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This is by far the most divisive Dark Souls game. There's plenty to hate, but there's also a lot to love and I think DS2 isn't given enough credit for many, many reasons. I usually start with the positives, but I will break that rule and get the most obvious negatives out of the way first so we can then have a look what DS2 does right.

There is a stat called Adaptability that everybody hates and for good reason - it governs how many i-frames you have and how fast you complete certain actions like drinking your flask. If that sounds like a dumb idea, that's because it is. All it really does is make you waste souls on it because the game just feels "off" without ADP on 25, which brings it in line with the other two games. However... I felt DS2 was the easiest to become overleveled in, because the soul requirements at lower levels are so low you can just blast through the first 10 or so levels like nothing and you'll hit ADP 25 easy enough so you can then ignore it and play DS2 like a "normal" Souls game.

The boss runbacks in this game are among the worst in the series, there's no two ways about it. They're long, they're tedious and they're cheap. They're not ALL like that, mind you, but the ones that are bad are really atrocious. This was one thing future FromSoft games changed for the better.

Without going into a breakdown of every area, I can also say that compared to DS1's masterfully interwoven world and DS3's linear, but still satisfying map design, DS2 is a weird game in terms of level design. Majula is hands down the best hub in any Souls game but unlike DS1, which gave you a fairly good hit at where to go and where NOT to go, paths and progression in this game are far less cleverly signaled and getting lost is a way more common occurrence. That said, it set a strong precedent for the "go somewhere else and come back later" style of world exploration that Elden Ring later capitalized on. But overall, I think the world of DS2 is still as beautiful, grandiose and mysterious as a Dark Souls world should be and I would argue that despite some quesitonable design choices, the aesthetic and atmosphere is spot on and there's something soothing, even fairy-tale-like about DS2's world. I also enjoyed the story - it's not connected to DS1 or DS3, and it's told in that familiar "read the item descriptions and observe the environment" way which makes you feel like an archaeologist dropped into a world into which you arrived around 500 years too late for all the big action. There's also a lot more disparity between the nicer areas like Majula and its adjacent forest(s) and the really gloomy areas like the underground tombs and Drangleic castle. All in all, the world is definitely an interesting place to inhabit and it feels a little less confined than either DS1 or DS3.

Which neatly brings us to DS2's strong points. I've touched on the aesthetic and the world, but I would say DS2 gets a bad rap in the gameplay department as well. Once you solve the Adaptability problem, it feels like it should and there is an even wider variety of weapons and especially sorceries, hexes, miracles and pyromancies than DS1. I didn't touch magic on my first playthrough, but I feel I would have a blast with it. It feels a lot less like DS1 where some weapons were just flat out better than others, whereas here, a lot more weapons feel like a viable choice if for no other reason than sheer number alone - there's just much more to choose from, so a lot more can do the job well. There's also the introduction of proper powerstancing for even more moveset variety.

One aspect which gets praised a lot for good reason is the "Bonfire Ascetic" mechanic. DS2 has a strange anti-farming mechanic where if you kill an enemy too many times (10-12 or so), it stops respawning. To counter that, you can burn an item called a "Bonfire Ascetic" to essentially reset that counter to zero - but it also raises that area (and only that area) to NG+, then NG+2 etc. It's a really neat way of increasing challenge without having to complete the entire game to do so, and you get to choose which areas to boost for various purposes. It turns bonfire management into a game on its own and it's a nice addition. I wish future FS games had something like this.

On the topic of NG+, this game also changes on NG+ runs a lot more than just "enemies have more health and hit harder". The spawns are different, you get better versions of existing items, it's a different experience than the first time.

There are also a few QoL additions like being able to warp to any bonfire right from the start (though I will ALWAYS insist that the way DS1 did it was better, it only had to give you this option a bit earlier than after completing basically 3/4 of the game), Life Gems which are small consumables that regen your health without needing to waste a flask. It sadly also has the infuriatingly tedious mechanic of forcing you to level up at Majula, meaning that every time you want to level up, you have to port to Majula, level up and port back.

Brief word about the DLCs. They are pretty neat because they connect into one coherent goal, but short of reading a guide it's not very clear how to realize that goal. Lastly, one of the DLCs includes what I would consider the absolute worst area in any FromSoft game ever. But if you want more DS2 after finishing the base game, it scratches that itch just fine.

All in all, I think some of the glaring issues with this game are often overstated. "Level Adaptability", for all its meme status, is a legit piece of advice and once you do it, the game becomes a lot more in line with what you'd be expecting. The level design, while not nearly as tight as DS1 or DS3, has its own merits in its scale and openness. There are plenty of new mechanics that make the game stand out from its predecessor and successor, and for all its flaws, it's still a unique and captivating game. A lot of people recommend skipping DS2 and going straight to DS3 from DS1 - I would say you're doing yourself a disservice if you enjoyed either of those games. If DS1 is "the prim and proper one" and DS3 is "the fun one", then DS2 is definitely "the special one", for better or for worse.
Julkaistu 1. marraskuuta
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yhteensä 129.1 tuntia
I finished this game three times since I got it for Christmas and I couldn't muster up the courage to review it. What is there to say that hasn't been said a thousand times over? It's hard. It's beautiful (mostly). It's mysterious and infinitely captivating. It's a classic deserving of that moniker and then some.

