Hawke64

Dread Delusion. Got a house, reached the second main area. Some bugs have started to show up (e.g. an NPC referring to a quest I have not started), but good otherwise. Flynn: Son of Crimson. A platformer. I am not exactly good at platformers, but it is fine. Nothing particularly bad I can point out.

Dread Delusion I guess the wording is off - achieving one would be good, while getting both would be amazing. The other parts of writing do not feel so heavy-handed, so it is the character, rather than the writers. So, this is the boss. Nothing too spoiler-y, but might be better to experience first-hand. This is a mushroom. He is not wrong.

Dread Delusion. So far so good - I have been mostly avoiding combat by running and closing the doors in front of NPC. The writing and the visual style are excellent, the soundtrack is present (I noticed it changing significantly only around the Hollowshire Castle). The RPG systems (as in numbers) are simple, but present and generally satisfactory, same for roleplay - some quests have options for the methods and outcomes. The equipment has been rather limited - I have found 1 piece of armour, bought a stat-increasing hat and another armour set, and upgraded the rusty sword I got in the tutorial. Also found a bow, which I have not yet used. Somehow, it is nice when the game does not vomit Legendary Fire Swords +99 on you. I am not quite fond of the checkpoint-based saving system, but it is not the first game where save file management performed in Windows Explorer. Reloaded once so far -

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/skald-against-the-black-priory-review I will probably wait for a few months still, but it sounds quite good.

A Dance of Masks. Not exactly informative and I am quite certain that these are combat barks from the base game, but the focus on the companions is welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sycs4vdpxYw

Finished the There is no Light review. After some reflection, the general thing is that it is an action-adventure (and not a Souls-like nor a Metroidvania) with nice art and character development system and not so nice story/writing and level design. The foes clipping through each other and environmental hazards were also unpleasant. I am thankful for the key provided by ShadySands. --- Started The Last Express Gold Edition. Failed after wandering around the train for 10 minutes - could not find the quest NPC. The game looks amazing for its time, though the screen resolution and the mouse-based controls suggest it would work wonderfully on handheld devices. The in-game navigation is somewhat challenging.

There is no Light Ironically, there was a special death animation for the area, where the spiders were not retrieving the MC's corpse. "Don't listen to him, listen to me instead". It might be not exactly the best line, but he spider had a point. One of the collectible side quests. Well, they have tried with the altered quote. Her axe kept winking at me. All cut-scenes (except the secret true ending) are shades of grey. Stylish. They had been trying to murder me throughout the area. Did not meet the creature that cast the shadow. The boss. The arena had purple poison activated. The jars were providing protection from it and had been introduced earlier in the area. Unlocked the bestiary. I couldn't shake the feeling that the writing was off. The rocks were possible to stand on, despite looking like a part of the background. A rather unpleasant boss battle - the boss had no windup for most attacks, so I was just hitting once and dodging, occasionally using the rage/special/ability attack. Got a shield from it, which I proceeded to ignore. The backers, I assume. And this boss battle was worse - the arena had pits and the boss was zipping around. Cute fox. Such a nice and welcoming place. One of the few areas with maps. Since there were 3 objectives, which I deduced from staring at the map, trying to explore blindly would be horrible. As is, it was just unpleasant. A pretty bird. Did not do anything and was not a boss. The actual character development system was unlocked by defeating bosses. There were 4 souls possible to equip at the same time, so while sprinting was convenient, higher damage and regeneration felt more important, and so, traversing settlements was always annoying. The final boss and ending. I used the attack speed + increased regeneration built and was mostly just eating the damage. Felt actually good.

Finished There is no Light. Tried to do the true ending*, but the 2 stages of the final boss were not particularly inspiring (the first one was timed and had to be repeated in case of failure later on). Overall, I am not unhappy that I have played it, but the game is not good due to the story/lore, level and encounter design. I will try to write a proper review some time later. *it required completing all side quests. The one where I repeatedly led the local military to be slaughtered by me, while they were trying to murder random civilians, was funny. The quest giver at no point suspected the MC of killing his subordinates.

It was a joke scene, though. With Larian's usual type of humour. Well, the usual is more gory. Nonetheless, it did increase the game's visibility, and probably even more than Fox did for Mass Effect.

