Review the game you finished recently.

I fought Golyat the old fashioned way. With my silver blade.
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Shadow Warrior 3. 8/10. Doom Eternal clone and in a good way. Enjoyed it and finished it in 2 days. Very unlike me.
 
102 hours. Main game + 2 expansions. Didn't compete all of the side quests so could have gone longer. Might finish them up but also want to start playing something else.
Ok nevermind. I'll never finish it. It'll take me 50 years to complete a 100 hour game. Heck even 20 hours feels like an eternity lol
 
Bloodborne. aka, I have diarrhea and cannot find a toilet, the ebola version. With AIDS.

If this is what made GOTY in 2015, I now understand why I quit playing console games. This is a mediocre hack-and-slash with a punishing method of leveling, absurd amounts of repetition, an unstable frame rate (25 FPS might have been fine for Ocarina of Time, but it was 2015 - do better), completely missing story (go read the lore in the inventory - on a fucking PEBBLE), buggy controls and camera, and merely ok combat. I wouldn't waste my time unless you enjoy hitting your testicles (or ovaries - I don't judge) with a hammer. Repeatedly. For FUN.

Mediocre in every single possible way. There is nothing of value to this game outside of the art, and FromSoft should be embarrassed. Hell, as far as I can tell, it doesn't even have MUSIC. (Yes, I know it does - outside of a cut scene I couldn't tell you a single time I heard it). I threw the disc like a frisbee into the 5 acre back yard and will deny I ever wasted any of my short short life on this disaster of a game. Couldn't finish it. Won't finish it. Would rather be stuck playing super mario bros if I'm going to just beat the same guys over and over again - at least that had a soundtrack I remember.

D-. Seriously, play a real hack-and-slash. Any of them. Or pray it gets ported like most other FromSoft games so you can mod it into something sane. $20 down the drain on that piece of shit.
 
Ixion.

It's Frostpunk. In Space. With an FTL drive bolted on. Also much angrier survivors, faster death, and a rampaging UN AI ship hunting you down. Unforgiving, but fair. Difficult, but logical. Micro-management till you get automation doing what you want. A constant knife's-edge balance of input and output, I freaking LOVED it. Post week-1 patch every failure you can point at EXACTLY what you did wrong - and pray you saved so you can go fix it. First game I played at release straight through since DA:O.

Soundtrack is amazing, graphics are solid, and I STILL find myself thinking about it two months after completing it. Release day was rough - the balance system went from unforgiving to "waiting to stab you in the back at any one singular mistake," but patches fixed that in the first couple of weeks. If anything the most recent patches have made it too easy at times. This is not sim city in space - this is the final ark of humanity, flung to the far reaches of the cosmos, trying desperately to survive. My only knocks are that there are still a few bugs, although not game-ending ones, and that the iCUE integration is buggy as hell (if you have corsair stuff, kill iCue before launching the game - it's supposed to sync with the lighting, but it tends to... break, which leaves you with a urine colored lighting scheme.)

Moral choices that matter in a survival sim (that looks like sim city in space), complex management, GLORIOUS music and immersion... yes please.

Solid A- for me.
 
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Been playing through GT4 recently. Somehow the AI is better in that 18 year old game than this new game. Online in GT7 is still fun, at least.

I only ever had GT3, I am glad I am not a fan of GT otherwise I would be disappointed. Micro transactions and blocking cars behind grinding? Not for me.
I put... 150 hours into GT1, 200 into GT2, and a whopping 400 or so into GT3. Fuck I loved that game. I started GT4, but by that point I was burned out (and could finally afford fast cars of my own). Was seriously considering getting 7 to get back into it again, but thanks for letting us know.
M76 overexaggerates. The only microtransactions are buying game credits with real money, and you don't need to grind unless you want to buy every legendary car the second they appear in the dealership.
ROFL.
Finished Plague Tale 2. Hot damn/10.
Worth it? Innocence was a surprising hit for me, as I literally knew nothing, clicked install (steam sale?), and lost a good 15-20 hours into it. One of the few times I've been tempted to buy something at release.
 
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?
It's GoW - folks go gaga over it. I played 1 (fun!), most of 2 (got bored... says something), started 3... and never picked it up again.

That being said - I LOVED HZD on PC, but could not stand it on console. That game screams for a mouse - and my god is it glorious with one.
 
Plague Tale 2 was totally worth it. Free on gamepass as well.
Don’t do gamepass, as I don’t have an Xbox - but I’ll snag it. I need something since bloody poop was a failure. I did buy into PlayStation plus for it - probably cancel that now too.
 
Don’t do gamepass, as I don’t have an Xbox - but I’ll snag it. I need something since bloody poop was a failure. I did buy into PlayStation plus for it - probably cancel that now too.

Gamepass is for PC as well. They often do $1 trials for a month. Good for the few Microsoft games you may want to try, plus some other random games. Non-MS games rotate in and out.
 
Unless they give you the game forever it wouldn’t do me much good. I don’t play enough to beat it in a month.
 
BioShock 2 Remastered

Great game set in the Bioshock series. Mostly the same gameplay as one with some changes. Great environments and atmosphere, story is decent. Doesn't have the same charismatic characters of the first game but are still well voiced.

The Minerva's Den DLC is also a good addition to the story and was equally as fun as the rest of the game.

If I did have a complaint...it would be the multiple crash to desktops I had through the game. Rather unfortante to happen when you gone a bit without saving. Not sure why the stability issues, probably just 2K pulling funding so it didn't get patched.

Overall had fun with it.
 
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered

Super hero movies have taken the movie industry by storm over the last decade, and we have gradually been seeing more super hero games come out to cash in on many of these same super heroes. Like the movies they emulate, not all of these games are worth playing. Thankfully Spider-Man stands out as being a fairly competent and fun entry in an otherwise crowded market.

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Spider-Man getting ready to drop in on some petty criminals.

When it comes to gameplay Spider-Man takes on a fairly standard, modern open world action adventure approach. This is both a strength and a weakness for this game as it is for many others. If there was a game that would benefit from being open world, a Spider-Man adaptation would be it. Zipping around a fictionalized New York city is fun and really lets you experience how Spider-Man should be portrayed. It offers a much needed sense of verticality and you can quite literally drop in on criminals doing criminal things. The problem is there are many small side quests that are essentially the same repeating mini quests that populate the map, and often pop up as you zip around to a story mission. These do get repetitive. Unlocking gear requires to do many of these mini quests, which get old fast. And you really do want to unlock all of the gear and upgrades, otherwise your gameplay choices will be severely limited.

