TheWolfbat
Recent Activity
TheWolfbat
completed
Top Gear
Played this on the "Top Racer Collection," but I won't tell if you don't.
This one is a childhood fav I never beat. Hard to be impartial, but it's a fun little game with great music and lets you get into a great flowstate. I do wish a thousand misfortunes on the programmer who decided the backmarkers should veer towards you instead of away from you.
This one is a childhood fav I never beat. Hard to be impartial, but it's a fun little game with great music and lets you get into a great flowstate. I do wish a thousand misfortunes on the programmer who decided the backmarkers should veer towards you instead of away from you.
1 day ago
TheWolfbat
reviewed
Alan Wake II: Night Springs
This review contains spoilers
This DLC lulls you in to thinking you know what it is, when you really don't. The first 2 episodes are fun little spins on characters we know and love, supposing what if they were the stars of Night Springs episodes tangentially but non-canonically related to the base game, episodes that are just the devs fooling around with some gameplay concepts and characters they love.
Then there's episode 3.
Episode 3 begins the same, but slowly reveals its hand that the DLC has been more than the player suspected, and has in fact been the musings of the one and only Warren Door. Episode 3, staring Shawn Ashmore (voiced by Shawn Ashmore, yes you read that right) begins to uncover some of what the "spiral" from the base game is while interweaving elements of Quantum Break that only the most astute and dedicated Remedy fan may pick up on, but that is intensely rewarding to see how Remedy's first AAA attempt connects to all this. The DLC goes on to connect you, the player, at your PC, to this universe. Done very simply but deftly, the multiverse becomes meta in the true sense of the word, and in a way that isn't just a buzzword. All of this is to say, the narrative is good.
How about the gameplay? Episode 3 does go on to allow the devs to truly flex their creativity, especially in multiple game types. These are all simple but servicable, just deep enough to fill the runtime of the 1 hour episodes of Night Springs. I do feel they stop just short of truly committing to the bit though, with the retro game feeling like an imitation of a retro game rather than a true retro game. Same goes for the text adventure, which has the player choose options with arrow keys and enter to keep the story branches limited, but I can't help but feel like having to type in 1 of the only 2 available prompts may have just made the vibe hit a bit harder.
As a whole, the episodes also are slaves to the inventory mechanic of the base game, while choosing to simply toss literally hundreds of bullets and other supplies the player's way. I found it a bit distracting, and I think the episodes would have benefited further from just removing the system entirely instead of playing lip service to it, allowing the fun power fantasy to fully play center stage. These complaints are all pretty superfluous though, and ultimately the gameplay ties together 2 fun episode narratives, and 1 extremely engaging one, together quite neatly.
Alan Wake 2 placed Remedy in the lead of story narratives in the game industry, but this DLC cements it. I don't think their gameplay side has fully caught up to that bar in either the base game or DLC, but I think the only reason that's even noticable is because of just how high that bar has been set by the narrative. Compared to their peers, Remedy continues to knock it out of the park.
Definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the base game, and a must play if you're invested in the meta-narrative that Remedy has been setting up for over a decade now.
Then there's episode 3.
Episode 3 begins the same, but slowly reveals its hand that the DLC has been more than the player suspected, and has in fact been the musings of the one and only Warren Door. Episode 3, staring Shawn Ashmore (voiced by Shawn Ashmore, yes you read that right) begins to uncover some of what the "spiral" from the base game is while interweaving elements of Quantum Break that only the most astute and dedicated Remedy fan may pick up on, but that is intensely rewarding to see how Remedy's first AAA attempt connects to all this. The DLC goes on to connect you, the player, at your PC, to this universe. Done very simply but deftly, the multiverse becomes meta in the true sense of the word, and in a way that isn't just a buzzword. All of this is to say, the narrative is good.
