ksbrar
BACKER
2001
Heh, been online since 2005. I'll won't be done until Jagex says so. Rating reflects RS3.
39/63
2021
A better, more intense version of Phasmophobia. Played with cousins sporadically since release. We keep coming back for each update.
Bought in late 2020 because some of the trailers truly seemed interesting and to test out the PS5. But, the combat was just as milquetoast as ever (for AC), the story blander than ever, and truth be told I found the graphics a tad underwhelming though again the Ubisoft environment/graphics teams knocked it out of the park with the scenery and detail. I felt as though any palpable overall improvements were mostly due to lighting and faster compute. Signature Ubisoft jankiness was still there.
Played the Sith Marauder path for quite a while since the release. A wonderful concept from Bioware with regards to tightly integrating MMO world events and a more straightforward dialogue wheel plot (if you love it, you love it). It just got boring midway through the progression (not totally unexpected right after release), but I've seen some videos a decade later that trigger some desire to jump back in eventually. Then again, who knows how long the servers will keep going at this point.
2018
Started playing after the NA Steam release. Already done (probably).
Distractingly beautiful, provocative female character designs. Korean MMOs IIRC seem to have a real knack for this, thinking back to Black Desert.
Distractingly beautiful, provocative female character designs. Korean MMOs IIRC seem to have a real knack for this, thinking back to Black Desert.
2018
Mastered some time in late 2019, mastered again with each new DLC.
In many ways, a superior translation of a comic book superhero canon to a video game than Arkham City or Arkham Asylum (between which Rocksteady Studios carved out its own mini-timeline of events that is self-contained but at the same time significantly influenced the Batman comics yet to come; whereas Insomniac here has accomplished the reverse: taken every major Spider-Man arc and condensed it into a surprisingly cogent and evocative portrayal of everyone's favorite webhead that more or less hits every note in order. Yes, this game really does make you feel like Spider-Man...is a real person).
Holding it back from the full 5 stars because once you do master the combat, most of the encounters (bosses included) become dull to replay. It only happens after a long time, of course, but when devs like From Software exist the bar is that much higher.
Beautiful graphics, stunning rendering of NYC, captivating gameplay and, in particular, web-slinging.
In many ways, a superior translation of a comic book superhero canon to a video game than Arkham City or Arkham Asylum (between which Rocksteady Studios carved out its own mini-timeline of events that is self-contained but at the same time significantly influenced the Batman comics yet to come; whereas Insomniac here has accomplished the reverse: taken every major Spider-Man arc and condensed it into a surprisingly cogent and evocative portrayal of everyone's favorite webhead that more or less hits every note in order. Yes, this game really does make you feel like Spider-Man...is a real person).
Holding it back from the full 5 stars because once you do master the combat, most of the encounters (bosses included) become dull to replay. It only happens after a long time, of course, but when devs like From Software exist the bar is that much higher.
Beautiful graphics, stunning rendering of NYC, captivating gameplay and, in particular, web-slinging.
2017
Bought for Switch sometime in 2019. Was too busy at the time to play much.
Lol I tried this out as part of the initial Stadia package. I came away impressed by Stadia's streaming performance and tech but underwhelmed by Odyssey. I watched a friend of mine master this game over some months, and I don't understand how he enjoyed that overplayed Ubisoft-ass-creed combat loop over and over again (the new weapons and takedowns barely change anything imo), but I did understand his fervor for the many pages and polygons of detail developed about ancient Near East. At least the Ubisoft graphics teams are delivering with each new AC release, but as a huge fan of the original trilogy they really need to shut it down And Ubisoft too. Ubisoft games all just fade together into the same corporate retreat banner fever dream.
2014
Played for around 10-20 hours right after the NA release. A game I was on the hype train for for a while, and the first few hours are wonderful but it falls prey to the same cash grab grind-nightmare that every Korean MMO seems to trip into. One of the most beautiful games of the decade, the most sophisticated character creation engine, the most sublime combat mechanics in an MMO that I've seen until relatively recently in 2021. But MMOs live and die by that daily loop.
I don't even remember how I discovered The Witcher. I may have seen an ad for The Witcher 2 (which was heavily advertised at the time) and decided to go back to play the first one. But it holds a special place in my heart out of the series. Everyone hates the combat, and it's true it's not particularly complex or polished but it is the only one out of the series to viscerally nail the speed and aggression that witchers would need to have to perform their duties. Lore and story wise, sorry but it's the best of the franchise as it is closest to the events of the books. And despite the limitations of the 2008-or-less dated engine, there is a wonderful breadth of a nation to explore,
2018
Played and abandoned in one day because my cousin hated it. Started playing this after A Way Out had a game-breaking bug that is simply astonishing for what amounts to a VN with 90% QTE gameplay. But I liked this one, the mechanics are clever, if unrefined.
