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Completed Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

Overall, disappointed.

I played it on the PS5 on performance mode. The game though had some serious frame rate drops throughout. And while I'm a fan of the original NES soundtrack, I found some of the remixes grating.

Now in terms of gameplay, this game demonstrates precisely why I think action conversions of turn based RPGs still haven't gotten there. Your teammates are all but useless. The enemy monsters will target you 90% of the time, even if your teammates are 2 inches away from them. And half the time, they just stand still doing nothing. Some missions require killing Tonberries, who will insta kill you if they hit you. Your teammates though, almost never get hit. So, I ran towards the tonberry, had my teammates there, than told my teammates to go wild, while I ran away like a coward. Took about 10 minutes for them to kill the tonberry, though if I get lucky, I can kill it in about 15 seconds. Which brings me to my next point. This game is everything people complain about Dark Souls, but really isn't in Dark Souls. It feels like it reads your inputs. Once again to the tonberry, I time a maneuver, and bam, it does a 180, and lands the insta kill at the perfect time. And some of the later bosses on the hard difficulty basically require you to play perfect. Get hit once, and it's practically over. It's not like the bosses are difficult in patterns, but sometimes you have to change skills using the analog sticks, not only moving them, but pressing them down. And while it's instantaneous outside of the boss fights, it feels like there's a couple second delay in order to make it work in the boss fight, at which point the boss will hit you. And once your down, you're stunned for 3 seconds, while his next attack goes off in 2 seconds, followed by a few more attacks to land the killing blow on you. This only happens on the harder difficulties, not the easier ones. And while I understand playing harder difficulties is suppose to be more difficult, I find getting chain killed from full health is cheap, not difficult. There's a difference between getting hit due to a mistake and being able to recover vs being hit due to a mistake, and being chain killed before you have an opportunity to recover.
I just about grabbed this game, your take seems on par from what I've seen videos of. A bummer as I wanted a game to fill my FFXV alternative and a game I simply loved.
 
God of War

Prepare to embark on a confused journey, smashing every pot that gets in your way as yet another Playstation exclusive has arrived on PC. God of War is an action adventure game that relies far too much on finding weird resources and is based around a confusing and odd menu design.

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God of War is an action adventure game, based around fighting and melee. And collecting money and odd resources to upgrade your character. Otherwise the "god" that you play as will get his ass kicked by literal brain dead draugrs. The fighting combat is okay. It is not bad, but it is not great either. There are a variety of moves that you can learn over the course of the game. These have some unique effects and animations. The problem is that few of them are actually useful. Enemies will interrupt the more complex moves you can perform. The basic moves are therefore much more useful and consistently better for actually playing the game. In practice this makes the gameplay limited because you will spam the few basic attack moves instead of using the more complex ones.

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To the game's credit using the shield to block enemy attacks is actually viable in this game, which is a plus.


There are factors like staggering enemies and moves that place a larger emphasis on staggering than damage, but again, enemies recover so quickly that it is often pointless. There are other fighting games released in the past like Sleeping Dogs where the more complex fighting moves were actually practical and staggering had a use in a fight. This is very disappointing, as the general combat is actually fairly fun. There is some weight behind your character and impacts. The foundation of the gameplay is fine, it just seldom allows for the complex moves to be practical resulting in a more simplistic basic light/heavy attack spamming gameplay.

The boy has a bow, which offers longer range support and is generally how you will stagger enemies. Nothing is really special about this in terms of gameplay but is often needed.


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The most common foe that God of War forces you to crush through your journey is the pot.


Outside of combat you will spend a lot of time figuring out how to upgrade your weapons and armor. The upgrade system is a bit of a mess, and relies heavily on pulverizing random pots and vases throughout the game. Of all the things I'd expect a god to be able to do, I didn't think beating the crap out of ornate furniture randomly strewn about the landscape was one they'd spend half their time doing. But you will smash a lot of crap in God of War. This is necessary to upgrade your gear. There are other ways to make money, like finding pointless treasures or items to sell in a shop. There is also a lot of weird resources you need to find. Certain times of steel for certain types of items. You'll then need to upgrade it, only to find out you need a bronze turd straight from a dragon's ass to upgrade it. It is just too much of a pain to remember what you need, and finding out where that junk is found. It becomes chore like and is a bit essential to ensure your character doesn't become too weak.

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The menu is hard to navigate, hard to figure out what you need to upgrade, and what you have or where to find something.


You can upgrade your moves, weapons, weapon grips, armor, special abilities, the kid's bow, ability so summon some ghost wolves/hogs, and some "quick attacks". All of which is done through a messy and confusingly designed menu. Through the middle of the game upgrading becomes an absolute chore but luckily it loosens up later.

God of War isn't exactly a large sprawling open world, although I suppose it does technically qualify as one. Once accessing a new area you can go back to previous areas at anytime. Most subsections of the map are fairly linear, though there is a hub area in the center. You can paddle around the lake and find some side quests here. This works out okay as the map is sensibly big so you don't run around too much aimlessly and it is well focused. This would have been good, had the map design naturally been logical and allowed for easy interpretation of where you are supposed to go. That isn't the case with God of War. Despite being linear it is often hard to read where you are supposed to go.

The map is perhaps the most useless map in video game history. The markers don't exactly correspond to where something is, and the path way to get somewhere is not shown at all. You wouldn't know if you are supposed to climb up something, follow a river inland, or go into a cave. Practically nothing of relevance is shown on the map.

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The map is almost entirely useless.


There are just so many little things wrong with the flow of this game. Navigation, bad upgrade system and bad menu design. It could have been so much more smooth and a really good fighting game. There are just so many hindrances throughout that bring it down.

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The two main characters, who don't really change much at all throughout the game.


The plot of the game itself is fairly thin. As someone who never played previous entries it was only after I finished the game that I realized God of War 2018 is not a complete reboot of the series, despite taking the title from the 2005 game. Despite a story carrying over from previous games there was not much to been seen in God of War 2018. Within the first 3 minutes of the game you learn someone dies. You must take their ashes to a mountain. You fight some bad guys. You never really learn much about them or their motivations and they don't have much screen time. There are three other characters, all minor, two of which are shop owners and quest givers. Not a whole lot happens in the story. The two main characters don't change much. At one point the boy becomes a prick, then after one mission be becomes normal again.

Unfortunately that is about as in depth as the story gets. You just have to turn off your brain. You are beating the crap out of monsters and pots in a mythological world.

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Pots aside, killing the other types of enemies can be fun. Low detail effects can apparent in this screen shot.


Visually the game looks about average. Visually it is less impressive than Horizon Zero Dawn, also a Playstation port from two years prior. It doesn't look bad, but occasionally textures can be a bit low resolution such as Kratos himself. Splatter and spark effects are low in resolution and standout. The water can look bad. Some parts of the world can look low in detail. Other parts can look nice. Reflections can also look great. Overall, it is just average.

