Epic Games thought Gears of War looked SO good, they'd just make it their whole thing for a couple of years! Not nearly as good as previous entries and drained of all its charm, but there's some cool ideas in here- like really outlandish vehicle designs- that I suppose die in the dirt along with the series now. Jump off the top of a Facing Worlds tower and hit the feign death button for funnies.
2020
Did generous monetization kill Legends of Runeterra? Not entirely, but there is precedent for it being a factor. Just as Riot Games made DoTA more accessible in the form of League of Legends, they tried this same hand at turning the digital trading card game genre into something that wouldn’t corrupt your mind and empty your wallet.
All of this packaged into something for the then drowning ‘League of Legends loreheads.’ The ever-punished whipping boys for the game that got hollowed out to be little more than a slot machine, where major players in their own lore events are phased out by the never-ending horde of pretty same-face models, where their biggest influencers are bribed to gleefully clap like seals when they twinkify Thresh for China. They didn’t remember Yorick Mori for the Ruination, because Vayne needs another skin, baby! $$$
So now the setting of the League of Legends universe- and yes, it does have a setting, as Arcane reminded all of us- is properly respected and fleshed out. Beyond champions, we have a steady rate of characters, landmarks and all sorts of other fluff padding out major places and events.
Or at least, that’s how it started.
OC characters in favour of getting people’s favourite champions in, the ‘lore’ being sidestepped for bizarre champion matchups, (Marrying Veigar to Senna, seriously?) making Lux, again, because you have absolutely nothing left to give- and Nilah is going up against Mordekaiser- because nobody, and I mean NOBODY, cares about Rell. Nilah is going up against everyone, actually. Sure hope you're a fan of Nilah! Legends of Runeterra ran out of steam by the end of year one, was on life support by the end of year two, and the plug was all but pulled by year four. That is unthinkable for the studio that made League of Legends, an absolutely colossal blunder.
But ultimately, there’s just nothing for the paypigs, that’s the fuck of it. It’s the absolutely worst thing you can say about a game, possibly ever, “there wasn’t ENOUGH microtransactions, actually.” The cards themselves were acquired so easily that it barely mattered. Within the first year I had everything I wanted- and enough currency that I would be able to buy whole sets that would come in the future, and that’s not even extensive play, mind you. That’s just idly completing dailies and practically nothing else.
The skins were garbage, highly selective as to who got special treatment (you’ll never guess). Animations, card effects, alternate card skins, all of which were applied randomly to some skins, with the others worthless buys with nothing to enjoy but different splash art. Wowie.
Never mind the glacial pace in which they responded to the meta, balancing being 'so twicky :(' that Riot just gave up and slowly turned LoR into a PvE game instead. They pulled their punches, the momentum was never capitalised on, and it killed the whole game slowly but surely. Should have just released Fiddlesticks, man.
All of this packaged into something for the then drowning ‘League of Legends loreheads.’ The ever-punished whipping boys for the game that got hollowed out to be little more than a slot machine, where major players in their own lore events are phased out by the never-ending horde of pretty same-face models, where their biggest influencers are bribed to gleefully clap like seals when they twinkify Thresh for China. They didn’t remember Yorick Mori for the Ruination, because Vayne needs another skin, baby! $$$
So now the setting of the League of Legends universe- and yes, it does have a setting, as Arcane reminded all of us- is properly respected and fleshed out. Beyond champions, we have a steady rate of characters, landmarks and all sorts of other fluff padding out major places and events.
Or at least, that’s how it started.
OC characters in favour of getting people’s favourite champions in, the ‘lore’ being sidestepped for bizarre champion matchups, (Marrying Veigar to Senna, seriously?) making Lux, again, because you have absolutely nothing left to give- and Nilah is going up against Mordekaiser- because nobody, and I mean NOBODY, cares about Rell. Nilah is going up against everyone, actually. Sure hope you're a fan of Nilah! Legends of Runeterra ran out of steam by the end of year one, was on life support by the end of year two, and the plug was all but pulled by year four. That is unthinkable for the studio that made League of Legends, an absolutely colossal blunder.
But ultimately, there’s just nothing for the paypigs, that’s the fuck of it. It’s the absolutely worst thing you can say about a game, possibly ever, “there wasn’t ENOUGH microtransactions, actually.” The cards themselves were acquired so easily that it barely mattered. Within the first year I had everything I wanted- and enough currency that I would be able to buy whole sets that would come in the future, and that’s not even extensive play, mind you. That’s just idly completing dailies and practically nothing else.