Finished Ghost Song. A very good Metroidvania in a sci-fi setting. Highly recommended. Review: Somehow amusingly, my playthrough have taken about 14 hours, while there is an achievement for beating the game within 3 hours. I am really curious how one could do so. --- Continuing with There is no Light. The combat became reasonably enjoyable, though the encounter design ("lol, ambush") is not. I also have realised what was bothering me about the story (aside from the part where every nice place was turning grimdark very quickly) - everything felt like descriptions of the actual dialogues or notes. Like something you give to the writer to start with, not the final script. On another note, I have discovered the health-increasing NPC on the last of the 3 available paths (which I could have taken as the first). Then again, I did not gather enough McGuffins for the NPC to increase my HP by much at that point either way (~16.6%, if I read the progress bar correctly). On a positive note, the locations differ from each other quite a lot, there are a lot of enemy types, and the visual style is quite lovely. Also, the inventory screen slightly changes as the optional quests are completed. Which supposedly unlock something and show the MC's background story. --- Downloaded a bunch of demos and have not played them yet. There is a good chance that by the time I have done so, the games themselves will be released, patched, and discounted.

Ghost Song The game is gorgeous. An early boss. Well, this I did not expect at that point. I realised only by late-game that these were the escape pods. The secret merchant probably was not wrong. The return runs were rather fun. Persuasion failed, I suppose. The first attempt did not go well - the boss' hitbox was ridiculously large (included the flail while just standing still and not attacking), while my melee weapon had a very limited range. Some lore spoilers. Happens. Tree stumps are good listeners, though. At least, she is not attacking anymore. The purple balls were not hostile and did not cause contact damage. One of the tankiest bosses. Took quite some time. Would high-five the murder bot at that point. End-game.

Grave Expectations by Alice Bell (the former deputy editor of RockPaperShotgun). It is a mystery novel with light gore. So far (~120 pages in) so good. I've also purchased the second book, Displeasure Island. The MC being a medium with a ghost sidekick slightly reminds of the Blackwell series. Godot 3D Game Development. I have read the preface (see the quote) and decided to continue with this book later. I strongly suspect that the editor was MS Word Spellchecker. Godot 4 Game Development Projects. Completed the first project. Some parts of code were missing. Still, fine for £2.

I am happy to see game developers having reliable employment. I never liked CDPR games, which seemed only to worsen since TW1, so hopefully, there will be no similarities. Larian games might have issues, but they are improving in some aspects. As the meme goes, "Stupid sexy Bioware". There is a very good chance that despite the DRM and rather poor system requirements (considering that it is an AAA, the graphics might be a priority), I will purchase it near the release date.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_skulls_2024_digital_goodie_bag

Ghost Song The first boss. The MC has a gun instead of the hand. Defeated another boss. Not sure which health bar was the boss, though. There is no Light The Two Fingers were larger. The Fallen Champion. Whose champion or where they fell from is unknown. Too many faces, but could be worse. Could be Giger. I do not know if the MC was hallucinating at that point. Curious if I run into the other wielders later on. Too many faces. The bane of all adventurers - chest-high wooden fence. Defeated another boss. Expected the leader of the Lunar Order. 9 Years of Shadows And here I decided to take a break - the MC was dying in 3 hits, the knight seemed invincible, there was no other direction to go. Aspire - Ina's Tale A Short Hike I did it.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/summery-soulslike-enotria-the-last-song-is-delayed-again-but-theres-an-8-hour-demo-coming-soon https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/redfall-will-receive-one-final-update-after-all-including-an-offline-mode

There are mods to remove the timer from the War Table missions. Some of these short text-based adventures are rather interesting. I think, the length not being a positive quality by itself was discussed in another thread (in relation to Owlcat's game design)? Edit. Curious timing. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/this-handy-list-of-mods-makes-dragon-age-inquisition-short-enough-to-play-again-before-dreadwolf-comes-out To be fair, we might be able to finish the game several times over before Dreadwolf even without these mods.

If you mean the Hinterlands, leaving it right after you have enough "points" (I think, it was the influence the Inquisition had on the key NPCs?) might be the best option. The area looks very lovely (with all those autumn forests and mountains), but aside from few side quests and the high dragon, it is leaning towards environmental storytelling, rather than more explicit narratives. Which is good in Souls-likes, not dialogue-heavy party-RPGs. While I did not dislike it, the large maps with little story impact per square meter were not the strength of the game. But at least I got an immortal horse. Better than Skyrim out of 10.

The last update on the physical goods was on 21 March 2024. I suppose, it is understandable that physical items are more challenging to deliver, but it has been two years. Still, I probably will get the Masks DLC and Owlcat's next game few months post-release (unless backing them).