Performance is about on par with similar games. I get around 50-90 frame rates depending on the scene. I did not experience any stuttering or odd performance issues. Perhaps the best part of the game is that it was very polished. I cannot recall many bugs. Certainly nothing that would standout and annoy me at least.

Sounds are fine. Voice acting fits the game. Background music is what you would expect given the theme, but there is no particular track that was memorable. This isn't a game where you'll remember any music tracks even two days later.

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Later in the game you will have to switch between your axe and blades for different types of enemies.


In summary, there is just a lot of underwhelming aspects. The core gameplay is perfectly fine. It just lacks fine tuning and has many tired, dated and tedious aspects in the game. Good performance, but mixed visuals. Really, everything about this game is mixed.

7 / 10
This game only solidified my skepticism for near-perfect/perfect game reviews. I played through it earlier this year on ps5 and remember waiting the whole playthrough for some pinnacle moment the merited all the praise, but it never came. As you aptly put it, "It's fine."

All the issues you point out are valid, but I'll mention one more: the move to over-sized 3rd person over the shoulder saps the frenetic movement and fluidity of the previous GOWs. Most instances when the action gets really intense, the gameplay seems bogged down by the POV, or worse, the game uses quick-time events as a crutch.
 
This game only solidified my skepticism for near-perfect/perfect game reviews. I played through it earlier this year on ps5 and remember waiting the whole playthrough for some pinnacle moment the merited all the praise, but it never came. As you aptly put it, "It's fine."

All the issues you point out are valid, but I'll mention one more: the move to over-sized 3rd person over the shoulder saps the frenetic movement and fluidity of the previous GOWs. Most instances when the action gets really intense, the gameplay seems bogged down by the POV, or worse, the game uses quick-time events as a crutch.

That too was me. The praise this game got was so high, with many people claiming it was one of the best games in years. I was skeptical before playing it myself. Horizon Zero Dawn blows it away. Mainly in that the story had so much more depth and two layers (the here & now and the past cause & affect). So much more lore to. Gameplay was more sophisticated as well.

I was thinking it was Sony fans praising GoW so much, but even if they were surely they'd see how much better HZD was?
 
Carrion

Got it recently in a sale and enjoyed my time with it. You start out as a monster kept in containment and break out into the Relith facility. You need to make your way through various areas, this may include some backtracking as you evolve. This also triggers the biggest con for this game imo, the lack of a map or some sort of sense to navigate the areas. Got lost a couple of times between playthroughs. Probably it isn't so much of an issue if you're playing it in one sitting and have a fair bit of navigational orientation.

Graphics wise it uses a pixel art style that may not be for everyone. Pretty gorry in some instances. Gameplay is good and pretty snappy for what you're supposed to be.
Took me around 8-9 hours to complete it.

Would rate it at a 7.5/10 for what it is.
 
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Kena: Bridge of spirits

You get to follow Kena, a young spirit guide, around on her adventure around the Sacred Mountain in order to restore balance to the world by restore peace to spirits that can't let go of the physical realm and move one. No exactly ground breaking story plot, but it serves it's purpose and is well put together and unraveled by the actions of the player.

Graphics are on the cartoonish side, that may not be to everyone's liking, however they are on the more beautiful, polished side of things and in some instances they produce some stunning scenery.
The music is well put together and is always in tune to what you're seeing. Some tunes can definitely be played as "relaxing" music when browsing the forums :p.
Gameplay, your main tool is your staff that at a later time can be upgraded to a bow. You also enlist the help of "rot" that help you with some power ups to your move set. This rot reminded me a lot of the Overlord games. In both games you uses the rot/minions to solve various puzzles throughout the world and in combat.
The difficulty/combat itself is challenging! not sure exactly on what difficulty i played the game (2nd or 3rd one) however i had to retry a few bosses until i could read all their move set. I could say it's a bit of a Dark Souls inspired game when it comes to bosses. It's no button masher.

Overall a really surprising game. Bought it after i've seen it on some peoples top ten 2021 games. And it definitely deserves to be there.
9.5/10
 
Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Overall I had a fun time with this one. Story wise it seemed to start off interesting but I think the main story is probably its weak part. While it was engaging enough to keep going I felt more interested with the side missions and secondary villains than the main villain of the story. Majority of the time spent is actually in the side missions instead of the main campaign so when I eventually went to go continue it, it was more for about doing it to unlock more side content than the actual story.

The exploration was an improvement with a large hub to explore and some additional smaller hubs as well that contained alot of places to explore. The game did seem to have more tombs, crypts and other places of interest to explore than past games which was a welcome improvement.

One of my biggest complaints though was traversal was sometimes very glitch in that Lara would go in directions that I never intended resulting in a gruesome but usually amusing death. Luckily the game has a decent checkpoint system that saves after making progress in a puzzle so not much time is actually lost.

The combat was ok, probably not the best thing about these games. Stealth takedowns are probably the best way to play as the gunplay is average.

Even with the flaws I did enjoy the game and had lots of fun with it. The tombs, exploration and some of the side quests probably carried the game though.
 

Far Cry 6

In the past Far Cry's name has been associated with ground breaking, innovate and well crafted games. Far Cry and Far Cry 3 are widely considered to be some of the best single player FPS games. Although recently Far Cry has become stale, much like everything else Ubisoft does. Far Cry 6 (FC6) attempts a theme change and also incorporates a city section.

Despite a surface attempt to change the series, Ubisoft failed at evolving the series in any worthwhile way. In typical Ubisoft fashion they took a theme, in this case a revolution, and made the most juvenile attempt of a story which is a letdown even if expected. Childish story writing aside, you can clearly tell FC6 was designed based around a bullet point checklist. General game design lacks the finesse of previous titles like FC3 with many features returning in a lackluster way. Not all is lost in FC6 though. Despite taking a number of step backs the game provides generally fun gameplay while even refining certain gameplay aspects.

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For its faults, at least it looks pretty.


Gameplay in FC6 is generally good, despite taking a number of step backs from previous titles. Combat is generally fluid and fun enough. Movement and shooting is solid. The most welcome change is a number of qualify of life enhancements made to the weapons. The animations are better than previous FC titles which were lacking. The sounds are indefinitely better and sound more like actual firearms. Recoil generally feels more life like and less flat. For a typical AAA game, the shooting is actually fairly good and fun. But that is where the refinements stop.

The game follows typical modern open world game design. You have a big map, and a number of missions that you must travel to. Checkpoints and enemy outposts return. The problem is FC6 has absolutely lazy checkpoint design. Many checkpoints have a very similar layout, with maybe 3-5 NPCs standing around. They are typically in flat areas. Your gameplay options are very limited in these, and you can often finish them in seconds. Unlike FC3, the checkpoints are not designed around specific gameplay elements. FC3 would have checkpoints at different elevations, or would place and design them around things like underwater take downs, or releasing animals from their cages. This is largely absent from FC6 which makes clearing all of the checkpoints feel repetitive and like a missed opportunity to explore the gameplay. This is one of the main reasons why I say this game was designed around a bullet point list of generic features. The point of having small checkpoints in games is to emphasize gameplay options and give players opportunities to try new things. When the set ups are 90% the same you loose that.

