Also it doesn’t lock you into endless needless detailed animations or take away all your guns regularly.
1 > 2
6 Likes
It also has cooler music and better atmosphere.
4 Likes
I (finally) committed to it and played through Return of The Obra Dinn this weekend. Here is what I posted on Steam:
This game is moderately hard, and gave me motion sickness, but it’s also a true work of art and a testament to creativity. Lucas Pope made something very special with Obra Dinn.
There will be some guesswork, and some frustration, and some retracing of steps — but in the end the experience as a whole was very much worth it.
It’s a brilliant game, but it’s not a 5/5 game.
It’s a masterpiece, but also flawed.
I think both things can exist.
10 Likes
I managed to do it without any guessing but some reasonings were super far fetched. 
5 Likes
So, after two months of playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and having finished the Family arc of the main game just yesterday, I’d like to talk about where I stand on this game that I’ve waited so long to play and which was the motivating factor to start a new franchise.
So, I can conclusively say that, not only do I absolutely love this game, but I can also say that it’s my favorite game in the whole series so far. This is rather odd since it’s the game with the least amount of involvement of any actual Assassins in the whole series. Not only is the main character not an Assassin, but even their predecessor organization, the Hidden Ones, won’t even exist for another ~400 years by the events of this game. There is a single proto-Assassin in one of the DLCs, but aside from that and the Modern Day segments, that’s it. The player character is actually a mercenary, and while there are some assassination missions to be had, they are either for money or for personal and political reasons rather than the titular Creed. Despite this, the gameplay of this game is so much fun, it truly surpasses the fun I’ve had with all the other games, without question.
Now, there are a few negatives. I don’t like how, when you collect loot or destroy enemy equipment, then come back later, after a certain amount of time those things reappear to be collected again. In the previous game, Origins, once you collected loot or destroyed equipment, that was it, it was gone for the rest of the game unless you reload a save. This means I get my compulsion to recollect it when I go back to an area.
I do not like the multiple options this game has, both the choices of how the storyline turns out and the choice of dialogue. I like the linearity of previous games on how the story turns out and what the characters say. A poor decision that was made to implement in this game.
Finally, the thing I like least of all, which isn’t quite as big a deal since I began having so much fun playing the game, but is still there: you cannot exit the Animus whenever you want. I really dislike this. Going in and out of the Animus at will has been a staple of the series thus far. The Animus is my favorite thing about this series; that you’re essentially playing a video game inside a video game. I would argue that it’s the best thing about the series. Even in Unity, Syndicate, and the Chronicles games, where there’s no real playable Modern Day protagonist and you can’t actually exit the Animus, you can at least see in the pause menu that you are inside the digital framework of the Animus’s software on the Helix servers. Returning to the ancestor memory and loading screens also gives you the light room where you see the Animus code around the ancestral character. Odyssey doesn’t even have this. When the game has a preset exit/enter point for the Animus is the only time you see its code, presented here as a dark tunnel, looking kind of like the eye of a storm from directly above.
Overall, I see why it’s considered the least Assassin’s Creed game of the series. Despite that (and not because of it, I’m certain), this is definitely my favorite of the series, and there’s still so much left to do. I don’t know if I’ll be done by the time we enter 2025, but I’m going to guess not.
7 Likes
Yaaaay another Animus Framing Device enjoyer! 
Yeah, I quite like that sci-fi part of the series, even if a lot of their Modern Day elements were never handled with enough importance or care to get truly invested into.
It’s just neat the way the game presents itself as some digital-recreation of history, blurring that line between a fun character re-telling, or a whole digital simulation… And like, any supernatural elements in the series usually involves some weird glitching, as if whatever powerful tech this is, it’s too much for even modern computers to recreate. Any time one of the game has put in some sort of “Animus bug” as a feature, I think it’s pretty neat. It’s like bending the rules of reality a little.
I recently revisited Origins in my last attempt to try and enjoy the game and how beloved it is as a truly massive open-world entry for fans. But gosh, yeah, the RPG leveling and extremely expansive world is just too much for me. It’s not what I want out of my Assassins Creeds.
I want nice stealth gameplay, usually complementing the parkour system. Some social stealth peppered in, and tight, interesting worlds to explore.
Egypt is most definitely interesting and the scale is really impressive, but it’s just too much for me, and definitely not what I’d looking for out of AC. There’s just too much weird loot mechanics that distract me from the game, and I keep getting turned off by the constant horse-travelling to get between important locations or side-quests.
I did check out the Discovery Tour mode in Origins for 10/15mins, and WOW, okay, that’s a really cool way to twist the game into something that makes every drop of its world interesting.
