KingBug
2020
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the biggest game ever made. When you start, the map is a forest, and you go “damn, this game is big.” Then you go through a door to another map and realize, “oh my god, this game is big.” Then you get an achievement saying that after 3 maps and like 40 hours, you only just now completed Act 1, and you go “WHOA, this game BIG.”
Then you realize there’s an entire other world underground,
and an ethereal island,
and a massive city,
and an entire secret dimension (three of them actually).
There are secret zones within secret zones within secret zones, so the absolute highest compliment I can pay this game is to tell you that I have beaten this gamefour one times now.
Right out the gate, boom, we’re rippin off Zelda. You literally wake up in a tomb (on a spaceship), open a big door (if you count destroying the ship’s hull as a door), and the game says go. No hand holding, no bullshit, just go wherever you want to go. Except don’t fight that bear, and don’t go to the swamp because you’ll die, and don’t follow the quest markers because that’s a fucking scam.
Baldur’s Gate’s gameplay loop is to put an innocuous quest in front of you and say “okay, now imagine if innocuous quests were actually raw as fuck.” Having absolutely no idea of what narrative twist the game will hurl at you next makes exploration feel that much more meaningful. And, visually, this is a world worth exploring. Walking around in this game is like drinking out of a fire hose. There are hundreds upon hundreds of unique ideas which seem impossibly curated and intentional, and the spaces in between are populated with an absurd array of creative enemies and bosses.
Larian is famous for their enemy design and they are really bringing the heat here, not only in sheer quantity but also in terms of moves and variety. Cats is in this game, brain lizards, brain wizards, flying eyeballs, omnipotent devils that sing the monster mash, they got the Harkonnen spider pet to be in this, stretchy ghost man, the list goes on and on and on and you’re saying Bug PLEASE don’t spoil this game for me but I can’t—this game cannot be spoiled because this game does not end, okay? This is Choose Your Own Adventure, The Bible Edition.
But what’s cool about Baldur’s Gate 3 is that for all the effort that has gone into the world and enemies,… you can also select your difficulty at any time so the balancing is irrelevant. 5/5.
anyways yea uh this was my first proper go at a CRPG and I really hated it for the first 40 hours or so but then it clicked and god damn this game is good and I haven’t seen the sun since January tho someone tell my family I miss th—
Then you realize there’s an entire other world underground,
and an ethereal island,
and a massive city,
and an entire secret dimension (three of them actually).
There are secret zones within secret zones within secret zones, so the absolute highest compliment I can pay this game is to tell you that I have beaten this game
Right out the gate, boom, we’re rippin off Zelda. You literally wake up in a tomb (on a spaceship), open a big door (if you count destroying the ship’s hull as a door), and the game says go. No hand holding, no bullshit, just go wherever you want to go. Except don’t fight that bear, and don’t go to the swamp because you’ll die, and don’t follow the quest markers because that’s a fucking scam.
Baldur’s Gate’s gameplay loop is to put an innocuous quest in front of you and say “okay, now imagine if innocuous quests were actually raw as fuck.” Having absolutely no idea of what narrative twist the game will hurl at you next makes exploration feel that much more meaningful. And, visually, this is a world worth exploring. Walking around in this game is like drinking out of a fire hose. There are hundreds upon hundreds of unique ideas which seem impossibly curated and intentional, and the spaces in between are populated with an absurd array of creative enemies and bosses.
Larian is famous for their enemy design and they are really bringing the heat here, not only in sheer quantity but also in terms of moves and variety. Cats is in this game, brain lizards, brain wizards, flying eyeballs, omnipotent devils that sing the monster mash, they got the Harkonnen spider pet to be in this, stretchy ghost man, the list goes on and on and on and you’re saying Bug PLEASE don’t spoil this game for me but I can’t—this game cannot be spoiled because this game does not end, okay? This is Choose Your Own Adventure, The Bible Edition.
But what’s cool about Baldur’s Gate 3 is that for all the effort that has gone into the world and enemies,… you can also select your difficulty at any time so the balancing is irrelevant. 5/5.
anyways yea uh this was my first proper go at a CRPG and I really hated it for the first 40 hours or so but then it clicked and god damn this game is good and I haven’t seen the sun since January tho someone tell my family I miss th—
2017
Destiny 2 is an excellent video game, sometimes. You already know many of the weaknesses—a drip-feed of bland seasonal content, obnoxious monetization, poor storytelling (despite compelling underlying lore), and the perpetual anxiety of relying on an unreliable studio to hit the highs it is capable of.