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Gameplay disappointments aside, at least the weapons are better than ever.


Main missions in the game are about average in terms of quality. Some are okay and generally video game average. Others can be kind of lame, like killing waves of respawning enemies that seem to enjoy walking into mounted machine guns or spray painting 7 billboards in a town. There are a lot of locations in the game, but practically no mission really stands out and uses a particular area well. There is no memorable mission that takes place in a certain area or scenario. The map was simply not used very well, with a lot of empty places such as a dam that was only used for a 3 or so minute long treasure hunt quest. The best games typically have a level or mission that is recognizable and memorable. FC6 doesn't have one, which is typical of most open world games. Another example of how Ubisoft strives for the minimum and not excellence.

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I enjoyed the tanks. Vehicle combat plays a moderate role in FC6.

Side missions are passable, with some being okay, and others giving you a checklist of doing the same thing 7 or 11 times.

Combat is generally fun and there are a number of weapons at your disposal. It is fast paced and weapons are fun to use. Vehicles are a bit mixed and you will spend a lot of time in them. FC6 takes on a more vehicle heavy approach, with tanks, combat helicopters and planes. Like firearms cars have been improved in handling and sounds. Occasional physics bugs aside they are enjoyable. The tanks are basic but fun. Helicopters and planes have bad & awful controls respectively.

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Plane and helicopter controls and physics are fairly bad.


FC6 introduces some new gameplay elements, like a weaponized backpack. At first I thought it would be a requirement but luckily you don't need to use it. The default one is a rocket launcher, others can shoot poison or vehicle disabling EMP devices. In general it is a gimmick and I never bothered with switching it out. Abilities like grenade take downs return, but are instead tied to specific pieces of clothing. So if you want to use cool abilities of past games you need to find a specific pair of pants or shoes. This makes it impractical to use fun abilities like grenade take downs. This is an absolutely moronic idea. Once again, this is another area you can tell was implemented due to some management checklist. Cloth collecting? Must be in this game! - Some Ubisoft bean counter.

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The new gimmick, a weaponized backpack.


Another annoying aspect of the game is the picking up crap aspect. To get new weapons and upgrade them, you need to open crates. This means detouring and running around and holding E to open a crate to get components or new guns. It is tedious, boring, and you will open dozens upon dozens of them if you want to use more than a few guns throughout the 40 hour game. The first third of the game will require a lot of this but thankfully towards the second half of the game I no longer needed to open them anymore as I had everything I wanted. But who thought this would be fun? Must've been another bullet point - "make players pick up stuff!" without thinking about why it should be implemented.

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You can always do basic takedowns, but more complex versions require equipping specific types of clothing.


Weapon balance is also a bit off. Sniper rifles are almost useless, as regular rifles appear to have less bullet drop, do the same or more damage, and have a higher rate of fire. The flamethrower is also nearly useless. The mortars that you can find are often impractical to use and a step back from FC2. All of these are indicators that the game was not well thought out.

The story is fairly bland. Generic open world type of story. You're mainly chasing objective markers. There is a one dimensional antagonist, who is evil and does bad things for no real motivations. There is generic talk about revolution but the dialogue is very juvenile. Far Cry isn't known for excellent story telling but at least FC4 attempted to show different sides and how people who seize power after a conflict can be just as bad as the ones who were just overthrown. Characters are all boring and I can't remember any of their names. They lack any real personality and aren't realistic. Due to the lack of a real story or character development I should mention the typical politics pushing of Ubisoft. The game tries hard to push trans and gay people in the form of side characters. It is as cringe, unrealistic and pointless as ever. The game also takes a typical modern AAA game feminist stance, where the majority of the leaders are women. The men are incompetent and there is even a very lame side quest (run around and do 7 things) which rewards you with a short feminist monologue. Which is more funny than anything considering they tied what I assume was an important message to a very pathetic side quest.

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This is AAA gaming's idea of what a guerrilla fighter looks like.

Graphically the game can look nice. Lighting looks good. Some textures look great. Guns look wonderful, models, textures and animations. Cars look good. Reflections can look nice. Characters are a bit lacking though. Clouds are of low resolution and standout. Explosions themselves look a bit low in detail. Overall the game looks satisfying. I enabled ray traced reflections but disabled ray traced shadows due to having both tanking frame rates too much. Sounds are better than average. Gun sounds as mentioned previously are good. Cars also sound good. Like so many other things, the sound track is forgettable but gets the job done.

I did not experience many bugs. The odd physics bug here and there but nothing else really noteworthy. Congratulations Ubisoft for doing your job. Performance was standard given the graphical quality.

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The game can look fairly good in certain situations.


In summary, Far Cry 6 has a lot of typical elements you find in most open world games and shooters. And many of them are satisfying. Others are outright irritating. We clearly have a game designed around a basic template without an understanding of how to properly implement features or why some features even exist in the first place. They failed at creating a convincing narrative and making a world or struggle worth caring for. Much of the content is lazily slapped together without emphasizing the strengths or gameplay mechanics. But you can still have fun. The shooting combat is fun, as is the occasional vehicle combat. If you can turn off your brain and enjoy an action based FPS, this game might be for you. Just don't expect anything great.


7.7 / 10
 

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The Quarry (PC)

Graphics 8/10:
The graphics are great. The actors look just like they do in real life and the facial animation is terrific. There are some caveats, though. #1...why is this game letterboxed? It's a video game that's designed for people with a 16x9 ratio TV or monitor. If you have a true widescreen setup that's the right aspect ratio, it STILL has black bars. It's literally wasting 1/3 of your screen. #2, why doesn't this game have HDR? With all of the dark scenes and light contrast, it seems like a no brainer. Yet it's not there on the PC version. Finally, what's up with the excessive motion blur? It's cranked to 11 and there's nothing you can do about it, either. In the sections where you're walking around, you can't pan around and see what anything is. Those things aren't deal breakers, but they're all shrug-worthy. Still, it gets an 8/10 anyway. It could have been a 10/10 pretty easily.

Sound 10/10: The sound is amazing. Surround sound effects coming from all directions. Great voice acting. Good/appropriate music choices, too. I don't know if they could've done much better.

