Seinfelddahog
2018
Been a few years since I played this but I remember it being pretty damn great. Maybe not "game of the generation" but considering the circumstances (intense crunch and a hard reboot to the gameplay) this turned out a million times better than it should've. Hoping to go through this on PS5 soon in conjunction with Ragnarok.
TBD
One of the greatest gaming psyops is pretending this game would be good.
Watch the E3 gameplay and count all the numerous AI and presentation bugs. Then remember Human Head told you the version shown was "pretty much complete". Then remember that back in the 360/PS3 days it cost $10,000 to certify a patch, meaning the odds of it being fixed into a playable game were next to none. Then look at The Quiet Man, the embarrassing arthouse Yakuza wannabe Human Head developed years later. Then find out that after creating and pushing the "we didn't want to get bought out by bethesda so they cancelled our game" narrative for years, they intentionally shipped a broken sequel to Rune and got bought out by Bethesda the very same day.
...Starting to see where I'm going with this? Prey 2's nonexistence is required to maintain HH's ideal image of victims and not as what they actually were, hack developers who lost the sauce years before this game was on the chopping block. If this actually came out I think it would've been bargin bin material.
Take the red pill, Neo.
Watch the E3 gameplay and count all the numerous AI and presentation bugs. Then remember Human Head told you the version shown was "pretty much complete". Then remember that back in the 360/PS3 days it cost $10,000 to certify a patch, meaning the odds of it being fixed into a playable game were next to none. Then look at The Quiet Man, the embarrassing arthouse Yakuza wannabe Human Head developed years later. Then find out that after creating and pushing the "we didn't want to get bought out by bethesda so they cancelled our game" narrative for years, they intentionally shipped a broken sequel to Rune and got bought out by Bethesda the very same day.
...Starting to see where I'm going with this? Prey 2's nonexistence is required to maintain HH's ideal image of victims and not as what they actually were, hack developers who lost the sauce years before this game was on the chopping block. If this actually came out I think it would've been bargin bin material.
Take the red pill, Neo.
2020
has an aesthetic that guys who have tweetlongers being written about them will love and call "wholesome"
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE
It's slop but I'm having fun.
IN OUR HEADLIGHTS
STARING BLEAK
BEER CANS
DEER'S EYES
STARING BLEAK
BEER CANS
DEER'S EYES
I was already struggling to enjoy this but playing with a group that had The Most Evil Man Alive really did make me sour on this game even more. Who the fuck decided Grand Theft Auto should be your second job?
It's Bad!
It's Bad!
2013
The story is doodoo and the Online has prevented Rockstar from making anything great ever again, but at least driving around in summer sunny LA and pretending 'Moves Like Jagger' is a good song is a vibe I can fuck with.
2019
The combat is great as to be expected by ID software, but then it stops and then you have to play the crap sandbox game Avalanche Studios made.
To not only save and elevate your series from niche middle market eurojank to a name any Cool Gamer Worth Their Salt cares about, to not only be one of the only western studios to survive Square Enix, but then also to now provide one of the best deals in gaming through bundling every map in the reboot trilogy into one mega-game AND THEN put it it on Game Pass, this version of Hitman 3 is truly special. There aren't many stealth franchises around these days but I'm glad one of them is also one of the greatest games of the cross-generation.
A 40 hour game that feels 50 hours longer than it actually is. I'm a big hater when it comes to games writing but very solid dialogue and incredible performances kept me engaged even as I was blazing through the missions to get it all over it. Still the top dog in terms of original soundtrack, world design and visual and technical detail, but gameplay wise is kneecapped by shooting that still hasn't learned lessons from Max Payne 3, masturbatory attention to detail, and cliche mission design. Everything NakeyJakey said in his video is true.
Still a good game though- don't let the election tourists at /v/ attempt to rewrite history and fool you into thinking otherwise.
Still a good game though- don't let the election tourists at /v/ attempt to rewrite history and fool you into thinking otherwise.
