Skill Issue

[DrBloodmoney]

Damn son, that was a beast!

 

A great issue as always - an odd one for me this time, as I've played Redemption and Revolver, but not RDR2, but dug reading those parts anyways - and you're right, those screenshots of 2 are gorgeous!

 

I never caught this:

 

17 minutes ago, Platinum_Vice said:

It is of course fitting that Jack found Ross fishing because Ross first met Jack many years earlier during Jack’s first fishing lesson. 

 

when I was playing - or at least, didn't remember, but that's some nice bookending right there!

[HelixNebula_x]

Your taste never disappoints Vice. I'm still yet to finish RDR2 and I've had it since release, and I don't tend to rate a game until I've wrapped it up, but if there ever was a 10/10 game then this is the one.

 

I read the whole thing as I had the story ruined for me within like 3 days of release, and I couldn't agree more with your views on the story. Fantastically done through both games in the series, although I never really felt the pull to be dishonourable as I always thought Arthur came across as a sweetheart in comparison to most of the rest of the gang. His interactions with Mary-Beth and Tilly only cement it for me.

 

18 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said:

Arthur Morgan

 

This absolutely sent me by the way. I'm not used to seeing Arthur so.....shaggy.

[YaManSmevz]

On 2/11/2024 at 7:41 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

025

Series: Red Dead Redemption

 

 

You killed it, my guy👊

 

On 2/11/2024 at 7:41 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

[Born Unto Trouble]

 

Can I just say, this little touch was genius? Being able to play a track from the game you're talking about and go right back to reading was so inspired. Between that and all the visuals (long a beloved staple of your checklist), it's like this is the closest you could possibly get to feeling like you're watching a video while reading! Props for the formatting man, it's top notch!

 

On 2/11/2024 at 7:41 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

[Jose Gonzalez - Far Away]

 

The inclusion of Jose Gonzalez’s ‘Far Away’ landed a direct hit with me... I still remember playing in the dark and deep in the night long after my wife (then girlfriend) had gone to sleep beside me. The prior missions had a natural rise in action and tension so I was still alert and pushing onwards. I had felt that some sense of real accomplishment was on the horizon... and then John and I were thrust deep into Mexico, a foreign land of (then) massive proportions yet to be explored in the slightest, and as Jose sang, we were indeed “so far, so far away.” It was a touching surprise to experience a sung acoustic piece in a western-themed video game. RDR1 and RDR2 just have an uncanny ability to feel as if they are speaking directly to me in these beautiful moments of creative direction and I have zero doubt that anyone who reads this – having played RDR1 – would say the same about this moment.

 

I love that you included this. You know it's coming (I mean Mexico is on the freakin map after all), but when it does it absolutely captures that moment in gaming where you're in a whole new place and, well not overwhelmed, but in the very least sufficiently whelmed with all the new things to see, learn, and do there are, while almost yearning for all the places and things you'd grown so used to. Games change settings all the time, but when they really make you feel it, that's something special. Now I wanna listen to more Jose Gonzalez..

 

Also, who of us married men do not know the feeling of reaching over for a controller and hoping the PS4's spirited beeping noise doesn't wake our sleeping wives😂

 

On 2/11/2024 at 7:41 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

 #100 (PS3) Red Dead Redemption, 10/10 

 

I might agree. Finally playing RDR totally fucked up my Rockstar rankings🤣 I love John, I love his story, I love that gorgeous map and how stunningly well it realizes the dying days of the old west. Fantastic analysis, my dude!

 

On 2/11/2024 at 7:41 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

 #76 (PS4) Red Dead Redemption II, 10/10 

 

Sigh.... soon, RDR2... soon.

 

Definitely dreading being responsoble for that trophy list, but not enough to miss out on more of this fantastic world, that's for damn sure.

 

On 2/11/2024 at 7:41 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

Red Dead Revolver:

  Reveal hidden contents

And briefly, right at the end of this overly-long post, this is where Revolver belongs: in the footnotes.

 

 

 

It was competent as a PS2 game and the port to the PS4 was also... competent.

 

It was developed by Capcom and then sold to Rockstar as a finished product, so it is nothing like the two Redemption games.

 

The dialogue is ultra campy. The ‘snappy’ shooting mechanics felt fairly smooth but all other gameplay mechanics were functionally janky. Boss fights in particular were the weakest parts of the game from a mechanical perspective.

 

 

The characters were one or two-dimensional, and there were odd changes in tone throughout the patchwork quilt of the plot, as playable characters were rotated every three or so missions for flavour and variety, and they each seemed to be written and coded by different devs with separate visions. For example, I enjoyed the stealth mission when playing as Shadow Wolf (an Indian man), but did not enjoy the arena-style shootout against a magician and an army of midget clowns when I played as a dual-wielding, pinstripe suit-wearing Englishman.

 

 

Funnily enough, the PS2-era level design was something that I found enjoyable but that was because it reminded me of PS1 platformers from my early gaming days. The level designs interwove in a way that I presume prevented unnecessary technical load on the PS2’s hardware limitations, and so the levels therefore look like piles of spaghetti, even though the plot is far too campy and uninspired to be compared to a spaghetti western.

 

 (PS4) Red Dead Revolver, 6/10 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, a perfectly placed tribute to what (kinda) started it all. Agreed with all points here - I'd completely forgotten about Jack Swift's fight with that weirdo, and yes it was quite a pain in the ass😂 It certainly has its charm, but everything is very 2D, and while I enjoyed it for the most part, it's nothing I'd hurriedly recommend to... well, anybody!

 

As usual, you've outdone yourself, my friend. Great work!

[DrunkenEngineer]

This is an insanely impressive write up.  I've just finished RDR1 on PS4 (having played it many times, many moons ago on X360) and felt like a stammering idiot trying to sum up my thoughts.

 

What you wrote down is perfect.

[Platinum_Vice]

026

This is for you. We bout to get 

SPICY

up in here.

 

You:

 

Me:

 

We're not making any friends today. Don't say I didn't warn you. 

 

No butthurt pls

 

__________________

 

Bloodborne -vs- Elden Ring

 

 

These are the two games that I’ve experienced from the FromSoftware catalogue. They both have some concurrent brilliance, some common issues, and other differences that I’ll compare as well. To start: they both inherit these five remarkable details just by being part of the Soulsborne family: 

 

1. Corpse running and safe havens. I love that experience points are a precious resource that are at risk until you reach a safe haven, and that the player can spend those points to upgrade themselves as they see fit. The freedom to choose how to upgrade is one of the cool design mechanics that players enjoy when developing a unique build. Corpse running brings about an inherent tension that I find deeply engaging. I really like how influential FromSoft’s corpse running has been throughout the industry. 

 

2. The online interactivity with other members of the community. I love the messaging system. The simplistic vocabulary birthed a variety of memes for trolling (“try finger but hole”; “invisible wall ahead”/ ”try jumping"; misnaming animals as other animals such as calling a turtle a “dog”) but that’s counterbalanced by genuine advice and “I did it” messages that bolster our sense of accomplishment. My immaturity was rewarded by an inordinate amount of appraisals for my many “offer seed” / “offer pickle” messages.

 

 

The crazy thing about Bloodborne’s system in particular is that upvotes on your messages results in being gifted a blood vial. By the last third of my playthrough I was getting a handful of these a night. They wouldn’t be waiting for me as extra inventory items when coming online at the beginning of a session; instead, my health would get critically low or my blood vials would be close to running out, and only then - mid-combat - would I receive the bonus, and it would be accompanied by a huge wave of relief. FromSoft built this gifting system to offer an illusion that another player liked a message at just the right time to help. I felt thoroughly rewarded for the community input by complete strangers and it prompted me to appraise the messages of others much more often. 

 

3. Animation-based combat that usually requires enemies and the player to commit to an attack. I believe that this commitment results in a more measured and intellectual combat than when it is compared to most other video games. 

 

4. A small detail, but I love the idea of putting the player up against a very difficult enemy right at the beginning of the game so that the player faces a quick and early death for the sake of humility. It teaches the player that failure is going to be a natural part of the experience and, later when the player comes across the same enemy after multiple hours of play and defeats it, it shows them how far they’ve come. It feels immensely satisfying. It’s a great go-to example of “play, don’t show or tell.” I don’t know when this idea started in gaming but the earliest example I can relate this to is Cloud coming across what Sephiroth did to the Midgar Zolom in Final Fantasy VII when Cloud and the player feared it.

 

 

5. Both Bloodborne and Elden Ring have outstanding artstyles. 

 

Bloodborne has some incredible eccentricities that I thought were genius:

Insight:

I had a standout favourite moment from my Bloodborne experience. Fairly early on, players come to a cemetery courtyard in the city of Yarnham which features a glowing orb off to the side. It makes an odd sound and approaching it is very dangerous, because it sucks you in, pulls you up into the air and crushes you to death. Much later in the game you return to this courtyard having reached a new plateau of skill and have therefore gained enough perspective to see things that were previously invisible. Bloodborne tracks that symbolism using an in-game resource called ‘Instinct.’ Approaching that same courtyard with sufficient Instinct reveals that the glowing orb was actually the hand of a hideous monster clinging to the side of a building. It was never a glowing orb that was killing you... it was something far worse. The idea that this monster existed the whole time but was invisible because we did not yet have sufficient perspective to comprehend it is scary... and then... we are left to think ‘what else is out there? What else will cause us harm with no foreseeable warning?' As I see it, Eldritch/Lovecraftian horror is particularly special because the premise that ‘knowledge causes madness’ is deeply applicable in life. Sometimes it takes a while to gain a better perspective to see things that were previously invisible.