The skins were garbage, highly selective as to who got special treatment (you’ll never guess). Animations, card effects, alternate card skins, all of which were applied randomly to some skins, with the others worthless buys with nothing to enjoy but different splash art. Wowie.
Never mind the glacial pace in which they responded to the meta, balancing being 'so twicky :(' that Riot just gave up and slowly turned LoR into a PvE game instead. They pulled their punches, the momentum was never capitalised on, and it killed the whole game slowly but surely. Should have just released Fiddlesticks, man.
It’s probably what your kid brother would have put together and acted out as his fever dream of a Destroy All Humans fan-game- in that I find it endearing, if a little pathetic. Might make you want to throw the wii-mote out of a window- also like your kid brother- depending on how far along he is in the Big Willy script. One joke.
2001
Half-Life without the structure, Halo without the spectacle. It’s got a bit of camp on its side, some impressive tech with the destructible environments, and not much else.
Honestly didn’t even feel like there was any purpose to said impressive tech. It was the definitive answer to a few situations, yet wasn’t applicable in others. Some of the bunkers blow up, and some don’t! Lost on me.
The story is fairly uninspired, carried by faint glimmers of funny character moments. Parker (the player character) shoots the main villain during his introduction sequence, but he’s protected by an invincible nanotech shield, so it’s pointless. Said villain then carefully explains how he’s protected by an invincible nanotech shield, only for Parker to just dump another mag into him anyway- because he’s just such an angry, die hard revolutionary, he doesn’t care.
Other things, like guards accidentally firing into crowds of unarmed workers they’re here to protect is an amusing bit of commentary. Your hacker companion, Hendrix, guiding you into a room during a stealth segment, only for him to say “This is where I work, hi :)” was the most endearing moment in an otherwise bland array of characters.
Also, stealth sections! There are a couple of them that break up the shooting sections as things start heating up, and I thought they were interesting- if a bit clunky. They’re not used to their fullest potential- giving you a more in-depth look at the atrocities committed by Ultor Corp, or even showing you another side to the conflict, and they are entirely optional, so nothing is stopping you from just shooting everyone up anyway. Given how frustratingly binary the stealth can be, you’ll probably want to.
Shooting’s alright, it’s there. Loads of guns, you’ll probably pick one or three favourites and won’t use anything else. Surprisingly very few play into the environmental destruction aspect, with two rocket launchers (yes, two) and some blast charges filling that role. I don’t know whose idea it was to make a one-shot-kill railgun that doesn’t just shoot through walls, it comes with a scope that allows you to see through them, I also don’t know whose idea it was to put that into the hands of mercenaries that strafe like Unreal Tournament bots and are crack shots to boot. I don’t know, but they should probably never have ideas ever again.
I think there’s a tightrope in game design between making a level a believable place that exists within its own world, and making it actually fun to go through. Black Mesa looks like a facility that could reasonably exist in our world, and so does the Ultor complex. But Black Mesa is also a series of levels in a video game, and functions perfectly as such, where Ultor complex has a load of oversized rooms and repetitive, looping hallways. Actually a lot like some of the stuff in the original Halo, but without the much more engaging art design.
There are seemingly huge swaths of totally missable, completely pointless areas- especially as the final levels pan out- as it usually costs you just as many resources exploring said areas as you might (read: MIGHT) stand to gain. The mercenaries do so much damage, it isn’t worth the risk. And then it can be just plain confusing. You can, many times, go into a side-route, only to realise you’re going backwards through a side-route whose entrance you missed earlier. It’s dizzying and keeps you from straying from the stated path after a while.
And then there’s the pacing, it’s absolutely frantic. Half-Life (and I know it is a little bit unfair to compare this game so unfavourably to Half-Life, sorry) has chapters, many of which have clear cut goals that can encompass the entire section. Red Faction just starts and stops the tension almost instantly. Imagine if you could beat the Gargantua in Power Up in thirty seconds, that pretty much happens in Red Faction- complete with having to kill it with an environmental trap. Red Faction skips set up and pay off, things just happen.
Oh, that invincible nanotech shield I mentioned earlier? Parker had it right. You do just shoot the thing and it eventually ceases to function. The main antagonist dies in one assault rifle mag, halfway through the game. It’s bonkers.
