Started this way back in August but it took me forever to finally finish it clearly. Over 100 hours poured in puts it among the longest games I’ve played, though I guess I’m kinda glad I went so slowly given Larian would add another new patch whenever I decided to turn it back on

It’s been a while since I’ve played through the Divinity games, but given how great Original Sin 2 was I’m not surprised that this is as highly acclaimed as it is also. BG3’s a very impressive RPG in design and presentation, managing to maintain the level of depth traditional to this style of top-down CRPGs, but with immense AAA production values to match which for the genre sets it apart from everything else in that regard. I’ll admit I’m not really familiar with tabletop D&D and its rules (nor have I played the first two Baldur’s Gate games yet), but as a standalone experience I wasn’t lost and it’s amazing what they pulled off here. The closest I guess I can compare it to is like a more ambitious Dragon Age: Origins, which is awesome

There is just so much here, you’ll probably spend dozens of hours in the first act and its opening areas alone cause of how dense with content it is. Basically all of it (while being mostly optional) is worth doing which made it very easy to sink a lot of time into, and given the game’s many different quest variations and choices you’d likely get a lot of replayability out of it too. Graphically it looks fantastic, but what Larian really shows off is how dialogue is done with unique cutscenes instead of text boxes, using full mocap for literally every single NPC you can talk to. Given how BG3 is no less massive in scale, that’s a pretty remarkable advancement from their previous games

The main story itself is good, and the stakes with trying to remove the tadpoles in your head keeps it compelling. But I will say narratively I think it peaks with Act 2, as Act 3 gets a bit less focused to me and wasn’t really a fan of how rushed parts of the ending felt. I did like the epilogue and how it wraps everything up but as far as I know, that part wasn’t even in the game at launch and had to be added with a patch

The characters and their performances are largely top notch though. Some of your companions are more fleshed out than others (Shadowheart and Astarion were my favorites), but for the most part they’re all memorable and their personal quests do a good job developing them throughout. Personalization for your main character is strong too, though will probably depend on whether you choose a custom background or an origin. I made the perhaps ill advised decision to do my first playthrough as “The Dark Urge” which is considered an evil path, but I found it really interesting to roleplay as someone trying to be good despite that. It adds a very cool amount of connection to your character and the story, and really liked how varied your dialogue options are so you can still shape how you respond to your own actions and past. It seemed to affect quite a lot especially in Act 3 too so can’t say how much is changed without it, but would recommend for sure. Whenever I decide to replay I’ll try going full evil next though >:)

Combat is of course turn based with the standard fantasy classes you’d expect to choose from, and since this is D&D based all actions and skill checks are done with dice rolls. The RNG tied to this can be annoying (will not deny I have a long list of quicksaves), but I enjoyed its usage in gameplay and decision making. Will say combat can get really slow at times though, why they never have a way to speed up turns in these games is beyond me, you’ll frequently fight numerous enemies at once and having to sit through every single move they make gets a bit tedious at times. I also felt like a lot of the loot/equipment you find was a bit unrewarding, I ended up using armor and weapons I found in Act 1 for most of the entire game cause I didn’t really have much reason to switch them out. But that may just be a D&D thing with progression, especially since the level cap is 12

Besides that the only notable problem for me was performance, which could be better… It’s definitely been improved with all the patches, but at release you could tell it still needed much more polish and even now it’s not exactly stable. I’ve actually played this both on PC (Steam Deck) and PS5, though both weren’t ideal for different reasons. On Steam Deck it ran fine for most of Act 1 and Act 2 at 30FPS, and with FSR 2.2 (this wasn’t added til later tbf) it looks pretty great now also. Act 3 really starts to push it though, it’s the most impressive part of the game on a technical level given how packed the area is with so many NPCs, but clearly the least optimized as I had near constant FPS drops and more noticeable bugs like frequent animation lags or quests being easier to sequence break. That said, those with much better hardware for PC probably won’t have as much of an issue