 

Image Source

 

The artistry of the world: 

Yarnham is absolutely gorgeous. Even when it’s ugly, it’s still gorgeous. 

 

The skyboxes are spectacular. 

 

Yarnham is so... wet. Wet stone walls reflect candlelight and wet stone paving reflects blue moonlight. I recall moving through the streets before facing the Cleric Beast and Father Gascoigne; every iron rod sticking out of the stone walls looked like it had a custom shape. Each stone looked like it was laid a hundred years prior by real people. Each building and window appeared unique. Going through those haunted streets left a fantastic first impression of FromSoft’s efforts because it felt completely foreign to regular game designs with repeated assets and textures. Yharnam felt so lovingly crafted and therefore so different. 

 

Image source

 

Rich purple clouds and a blood orange moon... icey-blue castles... rich mahogany interiors... these things remain with me years later. I had such a sense of wonder exploring FromSoft’s creation in this first experience because I wanted to know what it was that they had waiting in store for me around the next corner. 

 

Image source

 

Level design: 

To me, a shortcut is the most satisfying thing about a FromSoft game. More satisfying than defeating a boss. This is not because I am glad to have less game to play. It is just innately fulfilling to swing a gate open and realise that you’ve created a circuit in a three-dimensional environment. Ascending a ladder and opening a trapdoor (or kicking down a ladder back to a lantern, et cetera) feels rewarding. Discovering shortcuts leads to a relief to have returned to a place of security and to have beaten a difficult segment. Additionally, it comes with the realisation that I’d been walking in one big circle for half an hour and have now closed a loop, and that ‘clicks’ something in the back of my brain where I’d been mentally mapping the level subconsciously. 

 

Often, I found myself struggling to progress through a linear path. I’d die, then try to get back to the same spot to collect my souls, then go deeper, and die, and repeat. Often when successfully reaching a place where I’d discover a shortcut it would trigger a thought in my head: “I only just made it this time and I died a lot to get here. I have to do it again so that I can master this loop. If it gave me this much trouble, I could probably use more practice and more souls before I take on the next loop.” 

 

Aggressive combat: 

Wow, Bloodborne’s combat was insanely fun. The regain mechanic? YES! I’ll have what she’s having. It was so incredibly satisfying to ‘win back’ lost health by shaping up and staying in the fight instead of rolling away like a bitch. Bloodborne never wanted me to tank hit after hit, but it did want me to experiment with being up close and far away, with attacking from the front, from a flank, and from the back. The regain system gave me great confidence in a game that playfully works to undermine it. 

 

The gun-parry mechanic was *chef’s kiss*. 

 

The ‘trick’ weapon system that allowed multiple attack styles with the same blade was inspired.  

 

Hopping, dashing, rolling, sweeping attacks, stabbing attacks, gun parrying, quick swipes with a one-handed attack and charging a strong attack with two hands... it was all so aggressive and responsive. I always felt like I had a chance in any fight, even if I was a scrawny underdog one hundredth the size of my opponent. 

 

Image source

 

Such a cool aspect of these games is the variety of combat builds able to be customised to match your own playstyle, and I find it so interesting to hear which boss was the first big obstacle for each individual player. Of the first four bosses, it is a crapshoot which one will challenge a player the most because FromSoft’s boss design is so varied that different bosses are hard for different playstyles. Personally, Cleric Beast felt like a slightly more powerful version of the common wolves and Father Gascoigne was very easy for me. Vicar Amelia was the hardest boss in the game for me (requiring more attempts than any other boss including Chalice Amygdala), and the Blood-Starved Beast was tough, but not as hard as I'd heard it to be. Hearing other’s experiences with the first five bosses always interests me – who was your kryptonite? 

 

Sound design!  

Squelchy, bloody, screamy. That’s it in a nutshell. I can still hear the gong of the visceral attack and the scream of the Cleric Beast.

 

Image source

 

Bloodborne is not perfect. It has flaws: 

Digesting the story is the true Final Boss. 

As my first FromSoft game, I didn’t know what to expect. If I played this game in a vacuum and thought the story was simply open to interpretation, I’d celebrate it because what I interpreted was pretty cool. I didn’t know that all FromSoft games have a legitimate story that isn’t accessible until you and others play repeatedly. As I saw it on face value, I’d woken up in a nightmare where townsfolk with torches and pitchforks seemed to be hunting me. Upon beating a boss I would be given a reward screen saying “Prey Slaughtered”. It seemed to me that maybe I was sick (a werewolf, maybe?) but my madness made everyone else look crazy instead of me? I mean, what are the chances that on the night of the full moon, everyone else is stark-raving-mad but I’m fine, and I heal myself by injecting vials of blood into my thigh while dodging rabid creatures and churchgoers... 

 

I noticed a pattern: I was defeating the nasties of human nightmares until those things feared me. It started with common fears from our physical realm: dogs, beasts, hooded men in dark alleys, an angry mob in the middle of the night, spiders... then the fears slowly transformed into less-tangible things like growths that induce trypophobia, ill-lit forests and getting lost, heights, darkness, the invisible and the unknown... and finally, in Bloodborne’s final act, you ascend beyond the physical realm to face the nightmares of the cosmos: creatures from other dimensions, gods, and, as you discovered over the course of the game, death itself. By the end of the game you are the final boss. 

 

“Prey Slaughtered”? It started as a tale of survival. Eventually everything is trying to survive us. 

 

Bloodborne is a game about surviving your deepest fears... like a night in England.

 

Except, the thing is... I have no idea how different my interpretations were from the actual story because I refuse to look it up. Was I close? I don’t know. 

 

Additionally, FromSoft’s use of language in these games is too cryptic. I don’t find it charming that everyone is softly spoken and talking in riddles.  

 

The Health bar should be in the ‘top-middle’ of the HUD. The player’s desire to recover lost health is core to the aggressive gameplay. I shouldn’t have to be wrenching my eyes away from my tiny health bar in the top left corner of the screen to try to see a boss telegraphing his incoming moves. This is one of the two reasons why a boss’ health bar is in the lower middle of the screen – FromSoft know we look at it all the time and it adds to the tension. While the suit from Dead Space wouldn't fit the vibe of Bloodborne, some way to see the health bar in the middle of the screen would be perfect.

 

The Chalice Dungeons sucked.  

 

Farming Blood Vials also sucked. I appreciate that the Estus flask needed a shake-up to allow for more charges in this aggressive game, but requiring players to farm blood vials was a poor substitute.  

 

This guy's favourite weapon is a brick - aha! It's @Copanele! 

 

Bloodborne summary: 

This game is amazing. It features a bespoke world design, combat system, artstyle and benefits from a handful of other features consistent throughout the FromSoftware library. I truly believe that the only core issue here is a lack of a structured plot. There’s juuuuust enough hints of one that I wanted more. And I don’t necessarily mean ‘more’ as in ‘a more substantial plot,’ I mean ‘more’ as in ‘something (anything) that is actually communicated to the player.’ Being a werewolf that thinks it’s the only sane creature on the night of the full moon could be substantial enough. Being a milquetoast bitch that is afraid of his own shadow and takes a stand to face his fears could be meaningful enough. This is gaming, so I don’t need a story for the sake of one if every other element is amazing and the gameplay is inherently fun. But if that’s the case, don’t have characters talking to me in riddles as if there is a plot that I should be following... because I am deeply lost with it. Asking players to put together jigsaw hints that haven’t even been localised properly into English is senselessly inane. Everything else about this game is killer. It was a fantastic experience and I'd love to jump back into it again.

 

 #46 (PS4) Bloodborne, 9.5/10

 

 

I have some significant bones to pick with Elden Ring. 

We’re not starting with the good stuff. We’re cutting straight to the heart of the problems. 

 

The open world: 

I hated it. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it. 

 

 

Here’s the thing about Soulsborne games: they’re supposed to be hard. 

And here’s the thing about things that are hard: the more alternative choices you have to skirt an obstacle, so much smaller is the likelihood that you will push yourself to overcome it.  

 

I pushed my way through Bloodborne’s challenges because I rarely had a choice to proceed other than getting better at learning the attack patterns of a boss, or turning back to find a place to grind to level up. Both of those choices (in theory) better prepared me to deal with the next challenge that the game threw at me. 

 

Elden Ring gave me too many choices for places to go and I collapsed under the weight of that experience. The enemies could have been just as difficult as they were in Bloodborne, but why struggle against a Tree Sentinel if I could just... go somewhere else? And that mentality unfortunately stuck with me for the entire experience. That’s problem #1: giving me too many excuses to not engage with the core gameplay loop. 

 

And yes: I absolutely blame FromSoftware’s game design instead of holding myself accountable for that, because I had no way to tell where I was ‘supposed’ to go, or why I was going in any direction. I think this was because FromSoftware wanted me to have two simultaneous states of mind: that I can go anywhere to take on any challenge, and that I can quit any challenge to go somewhere else. Those two states of mind are in direct conflict with each other. That’s problem #2. 

 

What this inevitably leads to is riding around until finding a spot that is “more my speed.” Doing so leads to problem #3: even if FromSoft doesn’t want to tell me where I should go, it also refuses to assist me being sure of where I have been and where I am now. I quickly lost track of where I needed to come back to. There is, of course, no in-game mission tracker. 