The Game 6/10: Opinions are probably always going to be mixed when it comes to this genre. It's essentially a movie that gives you control here and there. 75% of the game is watching a horror movie and occasionally making decisions for each of the characters in the movie. What's right/wrong is totally arbitrary, but that's how horror movies work, right? 1-2 times per chapter you'll have control over ones of the characters and can look around for clues. Those sections look a bit like Resident Evil, but you're basically just walking around and looking for prompts. There are no action elements to those sections and it'll switch over to a prompt if anything needs additional attention. The 3rd form of control is in the form of quicktime events, which I normally hate. Luckily, in this game they give you all day with the inputs, so they're not so bad. They're also limited to pressing a direction (up/down/left/right). As long as you haven't put your controller down, you're unlikely to miss any of them. Well, except the sections where you have to hold your breath. I'm still not sure when I did those right vs. wrong. That's really it, though. Beyond those things, you're basically watching a movie. Based upon what you do in those segments, the movies changes. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Supposedly there are hundreds of ways the story can play out, but I suspect there are only 3-4 major storylines and lots of tiny variations of those.

So...is it good? It has high production values and a lineup of talented actors. The story is pretty solid, too. While covering standard horror tropes, it rarely feels like the characters are idiots...unless you want them to be. Is it worth buying? Playing through the story takes roughly a dozen hours and you can play through it a bunch of different ways. As long as you know what you're getting (an interactive movie, not Resident Evil), it lives up to expectations. Plus, there are different options to simply watching things play out as a movie (with all/no characters dying) if you simply just want to watch a 10'ish hour movie.

7/10
 
There are certain things RDR1 does better than 2 (and the inventory is waaaay less complicated), but it's 12 years old and it looks every bit as old as it is. Especially since it's a console exclusive and you can't do much to improve it. Even though RDR2 is a prequel, it's designed with the assumption that people are playing it second.
 
There are certain things RDR1 does better than 2 (and the inventory is waaaay less complicated), but it's 12 years old and it looks every bit as old as it is. Especially since it's a console exclusive and you can't do much to improve it. Even though RDR2 is a prequel, it's designed with the assumption that people are playing it second.
Thanks Domingo
 
Stray

Games have offered many types of settings and playable characters, but few have given the player the ability to control a cat. At least a semi realistic cat. Stray is perhaps the most "realistic" cat game ever released. The playable character is simply a cat that doesn't speak and has life like animations. Before playing Stray I wondered if playing as a realistic cat would be viable in a video game.

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The protagonist is adorable.


Stray's genre is part platformer and part exploration. But neither of these have a lot of depth. Traversing the environments as a cute cat can be fun but generally it is very easy and straightforward. There are puzzles but again these will generally be very easy to figure out. The environment certainly has character although the climbing isn't quite as awe inspiring as other heavy parkour/climbing games. Take the older Assassin's Creed games, where you could climb high distances and view many landmarks in the distance as an example. There just isn't much to see. The things you do climb, run down industrial infrastructure or dumpy apartments, just aren't as impressive. It is fun crawling around and meowing whenever you please, but the simplicity of it all just holds Stray back.

The areas are small, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But there are few truly interesting things to find when it comes to exploration. You will find small bits of lore here and there but none of it has a lot of depth or relevance. Spending a lot of time trying to find each collectible is something I did not care to do. Typically you will get a sentence or three explaining something. While nice, I was expecting more interesting information to be found.

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Lore and story are brief and lacking in details.


There are some basic antagonists you fight fight against in the game, although the combat is extremely basic. This is expected because a cat cannot really use any tools and I was not expecting a combat heavy game. Most of the fighting scenes are evading enemies. This is not a combat based game which makes perfect sense given the theme. So while simplistic and short it allows the game to change pace a bit which helps the game from being too bland.

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Combat is mainly running away.


The story was a bit more shallow that I had hoped. Once again, being that the player is a cat I didn't expect an elaborate story. But I had hoped for a lot more environmental story telling and a better explanation as to why the world is the way it is. There isn't an overarching theme or message in the story. The dialogue from robot characters is all very brief and straightforward. The story never amounts to anything substantial and is a rather simple point A to point B story. While not unexpected I felt this type of game could have easily added some type of social commentary in the background.

Graphically the game looks nice. The graphics are essentially on par with most AAA games. Lighting looks great. Texture quality is generally high. Animations for the cat look lifelike and fairly realistic. Details and 3D models look great. Things in the distance generally look nice as well. It might not have all of the latest graphical features, however it still looks very nice. The artwork and art design is well done. The game mostly takes place in run down dark areas and shoddily constructed dwellings. The clutter, disarray, neon signs, trash all looks wonderful and gives life to the areas you spend time in. Which is why it is a shame the story telling was too bare.

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Stray can look amazing, easily reaching parity with bigger budget games.


The sounds were about average for a video game, so not much to comment on. The cats meows were realistic and life like. Excellent effort on the parts of the cat(s) that voiced the lines.

From a technical perspective the game runs well. The minor exception would be some stuttering. It occasionally happens but is not that bad, at least on my set up. A few areas were somewhat more notable than others but as a whole the game was about on par with modern DX12 based games. I believe patches may fix this in the future. It seems like there is a 60 frame rate cap in game, which is a bit disappointing as it was easy for my setup to get 60 frame rates and likely would have gone higher. I disliked the use of motion blur but maybe I forgot to disable it in the settings. There were no bugs that I could find.

Stray will last around 5-6 hours. Given the price of the game I can't compare this to full priced titles and will instead compare it to similarly priced, lower budget games.

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Cat.


7 / 10

Stray is an enjoyable game that is short enough to easily finish. It can appeal to new gamers, young kids and people who don't want to play something violent or difficult. The gameplay is a bit more involved that your typical point and click story game but unfortunately the story lacks the refinement of the artwork and graphics. Simplistic yet still an enjoyable journey.
 
Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition

Had a absolute great time playing this one. Exploring the wasteland was by far my favorite part of it and seeing what quests and lore I would find.

I liked the main story and the side quests were enjoyable as well. For the DLCs, Mothership Zeta, The Pitt, and Broken Steel were my favorites, but the other two were fun as well.

Combat was engaging and seeing the carnage using VATS never got old lol. I was able to get to use a good mix of weapons so I was able to keep things fun by mixing up what weapons I used.

Didn't encounter too many bugs, nothing that prevented progress but did have some crash to desktops that started to happen more often during the last half of the game, saving regularly prevented any significant time loss.

Overall really liked the game, as it is also my first Fallout game so I was glad to have enjoyed the experience.
 
Fallout 3 is underrated, it has the best map and exploration out of the F3, NV, F4 three.
 
Fallout 3 is underrated, it has the best map and exploration out of the F3, NV, F4 three.

I liked the map in FO3. I also liked it in NV but the invisible walls were a bit odd. I liked FO4 but it lost too much of the RPG aspect.
 
I enjoyed Fallout 3 the most of the modern games. The setting clicked for me, which is weird since the Vegas one (my least favorite) would be the one I should like most on the surface. I think 3 just had the most variety in terms of terrain.
 
Control

I really enjoyed my time playing this game. The story and worldbuilding the developers created resulted in something that I found very fun to explore, learn and experience what it had to offer. The story of the game is a mind bender and might be considered more hard to follow but it helps open it up to your imagination. Graphics are great, I enabled the ray tracing features so this also was the first game I seen what that had to offer and I was impressed. Audio is impressive with great use of ambient sounds and effects to help make you feel unnerved at times. While not a horror game, there are at times a feeling of suspense due to the sound of the game.

