not very good, but in a way that kind of rules? it feels pretty horrible and the level design is monstrous, but there's funny monsters and a suprisingly unique combat system. it has a sprawling and sometimes jazzy soundtrack despite having the aesthetics of a bad power metal album. i dunno, there is something admirable about any moment in history that can birth games that are both basically trash but also surprising and novel. like hell yeah nastar, sure, i dont give a shit about your greased-up beefcake but im glad youre going for it and you've done gone slathered the boy up

https://medium.com/@vehemently/the-longing-is-one-of-the-best-quarantine-games-and-its-not-even-about-covid-6c0b90936f26

We have fed you all for a thousand years,
And you hail us still unfed,
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth,
But marks the workers' dead,
We have yielded our best to give you rest,
And you lie on crimson wool,
And if time be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid in full!

fuckin' metal as fuck, dude

Great action game! Challenging and fun, retaining a lot of classic design ethos while keeping modern sensibilities. It's structured like a run and gun of old, but it's got a cool risk-reward mechanic with its weapon upgrade system, and the combat has parrying and some engaging meter management. I'm not a huge fan of the visual style, personally (and its story is similarly wacky), but it's doing what it's doing well. It's exactly as long as it needs to be, too, and doesn't waste your time at all.

A good game, with fantastic game feel, but you can really tell there was a focus on multiplayer.

Enemies tend to swarm you and bosses have tons of additional enemies. The procedural generation feels pretty pointless and actually kind of weakens the whole experience. There's also some weird imperialist undertones in the game that just left a bad taste in my mouth.

At the end of the day, through, the combat just feels good. Dodging, rolling, shooting. It's a visceral satisfaction that's hard to explain. I feel the action in my gut.

Worth checking out, especially if you have folks to play with.

vampirism gives you yaoi hands

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I wish I could just start and end with that joke, but unfortunately I feel compelled to say more. I truly do not think the hate this game is getting is merited. Redfall is not good, but it will not be the worst game you play this year. I think it is tempting to say that Arkane Austin was meddled with and their vision was compromised by corporate overlords, or that the release was too rushed, which I’m sure is all true to some degree, but I’m not convinced that these are the core issues with Redfall. I think the issue is that this game is just too many things. This game is trying to be at least three completely different games and is none of them well. The loot system is a cavalcade of junk, the co-op is hectic and empty, and the open world stuff, the only stuff that comes close to succeeding, is bogged down by those other two. The vampires aren’t enough of a threat to be exciting to fight by the late game, and some of your powers are sort of busted. The fact that co-op was marketed so hard on this is utterly baffling, because I truly think this game is only ever fun playing solo. Any of the friction that arises from playing carefully vanishes when you’re running around with three other players. You can’t read diaries or look at environmental storytelling when your friend is just bee-lining to the next waypoint. There are a few really cool moments in this game that would be utterly ruined in a four-stack. If they hadn’t been trying to make that work, maybe they could have devoted resources to making the weaker elements stronger. (Though I still think the game shouldn’t have done loot the way they did.) There are moments where I can see a version of this game that works, when I’m skulking through dilapidated mansions or scoping out a cultist camp. I also think there is a legitimate novelty for a vampire story to not have the vampires be sexy socialites and instead just be straight-up ghouls. The vampire gods in Redfall are capitalist Nosferatus who run a version Theranos that is even more evil somehow. Each of them is shitty in their own way and you do definitely want to see these fucks dead by the end. And I did play it to the end, because I have brain problems. Do I regret it? A bit. I think I would have gotten more out of another game, but I do not think Redfall is a horrible, unplayable game. I had some fun here and there. It’s just such a mess of competing design paradigms that it turns into a giant pile of oatmeal. And boy, am I stuffed!