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You remember me?!?! I've been lurking and checking in from time to time. I haven't been playing games too much in the past few years. Work is long, I get tired, and doing nothing is always easier than doing something. But, I got really into TOTK this year and I've found unwinding with a game like that at night to be beneficial for my mental health, so I've been trying to play more games. Ahaha yeah I use to love Uncharted 3 didn't I?! And no it would be TOTK, the champ. But in all likely hood probably TOTK, Starfield, Mario Wonder, BG3, and uhhh TOTK again.

Starfield This game just would not end. I've never seen a game have so many distractions that are just interesting enough to keep me playing. I was never wowed. I never hated it. It is the bread of games.

Can I vote for the same game 5 times?

As you folks know, I've been a long time admirer of PC gaming and have definitely never said anything dismissive of it. I really love the Switch, it's everything the Vita wanted to be. It's just, especially in 2022, a little under powered. While Nintendo games are great on it, it's missing a lot of the third party games. So on July 17 2021 I reserved a Steam Deck 256GB and on July 18 2022 I was finally able to order it. During the Steam Summer Sale a few weeks ago I bought: Red Dead Redemption 2 Fallout 3 Fallout New Vegas Elder Scrolls IV Elder Scrolls III A few days ago I also bought Sable.

Pokemon Legends Arceus The best Pokemon game since Gold/Silver and unless BOTW2 comes out this year I think it'll probably end up being GOTY.

Spider-Man Miles Morales About a month ago I watched Into the Spider-Verse for like, the 5th time. It's still the best Spider-Man movie and maybe the best non-MCU super hero movie in general. Anyways, it got my hyped for some Spider-Man so I've been waiting for last year's Miles Morales to go on sale. I'm enjoying it but it's definitely a lot of the same stuff over and over. Oh something is broken, so Miles has to fix it, either you're moving some equipment around or (more commonly) you're following electrical cables to get a generator/fuse box restarted. I get that this is a video game so they increase the tech for upgrades and diversity of gameplay but I don't like that, between these games and the MCU, Spider-Man is becoming basically becoming teenage Iron Man. This Miles isn't as charming as Into the Spider-Verse but it's still a fun take on the character. NYC is beautiful and I love the holiday/winter vibes to it. Changing the season is a great way to refresh a reused open world.

Unrelated! They definitely took some "inspiration" but Edge of Tomorrow is a significantly better movie.

The Tomorrow War It's kind of inspiring a movie with a script this bad got made. It reminds me that just because I'm pretty bad at most things, that doesn't mean I can't achieve my dreams.

Stowaway Space! The set they built was pretty impressive and as a person who once passed a test on physics in high school, the science checked out. After this, Hereditary, and Knives Out I'm starting to think Toni Collette is one of the all time greats. It's worth a watch if you have Prime Video.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things What if Palm Springs starred a couple of teenagers?? The answer is this movie with its stupid title. It was pretty ok though even if I hate the youths.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey Man, the pacing in this was wack. The main quest line is really long and then it just sort of... ends. Seriously, before I was at the epilogue I had an out loud thought "oh shit, is this the end?". The reason for that is... (I'll keep things vague but don't read if you don't want to be spoiled on a 3 year old game). You spend most of the game trying to get a character to stop being evil. At the end he/she just, stops. Immediately. And then they're normal and the game ends. Wut. Now, remember, there's multiple endings, so that might not even happen for you. There is some obvious hints earlier on in the game that the character might be conflicted, but it's not really enough. It could have been a more natural progression, especially in a game of this length. That said, I really like Odyssey. I like it more than Origins. Origins felt too much like a mix between RPGs and traditional Ass Creed. It was definitely an important step. But Odyssey they said fuck it, this is a Witcher 3-style giant RPG and it's a better game for it. I do miss the traditional AC2/Syndicate style games and I hope going forward they alternate between these two styles. I think ship combat works better in these giant open world RPGs as well so maybe that's where they can include that going forward. Though, Valhalla didn't really have ship combat (despite having small boats) so maybe not. When I was playing Valhalla, since it was my first AC game since Syndicate, I went down the rabbit hole of watching some Ass Creed YouTube videos to better understand the lore. I noticed that a lot of the hardcore Ass Creed people REALLY hated this game. But they like Origins?? After playing Odyssey, I suspect they have issues with some of the lore breaking aspects, like choosing between Kassandra and Alexios. I get that can be annoying but this is also the series that spent 5 games building up Desmond Miles only for him to be unceremoniously killed off to set up a new villain who never appeared in the game and *checks notes* was killed in the comics. Huh. My point being, don't take this franchise's lore and overall story too seriously because clearly Ubisoft doesn't. Appreciate the game for what it is, it's still climbing buildings, sneaking in, killing enemies, so it's still Ass Creed at its core. I also saw Kassandra get a lot of hate online. This, I don't get. She has a lot of personality and honestly, is better than most Ass Creed protagonists. Honestly, all three of these RPG protagonists have been better than Arno, Jacob, Shae, or Edward. Kassandra made me LOL a few times without every being a joke and was serious at other times without ever being annoying. I still have a major sidequest line to do and some levelling up but then I'll dive into the Atlantis DLC.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Legacy of the First Blade A cool idea executed poorly. Allow me to explain... in spoiler tags! Odyssey has some weird parts of the game with huge level jumps, and the side quests are kind of boring so I recommend, despite me having some problems with this, playing it in the middle of the game (hence why I haven't beat Odyssey main game yet). Next up: finishing Odyssey, then the Atlantis DLC. And then Valhalla DLC should probably be close. The Ass Creeding never stops.