Gameplay, was fun and engaging. You have a mix of gunplay and abilities to use. A good mix of enemy variety to keep you engaged in combat. There also many collectables to find to help with the worldbuilding and some secret areas to find while exploring.

The game is actually fairly difficult, with a limited saving system using checkpoints. The difficulty does have some issues with it being uneven at times with some missions being almost unforgiving as a mistake can result in death. The main issue I had with the save system is later on in the game, and the DLCs mostly, I had encouted several times where the game would freeze or crash, resulting in having to replay multiple sections many times. The base game though I had little issues.

Overall I liked the game, with the story, and worldbuilding being what I liked most of it. That also makes me interested in a sequel as I would love to dive back into this world.
 
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Tomb Raider 2013 and Rise/SOTTR

I recently finished all 3 of the most recent TR series so I figured I'd just sum them up in one review.

I'll start with the first one, which I thought was a pretty good reboot. Game looked good and played well and the story was fine. The combat was fun (albeit pretty easy) and I thought the rudimentary crafting/upgrading system worked well. I 100%'d the game and I don't normally do that unless I enjoyed it. My gripes were maybe it was a bit too heavy on cutscenes and of course a few slightly annoying puzzles/areas.

The second game (Rise) is much in the same vein as the first. I liked the setting of this game the best I think and they made a more robust crafting system and largely kept the player upgrades the same way, which was good imo. The combat was still perhaps a bit too easy and they added more collectibles which was not really needed. Otherwise ran great, looked really good and was an excellent sequel.

The third game (SotTR) is where they went off the rails a bit. I had the least fun I'd say on this game. The crafting system was still largely the same as the second thankfully. They added too many collectibles and other crap imo, the last map was just kinda nuts with all the stuff to pickup. Also they made the mistake of having like 15 different bows, all with just minor differences. I much preferred the simplicity of a few weapons that you upgrade as you progress through the game. The player upgrade screen was also needlessly complicated. They could have just kept the same system from the first 2 games and it would have been fine. I also had some performance issues that I had to monkey around in the options a decent bit to get it running smoothly.

All in all these were worth playing, even if they weren't the type of games I personally prefer. Bonus if you got them all for free on the Epic store giveaway not too long ago.
 
There are certain things RDR1 does better than 2 (and the inventory is waaaay less complicated), but it's 12 years old and it looks every bit as old as it is. Especially since it's a console exclusive and you can't do much to improve it. Even though RDR2 is a prequel, it's designed with the assumption that people are playing it second.
RDR1 benefits from native 4K, auto HDR, MSAA, and AF on the Series X|S. If you have one that is the best way to currently play it. I don't think emulators are up to the task yet, but it is already running pretty well on Xenia.
 
Deathloop

At $20 on sale, I finally decided to bite... tl;dr - this is possibly the worst game Arkane has ever made, aside from that Wolfenstein garbage they were associated with. Not to say it's BAD, but it's certainly no Dishonored.

Graphics... mediocre. The game runs like shit, even with DLSS, and it doesn't look all that great either. For the level of graphical fidelity, I would have expected 138 fps (my RTSS cap) pretty much locked. But it was often sub 100 fps. And even appeared CPU limited at times. Ray tracing is also pretty unimpressive. And the HDR implementation isn't all that great either. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider with Windows Auto HDR looked much better IMO.

Audio... absolutely horrendous. Not sure what the deal is here. I normally game with virtual surround sound using a SBX G6 -> Focal Elegia. Directional audio was HORRIBLE. Tried switching the G6 to direct mode and using the in-game "3D audio" (or whatever they called the supposed binaural audio)... also horrible. Tried playing with my SBX Katana sound bar... horrible.

Gameplay... it's basically Dishonored... but you can go guns-a-blazin with zero consequences. It's pretty fun overall. I enjoyed the vast majority of the game. But the part where you have to kill Aleksis and it's basically a mandatory stealth mission no matter how you approach it absolutely infuriated me. I took a stealthy approach to the game overall, but this was the only time where the game punished me for failing at it. Oh, you got discovered? GO BACK TO START AND DO NOT COLLECT $200! Add in the shitty ass Julianna invasions that would inevitably blow your cover, and you have a recipe for frustration. I REALLY enjoyed my first 10 hours with the game, but this part of it made finishing it an absolute chore. The last 20% of the game sucked pretty hard IMO. Oh, and the "endings" are uneventful at best.

Overall I'd say it's a strong 7/10. I feel like I got my $20 worth, but I also feel like this is further proof that nearly all video game review "journalists" are full of shit. How could anyone honestly and truthfully give this game a 10/10? Or even a 9/10?
 

Watch Dogs: Legion


Watch Dogs Legion is a perfect example of a game designed around bullet points while not understanding why said bullet points were included in the general design brainstorm in the first place. Rather than figuring out what would work or why they should bother to include a feature they decided to just implement every generic video game idea that they jotted down on the napkin they had on hand. The result was Watch Dogs: Legion (WDL).

Created by an army of artists and too few actual game designers, WDL blindly follows generic game trends over the past 12 or so years. Open world. Repeating quests. Big map. Character customization. All there. Fun, proper shooting, movement, and mission design is nowhere to be seen. Ubisoft has proven again they are allergic to putting in effort and instead choose to make a bare-bones template and then copy and paste it a hundred times.

WDL takes a familiar formula (GTA clone) and aspects of previous Watch Dogs games and then decides to screw with them in the most incomprehensible ways. The first noteworthy thing is how upgrades, weapons, abilities, and equipment works. Instead of being able to use anything on the fly you must switch between multiple characters. If you want to use a drone you may very well have to give up a certain firearm. Some characters may have drones with different capabilities. It is needlessly clumsy and outright pointless to require switching between characters to use different equipment. It adds nothing to the game, yet takes away gameplay opportunities. You might want to tackle a mission a certain way, and this would require entering a menu to swap to a new character. Congratulations Ubisoft, you just did the same thing as swapping weapon types. The only difference is the new character is in a different location on the map so you must drive back. And you are once again limited in the approach you can take for that mission as you left behind some abilities with the previous character.

Watch Dogs  Legion Screenshot 2022.07.01 - 14.45.27.05.png
You can hijack enemy drones to wreak havoc which is somewhat amusing.


There are various "hacking" abilities, but they're so scaled back from previous entries that the game feels stale and limiting. You'll never be able to use them all at once due to them being locked to specific characters only.

