After eons of thieving about, my efforts were requested. A strange man halfway across the continent wanted to speak to me. He offered to pay me if I managed to plant incriminating evidence on someone who wasn't honoring a trade agreement. This "evidence" came from a separate, shadier individual with an asking price of a thousand coins. Like the gentleman thief I was, I calmly and maturely bartered with them: "fuck you, I'm stealing that shit." And with one swipe of her pocket, I did. After bum-rushing the safe I was now incidentally granted "permission" to access, I found myself scuba-diving for a small blue bottle. This was the key. After much deliberation, I tried to silently bum-rush the ship I was meant to plant this on, only to be met with a wall of boxes I couldn't climb without phasing through solid objects. No worries, I'll get it next time. Job well done, and after less than two hours of traveling, I was met with the client that started this all. Expecting my reward, I spoke with him, to which he responded by telling me that the man whose life I had thrown into jeopardy for petty reasons was already behind bars. Strangely, I didn't see any guards hastily dash in that direction, and the 24-hour news cycle doesn't exist in this universe, but I trusted him.

Worse yet was when I broke into a scientist's office to transcribe a journal written in a foreign, ancient language from beings so oppressed by their adversaries that they became cave dwellers out of survival. After less than a cursory glance at the text I had gleefully and meticulously taken for granted, the client knew exactly what he was looking at. I would think it takes longer than that, but you do you.

But I've saved the worst for last. After slitting the throat of a man in broad daylight for the shadowy organization—sorry, 'family'—I joined after gutting the owner of an orphanage, a courier pops up. I'm about to mount my horse and get out of dodge before anyone questions the blood when all of a sudden, I'm being handed a letter thanking me for my good deed seconds later. Do letters work like texts in this universe??? Were they invisible? Does this universe have a method of time travel that you can access at the snap of a finger?

I know this is probably going to sound like a headass, "why doesn't gasoline degrade in The Last of Us if it's so realistic?" take, but I genuinely find this type of storytelling to scrape under the bare minimum, and that's me being exceptionally polite about it. Trying to waive the baffling incoherence of Skyrim's timescale by saying "But it's an RPG!" is a worse excuse than any of the lies I told my teachers in high school when I didn't want to do my homework. "It's an RPG," but do you honestly expect me to believe that that guy picked up a wordy ass book and read it faster than Johnny 5 could skim through a dictionary?

The questions that linger about how time works in the universe of Skyrim are indicative of the package as a whole. The absurdly quick way in which events play out belies the beauty of the world presented, flexibility of RPG mechanics, and enjoyable quest lines. What ultimately shifts Skyrim into an atypically addictive guilty pleasure for me is that the foundation that all three of those reside on is hardly stable. It would have been generous to call the stealth mechanics here dated when this came out, and time has done that no favors. There are areas you'll end up overthinking on a playthrough with a Sneak-oriented character. Occasionally, the solution is to literally walk in front of the characters you're supposed to be sneaking around and hide in the corner before they go back to their positions. Using daggers, stealth kills are merely tolerable. Using a bow, it becomes gratingly tedious. Combat outside of stealth doesn't fare much better. The biggest issue a game that features both third-and-first person perspectives will inevitably run into is that some actions work better in one perspective over the other, and combat is a fantastic example of this. Owing to its default setting of first-person, the combat here has all of the functions of a basic hack-and-slash game but with none of the style. The option to block and dual-wield weapons are in there, but there are only ever two types of attacks with any melee weapon and the option to parry is non-existent. Magic is probably the most diverse option to go for, but the least straightforward. All in all, everything works out fine, but nothing is exceptional. You bring your own fun into Skyrim.

I don't hate Skyrim, though. In my very first review for this several years ago, I said something along the lines of it not being a classic. I also didn't know how to use the skill tree and thought it didn't function properly, so I was an idiot. With years behind me doing this now and having played some of the games that have followed in the wake of this, I do believe it is a classic. But not in the way that something like Citizen Kane is. We seem to revere that definition of "classic." It ushered in the new, but it's so damn good that it holds up even after all is said and done. But, to be honest, I have just as much appreciation for the classics that are flawed. Backwards flying dragons; modlists that keep breaking; mountains that I climb by noclipping; obviously discreet conversations that throw aside law and ethics being discussed in spaces where law enforcement has an active presence; relying on your bloodthirsty companion to do all of the combat for you while they insult you for moving slightly too fast while sneaking around; the disappointment of realizing your one invisibility potion stops working the moment you attempt to pickpocket someone. All of this is in here, and although the game can be generally whatever, I wouldn't have it any other way.

