Myst's reputation, as far as I understood it, was as landmark in dense, obtuse, inscrutable puzzle gameplay. The sort of thing you couldn't get away with making today because gamers demanded things that were more accessible and fast-paced even in puzzle games. And the first impression this remake made validated that for me completely. You immediately find a dozen of what are obviously puzzles, but only one of which is amenable to a trial-and-error solution on its own terms. It seems like there must be some tremendous leaps of logic the game must expect you to make to get a foothold into these puzzles. I felt that way, stuck on everything at once, hoping that the one I did solve would somehow give me a clue to at least one more that would continue to chain off through the rest, wondering how long I would bang my head against this before looking up a hint, until I discovered that in my exploration of the island, I had failed to realize I could activate an elevator that brought me to a room that contained the literal solution to every single one of the beginning puzzles, just written on the wall. The puzzles look so hard because they were never solvable in the first place. They don't work on inscrutable logic, they're just combination locks. At that point my expectations for the game plummeted, and it more less met them.

Having played a decent number of modern puzzle games (Talos Principle and The Witness stand out as the most specific points of reference for Myst), it's hard to justify calling Myst a puzzle game at all. Its "puzzles" are only a step or two above the sort of puzzles you'd find in a Resident Evil game. They're video game puzzles: series of actions that require you to move around a map and interact with certain items (often just all or part of a lock combination) in order to access the next area.

They seem relatively difficult largely because they have a much higher level of friction between the logic of the puzzle and its execution than would be necessary in a game with other mechanics. There is no journal, so you have to write down your own notes. There's a rail-car labyrinth, for some godforsaken reason. I just bungled through on process of elimination myself, but looking up the intended "solution" to this, it's absolutely mindboggling they thought someone might have ever figured this out without information apparently only available in a different part of the game you may or may not have visited yet. If you did know the solution, though, it would still be an incredibly tedious process to input it. There's a timer in one level that requires you to spend 30 seconds or so round trip every time you want to make a guess on the puzzle. The first puzzle I solved requires you to go reset two separate breaker boxes every time you fail.

I was thinking before I went in that it would be nice to play a game that wasn't scared of a player who could think, wasn't afraid to ask the player to think. But Myst is terrified the player will realize there's nothing here to think about. It's constantly throwing red herrings and obstacles in your path and nesting its mechanisms together in a desperate shell game to take your eyes off the fact that there are no real puzzles here.

What I didn't realize about Myst is that, on top of being a puzzle game, it's a keenly '90s fantasy story, relegated to text and environmental storytelling due to technical limitations. On that score it's nothing particularly special; I didn't think the environmental storytelling was particularly effective and the mystery it's meant to convey is a bit inept. And while the remake looks great, the emptiness of all the environments feels more out of place than it might have in the original graphics. You could imagine a game that was mostly about this network of fantasy worlds and shows elements of the actual stories mentioned in the books, with some distinct set of mechanics (whether action, platforming, rpg, adventure game, etc) and the "puzzles" there to pace and structure them. As it is, the fiction of Myst only highlights the inadequacy and emptiness of everything else. The remake is very polished but the experience feels like a basically unfinished game.

I've played around 20 hours of overwatch 2 and I like it. First of all, I loved the original overwatch. It was my go-to FPS for a long time, and I put about 250 hours into it. I watched all the cinematics on YouTube multiple times, I was fascinated with the gameplay. It was one of the only multiplayer games that I actually enjoyed. Obviously, I was very disappointed for the past few years due to the lack of new heroes and maps, and I stopped playing.

I decided to get back into overwatch with the imminent release of the sequel and played it for 2 weeks. It was still a decent game. I see a lot of people saying that OW2 is the same game as 1. While this is true in some respects, I think the switch to 5v5 completely changes how fights happen. The lack of shields and stuns also makes it much more enjoyable to play certain heroes.

You no longer hold chokepoints for extended periods of time, fights end quite quickly, and the game feels much much faster. I've also heard chatter about tanks feeling completely useless now but it's quite the opposite. Tanks are basically a more powerful third dps now. You can absolutely dominate the game as a tank and if you're playing it right, you should be the last person to be killed.

The most difficult role now by far is support. Due to the lack of a second tank the dps have access to more heals and thus are more durable, making it difficult for support players to survive flanks. You now have to actively participate in team fights to have any chance at winning.

The thing I dislike about ow2 is the new UI. A lot of it feels unnecessary. It's change for the sake of change. The new heroes don't even have a POTG animation yet. It feels extremely sloppy and unpolished. It is very hard to navigate and access specific information. The battlepass/monetisation system is also horrendous, but I never cared about skins or cosmetics, so it doesn't bother me.

So, in conclusion, did we really need a sequel for overwatch? No. But I can see why they did it. Interest in Overwatch was dying. Half the people complaining about it now are those who didn't even acknowledge it's existence for the past 3 years. Blizzard needed a boost in engagement and wanted to make more money so they fortnite-yfied it.

Still a 4/5