting Game Facts

For a good time, go to any gaming forum and suggest that BG3 is just a reskinned Divinity Original Sin 2 and watch the hate flow in all directions. The Venn diagram of die hard DnD fans and people who go "Well actually..." is a circle (and I'm in it). Larian wanted the reach and acclaim doing a Baldur's Gate game would have but they didn't want to risk screwing it up with a system they didn't have a lot of confidence in. Hence we have Divinity Gate: Baldur's Original Sin 3. Let's just all relax and be glad Ubisoft didn't get this one, okay?

Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear about your thoughts and experiences!

My other reviews on patient gaming

I played Metro 2033 Redux a little less than a year ago, and enjoyed it enough to want to continue with Last Light Redux.

I don't think any of my thoughts from 2033 really changed at all - the atmosphere was fantastic, combat was solid, there were plenty of high adrenaline and spooky/horror moments, I had no clue what gun I was picking up half the time, and I still have no idea why there is a morality system in this game. I think for the most part, if you dropped me blind into either game, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

But, even though it was an extremely similar game (which was expected), I had a few more gripes with Last Light:

• Some of the enemies felt a lot more tedious to deal with - especially the spiderbugs (where you have to constantly shine a torch / lighter at them) and armored shrimps (amphibians?). Maybe that was the point, but I got fairly annoyed after a while dealing with these.
• I didn't enjoy the story as much - I got hooked onto 2033's story due to the supernatural elements, and they unfortunately took a back seat in Last Light. The story started off quite slow and also felt a bit more disconnected at times. At the beginning of the game I found it difficult to sometimes keep up with all the different factions and their goals (this might be me just not remembering as much from 2033).
  • Similar to 2033, I thought the ending(s) were pretty underwhelming. I got the "bad" ending - as expected - and just watched the "good" one later. Metro definitely seems more about the journey than the destination, but it would have been nice to learn more about the Dark Ones.
• Last Light included a bunch of DLCs in the form of independent levels, and they felt extremely hit-or-miss:
  • Some DLCs I'd just get randomly 1-shot or make one mistake and I'd have to re-do a bunch of the level (Heavy Squad, Sniper Team), some were super short (Khan, Anna), others were decent (Pavel, Spider Lair)
  • The Tower Pack was abysmal, it didn't feel like Metro at all and felt *way* too difficult - I couldn't even get past the first level. I'm not great at FPS games, but this one felt especially oppressive. I even searched around for advice and by far the most common advice was to just cheese the level for the achievement, which is not a great sign.
  • But on the flipside, the Kshatriya DLC was fantastic and easily my favorite. It added a metroidvania vibe of exploring the map, collecting items, and unlocking various shortcuts to progress. I'd play an entire Metro-based game out of this design/concept if I could.

I don't have much more to say - Last Light was still a fun game and still gave me the Metro experience which is what I wanted. It unfortunately failed to keep me as engaged as 2033 - I suspect I should have given myself a longer break between the games to help keep Last Light a bit more fresh.

I'm still interested to try out Exodus at some point, as I've heard it changes things up quite a bit. But, this time I'll probably wait for a longer time before starting.

I'm curious whether people enjoyed 2033 or Last Light more, as well as any thoughts on Exodus!

Overall Rating: 6.5 / 10 (Decent)

(I rated Metro 2033 a 7.5)

Big as hell.

For those who never heard of the game, it's a remaster(?) of an old PS3 Action RPG that apparently had a real rocky development. And you're absolutely gonna notice some rough areas with quests that don't really resolve, story wise, or choices that seem big having few(if any) consequences while others will turn a whole faction into your sworn enemy.

Despite all that, there is certainly fun to be had here. I'm playing a pure rogue build at the moment and the shit I can get up to is downright silly. In town I rob basically everyone. If the pockets can be picked or the chests/drawers/desks/etc can be looted, I'm taking a look. I've got a smoke bomb to drop the odds of being detected to near 0%(or literally 0% when not picking pockets), and I use alchemy to craft potions to turn me invisible when the smoke bomb is on cooldown. Most recently I hit up a gnomish capital, robbed everyone of note I could find, and used their stolen bank keys to burgle the local bank.

In combat, I've got a permanent poison application buff for my daggers and bow, and a permanent crit damage buff. I like to sneak up on enemies and assassinate them quietly, dealing absolutely absurd damage and often leaving a poisoned corpse that will likely explode and poison every enemy nearby. The smoke bomb I mentioned earlier? In a combat setting it stuns and poisons enemies while cloaking me. So often when I'm spotted I'll let the enemy get close, drop this and get behind the stunned, dying enemies to start assassinating again.

When that's not an option is typically when the bow and mines come out. I've got a pretty chill set up for most battles where I scatter a bunch of bleed inducing mines in front of me, then fire a scatter of arrows that inflict poison and can stack bleed. And because of another silly skill of mine I've a chance per hit to add a nice chunk of damage against bleeding foes.

But yeah, did I mention the game is fucking big? I think I've been at it for 50-60 hours and I'm still nowhere near the front lines.

I really gave Slime Rancher a try (a couple different times actually), and it only ever rises to being almost fun. The word "almost" comes up a lot in my feelings about it, actually.

The ranching gameplay is almost good, but it's defined by the fact that the slimes can and will escape their pens. It's not a controlled mechanic, it's just a result of the physics. The slimes jump around and bounce off each other and fall out of their pens (if they don't just straight up fly out with wings). You can put up larger walls etc, but they will still escape. So that's just a fact you have to design your ranch around. For me, that means my ranch was always unreliable. I had to make sure that every slime I brought back was one I wouldn't mind breeding with the others or eating out of the gardens. And assuming you make peace with escaping slimes or pay extra to build pens to hold them at best 90% of the time, then the ranching gameplay is the same every day: pick up their food from the garden, feed them, and wrestle the plorts out of the pen which involves contending with taking damage, putting accidently vacuumed slimes back, and/or giant slimes plugging your vacuum (but be careful when you shoot them back into the pen, because they'll probably bounce out or knock another slime out!). So ranching is either frustrating & unreliable or repetitive & fiddly.

The exploration is almost interesting but the world is sort of small and sort of samey. Maybe not objectively so, but the way the game works you will be running back and forth and back and forth around the same medium sized map over and over. Having only 4 inventory slots is the major limiter. You feel the squeeze of the extremely limited inventory every time you go exploring, and by the point I stopped (I'd gotten 3 keys and unlocked the lab) it was a major fun drain. There are so many slimes and items, so either you leave tons of interesting/valuable items behind to keep going, or you cut your exploration short (and run all the way back to your ranch, do your chores, and run all the way back). So exploring is consistently either frustrating or repetitive. Or both if you lose all your items by dying (which usually happens from instadeath pits or getting swarmed by slimes)!

The story, as delivered by emails and H notes, is just nothing. Emails are letters from no one about nothing, and the H notes are a simple travelogue/journal with no intriguing ideas, hints, or mystery.

Two last quibbles: 1) There should be a button suck up only plorts. They are the economic blood of the game, and they are always surrounded by other things you'll accidentally vacuum. 2) The fact that you can explore deep into the map, find a teleporter, and it teleports you into a locked farm expansion that you haven't bought is so annoying. I really wish the barriers between those areas and your farm would let you pass back into your farm like a one way door.

Ok, I'm done. Everything Slime Rancher almost does well is done so much better in another game: Stardew, Animal Crossing, Subnautica, Dredge, A Short Hike, Ooblets, I could go on. Maybe play one of those instead.

Edit: softened the last paragraph

I wanted to play the Far Cry series for a while now, so I bought the first three and got to work. This is my journal of what happened.

I started with Far Cry 1, the only game that was actually made by Crytek (of Crysis fame), instead of Ubisoft. And I’m going to be honest, I was expecting this game to be a bad experience. I’m not the biggest fan of Crysis 1 and Far Cry 1 looked a lot like a beta Crysis.

Funny enough, beta Crysis is what I got. You play in a lush, giant jungle environment with levels that are so open-ended that might look like open world (even when they aren’t) and you can attack enemies in multiple ways. It even follows the same story structure as in Crysis, with human enemies early on and then, aliens (Crysis) or mutant monsters (Far Cry). But this time around, we don’t have the nanosuit and the superpowers of Crysis, so it’s all pretty boring to play. And graphics don’t look impressive anymore.

What kept me going was the story, believe it or not. It’s incredibly dated and feels like a bad 90s action movie, with the way characters talk and act, but that was its staying power. It was hilarious in a so bad it’s good way. I ended up playing Far Cry 1 with cheats just to see those funny voice-acted cutscenes. It was like a bunch of action tropes from the 90s combined into one game that’s barely aware of it. When the credits rolled, I knew that, at least, I got a good chuckle out of it.

Then, I was off to Far Cry 2. The first Ubisoft game proper with a bit of a cult-following.

It was instantly more immersive and serious, with that first Jeep run through the African landscape. You have these little touches of realism to help the immersion, like the map acting like a real map in your hands, or your character catching a deadly disease (malaria) and the sound design, which was quite for a game this old. But some gameplay annoyances eventually worked against my enjoyment: guns get stuck all the time, during fights, enemy bases reset and are full of enemies again after a while, the whole story and characters turned out to be unappealing. And the malaria disease ended up being an awful idea with an even worse implementation. And no matter how great starting a fire is, the general gameplay was too hard to make me want to go out and explore at random. So, I dropped the game at some point, watched the ending on Youtube and jumped right to Far Cry 3, at last.

