Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) by Rockstar Games

Red Dead Redemption 2 provides an immersive experience that's second-to-none

I'll start off by saying that, although I do consider this game worth playing, and though it has had clear effort and care put into its development, it is certainly no masterpiece, and I fought regular frustration with it. I was surprised to see so many gaming publications and fans alike score it a perfect 10 because, in my opinion, it is severely flawed. It's a good open world game with stunning detail, it tells one of the best, most emotionally devastating and bittersweet stories in gaming history with great characters, but outside of that, I actually found it frustrating and shallow.

The open world is incredible and full of remarkable depth. From random events to NPC encounters, a staggering amount of detail has been injected into this world by the developers who really did a fantastic job. There's a stunning amount of handcrafted detail to stumble over that will more than satisfy most fans of open world games, so if that's your thing, go ahead and buy Red Dead Redemption 2 without regret.

I've seen plenty of praise for the graphics, which I think this is mostly due to the fantastic lighting engine. Volumetric lighting and how it reacts with fog and geometry looks incredible, god rays are marvelous, and the glow that permeates the setting from light sources serves to do a lot of heavy graphical lifting here. It's really something to behold, and combined with the fantastic soundtrack it serves to add a lot of atmospheric heft to the experience. This feeds into the high quality and immersive nature of the open world, one of this game's strengths.

I enjoyed how the game gave me hidden side quests to find in the form of Stranger encounters littered through the world. Many of these grow to add detail to the setting and its people and have lots of writing depth to them, despite being little more than random encounters triggered by the player entering a certain area. Despite the strong open world, this experience is at its best during its thrilling, affecting main story missions and when you're getting to know the very well-written side characters in the Van Der Linde Gang via taking on camp side quests, usually in the form of coach robbery, hunting, or fishing with them. However many of the main story missions—although they're often very compelling narratively—are so on-rails that deviating from the set mission path will often lead you to a fail state outright and push you back to a checkpoint, and the checkpointing system is often poor. For one stealthy mission in Chapter 4 I was forced repeatedly to view the same full minute-long wagon ride into the camp over and over, as the game failed me for trying to sneak into a roof window. I later realized the game fails you if you go off the 1st floor, and you're expected to sneak through the ground level. This kind of railroading stifles player agency regularly and pulls you right out of the experience.

Despite these flaws, single player is a strong narrative with good characters, twists and turns that mostly feel earned and are emotionally impactful, well-written dialogue, and fantastic voice acting and performance capture. Dan Houser and the writing team at Rockstar are at the peak of their abilities. This is a well-told story which makes important points about American exceptionalism, frontier expansion, human civilization, and morality. It's all helped along by the fantastic performance of the cast, particularly the player character's actor, Roger Clark. A fair amount of the side content is also quite compelling, but a lot of it does unfortunately fall into typical open world game territory, which leaves you feeling like you're doing tedious busywork for NPCs whom you just met and don't care about. Although I admittedly loved some side quests, I began skipping side content later in the game after one too many "collect 5 bounty posters" type missions, which was very disappointing.

The slow, laggy way that both the player character and horses control is awful, unfortunately. There were several extremely frustrating moments during combat in which my character would become stuck either on a piece of in-game geometry, or running in a loop, which led to some frustrating deaths. Additionally, inventory management is an unintuitive chore, and you're never quite sure which weapon Arthur considers his default, as you're constantly drowning in dozens of them since the game doesn't allow to equip a main, nor sell those you aren't using. There's something very wrong about a game in which you're a wild west gunslinger, yet half the time you attempting to draw your pistol quickly (by holding right mouse button, then clicking left mouse button), the game fails to respond at all and you stand there like an idiot as you get shot to death. These clunky bugaboos ensured I never felt fully in control of the player character, and some of the game's fantastic immersive quality was lost as a result. I regularly felt frustrated from moment-to-moment while playing this game.

Despite the compelling main quests and companion quests, this game also features some of the typical open world bloat that I've come to despise in games of this sort. I never want to hunt animals for crafting components, for example. Not out of any sort of animal-rights motivation, but because it's never been compelling for me to go out into the woods and spend hours trying to find the right damn animal to obtain materials from. I've also long despised hunting for treasure using only hand-drawn maps—another sin this game commits. I had a particularly poor experience finally finding a treasure location, only to open the hidden compartment and receive another map to decipher: What a kick in the groin it was spending 15 minutes trying to scale Caliban's Seat to complete the first treasure map I purchased, battling bad platform jumping and awkward walk/run controls and falling a couple of times only to finally find it and realize it was ANOTHER TREASURE MAP. This is the kind of boring, time-wasting side content I can't stand, and I was disappointed to see it in yet another open world game which is an otherwise fantastic experience.

Additionally, the camp upgrade options are little more than window dressing. Beyond gaining fast travel capabilities and gaining new satchels, there's almost nothing of value to be gained by upgrading your camp, which is a huge missed opportunity. Because the characters are so compelling, the acting is so great, and the dialogue is so carefully crafted, I found myself wishing for an opportunity to impact the lives of the gang around me by putting some of my hard-earned wealth into the camp. It's prohibitively expensive to do so, and you gain little in-game reward for it other than certain cosmetic flourishes. If I could do it again I'd have instead poured that money into my own clothing and horses. It's simply not worth it, and before long I began ignoring the feature entirely.

There are also several sorts of minigames available, such as poker or five finger fillet, but most of these—although they received obvious care in development in the form of unique animations and lines for the NPCs against whom you play—ended up feeling obviously rigged to me. The worst of this is during the poker game in Saint Denis, which one player always just stomps and led me to think he was cheating in-game. But no further explanation is available, so it instead feels just like he was programmed to take all of your money by winning lucky hands constantly. I gave up on most of the minigames after experiencing this.

Red Dead Redemption 2 lives or dies on its being a great story and a deep, atmospheric world. If you love immersive, engulfing video game worlds or want an amazing story, you're going to love it. If you want great shooting or compelling gameplay in general, you're likely to end up frustrated.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) by Square Enix

An enormous amount of personal nostalgia can't make up for Final Fantasy VII Remake's shortcomings

Note: My screenshots are rather poor since this is a console game rather than a PC release.

I'll state up-front that I don't have a problem with this being just part one of a remake. It felt like it had enough to warrant the full price tag to me. So, if that is your only concern, you can buy without worry. But if you're interested to hear whether or not the game is good, read on for further detail.

I played the original Final Fantasy VII in 1997. As you can see from the photo above, I still have my original black back discs and jewel case. Some parts of the Remake game carried for me on pure nostalgia. Others were not so good. Others still were so awful that I have no idea how any adult making the game could have examined them and thought, "yes, this is good, this should go in our game."

I'll start with the good stuff. Some parts of the Final Fantasy VII Remake are really exceptional. Number one is that it starts off amazingly well, and feeds fans of the original tons of fan service and nostalgia right off the bat. A tear came to my eye playing the opening few hours. The new combat system, although far different from the ATB of the original, is pretty fun! Animation is amazing- really stunning, and that extends from combat, to NPCs, to cutscenes. Great soundtrack, of course, as the original was fantastic as well. And the art direction is fantastic. Despite the PS4 showing its age and several areas featuring really bad, low-resolution textures, Midgar has come alive for me. It looks phenomenal and feels like the city in the original game did. There's also an exceptional level of polish here. There are very few bugs and there's a deep attention to detail in every part of Midgar.

However, a lot of the game is a complete mess narratively whenever it's not re-creating scenes from the original.

The only time the writing was hitting for me and felt good was when depicting the original characters. Square Enix has a lot of character designers from the original working on this team, and it shows. Not once did the characters say a single line of dialogue that felt out of character for them. The writers clearly still know these characters deeply, and the voice actors nail every single one of them and are casted perfectly.

But that's where the good stuff ends. I won't spoil the game here, but suffice it to say that almost all of the new content added to flesh out the original story is bad. It's full of inconsistent rules and plot holes (being stuck in the area in Chapter 17 after falling and having to spend the entire chapter climbing back up, and then just next chapter watching Cloud jump literal hundreds of feet), full of MacGuffins (Chapter 4 is guilty of this, along with Chapter 13 which makes zero sense whatsoever, and Chapter 14 which could have been cut completely and the game would have lost nothing), and rampant use of deus ex machina for anything and everything whenever the ghosts show up, culminating in an event near to the end of the game that made me roll my eyes and literally groan aloud because of how awful it was.

