Recent reviews by Woggy

This is a weird one for me, I would say that the binary "Do you recommend Y/N" makes my objection seem stronger than it actually is. I'd give this a slight no, with the additional comment that in a year when someone makes one of those "Full Game Movies" out of this, THAT is gonna rule.

As for Senua's Saga: Hellblade II itself? It's a tech showcase more than anything. It's pretty and cinematic and sounds great and I don't even think that Full Game Movie is gonna need much editing... but that's also the problem. For a game they want 50 dollars for, there just isn't a whole lot of game here.

The first is one of my favorite games. And generally when people break out the "One dollar for one hour of gameplay" I immediately disregard their opinion. But this is an interactive medium and there's just not a lot of interactivity here.

Brutally hard and intensely fun, Helltaker (and the free update Examtaker) are very stylish and very good.

I don't know where ID goes from here. No, scratch that. I don't know where FPS gaming as a whole goes from here. I have a few petty complaints with Doom Eternal, but I straight up don't think we as a species are ever going to surpass this game as an FPS. I think the genre has peaked and will begin to die.

Complaints:
1. The game doesn't do a very good job of teaching you how it works.
2. Unlike in Doom 2016, where the joke is that you aren't supposed to care about the story, the writers seems
very invested in making you care about their pretty bad story.
3. Every Marauder fight after the first one sucks. Straight up momentum stopper.
4. Due to how the enemies become more and more damaged, with parts flying off them, as you shoot them, it's very easy to think you've finished one off before you actually have, so you do a lot of pre-emptive target switching. The final boss also suffers from this issue.

See those 4 complaints? See how they're not actually that major? That's because Doom Eternal is that damn good. The movement is so slick and polished, the guns all sound and animate and everything perfectly, and once the game clicks, there's nothing else like it on the market. I don't think there will be anything else like it. ID has straight up perfected the FPS.

Chimera Squad is a strange game to me, because it proves how good XCOM 2 is at its own expense, and by doing so, proves itself a good game.

Before I get into failing to explain how that makes sense, let me get my initial criticisms out of the way. I dislike the art immensely. The voice performances are moderately charming at their absolute peak, but normally default to awkwardly irritating, which might just be a byproduct of me being a cranky old man who doesn't understand kids these days, with their hula hoops and their may-mays. The game does a poor job of conveying information, and the UI seems to revel in that fact, even when its not glitching out.

Now, onto the confusing opening sentence. I can't really name a choice this game makes that I would consider better than XCOM 2. Everything is does is either a sidegrade or a direct downgrade.

- The new turn order system and the Breach system? The turn order is weird for an XCOM game, but that's honestly the only criticism I can make of it in regards to it having changed. Likewise, the breach/encounter setup is designed to replace activating pods, and making the gameplay steer away from that tense and uneasy exploration and more towards combat strategy, because you always know when you're gonna activate another group of aliens.

- Replacing the original idea of random generating soldiers (that you could customize) with a preset group with more directly conveyed personalities? I greatly enjoy watching the stories and narratives that unfold as I play through a campaign, imagining conversations and relationships between this group of My Dudes™ that exist exclusively in my head, not to mention my love of character creators. At the same time, I can't say this is a bad thing, so much as it is not to my taste, but still a downgrade.

- The enemy factions? There's three major factions constituting the three main branches of the game before you fight the final faction. The factions come off as unique enough from each other despite having a lot of recycled units, but the way you deal with them (you tackle each faction one at a time, instead of having to deal with all three at once) makes City 31 feel a lot less like a city slowly descending into Anarchy and more like the backdrop for a set of randomly generated XCOM missions. This means you have to slowly work your way through a budding enemy before having a final showdown on the cusp of their plan being completed three times, instead of the nice steady panic ramp of the main series XCOM games, which makes the eventual final confrontation with the overseeing bad guy in two rather underwhelming missions with units from all three factions feel less like a climatic showdown and more like the fourth time you've had to do this. Definite downgrade.

- Class and gear simplifications: You can only build the default attachments (Stocks, Auto-Loaders, Scopes) and some other equipment (Medkits and smoke grenades). Advanced and Superior gear has to be bought from the Black Market or found as mission rewards. In addition, with the removal of classes in favor of specific characters with fewer ranks, a lot of the classic abilities like Run & Gun or Lightning Hands have been moved onto rare weapons, which can be equipped to give that character that ability. While I dislike this from a mechanical standpoint, I think its actually kind of narratively brilliant, because Chimera Squad aren't high-tech badass soldiers, they're green members of an SWAT team, and they shouldn't feel like high-tech badass soldiers. So slight downgrade.

Now I'm sure you're wondering why I'm giving this game a Recommend after ripping on it for a bit over 500 words. And the answer is that XCOM 2 is really really good. XCOM: Chimera Squad feels like a total overhaul mod of a really good game. While it doesn't live up its progenitor, it is built on very good, very solid foundations, to the point where it is more or less set up to find success (which it obviously does). After spending 25 hours beating the main game, I don't know if I would buy it at full price, but I would definitely do so at $10-$15.