The aggravating thing about those shortcomings is that the game is often fantastic. Destiny 2’s core gameplay is so good that every other shooter feels like dogshit. I could write an entire review glowing about the gunplay. The loot is varied and allows for a moderate amount of totally unnecessary buildcrafting. The abilities sandbox demonstrates Bungie’s (natural) mastery of the 30-second gameplay loop. Playing D2 tickles my neurons in just the right way. It’s just plain fun.
Destiny really shines when that gameplay is matched with its best content. D2 raids and dungeons are excellent in every facet. They maximize Destiny’s audiovisual prowess and flex Bungie’s creative muscles to the fullest. They’re great experiences to tackle with randoms, but D2 shines most with friends. I’m grateful to this game for connecting me with a great group of people I never would’ve met otherwise, because it is so bad at connecting players in game that I had to join a clan on Discord.
A kinda-addicting, often-maddening, occasionally-brilliant, always-fun game to play. I’d never recommend it to someone I love, but it’s a great fit for me.
The aggravating thing about those shortcomings is that the game is often fantastic. Destiny 2’s core gameplay is so good that every other shooter feels like dogshit. I could write an entire review glowing about the gunplay. The loot is varied and allows for a moderate amount of totally unnecessary buildcrafting. The abilities sandbox demonstrates Bungie’s (natural) mastery of the 30-second gameplay loop. Playing D2 tickles my neurons in just the right way. It’s just plain fun.
Destiny really shines when that gameplay is matched with its best content. D2 raids and dungeons are excellent in every facet. They maximize Destiny’s audiovisual prowess and flex Bungie’s creative muscles to the fullest. They’re great experiences to tackle with randoms, but D2 shines most with friends. I’m grateful to this game for connecting me with a great group of people I never would’ve met otherwise, because it is so bad at connecting players in game that I had to join a clan on Discord.
A kinda-addicting, often-maddening, occasionally-brilliant, always-fun game to play. I’d never recommend it to someone I love, but it’s a great fit for me.
2021
ya like drugs?
2023
Fresh gameplay, serviceable story, and an audio-visual delight around every corner. What a pleasant little title!
2016
When playing other video games, you can feel competing interests at play in how the final product was designed and implemented. Fun. Profitability. Mass-appeal. Accessibility. Franchise potential. Maximizing playable hours. DLC opportunities. You name it. Compromises are essential to modern video game development.
When playing Titanfall 2, you get a very convincing sense that nobody considered those interests. No compromises were made. The game has a singular goal, and every element of it satisfies a single question:
"Does it fuck?"
The goal was achieved. This game fucks. Trust me.
When playing Titanfall 2, you get a very convincing sense that nobody considered those interests. No compromises were made. The game has a singular goal, and every element of it satisfies a single question:
"Does it fuck?"
The goal was achieved. This game fucks. Trust me.
2023
Holy hell this story is bad and Nimbus can shove it. But actually playing Lightfall—the level design, new subclass, and excellent boss fights in particular are quite good. Fun to play, though I’m worried for the story in the Final Shape.
An all-around good Destiny expansion wowza.
Some great high points are held back by widespread mediocrity. I had more fun playing through this than Shadowkeep. I think the lore-ish parts of this story are quite good, and the villain has some excellent moments accompanying what should be a good angle for a story. Level design is sublime, gameplay is fantastic per the usual and the stasis subclass is a fun twist. Still, it’s a travesty that the story is primarily told through the terribly unappealing Variks, and Europa feels more than a bit barren compared to other locations. It gets most of the endgame elements right, but the campaign itself comes off as a bit lackluster for the most part.
Decent campaign! Not a knockout package, but a solid offering with plenty of enjoyable content to work through. The moon is a meh setting, but the Hive creations within it are great. Story is… fine, and I didn’t love the structure of the grind to the final mission. As usual, gunplay, visuals, and especially audio are immaculate. A few standout moments, particularly in the last mission. Fun playthrough and a worthy addition to this universe.
2021
Is it good? Not really, no. Is it fun? Most often, yes.
Uninspired, banal design. Can’t believe I’m saying this but this was the final straw to convince me that Horizon should be a live service game, with yearly content additions to a growing, somewhat contiguous world. At least that way there would be some incentive for Playground to make something (anything) new. The formula is way past stale.
Also I never want to be called “superstar” ever again, which automatically disqualifies this DLC.
Also I never want to be called “superstar” ever again, which automatically disqualifies this DLC.