It essentially puts you in the game world with an avatar as usual (letting you climb around and stuff too!), but with guided walking tours to go on, detailing how cities or monuments were built, what the culture was like, and how Egypt evolved over the centuries of years it existed.
Pretty informative and I like the little picture references included as well!
(I think I remember seeing Jane Perry plays one of the Narrators in the Discovery Tour of either Odyssey, Valhalla, or both!)
5 Likes
Oh yeah, I love the Animus concept. I see all these articles written by people saying that the series needs to abandon the Modern Day arc, abandon the Animus altogether, and just do the historical parts, and I want to slap them in the face. What are these people thinking? Not only does that abandon the key framing device for the whole series inexplicably, but it also takes away the explanation as to why what you do in the games differs from actual history. The whole idea is that, in viewing another person’s memories, you see how history actually went, and that all discrepancies are either mistranslations of the Animus, or the Templars and Assassins covered up the details of the actual events and what was recorded was an altered account that nobody was able to question. This becomes most apparent and most prominent in III with Haytham’s killing of Braddock being very different from what was recorded, making it clear that what was recorded was a falsehood and we got to see what really went down. Without the Animus and the Modern Day segment to provide the anchor, it’s just a game being made with history being different for no good reason other than “it’s cool to pretend.”
Some of the supernatural aspects of the series can be chalked up to the Animus, such as the giant Egyptian gods in Origins, but the rest of it is just the technology of Those Who Came Before making their way into mythology. The RPG games in particular address this by having so many mythological occurrences. Humans have reached a civilized state again, so they are able to build their own cities around the remains of the Precursors’s tech, and begin triggering them to cause things to happen that are not possible to human understanding and so show up in our myths in modern day, but even for the Assassins and Templars who know about them, they don’t encounter much “supernatural” phenomena anymore because the ancestors in the RPG trilogy already destroyed many things that would reveal to the world the origin of humanity. That’s why I think the trilogy, being set further back in time than the rest of the series, is the perfect place to have more Isu lore take place, because it is so far back and deactivates so many of their technological items, it explains why human history since then has moved toward science and away from myth because nobody is encountering these things anymore.
Which, I would note, is part of the reason why I believe that the Bible could be true, even though what is written in it is often impossible or contradictory to what we now know.
4 Likes
I’m playing Mario & Luigi Brothership and i haven’t read the IGN review but man 5/10 is absolutely realistic. It’s fucking boring so far
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Okay, so, actually I’m probably NOT gonna play Cyberpunk for now… because I think it conflicts with the fact that I’m still working on Baldur’s Gate 3.
And like, they’re both massive, choice-based RPGs with different endings, a dialogue system, and a really rich world of lore to discover.
I’d probably be spreading myself too thin wanting to immerse myself in both games at once.
I’m only 3 or 4 missions into C2077, haven’t gotten to meet Keanu Reeves yet – which is the one big hook of the game I’m interested in, so putting the game on hiatus for now is probably good.
So… yeah. Okay. BG3 is active, gotta revisit Astro Bot for the new levels released the past few weeks, and I’ll probably go for that copy of Toy Story 3 on PS3 I bought a few months ago, as my “other” game to play when not in the mood for BG… It’s a platformer, level based, shorter and less complex!
I haven’t played BG3 in a few weeks now, but I’m still so early in the game (only just met Wyll) I’m kinda considering restarting with a new character already, especially since I’ll probably have a better idea as to how the mechanics work. And… IDK so far Paladin feels a little limited in spells/combat scope so far! 
5 Likes
Pro tip when you get to “Rising Heat” turn the motion controls off and save yourself a lot of hassle.
3 Likes
I finished Metaphor: ReFantazio. Great game, I loved it, definetly think it is at least GOTY nominee worthy, and if you have any interest in it or turn based JRPGs in general, it is a must play.
From a lot of the people who brought us Personas 3/4/5, do I love it as much as those games? By a hair, no, but then, Metaphor isn’t just “fantasy Persona”, like so many headlines put forward. I mean, it does share a lot of Persona, and Shin Megami Tensei in general, (to the point that honestly with SMT being such a broad church of a game series with so many different spin-offs and sub-series, I don’t really see why Metaphor couldn’t be an SMT game officially.), it is its own beast. It does put less emphasis on Social Links and day by day activities (there are only 14 Social Links compared to P3/P4/P5’s 20+, and the period of time is significantly shorter than in Persona.)
