I mean, I have Oblivion, why do I need it again?
Just like they keep trying to sell me Skyrim "Special Edition" or whatever the heck it's called. I already bought it. Long ago. When it first came out. I can still play it just fine. You know, just like Oblivion. And Morrowind. And Daggerfall. And Arena.
I did my first Oblivion gate today in the remaster and it was as fun as I remember, but I have to be honest I kept going back and forth mentally today on how much of the full game I am actually going to play. It's no doubt a good remaster (although the almost washed out fields in comparison to the 360 version hits me like a ton of bricks every time I leave a city or cave) of a good game but I'm for sure not going to, or have have the time to play it for a couple hundred hours again, at least not anytime soon.
I will probably close all Oblivion Gates I actually see, do all main guilds and daedric shrines, do the DLC but I dunno' about beyond that. Also, despite what I said before, this combat after a few hours is really not very good, 200 hours of charge attacks and parrying probably aint it. We'll see how much I can integrate spellcasting into the mix I guess, but if you're not sneak attacking and using the bow I feel like you're probably playing yourself.
The fact that Expedition 33 is out in a few hours isn't helping either.
This remaster face lift is nice but I'm pretty sure Skyrim still looks nicer. š¤
I just wish the colour palette wasn't so muted. It's a mad decision, everything is so brown. When I think of Oblivion, I think glowing green forests and blinding white stone.
The lighting is pretty incredible though. It's the first game in a long time where I've stopped in my tracks to stare at some uncanny detail, usually the torches flickering in the city at night.
Well the PC community will take care of that sooner or later, I have to contend people trying to tell me it's 'the time of day' or just implying I'm being a hater. It's still a very nice looking game otherwise.
Aight' so far Expedition 33 is French as fuck and I'm here for it, I just had a fight against a big headed mime and parried all his attacks and countered him to break, this is really fun so far.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is absolutely blowing me away so far, at the risk of overhyping I think it's already a GOTY contender just based of the last few hours. I could go on about the amazing Nier like soundtrack that suits the game's tone perfectly, or the deep and engaging combat that both asks you to be able to parry attacks and has potential for inter party ability combos but I think it's the premise and tone of the game that really gets you first. The prologue was pretty horrifying in how it portrayed the 'Gommage', an event where upon reaching the age matching the number on a giant monolith out at sea (in this case, 33) a God called the Paintress awakes and takes your life, making you basically die on the spot, and this is their depressing way of life. This is where you come in, as one of a number of Expeditions that sail out from the Island to find a way to stop it.
What I like so far is how clearly the Gommage has affected the cast, not only is there a somewhat ensemble cast (big news for BG3/FF16 fans) meaning the voice acting is not only good but the facial animations are really good too, there's a scene where I swore for a split second the main character Gustave let his facade drop a bit and he showed how much the Gommage is really hurting him. (He's voiced by Charlie Cox aka Daredevil and for some reason the only voice actor I haven't seen a peep from in behind the scenes footage, what gives?) But yeah, very similar vibes to the Pilgrimage in FFX so far.
Clair Obscur
Is a masterpiece. And while it looks and sounds amazing and has a stellar plot, I think this Polygon article really nails how un-videogamelike it is in the set up (contains mild spoilers https://www.polygon.com/opinion/563990/clair-obscur-expedition-33-no-exposition)
Nobody in the world stops and fucking explains things to you. Why would they? You're dropped into a world where weird shit is happening and people have histories and backstories that they don't fact dump on you the moment you talk to them. It's so alarmingly novel that I quite often felt like giving out a gasp of surprise when I clicked on a random NPC and they didn't lore-jaculate in my face.
It's also absolutely littered with a mix of English and French swears. Which is brilliant.
Only issue I have, is like with all the other old doddery gamers out there playing this on rllmuk (clearly not Alastor), is the timing for dodges/counters, which I can't get down at all. I'm playing on Easy though, so it doesn't seem to matter much. Oh, and the lip sync is a disaster.
It has to be one of the best looking games you can play on a portable though - with Lossless Scaling it does 60fps on the Ally and looks absolutely jaw droppingly good at times.
I haven't had much time to play videogames recently, but I played some of Blue Prince. I've listened to it being discussed by people who are saying it is a masterpiece and definitely Game of the Year, but the discussions of how great it is have slightly put me off.
I like puzzle and mystery games. Or at least I like certain kinds of puzzle and mystery games. I love the Phoenix Wright series, and Return of the Obra Dinn is one of my top five games of all time. However I hated The Witness. I think I like mystery games that have a bit more on top of the puzzles, a bit of personality, and Blue Prince seems very dry.
That's not what my problem is, though. From everything I know about the game, I am certain that it is not one that respects the time of the player. I don't want to put 100 hours into figuring out a puzzle. No resolution is going to be worth that. There would have to be a literal physical cheque, one that I could take to the bank and deposit, for at least Ā£1000 in that 46th room for me to persevere through that amount of puzzling and RNG. Even then that would come in at less than minimum wage.
Do not take this as a judgement on the game. I'm actually sure that it's amazing, and a masterpiece. It's just my personal reason for not currently engaging with it. I haven't played Dishonored 2 yet. Instead of going through five runs in a row and discovering nothing (which WILL happen) I could sneak up on some poor sod, shiv him from behind, and teleport onto a nearby rooftop, and get more enjoyment in a fraction of the time. I don't have time to mess around with dartboard math puzzles or failing to get a disk I need because it just doesn't exist in this run.
Again, I accept that this is a masterpiece and that I should play it.
I'm not great at parrying, there's a cave on the world map that let's you fight an enemy so high above you that it one shots you for 1000s of damage and you hit it for like 500ish a crit, it has so much health that if you shoot it's one time weak spot for a free 9999 damage it's likeā¦. 10% damage?