2017
This review contains spoilers
A Raw Expression of Unadulterated, Unbridled Creativity
You can't accuse Nier: Automata of not trying. Despite many flaws, this game lived up to the lofty expectations it set for itself (and blew those expectations out of the water) unbelievably often.
Things I hate about N:A:
1) The combat isn't nearly interesting enough to justify the ludicrous balancing spike in Route C. Enemies take just eons to kill. I switched to easy to keep the gameplay time reasonable & not die endlessly. The fighting is fun when fights are more high stakes, high reward. Trying to break my right trigger for 15 minutes isn't that.
2) Route B, while a cool concept, is a chore to play and should be half the length it is.
2.1) This also makes me feel the game's pacing is imperfect. Route A is just immaculate, but in retrospect I wish it was a bit longer... so much of B could be folded into A to really flesh out the relationships, especially between 2B and 9S.
2.2) There's still more time-sucking fetch-questing than I'd like (>0) in N:A, but it's an acceptable level given when this was developed and the vast majority of quality quests.
3) Way too much anime shit. Character models are downright perverted, good voice actors are coopted by atrocious yelling/grunting, the emotion and gravity of some situations are just way over-dramatized from a narrative standpoint on occasion.
Things I love about N:A:
1) Unbridled game-design creativity, implemented without restraint. NieR: Automata stresses the bounds of what 0s and 1s can achieve. So many moments stick out. The godzilla turtle fight. Seeing your own menu screen bumbling again in Route B. The cinematic start of Route C. Everything in The Tower. Ending E. N:A presents as a normal video game, yet it constantly reminds you how much it very much is not.
2) The most god-tier music ever put in a video game. Just a heavenly arrangement of sounds, dynamically implemented into every scene and elevating every single experience in the game.
3) Video game stories usually suck. I'll admit that many games I've downright loved had mid stories with mid implementation, or a good story which hides behind traditional storytelling tools--in essence, a (very enjoyable) interactive book. That's bc it's hard to make a good story in a video game which also takes advantage of the unique limits and opportunities of a video game. To that, N:A says fuck you and launches headlong into a full-blown, unapologetic sci-fi epic. It weaves that epic into the aforementioned creative game design to create an experience only accessible through video game. This tale is essential. It is heavy and introspective, yet often genuinely funny to break the tension when needed. A 20-hour game should not have me questioning my own mortality like this, and it certainly shouldn't have me this attached to characters I've only known for less than a day, yet it does all the same. Any flack N:A catches for trying to be too deep is instantly neutered by bits of self-awareness upon closer inspection. Moreover, you just want to be swept away by it. This story, told how N:A tells it, is a marvel of the medium.
Like with Sekiro, I feel bound by my own rating system here. NieR: Automata is flawed to the core in some respects. I dislike essential elements of this game. Yet despite those flaws, I was absolutely blown away by this game. It left my jaw on the floor time and time and time and time again. A flawed masterpiece which earned my respect, appreciation, and gratitude for existing.
You can't accuse Nier: Automata of not trying. Despite many flaws, this game lived up to the lofty expectations it set for itself (and blew those expectations out of the water) unbelievably often.
Things I hate about N:A:
1) The combat isn't nearly interesting enough to justify the ludicrous balancing spike in Route C. Enemies take just eons to kill. I switched to easy to keep the gameplay time reasonable & not die endlessly. The fighting is fun when fights are more high stakes, high reward. Trying to break my right trigger for 15 minutes isn't that.
2) Route B, while a cool concept, is a chore to play and should be half the length it is.
2.1) This also makes me feel the game's pacing is imperfect. Route A is just immaculate, but in retrospect I wish it was a bit longer... so much of B could be folded into A to really flesh out the relationships, especially between 2B and 9S.
2.2) There's still more time-sucking fetch-questing than I'd like (>0) in N:A, but it's an acceptable level given when this was developed and the vast majority of quality quests.
3) Way too much anime shit. Character models are downright perverted, good voice actors are coopted by atrocious yelling/grunting, the emotion and gravity of some situations are just way over-dramatized from a narrative standpoint on occasion.
Things I love about N:A:
1) Unbridled game-design creativity, implemented without restraint. NieR: Automata stresses the bounds of what 0s and 1s can achieve. So many moments stick out. The godzilla turtle fight. Seeing your own menu screen bumbling again in Route B. The cinematic start of Route C. Everything in The Tower. Ending E. N:A presents as a normal video game, yet it constantly reminds you how much it very much is not.
2) The most god-tier music ever put in a video game. Just a heavenly arrangement of sounds, dynamically implemented into every scene and elevating every single experience in the game.
