Making a bit of progress in BG3. The two similarities to the originals I found so far are
(a) The score is so good, just loading into the title screen is a joy of its own
(b) Mages have to memorize spells beforehand, so they’ll never have the ones available a given situation might call for.
Though (b) is a tad more relaxed nowadays, in that you can cast a spell n times, but don’t have to memorize it n times. There’s still a limit on how many spells you can cast in total, though.
Then again, a mage in the party is not strictly required (spoilers ahead, obviously):
The fun thing is, many of the bits shown in that video played out completely different for me, and there are bits I don’t even recognize, although everything is clearly within the tutorial and first area of the game. Whenever I died and had to reload, I could be certain to spot another thing or two that I had totally overlooked the first time. The original games were also big, but they did not offer that vast amount of little choices and a sandbox to go wild in.
Today I quickly tried out Sea of Stars, another one of those much delayed Kickstarter projects. At least from the visuals, it has been well worth the wait. The pixel art is really gorgeous:
Still busy playing Baldur’s Gate 3. I’ve finished the second of three acts this weekend, and from what I’ve read the last act is the shortest. So I want to savor this a little longer and thought I’d give an update here rather than playing.
I think the writing is the best of the 3 games from Larian I played so far. It’s perhaps not comparable to Planescape: Torment (or Disco Elysium), but the way it interweaves the story arcs of all possible companions and major NPCs without anything feeling overly forced or constructed is quite the accomplishment. And that continues in the quest design: there are no cookie cutter “open world activities” to be found. There are, in fact, not that many quests to be found at all. But rarely does a task not, in some way or other, tie into the plot at large or at least into a companion’s background. So everything the game offers bears some relevance, and it’s up to the player whether to dig deep or just skim the surface. No filler content to artificially inflate the play time (and yet I’ve crossed the 100h mark).
Combat is okay, given that it’s largely confined to the D&D rule set. It’s less convoluted than D:OS2, and less elegant than D:OS1. There are no random encounters, but many of the set-pieces lack the puzzle aspect of the D:OS games. It seems more about getting into enemies backs, getting the high ground and getting in the first shot. And then hoping RNG luck has your hits connect and the enemies’ miss.
Luck is also required for the numerous die rolls during dialogue, picking locks or disarming traps, each explicitly triggered by mouse click and nicely animated (okay, there’s your filler!). But this really adds that table-top feel to the game, and a successful roll directly in front of your eyes is so much more satisfying than when the outcome is instantaneously computed in the background. You can even retry a couple times by spending (limited) resources.
And so on and so forth … I could add plenty more on the positive side, and I could perhaps complain how black and white the major decisions are, but I want to save at least some material for the final verdict .
Decided to tackle my Steam backlog and am now playing “The Witness.” And by “playing,” I mean staring at the screen, drawing a bunch of lines, getting the bzzt of incorrectness, repeating several million more times. There are also a LOT more areas to the game than I realized. We’ll see how this goes.
And yes, this does mean that I FINALLY finished both games in Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. It’s actually been a couple of months now. I’ve been meaning to make a post with my impressions about the storyline and the twists, but other things kinda took precedence. I did have one big unanswered question that I hoped the bonus content would address…if I could remember what that question was now, hah. I still have my pages and pages of notes that I took so hopefully that will jog my memory.
No, it’s part of the main storyline. And a well documented one too it turns out, but I know very little about Uncharted other than that it exists. I figured with it being on GOG now I’d give it a try to see what it’s all about.
[Edit: there’s a number of paintings of pirates and this one is the only one that’s unknown. ]
The game is very well polished but you could negatively phrase it going all into the worst parts of modern Tom Raider (which I think is said to have taken a lot of inspiration from Uncharted).
Which is to say, the actual tomb raiding/puzzling exploration stuff seemingly takes a backseat to extravagant action scenes. Which are fine but by and large I’d just as lief do without. It’s not like in Vampyr or HZD where I actively enjoy the action, I just don’t hate it.
Perhaps it’s just a me problem. It “feels” like an explore cool/beautiful environments platformer but it’s probably more of an action game with exploration interludes.
Calling Crash Bandicoot an easter egg seems like a bit of a stretch. The game proudly announces it’s Crash Bandicoot on the title screen and you absolutely can’t miss it.
Or at least when you say easter egg I think of something like exploring the bathroom you didn’t have to explore and finding a Commander Keen blowfish (a bit like how there’s a toy gun in the attic that maybe you never pick up, possibly modeled after a gun in another game?) not of an unmissable part of the main storyline.
Guybrush treads the line by being unmissable in the sense that you’ll definitely look at it but you might not recognize him.
I finished playing The Wardrobe, which I got with a 90% discount, only because some friends told me it’s the worst adventure game they’ve ever played.
And boy were they right. What an awful experience, that’s the embodiment of every adventure game hater complaints of the mid-2000’s, but it came out in 2017, not in 2005. Awful writing, cheap jokes, TONS of references - like, there’s at least 50 pop-culture reference in each damn room - and the worst puzzle design I’ve ever seen.
Space Quest 1 (yes, I’ve begun my Sierra-redemption finally playing these games I always knew about but never really played (minus a few like Gabriel Knight))
SoftPorn Adventure (basically Larry 1 in text form, with a few more dirty words; it came with the GOG bundle, okay?)
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of Lounge Lizards (Larry 1)
I’ve started and finished the latter two on one afternoon.
AntVenture (finished in two sittings)
Still playing: The Will of Arthur Flabbergastedness
Played The Invincible. I liked it, but it’s essentially Firewatch in Space with worse chemistry between the characters manning the walkie-talkies. In theory, it does have the space and mysteries of the unknown theme going for it, but all things considered (and when viewed from the safety of one’s living room) that’s not that much different from the more mundane mysteries hidden in the wilderness of Wyoming.
Recommended, but not the best of the genre.
Still playing Baldur’s Gate 3. Who said the 3rd act was the shortest!? Technically, a lot of the content is optional, but as world-ending evil will wait patiently while I address each companions’ personal affliction, there’s no need to rush!
I guess that’s where the writing finally shows some cracks. There’s one companion quest that concludes with the defeat of a main quest villain, and that conclusion was written most excellently. All the others so far felt like wandering off along a tangent, with no tangible benefit, no new revelations, no progress made. Well, five done, two more to go …
I can also recommend Invicible, Inc. It’s not an adventure game, but a very good turn based strategy game.
Well, I should be concerned, because of the lack of my spare time (and too much work).
But if you would like some feedback: I like the game so far! If I’m nitpicking (what I do now ) the beginning of the game isn’t “sucking” the player immediately in. For example the intro has a lot of text that you have listen to before you can actually play. But again: This is nitpicking.
If you mean that I didn’t make it a priority to get back into it the past week or two you can worry if you want to, but I enjoyed all of it as far as I got when I started (out of the graveyard into what I assume is the “real” game after ogling some backer tombs and of course finding my own).
.
)
]
)
should I be concerned?