What are you playing at the moment? - December 2017

[Shadoko]

Yes, it’s a fairly small and inconsequential quest (mysterious thing kills guards, Geralt investigates, finds a succubus, understands the guards where a bunch of assholes), but it kinda surprised me. In true TW2/TW1 fashion, I was waiting for a “spare the succubus in exchange of sex” dialogue option but it never came. Instead Geralt had a small chat with her and that’s it. Short but interesting side quest.

And Novigrad is gorgeous.

Also, for the “TW1 was better than TW2 in every way” I kinda disagree. Simply but, TW1 is the best worst game I’ve ever played. From a gameplay and technical point of view it’s a trainwreck that never, ever manages to achieve something resembling balance, has lots of performance issues that were never resolved and doesn’t look especally great. But it has something else TW2 kinda lacks : one hell of an ambience.

[Internet]

I’ve been playing Ronin recently. I quite enjoy it even though it’s a bit fiddly. When the game works you’re delicately zipping around, eliminating enemies like a beautiful flower of death. Weirdly enough, it’s in many ways closer to Hotline Miami than Mark of the Ninja even though it shares elements with both games.

However, the game needs a bit more polish. The game requires perfectly executed play, and then doesn’t give you the tools to do so in some situations. The jumping arc won’t warn you when you can’t jump through a platform because it’s solid, which leads to an aborted jump and most likely death. The game “solves” that with a message saying that the indicator lies; that’s hackish. When you’ve knocked out two enemies, two identical stab indicators pop up right next to each other; if you kill the wrong one it can pretty royally screw up your strategy. Lines of sight can get pretty inconsistent, probably to the player’s advantage.

I think the game could have been improved by some basic changes to gameplay. Kill enemies you knock into if you have your sword; include a grapple and pull in the same turn move, so there’s not that weird dead time on short grapples; and let the player choose if they want the extra turn when they get a limit break.

All of that said, I’m still enjoying the game and will probably beat it in another hour or two.

[Naramsin]

So I’m clearing leftovers of 2017.
I’ve finished ME:Catalyst main story. Had a blast, it’s more free roam Mirror’s Edge whiuch is great. Story is terrible, missions are good.
Next I’ve beaten Opus Magnum main 5 chapter deal, brilliant game, probably my GOTY.
I’m at the last fight of Divinity Orginal Sin 2, log says I have 67 hours into game and most of that was great, but overall game disappointed me, I just dislike combat, all changes from orginal frustrates me to no end. Story went kind of mean spirited nad nasty and final reveals are bs. There is so much to like in this game but also I find it inferior to D:OS1 in every possible way.

Also I gave a try to Dragons Dogma, was doing all right until a pack of wolves came and killed me. Wow, this game is not kidding around and I play on easy.

[Naramsin]

From a gameplay and technical point of view it’s a trainwreck that never, ever manages to achieve something resembling balance, has lots of performance issues that were never resolved and doesn’t look especally great. But it has something else TW2 kinda lacks : one hell of an ambience.

Nah, it is kind of ridiculous to say it like that.
Basicly it means that apart from top 5 cRPG everything else is trainwreck.
If Witcher 1 is trainwreck from technical and gameplay point of view so are
both Neverwinter Nights, Kotor 1 and 2, Gothic and even Morrowind and Oblivion etc.

[sonson]

It was pretty ahead of the curve on release in lots of respects. Compared to modern development productions it’s hard to play now, but so are many games that are 11 years old.

[riesje]

thats why some are considered classics, and some arent.

[sonson]

I mean that’s not true at all. Classic dosent mean easy to play irrespective of era. Plenty classics require extensive modding and changing for a modern audience to play them, or embracing obtuse logic specific to the trends of the time. In fact I’d say most outside the past decade do. PC gaming over the past generation has spent masses of investment in simply repackaging classic formulae in easier and more accessible forms. Given that, older games which are in many ways the same ideas but just not as well polished are especially difficult to persist with.

[Naramsin]

Given that, older games which are in many ways the same ideas but just not as well polished are especially difficult to persist with.

Yeah, maybe. Even if I disagree with that I am simply tired with that notion of lambasting games that don’t land in personal’s top10 for whatever reason. Most video games are decent, even good, not just trainwrecks. Witcher1 is not a masterpiece obviously but it is not a trainwreck. Yeah, I know “personal opinion” but let’s be real.

[LexW]

It was pretty ahead of the curve on release in lots of respects. Compared to modern development productions it’s hard to play now, but so are many games that are 11 years old.

You have to be kidding, Sonson. I agree with a lot of your stuff but this is just silly.

Playing TW1 on release felt like playing a game from the 1990s, and not in a good way, at all. It’s not “10 years ago” bad. It’s “20 years ago” bad, and like kind of a “failed experiment”-type game from 20-odd years ago, too, not a successful design. I was pretty hyped about it, but it played far, far worse than than any other positively-regarded CRPG or action-CRPG of that period.

It’s particularly weird when you consider they used the Aurora Engine (KotOR, NWN, etc.).

I do agree with you later point that that doesn’t make it “not a classic”, and I think it’s more classic than TW2 by a long margin, but it was remarkably and unusually shitty in it’s design/gameplay even for 2007. It did have cool ideas, though, even if it felt like retrogaming even when it game out.

TW2 improved on all of that, but managed to somehow fall even further behind the curve in terms of “enjoyable gameplay”. It isn’t as remarkable, either. It didn’t have that “retrogame” vibe - it had a “We have literally no idea how to design fun gameplay” vibe.