The first thing that I noticed, in Far Cry 3, after playing for a few hours, is that the game felt pretty generic, as open world games go.

Now, I’m aware this is a severe case of Seinfeld is Unfunny and the game, in a way, is the trope codifier and part of what created the generic Ubisoft template™, alongside Assassin’s Creed, that everyone and their mother followed from then on. This game is foundational to the modern open world gaming structure, but I’m not playing it anymore in 2012, I’m playing it in 2024 and I’m just not having a great time. I've played this type of game before. And other things are more an aesthetic choice but if I had to clean a tower, I prefer the robo-dinosaurs of Horizon: Zero Dawn instead of these boring, basic towers of Far Cry 3.

Also, after trying to play the game for a while, I could finally vocalize something that was germinating during my Far Cry 2 playthrough: I just don’t like the guerrilla setting, I don’t like the core idea of it.

Since the basic gameplay feels too generic, all I had left was to be immersed in the setting and characters and everyone, including the main character, are assholes. There are no winners here. And I don’t need to be “the good guys” all the time in my games (after all, I really enjoy my GTAs and Red Deads and their characters aren’t exactly role models), but there’s something in this guerrilla warfare setting that leaves me uncomfortable. It’s some aspect of the real world that, while I know it could exist, I am not interested in exploring. It reminds a bit of the movie Funny Games, a film in which I don’t quite like the pampered victims but I also don’t root for the antagonists, either, and the whole experience left me feeling dirty and disgusted. Far Cry 2 was like that and I could see how Far Cry 3 had the potential to be like that. And after reading about how the story turns out later on, it seems I was right on the money.

So, I had to drop Far Cry 3 in the early hours and I’m not coming back. Now, Far Cry 1 aside, I don’t think Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 3 are bad games in and of themselves but they are, certainly, not for me. I prefer more fantasy in my settings, and that’s why, with a similar formula I’d rather play the Horizon series or even Assassin’s Creed. And when it comes to relatively realistic games, I even prefer the jingoistic americanism of the Call of Duty franchise or the depressing stuff going on in the Metro series. These Far Cry games make me feel I’m playing some part of humanity that’s really ugly and not worth fighting for, and if I disconnect and treat them as simple games to have fun, I’m finding them too generic (most of Far Cry 3’s gameplay) or too infuriating (malaria, stuck guns, resetted bases in Far Cry 2) and I just don’t have a good time.

Looping back to this thread’s title, Ubisoft, I know it’s not really you, but it’s me. I’m not your target and we have given it an honest try. We should split up for the time being. The definition of insanity after all, it’s trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So long Ubisoft and thanks for all the fish. I won’t be coming back for seconds (or fourths in this case, as attractive as the art of Far Cry 4 and 5 is).

Let me know what you think in the comments.

When I first heard about NieR: Automata, it was from Crunchyroll. I had never had any contact with the game series before, so I just watched the show and then only later found out it was a game as well. For various reasons, I never got around to buying the game until about a month ago. While I can see why the series has its fans, I've found myself largely let down by the parts that matter the most.

For what it's worth, the game's ambience is great. The world does a great job at showing how long it's been since the initial "armageddon" event happened and how the planet has since "moved on". It's a similar story with the music: it sets the tone really well, especially when it comes to boss fights. The comparatively crude design of the "machine life forms," as they're called, does well to hint about what happened in the events leading up to the start of the story.

Unfortunately, all the pretty decorations turned out to be just that.

The biggest gripe I have with this game is the combat. Considering that the first character you play as (2B) is supposed to be a combat android, everything about the combat feels underwhelming.

Most of the time, you'll be fighting trash mobs. This isn't unusual for a game like this and it could have been fun, but the enemies you fight are just plain bland. In essence, you can break them up into a few categories: small, medium, and large. Among those, you have flying/ hovering and armed/ unarmed types. They are all equally dimwitted and the only things really separating them are cosmetics and how much HP they have. Every so often, you might encounter a unique enemy, but those occasions are few and far between.

The ways you fight the trash mobs are just as uninteresting. While you do have a selection of melee weapons and ranged weapons to choose from, what you use doesn't really matter. With how "spongey" the average enemy is (and the fact that your "pod" has unlimited ammo), there's pretty much no reason to engage in melee combat. The end result is that instead of engaging in graceful, acrobatic combat moves or laying down the hurt with heavy swords and the like, most engagements turn into a game of "hold down the trigger and wait". If anything, the only question you have to ask when you see a horde of enemies is whether you want to risk getting drowned in damage sponges or getting a finger cramp.

The boss fights aren't much better. Aesthetically, they're awesome; a lot of bosses look physically imposing, fit their corner of the map well, and their music fits them to a "T". Unfortunately, much like the regular enemies, the game actively disincentivizes you from fighting them up close. Just like their less- powerful counterparts, bosses are also major damage sponges, which can render even fairly powerful melee attacks only marginally more effective than ranged attacks, with the added risk that you could get wiped out by a counterattack.

In the a later storyline, hacking becomes an option, which only further reduces the incentive to engage in close- range combat. With very few exceptions, it's so much more effective than the other options that they almost don't feel worth it. The difference in effectiveness is particularly noticeable on enemies that seem to have a higher melee defense.

While NieR has been praised for its story, it unfortunately wasn't enough to make up for how underwhelming what I would consider the most critical part- the combat- is.

Gedonia is a unique RPG mashup experience delivered by a solo developer. It almost feels like the developer made the answer to the question, "what if someone made an Elder Scrolls game but as a single player WoW-inspired MMO with Runescape graphics?"

It's honestly hard to place this game because it adopts a number of systems and mechanics you've seen before and does them moderately well. In terms of scope and scale, this is a massive undertaking for one person, and the polish of the game reflects that. But overall, you've got an experience oozing passion and vision with a level of build customization you'd be hard-pressed to find in many modern RPGs.

I like to mention any time I post that I'm a sucker for gameplay over story and often prefer flawed but memorable experiences, and I believe that's exactly the package I got.

I like to highlight positives more than negatives, though I will touch on areas that detracted from my enjoyment or felt like it'd left enough on the table to be disappointing.

Overview

Customization - I felt this is where the game excelled. The game offers a number of skill trees to mix and match and it really feels like you can theorycraft and cookie cutter your way into something unique and engaging. You can even do more defined approaches like straight 1h and shield fighter, necromancer, druid, archer, assassin, blood knight and so much more. I really felt like a lot of thought went into the different skill trees available and there really felt like there was something for everyone. Amongst everything the game offers, this is the aspect where I felt most inclined to start a new character to dump in more hours.

Inventory - An odd one to highlight, admittedly, but this is the one that really contributed to the nostalgia of WoW specifically. All of the icons give a distinct impression of something you'd expect to find in a WoW clone. I also appreciated that the amount of distinct loot was well-balanced to the amount of inventory slots available. This wasn't an ARPG where loot rained from the sky and you had a singular inventory page. Loot was both reasonable and manageable which is often a place that can detract from overall pacing and enjoyment.

Quests - I honestly found the quests interesting; the writing wasn't always the greatest but many of them had different approaches and outcomes depending on your chosen statistics or skills. While these didn't often materialize in shaping the world significantly, or impacting the story, it did offer interesting alternatives and gave a greater sense of player agency.

Dungeons - The dungeons were surprisingly enjoyable often with many featuring a unique mechanic. I will admit, the creativity seems front loaded as the dungeons toward the end game felt more combat oriented. Nonetheless, there was still a strong sense of satisfaction as they did provide a challenge and meaningful gear (so long as you approached the dungeons within the zone's recommended level). The most disappointing aspect of dungeons was the inability for them to reset unlike the rest of the world. I'd have loved to do them a second time, and especially to see some kind of scaling so they were still a source of end game content as well.

World - The world is broken into ten zones with a decent variety in environment. I enjoyed what the developer accomplished in terms of scale and was excited to find what lay around the next corner. I also appreciated the sparseness of points of interest compared to AAA games that focus on player engagement by discovery overload. I think the game struck a relatively nice balance between external motivation of player discovery and realism that sometimes the world doesn't have something mind blowing every few feet.

Combat - A satisfying balance between face rolling and spamming abilities and having to manage positioning and play more strategically, especially as you level. Combat also had a heavy overlap in terms of enjoyment when it came to customization, talents, and character specialization. Seeing skill investments realized was incredibly satisfying as your combat repertoire expanded.

Enemy Variety - Coupled with both combat and the world, I felt like there was a decent amount of enemy variety where most enemies had one (or multiple) unique skills that could require you to adjust strategy. I appreciated the enemy theming based on zone/biome, and I got a sense of cohesion among the threats available in game, feeling as though they added to their respective ecosystems.

End Game - This was simultaneously the area for the greatest potential and also the area with the biggest room for improvement. End game content came down to a high level trial to see how many waves you can defeat and ends when you die. Each wave is broken into a set of three fights, with the first two being regular enemies and the last being the boss for that particular wave. You get rewarded with high end gear and sets based on your progression which can help you round out a build to help you min-max. The only problem is, the trial can only be completed once every two hours of in-game time. Not to mention, the randomly generated end-game expeditions are also on the same refresh timer and are only engaging for the first 10 to 20, as you'll see a significant amount of recycling by then. Having a two hour cooldown on what is essentially the last engaging part of the game seems like a huge oversight. I liken it to the war table in Dragon Age Inquisition, which had mixed opinions on its implementation at best; even then, at least that was real time whereas this requires played time.

