I have been playing Stardew Valley, which admittedly took me many years and many attempts to get into. I am now on year 3, birthdays and events no longer stress me out, but at the same time I keep discovering new things and most importantly I am still enjoying myself a lot. I think I finally understand the acclaim.
Dead Space 1, the original. I recently realized I own it on the EA account I forgot having made and figured I’d take a look. I’m partway through chapter 3 now. The game really shows its age graphically, the ragdoll physics on the many corpses lying around keeps glitching out, and if the game is actually trying to be horrifying I feel a touch more subtlety would have been called for. It often feels more like a haunted house than something that’s supposed to seem like a real place.
That being said, the combat is satisfyingly visceral (the gimmick of focusing on cutting off limbs was a very good idea), and tech limitations aside both the art direction and sound design are very solid. The times the game actually manages to be unnerving is almost always due to the tension of hearing the monsters in the walls but not being able to pinpoint its location.
Overall, I’m not exactly in love with it but I’ll probably play it all the way through.
There is a fix you can apply to fix the glitching ragdolls. If I recall correctly if you don't fix it there will eventually be a physics related puzzle that won't work right because the physics won't be responding correctly and you'll get stuck, but my memory could be wrong.
It's pretty easy to fix and will increase your immersion
As someone who hasn’t yet played it but will, and wants to like it, should I read this? Will it point out negative things I might agree with but would never have noticed otherwise?
It’s not that deep. Here’s the two main critiques leveled towards the game in the article.
you don’t always know the consequences of your actions, and they’re not always predictable: a seemingly sensible choice sometimes ends badly, and a seemingly dumb choice could get you a reward
you can load a save and redo your things whenever you want, i.e. save-scum
These are both somewhat obvious just from the structure of the game. Ultimately the conclusion the author is shooting for is that this makes Baldur’s Gate 3 a bad game but a good piece of interactive fiction.
The author uses the mechanics of chess often as sort of an example of the pinnacle of game design which to me is telling. Video Games are much broader than that. Insisting that people should not call the thing you don’t like a game but instead “interactive fiction” is pedantry at best, and gatekeeping at worst.
Sure, if you view the game through the lens of chess you will come away with these flaws. But for example, if you always knew the consequences of every choice the narrative tension would be destroyed. Of course chess has no such concern, so if we’re looking at games through that lens then narrative tension is of no value. Ultimately I think this is just a very narrow viewpoint of what games should be.
Starfield on my Xbox Series S. I just love it. It’s finally the perfect No Man’s Sky. Kind of. With more story, even better graphics, a fantastic score and so on and so on. Just waiting for 60fps
The Crew Motorfest Demo on my Xbox Series S. It’s okay. Would be waaaay better without the Tearing problems. Waiting for patch. If they get rid of the Tearing problem I’ll buy it.
I still can't get over Wesker's new voice. This man now sounds like an actual human being, what even is this lol.
Still looking forward to this though. I really enjoyed the original's Separate Ways.
I beat Kingdom Hearts 1 last week, so this week I’m doing Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories! I think I’m about halfway through now, just finishing floor 12 I think, but the battle’s been rough on me to say the least. I think I’m gonna need to grind up some cards and levels today to get past it.
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