 

Problem #4: after exploring as much as possible, I became far too overlevelled. With the expectation that players will go wherever they want to go and make up their own stories, FromSoft completely abandoned any hope of balancing enemy difficulty and damage output. Enemies were either too weak or too hard (one of us was going to handily beat the other after three to four attacks) and players can’t tell before beginning the fight. The lack of balancing (or ability to differentiate enemy difficulties before entering combat) rapidly dissolves the game’s combat system. The idea of FromSoft’s intended difficulty for each fight is unclear. Difficulty loses meaning because there’s no standard point of reference. 

 

It is one thing to not understand the plot. It is another to not fully understand what each stat does. It is another to not understand what each item does. I put up with these issued in Bloodborne because I enjoyed the core gameplay loop.  

 

It is unforgivable to also not have any fucking clue where I am or which direction I should be going.  

 

There is a completely different psychological reaction to these two scenarios: 

1. Bumping up against the same obstacle without any other direction to go. 

2. Standing in an open field and having virtually unlimited options of places to go, and knowing that you’ll be getting bitchslapped and curbstomped in all of them.  

Asking your players to pick one of eight points on a compass and allowing them to think “one of these eight directions has to be manageable... right?” is atrocious. It is a failure on the part of the devs to cause players to become stationary, rooted in quagmire as to which direction they should go, and then have them wonder whether they should have chosen a different direction instead. The psychological effect in scenario 2 is that the player’s desire to overcome obstacles will diminish and they are taught to avoid challenge, not overcome it. And as I said, the difficulty of the enemies could be exactly the same in both scenario 1 and 2 but people will react differently to them. In Bloodborne, there was an intrinsic motivation to keep going just because there was no other option. I just knew that I had to get through an alleyway, or a tunnel, or a sewer, or a castle, and that was the game. In Elden Ring the game felt like it was sabotaging itself. Unfortunately there was no plot to follow (or any other motivation) to assist with this issue.

 

Outer Wilds appears suitable for comparison until realising how much better that game is with providing contextual clues in its open galaxy and allowing players to feel like they're discovering clues that relate to tangible quests. It also tracks answers to the player's burning questions and indicates when an area isn't fully explored.

A Short Hike fails to track quests (and has no map) but it's infinitesimal compared to The Lands Between and features an opposite tone, so it's a poor comparison.

Burnout Paradise has no plot or mission structure and features an open world without motivation... but the gameplay is not designed to cause players to struggle against it for an extended period of time until they 'get good.'

Hyper Light Drifter is difficult and has no text - instructional nor dialogue - and it allows players to choose one of multiple open routes extending out from the hub world... but it is still designed for players to be funnelled into balanced combat scenarios where they can feel a sense of progress.

 

 

Genuinely: what is the player’s motivation to play this game? Because all I can think of is “getting to see the creative artstyle and the wacky boss around the next corner” and “saying that you did it/being one of the eLiTe ChOsEn gamers.” ...Don’t even get me started on the Soulsborne community. 

 

 

The open world is not conducive to the FromSoft identity of overcoming obstacles by getting good. FromSoft gameplay is not conducive to exploration. 

 

Elden Ring having an open world is like the exorbitant modifications to the cars of Xhibit’s Pimp My Ride. Putting a spa in your van is undoubtedly unique. The common man has never combined the combi van and the common spa. But there’s a reason for that. These things are oil and water. It took FromSoftware seven Soulsborne games before they added an open world and it’s not because they haven’t thought of it before or because the technology hadn’t caught up to the idea. It’s because the idea sucks. It is discordant to the essence of their gameplay ethos. 

 

 

The gameplay loop is only one factor. There’s no sense to this world at all. Bloodborne is a cohesive experience. It escalates to the otherworldly but it makes sense to the progression of the game’s horror theming. It makes sense within the game. It is a singular tapestry that weaves ideas together. Elden Ring’s open world is a hodge-podge of random elements that rarely clicked. The sprawling scope undermines any sense of visual or logical cohesion. It is impressive to have a lava area, and an ice area, and a swamp, and a castle and a blah blah blah in the game... but they’re on each other’s doorsteps. Biomes don’t feel like anything. Atmospheres competed for my attention. Enemies occupied spaces that weren't practical for them. Elden Ring's world is like Frankenstein’s monster; multiple unnatural elements stitched together in a form that is barely comprehensible. That’s problem #6. 

 

Problem #7: there could be some positivity in the variety of elements coming together like a melting pot: there’s an abundance of weapons and heaps of them looked like they’d be fun to try out... but unlike my character’s stats (which could be altered with one of my many Larval Tears), trying out cool weapons was almost completely off the table due to the complexity of the upgrade mechanics. This was very frustrating because I wanted to get more involved in making combat builds. The incredible indie gem Tunic (which featured corpse running that was surely Soulsborne-inspired) rewarded player experimentation and exploration. It wanted me to try out new stuff as a way to overcome the fundamental design choice of refusing to give players straight answers for almost anything... 

 

Tunic's menu. Players won't know what any items do until using them. Using them a lot causes them to become more common. Image source.

 

There's still no story. (Problem #8)

The obtuse nature of FromSoft narratives harks back to Miyazaki’s younger life experiences of reading English fantasy and science fiction books and not being able to understand everything due to his lack of knowledge of the language. He filled in the gaps with his imagination. Was he “reading it wrong?” 

 

Yeah, actually, he was. 

 

And channelling those feelings into the way Soulsbornes tell their stories is a misstep. Considering that items and stats and plots all require community interaction to establish functions and lore, Miyazaki shouldn’t have bothered localising these games into English at all. To be honest, I think this would only strengthen the cultism surrounding these games. He may as well fully commit to the bit. 

 

Maybe it’s me... maybe I just don’t possess a sufficient creative spirit, but I cannot comprehend, understand or endorse having an impenetrable narrative. Congratulations to those who take part in the community to decode the lore and meaning of what is taking place, but I’m not going to engage in the extracurricular activities that are required to understand what is happening in the game. Few other games do this. Of all the ways that key Soulsborne game mechanics have permeated the industry, having an impenetrable narrative is not one of them. And that’s because it sucks.  

 

Players should never have to go to external places to understand what is going on. We don’t tolerate this in other games, nor other art mediums such as books, TV shows and movies.  

 

 

The use of language in these games is too cryptic. I don’t find it charming that everyone speaks in riddles. These riddles are given to the player by NPCs that can be found ... um, sitting, and .... standing... That’s problem #9: every non-enemy is completely static and lost in a dreamlike trance. Who is drugging these NPCs? They may as well be T-posing. Genuinely, if the content of conversations with NPCs is going to be this obtuse, don’t even pay for voice actors. Keep it silent. Hell, just cut this entire process of delivering information to the player because it isn’t working. When I came across NPCs in Bloodborne, I thought that the hypnotic trance affecting NPCs was unique to that game. "Of course she’s talking like that and barely moving, we’re in a dream, duh." ...But the NPCs in Elden Ring are the same. 

 

Unlike having an interpretation of the story of Bloodborne, I have nothing from Elden Ring. Did we find the ring? I don’t remember? We burnt the tree – I remember that – was the ring a physical ring or was it an age-ring in the interior of the trunk of the tree?

Which one was Melina and which one was Malenia?

Malekith? Margit? Morgott? Mohg?

Which one was Godrick and which one was Godfrey?

Rykard, Radagon, Redahn, Rennala? 

 

Ellen is a cyclops maiden who lost her ring. We have to help her find it because she is a cripple who can only sit and mumble.

 

 

Problem #10: I was promised George R. R. Martin. Where he at?? 

 

Me looking for George R. R. Martin’s influence, 2023, colourised.

 

Considering his writing style is so distinctive, I got zero hints of Martin's involvement. 

 

 

I appreciated the following undeniable positive components of Elden Ring: 

I can respect the scope of FromSoftware’s appetite.

The size of the world is massive.

The scale never affected fidelity or technical performance.

The amount of enemies and boss encounters was staggering.

The quantity of build options was lavish.

Similar to Bloodborne, it was remarkable how infrequently I spotted reused textures and assets. 

As far as reusing bosses goes – I didn’t mind it. There’s a degree to which I can appreciate a “revenge” match-up, or a “same battle, different playing field” rematch, or a fight with a “final form – this time it’s for keeps.” 

 

 

Finding every castle was like playing a different game. A better game. One where I could explore a digestible amount of food per bite. Stormveil Castle was probably my favourite part of the game. Clearly I have chosen the wrong Soulsborne game to play... maybe I should have tried Dark Souls instead. I was relieved every time that I reached a castle or some man-made structure because I knew that I was about to explore a small labyrinth that had been specifically designed and tested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still have strong memories of Volcano Manor. Elden Ring impressed me when climbing Leyndell’s dragon wing and finding the alternate Roundtable Hold.

 

 

My favourite boss battle was Rykard – just ‘wow.’ 

 

 

 

 

Really, the ‘wow’ of it all is Elden Ring’s ace in its sleeve. The visual spectacle of the world of The Lands Between carries this game. 

 

 

 

 

My critiques aren’t levelled anywhere at FromSoft’s effort... just the cohesion of the world, inherent design ethos and issues at the core of the genre itself.  More like Smell-den Ring, amiright? Gottem.

 

Elden Ring closing: 

Many of the things that I loved about Bloodborne were absent here. Apparently they were unique to that game.  

 

Elden Ring offered me distinctively less reasons to play it than Bloodborne. The open world tripped up what was a solid gameplay loop... it just threw too many wrenches into the gears. It undermined the motivation for me to play it. And for what? A Frankenstein’s monster of a land that gets under its own feet by throwing dissonant elements together without any sense of visual or pragmatic cohesion.  

 

And there’s even less plot than before.