The real problem with all of the stuff they've added is that it completely torpedoes the pace of the Midgar portion of the original game. I expected this bloat to be represented by the side quests, but those were actually fine. This bloat shows itself in the main quest, which I did not expect. Entire chapters of this game feel like a complete waste of time, and a lot of the writing in these new chapters is so amateur as to feel like fan-fiction. The moment-to-moment scenarios are often just cornball video game nonsense that's impossible to take seriously, eg. "monster stole the key, go chase him down", or "this bridge you are crossing just fell down, now you have to go through this entire level, routed through conspicuous combat rooms with enemies". Lots of random nonsense to move the plot forward that feels contrived and unnecessary and impossible to care about. Compare this to modern story-driven games like Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, or God of War (2018) which are using every single moment, every single line of dialogue, either to tell a compelling story or develop their characters further. Final Fantasy VII Remake feels bloated with tons of fatty, disposable content when you compare it to other titles that strive for great storytelling. It's extremely disappointing, because I consider the original Final Fantasy VII to be fantastic at storytelling, tone, timely comic relief, and pacing. And the Remake fails in all of these aspects.

The textures are absolutely awful in certain cases (click to maximize)

Despite how good this game tends to look, a lot of these failures make it feel old and outdated, which is ironic, of course, because it's a remake of an old game! These are the exact problems the remake was supposed to fix! But these arise not just because it's a remake, because this flaw primarily exhibits itself in the new stuff. The classic scenes from the original game which are re-created here are as timeless as ever and work really well. But the structure of the new portions they have added for the remake feel like they've been designed by a bunch of guys who are stuck with '90s video game design philosophies—Everything feels way too gamey and arbitrary, put in place by a developer's decision rather than organically arising from the story and characters, and because of this it becomes impossible to take seriously and fails to have the emotional heft that good storytelling often does. Look, I don't mind if you make me chase a MacGuffin every once in while, but it has to serve either to develop the mechanics of the game and teach me something new, or develop the core characters or story further, or even lead to a relevant, specatcular set-piece. Too much of the pitfalls of Remake lead to none of this, and the game feels like it spends half its length spinning its wheels as a result.

So a lot of this game is a mess and inconsistent from moment to moment with what it wants to be, whether it wants to be a faithful remake head nodding to its original fans, or a new story all its own. I thought they executed on the former very well, the latter was pretty disposable, standard video gamey stuff. This is very relevant to the game's ending, which I won't spoil here, but suffice it to say that the ending was the culmination of this kind of poor writing, as it seems to go completely off the rails with the most obvious, heavy-handed pseudo-artistic statement to the point where I'm not even really interested to continue playing the next episode. I've heard that Nomura is famous for this kind of stuff, which does no favors for his talents as a director and a writer in my eyes. I really hate disliking the ending because I just know people are going to rag on anyone who doesn't like it for being perpetually angry gamers or whatever, but it's seriously bad. Think Game of Thrones Season 8 bad. I honestly cannot believe that the game got out the door with this ending. Someone high up at Square Enix needed to tell whomever was responsible for writing this ending that it was not going to work. It's a failure of epic proportions.

To summarize: All of the best stuff is from when they re-create the original scenes, most of the stuff I didn't like was new writing injected into the framework of the story which already exists. So if they're going to tell their own story now with these characters, from here on forward, I'm really not interested in that, because I don't find their storytelling up to par in most cases and the bombastic, campy style with which they tell it is really not for me. Others may feel differently.

Basically, it's neat that this thing even exists, and it's got a lot of polish. But it's very inconsistent, and I'm surprised it's been so well-received both critically and among fans new and old. Maybe it's because it starts off so well, and ends so poorly, and most of the hearsay surrounding the game is taken from statements made when players are still in the first half of the game? Nevertheless, if you were a fan of the original, it's still probably worth playing—warts and all. But it disappointed me greatly by the end.

⭐⭐

The Witcher (2007) by CD Projekt Red

I feel really bad doing this because I absolutely love CD Projekt Red and I enjoy later games in the series such as The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, but I just can't recommend this game. It's not a terrible game, but its age and some of the mistakes made by the developers working on their first game do a lot to make it a terrible experience to play.

Most notably is that the combat is awful. It's incredibly easy for the most part, but also very bland. Potions are all but useless, leaving you to whack with your sword repeatedly in its faux-rhythm game. I was completely exhausted of it by the beginning of the second chapter and was beginning to choose just to run past enemies.

There are a number of side quests that are worthwhile as far as story and character development, but too many are simple fetch quests and just not worth your time despite the experience and money they reward you with. Too many "fetch 10 wolf pelts", and "find the 10 sephirahs" here—the latter of which broke me for good and had me uninstalling the game.

Probably most tiresome is the fact that the maps are some of the worst designed playing areas I've ever seen in an RPG. I am not exaggerating when I say that 90% of my gametime here was spent running around the map. They are not cyclical at all, but require you to run end-to-end, which is incredibly boring and frustrating. The maps that are open, such as the swamp, often have shrubbery and fences blocking paths that you might use to get somewhere more quickly. I don't mind padding out some gametime, but you've got to be smart about it; give me some good dialogue with NPCs, or entertaining combat. Here even the skill trees—one of my favorite parts of an RPG—feel ineffective, and like a waste of time.

There are minor annoyances as well, such as the awful character models, or poor dialogue writing. The game also starts off about as terribly as possible, with awful, generic, clichéd fantasy dialogue, and bad animations and storytelling.

I used to think of this game like the first Mass Effect—a good game, but very rough around the edges. But while it does do some good things, it's nothing like Mass Effect, which has competent levels, character building, and far better writing and dialogue.

Pretty much all The Witcher has going for it is some interestingly complex quest design and a great setting. Aside from that, this game is nearly completely skippable. Witcher 2 is a far better game, and probably even a better starting place for the series. But if you're dead set on playing the entire trilogy, you can give this one a shot—It's going to be all but impossible to play once you've experienced the later, better games and CD Projekt Red's maturity as one of the best game developers on the planet.

⭐

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus (2018) by Bulwark Studios

Most immediately striking about this game is the absolutely phenomenal sound design. The ambient sound is superb, making you fearful and near awestruck each step of the way. The soundtrack fits the setting well; it's an industrialized set of organ songs, with heavy electronic and ambient touches. It's the perfect window-dressing for what is essentially a game about transhumanist cultists. Had the Western Roman Empire never fallen in the 5th century, perhaps this is what it would have grown into. I love the strong inspiration of the Christian late Roman Empire here. The usage of faux-Latin for the character's names and their garbled, mechanical voice effects does a lot to impart a certain mood: that of a dark, dreary future populated by these mechanical monsters who seek to eradicate alien life and steal their technology. The entire thing gives you a sense of otherworldliness, like you're witnessing something that's just utterly beyond you. It's difficult to explain until you jump in. I don't know the Warhammer 40k lore very well, but I do enjoy what little of it I've experienced.

Probably my single favorite thing about the game is something rather minor—the aforementioned voice effects. This game does have actual voice acting, but it is relatively rare. The vast majority of the dialogue is read by the player rather than listened to, but the characters speak in their own native language, which is depicted here in sound effects sounding something akin to garbled Latin, and then put through an extremely disorienting voice filter. It is probably a relatively simple process, but the effect goes a very long way to helping the mood of this game resonate as incredibly unsettling. It's amazing, and I wish more games would do something like this if proper voice acting was not an option.

A lot of what I like about this game is in how it manages the mood. The art style, specifically regarding the characters' portraits (see right), is excellent. It reminds me a lot of the art found in Darkest Dungeon—something I loved about that game. In general, there is such a Gothic, uncomfortably dusty and masonwork-like feeling to the entire thing. A lot of the cutscenes feel as if you're witnessing some great cultural crime of epic proportions. The characters each express their own quirks, providing nice wrinkles in this mood; one of them is extremely dogmatic and is constantly citing scripture, which I loved. Another speaks in a computerized set of faux-programming commands, which is equally characterizing. There are so many nice little touches like this that make the moment-to-moment gameplay come alive for me. I think these things are necessary, especially in turn-based tactical games, which can become rather dry if they focus too much on nuts and bolts aspects of the gameplay. You need the impact of these artistic touches to balance things out and give some color to the blueprint of the game.

