TheMightyEthan

I actually refunded it cause I hit a wall with the first boss and hadn't really been having a ton of fun (it was fine) up to that point, so I didn't feel invested enough to keep beating my head against the wall to get through it.

My wife loved Moonlighter, but it wasn't for me either. For what it's worth, I think Valhalla is widely regarded as the worst of the nu-style Assassin's Creed games.

You can get a month of game pass and then get the $30 upgrade to the premium edition for early access...

Red Matter This is a VR walking sim/mystery game that starts off pretty promising, but I don't think really lives up to its potential, and then the end is kind of a cop-out. The space base you're exploring is really cool though, with a faux-soviet aesthetic, and a really strong sense of place. I definitely felt like I was there, so that was cool. But overall, I felt like the beginning is a lot stronger than the end, and ultimately I felt let down by it. I'd recommend checking it out if you find a sale for a few dollars, but not otherwise. Grade: C

Same.

It's way better, the screen is much sharper and the tracking is flawless, none of the drift I would sometimes get with PSVR. Also, the lack of cable (when I want) is super nice.

Astro Bot Rescue Mission I actually beat this on PSVR last week before I got my Quest. It's super good. Easily the best 3D platformer I've played that didn't have Mario in the title, and pretty high up there even once you include those. The whole thing is just so charming, the controls feel great, the levels, while linear, are very dynamic. It's just a really nice game. Grade: A+ Batman: Arkham VR This one I did play on Quest. It's really cool, as far as it goes, but it's extremely short. You get a grappling hook, a taser, and batarangs, and I don't think I even used the taser once. There's only two scenes that even involved enemies at all, one was entirely scripted and the other I threw a single batarang to end it. Don't get me wrong, what's there is quite good, but there's almost nothing there. I'm glad I only paid $4 for it. Grade: C The Last Clockwinder This is a fun little VR indie puzzle game. You're fixing this giant machine, and you can record your own actions for a few seconds and it sets a robot guy on a loop repeating what you did. So for instance, you might need to cut a fruit off a stalk, combine it with another fruit, and then put it in a press. So you record yourself cutting the fruit off one plant, and tossing it toward another plant. Then you go over to the other plant, record yourself catching the fruit, sticking it to another one, and tossing it toward the press, etc. Your little robot clones repeat your actions on an infinite loop, it can get pretty complex and be immensely satisfying to watch. It's kind of got a Zachtronics vibe, where you can solve a given puzzle in 10 minutes, and then spend another hour and half optimizing that solution, or just call it good enough an move on. It's also fun to be able to see the little quirks of your own movements in your recordings. I have a couple minor complaints, like the gravity isn't Newtonian, so different objects will take different arcs when thrown at the same speed and direction, which can make aiming throws frustrating, but nothing that really detracts much from the overall experience. Grade: A-

I can see that. I was just appreciating that it's not beating me over the head with how metaphorical its premise is like every other indie puzzle game I've played recently.

3 VR games, surprising no one I imagine.

How do you jailbreak it?!

Meta Quest 2 I've been playing Astro Bot Rescue Mission on PSVR (which is a damn good game) and it's been making me think about how cool VR really is, but I've become increasingly aware of the limitations of PSVR. I considered getting a PSVR2, but ultimately decided to go with this because it's substantially cheaper, has nearly as good a screen, and will work with my PC so there's a lot bigger library to draw from.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale and Hue Both of these just weren't really grabbing me for whatever reason. Hue has a neat concept but the execution just wasn't there, I wasn't having fun and it does the mind-bending indie puzzler thing of having a disembodied voice talk at you about all the deep metaphorical ramifications of its central conceit. I'm so over that trope, and the gameplay wasn't there to make me persevere through it like with something like Superliminal. Chicory actually did have me at first, it's cute and doesn't rub your face in the message it's trying to communicate. The problem with this game is it's just too long for how repetitive it is. After chapter 4 of 10, which marked the fourth time doing more or less the same thing, and with no indication the remaining 6 chapters would be any different, I just lost all motivation to continue. I've heard lots of good things about this one, so presumably it's for somebody, just not me.

Venba This game is super short, like an hour and a half long, but it's great. It's a little story about a Tamil family who have immigrated to Canada, told around food. It's neat and very heartfelt and I highly recommend it. Grade: A+

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Armistice This is the last expansion, and it follows on from the previous one. It's kind of a let down, tbh, it just ends with no real culmination, and the story reasons from Ghost Fleet Offensive that excused the lack of a strategy layer are gone again, so it's back to just being frustrating. It did have some good character moments, and as far as the combat goes it's the same as ever, but it just was not a suitable finale for this game. Grade: C-

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Ghost Fleet Offensive This expansion keeps the reduced strategic layer from the previous expansion, but this time there are story reasons why it makes sense so it's less galling. Also, there are spoiler things that mitigate some of my other complaints, but obviously I'm not going to go into those here. Suffice to say it is an improvement over Resurrection, though without the grand strategy aspect it doesn't reach the same highs as the first season did. Grade: B On to Armistice, the last one!