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Getting the resources to upgrade equipment can be tedious as they require playing a lot of repeating mini quests/activities.

Story missions can be good, although the game gets off to a slow start. The first few hours of the game felt like I was doing lots of mini quests and story missions were primarily glorified cut scenes. Thankfully this changed as time went on and the story missions became longer. Story missions generally have a better set up than the mini quests and there are a number of boss fights throughout the game.

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Boss fights are fun.

The action and fighting is actually good, once you start getting the upgrades at least. There are a number of fighting moves, combinations, and powers you can unlock which offer a number of ways to knock out foes. Occasionally the game does require some stealthy approaches which aren't done that well. Typically most encounters will give you the option of taking out a group of enemies undetected but it feels underdeveloped and essentially involves you hiding on a street light and then grabbing someone as they walk by. This isn't much of a problem because the game is more focused on brawling, although Arkham Asylum did a good job of mixing the fighting and stealth. You won't find that in Spider-Man.

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Spider-Man is a brawler/fighting game first and foremost.

The story of Spider-Man is fairly straight forward. Most of us have heard it, probably a few times by now. Luckily we don't have to hear much about the origins in this one as it starts with the player already being Spider-Man. Although generally competent and enough to carry a video game the journey felt a bit too standard. The story writing won't exactly wow you, but it isn't a massive letdown either. Spider-Man himself is okay, a witty, not too serious guy who is almost too nice. But that is what we expect of the character. The supporting cast get the job done. The antagonists aren't that memorable, nor are their motivations that convincing. But the voice acting, cinematics, and cut scenes will carry the game along. Perhaps the best character in the game was James Jonah Jameson, who you essentially only hear on the radio but his rants and world building were perhaps the best of all the characters.

Graphically the game looks nice. The amount of detail on the tall skyscrapers is quite impressive. While the inside of building windows are somewhat 3D, they are often repeating but simply being 3D spaces and having hundreds of them in game with good performance is an impressive accomplishment. The ground level and streets are also nice and detailed. NYC is populated with lots of foot and car traffic. Water and lighting can look wonderful. Draw distance is great. Characters overall look nice, although secondary characters may be a bit lower in detail. Given this is an open world game that is expected. Overall I have to say I was impressed with the graphics. There is of course ray tracing for those that care.

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Spider-Man has some great looking graphics and a good art direction that brings NYC to life.

Performance seemed to be a bit mixed. I would often experience stutters that would pause the game for a whole second when zipping around. Sometimes this would mean the game pausing and visually loading the textures. However that seems to have been fixed with recent patches as I have since gone back to the game and finished more side quests and those performance issues on my end are no longer present. Aside from the obnoxious stuttering I had initially the game runs great while looking great. There are practically no bugs that I came across is my playthough aside from the aforementioned stutters. Very refreshing.

Sounds are nice, score/soundtrack gets the job done. Not much to comment on here.

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Spider-Man offers a number of suits from various movies and comic books; I assume Spider-Man fans will enjoy that.

Included with the PC version are three DLCs, which are tied together to form a new story. Each version focuses on a portion of the main game's playable map. The individual stories themselves are fun enough although the connection isn't quite as strong as it could have been. The story missions are still of good quality, and the gameplay is much the same. They all litter the map with the same mini quests you have done dozens of times in the main game. Overall the DLCs are still worth playing, but it is more of the same. I think most people will skip the small mini crime fighting quests and focus on the story missions and actual side quests, of which there are a few of.

Overall a fun game that will take around 33-36 hours to finish along with the three DLCs. A fun brawler that looks great and is probably one of the better action adventure games to have come out recently.

8 / 10
 
Atomic Heart (PC, via Gamepass)

Initial reviews called this game “Russian Bioshock” which I understand, although I feel like it has more in common with the Prey from 2017.

In a nutshell, Atomic Heart puts you in an alternate reality where the USSR became the dominant force in the world due to a technological discovery and subsequent mastery of robotics. Very early in the game, the robots turn on humans and will attack you on sight for the rest of the game. That’s essentially what you’re doing in the game – fighting renegade robots. In addition to wielding normal guns and melee weapons, your character has a prosthetic glove that serves as a narrator and provides mild powers. I think that’s one reason people compare the game to Bioshock. Your glove’s powers seem like plasmids and Half-Life’s gravity gun on the surface. The thing is, it’s not as useful as either. I found myself mostly just using it to highlight where items were hidden and to collect junk.

Early sections of the game are linear in large underground facilities with multiple floors to traverse. The second half of the game is more of an open world sandbox with a dozen optional “puzzle dungeons” that allow you to unlock more powerful weapon upgrades. You also have to find and unlock the dungeons themselves, which could occasionally be quite challenging and time consuming. If you do them all, it made Atomic Heart a fairly long game for the genre. If you just went to the main objectives, it’s roughly the same length as the Bioshock titles. I did them all for the sake of enjoying the world of Atomic Heart, but some were a little annoying.

Graphics 8.5/10: Atomic Heart is a good-looking game that runs well most of the time. When you’re in any of the underground areas, the game looks modern and runs butter smooth. However, when you’re in the large above ground sections, that’s not always the case. The game litters many outdoor areas with flying enemies, walking enemies, cameras, etc. and things can bog down in major ways. That’s even with a 7950X3D, a 4090, and DLSS enabled. I think it’s just too much for the game engine to handle. My FPS would bounce up and down and certain sections I found myself rushing through because performance was so poor. It’s probably worth mentioning that there is no HDR support, no RT support (in spite of that being a selling point for the game), and it doesn’t look as good as some of the earlier preview videos.

Sound 6/10: The sound effects, music, etc. = solid Most of the voice acting in Atomic Heart is passable, too. Unfortunately the English version of the main character sounds like a surfer dude and his dialogue borders on ridiculous. It’s so bad that he nearly ruins every scene he speaks in. You can change the dialogue to Russian and add subtitles, but they’re often too small/quick to read. They're also not that great, either. The menu doesn’t make that option as easy as it should be, too. Honestly, they should have just had the sense to have a better lead. The other actors were mostly okay, although I did find their pronunciation of "comrade" ("com-raid") to be really annoying considering the actors were American. You have to suspend your disbelief with all of the acting, because everyone speaks American English with zero accent in a world set in the USSR.