Perhaps the only thing I'd criticize on these grounds is the actual, in-game graphics. The hand-drawn illustrations used in the portraits are fantastic, but I found the actual polygonal characters during gameplay to be somewhat wanting. The animation is not very good, and they seem like pieces on a game board rather than the semi-living, semi-mechanical abominable personae they exhibit in their character portraits. I would love to see a sequel go all-out with the hand-drawn style, getting rid of the polygonal characters altogether and rendering the entire game in this art style. The artistic effort here is that strong.

As far as the gameplay, I suppose I'm a bit biased, as turn-based tactics is probably my single favorite subgenre of RPG—and a woefully underutilized one, in my opinion. I am glad to see games such as the XCOM revival series, and Divinity: Original Sin using this playstyle. It's not for everybody—particularly the turn-based nature of it—but for those of us who love it, this game definitely scratches that itch. There are a bevy of different abilities, passive perks, and gear to keep the game dynamic and flowing forwards. I've always considered the sign of a good turn-based tactics game to be getting absolutely wrecked in an engagement, then reloading a save and trying it again with slightly differing tactics, only to succeed easily. It's a sign that the emphasis is where it should be—on how you approach each battle—rather than on something like getting an overpowered weapon. The tutorial mission is actually a great example of this: I went from getting both of my tech priests killed, to adjusting my tactics and sending my peon units at Argolekh in suicidal charges, and was able to kill him without taking any damage. It was immensely satisfying.

Sadly, though, the difficulty scaling throughout the campaign seems to be somewhat off. I believe this is due simply to having so many different abilities and so much different equipment present in the game, which had to have made it difficult to balance everything. The beginning of the game seems very difficult; you have small pistols which do 1-2 damage, and if you try and face up a Necron Destroyer with those weapons, you're going to get your butt kicked. However, once you get to mid-game, you are cruising; if you know what you're doing and you've thought about your Tech-Priests' builds, you're probably going to be able to deal with everything that comes your way rather easily. And by the time you get to the late game, you'll be steamrolling everything. This is definitely not scaled like XCOM 2, which is quite difficult and punishing. It felt rather like Final Fantasy Tactics to me, or any other game in which you can break it completely if you progress your characters the right way.

I did read that they patched the game to make it more difficult, and it isn't a total breeze, but if you build smartly, you'll still probably watch your power level grow considerably as the game continues onwards.

Although this might be a controversial opinion, I don't believe that completely breaking a challenging game by becoming overpowered via intelligent character building is necessarily a bad thing. While this is a detriment to enjoyment for those who like to be challenged, it can also be quite rewarding; there's a sense of growth in power when you go from getting killed against one Necron Destroyer, to slaughtering everything in your path just 20 hours later. It imparts a sense of what the Adeptus Mechanicus do within the fiction: they may be ill-equipped at the start, but they will learn more and more about your technology and adapt it to their purposes to such an extent that they will use it better than you will. And then they will kill you all because you had the nerve to exist in the first place.

If I did have a complaint, probably it would be that some of the tomb events feel a bit arbitrary. There are sometimes instances of selecting an option in an event room and having the results of your choice play out in an unexpected way that felt rather arbitrary.

I know nothing about Bulwark Studios but this is such an engrossing, carefully crafted game that I'm very excited to see what they do from here on. I'll be watching their future games closely, and I'd recommend Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus to any fan of the genre of turn-based tactics. If you like the Warhammer 40k setting and you're not too averse to turn-based gameplay, give it a shot—you might enjoy it. But if you dislike other turn-based games, this one likely will not sell you on the subgenre, and there will be little for you to enjoy here unless you're an absolutely rabid Warhammer fan.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dota 2 (2013) by Valve

I finally feel qualified to write a review of Dota 2, since I'm just exiting the stages of being an absolute beginner in Dota 2 and finally progressing into the "novice" stage.

After nearly 1,500 hours over a period of 6 years.

I remember reading a news story a while back during the release of the hugely popular Witcher 3 in 2015 that was speaking about how many other games had lost thousands of players, all of whom had flocked to the big new game and were engrossed by it. Except for Dota 2 players, who continued to play to their normal numbers and weren't distracted by another game releasing. The writer came to the humorous conclusion that Dota 2 players are probably just not aware of the existence of other games.

Although I love other video games, that's still easily understandable for me, because Dota 2 is by far the best competitive game I've ever played. It sucks people in and devours them, dominating their every waking moment. I know people who don't play any other games, just Dota. And I understand why.

The sheer amount of variance between games and the bevy of differing mechanics enables the player to continue playing for thousands of hours—as I have—and still feel utterly amateurish. There's so much to learn, and so much to think about while you're in the game. The game isn't so much a test of how mechanically skilled you are, or how fast your reflexes are, but your ability to multitask and make a multitude of complex decisions in a small amount of time. Do you have vision? Are smokes of deceit available? What's your next item? Who is killing you in fights, and what can you do to prevent that? Have you used your shovel when it's off cooldown? What about midas? If you win a fight, should you Rosh, or take objectives? When's the proper time to split up and farm? And those are just the in-game, micro-decisions. You've got vaster ones to make as you continue to play the game. Which heroes feel stronger this meta? Which items? Which strategies are working?

Friends and I often talk about our "forever games", ie. the game that you will probably play for decades into the future, because you'll just never get tired of it. And that's Dota 2, for me. I began playing in 2014 and I've taken a significant amount of time off here and there (most recently, for the past 2 years, only to come back once again). If you're looking for a forever game, Dota can certainly be that for you. But there are a few significant hurdles in the way.

First off, I don't think I've ever engaged in anything with a steeper learning curve than Dota 2. There are more than a hundred heroes, of whom you must learn every single thing. All of their abilities, the items they will build, their power scale timings. And then there are hundreds of items you must learn as well. And you've got to apply all of this thinking on the fly to how it affects not only your hero, but your teammates' heroes. It's such a massive amount of knowledge to compile, and it's changing all the time. Nine out of ten players will try this out for 5-20 hours and set it down, utterly bewildered by what they're doing wrong as they get mercilessly brutalized over their first 10 games or so. So it certainly helps to play with a more experienced, exceptionally patient friend who can show you the ropes. And if you stick it out, and play a few hundred hours, you'll find that you can begin to gain an appreciation of why this game so dominates the passions of so many players around the world.

I can talk about how the sound design is fantastic, how I dislike some of the character designs, or any other of normal-video-game-things, but the real focus on reviewing Dota should talk about two things: 1) The incredible job IceFrog and Valve do at balancing a game with so many disparate parts and how having such a deep set of mechanics to learn keeps players coming back for tens of thousands of hours, and 2) the infamously cancerous community surrounding the game.

Dota 2's infamously contemptible community is easily the games worst aspect

I'm not going to blow smoke; many of the players populating Dota's servers are unkind and delusional. I've had literally hundreds of games in which I've watched a player roam into the enemy jungle, try and fight 3-4 enemy heroes, die stupidly, and then proceed to flame their teammates for not following. Or the players who, the moment you die, will jump on your mistake and adopt an air of superiority in scolding you, and trying to correct the way you play—despite being the same rank as you. Everyone playing Dota 2 seems to believe that they belong at a far higher rank than they are, and everyone else is at fault for their placement.

The core component to the toxicity surrounding this game is a stunning lack of awareness of the player's own deficiencies, and the deflection of blame towards anyone else possible. Sure, there are trolls who run down mid, and there are people who refuse to actually support. But these are relatively rare in my experience. What wears me down from playing Dota consistently is the sheer amount of toxic communication and blame-game playing. If you play this game, you've got to have a thick skin. You'll be criticized mercilessly and blamed incorrectly. And it's constant. This happens nearly every game, even if you have a decent behavior score (8000+), as I do. Even I'm not exempt from this behavior—there have been plenty of times in the past when I've engaged in bitter exchanges with teammates. It's something that just comes with the territory of playing such a difficult, highly competitive, intensely human game. Emotions run high and we say things we regret.