I checked out about halfway through it, and that isn’t particularly long. The game is (mercifully) quite short, that’s one of the best things about it. From what I understand, Red Faction only goes up from here, but I have no idea who would stick around for the ride.
Honestly didn’t even feel like there was any purpose to said impressive tech. It was the definitive answer to a few situations, yet wasn’t applicable in others. Some of the bunkers blow up, and some don’t! Lost on me.
The story is fairly uninspired, carried by faint glimmers of funny character moments. Parker (the player character) shoots the main villain during his introduction sequence, but he’s protected by an invincible nanotech shield, so it’s pointless. Said villain then carefully explains how he’s protected by an invincible nanotech shield, only for Parker to just dump another mag into him anyway- because he’s just such an angry, die hard revolutionary, he doesn’t care.
Other things, like guards accidentally firing into crowds of unarmed workers they’re here to protect is an amusing bit of commentary. Your hacker companion, Hendrix, guiding you into a room during a stealth segment, only for him to say “This is where I work, hi :)” was the most endearing moment in an otherwise bland array of characters.
Also, stealth sections! There are a couple of them that break up the shooting sections as things start heating up, and I thought they were interesting- if a bit clunky. They’re not used to their fullest potential- giving you a more in-depth look at the atrocities committed by Ultor Corp, or even showing you another side to the conflict, and they are entirely optional, so nothing is stopping you from just shooting everyone up anyway. Given how frustratingly binary the stealth can be, you’ll probably want to.
Shooting’s alright, it’s there. Loads of guns, you’ll probably pick one or three favourites and won’t use anything else. Surprisingly very few play into the environmental destruction aspect, with two rocket launchers (yes, two) and some blast charges filling that role. I don’t know whose idea it was to make a one-shot-kill railgun that doesn’t just shoot through walls, it comes with a scope that allows you to see through them, I also don’t know whose idea it was to put that into the hands of mercenaries that strafe like Unreal Tournament bots and are crack shots to boot. I don’t know, but they should probably never have ideas ever again.
I think there’s a tightrope in game design between making a level a believable place that exists within its own world, and making it actually fun to go through. Black Mesa looks like a facility that could reasonably exist in our world, and so does the Ultor complex. But Black Mesa is also a series of levels in a video game, and functions perfectly as such, where Ultor complex has a load of oversized rooms and repetitive, looping hallways. Actually a lot like some of the stuff in the original Halo, but without the much more engaging art design.
There are seemingly huge swaths of totally missable, completely pointless areas- especially as the final levels pan out- as it usually costs you just as many resources exploring said areas as you might (read: MIGHT) stand to gain. The mercenaries do so much damage, it isn’t worth the risk. And then it can be just plain confusing. You can, many times, go into a side-route, only to realise you’re going backwards through a side-route whose entrance you missed earlier. It’s dizzying and keeps you from straying from the stated path after a while.
And then there’s the pacing, it’s absolutely frantic. Half-Life (and I know it is a little bit unfair to compare this game so unfavourably to Half-Life, sorry) has chapters, many of which have clear cut goals that can encompass the entire section. Red Faction just starts and stops the tension almost instantly. Imagine if you could beat the Gargantua in Power Up in thirty seconds, that pretty much happens in Red Faction- complete with having to kill it with an environmental trap. Red Faction skips set up and pay off, things just happen.
Oh, that invincible nanotech shield I mentioned earlier? Parker had it right. You do just shoot the thing and it eventually ceases to function. The main antagonist dies in one assault rifle mag, halfway through the game. It’s bonkers.
I checked out about halfway through it, and that isn’t particularly long. The game is (mercifully) quite short, that’s one of the best things about it. From what I understand, Red Faction only goes up from here, but I have no idea who would stick around for the ride.
2015
Maybe not the best 'game' of Frictional's fare- it's more guided than something like The Dark Descent- but it's the peak of their horror experiences. Nothing but dread- existential and otherwise- in a hopeless, lightless pit at the bottom of the ocean. Save me, naked man.
2013
DOTA 2 may just be one of the greatest games I couldn't play, still can't play, and probably never will be able to play now. Watching sub 500 mmr games from nearly a decade ago to now is staggering, the bar is up there and it feels utterly alienating even just to touch, but just to peer into the windows, that you might get a glimpse of watching someone else have a go at it is enough.
