Mafia

Have pretty mixed feelings about this. The atmosphere is pretty great, and the story is mostly quite decent as well. Some characters should have been more fleshed out imo (e.g. Tommy's wife, or the politicians you kill). But for a video game it's a pretty great narrative, and while your character does have occasional pangs of conscience and isn't a sadist or psycho, they didn't make the mistake of making him a good guy either, let alone of gloryfying the criminal life. You're still a murderer, and the bleak ending of the game is fitting and appropriate imo. I disliked some of the more unrealistic elements of the story, not only do you gun down dozens of gangsters, you also kill quite a few policemen and even commit political assassinations, which isn't how the American mafia in the 1930s operated. But on the whole, the story is good and quite fascinating.
I did have more severe issues with the gameplay. While the city is impressive and quite immersive in some ways (the police system seems to be more advanced than what Cyberpunk managed almost 20 years later...), the amount of just driving from place A to place B can be a bit much and feel like filler (though I didn't mind it that much). More aggravating was the checkpoint save system, which reminded me why I dislike such systems...it's just not fun to have to replay some sections (sometimes quite lengthy ones) over and over again.
Particularly bad in this regard is the infamous racing mission. I played it on very easy and it still took me quite a few tries to beat it, because even on that level you can lose, if you make a single mistake in the last round. imo something like this doesn't really fit the Mafia theme of the game that well (was the Mafia known for being especially interested in racing? Not as far as I know) and having to replay a section lasting several minutes again and again until you master it just isn't my idea of fun. imo it's bad design that doesn't respect the player's time.
The shooting was ok, with some rather epic set-pieces (especially the finale which was pretty cool), though the mechanics were a bit basic. Melee combat was horrible though.
On the whole I'm glad I played and completed it, but not sure I would recommend it, since the checkpoint save system and some parts like the racing mission can lead to a rather frustrating experience.
My rating: 3/5.

How long? Impossible to know for sure. I have 500 hours clocked in the Steam version of the EE Editor. But I spent at least double that in the classic version via GOG. Nor does that include the time I spent screwing around with scripts outside the editor.

No modding experience per say (unless you count tweaking stats in Total War games) but I am a techie and know the basics of scripting and such. My weakness is the artsy side, mapping, etc. Ideally I'd work in a team (but team mods usually fail) and do the quest scripting and combat designs while someone better at the aesthetics works that side.

In Necro I did have a little help, another modder named Baardvark did the initial design of the caves region (the one between the Parsonage and Crypt) and the Unique items.

The D:OS 1 editor failed for two reasons.
1. Larian didn't support it very well. The features and guts were there, but modders had to figure out everything when literally a handful of forum posts from Larian would have solved 90% of those issues.

2. The reason I'm the only one with any story mods of scope for D:OS EE is that, Larian kept modders in pure limbo as to what was going to happen with the EE release. After the initial release of Classic, there were around a dozen or so people working on custom campaigns for D:OS 1. We all kinda helped each other figure everything out because Larian was MIA. Then they announced the EE, that stopped most modders cold. They weren't going to release a mod for an old version of the game and do all that work. Larian made no promises if mods could be converted to EE, they didn't even promise a time table for the EE Editor. When the EE was eventually released, the editor didn't come out for several months after that.

When they did release the EE Editor, that's when I decided to make Necro purely in the EE editor so I wouldn't have to worry about it. Intending to leave Dunamis as a classic only mod if I could never figure it out.

Well I eventually figured it out. This is the kinda thing I spent maybe a couple days on Larian probably coulda told me how to do in 20 minutes lol.
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=580624
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=584791#Post584791

You might find a few of the Pre:EE D:OS mods out there, none of them come close to the scope of mine but also they were never really finished to be fair. Erenshor, UnderSiege, Lost Isles (most complete one).

Larian actually invited myself and a handful of the most dedicated D:OS 1 modders to help them get the D:OS 2 editor "Right". So we beta tested it before release of D:OS 2. My free time was substantially cut down by that point so I only ever made testing mods nothing really releasable. Well I did make a D:OS 2 Pre Definitive Edition quality of life mod, timed auto saves. I think I took it down from Nexus because it was made for the old version of the game and people kept complaining it didn't work on the new one.