That said, I do believe the game's in a better place now than it has been in years past. Supports are more likely to pull, gank, and buy smokes and deward. Individual couriers have done a lot to improve player relations in-game and prevent arguments—it's hard to believe now that you'd sometimes get games in which supports would refuse to buy a courier. And, perhaps most important, Role Queue is a huge, fantastic development—you now no longer have 5 carries every single game. And to deal with such rampantly poor communication etiquette, all you've got to do is mute other players liberally. My personal rule of thumb is to mute anyone who begins suggesting items to other players (these people often have a false sense of superiority that leads to flaming teammates when things go poorly), or begins to broadcast the slightest amount of negativity. I've never regretted muting a player, but I have frequently regretted not muting them. I've even gone through dozens of games with everyone muted on both sides, just enjoying the game itself in lieu of any communication whatsoever. Learning to use the mute buttons liberally is the fastest way to truly enjoy playing Dota 2. But you'll still likely end up having days where Dota 2 is the best game you've ever played, and days where Dota 2 is the worst game you've ever played.

There's also the esports scene around Dota, which is incredible. The International is the best esports tournament in the world, and the Dota client itself has amazing features for spectating games by high-level pros, whenever you want to. I personally enjoy spectating games from Player Perspective, so I can analyze what high level players are doing differently than me when I play.

Reviewing Dota 2 is not like reviewing any other game. It's the deepest, most rewarding competitive experience I've ever had with a video game. But it's also the most infuriating and mood-ruining. Striking a healthy balance between these things is key. If you have the determination to learn the game, a thick skin, and a modicum of intelligence, you'll probably adore this game. And, best of all, you can get all these thousands of hours of enjoyment out of the game without spending a single dime. All the heroes are free so you have a complete playing experience right out of the gate, unlike other, similar games on the market.

And maybe you'll play it forever, like I will. Give it a shot. It's free, after all.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018) by Warhorse Studios

I was interested in Kingdom Come: Deliverance on release but read reviews and decided it wasn't for me. It sounded buggy and unstable, which I can't stand in RPGs—broken quest flags infuriate me. And the save system sounded awful since I can't stand games that don't allow you to quicksave and instead force you to rely on checkpointing, which is almost never as good as your ability to quicksave.

So I decided to pass on it. It sounded like more frustration than it was worth.

2 years later, Epic Store offered it for free so I finally decided to check it out. I recalled the save system being tied to potions you had to buy and decided to check and see if there was a mod available that allowed you to quicksave instead. PC modders—being the amazing people they are—had indeed made one! So I installed the game, installed the save anywhere mod, and booted the game and fooled around a bit. The devs have patched most of the bugs and instability out of the game by now, the dialogue writing was of a far higher quality than I was led to believe, and I liked the premise of being a peasant in medieval times rather than a nobleman or some kind of hero. So the game had me interested from minute one.

However, I got to my first combat engagement in which a drunk made a fool of me in a fistfight. The whole thing felt like bullcrap. I had no idea what I was doing, and I rage quit and uninstalled.

But the fight stayed on my mind. I thought about it more and more and considered that I was a kid with no combat experience, fighting a practiced brawler much larger than me. It made sense he would beat me up. I realized then that the game was aiming for a level of realism much higher than that of other RPGs. I reinstalled the game and decided not to confront the drunk. Like an immersive sim, there are various emergent ways of solving these problems—I ended up doing a favor for my tavern buddies, and in return, they came with me and beat the crap out of the drunk together.

From that moment on, I was completely hooked.

This game has a hardcore group of fans that sing its praises, and after playing for nearly 30 hours I'm starting to see why. It's unapologetic in its identity: It's a hardcore RPG that aims for a level of realism not found in other RPGs these days. It reminds me a bit of Skyrim with a thick coat of realistic paint: There's no magic here, no fantastical elements, but there are survival elements in place of those—you've got to sleep, eat, and bathe yourself. Your inventory weight is going to be taken up mostly by your armor. Archery is insanely difficult, like it is in real life. And, perhaps most rewarding; combat will take literal hours of training for you, the player, to get right.

The game is historically realistic about what Henry, the peasant protagonist, can do. You don't leave your parents house a total bad-ass—you have to train! When I began fighting I would nearly always get my butt kicked unless I was fighting naked, starving bandits. If I got jumped by Cumans on the road, I had to run or I'd die. Luckily for me, you get to a certain point in the story where Henry has the opportunity to train under a Master-at-Arms. Sir Bernard beat me senseless with a wooden sword for a literal hour before I began to get the hang of perfect blocks and master strikes, which require precise timing to pull off. I spent—no exaggeration—2 straight hours (real-time, not in-game) simply sparring with Sir Bernard until I could train completely naked, with real weapons, and counter every move without taking a single scratch of damage. And the the process was actually fun—not grindy! I got better and better, slowly, as I watched for his tells to try and guess when he was attacking so I could counter. It was incredibly rewarding not only to master that and rough up Sir Bernard for a change, but then to take it out into the "real world" and be able to duel actual knights—who would have slaughtered me before I practiced so much—and make complete fools of them using not stats that I had increased, but my own increase in skill with the game's combat system. The fantastic hollow metal clangs make everything ring true and feel satisfying, and the first-person animations when you pull off a master strike reflect the work you put in the become so well-practiced. It's the single most rewarding first-person melee combat system I've ever played in a game. I'll never be able to go back to Skyrim again.

Where it gets difficult is when you're fighting multiple enemies. But I don't think is a flaw—rather, it reflects the realism of how difficult it is to fight multiple enemies and come out on top. It's rare that I will come across a trio of Cumans on the road in an ambush and escape without a scratch. The enemy AI is quite good in these battles: One will pull out a bow and fire at you repeatedly, one with a shield will engage you from the front, while the third constantly tries to circle behind you. And if they have a dog, forget it—the little mongrel will constantly circle behind me more quickly than I can move. The solution in these battles is usually to sneak around the ambush, or run. But rather than frustrating, this lends realism to the game. I never leave such encounters angry because the game is staying consistent with its commitment to realism.

This commitment is also beginning to show now that I'm later in the game and wearing heavier armor. I love vast power scales in games, and this game reflects the near-invulnerability of a fully plate-armored knight in the 15th century. Your errors in combat are so much more forgiving when you're wearing a full set of heavy armor that your opponents need to continue to wail away nearly until your armor breaks before they can properly damage you. It makes all of your war loot even more valuable, while at the same time depicting realistically the intimidating power of a heavy knight. The loot in the game is surprisingly compelling, too—mostly because Henry has nearly a dozen different armor slots for all the layers of armor and padding a medieval knight would wear. I had no idea they were so thickly armored before playing this game.

This sort of painstaking realism also applies to non-combat things such as reading, which no peasant was able to do in the 15th century. You have to go on a specific quest to find someone to teach you, which takes in-game days of practice with a scribe. This is the level of realism to which this game aspires, and I love that about it.

In addition to how it handles combat and the growth of both your abilities and your character's, there are a number of things the game does as-good or better than any other RPG of the past decade or so, and some of these things have not been mentioned nearly enough in media covering the game: It has some of the best story and character writing out there, and that is supported by phenomenal voice acting—I particularly enjoy the player character Henry's performance by Tom McKay, and that of Hans Capon. It has a fresh setting that hasn't been explored in this level of detail before, and it has a strong commitment to historical accuracy that lends weight to it. It has utterly phenomenal music and art design—I spent minutes at a time just looking at the frescoes present in churches.

This game hits on so many things I love: It's fantastic historical fiction, it tells a compelling story with a strong narrative hook, it has emotionally resonant characters who feel like real people. And it has challenging, rewarding gameplay.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Downloadable Content: From the Ashes (2018)

I'm surprised by the lukewarm reviews of this content because I loved it! It provides a nice motivational diversion from the main game. About halfway through the main campaign I found myself filthy rich simply from looting and selling all of the gear I acquire from sacking bandit and Cuman camps. This expansion gives you somewhere to invest that money. The way it ties in to the main campaign and allows you to 'recruit' NPCs you've come across via side quests is brilliant as well.