Concluding thoughts

Gedonia is an experience I look back on fondly. There was a significant amount of ambition that felt realized and provided an experience I have yet to truly see replicated in any other game. To me, it felt like the best parts of a fully realized MMO experience in spite of being singleplayer. It honestly scratched an itch I'd been trying to satisfy for a long time. The only real qualms I had were in the final stretch of the game, essentially what was post/end game content. I think my experience would have likely been more positive and tighter had I wrapped up after progressing through the main zones. But I think the game offers such an alluring and satisfying system for optimizing your character it only felt natural to see the end game content.

For now, I've wrapped up my initial character, but I constantly have a small desire to fire up the game with something new just to experience the game with a different build.

I'll give you my examples (I mainly play old games):

• Gran Turismo 1: I successfully completed licenses A and B, won several trophies and bought and won some cars. But... I find license I-A practically impossible. It's either clumsy of me or simply unfair on the part of the game. So I'm good! I'm done with the game. Besides, I've already successfully completed Gran Turismo 2 a couple of years ago, so I don't worry too much about GT1.
• Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions: I've already done the main training missions and passed 50%. But now I have to complete the same missions in Time Trial mode to unlock the rest. Nope! I hate Time Trials. It's done for me.
• Slay The Spire: This one will probably take a lot longer to consider it done. My goal for now is to finish all the unlocks with all the characters. Then I'll try to defeat the real final boss. When those objectives are completed, I'll probably call it a day. Even though the game is fantastic and a lot of fun with lots of replayability.

Yes, I am super late, but I'm patient (that you can't deny). Just got this game for my Xbox, since it's backward compatible, and it's awesome. Unfortunately, there's no One X patch or FPS boost, but the game still looks great for a 360 title.

The handling feels better than Legends (the only other Grid game I've ever bought, although I did play the demo for the first game back then), threading a little further into simcade territory rather than being full on arcade. What annoys me the most in Legends is how everything feels so generic. Car liveries are fake as hell, sponsors are mostly if not all fakes or copycats and their logos suck. On Autosport, it all looks and feels more authentic, giving it a more grounded look that I very much appreciate. The graphics still hold up, ten years later (I'd imagine it's much better on PC, but...), and the tracks are very detailed - both real world and fictitious ones. The audio is much better than a lot of newer games - listening to the R34 roaring is an eargasm. The campaign feels properly structured with progression through events. Also: car damage! Yes, car damage for everyone - come and get some!

All in all, it's a shame this flew under the radar back then. It's a very fun game if you're looking for a sim-looking arcade racer.

If you ever tried it, what did you think of it?

Recently got into the Resident Evil series thanks to a Halloween sale and I started with the Resident Evil 2 Remake. I absolutely loved that game and even went for the platinum trophy. It was fun to go through multiple runs as both Claire and Leon and to tackle the extra modes such as 4th survivor. Decent amount of content in that game.

Following that, I picked up Resident Evil 3 Remake. First off, let me just say that the story is fun and I like Jill a lot. The RE3 gameplay kept what was great about RE2 and added a few new mechanics like the dodge button. I enjoyed playing through the story.

Now, that being said… RE3 has a significant lack of content compared to RE2. One of the things that made RE2 fun was that Claire and Leon had unique story events. This made a replay more interesting because you encountered different characters and areas depending on who you played as. Each character also had a “second run” where you could get the true ending. RE3 doesn’t have that and I’m missing it.

I’m surprised RE3 doesn’t have a second run because, in the story, there are two points where you get to play as character besides Jill named Carlos. Now unlike Sherry or Ada from RE2, Carlos can basically do everything Jill can do. The only difference I saw was that he can’t dodge and instead can kick enemies off of him. So if that’s the case, why not add a 2nd run as Carlos? It would’ve significantly added to the replay value.

My other complaint about RE3’s content is the lack of extra modes. RE2 had the 4th survivor mode where you played as a character called Hunk and had to escape the police station while facing a gauntlet of powerful enemies. It was a great test of your skills. In addition, there were free DLC missions called “Ghost Survivors” that let you play short scenarios as various characters. RE3 has nothing like either of those and it’s a real shame.

Overall, RE3 is a good game but I’m stunned at how severely lacking in content it is compared to its predecessor. I wish it had just a few extra modes or scenarios to extend the gameplay time on this very short package.

Elex II is an open world RPG developed by Piranha Bytes. Released in 2022, Elex II shows us that pumping out the same game year after year does eventually stop working.

We play as Jax, the Beast of Xacor. Fresh off defending the world from utter annihilation, the various leaders of the world tell us to piss off because they like being racist. We sulk and go live in a van down by the river until the next apocalypse comes.

Gameplay is standard open world RPG. Roam around, kill things and occasionally get quests from NPCs who want you to kill specific things. Then there's the main quest which involves killing a lot of things.

The Good

If there's one thing Piranha Bytes is good at, it's writing pricks. Just about everyone you meet is a prick. Uptight pricks, vicious pricks, arrogant pricks, idiotic pricks, silly pricks. People aren't mustache swirling evil. They're just a bunch of dicks. I can appreciate that. Even the protagonist. The excuse for Jax losing all his powers between games is he was a prick to his girlfriend and ran off to the mountains to be a lazy prick.

The jetpack you get to move around is stupid amounts of fun. Doing swooping flybys with my shotty on mutants make life worth living. I've played plenty of games with a variety of flight control powers (Control being the most recent) and this is one of the smoothest experiences I've had.

The Bad

It commits the big sin of open world games. There's no cool locations to visit or mysteries to unravel. You'll find a bunch of run down buildings but no audio logs, journals or notes to give history or life to the place. You'll see a cool structure, fly up to it and...nothing. It's just there. No context clues, no unraveling the worlds history. Nada.

To make matters worse it's assumed you played the first game so the only interesting thing that exists, the factions, fail to delve into who they are. They just launch right into "So you want to join up with the Sharks eh? Well, all you need to know is fuck the Jets. Now go fetch me some mutant bear asses, 12 should do."

The Ugly

The ending has that classic "we ran out of time and money and need to get this out the door" feel. Everything you do during the game ends up not mattering, the last few quests are just 'slay 100 things' padding, and nothing is solved. That being said it's oddly on par for PB. It's like hanging out with your drinking buddy knowing full well that no matter how much fun he is, the night is going to end with him throwing up in your car.

Final Thoughts

As a stand alone game that came out in 2022, it's....meh. Releasing your game the same week as Elden Ring was certainly a choice. However, these days what you can do is just play this immediately after playing the first Elex and treat it like a glorified second act. Unfortunately if you do that then it's still meh. While I can tentatively recommend Elex to normal RPG fans, Elex 2 is really only for the die hards.

Interesting Game Facts

Piranha Bytes had a...tumultuous history. A lot of the people responsible for the 'soul' of the older games have long since left. The team that remained wanted to get back to their roots and work on another Gothic game but leadership wanted to continue the Elex story. Maybe it's for the best. A mediocre ending to Elex I can handle. Two mediocre endings to Gothic in a row would have killed me.

Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear about your thoughts and experiences!

My other reviews on patient gaming

Lately my friend and I have have been very nostalgic over the good old days of Valve's Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, and good coop gaming in general. There was a certain satisfaction of getting a squad to cooperate and migrate through a maze of zombies coming from every direction. A few years ago when Back 4 Blood was announced, we treated it like the second coming, a day 1 install that would reinvigorate the co-op PVE gaming landscape.

However, as many came to find out, Back 4 Blood didn't end up hitting those longing expectations of the old days. Whether it was the card system being a misfire, the fact that guns weren't that satisfying/zombies were too bullet spongey, normal difficulty being unnecessarily hard, and campaign progress being tied to the host only (my personal biggest gripe) we only put a couple sessions in before coming to the conclusion it wasn't what we were looking for.

Cue in World War Z. Now WWZ was something I already originally experienced back during its 2019 launch. At the time, I found it to be a nice homage to the Left 4 Dead games, albeit in 3rd person. Back then though, I wasn't gaming with the current circle of friends that I have now, and while I had fun running with random matchmaking players, it ultimately didn't fulfill that same satisfaction during that time and I funneled it to the back of my gaming mind.

Fast forward to recently, and we are deciding on the next coop game for us to play. We've been eyeing a certain sequel from Saber Interactive for a holiday sale later on, but it dawned on is that their previous project was in fact. World War Z. And I felt that was enough to warrant a revisit. They had repackaged the game with a current gen update and all the DLC and called it World War Z : Aftermath. A paltry 25gb download later (as opposed to Back 4 Blood pushing 95gbs) and we were in New York for mission 1.

Wow, what a great job Saber Interactive has done on optimizing and making WWZ feel up to par, not just with current gen games, but some of the better coop gaming experiences I've had in awhile!

This is a licensed game based on the 2013 World War Z movie, with a budget that was actually under what Back 4 Blood had. Yet in the moment to moment gameplay, all I was getting was a warm feeling of nostalgia, despite playing a newer game. The amount of zombies on screen during a horde rush is immense, rivaling Days Gone in term of sheer on screen size. They ragdoll around with conviction as you pump a full MLG clip down below, as your friends frantically run to activate the switch to allow you to run into the next section.

The very first thing I had to try was the new First Person Mode. This was not in the original base game back in the day, and I wonder if thats partially what I couldn't get into it. Don't get me wrong, the 3rd person controls feel fluid and you get a much better FOV, but as soon as I went into FPS mode I felt right at home. The immersion was increased tenfold, taking out a horde coming in a hallway is a very visceral view and the actual positioning of the weapons felt very L4D/Valve esque. Hard to explain but anyone that's played a Valve shooter will know what I'm referring to and it is a nice homage that they stylized their FPS mode as such here. The fact that other players aren't bound to the same POV i think is a great touch ensuring all types of shooter enthusiasts can get into WWZ.