PS5 in comparison runs as it should, even Act 3 mostly holds 60 FPS in performance mode from what I’ve played which is great. This would be the obvious way to play BG3, if not for the insane amount of crashes I’ve had on it that crippled the port for me. I haven’t played something that crashed this often since Cyberpunk at launch, past a point I couldn’t even open my saves anymore without getting kicked off and some of them even started saying they were corrupted somehow, rendering it basically unplayable on there (thankfully there’s cross save support). This is still not fixed in my case and not sure if it’s just my PS5 or something to do with the game on console, but regardless wouldn’t advise buying it on there. Some don’t seem to have as much of a struggle with it though so YMMV on that I suppose

Despite the gripes (and extreme annoyance at the PS5 version), I really enjoyed BG3 and was sad to see it end after all the time I spent on it. More than anything though I’m glad it’s such a massive success for Larian, despite their positives isometric CRPGs are usually seen as having niche appeal so it’s cool to finally have one break out into mainstream like this has. Hopefully bodes well for the genre going forward

Note - as I did not beat this game, this write-up should be taken more as a set of observations than a genuine review.

Note - this game contains a couple scenes that may be triggering to epileptics


Fez was one of three titles popularized by Indie Game: The Movie, and arguably ended-up the most famous of the bunch. Why was that? Well, I’m so glad you asked as it had to do with its co-creator and media representative Phil Fish. Now, Fish’s rise-and-fall among the gaming community is its own rabbit hole worth looking into (though please stave away from the laughably apologetic This Is Phil Fish video that went viral years ago+); however, I bring him up because, even as his popularity fell, there remained a strong advocacy on behalf of his baby - that, no matter how much you hated the guy, his art merited consideration purely out of innate quality.

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news (not really), but the truth is Fez ain’t all that great. It features an absolutely fascinating concept, and is certainly far better than anything I could ever create; yet it can’t help escaping from the fact that it’s just boring. As a neo-platformer, the gimmick here revolves around the ability to turn your screen on its horizontal axis four different ways, theoretically yielding 4 different variations of each level: and yeah, that seamless perspective shifting is definitely amazing, but the issue is it’s rarely used towards anything beyond basic navigation quandaries. Oh, is that ledge out of reach? Well, flip clockwise and bam, now you’ve got grassy hooks to climb on. Are those twirling boards leading out to the middle of nowhere? Well, just change directions and you’ll see they actually ascend upwards!

That’s literally the extent of Fez’s imagination -- it takes your conventional side-scrolling formula, reels it vertically, and swaps obstacle solutions between dimensions and doors (more on that later). Sure, the ploy is fun at first, but once the novelty wears off you’re left with a very flat experience that drags and drags to the point of being unfun. The most diversity I ever saw involved matching external objects to some background effigy, and triggering explosives at specially-marked areas, but their solutions, again, entailed no creativity - just whirl-and-haul until things set in place. The problem isn’t even that it’s easy, but moreso that it’s repetitive -- imagine if twisting resulted in kinetic changes in the world? Or were tied to triggering power-ups? I know I’m spitballing here, however, that’s the kind of advice I wish had been imparted on Fish and company during development.

Unlike most platformers, the goal of Fez is to collect yellow cubes located amidst a myriad of interconnected stages, and while darting between areas is pretty cool, it ultimately harms the game by spacing things out too much - what should’ve been singular realms are broken-up into multiple skotas you can only access via specific doors, and as finding said doors fills the bulk of Fez’s gametime, the endeavor gets tepid very fast. I’m not lying when I say you’ll be spending 90% of your time locating hidden enclaves, with these enclaves, in turn, being nothing more than barren islands or, worse case scenario, empty rooms. There’s no discovering new mechanics or happening upon some hidden lore, just chamber upon isle of prolonged blandness.

The continual need for fresh cubes means you’ll be doing a lot of backtracking as well, and the lack of a quick travel option to individual lands consequently adds insult to injury - if you want to return to a previously-absconded area, be prepared to go piece-by-piece-by-piece as you waste time re-netting your way there (the devs not even bothering to mark each door++).

To Fez’s credit, it has a fine map system equipped with dynamic motion, but rather than waste time programming it, I feel the Polytron Corporation would’ve been better off sticking with closed-off levels that players would have had to complete in-full before moving on to the next place. As it stands, there’s just nothing special about Fez beyond the initial 5 minutes of bliss your average gamer will get from experiencing its new mechanics. Even the side content, involving the use of cryptic pictorial riddles to solve puzzles, is hampered by the sheer distance between said clues and their accompanying location.