I haven't felt this kind of ownership since Monteriggioni in Assassin's Creed II. This content is absolutely wonderful and I adore it. Watching your settlement grow in real time and observing the NPCs living out their lives is such a rewarding pleasure, and it gave me more motivation to continue doing sidequests and amassing wealth. I think the folks who were dissatisfied with this were expecting something like a settlement builder which Fallout 4 features, however I'm much happier having things more rigid like this expansion, if it avoids the jank and tedium present in games like Fallout 4.

Wonderful DLC; highly recommended.

From the Ashes Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Downloadable Content: A Woman's Lot (2018)

A Woman's Lot centers on Theresa, which is great because she's very well-acted and a solid character. It also lets you get to know the people of Skalitz better, which is welcome. And, best of all, it introduces your dog companion, Mutt! Mutt is the best, he makes the main game so much more enjoyable. I'd honestly pay the cost of this DLC just for him!

However, Theresa's actual mission and, specifically, the objectives you're given, make this actual DLC campaign range anywhere from incredibly frustrating to, by far, the most boring things I've done in the entire game.

As previously indicated; I really liked Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Part of what I like so much is that honest effort went in to designing the quests and objectives. You're constantly invested in what you're doing because the story is so compelling and Henry's growth as a character feels real and earned. All of that is removed in A Woman's Lot. There's zero investment in Theresa because you know none of this carries over, and there's nearly no opportunity to develop her character through the course of the DLC. Beyond the novelty of playing the beginning events of the game from a different point-of-view, her entire portion is all but worthless. The story, too, is basically what you already know, with one or two little Easter eggs thrown in. But aside from that, it's utterly predictable.

I was interested to play as Theresa because I love her character and she provides a nice change of pace from Henry. And I hope they'll include the option to play as a female character in KCD2, but the quest design here is complete and utter garbage and just zero fun to play.

On paper, it seems good: Introduce the player to Theresa's everyday life to make the impact of Skalitz's sacking that much more severe. In practice it's simply not any fun. You're tasked with things like feeding chickens, picking stuff up from the blacksmith, and various other fetch-and-deliver quests that are about as fun as a trip to the dentist. And on paper, requiring Theresa to be stealthy and sneak past guards rather than fighting makes sense. But in practice this clashes severely with the game's controversial save system. The stealth mechanics in KCD are very realistic, which is something I appreciated in the main game; no more hiding right in front of bad guys because your stealth skill is 100, like in Skyrim. But having such realistic stealth mechanics mixed with the way this DLC makes you utterly powerless to fight or run leads to an incredibly difficult, punishing experience. Once you're spotted, you can't even run from the Cumans, so you basically just get killed. And because you're not free to save whenever you like, you're often losing 15-30 minutes of gameplay at a time and forced to start back at the beginning. I was cursing up a storm playing through these sections, which is a clear deviation from my experience in the main game, which I'm nearly always enraptured by!

The cherry on top of this turd pie was near the end, when you're tasked with collecting random things like 10 flowers, 6 bandages, and some water in the dark, as a Cuman patrols near you. The game tries to have your dog help you seek out the items, but this mechanic was broken for me, as the dog did nothing but follow me as usual. I couldn't use a torch without being spotted, so I walked around the same area, tediously, for almost an hour, looking for barely visible flowers in the pitch dark. It was easily the worst time I had playing through this entire game; an absolute nightmare, and if I didn't love KCD so much I'd have shut this down, uninstalled it, and never touched it again.

And then, to top it off! None of this crap you were forced to collect matters anyway! The task you were trying to accomplish by collecting these various worthless items fails regardless of what you do. Thanks, Warhorse!

Seriously though, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an amazing game. And this DLC is worth getting at a discount just to have Mutt accompany Henry through the main game. But if I ever replay this game from the beginning, there is no way in hell I will ever play through A Woman's Lot again.

I would certainly like to have the option to play as a female character, but more importantly, I want it to be fun and satisfying! And this DLC just simply isn't.

A Woman's Lot rating: ⭐

Halo: Reach (2010) by Bungie

(Note: I played the remastered version of Halo: Reach released in 2019)

343 has done a lot of work with the textures, and it shows—the environments have been spruced up a bit, but the character models especially have been retooled to near-modern standards. While it runs exceptionally on my system on paper—I'm managing 200+ fps nearly constantly (depending on how much Michael Bay is going on on my screen)—there is a persistent stutter which makes things look rather jagged. Normally this would be excusable, but it's rather bothersome in a shooter. Some of the settings are welcome in a remaster such as this; the field of view slider is particularly nice. It shows the team remastering this were listening to the demands of their potential PC customers. I'm sure adding that took some extra work on the part of the devs, and it's much appreciated. TotalBiscuit would have been so happy to see it.

Additionally, mouse and keyboard controls are fantastic. I'm somebody who played all of the original Halo: Reach when it released in 2010 and it plays exactly as I remember it—which is odd because I played it with a controller back then, and I'm playing with a mouse and keyboard now. That goes to show the hard work the development team has put into making mouse and keyboard controls feel so good they come naturally in a game that was never originally meant to have them. There is mouth smoothing and acceleration available, but thankfully they are set to 'off' by default. Another little thing I appreciated as a PC gamer.

In addition to the odd framerate stutter, another complaint regarding the port would be that the sound is relatively poor. Guns are far too quiet and their sound design lacks pop, which makes them feel like little more than plastic toys, and there is no dynamic range here whatsoever which hampers the realistic feel of gunfire and explosions most shooters feature these days. Additionally, the mix in general sounds a bit muddy to my ear—the bass of the music often blares too loudly and drowns out the dialogue that is occurring. It shows how far shooters have come, as I recall Halo: Reach being completely competent in the sound department back in 2010. Sadly, it shows Reach's age, whereas the updated textures make you feel like you're playing a modern game.

As far as stability is concerned, the port has been wonderful. I haven't experienced a single bug thus far.

Maybe you're new to Halo? Perhaps you're a younger gamer, or you've been a old-school PC gamer who never picked up Halo: Combat Evolved or Halo 2 back when they released on PC in the early 2000s. If that's the case, the Halo series represents a sprawling, thrilling adventure that's ambitious and action-packed, and it's a completely competent shooter even in the modern day. My opinion is that you owe it to yourself to check it out, and if you like Halo: Reach, then you'll probably dig the rest of the series, too.

Time to manage expectations, though. Don't expect a fully modern shooter with Halo: Reach! Even with the fresh coat of paint, Halo still feels like Halo—and this is not necessarily a good thing to some people as it's a very particular taste.

Movement and jumping has always felt a bit floaty in Halo games. The campaign difficulty might be a bit higher than folks might be used to, and stronger enemies such as the elites can feel a bit bullet spongey. It will take some time to get used to not being able to aim down iron sights for every weapon, and for sprint to not be readily available.

If you're looking for a great campaign, you will find it here. Halo: Reach features a poignant, phenomenally written and designed campaign with absolutely perfect pacing. It will leave you reeling from its emotional impact despite its minimalist storytelling. One of the highlights of Reach's campaign is that you're finally not the only Spartan around. As Noble Six, you have five other team members around you at all times. Certain members accompany you on certain missions, and sometimes the whole team gets together. It's tough to avoid growing attached to your squadmates as you play through the campaign. Whereas in other games they might remain faceless, helmeted supersoldiers, in Reach they are given a coloring of humanity and they feel like real people as a result. Carter is a stoic leader, always attempting to put his feelings to the side, which makes it all the more noticeable when they bleed through. Kat is a grouchy, technical genius—her disability does little to hamper her. Jun's quiet competence suits him as the sniper of the group. Jorge is gregarious and seems consciously at odds with his nature as a killing machine, and perhaps the most dangerous of the bunch. Emile is a clear A-type personality, and his actions later in the story are perhaps the most memorable bit of Halo: Reach. And Catherine Halsey, the intelligence spook, is perhaps the best of the bunch—her cold calculus renders her little more than a psychopath, but we see the humanity poke through a bit here and there. I particularly loved her scenes with Jorge. Throw these characters into a catastrophic, desperate battle to defend their homeland in a losing war, and you have the makings of a gripping, shattering story of sacrifice and perseverance. This is the best campaign of the series in my opinion, and one of the best single player shooter campaigns ever crafted.