 

These issues aren't just bad game design, they're unforgiveable. At least 40% of my time playing this game was awful.

 

 

Yes. I believe it is bad game design. No clickbait or forced contrarianism here – just a thought-out and genuine belief. I think that the cult status of the genre has blinded too many people to the glaring faults with Elden Ring’s open world and with the series’ refusal to provide (or simply decline altogether) a narrative-based motivation. The Emperor has no clothes. 

 

The best parts of Elden Ring outweigh the negative: the continued gorgeousness and creativity of FromSoft’s flair for visual spectacle. It is further propped up by the key positive components of the Soulsborne genre: the unique online mechanics, a diverse quantity of build options and combat mechanics (again, all of very high quality), and the merging of those three strengths for the fantastic variety of boss battles.  

 

Sometimes it takes a while to gain a better perspective to see things that were previously invisible. I have the humility to accept that I do not yet have the sufficient perspective to see why everyone adores this game so deeply. I am willing to accept that I might be wrong with my views. Maybe one day I will possess sufficient Insight to see Elden Ring as a 10/10... But not today. Maybe it really is a Skill Issue.

 

 #134 (PS5) Elden Ring, 7.5/10

 

Thanks for reading. 

 

 

Edited March 11 by Platinum_Vice

[Copanele]

Oh I've been waiting for this one!

 

Sunday suit on, brushed my teeth, took a nice seat and I will reply with the fact that:

1. I absolutely loved Elden Ring, even the third time around
2. You are absolutely correct with all your mentions 😂

But first, let's cover masterpiece No. 1 Bloodborne:

30 minutes ago, Platinum_Vice said:

This guy's favourite weapon is a brick - aha! It's @Copanele! 

My inner Joel from TLoU smiles. Bricks are the perfect weapons given to mankind 😌

 

Ahem...yeah what else can I say about Bloodborne that you haven't already? Amazing game, I think even Miyazaki said that Bloodborne is his best work even after Elden Ring, the story is so convoluted that you have to dig deep in the Chalice Dungeons to even understand wtf is going on (and no, you are NOT the danger, it's more Lovecraftian than that, but eh, don't think too much about it). Gameplay is divine, Yharnam looks like any Londoner's backyard (is there anyone who hasn't made that joke?) and the music...ah the music reminds me that at one point in my life I studied Latin. 0 knowledge but still, beautiful music.

 

34 minutes ago, Platinum_Vice said:

Vicar Amelia was the hardest boss in the game for me (requiring more attempts than any other boss including Chalice Amygdala), and the Blood-Starved Beast was tough, but not as hard as I'd heard it to be. Hearing other’s experiences with the first five bosses always interests me – who was your kryptonite? 

Unfortunately my kryptonite was this asshole:

And no...not Darkbeast Paarl. To be fair, my kryptonite was my own dumb ass rushing in and getting skewered by a gang of "HUUUUH YE'RE NOT WANTED 'ERE" . But in terms of bosses, the only TRUE roadblock was Loran Darkbeast. The final boss of Lower Loran who was the most asinine fight in the entire game. I had no issues with Ebrietas, Ludwig was manageable, Orphan of Kos was decent if you parried him rightly....but this lanky ass skele-pikachu was the bane of my existence for several hours, mainly because it's the only boss who brought my sweet 30FPS down to 15 FPS. Also he hits like a truck.

 

And yeah...Chalice Dungeons suck ass. I did NOT like them one bit.

 

But now let's get to the problem child - Elder Bling

 

I absolutely loved this game, there's no secret about it. I believe it's truly a game that will be talked about ages from now on.

But I also agree with all your points about Elden Ring, because that's super valid criticism. Elden Ring is also a terribly flawed game and bashing the game because of the flaws is absolutely normal. It's only up to the player here to either accept those flaws or say "this game ain't for me".

I also believe that Elden Ring and Fromsoft games got too famous for their own good, but that's a discussion for another time 😂

 

For instance, the key difference here:

50 minutes ago, Platinum_Vice said:

Elden Ring gave me too many choices for places to go and I collapsed under the weight of that experience. The enemies could have been just as difficult as they were in Bloodborne, but why struggle against a Tree Sentinel if I could just... go somewhere else? And that mentality unfortunately stuck with me for the entire experience. That’s problem #1: giving me too many excuses to not engage with the core gameplay loop. 

 

And yes: I absolutely blame FromSoftware’s game design instead of holding myself accountable for that, because I had no way to tell where I was ‘supposed’ to go, or why I was going in any direction. I think this was because FromSoftware wanted me to have two simultaneous states of mind: that I can go anywhere to take on any challenge, and that I can quit any challenge to go somewhere else. Those two states of mind are in direct conflict with each other. That’s problem #2. 

 

Reason why I actually disliked Sekiro (and that is MY unpopular opinion) is how deprived of options I was. In comparison, Elden Ring is like my dream coming true - I can go anywhere and do anything. Yeah yeah I have to kick some lords, fuck off I want to go to the slimy red swamp and whack some dragon butts because I want to get an extra point in faith. The game actively tried to send me TOWARDS the goal and I actively REFUSED to get to that goal. My happy happy joy exploration led me to finding a stupid ass anchor that could get covered in barnacles and I had the time of my life beating the "thoust would'st thy elden ring tarnished ye" jimbos with my Jack Sparrow outfit. Right until I got distracted by another shiny kitchen knife that blasted red paint on the enemies.

 

But you see, that is my kind of jam. I played a lot of super old school action-RPGS that would simply throw you to the wolves, no map, only some loincloth, go forth my son. Having to figure shit out in a huge sandbox. I do understand though that having no constraints is actually a reason to get stressed out 😂

 

In which case, all you had to do was following these golden lines on the map:

 

 

These lines show you exactly where you have to go in order to reach the "next point of interest". If you ever get lost, the Grace will guide you or something along those lines, several NPCs tell you that, whenever they don't call you maidenless. And I know that you already figured that out 😂 but honestly this is a thing done first in Dark Souls 1 - if that path is blocked by a beastie that absolutely uninstalls your game when it hits you, then you definitely have to take the other path.

 

Which makes me realize that you might not really like Dark Souls 1 that much... 😅AH WELL!

 

1 hour ago, Platinum_Vice said:

Genuinely: what is the player’s motivation to play this game? Because all I can think of is “getting to see the creative artstyle and the wacky boss around the next corner” and “saying that you did it/being one of the eLiTe ChOsEn gamers.” ...Don’t even get me started on the Soulsborne community. 

If you ask me, main reason why I played this game 3 full playthroughs is because:

Playthrough 1 - "what the FUCK is going on there" was my main motivator

Playthrough 2 - "can I beat this game in my underwear and with a stick" was my second motivator

Playthrough 3 - "ok I tried being a melee god, let's try to be a lightning spitting god" was my third motivator.

 

Yes unfortunately the game is way too big for me to replay it the same way as I would replay Dark Souls 1, but all 3 playthroughs were absolutely fantastic for me. 

This is only ME speaking though  

 

Also the biggest flaw of Elden Ring is STILL the community. There's no fixing that. Everyone swarmed around this series like flies, saying that "it's impossible bruv" and "if you don't play like I do then you're worthless". Can't do anything about it unfortunately.

 

1 hour ago, Platinum_Vice said:

There's still no story. (Problem #8)

The obtuse nature of FromSoft narratives harks back to Miyazaki’s younger life experiences of reading English fantasy and science fiction books and not being able to understand everything due to his lack of knowledge of the language. He filled in the gaps with his imagination. Was he “reading it wrong?” 

 

Yeah, actually, he was. 

 

And channelling those feelings into the way Soulsbornes tell their stories is a misstep. Considering that items and stats and plots all require community interaction to establish functions and lore, Miyazaki shouldn’t have bothered localising these games into English at all. To be honest, I think this would only strengthen the cultism surrounding these games. He may as well fully commit to the bit. 

 

Maybe it’s me... maybe I just don’t possess a sufficient creative spirit, but I cannot comprehend, understand or endorse having an impenetrable narrative. Congratulations to those who take part in the community to decode the lore and meaning of what is taking place, but I’m not going to engage in the extracurricular activities that are required to understand what is happening in the game. Few other games do this. Of all the ways that key Soulsborne game mechanics have permeated the industry, having an impenetrable narrative is not one of them. And that’s because it sucks.  

 

Players should never have to go to external places to understand what is going on. We don’t tolerate this in other games, nor other art mediums such as books, TV shows and movies.  

With this, unfortunately, I will have to 100%, no 1000% +5% Tax agree.

 

I too believe that the story in Elden Ring is absolutely dogwater. 

 

To be fair, the story in Dark Souls/Demon's Souls isn't amazing either. Heck, even Bloodborne kinda sucks (you start with the beasts and cursed blood and then you go Eldrich horror but the game...forgets...about the cursed blood somehow?). But the little cryptic story worked in the contained world of those games.

Here though? As you said, you only remember the names of said characters because of the ass whooping that they give you. Melina, Malenia, Godwyn, Godfrey, Godefroy(!!!! yeah there's one!!!) ,G--angsta paradise...I could not give a single damn about these fools at all. Even the loathsome DUNG EATER, the poopooman himself, is interesting for exactly 5 minutes until he legit sends you to find shit. In fact, the only part that interested me was Ranni's questline, because she wanted to fuck shit up. Other than that, I had no idea why I was beating all those large dudes.