Definetly a bit harder than the easier going Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Reload, the Archetype system does mean that you need to constantly think about team structure. For me especially, who can be a bit stubborn and want to stick to a team I like, the difficulty can zig zag a bit as different enemies and bosses require different strategies to beat them. To the game’s credit, the game is quite good at telling you what bosses and dungeon enemies are weak to thanks to informants who only require a small fee for their services, so there’s rarely times where you should be taken by total surprise.
5 Likes
things to know about BG3:
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if you can make peace with missing things and sticking with your bad decisions, you’ll have a much better time with it. don’t look things up, don’t go out of your way to tick every box, try to live in your character. you can play as many times as you want, but you only get one first playthrough
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you can respec any time, including multiclassing (slightly advanced) - and this includes your followers, who tend to have really bad starting stats. so don’t worry too much about getting locked into a class you don’t enjoy. however…
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the first few levels are the hardest for every class, at level 4/5 you become significantly stronger so don’t worry if combat feels rough at the start!
7 Likes
@Rimland, you can rest easy 
4 Likes
Ahh, all is well… (Bandit Radio making a comeback as well by any chance?)
I won´t be buying/playing the game until I at least solve my “newer” laptop´s audio issue, but I feel like I should go play the OG trilogy in the meantime. It´s been way too long 
4 Likes
Black Ops 6 still.
I’ve been playing it just about everyday since it Launched a month ago.
I’ve also made it a goal to get to Prestige Master before the New Year with me quite literally projecting to reach the goal this upcoming weekend.
I’m also seeing that I achieve atleast 100% completion for Zombies across all the challenges within the mode reaching the covered Dark Ops Master and Prestige Challenge Master.
That being said Peter Stormare having an exclusive Black Cell skin is really cool.
5 Likes
Finished up Evil West this morning. It is dumb, often frustrating, and quite a lot of fun.
4 Likes
Played through Toy Story 3 on the PS3 this past week/week-end. Originally played it on the PC, and I think I only touched the main story.
This time, I did that and also fully completed the Toy Box mode. It’s pretty cool! Kind of like a mini open-world/town building game. Lots of quests to finish, collectibles and town cosmetics to find, and races and other activities to do! Pretty neat for a small licensed platforming game - or at least that’s what the main game stuff was.
And now I Started Dead Rising recently.
I’ve learned quickly (but not quick enough) how integral manual saving is. There is no quick or auto saving, you have to seek out the save points (mall bathrooms) yourself.
(And missions are on a constant timer, so that’s the caveat too.)
First time, got through the opening, finished the first side mission, beat the first story boss, then I had some survivors die and myself soon after.
Restart! (And thankfully I keep my progress between new games!) Did not save because I felt I could catch up again to where I failed. Nope. Skipped all the cutscenes, finished side-mission 1 again, got to the boss, and he stunlocked me and I died. Restart!
Same deal again, decided not to save as I went through the opening again, but then I caught myself dying to Boss 1 again.
Gosh. I think I’m on my 5th try now, finally making sure to save after the mandatory opening scenes. I beat Boss 1 again, saved 2 survivors while a 3rd died off screen somewhere, and maaaaan this game is tense when you’re escorting NPCs. They are quite brain dead at times!
I’m enjoying the zombie-slaying action and the mall exploration.
5 Likes
Ghostwire: Tokyo Kinda awful, but also enjoyable enough.
When the announcement trailer was first released, I was instantly sold on the game. It looked like a mystical horror game that was set in Tokyo. Then the gameplay trailer came and my wallet instantly sealed itself. Luckily EGS gave it away for free not long ago and I decided to give it a chance.
The good
- The Combat is fun
- The game is colourful
- Fun to run explore Tokyo and run around a city I actually visited and for the most part it’s pretty close to reality
- The Raytracing makes the light and water soaked streets pop.
The bad
- Looks awful for a 2022 game.
- The combat is pretty repetitiv.
- Not scary at all.
- Cutscenes looks awful
- Cutscenes awfully acted
- The story is boring
Normally I never skip cutscenes in a game, no matter how many times I played the game. This is the first time I can remember where I actually want to skip the dull exposition and just get on with it. I don’t.
The only thing that really keeps me engage is the somewhat enjoyable combat, exploring Tokyo and getting the game for free.
7 Likes
Finished my yearly playthrough of Hitman 1,2 and 3 recently and now replaying through the Arkham series as the trilogy was dirt cheap on the PSN sale last week.
Always loved these games, especially Arkham City. Hoping Rocksteady return to the series one day albeit it’ll be different now after Kevin Conroy’s passing. 
9 Likes
Arkham Origins is criminally underrated, I prefer it to City. Sadly there isn’t a PS4/5 bundle with all titles.
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