Gameplay 7/10: Gameplay is mostly typical for the genre. Running around, shooting, swinging melee weapons, looting containers, occasionally using powers, etc. The catch is that the game has awful jumping mechanics. They’re inconsistent, tough to judge, and they often leave you stuck in the environment with no escape. Many of the “puzzle dungeons” revolve around jumping quite a bit, too. It just feels unfinished. I found the controls to be a little odd, too. For all the focus the game puts on your powers, I never found them to be all that great. They can be effective, but they’re too slow to recharge and they aren’t always particularly strong. They feel almost like an afterthought that was added later in development. Control-wise, The game piles a ton of functions on certain buttons/keys while others barely get touched. No amount of remapping (which you can only do with keyboards for now) changes that, either.

Plot/Story/Setting 8.5/10: The world they built for Atomic Heart is fantastic. It felt very much alive and exploring it was entertaining. The story was okay, although I would say that it felt extremely obvious what was going on for the entire game. It’s almost like the game thinks it’s more clever and deep than it actually is. There are also certain areas repeatedly shown that felt like more interesting locales than the ones you actually get to visit. Those are small gripes, though. Overall, I think the world of Atomic Heart is one of its strongpoints.

Overall 7.5/10: I liked the game and mostly think it was well made and well thought out. It’s almost a great game, but certain bad things are simply too tough to ignore. The English lead character is horrendous, performance full-on sucks in certain areas, and there’s a lot of jank to the jumping mechanics.
 
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Uncharted 4: A Thief's End & The Lost Legacy

Every now and then a game comes along that puts fun first. Often times simplicity is key to making an enjoyable game, and Uncharted 4 & The Lost Legacy are examples of how a streamlined experience can be more entertaining than hundreds of in game pop ups and copy/pasted encounters.

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Nathan Drake, the main character of Uncharted.

Uncharted 4 & TLL is a simple action adventure game mixed with 3rd person shooter gameplay. It primarily focuses on parkour, climbing and some shootings with character dialogue splitting up action sequences. At first glance it may appear like a Tomb Raider knock off, or rather the reboot of Tomb Raider is a knock off of Uncharted, but that isn't exactly true. Uncharted 4 lacks a survival and crafting aspect. While some games like the aforementioned Tomb Raider reboot can actually do crafting well, most games can't. Too many games condition the player to run to every corner of the a wall to smash open a box to see what crap they can get while ignoring the character that is talking to them. This because outright burdensome in most games and often times the dialogue is missed because you are more focused on looking for crap to pick up rather than focusing on the characters. That is not the case for Uncharted 4, and it is absolutely refreshing. You can simply follow the characters, listen to their dialogue, and soak in the beautifully created environments with worrying about picking up the 200th pebble. Many games could learn from this. There are optional things to collect, but they are fairly straight forward and have little relevance to the game aside from being old objects to observe, which is how picking up stuff should be in most games.

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The horrific aiming perspective in Uncharted 4. When aiming you loose significant situation awareness, the whole perspective zooms in meaning that a target on the side of the screen that you saw before bringing up your sights will disappear.

The climbing and parkour is fairly good, and is roughly half of the gameplay. It is fairly similar to the recent Tomb Raider games. It is fun, not overly confusing, and works well. Many games do a poor job with this and have sluggish controls or poor animations. Uncharted 4 isn't one of those games thankfully. Climbing around is intuitive, fun, and well done. The game isn't perfect when it comes to gameplay though, as it is a 3rd person shooter which is the next major pillar of the Uncharted. Like all third person shooters it is underwhelming, clunky, and disorienting. This is a problem inherent to the design of third person shooters. Guns feel lifeless, have bad animations, aiming is odd, and the camera angle and maneuvering around corners or cover is an absolute nightmare. As it is in all third person shooters. I wish Uncharted had adopted a Deus Ex Human Revolution/Mankind Divided type of gameplay, where the shooting was in first person but cutscenes in third person. If they had devised a system that kept you in third person until a shooting sequence started and then switched to first person it would have been far better.

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Puzzles often break up the shooting and parkour.

Aside from climbing and shooting, you will often have to solve puzzles. In general these are not as complex or involved as the recent Tomb Raider games. It can actually be a bit tedious as you mainly match up symbols after referring to your journal. Generally they are fun, not too hard, and not too long. Enough to change the pace without overstaying their welcome.

A significant part of the game is listening and watching the characters. Most of the characters are well done and feel life like. This is the only Uncharted game I have played, and yet I get the sense there is a lot of development and care put into crafting these characters. Their interactions, conversations and personalities are some of the best I have seen in recent games. You can clearly see which characters have a past and what kind of relationship they may have had. Despite being the last of a number of games I felt enough relevant information and backstory was provided to craft enough context for these relationships.

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The game is mostly linear, although there are some options for minor exploration.

Despite the main cast being fairly well done, I felt the overall story was not that great. It wasn't bad, but it is primarily centered around finding a treasure. While certainly interesting it is hard to get excited for finding a treasure in a game as you cannot reap the benefits of it. If this was a long game that told the story of modest beginnings, to fame/influence/power, only to see it gradually dwindle away it may have had some more relevance. As is, discovering a treasure in a video game will always be of middling interest. I also found the antagonist to be a bit cliche. Luckily the journey is worth it because the gameplay is fun and main cast enjoyable. I would still consider the story to rank above most games, because at least it felt like the characters cared and were invested in the journey.

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Art team did a great job creating each area.

Graphically the game looks amazing. For what is a 5 year old game that was ported to PC, it looks stunning. Lighting, reflections, textures, character animations, facial details, world artwork, fog. It all looks great. The art team was on point which helps bring the game to life. The best part is the game runs perfectly. One of the smoothest running games in recent years. No stuttering. High frame rates. Once of the best optimized PC games over the past few years. Bugs? Almost zero, I cannot recall any. This is how games should be. Technically this game is a masterpiece. Congratulations Sony, you are a console first developer that does a better job than most game developers.

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Game looks fantastic.

Sound design is on point. Well mixed, good sound quality. Great voice acting, especially from Troy Baker. I am not sure how he voice acted the nasally New York style accent and actually sounded nasally, but that is a fairly accomplished feat.

The Lost Legacy is a standalone expansion (included on PC). It is essentially the same, although introduces a moderate sized hub area with more freedom of movement and being less linear during some chapters. There is a bit more optional stuff to see here but it is typically found easily and naturally. You play as a different side character. Although they are not as enjoyable as Drake, they are sufficient to carry the game. Otherwise it is more of the same, and that is generally a good thing.

The game is short, around 15 hours. 8 hours for The Lost Legacy. But there is nothing that greatly annoys me (outside of the shooting). Smart game design was practiced throughout, with exception to the third person shooting perspective.