 

And yes, I think Miyazaki (or whoever wrote the script, let's be honest) fell into the trap of "adding a journal/log/comprehensive story is not Fromsoft-y enough" . Caveat - I could not give a damn what happened in the Night of a Thousand Knives, I just wanted to 1v1 WWE Supersmackdown Hoarah Loux.

 

As for the involvement of this fine gentleman:

One has to piece out the initials of every single boss in the game to understand the link. Godfrey Rennalla Rykad Maliketh for instance 😂

Also Mohg kindapped an "underaged Miquella" to make him his consort. Goddamn Targaryens Mohgwyns.

 

But yeah, Story sucked. Should have covered it in my review too.

1 hour ago, Platinum_Vice said:

Finding every castle was like playing a different game. A better game. One where I could explore a digestible amount of food per bite. Stormveil Castle was probably my favourite part of the game. Clearly I have chosen the wrong Soulsborne game to play... maybe I should have tried Dark Souls instead. I was relieved every time that I reached a castle or some man-made structure because I knew that I was about to explore a small labyrinth that had been specifically designed and tested.

That is the favorite section for many - the "Legacy Dungeons". Stormveil, Leyndell capital, Haligtree (ish, seriously screw that area 😂), it's what made Souls games so famous, now in Ultra HD. No wonder you loved that  

 

And now for the finale:

1 hour ago, Platinum_Vice said:

Yes. I believe it is bad game design. No clickbait or forced contrarianism here – just a thought-out and genuine belief. I think that the cult status of the genre has blinded too many people to the glaring faults with Elden Ring’s open world and with the series’ refusal to provide (or simply decline altogether) a narrative-based motivation. The Emperor has no clothes. 

 

The best parts of Elden Ring outweigh the negative: the continued gorgeousness and creativity of FromSoft’s flair for visual spectacle. It is further propped up by the key positive components of the Soulsborne genre: the unique online mechanics, a diverse quantity of build options and combat mechanics (again, all of very high quality), and the merging of those three strengths for the fantastic variety of boss battles.  

 

Sometimes it takes a while to gain a better perspective to see things that were previously invisible. I have the humility to accept that I do not yet have the sufficient perspective to see why everyone adores this game so deeply. I am willing to accept that I might be wrong with my views. Maybe one day I will possess sufficient Insight to see Elden Ring as a 10/10... But not today. Maybe it really is a Skill Issue.

I will gladly accept any criticism here, but I still believe that the games that Fromsoftware does really aren't for everybody. And I don't mean that not everyone can finish them, no no, but I don't think everyone could appreciate what they do. Here I only speak for the whole Souls/Bloodborne aspect, because my god I can't touch the pew pew robots series called Armored Core (good games for their genre but my god they make me want to quit gaming; personal taste ) 

I don't think they're truly bad design, because they definitely must have done something right if people in my entourage who only played FIFA and Counter Strike gave this game a go and were absolutely lost for tens of hours in that world. But it is also a very moody design, messy and too big for its own good, it definitely breaks stuff that made the other games great, but also improves where the other games failed.

 

I can't believe I would appreciate a jump button like that in a game 😂

 

I will stop here because I don't want to reply with an equally lengthy review. Bottom line, I absolutely loved the entire madness that you wrote there, it's the post that I have been waiting for 😂 all you wrote is valid criticism and it's actually fun to see others' perspective on the games that I enjoyed.

If I say for certain games that they're the reason I still play videogames, well this post here is the reason why I still hang around in the Trophy Checklist thread.

 

GLORY TO THE BRICKS!

[Platinum_Vice]

Sorry Copa - been AFK for a while and I wanted to respond properly...

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

let's cover masterpiece No. 1 Bloodborne:

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

(and no, you are NOT the danger, it's more Lovecraftian than that, but eh, don't think too much about it)

 

Oh really?? Damn! I thought I was onto something there! 😰

 

A swing and a miss.

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

ah the music reminds me that at one point in my life I studied Latin. 0 knowledge but still, beautiful music.

 

Oh okay... I'll have to ask you about that. Latin lyrics or there's Latin-influences in the composition itself??

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

Unfortunately my kryptonite was this asshole:

And no...not Darkbeast Paarl. To be fair, my kryptonite was my own dumb ass rushing in and getting skewered by a gang of "HUUUUH YE'RE NOT WANTED 'ERE" . But in terms of bosses, the only TRUE roadblock was Loran Darkbeast. The final boss of Lower Loran who was the most asinine fight in the entire game. I had no issues with Ebrietas, Ludwig was manageable, Orphan of Kos was decent if you parried him rightly....but this lanky ass skele-pikachu was the bane of my existence for several hours, mainly because it's the only boss who brought my sweet 30FPS down to 15 FPS. Also he hits like a truck.

 

See? That's what I'm talking about! It's so cool to hear how others struggled against different bosses based on their playstyle and build.

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

But now let's get to the problem child - Elder Bling

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

But I also agree with all your points about Elden Ring, because that's super valid criticism. Elden Ring is also a terribly flawed game and bashing the game because of the flaws is absolutely normal. It's only up to the player here to either accept those flaws or say "this game ain't for me".

I also believe that Elden Ring and Fromsoft games got too famous for their own good, but that's a discussion for another time 😂

 

I think you've mastered the balance of agreeing with someone and disagreeing with them on something else. Got a textbook 'shit sandwich' in this example. 

 

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

The game actively tried to send me TOWARDS the goal and I actively REFUSED to get to that goal.

...

 all you had to do was following these golden lines on the map

 

It's a shame that we had such a different experience with this, because I struggled with what felt like a poor difficulty curve in following the golden lines. 

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

If you ask me, main reason why I played this game 3 full playthroughs is because:

Playthrough 1 - "what the FUCK is going on there" was my main motivator

Playthrough 2 - "can I beat this game in my underwear and with a stick" was my second motivator

Playthrough 3 - "ok I tried being a melee god, let's try to be a lightning spitting god" was my third motivator.

 

Great!!

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

Melina, Malenia, Godwyn, Godfrey, Godefroy(!!!! yeah there's one!!!)

 

😂😂 Of course there's a Godefroy and a Miquella as well 😂

Wait... are you being facetious in pointing out that so many bosses have the initials 'G,' 'R,' and 'M' as in 'George R R Martin' or is that an actual thing? Because if that's an actual thing, I hate that!

Wow 😂 that's a deep cringe on the narcissism front!

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

I still believe that the games that Fromsoftware does really aren't for everybody. And I don't mean that not everyone can finish them, no no, but I don't think everyone could appreciate what they do. Here I only speak for the whole Souls/Bloodborne aspect, because my god I can't touch the pew pew robots series called Armored Core (good games for their genre but my god they make me want to quit gaming; personal taste ) 

I don't think they're truly bad design, because they definitely must have done something right if people in my entourage who only played FIFA and Counter Strike gave this game a go and were absolutely lost for tens of hours in that world. But it is also a very moody design, messy and too big for its own good, it definitely breaks stuff that made the other games great, but also improves where the other games failed.

 

Well said.

 

On 3/11/2024 at 10:25 PM, Copanele said:

I will stop here because I don't want to reply with an equally lengthy review. Bottom line, I absolutely loved the entire madness that you wrote there, it's the post that I have been waiting for 😂 all you wrote is valid criticism and it's actually fun to see others' perspective on the games that I enjoyed.

If I say for certain games that they're the reason I still play videogames, well this post here is the reason why I still hang around in the Trophy Checklist thread.

 

GLORY TO THE BRICKS!

 

Thank you mate 

 

...

 

And then I never replied to others from the RDR reviews:

 

On 2/11/2024 at 11:59 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

that's some nice bookending right there!

 

True! Some clever callbacks and fan service sprinkled throughout that sequel!

 

On 2/12/2024 at 6:01 PM, HelixNebula_x said:

Your taste never disappoints Vice. I'm still yet to finish RDR2 and I've had it since release, and I don't tend to rate a game until I've wrapped it up, but if there ever was a 10/10 game then this is the one.

 

I read the whole thing as I had the story ruined for me within like 3 days of release, and I couldn't agree more with your views on the story. Fantastically done through both games in the series, although I never really felt the pull to be dishonourable as I always thought Arthur came across as a sweetheart in comparison to most of the rest of the gang. His interactions with Mary-Beth and Tilly only cement it for me.

 

 

This absolutely sent me by the way. I'm not used to seeing Arthur so.....shaggy.

 

Thanks Helix! Yeah both Arthur and John are always honourable to women. Arthur is particularly prickly in the first couple of acts towards the men, though. Having just replayed it I found that he is quick with zingers towards some of the blokes within the gang and sometimes the insults felt quite unnecessary! Sometimes I found myself finding him overly grumpy and nasty... and yet I never thought that all when playing in 2018... and yet I am more grumpy and nasty than I was in 2018!

 

And (of course!) if you can grow facial hair in a game, I will almost always do it. 😄 I try to make the main characters look something like myself as often as possible. This often trends towards colour choices as well with a reliance on blacks, greys, whites, reds and blues like my own wardrobe. Hats are rare but jackets are essential! RPGs, man... The vanity!

 

On 2/13/2024 at 12:12 AM, YaManSmevz said:

You killed it, my guy👊

 

 

On 2/13/2024 at 12:12 AM, YaManSmevz said:

Can I just say, this little touch was genius? Being able to play a track from the game you're talking about and go right back to reading was so inspired. Between that and all the visuals (long a beloved staple of your checklist), it's like this is the closest you could possibly get to feeling like you're watching a video while reading! Props for the formatting man, it's top notch!

 

Thank you - without the time to host a YT review channel, I have to just push this little blog as far as the format will let me.

