Redwolf's Journal (continued)

 A long holiday weekend was enough to get through Star Wars: Zero Company , and I'm fine with that. To state is up front, it's good. As a tactical game, it's good. I might describe it as something closer to Wasteland 3 than XCOM, though the quality of the latter shines through, because of the heavy story focus. The XCOM games I've played largely felt about the combat missions and everything in between fed into and supported that. In this case, the combat missions are just as good, but they serve the story rather than the other way around. The credit economy gets real tight real fast until perhaps the last few missions. It doesn't feel great, though it does fit a barely-scrapping-by mercenary outfit. It pushed me to run almost all missions with a non-companion recruit because they had an ability granting a few extra credits each mission. There is a bit of time pressure in that missions only last so many cycles (each mission taking 1 cycle). If you delay running a com...

 So I finished up Of Ash and Steel. And I would say that's... an ending, I suppose? On the gameplay side, things do get easier in the later game. Teleporters are available to avoid running across the entire map. Enemies get a couple more tricky abilities, but their attack routines done change much. The final boss has a habit of teleporting back and shooting a ranged attack that took away a ridiculous amount of health before I could get up close and essentially stun-lock him. But as stats increase, gear gets better, and you can finally unlock combat-related skills, avoiding any fights is more out of time saving than genuine worry over losing. Of more note is the story.  Act 4 left Tris with some magical powers in a world that had seemed largely bereft of them, delving into old "Primestrider" ruins to pick up a few more. He gathers up whichever faction was chosen and retakes a fort in the center of the island, gathering allies against a nebulous foreign threat that apparen...

I had my eye on Of Ash and Steel for a while as a possibly-worth-playing second- or third-tier RPG. I've enjoyed such before in spite of a certain level of jank that is expected. In this case, other things lined up such that I didn't come in until several patches into its lifecycle, which is probably a good thing as it cuts down on bugs. The term I keep coming back to with this game is "high friction." You can't even access the map screen until Act 2, then have to find survey points to reveal details, and even then I wish there was more labeling. There are zero quest markers and the directions given range wildly from semi-useful to "you should just look this up outside the game if you don't expect to lose hours searching." Traveling around is limited to running (technically some teleporters open up in Act 4), which is especially painful in the early game when you stamina is particularly low. Heck, you even fall down if running through puddles until ...

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the best movie I've seen in quite a while. This comes from someone who is definitely experiencing a degree of superhero movie fatigue. And yet, I was not taken out of the movie once for the entire runtime. The movie may be couched in "hero fights villain(s)" trappings, but it leans more into the "and discovers things about himself along the way."  There are several story threads examined that I figured would be handled in a typical and simple way, but were instead treated more with the nuance they deserve - primarily how Peter handles connecting with people who magically forgot about him. I don't think it's too spoilery since that's hinted by previews and fairly obvious from where previous movies left things. The simple cop out would just be to have the magical amnesia overcome by the power of friendship. This movie, for the most part, does not treat it as such a simple matter, and that's good because it should be me...

 007 First Light struck me as a reasonably good game and a very solid James Bond experience. I don't have the Hitman familiarity to compare it to, but the game mechanics worked well. The open investigative levels offered some flexibility, at least. I wouldn't describe them as offering full freedom, but you're generally given a handful of threads without needing to pull on them all to progress.  I'm of two minds regarding the tutorial montage. On one hand, it really fits stylistically and feels kind of cool. On the other hand, jumping straight from melee to shooting to driving (which is barely used in the game under any pressure) can be a bit disorienting. In fact, the melee mechanics never quite clicked with me, leading me to switch to an easier difficulty mode after losing a few times to the first major "boss" fight. The shooting was fine, though I think you go through more enemies than any Bond movie by far, so don't think about that too much. I like thi...

Mina the Hollower is one of those games I respect. I think anyone throwing around 10/10 Perfect scoring may have some blinders on and is very focused on the niche it fills - which is to say it's very good for what it is, but I don't find it revolutionary as far as video games in general. Good, sure. Pinnacle? Nah. It is hard, yes, but it also comes with selectable modifiers that can make it incredibly easy in the moment-to-moment play. I mean, if you don't care about achievements, you can pop on invulnerability and remove falling in pits and the only real challenge left are the environmental puzzles. There are lots of "lesser" modifiers available too. That makes it about as accessible as you could want. But there is a certain "difficulty" from the old design sensibilities, too - there is very little direction given on how to do things or where to go. It takes a while to even get a map, and it just lays out where the zones are in relation to one another,...

  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...

 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...

 Kind of what it says on the tin. I quite like the ideas behind it, blending song and fame in as elements of fending off invasion from a demon world. There's a good energy to the movie and characters. The music is solid - I say this as someone who appreciates K-Pop beat, but is a long way from a connoisseur. The overall story works pretty well, touching on (if only lightly) themes of friendship, acceptance, fandom, and redemption. The demonic tiger and magpie duo are cute and fun as hell for all their fairly brief appearances.  My only criticisms are generally about missed potential - things that weren't bad, but left me feeling like they could have been much better. Overall, the movie felt rushed, with an intro that has visuals but is still telling more than showing and an ending that wraps everything up neatly only if you don't think much about implications. The animation and cartoony vibe sort of go with that, making the movie feel like "just a kids' show" ...

 Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon was in early access for a while and full-released just recently. Many people have called it some sort of new inheritor of the Bethesda-style open world crown or something. I'm less than convinced of that, though it's pretty good. It's got the first-person (with third available) gameplay in a large sandbox down well. I found combat and movement felt better to me than Avowed. Like Avowed, the map is made up of large zones (3 in this case) rather than fully open like the most known Bethesda games. Interiors/dungeons are still loaded separately. Spells being largely treated as weapons is fine, though feels a bit less magical. There's weapon/armor/potion/food crafting. There's weapon/armor upgrading (though not spells apparently). There's fishing. There's even in-game sketching. A lot of those systems aren't required or used as much as they could be. In fact, my biggest complaint about the game is that everything feels like it t...

