Was gonna wait until I’d gotten to Mastery level 100 in Freelancer first, but with the arrival of Assassin’s Creed: Mirage only two weeks away and getting hyped up for it, even though it’ll be years before I even get to it, it’s given me the drive to continue the series. And so, earlier tonight, I began Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. Initial thoughts are that it’s superior to Unity in many ways, primarily in parkour and combat, which feel less complex and more streamlined. While I’m not completely thrilled with the steampunk aesthetics of playing in Industrial Revolution era London, it’s nice to finally move out of the colonial era of the series that it’s been in since III, and move to a new time period. And I’ll say, so far, the voice acting for the characters is top-notch; every word spoken completely sells that I’m dealing with people who lived in England a hundred and fifty five years ago. I’ve only completed the first mission, but if the rest of the game is anything like it, this will be a treat.
I don’t care if God of War is heavily inspired by the Last of Us’ parent/child dynamic because goddamn it just works, especially with great writing and acting.
Love Kratos’ and Atreus’ dynamic. How Kratos can be brusque but sometimes funny, how he clearly cares about his son deep down but is too guarded to say it.
Atreus is cute and curious, but can get moody and angsty when it comes to Kratos’ pretty harsh and angry parenting. It’s an interesting flip-flopping of emotions that I like seeing fade in and out every now and then.
Just finished Alfheim tonight.
I think the game gets caught up in its “one continuous shot” cinema a little too much – as sometimes I wish cutscenes could just cut to black to spawn me a little closer to my next objective – but I guess I just have to witness everything in real-time and deal with it.
See i don’t personally think the combat is good in any of the two AC games, they don’t really feel good, they don’t flow well at all (the only thing i can think of a quick shooting your pistol mid combat, that flows good i must admit) and I’m not even going to talk in detail about how basic the different weapon types (especially in Syndicate) are to me, i shall enjoy a 15 paragraph answer
Oh, they’re both terrible from what came before, but between the two, Syndicate feels better than Unity in fighting and running
Just finished Castlevania: Lords of Shadow again. Only cried a little bit at the end.
This could almost make a nice game (as in activity type of) topic… sorry, kinda, for posting this here.
I’m thinking of 2 characters from the game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. The “inspiration” (or who they remind me of)? This character from Blood Money.
Can you guess the 2? 
If you haven’t played the game you’ll probably need to research the different ones. 
Edit:
Answer
Shine and Solace. 
Dad of Boy keeps going on. It has me in a vice-grip.
Recent sequence in the snow area of Midgard had Kratos get a little self-aware and goofy with how over-the-top his “solutions” to obstacles are.
There’s a key item hidden under a massive lake of ice. There’s no easy way to break through.
But there is a massive giant-sized (and I mean freaking building-sized) hammer stuck in some ice.
Kratos says “we’ll cut the hammer free, ride it down, and figure out what to do after.”
The son says “so, that just involves a lot of luck”
Kratos: “you are welcome to suggest a different one”
Lmao his methods are crazy but they do work.
The story is also heating up as I got to a big heavy enotional moment between him and his son.
Atreus has some sort of mysterious illness and it came to a head when he got so enraged that Kratos was being tortured by one of Thor’s sons, that he passed out in a fever.
Kratos has to go to Hel to get something, where no Fire in all of the Nine Realms can defeat the monsters there.
But the fun and epic thing is, he goes back to his house to get something not of the Nine Realms, his own Chaos Blades infused with a raging flame.
Now, I don’t know much of the original GOW lore, but I know he killed like every god in those, and that’s his secret tragic backstory in this new one.
And man… that was an awesome reveal, especially when they started throwing in him hallucinating Athena’s ghost for some reason.
Greek and Norse mythologies crossing over, oooh!!
(And cool to see even Mimir knows of the Greek pantheon too. And was like “yo, I KNEW you were Greek!” Lmao woo)
The Long Drive. You drive down an endlessly long road in a barren post-apocalyptic desert wasteland looking for fuel and such. The vehicles mechanics are pretty in depth and the game has a great atmosphere. One note is that I immediately disabled the first-person character model because it was really ugly, but that’s not a huge deal because it’s optional. Very good game so far all around.