Completed some time around July 2020.
I still stand in awe of the technical accomplishment that is The Last of Us Part II. In the twilight months of the PS4, Naughty Dog delivered a visual spectacle of immense polish and mechanical sophistication that far outpaces "next-gen" titles released 2 years later on hardware that's several times better. It's just jaw-dropping every time you boot up the game. This is the (zombie-) survivalist shooter; nothing else comes close - gameplay wise.
Story-wise? It is hard to criticize because Naughty Dog probably leads the industry in taking a competent story and rendering and pacing it cinematically, which has been all the craze in the latter years of Moore's Law affecting video games. I think consumers of video games are also easily fooled by this ploy, if we can call it that, because there is a latent desire for most consumers today looking to differentiate themselves or have their hobby morally approbated to claim that their new timesink is a higher art form - at least on par with the movie. To be fair, when you can deliver it as well as Naughty Dog (I mean, just pull up any one of the number of seamless switches between player-controlled gameplay and a action cutscene and tell me it isn't more visceral than 99% of action scenes filmed in AAA blockbusters), it does achieve that elusive haute-couture frisson.
But when you step back and think about the story presented to us in Part II, it is fairly childish. The character enters and exits are relatively lame and predictable, the extent to which the narrative beats you over the head with morality becomes so extreme as to become laughable, and the setup of some of the background elements frankly makes no sense in the context of a world that is only a generation or so into a "zombie" apocalypse. I don't know the whole backstory of Part II's development, but the broader point is that the first game felt like a sui generis vision of a Naughty Dog looking to deliver the definitive survivalist story, whereas this feels like a sequel anyone could have written. It's just too trite.
Again, who cares? Have Ellie hide in the tall grass, grasping a rifle trying to calm her chattering teeth while she hears echos of whispers of predators gathering the dark with disparate shards of their humanity ripped apart by the new world. It is so engrossing, I just didn't really care about the dumb plot arcs or themes.
I still stand in awe of the technical accomplishment that is The Last of Us Part II. In the twilight months of the PS4, Naughty Dog delivered a visual spectacle of immense polish and mechanical sophistication that far outpaces "next-gen" titles released 2 years later on hardware that's several times better. It's just jaw-dropping every time you boot up the game. This is the (zombie-) survivalist shooter; nothing else comes close - gameplay wise.
Story-wise? It is hard to criticize because Naughty Dog probably leads the industry in taking a competent story and rendering and pacing it cinematically, which has been all the craze in the latter years of Moore's Law affecting video games. I think consumers of video games are also easily fooled by this ploy, if we can call it that, because there is a latent desire for most consumers today looking to differentiate themselves or have their hobby morally approbated to claim that their new timesink is a higher art form - at least on par with the movie. To be fair, when you can deliver it as well as Naughty Dog (I mean, just pull up any one of the number of seamless switches between player-controlled gameplay and a action cutscene and tell me it isn't more visceral than 99% of action scenes filmed in AAA blockbusters), it does achieve that elusive haute-couture frisson.
But when you step back and think about the story presented to us in Part II, it is fairly childish. The character enters and exits are relatively lame and predictable, the extent to which the narrative beats you over the head with morality becomes so extreme as to become laughable, and the setup of some of the background elements frankly makes no sense in the context of a world that is only a generation or so into a "zombie" apocalypse. I don't know the whole backstory of Part II's development, but the broader point is that the first game felt like a sui generis vision of a Naughty Dog looking to deliver the definitive survivalist story, whereas this feels like a sequel anyone could have written. It's just too trite.
Again, who cares? Have Ellie hide in the tall grass, grasping a rifle trying to calm her chattering teeth while she hears echos of whispers of predators gathering the dark with disparate shards of their humanity ripped apart by the new world. It is so engrossing, I just didn't really care about the dumb plot arcs or themes.
Completed around January 2019.
2022
Still playing through it, and enjoying it immensely. The Enter the Dragon brawler many of you have been waiting for.
I notice a lot of complains about the difficulty, which is to be expected. But the death mechanic seems to be frustrating lots of reviewers (https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/slvk3q/sifu_review_thread/), which is a bit strange because they don't seem to take the same mindset around feeding and leveling they've supposedly developed in playing out their more favorable Soulsbourne reviews and apply it to the first areas of Sifu.
I notice a lot of complains about the difficulty, which is to be expected. But the death mechanic seems to be frustrating lots of reviewers (https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/slvk3q/sifu_review_thread/), which is a bit strange because they don't seem to take the same mindset around feeding and leveling they've supposedly developed in playing out their more favorable Soulsbourne reviews and apply it to the first areas of Sifu.