(A): Traverse the white light

Even though the graphics themselves are a bit dated, a good artstyle doesn't age, and Dark Souls is a testament to that. The world design, the bosses, everything feels so tangible and real while at the same time being totally eldritch and uncanny. The later areas like Tomb of the Giants and Lost Izalith aren't exactly great to look at and it's obvious this part was rushed, but everything up to that is just amazing. Music is minimal and the game's stubborn background silence does wonders to tighten its grip on your immersion. As someone who is very aware of music in games, the lack of it was refreshing and eerie.

The world itself also deserves praise. The map is super tight and although it's fairly linear, the linearity is broken up by the fact taht there are a couple of ways of getting to the same area, not to mention the many clever and satisfying loopbacks and shortcuts. The game lets you go more or less wherever you please and you'll quickly find out where you should and shouldn't go based on how hard you're getting stomped on. It's rare that games signal progression so well and I wish more games were designed like this.

In terms of gameplay, you have fairly standard light/heavy attack, block, dodge and parry and three spell schools - a simple enough concept. However, this is no twitchy fighting game. The animations are slow, and the combat has that signature FromSoftware weight and deliberateness that, while seemingly clunky at first, when mastered, has practically no ceiling to the level of skill you can achieve. And unlike later games, there are very few enemies with cheap, nigh-impossible-to-dodge instakill AoE attacks. Pick a weapon you like the moveset of, pump Vigor to stay alive and the weapons main stat to do damage. Or hunker down behind a pyromancy flame or magic catalyst and pew-pew-pew your way to victory. Once you've figured out your preferred way of dealing death and avoiding your own, just... go explore. Yes, the game is hard and unforgiving, but it is very rarely unfair. The sense of peril and discovery is what pullled me in most with this game. Every corridor cleared, every bonfire found felt earned and I couldn't wait to see what I would find next.

I want to briefly touch upon the story. It feels like you're a stranger dropped into a once-magnificent world that's a mere husk of itself. This isn't a very "direct" game in the sense that most of its story comes from the environments, the NPC interactions and the item descriptions (found that out way too late). You are drip-fed small bits of information that you then kind of piece together into story bits and pieces. Not everyone's cup of tea, but it does somewhat mimic how historians piece together past events in real life, which is neat.

A few words on multiplayer - if you use up a Humanity at a bonfire, you're human, meaning you can summon NPCs or players, but also get invaded by other players. If you stay Hollow, you can safely ignore both. I've never interacted much with the multiplayer aspects so I won't comment much on it. I will say, however, that Hollow or Human, you can read or leave messages for other players, which is an awesome feature that I absolutely adore. Some are malicious, some are in jest and some are genuinely useful. A good time all around, in any case.

Lastly, if there are any criticisms to be made, it's the latter portions of the game, as I already mentioned. Tomb of the Giants is a pretty awful area that I never look forward to, and Lost Izalith is no better with one of FromSoft's most notoriously frustrating gimmick fights. The NPC "quests", if you can call it that, do rely on you following a certain sequence of location visits that aren't immediately apparent. Due to the fairly linear nature of the game, they are at least less cumbersome to follow than in Elden Ring.

All in all, if you've never played Dark Souls and you're considering it, I'd say go for it, no question. The unique, interconnected world, the nigh-infinite build variety, the addictive combat loop make up for a wonderful experience, even among its successors. So... are you joining us for a bit of jolly co-operation? Good.

|||||||||||||| V I C T O R Y A C H I E V E D ||||||||||||||
Julkaistu 19. lokakuuta Viimeksi muokattu 19. lokakuuta.
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yhteensä 0.0 tuntia
If you enjoyed Boltgun, you will enjoy this as well. Presentation, gameplay and story-wise, there's nothing new here, so check my base game review if you're interested in the game in general.

It's mostly more of the same, with a few new weapons and enemies to keep things interesting, and five slightly longer levels to complete (DLC levels are around 30-50 minutes, base game were 15-20 for me on Exterminatus). I enjoyed all the levels and I think they learned from their mistakes, since the levels are easily distinguishable from one another. The final battle is a bit much but if you pay attention, you'll know what to do and not waste gobs of ammo shooting the wrong thing(s).

The base game took me around 10 hours on Exterminatus and the DLC took me around 4, also on Exterminatus. For such a low price (6€ at time of writing, base, no discount), it's really impossible not to recommend this short but sweet DLC.
Julkaistu 19. lokakuuta
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yhteensä 16.1 tuntia (11.9 tuntia arvostelun laatimishetkellä)
For something as iconic as a Space Marine, there really aren't that many FPS games that lean into the insanity of the Warhammer 40K universe. We had Spacehulk Deathwing and Space Marine, and its recently (as of writing this) released sequel, but none of those were a traditional FPS. There was definitely a niche there to fill, and Boltgun does a great job of filling it, with a few drawbacks that keep it from attaining greatness.

