So this trilogy gets worse with every game, huh

At face value it's more of the same, and the moment to moment combat is still as satisfying and visceral as before, thanks to cool animations and a crunchy sound direction

Then you continue playing and realize: NG3 is a bit too much. You enter an arena, then a wave of enemies spawn out of nowhere. Then another. Then there's a good chance there's another. And enemies are damage sponges that keep blocking and dodging, I don't know why they have so much health, and some enemies are kind of aggravating.

Bosses are either a test of resistance with their enormous health bars, or you just bumble your way to victory through what feels like blind luck. Not a particularly great series for boss fights anyway, but here it feels truly absurd. In other games, you could eventually find a strategy, even a cheesy one. Here, it doesn't feel consistent, ever.

Then the boneheaded decision of removing health items, you can only heal using your magic meter, which replenishes sloooowly... and every time you take damage, you health bar actually shrinks, it fucking shrinks. So what happens is, you begin the level with a big bar, then reach the boss with a tiny one. To add insult to injury, your health bar actually gets pretty damn massive through upgrades, but it doesn't matter because it will shrink.

Did I mention that magic only replenishes by dealing/taking damage, and the bar is a binary thing that only allows casting magic if it's full? Gaming design is my passion.

After a while, I just bumped the game to easy. I did the same with NG1 tbf, but in that game, difficulty felt natural and skill-based, and easy mode just gave me a safety net (more healing items, basically). In NG3, easy mode actually auto-blocks, so it's more of a crutch lol

The story is some nonsensical stupidity that actually takes itself seriously.

I've enjoyed myself mostly on the back of the still immensely satisfying combat system, this series is fantastic as a power fantasy thing, but I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure if I actually like Ninja Gaiden 3. The thought of replaying this is completely exhausting to me, and by the end of the game, I just wanted to be done already.

FMV is in many ways a product of a bygone era of the medium of games. Oftentimes it was an early attempt to inject that sort of realness that something like a movie into a game, and most of the time it was cheesy and very goofy looking. Yet despite or perhaps because of their limitations, I think many people have a great affinity for them, even if someone like myself didn't grow up with them at their peak usage. Especially in an era where games are at the point where they speak for themselves as their own form of legitimacy, FMVs, while perhaps quaint, are both great fun, and interesting, they speak to an era that is now beyond us.

So, when you decide to make a game where the core appeal is FMV in the modern day, it might be a challenge to decide where you should go with that concept. Even in the transitionary period between CD based consoles where they became more prevalent, many games struggled to make a truly engaging gameplay loop due to the fact that making a game like a movie in that style is most infeasible. This is what makes Her Story work. Instead of working around their inherently more cinematic nature, you embrace it, and use it in a way that only makes sense as a game. In doing so, Sam Barlow made what is one of the most fascinating indies around. Making an engaging narrative, that, is short, to the point, and makes you feel good for following along and using keywords to unlock more of the story. All of this topped off by a genuinely great performance from one woman lead, Viva Seifert, who really sells you through her performance. The game itself is insanely simple, but that is what makes it so engaging. It is, by all accounts, a movie that you are uncovering for yourself, and it makes for a great game to sit down and uncover the truth at your own pace.

Sam Barlow now has made a name for himself as someone who has made FMVs his core identity in the market, and honestly, good on him, it is a fun concept to play around with. And what Her Story, and other great indies like it have me saying is "man, I wish I could have more of that." Luckily, Barlow's new game seems to be the natural next stepping point after something like Her Story, and it is great to see creators take core ideas like that and truly expand on them, like we've seen with many other creators over this decade.

as graceful and thoughtfully constructed with its unique interactivity as it needs to be, just about any narrative would be compelling thru such an inventive frame. its just as well that the one present is just as graceful and thoughtful, one that appears benign, then slowly (or suddenly!) begins to take on an increasingly uncomfortable layer of voyeurism into Scandal and Secret. i could see this tone sticking with some ppl but for me, what i chose to believe and the way my particular rabbit trail unfolded, it ended up being a far more compassionate piece then i was originally expecting. the irreconcilable driving forces of perverse curiosity and increasing empathy for the knotted web of motive are a worthy texture and certainly an appropriate one for tales of Impossible Coexistence and the subjectivity of truth, thru stories even,,,kinda shyamalan???