8 / 10

Uncharted 4 is a fine game. It is so well designed artistically and technically. If only shooting gameplay was in the first person, this game could have been truly great.
 

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M76 overexaggerates. The only microtransactions are buying game credits with real money, and you don't need to grind unless you want to buy every legendary car the second they appear in the dealership.
Why? Did they change the game since launch? The legendary cars were on a rotation and you kind of had to buy them the moment they appeared to not miss them. And even if you don't have to deal with FOMO anymore, the only way you could get that kind of credits is by grinding or spending real money.
 
Tomb Raider (2013 PC) 7/10
Transport Fever (2016 PC) 4/10
Uncharted The Lost Legacy (2017 PS4) 5/10

... so are you going to add anything to the discussion?

But since you brought up M76's review of Uncharted The Lost Legacy, I would like to point out the Tomb Raider reboot (2013 / Rise / Shadow) are copies of Uncharted, not the other way around. But even then they are not exactly the same. Tomb Raider has a crafting and survival aspect which is entirely absent in Uncharted. Uncharted focuses more on characters, with a lot more dialogue. Tomb Raider's characters on the other hand are entirely forgettable. I had to google the one returning character just now to remember who he was, Jonah. They essentially show up at the start and end of the games and disappear until the end. Uncharted 4 has better written characters with a lot more reflection on past relationships, where they are going in life, and a more genuine desire to find something (the treasure/city) in game.

It sounds like he only played Lost Legacy, which is a standalone DLC for the main game. In which case I would also find the story to be more underwhelming. I found the characters in that to be less interesting than Drake of course. The only "woke" thing I found of note in both Uncharted 4 and LL was Nadine, who comically beats up Drake. We know in reality, Drake would have easily beat her down with little issue. Not only that but she takes on both Drake and Sam... and beats them. Which is a bit comical. But that is the only "woke" thing I can think of through both U4 and LL.
 
... so are you going to add anything to the discussion?

But since you brought up M76's review of Uncharted The Lost Legacy, I would like to point out the Tomb Raider reboot (2013 / Rise / Shadow) are copies of Uncharted, not the other way around. But even then they are not exactly the same. Tomb Raider has a crafting and survival aspect which is entirely absent in Uncharted. Uncharted focuses more on characters, with a lot more dialogue. Tomb Raider's characters on the other hand are entirely forgettable. I had to google the one returning character just now to remember who he was, Jonah. They essentially show up at the start and end of the games and disappear until the end. Uncharted 4 has better written characters with a lot more reflection on past relationships, where they are going in life, and a more genuine desire to find something (the treasure/city) in game.

It sounds like he only played Lost Legacy, which is a standalone DLC for the main game. In which case I would also find the story to be more underwhelming. I found the characters in that to be less interesting than Drake of course. The only "woke" thing I found of note in both Uncharted 4 and LL was Nadine, who comically beats up Drake. We know in reality, Drake would have easily beat her down with little issue. Not only that but she takes on both Drake and Sam... and beats them. Which is a bit comical. But that is the only "woke" thing I can think of through both U4 and LL.
Nadine is more than a match for Sam and Nathan who have no military training in tactics, hand to hand or martial arts ...from the Uncharted Wiki:

Skills​


Ross is an excellent charismatic leader, military tactics, guerrilla warfare and mercenary, being the former leader of Shoreline beforehand. Ross is just as effective both physically and mentally, both being praised by Asav and Chloe Frazer. She is exceptionally intelligent, thinking fast and acting fast when necessary, although, unlike other mercenaries, she controls her ambition, and Frazer tells her that she learns fast, being a good treasure hunter.

Ross is also a highly qualified sniper. She is an accomplished, effective, and dangerous martial artist who excels in hand to hand combat, easily being able to hold her own against both Nate and Sam at once, both of whom are significantly bulkier than her in appearance, and other opponents efficiently. However, in the final battle of The Lost Legacy and during the game, she is nearly overpowered by Asav, the main villain of the game
Sam and Nate:

Abilities​


Much like Nate, he is a competent marksman, climber, and brawler. It is possible that he trained his brother in fighting and brawling as hinted through dialogue when fighting Gustavo and fellow prisoners in the Panamanian jail, as well as in free-running and climbing. Due to spending most of his imprisoned life exercising, he is in excellent physical condition.

He is a talented thief; Nate refers to Sam as the best pickpocket out of both himself and Sully.

Sam is at least as intelligent as his brother, as he has a vast knowledge of pirate history, and is capable of speaking in at least Latin and Portuguese.

He is an adept motorcyclist.

https://uncharted.fandom.com/wiki/Nadine_Ross
 
Nadine is more than a match for Sam and Nathan who have no military training in tactics, hand to hand or martial arts ...from the Uncharted Wiki:


Sam and Nate:



https://uncharted.fandom.com/wiki/Nadine_Ross

He would still beat her up severely. He is a man, she is a woman. Of course the parkour stunts are unbelievable as is, but all video games have some unrealistic aspect. Typically when you die you can restart from a previous point. You can't do that in real life. Despite that games typically do try to be realistic in certain aspects. Nadine beating up Nate handily is like a 10 year old boy beating up Nate handily. It looks ridiculous. Nadine being a man beating termintor is certainly a bit "woke" and I did laugh at that sequence a bit. But that is the only part of U4 or LL that I found to be "woke".
 
Nadine and Nate are roughly the same size and if she had trained in some form of decent martial art (no TKD or aikido or whatever) it wouldn't be that big of a stretch. The catch is that by the time Uncharted 4 rolls around we've seen Nate literally kill dozens (depending on your playstyle) of people with his bare hands. Usually in 3 punches or less. Then again, there goes reality out the front door anyway.
 
Nadine is more than a match for Sam and Nathan who have no military training in tactics, hand to hand or martial arts ...from the Uncharted Wiki:


Sam and Nate:



https://uncharted.fandom.com/wiki/Nadine_Ross
A man is still faster and stronger then a woman of the same size. Nathan is not some push over you know. He been fighting hand to hand with other bigger trained male military personnel for ages before the 4th game.
 
A man is still faster and stronger then a woman of the same size. Nathan is not some push over you know. He been fighting hand to hand with other bigger trained male military personnel for ages before the 4th game.
I was just making a point that Nadine wasn't just your typical "woke" woman combatant as Flogger made her out to be.
 