How about the gameplay? Episode 3 does go on to allow the devs to truly flex their creativity, especially in multiple game types. These are all simple but servicable, just deep enough to fill the runtime of the 1 hour episodes of Night Springs. I do feel they stop just short of truly committing to the bit though, with the retro game feeling like an imitation of a retro game rather than a true retro game. Same goes for the text adventure, which has the player choose options with arrow keys and enter to keep the story branches limited, but I can't help but feel like having to type in 1 of the only 2 available prompts may have just made the vibe hit a bit harder.
As a whole, the episodes also are slaves to the inventory mechanic of the base game, while choosing to simply toss literally hundreds of bullets and other supplies the player's way. I found it a bit distracting, and I think the episodes would have benefited further from just removing the system entirely instead of playing lip service to it, allowing the fun power fantasy to fully play center stage. These complaints are all pretty superfluous though, and ultimately the gameplay ties together 2 fun episode narratives, and 1 extremely engaging one, together quite neatly.
Alan Wake 2 placed Remedy in the lead of story narratives in the game industry, but this DLC cements it. I don't think their gameplay side has fully caught up to that bar in either the base game or DLC, but I think the only reason that's even noticable is because of just how high that bar has been set by the narrative. Compared to their peers, Remedy continues to knock it out of the park.
Definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the base game, and a must play if you're invested in the meta-narrative that Remedy has been setting up for over a decade now.
4 days ago
TheWolfbat
completed
Alan Wake II: Night Springs
4 days ago
TheWolfbat
completed
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II
5 days ago
TheWolfbat is
now playing
Alan Wake II: Night Springs
5 days ago
TheWolfbat
completed
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II
Purely as a narrative, this game is amazing. Gaming in general is still quite immature when it comes to meaningful and complex narrative, and Hellblade II (like its predecessor) makes that abundantly clear with its incredible writing and presentation. Unfortunately, it never quite marries its gameplay with the narrative.
It's combat is not complex, but it conveys that feeling of being on the backfoot in a desperate fight enough that I don't mind it too much. The puzzles vary from brain dead easy to good enough, but never anything great. All of that's fine, I'm here for the narrative, but truthfully I would prefer if they totally ditched these weaker elements and just gave us a somewhat interactive film style game instead. I can see the critical response to something like that would be, but the alternative is to make meaningfully engaging gameplay instead.
I can't complain too much though, since for most of the runtime I was enraptured by the narrative and setting unfolding in front of me with relentless pacing, pacing that finds the right moments to take a breather, and the right moments to not give the player a moment of respite. The only real moments that hampered it is when my gamer brain activated to find that next lore collectible in some branching path, rather than engaging with the dialogue and world around me. Thankfully those moments were brief, and the collectibles at the very least felt like rewarding curiosity in the world from a narrative sense (albeit not a gameplay sense).
Overall a good time that I can easily recommend to gamers seeking a narrative or who otherwise engage with films like The Northman and Green Knight (hell, even the very direct The Descent homage), but not a game I can recommend to someone who seeks a high skill ceiling or deep mechanics in a game.
It's combat is not complex, but it conveys that feeling of being on the backfoot in a desperate fight enough that I don't mind it too much. The puzzles vary from brain dead easy to good enough, but never anything great. All of that's fine, I'm here for the narrative, but truthfully I would prefer if they totally ditched these weaker elements and just gave us a somewhat interactive film style game instead. I can see the critical response to something like that would be, but the alternative is to make meaningfully engaging gameplay instead.
I can't complain too much though, since for most of the runtime I was enraptured by the narrative and setting unfolding in front of me with relentless pacing, pacing that finds the right moments to take a breather, and the right moments to not give the player a moment of respite. The only real moments that hampered it is when my gamer brain activated to find that next lore collectible in some branching path, rather than engaging with the dialogue and world around me. Thankfully those moments were brief, and the collectibles at the very least felt like rewarding curiosity in the world from a narrative sense (albeit not a gameplay sense).
Overall a good time that I can easily recommend to gamers seeking a narrative or who otherwise engage with films like The Northman and Green Knight (hell, even the very direct The Descent homage), but not a game I can recommend to someone who seeks a high skill ceiling or deep mechanics in a game.
9 days ago