Let's get this out of the way first: there's not much story to speak of, so I won't waste any time on it. There's a cutscene or two just to give you a reason to go purge things in the name of the Emperor. Moving on, that's not what we're here for.

As far as presentation goes, I really can't overstate how awesome this game looks. Granted, the environments get a bit samey in Chapter 3, but Chapters 1 and 2 are choc full of larger-than-life, imposing set pieces and an artstyle that is as recognizable as it is aesthetically pleasing. The graphics themselves are standard retro boomer shooter fare, although I really enjoyed the way Focus integrated pixelation into the enemy designs and texturework. It looks oldschool without looking dated and there are options to make it look less clean, as one would expect with a game like this. Whatever pops into your mind when someone says "Warhammer 40K FPS", this game is it. The sound design is likewise impactful, meaty and over-the-top. The soundtrack can get a bit repetitive but it does its job well regardless.

If I had to sum up the gameplay in one phrase, it would be "DOOM 2016". Navigate some corridors, gather resources, find the odd secret or two, get locked into an arena where progression depends on killing certain enemies, turn them into red paste, repeat. It's a familiar gameplay loop that works well. The maps aren't overly confusing (there's a toggleable guide feature if you get lost which I used maybe once or twice, think Dead Space) and nearly all the arenas are very well thought out with clear "escape/rest" paths and confrontational areas. Some arenas are a bit too cramped, and there are a few egregious examples of padding, like an area where you're forced to hop from island to island and take out enemies just before a big bossfight or sending the player on a key hunt, then putting the switches in one arena and reusing that arena three times. These aren't really a dealbreaker, but they do detract from what is otherwise a stellar gameplay experience.

The guns are very well made and ammo is pretty abundant even on Exterminatus. The enemy designs are great too and I never felt like the fights got stale. Enemies have a "Toughness" rating from 3-7 and the guns have a "Strength" rating from 3-7, so you really have to go into a fight knowing which guns to choose to deal with which enemies. So many people just charge in with the big guns, blow their loads immediately, then get slaughtered. Or they take potshots with the default Boltgun at Toughness 5 enemies and wonder why they won't die. If you take the time to familiarize yourself with the mechanics, I found that the challenge level at Exterminatus was just right for me as an FPS veteran. Lastly, there's a Taunt button that lets you spew Ultramarine quotes while annihilating Chaos scum. Instant bonus points in my book.

In conclusion, Warhammer 40K Boltgun is what I wanted it to be - a great looking and sounding, fast-paced oldschool shooter in which the 40K aesthetic and feel is given due diligence and then some. I've mentioned some minor annoyances like the slightly dull art design of Chapter 3, some iffy runtime padding strategies and the odd overly cramped arena, but as a sum of its parts, Boltgun delivers the goods and then some.
Julkaistu 12. lokakuuta
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yhteensä 0.0 tuntia
There's a lot of stuff, but it's very, VERY barebones. While it's nice that most of the content is some sort of throwback to other Elder Scrolls games, I'm not sure why they even bothered to tie a quest to some of these items. The end result is kind of "meh".

For example, to get not just one, but BOTH variants of the armor of the Crusader, which was an entire expansion pack's worth questing in Oblivion's Knights of the Nine DLC, you have to go to a location (in the overworld, not even a dungeon), kill three bandits and loot both armors off two corpses. The quest I was most looking forward to, Dead Man's Dread, has you go to Solitude's inn, pick up a book about Cyrus (from The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard), go to a cave, kill a couple of ghosts and skeletons, loot his sword and clothes and the quest's over. Myrwatch is just "cast a spell at a symbol and enter building", Chrysamere is just going through Forelhost with a mediocre bossfight at the end, and so on and so forth.

EDIT: after spending some more time with this Creation pack, my general opinion hasn't changed much, but I do have some stand-out positives to highlight.

As I've mentioned, quantity over quality is mostly the name of the game here, and there are 74 "Creations" in this pack, and most of these are what could barely be called "quests". Some creations are a bit more enjoyable and feel like actual quests. For example, Forgotten Seasons is a massive Dwemer ruin on par or better than the base game Dwemer content. Gray Cowl of Nocturnal is pretty neat too. The "Alternative Armors" quests, while not leaps and bounds beyond looking for some journals or notes and defeating an enemy or two, have an overarching story that made collecting them very enjoyable - such a simple trick, but it worked for me. Ghosts of the Tribunal feels like a decent, medium-length TES III: Morrowind quest and The Cause, a throwback to TES IV: Oblivion, is also bit more fleshed out, but even then, "The Cause" has some interesting lead-up (exploring Ayleid ruins, excellent), and lets you enter an Oblivion gate (exciting!) but then the gate itself is just two more boring bossfights, no tower, no Sigil Stone, not even close to Oblivion.


Ultimately, while a lot of these things are nice little shiny baubles for people who are huge Elder Scrolls fans and instantly get giddy when they see stuff reappear in later games, I don't think there's anything really groundbreaking or unmissable in this Creations pack.