Graphically, Fez got a lot of praise for its presentation, and I’ll definitely agree that it’s the best aspect of the game, combining pleasant colors and calming aesthetics into a pixelated masterpiece - the kind of title I could see someone running around in purely to replicate 5th century Buddhist meditation techniques. Most of the backdrops and environs take clear inspiration from Mayan-based architecture, combining stoney ruins with colored blocks, grassy covered exteriors, looming trees, and an abundance of overflowing water; however, there are a fair amount of locations where Fish and his team dip into transcendent territory, whether it’s the World 1-2 inspired sewers, a storm-ridden manor, or the blood-flooded eeriness of the hub plane.

That same effort was carried over to the interior chambers, which could be really bizarre depending on the abode. In my abridged playthrough, for example, I caught sight of map carvings, robot idols, bathroom pumps, dorm room bedding, and even a witch’s pot. Perhaps there was some thematic message Fish intended, but if there was I was too dumb to discern it.

One of the stranger decisions Polytron makes is the incorporation of wildlife, other NPCs, and a dynamic day/night cycle. I say strange because, outside of two puzzles(+++), they don’t serve any purpose in the game and accordingly feel like a waste of money. You could at least make an argument for the presence of humans out of explaining the protagonist’s existence, but given the sheer amount of unique animations programmed for each animal (worms, rats, birds, frogs, butterflies, etc…), I was expecting them to occupy a role in-game besides standard window dressing. Don’t get me wrong, the artisans absolutely deserve credit for their modeling and aptitude, it’s just a case of Chekhov's Gun being violated.

Fauna aren’t the only entities who got specially-coded movements - your anonymous hero may look like a 2D Sackboy, but he’s actually quite versatile in terms of his scripted actions: idle away too long from the keyboard and he’ll fall asleep; hop in water and he’ll paddle like a fish; stand near the edge of a ledge and he’ll teeter over ala DKC.

Unfortunately, the sound editing stumbles too much to be worth a listen, particularly with regards to the music cues. Your basic SFX is all well-and-good, if a bit soft-mixed; however, I found almost every jingle to be obnoxiously loud: opening treasure chests sprouts a Zelda-esque ripoff, jumping into portals triggers a booming vibration, and fully-assembling cubes yields you a disparaging synth-beat.

That obsession with synth carries over to the score, composed by a guy appropriately called Disasterpeace. Peace indulges in a subgenre of the matter known as chiptune, which, as the name suggests, renders every other melody in the OST like something between the NES and SNES generation. It’s a theoretically-solid concept (Kirby’s Adventure did something similar after all), but the problem is Peace’s compositions end-up sounding more akin to early-2000s electronica than synthetic instruments, resulting in a lot of extended flat notes filtered through an e-piano. It’s outdated, it’s misophonic, and most importantly contrasts with the placid visuals.

There’s really nothing else to say about Fez. While I’m always happy for indie games that break through the zeitgeist barrier, Fez ultimately doesn’t live-up to any of the notoriety surrounding it or its creator.


NOTES
+Since that video is (sadly) popular, I’ll flesh out my opinion of it in the event of potential fan backlash -- Danskin does raise good points about the nature of the Internet and the tendency for users to project general sentiments onto a singular persona for the sake of a homogenized rebuttal/attack; however, his brushing-off of Fish’s behavior under the argument of Internet celebrities not needing to be held to higher standards is preposterous to say the least. Yes, some of Fish’s quotes did get blown out of proportion by the media, but Fish himself did no favors as far as adapting to criticism or changing his public image. And no Mr. Danskin, it doesn’t matter if he was always this way - when you’re put into a position of power and influence, you’re obligated to be professional lest you contribute to the normalization of toxic behavior par for the course for such authority figures.

++Standing in front of a previously-entered door will bring-up a projection of the next place, but given that you have to match this with the corresponding map image, it’s fundamentally a two-pronged process that would’ve been better off with conventional naming.