To top it off, all of this game has a soundtrack of nearly unheard of quality despite the lower than usual mix from the muddy sound of the port. The Halo series has great music in general, but Reach's score in particular is so poignant and moody and it suits the campaign narrative perfectly. You'll be humming some of these songs in the shower after a night of playing. Others will bring a tear to your eye for years to come, whenever you hear them.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order (2019) by Respawn Entertainment

Fallen Order looks gorgeous and its respect for the Star Wars license is apparent. It does a fairly good job at taking inspiration from recent, popular game series such as Dark Souls, Uncharted, and the Tomb Raider revivals. If you like those games, or you're hardcore Star Wars fan, go ahead and pick this up—You'll probably quite like it! For me, however, it didn't do enough to elevate itself above its genre or its license, and although I love Star Wars and was eager to jump into the world, that love failed to carry me to enjoying this title. I frequently found myself struggling to have fun with it for a number of reasons.

Although Fallen Order looks great graphically and runs fairly well in general, I experienced regular, annoying framerate hitches—most often during transitions into different areas. Normally this is a minor annoyance, but there are several instances in which this hitching and other frame drops occur when you're attempting to platform, or even in the middle of sub-boss fights. It's extremely frustrating to miss the timing for a jump or a parry because the game is dumping frames from 70+ down to 20ish. One instance was the ice slides on Zeffo, at which framerate takes a dump at certain points when you're attempting not to slide off the edge, or make the jump from one slide to another, or when wallrunning and attempting to jump to a hanging vine from which to swing. The framerate hitching here is severe enough to hamper your timing and cause you to miss a jump, which is very frustrating. There's another instance during one sub-boss on Kashyyyk, which I had to battle while experiencing awful framerate drops seemingly every time I entered the room, which led me to such frustration during attempted dodges and parries that I quit playing the game completely for a few days... And scared the crap out of my dog with a loud string of vitriolic curses damning the game's existence.

I generally find Respawn's level design to be incredible; it was the main attraction for me in Titanfall 2. Although the design is nicely cyclical in Fallen Order and cleverly uses shortcuts a la Dark Souls, the actual layout of each individual area within the levels themselves seem far more gamey and much less ambitious than the lived-in, unique, inspired spaces found in Titanfall 2. Fallen Order is made up of mostly small corridors and a sometimes rectangular, box-like rooms for larger encounters. A lot of the stuff in this game looks beautiful graphically on Unreal Engine 4, but I did not enjoy roaming through these environments because despite this graphical beauty, they all ended up seeming very dry content-wise. I appreciate the attempt to liven up the atmosphere by scattering bits of lore and storytelling items throughout the level, but this was done in such an inorganic way that they seemed contrived and out-of-place and made everything feel gamey more than they made the environment seem lived-in and realistic.

Another issue I had with the game is its reliance on backtracking. If you have liked Metroidvania style backtracking, then you'll probably enjoy this about Fallen Order as well. I personally dislike using unlocked abilities to backtrack through levels, as this loop serves more to frustrate me with repetitive environments and engagements rather than impart a sense of a growing power level. I don't want to grind through 90% of an area I've already cleared to unlock something, get to 10% of a new corridor, and get a box that has a different lightsaber knob. To me, that is boring and unfulfilling. For you, maybe it will be different—perhaps you'll enjoy the added challenge. I can't say.

Fallen Order relies on combat as its main challenge, and while it is decent, I couldn't help feeling like swinging the lightsaber felt too light and airy, in addition to having a very small range. It also constantly clips through the environment as you move through the game, and it seems to do no actual physical damage to humans (by this I mean the dismemberment you would expect from a lightsaber, such as with combat finishers in Witcher 3) but still somehow kills them, which feels fake—like your lightsaber is make-believe—and gives a distinct, immersion-breaking feeling of weakness. Some of the most satisfying combat in video games, such as in Dark Souls, features weapons that all seem to have a realistic weight to them, and act physically like a real weapon would. The lightsaber in Fallen Order feels like a make-believe object—a toy, or a stick—and imparts no sense of power or danger that it should. Swinging the zweihander in Dark Souls, or parrying in Sekiro, for example, are some of the most satisfying weapon interactions of any game I have ever played. I wanted the lightsaber in Fallen Order to feel somewhere near this good, too, but it's just lacking. The animations are enjoyable enough, but the weightlessness and the lack of any effect on the environment are unsatisfying enough to noticeably damage the experience. The force powers, however, were excellent—I wished I could use them earlier in the game, and more frequently once I had unlocked them.

I bought the game because I wanted a good Star Wars story, and perhaps most damning was that I had little to no emotional investment in the game past the first level. Past this introduction—which I found gorgeous, polished, compelling, and inspired—I felt like I was simply shuttled from video game level to video game level and with the plot driven forward only by a MacGuffin I didn't care about. Additionally, the loot and collectible items scattered through the environments did little to help motivate me, either, as they're pretty uninteresting: you will sometimes spend 10 minutes solving a puzzle, only for it to unlock a minor difference on the rubber grip on your lightsaber hilt that you'll never even notice outside the work bench interface. I've done an entire platforming challenge on Kashyyyk only for Cal to scan a Force Echo and say "this place was sacred to them". Due to this I felt no drive to explore side paths and find additional loot because their contents were almost always underwhelming, nor was I urged to do so by additional plot or character development.

Since neither the story nor the collectibles motivated me, the vast majority of the game felt like grinding forward through samey corridors, similar encounters with similar enemies, and ultimately to unfulfilling tedium. There were a few boss fights I legitimately enjoyed (Second Sister ended up being my favorite character), but the plot left me unsatisfied. It features some very contrived turns that made little sense. Haxion Brood base felt completely out of left field, for example. The constantly forces you into making contrived mistakes even when you know they're coming, robbing you of any agency to affect the story. It often turns you towards going back to worlds to which you have already been and grinding through areas you have already cleared, since there is no fast travel system. The game tries its best to utilize shortcuts to funnel you through quickly, but there's only so much the level designers can do here. If these were interesting, inspired areas that provided a genuine, lived-in feel of immersion, then not having a fast travel system would be no issue. But they're not; they're boring corridors with little to catch your interest, creating a feeling of tedium when you're forced to go through them repeatedly.

If you like action games, Soulsbourne games, or Star Wars, then Fallen Order might be right up your alley. You may even love it, as many people seem to. But if you're looking for narrative punch or realistic, inspired world and satisfying lightsaber combat, you will likely want to look elsewhere, as it's very light on that—at least so far. For me, though, it's been a disappointment.

⭐⭐

Disco Elysium (2019) by ZA/UM

Disco Elysium is a very well-written game. If you like reading, classic cRPGs, or point-and-click adventure games, chances are you're going to love this game. But if you're a fan of the RPG-lite games that have released in recent decades such as the Mass Effect trilogy or even JRPGs, this actually might be a little too slow and too RPG for you. I don't mean to look down anyone who likes those things—hell, I am someone who likes those things! I personally never got much into cRPGs or point-and-click adventure games, but I did love JRPGs growing up in the '90s, and the Mass Effect trilogy are my favorite games of all-time. Disco Elysium took a lengthy adjustment period for me before I began to love it as a result of these tastes—but I do love it.

The most striking difference between this and most RPGs on the market today is that there's no combat engine in this game. You walk around, talk to people, and examine stuff, and that's basically it. Every conflict in the game is governed by skill checks. So you're not running around gunning people down or even stealthing your way through levels. However, I enjoyed this about the game—It allows it to effectively build tension in this manner and makes it so that, when something violent does happen, it affects us more closely to how actual violence does in the real world. It's more shocking.

Most of the game lulls you into a sense of the mundane—A vast majority of what is happening is centered on relatively low-key conversations with NPCs, in addition to the protagonist's own inner dialogue between different aspects of his personality. This probably sounds pretty boring—and it might be to some folks. It certainly could have made the game incredibly dry, but for me, though, it was absolutely riveting. I suspect this has partly to do with my own interests (I'm a lover of classic literature, which is often permeated by these sorts of lengthy derailments into philosophy), but it's also rendered a strength of the game simply by the astounding quality of the writing. None of these inner dialogues that occur inside your player character's head seem like padding. They're all entertaining on some level—either because of the substance of the conversation, or due to the absurd, bleak humor of the game.