Nehrim yes, not Enderal.

If you like shooters at all, I highly, HIGHLY recommend The Nameless Mod for Deus Ex. It's a total conversion and brings more RPG quest design to Deus Ex in an admittedly silly setting that doesn't work for everyone. It's so good. In fact the developers of that mod are now part of Logic Artists the company that makes the Expeditions games.

I think they must have realized the racing mission was BS because there's a cheat you can use to crush the mission and just move along, which is the only way I beat it. I forget exactly how it works, but you basically just drive forward a few feet and cut across the field and run across the finish line, then repeat until the race is over. I remember really liking the game otherwise, although the inability to really explore the city because you're always being pushed toward the next mission was sometimes frustrating.

I saw that exploit mentioned somewhere, but just assumed it had been removed in the patched version sold on Gog (which also added difficulty levels for the racing mission; I'm pretty sure I would never have been able to finish it in the original version, even on "very easy" it was annoying enough). Anyway, here's Dan Vavra on the mission...he doesn't seem apologetic about it :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E78OIBYmSjQ
But I agree, there's a lot to like about the game. I guess I'm just not a fan of checkpoint save systems in general.

I see. Something similar happened with Harebrained Schemes' Shadowrun games, I think. It's all well and good to offer a powerful campaign editor to modders, but a budding modding community needs time and loyal support by the developers in order to develop into a full blown success story with longevity (like NWN). Apparently Larian and Harebrained Schemes just left their tools behind for everyone to tinker with while they were already moving on to the next project without caring much for backward compatibility, which isn't very motivating, naturally ...

Well, at least they asked you for feedback on the new editor, that's cool.

I do like shooters, although I have to admit I never really managed to get into the Deus Ex games so far (tried the original a few times, as well as the unpopular Invisible War, and the modern Human Revolution). Not sure how much of it is due to the gameplay and how much due to the setting/atmosphere. So who knows, maybe a silly setting might work better for me? Plus, I also never really got into Oblivion and Skyrim enough to finish them, but I'm a fan of Nehrim and Enderal, so that shouldn't keep me from trying a total conversion. Thanks for the recommendation!

Beat Deathloop on PS5 earlier today. I enjoyed it a ton and it's my favourite Arkane game by far.

So, I never was a big fan of Dishonored and Deathloop is in some way Dishonored minus everything that frustrated me about Dishonored. I was surprised to see how much the games actually do have in common. Once again it's up to you how you play the game and if you wish you can play almost the entire game stealthily and it really feels like Dishonored with all the stabbing, double jumping, climbing and blinking (it's called "Shift" here but it's friggin' Blink) and other supernatural abilities that help you staying hidden or allow you to raise hell.

There are two obvious differences over Dishonored. One is of course that in Deathloop there are tons of guns and shooting everyone to pieces or sniping enemies from afar feels as valid and fun a strategy as any, especially since the game dropped any shit that resembles a moral rating system. The other is of course the titular loop structure where you can revisit the same levels over and over. Also there's no mid-mission saving, only autosave between levels. And they abandoned placing containers in each nook and cranny. The result is that it's a far more fast-paced and (to me) enjoyable experience where nothing is holding you back. You still get to explore open levels, you get to find secrets and even solve some optional riddles but also: you're more encouraged to just try everything at your disposal and you have almost no choice but to keep playing and trying to find your way out if things don't go according to plan and those are frankly the most fun moments I've had with the game. And playing the game more chaotically is perfectly in line with the game's ridiculous over-the-top style. So, I loved all of that.