I was deciding between giving this a thumbs up or down a lot, and I ultimately decided to recommend this upgrade, but IF and ONLY IF at least two of these things apply to you:

- you really, really like other Elder Scrolls games and instantly recognize the items and areas offered by this Creations pack (meaning you'll get a kick out of simply having these items or visiting these places to begin with, regardless of how deep the surrounding questline is)
- you've squeezed everything you can out of Skyrim's Special Edition, and want more content (that's not user mods*),
- it's on sale for like -75% off or more, or
- you get it somewhere else for a price between 5-10€. I found it for like 8€ and that felt kind of OK for the few hours of distraction that this ultimately offers.

*when all is said and done, I definitely recommend giving modded quests a try over this upgrade since most of them are way, WAY more fleshed out and made with a lot more love and effort than this.
Julkaistu 10. syyskuuta Viimeksi muokattu 8. lokakuuta.
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yhteensä 11.2 tuntia (11.1 tuntia arvostelun laatimishetkellä)
I have to start this with "I'm not huge a cat person", so any kind of "ermahgerd a CAT GAME" bias flies right out the window, right off the bat. I will say I'm a sucker for a good premise though, and Stray seemed like an interesting one, and my cynical side instantly went "this is a gimmick". I frequently and successfully tell my cynical to put a sock in it, and this was definitely one of those moments.

First off, Stray's presentation is INCREDIBLE in all departments, visuals, effects, sound and design. The robot people are cute and have tons of character, the environments are well-designed, diligently detailed and populated and everything sounds alive and believable. The artstyle has hints of Half-Life 2's City 17 without being outright derivative. In short, Stray is very easy on the eyes and ears - top marks here.

Before I delve into gameplay, I just want to say that you definitely want to heed the devs' warning and play this with a controller. I tried keyboard and it just feels wonky and cumbersome. As far as gameplay goes, this is very much a casual exploration game with a few fairly easy puzzles strewn in and a stealth section or two. If you've played a non-linear 3rd person adventure game in the last 10-20 years you shouldn't find anything earth-shattering here. Talk to NPCs, find items and figure out who they belong to or which NPC you get a reaction from if you show a certain item, that kind of thing. It's basic, it's simple, but it's satisfying and it works. The first hub stands out most with its myriad ways to get to the rooftops and jumping around never gets old. I have to sing praise to the animations and then some. Capturing animals in motion is an elusive feat, and now that I have a cat of my own, it really is staggering just how detailed the animation on the player cat...racter (booooo, booooo!) are. The devs were also clever in giving you a companion robot that translates the robot NPC's garblings and other things in the world, thus circumventing any need for voice acting and the cute little tyke also acts as your inventory, flashlight and general "help" button. Anyway - if you're expecting some skill-based twitch reflex gameplay, head-against-desk hard puzzles or butt-clenching stealth, this isn't the game.

The story is wholesome and told indirectly through interacting with the world and characters. What this game does really well is put into perspective just how far in the future this is all happening. If the artstyle gave me Half-Life 2 vibes, the story and general feel of the game reminded me ever so slightly of Talos Principle. I won't reveal much in terms of story because I feel it's one of the game's biggest strengths and I'd just invite you to delve in if you're thinking about it. Like the gameplay, it's simple, short and heartwarming, and like the gameplay, it also works well for what it is.

There's nothing much to knock Stray for other than its length and, as an extension, maybe its price. There are some collectibles and a few achievements but other than that, there's very little replay value. I left the game running by accident so my playtime is inflated, but it took me 7 hours to more or less 100% the game (got all the achievements except the speedrun one).
Value in general is subjective, of course, and I'm always torn on how hard to criticize a game's length in relation to its asking price. There are so many games that pad out their runtime with endless open-world checklist quest marker spam and dumb game mechanics, and obviously Stray is not one of them, and even more obviously, a lot of love and effort went into making this game. But 27€ for a game that's basically 3-5 hours long seems steep, so I'd definitely recommend you get this on sale if possible.

All in all, despite being short, I've gone on record multiple times that I prefer short and sweet games to games that overstay their welcome, and Stray only reinforces my belief in that. Stray looks good, sounds good, feels good to play, has an engaging world, and a great story. It goes without saying that it's a must-play for people who love cats. Oh - there's a meow button too. If that didn't sell you, I don't know what will.
Julkaistu 11. elokuuta Viimeksi muokattu 11. elokuuta.
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yhteensä 323.4 tuntia (213.4 tuntia arvostelun laatimishetkellä)
In late 2022, I decided to play and finish all the Elder Scrolls games to come out on PC (Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim). Part of why I decided to do it this way was to see how the series changed over the years. All good things must come to an end, so they say. Here we are then, at Skyrim. Let's delve in.

Before anything else, I just want to say that my game was fairly vanilla, I guess some people would call it "Vanilla+" with mostly patches, fixes and technical improvements (script extender, no 60FPS cap and so on) and very little to no gameplay tweaks.