This game is hilarious. I haven't laughed this much at a game in my entire life. Even the way simple things are handled—such as choosing to have your character say 'Hello?' into an echoing chimney, only to have him lose his cool unexpectedly and unleash an echoing monstrosity of a scream that reverberates throughout the entire building. Or choosing to tell the hotel manager that you're not paying for the room by slyly slipping away from the desk, only to have your player character sprint away, trip, and fall into a lady in a wheelchair because you don't have a very high dexterity skill—leading you to become a clumsy oaf.

And that's the beauty of this RPG: It allows you to fail—frequently, and often in humorous ways—that allow you to continue the game with only minor penalties. It constantly surprises you in ways such as this whenever you fail a skill check, and it does so in a way that feels deserved. It leaves you thinking, "Why did I attempt to be sly here? I have only 2 points in my Motorics skills. Of course I was going to screw that up". Successes often result in you feeling like Sherlock Holmes, or a sly con man, or just a bad-ass. Failures will make you look silly, sure, but they also lead to unbelievably hilarious moments. And once you get a hang for how the skill systems work, you can reasonably predict not only what sort of outcomes will be had by succeeding or failing a check, but also when you should try for a risky roll, and when you shouldn't, because the stakes are too high and screwing up in a situation will result in some serious misery for everyone involved.

The more I played, the more I was entertained not by the central mystery of the game, but by my player character's inner dialogue. I should probably make clear how this actually works: When your skills get high enough—things such as your physical prowess, your logic, your empathy, or your ability to 'feel' the city around you, etc—these skills vocalize themselves to you (the human playing the game) in order to help you make decisions in-game. For example, you might be interviewing a witness, and your ability to Empathize with them will chime in in unspoken text to tell you; "Hey bud, this guy is lying", and it will also narrate why your player character knows this—the person's eyelid might flutter, or they may pronounce a word in an odd way. Or, your gut instinct (the skill called 'Inland Empire') will call your attention to the way a door feels—it's "too blue", or something—prompting you to inspect it.

This is an astoundingly accurate depiction of how our subconscious mind works. We're constantly making these calculations that, had they occurred in our active thoughts, would take multiple sentences to vocalize. But in our subconscious they're quickly calculated and filed away in the background without you ever noticing.

For example—Have you ever felt when driving that you can tell somebody ahead on your right is about to switch lanes, even before their signal is on, or before they've indicated in any way that they're going to do so?

Why?

"Well... Because they're just moving their car in a way like they want to change lanes? I don't know, it just felt like they were about to switch lanes."

And then, guess what? You're right. They switch lanes.

Disco Elysium is a game full of stuff like this, and the writers are skillful enough to depict it in a way that feels real. To borrow a horribly overused phrase in video game reviews—It makes you feel like a detective. But not just a detective—It makes you feel however you choose to play your character: An alcoholic drug addict craving a fix. A pretentious, artsy-fartsy tool. A meathead weightlifter. A super-cool disco-obsessed fop. Whoever you decide you are, the game is consistently narrating your character's inner thoughts that way, and this all feeds back to you to create an incredibly engulfing experience in which you're attempting to roleplay as somebody and the game is rewarding you for doing so by adapting to your inputs and feeding you lengthy, beautiful narration depicting who you are choosing to be. It bleeds through everything in the game from how you look, to what you're doing, to how you apply your strengths to a challenge, and how you fail challenges that are outside your realm of expertise. And it does this in a superb, artful, hilarious way. All of this creates an attachment to your player character that I've never felt before, in any other game—roleplaying or otherwise.

The game is definitely not without its faults, though. The voice acting is particularly awful in some areas, with the actors delivering monotone, unconvincing lines into microphones without pop filters. I found myself picturing some characters' voices wholly different to how the actors portrayed them, and this made for a jarring experience whenever their lines were voiced. I would prefer to play the game with the voice lines completely turned off, and just allow their voices to play in my own head. It's also very, very wordy, so if you hate reading, you'll probably hate it. Be aware.

You owe it to yourself to give this game a shot if you like RPGs. If you have loved wordy cRPGs in the past, you'll probably love this game. If you have liked RPGs, give yourself a cushion of time to get adjusted to what Disco Elysium does differently. You may be rewarded with a unique experience that's not quite like any other—like I have.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fallout 4 (2015) by Bethesda Game Studios

These kinds of bugs...

I picked this up again to kill some time while waiting for Obsidian's upcoming The Outer Worlds, but set it back down and uninstalled it once again after only a couple of hours.

Unfortunately Fallout 4 falls far from the quality of its predecessors. It features some notable graphical improvements and a voiced protagonist, but provides an extremely buggy experience (see, uh... all images in this post), with a clearly aged and no longer acceptable engine. The shooting feels too loose, movement feels too imprecise, and there are notable frame drops indoors which I could find no way to alleviate.

...are unfortunately ubiquitous...

In addition to this, the factions are much less interesting than those found in New Vegas, and the writing overall is weaker. The main plot is contrived and tries too hard to be clever and twisty. The dialogue is poor and unbelievable, and the player's ability to maintain agency through dialogue is severely damaged by a lack of meaningful roleplaying. The quest design is also very straightforward; solvable in only one way (which usually involves shooting), and almost never presenting the player with any significant moral problems that are anything more than window-dressing. Nearly every side quest or main quest I picked up was instantly forgettable, and most of my enjoyment from this game came from wandering the world, looting areas for new gear and materials with which to mod my current gear, leveling up, and enjoying Inon Zur's wonderful soundtrack. I had to go out of my way to actually enjoy the game, as it kept pushing me towards it's bad quests and, what is perhaps most game-breaking for me personally: The game constantly pushing you towards the monotonous, inane, and janky settlement management. Surely there are some people that enjoy this kind of thing, but when I play a Fallout game I want to explore, roleplay, level up, and gather loot to become more powerful in order to affect the world more strongly. I don't want to be called on to help idiots defend their settlements regularly, I don't want to build walls and houses. I want to be free to explore at my whim without having these silly obligations nagging at me and breaking my flow within the game's core loop of exploring, looting, and leveling up. It seems Bethesda learned nothing from all of the complaints about Grand Theft Auto IV's constant demands from friends to go bowling.

...in Bethesda's latest broken mess of a video game.

This is an experience that puts all of the emphasis on looking pretty and listing its features in a neat sheet of bullet points that probably looked great in a boardroom, and none of it on the core experience Bethesda has provided which players had come to love in games such as Skyrim and Fallout 3. It has no narrative punch and it lacks whimsical, gritty heart that Fallout 3 successfully emulated and Fallouts 1, 2, and New Vegas exhibit so well. Fallout 4 wastes a potentially intriguing premise and setting on skin-deep bells and whistles that offer no real payoff or enjoyment, and it gives the player no strong themes to dig into and think about. If you want to kill some time and have a high degree of patience for bugs and poor optimization, then you may want to take a shot on Fallout 4. But if you're looking for a good roleplaying experience with a compelling open world, you should play New Vegas instead.

⭐

Fallout: New Vegas (2010) by Obsidian Entertainment

New Vegas is such a genuine, realistic, deep world that it becomes so hard to tear yourself away from it.

"What!? Dude, there are giant scorpions and ghouls who have adapted to radiation and live for hundreds of year! There are freaking aliens! What the hell are you talking about!?"

I know, I know. That sounds like a ridiculous thing to say—that a game with such a far-fetched premise could feel like it deserves to be taken so seriously. But this is a world that is based mostly in logic, despite it's more campy weirdness. Let me explain that.

Each character, settlement, and area are based logically. In Fallout 3, people have built a bunch of walls around an unexploded nuclear weapon—it's called Megaton, and it's the first settlement you see after leaving Vault 101. Have you ever asked WHY the hell they did that? It makes no sense. It's literally a bomb! The water around it is irradiated. If this were real life, why the hell would anybody build a town there? There's no logical reason for them to do so—Bethesda simply did it because it was a neat idea and it makes for a nifty looking town. Even the town's name doesn't make any sense. Why would you be proud enough of settling around this bomb to call your town 'Megaton' after these bombs have destroyed your entire world? The logic behind the settlement completely falls apart if you think about it for more than 2 minutes.

