3 Likes
At the start of Indiana Jones & The Great Circle. Only as far as Vatican City at the moment, but it felt oddly familiar donning a priest’s robes, moving around the environment mostly freely but having to avoid enforc.. sorry, capitains who could see through your disguise.
9 Likes
Indy is great fun for im-sim Hitman lovers, with the added benefit of your overall “score” not being affected when you get discovered and have to go loud – in fact, the game is built around this assumption that you’ll get caught and will have to fight your way out by the skin of your teeth.
Preparation, improvisation, and luck are gaming mechanics as well as defining character traits of our protagonist.
The game is so much fun.
9 Likes
Pokémon Legends Z-A.
I have a very longstanding relationship with Pokemon. I grew with at the tail end of Generation 3 experiencing the heights of Generation 4 and 5.
Z-A is my 2nd Pokemon game on the Switch with my first being Pokemon Sword.
There’s a lot to love and certainly a lot to hate.
Combat and music is excellent. Lumiose City Is probably the biggest thing holding back the game. It’s a really restricted setting and the City itself doesn’t feel very inspired and filled with wonder that a larger more expansive region would have. The city relies heavily on reused and flat textures that don’t look great when you notice them.
I’d say the game is a reasonable 7.5. It’s not really terrible and a lot of fun is to be had, but a fundamental aspect of Pokemon that’s missing is that exploration and wonder that unfortunately missed the mark when exploring this under developed city of similarity’s.
Wait for a sale.
5 Likes
Gamefreak made a game that finally allows you to contract Paris Syndrome digitally.
1 Like
Pokemon fans have more of a stockholm syndrome going on, with a company that does 0 effort trash games because they know fans and Reviewers will slurp it up anyways and pretent as if it was the best game ever made.
Graphics aint everything and have nothing to do how much fun a game can be, but you all should demand better from the most profitible game franchise ever.
1 Like
Pokemon fans understand an ancient and mystical mantra that has been lost to many and that is “So long as the gameplay is good or even remotely entertaining you can look like a Gamecube game in 2025.”
I respect that a lot. The fidelity wars have cost us a lot and the arms race to make the most realistic looking game has killed AAA development’s desire for anything they can’t force into their graphics chip Lensman war.
4 Likes
The industry strives for replayability, but in a way that is inherently sterile and artless, and yet focuses so much on graphic fidelity, that can’t trump the replayability of a game that is enjoyable to play. What’s more, the benefits of graphical updates are reduced with each iteration, with the jump from PS1 to PS2 being revolutionary, and PS2 to PS3 arguably more so. But PS4 to PS5 (and their counterparts) is just “The puddle reflections are clearer”.
When I think back on games that have been my favorite, it’s always been about the gameplay and what you can do. Then plot. Then graphics, sound design and color grading. This is why I’m glad so many indie games are being promoted by YouTubers playing them, like Papers Please or the Closing Shift
5 Likes
Sony is a fantastic example of how the graphic fidelity wars are costing studios. I don’t remember who said it first (Paul Tassi? Maybe Gene Park?) but I know there was a gaming journalist who pointed out that since shareholders and publishers put stock in realism as a money maker it makes them less likely to not greenlight projects with unique artstyles and/or gameplay.
1 Like
I’m the case of Pokemon Z-A I find it inexcusable that they can copy and paste the same balcony texture across majority of the buildings.
I get adding more geometry to a world can be resource intensive given the Switch 1’s dated hardware but when you notice it especially on Switch 2. It’s very jarring cause it’s everywhere.
1 Like
Huh, I hadn’t considered it from that angle. I suppose it stands to reason that shareholders are more interested in what they can see, because when gameplay demos are shown, it’s all visual. They’re not playing the games themselves, and so could be duped into assuming graphics and Hollywood actors mo-capping are more valuable attributes than whether it actually works at launch or develops the gaming experience.
Ironically, it seems the simpler artstyles are winning at the moment, especially with indie games. It’s like people are getting…fidelity fatigue? Plus simple games require you actually think, whereas AAA games are more like models
“What do you do?”
“I’m doing it. I look good.”
3 Likes
I’ve been playing Z-A for about 30 hours & I’ve never thought it looked anything but clean & crisp. It runs smoothly & I can clearly see everything I need to - those rocks are destructible, these walls are climbable, and so on. The series has never been a graphical powerhouse or aspired to look like anything but a cartoon, but since it came to the Switch it seems like the primary way people judge it online is by how many triangles they were willing to pour into random background shit that doesn’t matter. Does my head in, quite frankly.
I’ve had a lot of fun exploring the city, learning how to navigate the streets & rooftops. I’m usually more about the collecting than the fighting but I do like what they’ve done with the combat here, especially the battle zone, which I wish there was more reason to visit outside of the story (it pretends to be this whole side activity tournament thing but it’s really a boss dispenser to replace the gym leaders etc, so going there most nights is just a money grind).
The wild zones do a good job of repurposing parts of the city as little biomes to hunt in, if not quite to the level of diversity you’d normally get (though there is a snow level, somehow). Some of the more setpiece-y ones are pretty clever too, like the fortress one where you have to sneak up on a big tower surrounded by falinks.
