A Devil’s Advocate Review of Elden Ring
It was recently brought to my attention by both myself and others that all of my complaints about Elden Ring are irrelevant nitpicks. Whether it’s because it’s a problem that doesn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things or it’s something that most players won’t ever experience, I have already workshopped a lot of my problems with Elden Ring among other players and they’ve almost all been dismissive about my concerns. So, as always when I run into a brick wall while writing a review, I’m going to take a different approach with this one and play devil’s advocate where I’ll point out most (reasonable) problems with the game and the counter arguments against why they aren’t a problem. This way I can complain as much as I want while also admitting that most of my problems have no merit! Everyone wins. Problem: Repetitive bosses/dungeons and the disappointing rewards…
The Many Failures of The Book of Boba Fett
I think it’s fair to say that my reaction to The Book of Boba Fett was never going to be unbiased. Like many Star Wars fans I was immediately snared by his cool armor in the films and stuck around for the “Legends” content that came after before Disney swept every non-film/TV show off the table for the sake of building their own universe. There we saw Fett surviving his unglamorous end in the Sarlacc Pit and continuing his bounty hunting adventures for many more years, as well as some looks into his time before the fall of the Empire and everything in between. So yes, I’m a fan of the character; and as a fan I was as excited as anyone else to see Fett’s return in The Mandalorian and him picking up his own spin-off, even more so when it was such uncharted territory as Fett taking over…
Halo Infinite Review
A small part of me has never believed in Halo since Bungie left. I skipped Halo 4 upon release, I didn’t have a console that played Halo 5, and a playthrough of 4 after the Master Chief Collection‘s release on PC hasn’t convinced me that I made the wrong choice. Now we have Halo Infinite, which takes Halo‘s already relatively loose gameplay framework and spreads it across an entire map for the players to engage with all the enemies, vehicles, and weapons as they see fit in between regular levels. I’ll admit I was extremely quizzical about this change from the onset, especially after seeing the grappling hook when it was revealed (I believe I said something similar to “Sure, you may as well make Halo into Titanfall.”) so I was very interested to see if they stuck the landing. There’s been so much said about Halo Infinite‘s multiplayer already…
Aragami Review
Aragami really seems like a game that I’d enjoy, being someone who is, at best, mildly obsessed with ninjas. The concept alone sounds like it’s right up my alley: a ninja stealth game where you can teleport between shadows. What more could you want? I could dance around the punchline here, spin a slow burn about whether or not a five year old game is worth your time, but I’ll help you come to the same realization I did in half the time: Aragami is a mediocre game on a weak engine that plays like someone really enjoyed Mark of the Ninja and Dishonored and tried to mash the two together. If that’s all you needed to know then thanks for visiting, but if you want to find out what I mean then let’s get into it. The game’s title is the name of your main character: a shadow creature…
Back 4 Blood Beta Impressions
I want to like this game. I really do. I want to sit down and write out a piece about a modern return of Left 4 Dead. I want to write a stirring impressions piece that inspires everyone to try out the open beta (which is running for the rest of the day today, 8/15/21, and maybe a little tomorrow) and support a gold standard return to these sorts of multiplayer PvE games. I know people who like this game and part of me wants to shut out everything that feels “off” about Back 4 Blood and just play it with them. But here we are just like we were with Evolve, where I played a beta that was reasonable enough but that I can’t shake the feeling will be dead on arrival. All the context of this review is from the point of view of someone who thinks that…
Tell Me Why Review
Tell Me Why is currently free on Steam until July 1st, so I figured now would be as good of a time as any to review it. Made by the creators of Life Is Strange, Tell Me Why follows a similar gameplay and episodic structure to tackle a new variety of the problems that young people face in the world today. While Life Is Strange was all about interpersonal relationships Tell Me Why is more about family and perception, which is a very interesting topic that it doesn’t necessarily land. Good thing it was free. There will be vague spoilers about player choices (or the lack thereof) in this review. TMW follows the story of a pair of twins, Tyler and Alyson, as they struggle with their tormented past. They lived in the middle of the woods on the edge of a small town in Alaska with their naturalist, possibly…
Resident Evil Village Review
For the sake of clarity you should know that this review is going to seem unfair. Many review sites have already pointed out the multiple similarities between Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4, which is inevitably going to lead to unfavorable comparisons when you consider everything that RE4 managed to accomplish. When a game’s only major flaw is that it’s too long it’s hard to improve upon it, and it’s even harder to make numerous callbacks to said game and not get burned in the process. So there will be quite a bit about RE4 in this review, and I can tell you right now that a fair amount of it won’t be in Village‘s favor. But let’s start with the connections to Resident Evil 7. In Village you once again play as the oft-abused pair of hands known as Ethan Winters, who has spent the last three years…
Disco Elysium Review
April 25th, 2021 Every so often there’s a video game that comes out that reminds you about the potential of its particular genre. I won’t give too many examples at the risk of starting a fight, but the last time I played a game like that for (western) RPGs it was Divinity: Original Sin 2 with its many branching paths to complete the same objectives. So many times it feels like RPGs are just checking boxes when it comes to quest design, with a completionist-embracing “do all of these things and then you get to move on” attitude that Original Sin 2 shattered by giving you alternatives to the things you need to do to push the story forward. Disco Elysium is, in many ways, another landmark in RPG game design in the same vein as Original Sin 2, only instead of revamping how the genre approaches quests the game…
Persona 5 Strikers Review
April 24th, 2021 I’ve never cared much for the Dynasty Warriors style of games (sometimes referred to as Musou) from an outside perspective. I plant my flag in the territory of games like Ninja Gaiden and compared to their style of combat the Musou series always looked to be more of a power fantasy than anything that takes any sort of relevant skill. The gameplay loop of “Oh let me just press the same button four times before doing one of two super moves that kills fifty guys. Aren’t I awesome?” just didn’t appeal to me, and so I was ridiculously skeptical of the announcement of Persona 5 Strikers. My outside bias against the Musou genre aside it seemed like an unprompted jump between types of games that couldn’t be more different, replacing turn-based RPG combat with button mashing against hordes of enemies, but as I quickly discovered the developers…
Cyberpunk 2077 Review
January 2nd, 2020 If you’ve read or seen anything about Cyberpunk 2077 in the last two weeks then you already know the game is a bit of a mess on the technical level. Socially it hasn’t been doing great either with corrupted saves, seizure-inducing story beats, and rumors of class action lawsuits, but very little of the press that’s flooding the airwaves is bothering to address the main question: how is the actual game? And for the record this question really only applies to the versions of 2077 that are not on the Playstation 4 or Xbox One, since those ports are messes beyond repair (at time of writing). The short answer is that Cyberpunk 2077 is fine, which in itself is probably a disappointment considering how long it’s been in development. Strip away all the technical issues, bad press, and overblown hype and it’s just a passable game that…