If you've ever seen a hallmark movie, then you should know what you're in for when you play this game. For everyone else, Lake is about a woman that is living the big life in the city, but decides to take a few weeks off to house sit for her parents. Along the way she meets a cast of characters that could warm your heart, while she takes up odd ball deliveries for the mail. From rekindling friendships, helping the towns folk, and the possibility of love, Lake is a care free video game about soaking everything in a place and time you may have forgotten about.

While I wouldn't call this a walking simulator, it certainly isn't pushing the player to any degree. The most amount of urgency you have is on the possibility to miss out on some optional story or dialogue options, but even then the game can be fairly open with mistakes you make or options you choose. The game isn't really that long either, ranging in about 6 hours for more lax players out there. The majority of the game is just driving from one place to deliver mail, and finishing the day back at the post office. It really does feel like a vacation back to a simple life. Delivering mail is surprisingly rewarding, but it would have made for a much more interesting game if we had more scenarios with different characters rather than the small amount of interaction we got.

Still there is something oddly captivating about Lake that makes me wonder if there is something to Hallmark movie formulas. From the possibility of a lesbian romance, more traditional hetero one, and just the over arching story of a person coming back to their home town and making it work, I was honestly a bit smitten by this game. It certainly isn't going to win any rewards for originality, but it makes me feel relaxed in a way not a lot of other games do. The fact that Lake has traditional beats to a corny movie formula, gameplay that is more fun than demanding, and a simple gameplay loop that makes me feel like I'm doing something just kinda makes me wonder what more can we do with this kind of game? For what Lake is, it delivers, and while I don't think it will set the world on fire for anyone out there, it does feel like a calming heart beat that we all need sometimes.

My experience with this game was a constant feeling of, "This could be so good if it wasn't so bad." It has all the SWERY charm you'd be looking for going into it, but is endlessly marred by lack of QOL and endless repetition. I think it's definitely possible to enjoy yourself with this game, but you have to take steps for it.

1. Temper your expectations. The "mystery" elements are more of a pinch of flavor for the setting rather than a central theme, so don't get caught up in trying to solve it or piece things together.

2. Money isn't everything. Your giant debt and the general themes of the game may present money-making as your prime concern, but there really isn't that much to spend on unless you're trying to be a completionist (Do not fucking do this you will go insane.) As long as you accept oracle quests whenever you can along with the occasional sidequest, your only real hurdle will probably be camera parts.

3. For the love of God, do not try to do every sidequest. For some reason, only one quest can be active at a time, so trying to micromanage a dozen at once is hell. Almost none of them have unique rewards either, unless you count a bit of backstory, so you can get just as much by doing passive oracle quests. They also have this habit of making you do tasks in sets of 3, which Naomi will almost always complain about, which I assume SWERY/the devs/whoever I can blame for this thought would absolve them from said criticisms. She does this a lot.

4. Prepare for Naomi to say "YEAH BABY!" every time you dash on a mount. You cannot turn it off. You cannot turn down character voices without lowering the master volume. Accept it now so you can focus on steering a sheep with tank controls through a 3 ft gap in a fence.

I really can't recommend this to anyone but those who know what they're getting into. If you're still not dissuaded, though, you'll find a game with a lot of charm and heart put into it.

Sable is a game that shows how rewarding and meaningful an interactive experience can be despite lacking many gameplay mechanics. It is a simple game of platforming akin to Breath of the Wild, and riding your glider around the beautiful and ominous world Sable crafts. Despite only relying on these two gameplay mechanics, never did I feel like each new area I explored got tiresome and repetitive, but rather rewarding to explore and meaningful to the narrative I was crafting.

