ElusiveGoose
2023
Lack of tides and cozy vibes
Took me a while to collect my thoughts on this one.
First off, it’s fantastic and probably the best game this year, even if not my favourite.
But why isn’t it my favourite? Why don’t I consider this among my favourite games of all time like Breath of the Wild?
Every step I took across Hyrule just reaffirmed to me what I knew in 2017, that BOTW was so far ahead of the game when it released that it still holds up today in an iterative form. Every system improved, expanse widened and depths plunged can’t shake the feeling that the revolution in open-world design BOTW represented was so monumental that that feeling can’t be recaptured again.
First off, it’s fantastic and probably the best game this year, even if not my favourite.
But why isn’t it my favourite? Why don’t I consider this among my favourite games of all time like Breath of the Wild?
Every step I took across Hyrule just reaffirmed to me what I knew in 2017, that BOTW was so far ahead of the game when it released that it still holds up today in an iterative form. Every system improved, expanse widened and depths plunged can’t shake the feeling that the revolution in open-world design BOTW represented was so monumental that that feeling can’t be recaptured again.
An exceptionally slick game that shows off some neat technological features and the core gameplay remains as fun as ever.
Super-Hero saturation really is setting in though and this a rather unremarkable story in that pantheon.
Insomiac’s New York continues to be the blandest and least interactive ‘open-world’ in the triple-a space. It is pretty set dressing to swing around in but any close examination betrays a cardboard cutout facade.
Overall I was expecting a more substantial step-forward for the reviews this has been getting but expect more of the same just a generation removed from when the original felt fresh and exciting.
I wish Insomniac could lend their expertise to a far more interesting property than Spider-Man (Sunset Overdrive 2, god I beg you) a new idea from the team is needed but I fear PlayStation will have them be the Marvel factory from here on out.
Super-Hero saturation really is setting in though and this a rather unremarkable story in that pantheon.
Insomiac’s New York continues to be the blandest and least interactive ‘open-world’ in the triple-a space. It is pretty set dressing to swing around in but any close examination betrays a cardboard cutout facade.
Overall I was expecting a more substantial step-forward for the reviews this has been getting but expect more of the same just a generation removed from when the original felt fresh and exciting.
I wish Insomniac could lend their expertise to a far more interesting property than Spider-Man (Sunset Overdrive 2, god I beg you) a new idea from the team is needed but I fear PlayStation will have them be the Marvel factory from here on out.
2020
Reviewing this as 2.0 plus Phantom Liberty Expansion after initially considering this a 3 and a half star at release my thoughts have drastically changed
It’s insane that the way a game handles it’s itemisation and progression can drastically alter my feelings on it. Every piece of loot is useful, upgrades feel earned. It’s not overly complicated. Sell weapons or scrap them for parts? - both are needed.
Gigs are a great side distraction, there’s some zany side-jobs. Driving seems like an entirely different model with the added ability to shoot out of your car or use weapon mounted vehicles which is surprisingly robust with satisfying physics that dynamically occurs from bullets slamming and piercing vehicular frames.
Always thought the main story was great and it remains so on the replay - felt some variety going with a netrunner/smart gun build which really added a whole new layer of combat in the quick hacks system that I was completely unaware of before. I’m not sure if this has been overhauled like other systems but it is shockingly fun and you really feel a power increase when investing in it - by the end of my playthrough I could take out entire rooms of enemies by overcharging my cyberware and having all of my enemies shoot themselves in the head or burn out their synapses.
When it comes to the Phantom Liberty expansion, its biggest strength is the setting which feels completely unique to the rest of night city - a more dystopian vision of the Cyberpunk genre. More Escape from New York than Blade-Runner.
I fit the expansion in after I had near 100 percented the rest of NC and Hanako was waiting for me at Embers. The expansion adds an ending which nicely places it as an alternative Act 3 in the game with a mysterious net-runner Songbird claiming she can help you with the corrupted bio-chip.
Surprisingly, while the new content was nice to have as an addendum on a replay, I thought the story was actually not as strong as the main campaign and the new relic tree is underwhelming compared to the excellent new key skill options available. It’s still a great time with far more set pieces that are better paced than the base game due to its more limited scope.
It is a minor complaint that does nothing to hurt what has now become a spellbinding game that is unrivalled in its rendition of an unforgiving but beautiful city; its new skill options make build variety feel meaningful and create a satisfying power curve; the happy middle ground that CD Projekt Red have mastered between the systems heavy open worlds of Bethesda Game Studios and the presentation focused efforts of Rockstar has come into its own and you owe it to yourself to give the game another look.
It’s insane that the way a game handles it’s itemisation and progression can drastically alter my feelings on it. Every piece of loot is useful, upgrades feel earned. It’s not overly complicated. Sell weapons or scrap them for parts? - both are needed.
Gigs are a great side distraction, there’s some zany side-jobs. Driving seems like an entirely different model with the added ability to shoot out of your car or use weapon mounted vehicles which is surprisingly robust with satisfying physics that dynamically occurs from bullets slamming and piercing vehicular frames.