2007
Its writing has inspired a few bad imitators over the years and the fanbase had a catastrophic effect on gaming discourse and memes for years--that infamous Girlz 'N' Games New Years Eve webcomic is a grim time capsule for what game humor was like--but it's also a game I adore. Valve really found a way to make lightning strike twice with wowing people with its busted physics engine.
2023
[This log covers the story demo released before launch]
Annoying. Exactly what you think "Platinum Games style combat by people who balance MMO bosses" would play like- built around dealing chip damage as you wait for cooldowns to end to deal slightly more damage. Looks nice and the voice acting was okay though. Probably not gonna pick the full game up for a long time though, if ever.
Annoying. Exactly what you think "Platinum Games style combat by people who balance MMO bosses" would play like- built around dealing chip damage as you wait for cooldowns to end to deal slightly more damage. Looks nice and the voice acting was okay though. Probably not gonna pick the full game up for a long time though, if ever.
2021
Gave up on this about an hour in. So many bad design choices at its core that I don't want to push myself through it, which is saying a lot because I played Assassin's Creed 3.
When the devs said they were inspired by Devil May Cry, it turns out they were pretty bang on the money. Too bad they didn't specify that it plays like Devil May Cry 2. Just press the fire button from a distance and win. Also I unlocked my first PSI ability and I picked the one that looked like a teleport. Turns out it barely moves you and it sucks your stamina dry, into the negatives even. And you have to wait for it to come out of the negatives because they didn't program it to stop at 0 like a normal video game. It's like how you can fall to your death in Doom 3 and your health is like -219
Also I heard a lot of complaints about the narrator, but holy shit it cannot be stressed enough how bad it is. I set the VO language to Japanese thinking that would pre-emptively solve some issues with it but no, it's just a terrible idea that's baked into the narrative design. You, the player, can't do jack to remedy it. It's so unbelievably stupid- you have to wait for a character to say their line (which is usually one sound file thats repeated ad nauseam because they somehow forgot to record more than one line of gibberish) before your narrator translates what they said in third person. Bare in mind your character was born and raised by creatures speaking this language but instead of just having their dialogue translated on the fly like any localized game released that's in Japanese or Chinese or Russian or whatever you have to wait until the narrator explains it to you like your reading skill is at "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar" levels. In a game rated T For Teen. For a story driven RPG to screw up how it tells its story this badly makes the game a complete nonstarter for me.
Further proof nobody whose worked at Avalanche knows how to make a good sandbox game.
It's Bad!
When the devs said they were inspired by Devil May Cry, it turns out they were pretty bang on the money. Too bad they didn't specify that it plays like Devil May Cry 2. Just press the fire button from a distance and win. Also I unlocked my first PSI ability and I picked the one that looked like a teleport. Turns out it barely moves you and it sucks your stamina dry, into the negatives even. And you have to wait for it to come out of the negatives because they didn't program it to stop at 0 like a normal video game. It's like how you can fall to your death in Doom 3 and your health is like -219
Also I heard a lot of complaints about the narrator, but holy shit it cannot be stressed enough how bad it is. I set the VO language to Japanese thinking that would pre-emptively solve some issues with it but no, it's just a terrible idea that's baked into the narrative design. You, the player, can't do jack to remedy it. It's so unbelievably stupid- you have to wait for a character to say their line (which is usually one sound file thats repeated ad nauseam because they somehow forgot to record more than one line of gibberish) before your narrator translates what they said in third person. Bare in mind your character was born and raised by creatures speaking this language but instead of just having their dialogue translated on the fly like any localized game released that's in Japanese or Chinese or Russian or whatever you have to wait until the narrator explains it to you like your reading skill is at "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar" levels. In a game rated T For Teen. For a story driven RPG to screw up how it tells its story this badly makes the game a complete nonstarter for me.
Further proof nobody whose worked at Avalanche knows how to make a good sandbox game.
It's Bad!