Nothing can beat coming home from school, booting up halo reach and playing all night with friends. Everything from standard slayer modes, to mongoose racing on forge world, countless hours of fun that can never be recreated. So much in 1 package, and all for completely free aside from the odd map pack sprinkled in. And that's just the multiplayer side, the campaign is my 2nd favourite Halo campaign, after halo 3, and even though it's only like 10 or so hours long Noble team meant so much to us by the end of it.

Not to sound like an old man, but nothing will ever beat the time before MTX, battlepasses and esports becoming more popular ruined online gaming. Now everyone must be the best to try and become the next big streamer or esports star all while every little cosmetic or sticker cost £10.

TOTK’s ordeal is one of chasing the new while trying to disregard the familiar, and as the hours start to weight in, that tug of war becomes increasingly harder to ignore. Are we supposed to once again be enchanted by its flora and fauna, when its discoveries, behaviors, and uses have already been demystified? Does defeating the Taluses, Hinoxes, Lynels, or really any of the game’s repeated roster of enemies, entice us if their challenge and enjoyment have already been mastered and depleted? Can TOTK really expect us to not fully dismiss the koroks, dragons, blood moons, or great fairies when their initial wonderment and allure has already been supplanted by their mechanical and transactional grindy nature one whole game ago?

A complete map of the Sky Islands ends up exposing a clear picture of the TOTK experience, one of sparse copy pasted content overlaying a preexisting world already exhausted 6 years ago, and not even The Depths’ initial excitement of surprise and mystery manages to sustain itself when it quickly dilutes into a lifeless landscape of repeated vistas, encounters, and rewards. Ultrahand lit up the internet with numerous videos that showcased the boundless possibilities of TOTK’s outlandish physics engine, but once past that initial, admittedly fun phase of building janky flying vehicles and wonky death laser robots, the motivation or even necessity to waste time on it quickly evaporates as the grind required for Zonite resources starts to overstep the enjoyment of emergent creative building that ceases to be engaging or productive outside the small pockets of content designed around them. Regardless of how fun and limitless the Zonite tools can be, what use are they when placed in a game that wasn’t initially built around them, and ultimately didn’t need them in the first place?

The reduction of Ganon in BOTW into a malevolent cancer secretly expanding its reach all over Hyrule, eventually usurping its technology and turning it against the people who exploited it without truly understanding it, brilliantly paralleled Nintendo’s passive role in the franchise’s stagnation, a company that conformed into a worn-out formula that ended up festering from within. The “Destroy Ganon” quest pop up was the bold statement of a series willing to throw away all its excess to rediscover its core ethos through an aptly amnesiac Link that bridged the gap between the character’s motivations and the player’s desires, and while the scarce narrative might have been a sour spot to most fans, BOTW’s holistic vision of open world design provided unique storytelling mostly told through the mere act of play.

TOTK exploits this dispersed storytelling method once more, this time failing to measure up to the urgency at hand and without the blank slate context that was integral to the premise of BOTW, as a cunning and fully conscient Ganondorf resorts to be put on standby until the end of the game while you stumble about Hyrule doing the repeated song and dance of regathering resources through the completion and collecting of shrines, towers, dungeons and flashbacks that little have to offer in terms of narrative momentum. Most baffling of all is the inclusion of yet another redundant Hyrule ancestry plotline that not only rejects the continuity of the series, but also of TOTK’s own predecessor. What exactly was the point of undermining the Sheikah’s relevancy and influence as Hyrule’s ancient civilization with the addition of the Zonai who just ended up complicating this world’s history with uninteresting and boring lore that substantially leads nowhere and fails to connect to BOTW? Boy did I sure felt stupid when I got excited thinking Ganondorf was directly addressing the Timeline in the opening cutscene.

BOTW reinvigorated both a franchise and a genre, and the stripping off much of the franchise’s baggage in favor of an uninterrupted experience of exploration focused solely on the player’s kinesthetic compulsions will forever represent some of the most fun I have had with a videogame. While recognizing many of its flaws, rarely did they ever diminish my appreciation for the things it did best, and I saw BOTW’s underdeveloped ideas as fertile ground for improvement. A new Majora’s Mask was always a pipe dream, but I’m sure that no one expected TOTK to be little more than just a glorified BOTW DLC. It’s not just that TOTK fails to address any of BOTW’s most agreeable criticisms, but it also manages to exacerbate and accentuate them to an intrusive degree by the sheer redundancy of giving you the same exact 100+ hour experience, and while BOTW had the privilege of letting its magic act before inevitably dissipating, TOTK does not.