 

On 2/13/2024 at 12:12 AM, YaManSmevz said:

Also, who of us married men do not know the feeling of reaching over for a controller and hoping the PS4's spirited beeping noise doesn't wake our sleeping wives😂

 

Definitely been there! 😰

 

 

On 2/13/2024 at 12:12 AM, YaManSmevz said:

I might agree. Finally playing RDR totally fucked up my Rockstar rankings🤣 I love John, I love his story, I love that gorgeous map and how stunningly well it realizes the dying days of the old west. Fantastic analysis, my dude!

 

On 2/11/2024 at 11:41 PM, Platinum_Vice said:

 #76 (PS4) Red Dead Redemption II, 10/10 

 

Sigh.... soon, RDR2... soon.

 

Definitely dreading being responsoble for that trophy list, but not enough to miss out on more of this fantastic world, that's for damn sure.

 

I liked RDR2 so much that I wanted to give it an 11 after the second playthrough. It made me see all other 10/10s that I've reviewed as 9s. RDR2 sits at a lofty height and only Halo 1 can get up that high for comparison. Unpopular opinions to have, but we all have 'em. 

 

I am very much looking forward to hearing your experiences with RDR2, and considering how long it is, would you consider doing checklist updates for each of the 7 chapters as you complete them?

 

 

On 2/13/2024 at 10:57 AM, DrunkenEngineer said:

This is an insanely impressive write up.  I've just finished RDR1 on PS4 (having played it many times, many moons ago on X360) and felt like a stammering idiot trying to sum up my thoughts.

 

What you wrote down is perfect.

 

And that goes for you, too, by the way!! Both regarding a request for a chapter-by-chapter of RDR2 and also as a way for me to respond to your own review of RDR1 being perfect. 👊

 

_____

 

The next Skill Issue will tackle the WB Games Freeflow combat system versus Insomniac's Spider-Man. My goal is to be absolutely strict with myself on the brevity front. Long reviews should really be saved for the special games. 

 

Thanks everybody

 

[ProfSeajay7]

On 11/1/2021 at 10:44 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

That's actually a great point - in the age of trophies, the bar for what games I will keep going with post-platinum has been raised quite a bit, but The Witness did for sure!

I have to agree on that point. A game has to have fun content to play after the platinum pops for me to not delete it and the save data. For me, that game will always be...

 

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Thanks to the progression mechanics and the leniency of the collection requirements(all under 70%), I was able to be down to four trophies by the time the story credits rolled, which compensated for the god-awful decision to make ghost speech last for a minute every paragraph.

 

I'm just about to pop the final two trophies - just have to wait for my cats to grow up so I can breed the fourth-generation child and then snap a few photos - but will this game be deleted? Hell f*king NO. Thanks to the Buildertopia sandbox areas you can create, you can recreate any city or location in your favorite video game with the right amount of blocks and accessories. I intend to keep playing for these reasons:

1. I'm not even closing to 100%ing the Builderpedia.
2. I want to recreate some cool video game locations like Bellsprout Tower in Pokemon Gold/Silver on my own little island.
3. I need to finish up the castle in Cerulean Steppes. (I have a nice little Chapel of the Children and torture tower on a nearby cliff. )
4. I have to complete the remaining Tablet Targets to get the final reward from the Hairy Hermit, binoculars that let you build from a distance.

Yes, this is a building simulation game. Yes, I'm about to pop the platinum. But I want to have something to play after I burn myself out on trophy hunting, something that won't pop a trophy when I complete the Builderpedia or whatnot. Just a nice fun thing to do. I have Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince but that only goes so far as it's a Nintendo Switch game. I have Princess Peach Showtime but I'm playing that on weekends for my five-year old niece who is a big fangirl of Princess Peach.

 

This game is staying on my PS4 Pro until the day I die and I'll delete my entire lineup before I remove this game to clear up the PS4 Pro's hard drive.

 

So yeah, I apologize for the huge rant but I just wanted to say that there should be life after a game's platinum and if there isn't, it's gone. I don't care if Shantae is cool, she has nothing for me after I get the platinum on The Seven Sirens. 😜 The Builder will always remain on my console, however.

Edited March 24 by ProfSeajay7

[Copanele]

On 3/24/2024 at 3:32 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

Oh okay... I'll have to ask you about that. Latin lyrics or there's Latin-influences in the composition itself??

For this I have an actually documented reply  

 

 

Make sure to use headphones when listening, otherwise your furniture will start floating

 

On 3/24/2024 at 3:32 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

😂😂 Of course there's a Godefroy and a Miquella as well 😂

Wait... are you being facetious in pointing out that so many bosses have the initials 'G,' 'R,' and 'M' as in 'George R R Martin' or is that an actual thing? Because if that's an actual thing, I hate that!

Wow 😂 that's a deep cringe on the narcissism front!

Nah here I was mostly joking and GRRM himself said it's a pure coincidence

But also...it kinda fits? We will never know 😂 One thing is for sure, the main demigods all have a G, R or a M as their initials. So that's why everyone went conspiracy theory on it hah

[Slava]

I think this marks my first (and long overdue) appearance in your domain. I've taken a glance before, now I'm diving in fully.

 

First of all, I have to say, you're underselling your stuff in the intro post. I see this:

 

On 11/1/2021 at 6:05 PM, Platinum_Vice said:

This is what you can expect from me: 

- A little blogging about games I have played/am playing with some opinions and a review with a rating. I like pretty pictures... look out for the pretty pictures.

 

... and then I go and read some of the most well-written and thoughtful reviews on the forums 😁. From top to bottom, high quality stuff. I like the visual side too. You illustrate your points well. And of course, the memes. This is me while scrolling though a page here:

 

 

I'm interested in a whole bunch of games you have covered here, from Sony mascot platformers to some indie games. I also see some scores I disagree with, so I'll visit again for sure. But today I wanted to leave some comments on

 

On 6/30/2022 at 8:31 PM, Platinum_Vice said:

Series: God of War

 

I read most of the 3 posts covering and analyzing the series. Not all of them, because I haven't played all of the games, of course. By my thoughts on the first 2 entries in the francise mostly mirror yours. I'll go over some bullet points first.

 

- Music. I often forget to mention this aspect, but it's very important. The soundtrack of God of War (1 and 2) adds so much to the game. Absolutely epic, even in the menu screen it sets the mood from the first couple of seconds.

- Level design. I feel the same way about Pandora's Tower as you do. It's one of the highlights of the first game without a doubt. It's interconnected, it tells a story, it's visually diverse - a lot to mention. But in terms of points of comparison, (and here's the part where my lack of gaming education probably comes to bite me) I assume it's supposed to be similar to 3D Zelda dungeons. There are these separate challenges with puzzles, a big fight at the end of each one, and a prize in a form of a new item or a power. After that, you return to the entrance, or a "hub area". I'm pretty sure that's how 3D Zelda games go. 

- Camera. Another thing I think I failed to mention in my own posts. But you're right. The fixed camera works really well here. When camera becomes a problem in games, we often point it out. When it works flawlessly for the entirety of (at least) two games in a row while moving around, pulling back, and performing all kinds of cinematic moves, we rarely mention it. 

- When I played, I didn't even realise that the high combo counter increases the amount of the red orbs you earn 😅.

- Kratos's death count is truly comical.

- You covered the story aspect really well. I don't have much to add except one thing about the first game that I think could've been done better, although it's probably a matter of preference. So the way the plot uncovers is often done through Kratos talking to himself, letting us dive into a flashback, then going back to fighting. Meanwhile, characters like Athena and the oracle are there, but they are reduced to being nothing more than direction givers. I know that other writers would've made them interact more, share about each other in conversations, and I'd probably prefer that. That said, maybe I'm wrong, and that's simply not how Kratos operates at this point in his life. He's being avoided, and he does the same in return.

 

Another thing that was on my mind is the popularity of Greek mythology in fiction. The reason is that I was playing Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation in parallel with both God of War games, and I witnessed the difference in designs of the same mythical characters (some of them are also present in Persona 3 which is still fresh on my mind). I remembered Disney's animated film Hercules as well. Just wanted to share one of the examples for your amusement:

 

one of the Sisters of Fate, Clotho, in Hercules:

 

 

Clotho in SMT:

 

 

Clotho in God of War 2:

 

 

Isn't it fascinating how different all three versions are? I'm sure there are more portrayals out there as well. And it's just one character. You can spend a lot of time comparing the rest.

[Platinum_Vice]

22 minutes ago, Slava said:

then I go and read some of the most well-written and thoughtful reviews on the forums 😁

 

Hey Slava!

For real, thanks for the compliments mate. 🥰

Welcome!

 

24 minutes ago, Slava said:

The soundtrack of God of War (1 and 2) adds so much to the game. Absolutely epic, even in the menu screen it sets t

 

☝️☝️ 

 

26 minutes ago, Slava said:

The fixed camera works really well here. When camera becomes a problem in games, we often point it out. When it works flawlessly for the entirety of (at least) two games in a row while moving around, pulling back, and performing all kinds of cinematic moves, we rarely mention it. 

 

Yeah I found it to be extremely effective. I found the fantastic use of the fixed camera outside of combat to be more impressive than the 2018 reboot/Ragnarok creating an illusion of a singular shot from beginning to end. It comes down to personal preference, of course, but the PS3 GOW fixed cameras allowed the player to come to their own conclusions about the size of these mythical worlds.

 

28 minutes ago, Slava said:

Kratos's death count is truly comical.

 

Yeah I think he dies just more than Goku but just less than Optimus Prime 😂 ... i.e. HEAPS.