WHAT

Assassin's Creed Origins: The Hidden Ones Nice! This is more along the lines of what I thought a game about the origins of the Assassin's Creed would be. Spoilers for a game from 2017: In the main game, Bayek gives a speech that offhandedly mentions all the main points of the Assassins and then at the very end they just have a short conversation about forming the brotherhood and... that's it. This gives a better idea of what those early days were like. It is a little silly that they already have their outfits that is more or less the same look they'd be wearing for the next 2000 years but if you can suspend that sort of stuff it's a fun add on that ultimately feels like it should be the end of the main game. Assassin's Creed Origins: The Curse of the Pharaohs This thing is a slog and should be avoided. It feels weird that the first DLC is so connected to the main game and the second and final DLC is essentially a giant side quest. That's not good because the side quests in AC Origins are already too long and disconnected and this has all that in spades. Some of the areas you visit are at least geographically/environmentally different from the main game but the first of these special areas is by far the best one with the next three decreasingly less interesting. It's too bad this is how Bayek's story ends*. I give it a 6/10. *Welllll.... except.... Onwards to Odyssey. I like it more already.

Assassin's Creed Origins Tonight after 3+ years, I finally finished the main story in Ass Creed Origins. I can't remember exactly why this game didn't click with me in 2017. I really liked Syndicate but this game is definitely not that. At the time I know I said I didn't like the setting but that's stupid too because exploring Egypt was great. After playing Valhalla it was nice to explore some giant, beautiful buildings again. Egypt itself is beautiful, from the sand dunes, to the pyramids, to the swamp areas, to the beautiful cities, there's a lot of diversity to explore. Storywise I think it's pretty weak. The game starts without much explanation but doesn't do a good job building intrigue, characters just spew some clunky dialogue. In a lot of ways it has the opposite problem of Valhalla. In Valhalla everything feels drawn out and slow, but the end of Origins goes through major events very quickly. That said I liked Bayek and I like Aya. Assassin's Creed protagonists tend to (but not always) be charming rogues. I'm looking at you Ezio, Arno, Jacob, Edward. Bayek joins the ranks of unique male AC protagonists with Connor. I like how warm Bayek is especially whenever he's around children. He's easy to like without ever being frustrating. Aya is good too but I wish we got to see more of her. The times when you play as her are short and too infrequent. She disappears from the plot for large points of time. It reminds me of Syndicate with Evie being unfairly pushed to the side. I liked Layla in Valhalla but in Origins she's kind of the worst. Gameplay is clunky. It's not as smooth as Unity or Syndicate but it's not as good of an RPG as Valhalla. Progress is slow ,whereas in Valhalla I was constantly levelling up and unlocking new skills and abilities. The game is short too compared to Valhalla but full disclosure I still have a lot of clean up to do. The sidequests feel long which made me not want to do them because it takes away from the momentum of the mainquest. In that way I think Valhalla is also better because most of the time you spend questing is main quests, with the short mysteries being fun and quick. In Origns you might spent 30 minutes on a side quest that involves clearing out an enemy camp only to get a spear you don't want and 3000XP which move you up 10% of a level. I got really lucky with PlayStation putting the Season's Pass for Odyssey and Origins on sale today, so I'll do both packs for Origins before moving onto Odyssey.