The 2nd part I need to commend Saber for is their crossplay integration. We had a PS5, a Series X and a PC user in the same lobby with no hiccups in the joining process, and not every game has been as simple as WWZ. A short code you tell your friends to input and you're in. However, the lack of voice chat while in the menus is a glaring omission, so you still may need to stick to Discord if you don't want conversation to be broken up between missions.

The 3rd part worth commending? All of the campaigns are available from the get go, ready to tackle in any order. While we did stick to the linear storyline for now, knowing that we are not locked away from the rest of the game in case we get stuck is a great feature. My biggest problem for Back 4 Blood initially was completing the first act of the game in someone else's party, only to find out my own profile was limited to Act 1 if I were to host my own game. I might have played through Act 1 a dozen times before unlocking Act 2 for myself. WWZ superceding that by allowing you to choose any campaign is another great quality of life improvement .

Mechanically, the gameplay loop follows the "if it aint broke, don't fix it." mantra. Aftermath comes with a wide cast of characters to choose from, each with their own little perk and boosters. You have a "class" system that encourages a different style of play. You can earn credits from killing zombies and completing objectives, which in turn can be used to purchase perks, such as longer explosive throws, quick reloads, and fast medkit heals. You can only stack 3 perks at a time, which adds a little strategy between missions. If you are frequenting or favoriting certain guns, you can actually upgrade them as well, giving your starting loadout some extra oomph. This is a nice touch, because while you could experiment with different class styles, loadouts and characters, you're equally rewarded for sticking to ol' reliable. It feels like a more natural evolution to the traditional Left 4 Dead gameplay loop and not as jarring as the card system presented in Back 4 Blood. If there's any critiques to the in game loop, the lack of jumping can be a bit of a hurdle to get used to. And the animations sometimes feel like they're a bit on the slow side, which may add to the tension, but cancelling out accessing a terminal to face a zombie attacking you shouldn't take so long.

Just wanted to add this game to some gamers radar if they haven't looked at it previously. For anyone thats been longing for the old days of Left 4 Dead coop, but were burnt from Back 4 Blood, World War Z : Aftermath is able to scratch that itch and then some. They've added some really nice quality of life improvements to the game, stuffed with content. I haven't even covered the horde mode or the like, or any DLC campaigns, I just had to commend it for the solid fundamentals it has, and for the high fun factor.

My experience with the Resident Evil franchise is limited to playing Resident Evil 5 back in 2009. I remember that it looked incredible for its time and that it was very cinematic. I loved the setting and the gameplay was unique and very satisfying. The game never clicked with me in such a way that it came close to being one of my favourites, but it was definitely a good time.

Back then I mostly played new releases, so it never quite occurred to me to give Resident Evil 4 a go. Since a few years I've been playing a lot of older games that I've missed back in the day. RE4 had been on the list for a while, mostly because of it's classic/goat status. I also liked the look of the game's art style (remember seeing a shot of Leon in the opening village in a game magazine back in 2005), but horror games have never really my favourite genre, and this one looked a lot more like a horror game than RE5.

Anyway, I finally got around to playing it (PC version) during the past two weeks. Here are my thoughts:

First of all, the visuals of this game hold up extremely well, from the environments to the (facial) animations to the character models. It's mostly the texture quality and repeated models that give away the game's age. I also really dug the art style and look of the game, if there's something I've noticed often lately, it's that these older games often have such a unique and recognizable look, something a lot of 'realistic looking' modern games lack. When I see footage of the recent remake of RE4, it just looks so much more generic than the original.

Music and sound design are exceptional. The cries of the villagers, the gun sounds, the music cues. The save room theme was amazing as well in its capability to instantly make your muscles relax. Really reminded me of the Firelink Shrine theme from Dark Souls. To be fair, a lot in this game reminded me of Dark Souls, the medieval gothic locations, the look and feel of finding and using items, a general sense of foreboding. Feeling scared yet curious to see what's around the next corner.

The storytelling is a lot goofier and cornier than I expected, I had to adjust to it at first as I was expecting a more serious horror vibe, but I have to say the cheesiness actually really added to the game's charm. It also regularly alleviated the tension in a way that was very welcome for me. The goofy one-liners from Leon and his back and forth with the villains is just hilarious and some lines will be etched into my mind forever.

It's interesting to me to see people say that this game is more action than horror. I'd say this is definitely a horror game first, and action game second. If anything, it strikes an amazing balance of the two. However, everything in the game's design, from the controls to the environments, to the enemies, is made in such a way to make you feel tense and on edge, which is the design philosophy of a horror game. The game gets legitimately scary at times. I was sitting at the edge of my seat at the parts with Verdugo and the Regenators.

I'm happy to say that RE4's gameplay and controls have aged gracefully and came pretty naturally to me. Even though it's been a long time since I played Resident Evil 5, I still remembered how it played and really liked those same controls here. It's a very unique way of dealing with encounters, more tactical and slow, compared to regular third person shooters. The weapons are all great and very satisfying to use. Except maybe the knife, which just feels incredibly clunky to use.

Inventory management is great and adds a lot the the game's survival aspect, only gripe is that it can't switch weapons without going into the inventory menu. The few puzzles in the game are very straightforward but still a nice inclusion. The escort mission style sections with Ashley were fortunately not that long, since it's a game mechanic I don't really enjoy.

If there's one thing in this game that has aged like milk, it's the amount of quick time events. They add nothing of value to the game and even actively detract from it. Feeling the need to be ready to hit a random button combination at all times during cutscenes is the wrong way of getting players to feel involved. I think more than half of my deaths during this playthrough can be attributed to QTE's.

The game's openings hours are incredibly strong and the pacing is amazing, something new is constantly being thrown at you in just the right doses. Both the village and castle chapters are 10/10 in every way. Unfortunately during chapter 4 the game starts losing momentum and the latter half of it is decidedly less engaging than everything that came before.

Then there's chapter 5.. where the game decided to become a full blown action game. This was easily my least favourite chapter and huge letdown after the incredible chapters 1 to 3. The whole island feels like such a drastic shift from what came before in all the worst ways. From creepy remote village and ancient castle to modern military hideout. Everything about it has so much less character and atmosphere than the village and castle. When the helicopter sequence started I couldn't help but shake my head at what seemed like some sort of misplaced parody on Call of Duty.

Chapter 5 also felt like it was dragging the game out for no good reason, throwing wave after wave of the same enemies at you. This is the only part of the game where it starts feeling quite repetitive. The three boss fights that are cramped into this chapter don't help either. 'it' felt like a second grade verdugo. Krauser fight was ok but for me as a non-fan the character came out of nowhere and could have stayed out of the game for me. And the final boss was underwhelming and too easy. The only part that was one the same level as the first three chapters was the sequence with the regenerators.

In the end, I can totally imagine how incredible this game must have been in 2005. It's still an amazing experience today, the pacing and level design are great, the gameplay holds up very well and so does the audiovisual presentation. The game is very hard to put down and I immediately felt like playing the opening chapters once more after finishing the game. That's a feeling I haven't had in a while and proves just what a great game this is, despite the lackluster final chapter.

Full disclosure, I am incredibly biased. I beat this game many times as a kid and was quite familiar with all of its tricks. However I haven't touched it in probably over 12 years, and was very open to seeing this game with new eyes. I played thru the entire opengoal PC port, and to my delight, this game might be better than I remember it. Fuck yeah!

The biggest strength of Jak 2 is its variety and pacing. This game has so many ideas and it dishes them at you at a brisk pace. One mission might mix raw platforming with some gunplay. The next you'll destroy some high powered vehicles around the city. The next might do some wave defense. Once you get the jetboard, the game gives you a few missions centered on using it so you can familiarize yourself with it. Most critically, I never felt like any ideas overstayed their welcomes. Most missions take only about 10-15 minutes to finish (provided you don't die a shit ton, more on that later). I felt like almost every mission was a nice burst of a well executed idea. They keep throwing new shit at you all the way to the end too, including a cool mech suit in the last 1/4th of the game. The game itself isn't really that long too, my playthrough only took about 11-12 hours, and that was while doing some of the side stuff in the city.

Speaking of the city, I really liked it. It isn't at all a "living breathing environment" but it's very atmospheric and sells itself well. When driving, you have to avoid smashing into other vehicles in the upper layer and dodge cops on the lower, which makes for a little mini game while going between objectives. The physics are really good too, and blowing up small zoomers with the big buggies by rising into them from below is as fun as it was 12 years ago. The sound design too?? This whole game has such killer sound design. Every vehicle, every gunshot, every step of Jaks feet has punch and clarity.

The story is... OK. It doesn't fully deliver on its potential. There are a lot of threads that don't have satisfying ends or that spin off into more threads. What's really missing in this game are small scenes to flesh out character relationships and motivations. Every cutscene usually involves talking about how evil the Baron is, talking about how evil the metal heads are, or about finding a macguffin. Always punctuated by some wacky buffoonery from Daxter. There's a big lack of emotional stakes in the story besides Jak just being a really pissed off dude.