As far as presentation goes - if Morrowind was unique, and Oblivion was familiar and quaint, Skyrim truly is beautiful. They really outdid themselves with the environments and the landscapes. The first time I saw the lake next to Riverwood I just kind of stood there in awe, and that feeling didn't really subside over the 200 or so hours I took for this very thorough playthrough.

The music is of course part of the equation, featuring some of Jeremy Soule's best work, and Morrowind music making sparse returns also adds a bit of nostalgic flare. Sound design is also massively improved from Oblivion.

As far as voice acting goes... it's a mixed bag. Some characters are stellar, but when it's bad, it's bad. People make fun of Oblivion, but at least Oblivion was corny in a funny kind of way, while here, a lot of voice acting is just... off. A lot of the wannabe Scandinavian accents sound like a Czech person imitating a Finnish immigrant.

Questionable voice acting aside, the meat and potatoes of any RPG, to me at least, is the quests and the progression. As far as quests go, this is still what this series does best. My only issue is that you are given very little agency on accepting and declining quests. They just get added to your journal after overhearing a conversation or speaking to an NPC. I found this incredibly annoying, and so "The Choice is Yours" and "Hide those Futile Quests" were the only two gameplay mods I had installed.

Despite the fact that the College of Winterhold questline is laughably short, the other factions offer more depth and content, especially the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. The side content in general, really is mostly quality and plentiful, if a bit shallow in some aspects. Skyrim is MASSIVE. There are so many quests and incidental interactions that I spent the first, I don't know 100 hours or so just doing Daedric quests, College of Winterhold quests, Civil War questline, Mara's Temple, derping around Dwemer ruins, it really never seems to run out. Make your own fun and "ooh, what's over there" is still THE way to play the game, IMO. Like Oblivion, it sadly falls prey to over-reliance on quest markers, and I still find it annoying how quest givers very rarely (if at all) elaborate on where you're supposed to go and expect "look at map marker" as a default way to figure that out. Some questgivers give "radiant" quests which are endless and randomly generated, which I found a neat little nod to Daggerfall but are otherwise just basic fetch/kill quests, mostly. They do, however, entice you to explore if they're part of a larger questline, which is always a good thing. There's also a lot of very black-and-white decisions which I'm not a fan of. It seems the game only gives you the option which makes you out to be Mr. Goody Two-shoes or a complete nutjob. While some quests offer many ways of completing it and have different outcomes, I wish there was more nuance to the quests, like in Morrowind and even Oblivion, but this problem isn't so prevalent as to ruin an otherwise enjoyable questing experience.

I mentioned progression, so allow me to touch on that. There are no more attributes, just Magicka, Health and Stamina and you know what? After spending hours min-maxing in Morrowind and Oblivion just so I could cast a decent spell or carry around more stuff or not die in two hits as a mage, I actually like this system. There, I said it. Skills were always king since Daggerfall, and attributes never were as important in ES games as people make them out to be. The "use it and improve it" system is still as liberating as ever, although my favourite way to play, as pure mage as possible, has been gimped a LOT. The absence of a spell maker hurts. The return of proper Alchemy and Enchanting makes up for it a bit, and the crafting in general is miles ahead of any other ES game. The perks system is pretty neat although not all perk trees are created equal - spending perks in Lockpicking, for example, is nigh-useless since the minigame is so easy, whereas Destruction has a perk at skill level 40 which staggers almost ANY enemy in the game if hit by a dual-cast spell. One cool addition is the "Legendary" system, where upon reaching 100 in a skill, you can make it "Legendary", returning the perks spent and resetting the skill to 15. This way you can keep leveling your character without being forced out of your playstyle. And the flexibility of this system and the ease of changing proficiencies is another great strength. This is where the roleplay lies in this game. Tired of maging? Grab a sword and hack away! Wanna be a sneaky Thief for a bit? Grab some lockpicks and sneak around at night and you’ll be Garrett in no time.

Sadly, racial bonuses and abilities are mostly forgettable, the differences at creation are so minor that they barely matter since you can outlevel most of them in minutes. This is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it gives you the freedom to play any race and be good at anything, but on the other hand, it makes the races barely relevant beyond a cosmetic choice. Gone are the days of "pick a Redguard if you want to be good at melee" or "Altmer or Breton is the best choice for a mage". Another thing I dislike is that everybody is kind of stoked on you all the time or they just don’t react to your presence the way you’d expect. People you’ve done one quest for will solemnly profess what a great friend you’ve been, while guards will make fun of your “fancy magic” even if you are Arch-Mage of Winterhold and can turn them to dust with one spell. I get that this was done to make the game more accessible, but it really does suck out what little roleplay this game has in the first place. The roleplay is, as I mentioned above, still strong in the gameplay department.

Speaking of everybody being stoked on you all the time, I'm really not a fan of the main story. This whole »chosen one« routine has been done to death and then some and there's really nothing interesting here. I might just not find dragons all that interesting or something, but to me, the whole Dragonborn arc is just so… boring. The DLCs are a bit of an improvement, but even still, like Oblivion before it, I enjoyed the world and its tons and TONS of lore, not to mention my own lollygagging, more than I did the main quest. It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but I just feel the rest of the game is more engaging.