2008
It’s pretty safe to say at this juncture that Bethesda doesn’t ‘get’ Fallout, or rather- that they don’t care to get it. They bought the rights so they’ll just keep moulding it into the same dungeon delver that the Elder Scrolls series embodies, another crown jewel of shining Bethesdaland: World of broken, hollow toys.
I’m sorry to those No Mutants Allowed forumposters that I dismissed as embittered nerds all those years ago. You were right, and if Fallout 3 is the first volley of nukes that destroyed this series, then the never-ending barrage of missiles that has repeatedly scorched not just this franchise, but all of the IPs we’ve held so dearly for the past 20+ years is our fault, and it started in places just like this game. Still, I do like Fallout 3. Part of it being my first Fallout venture, I suppose.
The green-tinted aesthetic of the Capital Wasteland may have looked bog standard when surrounded by the brown and grey games of the previous next gen, but I can’t help but find it strangely charming now. DC may not have the depth of storytelling that New Vegas so proudly carries, (before it was all retconned out, obviously) but their toybox is a fun place to explore, every nook and cranny has a little something to ogle at, in true Bethesdaland fashion. It does, ultimately, just work. We’re getting increasingly diminishing returns in this day and age, but it does work.
I can’t redeem its stupidly cinematic narrative or its bizarre rewrites of returning factions. Fallout 2’s critique of big government through the Enclave, only for them to become The Empire in 3 being especially egregious, but Fallout 3 has a way with all the little stories littering the wasteland, complete with all the environmental storytelling skeletons and ruined vistas. It fails utterly even at telling its own larger stories, like whatever they thought Big Town was, but there’s a little glimmer of hope where there isn’t now.
The writing in the wall was there (and it spelled out ‘FUCK YOU’) and I never truly saw it until it was too late. Now it's TV shows for redditors and slot machine games for addicts, and I helped make it happen. It’s all over but the crying, and nobody’s crying but me.
I’m sorry to those No Mutants Allowed forumposters that I dismissed as embittered nerds all those years ago. You were right, and if Fallout 3 is the first volley of nukes that destroyed this series, then the never-ending barrage of missiles that has repeatedly scorched not just this franchise, but all of the IPs we’ve held so dearly for the past 20+ years is our fault, and it started in places just like this game. Still, I do like Fallout 3. Part of it being my first Fallout venture, I suppose.
The green-tinted aesthetic of the Capital Wasteland may have looked bog standard when surrounded by the brown and grey games of the previous next gen, but I can’t help but find it strangely charming now. DC may not have the depth of storytelling that New Vegas so proudly carries, (before it was all retconned out, obviously) but their toybox is a fun place to explore, every nook and cranny has a little something to ogle at, in true Bethesdaland fashion. It does, ultimately, just work. We’re getting increasingly diminishing returns in this day and age, but it does work.
I can’t redeem its stupidly cinematic narrative or its bizarre rewrites of returning factions. Fallout 2’s critique of big government through the Enclave, only for them to become The Empire in 3 being especially egregious, but Fallout 3 has a way with all the little stories littering the wasteland, complete with all the environmental storytelling skeletons and ruined vistas. It fails utterly even at telling its own larger stories, like whatever they thought Big Town was, but there’s a little glimmer of hope where there isn’t now.
The writing in the wall was there (and it spelled out ‘FUCK YOU’) and I never truly saw it until it was too late. Now it's TV shows for redditors and slot machine games for addicts, and I helped make it happen. It’s all over but the crying, and nobody’s crying but me.
Clever trick to pull, showcasing Natalya with even bigger tits than the original game in the trailers and championing the ‘perfectly faithful remaster’ angle, only to cut an entire mission and several lines of dialogue for the ever-nebulous ‘modern audience.’ Please die and take your poorly performing, unbalanced technical mess back to the black pit you spawned from.
The red-headed stepchild of the Elder Scrolls series, where demons come out of his door to Oblivion (This is awful, please don’t actually leave this in). He is both beloved and maligned, criticised yet adored. He ruined gaming forever with just one dlc pack, but- um, the memes are funny?
Skyrim is accessible to a fault, a game that you can just pick up and play. Its greatest moments come in the quiet moments of exploration. Morrowind stands in stark contrast as an alien and inhospitable place, getting engrossed in an entirely other world is captivating, drinking in its bizarre culture and esoteric lore. Todd Howard saw Lord of the Rings and thought “sick, we’ll do that.” That is Oblivion.