This is the biggest strength that Sable offers: you choose your own narrative to craft, and unlike some other open world RPGs, the quests I decided to take felt meaningful and helped drive further the point that you are experiencing growth with Sable. In other open world RPGs, it feels like you claim many quests in a single area and you complete it just for resources and for the sake of beating the game. Sable makes each quest always feel meaningful to who you are trying to become, as well as offers you a chance to explore subsections of each region that felt so unique to themselves.

Level design is another reason why the gameplay loop of platforming felt so fresh, each area was ingrained with interesting architecture and mini puzzles within each place that were all fused with the lore of the world which made it feel extra immersive. Every time I entered a new region it didn't feel like I entered a "puzzle room", or a new platforming challenge, it just felt seamless with the rest of the world. The game even gives you a chance to end it with not all masks collected to choose your future, almost like giving you permission to end the game once you have decided what you want Sable to become. But by giving you that option, if you choose to stay and commit longer towards exploration, it makes you realize the bigger picture the game tries to convey and what it means to be a glider and to explore the rest of the world crafted around your character.

I believe what all my positive points come down to is the world that is crafted in this game benefits every aspect of gameplay. Despite the comparisons to BOTW in both gameplay and even aesthetic choices, Sable still feels unique to itself and doesn't need to be carried by that comparison to an already established franchise. Sable can definitely stand on its own by the world it crafts, leaving me wanting to explore any region I possibly could.

My only gripes with the game are bugs I experienced with the camera, as well as purchasing goods from merchants, as well as sometimes wonky glider controls, but none of them felt like they detracted from my enjoyment with this game.

They weren't lying when they said the combat in this game is uh not good. BioWare as a studio was kind of in a weird spot when ME1 came out; the actual company itself was merging with a lot of EA subdivisions, and the contemporary projects around this time (Jade Empire and the Sonic RPG) are still the black sheeps of their catalogues. ME1 carries that 'black sheep' polish on it as well, despite it's post-hoc success. There's a certain...weirdness to the game--the cinematic dialog angles don't always work the best, the skills and talent trees are a mess of progressive scaling, what on earth is this equipment progression, the awkward sex scenes, etc.

What it does do really well though is carry the sense of ambition that is missing from those other projects--there's a lot of thought going into into the world here, and the political and historical tensions are shockingly deep for a new IP. Tolkenism aside (especially with the Krogans/Savage and Volus/Jewish connections) there's some engaging lore that reflect social realities in a surprisingly compassionate way? I mean it would've been very easy to write Wrex as this Brute With a Heart of Gold archetype, but as you move through his character arc you really come to understand how being in the midst of what's essentially genocide fuels his apathy and rage. The feeling of an unamended historical wrong colors a lot of his perception, and the game never condescends or pathologize him for feeling some time of way about it. The Krogans in general are not a bad take on the feelings of Diaspora, which is a big compliment to give a janky Sci-fi RPG from 2008. Teasing out the allegories and meanings behind the lore of Mass Effect was really the big positive of this replay, and honestly getting new Codex entries quickly became my favorite part of the game.

The actual plot itself was okay, nothing startling--there might be a way to read the Reapers as some sort of allegory for the Movement of History or something equally cringeworthy & Hegelian, but considering how the rest of the series threw that interpretation away it's not worth discussing.

Also kinda mad I accidentally romanced Ashley, I 'friendzoned' Liara trying to skip through some dialogue and didn't realize the game thought I had a connection with Ashley. Her only two positive traits are that she has a cute nickname for Shepard and she reads Whitman, otherwise she's an openly racist, condescending, and resentful person that kinda gives me the ick to be around. Kaidan is also just a bland character, if it weren't for Captain Anderson the whole human cast woulda been a miss.