A man is still faster and stronger then a woman of the same size. Nathan is not some push over you know. He been fighting hand to hand with other bigger trained male military personnel for ages before the 4th game.

take one of the female MMA fighters like Amanda Nunes, Cris Cyborg or Gina Carano and put them up against a regular guy of the same size and see who wins
 
Hogwarts Legacy
A simple, yet fun action adventure/RPG game that seemingly had a lot of controversy and excessive praise despite not being worthy of either. Hogwarts Legacy is certainly a decent enough game, but it isn't that great nor is it bad. Although not very familiar with the Harry Potter universe myself, perhaps loyal fans of the books and movies will appreciate the ample small lore details throughout the game. But your time in Hogwarts isn't always great, as the game does have some fairly common shortcomings.

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Hogwarts, seemingly recreated in explore-able 3D form with great attention to detail.

The gameplay loop of Hogwarts Legacy is okay. It follows a more simplistic approach to combat and feels generally similar to most action RPG/adventure games over the past few years. Yet nothing is done quite well and there are a number of quirks. The magic/power selection is clumsy, which can become annoying in combat. The same selection wheel where you choose combat magic is also tied to non-combat magical abilities. You can quick select four sets of four magic abilities and can switch them on the fly, but assigning them is a bit cumbersome as well. Non-fighting magic should have been better separated from utility magical powers. Quirks aside the combat gameplay is fairly similar to most other games in the genre, with combos resulting in more damage. You can carry other items and will need to rely on things like potions to heal, which again is a bit annoying a cumbersome to use. As a general rule I mainly avoided using those. Enemy variety is fairly limited and got a bit stale towards the end of the game. Thankfully the good powers are satisfying enough to use, and fighting foes is generally fun enough.

Hogwarts Legacy Screenshot 2023.03.02 - 22.29.24.05.png
Combat is fun if derivative of similar games over the past 12-15 years, yet clunky.

However fighting enemies is only part of the gameplay. Interacting with characters, exploring, and attending classes make up an equal portion of game time. This can also be mixed. A lot of these quests are very simplistic, generally involving following simple directions to unlock new magic. Character interactions can be a bit bland. There are a number of reoccurring characters but none of them are noteworthy. Your conversations and interactions will be fairly static, without any real way to change the outcome expect for minor instances. You have a dialogue wheel but the results all end up being the same most of the time. You can't even change the general tone of your character's responses.

Hogwarts Legacy Screenshot 2023.03.04 - 17.05.47.67.png
Characters, conversations and overall story writing is passable.

Upgrading gear can be annoying, and you will frequently head back to stores to buy/sell gear to get newer gear to improve your defensive/offensive stats. This will eventually require you to open up the magic selection wheel (yes, the one you use to fight) and engage in an annoying Pokemon like capturing sequence for mythical animals. Complete with feeding, petting. This gets annoying and although you can automate it, up front you will have to do these boring little activities for a bit. Levelling up can be a bit annoying as it requires you to collect stuff and do lots of similar yet repeating mini games. Thankfully you don't have to do them all, but there are dozens upon dozens of them. I wish they put more effort into more side quests instead.

Hogwarts Legacy Screenshot 2023.03.05 - 16.34.14.12.png
You'll spend a lot of time gathering specific animal parts to upgrade gear.

The Hogwarts castle itself is fun to explore. It feels like they did a great job recreating the castle of the books and movies, although I cannot confirm this myself. There are lots of details and bits of lore. I think fans of the series will greatly enjoy walking around the castle. There are numerous small details and minor events to witness throughout the game that occur in the main hub areas. These are small but help breathe life into the world. Things like watching some kids being kicked out of a store for supposed theft, to professors reacting you coming to class in your pajamas are examples. Outside the castle the map is fairly large with a few settlements where you can pick up side quests and story quests. Some of these are well done, other parts are more generic. The further you get from the castle, the less unique experiences there tend to be. The furthest end of the map has little in the way of good quests and has a lot of repeated side activities and basic side quests.

Hogwarts Legacy Screenshot 2023.03.03 - 20.52.11.98.png
Hogwarts at night.

The overall story isn't much better than the character interactions. It feels a bit forced, the antagonists aren't memorable and is fairly generic. It is certainly enough to hold the game together but could have been so much better. Although the game does a decent job a balancing a story and trying to recreate an experience of what a Hogwarts student might go through, which itself may have been difficult.

Graphically Hogwarts Legacy looks fairly nice. Some areas look great, other more average. Character facial detail can be top of the line. Although sometimes facial animations/expressions are a bit off. Details in the distance and water don't look that great. Lighting looks good, especially at night. General combat explosions and magical power effects look decent. Texture quality is good but not the best I have seen. Performance itself was okay, with some areas, mainly in the castle, having low frame rate issues. Stability was good with few crashes. I did not have much if any bugs.

Hogwarts Legacy Screenshot 2023.03.03 - 14.22.02.16.png
Hogwarts Legacy has a nice art direction, including the fog which covers much of the map.

Sounds, musical score and voice acting were about average. Not much to comment on here. I can't say anything stood out either good or bad.

Overall a solid game. It has many common issues of open world games in the action RPG genre. Repetition can set in, and there are some performance issues. Yet you can feel they put a lot of care into the small details and implemented a somewhat satisfying gameplay loop, ending up with a fun, although mediocre experience.

7.2 / 10
 
Resident Evil 4 2023 Remake (PC Version)

I'll preface this with the fact that I love the original RE4. I consider it to be among my all-time top 10 games, if not top 5. I've owned 3-4 different versions of it over the years and I've played through it countless times. That said, it's somewhat tough to play these days just because of how the genre has changed. The control scheme and mechanics were ahead of their time, but they haven't all aged well. That's one reason I was so excited for this remake to come out. All the community patches in the world couldn't completely modernize that game.

