Recent reviews by NormalChongus

I'd seen the reviews that were down on the game and I didn't feel surprised, frankly. Star Wars as a franchise, especially in gaming, has been rocketing downhill for a while now. But I picked it up on sale for the hell of it and I have to say I'm surprised at how much fun I'm having here.

The exploration is fun and interesting. The stealth mechanics work for me... I saw someone update a review saying they'd been re-worked, so I'm grateful for that part... and the adventuring around is a lot of fun. The combat gets annoying: the multi-style blaster helps, but just let me carry something larger to go with on a regular basis, rather than being temporary pickups. Regardless, it doesn't feel unbalanced from a fun perspective.

I'm also pretty surprised at how well the story is flowing, and how much I like most of the characters. Mr Sardonic Robot is a little annoying, but everyone else is portrayed pretty well. And your little guy, Nix? He could probably stand to be about 20% less Disney-fied, but otherwise he's great. I appreciate a lot that the interactions with him definitely seem genuine, as if someone's talking to their cat/dog.

Needless to say, this isn't a ten out of ten game, but I'm having enough fun not to regret picking it up, and I have a lot of game left to go.

Intensely frustrating. The writing is good as it had been previously, but now with the fun new mechanic of not being able to complete a contract mission, not being permitted to abandon and *leave* the mission, and being stuck there cycling over and over again needlessly until starving to death, even on the lower levels.

A great game wholly ruined by one active decision not to permit that, and getting warnings when you try to say "well this is clearly not going well I need to cut my losses". May as well start the game again. I have, twice now.

There are a few annoyances here and there, but ultimately this is a great throwback to several games of my youth, which makes it a really enjoyable and pleasant experience to start. That said, it also definitely stakes its own territory with the handling and the gameplay.

I think it came out balanced very well: at times I wished some of the story of the exploration was fleshed out, but at the same time I could see myself being annoyed at it getting too wordy. There are a couple of story threads I wish could be pulled more completely, but it doesn't feel like it was really lacking in that regard.

Ultimately I think it was a good time, well worth it.

It was a fresher and more interesting Star Trek story than the BSG ripoff they coughed up for Picard.

Just straight up unplayable for performance issues apparently.

I really, really don't care for platforming. Generally I've never felt like I had the dexterity or timing to make it work, even in my younger years before I hit the decrepit stage. And Animal Well, as such, annoys the hell out of me. It's so fiddly with these jumping puzzles, and all the timing, and trying to work it all out.

And yet I do keep starting it up. One by one, I do manage to get through a puzzle here and there and move on to the next very, very weird set-piece. It's compelling in ways I can't adequately describe, and so in spite of feeling so frustrated I just keep going with it. And that's probably the best endorsement these aging fingers can manage to type out.

This is the pleasant, adorable, broken-physics love child of untitled goose game and stray. Much more to the story, minus the brutal depression.

Main downside is that it's very, very short: you can 'finish' the game probably in an hour on your first go if you really hustle, but there's plenty of exploring and goofing off to do both before and after that.

Let it consume you.

The first thing you notice when playing this game is the lengthy, unskippable voiceovers and tutorials and intro videos that are absolutely unnecessary for anyone who's played a Forza game, Horizon or not, previously. They go on forever and can't be turned off.

The second thing is that the AI seems to have been imported pretty directly from Horizon, and it really brings the flavor of mutliplayer Horizon in with it. Want to be on the racing line for a pass? Good luck, an AI driver will immediately slam into you because that's where it wants to be. Get bumped off the track? Enjoy your track limits time penalty. And if you spot one coming out of the pits as you pass by, watch out, because they will get past that white line and swerve as quickly as possible into the lane of traffic that everyone else is already on. It doesn't take long to give up and switch to the 3rd person view just so you can watch their antics more closely.

It looks good, sounds good. The driving mechanics feel less unforgiving than previous Motorsport entries, probably again influenced by Horizon. I like the weather effects. I also like the change to the car upgrade system, it makes a little more sense than the open haphazardness of previous games where you could just get all of it immediately.

The only bugs I've seen tie back to long, looong loading times that seem to come and go. I had one instance where I was trying to view a new car and it sat with the 'please wait' spinning circle for several minutes before I force closed the game: it wasn't a crash, it still made sounds as I hit the escape key repeatedly to try to stop it. It just didn't care.

I hope this isn't just the end stage of the game though. It's perfectly playable, just mighty frustrating.

This has become an obsession in the vein of Slay the Spire.