If I had one word to describe Far Cry 5, it would be dull.

Its Open World is gorgeous and entices exploration in fun ways. But its lack of variety in objectives dulls that. Its setting is promising, but it doesn't have the balls to commit to anything compelling. Its characters and story are too dull to entice. The music that you listen to while you drive around is dull; somehow, after years of tinkering around with the Open World format, Ubisoft fails to realize that having good licensed and original music is part of the charm.

I could go on. I didn't finish this and I don't intend to, although maybe I'll be bored enough to try it again one day.

This game was honestly everything that I was hoping for from the first one. They improved on just about everything. Most importantly they kept the cool psychological levels while getting rid of the god-awful platforming. The location variety is an improvement but it was still mostly the same dull apartments, at the very least the few times you do backtrack its to the most interesting area in the game. Just like in the original the voice acting and dialogue is incredible and really sell the tone, plus all the henchmen dialogue or advertisements on TV you'll pass by are pretty funny. I think all of that is improved here though, as while the story is still told pretty cryptically it was actually interesting this time around. Im not gonna say I understand it but I think it was well paced with a good conclusion.
The combat itself also felt a lot more enjoyable. I played the first on ps4 and then this on a laptop with an awful trackpad (do not recommend) so it certainly wasnt the controls. I think overall outside of a few mildly annoying sections its a lot more balanced and I never got mad at it like i did with the first. The enemy ragdolls flicks wildly between realism and absurdity so killing enemies is always a good time, only real complaint there is that I feel like blood levels were too minimal, but I might just be a weirdo. Another thing worth mentioning is that the checkpoints are horrendous, but you can save at any time. I feel like this encourages saving every ten seconds and kinda takes away from the experience but maybe I just suck and was playing wrong, who knows. And while its mostly pretty subtle, the soundtrack fits really splendidly.
Overall, Max Payne 2 is everything a sequel should be. It improves on all the fun stuff, continues the story in a compelling way and all In all just makes it hard to wanna go back to the original.

Time Played - 8 hours 15 minutes
Nancymeter - 85/100
Game Completion #31 of 2022
March Completion #10

I'm not interested in this whole "walking simulator" debate. Games are art and art can take many forms. Thats all I am going to say on the matter.

Now back to the actually important part of this review, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It only lasted me an hour or two but stuck in my room on a depressing Monday, this was a good bit of relief. The story is a fairly simple one and I cant help but laugh at all the reviews mocking it for not being something profound or having some cool twist at the end. Thats not really the point of it (although there is a darker subplot you can figure out if you explore enough) The people calling it pretentious are baffling too as the game never tries to be deep and I am curious why so many people without basic comprehension decide to play games like this, but nevertheless. Of course there's nothing wrong with disliking this game. Despite its runtime it still pretty slow and if it didnt click with you or you just dont like this type of game, all perfectly valid. I know its a cliche thing to say but if you find it pretentious then you probably "didn't get it", lol. Its simply a simple story told very well. The worldbuilding is really great. You explore a very well crafted and interconnected house at your own pace, and for a genre lambasted for linearity the level design is really good. While yes most of the gameplay consists of inspecting items and reading notes, besides a few things that felt a bit too conveniently placed they do a really good job of giving you insights to the different members of the family. The environmental storytelling is very strong as well, where things are placed or hidden telling a story of its own. Its not too common but theres also some voice acting that I felt was really strong and added a lot to it. It was really easy to get immersed in the story through all this and I genuinely cared for what all the characters were going through. When I finally reached the end, it wasnt some big revelation but it stayed true to what everything before it was: a heartfelt story, not some grandiose plot but true to life and touching. I teared up a little bit at the end, and when the credits rolled i had a smile on my face. I think thats all a game needs to do really.

Time Played - 2ish hours
Nancymeter - 90/100
Game Completion #32 of 2022
April Completion #1