Fallout: New Vegas's comic relief often hits the mark.

Usually, you're so into the game that you don't consider things like this, but they can begin to weight on your subconscious and your ability to suspend disbelief. You stop caring so much about the setting. You begin to have a bit less fun. You care about the story and characters less and start treating it more like a game. You begin to feel less of an emotional connection to the game. Eventually, you set it down for good, no longer interested. This was my experience with Fallout 3.

In New Vegas, however, each settlement and character is grounded with very realistic motivations. Novac is a settlement based in an old motel, which people began to settle organically because it's down the road from Repconn Headquarters—an old robotics manufacturer that, although equipped with dangerous security systems, features tons of old technology to salvage and trade. The name of the town itself is short for 'No Vacancy'—taken from the half-broken sign out from in front of the derelict motel in which these people have settled. Every bit of this place has a reason for existing, and the fact that it does makes it feel like a REAL place to you. You take it seriously, its inhabitants feel more like real humans. You start to forget that you're playing a game and you become more immersed.

New Vegas's well-rounded cast keeps things interesting

The entire game features this kind of lovingly crafted fiction. The characters are no different. They have real, poignant histories. They are funny, and irritating. Reliable and flawed. The factions are equally legitimate—I particularly loved how the NCR had their bases situated in realistically-feeling locations along the river. The quests and side quests are so deep they give you a myriad of ways to deal with problems, and they're universally well-balanced and solvable by all roles. Stealthy? Sneak through, quietly killing your foes on your way to your objective. Not combat-oriented? You can hack computers, lockpick doors, or smooth-talk your way without fighting. Or, if you're a madman, go in swinging a giant hammer, or blowing everyone away with a giant minigun. Be good or evil, or something in between. Chaotic good? Go for it. Lawful evil? Equally viable. The game will mold itself to you, and its storytelling does not suffer, no matter what role you choose for your character. No matter what story you think up, the game will go along with you. It is fantastic at that.

This is one of the most brilliantly crafted and written experiences in the history of gaming. It's buggy as hell, so you'll want a fan-made patch full of bug-fixes. And its graphics have aged very poorly. The character are pretty poorly animated and the textures are muddy, so you may want graphical mods, too. But aside from that? If you like RPGs, this is absolutely not to be missed. Buy the Ultimate edition at full price without a second thought.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dark Souls (2011) by FromSoftware

Though I always had interest, I always avoided Dark Souls on PC because Prepare To Die Edition had a poor reputation for stability and graphics options. Dsfix was a thing but I figured it would eventually be patched or remastered and decided to wait instead of deal with the hassle. I didn't really care enough to read any further.

I finally bought Remastered recently, and despite its reputation the game is really not all that difficult compared to what I expected. I think players are just used to the forgiveness and handholding that modern games provide and this game has none of that. It's designed like older games, where you are expected to have a modicum of intelligence and figure things out for yourself, sometimes via trial and error, and sometimes remaining stuck for a significant portion of time, which forces you to try new things or explore different avenues of advancement. The difficulty thing seems to just be a lazy meme, or perhaps a marketing tool adopted by publishers. Saying Dark Souls is difficult is very shallow. There's more to it than that.

Dark Souls does a lot of big things really well. Like many great games, its level design is phenomenal; gorgeous, inventive, and logically sound. Its combat balancing is excellent and insures a satisfying experience in which everything moves with a weight, creating a satisfying impact whenever physics collide, weapons scrape against shields, or characters fall to the ground. The art, inspired by grimdark manga series such as Berserk, is fantastic and the graphics look great in the remaster.

But what's most impressive to me are that there are so many small design choices that are very minor in the grand scheme of things, but really brilliant from a philosophical game design perspective, and executed upon perfectly by the team at FromSoftware.

For example, the way communication via messages and bloodstains mirrors pre-internet gaming, when you were reliant on the advice and experience of the other kids on the block to get through games. Or how the game ties dying into its fiction, and punishes the player with reasonable loss to remove the constant reincarnation superpower that so many other action games feature: "Oh, you died? Just reload the last save, as many times as you want, with losing nothing but a minute here and there. No big deal." Dark Souls solves this problem of balancing failure with a reasonable loss of progress and currency, without being overly harsh like the retro games it calls back to and doing something like sending the player back to the beginning of a stage, or the game, and frustratingly costing hours of progress. Dark Souls strikes a perfect balance: Dying without reaching your bloodstain costs just enough to add tension and make you struggle to avoid dying, but not so much that dying becomes an experience frustrating enough to put the game down for good. This balance must have been monumentally hard to manage, but the game absolutely nails it and leaves you in a flow state while playing of gathering souls, levelling up, getting to a point where you're comfortable with trial-and-error, dying, and then finally making it to the next bonfire and feeling triumphant before beginning the process again. Its core gameplay loop is absolutely wonderful, whether you're analyzing the game from a design standpoint like I am, or whether you're just a casual player looking for a fun time.

Another small aspect done extraordinarily well is how death involving the loss of certain resources pushes the player to use them, rather than hoarding them all game long without ever touching them like players do in RPGs. I always finish every Fallout game with a practically infinite amount of stimpaks, for example. In Mass Effect 2 on Insanity, I'd be banging my head against the wall and dying repeatedly but still refusing to spend any medigel in case I needed it for some impassable moment in the future. In Dark Souls, if you didn't lose humanity when dying, I'd have tons of it saved and probably would never use it. This also trickles down to regularly using consumables such as bombs or arrows in a desperate, last ditch effort to make it back to your last death spot.

Everything is very tight in this manner, all these systems tie into one another, and the execution and balancing of the planning room philosophies is perfect. The little things like this add up to create the feel that so many people half-jokingly claimed has ruined lesser games for them. I played the latest Assassin's Creed game before this, and while the scale of that game is mindblowing and it's gorgeous, so much of it just felt bland and repetitive in comparison to Dark Souls, a game that came out 7 years and a generation earlier. I'd prefer a smaller, tighter experience like Dark Souls any day of the week.

At the risk of donning my beret and sounding too pretentious, Dark Souls at its best strikes me as an allegory for life in general. Continuing to push onward, failing repeatedly, relying on the help of others who have come before, and eventually succeeding in one monumental push only to begin the struggle anew at the next bonfire. Dark Souls is proof video games are art, but in order to realize this, you need to be intimately familiar with video games. So unfortunately the Roger Eberts of the world will continue, in their ignorance, to disregard it.

I won't call it a perfect game, though, because it's not. There are several instances where the game takes its trial-and-error a little bit too far by kicking the player in the groin for no real reason. These "gotcha" moments occur when the game kills the player out of nowhere, and provides no hint beforehand that something like this is about to occur; a prime example being the infamous bridge moment early in the game. Trial-and-error is fine in most cases, since it puts the onus on the player to experiment and learn, but in these cases the learning is so one-dimensional that these deaths seem more like unwarranted punishment rather than opportunities to learn. They take the fun out of the trial-and-error present throughout the game and render it more frustrating than enjoyable.

That said, I'm still very impressed with Dark Souls. I'm pretty old among the modern day "gamer" demographic, but I've loved games for a long time (nearing 40 years now) and try often to think about them critically when I'm playing them and I believe Dark Souls is one of the most well-designed games I've ever played. You can tell the people who made it have thought long and hard about the medium and regardless of potential profit or popularity set out to design a game that improves upon the general faults so many games exhibit today. It lives up to its reputation, in my opinion, and it's a game that everyone who enjoys video games should give a shot, regardless of their personal tastes.

Dark Souls is an all-time great game. It's a genre defining experience and a medium-pushing landmark. You should give it a try, even if you hate dark fantasy, RPGs, or difficult games. Put in 8 hours, press forward, and if you don't like it after that, then maybe it's not for you. But you owe it to yourself and to this game to give it a shot anyway. If it doesn't look like something you'd be interested in, wait for a deep sale and pick it up then.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