GhostofAnakin

I'm not a fan of being logged out precisely because of the fact I keep forgetting my passwords and/or email associated with an account. So having to log in every time is getting a bit ... annoying. (I can save my log in info, but it takes an extra step for me to go from "log in to Obsidian account" to the page that has that info, instead of just automatically being logged in all the time and being able to post right away)

I was going to pick up Days Gone, but then I saw some reviews not being very flattering. At the same time, I don't have a lot of faith in some of those review sites. So I'm torn between two negatives.

Playing through Dying Light. Originally I was just going to play enough to get leveled up enough to play The Following, but I've decided to stick with the core game for a bit longer. I'll probably end up giving up when I have to do one of those idiotic boss fights.

In Odyssey you get a larger toolkit- specialist abilities and moves which are rather well thought out in general- but only up to a point, then you kind of get generic +1.5% damage/ resistance/ crit bonus type deal. Which felt a bit weird to me, like it was first designed for a level cap of 50 but they decided progression was too slow or the game too big plus people hate level caps so they sort of tacked a bunch of stuff on like extra mercenaries after what was obviously intended to be the top one, and bonus abilities that are 100% generic. Or maybe they did that because they thought it would work better with µtransactions. I'd say it does get easier as you go and you do feel some progression, but nowhere near as much as if there wasn't level scaling- and you also have to level up/ upgrade your gear as you go at traders for it to be easier. Practically, I followed the level estimates of quests and there was always a lot of stuff at my level so I must have been overleveled just by doing content as it became available; and only ran into one area that I was underleveled for (Boeotia, as I decided to go have a look at Plataea rather than do quests since I was close) and that was instadeath central. The issue really is that Odyssey is absolutely massive and it's extremely easy to miss lower level content, and if you came back to it when overleveled it would be ridiculous as some content in Witcher 3 ended up being if you happened to miss an area (and in W3 you also had the rather stupid situation where some low level quests were gated through higher level questlines). Doubt there really is a good solution for that type of open world game. One way you end up with no scaling and areas you miss end up being stupidly easy, other way you end up with everything feeling the same and no real progression. Nobody likes gating content unless it's done seamlessly and transparently; nobody likes level scaling but near everyone seems to like open world overall despite that. I wasn't a fan of how they did leveling in AC Odyssey. I got to a point where I maxed out most of the cool specialty skills, plus upgraded my gear, yet felt like a wimp because they leveled all enemies up to my level so instead of feeling like a Greek God, I had trouble with even a trio of enemies. I get they're trying to balance it so that there's still a bit of a challenge late in the game, but at the same time it kind of sucks that I felt no more powerful at Level 75 than I felt at Level 5, all because enemies leveled up to keep pace. IMO, it would have been better if just the main bosses leveled up with you (to maintain the challenge), but the random hordes and random bad guys remained at their original level so you could feel as though you truly were this unstoppable force against anything but the absolute best.

Finally found my first gun in Dying Light. No longer have to worry about hitting a zombie 10 times with a stick anymore.

Early stages of Dying Light are so annoying with how weak your character's weapons are.

Well, that sucks. I didn't realize I'd deleted my Dying Light saves, so now I've got to at least play through the prologue before I can load up The Following.

Went ahead and got the Following DLC for Dying Light. Now I just have to slog through the parts I hated to get to it.

Played through AC Odyssey with Alexios up to the part where he infiltrates the Cult meeting just to see what Deimos is like in his play through. Now I'm kind of running out of steam as the story is okay but nothing great. I find the only time I can actually replay games is if I enjoy the story a lot. Otherwise, I can't push through. Same reason why I only played Batman Arkham Knight once.

Playing through AC Odyssey as Alexios just because I was curious how Deimos would come across. Have to say I think this Deimos comes across as more intimidating in a ruthless way. When playing as Kassandra, that Deimos comes across as a cartoon villain who acts more like a spoiled brat.

Not only that - just so that the game doesn't get stale, as game time progresses, the universe go through Eras which populate it with brand new storylines which you can finish and always tweak a whole bunch of in-game rules to accommodate for the era's theme. And while these aren't driven by you and can be ignored if you wish to do so, with enough effort put into them, you can become a major driving force of the era's events. I keep going back and forth on which main story I liked better between Origins and Odyssey. I think the "hunt the Cultists" part of Odyssey gives it the edge for me.

If you can do that, I might get it. I just know that I won't have the patience to deal with those boss fights again.

Never did end up playing the expansion for Dying Light. Just saw the complete edition, which includes the base game plus the expansion, is available at Best Buy for under $30, so I'm tempted to pick it up. Though I'm not sure I want to play through the entire base game (including it's GOD AWFUL two boss fights) just to get to The Following expansion.