As always, I will say that if you don’t like an aspect of this game enough (like I disliked the forced quest addition), you can always mod out pretty much anything. Really. This doesn’t make the game impervious to criticism, but once I again I urge you to give mods a go if one small thing is preventing your enjoyment.

All in all, after 18 months of more or less exclusively Elder Scrolls games, I have to say that despite its many shallow moments and lamentable cut-downs (give me back my spellmaker, Todd), Skyrim still very much deserves to sit on the pedestal many people have put it on. I have to admit, enjoying Daggerfall, Morrrowind and Oblivion so much, I went into it expecting not to like Skyrim, and I ended up falling in love with it regardless. Having played so much Elder Scrolls, I think I'm going to take a break, but I have a hunch it won't be long before I once again hear "Hey, you, you're finally awake".
Julkaistu 1. elokuuta Viimeksi muokattu 9. elokuuta.
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Yhden henkilön mielestä arvostelu on hyödyllinen
yhteensä 168.7 tuntia (142.1 tuntia arvostelun laatimishetkellä)
Still set on my long and enjoyable journey to delve into every single PC Elder Scrolls game, I have finally arrived at chapter IV: Oblivion. This one, I did play a lot as a kid, but having finished the others before it, I have a completely new outlook on it, so I daresay my newfound love for the series has long overshadowed any nostalgic bias I had towards it. In short: while not as deep as Daggerfall or as unique and engaging as Morrowind, Oblivion is still a worthy entry into the Elder Scrolls saga.

Visually, Oblivion was pretty incredible at the time, and vanilla, it's still not half-bad. Like Morrowind, making Oblivion look fantastic with just a few mods is not hard.

Touching on the actual artstyle and setting, Oblivion leans more into being grounded and familiar than being unique, but that doesn't make it any less breathtaking. There's a LOT of European-style castled towns, villages, forests, lakes, frozen mountains and so on. The demographics and architecture of towns and landscape still does vary depending on which region you're in and the new physics implementation and much improved AI also does wonders to make the world feel alive. However, the memes regarding NPC designs and weird, uncanny-valley potato faces are not undeserved – the fidelity of Oblivion’s environments accentuates just how horrendous some of the character designs are.

I have no complaints about the sound design, though. Everything sounds great and the music is incredible. We have full voice acting again, and for the most part, it is good as well, with Hollywood-level actors like Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart lending voices to some of the main characters. That said, most other characters are voiced by two or three people and despite Oblivion's best efforts to differentiate them, you do feel like you're talking to the same few people from time to time.

Let’s delve into strong points first – Oblivion has some of the best, most entertaining and most memorable quests in any RPG ever, let alone the Elder Scrolls. It excels in writing, scripted sequences and quest interactions. The Dark Brotherhood questline, the Daedric quests, Umbacano's quests, the Arena and its Champion, the Thieves Guild, many, many of the Shivering Isles quests, just to name a few, are just top-notch stuff and it really leans into the "ignore the main story" playstyle that so many players (including myself) love and indulge in.
On the other hand, I really feel that Oblivion relies too much on quest markers and fast travel to keep the quests moving along, foregoing some immersion in the process. This turns many of the interesting "investigation" or "find the person/thing" parts of a quest into "follow the compass to the marker". The town designs are good with visible landmarks and sensible planning, why not lean into that? Why give me a marker that shows me where "the chapel" is when someone says "meet me behind the chapel at midnight" when the chapel is smartly placed in town? Why immediately mark a dungeon on my map when finding it can be just as engaging and interesting as the dungeon itself? The journal also acts less as a journal and more of a "notification center" for making sure the player is following along. Why tell me what I read in a book an NPC asked me to read, instead of actually making reading the book part of the quest and the NPC checks my reading with a simple multiple-choice question? So many missed opportunities to go from stellar to legendary. Handholding aside, the quests in Oblivion are definitely a stand-out and I would say mostly superior even to Morrowind's in all aspects except navigation.

As far as combat goes, the most obvious change is the removal of any RNG in combat and a further removal of combat skills. I expected this to bother me greatly coming from Morrowind, but honestly… it’s not that big a deal. It does remove a lot of roleplay from the character creation, in that it feels odd that any character can be good at any sharp weapon if they just level “Blade”, for instance. I miss the crazy movement options, and the spellbook organization is atrocious (there is none, really), but to me, the bigger issue is the level scaling, which feeds into the whole “simplify it and make it more accessible” mentality. Enemies level up as you level up, simple. It is a very double-edged sword. It does alleviate the need to min-max and it's a lot easier to "just play the game" and not worry about leveling much. But it also means putting much thought into your character feels unrewarding because any build kind of... kills anything at a mediocre rate if you’re determined to hack away long enough.

