Review the game you finished recently.

Finally got time to finish Disko Elysium
It's something
12/10
I've been leery of picking up Disco Elysium for the following reasons a) I'm concerned it plays more like an adventure game/visual novel and b) the gaming press went ape for it which combined with any sort of artsy fartsy presentation usually means the game part is lacking. I'm curious to know if either of those concerns is true?
 
I've been leery of picking up Disco Elysium for the following reasons a) I'm concerned it plays more like an adventure game/visual novel and b) the gaming press went ape for it which combined with any sort of artsy fartsy presentation usually means the game part is lacking. I'm curious to know if either of those concerns is true?

Its an experience, due to the insane level of dialogue it does resemble a chose your own adventure but that doesn't accurately describe the entire game.

Adventure/RPG would fit well.
 
Fenyx Immortals Rising

From the same developers who brought you the epic shitastic Wildlands and loot box simulator Assassin's Creed Odyssey, we have yet another gem on our hands. Ubisoft, not content with being perhaps the worst video game publisher/developer in modern times has set out again to bring misery to gamers world wide. And they charge for it to.

There is a lot wrong with Immortals Rising. The control scheme makes no sense. It was designed by people who never played video games before. People who never picked up a controller in their life made the default controls and combinations, which require you to stretch, twist and distort your hands and controller in ways that make no sense. You cannot fix this by remapping because many of the controls are hold/combos.

Animations/inputs lag heavily. Often times up to a whole second. Pulling out your bow and firing a quick shot, like every game designed by mentally competent developers, is impossible. You must commit to melee or a bow for combat. This makes this extremely repetitive. Controls are clunky and animations fail in typical Ubisoft fashion. Want to grab onto something? Your character does, then immediately slips because the animation breaks. Fucking pathetic. Controlling your character and doing the utmost simple of tasks is outright impossible in this "game". Want to climb up a ledge? You can't do that. But for some reason your character will randomly run up walls Assassin's Creed style. The 3rd person camera makes zero sense.

Enemies are dumb as a bag of rocks. They attack if you get close. You mash the attach button at them. If you stray too far in combat they disappear and respawn at their idle place. Gameplay loop is running up to an enemy and mashing the attack buttons. You can throw rocks but the inconsistent controls make it impossible. You may pull out a bow or drop the rock. Your character might not throw it.

Gameplay wise the game is based around upgrading your character. In typical lazy, uninspired, amateur style this is an RPG - the genre of games morons who can't make a real game do because it is easy. You run around aimlessly doing menial tasks to get some upgrades. Skills like being able to pickup mushrooms more quickly or do 30% more damage are the common ones. The problem is you need to use a shitty, slow, unreadable map to find random activities that unlock one type of unlock point. Specific activities give specific unlock points which can be used to unlock specific unlocks. Yes, you read that right. And you have to fast travel to the center of the map to unlock said unlocks. So you do one thing for an hour, then fast travel back, then walk back.

Your character is as slow as a dying turtle. Fast travel points are limited. Enjoy limping back and fourth.

There are puzzles that are easy, but because the developers are so incompetent it becomes impossible. You'll know what you have to do but sit around doing it endlessly because the game fucking sucks. Boxes will explode randomly, meaning you need to restart a challenge. Your character won't deploy its wings and falls. Falling = loss of health. Which means more "fun", like hunting down more fucking berries to collect. What the fuck? When will developers learn - picking up shit off the ground is boring as fuck. We play games to have fun, not pick garbage off the ground. I can do that in real life. I can't stab a monster with a sword in real life. That is fun. But in Immortals, you spend more time picking up berries than fighting.

For a game as shitty, non-functional and tedious there is no proper save function.

The story is shit.

Like most of Ubisoft's recent games, this is designed around paid boosters/loot boxes. In the game there will be dozens of garbage copy/paste side quests. You'll find that your character does not yet have enough stamina or HP to take these challenges on. Rinse and repeat. You litterally cannot complete some because you will run out of stamina and taking time to eat a berry will slow you down. There are no ways around this, there are no gradually challenging tasks. From the get go your character is unable to do the basic starting quests. Unless you fork over real money.

In summary, Fenyx Immortals Risings is everything that is wrong with modern gaming. Ubisoft once again shows it is an immoral company by releasing trash like this. They're a blight on video gaming as a whole. If someone burned down all of Ubisoft's studios video gaming would be much better.

0.5 / 10

Non-functional, moronic design throughout, not an actual game designed for fun. Get fucked Ubisoft.
 
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With your track record this probably means it's a great game. I mean Wildlands and Odyssey are great games. Too bad I'm not a fan of this visual style.
 
Half Life Alyx

After a couple of defective Reverb G2 headsets I finally got one that works (crosses fingers) and ventured into the oasis of VR.
Initially I was very hesitant to get into VR, with my only previous experience being when I played Dactyl nightmare, at the mall, in the early 90s as a pre-teen.

I was such a fool. The emersion of VR is game changing. In VR you are actually "in" the game, as opposed to being an outside observer looking through a window (monitor) into the game. Looking around corners, pushing open doors, ducking behind cover, tactile reloading mechanics are all something which needs to be experienced to be believed.

The game environment is beautifully realized. You can pick up and interact with nearly everything in the game. There is a mix or large sprawling vista set pieces, paired with dark and creepy underground corridors. I can't count how many times I just stood there in complete awe, at the visuals. The character Russel, who communicates with you during the game through a headset, is really well done. He has some funny moments that really helps to lighten the mood, which can get quite tense at times, as you will get lost in the game.

VR is not just a gimmick in this game, it is very creatively implemented. Sure there are basic things like opening doors, ducking under things, and picking up objects, but there are also times when you have to solve 3D puzzles to hack combine fabricators or lock boxes, or to reroute power.

I feel Alyx is a great transition into VR as its default movement scheme is teleportation, which is the least disorienting method of locomotion in VR, at least for me. It did take me some time to get my "VR legs" when I moved to a game like Medal of Honour: above and beyond. I never felt nauseated, however when I first got into VR there were some motion "sickness" (really just a weird sensation like I was still in the matrix) issues, but with time these went away and I no longer even notice them, or lose my balance when I come to a stop while using "shift locomotion" movement in VR.

There is a downside however ... I have NOT been able to get back into regular gaming on a traditional monitor. It just feels so lacking now that I have experienced VR. I cannot recommend it enough.

10/10
 
With your track record this probably means it's a great game. I mean Wildlands and Odyssey are great games. Too bad I'm not a fan of this visual style.

I think we found the Ubisoft shill.

Sarcasm aside, it is utter shit. At least Wildland's had nice terrian design and graphics. This thing has janky animations. Sometimes it looks like your character is limping and you think they're injured, and then you realize it is just the crappy animation system. You want to get to another platform? You need to hit the fly button (which may or may not work) and this points the camera top down looking like you're about to dive down. But your character moves up. Horrible camera/animation work that looks contradictory.

This is pretty much just a horrible BoTW knock off, designed around paid boosters. You know a game is trash when 50% of the activities in the starting area are not accessible because your character cannot possibly be upgraded through normal gameplay yet. And then the game gives you some pop ups telling you how you can purchase points...

And one of the major characters in the game has the literal purpose of selling your items for real money.

Ubisoft is easily the worst company these days when it comes to being so blatant about it.
 
And one of the major characters in the game has the literal purpose of selling your items for real money.

Ubisoft is easily the worst company these days when it comes to being so blatant about it.
They have that in every game now. I just ignore it.
 