Oh yeah it's definitely RPG, if you're looking for something like AC2 or Syndicate, that's not this.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla I have things to say! Long post warning! Minimal spoilers. Hey look! I beat a game on my PS4. I think I did FF7R earlier this year, FFXV last year, and then before that RDR2 when it came out. I just haven't been feeling the PS4 even with the Pro. Yet somehow I put 117 hours into this one. No platinum trophy but I've done all the endings, killed all The Order, and did a bunch of the side quest stuff for some end game weapons. Not only that, this was the first Ass Creed game I've finished since Syndicate. That's a long gap for a series I was, up to and including Syndicate, a huge fan of. Origins, I just didn't care for the RPG-ification of it, especially since Syndicate nailed the AC2 style parkour in-a-city gameplay. I also didn't care for the setting of Origins. Egypt was beautiful but in the 5ish hours I played of it, it all sort of looked the same. I liked the setting of Odyssey, and had come around to the RPG aspect of it, but it came out just as I was moving cross country. I've tried to pick it up but I left off in a boss fight and I couldn't remember how to play it in that situation and didn't want to restart. Before Christmas, I found myself with two weeks off, living in a city with a pretty severe lockdown. PlayStation put Valhalla on sale and I bit. Immediately I was into it. Far more than Cyberpunk which I tried but it failed to grab me. Cyberpunk is probably, almost certainly, a better game. But playing Valhalla was like catching up with an old friend. There's some comfort there, you know? I was initially disappointed when I left Norway for England. Norway was really cool, maybe a little Skyrim-esque but the verticality of it worked with the setting. England, I assumed, was going to be rolling, empty hills, with sheep. And there is some of that but each region feels different with it's geography and nature. I don't know if that's how England actually is and on TV they just show the green hills with sheep, or if Ubisoft embellished to create a more interesting gameplay world. While the forests, lakes, trees, hills, cliffs, etc feel unique the buildings themselves, outside of a few exceptions like Jorvik, feel extremely cookie cutter. A lot of buildings are just straight up reused. I'm not talking about small houses or anything like that, but major buildings feel like they get placed in three or four places (at least) with just minor changes made. That brings me to the disappointment in the cities themselves. I feel like other rural Assassin's Creed games, like III and Black Flag, balanced things well with still having bustling cities to explore that were a delight to parkour in. Despite this game coming eight years and a generation after those games, not only have the cities not advanced, but they feel downgraded. They're just not as fun to explore, part of that is the similar architecture but part of that is just the lay out of the cities themselves. In general I can't believe how regressive parkour feels. In some ways, it feels worse than AC2. I'm sure if I went back and played those games, I'd find ACV to be less frustrating. Eivor only seldomly jump to her death. But there's moves in AC2 that aren't present here. The series made a lot of progression in Unity and Syndicate and NONE of that is here. I can't for the life of me understand it. In loading screens, the game will tell you "you can climb every surface" which is not true. Most trees, in fact, can't be climbed which is a huge step down from III and Black Flag, which are, again, seven and eight year old games. Also, while i'm nitpicking, I was excited for viking sea shanties in this game, but they're just subdued acoustic guitar songs soaked in reverb. No one on your boat is even playing these songs and they're recorded/mixed in a way where they don't sound like they're being performed in that environment either. You're essentially listening to viking radio. Performance is pretty atrocious on PS4. The loading screens take so long, if you want to fast travel for somewhere around 1000m away, you might as well just walk or horse. A few side quests just don't work. During Yule Fest, every time you load a save, you'd start drunk which is REAL frustrating when the game crashes during a castle siege or a boss fight and you have to do a bunch of it drunk, both of which happened to me. Yep, the thing crashed more than any other PS4 game I've played. I can't believe people aren't more upset about it. Also, there's a glitch that limits your quiver to just 12 arrows, despite your upgrades. Lastly for the negative stuff, shame on Ubisoft for using male Eivor in all the marketing. I won't explain but female Eivor is clearly the canon one (kind of, sort of) yet it's male Eivor on the cover, in the trailers, etc. Lore wise, this game actually does stuff which I didn't really see in Black Flag, Rogue, Unity, or Syndicate. I can't comment on Origins or Odyssey. The present day stuff was never the most interesting but it was very frustrating when they killed off Lucy for no reason (because Kristin Bell got too expensive) and then killed off Desmond to set up a new bad guy that they immediately dropped. While the individual stories have usually been good the overall story between games has been meandering at best. This game appears to change that, hopefully they can stick with it. Assassin's Creed clearly needs some sort of series director guiding the entire series but I think Ubisoft just has too much internal movement for that, sadly. Ultimately, levelling up Eivor, exploring the world, forging alliances, raiding monasteries, it's all VERY addicting. It does get a little sloggish at the end, there's a few arcs that have characters show up later and I had no recollection of who they are at first. But there's a lot of progression and momentum in the game, and for a 90ish hour campaign (with lots of exploring), they paced it pretty well. The world is full of interesting things to find. I think back to the Unity map just being filled with chests, this is NOT that, the map is filled but there's lots of different experiences to discover. I may end up going back to Origins or Odyssey now.

How long did it take you??

That was a great speech. I'm happy for you Americans. And relieved that I won't be living next door to a super power controlled by a... well, you know.

@TheMightyEthan, Last I checked, in Oragami King I couldn't take a picture of my dog's fur and give it to a deer who would then have the pattern of my dog's fur. So, yeah. Sort it out Nintendo.