homeStyle
58 reviews liked by homeStyle
unfortunately, for the game that is easily seen as the best in the entire series, this one falls a little bit and is perhaps my least favourite of the original solid trilogy. that’s not to say it is anywhere near bad, there’s still very little in the entire medium that can compare to the heights that kojima and his team reach here, it’s just that i don’t think it would ever be possible to follow up the perfection of sons of liberty.
in terms of the story, i think that the bond pastiche that serves as the central stylistic idea allows for a lot of interesting character work. i loved every time ocelot was on screen, both his vocal performance and animation make him feel so magnetic he steals almost every scene he’s in. the whole cobra team is also very fun with all their weird powers and gimmicks, but i especially loved the sorrow, who’s “battle” feels like the moment where the game really switches gears into raising itself above the simple james bond motif and it fully becomes a metal gear game. it’s also when the boss and eva both start to become more well rounded and i feel become the best written female characters in any of these games, displaying so much pathos and feeling so tragic in their doomed affairs with snake. i won’t spoil anything if you somehow haven’t played this yet, but the ending is utterly amazing, it’s just somewhat of a shame that it takes that long for the game to really explore the ideas of sacrifice, exploitation, and grief that i know metal gear for (even if it is still done supremely well).
in terms of gameplay i think i’m somewhat spoiled by how the phantom pain really takes a lot of the ideas that this game innovated and iterates on them to utter perfection. it’s no doubt there’s a bit of a “seinfeld effect” thing going on here where, at the time it was released, the use of survival skills, more open environments, smart enemy AI, dealing with wildlife, and camouflage changes were incredibly influential, so influential that playing this for the first time now makes them feel a little stale. i feel though, that in coming back to this on a replay now that i’m more familiar with the systems i’ll be able to get more from them and have more fun with them, but on first blush i do kind of miss the more closed in vision cone centric gameplay of solids 1 and 2.
with all that said, this is still an utter masterpiece, just can not fully compare to the previous entries
in terms of the story, i think that the bond pastiche that serves as the central stylistic idea allows for a lot of interesting character work. i loved every time ocelot was on screen, both his vocal performance and animation make him feel so magnetic he steals almost every scene he’s in. the whole cobra team is also very fun with all their weird powers and gimmicks, but i especially loved the sorrow, who’s “battle” feels like the moment where the game really switches gears into raising itself above the simple james bond motif and it fully becomes a metal gear game. it’s also when the boss and eva both start to become more well rounded and i feel become the best written female characters in any of these games, displaying so much pathos and feeling so tragic in their doomed affairs with snake. i won’t spoil anything if you somehow haven’t played this yet, but the ending is utterly amazing, it’s just somewhat of a shame that it takes that long for the game to really explore the ideas of sacrifice, exploitation, and grief that i know metal gear for (even if it is still done supremely well).
in terms of gameplay i think i’m somewhat spoiled by how the phantom pain really takes a lot of the ideas that this game innovated and iterates on them to utter perfection. it’s no doubt there’s a bit of a “seinfeld effect” thing going on here where, at the time it was released, the use of survival skills, more open environments, smart enemy AI, dealing with wildlife, and camouflage changes were incredibly influential, so influential that playing this for the first time now makes them feel a little stale. i feel though, that in coming back to this on a replay now that i’m more familiar with the systems i’ll be able to get more from them and have more fun with them, but on first blush i do kind of miss the more closed in vision cone centric gameplay of solids 1 and 2.
with all that said, this is still an utter masterpiece, just can not fully compare to the previous entries
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 are my favorite games of all time, so when I saw the first trailer for Baldur’s Gate 3, I was beyond excited. I knew it was going to be a little different, as the story in the original games is pretty well wrapped up with nowhere to go narratively, but Black Isle had plans for a third entry (The Black Hound), so I figured things would be able to be worked out. I was also completely geeking out because I absolutely love Mind Flayers. They were terrifying in Baldur’s Gate 2, and there was a whole cut/unfinished subplot with a Mind Flayer colony in Athkatla that just brimmed with potential on how they could connect the dots here. One of my DND group’s favorite dungeons we ever ran was a giant library in the astral plane that had been taken over by a singular Mind Flayer that I tortured them with through manipulation, stealth, cunning, and pitting them against each other over 12 hours. By the end of it, they were deathly afraid of him and hated his guts. It was fantastic. I was really ready to love this game…and I tried so hard, but I just don’t.
Turns out, it was a bad idea to make the new 5th Edition game Baldur’s Gate 3. There is a fantastic skeleton here with interesting characters and fun locations, but as a huge fan of the early games, I can’t help but feel like it’s significantly held back by what Wizards of the Coast did to the Baldur’s Gate canon. BG3 isn’t a sequel to Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 - it’s a sequel to the WotC canon of Baldur’s Gate, and it’s done very poorly. Some of the characters that appear are completely divorced from their characters in the originals, as if the person writing them had no idea of their motivations or any understanding of who these people are. I don’t know whether to blame that on Wizards for the terrible choices regarding canon, or to blame Larian for the awful characterization, but it drove me insane. I realize I might sound like a whiny old-head, but it is just such a strange choice to make a sequel based on a game when you can’t actually adhere to the plot of that game.