Dishonored 1 and 2 are flawed, but I liked them both.

Dishonored 2 had two standout missions- Mission 5 (The Clockwork Mansion) and Mission 7 (A Crack in the Slab)...fantastic level design and very cool game mechanics...
 
Dishonored 2 had two standout missions- Mission 5 (The Clockwork Mansion) and Mission 7 (A Crack in the Slab)...fantastic level design and very cool game mechanics...
The clockwork soldiers detracted a lot from the mansion level, it would've been great with normal enemies. As for the other it was good mechanics, but it felt so out of place that suddenly out of nowhere there was time travel.
 
They have that in every game now. I just ignore it.

Problem is when you design a game around it.

This game is so bad, that you have to line up things very particularly. But you cannot see them because the camera angle blocks your visual. And then the physics bug out. In any platform type of game the camera shows what you're supposed to be doing. This game can force you to look to the sky, but you need to stack up things by looking down. That is how idiotic this game is. They literally probably never played a video game. I don't think the mappers ever talked to the people who made the camera angles or character controls.
 
Days Gone
aka. “The Red Dead Last of Us”

Worth noting, I played this on the PS5. The PS5 version upgrades the game to dynamic 4K and a rock solid 60fps all of the time. It’s quite stunning and doesn’t look like a PS4 title as a result. It isn’t quite up to what a native PS5 game looks like, but it’s not that far off.

Graphics: 9/10. No complaints at all. Characters and locations are detailed. Especially since this was a PS4 title. The view distance is huge, with only a little bit pop-in for shadows and details. The game maintains 60fps basically the whole time and I only noticed graphical issues 2-3 times over the course of my 70’ish-hour adventure. It looks and feels like a PC port of a console game, which is a compliment.

Sound: 6/10. There are lots of re-used sound effects and numerous moments when you’re receiving audio communications from 2-3 overlapping sources. Or your character is talking over a recording/call. Or he starts randomly yelling and ranting in the middle of a stealth mission. Acting is okay, but inconsistent. Some actors are better than others and your main character’s actor seems good one moment and amateurish the next.

Design: 8/10. You have access to a large open world that looks and feels like SE Oregon where it’s set. The world designers did a good job. They spent a lot of time working on details so it has a little bit of life to it, too.

Game structure: 5/10. The game really is like the Last of Us meets Red Dead Redemption…but it isn’t as good as either. You travel around doing the same type of bounty hunting or rescue missions over and over. You assemble weapons from things laying around (like TLoU) and collect plants and hides (like RDR), but neither are as fleshed out. In the case of hides and plants, they’re literally just currency. There are 3 main areas of the game with 5 camps that you’re trying to win favors with. Winning favor with these camps is mainly just doing missions they assign you or bringing them plants, hides, or proof of kills.

Gameplay: 6/10. Controls are a little weird. Not sure why they chose a control scheme that’s intentionally a bit different from similar games. You’ll pick it up quickly enough, but it’s odd that you should need to. You’re mostly riding around on a motorcycle and killing outlaws and zombies via your guns, melee weapons, or thrown weapons (molotovs, grenades, etc.). At the start of the game, your melee weapons break quickly, your guns are weak, and you lack the ability to slow time to better line up your shots. It’s actually pretty challenging early as a result. Yet as you get further, all of those things improve but you’re fighting the same enemies. The game gets easier and easier the further you get. Other than fighting hordes, you’re unlikely to ever die past the first few hours of the game. The game’s enemies are randomly placed, so missions or even random wandering can involve 3 enemies or 300. It’s refreshing at first, but it gets annoying when you’re trying to accomplish a task.

Overall: 7/10. There’s a lot of bang for your buck. The game is large and long. Just when you think you’re close to the end, another 1/3 of the game opens up. Yet it’s still more of the same. They even drag out the plot needlessly a coupe different times only to have the final mission thrust upon you with very little built up or warning. I had fun with it, but there are lots of eyeroll moments and odd decisions. Nothing that will stop you from playing, but opportunities where the game could have been better. It definitely lives in the shadow of The Last of Us, and will probably always be known as an open world knock-off attempt...which it kinda is. It's a good game, but definitely not a great one. I feel like if I were playing this on a PS4 and only getting 30fps, it would be a 6/10 instead. It really is bolstered by the PS5 horsepower.

Note: PS5 owners on PSN should have this game for free as part of the special PlayStation Plus package. It's 100% worth playing (or at least trying) as a result.
 
How do you know? How many native PS5 action games are there?

I've played or seen Demon's Souls, AC: Valhalla, Hitman 3, Miles Morales, and Godfall. At least 2 of those are also on PS4, but the PS5 versions are a definite step up from their PS4 counterparts. All of them are a step up from Days Gone. Especially Demon's Souls and Godfall which are PS5 exclusives.
 
I've played or seen Demon's Souls, AC: Valhalla, Hitman 3, Miles Morales, and Godfall. At least 2 of those are also on PS4, but the PS5 versions are a definite step up from their PS4 counterparts. All of them are a step up from Days Gone. Especially Demon's Souls and Godfall which are PS5 exclusives.
11, by my count.
I always think in terms of whether it is worth buying the system or not so I Completely forgot about multi platform titles. My mistake. I only counted exclusives one of which is a remake so doesn't really count in my book as a new game, so my count stopped at 1.
 
Days Gone is coming to PC soon. Sounds pretty average overall though. I may give it a try. Hopefully the port is better prepared than the HZD (which ended up fine, but bad at launch).
 
Days Gone is coming to PC soon. Sounds pretty average overall though. I may give it a try. Hopefully the port is better prepared than the HZD (which ended up fine, but bad at launch).

It definitely doesn't suck. It's just overreaching. Rather than telling a more concise story, they try to stretch everything out with repetitious side missions. A detailed summary of the plot for the game would only be a paragraph or two, yet you're looking at a 60-70 hour game.

If the PC version can look and run like the PS5 updated version, I'd call it a success. I don't know how they could make it look much better without remaking the game itself.
 
Starlink Battle for Atlas

A good way to tell if a game is mundane and boring is when the most interesting thing is the strong Canadian accents. Starlink is a mediocre title at best in every aspect. Despite the name and general setting, this is not a flight game. You do pilot a space ship but the game isn't designed around flight or space gameplay. This is either through extreme incompetence and lack of familiarity with games in the genre or intentionally an attempt to reskin an on foot action RPG as a space flight game. What went wrong during development isn't very relevant, but if you're looking for a good space or flight game Starlink isn't it.

When it comes to gameplay there is a lot wrong with Starlink. As mentioned, everything about the space/flight and combat is lacking and awkward. Every thing that should be avoided was implemented in Starlink. The controls and flight are not very good. By default they inverted up/down, and while this can be changed it shows the lack of subject familiarity for the genre. Everything control wise was implemented as if you were a person on foot, and not piloting a vehicle that has three dimensions of movement. The throttle defaults to B or RMB on an Xbox controller and not the triggers. You must hold the button down continuously. This means if you want to fly at full speed, shoot and turn, your hand will end up twisted in the most awkward combination. You have to hold down B, shoot with the triggers, and occasionally use not one but two thumb sticks to steer. If your thumb is pressing B, how are you supposed to use that to steer with the right thumb stick? Answer: You don't.

SL.jpg
Have fun pointing your weapons in the right direction with that wonderful camera implementation.