Oh and even though I don’t have them adjusted properly in the third pic, the mirrors are fully functional and very neat.
Not too long after having beaten the first game, I also played through Thief II: The Metal Age. A very solid sequel that improves the formula in pretty much every aspect. Again, I played on hard difficulty.
Mostly the game looks and plays exactly like the first one but there are some new gameplay mechanics, gadgets and enemies. I savescummed a lot so I almost never resorted to the scouting orbs but the new potions and vine arrows were cool. Now we also got security cameras, robots and female guards (who actually sound more threatening than those drunk guys I had already encountered a million times). While I enjoyed some of the supernatural missions in the first game, I’m not too sad about having those elements highly reduced here. Most missions have mainly human enemies and that’s completely fine. That makes the overall mission quality better, even though I absolutely hate the final mission and Song of the Caverns still remains my favorite Thief mission so far. A brief review of every mission and a ranking, like the last time:
- Blackmail - This kind of missions define the series for me. All the central elements are there and there are also some unique things like the gear system and the twist near the end of the mission. Couldn’t ask for more.
- Framed - Most missions were total knockoutfests for me so it’s nice having being forced to not do that for a change. In such an early mission that doesn’t cause too many difficulties either. It’s a nice idea for a mission too, the main objective is simple but still different from your usual thievery.
- Life of the Party - The only mission in the game I’ve played through twice so far. That’s because I couldn’t find the well-hidden alarm switch when I did a blind run (not sure if there’s a hint to it). Otherwise a magnificent mission, all kinds of fun shenanigans happen at the rooftops and Angelwatch is just masterfully built. Having to go all the way back to the bell tower is not my favorite gameplay decision but it’s fine, I guess.
- First City Bank and Trust - The Thief series needed a bank mission, of course. There’s a lot to do and steal and it’s just what one would expect. The vault isn’t too complicated to get into and doesn’t need to be. I don’t know if you can dodge the vault cameras but I just blew them up with fire arrows because I knew no one would hear that.
- Masks - The mission itself is very good, even though the gas traps are kinda confusing and make you go back and forth. I just wished Casing the Joint didn’t exist, especially since it forces us to find the secret paths in advance. That one somewhat ruins a part of this, but it’s still a very good classic mansion robbing mission.
- Precious Cargo - Great atmosphere and many enjoyable and varying areas. This is how a good non-mansion mission is done. There’s not much swimming in this game so I’m glad that in at least one mission it’s required to the point that you’re given breath potions. RIP Lotus, you had a sad end.
- Kidnap - Not everyone’s favorite but I did enjoy it. There’s some good challenge and getting the guy out of the place wasn’t too bad, at least not Cragscleft-tier. I didn’t find out about the two additional objectives until I had already found the items so no idea where you are supposed to find out about them lol.
- Eavesdropping - A solid mission that introduces the robots and even has some haunts, spooky! The eavesdropping itself makes you wait for a long time, but the key objective after that (pun intended) is more interesting. I actually wished this one was harder, but for the fifth mission it’s fine.
- Shipping…and Receiving - The door system was rather tedious to use and I’m sure it could have been implemented better. Fortunately there are a lot of secrets to make up for that crap so it’s not all that bad. I surely couldn’t find most of them but that means there’s something to go back for. Oh yeah, the game tells us how many secrets there are in a level in the debriefing, I like that.
- Casing the Joint - The end of the game was surely rushed and it shows. The mission’s not bad but we didn’t need to play the same map twice in a row. I’d put this one lower, but the mansion is actually fun to explore and I kinda like it when the game forces me to be a ghost.
- Ambush! - I had some fun moments here, but it’s not a very diverse mission, mostly just dodging guards in the city streets. There are different routes you can take however, it’s nice to have those.
- Trail of Blood - Sure, it’s something different but the Pagan missions never were the first game’s strength and this one’s not much better. The different areas look cool, I’ll give it that, but there’s not much exploration. I didn’t expect this kind of a mission so it’s at least a surprising one.