Always thought the main story was great and it remains so on the replay - felt some variety going with a netrunner/smart gun build which really added a whole new layer of combat in the quick hacks system that I was completely unaware of before. I’m not sure if this has been overhauled like other systems but it is shockingly fun and you really feel a power increase when investing in it - by the end of my playthrough I could take out entire rooms of enemies by overcharging my cyberware and having all of my enemies shoot themselves in the head or burn out their synapses.
When it comes to the Phantom Liberty expansion, its biggest strength is the setting which feels completely unique to the rest of night city - a more dystopian vision of the Cyberpunk genre. More Escape from New York than Blade-Runner.
I fit the expansion in after I had near 100 percented the rest of NC and Hanako was waiting for me at Embers. The expansion adds an ending which nicely places it as an alternative Act 3 in the game with a mysterious net-runner Songbird claiming she can help you with the corrupted bio-chip.
Surprisingly, while the new content was nice to have as an addendum on a replay, I thought the story was actually not as strong as the main campaign and the new relic tree is underwhelming compared to the excellent new key skill options available. It’s still a great time with far more set pieces that are better paced than the base game due to its more limited scope.
It is a minor complaint that does nothing to hurt what has now become a spellbinding game that is unrivalled in its rendition of an unforgiving but beautiful city; its new skill options make build variety feel meaningful and create a satisfying power curve; the happy middle ground that CD Projekt Red have mastered between the systems heavy open worlds of Bethesda Game Studios and the presentation focused efforts of Rockstar has come into its own and you owe it to yourself to give the game another look.
While Red Dead Redemption 2 argues that you can't run from progress, the video-game industry has proven it wrong as still no game has come remotely close to its production, fidelity and scale 5 years later.
An achingly beautiful and engrossing creation.
2020
Definitely do not understand the overwhelming love for this one despite still thinking it is a good game
Perhaps most of my issues stem from it's DnD chains but I find the majority of its fantasy trappings incredibly generic and not that interesting to dive into.
The game does have incredibly impressive reactions to your decisions, both systemic and narrative.
This is an incredible tabletop game, maybe the best; but to me, the greatest video-games leverage their medium in ways that no other forms of artistic expression can. Think Outer Wilds explorative loop or Nier Automata's take on a new play-through. BG3 offers nothing that couldn't be achieved through a pen, a dungeon master and some stat sheets just visualised through pixels and polygons instead.
Perhaps most of my issues stem from it's DnD chains but I find the majority of its fantasy trappings incredibly generic and not that interesting to dive into.
The game does have incredibly impressive reactions to your decisions, both systemic and narrative.
This is an incredible tabletop game, maybe the best; but to me, the greatest video-games leverage their medium in ways that no other forms of artistic expression can. Think Outer Wilds explorative loop or Nier Automata's take on a new play-through. BG3 offers nothing that couldn't be achieved through a pen, a dungeon master and some stat sheets just visualised through pixels and polygons instead.
2023
It might not be the game us F-Zero fans have wanted but damn if it isn't fun!
Progression could be a lot better as the cosmetic changes aren't all that interesting or even perceptible with fast paced pixel art.
Progression could be a lot better as the cosmetic changes aren't all that interesting or even perceptible with fast paced pixel art.
2023
A fun little indie RPG. Sublime pixel art does the heavy lifting for its rather bland story-telling.
2020
This relaxing, beautiful and melancholic ode to life and death reminds my poor soul that games aren't products to be consumed but pieces of art to experience.
2023
This review contains spoilers
One of the tightest gaming experiences I have had up until Cid's death - at which point several elements of the game slowly deteriorate in quality.
2022
A good example for publishers that all you need for a successful game, no matter its quality, is dedicate a large part of your budget to bespoke animations for a cute creature.
2023
A great game that has unfortunately been judged for what it isn't rather than what it is.
The fish cannery sequence is one of the best in the history of video-games.
The wonderfully written narration. The incredibly imaginative story. The chained drudgery of manual labour juxtaposed against the freeing excitement of imagination. It is truly incredible.
Edith Finch as a whole is excellent. That sequence though… it’s several steps ahead of most games trying to convey feelings through the interplay of narrative and gameplay.
The wonderfully written narration. The incredibly imaginative story. The chained drudgery of manual labour juxtaposed against the freeing excitement of imagination. It is truly incredible.
Edith Finch as a whole is excellent. That sequence though… it’s several steps ahead of most games trying to convey feelings through the interplay of narrative and gameplay.
2019
A Brief Essay on Outer Wilds: Dissonance in Video-Games and the Pinnacle of a Medium:
There is a difference between games that are ashamed of their medium and others that exist as an extension of it.