We can talk about the gameplay, we both know about that. The level scaling, turning every encounter into something unkillable, the annoyingly precise stat allocation required on your character, “ah the clunkiness, can’t stand the clunkiness.” Mechanics probably won’t be what sucks you in, so what would be the draw?
The freedom! That’s what Bethesdaslop lovers crave. It’s the freedom to do anything you want and damn the consequences. Oblivion’s waltz out of the tutorial gate and seeing the beautiful countryside in the distance, the shimmering lake beckoning you to take a dive, the bone white ruins of Vilverin usher you into its mystery. Seeing that mountain, wondering if you could climb it (not yet). Its immediate offer of ‘go anywhere, do anything’ further cemented the future design doctrine of all Bethesda games. But are you really free? I mean, really? It’s not much of a roleplaying game, all things considered. It hardly lends itself to such a task. Oh, we’re not doing very well here, are we?
Okay, well. The writing is talked up a lot, but it really isn’t that good. Better than Skyrim, sure, but that’s hardly a feat. The Dark Brotherhood questline is held up as the golden standard- but even that doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny- and the main quest is often outright ignored, so that can’t be a good sign. What the fuck is it then?
Why is Oblivion still adored by so many? Why is it one of my favourite games of all time? A damned near obsession of mine, some would say. For most, the answer is simple. Your first Bethesda game tends to be your favourite, such was the case for me. How would I put it? It’s kind of anecdotal, really, but let me try to explain:
Wandering into the basement of a random house, seeing corpses and blood strewn around everywhere, turning around and seeing the homeowner corner you in the darkness, only for him to greet you with, “Good day, how fares you this fine eve?” All while Jeremy Soule is playing his little heart out on the strings. Duh-duh-duh-duhhh-duh-duuuhhh~. There’s a reason Oblivion stands infamous for its lovely potato-faced denizens and awkward, stilted dialogue, but it’s the juxtaposition of their eeriness with such a worldly, standard high-fantasy environment, as the looming threat of actual hell comes to swallow you all. There’s a strange feeling of discomfort the game wraps around you, its stares disarming, the flicker of sheer madness lurking underneath their ungainly smiles. Unnerving, yet alluring all the same.
It’s drenched in this unshakeable charm despite everything visually going against it, something both deeply alien and all too familiar. A world that appears so real at first, then crumbles at the slightest touch of the player character, sometimes without needing your exact input either. And it’s in this place- between the uncanny valley and the scent of mother- that you’ll find Oblivion so strangely homely. My heart is still there, as it has been for over a decade. Wandering the Jerall Mountains, taking in the scenery, skittering just out of sight, eating your sweetrolls, gestating, taking form, lurking. Always lurking.
Constructing demented murder scenes and imagining the horrified responses of those that would discover it covered a great deal of my 300-something hours on the Playstation 3. A gleeful, slightly worrying past-time of tiny crows that now very big crows is actively writing long-winded, melodramatic fanfiction about to this day. Weird how things turn out, eh?
It’s almost impossible to describe. Oblivion is paradoxical in nature, a crawling mass of contradictions. Like a riddle, or a bad joke. But for all of its many faults and eccentricities- it all melts away every time the sun sets on the Colovian Highlands and I hear the Peace of Akatosh for what must be the billionth time. Those rolling green hills and towering trees, that whistle in the wind and the funny, impish creatures spattered around takes me all the way back to my first time touching the game all those many, many years ago. And it’s in these great hills where I shall make my grave.
Skyrim is accessible to a fault, a game that you can just pick up and play. Its greatest moments come in the quiet moments of exploration. Morrowind stands in stark contrast as an alien and inhospitable place, getting engrossed in an entirely other world is captivating, drinking in its bizarre culture and esoteric lore. Todd Howard saw Lord of the Rings and thought “sick, we’ll do that.” That is Oblivion.
We can talk about the gameplay, we both know about that. The level scaling, turning every encounter into something unkillable, the annoyingly precise stat allocation required on your character, “ah the clunkiness, can’t stand the clunkiness.” Mechanics probably won’t be what sucks you in, so what would be the draw?
The freedom! That’s what Bethesdaslop lovers crave. It’s the freedom to do anything you want and damn the consequences. Oblivion’s waltz out of the tutorial gate and seeing the beautiful countryside in the distance, the shimmering lake beckoning you to take a dive, the bone white ruins of Vilverin usher you into its mystery. Seeing that mountain, wondering if you could climb it (not yet). Its immediate offer of ‘go anywhere, do anything’ further cemented the future design doctrine of all Bethesda games. But are you really free? I mean, really? It’s not much of a roleplaying game, all things considered. It hardly lends itself to such a task. Oh, we’re not doing very well here, are we?