Dragon Age: Inquisition - GOTY Edition is free on EGS. The EA App is still required, judging by the store page description. At this rate, if EA just released DAII and Inquisition (and the Mass Effect series) on GOG for full price, I would have purchased it just to avoid the damn DRM. Well, I still have the disc images (the games were released when the physical media were more popular) and the installation files, so might as well try to look for the "unofficial patches" online.

There is no Light. It is an action-adventure. There are several paths to follow from the start, but they seem to be rather linear. I think, I have finished 1 out of 4 main paths. So far, I have turned off the music (at one point, it switched to rock, which, while nice, was not appropriate for actually trying to fight off the ambush) and tried to switch the difficulty to the easier one (I cannot tell if I have succeeded). The visual style is beautiful and expressive (pixel art), the controls are rebindable, and the bosses have been quite diverse and challenging*. There is a karma system, and I assume that it should go up. Which it does from picking the "correct" answers in dialogues and completing side quests (somehow, telling a pilgrim that their god was not testing their faith by murdering them was bad, while telling a random settler not to report on his brother being a rebel was good). The setting seems to be post-apocalyptic and dystopian - the population lives in the underground train network, but there is also magic, with the protagonist's current patron being some soft of murder god. I like the combat system in general, but not its combination with the encounter design and level layout. The actions are mostly quite responsive, but when there are several foes with different attack states (can or cannot be interrupted) gathered around, it gets very chaotic, considering the speed. I have not found a way to upgrade the HP and the health-restoring consumables are limited, while the weapon upgrades do not directly increase the damage per hit. Though, there are several weapons, which seem to be unlocked by defeating main bosses. In terms of level structure, it is not a Metroidvania - after choosing one of the paths, the progression is mostly linear with short side paths which may or may not lead to something (was not worth it so far). Nor there are any traversal abilities to unlock. The levels are rather difficult to navigate and for the areas outside of the main hub, there are no maps. Occasionally, the level borders appear only after you reach them. I will try to finish the game. *died several times to the second one before noticing that the thing was counter-attacking. Nothing before had been doing so and there was no indication that the boss was parrying me (aside from my HP going down).

There is no Light The game was insulting me. Ironically, the difficulty does not seem to affect the bosses. An escort side quest. Just as planned. The second boss. It took me several tries to notice that he was killing me by counter-attacking. The MC continues being unlucky in the cut-scenes. I guess, domestic violence is not unrealistic, but kind of dark for a passing line. Then again, the setting seems to be grimdark. Not a clue what it was or why it was there already dead. Reminds of WH40K. The Messiah. The butterfly lied - the children were in a no-combat zone. Speaking of, Samedi feels less irritating than Issun was, which might be mostly because he appears less frequently. Still would have preferred him being quiet, but there are worse chatty sidekicks.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-witcher-3s-redkit-mod-tools-launch-may-21st-enabling-a-new-era-of-ambitious-overhauls https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/animal-well-review Steam discussions mention the controls not being possible to rebind, which is a deal-breaker for anything that is not a visual novel with 1 button controls. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/orpheus-may-be-missing-from-hades-2-but-hes-returning-to-role-playing-musical-stray-gods --- About the petition, it was initiated due to Ubisoft pulling The Crew, which had a single-player yet server-reliant mode, from the players' libraries. It is not the first time they are doing this, but before that it was "just" DLC for the older AC games. I would strongly prefer the publishers to be legally encouraged to respect their customers purchases. If the publishers in their wisdom, made the DRM in a single-player game to rely on the servers, surely they can spend work-hours on untangling the dependency. The smaller developers are usually nice enough not to try doing this.

Steam keys (from HumbleBundle): Axiom Verge Death's Gambit (already own on Steam; it was a rather enjoyable Souls-like Metroidvania) The Knight Witch

There is no Light I suppose, the sexism is to indicate that they are safe to kill. I think, the setting is post-apocalyptic. The protagonist has a rather interesting manner of holding swords. It is nice that the story and the gameplay fit well together. The first boss. Aspire: Ina's Tale Islets The final island: Did the timed challenge. Sheepo (The screenshots cover the full game). Kidnapping the eggs of local population on the behalf of an intergalactic organisation. Most locals don't care, the relatives of the eggs, do, though. Late-game bosses and ending. Fallout 4 Far Harbor, ending: Xanadu Next