The legacy characters aren’t the only strange moments of Baldur’s Gate 3’s writing unfortunately, as it struggles to maintain a foundation between being grounded in the Forgotten Realms setting while wanting to tell a grandiose story. At the beginning of the game, I recruited three companions - one that was incredibly fearsome fighting Demons in the Blood War, another was such a powerful mage that he actually had an intimate relationship with the Goddess of Magic herself, and the last one was sent on a mission to retrieve an incredibly powerful and rare artifact from a race of other dimensional beings. They’re also level 1 and we’re fighting goblins. This type of narrative/world disconnect continues on throughout the rest of the game and I constantly felt out of place and just at odds with the game’s representation of the Forgotten Realms.
For a game that is effusively praised for player freedom - don’t get me wrong there is a ton of it - it does itself no favors with regards to pacing. In particular, Act 2 is paced in such a way that players easily can find themselves locked out of almost all the Act’s content if they simply explore the area, which is the exact opposite of how Act 1 encouraged gameplay. When Act 3 rolls around, BG3 again flips things around and gives a giant sandbox city to run around it, all the while dumping quests on you that beg to be solved with urgency. There isn’t inherently anything wrong in this approach, but because the pacing isn’t consistent across the game, it can be very overwhelming and disorienting.
This disorienting feeling carries over to companion quests and the rest system as well, as the game seems to discourage you from long resting too often, but in order to continue companion quests, long rests at camp are necessary. I actually missed an entire companion questline because I did not rest enough in Act 2, and it wasn’t until late game that I realized the game does actually have a cue to tell you to rest. Every time a party member complains about being tired, a new conversation or cutscene is available at camp. Otherwise, the resting mechanic makes a nice balance between the original games’ dungeon rest-a-thons, and the fear of running out of resources in combat.
Encounters and combat were something I personally was worried about, as I’m much more a fan of the Real Time with Pause system, but I actually think Larian did a great job implementing 5e into crpg format. Most of the time, combat feels engaging and quick due to the encounter and level design, and the environment takes a much bigger stage than it ever did in the older games. Later on, the encounters do seem to fall off regarding intentionality and then it can be frustrating when there are just too many enemies and allies for things to go quickly. In the later stages of the game, Larian also becomes obsessed with placing trap after trap, which just makes things tedious in this engine. Traps are a classic part of DND dungeon design, but throwing 6 of the same DC trap in a room does not make a good dungeon. Honestly, this is true for the game at large. Act 1 in all of its Early Access polished glory is wonderful in pacing, encounter design, world detail, and narrative beats, however the whole thing starts to fall apart as the game goes on and then all of the little, minor things that were overlooked as nitpicks start to become giant thorns.
While the combat system mostly does a good job, it does lack polish with basic functionality. There were so many times that I clicked to attack an enemy, was told “too far, can’t reach,” and then I moved my character manually in range and was able to attack. There were entire battles where certain enemies just stood still for their turn, wasting 10-20 seconds without doing anything. There were times in which I got stuck with one character fighting six by himself because the pathing for the other character broke while jumping, and they couldn’t join combat until forced because they were stuck in a different spot. There were many times where I was told I could not see the enemy, only to swivel the camera around to find that character has a perfect line of sight on the enemy, but just can’t attack because the game says no. After 50-plus hours, all of that began to wear me down, and the experience just felt clunky. Apart from those minor things, I also started to hit real bugs like companions talking to me about events that haven’t happened yet, doors not loading, people popping into cutscenes, among others.
It is highly ironic that Baldur’s Gate 3 has gotten so much praise from people pitting it against other AAA releases that were deemed broken, as if the game does not have its share of cracks and broken bits as well. Ultimately, there is a good game here that I’m sure will grow and be ironed out as a “Definitive Edition” arrives, but for me the entire experience was disappointing and lacking. Baldur’s Gate 3 nails the upfront presentation with cinematic style, but what lies beneath is mediocrity.
Turns out, it was a bad idea to make the new 5th Edition game Baldur’s Gate 3. There is a fantastic skeleton here with interesting characters and fun locations, but as a huge fan of the early games, I can’t help but feel like it’s significantly held back by what Wizards of the Coast did to the Baldur’s Gate canon. BG3 isn’t a sequel to Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 - it’s a sequel to the WotC canon of Baldur’s Gate, and it’s done very poorly. Some of the characters that appear are completely divorced from their characters in the originals, as if the person writing them had no idea of their motivations or any understanding of who these people are. I don’t know whether to blame that on Wizards for the terrible choices regarding canon, or to blame Larian for the awful characterization, but it drove me insane. I realize I might sound like a whiny old-head, but it is just such a strange choice to make a sequel based on a game when you can’t actually adhere to the plot of that game.
The legacy characters aren’t the only strange moments of Baldur’s Gate 3’s writing unfortunately, as it struggles to maintain a foundation between being grounded in the Forgotten Realms setting while wanting to tell a grandiose story. At the beginning of the game, I recruited three companions - one that was incredibly fearsome fighting Demons in the Blood War, another was such a powerful mage that he actually had an intimate relationship with the Goddess of Magic herself, and the last one was sent on a mission to retrieve an incredibly powerful and rare artifact from a race of other dimensional beings. They’re also level 1 and we’re fighting goblins. This type of narrative/world disconnect continues on throughout the rest of the game and I constantly felt out of place and just at odds with the game’s representation of the Forgotten Realms.