The few instances of novelty TOTK allows us are unsurprisingly some of the best and most inspired moments the series has produced and showcase the potential TOTK had, but it becomes difficult to cherish those memories when they are stashed away in-between dozens of hours trudging through a well-known map with no more secrets left to be uncovered and whose repeated content isn’t placed in it with the same care and thought as it once was. Is there truly anything more pathetic than most of The Depths rewards being DLC and Amiibo costumes from the previous game? Ultimately, the biggest problem with TOTK is that it doesn’t just lack an identity of its own, it also ends up robbing it from BOTW and damaging it in the process. You are forgiven, Skyward Sword.

PS: I’ll throw a bone at TOTK, regarding its impressive physics engine and how it revealed how out of touch so much of the videogame discourse is with comments on TOTK’s outdated graphical fidelity and performance while the gameplay itself is leagues ahead of anything that we have been witnessing recently with the big “cutting edge” titles.

Replaying this 'cause the GTA VI trailer got me all hyped and shit. I haven't played this game since 2014, back on my old fat PS3 (RIP). It's still real good, especially with all the touchups in the PS5 remaster. The art direction and technical team absolutely cooked here, I'm constantly blown away by how beautiful the game's lighting looks. And I can't help but yelp everytime the dusk/dawn in the horizon presents itself, the colors are so pleasing to the eyes. So hats off to them, it's a very good remaster job.

Before I started, I admit, I was expecting to enjoy the story more now, since I actually can understand English at a higher level. But it's such a dumb mess. The fact that it's mostly an excuse to be able to do crazy ass mission scenarios is just too obvious, a lot of them barely connect. I also can't stand most of Michael's scum family drama, and many of Trevor's psychotic antics. Franklin's not perfect, but his interactions with the people in his hood are always a stand out. Lamar might be a loser but he's the funniest guy around, easily my favorite out of the side cast.

At least they didn't stumble with the missions. Of course, you have to put in the fact that Rockstar is very much still in the business of putting way too many shootouts in them. In many cases, it's either not necessary, or they go on for too long. But I can't deny that there's a lot of kick-ass missions here. If I had to pick a couple favorites, it would be:
- The Bureau Raid. It's so cool pretending to be firemen and navigating the ruined floors. And you get some AAA floor mopping action too!
- Father/Son. There's so much happening in a few minutes here. Getting Franklin to jump on the yacht, catching Jimmy while he's hanging from the pole, and listening to all the dysfunctional father-son banter in the process.
- Scouting the Port. I liked all the heist prep missions because they serve well as the bridge between the hard hitting action, and this is probably the best one to me. I guess I like handling the heavy equipment too much, haha.

A lot of these missions, especially the heists, are big, showboat-y set pieces made to amaze. At this point, bombastic action doesn't hit as hard as they did a decade ago, and the aforementioned shootout bloat only makes things worse. Still, I appreciate that Rockstar were trying to push themselves, at least on the technical side.

Now I want to talk a bit about the side activities. This is where the scope of the game gets truly massive. There's just so much to do. Races, tennis, parachuting, hunting, etc. Most of these aren't individually stellar, but you can't beat Rockstar at being the jack of ALL trades. My personal favorite is the Triathlon, it's basically a set piece, but about seeing the most beautiful environments instead of killing and blowing things up. In fact, I almost shed a tear seeing the blue-orange Los Santos city scape in the distance as I was frantically mashing X, biking from hillbilly land in the other direction. And I gotta say, I like towing vehicles a lot, haha. There's also a lot of things to spend your money on, which helps the end game even more. It feels like no matter what your interests are, there's at least one side activity that you can treat like a hobby and just focus on.

This replay was a very productive one, might be the most productive replay I ever had. It's hard to believe that since GTA V first came out, there's only one game that can challenge it on its turf (Watch Dogs 2, baby!). The open world modern city genre has not been in the spotlight for a while now, and many of the old GTA clones from back in the day has taken a down turn, or outright disappear. I really think that there's still so much to gain from this open world formula, and I hope GTA VI can prove it. There's a lot of new tricks that Rockstar can learn, and I have faith in their capability to excite us with something fresh.