- Running Interference - Very basic and linear, acts as a tutorial so I can’t treat it as a real mission. Does fine job with what it is and there are even some secrets to find.
- Trace the Courier - I was really bored out of my mind here. Offers little to no interesting gameplay and just numbs your senses. I would have preferred if this one was shorter, like the trailing section in Assassins in the first game and merged with Trail of Blood.
- Sabotage at Soulforge - By far the worst Thief mission and one of the worst video game missions I have played in general. The devs probably ran out of time with this one, but nonetheless it almost ruins the game. The first half is uninteresting busywork during which I also ran out of most gadgets so the second half was even worse. No wonder why some people haven’t finished the game, I almost ragequit too.
I will probably get to the third game as well, but now I will actually wait longer until I’ll do that. I think I’ve stolen enough gold and goods to live lavishly for a while.
God of War keeps stabbing me emotionally and I love and hate that.
The boys are finally bonding and Kratos has told his son the truth about him being a god, and therefore his son supposedly inheriting said “god status”. What this exactly means for Atreus is unclear, but the kid keeps asking questions about his abilities and what he is fully capable of.
He’salso getting really annoying and scary with how much of a god-complex he’s building up.
After many enemy encounters now, he cheers that “they didn’t stand a chance”. He also now looks at the world with an air of superiority, thinking that “we can do anything, no one can stop us both!”
He also just recently (rightfully) called out Brok and Sindri’s petty family issues by wrongly saying they’re “little people’s little problems!” Since they’re dwarves, I could feel the pain of that insult was on multiple levels AGH ATREUS WHY.
He’s also recently dismissing Kratos’ wife’s agency and importance after finding out that she was mortal, unlike them.
At least Kratos realises that his son is stepling out of line now. I hope he can rein that child in, this is why he never told him the truth!!
Ah yes, and on a more positive note, it’s cool to see more glimpses of Kratos’ violent past in the Greek realm and how he’s ashamed of it. I also find it very fascinating to know that the character of Tyr in thjs game had legends of travelling to other worlds of gods, such as Greek Gods, Japanese Gods, and Egyptian Gods. Kinda neat that they’re making all this religious and powerful pantheons connected together like that.
Anyone on Playstation interested in trying out the It Takes Two co-op game with me?
You don’t need the game yourself, you just use a free version to connect to my full one.
I really wish they’d built the system for cross-platform play. It would really make finding partners easier.
Man, Starfield is just… so… much!
I don’t wanna be running around scanning. I already played No Man’s Sky. I don’t want to figure out ship building or outposts. Do I have to? I don’t wanna.
I like story adventures and combat. The game is good for those things! But Jesus, the distractions around every corner…
Focus, dude, FOCUS. Stop going off on side missions. Omg there’s so much mindless busywork to do. Do I enjoy that? I think so?
I know what you mean. While in the process of completing one job, I uncovered ten more. Makes me wonder what the hell else can they possibly add with the upcoming DLC. But despite how overwhelming it seems, I’m still power hungry as fuck and damn near finding myself saying yes to every quest. Probably gonna be one of the last players to finally beat the game a year later. Not that I’m complaining.
I am also taking my time with it and not rushing any completion. It amazes me that some have the need to have finished NG+ multiple times over. And then they feel empty inside. It’s like, yeah— games are meant to be fun!
I’m having fun with Starfield. I’m just struggling a bit with my anxiety-gamer instincts of checking off every to-do box, or searching every room or dead NPC, or needing to make sure every tablet is not a notepad or whatever…
I’d be interested @TheChicken but I’m not sure how much of a time zone difference there would be, not to mention how good a connection would be between continents.
Heck, I’m down to try it at least!
Timezones might be killer, but what’s yours? I’m EST.
I played Starfield for like 4 hours last night, and I truly don’t know if I had any fun with it.
Currently replaying the best Zelda Game.
Sounds like you’re getting lost in the sauce, my friend. Time to switch it up and play something else. 
Totally. And don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying following the narrative threads of the various quests. But there’s just so much clunky stuff throughout that I kinda feel like I’m playing a live service grind-a-thon.