Despite not being a forward or side scrolling shooter (and therefore unlike Star Fox 64) the game offers freedom of movement, and you typically stay close to the ground, hovering. The controls here work mostly fine, one thumb stick controls movement as you can't move up/down. The problem becomes apparent when you go into "flight mode" or fly in space. You now must use two sticks to control your ship. The left moves side to side, the right up and down. As you can imagine that makes doing two tasks at once impossible. You can either fully steer, or stop and shoot, stop and boost, and then grab both sticks again. This seems to be a common trend in recent flight games as developers must clearly lack experience making even the most simple of flight games. It seems like they tried to mimic Star Fox 64 like controls, but offer full freedom of movement which makes zero sense.

The camera controls are also terrible. Again, we're seeing a team that has no idea how to make a flight game and how one should play. Camera focus is crucial when you're in a constantly moving vehicle. Especially one that has three dimensions of movement. Your ship will often veer off into the corner of the screen, leaving you unable to see or react to what is happening. This is unacceptable in all games, but the issue is much more pronounced when you're constantly moving. The camera also acts as your locking system, meaning you must constantly look at something for guided weapons to hit your intended target. This becomes a problem when your ship becomes de-centered from the screen, or because the nose flops up/down as you move the camera. Again, proper flight games have a lock button that you hold down which shows the relation of the target to the player so you know what you're targetting while can still clearly see your orientation. Just copy Ace Combat, it works.

STL7.jpg
Hard to keep track of your ship orientation? It gets much worse. Sometimes half the ship is off screen.

Everything else about the game is absolutely unimaginative. Again, it seems like the developers were creating an on foot action RPG and couldn't stop for a movement and realize they were supposed to be making a game where you pilot a flying vehicle. You know you fail at a flying game when on of the first missions you play is a jumping based mini game. In a space ship. Jumping or climbing obstacles is something you'd expect in a game like Assassin's Creed or Tomb Raider, yet is juxtaposed in a game where you pilot a flying machine. The weapons are standard RPG fare ripped straight out of the fantasy genre. Your weapons are element based, like fire and ice. Enemies too are ice, fire, ect. based. This is the result of unimaginative game design. Instead of thinking and creating weapon dynamics that work for the theme (space combat/flight) everything is based around fantasy themed powers.

STL4 - Copy.jpg
Ships can fly between planets. Amazing lore and so very descriptive!

The game features an odd, confusing menu with an odd & confusing leveling system. To level up your character you must level up your ships (you can instantly switch between them) and weapons. This makes for odd gameplay as you might have two type weak weapons equipped, and need to stop, enter the menu and swap weapons to counter an enemy. It is fairly pointless as it can be done instantly. Why even bother with the mechanic? Stopping the flow of combat to open a menu kills the action when you do manage to have fun. You will also need to apply modifications to weapons, which are just lazy and tacked on. We see brilliant examples like increasing damage by 15%, or reload speed by 10%. It really isn't fun sifting through a clunky menu and swapping Armour Mod VII for Armor Mod VI.

Mission wise the game offers the same repeating missions over and over again. There are three to four tasks in the game. Destroy hives, towers, Dreadnoughts and build a compound. In the case of the Dreadnoughts, the ship layouts are 100% the same each time in the first two phases. Destroy three turrets always in the same location, then destroy five lasers in the same positions. Then fly through a tunnel (a number of different variations) to destroy the core Star Wars style. You also pluck junk off the ground to upgrade compounds you build with the in game currency. Because when we think space/flight game, what we really wanted was to pick up garbage off the ground. Sarcasm aside, be prepared to place space janitor. I suppose many gamers enjoy this for some odd reason (see Star Citizen and Assassin's Creed Odyssey) but it was dull to me. There is a side quest with four races, which are okay but nothing special. Once in the combat it can be semi fun. It lacks depth but dodging, dashing, and taking down enemies is still interesting enough. Lack of variety holds it down more than anything.

STL5.jpg
You see this tower? 1/4th of all missions will be you flying to and subsequently destroying one.

Wonky controls, repetitive tasks and bad camera angles aside the core gameplay was simplistic but fun. You hold down the trigger at enemies while dashing around. Not convincing for a flight game, but still somewhat fun. Had the mission design been more varied the basic circle around and hold down the trigger gameplay might have been fun enough to continue playing post story. As it is though, the game gets stale before the roughly 14 hour experience ends.

STL6.jpg
Garbage collecting to sell for in game currency. Fans of space janitorial games rejoice.

Stability wise the game is great. No crashes, performance was good, smooth with no stuttering and not obvious bugs. Graphics looked decent enough. A little low resolution in some areas texture wise, but this is minimized thanks to the cartoony graphic style.

Sound wise the game was standard. Voice acting wasn't the greatest, it seemed like people reading off lines without context from other characters. The supposed character from New Jersey has such a strong Canadian accent; they didn't even attempt to hide it. The voices themselves are fine though. Sound affects are nothing special, and the background music was forgettable.

The story and characters were awful. Clearly this was geared towards younger children, but still feels off. It isn't cute, silly, tongue in cheek yet it isn't very serious. There is no sense of priority. No development. There is no emotional investment. You're Starlink. Insert cartoonishsh and bare minimum story backdrop, now fly from point A to B and do the same thing over and over again. Despite having dozens of mundane descriptions about everything to read about, nothing is well done and you're not given a reason to care about anything. There is an ending, but you'll have little reason to care about it or the antagonists. Or even Starlink's mission.

STL2.jpg
Characters / space Canadians.

What we have here is yet another bland and uninspired action RPG game with open worlds. It might look like a space/flight game, but it really isn't. It plays like a tacked on vehicle section for an action adventure game. The framework was designed first and foremost as a generic on foot type of game, and then translated into a game with flight and the result was disastrous. Again, if you're looking for a space or flying game this isn't it. It is an okay action shooter with odd RPG mechanics. The relative stability compared to other games was a pleasant surprise. Despite being a terrible flight/space game, it is a barely playable time waster.

6/10
 
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Deadpool (PC)

Purchased in 2017 and finally got around to it.

Graphics - 4/5
The game looks good for something that was made in 2015. My only gripe is that it looks like some aspect issues with ultra-wide monitors. Framing on some cutscenes seems a bit off with the tops of heads not in frame.

Gameplay - 2/5
This is my biggest issue. You go through the game and max out DP in all areas and you can STILL get your tail handed to you by some grunt with a machine gun from the first level. The enemies are all the same spec-wise. The last fight is cheap and the ONLY way I won was being cheap. There is no way to block attacks. It was a slog getting through this game.

Sound - 3/5
Nothing to write home about, things go boom, the voice acting is good.

Design - 2/5
I think you fight the camera more than the enemies in this game. The controls don't feel great. How many times did I want to teleport to avoid a hit only to do a counter-attack because another nearby enemy started an attack. When they have platforming, it's just horrible and not accurate. Camera again is an issue. Endgame "boss" is infuriating.

Overall - 2.5/5
It has it's place as a mindless hack and slash. But the lame camera, lame AI, no real sense of leveling up and imbalance in power makes this game hard to recommend. If you have it in your Steam account, give it a go to at least see all the crude jokes and funny bits. If not, I am sure it's on YouTube.

Protip: get the beartrap and sais early. Then get a powerful boss snagged in the bear trap, then wail on them with the sais. Instant 4million points. Upgrade the sais to get more DP.
 