And as for the loop: it's a pretty brilliant concept. Already on paper it reminded me a lot of the old-school Hitman games which, if you played them "correctly", revolved around deconstructing a complex world by replaying the missions over and over until you know all the little details required to execute a perfect plan. Deathloop is in fact a lot like that only this time this replaying and gathering intel is actually a key part of the narrative and you're building one big master plan over the course of the entire game. It basically works like this: you can make four excursions a day into four different areas. The problem: the targets are scattered all over the place and you can't actually get all of them in one loop. So you spend the vast majority of the game gathering intel and building this master plan that will allow you to take down all the main bad guys in a single day and hopefully break the loop. You discover useful facts about the baddies, about the island and the loop itself, lots of passcodes and whatnot and also build up a powerful arsenal of guns and abilities. So if you're wondering if gathering information can feel like meaningful progress - yes, it absolutely does. As a matter of fact making such discoveries felt a lot more satisfying and meaningful to me than most progress you can make in a game and it's why I absolutely enjoyed the game for many many hours even though I was often revisiting the same areas (though sometimes intel of course allows you to reach new places).

That said, the game does suffer from some of the flaws you'd expect from this kind of concept. Since the world runs in a loop some things will feel unnecessarily similar each time and I wish there had been some more randomisation or difficulty progression going on (as a matter of fact all of the enemies in the game are pretty much identical - the targets differ only mildly). The only such element in the game is Julianna, your nemesis who is actively trying to stop you from breaking the loop, and will sometimes appear out of nowhere and try to hunt you down. By default this takes the form of another player invading your session but frankly I didn't choose that option for several reasons, only one of which is that I currently don't have a stable internet connection on my console. For one, if you're in multiplayer mode you can't pause the game even if Julianna hasn't invaded you yet and that's a bit of a deal breaker for me. Secondly, I was playing the game mostly for the story and progression and I didn't feel like I needed additional risk while pursuing those things. And well, at least in single player Julianna is not an interesting or fun enemy (but from what I've read fighting her also isn't all that fun in multiplayer) - what mostly happens is that you stop whatever you're doing so you won't have to fight her alongside the generic NPCs, try to find her before she finds you and then battle a bullet sponge. And either way, what Julianna doesn't do is increase the stakes as you approach the ending. It gets old.

But the single biggest disappointment to me was probably that breaking the loop isn't a game in itself. When I was still early into the game I actually began drawing a diagram and tracking all the options I've discovered and that was super interesting and exciting to me and was basically exactly what I loved about the old Hitman games (before they introduced all the hand-holding). Turns out that the game does all of that for you. You can basically just follow markers and a quest log and will eventually beat the game even without doing any big planning yourself (which reminds me a lot of the problem I have with the Hitman reboot games - only unlike in Deathloop there you can actually disable all the hand-holding). The second thing is that while the individual levels are pretty open, like in Dishonored, there are almost no special opportunities for taking down the targets (even Dishonored had more of those) and there is only one valid overarching plan. While I'm glad that I didn't actually have to draw diagrams on paper in order to beat the game I sure as hell would have appreciated the presence of several possible ways to beat it and/or an interface where you put the facts together yourself. I honestly would have loved if there had been a mini game where you create a set of possible or plausible plans and finally pick the one that seems easiest or fits your playstyle the most. Maybe in a sequel?

And to finish with the bad stuff: the stealth isn't all that deep and the combat isn't great either, at least (or especially) on PS5. As I said, the enemies are very samey and not particularly interesting to fight. And at least on controller I felt that the controls are often holding me back. Choosing weapons and abilities feels slow and clunky, as does aiming jumps and blinks. Don't get me wrong: the stuff is perfectly functional and enjoyable and I have had some really exciting stealth experiences and super fun combat moments where I jumped out of windows, killed pursuers by dropping a mine or an enemy appeared out of nowhere while I was reloading my gun and quickly chopped their head off with a machete. But I feel that this stuff could and should have been even better.