3) Video game stories usually suck. I'll admit that many games I've downright loved had mid stories with mid implementation, or a good story which hides behind traditional storytelling tools--in essence, a (very enjoyable) interactive book. That's bc it's hard to make a good story in a video game which also takes advantage of the unique limits and opportunities of a video game. To that, N:A says fuck you and launches headlong into a full-blown, unapologetic sci-fi epic. It weaves that epic into the aforementioned creative game design to create an experience only accessible through video game. This tale is essential. It is heavy and introspective, yet often genuinely funny to break the tension when needed. A 20-hour game should not have me questioning my own mortality like this, and it certainly shouldn't have me this attached to characters I've only known for less than a day, yet it does all the same. Any flack N:A catches for trying to be too deep is instantly neutered by bits of self-awareness upon closer inspection. Moreover, you just want to be swept away by it. This story, told how N:A tells it, is a marvel of the medium.
Like with Sekiro, I feel bound by my own rating system here. NieR: Automata is flawed to the core in some respects. I dislike essential elements of this game. Yet despite those flaws, I was absolutely blown away by this game. It left my jaw on the floor time and time and time and time again. A flawed masterpiece which earned my respect, appreciation, and gratitude for existing.
2017
whoa
2017
This review contains spoilers
Huh. Wasn't nearly as sold on that run. Redoing stuff you already did for 75% of the second play just isn't super fun. I think the hacking minigame is supposed to tide you over but it, and I cannot emphasize this enough, suuuuucks lol. All of the highs of the first run are still there, but they feel really diluted having to redo stuff without any suspense. Losing the second heavy weapon is also just kinda punishment. Thankfully I could basically speed run the stuff I had seen before (hence this run being half the length), but still.... I imagine I'll appreciate this run in the grand scheme of things later on, and I feel like I see what they were trying to do for players in the moment too, but it was still a serious chore to push through.
Unlike the first run, I can really only think of two merits for the second one. First, the few new elements on the 2B side are decent. I liked seeing his perspective, and there were some fun gameplay times when he was alone. The highlights were his standalone contributions against Adam and Eve in the hacking platform, which leads to the second pro of the B run: once again, the story. You get some good tidbits in a cool way. Realizing who the narrator was (and watching him come to terms with what he was seeing) was great, and the Adam sequence in the copied city in particular was excellent. Still, I think that was the only moment I had the same sense of mind-melting awe that the A run inspired so regularly--even the bombshell of the run re: YorHa felt relatively uninspired compared to the insanity the early hours of the game held. You basically had to infer something along those lines by that point, and it kinda felt like the entire reason for the B run existing was to tell you that point nonetheless. Such a shame, I feel like there's a lot of wasted potential in the second run, but I still expect I'll come to appreciate it as I slowly unlock the alphabet in Automata.
Unlike the first run, I can really only think of two merits for the second one. First, the few new elements on the 2B side are decent. I liked seeing his perspective, and there were some fun gameplay times when he was alone. The highlights were his standalone contributions against Adam and Eve in the hacking platform, which leads to the second pro of the B run: once again, the story. You get some good tidbits in a cool way. Realizing who the narrator was (and watching him come to terms with what he was seeing) was great, and the Adam sequence in the copied city in particular was excellent. Still, I think that was the only moment I had the same sense of mind-melting awe that the A run inspired so regularly--even the bombshell of the run re: YorHa felt relatively uninspired compared to the insanity the early hours of the game held. You basically had to infer something along those lines by that point, and it kinda felt like the entire reason for the B run existing was to tell you that point nonetheless. Such a shame, I feel like there's a lot of wasted potential in the second run, but I still expect I'll come to appreciate it as I slowly unlock the alphabet in Automata.
2017
This review contains spoilers
What a brilliant experience, and the rare one which can only be achieved through a video game. NieR: Automata pushes the medium forward while leaving your mind reeling from the creativity at your fingertips all the way through. I can't wait for play #2.
I have a grand total of two complaints with this game, which I need to get off my chest now so I can stop thinking about them. First, I can barely tolerate the worst of the anime shit going on here. The female character models & outfits are utterly heinous, and a few of the voice lines (or grunts) are distractingly cringey. Second, it's a damn shame that large swaths of the open world have bland visuals. Endless identical concrete buildings are particularly jarring given how impressive visuals in other sections of the game can be. I can't help but think of BotW, which was released the same year on platforms with lesser performance yet which adopted a visual style which has already aged dramatically better than Automata.