Speaking of doing the same thing over and over again – if you delved into every single fort, mine or Ayleid ruin that pops up on your map when walking around the overworld, you'd probably burn out pretty fast. Unless it’s part of a quest, most dungeons are sadly fairly bland and not worth visiting and the same goes for the Oblivion gates, which are easily the most boring slog of the game that can take an hour if you fight through them, or a few minutes if you just speedrun to the end of the dungeon. I never enjoyed them and luckily, you're only required to shut a few down during the main story, but since they do offer the strongest enchanted items in the game, you're missing out on some much-needed muscle if you choose to ignore them completely.

Since I mentioned the main story – it’s… okay, but not superlative. Despite Todd and the gang really wanting to sell you this epic tale of saving the plane of reality, when condensed, it’s boils down to "fetch a few things for the new Emperor". I do, however, like that in many games, you have the "chosen one" cliché, but in Oblivion, someone else is the chosen one and you kind of help and support them in reaching their destiny.

Since this is the "all DLCs included" Game of the Year edition, let me briefly touch on the DLCs. Most of them are just plugins and one is a pretty standard side-quest, but two are actual expansions: Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles.

Knights of the Nine is more or less a glorified faction side-quest set in Cyrodiil, and a very classic chivalrous tale of "find the holy relics and defeat the evil magic being". It's pretty nice and the gear is cool, but I found it nothing special.

Shivering Isles, however, is the absolute bomb. Set in a whole separate realm with a separate map, the environments are way more artsy and unique than base Cyrodiil, the quests and NPCs are flavorful and bonkers in the best way possible, the main story is intriguing and original, top marks in every single category. It still suffers some of the same drawbacks as the main game (like samey dungeon design), but a lot more care was put into giving most places and dungeons an identity and purpose, so it doesn't feel nearly as bland (the smaller scope helps too).

Lastly, the mods for this game are numerous, too numerous to cover. Just know there's mods for near everything I knocked here, and revel in that knowledge.

Ultimately, Oblivion definitely shines in many areas. The world looks good and despite its instanced and downscaled towns, feels alive and lived-in. The quests are the bulk of the fun - they are truly stellar and is what I spent most of my time doing. There are other aspects in which I feel Oblivion has been given the axe too harshly - the reliance on the compass and quest markers, the general railroading and "ooh look at this" theme-park syndrome, the meh main story, the slow phasing out of many roleplaying mechanics. Despite its darndest attempts to nudge you into the way they wanted you to play the game, and despite the many, many questionable changes for a role-playing game, you still can, and definitely should, make your own fun in Oblivion, and there is, indeed, plenty of fun to be had.
Julkaistu 15. tammikuuta Viimeksi muokattu 15. tammikuuta.
Oliko arvostelu hyödyllinen? Kyllä Ei Hauska Palkinto
4 henkilön mielestä arvostelu on hyödyllinen
yhteensä 33.4 tuntia (30.6 tuntia arvostelun laatimishetkellä)
Disney's Star Wars has mutated into some ever-(d)evolving, Lovecraftian sludge monster of endless content which extremely varies in quality. But I'm not here to hate on Disney Star Wars, Lord knows there's enough of that in the world - I'm here to tell you this game is from a time when Star Wars games were made with love and care by people who actually wanted to make them. While its predecessor, Jedi Outcast, was the better single-player campaign, Jedi Academy lifted fast-paced lightsaber combat into new heights, which have not, to this day, been beaten by any other game, not by a long shot.

Visually, Jedi Academy shows its age. Taking the Quake III engine and milking it was the name of the game back then. It doesn't look bad, but it does look dated and there is no native widescreen or high framerate support (though the game is locked at 90, which was a lot at the time), and editing .ini files results in an ugly, stretched HUD. There are mods to fix this, and there are numerous texture packs, overhauls and whatnot, so if modding is your jam, this game has plenty. The environments themselves look great and the mission setpieces are varied and interesting, from Imperial ships to a Vader castle, Tatooine, Jedi tombs, forests, you name it. On the sound front, I always praise the sound design of any Star Wars game because the source material is just so good that all a studio has to do is use the official sound banks consistently, which Raven Software does, and it just works every time.

This game's multiplayer is objectively its strongest showing, but admittedly, I spent more time in SP than in MP in my youth before Steam was a thing. It was just one of those games I obsessively replayed as a child. Credit where it's due, it was fairly unique in execution at the time, and it's still pretty neat. It starts off with a tutorial level and then throws you into a mission selection screen with 5 missions to choose from, 4 of which are mandatory. When you complete them, there's a "main story mission" and the process repeats with the missions getting harder and harder, and you selecting a Light or Dark Force power to upgrade before every mission to become stronger ("base" force powers upgrade automatically after every missions "set"). Based on your choices, Kyle Katarn or Luke Skywalker will comment on your alignment, but there is a single moment which determines what ending you get, so the choice of force power doesn't really matter. Still, the selectable force powers and two endings are a nice touch to inject some much needed replayability into an otherwise fairly short campaign.
That said, it's a long ways away from Jedi Outcast's slick and streamlined campaign, and the story is very ho-hum and nothing special (despite its two endings), but the missions are fun, the maps are interesting and look good, the enemy encounters are well executed. It's a bit shallow from a narrative and plot perspective, but they did the best they could to showcase Jedi Academy's exquisite combat and gameplay elements, namely, the interplay between the lightsaber combat and force powers. There are guns too, but outside of a few niche levels, they just don't hold a candle to the more elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