Finally, I really loved the writing and style of the game. The hero, Colt, is a really untypical and often hilarious hero and the game has genuinely made me laugh many times, especially during dialogues between him and Julianna which honestly remind of some of the dialogue between Archer and Lana Kane (in the animated TV show Archer, that is), though not quite as provocative. As a matter of fact the whole design of the world has a lot in common with Archer as the game takes place in a bizarre universe that mixes the 60s, including more or less subtle references to the Cold War, with modern and sci-fi technology among other things (oddly enough Archer is not listed as one of the inspirations on the game's Wikipedia page). Another thing I appreciate is that the developers took the time loop thing very seriously. The game is very consistent about what stays the same and what doesn't, there are hilarious flaws in the bad guys' plan that you wouldn't think of but some details are frankly also pretty terrifying and can actually make you think. The ending was a slight letdown to me but the road wasn't.

In summary, it's not a perfect game and it's rather an 8/10 game to me than a 9/10 one due to the problems I mentioned among a few other minor things but it's certainly a bold and fresh title that has engaged me far more than I thought it would.

Kingdom: Classic

Phew the walls fell but my lads still just about managed to finished off the last wave in the beautiful pixel art side scrolling town builder / defence game Kingdom Classic before the 40th day just now! And SCREW that game man! Screw the fact that that I ignored the permadeath it tries to impose by backing up my save files, some might even call this 'cheating' but screw that and screw them too - it's 2021 and I want to save my progress dammit!
Not that it's not challenging enough without that - all the strat guides talk about what you DON'T build being as important as what you do - extend your territory too much and you destroy vagrant camps and destroy your access to more troops. upgrade your camp awards you with LESS gold per day etc - steep learning curve but all the more satisfying when you DO beat it! I... guess!
Seems more like a masterpiece of a New Grounds game than something you'd buy from a store but very nice little game all the same (and my 'nice' I mean monitor punching counter-intuitive and frustrating experience that just dares you to totally screw yourself over)

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Final Fantasy X (XSX Game Pass)

The HD remaster version, which is based around the international version of the PS2 game. This one is a really good remaster too, not just an old PS1 game running under emulation like the older VII- IX remasters. FF X has newer much higher quality textures, and being fully 3D means everything runs at a higher resolution and not just the polygons over blurry 2D backgrounds like the earlier games.

I liked this one. Just like FF XII, X seems to divide fans of the series. But I really liked them both. FF X drops the annoying ATB system and goes full traditional turn based and is one of the best combat systems of the FF games I've played. It also has a great character progression method too- with the option of using the original skill matrix or modified versions for the remake. I especially like how easy and quick it is to cycle your spare characters into the front row, so that they can use their abilities and gain experience- without the usual grinding needed for characters to play catch-up. The story is just okay, but gives adequate context and reason to continue forward- which is the only direction you have, as this is one very linear game. I'm still not a fan of religious mumbo jumbo stories though, which is why I prefer the political story of FF XII to this one. The world itself and its lore however are great, like most Final Fantasy worlds actually- at least you never get a lazy Tolkien fantasy world in an FF game.

I rate it the best FF I've played together with XII actually. Though it should be noted that FF X is extremely easy compared to other games in the series. Somehow, without making much effort I turned Yuna (who basically starts as a White Mage) and built her into an unstoppable ass kicking machine that, by herself, killed all the final bosses without anyone else even needing a turn, or anyone taking any damage.

Just beat The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on Nintendo Switch. That is, the 2019 remake.

What a blast from the past! I actually played the original on GameBoy a lot over twenty years ago, though I did not finish it back then (and it was only borrowed and I couldn't keep playing it forever). I loved the game and to my teenage mind it was basically handheld Skyrim. The remake... is not Skyrim.

The 2019 remake is actually extremely faithful to the original game or rather the GameBoy Color version which added one dungeon which is also present here. The original seems to have been reconstructed tile by tile. There are still major changes, of course, and the developers of the remake kinda embraced how "small" the original game really was. The most obvious thing is that they went for a minimalist cartoonish chibi style, "plastic" textures and even a blur that is apparently supposed to make it look even more "miniature", like a diorama or something. Personally I was disappointed by this style when the remake was revealed but honestly, just one hour in or so it feels like the most natural choice, especially since it's a very faithful remake that would look bizarre with a more realistic or detailed style. And frankly it even kinda fits the narrative. But the "smallness" also extends to the audio. You do get a professionally produced soundtrack that mixes acoustic instruments and chiptunes but, for instance, the Zelda theme that plays throughout most of the game is played by a string quartet rather than a huge orchestra and you know what? It's kinda perfect. All of this kinda makes Link's Awakening work alongside the huge title that is Breath of the Wild. And well, it's cute.