While Hellblade sacrifices gameplay for story slightly more than my liking (and I also have no idea how much my personal struggles with mental health have influenced my thoughts), Hellblade is a still a beautiful nightmare, and I mean that in the best way possible.

2019 has been a tough year for me so far, and May of 2019 especially, so a game about the five stages of grief seemed right. A friend of mine let me play it at his place, and about a week later I bought it to support devs, because this was a game I love, but it was also a game I never want to play again.

As every reviewer before and after has said, GRIS is about the five stages of Grief. Denial is a stark white land that you trudge forward through, and jumping causes you to instead collapse. Anger is filled with red, and harsh winds blow you back until you learn to turn your dress into a weight that can stabilize you (and help you solve puzzles). Bargaining is a fun level where you knock down apples for a little dude to eat, and he pays you back by opening the way. Depression is a massive underground lake, and finally acceptance sees you regain your voice and self, and head onwards into the world.

This game could accurately be described as a puzzle-platformer, but I'm not sure if that's truly apt. It is that, ostensibly, but as I used the game to work through the death of my mom's best friend (a woman I've known since I was in diapers), the death of my step-dad's best friend, and the euthanization of my dog (all of which occurred within the span of about 10 days), I think it would be more comparable to the genre commonly derided as 'walking simulators'. The puzzle-platformer elements are there to garnish the whole, but the real core element is the art and music and story, for without these it would not work.

I've babbled on too long about this, and I'm not entirely convinced I've actually made a compelling case, but all I can really say is thank you, Nomada Studios.

The only real way to learn this game is to strap on your Helmet of History, climb into your Rocket Car of Optimism, and accelerate directly at the Brick Wall of Learning for about 200 hours. At the end of those 200 hours, you'll have a solidly intermediate understanding of the game, and it's for that reason I feel guilty recommending this game to anyone who has any kind of social or familial obligations. CK2 starts as a chore, then evolves into a job, and then you bang your sister and it is at that point you know:

It's your career. And you'll never work a day in your life.

I laughed! I cried! I furiously masturbated! And only one of those is a lie!

Real (albeit brief) review: Despite being perhaps too self-aware to a point where it gets obnoxious at times, it's still a very funny game. Probably more than it should be, considering what it is. Would recommend regardless.

I'm somewhat aware there is actual gameplay in this, but the Creature Creator alone is so much fun I don't even care about the mediocre RTS aspect.

When I first got this game, I was reminded of Fire Emblem's combat system crossed with a couple choices I thought had no impact on the game. I was wrong, and I am very happy about that.

First off, the combat is reminiscent of Fire Emblem, but it is actually much deeper with the addition of the willpower mechanic, separate health bars for Strength and Armor, and several abilities. It takes only the tutorial to get used to the combat system, but I find myself 5 hours in and I still discover things I didn't know. There is also a sort of mass combat system, where you issue a command to the troops that follow you and then dive into combat. This mass combat system, however bare bones, feels like it belongs, although it could use some improving, because as far as I can tell there are only four commands.

The story is great, and more then earns it's title as a saga. Despite being a dying world, as the gods are all dead and the sun has stopped in the center of the sky , its people are alive and vibrant, struggling to survive on this barren world. It reminds me of the D&D setting Dark Sun, except there is still some hope left in the world, however flimsy. You grow attached to characters, mourning their failures and deaths and cheering when they do something cool. At least twice I have figuratively shot myself in the foot to save a character I cared about.

The art is beautiful, and I'm honestly not sure it would work in any other style. The art is realistic enough to portray the humans as human, but stylized enough to make the varl, who are awesome horned giants, and the enemy Dredge, who appear to be some form of automaton, seem right at home in the world.

And the lore, don't even get me started. I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons (and other role-playing games), and normally play the role of the GM, which means I do a lot of world building. As such, I apprieciate it when a game puts effort into building an interesting world, and I can often kill hours just reading lore and pouring over in-game maps. Stoic has created an excellent world for this, and I have been specifically avoiding the map in The Banner Saga because I know if I don't, I will read every entry and spend two hours doing nothing important.

However, this game is not without it's faults (although some of these "faults" may just be personal preference). First off, the game feels hard. It isn't, at least not on the difficulty I'm playing on, but it feels as if I'm doing everything wrong. Second, it is a very dense game. As much as I love it, I can only play for maybe an hour before my head starts to hurt and I have to shut it off. This is only a complaint in that I have to shut off the game, and it's a fantastic game.

In short, if you want a game with a deep story, deep combat, and deeper lore, play the Banner Saga. If you want a game where you make decisions, play the Banner Saga. If you want a game where the entire world is putty in your hands, play something else, because the Banner Saga is harsh and unforgiving.