My one major complaint would be the hard transitions between day & night, which I really wish would hold off when I’m in a wild zone, instead of yanking me away & despawning whatever I’m trying to catch. My one less-major complaint would be that one of the mega bosses can only be hit with ranged attacks, & there’s no way of knowing this beforehand, so if you brought a physical attacker you’re just flat screwed & have to quit out. Every JRPG does this, I don’t know why.
Overall, pretty cool game. Maybe a little on the repetitive side, & not as interesting/ambitious as Legends Arceus, but it’s a decent followup.
3 Likes
I have started playing and recording my impressions last night on Night in the Woods for those interested!
(Still havent yet uploaded proper thumbnails or descriptions)
I’m quite liking the vibe so far! Young adult returns home from college under mysterious circumstances, needs to re-acclimate to all the small-town life she missed out on.
7 Likes
I just watched this and it’s so fun 
the game is equal parts cozy and quirky, and your voice has a calming ASMRy quality to it that really blends well with this genre. I was also not expecting a game of this artstyle to contain social commentary on an economic crisis in Rust Belt America 
I’ll keep an eye out for the next instalment!
EDIT: I tried re-re-refreshing to bump up your view count but apparently that trick doesn’t work anymore so I just re-played it on mute in the background a couple times
2 Likes
You know that you haven’t lost your edge with Snipers in BF6, when you’re in the top 0,2% with M2010 ESR.
It’s still early, in BF1 I was in the top 5% with the SMLE MKIII. It will likely change, it doesn’t take skill into account, but overall kills with said weapon.
Edit: I’m enjoying BF6 so much I upgraded the standard edition to the delux edition. Normally I wouldn’t pay 30 eur for skins and a battlepass token.
Luckily both BF6 and the upgrade has cost me nothing. 90 eur in all through Steam giftcards, that I get from answering surveys.
6 Likes
“Real” Telltale (actually Deck Nine) vs “Old” Telltale (Adhoc Devs) 
Less than 1k peak on Steam vs a few dozen-thousands just yesterday. Let’s gooooo.
Dispatch is great fun. The writing is surprisingly crude kinda like a James Gunn flick.
Super great to hear iconic Telltale voice talent return in this.
The game is basically an interactive animated series (PC has no graphics options, so everything is just pre-rendered video. A bit odd IMO) but theres still plenty of fun with Dialogue Choices, more than Expanse ever did.
Episodes 3+4 just released, still gotta get to those. But I think the series has promise and I enjoyed Eps 1 and 2 so far. (Plus, they’ve been about an hour long each, which is great. Could mean it’s 8-hours total at least, compared to the Expanse being barely 5-hours for 5 episodes.)
5 Likes
Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate. Oh man. I’m calling it quits on this one. Bye bye.
I’ve reached the endgame, basically final mission, but I just don’t want to give this game my time anymore.
It’s a 2.5D portable metroidvania batman game based on the arkham series.
It was originally made for 3DS and PS Vita, but now has more ports.
The game is about (yet another) Blackgate breakout soon after the events of Arkham Origins.
After Batman’s first meeting with Catwoman, he essentially accompanies her to prison to stop the facility get taken over by 3 major baddies: Penguin, Joker, and Black Mask.
The environment is well-done. Each section of the prison has their own style to it. From the old wood offices of Admin to the industrial vibes of Maintenance.
The main issue I have with this game, and I get its part of the genre, is the backtracking.
Each area has one specific gadget that revolves around it, and you’ll get further into it once you acquire it.
The main issue is, the map sucks.
It’s a 2D image of a 3D layout. The map overlaps with itself. There’s little distinction between doors and vents, and they all connect weird. You can’t rotate it.
And the worst thing is, since the game is a 3D/2D kind of game, the camera constantly changes in some rooms.
When Batman grapples to a far-off place, sometimes the camera stays at the same angle, sometimes it flips to give you a different perspective. So, that means you’ll be working with a flipped map of where to go.
I’m constantly needing to check which way I’m going to get to the objective, and in the final mission, you have to go across the entire map once more, cleaning up some problem that’s happened.
There is ALSO the detective vision scanner. It’s nice to uncover secrets and breakables in the environment, but… it’s for every single thing you interact with your gadgets on.
And you do it dozens, hundreds of times across the game. Walls that you don’t know you can break (or do), always need to scan for 1-2 secs before you blow it up.
Same with vents, with debris, with anything that you need to “unblock” to open the way… aw man… it’s just too much.
Actually, just watch this video. It’s a good encapsulation of the experience. It’s an OK/decent game but is very much unlike the Arkham games it takes its name from… 
Aaanyway, I might try GTA 4. And the PC version is better with mods. And also, this is one of the top-tier tutorial videos for real. Useful, informative, every step done on the Steam Deck itself. Nice.
5 Likes
And by that I am pretty sure you mean playable because I remember people saying GTAIV on PC has issues with performance and crashing.
Be sure you get the Episodes as well so you can play the real game.
4 Likes
No worries on that. I think the only version of the game they sell these days is the Complete Edition, so it comes bundled with them.
I hope so! The video in question actually says it runs fine on PC and even Linux/Proton.
But there’s a lot of visual downgrades or broken texture setting things compared to the console versions.
Plus the removal of some licensed songs over the years because dumb licensing.
Nothing mods can’t fix very easily!
2 Likes
Truly a definitive edition.
I hope you enjoy the game more than I do.
2 Likes