+++The first is nighttime revealing a hidden door; the second is a giant owl statue puzzle, though from what I understand both are completely optional anyway.

-There’s a mining section with a bunch of Mjolnir-looking hammers.

-There’s a track here that I swear was all but recreated in Evan’s Remains.

I just don't know what to feel about this game. It's unique, that's for sure.

Art direction is flawless, from the environnement to the creature designs, the subtle use of light and the overall ambiance. The way this whole world lives and how it's inhabitants move and behave can honestly be quite captivating.

It's cool to be thrown into the game and having to learn everything, but after 20~h into it and having seen 99% of the map and bestiary based on the wiki, I feel like i've seen it all ? But also seeing people in steam reviews having more than 1000h in this makes me feel like I'm missing something ??
I love exploration in videogames, but here I just feel too lost, too frail, constantly. The controls are a bit janky because of the way everything moves, and you can die again and again and again at the same spot without really having the time to learn what your mistakes were because everything happens so quickly. Some instances are more frustrating than others, and I understand that it does contributes the atmosphere of the game, but ultimately you just pass from one area to the other without feeling like you really achieved anything.

This game is deep and complex, lots of hidden mechanics, it's a really impressive work in itself but it lacks strong, definite objectives and rewards for me to really enjoy playing it.
This game is both really fascinating, and at the same time I feel like it does zero effort to make me like it.

(To be honest, some of the stuff I said might just be that this is a survival game, and I guess I was expecting it to be closer to a metroidvania or something.)

If you are looking for a pure workout VR game, then this might fit your desires. PowerBeats VR for sure is a sweat-generating app where you punch incoming rocks and dodge virtual barriers.

Unfortunately the presentation of the game is very lackluster. This begins with the AI voice that leads you through menus. There are various visual styles for the stages but they look like some random environments from an asset store. The game just lacks a coherent visual style and theme, it feels put together randomly. There is no campaign, just 24 songs to choose from. Music of course is 100% subjective, but I didn’t like most of the songs all that much. There are several difficulty settings for the songs, but not each song comes with all difficulties. Some can just be played on Expert, others provide a larger range of difficulty settings. Why does not every song provide all settings?

And finally, PowerBeats VR also just lacks the satisfying feeling of hitting something that other games in the genre provide. It’s just not much fun to actually play the game and with so many better alternatives around I really can’t recommend this game.

I have been playing this game since it was first released and it is still, to this very day, a great RTS game. Yes, this is "just" Age of Empires 2 with mythological creatures added, but who could not like this? The only thing that didn't age well are the graphics. The game is kinda ugly. Especially compared to the beauty that Age of Empires Definitive Edition is. But everything else still works great. Well, minus the pathfinding sometimes. The Enhanced Edition comes with the main campaign, the meaty Titans Campaign and the smaller Vikings campaign. All of those are great and I like the mission design more than in the Age of Empires 2 campaigns. The presentation is less dry and the missions are more creative - kinda similar to Warcraft 3. So if you are looking for a great RTS with some meaty single-player content look no further.

Hubris is an impressive looking VR sci-fi action-adventure game that mixes climbing, swimming, crafting and shooting into a very focused, polished but also short VR game. All the elements are mixed well and are all fun to engage with minus the crafting which feels like an afterthought. Instead of just picking up health packs these need to be crafted in inconvenient ways because the inventory management is so damn fiddly. And making your 20th healing item in a space mixer isn’t exactly exciting. There is also a lot of scrap lying around that can be fused into materials which then can be used to upgrade the player’s pistol. Besides damage and magazine upgrades there are two unlockable fire modes, a shotgun and an SMG. Certainly more motivating than mixing healing items but ultimately just a way to lengthen the playtime.

Luckily, the rest of the game is a lot more fun. Climbing, swimming and shooting enemies doesn’t come with any greater depths or complex mechanics but still feels very satisfying and immersive. Enemy variety is limited but enough for the short runtime of 4-5 hours. The story is generic sci-fi that also feels like the middle part of some random TV show instead of a coherent storyline. Lots of background is missing and the characters are bland. But the artstyle of the locations and atmosphere are very good. And that completely without tapping into the horror genre and using cheap thrills. There aren’t creepy underwater monsters, just harmless looking jellyfish. There are also no jump scares. This can be a pro- or contra-point depending on what you are expecting from a space adventure. For me it was a nice change of pace after Resident Evil 4 and Vertigo 2.