Side note: there's so many cats and dogs running around the city now. I'm pretty sure they added these post PS3-360. They're so cute!

It's a good game. But it's just breath of the wild part 2. All the issues BOTW had, TOTK has them too. Shrines all look the same. No real dungeons. Weapons break often. Combat is identical. I feel like I've already played this game.
For the new stuff, I don't really like all the building stuff. The sky islands feel tacked on, not really a big part of the game.
I played around 29 hours, Beat the Wind and Fire temple and stopped during the Water temple. I didn't explore very much, only upgraded my armor a couple of times and I'm getting one shot by constructs in the water temple. Not fun. I'm envious of people who can enjoy this game and call it their GOTY, but it's just not there for me.

The combat can be cool but it's often bogged down by the fact that it's Final Fantasy VII: Remake. Do you wanna know how hard I groaned when I saw that the stupid fuckin Harry Potter Dementor's were a metaphor for GAMERS who hate SHITTY video games? Wild and crazy, how you make a statement like that and then your voice direction is, "yeah let's have them do that dumbass anime grunting." Did you know Erica Lindbeck had a voiceline in Persona 5 that, I think they just used that exact voice line Futaba said its, "Not too shabby!" this is what Futaba says in this game when you press up on the left stick to dodge laser's. Barret is cool, he says the, "Rot runs deep in this pizza" which is a reference to the song from the soundtrack called the rotting pizza look it up. The last thing I will add was that when I wanted to buy this game on release, they were sold out and I walked home with a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii. The laser inside my Wii doesn't work, so it can't read the disc. They also dropped an enhanced version of the game less than a year later on the PS5 and dropped the normal version on PS+, I didn't even need to pay for it, so worth it. Anyways, remember in Detroit: Become Human where the Androids sat in the back of the bus because it was NOT an allegory for black people. Ok, I got an idea for a boss design, but if it went temporarily invincible because the player didn't do it in the boring way we wanted them to do it? Woah what's that? The shittiest flying up to kill a moving target animation ever?? We gotta lot of Final Fantasy VII to do.

you've turned to page 56 in our lovely gamedev cookbook--wanting to create a smash indie hit yourself? not to worry, i have you covered. first, you'll want some hyper friendly, super inoffensive art. really smooth those edges. "wait, i want a dark twist to it!" of course you do, because your indie darling isn't taking off without one. now what you're gonna do is contrast the inoffensiveness with, i don't know, edgy scribblings found on an eighth grade desk or somewhere in the 2008 archives of deviantart? obviously we can't have anything ACTUALLY visually disturbing or raw, because then you're going down the hylics path, and noooo one cares about hylics. no, it needs to be scary in the same way a hatsune miku vocaloid music video about a "serious" subject is scary--draw a circle a bunch over itself until it's got a tone of lines and looks super disoriented. creepy, right? yeah just do that for everything.

well, that's pretty much it! with the cutesy sparkle artstyle contrasting just the right tint of edge to unnerve slendermen veterans, you just need some basic, serviceable writing and to hire a musician better at music than you are at game dev, and you've got a real shot at things (but make sure it's real easy, too, or your players are gonezo)! what, don't believe me? just take a look at undertale, OFF, super paper mario, doki doki literature club: cute presentations, horror twists, easy to beat. except... you know... every single of these games (okay, maybe not doki) does omori's job better in just about every single way. see, these games have biting writing and make bold, aesthetic decisions, and they all do it in brevity. off, hylics, space funeral, and undertale may all be inspired by earthbound, but their developers each understood that aping its absurd, overly stretched out game length is a BAD idea. hoh, but not omocat!

no, in fact, omori is actually longer than earthbound.

and to what purpose? because after over eight hours, i'm completely checked out of this endurance tester designed to absolutely waste your time. and i'm not saying that in like a "every second of this game sucks" way, but a "no seriously, there is so much garbage and fluff in this game designed to waste your time". backtracking plagues omori like a virus as you juggle tasks and side quests that amount to a lot of holding one direction forward while running for five, six, twenty screens. worse, the game lacks the grace to let you run up and down ladders, so those to-and-fro journeys are best aided with a phone in your free hand. there's this minecart section where you slowly drift down a lane for two screens until coming to a missing piece that then... slowly sends you back another two screens. but perhaps the absolute most grating time and effort waste comes from trying to navigate absurdly inefficient menus.

no, seriously. here's how many actions i have to get through just to heal a party member with another member's heart spell.