The Last Of Us 1 and 2, I would contest, rail against the limitations of a video game. A smooth, cinematic and character driven story is not ideal if one wants the gameplay and its mechanics to extend the themes and motifs being portrayed. This was seen in the LOUP2 when Druckmann wanted to use gameplay to implicate and extend the theme of guilt in his narrative. This ultimately came off as cheap since emotional consistency, due to technological limitations of gaming, is not suited to being a homogeneously succinct part of a 40 hour experience. Dialogue and choices, the driving form of conflict in character dramas, do not yet make a compelling gameplay feature. Because of this the gameplay of the TLOU series is combat, it needs to be fun to be a good game and the guilt of killing people is at a dissonance with the enjoyable aspects of its play mechanic.
Outer Wilds is a perfect example of fiction relishing and excelling in its medium. Every facet of its creation and its gameplay feeding into its wider ideas of exploration, of existential awe and confusion, at the seemingly unknowable depths of knowledge. We can feel the sense of exploration flow through are fingers as worlds are examined. Peeling back layers of mystery through our own actions and growing understanding of the underpinnings of the solar system mirrors the games own reverence towards curiosity. The ship and suit that tethers us to life and the untold number of ways to die forcing the player to fear the enormity and hostility of the wider cosmos and our precarious place in it.
I could gush about this game all day. But I truly do think that, as of now, it is the pinnacle of the video-game medium. No game has taken on such vast and universal ideas, expressed in macro and in micro, and given the player the agency to participate in them with such tact and elegance. Lets consider, the opening moments of the game, we wake up looking at the planets dancing around us and the existential dread of infinite space and time consuming our vision, yet, with a flick of a stick or a drag of a mouse downward we are transported, a welcoming fire and a friendly looking creature greet us. The vast indifference replaced with the familiarity of life and its centrality.
Gaming, as artistic expression, has been mired by the industry. Games are hard to make and cost a lot of money so because of this, it is a very unsophisticated medium. One could say about 3-5 games a year make it into mass consumers hands that exist as an uncompromising body of work; it's hard to treat TLOU2 as something attempting to be auteur when it comes with an ammo-capacity pre-order bonus (I'm only using TLOU2 as an example because of its recent release date and popularity). That may be a rant for another day, but, the existence of The Outer Wilds in the face of an industry so apathetical towards anything other than lowest common denominator creates an even larger gulf in its approach. I do love video-games and, as a relatively new form of expression, I'm so glad The Outer Wilds was created. If not just for the experience it gave me but also as an example of what video-games can achieve.
There is a difference between games that are ashamed of their medium and others that exist as an extension of it.
The Last Of Us 1 and 2, I would contest, rail against the limitations of a video game. A smooth, cinematic and character driven story is not ideal if one wants the gameplay and its mechanics to extend the themes and motifs being portrayed. This was seen in the LOUP2 when Druckmann wanted to use gameplay to implicate and extend the theme of guilt in his narrative. This ultimately came off as cheap since emotional consistency, due to technological limitations of gaming, is not suited to being a homogeneously succinct part of a 40 hour experience. Dialogue and choices, the driving form of conflict in character dramas, do not yet make a compelling gameplay feature. Because of this the gameplay of the TLOU series is combat, it needs to be fun to be a good game and the guilt of killing people is at a dissonance with the enjoyable aspects of its play mechanic.
Outer Wilds is a perfect example of fiction relishing and excelling in its medium. Every facet of its creation and its gameplay feeding into its wider ideas of exploration, of existential awe and confusion, at the seemingly unknowable depths of knowledge. We can feel the sense of exploration flow through are fingers as worlds are examined. Peeling back layers of mystery through our own actions and growing understanding of the underpinnings of the solar system mirrors the games own reverence towards curiosity. The ship and suit that tethers us to life and the untold number of ways to die forcing the player to fear the enormity and hostility of the wider cosmos and our precarious place in it.
I could gush about this game all day. But I truly do think that, as of now, it is the pinnacle of the video-game medium. No game has taken on such vast and universal ideas, expressed in macro and in micro, and given the player the agency to participate in them with such tact and elegance. Lets consider, the opening moments of the game, we wake up looking at the planets dancing around us and the existential dread of infinite space and time consuming our vision, yet, with a flick of a stick or a drag of a mouse downward we are transported, a welcoming fire and a friendly looking creature greet us. The vast indifference replaced with the familiarity of life and its centrality.
Gaming, as artistic expression, has been mired by the industry. Games are hard to make and cost a lot of money so because of this, it is a very unsophisticated medium. One could say about 3-5 games a year make it into mass consumers hands that exist as an uncompromising body of work; it's hard to treat TLOU2 as something attempting to be auteur when it comes with an ammo-capacity pre-order bonus (I'm only using TLOU2 as an example because of its recent release date and popularity). That may be a rant for another day, but, the existence of The Outer Wilds in the face of an industry so apathetical towards anything other than lowest common denominator creates an even larger gulf in its approach. I do love video-games and, as a relatively new form of expression, I'm so glad The Outer Wilds was created. If not just for the experience it gave me but also as an example of what video-games can achieve.