Recent reviews by DJcoil

I'm only on Puzzle 8, but the mechanics already have my brain doing little flips and the script has thoroughly skewered me.

Update at hour 4: yeah this slaps.

Massive, intricate maps, a huge variety and quantity of monsters, and each weapon design is interesting enough to be its own game.

You will always find something to do in No Man's Sky, and the team has really hit their stride with content updates that expand both the game and the lore/narrative.

After 34h: When it's good, Jedi Survivor is *great*. The boss fights are varied and engaging, the story is a very good Star War, the level design is a tremendous evolution of Fallen Order's.

BUT at least for me, one location - Jedha - has been *plagued* by crashes. At one point the narrative told me to go to Jedha and, while I was eager to see the next story beat, I tooled around for an entire evening on Koboh instead. I even went back to Coruscant. I didn't want to go to Jedha, because I was having too much fun NOT crashing everywhere else in the game.

Finally I gave in and went there. And I am now on my... 10th? 20th? attempt at a boss fight, because the game spontaneously crashes a half-dozen different ways, from dropping into the arena to entering or exiting a cutscene to just looking at it the wrong way.

It's a great game. It REALLY needs another patch or three to iron out these crashes.
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Initial reaction from limited playtime; I have not completed the intro chapter yet.

ON PERFORMANCE: The game looks absolutely gorgeous, with large and detailed environments and really nice lighting. I am running at max settings with Ray Tracing enabled, and have noticed only very small stutters at the beginning of one or two cutscenes. This is consistent with reports I've heard that the issues with this game are primarily caused by bottlenecks in CPU and storage media. PC gaming has slept on storage technology for a while, but the increases in read speed are noteworthy and (from what I understand) why Jedi Survivor struggles on some machines. Consider:
- platter HDD max read speed: ~160MB/s
- SATA SSD max read speed: ~500 MB/s
- NVMe m.2 max read speed: 3000-7000 MP/s (<--my PC, along with an i5-12500 CPU)

NVMe blurs the line between loading data into RAM (that was your previous "Loading..." screen before every level, or S-shaped corridors in "seamless loading" games) and simply pulling data from the game files. If you are still running off of a SATA SSD (or, please no, a platter drive), your computer may not be able to load data fast enough to play the game well. NVMe is the storage tech used in the Series X/S and PS5, and it's going to increasingly be the target hardware for high-fidelity AAA games.

ON GAMEPLAY: I just came off a replay of Jedi Fallen Order, and jumping into Survivor was a seamless experience. The controls are mostly identical (I think some of the Force powers may have been tweaked?), and Respawn didn't pull a Metroid and bust Cal back down to padawan, which I appreciated. Combat feels good, and movement abilities are even a bit more generous (you can wall run at least 50% farther, it feels a little silly coming straight from JFO!). The skill trees look like they should be interesting to invest in, and the characters (Cal & BD-1, a new ally, and a seedy political intrigue plot so far) are just as well executed.

Coincidentally, Fallen Order was the game back in 2019 that made me realize it was time to retire my old PC (a 2011-era i5-2500 with piecemeal upgrades through the years), because it was the first time I encountered a noticeable CPU bottleneck. Survivor's excellent performance is proof that the upgrade was due.

I'm only an hour in, but excited to continue Cal's adventure in a galaxy far, far away.

TLDR: tight strategic gameplay and an unapologetically pro-union narrative with a well-acted, diverse cast.

Gameplay:
- the shipbreaking gameplay is super tight. There's a bit of fumbling at the beginning brought on by both unfamiliarity and underpowered tools, but a real feeling of progression as you learn how to deal with particular recurring features and get your tools juiced up. And since you choose which ship to target, if you get in over your head then that's on you. One could argue that the game could use better handrails, but those rough edges also feed into the narrative -- that you are an exploited worker and your employer is always shifting expectations to keep you off balance.

- there's also a decent metagame layer, between a ship you're trying to rebuild and your own upgrade path. In both cases you might find yourself selecting a ship you'd otherwise avoid because it has something you need, which forces you out of your comfort zone and keeps things interesting.

Narrative:
HS:Shipbreaker does a great job building the world it occurs in, from signing your employment paperwork at the start of the game to keeping all events within your cramped "Hab" and your shipbreaking dock. The characters are well realized and well performed; it's a small cast but there's plenty of personality. The game does a good job running the story around your silent player character, in part because it's a story of things happening *to* you and your crew rather than you going on a grand hero's journey.

Overall the narrative feels a little rushed, but it's a reasonable compression for both overall game length (20-25h) and (again) the limitations of telling a story about character relationships with a silent player. The story beats are likewise a bit heavy-handed, but still deliver on both emotion and impact. Once the primary conflict resolves, the game wraps up neatly and swiftly, while still leaving options for open play, replay (including limited- and no-revives), and other game modes.

Hollow Knight isn't a perfect game, but it's an impressive one. Splitting the difference between Metroidvania and Dark Souls, I got frustrated at the parts I wanted to be more like one or the other (e.g. high-lethality Soulslike tuning vs a relatively simple 'vania-style combat engine; 'vania collectibles vs Soulslike imprecise mapping/navigational awareness).

The world is wide-ranging and enigmatic; the art style is strange but cohesive and evocative, and the boss fights are excellent tests of skill. While I played the game mostly without spoilers, I did refer to the wiki at a few points (e.g. finding a map section) and then more regularly when I was doing map cleanup before completing the game. Like Dark Souls, I wouldn't begrudge anyone wanting to follow a walkthrough to untangle HK's meandering, occasionally aimless journey.

CW: mental health, consent.

A stunning execution and subversion of game narrative.

I don't play many scary games--and this isn't a scary game--but no game I've played has ever triggered my unease/discomfort/fight-or-flight need to *get away* than this one did.

You can see the DNA of Inkle's previous, excellent game "80 Days", but the interactions in Overboard! are much faster-paced, racing through a tense 8 hours in-game vs the other's leisurely 80-day journey.

The narrative unspools delightfully, giving reason to repeat even after you've gotten away with murder - each playthrough gives you more understanding of what tools you have at your disposal to "manage" the various passengers and crew, challenging you to find the right order to execute your scheme before time runs out.

There are at least three "victory" options, and each has a host of subplots to tie up along the way. Groundhog Day meets How To Get Away With Murder, wrapped in a charming period bow.

Elevator pitch: solitaire Carcassonne. Go for a high score by matching tiles and completing larger and larger towns, forests, rivers, and more. The crisp but chill music and visuals are the perfect atmosphere.

If you enjoyed the demo, the game still has surprises including unlock progression and new tile types.

A worthy sequel so far!

There have been some changes to the general tech/progression curve, both in terms of blueprints and raw materials.
+ It's much easier to find the entry-level base elements (in particular, the battery charger!).
+ The mineral deposits have been redesigned; now each kind has a chance to drop titanium *or* one of the rare minerals, so finding what you're looking for is easier and you have a nice passive titanium inflow while you mine.
~ The game is more stingy with depth upgrades, both for yourself and for your vehicles. 6 hours and I haven't managed to find/unlock/construct a single one! This isn't a negative specifically; it's my first playthrough and I'm still learning my way around, so I appreciate both the slow progress and that great Subnautica "I'm not supposed to be here" feeling as I explore.

The narrative is solid - more concrete than the original, but the story and characters so far are interesting and it's still the same light touch.

The Sea Truck is adorable, and I can't wait to construct some of the additional modules for it.

The new creatures are *fantastic*. Inventive, beautiful, impressive in motion, and each feels unique in its behavior.