I think “Mixed” is where Steam reviews falter, at least for me. If a game is mostly negative it’s usually bad and if it’s very positive or overwhelmingly positive it’s usually good. But I’ve certainly had experiences with several games that are much better than “Mixed” reviews would indicate.

Where did you quit in Fallout 2? I love it but the opening hours are pretty rough, even fans of it meme about the temple of trials and the general first few hours.

I do definitely think you’re right that FO2 defined the franchise, it’s where they moved from a slightly more grim and serious post-apocalyptic tone in the first game to a more humourous style with more pop culture references and wacky stuff. Fans or the first two games tend to be divided over that, with some saying Fallout 1 is superior because of the different tone. I can see the argument, but I love Fallout 2 personally.

There are some great mods for it too, not just Restoration Project Updated but Talking Heads and Talking Heads Actually Talk are both incredible fan made mods that blend right in.

Okay, fair enough haha!

Also I love Finland for the record, the joke was just right there you know…

Interesting. Haven’t heard of that but it looks neat. Might be the type of game I’d rather watch a Let’s Play of than play myself, though. Also…

the voice acting and dialogue feels … I dunno, it’s not “bad”, but it feels a bit “off”, like it’s written by “semi-edgy artsyfartsy” type, and the dialogue is performed by aliens who only got the tldr version of how to act human.

are you sure they’re not just… Finnish?

Rise of the Ronin

I’ve been hooked on the open world slop juice. Honestly having a great time with it and I am kind of perplexed it didn’t get better reviews. The combat is really good, there are some charming characters in the cast and the open world is not any better or any worse than your garden variety Ubisoft style open world game. I also quite enjoy the historical aspect of the story and while it isn’t a documentary or anything it’s still anchored in real events and authentic characters from the period.

The combat is the star though and it does have the special Team Ninja sauce I would say. I have some minor quibbles with it (enemy tracking is too accurate, especially when you’ve rapidly changed direction through some movement ability) but overall it’s incredibly satisfying. The pace is super high and frenetic in some boss fights, at least if you’re trying to play to your maximum. Boss attacks come fast and unrelenting and require you to parry, and when it’s your time to punish you can squeeze out maximum performance by attacking at a similar pace, switching stances and weapons constantly and weaving martial arts. I’ve had some insanely hectic and satisfying duels in the Dojo.

Also the Dojo is a great feature, allowing you to fight 1-on-1 and even replay certain bosses, all in a setting where gear is neutralized, your items are limited to 5 healing item uses only and you don’t have access to your pistol or rifle. It’s a great balance where in the story missions you can breeze past bosses through buffs, tons of healing items, using your allies to help and using your guns, but then you still have the Dojo as a true test of skill.

I had no idea this game existed tbh. Is this a cult classic I had missed?

The final dream is my favourite moment in all of gaming. Complete heart wrenching and beautifully written, and really kind of pulling the whole game into focus and making all the pieces click into place at once. I still can’t believe they made it so easily missable too, as it’s kind of the fulcrum the whole game is balanced on.

It also never ceases to amaze me how Robert Kurvitz managed to distill the entire pathos of the whole game into three words to close it out, too.

Well, probably will need a bit of a break after this one. I get fatigued if I play too many of these in a row, same with Soulslikes.

How much better is Yotei to Tsushima, or is it just more of the same? I thought Tsushima was okay but I’m less high on it than most people. Especially the writing wore me down with the constant dour monotone delivery and serious tone. It was also too long for how little variety it had in both writing and quest design.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I relate to him but I do kind of like Harry. Yes, he’s not a regular “good person”, but he’s also much more complex than just a “bad guy”. He’s flawed, tragic and ultimately incredibly human. I think he’s a fantastic character, just like most characters in Disco Elysium.

Matrix still misses a ton of features to be a direct 1:1 Discord replacement. On top of that Fluxer has a familiar UI (it’s essentially just a Discord clone) and is simpler in onboarding (Matrix is still techy).

Federation and easy self hosting will be killer for sure. There is already a Discord migration bot and a Discord-Fluxer bridge bot I think. Future is looking hopeful.

Can’t wait until Fluxer is ready for full migration from Discord.

I have half an idea of going back and replaying Underground 2 and Most Wanted (2005) some day but with mods. I think both have RTX Remix mods by now? Regardless, great games.

I got sidetracked this last week. The plan was twofold: finish Chrono Ark (first ending) and finish Ninja Gaiden 4 to get ready for the DLC that dropped a day ago.

Instead I got completely hooked on Rise of the Ronin. It’s been a hot minute since I played some Open World Slop and it is hitting me just right. With all the shit going on right now it’s been pleasant to have some mind numbing collect-a-thon gameplay, at least thus far.

The comparisons to Ghost of Tsushima are very natural to make, but honestly I’m personally preferring Ronin. GoT wins in graphics and presentation, but the combat in Ronin is a lot more fun and deep. Both use stance switching in a sort of rock-paper-scissors system, but Ronin has a lot more skill expression given that the stance relationships only matter defensively. You counter the enemy stance while parrying, but you’re free to use whatever when going on the offensive. I find this much more satisfying than the GoT system of “pick the right stance and win”, and Ronin also has a lot more active skills to use, especially when you start chaining stance and weapon switching mid combat.