 

28 minutes ago, Slava said:

Meanwhile, characters like Athena and the oracle are there, but they are reduced to being nothing more than direction givers

 

True, but this may be a comment on the functions of NPCs at the time. The end of the PS2 lifecycle was the Wild West so I can see an argument both ways.

 

29 minutes ago, Slava said:

Clotho

 

Oh, for sure. This is a great strength of Greek Mythology: reliance on archetypical characters. This is why it is so relevant today, and has been relevant since the time of the Ancient Greeks (and in the middle, hence the survival of the mythos): characters that are a template for people we will meet in our lives and through which we can learn things about ourselves.

 

For instance, I prefer the interpretations of Clotho where she is visualised like an old, bitter crone... troglodytic in nature, who relishes in the opportunity to gossip about the misfortune of others, and has no close family that cares for them. This personality is exactly the type that would find themselves in a position of power over the fate of others. There's a nugget of truth and inherent relatability there that we can learn from.

 

Likewise, I thought Ragnarok's interpretation of Thor was fantastic.

 

 

 

I know that you've just come from GOW2... It's so strange to me that the general critical consensus is that GOW2 is superior to GOW1.

 

GOW1 was such a bolt from the blue in terms of storytelling in games, in terms of level design, and it had so many great ideas.

 

GOW2's combat was not better, and those other factors were not up to the same standard. Crucially for me, Kratos' character degraded from two-dimensional to one-dimensional in GOW2. I couldn't see the improvements except for upgrading the quality of the cutscenes... and that's not a real metric to go by, is it?

[Slava]

9 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said:

This is a great strength of Greek Mythology: reliance on archetypical characters.

 

Yea, good point. This reminds me of Orpheus, whom I was reading about not long ago. There are a couple songs by Arcade Fire about him, which made me interested. Basically, he's a poet and musician. His wife died tragically. He played the saddest songs ever written, and was allowed to go to the underworld to recover the wife, only on one condition: she should follow his steps, and he must not turn and look at her until they're both out. He exited, couldn't wait to look at her again, and turned around too soon, while she was still on the other side. She had to stay in the underworld, this time forever. 

 

An interesting story, but it's only one of many different interpretations of him. Orpheus is indeed more of an archetype than a character. Generally, he's just a musician who sings about love. What kind of life-ruining events follow depends on the story.

 

Makes sense that the same applies to other heroes and creatures of the Greek myths.

 

9 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said:

Kratos' character degraded from two-dimensional to one-dimensional in GOW2

 

Can't wait for him to become the first zero-dimentional character in 3 😎. 

[Platinum_Vice]

027

WB Games' Freeflow Combat System

...and Spider-Man

 

 

 

 

The Freeflow combat system

In 2009, Rocksteady Studios developed the Freeflow combat system in a desperate attempt to create a competent licensed video game. At first it was meant to be a rhythm game – Guitar Hero had reached its peak cultural impact at that time – but Rocksteady abandoned that approach during internal testing. 

 

The Freeflow combat system was immediately fluid as early as the Arkham Asylum iteration. Animations were noticeably smoother and more varied than industry contemporaries due to Rocksteady’s investment in a motion capture suite. To the ear the combat felt crunchy and weighty. The interfacing mechanics were simple (even a n00b could do it – just press  and  on the lower difficulties!) and this resulted in the creation of a system that would be universally praised for over a decade. 

 

Rocksteady’s sequels Arkham City [2011] and Arkham Knight [2015] inherited the system and they each featured additional developments for combat breadth without altering the fundamentals. Their publisher WB Games ensured that development studio WB Games Montreal had access to the system for Arkham Origins [2013], and that their other studios Monolith Productions and Avalanche Studios would import the skeleton of the Freeflow combat system for Shadow of Mordor [2014] / War [2017] and Mad Max [2015] respectively. 

 

As I see it, Insomniac Games were flirting with litigious blowback with their combat system in 2018 upon their release of Marvel’s Spider-Man, as the combat in that game is extremely similar.  

 

Who did it best? 

 

Arkham Asylum’s combat is far more grounded than almost all of the other derivatives. The many additions to the system by the release of Knight made that game’s combat (in my opinion) the most fun of the lot. It was the ‘crunchiest’, most varied and it sounded like Batman was hitting harder then ever in 2015. It also lost any semblance of reason by that time... by that I mean that Asylum’s combat was arcade-y in tone but it was never as wildly unrealistic as it became as the series continued. “Grounded” is the last word that I would use to describe Knight’s combat. Batman’s horizontal jump distance exceeds Olympic standards by City, and I found it wildly distracting when it increased again for Knight. It’s a strange thing to gripe about but I remember disagreeing with critics in 2015: Arkham Knight didn’t make me “feel like Batman.” His gymnastic prowess actually made me “feel like Spider-Man.” 

 

Conversely, Insomniac Games’ approach to Spider-Man used “feeling like Batman” as the seed of their own combat system. In function and form it is remarkably similar. Spidie’s enemies hesitate even more than Batman’s thugs AND they keep more of a distance. This gives Spidie players more of an opportunity to used web-based moves to close those distances. Insomniac Games also relied too heavily on combat finishers and one-hit-knockout gadget abilities. 

 

 

 

The Shadow games feature what I describe as a “Freeflow Combat Lite” with reduced functions and reduced difficulty. Using lethal swords and a bow/arrow in combat mandated compensations for Monolith Productions’ decreased difficulty. Those two games are set in the heart of Mordor where players are regularly swarmed by over 20-50 enemies to attempt to achieve a re-balanced challenge. I didn’t find the combat as inherently satisfying in those two games. 

 

 

Mad Max’s combat is the most grounded. The sound design is the best by far. This Freeflow iteration is also the most legible despite having a closer camera. In my opinion, Max’s inability to jump over other enemies (on account of having his knee being shot out in the 1979 movie) slowed down the pacing with beneficial results. This game’s willingness to show Max killing others and its ‘brawler’-style of Freeflow makes it the most sensible and enjoyable to me. For those reasons it is my favourite of the many variations. 

 

 

Arkham Knight would get a close silver medal, but only because it is the most smooth and has the widest array of move options and character fighting styles. It has a clearly arcade-y tone that I enjoyed from a strict gameplay-only perspective and if I was to place my time into any of the games in a ‘score attack’ arcade style challenge to extend my Freeflow experience into the postgame, it would undoubtedly be with Knight. 

 

 

The Arkham trilogy

Each of these games takes place during a single night in Gotham. In theory, the increased wear and damage to Batman’s cape over the course of each of these three campaigns is supposed to be symbolic of his mental fatigue. It is more effective to have Batman become actually fatigued than to express that by way of a metaphor, but only Asylum and Knight depicted a Batman with his own fear and doubt.

 

Asylum introduces Scarecrow’s fear toxin as a multi-game foil and Batman finds it to be a formidable obstacle to overcome. One of my favourite aspects of that first game is the moment when it replays the opening cinematic; the batmobile arrives at Arkham Asylum and Batman drops off a captured Joker at the beginning of the game, and when the sequence is repeated at the halfway point in the campaign, Batman is hallucinating that the Joker is driving a captured Batman to the Asylum. Rocksteady implemented one of my favourite ‘meta’/fourth-wall breaks by imitating a ‘disc-freeze’/game crash which was meant to make the player fear the worst for their copy of their Asylum disc. 

 

 

 

Knight has similar moments where Batman hallucinates that the Joker is in his presence. Rocksteady employed multiple tricks (...jokes, if you will) to implement those hallucinations in ways that were novel for the gaming landscape at the time. I loved that. 

 

 

Knight also looked amazing on console. Like The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, Knight's graphical prowess and artstyle still looks great in 2024.

 

Crucially for me, I don’t like Kevin Conroy’s voice acting. I find him to be wooden. Batman himself is too much of a boy scout. Kevin’s performance and Batman’s horrible dialogue undermined tension in all three games. Batman has all the personality of a rake. 

 

 

 

 

Asylum had inherent tension, but City and Knight’s reliance on an open world side-questing collectathon model further undermined the darker mood that Rocksteady wanted to create. The stakes of the main missions in each game were high, and the choices to have each game take place over the course of a single night enhanced that creative vision, but the constant distractions with bloated content in the second and third games of the trilogy worked against it. Cutscenes at the beginning of those two games gave players fantastic backdrops/settings where I was immediately concerned that so many of Batman’s villains were out and about on the same night, but the illusion shattered over time because it became clear that there would just be static side quests waiting for me to activate on my own. 

 

 

 

I wonder if this could have been fixed by implementing a ticking clock that counted down from sundown to sunrise. Over the course of the night enemies in regular outposts, villains committing side quest activities, and main quest challenges could have become more difficult as a way to represent those enemies becoming more 'dug in' so that players could have had tension in deciding how to apply their time and efforts. If I understand correctly, Persona 5 does this by ensuring that players of that game cannot complete everything in a singular playthrough, and this adds meaning to what players do decide to do with their time.

 

 

BLOAT.

 

Meanwhile, Arkham City in City and Knight are very atmospheric in their opening hours, but again, those illusions are shattered fairly quickly. Those places are not alive. They are arenas. City is a series of arenas for Predator and Freeflow combat. Knight is a series of arenas for those systems and for tank battles with the batmobile. [Deleted: 'Batman: Ar-moured K-ore' joke]. 