For a game that is effusively praised for player freedom - don’t get me wrong there is a ton of it - it does itself no favors with regards to pacing. In particular, Act 2 is paced in such a way that players easily can find themselves locked out of almost all the Act’s content if they simply explore the area, which is the exact opposite of how Act 1 encouraged gameplay. When Act 3 rolls around, BG3 again flips things around and gives a giant sandbox city to run around it, all the while dumping quests on you that beg to be solved with urgency. There isn’t inherently anything wrong in this approach, but because the pacing isn’t consistent across the game, it can be very overwhelming and disorienting.
This disorienting feeling carries over to companion quests and the rest system as well, as the game seems to discourage you from long resting too often, but in order to continue companion quests, long rests at camp are necessary. I actually missed an entire companion questline because I did not rest enough in Act 2, and it wasn’t until late game that I realized the game does actually have a cue to tell you to rest. Every time a party member complains about being tired, a new conversation or cutscene is available at camp. Otherwise, the resting mechanic makes a nice balance between the original games’ dungeon rest-a-thons, and the fear of running out of resources in combat.
Encounters and combat were something I personally was worried about, as I’m much more a fan of the Real Time with Pause system, but I actually think Larian did a great job implementing 5e into crpg format. Most of the time, combat feels engaging and quick due to the encounter and level design, and the environment takes a much bigger stage than it ever did in the older games. Later on, the encounters do seem to fall off regarding intentionality and then it can be frustrating when there are just too many enemies and allies for things to go quickly. In the later stages of the game, Larian also becomes obsessed with placing trap after trap, which just makes things tedious in this engine. Traps are a classic part of DND dungeon design, but throwing 6 of the same DC trap in a room does not make a good dungeon. Honestly, this is true for the game at large. Act 1 in all of its Early Access polished glory is wonderful in pacing, encounter design, world detail, and narrative beats, however the whole thing starts to fall apart as the game goes on and then all of the little, minor things that were overlooked as nitpicks start to become giant thorns.
While the combat system mostly does a good job, it does lack polish with basic functionality. There were so many times that I clicked to attack an enemy, was told “too far, can’t reach,” and then I moved my character manually in range and was able to attack. There were entire battles where certain enemies just stood still for their turn, wasting 10-20 seconds without doing anything. There were times in which I got stuck with one character fighting six by himself because the pathing for the other character broke while jumping, and they couldn’t join combat until forced because they were stuck in a different spot. There were many times where I was told I could not see the enemy, only to swivel the camera around to find that character has a perfect line of sight on the enemy, but just can’t attack because the game says no. After 50-plus hours, all of that began to wear me down, and the experience just felt clunky. Apart from those minor things, I also started to hit real bugs like companions talking to me about events that haven’t happened yet, doors not loading, people popping into cutscenes, among others.
It is highly ironic that Baldur’s Gate 3 has gotten so much praise from people pitting it against other AAA releases that were deemed broken, as if the game does not have its share of cracks and broken bits as well. Ultimately, there is a good game here that I’m sure will grow and be ironed out as a “Definitive Edition” arrives, but for me the entire experience was disappointing and lacking. Baldur’s Gate 3 nails the upfront presentation with cinematic style, but what lies beneath is mediocrity.
Diablo IV
2023
I enjoyed playing through this game but didn't find it to be anything exceptional. It's obviously expensive and meticulously designed, but it feels like a not insignificant amount of that design has been devoted to trying to make the game into as much of a treadmill as possible. Playing through the story was entertaining, but by the end of it I was finding the gameplay to be mindless and repetitive. This makes Diablo IV a great game to play for media multitasking but not something that I'd want to focus on completely. It's a good game, but its game design feels sanitized in order to maximize its appeal and money-making potential.
"I am a sleeper, one among thousands. I bring you a message. dagoth ur calls you, nerevarine, and you cannot deny your lord. the sixth house is risen, and dagoth is its glory"
despite the doom and gloom about oblivion, it's morrowind that serves as the elder scrolls' greatest anomaly: an inflection point that swerved the series away from faceless maximalism, monolithic breadth, and randomized content. developed during a period of fear and uncertainty about the future of the company, todd howard sums up the philosophy behind the risk taking succinctly: "what's the worst that's going to happen?"