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Resurrection This is the second major campaign expansion, and sadly the changes they've made I'm not a fan of. The biggest one is they've gotten rid of the whole grand strategy layer. Now, instead of managing a war across the colonies, occupying/fortifying planets, positioning fleets, etc, there's a much more reduced interface. You still manage fleets and officers, but there's not war map, you just send individual fleets on individual missions instead. It really loses something. The other thing is that most of the cast from the first "season" (base game through Sin & Sacrifice) is gone, replaced by a bunch of boring dudes with bad voice acting. I understand the story reasons for why that happened, but the game does suffer for it. Finally, the story is a bit of a letdown as well, it doesn't really go anywhere, and doesn't have nearly the impact of Sin & Sacrifice. That said, there are two more expansions left, and this one does set up some stuff that could be interesting if it pans out well, so hopefully it's really just the first part of a 3-part story and the rest redeems it. The core tactical gameplay is still there, and still as good as ever, but the package as a whole really feels like a letdown. Grade: C

The Expanse: A Telltale Series Been looking forward to this one, just was waiting to make sure that nuTelltale didn't shit the bed, and early reviews are pretty positive (around 80) so I snagged it.

Hell yeah, I love the white ones, if my Elite ever starts having problems that's definitely the one I'll get. FWIW I've never had a problem with the dpad coming off.

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Anabasis So, I didn't realize that unlike the other BSGD expansions this one isn't a grand strategy campaign, it's entirely a skirmish challenge mode. It has a "story" in that there's a premise and a narrative justification for why it's happening, but there's no real plot, it's just do these 10 missions, hope you can survive. It's basically FTL but in the BSGD skirmish engine. It's also stupidly hard. I played it on Easy mode with a completely OP fleet (you get a better score the weaker the fleet you start with) and still was barely able to survive to the end. I wouldn't have bought or played it if I'd realized what it was. Grade: D Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Sin & Sacrifice Okay, now this is what I'm talking about. This is the first real BSGD campaign expansion, and it absolutely rocks. You can import your save from the base game too, which means you keep all your fleets, fortified colonies, research, resources, etc, which is nice. I hate it when stuff like this resets your progress, but if you owned the Cyrannus system when you finished the base campaign then you still do when you start this one. Beyond that, it's just more campaign, so if you like that you'll like this, but it doesn't really bring anything new to the table, beyond a plot that really goes places. Grade: A+

That Which Gave Chase This is a cool little indie horror game, in the style of a PS1 game. It's in the arctic, you drive a dogsled, and there's creepy shit happening. It was pretty cool, and definitely different. I'm not 100% sure if I liked it, but it was only an hour long, and I definitely liked that it was different, so I'd still recommend checking it out if it sounds interesting. Grade: B

I've picked up a few things since last I posted here: All of them were sub $5 though, so I think I did pretty well. I've actually already finished both Yes, Your Grace and That Which Gave Chase.

Control Ultimate Edition Replayed this game cause I got hyped from the Alan Wake 2 announcement, and it's somehow even better than I remembered. Grade: A+

Live A Live This game is all over the place. It's basically 7 mini JRPGs, each of which is just a couple hours long, some of which I loved and some I hated. They're all so different that it's really hard to give an overall impression of the game. It's really pretty at least, in that nice Square HD2D style. The reason it's shelved instead of finished is because the final sub-game for me, Twilight of Edo Japan, just had a stupid layout that meant I wasn't going to get through it without running around blind for more time than I was willing to, or looking up a step-by-step guide which felt pointless to me, so I just quit. I finished all the others. This is a game where I really really want to like it, and I do like the concept, but the execution wasn't really there for me.

Spider-Man Remastered and Spider-Man: Miles Morales Replayed these games on PC, and I don't have a lot to say about them, other than I still think they're great, and playing them back-to-back reinforced my opinion that Miles Morales is the better of the two. Also, playing on PC it's super nice to be able to have both high quality and high performance, instead of having to pick. Grade: A Yes, Your Grace This is an interesting little RPG where the whole of the gameplay is you as a king making decisions for the realm. There's no combat or anything, literally just people coming to you, explaining a situation, and asking what to/for help/whatever. It's really interesting. I did think the ending fell a little flat, but I can't put my finger on why. Overall though I really enjoyed the experience. Grade: B+

The weirdest thing about it is that it's a change from Breath of the Wild, where you picked up rupees by running over them.