Anyway I was fighting it for like 20 minutes lol, must have parried it over 100 times but it was only at 50% and then I died. After a few hours fighting this one guy I gave up. >_<
The point is though, if you have the timing you can definitely punch above your weight. I hear concerns that this negates need for strategy entirely, I disagree, the lumina/picto system is great and the way skills interact mean it's fun to try and see how much damage you can attain
Again, I accept that this is a masterpiece and that I should play it.
The 100 hour thing is nonsense, it's quite possible to "beat" the game in about 25 loops (6 to 8 hours?). I think it's only completionists who are going to be putting that sort of time in. I probably could've rolled credits on my 35th run, but I made a catastrophic error of judgement.
I do think it mainly suffers from the fact that each attempt/loop is too long with buckets of RNG. I found Deathloop also had the issue of making each loop a little too long to really be that entertaining (just frustrating). And also, irritatingly, Blue Prince doesn't respect your time that much either. The dartboard puzzle was fine the first time I did it. I now have to do it over and over, and for some fucking reason it adds new elements to it and makes it more complex. WHY?
I also unlockedā¦ somethingā¦ which I can take advantage of before commencing an attempt - but it adds 5 minutes of walking in a different direction to every loop now. Likeā¦. jeez.
Yeah, those are the sort of allusions I have heard. I could spend my rare, precious leisure time doing that, or I could do something with instant gratification. I'm currently choosing to be shallow, but I might change my mind.
Not respecting the player's time is a bit of a gaming pet peeve of mine, and by the sound of it, Blue Prince goes out of it's way to do the opposite.
On the subject of Expedition 33, how the fuck do I upgrade my weapons? I've unlocked the camp on the overworld and have a stack of items that say I can use them at the camp to boost weapon levels, but I cannot see where the hell it's supposed to be usable. Do I need to wait to unlock something else?
Yeah, you meet a character that does it for you, you'll know for sure when it happens
I'm now four or five hours into Expedition 33 (I unlocked the upgrade guy immediately when I started up again) and I'm just starting to get to grips with how all the characters' classes actually work mechanically in fights. Really like how unique they are, though I'm wondering how easy it'll be to keep things straight when/if the party gets any bigger.
Still struggling to dodge/parry effectively, which has made some (optional boss?) fights trickier than expected, but when I pull it off it's just chef's kiss
I really love Maelle's stance dancing and her huge numbers for parrying in the DPS stances. What made me happy to see was how she can swap to her big damage taken/given stance if she does a move when the enemy is on fire and that doesn't mean it has to be from her own spell, which means Lune can be an obvious choice, but then the Pictos really just change everything and now my Gustave is a bit of aimbot who can also burn people with a shot for her.
The synergy between the different characters was a real lightbulb moment. I wish there was a way for others to help increase Gustave's Overdrive charges (our maybe that's just another thing I haven't found), but given how devastating it can be maybe that's deliberate.
All I can think of is the Picto that increases Crit chance on Burned enemies and giving him a weapon that scales on Luck, there is also Mark but getting that to not be used up by someone elses attacks/counter before his turn might prove more hassle than it's worth.
Gonna' just say the World Map is wonderful here, I love what they've done with it scale wise and it's deceptively full of stuff to find.
I really wish I could post some of the OST but I don't wanna risk putting something into youtube and getting spoiled when Youtube realises I am playing itā¦.but it's very good.
Finished Act I of Expedition 33 last night. I have thoughts.
Spoiler - click to showFirst off, obviously, fuckin' devastated. Torn between hoping Gustave comes back (because he's great) and hoping he doesn't (because that would cheapen it). I really wasn't expecting that, and now I'm wondering if anyone in the party is safe.
Spoiler - click to showAlso experiencing a bit of tonal whiplash going from that straight into Esquie's Super Happy Fun Time Swimming Adventure, and the new guy isn't clicking with me yet either.
Another month, another multiplayer shooter beta - this time, looter-shooter ARC Raiders.
Announced something like four years ago with a trailer that's honestly a bit of a banger, it's got bits of that 80s/90s VCR/CRT aesthetic, but set in a world that very closely resembles Destiny's Cosmodrome.
Gameplay is all but lifted from The Division's Dark Zone. Groups of Raiders arrive in an area littered with loot-strewn points of interest and occasional NPC robots (or ARC, as the game insists on calling them). As you wander, you hear the distant rattle (or boom) of gunfire echoing off huge concrete structures, a sound either to be avoided or approached in the hopes of picking off stragglers.
Once you've filled your pockets with whatever bullets and scrap you can find or carry, you head to one of the elevators spread through the zone, and hide or hold off attackers until it arrives and you can get back to the underground city you call home.
I'm still very early - it's still mostly in tutorial mode - but with a group I think this could be a lot of (tense) fun. I'm not sure about lifespan, though - it still hasn't given much of a sense of progression, or any hints that there's real variety beyond the core loop.
Finished Act I of Expedition 33 last night. I have thoughts.
Spoiler - click to show Verso can hit like a truck, and his Ranking mechanic is super fun to manage, but he's definitely not my Guy Gustave. 
Not that he's bad at all, I absolutely LOVE his dynamic with a certain other character and he obviously has a fair bit going on. Also Clive was not one of my issues with FF16 but I'm so glad to have Ben Starr in an RPG I actually really like, fucking love that dude
I could probably nitpick this game but across the board I really can't find anything to fault here, this is pretty pretentious maybe but it feels like another Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 6 level RPG dropped. The fact that it had such a small team behind it should raise all sorts of questions