1) b button for menu
2) 3 analog clicks to the right
3) a button to select "skills"
4) 3 analog clicks to the right
5) a button to bring up health character
6) a button to select healing spell
7) a button to select "use"
8) 1-3 analog clicks to the right to select character to heal
9) a button to heal
10) 4 b buttons to get out of all the menus and back into the game

holy fuck.

i'm being really hard on the game's pacing because it really, truly is miserable. it's annoying that nearly every object has a useless description attached--does pressing A on, what, a fire hydrant need to give me a text box that says "fire hydrant"? no shit. tell a joke or don't have the box at all. enemies respawn every new screen catching you in a battle with whatever variation of rabbit you're definitely sick of fighting by a certain point. the dialogue's the worst, though, and i'm not even yet discussing its actual quality: it's just so much. there's so much of it (like this review). there is so many words used and a fourth of them are to any actual merit. so much dialogue is wasteful, unfunny, flat, basic, and bloated, and you just sit through it hoping someone will say something interesting.

they never will. omori's a game that decides earthbound wasn't insufferably quirky enough and proceeds to ham it up to infinity but with little purpose, and it results in writing and a world that feels disingenuous. not always, of course--there's a very specific interesting contrast that occurs in the dialogue when you first go from real world back to dream world, and it feels poignant and interesting. this feeling also lasts a very limited amount of time as you realize, yes, you really HAVE been ripped from the curious part of the game and sent back to a creative wasteland, the game proceeding to hammer in a point you already got two hours ago.

let's talk more about that real world dream world contrast more but, first, the combat. it's actually pretty clever and i enjoy the synergy between your characters and how to manipulate that to take on even the biggest of challenges. but then, the game presents a different problem where MOST battle encounters will not actually involve using the system in any meaningful way, the simplest and most straightforward (and successful) way of fighting through your enemies being a mash A fest a la OFF. why? because nothing in this game has any fucking health. and you know what's really crazy about that? the people who play this game do NOT fucking care about the combat. oh, what, you think that's presumptious of me? at the time of writing this, only 29% of players bothered fighting and beating two optional minibosses early in the game. meanwhile, 60% of players finished the first dream world day (taking place post-minibosses)... which means another 40% didn't even bother to get that far.

what this tells me is that half of omori's actual playerbase don't understand the combat system and don't care enough to learn it, and they're just here for the very syrupy soft pastel story. oh, and i'm saying that with confidence because i'm among the only 10% that did not return a character's high five. it's telling.

additionally to combat, i really enjoy the effort put in to give several enemies different "mood" states that may reflect new animations and designs, and that's really cool. the battle ui is sharp, even, and its a great use of colors all around--easily beating out the utterly generic world design otherwise. but getting back to the real world/dream world contrast, what really bothers me about omori is that the game rips this system out of your hands and gives you something immeasurably boring to work with in the real world. but the thing about said real world is that it has the more "interesting" narrative going on and so, when you're sent back to the dream world, you've got the fun(er) combat back but are trapped with a half of the story that you don't care about or don't really need to hear. additionally, the real world shows just as much creative prowess as the dream world in its design--all a series of hallways. it's really flat.

there's moments of charm, like the sound effects similar to animal crossing on the gamecube, pushing over a cardboard dumptruck, and a character that holds a trophy for "most horse second place". and there are moments of complete reverse charm where the intention is inept, like a list of "whatchamacallit"s to collect, a character named smol, and that entire cheese rat segment that just goes on and on and on... like the game. like the game does. the game goes on and on.

i don't know, i've written SO much about this game i clearly don't enjoy, and a majority of where this is coming from really is in response to critical reception i can't understand whatsoever. and i didn't understand the reception undertale got six years ago and felt annoyed by its heavy presence on the internet, but then, well, i started playing it and the experience was instantly lovely, and there was no "oh dude just play thirty hours to get to the cuhrazey part!". it was fun from the start, like a video game should be, and half the length of omori, too. as is OFF, and hylics, and barkley, space funeral, ib, yume nikki--all of these brief indie rpgs i would recommend to anyone over playing ape inc's sloppy seconds.

when i look at omori, i certainly do see omocat in its design: bland, easily digestible, inoffensive, and round edged--just like those t-shirts. and then i realize what this game really is.