Starlink Battle for Atlas

A good way to tell if a game is mundane and boring is when the most interesting thing is the strong Canadian accents. Starlink is a mediocre title at best in every aspect. Despite the name and general setting, this is not a flight game. You do pilot a space ship but the game isn't designed around flight or space gameplay. This is either through extreme incompetence and lack of familiarity with games in the genre or intentionally an attempt to reskin an on foot action RPG as a space flight game. What went wrong during development isn't very relevant, but if you're looking for a good space or flight game Starlink isn't it.

When it comes to gameplay there is a lot wrong with Starlink. As mentioned, everything about the space/flight and combat is lacking and awkward. Every thing that should be avoided was implemented in Starlink. The controls and flight are not very good. By default they inverted up/down, and while this can be changed it shows the lack of subject familiarity for the genre. Everything control wise was implemented as if you were a person on foot, and not piloting a vehicle that has three dimensions of movement. The throttle defaults to B or RMB on an Xbox controller and not the triggers. You must hold the button down continuously. This means if you want to fly at full speed, shoot and turn, your hand will end up twisted in the most awkward combination. You have to hold down B, shoot with the triggers, and occasionally use not one but two thumb sticks to steer. If your thumb is pressing B, how are you supposed to use that to steer with the right thumb stick? Answer: You don't.

View attachment 336988
Have fun pointing your weapons in the right direction with that wonderful camera implementation.

Despite not being a forward or side scrolling shooter (and therefore unlike Star Fox 64) the game offers freedom of movement, and you typically stay close to the ground, hovering. The controls here work mostly fine, one thumb stick controls movement as you can't move up/down. The problem becomes apparent when you go into "flight mode" or fly in space. You now must use two sticks to control your ship. The left moves side to side, the right up and down. As you can imagine that makes doing two tasks at once impossible. You can either fully steer, or stop and shoot, stop and boost, and then grab both sticks again. This seems to be a common trend in recent flight games as developers must clearly lack experience making even the most simple of flight games. It seems like they tried to mimic Star Fox 64 like controls, but offer full freedom of movement which makes zero sense.

The camera controls are also terrible. Again, we're seeing a team that has no idea how to make a flight game and how one should play. Camera focus is crucial when you're in a constantly moving vehicle. Especially one that has three dimensions of movement. Your ship will often veer off into the corner of the screen, leaving you unable to see or react to what is happening. This is unacceptable in all games, but the issue is much more pronounced when you're constantly moving. The camera also acts as your locking system, meaning you must constantly look at something for guided weapons to hit your intended target. This becomes a problem when your ship becomes de-centered from the screen, or because the nose flops up/down as you move the camera. Again, proper flight games have a lock button that you hold down which shows the relation of the target to the player so you know what you're targetting while can still clearly see your orientation. Just copy Ace Combat, it works.

View attachment 336959
Hard to keep track of your ship orientation? It gets much worse. Sometimes half the ship is off screen.

Everything else about the game is absolutely unimaginative. Again, it seems like the developers were creating an on foot action RPG and couldn't stop for a movement and realize they were supposed to be making a game where you pilot a flying vehicle. You know you fail at a flying game when on of the first missions you play is a jumping based mini game. In a space ship. Jumping or climbing obstacles is something you'd expect in a game like Assassin's Creed or Tomb Raider, yet is juxtaposed in a game where you pilot a flying machine. The weapons are standard RPG fare ripped straight out of the fantasy genre. Your weapons are element based, like fire and ice. Enemies too are ice, fire, ect. based. This is the result of unimaginative game design. Instead of thinking and creating weapon dynamics that work for the theme (space combat/flight) everything is based around fantasy themed powers.

View attachment 336983
Ships can fly between planets. Amazing lore and so very descriptive!

The game features an odd, confusing menu with an odd & confusing leveling system. To level up your character you must level up your ships (you can instantly switch between them) and weapons. This makes for odd gameplay as you might have two type weak weapons equipped, and need to stop, enter the menu and swap weapons to counter an enemy. It is fairly pointless as it can be done instantly. Why even bother with the mechanic? Stopping the flow of combat to open a menu kills the action when you do manage to have fun. You will also need to apply modifications to weapons, which are just lazy and tacked on. We see brilliant examples like increasing damage by 15%, or reload speed by 10%. It really isn't fun sifting through a clunky menu and swapping Armour Mod VII for Armor Mod VI.

Mission wise the game offers the same repeating missions over and over again. There are three to four tasks in the game. Destroy hives, towers, Dreadnoughts and build a compound. In the case of the Dreadnoughts, the ship layouts are 100% the same each time in the first two phases. Destroy three turrets always in the same location, then destroy five lasers in the same positions. Then fly through a tunnel (a number of different variations) to destroy the core Star Wars style. You also pluck junk off the ground to upgrade compounds you build with the in game currency. Because when we think space/flight game, what we really wanted was to pick up garbage off the ground. Sarcasm aside, be prepared to place space janitor. I suppose many gamers enjoy this for some odd reason (see Star Citizen and Assassin's Creed Odyssey) but it was dull to me. There is a side quest with four races, which are okay but nothing special. Once in the combat it can be semi fun. It lacks depth but dodging, dashing, and taking down enemies is still interesting enough. Lack of variety holds it down more than anything.

View attachment 336970
You see this tower? 1/4th of all missions will be you flying to and subsequently destroying one.

Wonky controls, repetitive tasks and bad camera angles aside the core gameplay was simplistic but fun. You hold down the trigger at enemies while dashing around. Not convincing for a flight game, but still somewhat fun. Had the mission design been more varied the basic circle around and hold down the trigger gameplay might have been fun enough to continue playing post story. As it is though, the game gets stale before the roughly 14 hour experience ends.

View attachment 336972
Garbage collecting to sell for in game currency. Fans of space janitorial games rejoice.

Stability wise the game is great. No crashes, performance was good, smooth with no stuttering and not obvious bugs. Graphics looked decent enough. A little low resolution in some areas texture wise, but this is minimized thanks to the cartoony graphic style.

Sound wise the game was standard. Voice acting wasn't the greatest, it seemed like people reading off lines without context from other characters. The supposed character from New Jersey has such a strong Canadian accent; they didn't even attempt to hide it. The voices themselves are fine though. Sound affects are nothing special, and the background music was forgettable.

The story and characters were awful. Clearly this was geared towards younger children, but still feels off. It isn't cute, silly, tongue in cheek yet it isn't very serious. There is no sense of priority. No development. There is no emotional investment. You're Starlink. Insert cartoonishsh and bare minimum story backdrop, now fly from point A to B and do the same thing over and over again. Despite having dozens of mundane descriptions about everything to read about, nothing is well done and you're not given a reason to care about anything. There is an ending, but you'll have little reason to care about it or the antagonists. Or even Starlink's mission.

View attachment 336986
Characters / space Canadians.

What we have here is yet another bland and uninspired action RPG game with open worlds. It might look like a space/flight game, but it really isn't. It plays like a tacked on vehicle section for an action adventure game. The framework was designed first and foremost as a generic on foot type of game, and then translated into a game with flight and the result was disastrous. Again, if you're looking for a space or flying game this isn't it. It is an okay action shooter with odd RPG mechanics. The relative stability compared to other games was a pleasant surprise. Despite being a terrible flight/space game, it is a barely playable time waster.

6/10
I couldn’t get past the intro mission, I thought the controls were atrocious as much as I wanted to play it, guess I’m not missing much other than $12.50 or so.
 