But of course, Jak 2 is remembered for its infamous difficulty. There's a total lack of checkpoints in some of the longer, more difficult missions. I-frames are pretty minimal, so you can get ganked by big groups of enemies. Your health bar is small, and health pickups are infrequent. So what do I think? Maybe controversial, but I didn't really struggle with the difficulty. This is my bias showing, as I was prepared for the well known horseshit levels (the strat for the seal in the slums is to use the jetboard and skip all the combat). But even then, respawning is very quick and most of the levels are not extremely long, so you're only losing 2 ish minutes almost all the time. You've got to make use of all your guns and movement skills to stay alive. The gunplay here is very solid, and enemies rarely get the drop on you. You'll usually be able to assess a situation and then act (ammo is plentiful, spam that peace maker near the end). The platforming isn't very hard either, it's just punishing when you mess up. I think the difficulty of this game, while kind of fake, doesn't feel overtly unfair. Funnily, I didn't struggle with the slums escape or the sewer escorts, but did struggle with war factory and underport. That's back to back horseshit levels right at the end of the game.

What I loved the most though, is to me this game felt like a great sequel to the first game. TPL is one of my favorite games, and playing Jak 2 again revealed how much was actually carried over and built upon from that game. The level design is strong and confident with lots of visual flair. Running around lush green areas with that striking precursor architecture dotting the landscape is a signature flourish for the series, and I think the mountain temple is the best level in the game. The eco powers of TPL being converted into guns you can channel any time is really a genius game design move. All the old movement abilities are there with some useful new ones. Ultimately, I think the switch to mature themes and a grimdark world was the right call for the sequel given the changing tides of the industry at the time. I think another game like TPL would have ended up tepid and boring. ND swung for the fences with this game and they really hit more than they missed.

Final thought, the character designers must have had a midriff fetish or something. Every female character except for Onin has an exposed midriff, even the civilians on the street. They also all have huge fuckin boobs, especially Onin. Also ever notice that Jaks arms go all the way to his knees? Dude has crazy proportions.

Recently I beat a game called Fate/Extra for the PSP, It's part of the Fate series which spam across anime, manga and other media, however Fate/Extra is my first contact with the Fate series, and I can confidently say I am interest into knowing more about it.

I love the story, the setting while begin set on a school is odd, I do like the holy grail with it's interesting plot points, I like almost all characters (with the exemption of that clown and Dracula), someone smarter than me can explain why the story of Fate/Extra is so good, but the fact that I was able to beat a game with terrible gameplay because of it speaks volumes for how good the story is.

Talking about gameplay, it might be one of the worst Turn base combat system I have ever played , but I will admit it's really bad in a unique way, most bad turn base JRPG fall into 2 categories, either it's TOOOOOOOO slow like most old school Turn base JRPG, in which battle animations take too long and the game's paces goes to a crawling halt or the battle system is too unbalanced and you have to grind for hours to be able to progress , Fate/Extra is neither I would go as far as to say it's bad in a fundamental level, because the other games above could be easily fixed by either making the battle animations go faster (Which you can already do with emulation) or re-balancing the game changing enemies stats to make it better game, but Fate/Extra is bad because of the simple fact that playing a rock paper scissor game, where you have to guess or look at a guide online to fight against enemies is not fun at all, you have to wonder WHO at Imageepoch or Type-moon thought this was a good idea, specially during weeks 6-8 where enemies panthers can be really complex and going through dungeons feels like a dice roll between surviving a enemy or dying to a common mob because you chose paper instead of rock.

Even with a guide looking through complex enemies panthers while having little to no clue as to what to do next is just frustrating, a guide is not only need to fight the enemies but it's necessary to progress the story correctly, having to switching between the game and my web browser every 5 seconds is not the most pleasant experience.

Going back to the positive aspect of this game, I really like the music of these game, while really short for a 20 hour long game having only 28 tracks EVERY single one of them is good, I just which it had more, because if it wasn't for that Fate/Extra could be easily be one of the best game OST of all time, every music in this game is a delight to hear, the game is also very pretty looking , being one of the best looking PSP games.

Fate/Extra fits perfectly the definition of a game with a good story and bad gameplay, and it will be the game on the top of my mind when a topic like that appears, I wouldn't judge anyone for not wanting to play this game and instead watching a gameplay on youtube or the anime adaption, I just hope the gameplay on the remake is as good as the story is because if that is the case the remake of this game will be one of the best games of 2025.

Welcome to the Bi-Weekly Thread!

Here you can share anything that might not warrant a post of its own or might otherwise be against posting rules. Tell us what you're playing this week. Feel free to ask for recommendations, talk about your backlog, commiserate about your lost passion for games. Vent about bad games, gush about good games. You can even mention newer games if you like!

The no advertising rule is still in effect here.

A reminder to please be kind to others. It's okay to disagree with people or have even have a bad hot take. It's not okay to be mean about it.

It's late 2017 when the new Wolfenstein game drops; a franchise I've come to love ever since finding out about Wolfenstein 3D through my uncle and grandpa.

With it being the year of the Battle Royale, I am of course hopelessly addicted to PUBG but since this was a release I had been looking forward too for a while, I managed to put the massively viral shooter aside to blast through the latest installment of the series.

And well... It was Wolfenstein. More of it. Come to think of it, I don't remember much of my original playthrough other then that vague feeling of having somewhat enjoyed it. It didn't leave an impression like playing through The New Order for the first time, that's for sure.

So, fast forward to late 2024 were I've had an itch to replay the first three installments of the rebooted Wolfenstrein franchise and while the first two games, The New Order and The Old Blood were very fun and felt somewhat balanced... I don't know how to feel about The New Colossus.

Let me start of with my biggest gripe of the game; the difficulty. I enjoy playing games on a harder difficulty setting, hell, the previous two games in the franchise before II worked perfectly fine on a higher difficulty while still being fun and providing some actual challenge. But in The New Colossus it just feels very artificial and somewhat lazy. A classic case of turning enemies into bullet sponges and turning the player into a porcelain vase that will immediately die if he is looked at the wrong way. Because of that I could easily get stuck on some sections for an hour, sometimes even more.

It's just that brutal on a higher difficulty setting in a cheap feeling way.

Which brings me to my next problem; it feels like the artificial difficulty is just a way for MachineGames to cover up the length of the game. You see, playing this game on an easier difficulty setting makes it quite short. I've read reports of people finishing this game in 8 hours. Sure, there are collectibles if you're into that, but 8 hours for what was at the time, a 60 dollar release, is insane. Having said that it took me 17 hours to beat the game on my replay on the 'I am death incarnate' difficulty setting.

Last is the story, which felt a bit bittersweet to me. I won't spoil too much but due to how the game ends it all feels kind of for nothing. In the end, nothing has really changed. Nothing to show for the epic rampages you went on. But - this might be intended by the developers. Not everything needs a happy ending.

Overall, I don't know how to rate this game... Fun, mindless shooter? Hell yes! Forgettable story and forgettable game? Also yes... It just didn't leave a huge impression for me and it's essentially more of Wolfenstein. Nothing more, nothing less. You just shoot nazis and look at the pretty explosions while enjoying the satisfying gunplay the game has to offer.

I expect most people have heard of Return of the Obra Dinn. It’s a 2018 Game where you are investigating the fate of the crew of the ship Obra Dinn, and its perhaps even more mysterious return. Your task is to discover what became of each crew member (and passenger), with the aid of a watch that lets you return to the point of their death and a ledger that confirms correct fates in sets of three. It’s probably one of the best known and regarded indie games of recent years.

I started the game years ago, got stuck, and gave up. Last week I went back and started a new game, and completed it fairly quickly. As far as I know Obra Dinn is the only game where you play as an insurance investigator, which makes me regret never completing a Chartered Insurance Institute qualification as that might have given me an advantage.

To keep from going on too long I'm just going to talk a tiny bit about the gameplay, then focus on the atmosphere & story, before giving a few tips that I hope might help new players avoid frustration.

Gameplay

Return of the Obra Dinn is partly a game of deduction. But I think it’s a game of observation most of all. Paying attention to where people are, who they’re with, what accent they have, making sure you look all around, being careful to pick up on every mention of someone’s name.

It’s meant to be possible to complete the game without guessing at all, but I expect only a vanishingly small number of people manage this. How much to guess is really up to you. I generally held off unless I had 1 in 2 odds or was particularly struggling. (I was more flexible with the notoriously difficult Chinese topmen.)

Atmosphere & story

To me Return of the Obra Dinn is a triumph of atmosphere and empathy. The stark presentation, the design of the scenes, the vivid voice acting, the need to pay attention to what’s around you. There are few, if any, games that have made me feel for the characters so much; the crew cracking as the voyage goes from bad to worse.

There are scenes that stay vividly in my mind: on a walkway around the edge of a deck, peering in through narrow viewports to a scene of terror and violence; perched on the rigging as a lightning strike cracks the sky; two characters sitting in shock by the bloody body of another in the mess, one holding his head in his hands.

I wonder if this is helped by the fact that you don’t interact with the characters. There’s never a reason to think of them instrumentally, as a means to a gameplay end, and they will never react (or fail to react) to you in ways that seem odd or limited.

What feels less successful is the overall story and characterisation. The story never seemed to fully come together. It mostly followed logically enough from an initial incident, but there were a couple of things that seemed to come out of left-field (eg. the background to “justice at sea”). The background to what’s going on should be mysterious but I never felt quite satisfied with how it was set up. Of course it’s always possible I missed some important details.

If anything I think the limited characterisation matters to me more than the story. It was hard to get a read on the characters and how their feelings and knowledge changed over the course of the story. I would have loved to get a better idea of the relationships between the officers, why some groups formed, exactly what motivated some actions, even why some people were on the ship at all. This would add depth to the scenes and tie them together better.