a meticulously handcrafted world you could feasibly traverse in real time, a multitude of elaborate static questlines, lessened emphasis on level scaling, fast travel relegated solely to in-world means, rich itemization, an enhanced dialogue system, smaller dungeons that approximate real spaces... to say the changes were significant is an understatement. while established pillars like the character creation format and learn-by-doing skill system remained largely in tact, nearly everything else was reimagined or reworked to fit a game that was, among many things, more local. where bethesda once crafted abstract worlds, here they'd take on the challenge of designing, establishing, and allowing you to inhabit an actual place
nine regions spiral inward, each housing numerous geographies, cultures and settlements; each with drastically distinct architectures informed by them. the mushroom towers of the telvani, carapace huts of gnisis or ald-ruhn, stone and thatched roof settlements of the imperials, yurts of the ashlanders, and crooked daedric ruins being but a few. where previous — and to a lesser extent subsequent — entries in the series drew from a standard palette of european history and high fantasy, morrowind takes great efforts to distinguish itself as something uniquely alien, largely thanks to artist, writer, and designer michael kirkbride
fittingly, you're a stranger — a foreigner, outlander, n'wah — tasked with observing and navigating the region, its factions and religions, and the splinter groups and fractured politics within them. if you follow the narrative throughline you'll be expected to gather some body of knowledge, but most of it is offered in the way of extracurricular research and after hours inquisition
it's a congruent approach that allows for as much or as little engagement with the absurd amount of subsurface lore and worldbuilding as possible. if you choose to delve you'll get stories full of contradictions, unreliable narrators, historical records, mythological yarns, rituals, poems, lusty argonian maids, and a guy who learned to wear heavy armour so well he could walk on his hands and fuck his wife without removing it. if you choose not to you can stick to the more utile texts like the red book of 3E 426 or dismiss everything altogether. you can go the whole game without knowing what a dwemer is, but you're covered: some folks don't know shit
really, you don't have to know or do anything. once off the boat you'll amble forward all sluggish and dim and likely spend most of your time wandering aimlessly, learning elaborate public transit routes, memorizing directions, and getting lost in vivec. while there's urgency to the main quest, more often than not it'll be sending you far and wide to hobnob, get the lay of the land, and delve into tombs and caverns
and therein lies the brick wall that fells many an adventurer: the combat. in a contentious swerve morrowind is the only game in the series that binds the success of basic attacks to dice rolls. your blade may look like it's passing through one of the dozen cliff racers that've chased you from sheogorad to the ascadian isles, but the outcome is up to chance — and chance is working against you in the early hours. on its face it's a bad decision; it inarguably feels worse than any other game in the series, but that's ultimately why it proves to be the correct one
morrowind has something of a hyperbolic power curve. odds are if you're new to the game you might make a build where rats are lethal, walking up a slight incline requires you to take a break, and your understanding of your weapon is fundamentally unsound in a way that shouldn't be possible. you're basically the biggest loser to ever grace tamriel, and after you meet jiub, sign your paperwork, and get lost finding caius cosades you'll probably find yourself poisoned, paralyzed, or worse. the beauty in this is how it enables a heightened level of contrast
by the end of the game you'll be soaring over the ghostgate adorned in Exquisite Shirts and Pants that eliminate fall damage and fatigue, wielding custom swords that siphon enemy agility ("malder's gait"), and hosting a gilgameshian hoard of artifacts so valuable you'll have to sell them to a crab just to get half the money they're worth. you'll become a living cartoon on some who framed roger rabbit or space jam shit, and the juxtaposition couldn't possibly be more satisfying — all because of those shitty fuckin dice rolls
morrowind is a journey, one that's as much about murking bureaucrats, finding a smoking hot telvani wife, getting called slurs, contracting a thousand diseases, and severing the threads of prophecy as it is being ""Nerevarine"" or anything else. for all its little flaws and idiosyncrasies it continues to creep up the list of my favourite games, and hell, I guess I love it
in the end after a hard fought victory I ended up back where I started: in caius cosades house, now stacked knee high with books, glass armours, boots of flying, sixth house trinkets, and a fire hazard's worth of odds and ends. in honour of my good friend the spymaster I decided to relax, hit the Good Skooma Pipe (Quality: 0.15), and get some rest...
I sure hope nothing weird happens with The Tribunal haha!!!
blows insane plume
despite the doom and gloom about oblivion, it's morrowind that serves as the elder scrolls' greatest anomaly: an inflection point that swerved the series away from faceless maximalism, monolithic breadth, and randomized content. developed during a period of fear and uncertainty about the future of the company, todd howard sums up the philosophy behind the risk taking succinctly: "what's the worst that's going to happen?"
a meticulously handcrafted world you could feasibly traverse in real time, a multitude of elaborate static questlines, lessened emphasis on level scaling, fast travel relegated solely to in-world means, rich itemization, an enhanced dialogue system, smaller dungeons that approximate real spaces... to say the changes were significant is an understatement. while established pillars like the character creation format and learn-by-doing skill system remained largely in tact, nearly everything else was reimagined or reworked to fit a game that was, among many things, more local. where bethesda once crafted abstract worlds, here they'd take on the challenge of designing, establishing, and allowing you to inhabit an actual place
nine regions spiral inward, each housing numerous geographies, cultures and settlements; each with drastically distinct architectures informed by them. the mushroom towers of the telvani, carapace huts of gnisis or ald-ruhn, stone and thatched roof settlements of the imperials, yurts of the ashlanders, and crooked daedric ruins being but a few. where previous — and to a lesser extent subsequent — entries in the series drew from a standard palette of european history and high fantasy, morrowind takes great efforts to distinguish itself as something uniquely alien, largely thanks to artist, writer, and designer michael kirkbride
fittingly, you're a stranger — a foreigner, outlander, n'wah — tasked with observing and navigating the region, its factions and religions, and the splinter groups and fractured politics within them. if you follow the narrative throughline you'll be expected to gather some body of knowledge, but most of it is offered in the way of extracurricular research and after hours inquisition