Graphics: RE4 looks good. As good as RE:Village or similar stylized 3rd person games? I'd say not quite. Some of that is the source material (lots of rocky caves, weathered woodwork, stonework, etc.), but I do think it's missing some level of details and animation from other titles. It's also really light on environmental effects. Still it's a solid 8.5/10

Sound:
The game uses Atmos for positional sound and I found it to be really well done. The music adds a nice touch to the action scenes, too. Guns, ambient noises, chanting, etc. sound like they should. Even the voice acting isn't half bad compared to the campy original. I don't really know what they could have done better 10/10

Gameplay:
This is the area they changed the most, while still retaining what made the original RE4 fun. Leon is now able to move and shoot at the same time. The controls have swapped to the (now traditional) layout of moving with one analog stick or the keyboard, and aiming with the other or the mouse. Leon is now able to parry incoming enemy attacks at the last second by using the "defend" button a la RE:Village. The catch is that he uses a knife, which slowly degrades with each parry or knife attack. To be honest, this never felt natural to me and I found myself forgetting it was there for certain stretches. Running away felt like the better option to be honest. It's really only there when you're in the process of being hit most of the time. Leon also gained the ability to sneak, although it's really only useful in a few scenes. Enemies are usually facing you and have no issue seeing you sneaking behind objects. While the original did a really good job of throwing enemies at you in a way to accentuate the control limitations, this one throws the kitchen sink at you. It feels overwhelming in the same ways that RE5 and 6 did. It's nothing you can't deal with, but it does feel like a tonal shift with wave after wave of enemies. You also have Leon randomly able to head kick enemies like Peter Aerts and perform Olympic-level gymnastics one minute only to be totally helpless the next. I get that it's just a game, but you can't help but ask yourself "why can't I kick NOW?" or "where's that somersault dodge NOW?" throughout the game. Trick is, it wouldn't really be RE4 if you could do those things...would it? I'm not sure. The shift to hordes of enemies will make you wonder why Leon's defensive options are so rudimentary. I'd give up that parry for a TLoU2 dodge in a millisecond. I feel like I can't give it more than 8.5/10 even with the improvements.

Overall: After both RE1/2 Remakes and RE7/Village were so short, there were concerns that Capcom would heavily tunicate the length of RE4. Luckily that is NOT the case. At all. It's basically all here. A couple scenes were cut or changed, but others were extended and made more robust. Other sections were left almost entirely intact as-is. It's the same length as the original when everything is said and done. After playing through it all, I don't disagree with any of the scene/level choices they made, either. It truly is the modern take on RE4 that I wanted. Some of the gameplay stuff is annoying and worthy of an eye roll or two, but it's all part of keeping the game close to the source material. I don't know if new players will completely appreciate it, but I'd be surprised if RE4 fans didn't have a blast. 9/10
 
Re-review of Bloodborne, from a month ago.

Bloodborne is like cancer. I was pissed at it. All I saw was flaws. But ... it sticks with you, much like cancer, and won't ... let... you... go. Granted I've never played a FromSoft game before, but it finally clicked. In fact, if anything, Outer Wilds (the PC Indie game) was what made it click. Instead of expecting to win with each life, I started thinking of what I could accomplish with each life. What can I do? Gain a level? Open a shortcut? You don't have to win - you don't have to clear a boss - but what can you get done on each loop? And with that, it clicked. Getting past the second boss (Papa G) was also a major help - Co-op worked perfectly, and the next 4 bosses I didn't die to once. Spent a month plowing through from beginning to end - missed two side quests, missed one optional boss (DLC - Lawrence, one of the toughest out there), but got it done. And damn if it isn't still with me. I'm slowly working through NG+, to clear up some unfinished business, but I'm still having fun - back to playing other things after a month of dedicated time, but I regret nothing.

The learning curve at the beginning is a cliff. You can't even level till you make it to the first boss (this is to teach you that you don't have to fight everything; you can run!), but once you're through that opening, the whole game opens up and gets easier, and gets better.

A-, or 93/100. Knocked for a couple of "repeat" places and/or really dumb areas (Nightmare Frontier, Hunters Nightmare, Research Hall), and issues holding 30FPS even on a PS4 pro or PS5 (this really needs a patch), but it's a damned fine game and a great Soulsborne entry. Just have to dig through the intro :p
 
Bloodborne. aka, I have diarrhea and cannot find a toilet, the ebola version. With AIDS.

If this is what made GOTY in 2015, I now understand why I quit playing console games. This is a mediocre hack-and-slash with a punishing method of leveling, absurd amounts of repetition, an unstable frame rate (25 FPS might have been fine for Ocarina of Time, but it was 2015 - do better), completely missing story (go read the lore in the inventory - on a fucking PEBBLE), buggy controls and camera, and merely ok combat. I wouldn't waste my time unless you enjoy hitting your testicles (or ovaries - I don't judge) with a hammer. Repeatedly. For FUN.

Mediocre in every single possible way. There is nothing of value to this game outside of the art, and FromSoft should be embarrassed. Hell, as far as I can tell, it doesn't even have MUSIC. (Yes, I know it does - outside of a cut scene I couldn't tell you a single time I heard it). I threw the disc like a frisbee into the 5 acre back yard and will deny I ever wasted any of my short short life on this disaster of a game. Couldn't finish it. Won't finish it. Would rather be stuck playing super mario bros if I'm going to just beat the same guys over and over again - at least that had a soundtrack I remember.

D-. Seriously, play a real hack-and-slash. Any of them. Or pray it gets ported like most other FromSoft games so you can mod it into something sane. $20 down the drain on that piece of shit.
What about elden ring? Is it just over hyped like blood borne? I've held off buying until it's super cheap and I don't really have time to finish 25 hr game unless it hooks me hard
 
What about elden ring? Is it just over hyped like blood borne? I've held off buying until it's super cheap and I don't really have time to finish 25 hr game unless it hooks me hard
Haven't played it yet - I've avoided games that are "hard for the sake of hard" as a rule, and I figured Fromsoft games were like that. Bloodborne at least is not - it's fair, you just have to learn from your mistakes (and get over the frustration).

From what I've heard, ER is more like 80-100 hours too. BB took me 55 on my first run through with DLC.
 
Finished Resident Evil 4 Remake. 8.5/10. Overly long game but good action and decent storyline. Enough thrills as well.
 
Finished the Orc campaign for Warcraft 2. This is a very old game now (created in 1995 and rereleased in 1999 in the form of the Battlenet Edition). I'm playing the Battlenet Edition from GOG. I have to say I'm glad I finally got this game! I only had access to the shareware copy when I was a kid and I played it to death. Eventually I got the original Warcraft but it's nowhere near as good as its sequel. Onto the game:

It holds up surprisingly well given its age. The gameplay seems well-balanced and once you learn the ropes it's not hard to develop a good gaming strategy. If I had only one thing to complain about, it's that the main campaign favors the naval battles a little too much. I enjoyed them well enough, but once you rule the seas there's not much else to do in the water. The game is very difficult in the later stages but again, once you figure out what you need to do it isn't that hard. The GOG version comes with the expansion pack, which I've heard is extremely difficult, so I cannot wait to try that. Currently I'm playing through the Human campaign and I'm about halfway through.