That kind of detail is always going to be difficult when you have 60 odd people to investigate, and you’re only seeing flashes of them at particular moments. It’s perhaps a problem that can’t be solved within the format of the game, without incongruously jamming in extra information or scenes.

Tips

I don’t want to stop people figuring things out how to approach the game by themselves, but these are a few things that I wish I’d thought of when starting the game. The first two are to help keep track of what you’re doing, the last is something that can potentially screw you over a bit if you don’t do it.

1. Write down fates you’ve tried which aren’t correct: when you verify three fates, you know that every other fate you’ve put in is wrong.

2. Write down your guesses at matching names and faces: you’ll usually have a mix of people you’re certain of (but don’t know the fate of) and those you’re not sure of, so it helps to know the difference.

3. Use fates you’re certain of strategically: if you’ve got three fates you’re sure of, fill in two and then test out one you’re unsure of.

Conclusion

Return of the Obra Dinn is a highly praised game so you probably don’t need me to recommend it. What I will say is that it worked for me. I got caught up in the atmosphere of the game, which doesn’t happen easily, and the deduction in the game struck that tricky balance between challenging without being frustrating (well, second time round).

Also the music gets stuck in my head really badly.

I've added spoiler tags to this review because, while I've tried to keep discussion general, as a story-based game which comes into its own later on, it inevitably contains abstract descriptions from which plot points could be inferred.

About half an hour into Life Is Strange, I was beginning to give into scepticism. At that point, I'd awoken in the middle of a storm, seen moderate inclement weather around a town I had yet to care about, awoken in a room which seemed like what pop culture has told me is every American high school classroom ever, cliques and all, and stopped what seemed at the time like a manslaughter which was a tragedy for everyone involved by spontaneously developing a power to turn back time. Truth be told, were it not for Life Is Strange's reputation, I doubt I'd have made it to the end of episode one; I don't have a lot of patience for teenage drama.

As I write this about two weeks after finishing the game, I'm incredibly glad I persisted. Ultimately, the game takes place in a high school so there's inevitably a lot of themes surrounding that. However, individual aspects of the story are developed in a far more nuanced manner than one would typically expect. Kate Marsh's family and religion are fundamental to her – but this is portrayed in a complex way. Following an incident hinted at in the very first moments of the game (and indeed, one I'd initially considered to be high school bullshit – the player's introduction to it being in a note thrown at Kate across a classroom), she is portrayed as having an enormous battle with feelings of insufficiency and failure, which result in a dramatic, memorable passage towards the end of episode two. However, it is that same family, that same faith, which offers solace thereafter and provides the structure and support needed for her mental recovery (or, depending on how various aspects of the game are played, would have).

Max, the protagonist, calls another character, Victoria Chase, 'queen bitch'. Victoria seems to have been born with a silver spoon, have had good fortune at every step of the way, and still uses her good fortune to kick down on others rather than build herself up. She's sycophantic towards Mark Jefferson, a renowned photographer teaching at the school, but events during the game make it appear as though this is aimed at obtaining personal advantage from a connection rather than a schoolgirl crush. It would have been incredibly easy to leave the character at that – sometimes the bad guy doesn't need much explaining – but Victoria's own insecurities are explored (often somewhat invasively), creating sympathy for her just before a point at which it is needed the most.

The core gameplay feedback loop is based on Max's ability to turn back time. This creates some puzzles which are undeniably basic, but satisfying nevertheless. The crucial point to understand when approaching puzzles is that, when turning back time, everything reverts to its previous position except Max. For instance, let's say you want to get through an alarmed door without setting off the alarm. The approach to take is to kick it down, walk through, and turn back time so that you're now on the other side, but the door is closed and the alarm is off. Aside from that, there's some trivial stealth sections, and some passages where the point is to memorise small amounts of information, but otherwise the focus is wholeheartedly on dialogue decisions and the story.

The story does take a while to get going. From the point at which Chloe, Max's best friend, is introduced, the core theme of the search for the missing Rachel Amber begins – however, possibly due to the patent absurdity of the endeavour, it didn't actually occur to me that this was to be the core goal of the game until about half way through episode four. This isn't a criticism – what fills time before this point feels substantially more important than a futile search. There's a number of threads which could each themselves have been worthy of being the main plot focus of the game – it just takes a substantial amount of time to work out which of these had been chosen.

It's tough to talk about the later parts of the game without revealing core parts of the story. There's a point at which a fairly major twist occurs which begins a more linear sequence I would expect most to consider the finale. This is a GREAT twist. I expected a twist of some kind to occur (recent plot points had left a number of important questions unanswered and suggested extreme urgency), but the precise nature and content of that twist were both shocking and exciting to me. Thematically the remainder is a lot darker. The specifics of that theme are unexplored (this seems sensible to avoid near-complete dissonance with themes at the outset); it suffices to say that this passage could fairly have the horror genre attributed to it.

I should talk about the 'choices matter' aspect of this, since the butterfly has become so iconic in gaming culture. Choices tend to be of some social or moral consequence, not have their results displayed immediately, but (through the social features) enable the player to compare their own moral compass to others (I liked this feature when it was borrowed later by Detroit: Become Human, and I like it just as much here). It's a good system, implemented well.

It has to be said that Life Is Strange offers the player somewhat more impact on the core plot than many games given this label – but you've still bought a ticket from Edinburgh to London and can't make a choice which finagles that into a ticket to Chelyabinsk. I think this is probably sensible – games which try and offer a diversion to Chelyabinsk often end up needing to compromise on the amount of legroom and in-carriage snacks; and there's rarely air conditioning.

At the risk of stretching this metaphor, I will say that I felt somewhat robbed of a whistlestop tour in Oxford when Max's most substantial decision about Chloe was made for me by the game (especially since it felt to be a decision of quite some moral substance, and I'd puzzled my way into making the opposite choice to the one which was made for me). However, having bought a ticket to London, I was pleased to end up in London, even if I seemed to have ended up in 1888 Whitechapel rather than the 2013 Hackney Wick I'd expected.

To wrap up a few other points about the game: I think there was a soundtrack, but it didn't grab me, and by my third play session I had music playing as I played. Voice acting was imperfect throughout, but I thought that this was largely pretty on-brand: you're portraying insecure teenagers – if my own insecure teenage years are anything to go by, even messages meant completely seriously are likely to come out of a teenager's mouth sounding like they've been read off a script by an inexpert voice actor. In contrast, voice acting for adult characters fared quite a bit better, with only David Madsen seeming a bit off to me.

Back to 2024, and Life Is Strange about a decade after everyone got excited about it. It's an excellent game. Frankly, I don't think it's a personal favourite because of my personal taste in narrative genre alluded to earlier. However, it's one I may revisit in a few years, or consider trying one of its worse-reviewed sequels. I'd recommend it to most, but I'd recommend going into it with a mindset of getting at least halfway into Episode Two before really thinking you've given it a 'proper try'.

8/10

A very interesting kind of games is one that instead of having obvious solutions to every problem, it trusts the player to come up with their own solution.

A nice example of this is a game where there's an obvious, big goal to solve, and then it’s up to the player to find out how to get it. Of course, it shouldn't be easy. The experimenting to find a working strategy is the main entertainment value. I've heard it described as 'static locks, dynamic keys'.

As an example, imagine a giant fort to infiltrate. The player can stealth in, disguise themselves as a guard to get to the armory and gear up, climb the outside with climbing gear to slip through a window, et cetera. Your goal is clear, but the way to get there is not.

I feel like though it's a pretty well known trope, but I’ve never seen it truly done right.

The closest thing I’ve ever seen is Metal Gear Solid V. It’s a very nice attempt at open stealth, and the amount of different strategies you can use is commendable. At the start the guards, at least to me, the guards seemed really intelligent and unpredictable too. And guns blazing seems like a valid approach too, for missions, when you want to let off some steam.

Though an amazing game, there's two ways in which it fails to truly be as open as it seems at first. The first is that it quickly becomes obvious your best tool is given to you right from the start. Your stun gun has loads of ammo, a silencer, and any threat shot can be taken to the heavens to never be seen again. Now of course, your silencer is limited at first, but the more you upgrade it, the less of a problem that becomes.

The second way is that the game counterintuitively does have a ranking system. This system rewards a silent playstyle marginally more than anything else. It also gives a higher rank the more silent you are. This railroads you into only using what you know that works, because experimentation can and will mean a lower final rank. Loads of players will only be running around with a silencer for the majority of the game, and I feel like that's something of a missed opportunity.

Other games have come close too, such as the first hours of Breath of the Wild. You get thrown into a big sandbox. You have almost no health, and turtorials consist of little more than tooltips. Your goal of finding the four shrines is clear. It's up to you to find out how. These few hours are exactly what I'm looking for. Many ways to your goal, some more obscure than others, making you feel intelligent when you find them. Big enemies you're not supposed to fight. Toys everywhere to play around with the game's physics: it feels nice to roll a boulder onto a group of bokoblins, or drop a lamp to explode an exploding barrel.

After the great platue, this is entirely lost. You get much more powerful, so being creative isn't required of you anymore, nor is it that efficient. Also, everything can be flurry rushed for maximum gain, so depth in combat is quickly gone too. Still a great game, but again loses that true 'dynamic locks' value.

Another game that comes close is my beloved Rain World. It again provides you with a few options to get past your enemies, but the game is just too simple mechanically to provide you with too many options. The enjoyment value mostly comes from the complex interactions with the enemy AI, and there's definitely some fun to be had with it, but after you feed a few lizards and make a centipede and a noodlefly fight, it loses that dynamic lock-quality: most encounters, though playing out completely differently, you will approach in the same way.