it's a congruent approach that allows for as much or as little engagement with the absurd amount of subsurface lore and worldbuilding as possible. if you choose to delve you'll get stories full of contradictions, unreliable narrators, historical records, mythological yarns, rituals, poems, lusty argonian maids, and a guy who learned to wear heavy armour so well he could walk on his hands and fuck his wife without removing it. if you choose not to you can stick to the more utile texts like the red book of 3E 426 or dismiss everything altogether. you can go the whole game without knowing what a dwemer is, but you're covered: some folks don't know shit
really, you don't have to know or do anything. once off the boat you'll amble forward all sluggish and dim and likely spend most of your time wandering aimlessly, learning elaborate public transit routes, memorizing directions, and getting lost in vivec. while there's urgency to the main quest, more often than not it'll be sending you far and wide to hobnob, get the lay of the land, and delve into tombs and caverns
and therein lies the brick wall that fells many an adventurer: the combat. in a contentious swerve morrowind is the only game in the series that binds the success of basic attacks to dice rolls. your blade may look like it's passing through one of the dozen cliff racers that've chased you from sheogorad to the ascadian isles, but the outcome is up to chance — and chance is working against you in the early hours. on its face it's a bad decision; it inarguably feels worse than any other game in the series, but that's ultimately why it proves to be the correct one
morrowind has something of a hyperbolic power curve. odds are if you're new to the game you might make a build where rats are lethal, walking up a slight incline requires you to take a break, and your understanding of your weapon is fundamentally unsound in a way that shouldn't be possible. you're basically the biggest loser to ever grace tamriel, and after you meet jiub, sign your paperwork, and get lost finding caius cosades you'll probably find yourself poisoned, paralyzed, or worse. the beauty in this is how it enables a heightened level of contrast
by the end of the game you'll be soaring over the ghostgate adorned in Exquisite Shirts and Pants that eliminate fall damage and fatigue, wielding custom swords that siphon enemy agility ("malder's gait"), and hosting a gilgameshian hoard of artifacts so valuable you'll have to sell them to a crab just to get half the money they're worth. you'll become a living cartoon on some who framed roger rabbit or space jam shit, and the juxtaposition couldn't possibly be more satisfying — all because of those shitty fuckin dice rolls
morrowind is a journey, one that's as much about murking bureaucrats, finding a smoking hot telvani wife, getting called slurs, contracting a thousand diseases, and severing the threads of prophecy as it is being ""Nerevarine"" or anything else. for all its little flaws and idiosyncrasies it continues to creep up the list of my favourite games, and hell, I guess I love it
in the end after a hard fought victory I ended up back where I started: in caius cosades house, now stacked knee high with books, glass armours, boots of flying, sixth house trinkets, and a fire hazard's worth of odds and ends. in honour of my good friend the spymaster I decided to relax, hit the Good Skooma Pipe (Quality: 0.15), and get some rest...
I sure hope nothing weird happens with The Tribunal haha!!!
blows insane plume
Starfield
2023
I didn't feel like editing all my notes so this one's coming in hot
the menus, ui/ux, and maps are nothing short of awful and the emphasis on fast travel, witcher vision, and waypoint markers make starfield one of the least convincing game worlds in recent memory. an endless sequence of vacuum sealed content boxes strung together by constant menus, loading screens, and teleporting, and bolstered on all sides by hundreds of procgen wastelands full of crafting junk
it's frustrating that there's something here I think I could like, but it's completely obstructed by design decisions that only make sense if your first and last priority is scale. aside from some dungeons and sidequests it feels like your only options are to be led by the nose like a dog or left to wander nothing areas for the rest of your life. a critical bug had me chasing my tail for over an hour on one of the essential planets and I was bored out of my brain so I can't imagine how sterile the non-essential ones must be
can't weigh in much on the RPG side of things cos I barely saw it in 10+ hours. it's like a cryptid where people keep swearing it exists but I'm still not convinced. can say that the dialogue options I've seen aren't too far off from the YES / YES (SARCASTIC) / NO (YES) we know and love from FO4 tho. writing doesn't go full head traumathis time around as quickly but everyone's a Quip Bastard or a block of wood so it's kinda six of one half a dozen of the other. the most memorable moment was when heller went chris dorner on the new atlantis police department unprovoked, but somehow I don't think that was what bethesda intended
perks/skills are as lifeless as expected. 10% more damage with shotguns or 10% damage with pistols or 10% damage with energy weapons or 10% damage with rifles or carry 10 more pounds or have 10% more health or..... zzzz
less I say about space and ship combat the better. everyone knows it wouldn't be better handled through a menu, but what this review presupposes is... maybe it would?
all in all it's a mess. bethesda's signature open world fractured and dashed across the stars; a marriage of some of the worst aspects of both pre and post morrowind eras with a slew of new unforced errors added to the mix. modders will fix what's fixable, I'll keep drinking that garbage, and the world will keep on turning
can't wait for skyrim 2
the menus, ui/ux, and maps are nothing short of awful and the emphasis on fast travel, witcher vision, and waypoint markers make starfield one of the least convincing game worlds in recent memory. an endless sequence of vacuum sealed content boxes strung together by constant menus, loading screens, and teleporting, and bolstered on all sides by hundreds of procgen wastelands full of crafting junk
it's frustrating that there's something here I think I could like, but it's completely obstructed by design decisions that only make sense if your first and last priority is scale. aside from some dungeons and sidequests it feels like your only options are to be led by the nose like a dog or left to wander nothing areas for the rest of your life. a critical bug had me chasing my tail for over an hour on one of the essential planets and I was bored out of my brain so I can't imagine how sterile the non-essential ones must be
can't weigh in much on the RPG side of things cos I barely saw it in 10+ hours. it's like a cryptid where people keep swearing it exists but I'm still not convinced. can say that the dialogue options I've seen aren't too far off from the YES / YES (SARCASTIC) / NO (YES) we know and love from FO4 tho. writing doesn't go full head trauma
perks/skills are as lifeless as expected. 10% more damage with shotguns or 10% damage with pistols or 10% damage with energy weapons or 10% damage with rifles or carry 10 more pounds or have 10% more health or..... zzzz
less I say about space and ship combat the better. everyone knows it wouldn't be better handled through a menu, but what this review presupposes is... maybe it would?