The next aspects that are central to the game are characters and customization. The problem is Ubisoft failed to understand why anyone cares about either of these things in video games. If you are to present the player with multiple characters, they must be enjoyable. They need depth. A story worth telling, or at least being an avatar worth unraveling a story with. The multiple characters you unlock are all generic. Their lines do vary a little bit, and they have some unique slang and conversation styles. But you can tell their lines are generic, not personal and delivery is often flat. There is little reason to care about the characters, which is a massive problem when a core feature of the game is characters. This also includes the customization. People don't really care about customizing a character when they are so lifeless and you are constantly swapping between many of them. Ubisoft really had no idea why people may actually want character customization. But I am grateful they did include it, because Ubisoft seems to be hellbent on making human beings look as ugly as possible.

Watch Dogs  Legion Screenshot 2022.07.03 - 12.32.54.00.png
The best part about the randomized characters is the part where you don't use them in the Bloodlines expansion.


Unlocking characters themselves is outright boring. You drive or walk around looking for random people, press a button to scan them and then proceed to do a generic mission. The game occasionally points out useful ones which is helpful but you must wonder who thought this would actually be fun. Generic, randomized quests that play so similar are require to unlock a new character. It is like collecting digital people. Who you have no reason to care about. And they all look so goddamn ugly. I cannot fathom why someone would find this fun; I certainly didn’t.

The game takes place in a futuristic London. Few cities in the world have so much rich history and iconic landmarks. Yet WDL makes your virtual tour of London an absolute bore. You'll see plenty of unique places but you'll seldom actually do anything meaningful in any of them. Most missions centered around them are essentially the same as the generic "fetching ugly people" quests. Good games take famous places and weave them into the story or at the least make a unique and memorable mission with cutscenes to breathe life into the areas you visit. There is nothing of the sort here. There is nothing tying WDL to its London setting or landmarks. You could swap the city to New York City, Sydney or Mexico City and nothing would change.

Watch Dogs  Legion Screenshot 2022.06.30 - 11.14.46.48.png
Watch Dogs Legion fails to utilize its setting in a meaningful way.


Mission design is very repetitive. The core gameplay itself is okay and offers enough options to keep it from getting too boring, although the problem of locking equipment, abilities and weapons to certain characters will artificially limit how you can approach a mission. No mission really stands out much in terms of story progression, challenges, or results in a feeling of accomplishment. Layout and NPC behavior is essentially the same across all missions.

Other aspects of the game range from very average to below average. The shooting is a clumsy 3rd person shooter affair, struggling with basic things like rounding a corner and aiming your weapon due to zoom, point of aim shift, and camera placement issues. Movement doesn’t feel as fluid as it should be. Driving is acceptable and certainly more arcade style although considering how much point A to point B driving is required that is probably a good thing. You can occasionally mix equipment and use it in tandem but this is limited.

Watch Dogs  Legion Screenshot 2022.07.01 - 13.20.37.66.png
There is some room for creativity. I tossed a combat spider drone onto a flying cargo drone to create a makeshift aerial attack platform.


Narrative wise WDL is underwhelming. It takes a common approach in modern open world games and opts for a series of a few lightly connected substories. None of these are interesting, and none of them have an antagonist worth remembering. It is just a string of tasks to knock off in a semi structured way opposed to a strong story with proper flow and pacing. There is an attempt to tackle some interesting topics like surveillance and transhumanism but the game is very tone deaf with delivery ranging from unconvincing to bad. Other games like the original Watch Dogs and the Dues Ex series (which is a far superior series than Watch dogs) did a much better job discussing these topics.

The expansion, Bloodline, brought back Aiden Pearce and Wrench from Watch Dogs 1 and 2. It was nice playing as regular characters and a step up above the randomized ones you play in the main game although the story wasn’t exactly good. Old abilities and some new weapons are brought back but the scenarios are so similar that a few gimmicks aren’t enough to prevent the DLC from being so repetitive.

Watch Dogs  Legion Screenshot 2022.07.03 - 14.10.36.63.png
Aidan Pearce gets shotgun take downs, which are fun but not exactly new or innovative but still somewhat satisfying to use in game.


From a technical perspective I found the game to be mixed. It can look okay but I don’t think it ever looked exceptionally great anywhere. People are low in detail. Lighting was disappointing and looked artificial with or without ray tracing. Interiors of buildings can be a little low in detail. With or without DLSS the game looked a bit blurry and unclear. London itself is sufficiently populated which is nice although this is an example of how a lot of low quantity content is worse than less high-quality content. Refer to previous paragraphs for explain of how lifeless and underutilized the London setting is. I wouldn’t say the game is ugly, but it wasn’t good looking either.

Watch Dogs  Legion Screenshot 2022.06.30 - 00.33.40.04.png
Graphically the game looks okay, but not great.


Performance was also mixed. Occasionally frame rates would drop. Pausing the game a few times would bring the performance back up. While disabling ray tracing would improve performance it still didn’t seem to run as smooth as it should have given how it looked. I experienced a few small bugs but nothing to noteworthy.

In summary, another boring game by Ubisoft designed around generic game design bullet points without an understanding of why they exist in games. It offers some fun although extreme repetition will set in quickly. Toss in an unused setting and bad narrative delivery and you have a thoroughly underwhelming game.

6.2 / 10
 
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure

Tesla Effect is a mystery adventure game with old school FMV cut scenes. The story was fun and I enjoyed uncovering the mystery. There a lot of humor, puns and jokes. Some of it silly and cheesy but as I like that stuff, I found it fun and enjoyable. The cast do a great job with their characters and made interacting with the characters even more interesting. The actor for the Tex Murphy does a great job.

There are several puzzles to figure out and overall offered a fair amount of challenge, uniqueness and fun.

Did have some odd issue with frame rates fluctuating both in game and in the FMV cut scenes. Never found any way to fix it other than waiting it out until it cleared. Other than that I didn't experience any issues playing the game.

Was a quick game that I was able to beat over a weekend and overall I enjoyed it.
 
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure

Tesla Effect is a mystery adventure game with old school FMV cut scenes. The story was fun and I enjoyed uncovering the mystery. There a lot of humor, puns and jokes. Some of it silly and cheesy but as I like that stuff, I found it fun and enjoyable. The cast do a great job with their characters and made interacting with the characters even more interesting. The actor for the Tex Murphy does a great job.

There are several puzzles to figure out and overall offered a fair amount of challenge, uniqueness and fun.

Did have some odd issue with frame rates fluctuating both in game and in the FMV cut scenes. Never found any way to fix it other than waiting it out until it cleared. Other than that I didn't experience any issues playing the game.

Was a quick game that I was able to beat over a weekend and overall I enjoyed it.
It was a funny little game. I grew up playing those Tex Murphy games and always enjoyed them. To bad the next one is in limbo atm.
 