And lighsaber combat is what makes Jedi Academy a cut above the rest and the reason why there's a fiercely devoted and active MP community to this very day. The beauty of JA's combat lies in its lightning-fast responsiveness and robust simplicity. There are three lighsaber stances (fast/medium/strong), each with its own moveset, plus dual sabers and saber staff a la Darth Maul. There are some special "kata" moves, jump moves and force-pull moves and so on, but since most lock you into an uncancellable animation, they are not very effective in PvP.
Either way, you execute different slashes and swings in the movesets by pressing directional keys and clicking or sometimes holding the left mouse button at different times. A very bare-bones system at first glance, but it can take YEARS to master the timing of moves, when in the animation the saber's damage hitbox is active, how to block moves, and so on. The Force powers from SP translate well into MP with some obvious tweaks (for example, Force Speed doesn't rip a hole into space-time and magically slow everyone else down, it just makes you faster), and it's this interplay of simple mechanics with complex interactions that make Jedi Academy so addictive, so elegant and so unique. And that's vanilla. Don't even get me started on the completely insane skill ceiling of something like the Movie Battles II mod, which takes the vanilla system and expands it tenfold.

I can't really find much fault in Jedi Academy other than relatively easily remedied technical aspects like native widescreen and high FPS support and the slightly "not great not terrible" singleplayer campaign. No other game out there makes you feel like a lightsaber-wielding badass Jedi the way Jedi Academy does. The new Respawn games are a different, more deliberate, slower-paced beast, and the Force Unleashed leans a bit into the over-the-top cartoony hack-and-slash, but Jedi Academy is the absolute peak of fwong fwong kkkssssshhhh fwong fwong fun. You really feel like you're doing all the heavy lifting, all the crazy-fast moves, the exploiting of openings, it's highly interactive wihtout being weightless and airy.

A few things in life never get old: swinging a lightsaber and decimating a whole room of Stormtroopers with UNLIMITED POWER Force Lightning, winning a 3v1 against AI dark Jedi or 1v1 saber battle vs a real human in MP - those are definitely on that list.
Julkaistu 28. joulukuuta 2023 Viimeksi muokattu 29. joulukuuta 2023.
Oliko arvostelu hyödyllinen? Kyllä Ei Hauska Palkinto
Yhden henkilön mielestä arvostelu on hyödyllinen
yhteensä 9.5 tuntia (2.8 tuntia arvostelun laatimishetkellä)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 was one of the first games I remember playing as a kid. I played it a LOT. I played every entry a lot up until THUG2. When I found out there was a good remaster of 1 and 2, but that it was an Epic Games exclusive, I was gutted. I had hoped it was only a timed exclusive, and boy was I glad that turned out to be the case. I have never hit "Add to Cart" this fast in my life, especially since it had a -50% release discount.

The game looks gorgeous and all the classic tunes are back for that sweet, sweet nostalgia hit. There is really no way anyone could knock the technical aspects and the presentation of this remaster, it's superb. It also runs well, I get well over 120 FPS with an 8700K and 1080 Ti, which show their age in new titles, but run this one just fine.

The gameplay feels fairly consistent with what made THPS1 and 2 the series great. My favourite thing is that it does what every good modern remaster should, it gives you options on how oldschool or modernized you want the game. For example, if you're after the "pure" THPS1/2 experience, there's a "Game Mods" menu that allows you to disable all the changes and improvements the series made over the years like Manuals, Reverts and Wallplants, and there are settings for both THPS1 (no Manuals, Reverts, Wallplants, or mid-trick changing) and THPS2 (same but with Manuals enabled). I do believe it unfortunately disables some of the in-game achievements (although some of them are virtually impossible with these restrictions) though. But if you want, you can just boot up the game and go ham with all the stuff that has made THPS great over the years.

The levels feel like their original counterparts - I admit I never played THPS1 so I can't speak for those, but the THPS2 levels feel exactly as they should and the objectives are 1:1 with the old games (which also means I 100% THPS2 in like 2 hours, lol).

The Create-A-Skater feels... odd, like the faces on offer all look like some sort of weird androgenous, vaguely Asian person, I'm not in love with them but since you spend most of your time staring at your skater's back, it's not a huge deal. I like the idea of in-game purchases (with in-game currency, no MTX as far as I can tell) because it's a small, but effective incentive to complete the game's many challenges. That said, I feel like previous entries like THUG2 had a vastly superior CAS interface, but then again, this is a remaster of THPS1 and 2, not THUG, so I can't give them too much of a hard time.

All in all, I'm glad this game is finally available on Steam, I'm glad it runs well and I'm glad the gameplay feels right, even though I have a feeling the most dedicated purist fans will probably find something to fault. To me, it's great and I will be enjoying every second of it!
Julkaistu 4. lokakuuta 2023
Oliko arvostelu hyödyllinen? Kyllä Ei Hauska Palkinto
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