 

 

 

Yet, Asylum’s small recreation of the compound on Arkham Island was functional and more grounded. Each building had a clear use and navigating through them left me fully engaged with the world as if it was a real place. There was a deep atmosphere that I felt throughout a full playthrough of Asylum. The plot, characters, combat and themes brought Rocksteady’s vision to life as a cohesive experience. Instead of multiple side quests competing for my urgent attention, Asylum was set out as more of a 3D metroidvania where you had to revisit prior locations as you progressed as a character. 

 

 

One of the best things about the Arkham games is the Predator combat. I never “felt like Batman” in Freeflow. I never felt like the “world’s greatest detective” during the games’ investigative interactions. The batmobile was definitely more of a tank than the slick and speedy batmobiles of yore or even Nolan’s bulky interpretation of what the batmobile could be. But... the Predator combat? Yes. That’s the real Batman shit.  

 

The game spaces were actually made for this type of stealthy gameplay. I liked Rocksteady’s commitment; enemies with guns one-shot Batman if you were caught faffing about.

 

I thought that the best aspect of City was the interplay between the villains. I liked that Clayface imitated (spoiler), and that the Joker killed (spoiler). And (spoiler) dies. One of the villains’ wives is saved by Batman and in return he synthesises two individual cures to Scarecrow’s toxin for the Bats and a +1. Hugo Strange created a massive slum for the Arkham lunatics, Blackgate convicts and Gotham’s political dissidents. Putting Batman and the Joker in the same cage where they both feared Scarecrow’s toxin was a missed opportunity for Rocksteady to explore their different values while they shared the common goal of survival. The Arkham City was also a wasted opportunity to explore mature subject matter about the nature of crime, ghetto life and morality, but Rocksteady barely applied a surface-level commentary. 

 

Batman’s integrity and sense of justice are never challenged. There is minimal player agency and no choices are required for any genuine moral issues. Batman stands for truth and justice and refuses to kill. This is fertile ground for ethical questions and that would have been a great opportunity for players to project themselves onto their own version of Batman. Importantly, I do not get to “feel like Batman” in any meaningful sense of that term.  The synchronicity between the player and the playable character decreases with the over-reliance on meaningless side quests (distractions) as the games progress over time, and therefore, I felt less like Batman as the series progressed. 

 

 

 

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor & Shadow of War

The only notable component of these games is the Nemesis System. It is a villain/feud generator. In an environment where the playable character and many of his orc enemies regularly fight and, for different reasons, often cheat death when defeated and return to the battlefield on the morrow, the Nemesis System tracks wins and losses among the player and their enemies. The system highlights particular enemies that have interesting combat traits (strengths and resistances to attacks), or interesting pre-determined story ideas (such as an enemy having a goofy voice or a mandolin – nothing particularly deep in terms of backstories). Those enemies are given names and combat will pause to give them a brief monologue when they enter a battle. Defeating them alters gameplay in interesting ways so that revenge match-ups play out slightly differently. 

 

The system is fantastic if viewed as a proof of concept and it’s the primary reason to try these games, but it becomes slightly tired by the end of each title. 

 

 

My favourite thing to do was to ‘recruit’ enemy orcs as allied spies.  

 

 

Orc military hierarchy. Blue = allied recruits.

 

I would use my recruits to assist me in battling their superior captains. If the captains were weak then we’d execute the captain together and my spy would be promoted. If the captains were strong with good combat abilities then I would recruit them too. 

 

Cultivating a network of spies and using them to turn their superiors to my cause was easily the most enjoyable aspect of the game. 

 

The plot and the world were terribly boring. The only interesting characters were the occasional orcs whose 2D personalities stole my attention for brief periods of time. 

 

 

As the Nemesis System has been patented and never built upon (or seen any return post Shadow of War), the great idea has not seen growth or any more-interesting applications. All open world games would benefit from Nemesis, as would massive IPs that could afford to pay WB Games for using it (such as Pokemon, Star Wars and anything related to tabletop-style RPGs). 

 

Sadly, not even recent WB Games releases Gotham Knights and Hogwarts Legacy used the Nemesis System. With more investment and widespread trial and error, this ‘villain generator’ could be highly effective as a genuine 'story generator,’ but apparently it is not meant to be. 

 

There is nothing else special about Shadow of Mordor/War. They are middling experiences at best and their lack sufficient character- or plot-based hooks hinders them from being meaningful or cathartic.

 

 

Mad Max

We’ve been playing Mad Max games for years now. We know them as 'Rage', 'Fuel', 'Far Cry: New Dawn'... the post-apocalypse of Mad Max 2: Road Warrior and Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome is far more iconic than they deserve to be when considering the quality of those movies. 

 

Fortunately, this game features car combat straight out of Fury Road.  

 

 

It was a tough choice between representing Aussies with the original Mad Max beauty – the XB Falcon – or one of the best-looking American bodies ever designed – the Corvette Stingray.

 

The game Mad Max is 50% driving in a wasteland and engaging in car combat, and 50% exploring bandit camps for a collectathon where bandits ambush you with Freeflow combat.  

 

And as dreadfully boring as I’ve made that sound, for some strange reason, I loved it. The sandy wasteland isn’t as dull as it appears as a conjured image in the mind’s eye.  

 

 

The car combat is the best part of the game. Cars are weighty with great handling and a well-implemented control system considering that you also have to handle a camera, crosshairs with two characters with multiple combat functions. The cars look great and they sound even better. 

 

 

 

The collectathon is exactly what is sounds like. I am not sure that Mad Max made a collectathon fun. I think I just played the game long enough ago that I still had the patience for it (having not played many collectathons – or many open world games at all) at the time. Yet, survival-lite mechanics ensure that the collectible hunting is built directly into the guts of the game. You have to explore the bandit camps fully to find food, water and fuel anyway. The game also regularly shows that you’ve progressed towards completing each bandit camp, or each region, or multiple combat challenges, with progress bars that show up on the HUD, so I found that playing Mad Max became a way to tap into a constant flow of dopamine every time I played. 

 

See how many interesting things are in this image of the wasteland in Mad Max? There’s still more interesting things in that image than the plot and characters of this game combined.

 

It is just a shame that despite the surprisingly-good visual aesthetic, the impressive sound design and fun experiences with Freeflow and vehicular combat, there’s (again) nothing meaty or meaningful from a character or plot perspective. 

 

 

Marvel's Spider-Man

More vanilla than vanilla itself. 

 

Insomniac Games dug into the vast library of 3D Spider-Man games that date back to the PS1 to get a feel for the webslinging mechanics. Fortunately, that mechanic seems to be their greatest achievement as I recall every 2018 review mentioning how “exhilarating” it was to just swing through New York without a care in the world. 

 

 

 

As stated above, the fist fighting is almost cloned from WB Games’ Freeflow combat but it feels even less grounded than the Arkham Knight experience. I never felt like I was earning Spidie’s immense power as we flit between the many one-shot kill techniques. The combat felt thoroughly meaningless and the goons felt even more generic than those in the Arkham games. 

 

The plot was relatively engaging as it followed Peter's attempts to juggle his priorities as he entered his 20s. Conversely, the dialogue was cringeworthy, and this game helped me come to a sudden realisation: as a grown-ass man, not all games are made for me. I am now old enough to have found my own solutions to Peter’s problems and therefore they don’t feel significant. 

 

 

 

I wonder how long Insomniac Games had been courting Marvel Studios. Sunset Overdrive had been my favourite Ratchet and Clank game since Up Your Arsenal on the PS2. I had enjoyed the punk rock aesthetic, the return to grindboot-based action and using wacky (original!) weapons. Since the release of Spider-Man I can see that, at a minimum, setting Sunset Overdrive in a city, retaining fluid movement-based combat mechanics, and finding the sweet-spot tone for an adolescent target demographic would have all been key features on Insomniac's curriculum vitae during meetings with Marvel executives as Insomniac Games tendered for those big Spidie-bucks. 

 

I can’t help but let my mind wander to those cynical places where I think about the boardroom meetings that undermine developer creativity... Marvel’s Spider-Man lacks any sort of creative risk or unpredictability. It is ‘by the numbers.’ 

 

On the positive side, it is successful in its plagiarism. It convincingly emulates characters written in the 1960s and re-imagined repeatedly for the last two decades, and it convincingly brings to life the world’s most recognisable city, and it convincingly imports webslinging from prior Spider-Man games, and it convincingly plagiarises Rocksteady’s Freeflow combat system.  

 

And to think, despite standing on so many shoulders, Insomniac Games brought this game to the dizzying heights of... vanilla. 

 

 

 

_________________

 

 

 #56 (PS3) Batman: Arkham Asylum, 8.5/10 

 #79 (PS3) Batman: Arkham City, 7.5/10 

 #21 (PS4) Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, 4/10 

 #80 (PS4) Batman: Arkham Knight, 8/10 

 #38 (PS4) Mad Max, 7/10 

 #64 (PS4) Middle Earth: Shadow of War, 4.5/10 

 #63 (PS4) Marvel’s Spider-Man, 6.5/10 

 

The most polarising title from WB Games was Arkham Knight. 

It could have been a game-of-the-generation contender if:  

 

- The batmobile had the combat depth of Mad Max,  

- The Freeflow combat included the Middle Earth nemesis system, 

- And if it wasn’t weighed down by so much bloated side questing. 

 

Unfortunately, WB Games’ policy appears to be that sharing amongst its developer studios was a one-way street leading away from Rocksteady. 

  

The cohesive vision of Arkham Asylum, its successful invention of Freeflow and Predator combat, and its commitment to an atmosphere and setting that refrained from the popularity of open world game design is why I prefer it to all of its siblings and cousins. 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Platinum_Vice