There's some other games I could talk about, like Assasin's Creed: Black Flagwhich fails miserably in my opinion, or the new Zelda (which is too new for this sub). But I don't want to turn this into too long of a wall of text.

Finally I want to talk about some games I have not played yet. I've heard Outer Wilds is a great game, and I'm looking forward to playing it. Is it anything like the kind of game I'm looking for? Deathloop also caught my eye, but after reading some reviews saying it's surprisingly linear, even containing quest markers, I'm reluctant to buy it.

Ultimately, I think the reason this type of game is so difficult to make, is because it's really hard to balance this. There must not be an obvious way to get to the goal, because that takes away the entire point of finding your own path, but at the same time, very little developers actually have the courage to risk frustrating players when they cannot find an easy way to win.

At the same time, you need to balance your player options too: whenever an option is much more attractive than others, your player will often only use that one, creating monotony.

Still, a lot of the games I mentioned do a pretty good job, and maybe something ideal already exists that I'm yet to come across, I just wanted to share my experiences with the idea until now.

I'm curious to know your experiences with the games I mentioned or this type of game in general.

Which games have your favorite soundtracks? Tell us the game(s) as well as some standout tracks you think are a cut above the rest.

These are mine:

Hollow Knight

My favorite game ever coincidentally has my favorite soundtrack ever (that's one of the many reasons Hollow Knight is my favorite game ever). The various high-quality tracks add so much to the atmosphere, and, combined with the game's art style, give a strong melancholic feel befitting of the game's somber tone. Standout tracks include City of Tears, White Palace, Sealed Vessel, Greenpath, Enter Hallownest, and Dirtmouth.

Death's Door

Death's Door's OST is another beautiful one which fits the game it's from. Unlike with Holloe Knight, Death's Door's atmosphere comes more from a sense of adventure, although Hollow Knight also has an adventurous atmosphere. Thus, the tracks in Death's Door fit the game's atmosphere, as well as its beautiful themes of life and death. I also love how there's a recurring motif found in most of the tracks, which helps immortalize the game within your memory. Standout tracks are Death's Door, The Crows, The Grey Crow, The Last Lord, and the Old Watchtowers.

Shadow of the Colossus

This game's OST, like the above two, fit the game's themes and atmosphere. The tracks give a sense of loneliness and melancholic feel, fights with the Colossi have epic music, while the post-fight music really tugs at the heartstrings after you just killed an innocent creature minding its own business. Standout tracks include Revived Power and The End of the Battle.

Bloodborne

Not much to say here; if you've played this then you know what I mean. Bloodborne's orchestral music (or lack of it in many areas) adds to the atmosphere, and boss tracks are very epic. Standout tracks: Cleric Beast, The Night Unfurls, The Hunter's Dream, and The First Hunter.

Dredge

This nice indie game has an OST befitting of its cozy daytime atmosphere, as well as its Lovecraftian themes and the creatures that come at night... The tracks for the various towns and while exploring the sea are cozy and give a feeling of security, while the tracks for when something cool and scary happens are mysterious. Standout tracks are The Morning's Plans, Main Theme, The Restless Town, Main Theme (Lucid), and The Twinned Towns.

Elden Ring

This is an interesting one. Elden Ring's OST as a whole is nothing special (some would call it mediocre, I wouldn't) but there are definitely some standout tracks that you could say carry the OST. These are Elden Ring, The Final Battle, Regal Ancestor Spirit, Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, Fire Giant, Mohg, Lord of Blood, Godfrey, The First Elden Lord, and Maliketh's theme.

Would love to hear this community's thoughts.

To be clear, this isn't going to be a post saying CP2077 is the worst game ever made. Far from it. So if you just entered this to get mad and say no one sane could say that, you'd be correct: I think it's anywhere from average to good, and definitely worth the asking price on sale.

The reason I'm still playing it (I'm about 35h in) despite the assessment in the title, is precisely because I can tell there was a lot of love put into this game. The sound and visuals are both out of this world. I genuinely think this is a master class in terms of sound design, and I'm constantly surprised during my playthrough just how much detail has been put into the auditive feedback. And, like, wow, there are so many interiors, even totally throwaway ones that just blow me away with the level of detail that was put into them. These truly have to be some of the most talented people out there working today.

Not to mention, the gameplay actually has a lot of cool stuff. While it may not be the deepest or most responsive combat system, the fact that you can play in such different ways is cool, and, contrary to what I'd heard before ever playing it myself, the perks feel meaningful and so much stuff I'd like to unlock and improve that I still feel there's plenty for me to do.

Outside of the combat and driving around, though... fuck is this game BORING.

Out of all possible complaints, this isn't one I thought I'd be making. I'm the type of person that can enjoy games of any type. I've enjoyed plenty of VNs, movie games, and games that were entirely text-based.

I'm still trying to figure out why I find Cyberpunk so boring, and I think a lot of it has to do with the way CDPR went about telling the story.

For the first 20h or so of my playthrough I went above and beyond to try and get immersed and let myself slide into the role of V. I not only let the conversations play out, but I'd never skip the voice lines, always read everything I found, and pretty much tried my best to act in-character as much as possible.

What I'd say now is that has to be the worst of both worlds if you had to choose between oldschool silent dialogue and movie-quality cutscenes. Again, and again, and again, the game puts you in these situations where your character is just sitting down or standing around looking at a person while they drone on, and on, and on. Brevity is the soul of wit, and holy fuck, this game is does not take that into account. Every time I select a dialogue option that's just a simple line that should theoretically return me to a back and forth that makes the game feel more dynamic, it's another minute of dialogue during which V continously responds without my say so, basically robbing me of my autonomy.

Like, what's even the fucking point? Seriously? What is the fucking point to this system? Instead of picking any dialogue it might as well just say CONTINUE, or force me to click forward line in a VN. There's really nothing you're contributing to the dialogue, unless you choose for some reason to go for the blue options, something I gave up doing once I realized that V's words are unpredictable and that, anyway, many of those aren't even meant to be used (e.g., characters constantly swearing at you for asking stupid questions). So, especially if you are going into it with the idea of roleplaying, many of these blue dialog options aren't even viable.

Of course, a lot of this also wraps back to the character of V.

V is just so incredibly inconsistent. Almost impossible to roleplay as far as I'm concerned. There are times when she says lines and I think, fuck yeah, that's my baddie street kid right there. Then there are other moments where the game goes from feeling thoughtful and mature, or at the very least tongue-in-cheek, to genuine, earnest YA tier writing where it feels like she's 16 and dealing with emotions and life's big questions for the first time. If you're going to say that this is realistic because people are also inconsistent, >!fuck you in advance.!< This constant flipping back and forth makes it impossible for me to think that I'm roleplaying a real character whose arc I can get invested in.

A lot of this is due to the insistence on open world and player choice s well. I feel like Cyberpunk would probably be way, way better a second time around when I know exactly what each quest consists of. Because there's so many instances where I stumbled over a quest only to get the feeling that, the words being said made no fucking sense at all, narratively speaking. It simply did not fit at that point in the game (either being found too late, or too early). If we could say that V's character has an arc and that her relationshp with Johnny has a certain evolution to it, then playing the game blind just signs you up for constant ping ponging where nothing stays consistent. There is absolutely a best order in which you should do everything to make it flow as organically as possible, but that's not something you'll be experiencing as a new player.

The moment I realized I'm actually kinda done with whatever they're trying to do was Jackie's funeral. I can hardly think of any segment in a game I've found more boring this year. It's just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and then the equivalent of press F to pay respects. It is fucking mindnumbing. As is the fact that countless websites rank that as the BEST side mission. Like, excuse me... what?

AND YET, I could totally see myself enjoying that if it were done in literally any other way. If it were a normal RPG that didn't have any desire to be "cinematic," I'd probably be done ten times as fast and fully enjoy every conversation had with all the NPCs there. Alternatively, just make it a cinematic, I'd enjoy that too.

But it truly feels to me like what they've put together here is something designed to torture me. If someone ever came and asked me, "What's your least favorite part about video games?", I would immediately answer that it's soul-killing, almost always unskippable "walk and talk" sections that you always get at the start of most FPS and action games. Parts of the game where, for the purpose of it being "cinematic," I'm just supposed to follow an NPC around slowly and listen to them talk.

I genuinely, genuinely, cannot believe that someone thought, let's have DOZENS of hours just like that.

And to add salt to injury, apart from the fact that so much of the game consists of these conversations, there's always this slight delay between different voice lines that just makes the whole thing feel off. It leads to these strange pauses which normal humans just don't take. I'm trying to think back now to the almost forty hours I've played, and I can't think of a single circumstance where I might've heard what I'd consider "realistic" dialogue, i.e. people interrupting and talking over one another. Even if you've selected your dialogue options and V and her interlocutor exchange up to as many as ten lines between the two of them, it always feels like they're two respectable gentlemen giving each other time to properly finish each sentence before they dare interrupt. It's so incredibly weird and only adds to artificiality that's already obvious due to the bugs and weird physics (won't even bother getting into that).

FFXV, "A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers". I have previously played a few FF games, so I don't consider myself either, and perhaps that's why I didn't enjoy it as much, though I think the game failed to lean on its strengths as it suffered from sluggish and unresponsive interactions and controls.

Starting the game, I was immediately fascinated by how beautiful the world was. I have never enjoyed a photo mode prior to this, as the game would automatically take photos of your fights and the events in the game. However, it did come with its limitations like the lack of features when manually taking photos, randomly applied filters that didn't always work, and the fact that photos could not be edited after the fact. You are also limited to 200 photos, and I found myself struggling to choose which old ones to delete in favour of new ones. Of course, these are trifle matters, but finding the rest so lacking, I wish this had been more refined.