The changes don't end here, though. On the overworld there's actually scrolling now, which makes the map a lot easier to navigate. Now Link can actually turn in eight directions, which provides better control over sword slashes, and some enemies can now fully rotate. And perhaps most importantly: where on the GameBoy you could map only two abilities or items, now the three most fundamental abilities (sword, shield and sprint) are hard-mapped and you can equip two more things on top of that. So, I haven't played the original in a long long time but I'm sure there are far more quality-of-life improvements. Now, many of these things make the game far more bearable than the original version but frankly I feel like they didn't go far enough in some regards. My single-biggest complaint is perhaps that the sword is hard-mapped to B and jumping is so important here that I permanently assigned it to the next-best button: Y. The problem: that's inverted compared to how I feel it should be based on a million other games and I kept pressing the wrong button even by the end of the game. The other thing that irks me is that they didn't eliminate the need to switch items / abilities through a big menu altogether. I think the game would have benefitted a lot from the player being able to switch abilities quickly using the D-Pad or a radial menu. But that's frankly the full extend of my complaints when it comes to the more technical execution of this remake.

But is Link's Awakening actually still a great game in 2021? Short answer: yes. The formula holds up remarkably well and with the modernised interface and presentation exploring the island and unlocking new skills is as satisfying as ever. The combat isn't fantastic but it's rather fun. The dungeons aren't the best, IMO, but again: they are usually satisfying to solve. The boss fights are a bit hit or miss - some of them work perfectly fine in but the case of some the "correct" way to fight them is a bit difficult and I ended up just mashing buttons which cost me a few HP but got the job done. Anyway, all in all it's good ol' Zelda, just the way I remember it! And honestly, even the story really got me interested even though it's simple stuff that's only told through very brief exchanges with other NPCs and a few times through very basic scripted sequences. That said...

In many ways it's also a very archaic game and the things that frustrated me about the game back in the day are even more jarring today. Traditionally there is only very basic player guidance here - IMO too basic. At any given time you're only given basic and sometimes even cryptic instructions. It works in the early game, while you're still very restricted by all sorts of obstacles and there's just one way to go, but as you uncover larger portions of the world things can get pretty frustrating. Not only are the instructions rather subtle, the connections between the different things that you must do are often pretty darn arbitrary and it becomes increasingly difficult to tell important places apart from optional stuff. It feels like "yeah, you're not gonna save the world if you don't give the badger a pickled rainbow first".

And admittedly I googled what to do next a few times and that one time I didn't have an item that I could have gotten many hours ago in the first area of the game. There actually is a sort of hint system in the game, a phone booth that reminds you what to do next, but that one particular item wasn't covered by it. So since I didn't remember that one place the only legitimate option I had was to explore the entire world again. And you know what? That's just shitty design. And it honestly frustrates me that the game put me in this kind of position two or three times since discovering such things and solving puzzles is what makes Zelda so satisfying. It just makes me feel really dirty when I skip stuff like that by using a walkthrough. And it really would have taken just 1-2 additional pointers in the phone booth for the problem not to exist.

And the remaining cases were a cracked wall that I just didn't see despite passing it several times (just slightly better lighting would have done the trick) and a seemingly invulnerable boss. I had tried everything on that guy but turns out that he has a very brief window where he's vulnerable which isn't communicated by his animations at all IMO. And even when I knew when he's supposed to be vulnerable it still didn't work so I ended up just charging at that fucker with my sword - I always took some damage but he finally went down. Jeez.

But honestly, with the exception of a couple of moments where I had no idea what to do it was a pretty great adventure that I enjoyed greatly - and given that this is a very faithful remake of game that's almost thirty years old that's pretty darn amazing.