I couldn’t get past the intro mission, I thought the controls were atrocious as much as I wanted to play it, guess I’m not missing much other than $12.50 or so.

I thankfully paid nothing for it, Ubisoft gave it away for free recently. For that price if you have nothing else better to play it is okay. But yes, the controls were bad. I too quit in the intro mission because of the controls and I had a CTD come to think of it. I only picked it up again 2 months later, restarted the game.
 
Command and Conquer Remastered Collection

Finished all 80 something missions from Command and Conquer and Red Alert. Overall really enjoyed playing this. The graphical upgrade and QoL improvements helped with improving the game without changing what made these games great. The campaigns were as amusing and fun as I remember, gotta love the FMVs. Music remains one of my favorite soundtracks of any video game. Biggest gripe was path finding as sometimes units would prefer to go the long route instead of the shortest but I got around that with a little bit extra micro. Still overall was a blast playing through the campaigns and extra missions.

For $20 and 80+ hours of content, it was a good value and I will probably do some skirmish games now. I really hope they remaster Red Alert 2 and Tiberium Sun as I played more of those games and would love to revisit them in higher graphics.
 
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Persona 5 Strikers

Gameplay: 9/10

Story: 9/10

Graphics/Design: 10/10

Length: 7/10

Overall: 8/10


I thought the way this game turned a JRPG into a warriors style game was incredible. Everything works so seamlessly, even though the two categories don't seem like they would go together too well. My only complaint is that the game was not super long. I got the platinum trophy in about 2 weeks and over 75 hours. I probably played too much but I just enjoyed the game that much. It was even worth playing it over in merciless mode, even though it was brutal. I really recommend this game to anyone who has played Persona 5 and likes the warrior games because it is extremely fun.
 
cyberpunk

Cant get enough of the story

Flawed game for sure but very enjoyable
 
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Normal PS4 version playing on a PS5)

Let me preface this with this: I was a fan of the original game, but not a superfan or anything. I always found the plot resolution to be a little thrown together, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the game.

Graphics: 5/10. This is the normal PS4 version that I played. It runs at 1080p at 30fps. Textures are general low-res and are often very muddy looking. That seems to be an art direction that was intentional...but it seems like they could squeeze better performance out of it as a result. Certain sequences and areas look better than others. Very noticeably, too. The game looks like it probably began life as a PS3 title and just kept getting delayed. I know there's a PS5 version on the way, but the game looks and runs poorly even for a PS4 game. Fire up Uncharted 4, TLoU2, God of War, etc. followed by this and it's night and day worse.

Sound: 7/10. Sound effects, music, etc. are all very good. The voice acting is downright horrendous and cringe-worthy...yet (like the graphics), I think it was intentional. Maybe some people will like/appreciate it. It also feels like the further you get into the game, it does improve. At the very least it becomes more serious.

Gameplay: 6.5/10. This is definitely subjective. The game controls like an action game, but in reality it's 1/2 turn-based. You can move around, strike, dodge, block, etc. but those actions don't always work the way you might want them to. There are tons of things that are unavoidable/inevitable. Yet if you try to play the game like a slower turn-based game you'll get slaughtered because the battles are definitely real-time in many ways. At first I hated it, but as I got further I got used to it. My biggest complaint relates to certain moves/actions being borderline worthless. There are tons of actions in the game that work instantly or have invincibility frames so you can do them safely even against a quick enemy. Yet there are a bunch that always get interrupted. You might think those must be particularly good...but they rarely are. In particular, spellcasting tends to be very slow and always getting interrupted. By the end of the game I had turned my casters into mini-tanks. I got tired of waiting for their spells to charge and the spells always being interrupted. Items and personal actions > spells. I think that's one reason the game bars you from using items in certain challenges. Any actions without invincibility frames might as well not even be there.

Overall: Ever play the original Final Fantasy 7 before? This is a loose retelling of the first 20-30% of the game. The story is relatively straightforward at first, but by the end I think new players might be clueless. They don't explain who certain characters are AT ALL, so you're left wondering what the hell is going on if you've never played FF7 before. Who is Sephiroth? Who is Zack? Who are all of these random Shinra employees? The game itself is almost totally linear. There are side missions and optional quests, but you're just going from point A to point B in most instances. Even the rare instances where you have some level of choice boils down to option 1 or option 2, with the same overall results. On top of all of that...the game just kinda ends. They don't really ever tell you that the game is only one episode of the FF7 story. Based on how long that story is, this might be only 1 of 3-4 episodes.

How do you feel about anime? Hopefully you're a die-hard fan, because this game follows every canned anime stereotype you can imagine. Lots of vocalized "uh!" "ah!" "oh!" zoom-in moments, v-signs galore, effeminate tough guys, corny dialogue, etc. I'm indifferent to anime, but found this game to be a little too over the top. Like with the graphics and acting...things get better the further you get, though. That's the weirdest thing about this game. Once you get 5-6 hours in, things get more serious and things DO improve. I didn't like the beginning of this game. At all. Yet by the time I hit chapters 8-9, I was enjoying myself.

6.75/10
 
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Doom eternal (PC)

Graphics - 3/5

While there are some graphically amazing things in this game, some parts seem to be from a different older game which would not surprise me given the troubled developpement of recent DOOM games

Gameplay - 2/5
The shooting part is mostly fine even though for most weapons I even forgot thay had an alt fire mode other then the snipoing for the assault rifle and the meathook you have to use to take out a certain boss, the finishing move/chainsaw/light on fire dance gets old fast and in the world ammo and health are so scarce you might as well be playing a resident evil game. The fact that I'm an old man who presses R after every fight to reload his weapon does not hep me here aq there is no reload button and I just wasted an ability, same for wanting to press shift to run, which uses dash or ctrl to crouch which launches a grenade

And then there are the jumping bits, I realy don't buy a doom game for 40% of the game to be mario game or parkour, also some of the jumping crap is so tight that I had to resort to online guides to make sure I was on the right track after falling to my death a dozen times orso, this part of the game needs to be scrapped if they ever make another DOOM game imo

Sound - 4/5
Typical DOOM metal soundtrack, sounds are mostly ok, nothing special but best of all not as bad as a lot of other aspects of the game

Overall - 3/5
Imo, the game is decent, could be a lot better if the level design and visuals were more consistent, the use this weapon for this enemy is annoying as hell and unnecesarry in a shooter like DOOM, the jumping bits are immersion breaking and frustrating (especially since once you start a jumping sequence you have to keep going or you fall).

My main gripe is that it might be a good game for some people, maybe even alot of people, but it's a rather bad DOOM game (fwiw I also hated the forced weapon thing in wolfenstein Youngblood among other things in that game)
 
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Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Normal PS4 version playing on a PS5)

Let me preface this with this: I was a fan of the original game, but not a superfan or anything. I always found the plot resolution to be a little thrown together, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the game.

Graphics: 5/10. This is the normal PS4 version that I played. It runs at 1080p at 30fps. Textures are general low-res and are often very muddy looking. That seems to be an art direction that was intentional...but it seems like they could squeeze better performance out of it as a result. Certain sequences and areas look better than others. Very noticeably, too. The game looks like it probably began life as a PS3 title and just kept getting delayed. I know there's a PS5 version on the way, but the game looks and runs poorly even for a PS4 game. Fire up Uncharted 4, TLoU2, God of War, etc. followed by this and it's night and day worse.

