Oh, jeez. This game. Where The Water Tastes Like Wine. Where to begin? I bought it for a couple of reasons: - The soundtrack. I first found out about the game through the soundtrack. A lot of talented people brought this aspect of the game to life. It's not an all time classic in the world of video games, but much effort and consideration was put into how each state sounds. - Tarot symbolism. Each story you collect has an assigned Tarot card. The stories tie into the themes, personality traits, and mythology associated with the card. However, only a few of the Major and Minor Arcana are represented, but there's a good mix of both. - You're a big symbolic skeleton hobo. Cool! - Americana. I love media about the great American road trip. That was my childhood every Summer, with my dad cursing at us in the back seat, with a cigarette in his right hand and his left arm out the window, and with my mom trying to find something, anything on AM Radio. - A narrative about stories and storytelling. Ehh... OK, those were the reasons I bought the game. How does it actually play? You wander around aimlessly looking for nodes, which provide you a story. There are over 200 stories to collect. There's CnC regarding how the stories play out, and some of them are very well written and narrated. I especially liked the spooky stories. The walk speed is fine IMO but the camera is DREADFUL. You then find special plot characters which you regale with your stories. They want to hear a series of stories with a series of themes, which you then try to match up. You then go out looking for more stories and more plot characters, you also manage some resources, gotta catch 'em all, blah blah, and, that's it? IDK what I was expecting. The little stories themselves are usually very entertaining, but the gameplay structure just was waaay too aimless for me. I feel like this would have been one game where LESS gameplay would be ultimately more beneficial to my enjoyment of the game. 2/5.
50% of the game is the most dynamic First Person RPG you'll ever play but the other 50% is a story about the horrible burden of knowledge and prophecy that has me so shook 20 years later that it keeps me up at night. If you haven't played this yet, now's your time. Get ready, friend, because it's only getting weirder and realer from here on out. Cheers.
The cosmology of Pathologic hates you. It loathes you. It is completely indifferent to your suffering, and you will suffer. Pathologic can be summed up as a very Russian survival horror game. It's not fun. Unless you are the most ruthless bastard ever, it will make you feel terrible. "I did this? Oh no..." However, the story is unlike any other. Pathologic can also be summed up as a very Russian opera. The quest givers themselves hate you. They loathe you. They will lie to you and mislead you to their own mysterious ends, just to see you fail. You don't belong here. You won't even understand what their intentions are until at least your third playthrough, and even then, it's up to you to decipher meaning, like a mystic sifting through chicken entrails. One of it's central themes is the literary trope of "Man's inhumanity toward man." But, deep at its core, it's a game about carving out freedom with a knife. Or a gun. You're free to advance the game by your own means, but at a terrible, miserable cost. Pathologic is a completely uncompromising vision of being completely alone in a hostile, malevolent universe. You don't play Pathologic, you endure Pathologic. 5/5 for a brutal game completely in a class of its own.
I have mixed feelings about Pillars of Eternity. It was a Kickstarter darling that was supposed to be a revival of Baldur's Gate. In that regard, I don't think it succeeded. Baldur's Gate has two focuses: Challenging tactical combat and epic character driven story. The tactics in PoE1 boil down to that old chestnut of "Geek the mage." The characters in PoE1 are of wildly varying writing quality, with no real unified voice between them. A lot of them even have entirely different styles of dialog trees, depending on the writer. The story in PoE1 has a few twists and turns and bumps in the road, but is by large not that interesting. So anyways, I wanted to knock this one out, and to be able to say I beat it. The first, idk, maybe 20 to 30 hours totally didn't grab me, but I pressed on. It's boring, it's wordy, combat is lame. However, I found once I got deep into the game, and especially the DLC expansions, I had really come to grow fond of what I was playing. In the end, I felt the game had genuine payoff. For all of its issues, I don't regret playing it in the least. I'm giving it a provisional 4/5 because in my case I gave the game more than ample fair chances, and I felt it was a rewarding experience, ultimately. It was a net gain vs. the frustrations I had with it. This game isn't for everybody, and if you bounce off of it, I can't blame you (so buyer beware), but if you're persistent enough, and go in with an open mind, I think there really is something to it at its core here.
If you like Diablo 2 or Titan Quest, this game is the real deal. I just want to throw up a quick review saying that as of the 1.1 patch, a GOG copy of this game, fully updated and patched, can play multiplayer with users on Steam. If you're returning for the new expansion, check out that server list!
I view Fallout as essentially being two different franchises. On one hand, you have Interplay's vision of Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, and New Vegas, and on the other hand, you have Bethesda's vision of Fallout 3, Shelter, 4, 76. (Then there's the much maligned Brotherhood of Steel, which is kind of it's own weird, crappy thing!) Obsidian took great care of making New Vegas true to the original spirit of the Fallout Bible design document. I really appreciate that, and it's sad that Bethesda moved so far away from that, because I think it's really a great e-book with a lot of cohesive ideas. This is the best you're going to get for the 3D Fallouts. So, in 2019, I set out to beat this game once and for all. My character was a man named Lucky Dan, and I had a Luck/crit build. This created for a lot of randomized fun in the heat of battle. I also went out of my way to get all the implants and body mods. I was more machine than man! I went for the No Gods No Masters ending, diverting to blow up the annoying Brotherhood, and killing Caesar in his tent. (Hint: Use lots n lots of drugs and Damage Threshold is your friend.) One cool thing about this path was that I got to work with Yes Man who is voiced by Dave Foley of Kids in the Hall in a performance of a lifetime. I also completed several of the DLC, my favorite of which is Old World Blues, which might as well be called Fallout: Adult Swim. The story was a wild ride, and has the best opening in any video game ever, imo. Benny is a great antagonist, and hunting him down keeps the main quest right on track, until he is overshadowed by the looming threat of Caesar's Legion. This game also has my favorite minor NPC ever, No Bark Noonan. One thing that really helped me make it to the end was the YUP patch and the CASM save game manager. I can't recommend this game enough. It's fun, it's reactive, it's interesting, it has amazing character building. Great game. 5/5