I had a look at Origins since I've enjoyed Odyssey and hadn't realised it was set in Late Ptolemaic Egypt after Odyssey's Classical Greece, which seems weird given the previous games were all (?) in chronological order. I presume they shifted the era some time during production to include more recognisable names, but it seems a bit odd doing it that way around. See, that makes more sense. It allows them to do that, while not forcing it on the player. It was the one glaring misstep that they took in what I'd consider my favorite AC game to date. There's still those 3 DLC to come (Fate of Atlantis), but I'm kind of AC'd out right now. So I'll probably have to come back to that at a later time.

I get that the developers want to tell a specific story and link this game somehow to the ongoing story of the other AC games, but surely they could have thought of a better execution than this. Especially when the key selling point to this specific game was "player choice".

So, finally got to the part in the AC Odyssey DLC that caused all the controversy about the "forced romance". So, so stupid. I literally chose every dialogue choice to NOT get into any sort of romance, but the game forces it on you no matter what. Haven't played Chapter 3 yet to see how it goes, but regardless that was stupid and kind of ruins my desire to play further.

I think one of the things I've noticed with these open world games with "filler" activities to do is I eventually get worn out of the game and end up losing a bit of motivation even for the main quest. AC Odyssey does a lot of things well, but side quests not related to the main story, IMO, isn't one of them.

Finished the first episode of the AC Odyssey First Blade DLC. The story/reveal was pretty cool. I think I even like it better than the backstory behind Kassandra/Alexios' main story. The last battle was a little annoying because it seemed like I couldn't dodge any of the boss' arrow shots, no matter how well I timed it. Plus, the "lock on" feature wouldn't work so I had trouble aiming my arrows at him. The various members of the Order you have to hunt down was a bit anti-climactic. Only like two of them had interesting backstories that made them fit into the world more naturally.

More AC Odyssey. So, hunting the Order of the Ancients isn't nearly as interesting as the Cult of Kosmos. The most obvious reason being they're all confined to one region (Makedonia), plus there not being a whole lot of interesting backstory to most of them.

Started Legacy of the First Blade. Very early on, so I don't really have an opinion on it yet other than to say more "cultists" to hunt down the better.

Decided to go ahead and get the Legacy of the First Blade DLC episodes for AC Odyssey. I've enjoyed the core game enough that I figured why not.

Okay, weirdly enough I was able to beat Medusa with relatively little problem today. I put on the Immortal armor set, but didn't need to use the unique ability because I never got below about half health gone. Like I said, I'm not sure if I just adapted really well based on my struggles earlier, or if that new patch that they updated yesterday has lowered the difficulty of these boss fights tremendously. Because the Medusa I fought today wasn't close to the annoying POS I fought the other day.

I might have to use that armor piece. I wonder if they lowered the difficulty with this latest patch (today) or these other boss fights just are that much easier than Medusa. I took down both the cyclops guy and the ogre type guy with relative ease today. Not sure if it has anything to do with the patch or they're just easier bosses (I had trouble with the ogre guy when I tried fighting him before).

Guess it depends on what is considered the Bioware of old. Dragon Age Origins took a similar amount of time in (announced) production as Anthem and was also rebooted multiple times* and it turned out OK as a game and did very well financially- and post DAO the problem became the exact opposite, rushing the sequel too much. *'enslave nations with necromancy!' etc That's kind of my point though. It's not necessarily the length of the production cycle, per se, but a game taking that long AND being such a dumpster fire as a finished product. At least DAO was a good game when it finally came out. From the bits I played of Anthem, and from reading reviews/commentary from various online reviewers, Anthem's finished product looks like a game that literally took a year to make.

See, now that is how a "boss battle" should be. Finally defeated that Cyclops dude on that volcano island. He was tough because you had to both avoid his fire attacks as well as the shrinking field of battle as lava started to eat up the battle ground, but when I hit him with my weapons I actually felt like I was doing some decent damage -- which I should feel like at the level I'm at. The Medusa fight was annoying because of that. It wasn't only a challenge to evade her stone gaze and "bomb" attacks, but also the fact it felt like a massive waste of time to even try it because even when I was avoiding being hit, my own weapons were doing almost no damage and I felt like I'd be sitting there for half an hour just to whittle her down far enough to kill her. I'm just not a fan of bullet sponge bosses. If game designers are going to make them tough to beat, I'd hope it's because of some mechanic like you need proper timing to hit, or you need a specific strategy to damage them (ie. take down shields first before they lose health) instead of they're easy to hit, but it takes a million hits to kill them.