all in all it's a mess. bethesda's signature open world fractured and dashed across the stars; a marriage of some of the worst aspects of both pre and post morrowind eras with a slew of new unforced errors added to the mix. modders will fix what's fixable, I'll keep drinking that garbage, and the world will keep on turning
can't wait for skyrim 2
Gothic
2001
sorry I gotta be the one to tell everyone this but the controls are good and the combat is good
RPG encounter design doesn't get any better than this: no scaling, no magical handwave to explain why enemies suddenly hit the road and get replaced with other enemies once you hit a certain level, no bandits in glass armour; the world is constant and if you fuck around you're gonna get got by an orc or some kinda weird bird just like real life
it's the earthiest and most respectable method of approaching these things; the rare instance where the game doesn't treat the player character as an elevated actor with undue importance and insists they participate on even ground. you start off at the very bottom and are tasked with earning respect and trust gradually, shaping the way you're perceived, your station, and opening doors to people and opportunities you wouldn't have had otherwise
this emphasis on a more grounded world extends to most everything else as well. NPCs have routines and sub-routines; monsters sleep, eat, roam, and flee from predators if attacked; and objects with no mechanical value or purpose can be interacted with for cosmetic or roleplaying purposes. while many, many, many games prior had schedules and day/night variance, few if any operated on this level, and many of gothic's contemporaries wound up looking rigid and staid in comparison
if there's any stumbling here it's that the second half loses some steam after you choose a faction and get railroaded into more linear action oriented quests, but it's not enough to detract much from the overall experience because.........
the controls are good
the combat is good
RPG encounter design doesn't get any better than this: no scaling, no magical handwave to explain why enemies suddenly hit the road and get replaced with other enemies once you hit a certain level, no bandits in glass armour; the world is constant and if you fuck around you're gonna get got by an orc or some kinda weird bird just like real life
it's the earthiest and most respectable method of approaching these things; the rare instance where the game doesn't treat the player character as an elevated actor with undue importance and insists they participate on even ground. you start off at the very bottom and are tasked with earning respect and trust gradually, shaping the way you're perceived, your station, and opening doors to people and opportunities you wouldn't have had otherwise
this emphasis on a more grounded world extends to most everything else as well. NPCs have routines and sub-routines; monsters sleep, eat, roam, and flee from predators if attacked; and objects with no mechanical value or purpose can be interacted with for cosmetic or roleplaying purposes. while many, many, many games prior had schedules and day/night variance, few if any operated on this level, and many of gothic's contemporaries wound up looking rigid and staid in comparison
if there's any stumbling here it's that the second half loses some steam after you choose a faction and get railroaded into more linear action oriented quests, but it's not enough to detract much from the overall experience because.........
the controls are good
the combat is good
man if i were to rattle off the shit here that doesn't work you'd think I was gonna hit it with a score so far below sea level it'd resemble a skellige treasure chest
almost the entire mechanical backbone here's a write off: dozy combat that even death march can't wake up, detective bits that require ketchup and mustard vision, randomized loot, level scaled gear, and bogus character progression being but a sample of the bungled and fucked nature of the core experience. save for gwent — which I love with all my heart — there isn't a lot on this end that holds up to scrutiny
if TW1 was about being a witcher and TW2 was about not being a witcher, TW3 positions itself back toward a foggy approximation of the role — broader and less angular, more devoted to a holistic approach than the fine details of witching. rather than have you inhabit geralt through stances, investigations, research, and alchemical prepwork, it hopes its breadth can elevate it; that what's been lost can be made up for with its massive world and shift in storytelling
and it works? not so much with the main quest about supergirl and thedark eldar wild hunt (which is fuckin gunk), but just about everywhere else. turns out you can abstract the entire verbset into soft serve and still end up with a decent game if you got the writing, world building, and quest design to make up for it. the most ancient trick in the rpg book appears to be alive and well
but before that we gotta talk about the real shit: monsters
I love monsters like persona fans love the status quo. I love monsters like nerds love looking like this when they see 2B. ogres, trolls, centipede demons, sirens, kappas, demon walls, materia keepers, the doctors from dead ringers, street sharks, whatever man
I love monsters like jet fuel loves steel beams. I love draculas and werewolves and wanyudos and carly beth's haunted mask and that fucker from the end of onimusha warlords. I love lucy clifford's new mother and the thing and worms that walk and gelatinous cubes and black dogs and a cyclops. TW3 is the most monster ass monster game since TW1 and that's what it's all about. fakers and charlatans will tell you monster hunter takes the prize, but that's a game about killing animals buddy
if you thought I was actually gonna come back and ramble on about the writing and shit like some seventeen hour youtube video, think twice. you all know what the score is and know where you stand by now; you don't need me to tell you man is the monster, the art direction rules, and the attention to detail second to none. if it didn't take me five years to finish TW2 maybe I'd have some real juicy points to make but I know full well the level of discourse surrounding the game and choose to avail myself
I love monsters, I love gwent, I love the way the sidequests squirm and wriggle despite the staid limits of the systems and mechanics that house them. I love the gorgeous outfits and fabrics and the lush colour palette and the bestiary and geralt's bone dry quips and how they managed to make a game so frequently fuckin funny. I love everyone's jacked up teeth
first and last time I'll ever get ubipilled, savour it
almost the entire mechanical backbone here's a write off: dozy combat that even death march can't wake up, detective bits that require ketchup and mustard vision, randomized loot, level scaled gear, and bogus character progression being but a sample of the bungled and fucked nature of the core experience. save for gwent — which I love with all my heart — there isn't a lot on this end that holds up to scrutiny