managed to drag myself all the way to the end of this one, which i guess means i must have liked something about it. it was actually a lot! i think it's a complete improvement on dd1 mechanically and writing-wise, and i already liked that game -- although every dlc they released made it worse and worse.

i really like how the mechanics of uncertainty, taking chances and frequently accepting 50/50 odds, something you normally don't want to do in strategy games, mesh with the theme of hope vs despair in this one; i like that the uncertainty is mostly moved away from hit chances and onto stuff like skill procs, trinket procs, relationships, etc. the relationships themselves are a fantastic addition and can really make runs more interesting and memorable. the hero shrine stories are a really cool addition too.

unfortunately i am so fucking done with having to take 20 hours to unlock the ability to fully play the game. you don't have to get every unlock, or even most, to win confession 5 -- but there are some skills and items that obviously make a huge difference, and until you unlock them you're not even allowed to know what they are.

i hate unlock treadmills so much now, dude. they never should have been allowed to get this bad.

I had a blast playing this game.
The plot isn't very good. It is mostly lighthearted, simple and clichéd and there are a lot of hammy moments, but it does its job pretty well.
The gameplay is super fun. This is the fire emblemwith the best and most addicting combat, raising up tyour units and using the emblem rings throw a lot of fun complexity into the mix. There are a couple of tasks in the base that get boring (like ring polishing) but most of those are alright_
The soundtrack does have a lot of bangers and I see myselflistening to a lot of its OST on youtube. It is teh second best soundtrack after Conquest IMO
The character design is a bit weird a a bit too animu at first but it kind of grew on me. The combat animations are fun and ENGAGING.

I hope they use this game as an influence for future titles in the series,

once a zero cool game about flipping out with real ultimate power in corridors crammed with mobs; now focused on riding mounts in empty open worlds to fish and mine (????) for the 999 faction grinds put in for player retention, and they've scaled down your power too. has become just another longform grind sticker book. continues to stray further and further from original hook by blowing budget on things like slow clunky robos in a game everyone downloaded to be a fast agile ninja. movement still some of the h@ttest in the biz but it seems like the last thing this company wants you to do anymore is have fun

Simply incredible. After Golden Treasure and Citizen Sleeper, I was sure there's no way that 2022 would have another great text adventure ready for me. But Roadwarden is not only great, it is amazing. I will preach it's grandeur with the zeal of a priest, I swear in Wright's name.

Dense and organic worldbuilding that has a big and detailed peninsula unfold before you, seemingly growing only larger the more you learn about it, a huge cast of varied and detailed characters, incredible freedom of choice not only in dialogue but even in combat, I can barely stop gushing.

After 80+ hours of Red Dead Redemption 2, a question pops up in one’s mind:
In the process of making a game that examines the fall of the American frontier and the decline of the Wild West, did the irony register at all with Rockstar that they were also making a game about the end of the triple A design structure that has plagued the medium ever since the birth of the 7th gen?

Regardless of what pre-established biases one might come into RDR2 about the value of graphical fidelity and closeness to real life and focus on cinematic design and film language in games, it’s impossible not to be impressed by Rockstar’s commitment to the simulation of realism. Your character will meticulously grab each item he loots and place it in his satchel, craft each new tonic or bullet one at a time with detailed animations, remove and place his weapons on his horse whenever you switch them up, shuffle dominoes and grab each piece one by one in every game, and skin every hunted animal with gruesome detail and carry them on his back to his horse every single time. NPCs all have their per-determined schedules that happen regardless of your presence or not, wild animals behave accordingly to their nature and even hunt other species, and every mundane action, be it taking a shower, mounting a camp, cleaning your guns, or brushing your horse, carry a level of detail and weight never before seen in a blockbuster game. It also boasts one of the most beautiful environments to walk around, filled with detail and big expansive nature landmarks, frequently creating moments of awe as you ride around the mountains and landscape.

This level of realism is further elevated in the gang’s camp, where you have a group of misfits you can deal with daily and who all have their respective quirks, goals and actions. Rarely will you hear the same line of dialogue from these characters in the course of 80 hours, and the impressive amount of scenes and conversations that occur not only between your character and them, but also between themselves, means that you will finish the game without experiencing half of the camp scenes that happen dynamically and without feeling like scripted events. When you find yourself around a campfire with your gang after a well succeeded mission, being able to join in the singing and festivities with them, suddenly all the effort in creating a realistic world comes together and for a few seconds the immersion is achieved and one feels like he is a part of a fully realized world and that these characters are tangible and real.