Sound: 7/10. Sound effects, music, etc. are all very good. The voice acting is downright horrendous and cringe-worthy...yet (like the graphics), I think it was intentional. Maybe some people will like/appreciate it. It also feels like the further you get into the game, it does improve. At the very least it becomes more serious.

Gameplay: 6.5/10. This is definitely subjective. The game controls like an action game, but in reality it's 1/2 turn-based. You can move around, strike, dodge, block, etc. but those actions don't always work the way you might want them to. There are tons of things that are unavoidable/inevitable. Yet if you try to play the game like a slower turn-based game you'll get slaughtered because the battles are definitely real-time in many ways. At first I hated it, but as I got further I got used to it. My biggest complaint relates to certain moves/actions being borderline worthless. There are tons of actions in the game that work instantly or have invincibility frames so you can do them safely even against a quick enemy. Yet there are a bunch that always get interrupted. You might think those must be particularly good...but they rarely are. In particular, spellcasting tends to be very slow and always getting interrupted. By the end of the game I had turned my casters into mini-tanks. I got tired of waiting for their spells to charge and the spells always being interrupted. Items and personal actions > spells. I think that's one reason the game bars you from using items in certain challenges. Any actions without invincibility frames might as well not even be there.

Overall: Ever play the original Final Fantasy 7 before? This is a loose retelling of the first 20-30% of the game. The story is relatively straightforward at first, but by the end I think new players might be clueless. They don't explain who certain characters are AT ALL, so you're left wondering what the hell is going on if you've never played FF7 before. Who is Sephiroth? Who is Zack? Who are all of these random Shinra employees? The game itself is almost totally linear. There are side missions and optional quests, but you're just going from point A to point B in most instances. Even the rare instances where you have some level of choice boils down to option 1 or option 2, with the same overall results. On top of all of that...the game just kinda ends. They don't really ever tell you that the game is only one episode of the FF7 story. Based on how long that story is, this might be only 1 of 3-4 episodes.

How do you feel about anime? Hopefully you're a die-hard fan, because this game follows every canned anime stereotype you can imagine. Lots of vocalized "uh!" "ah!" "oh!" zoom-in moments, v-signs galore, effeminate tough guys, corny dialogue, etc. I'm indifferent to anime, but found this game to be a little too over the top. Like with the graphics and acting...things get better the further you get, though. That's the weirdest thing about this game. Once you get 5-6 hours in, things get more serious and things DO improve. I didn't like the beginning of this game. At all. Yet by the time I hit chapters 8-9, I was enjoying myself.

6.75/10

As I posted in the "what are you nerds playing this weekend" thread, I've started playing through this since it was a free game on PS+ last weekend (on PS5 as well - not that it matters at all here).

I can pretty much agree with all of this here for what I've seen so far and I'm in chapter 8 now in Aerieth's town down all the generic side quests there at the moment.

It took me a while to understand wtf was going on with my spells not hitting when it seemed like they were casting with no effect, eventually seeing that I was being interrupted by other enemies while I was casting. Very annoying for sure. Because of this and all of the seemingly unavoidable/unblockable attacks, the combat seems really clunky to me for sure. It's barely passable, but I'm thankful for the pausing at least while I'm deciding what spell to cast or item to use. The quick actions with L1+face-button are handy, but don't benefit you much without the pause to analyze the situation first.

I agree on the sound too, but think the music deserves more emphasis than you gave it, as it really does a good job at remixing the original's iconic music and ambience throughout the levels. You're dead-on about the anime voices and mannerisms though. I'm indifferent about it as well, but coming from any of Sony's other exclusives, the voice acting here is far from believable or realistic, but they were also pretty limited by the original game's dated script and nature of it being a remake of a late-90s game.

You're totally right about the graphics too; I can see this game starting life as a PS3 game with how bad some of the texture work is and detail on any characters besides the main ones. There were some points where I thought the game was still trying to load a texture when in fact that was the full texture for that asset (like your apartment's door that Tifa takes you to your first night in Midgar - it's just a huge blur, lol). It's like they blew half of the PS4's performance budget on particle effects for battles and stuff, hah.

You're right on the story too; since I never played past the first few hours of the first game on PS1, I have no idea who these other Shinra mini-boss characters are that I'm encountering and that have zero introduction before or after fighting. I look forward to the abrupt ending now as well I guess.

Anyways, so far I would still give it a 7/10 at least, maybe a 7.5 because I'm less critical in general than most people I think. Although IGN gave this game a 8/10, which I can go with that too for the big FF fans out there who may have a softer spot for this game/genre than I do.
 
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Dirt 5 (PC, via GamePass)

This was my first venture into the Dirt series in a while, but I really liked the older games. I fired it up only to discover that it was far closer to the Need for Speed games than what I remember of previous Dirt games. Luckily I like the NFS games, so that was no big deal.

Graphics: 8/10. The game looks and runs well. While some of the tracks look a little lifeless and still, I really liked the lighting, reflection, and weather effects a lot.

Sound: 9/10 Most racing games from the last 10-15 years have music soundtracks that range from tolerable to horrendous. I actually enjoyed this one. A lot even. It had a good mix of genres, old/new tracks, obscure/known acts, etc. I wish the game would tell you the name of the tracks and let you skip around (music = totally random), but I otherwise have minimal complaints. Sound effects and directional sound are also very well done.

Gameplay 6/10: It's a racing game, but a very simple one for the most part. Gas/brake/ebrake are the 3 default buttons. You can toggle manual transmission if you like...but frankly it feels weird since it just adds up and down shift buttons. I tinkered around with both options and found the simpler way to feel more natural. Why? The game is an arcade racer. Physics, damage, and basically everything in the game = unrealistic. It's fun, but it's a throwback to early 00's Need for Speed gameplay. The ones where you're better off bouncing off walls rather than using the brakes. I like arcade racers, but I think a little more realism could have been nice. You drive a wide variety of vehicles, but most of them feel very similar to one another. Just different specs for acceleration and turning radius. Rear vs. front vs. all wheel drive vehicles are the major differentiators. The game is probably too simple for its own good.

Overall: The game is pretty simple. You're basically just racing a series of races (135 in total) that mostly consist of beating a bunch of other drivers to the finish line. Most involve 3-5 laps, while some are just point A to point B. There are a few oddball events called "Gymkhana" that involve drifting and doing stunts to get particular score. There's even one event where you have to touch a certain number of balloons in a timed driving maze that the game oddly never revisits. There are roughly 20 tracks that you end up racing forward, backward, and with short/long variations. I never felt the game needed more or less, so that worked out fine.

The game weirdly has a storyline that is barely explained or justified. You apparently have a racing coach named AJ (who is never seen or explained) and you are apparently trying to out-race someone named Bruno Durand. You can't race him immediately...because reasons? The game randomly tossed named opponents at you in races called "Throwdowns," but those opponents have zero history, story, etc. It's all very, very weird. Almost like they forgot to add the cut scenes or something. To me, they should have either gone all-in with the story (a la NFS: Most Wanted) or just skipped it entirely. It doesn't detract from the game, but it's just weird.

Anyway, it's mindless fun and is a good GamePass game to download if you're a member.

7.75/10
 
DmC Devil May Cry

Not a very good game. Story is random but that isn't the worst of it. The worst part is the game never tells you what you need to do and the controls simply don't work. You constantly get stuck because the game doesn't tell you it suddenly gave you a new move or ability. The only way I found out is by watching youtube videos, where the hints are shown. But they are not shown when I am playing which makes figuring out what to do impossible. I'm not going to watch a game played on youtube just to figure out what new inputs the game decided to require to progress without notifying the player; maybe this is an issue with the Steam version only. In either case, unacceptable.