I haven't watched an MCU movie in a while. I missed... let's see... Quantumania, Eternals, Marvels, and Falcon & Winter Soldier at least. I suppose I've just been a bit burned out on them or something. But, I decided to catch Thunderbolts*.  I worked pretty well. I wasn't taken out of it. I don't find anything that bothers me about it. I liked some of the characters and the interplay. But there wasn't anything that quite pushed it over to great either. The group had a sort of Guardians of the Galaxy vibe with anti-heroes coming together to support one another in a quasi-family. But they also kind of copied the "losers" speech from the original GotG movie, which feels a little cheap. The team being made up of a bunch of people who "shoot and punch things" is a little lackluster for a superhero movie. They're not terribly super or heroic. We have three peak-human supersoldiers, a hyper-trained assassin (and Yelena carries the movie and ...

So I was looking for something new to play around the holidays and one thing on my radar was Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I was not quite interested enough to fork over $70, though. This brought me back to a short visit with Game Pass. $1 for a couple weeks? Sure, that I'm more than willing to do. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle proved to be a pretty good game. There's more focus on stealth through sections than punching fascist/Nazis, but there's some of both. I quite liked the open Giza segment with the lived-in feel and side activities, but it was immediately followed by a couple more linear levels that kind of deflated the game a bit. The final open area didn't quite feel like it properly opened back out. I feel like that might be because it's a map of taking a boat between smaller areas. The ending feels appropriately Indiana Jones, though it does leave one wondering "did all this effort really accomplish anything?" So the latter half of the...

 I feel like Mechwarrior 5: Clans is the result of someone asking "okay, now what if we made a game for Battletech lore fans?" It eschews the freedom of the previous MW5: Mercenaries in favor of a narrative game that is laser focused on some big, pivotal elements of the setting lore around the early Clan Invasion. I know enough that it's difficult for me to judge, but I feel like anyone not familiar with at least the basics of the Clans could easily be lost. Under the hood, the game looks better to me than Mercs - I believe there was an engine upgrade involved. As all the missions are crafted rather than generated, the maps and mission flow are easily as good or better than the best missions in Mercs. A lot of breadth is lost along the way, though. There aren't any random missions you can run. The mech roster available to the player is pretty limited by comparison (to the 16 front line mechs used by the faction at the time). The mech customization feels a little sti...

So yeah, overall I enjoyed the game. I think it's good, though there wasn't anything that totally blew me away or resonated with me so much that it would feel a travesty for it not to win "Game of the Year" awards (as has been the case the last couple years with BG3 and ER). If this is comparable to Persona games, I might keep an eye on them going forward, but don't feel the need to consume the back catalog. The gameplay itself is fine - competently done, but a little heavy on menus. I still dislike the time slot management aspect because of how it taps parts of my psyche that feel a need to optimize everything, but I found there was ultimately more than enough time to do all the bond quests, raising traits, monster hunts, side missions, and arena fights. The story and characters were really the strength for me, engaging me for the lengthy run time. I liked almost all the friendly NPCs and most of the hostile ones were understandable. Several of the plot twists al...

 Shadow of the Erdtree is more Elden Ring - one of the best games of recent years. Oh. More? Okay, I was initially disappointed by the map size. That turned out to be because you initially only see about a quarter of the overall map. So, size-wise, it's respectable. And there is a layered element to it. There are a few tombs and some more complex areas. Overall, I think there's a good amount of terrain, though there are a few areas that are underused and relatively empty: - The abyssal wood is atmospheric, but really too expansive for what's there with no riding. - The "finger" areas are fairly large for being important in one quest line with very little more than being littered with annoying enemies. - The shaman village feels like there should be something, anything, there. The exploration was still fun, though, and I liked finding ways to get places I could see. There is still at least one truly evil tomb designer out there, though, with that teleporter-filled,...

 Yeah, I find I'm using this less and less. I'd already pared down use to mostly commenting on entertainments and there's really only one or two people readily interested in such things anyway. But, I suppose I'm still subject to wanting to write down thoughts once in a while. The most recent thing on my mind is A Plague Tale: Requiem . I knew from the first game it wasn't going to be a happy experience. I didn't expect it to be quite so easy for me to define in one word, though. The game is bleak . The game follows Amicia and Hugo again (along with some new characters and a couple old ones) in seeking to find a cure for Hugo's condition connected to the supernatural plague rats. Things start off okay, then soon take a turn - and that sets the tone. A few times, the characters reach a new place that seems nice and peaceful and you just know it's going to soon devolve into a rat-infested nightmare. Only the most naive of players would have any illusion o...

 I watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners over the last few days and I'd call it fairly good cyberpunk (even Cyberpunk) entertainment. I would have preferred if the over-the-top style was dialed back a bit in favor a touch more realism. That may be Studio Trigger influence. It's not unbearable, but I do have to suspend disbelief just a little more than my ideal and go along for the ride. The city on display is definitely Cyberpunk 2077 's Night City, down to crosswalks and cameos. The core characters fall largely into a range that I like. I would perhaps complain that Lucy may be *too* standoffish and David *too* lacking in drive of his own, but those are traits that may have some value in exploring. Unexpectedly, I found Rebecca to be the shining star of the main cast. She initially seems like little more than a psycho-loli, but by the endgame she displays a trustworthiness that is valuable beyond just about anything in the setting. And the story very firmly reminds that the cybe...