if TW1 was about being a witcher and TW2 was about not being a witcher, TW3 positions itself back toward a foggy approximation of the role — broader and less angular, more devoted to a holistic approach than the fine details of witching. rather than have you inhabit geralt through stances, investigations, research, and alchemical prepwork, it hopes its breadth can elevate it; that what's been lost can be made up for with its massive world and shift in storytelling
and it works? not so much with the main quest about supergirl and the
but before that we gotta talk about the real shit: monsters
I love monsters like persona fans love the status quo. I love monsters like nerds love looking like this when they see 2B. ogres, trolls, centipede demons, sirens, kappas, demon walls, materia keepers, the doctors from dead ringers, street sharks, whatever man
I love monsters like jet fuel loves steel beams. I love draculas and werewolves and wanyudos and carly beth's haunted mask and that fucker from the end of onimusha warlords. I love lucy clifford's new mother and the thing and worms that walk and gelatinous cubes and black dogs and a cyclops. TW3 is the most monster ass monster game since TW1 and that's what it's all about. fakers and charlatans will tell you monster hunter takes the prize, but that's a game about killing animals buddy
if you thought I was actually gonna come back and ramble on about the writing and shit like some seventeen hour youtube video, think twice. you all know what the score is and know where you stand by now; you don't need me to tell you man is the monster, the art direction rules, and the attention to detail second to none. if it didn't take me five years to finish TW2 maybe I'd have some real juicy points to make but I know full well the level of discourse surrounding the game and choose to avail myself
I love monsters, I love gwent, I love the way the sidequests squirm and wriggle despite the staid limits of the systems and mechanics that house them. I love the gorgeous outfits and fabrics and the lush colour palette and the bestiary and geralt's bone dry quips and how they managed to make a game so frequently fuckin funny. I love everyone's jacked up teeth
first and last time I'll ever get ubipilled, savour it
Devil May Cry 5
2019
real fun as usual, but these levels are killing me. I understand people who want actual levels in these kinda action games lost that fight a long time ago, but can you at least make them look pretty or something? I got a nightcap on and I'm yawning cartoonishly cos I've been staring at this fuck ugly tree for so long. I'm out here snoozing in a game where you can dual wield a motorcycle and give sin scissors a funny little hat
can't help but miss the vestigial resident evil bits and the weird kamiya + mikami -isms that itsuno sands down further and further with each subsequent entry. no doubt this is the best the combat's ever been, but DMC was never only about the combat no matter what weirdos whose favourite fighting game maps are the training stages tell you. I wanna do the Smokin Sexy Stuff and explore a gothic castle or tower or something with a reasonable amount of atmospheric oomph, I don't wanna hang out in butthole corridors for half the game
hard to talk about why the combat rules in a compelling fashion, or even some gross approximation of one. always struggle to put that kinetic verve into words and find a way to emphasize the heft of a blade or the timing of rating increase's sound effect. much like music criticism I think a lot of the text deployed in service of something so fundamentally felt seems ill at odds with the feeling itself. many have sought to obliterate language's stranglehold and biases on human experience and I can't help but think that's the proper lawful good instinct
just rest assured it's best in class
nero's a full character now, dante has never been more dante, and as many growing pains as I had with V I ended up really vibing with him by the end of my Dante Must Die run. don't mistake me for a zato sympathizer but despite his gameplay being comparatively shallow there's a satisfaction to the resource management and spacing elements that I find gratifying. learning the golem rhythm is a lot of fun once you're given good reason to bother and while I never graduated from the school of "make the bird do the held attacks while manually controlling the cat" I like the energy it gives off. plus I looked just like V when I was sixteen so
good game, but I'm gonna have some words for itsuno if he doesn't treat lady better next time
can't help but miss the vestigial resident evil bits and the weird kamiya + mikami -isms that itsuno sands down further and further with each subsequent entry. no doubt this is the best the combat's ever been, but DMC was never only about the combat no matter what weirdos whose favourite fighting game maps are the training stages tell you. I wanna do the Smokin Sexy Stuff and explore a gothic castle or tower or something with a reasonable amount of atmospheric oomph, I don't wanna hang out in butthole corridors for half the game
hard to talk about why the combat rules in a compelling fashion, or even some gross approximation of one. always struggle to put that kinetic verve into words and find a way to emphasize the heft of a blade or the timing of rating increase's sound effect. much like music criticism I think a lot of the text deployed in service of something so fundamentally felt seems ill at odds with the feeling itself. many have sought to obliterate language's stranglehold and biases on human experience and I can't help but think that's the proper lawful good instinct
just rest assured it's best in class
nero's a full character now, dante has never been more dante, and as many growing pains as I had with V I ended up really vibing with him by the end of my Dante Must Die run. don't mistake me for a zato sympathizer but despite his gameplay being comparatively shallow there's a satisfaction to the resource management and spacing elements that I find gratifying. learning the golem rhythm is a lot of fun once you're given good reason to bother and while I never graduated from the school of "make the bird do the held attacks while manually controlling the cat" I like the energy it gives off. plus I looked just like V when I was sixteen so
good game, but I'm gonna have some words for itsuno if he doesn't treat lady better next time
Hrot
2021
A mix of Quake, Doom 3 and Duke 3D with a very unique, personal and genuine premise. It's pretty obvs where the quake influence goes, the author clearly loves Quake's brown textures but knows how to make the game not feel samey visually, it's more brown than Quake ever was but you'll never get tired of it. There's some Doom 3 in the more limited mobility and resources being scarcer than average for the genre. Duke 3D plays a big influence in the level design and soul of the game, levels feel like real places that are also made for a videogame like all good Duke 3D levels do, also the frequent and many elements of interactivity and humor which give a one man feel to game in the best possible way. The gameplay loop isn't as good as other games of it's ilk but it makes with level design and charm, most I can complain is that some projecticles might as well be hitscans but it's not a big issue.