Deathloop (PC)

I finished this up last night...when I first started playing this it was a struggle as I wasn't really into it and barely touched it most days...the mechanics and gameplay were also a bit convoluted...but then it all started to click and I really started to enjoy the game...this game got a lot of awards and high praise from critics and I can see why...most games are just copycats of other games and there's very few developers that dare to be different

Deathloop was very unique...I love that Arkane wants to make games that try and break the mold...I don't think the game is a 10/10 like a lot of other review sites but I can understand why it got those high scores...the whole repeating loop gameplay element combined with cool powers and weapons was a lot of fun- combo Bioshock meets Dishonored...the art style is basically the same from Dishonored but this time with ray-traced ambient occlusion and sun shadows added

I also love the pvp invasion multiplayer...really fun battling other players...the game is not difficult so having those other players invade you adds to the overall experience...voice acting was excellent (the actress playing Julianna is the same one who played Alyx in the recent Half Life: Alyx VR game)

my main criticism of the game is that the side missions don't really reward you with anything interesting...and like I mentioned earlier the difficulty is not that high...other than that I recommend this game if you want to try something a bit different...yes the gameplay itself where you shoot and stab things is not any different to most other games but the overall presentation of the story (which was interesting), gameplay mechanics, settings, graphics and voice acting make this a very good game

Grade: 89/100...so a B+ as close to an A- as possible
 
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I beat The Order 1886 on PS4. I loved the game, the graphics still hold up 6 years later as some of the best I've seen. Story was pretty engaging as well.

I'm a bit sad at the bad initial reviews for the game, that I hesitated to play it for so long. Sometimes I'm not sure what reviewers are thinking.
Just played through this since it was $10 on PSN and it seems to be one of those sleeper games that has a decent following despite mediocre reviews.

I would give it a 8/10 personally. Of course graphics still hold up well in 2022 and despite it being 30 FPS, like most Sony exclusives, it's rock solid with quality motion blur so it feels much smoother than most other games at 30.

I thought the story was engaging enough, and the characters were somewhat memorable as well. The gameplay was average and very much on rails though. But at least had a few interesting weapons that needed more use throughout the game.

It's very unfortunate it won't get a sequel that it's obviously set up for. There's a really solid foundation here for a sequel to be built on.

It's definitely worth playing through for $10-$20 IMO. If only for its excellent presentation with a unique setting and story if you're into those qualities in a game. I found myself often just admiring the attention to detail throughout the levels.
 
Fallout: New Vegas

As with FO3, I had a great time playing this one. I liked how everything was introduced to you as a player for the story, the side quests, and the interactions with the characters. There seemed to be more opportunities to shape the story than in FO3, with quests affecting other quests you would do several hours later. There were many ways to approach how you handled quests which I liked because for some I had an idea going in how it would go, only for it to completely go a different round because something else had happened in a different quest.

The change to weapons, including mods, ammo types was nice but I rarely found myself using that stuff. Maybe for a higher difficulty, as I played the game on normal but I had plenty of ammo and dps to handle combat. There was also a change to character progression and seemed to have alot more perk options to include build variety.

Combat was fun and engaging. Outside of VATS seemed to have been improved so I actually used VATS less than in FO3. Good weapon variety as well.

Surprisingly, this game had way more bugs, crashes and freezes than FO3 but I just saved at regular intervals so it was ok.

Overall, enjoyed the game and look forward to playing the next one at some point.
 
Fallout: New Vegas

As with FO3, I had a great time playing this one. I liked how everything was introduced to you as a player for the story, the side quests, and the interactions with the characters. There seemed to be more opportunities to shape the story than in FO3, with quests affecting other quests you would do several hours later. There were many ways to approach how you handled quests which I liked because for some I had an idea going in how it would go, only for it to completely go a different round because something else had happened in a different quest.

The change to weapons, including mods, ammo types was nice but I rarely found myself using that stuff. Maybe for a higher difficulty, as I played the game on normal but I had plenty of ammo and dps to handle combat. There was also a change to character progression and seemed to have alot more perk options to include build variety.

Combat was fun and engaging. Outside of VATS seemed to have been improved so I actually used VATS less than in FO3. Good weapon variety as well.

Surprisingly, this game had way more bugs, crashes and freezes than FO3 but I just saved at regular intervals so it was ok.

Overall, enjoyed the game and look forward to playing the next one at some point.
I'm also currently playing through FO:NV for my first time. Playing through blind, and mostly enjoying the game thus far. But some areas, internal areas, I don't like how they are so maze-like. It's easy to get lost and roam around hopelessly, with too many rooms seemingly there to simply take up space. I like the horror and grit that the world and story offers. Lots of humor there too, I've audibly laughed at many parts so far. Genuinely good writing, mostly. I am not playing vanilla, as the game was stuttering and laggy out fo the box, so I followed the https://vivanewvegas.github.io/index.html modding guide and am playing with that entire guide implemented. The gunplay is pretty good, I don't really see why so many people say it's the best FPS ever, etc. It's good, but FO4 has better gunplay. I also don't see much point in modding weapons or using the specialized ammunition. I think this game must have come with a printed manual becuase there is much about the basic mechanics of the game which are just not explained and you have to look it up or figure it out. I never use VATS, not a fan. For 20 bucks on steam, I'm having a great time playing through it.
 
Fallout: New Vegas

As with FO3, I had a great time playing this one. I liked how everything was introduced to you as a player for the story, the side quests, and the interactions with the characters. There seemed to be more opportunities to shape the story than in FO3, with quests affecting other quests you would do several hours later. There were many ways to approach how you handled quests which I liked because for some I had an idea going in how it would go, only for it to completely go a different round because something else had happened in a different quest.

The change to weapons, including mods, ammo types was nice but I rarely found myself using that stuff. Maybe for a higher difficulty, as I played the game on normal but I had plenty of ammo and dps to handle combat. There was also a change to character progression and seemed to have alot more perk options to include build variety.

Combat was fun and engaging. Outside of VATS seemed to have been improved so I actually used VATS less than in FO3. Good weapon variety as well.

Surprisingly, this game had way more bugs, crashes and freezes than FO3 but I just saved at regular intervals so it was ok.

Overall, enjoyed the game and look forward to playing the next one at some point.
The opinions on FO4 seem to vary wildly. I am part of the group that didn't like it, especially since I grinded out all the achievements on the Xbox version. I basically saw every part of the game, and as a whole it is the worst of the single player Bethesda outings. The quests are quite monotonous and seem to be designed in such a way to force you to explore the map. I understand wanting players to see your whole design due to the effort that went into it, but this kind of forceful execution didn't sit well to me. What is worse is that most of the interior locations felt copy-pasted, which eventually makes it a chore to continue playing. Gameplay is certainly improved in some aspects, but taken as a whole the game is underwhelming despite being denser and more detailed.
I'm also currently playing through FO:NV for my first time. Playing through blind, and mostly enjoying the game thus far. But some areas, internal areas, I don't like how they are so maze-like. It's easy to get lost and roam around hopelessly, with too many rooms seemingly there to simply take up space. I like the horror and grit that the world and story offers. Lots of humor there too, I've audibly laughed at many parts so far. Genuinely good writing, mostly. I am not playing vanilla, as the game was stuttering and laggy out fo the box, so I followed the https://vivanewvegas.github.io/index.html modding guide and am playing with that entire guide implemented. The gunplay is pretty good, I don't really see why so many people say it's the best FPS ever, etc. It's good, but FO4 has better gunplay. I also don't see much point in modding weapons or using the specialized ammunition. I think this game must have come with a printed manual becuase there is much about the basic mechanics of the game which are just not explained and you have to look it up or figure it out. I never use VATS, not a fan. For 20 bucks on steam, I'm having a great time playing through it.
Your opinion on the weapon and ammo mod system is probably skewed by your mods. Encounters are much more manageable if you take the time to modify your loadout in the vanilla game.