That's it. Those are the two problems I identified in my first run to the credits. Automata is otherwise a masterpiece of video game design. Where to begin? The story is among the most compelling I've experienced through a video game. I have endless questions after my first playthrough, but I explicitly got (and have inferred more) answers and narrative elements than I could've possibly hoped for. Moreover, I'm just dying to see what else I can glean about the story, and I really don't see how it could be left at "machines are sentient." I figured that out a while ago, man! Where are the deeper, darker secrets?? Ugh I have to find out, and I rarely feel that compulsion with games. Also it had me, like, very consciously thinking about philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics? And re-evaluating personal values?? Also the sentient robots immediately made a religious death cult to end their suffering??? Also you can say "Godzilla turtle submarine" and anyone who has played this will know what you're talking about???? What in the hell?????
The music is fucking god-tier. That's all I have to say about that.
And the gameplay, man. It is so cool. Combat is super fun, I've been wanting some good hack and slash action for a while now, and there's lots of room for customization... if you click buttons in the menu, which I didn't for an embarrassingly long time bc I was invested in the story. Game is a lot easier when you use your chip memory slots lol. I wouldn't have been such a resource hoarder if I'd known I was gonna roll credits at <9 hours though. But the absolutely slapping part is how the game just seamlessly melds perspective. There are barely traditional "levels" in NieR; the game instead warps your perspective between 2D, 3D, and combinations of the two to make easily a half-dozen+ different ways to play with almost no interruption. And your movesets very naturally but non-trivially change between them! And it happens all at once! Sometimes cutscenes happen without a cut, just spinning the camera around to indicate some narrative shit is happening now, and then it moves again and you're back in the action! What!? Oh so cool.
This horribly unedited brain-dump of a "review" is so unorganized bc this game overloaded my brain. I am overwhelmed by so much of it, but in the best way possible. Now that I've ranted my thoughts I can press "Continue" on my Xbox and get rolling again. A mind-meltingly appealing, nearly-perfect video game... so far. I will give a final star rating when I'm done done with it, as an average-ish of my logs by ending.
I have a grand total of two complaints with this game, which I need to get off my chest now so I can stop thinking about them. First, I can barely tolerate the worst of the anime shit going on here. The female character models & outfits are utterly heinous, and a few of the voice lines (or grunts) are distractingly cringey. Second, it's a damn shame that large swaths of the open world have bland visuals. Endless identical concrete buildings are particularly jarring given how impressive visuals in other sections of the game can be. I can't help but think of BotW, which was released the same year on platforms with lesser performance yet which adopted a visual style which has already aged dramatically better than Automata.
That's it. Those are the two problems I identified in my first run to the credits. Automata is otherwise a masterpiece of video game design. Where to begin? The story is among the most compelling I've experienced through a video game. I have endless questions after my first playthrough, but I explicitly got (and have inferred more) answers and narrative elements than I could've possibly hoped for. Moreover, I'm just dying to see what else I can glean about the story, and I really don't see how it could be left at "machines are sentient." I figured that out a while ago, man! Where are the deeper, darker secrets?? Ugh I have to find out, and I rarely feel that compulsion with games. Also it had me, like, very consciously thinking about philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics? And re-evaluating personal values?? Also the sentient robots immediately made a religious death cult to end their suffering??? Also you can say "Godzilla turtle submarine" and anyone who has played this will know what you're talking about???? What in the hell?????
The music is fucking god-tier. That's all I have to say about that.
And the gameplay, man. It is so cool. Combat is super fun, I've been wanting some good hack and slash action for a while now, and there's lots of room for customization... if you click buttons in the menu, which I didn't for an embarrassingly long time bc I was invested in the story. Game is a lot easier when you use your chip memory slots lol. I wouldn't have been such a resource hoarder if I'd known I was gonna roll credits at <9 hours though. But the absolutely slapping part is how the game just seamlessly melds perspective. There are barely traditional "levels" in NieR; the game instead warps your perspective between 2D, 3D, and combinations of the two to make easily a half-dozen+ different ways to play with almost no interruption. And your movesets very naturally but non-trivially change between them! And it happens all at once! Sometimes cutscenes happen without a cut, just spinning the camera around to indicate some narrative shit is happening now, and then it moves again and you're back in the action! What!? Oh so cool.
This horribly unedited brain-dump of a "review" is so unorganized bc this game overloaded my brain. I am overwhelmed by so much of it, but in the best way possible. Now that I've ranted my thoughts I can press "Continue" on my Xbox and get rolling again. A mind-meltingly appealing, nearly-perfect video game... so far. I will give a final star rating when I'm done done with it, as an average-ish of my logs by ending.