Even when finding the new combination required to progress it doesn't work on my setup. considering I am also using an Xbox controller there is no reason for the combination to not work. Lack of bug fixing is obviously the result.

Because the combination will not work and I cannot progress, the game cannot be finished. These are game breaking bugs that prevent progression. I made it halfway through before this last combination completely fails to work. Shame, I enjoyed DMC5 and assumed this would be similar.

0/10
 
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Brutal Legend

Saw this in my Steam Library and decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised. Its a 3rd person hack and slash type game with a theme of heavy metal and some strategy elements thrown in. Lots of great music tracks throughout the game as you rock out through the missions. Features a good cast of voice actors to complement the game that also followed a story that was compelling for me to finish it through. Gameplay was fun, a hack and slash game with various abilities to help you fight the enemy. There were several missions that added a strategy element with you commanding various units to complete the missions to keep the game fresh but that got somewhat repetitive after a while. Game isn't very long so thats a minor nitpick imo.

Overall enjoyed the game as it was unique enough to what I usually play to provide a fun experience.
 
Brutal Legend

Saw this in my Steam Library and decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised. Its a 3rd person hack and slash type game with a theme of heavy metal and some strategy elements thrown in. Lots of great music tracks throughout the game as you rock out through the missions. Features a good cast of voice actors to complement the game that also followed a story that was compelling for me to finish it through. Gameplay was fun, a hack and slash game with various abilities to help you fight the enemy. There were several missions that added a strategy element with you commanding various units to complete the missions to keep the game fresh but that got somewhat repetitive after a while. Game isn't very long so thats a minor nitpick imo.

Overall enjoyed the game as it was unique enough to what I usually play to provide a fun experience.
The soundtrack for Brütal Legend is bananas. It must have taken them years to work out the licensing for all those songs. The Spotify playlist has been in my rotation since someone created it. It's also got voice cast begs the question "how the hell did they get all these people?" And they actually put in a good effort, even Ozzie.

It's a reasonably fun hack and slash with a good story. I was hoping for a sequel, but the first was probably lightning in a bottle.

It's a Double Fine production so not surprising it's decent.
 
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The soundtrack for Brütal Legend is bananas. It must have taken them years to work out the licensing for all those songs. The Spotify playlist has been in my rotation since someone created it. It's also got voice cast begs the question "how the hell did they get all these people?" And they actually put in a good effort, even Ozzie.

It's a reasonably fun hack and slash with a good story. I was hoping for a sequel, but the first was probably lightning in a bottle.

It's a Double Fine production so not surprising it's decent.
I believe Jack Black was directly involved in its creation and I suspect he's the reason a lot of talent and songs were willing to be attached to the game.
 
Total War: Warhammer 2
Honestly, I was more satisfied with the first part - it was closer to the Warhammer I remember (I collected and played Warhammer fantasy battle). I love almost all Total War games and they always hold a high level. A very good game, a very good campaign, a lot of add-ons and DLC.

Moments later I finished Total War: Troy
I got it for free from EpicGames
Also interesting game, very good mechanics of creating heroes. You can feel the atmosphere of ancient Greece.
 
Village: Resident Evil 8

Graphics: 8.5/10. The game is running on an updated version of the engine that powered RE7 and the remakes of 2 and 3. It's great at featuring dark and shadowy rooms without making things look too dark or crushed. It's also good at making things look good from a distance without looking horrible up-close. They added ray tracing (which only subtly makes lighting look better) and some graphical improvements, but I wouldn't say it's cutting edge. That said, it IS still a good looking game. Plus at this point, lots of different setups can run things at 60fps, which is nice.

Sound: 6/10. I've heard people complaining about poor sound quality issues, but I didn't notice anything via my surround system. Still, they didn't really take advantage of positional audio and the game could probably benefit from it. The voice acting is uneven at best. Ethan is borderline horrible, but at least most the other characters do a solid job. Weapons and sound effects are average for the genre, but probably not as good as RE7's. I'd call the audio "adequate," but not good.

Gameplay: 8/10. The game controls like RE7, but is way more action-oriented. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Chris Redfield's FPS-like DLC mission in that game. It never becomes a full-on shooter, but later sections tread pretty close. There are 6 different major areas in the game and they do a good job of keeping the style of play fresh. Some are hallway shooters, some are point+click adventure missions with minimal action, and others are an even mix. While it will probably take you a while to get used to, don't forget to block. It reduces the damage taken by hits by a HUGE amount. We're talking 75% or maybe even more. It seems unnatural, but it's borderline necessary.

Overall 8/10. I'm an RE fan for the most part. I even enjoyed RE6, which most people seem to hate. To me, this is probably the 2nd best game in the series behind 4 and maybe tied with the remake of RE2. It's fun, it's atmospheric, there are different approaches to different missions, and there is even some decent replay value, too. My only major gripe is that (like seemingly everything running on the RE engine), it feels too short. They pad the game by revisiting certain areas and giving you incentive to do so. It's longer than the 10 hours quote you'll find online, but it's still only around 12 if you don't count time spent in the menus...which the in-game counter doesn't. Subsequent playthroughs trim about 40% off the top, too. A lot of the game's nuance and difficulty really only comes into play once. It's still fun to replay and see what different weapons can do/become, but the game's length becomes more obvious each time. It should also be mentioned that later sections may not appeal to everyone. I didn't mind them, but I enjoyed the middle sections of the game way more than the end...or the beginning for that matter.
 
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Ori and the Will of the Wisps (PC via Gamepass)

First things first, I really liked the original Ori and the Blind Forest. It's up there with Guacamelee on my list of favorite Metroidvania titles and I'd probably give it a 9/10. This sequel captures a lot of what that game did well, but misses the mark in a lot of ways, too.

Graphics: 9/10. The game looks fantastic. It runs well and features HDR and tons of new visual effects.

Sound: 9/10. The music is amazing, too. I also appreciate the sound effects, the voices, and the use of Atmos for positional audio.

Gameplay: 6/10. If there was no Blind Forest, this would probably be much higher...but there was. To me his game falls flat by comparison. The formula is roughly the same, but instead of clever puzzles the game focuses on frame-perfect jumps and launching off of objects. If there's an obstacle in your way that seems impassable...it is. Nearly every area consists of a pile of blocked passages and one clear route. The one clear route leads to an ability that allows you to traverse the other paths. It's like that over and over. The abilities are mostly in the form of things that let you jump higher or fly in some manner. By the end of the game, the levels are just mazes of spikes that Ori jumps/flies between using one ability after another. I liked the early areas, which felt like the original game, but the last half of the game was a spiky slog of jumps/dashes/bounces/etc.

Combat is a little more up-close and personal this time. Rather than having your light sentry blast enemies from a distance, Ori is attacking with a melee weapon most of the time. There are other types of attacks that you can purchase, but they're very situational and mostly used vs. bosses and mini-bosses. Speaking of bosses, the game incorporates huge boss battles that are both challenging and fun this time around. I really liked those battles a lot. The crazy chases/escapes that the first game was famous for are back, too. Luckily they're a bit more fair this time. In the original, things were very much trial and error. You either had to be an oracle or just get lucky. In this game, I was able to do most of them in a couple tries.