Okay, well. The writing is talked up a lot, but it really isn’t that good. Better than Skyrim, sure, but that’s hardly a feat. The Dark Brotherhood questline is held up as the golden standard- but even that doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny- and the main quest is often outright ignored, so that can’t be a good sign. What the fuck is it then?
Why is Oblivion still adored by so many? Why is it one of my favourite games of all time? A damned near obsession of mine, some would say. For most, the answer is simple. Your first Bethesda game tends to be your favourite, such was the case for me. How would I put it? It’s kind of anecdotal, really, but let me try to explain:
Wandering into the basement of a random house, seeing corpses and blood strewn around everywhere, turning around and seeing the homeowner corner you in the darkness, only for him to greet you with, “Good day, how fares you this fine eve?” All while Jeremy Soule is playing his little heart out on the strings. Duh-duh-duh-duhhh-duh-duuuhhh~. There’s a reason Oblivion stands infamous for its lovely potato-faced denizens and awkward, stilted dialogue, but it’s the juxtaposition of their eeriness with such a worldly, standard high-fantasy environment, as the looming threat of actual hell comes to swallow you all. There’s a strange feeling of discomfort the game wraps around you, its stares disarming, the flicker of sheer madness lurking underneath their ungainly smiles. Unnerving, yet alluring all the same.
It’s drenched in this unshakeable charm despite everything visually going against it, something both deeply alien and all too familiar. A world that appears so real at first, then crumbles at the slightest touch of the player character, sometimes without needing your exact input either. And it’s in this place- between the uncanny valley and the scent of mother- that you’ll find Oblivion so strangely homely. My heart is still there, as it has been for over a decade. Wandering the Jerall Mountains, taking in the scenery, skittering just out of sight, eating your sweetrolls, gestating, taking form, lurking. Always lurking.
Constructing demented murder scenes and imagining the horrified responses of those that would discover it covered a great deal of my 300-something hours on the Playstation 3. A gleeful, slightly worrying past-time of tiny crows that now very big crows is actively writing long-winded, melodramatic fanfiction about to this day. Weird how things turn out, eh?
It’s almost impossible to describe. Oblivion is paradoxical in nature, a crawling mass of contradictions. Like a riddle, or a bad joke. But for all of its many faults and eccentricities- it all melts away every time the sun sets on the Colovian Highlands and I hear the Peace of Akatosh for what must be the billionth time. Those rolling green hills and towering trees, that whistle in the wind and the funny, impish creatures spattered around takes me all the way back to my first time touching the game all those many, many years ago. And it’s in these great hills where I shall make my grave.
The original DLC started out as blatant theft and sunk the already shaky reputation of Creative Assembly. Doubling up the units after six months is...nice? But most of these additions are scraping the bottom of the barrel (Tzeentch-marked Centigors?) or cut content that should have been in the game to begin with (Gate-masters). But none of this changes the fact that all three campaigns have horrible concepts and worse executions- and nothing has been done to fix them, mostly because there's just no time. CA have to move onto Thrones of Decay to prove themselves, or Sega's going to have to brandish the whip again- and a part of me hopes they garrote those crazy bastards in Horsham, so that they might join the great pack in the sky...
Ostankya marks the fracturing of Kislev's identity into a complete mess. She should have been part of a DLC later down the line as the rest of the lords get their armies bolstered and their mechanics fleshed out. The ungol/gospodar divide has been removed, because I guess an ethnic conflict in fantasy Russia draws too many parallels to current geopolitical conflicts for GW? That leaves us with ICE and BEARS, reducing Kislev to something utterly lame. BUT WAIT, now Ostankya brings...chaos beasts! To the bulwark against... chaos? That, and the ONE TRUE HAG OF KISLEV doesn't start in a Kislev forest and her mechanics are bullshit. But hey, at least we have the lore of Hags! Or whatever.
Yuan Bo possesses so many titles, even Settra is raising his fleshy eyebrows at him. Ambassador, Executioner, Spymaster. He's got so much going on that he embodies everything and nothing at once. His model is WoW-tier and his faction mechanic lets you buy out all of Cathay in a handful of turns. Couldn't really pay me to play Cathay though, so I'm not exactly sure about this one.