After the Beta I wasn’t all that interested in this game. But then I got it at a deep discount at Humble Bundle and gave it another try. The game certainly takes a while to click, but then it’s great, crazy fun. The best way to describe it for me is that it is a wild mix between Earth Defense Force, Overwatch, Anarchy Reigns. There are elements of hero shooters, third-person-brawlers, PvE and PvP components in the game. Everything is presented in an overarching story with quite a few quality cutscenes that get unlocked by participating in online matches. Yes, this game is online only with no way to play offline or with bots.

So how does this work? Players pilot exosuits that look like your typical anime-mecha. There are three different kinds of exosuits: assault, defense and support. Some of them excel in ranged combat, others are more melee oriented or focus on healing the team. Plus there are hybrids that fit more roles. They all have something in common: They feel unique and are fun to use. I didn’t dislike any of the mechs and rotated frequently between them to spice up the experience. Landing headshots with a sniper rifle feels just as satisfying as uppercutting a T-Rex or rescuing the whole team with a last second healing skill.

In most missions two teams of five players get matched against each other. Both teams have to fight against hordes of dinosaurs and accomplish certain mission targets. The goals are always the same for both teams, the team that achieves the goals faster gets a headstart in the final mission where both teams are in direct competition. In this phase the teams can fight each other directly to achieve one final goal. There are other mission types, like giant hordes or big boss fights where ten players play together but these are more rare. By beating the story, extra hard challenges and seasonal content gets unlocked.

Seriously, the feeling of the game is a bit hard to describe. It really is it’s own thing and a unique experience I recommend to everyone that likes Capcom games, hero shooters and/or horde shooters with some indirect and direct PvP put into the mix. Don’t get afraid of the PvP stuff too much. You always progress, even when you lose a game and I didn’t come across many people that took the game too seriously. It was mostly a great and relaxed time playing with others.

The aggressive monetization with loot boxes and season passes in a full-priced game is certainly questionable, but it can be safely ignored. There are no pay-to-win elements. On the tech side the game looks and sounds good. It ran without problems on high settings on my old 2070S. Late loading textures are an issue though and can look really jarring at times.

What a game is this! Gran Turismo 4 was one of the first games I have ever touch in my life and as a huge racing fan I was looking forward to play this one! It was such a magical experience and it's the only Gran Turismo game that gives me the same vibes as I had when I played GT4. The graphics are amazing, for a PS4 game. The handling is nearly perfect and the difficulty is also such a great thing, since it's actually difficult if you use the correct settings in the custom race mode.

The online, also known as sports mode, is a bit of a nightmare from time to time with the time slots the races are in and a weird penalty system, which made my online experience not as enjoyable as the races against bots were, but in the end I had fun with the game.

I am proud to have this in my platinum collection as a well deserved milestone platinum 🏆

Plusieurs choses à dire sur ce DLC.
Déjà en le faisant, je me suis demandé si c'était pas le pire dlc que j'ai jamais fais.
Ensuite ça s'est avéré.

Le dlc NE SUIT PAS l'histoire, mais propose à la place un système de lvl up afin de faire directement le dlc si on veut skip le jeu de base. Normal, c'est certainement ce que la majorité des joueurs voulaient, NE PAS FAIRE LE JEU, BANDE DE GROS TROU DU CUL.
LE contenu en lui même est une honte, on pète juste la gueule a whis 15 fois pour avoir le ssj god, un plaisir.

De + le jeu qui est si propre niveau modèles dans le jeu de base, ne l'est plus dans le dlc ! Eh oui, dbs, c'est pas dbz, ce n'est pas la même DA, du coup les modèles sont juste dégueus ! Bien pensé !
Evidemment le dlc se finit en 1h cutscene compris, donc vraiment une honte de bout en bout.
Au moins les nouveaux combos de bases sont cool.
J'ai extrêmement peur pour les autres dlc.