I haven't properly finished this game because I got awfully tired of it, I don't like to talk about stuff I haven't fully finished but I have things to say about this game, take all of this as you will. For the record I gave up the last level of the second chapter.
Let's begin with the fact that this isn't a retro-shooter at all besides visuals. It's more inspired by Doom Eternal but doesn't really commit to it and ends up something that tries to be like a retro-shooter but really isn't, feels like they wanted a something looking retro that played like Doom Eternal but just didn't pan out.
The melee options like the chainsword and the sprint that kills enemies are pretty clear signals of the Doom Eternal's influence. More importantly though it's the arena and encounter design, areas are big and paired with high mobility, the most important encounters are in arenas that lock you in and allow you to leave only once everything is dead. Also keys are needed for progression but rather than actually being actively searching for them like a retro-shooter them you'll encouter them as go, they're just a motivator but that's not inherently bad.
The reason why all of this ends up being pretty dull is simply a matter of severe lack of difficulty, even on the second hardest difficulty and a really weak gameplay loop. The gameplay loop is pretty simple retro-shooter affair but it feels conceived with something like Doom Eternal's systems but then they realized that's not like a retro-shooter at all. Health goes to from 200 to 10 like Eternal but you don't have to get health back yourself by interacting with multiple systems, generous health refils are just in a container somewhere in the arena, ammo for weapons other than the basic bolter also run dry quickly but much alike they're just plentiful around the level or arena. So you don't have to really manage resources at all like retro-shooters who would also have explorations and rewards or systems to interact with like in Doom Eternal. The opposition you meet is also rather inconsequential and not stimulating. Enemies can be divided in three categories, stands there and shoots slow and easy to dodge projecticles with different amounts of health but generally not an issue, runs at you fast at you and needs to be dealt with out of annoyace and finally a boss or bosslike encounters whom are rather spongy and have several visually messy attacks. Enemies might have different weapon resistances, I'm not inherently against this but it ends up being annoying particularly with bosses. I didn't find myself enganging with these enemies in anything more than the right tool at the right time which paired with the really shallow resource management made everything really dull quickly, bosses might get really annoying when you run out of resources and they start teleporting around big arenas.
The spritework is really good, weapon sprites are awesome and using miniatures for the enemies is a great touch. Enviroments are beatean easily by games who came out 30 years earlier.
The game biggest strong point is how it feels, your space marine stomps around like crazy and the guns might be some of the best to use in a shooter period even when the melee options are incosequential. If this is enough for you'll enjoy the game otherwise I would think twice before getting this.
Let's begin with the fact that this isn't a retro-shooter at all besides visuals. It's more inspired by Doom Eternal but doesn't really commit to it and ends up something that tries to be like a retro-shooter but really isn't, feels like they wanted a something looking retro that played like Doom Eternal but just didn't pan out.
The melee options like the chainsword and the sprint that kills enemies are pretty clear signals of the Doom Eternal's influence. More importantly though it's the arena and encounter design, areas are big and paired with high mobility, the most important encounters are in arenas that lock you in and allow you to leave only once everything is dead. Also keys are needed for progression but rather than actually being actively searching for them like a retro-shooter them you'll encouter them as go, they're just a motivator but that's not inherently bad.
The reason why all of this ends up being pretty dull is simply a matter of severe lack of difficulty, even on the second hardest difficulty and a really weak gameplay loop. The gameplay loop is pretty simple retro-shooter affair but it feels conceived with something like Doom Eternal's systems but then they realized that's not like a retro-shooter at all. Health goes to from 200 to 10 like Eternal but you don't have to get health back yourself by interacting with multiple systems, generous health refils are just in a container somewhere in the arena, ammo for weapons other than the basic bolter also run dry quickly but much alike they're just plentiful around the level or arena. So you don't have to really manage resources at all like retro-shooters who would also have explorations and rewards or systems to interact with like in Doom Eternal. The opposition you meet is also rather inconsequential and not stimulating. Enemies can be divided in three categories, stands there and shoots slow and easy to dodge projecticles with different amounts of health but generally not an issue, runs at you fast at you and needs to be dealt with out of annoyace and finally a boss or bosslike encounters whom are rather spongy and have several visually messy attacks. Enemies might have different weapon resistances, I'm not inherently against this but it ends up being annoying particularly with bosses. I didn't find myself enganging with these enemies in anything more than the right tool at the right time which paired with the really shallow resource management made everything really dull quickly, bosses might get really annoying when you run out of resources and they start teleporting around big arenas.
The spritework is really good, weapon sprites are awesome and using miniatures for the enemies is a great touch. Enviroments are beatean easily by games who came out 30 years earlier.
The game biggest strong point is how it feels, your space marine stomps around like crazy and the guns might be some of the best to use in a shooter period even when the melee options are incosequential. If this is enough for you'll enjoy the game otherwise I would think twice before getting this.