And just like that, the Changeling trolls us all by snubbing not just the Blue Scribes as an LL, but Aekold Helbrass as well (let's face it, he probably nicked Egrimm's spot too). All for a campaign that you cannot lose. That's not hyperbole. You'd have to go out of your way to face any kind of dire consequences when you're invisible on the campaign map and no one can touch your settlements. It's just not fun, and I've already gone straight back to Kairos and Vilitch. At least the Chaos Lord and Exalted Hero are cool.
Anyway, ignore shills. The DLC has gone from awful to stunningly mediocre but still broken. Certainly not the cream.api of the crop, and I would still not waste your money on it. If CA don't get their act together for Thrones of...Delay...(hold your laughter, please) it's over. And if it is, the cataclysmic conclusion to the Total Warhammer trilogy couldn't have come sooner enough.
Ostankya marks the fracturing of Kislev's identity into a complete mess. She should have been part of a DLC later down the line as the rest of the lords get their armies bolstered and their mechanics fleshed out. The ungol/gospodar divide has been removed, because I guess an ethnic conflict in fantasy Russia draws too many parallels to current geopolitical conflicts for GW? That leaves us with ICE and BEARS, reducing Kislev to something utterly lame. BUT WAIT, now Ostankya brings...chaos beasts! To the bulwark against... chaos? That, and the ONE TRUE HAG OF KISLEV doesn't start in a Kislev forest and her mechanics are bullshit. But hey, at least we have the lore of Hags! Or whatever.
Yuan Bo possesses so many titles, even Settra is raising his fleshy eyebrows at him. Ambassador, Executioner, Spymaster. He's got so much going on that he embodies everything and nothing at once. His model is WoW-tier and his faction mechanic lets you buy out all of Cathay in a handful of turns. Couldn't really pay me to play Cathay though, so I'm not exactly sure about this one.
And just like that, the Changeling trolls us all by snubbing not just the Blue Scribes as an LL, but Aekold Helbrass as well (let's face it, he probably nicked Egrimm's spot too). All for a campaign that you cannot lose. That's not hyperbole. You'd have to go out of your way to face any kind of dire consequences when you're invisible on the campaign map and no one can touch your settlements. It's just not fun, and I've already gone straight back to Kairos and Vilitch. At least the Chaos Lord and Exalted Hero are cool.
Anyway, ignore shills. The DLC has gone from awful to stunningly mediocre but still broken. Certainly not the cream.api of the crop, and I would still not waste your money on it. If CA don't get their act together for Thrones of...Delay...(hold your laughter, please) it's over. And if it is, the cataclysmic conclusion to the Total Warhammer trilogy couldn't have come sooner enough.
2000
The original TimeSplitters is entirely skippable. You're not really missing anything- aside from a few maps I still see when I close my eyes. The docks, the mansion, the castle, the graveyard, the seaside village.
It's Free Radical working out all the kinks to their little Goldeneye 64 successor. A senseless and wild shooter that has you staggering through a myriad of missions through time. The great big bloody leap from this to its sequel is really kind of shocking and that's probably the one big reason you'd want to play it. Just to see how far they've come in such short time.
It's Free Radical working out all the kinks to their little Goldeneye 64 successor. A senseless and wild shooter that has you staggering through a myriad of missions through time. The great big bloody leap from this to its sequel is really kind of shocking and that's probably the one big reason you'd want to play it. Just to see how far they've come in such short time.
Was Spyro running out of steam by the year of the dragon? Maybe. Do I care? Please interpret the image of Spyro wearing sunglasses as my official answer. I thank you.
2007
Always thought Crysis kind of peaked right at the start and should have kept pushing with its military sandbox/almost simulation super-soldier route. Playing Predator in the jungle and using people's bodies to destroy shanty houses never quite gets old.
How do you talk about a game that you can never go back to? The mind is perhaps clouded by nostalgia, yet I remember adoring it- for all the frustrations the even then egregious monetization method wrought.
We see it a lot with Games as a Service and it's only going to get worse. A thousand digital graves, a million dead pixels. Still, I set a flower here. I thought you were fun.
We see it a lot with Games as a Service and it's only going to get worse. A thousand digital graves, a million dead pixels. Still, I set a flower here. I thought you were fun.
You can dick around in cyber-Prague forever and it's really cool but once you leave it the game just ends.