The music was really enjoyable as well, especially when hearing the country/bluesy harmonica when reaching an outpost. Literal vibes! I loved how they manipulated the sound and instruments to make it calmer indoors and more energetic outdoors. In general, I never found the music being out of place, except once - the only time I found myself actively disliking the music - when riding a chocobo. Unfortunately, the upbeat tune did not match the sluggish experience of riding a chocobo, which is where this game often fell short for me - the feeling behind actions.

Overall, I think the devs tried to make the game feel smooth and cinematic, but overcompensated, ending with an often sluggish and unresponsive result which is felt throughout the entire gameplay. As your supposed means of transportation across rough terrain, riding a chocobo comes without exaggeration, a turning radius. And a big one at that. They compensate with a sort of brake and drift feature, but that slowed me down too much. While it could have worked in a racing minigame, it didn't translate well into the open world as I often got stuck behind bushes, and even the racing minigame didn't take advantage of it.

Noctis also suffered from these clumsy interaction issues, as sprinting indoors or around tight areas had him trying to parkour over walls and tall containers. Dude, just run against/along the wall instead, not everything has to be cinematic! Jump has the same button as interact, so expect to do a lot of that too, even though jumping is not something you find yourself doing often otherwise. There is no actual parkour aside from hopping over small fences. Alongside that, the game included Tomb Raider style obstacles in dungeons, which only required pressing the interact button and then holding a direction - tedious. Thankfully there weren't many of those, but they sure weren't welcome.

Combat had its interactivity/response problems too with cycling target lock, warping to safe points, and more. Sometimes an animation had to complete, and sometimes I had to hold in a button for a second. This is generally not a problem, however, FFXV combat features instantaneous weapon swapping and warp mechanics, and I did not get the fast paced, engaging combat I had hoped for. Besides the response issues, there was little incentive to swap weapons due to weapon weaknesses and monsters in an encounter generally being of the same type. It was not more challenging when monsters were different, especially given you could swap out your equipped items mid-battle if necessary. There were also no significant combos to speak of, as most of the time you hold down one button. It wasn't all doom and gloom though, as link-striking with a party member gives you a nice animation as well as a lot of damage to actually speed up combat. There were also a few other special attacks to help keep the game varied, though I wouldn't go as far as to say that it made it interesting, with perhaps the exception of the Armiger Unleashed, a late-game feature that actually does have combos, but itself suffers from the same response/timing issues.

As uninteresting as combat felt, one button combat meant that it fit in well with the laid-back road-trip theme of the game. It was a game I could play if I wanted to relax, as it didn't require much and was beautiful to look at. So much so that I left the story halfway to go on hunt quests, this time to see and experience the beautifully designed animals and monsters of the game, another area where FFXV did not fall short thanks to the incredible detail. I even spent some time in the bestiary looking at the models themselves.

Having started the game a year ago, I had spent plenty of time on hunts before getting back into the story, at which point I was confused as to what was happening and why, so I started up a new game on easy to just get through the story. Now, this is how I recommend the game to be played - complete the story on easy mode, then proceed with the extra content to your heart's content. I wouldn't say the story is particularly uninteresting, but I wouldn't say it was memorable either and I think part of it could have been introduced a bit better. Knowing the background lore is good for understanding the current events, but this is actually found in the tutorial. A few times I was confused by the interactions of Noctis and his party members when they had conflict when they otherwise seemed to be a very cheerful and positive squad to the point of it being cheesy and sometimes even cringey. I think this has to do with the Japanese to English translation, as Japanese is a language heavily based on context. All that aside, I do think the story is quite interesting and even romantic at times, but I just wasn't captivated by it, in part because of its nature and nuances, and in part because of me going off on side-quests.

All in all, I do think it's a good game despite all its flaws and I will be playing it a bit more to finish up some side content and the DLCs. I just wish the devs had steered a little more clear of the cinematic masterpiece they had in mind and instead focused more on making the gameplay less frustrating. Just doing so could have brought the game up to a 7 or maybe even an 8.

On another note, having read up on the combat, it turns out that it went through several redesigns. This would explain the lack of freedom of expression that one might expect to experience from a combat system where you can zip around the field and instantly swap weapons to adjust to the flow of combat, as this flow was either severely missing or very slow. All that being said, I do think this combat system has a lot of room for improvement, and I would be sad to see it let go of, so I hope that SqEnix can look towards giving it another shot in the future, though making it work will not come without great effort. I think starting from the basics is the way to go here, in the same way that Fromsoftware has developed their soulsbourne games.

Long time R&C fan. I just finished Rift Apart for the first time. Wanted to share my thoughts.

Other then some explosive set pieces and platforming enhancements - it's very much a case of more of the same as the previous entries - particularly PS3 and later ones. You shoot stuff , your weapons level up, do a bit of platforming , an occasional Clank or vehicle section - rinse and repeat.

The Good :

Graphics - I played it in performance mode and it still looked stellar. Add in the afore mentioned set pieces and it's possibly the most technically impressive game I've ever played.

The Weapons - I think this game has one of the more unique weapon selections in a series that's known for its creative weaponry. Topiary sprinkler is probably my favorite new addition.

Replayability : I already jumped into NG plus and I don't think I'll have everything upgraded even by the end of this playthrough.

The In Between?

The sound track - It's decent , maybe the best since the PS2 days but not as good as the OG quadrilogy.

Hover Boots - these make a return after first appearing in Crack in Time. They're pretty cool. Give you a nice sense of speed when you kick em into high gear - but overall don't make a huge impact outside of a few larger areas.

Clank sections - The Clank sections are typically my least favorite part of the series, and really wish I could skip them in the older games. Luckily you can in this one. They're fine ... probably better then in most previous games -outside of Crack in Time which hands down has the best.

Hacking Mini game - Most games in the series feature a hacking mini game - there's one in Rift Apart too but it's a bit of a departure. You control a mini four legged robo turret character and shoot viruses - it's actually more action where as in past games , the hacking mini game provided a bit of a breather. These segments are fine, certainly not as annoying as the hacking mini game in Up Your Arsenal and best of all - they can be skipped. One final comment - I found the turret character's voice quite annoying , so i always turned voice volume down in the setting whenever i got to one of these segments.

The Bad :

The Story itself is fine... but the characters mostly spend their time complaining about how much they suck and then other characters have to be like "no no no you're great". It feels ... more childish then the older entries.

Humor - The series is known for its humor, unfortunately it's kinda... missing here? Ties into the last point , about the mopey characters I suppose. The funniest thing in this game was the name of the trophy you get upon beating the final boss.

Verdict

The characters drag it down some , but if you're primarily interested in gameplay and have enjoyed past entries in the series it's pretty easy to recommend Rift Apart.

For the record, I am a woman and I found Deacon your classic but attractive biker boy; later I find out he has so much depth in his character and how deeply he cares about those closest to him.

I think that overall the game is very well written, with complex characters and the interactions between them. I liked the whole romance sequence until... we meet Sarah. There was so much anticipation and uncertainty whether she was alive or not, and seeing Deek so on the edge all the time made it seem very realistic and believable - I have rooted for him and hoped he has made the right choice when going after her (yeah, i voted Rikki, and I was right at the end).

But her reception was... while kind of understandable at first (let's say she's very composed woman and understands that she can't disclose her identity straight away), her actions and words after that, when they were alone, were really damn weird. My likeness scale went up a bit when she actually tried to rescue the infected children (making her less cold) but in general, she seems like a stone to me most of the time.

Why did she have to be so cold with Deek when they were ALONE? She was so cold and dismissive, like he wasn't even her husband. I usually play RPG games so it was so hard to me when I didn't have a choice to ask her about certain things.

When her and Deacon go to her previous workplace and she has damn near death experience, why doesn't she let herself be vulnerable, I mean you can see that she's emotional, and who wouldn't be? Instead, she says "I'm ok" and moves along. Like girl, this is your husband, not your military officer.

Overall, brilliant game, I loved the characters and the story, the combat was decent, and horde encounters were intense, the environments were gorgeous. Writers were also so good in creating extremely intense moments, especially when Deacon was betrayed by Skizzo and was almost burned to death (also, what happened to that girl?!). The game really reminded me Red Dead Redemption 2 in many ways.

Really happy I played this, amazing experience, 9/10.

What do you get if you cross Mega Man Zero, A Link to the Past, and Hyper Light Drifter?

UNSIGHTED. One of the best MVs I've played ever. It feels like a 10/10 perfect game for me, and may be in my top ten favorite games I've ever played. It is that. Good. It has terrific art, thrilling and challenging combat, actually interesting achievements, customizable upgrades, NG+, new difficulty modes, accessibility options if you care about those, fleshed out characters that all feel like real parts of their world, fun and rewarding exploration with tons of secrets everywhere, upgrades and abilities that feel meaningful, terrific dungeons and sequence breaking aspects that reward multiple playthroughs. I cannot say enough good things about this game.

And yes there is an infamous timer issue that put me off the game for months bc it was too stressful. I basically brute forced through and decided I'd just have to accept that my first run wouldn't be perfect and I'd improve on multiple play throughs. My only major nitpick and it's a minor one but the store page title card is ugly as heck mainly bc two of the characters have eyes bugging out of their heads and it looks amatuerish like a middle schooler art project. I honestly feel the game would have sold better with better title art.

Edit reposted removing reference to newer games.