TheMightyEthan

I'm guessing it suffered with reviewers from being an immersive sim, the Arkane games (pre-Redfall) I don't think ever really got the review love they deserve either. Like Prey is only an 81.

I definitely recommend playing some other stuff in between BotW and TotK, I played both almost back to back and I think I enjoyed TotK less because of it. Not because it's not a better game (it is), but just because my familiarity with that version of Hyrule dampened the sense of exploration, even though it is changed somewhat in TotK.

lol, I disagree, that's not a you thing, that's a "the game" thing. They're supposed to put that warning right before the point of no return, not just vaguely warn you that there is a point of no return somewhere in the indeterminate future.

The Talos Principle I'd had this on my list for a long time, but the announcement of the sequel inspired me to finally play it. It's a pretty good first-person indie puzzler, with a very depressing subject matter. The whole thing is a frame to explore the idea of what the point of life even is. So yeah, it's interesting, but you might want to be in a certain state of mind before going into it. Grade: B The Talos Principle: The Road to Gehenna DLC for the The Talos Principle, more of the same, but with less interesting philosophy behind it. I liked it better though because I felt like the puzzles were better-designed. Grade: B+ Planet of Lana This is very much an story-heavy-but-largely-silent indie side-scroller in the vein I'm sure you're very familiar with. Think Inside, though not as dark. It's basically Studio Ghibli's War of the Worlds. As a game it's competent. The platforming can be annoying because your controls aren't very precise, but luckily they don't often ask you to be precise. I enjoyed the puzzle solving, but there's not much of it. Most of the gameplay involves traversal, either in a pure form or while sneaking past enemies. The story is pretty formulaic for this kind of game, but it's well-executed enough. It's pretty as all get out too. Grade: B+

I recently started using programmable macro keys for the first time ever, and I used them for the incredibly exciting function of setting up a hotkey to enable and disable the RTSS overlay and framerate cap! Yay!

Excellent choice! I am also surprised by your playtime though, for me it was "only" about 120 hours.

Huh, nobody's beat anything since May 10, I wonder why that might be... Anyway, I just beat The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Holy shit this game is good. I think it's even better than Breath of the Wild, though its similar enough that it doesn't feel as special as that game did when it launched. I was a little off-put when I first started by how similar it was, because the beginning feels very much like a re-tread of Breath of the Wild, but about 15-20 hours in it really comes into its own. The new powers really give you a lot of freedom about how to approach situations, and even the shrines feel better in this one. I'm still a little disappointed with the state of the dungeons, they're a little better than the divine beasts, but not a ton better, though I did appreciate there being more lead-up to them than there was in Breath of the Wild. I'm sure with how wildly successful this game has been that we'll be getting Zelda games in this basic formula for a long time, but I at least hope they keep moving more towards a classic design for the dungeons themselves. This went a little in that direction, but they need to go more. Overall though, that's really a minor nit-pick, and easily overcome by how great the rest of the game is. Grade: A+

Also me.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom So, my copy of this arrived early. Like way early. Middle of last week. Anyway, I'm about 30 hours in and so far it's really good (surprising no one). I actually think in "objective" terms it might be better than Breath of the Wild, though it's obviously very similar to Breath of the Wild so it lacks the wow factor that game got. Some of the design changes they made I won't go into, but I think for the most part they work really well and improve the experience. I'm not in love with it like I was with Breath of the Wild, but I really really like it.

I heard on a podcast that this Dracula manages to simultaneously be Transylvanian, British, and Nicholas Cage. Can you you confirm?

Advance Wars: Re-Boot Camp I've only beat the first game so far, but it rolled credits so I'm counting it. It's the same great game with a fresh new coat of paint (except the soldiermen in the combat view, they're not chibi enough to fit with the rest of it). Grade: A+

Make sure to accost him for autographs at every opportunity.

I more meant "why are you going back and playing a Wii rail shooter" but y'all had to go and take the joke too seriously...

No tech changes (other than the controller charging docks that I guess I didn't have yet last time), just decorative. Oh wait, looks like in the last picture I didn't have the wall mount installed yet. The one that lets me extend it 42" from the wall and do this:

I'm not very familiar with RE4 (haven't played it since the OG Gamecube release and didn't even finish it then), but I agree being able to play enemies off each other is great. One of my favorite parts of Halo 2 is when the Covenant schism happens and you have the Elites and Grunts vs the Brutes and Jackals, and you're just running through High Charity while they blast the shit out of each other.

Pokemon Scarlet So, I actually liked this game, and didn't have nearly the technical issues other people had, but I still kept falling off of it for some reason. I would literally forget to play it for weeks at a time. This is exactly the "full console" version of Pokemon that I've wanted since the Gamecube era, and somehow it ended up being just "fine." It's missing some ineffable spark, and I don't know what it is exactly. It did pick up a little at the end game, I started enjoying it more at that point, but most of the game I had to force myself to play. Not that it was bad, but I just didn't have any desire to do it. I think I might be over Pokemon. Grade: B-

The Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock base game is free on Steam right now, and all the DLC is 50% off. I played the base game on PS4 and loved it, so when I saw this I jumped on it.

Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure This is the best rally racing game I've played since Dirt 2. They actually do away with the racing line on the track and have your co-driver calling out turns instead, and do it as separate time trials runs rather than everyone on the track at the same time. It's great. Other than that mechanical change for the races, it's the same Forza Horizon 5 driving as the rest of the game, which is as good as ever, and you can opt to do a more traditional Forza-style race for each event instead of the rally format if you want. It gets knocked a little bit for not feeling like it had as much love put into it as the Hotwheels DLC, which had the characters talking to you about this history of the cars and stuff. This one just has a bunch of events that you do, without really any surrounding pageantry, though you are at least in a new area. Grade: B+

Sifu (Steam) I'd been toying around getting this game on PC anyway, cause I love it so much and imagine it would feel so good at 120 fps, and then I heard the Kinda Funny crew talking about the new Arenas update, which previously I had had no interest in, but apparently it recreates a bunch of fight scenes from martial arts movies, and now it sounds dope. So that pushed me over the edge (along with finding a key for $50% off). Hell yeah. I also hear it runs well on Steam Deck.

Yeah, that would be fuckin awesome. Sadly I think the franchise is dead.

Dino Crisis I'm not sure what came over me but I got the urge to play this, so I got Duckstation and set up a nice CRT filter and it was great. I played Dino Crisis 2 at my friend's back in the day, but I'd never played this one before. I actually really liked it, making allowances for obtuse 90's game design (like having to do things in a hyper-specific order with no indication of what that might be, or why it's not advancing). Honestly though, it's a lot less guide-dang-it than a lot of games from that era were, and I ended up only looking up a couple of things. All in all it was a fun time. Grade: B (graded on a 90's curve)

Glad you liked it. I'm still slowly working my way through Scarlet, I'm at the endgame now and just haven't really be interested in playing it. It's like they finally made the full-console Pokemon game I've wanted since I was a kid, but the end result is just "fine."

Apparently it's just shadows, the least exciting form of raytracing.

I didn't think the combat felt good even when it was new. I bounced off it like 3 times before I finally stuck with it.