Throughout the game there are now side missions and item collection quests. They seemed like a neat addition on the surface, but they don't really offer much of a reward. Just in-game currency, which you should have tons of anyway. Either that or unlocks that don't actually unlock anything new, only shortcuts. I feel like they really missed some good opportunities with most of those.

Oh yeah, the save mechanic from the original game is gone. The blue orbs are now used mostly for healing or occasionally ammunition. Saving seems to be mostly automated, although some seriously treacherous areas force you to replay them in their entirety if you fail. I liked being able to control the save functionality, but I don't consider this a huge loss. I do wish they explained the save system, better, though.

Then there's the story. I won't spoil anything, but it's a colossal bummer all around. From the beginning all the way to the very end, things just keep going horribly wrong for poor Ori, Ku, Shriek, and everyone/everything that isn't a meerkat. If you want to feel sad for animated characters, this is your game.

Overall, it's still very much a good game...but I like the original quite a bit more. If they make a 3rd (which seems likely), I hope they back off on the over-reliance of latching on and launching off various objects.

7/10

Unrelated, if you're playing the Gamepass version of this game, you might check your crashdumps folder. Literally every single time I exited the game, it counted as a "crash." That folder was filled with piles of dump files by the time I was done.
 
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Village: Resident Evil 8

Graphics: 8.5/10. The game is running on an updated version of the engine that powered RE7 and the remakes of 2 and 3. It's great at featuring dark and shadowy rooms without making things look too dark or crushed. It's also good at making things look good from a distance without looking horrible up-close. They added ray tracing (which only subtly makes lighting look better) and some graphical improvements, but I wouldn't say it's cutting edge. That said, it IS still a good looking game. Plus at this point, lots of different setups can run things at 60fps, which is nice.

Sound: 6/10. I've heard people complaining about poor sound quality issues, but I didn't notice anything via my surround system. Still, they didn't really take advantage of positional audio and the game could probably benefit from it. The voice acting is uneven at best. Ethan is borderline horrible, but at least most the other characters do a solid job. Weapons and sound effects are average for the genre, but probably not as good as RE7's. I'd call the audio "adequate," but not good.

Gameplay: 8/10. The game controls like RE7, but is way more action-oriented. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Chris Redfield's FPS-like DLC mission in that game. It never becomes a full-on shooter, but later sections tread pretty close. There are 6 different major areas in the game and they do a good job of keeping the style of play fresh. Some are hallway shooters, some are point+click adventure missions with minimal action, and others are an even mix. While it will probably take you a while to get used to, don't forget to block. It reduces the damage taken by hits by a HUGE amount. We're talking 75% or maybe even more. It seems unnatural, but it's borderline necessary.

Overall 8/10. I'm an RE fan for the most part. I even enjoyed RE6, which most people seem to hate. To me, this is probably the 2nd best game in the series behind 4 and maybe tied with the remake of RE2. It's fun, it's atmospheric, there are different approaches to different missions, and there is even some decent replay value, too. My only major gripe is that (like seemingly everything running on the RE engine), it feels too short. They pad the game by revisiting certain areas and giving you incentive to do so. It's longer than the 10 hours quote you'll find online, but it's still only around 12 if you don't count time spent in the menus...which the in-game counter doesn't. Subsequent playthroughs trim about 40% off the top, too. A lot of the game's nuance and difficulty really only comes into play once. It's still fun to replay and see what different weapons can do/become, but the game's length becomes more obvious each time. It should also be mentioned that later sections may not appeal to everyone. I didn't mind them, but I enjoyed the middle sections of the game way more than the end...or the beginning for that matter.

Pretty much agree. Played it on PS5 though and thought the sound was good on there playing mostly on the Pulse 3D headset, but agree with the voice acting being mediocre at best, which is par for course for RE since RE7 at least. So I'd give sound like a 7.5/10 IMO.

My first play through on Standard difficulty was around 15 hours taking my sweet time and exploring everywhere, and I'm not sure if inventory screen counts as game time either since I often used that as a pause screen while I took breaks. Then I played through again in NG+ on Village of Shadows difficulty and go through it in 9 hours with the Dragoon unlocked with infinite ammo (definitely makes it much easier, but also a fun gun to use, esp. with the adaptive triggers on PS5 rattling as you shoot). I might try to Platinum it, I'm just not sure I'm feeling running through the game within 3 hours, as I hate the idea of attempting it and missing it by a few mins or something stupid and wasting time on achievements like that. But after playing through it twice now, I think it's a relatively feasible thing for most people to do since you can bypass most of the village to go straight to the lords and run through the game; should be much easier too with a couple OP weapons with infinite ammo like the Stake/magnum and shotgun w/ 40 round mag.

On a side note, my bro in law is a huge RE fan and keeps begging me to play RE6, as it's the only RE (in the core series at least) that I haven't played since it looked way too actiony and like it jumped the shark after RE5 that I already didn't care much for in since they moved the slider all the way from suspense/horror to action on it. But I guess next time I see it on sale for under $10 like I've seen several times already, I'll pick it up just so I can say I've played them all again.
 
Pretty much agree. Played it on PS5 though and thought the sound was good on there playing mostly on the Pulse 3D headset, but agree with the voice acting being mediocre at best, which is par for course for RE since RE7 at least. So I'd give sound like a 7.5/10 IMO.

My first play through on Standard difficulty was around 15 hours taking my sweet time and exploring everywhere, and I'm not sure if inventory screen counts as game time either since I often used that as a pause screen while I took breaks. Then I played through again in NG+ on Village of Shadows difficulty and go through it in 9 hours with the Dragoon unlocked with infinite ammo (definitely makes it much easier, but also a fun gun to use, esp. with the adaptive triggers on PS5 rattling as you shoot). I might try to Platinum it, I'm just not sure I'm feeling running through the game within 3 hours, as I hate the idea of attempting it and missing it by a few mins or something stupid and wasting time on achievements like that. But after playing through it twice now, I think it's a relatively feasible thing for most people to do since you can bypass most of the village to go straight to the lords and run through the game; should be much easier too with a couple OP weapons with infinite ammo like the Stake/magnum and shotgun w/ 40 round mag.

On a side note, my bro in law is a huge RE fan and keeps begging me to play RE6, as it's the only RE (in the core series at least) that I haven't played since it looked way too actiony and like it jumped the shark after RE5 that I already didn't care much for in since they moved the slider all the way from suspense/horror to action on it. But I guess next time I see it on sale for under $10 like I've seen several times already, I'll pick it up just so I can say I've played them all again.

RE6 is almost like Gears of War meets Resident Evil. It controls more or less like RE5, but you can now melee at will and it's pretty helpful. It's fast paced and there's little to no suspense, but it still manages to feel mostly like a RE game. Well, at least 4 and 5. There are four core stories to the game and you can play them in any order you feel like. You're just experiencing different sides of a story that involves several different people. It's actually kind of a neat idea, but some are better than others. As long as you go into it knowing that it's a 3rd person shooter, it's honestly not a bad game. I preferred it to RE5 and it provides tons of bang for your buck. If you complete all 4 main stories (there's a bonus one for Ada, too), it's even longer than RE4 was. That said, after you play through it once you'll probably never want to play it again, too. It's just too much and I can see why they made a hard 180 degree turn with RE7.
 
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Finish Ghostrunner. The game was awesome. It's basically Celeste, but cyberpunk and first person. You die A LOT.

Some really tricky levels, you will go out of your mind and think you can't do it. But you can. Amazing game.
 
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