Redwolf's Journal (continued)

  I had intended to get these thoughts out earlier, but time did not permit, so we’ll see if I end up forgetting things on my mind. The Mandalorian and Grogu was fine. It’s nearly two and a half hours of Star Wars that makes a serviceable movie with nothing truly egregious. I think it would be better against the lower bar of TV episodes, but it didn’t leave me feeling disillusioned with Star Wars movies, as has happened before. So… fine. Three out of five. Five or six out of ten. There are people who could unabashedly enjoy it and call it good and… I kind of envy that, but just can’t. From there, anything I say can get spoilery , but I do have a lot of little thoughts. Let’s start with some positives: I like Mando. The stoicism and curtness is I fine line to walk, but I think the character is still pulling it off and maintains a certain presence. I like Zeb. He’s a little bit CGI-y for my preference, but I have a fondness for the character from Rebels that does not feel unjustly m...

 Looking back at my 2023 remarks on Diablo IV, I was moderately positive. The game's good enough to play and the story was compelling enough for me to voice thoughts about events and characters within, focusing on the central prophecy and how characters interpreted it differently. Now, I see some trailers for the second DLC, and I feel very different. I wonder how much of that may be a matter of me and my own perspective versus the game/story itself? Seeing Lilith making a reappearance is incredibly deflating. Arguably, that was inevitable. Blizzard doesn't want to sideline their major characters and in the setting most major powers are defeatable only in a temporary sense. But usually defeating a big-bad puts them out of action for more than a single expansion, so that feels ludicrously brief. I'd also say the flip-flop between getting Mephisto's assistance in fighting Lilith in the base game to vice versa feels uninspired. Really, the overall feeling I get of seeing t...

 Organizing thoughts on a video game somehow feels more healthy than dwelling on other matters of late, so... I've been playing Crimson Desert for a bit. It's good, but certainly not the next revolutionary game some people were making it out to be. Many people have said it's a "jack of all trades" game, which is fairly accurate. There are a ton of systems - crafting, refining, socketing, fishing, gathering, cooking, reputation, theft, recruiting, dispatch missions... and many more. The combat is competent and may have potential to be a little better than that, but it hasn't clicked with me to that point and it definitely doesn't feel as solid and deliberate as something like Elden Ring. The map is expansive, with a pretty good variety of enemies and biomes. I have found some enjoyment in just exploring. So there is a lot in the game and some of it has notable depth. It does lack in some areas, though. I feel bad for Kliff's voice actor, who went on rec...

 So I finally got around to playing through Dispatch over the weekend. It's been on my radar for quite a while, though the episodic releases made me hold off. Story and characters - I kind of love 'em. There are plenty of things I could nitpick about the world building, but it's sound enough to suspect disbelief for the 8-ish hours of run time. There are few choices that really seem meaningful in the end, but the overall trajectory of the story works. The characters are pretty flavorful and can be memorable. There's some good emotional beats woven in too. I can be more critical of the gameplay, though. The (optional) QTEs and dialog/story choices are there, but don't make for much of a game. The 'game' consists of the dispatching shifts and little hacking minigames. The latter works to break things up a bit without being very notable.  The dispatching... actually has a fair amount of depth built in. Characters level up with XP to get better stats that you as...

When I watched the pilot for Hazbin Hotel , I adored it. It had a good balance of serious vs. silly. The musical nature worked. The characters were appealing. And I suppose I could say it has an irreverent edge that drew me in too. The series was one of the few bits of entertainment I would say I truly anticipated and even was the final nudge to get me to subscribe to Amazon Prime. The first season was pretty great. Some of the voice actor changes were a little off-putting, but grew on me. The season was filled with banger songs. Really, I loved it all around, I think. The second season didn't quite hit with me in the same way, though.  Releasing two episodes (of eight) a week was a detriment in my book. The first two episodes were largely showing fallout from perspectives of Hell and Heaven, without moving things forward much at all. The next four then set up the stakes, explaining a few things and revealing others, but they felt moving a little fast and left me thinking "tha...

 Having just recently rolled credits on T he Outer Worlds 2 , I can safely say I found the game... fine. For every bit of praise, I probably have a caveat. The shooting and traversal mechanics work well enough for a first-person-centric game. There are plenty of opportunities to use the game's skills throughout, but how meaningful they are is questionable. Most objectives usually have multiple solutions, whether its pickpocketing a passcard, hacking a terminal, finding a hidden route, or just blasting everyone at a checkpoint. I generally feel that's good design, but to fall back on a point immediately, the differences don't really feel meaningful 99% of the time. The skills are also tuned in such a way that if you want to be able to pass checks throughout the game, you can really only invest in about three. Even a minor dip in something else can cut you off from a few endgame check (not that it would gate you out of anything particularly important). I can see ups and downs...