In terms of writing I am still fairly early in the story, but I like the use of authentic history and real historical characters and one thing again where I prefer Ronin over GoT is that there is a bit more humour, levity and charm to the characters. GoT is fine with its writing but everything is so serious and dour all the time and delivered in an almost monotone way that it just wore me out over the playthrough.

More buzz for Titanium Court huh? I am staying unspoiled so I can enjoy it later if it turns out as good as people say, but man I’ve heard so much talk about it lately.

Oh I am intimately familiar with Viva New Vegas and the general modding scene, I’ve spent probably several hundred hours over the years modding New Vegas. Hence my apprehension.

One the one hand F:NV is a broken mess that could seriously use a once-over… but one the other I shudder at the thought of all the mods this might break.

Definitely jump right in at Chaos Theory. One of the best stealth games ever, and actually maybe just games ever full stop. One of my favourite games at least, for sure. You may need to do some fixes if playing on PC, but it’s worth it - especially restoring EAX.

Now that you’ve played this you gotta play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory soon so you can compare the stealth giants in close succession.

Both DLCs are worth playing in my opinion. I think the first two Night Springs episodes are pretty weak, but the third one is great (at least if you’ve played the Remedy back catalogue - including Quantum Break) and the Lake House is just stellar.

HGSS is peak Pokémon.

Let’s see what kind of unbelievable powecreep they come up with to upstage Urshifu and the horses.

Lake House DLC was amazing, both a super tight horror chapter and a nicely written thinly veiled commentary on AI art.

Fair enough. And 566.36 is a great driver, it’s very fast and stable but to anyone who uses DLSS I think Preset K is too valuable.

I’m pretty sure there is a later stable one than that. I’ve been on 591.44 for a while without issues. 566.36 doesn’t have Preset K on DLSS right?

Thank you, Nordic Souls does look pretty great. I’ll jot that down for the future!

I know the Wabbajack scene is pretty big for Skyrim, is there any big mod pack you would recommend? Skyrim is also an embarrassing blind spot for me (played enough of Morrowind and Oblivion back in the day so never got around to it) but after all the hundreds of hours I’ve spent modding Fallout: NV, Cyberpunk and STALKER Anomaly I am not sure I want to dive headfirst into another multi month mod project.

Oh right, haha! Well, I hope your confidence in me wasn’t misguided! I am having a great time with it at least.

The modding scene in general is really good. The only shame is that so many old classic mods got broken by the 2.0 update.

I hope you’ll enjoy Chrono Ark, I’m having a really good time with it! The JRPG/party based concept merged with roguelike deckbuilder feels really good and I really like the boss designs, each with unique gimmicks. I’m surprised it isn’t a bigger title with more recognition.

I would probably say Withering Rooms. I’ve been super interested in it since it released but have managed to restrain myself to wait for a deep(er) sale.

Chrono Ark

I’m at the true final boss, but got wiped. Felt a little deflating as the fake final boss was a super hype fight with awesome cinematic mechanics and presentation and I was all set to see the credits roll, only to stumble at the finish line. This is the downside of having a large story focus on your roguelike deckbuilder, I felt ready to see the (first) ending and now I just felt a wave of frustration. I need to take a break for a few days to reset and then come back with a better build, now that I now what the true final boss demands mechanically.

Ninja Gaiden

Been playing more of NG4 and NG2 Black. I keep going back and forth between them, and I can’t shake the feeling that NG4 is a great action game, but I wish it had more Ninja Gaiden in it rather than more Platinum Games in it. Also I hate the fact that NG4 is checkpoint autosave only and you never now when the last time you saved was, so you just kind of have to guess. I can’t understand why it didn’t use save statues like the previous games.

Rise of the Ronin

A comment on here last week got me interested enough to acquire this from Fitgirl to try it out. I’ve been somewhat curious before as I do like Team Ninja and have heard good things about the combat, despite the otherwise mixed reception. But after reading about it on here I suddenly felt the Open World Slop urge hit me out of nowhere. This far though I’ve only gotten so far as to halfway finish designing my characters in the very extensive character creator…

The timing with Fluxer is very fortuitous, it’s been in development for years but only just got public which is why it seems to have come out of nowhere. I am with you on the money bit, but it comes down to how it gets used. I haven’t looked into how transparent the finances are. I understand the need to rustle up money fast in order to scale up development, as a proper Discord competitor needs to be more than a one-man effort. So I’m hoping that’s what the money will go to.

I agree that Fluxer is by far the best alternative yet, so I want to be hopeful.

Great writeup from my favourite video game journalist. Maybe one day I’ll actually play EarthBound, I kind of missed the boat on it back in the day.

I haven’t played myself because I don’t have friends to play with but maybe something like PEAK or Abiotic Factor?

I’ve had Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning on my wishlist for a while and it’s basically been described to me as playing as lot like an “offline MMO” of the WoW/FFXIV style.

I was moreso talking about the future of gaming monetisation.

Paying for a game you don’t own, only to have to rent the gameplay inside the thing you don’t even own to begin with. Presumably all content also being locked on company servers meaning it will get EOL’d and inaccessible at some point in the future.

Immaculate.

It’s the best game of all time, I think. Nothing else in gaming has ever moved me like the awful phonecall or the final dream.

I am so excited for this, I really hope it delivers.