Anyway, one pro tip for anyone considering to play this game: whenever you stumble upon an obstacle that you can't destroy yet - place a marker on the map there (another great addition in this remake). Had I done that I wouldn't have had almost any frustrating moments.

Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures (All 4 episodes)
Switched back to Windows 10 from Linux on my couch PC due to horribly low file transfer speeds. Somehow, the game is now able to change resolutions which definitely was not happening on my previous Windows 10 install on the same PC. Strange.

Regardless, the game is still good, I enjoyed Episodes 2 and 3 more than 1 and 4; those 2 seemed to suffer from point and click exploration rather than point and click puzzle solving which to me isn't all the fun. Only recommended to Telltale completionists or Wallace & Gromit fans

Just replayed and finished Mad Max on PS4.

Biggest pros: This game honestly has a great story and does a great job capturing the world of mad max. Everywhere is desolate, the story has a good pace, and there is minimal backtracking.

Game also has a decent hand to hand combat system although parry is a little finicky.

Biggest cons: Game has a dynamic camera which does an excellent job in making you feel queasy. Cant play the game for more than 3 hours without needing to take a break. Game also has far too much busy-work (visit all 300+ locations and scavenge for all scrap to 100% loot the map. Game is an achievement hunting nightmare lol. Given the fact that servers are now shut off (which is needed for online scrap achievement), the game is no longer 100% completable, at least for console.

It is a good game but recommend just playing for story and doing missions, not 100% completing the game.

The Forgotten City (XSX Game Pass)

The best story driven adventure I've played in a long time. I don't rate story as a high priority, but when I do enjoy story games, this is how I like it done. You get the story by exploring, investigating, talking and solving a mystery. You don't get the story by cut scenes and scripting that force you into stupid situations against your will- for this game it's all done via game play at the players pace.

It's also a time loop story, which I don't always enjoy because of how repetitive such game can quickly become. But this game neatly gets around this with a simple but effective way of making your prior progress fully count- so you don't have to repeat things you've already solved. Add to that my natural liking for games set in historical periods, and this one was a winner. Good characters, many different way ways to complete all the story threads, a decent sized map- without being overwhelmingly large and confusing. There's a total of four endings, the canon ending gives great closure.

I really enjoyed this visit to the Roman times. Apparently the game was originally a Skyrim mod, which I've never played. So i had the advantage of going into the story fresh. It's made primarily by just three people and shows some roughness like you'd expect from a small team- most notably some animations and lip syncing are not what you would expect from the AAA industry for example. But the game ran really well and had no bugs or stability issues at all. Highly recommended. And it's made in Australia it seems.

Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest, Nov 10 (GOG)-I'm torn on this one. I liked it and had fun but the game has a few flaws. It was pretty difficult game even on normal difficutly. Endlessly spawning enemies made me rush through most levels in a way that felt a little awkward. Did a character get knocked out? Doesn't matter if I completed the objective (except on those levels where you get a bonus of no knockouts). Most of the levels can be completed including the bonus objectives using any manner of abilities and upgrades. This was true until the last couple of levels. The difficulty spiked for the last 3 levels in what was an already rather challenging game. But these levels really felt more like puzzles with a single solution and anything that deviated from that was futile.

The game also felt a little cheaply made. For a game with a fair bit of dialogue having no voice acting made it feel rather empty. Also, the character art generally felt low quality. The production values overall kinda made it feel like a high end mobile game.

But don't get me wrong, I did like the game. The variety of abilities for each character were good and it was fun being able to overcome what seemed like impossible obstacles. But all those little issues keep the game from really achieving greatness.

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Alan Wake's American Nightmare (XSX Game Pass)

Short spin off to the main game. The second time loop game I've played in a row, and this one is the lesser of the two. By the third loop I was tired of seeing the same three places and doing streamlined versions of the same activities- for a reason that wasn't well explained. The combat action was okay, but that was not what Alan Wake was really about though. Just an average time filler.

Managed to read through the Fate stay night Visual Novel, it took me 3days 13hours 23minutes
Was worth it.