My favorite part of the game is the soundtrack. Glenn Stafford nailed this one, and all the tracks are very memorable and fit the game perfectly ("Your soundcard works perfectly!") :). Well done. If you haven't played this game yet or if you want to replay it I highly recommend the GOG version. It runs flawlessly on Windows 10 and I've been having a blast. My son and I have played a couple of LAN's on this game now and we very much enjoy the game.
 
Finished the Orc campaign for Warcraft 2. This is a very old game now (created in 1995 and rereleased in 1999 in the form of the Battlenet Edition). I'm playing the Battlenet Edition from GOG. I have to say I'm glad I finally got this game! I only had access to the shareware copy when I was a kid and I played it to death. Eventually I got the original Warcraft but it's nowhere near as good as its sequel. Onto the game:

It holds up surprisingly well given its age. The gameplay seems well-balanced and once you learn the ropes it's not hard to develop a good gaming strategy. If I had only one thing to complain about, it's that the main campaign favors the naval battles a little too much. I enjoyed them well enough, but once you rule the seas there's not much else to do in the water. The game is very difficult in the later stages but again, once you figure out what you need to do it isn't that hard. The GOG version comes with the expansion pack, which I've heard is extremely difficult, so I cannot wait to try that. Currently I'm playing through the Human campaign and I'm about halfway through.

My favorite part of the game is the soundtrack. Glenn Stafford nailed this one, and all the tracks are very memorable and fit the game perfectly ("Your soundcard works perfectly!") :). Well done. If you haven't played this game yet or if you want to replay it I highly recommend the GOG version. It runs flawlessly on Windows 10 and I've been having a blast. My son and I have played a couple of LAN's on this game now and we very much enjoy the game.

I do wish they would give a Remastered treatment to the both the original as well as second with expansion. And a remaster like StarCraft Remastered rather than the butchery that was Warcraft 3’s attempt.
 

A Plague Tale: Requiem

A lot of games struggle to find a good balance between gameplay, story telling, and how they guide you throughout the fictional world. Some games tell a great story and really make the journey feel worthwhile. A Plague Tale: Requiem does just that. The big flaw that cannot be ignored is the actual interactive parts of the game are shallow, dated and a bit clumsy at times.

A Plague Tale  Requiem Screenshot 2022.12.11 - 16.59.22.89.png

Being a sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence, the game picks up right where the last one left off. The first glaring issue that pops up is the change in voice actors/accents. The characters went from having French accents in the first game to some type of British accent. I had zero issues with the previous game, as it is set in a fictional France it only makes sense for the voice acting to have people with French accents. Not a deal breaker, but it certainly did make things awkward up front. From that point on though the journey picks up and never lets go. Requiem is purely a story driven game, which is wonderful. Everything in the game is based around lore, world building or progressing the story. And this is where Requiem excels. The story itself might not be the most unique, however the presentation is superb. The adventure is full of hardships, though decisions, and you really get a feel for what the protagonists go through. The sacrifices they make and seeing them gradually get mentally worn down is thoroughly convincing. This is probably one of the more emotional stories I've played in a recently released games. Seldom do games make me care about characters these days, but this game did not disappoint.

A Plague Tale  Requiem Screenshot 2022.12.11 - 21.20.32.64.png

Artistically and musically the game is spot on. Ignoring technical aspects, the mood setting is done absolutely perfectly. You might go to a place that seemingly looks perfect with bright sunlight and cheery locales only for it to transition to gradual darkness as you find yourself in yet another horrific situation. Lighting, time of day, map design and music all work together quite excellently. As an example there is a section of the game where everything seems right, but the musical in the background is slightly unsettling and put me at slight unease.

Graphically the game is phenomenal. I think this is one of the best looking games to date. Draw distance is far, areas can be heavily detailed with lots of dense vegetation, and cloud shadows and overall ambient lighting can look amazing. Characters, animations, props all look good. The distance of cities and forested hills are very detailed.

A Plague Tale  Requiem Screenshot 2022.12.12 - 18.04.23.78.png

The problem as mentioned previously is the gameplay itself. Requiem finds itself at a crossroads. It cannot decide if it wants to be an action adventure game or an interactive adventure. It isn't quite as forgiving as a typical interactive adventure game, as there are many instant death scenarios. There is also a fair amount of combat, which will of course make the game more difficult for people who don't typically play action adventure games and really just want an interactive story game. Yet there are many sections where you slow walk, press a button to comment or talk and essentially just watch what unfolds. There is a lack of selection and choice in the narrative, which I personally enjoyed, but if you're hoping for interactive story elements rather than combat you will be disappointed. So clearly, this game isn't quite an interactive movie.

A Plague Tale  Requiem Screenshot 2022.12.11 - 17.47.30.45.png

The problem is it is an underwhelming action adventure game. The weapon selection is cumbersome. The combat and weapon types are limited, and get old. The NPCs are quite stupid and damn near blind. A lot of the gameplay is spent watching NPCs walk pre-determined paths in a very unrealistic and scripted way. You figure out their timing, and maybe run a short distance to hide under a wagon with your legs clearly sticking out. This too can get a bit tedious. If you are spotted it almost always results in death. Respawning can be clumsy, as it might spawn you near the line of slight of an NPC. This happened once where I essentially had a lot of respawning, being spotted, killed without a real way to defend myself, rinse repeat. At times it is okay, but clearly it needed to be better. I feel there was an identity crisis between figuring out how they wanted the game to play. I personally think it should have had better combat as I like it as an action adventure game. But as is Requiem is quite an odd mixture of between the two, and does neither genre right.

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Technically the game is demanding, but at least it looks good. I had a few minor bugs but typically a reload would fix them.

Overall the game is a bit mixed. The atmosphere, world building, mood, art direction and adventure itself is quite excellent. I did find it to be quite the emotional adventure. But the combat and stealth sections needed work.

7 / 10

 

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Redfall (PC)

Redfall is a bad game. At this point, I think everyone knows it isn't good. However I don't think it was an all-time bad game or even an entirely bad game. I think the sheer disappointment that it came from Arkane and the poor performance issues (on both console and PC) made it seem worse than it is. On the PC, it looks like a pretty average open-world shooter and it has the standard "Arkane look" to it. My framerates were fine (on a high-end and middle of the road PC), but it suffers from traversal stutter no matter what kind of hardware you have. A patch last week helped, but it's still unquestionably there. I guess the console version runs like crap, so at least PC gamers aren't alone this time.