It’s unfortunate then that each time you get into a story mission, that effort is collapsed and you are thrown back into the videogame. What was once acceptable in RDR1 now feels incredibly dated and restrictive, with the usual design structure of having you ride to the mission on horseback and having a chat with an NPC while you follow a yellow line, following every single instruction the game tells you without any chance to deviate from it, waiting for something to inevitably go wrong, and then shooting a comical number of enemies that spawn out of nowhere like a NES game until everyone is dead. Rinse, and repeat. The level of realism found in the open world aspects of RDR2 only serves to call attention to how detached and out of touch the story missions are, leading to incredibly absurd scenes where the main character chastises a crew member for killing too many people during a story cutscene, when you the player yourself have been forced to kill 50 people during a house robbery just the previous mission.

What ends up happening is that most of the stuff you will be doing in the open world won’t matter at all because that would be stepping on the story’s toes. Regardless of how much money you have or how much you have contributed to the camp and NPCs, nothing will have effect on how the story will progress, with the exception of a very simplistic and outdated Honor system. This in turn inevitably leads to the open world map feeling like just a bunch of lines between check marks to fill, with the occasional scripted event to deviate you, but not much!, from the beaten path, and the rare exploration quest that happens when the game decides you should. Even the act of hunting an animal in the wilderness is affected by Rockstar’s grip on your hand, having a highlighted line on the ground that flashes and leads perfectly to your prey. The simulation aspects end up being surface level mechanics used to visually impress the player, not really influencing in any meaningful way either the gameplay or the story. It’s all shallow spectacle.

Which is a shame, because RDR2 has one of the most compelling videogame characters ever created. Arthur Morgan’s story takes a very contemplative and introspective direction in it’s final act, as he finds out he doesnt have much time left in this world, and it leads to some of the most interesting and emotional moments that Rockstar has ever created. Arthur’s effort in making something out of the few life he has left ends up influencing the player’s action outside of the story, and in one of the most poignant and humane moments in the whole game, you are forced to lay down your controller for a few secs, as Arthur requests a moment from you so he can catch his breath, something that makes the player care and empathize with a bunch of polygons much more than any cutting edge cutscene in the whole game could. Even the act of playing the last stretch of the game mimics Arthur’s new perspective, the missions feeling like a slog to go through, Dutch becoming increasingly frustrating, repetitive and annoying to be around, and the creativity being lesser and lesser, which would have been an interesting and insightful direction, had that actually been the intention by Rockstar. But RDR2 is adamant in separating the story from the gameplay, even bafflingly inserting black bars on top and bottom of the screen each time control is removed from the player, as if to signal that it’s now movie time and no time for interactivity. Regardless of all the issues with the story and gameplay, Arthur’s story is enough to carry the whole game on it’s back, and any player invested in his tale will have a hard time not getting emotional at the gut-wretching ending.

But then the game continues. For 5 more hours. And it’s at this point that the dam breaks and the flaws of the game become full center and aren’t easy to ignore anymore. The epilogue, which lacks any self awareness as it presents itself as a two parter, drags it’s way into a fan pandering ending, filled with needless shooting, redundant subplots, and characters that completely undermine the impact of the actual ending of the game. We can’t have a simple mission about just herding some sheeps, shopping with a friend, or fly a hot air ballon. No, every mission has to have a bloody battle with a body count that would make Stalin jealous, because Rockstar cannot bear the idea that some players might be bored if there isnt anything to shoot at. During an exchange between Morgan and an NPC the screen fades to black as they start talking about their lives, as if to spare the player from all those “boring details”, instead leading straight to the action once more. Rockstar can’t bear the thought of giving more opportunities for normal interactions between the player and the NPCs, while I sit here thinking about how one of my favorite missions was when I crossed the whole map to see a character I was fond of, only to get a kiss and that being the end of the mission.

RDR2 is a bloated game that can’t read a room on when’s it’s time to bow down and stop the show, deciding instead to outstay it’s welcome for an absurd amount of time, like an old frail man clawing at the last moments before his time to move on. And maybe it’s also time for Rockstar to move on, and let ideas of cinematic grandeur and realism in videogames finally lay rest once and for all.