In contrast to my opinion of FO4 expressed above, I actually appreciated the interior design in New Vegas. Every location felt unique, and that was quite a feat considering sparse setting. I still think New Vegas is the best overall game in the first-person entries.
 
FO4 had some good points, the problem was the lack of dialogue options and limiting killing of most story NPCs. The improved gameplay and voice acting was great. Menu and weapon system really needs to dump the Pip-Boy though.
 
Ghost of Tsushima

I honestly wonder if the developers at Ubisoft wish they made an Assassin's Creed set in feudal Japan years ago. The fact that they sat on the concept for years and years allowed the Ghost of Tsushima to exist. Basically, Sucker Punch went out and made it instead. It's not exactly Assassin's Creed, but it's pretty close. It's essentially a hybrid of Assassin's Creed and Nioh. Luckily those are 2 solid franchises. Nioh is more heavily involved with the combat portion of the game. It has the same types of stance shifting and poise-breaking type of combat as the original Nioh. Ditto with archery. The open world, mission types, and look of the game are straight out of AC, though. In spite of both AC and (especially) Nioh featuring a fair amount of supernatural elements, Ghost of Tsushima mostly stays grounded in reality. At least comparatively.

So...is it good? Yeah, it is. It's completely unoriginal, but it's lifting strong elements from good games. The entire time I was playing, I felt like I'd played through nearly every mission in a prior game. Yet I was never upset by it. More just a little disappointed. The writing is pretty solid for the core game, but most side quests feel phoned in. There's an attempt at an emotional narrative throughout, but I'm not sure it succeeds outside of maybe 1-2 moments near the end of things.

Should you buy it? If you really enjoy Assassin's Creed, Nioh, Sekiro, or even the Witcher 3 then you'll enjoy yourself. It's more of the same, but that's not always bad. If you haven't played some of those games, you might actually like it more. After all, it'll seem fresher that way. If you don't like Souls-like games at all or if you don't like samurai stories, it's one I'd skip.

Overall, I'd give it around an 80%. It's totally unoriginal, but it does what it's trying to do pretty well. It's also a solid value right now. The game is as long and expansive as all but the largest Assassin's Creed games. I played the PS5 upgraded version and it looks rather good and runs at 60fps all the time. Well, outside of cutscenes at least. It also includes all of the game DLC, which extends the length of the game by at least 30%. It includes multiplayer, too, but I wasn't much of a fan of that. YMMV of course.
 
Elden Ring
Finally reached the end.

Of the 'Souls' games, this is the best one that I have played. Great level design with many of the areas just jaw dropping gorgeous. Exploring the levels, finding hidden areas and secrets just made that aspect of the game even more enjoyable. Skill and weapon designs are great and offer good build diversity. Most of the bosses are designed well with far fewer that I found annoying than other 'Souls' games.

The story is decent but difficult to follow, as is tradition for these kind of games. Most of the 'story/lore' is told through environments, item descriptions and dialog from the NPCs, leaving it up to you to piece it all together. Finding and doing the NPC quests were fun as well, which helps tell some of the story.

Overall had tons of fun with it and can't wait for the DLCs to expand on the world.
 
Did a marathon of games:

Uncharted 1

Going back to a game from 2007 really shows. A lot of the controls feel sluggish and dated. If you look at this as a game that at the time was only going to be one released, then you can appreciate what they were going for.

Action - The game has lots of set-piece action sequences. Not my cup of tea as it's pass or fail. No such thing as headshots and bullet-sponge enemies suck. 7/10

Story - Basic Indiana Jones style story... and they tossed in supernatural stuff at the end, and at this point my eyes rolled a bit. 6/10

Controls - Not as responsive for a game that requires it. Again, it's old 6/10

Visuals - At the time this was the top, looking at what they did on the PS3 10/10

Overall - 8/10

Uncharted 2

This game they fixed the issues from U1 and introduced a way to slip around corners. It was not as clean as you would have hoped however. They doubled down on the set-piece action bits, it's really tiring and just annoys the hell out of me really... I think it's his voice when he's yelling.

Action - Intro, action, setup, explore, puzzle, bad guys show up, escape (action sequence), repeat till the game ends... and the last battle made me want to choke someone out... 6/10

Story - Again they have the formulae down. still on the super natural kick. Again, I did not dig the super natural stuff.

Controls - They did tweak climbing and movement, but still the game feels sluggish when compared to other action games from the same time. I understand Nathan is "normal" but give this mf'er the ability to run. 6/10

Visuals - Of course better than the last on the same hardware. The studio pushes hard in the paint and it shows. 10/10

Overall - 8/10

Uncharted 3

The evolution of the series.

Dropped the super natural stuff which is great. Turned the action sequences up to 11... and the loop is really obvious where I call it out before it happens.

Overall 7/10

Uncharted 4

This is the good one. Obviously modern controls and production. The story pacing is great. The characters are great. Nathan is not as annoying. Stealth kills are in the game and a few creature comforts like tagging enemies.

Overall - 9/10

Detroit Beyond Human

I really like these kinds of games. This one was really fun and I tried my best to react how I would in that situation for a particular character. My only gripe with this game is that I understand they are trying to make the game frantic with shaking button prompts, but it might be too much when there's action on the screen you are trying to follow or catches your eye. You don't know where the prompt will show up and that annoyed me. So a lot of the action sequences I really don't remember because I am looking for prompts. Next gripe is controls in exploration mode, sometimes moving around in tense moments can suck, other npc's get in the way and make it a pain.

I played through it twice, it's a fun game. Just those two issues.

9/10
 
Dead Space (2008)
Great game that still visually holds up decently, at least I think so. The visuals and sounds do a great job at providing a tense and unnerving feel. The sound design is probably biggest thing that has aged the best.

Story is interesting and keeps you engaged to figure out what happened. Exploring around and uncovering what horrors are happening is something that brings you in to the story.

Gunplay and combat is fine but camera control wasn't the greatest. Not sure if it was by design, or due to console gen ports of the time, but the camera and aiming are sluggish. It does add to the atmosphere as you can't react as quick as you should but it seems to be a cheap way to provide scares. It didn't bother me that much to distract me from enjoying the rest of the game.

Overall really liked the game, had some good scares and looking forward to the remake when I do play it.

Also small spoiler for the very end
The jump scare in the last 5 or so seconds of the game, it got me GOOD lmao
 
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