They team definitely put some heart and soul into the setting and game world. It isn't as dense as Prey or especially Deathloop, but you'll find lore around every corner. Unfortunately, the main story has almost none of that. In fact, it feels disconnected from that world. Like a different team was tasked on working on it and they added it on top of the (mostly good) map. The story felt pointless and I couldn't have cared less to be pretty honest. I liked reading notes scattered around the world and exploring the geography instead. Some people have compared the game to Anthem in this regard, and I think that's actually fair. They're nothing alike as games, but both had underlying lore that someone busted their ass on only to have a bad game tossed on top. If someone told me that Redfall was actually two totally different games that were merged I wouldn't be shocked at all.

Gameplay is/was mostly like Dying Light, but with even less variety. You're pretty much going from location to location on a map and accomplishing short tasks to gain EXP, better guns, ammunition, and quick travel locations. As you unlock safehouses (which are basically quick travel locations), you can do side quests to kill cultists and mini-bosses. The first 2-3 are fun, but they don't really change much. By the end of the game, you'll be sick of them. You have 6 different types of guns and they work like you'd expect. I found assault rifles and shotguns to be way better than everything else (minus stake guns which have limited ammo), which was odd. I didn't really understand why certain weapon types, mainly pistols and sniper rifles, were so weak.

I played through using Jacob, who was probably the most boring/vanilla choice in hindsight. Not sure if all the characters a like this, but he started to feel underpowered in the later parts of the game. The game clearly uses some type of level scaling and in spite of getting stronger and stronger, I was dying in a couple good hits for the last 1/4 of the game. That's even managing my loadout well and doing all the side quests. I played through entirely solo, so maybe that's also part of the issue. Some areas felt better suited for multiple characters and thinks got borderline cheap in places.

The map UI/UX is lazy. They tell you exactly where to go for everything, but you have to setup markers and whatnot entirely manually. On top of that, doing it manually often puts your icons and makers in the wrong spots for some reason. No idea why except just to inconvenience you I guess?

I did all of the obvious side quests and even some "hidden" ones while I was exploring. I found those to be better than any of the main quests and enjoyed that not everything was spelled out. Again, I think that stuff was handled by one team and the main game was probably handled by another.

Anyway, it was a bad game, but not one I'd call horrible. I'd give it a D. IMO, the map and world lore probably kept me going.
 
Ghostwire: Tokyo (PC via Gamepass)

This game is...interesting. Graphically, I can't think of a better looking game out there. The lighting effects are absolutely spectacular and even if the textures aren't the greatest a point blank, the game looks nearly photorealistic at times. The sound is amazing, too. Great positional audio, different languages actually voice acting well, ambient music, sound effects, etc. are top notch.
The map is huge and there's a lot to see an do, too. I also found the game's many visual effects and transitions from different worlds to be smooth and seamless.

What keeps this from being a great game is the game itself. At its core it's a sandbox shooter of sorts. You're basically wandering around a mostly empty Shibuya fighting evil spirits with 3 different variations on magical powers + a bow. The bow works the way you'd expect and the 3 powers = straight fire/wide fire/explosive fire. You shoot enemies a few times and then kill them by pulling out their "core" when they have been weakened. You'll encounter the same 3-4 varieties of enemies 75% of the time, but there are roughly a dozen types in total. Pulling out cores and freeing trapped spirits nets you XP, which allows you to power up your abilities. You can attack random spirit objects to earn XP and recharge your powers, too. Most of the game you're trying to unlock different parts of the city that are covered in dangerous fog by banishing spirits from gates. I guess I should mention that almost everything in this game revolves around Japanese spirit lore and Shintoism. I'm no expert in those things, so I dunno how someone who is would interpret the game. There is a little bit of "weird for weird's sake" a la Kojima, too.

It doesn't sound that bad, right? The issue is that you start doing the base tasks in the game within the first few minutes of playing. From there you just. keep. doing. the. same. things. Things get better as you get better powers and different enemies show up, but the grind is tedious to get to that point. I found that the game didn't really hit stride until I was 10-12 hours in. Early sections range from boring to frustrating thanks to the fog forcing you down a linear path. You keep encountering stores selling goods you really don't need and random objects you don't need either. Why are there 30 types of food? Why should I go out of my way to free all of these damned spirits in oddball places? After a while you'll probably start sprinting from location to location because you're tired of doing the same things. You can free souls to gain levels, but at a certain point even that gets to be pointless. Another dog digging up money for you? Another cat telling you it's annoyed. It just all starts to feel so repetitious and skippable. It's kinda sad because the side quests are usually well written, but it's still the same gameplay at the core of what you're doing. The game shows you all its cards in the first 30 minutes and it never really does enough to get you out of that rut. New enemies? You pretty much just want to nuke 'em with fire no matter what they are or what they're doing.

As a Gamepass game, I *DO* recommend people try this title. If for no other reason than to play it for 10-15 minutes and experience the graphics and sound. At that point, you'll also get a feel for the gameplay and you can decide if you want to keep going or bail. I'm a glutton for punishment, so if I don't hate a game I typically play all the way through. I'm actually not done with this game yet (I am close), but I'm 100% sure I know what the rest of the game is going to be like anyway.

D+
 
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition with Anniversary Upgrade
This game. What an experience. Not sure what to say except my first playthrough was 225 hours long. I had fun playing this game.
So much content. I just loved wondering around finding new locations to explore. Finding new quests, characters and seeing what happened during them was a highlight for me. Some quest chains were very memorable and exciting.

While not a perfect game, I had game crashes and bugs. The combat isn't exactly complex but I did love just hacking and slashing through everything. The overall experience was so fun and enjoyable to me.

Next time I play, I want to go in with mods to improve my experience even further.
 
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition with Anniversary Upgrade
This game. What an experience. Not sure what to say except my first playthrough was 225 hours long. I had fun playing this game.
So much content. I just loved wondering around finding new locations to explore. Finding new quests, characters and seeing what happened during them was a highlight for me. Some quest chains were very memorable and exciting.

While not a perfect game, I had game crashes and bugs. The combat isn't exactly complex but I did love just hacking and slashing through everything. The overall experience was so fun and enjoyable to me.

Next time I play, I want to go in with mods to improve my experience even further.
If you never play the main story you’ll never run into dragons. I think if anything the dragon battles are the worst aspect of the game. They feel epic and awesome… until your 50th battle. Then they’re just a nuisance.
 
If you never play the main story you’ll never run into dragons. I think if anything the dragon battles are the worst aspect of the game. They feel epic and awesome… until your 50th battle. Then they’re just a nuisance.
That was true. I eventually started to figure out how to increase my damage more effectively, I would kill dragons in a few hits. Also once you get a certain shout, dragons were easier to fight. But I didn't learn this until I was well into the game lol.
 
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