Witcher1 is not a masterpiece obviously but it is not a trainwreck. Yeah, I know “personal opinion” but let’s be real.

Trainwreck is a valid opinion re: TW1, sorry, it is. It’s not one I have - I thought it was pretty classic, but the combination of ultra-terrible gameplay that felt a decade out of date on release, weird 1980s-style sexism (which was at least more funny than nasty, thank goodness for that), and tons of bugs and gameplay issues (beyond those created by intentional design) mean that there’s no way you can invoke “let’s be real” here. Being real, it’s acceptable to put it in “trainwreck” territory. Not required, but valid.

It wouldn’t be the only classic which was ALSO a trainwreck, note. Specifically Shadoko said:

From a gameplay and technical point of view it’s a trainwreck that never, ever manages to achieve something resembling balance, has lots of performance issues that were never resolved and doesn’t look especally great.

That is really indisputable - and it was so prominent that someone could reasonably call the entire game a trainwreck - but Shadoko isn’t, nor am I.

Story went kind of mean spirited nad nasty and final reveals are bs

That doesn’t surprise me at all. The original D:OS is an extremely mean-spirited game at times that thinks some quite unpleasant stuff is “funny” (and not in a “darkly humorous” kind of way either), and I fully expected the “darker” sequel to double-down on the mean-spirited-ness.

Of course I suspect for a lot of people that’s easily shrugged off or not even noticed, but personally it pisses me off, so I will continue to avoid D:OS2 for now, despite it’s “OMG BEST GAME EVER” rep. Also the stuff with armour sounds really dumb, but I guess mods can fix that.

Personally I’ve been playing a semi-terrible semi-awesome game I got for Christmas - Shadow of War. It certainly lives up to “Like Shadow of Mordor, only more and better”. I’ve been playing it on Nemesis, because allegedly that’s the right difficulty if the original felt easy (and I presume most people felt the original was kind of easy), and whilst it was a bit hair-raising at first, I’ve got used to it, and am now coming to stuff with a plan, running away BEFORE I’m on a sliver of health, and so on. I do get killed a LOT, but it does make the victories feel a lot more “HAH, in your face!”. I am not sure how I feel about this “Okay you killed them but now you have to press a random button or they get away!” business though .

I am very impressed with the sheer amount of STUFF that is on-screen and is going on, too. Like, how am I getting a decent framerate with all this?

The only thing I am unimpressed with is that it has a menu option that allows you to change the button prompts to PS4 prompts (I use a PS4 pad). Great! In theory… in reality, it changes about 80% of button prompts, which I feel is almost more confusing than before, where they were at least consistently all Xbox button prompts. Particularly galling is that it uses the Xbox prompt for parries, and the PS4 prompt for dodges… C’mon guys…

[Baines]

Also I gave a try to Dragons Dogma, was doing all right until a pack of wolves came and killed me. Wow, this game is not kidding around and I play on easy.

Dragon’s Dogma has a few spots like that. Some of it is your level, but a fair amount is just not realizing a situation is dangerous for your level.

Like you find one wolf, and you can take it. So you wander off from the path chasing something, and next thing you know three wolves have ambushed you, and they mess you up. And then the next time, you’ll hopefully be smarter, and four wolves won’t be a problem (because you won’t blindly put yourself in that kind of ambush situation, you’ll know better how to use your support and skills, and you’ll be better at picking targets.)

And then things will go fine for a while. Maybe you’ll struggle for a bit against something, but you’ll be able to take most stuff with no trouble, and you’ll start getting cocky again. Then you’ll eventually stumble into another enemy that mauls you in three vicious hits, because you’d gotten too cocky. So you figure out how to be less stupid again, how to better use your supports, to use your skills, to dodge, and to eliminate targets. And then you pass through that area and the cycle repeats. At least that is how it went for me.

[Naramsin]

Playing TW1 on release felt like playing a game from the 1990s, and not in a good way, at all. It’s not “10 years ago” bad. It’s “20 years ago” bad, and like kind of a “failed experiment”-type game from 20-odd years ago, too, not a successful design. I was pretty hyped about it, but it played far, far worse than than any other positively-regarded CRPG or action-CRPG of that period.

It’s particularly weird when you consider they used the Aurora Engine (KotOR, NWN, etc.).

This is simply bonkers. Witcher1 looks better, plays better, has better UI, better camera, better controls, better combat then Neverwinter Nights 2. Game that came out just year earlier then W1. And Neverwinter Nights 2 is not considered a trainwreck. Anyway, personal opinion in video games genereally means nurturing these strange resentments. I for one can’t really recollect video game that strike me as a trainwreck, even the ones that didn’t click with me or I didn’t like to put it midly i.e Neverwinter Nights 2.

[Naramsin]

That doesn’t surprise me at all. The original D:OS is an extremely mean-spirited game at times that thinks some quite unpleasant stuff is “funny” (and not in a “darkly humorous” kind of way either), and I fully expected the “darker” sequel to double-down on the mean-spirited-ness.

Of course I suspect for a lot of people that’s easily shrugged off or not even noticed, but personally it pisses me off, so I will continue to avoid D:OS2 for now, despite it’s “OMG BEST GAME EVER” rep. Also the stuff with armour sounds really dumb, but I guess mods can fix that.

Well, general vile and nasty stuff that is abudant in D:OS2 story and setting is not that suprising to me, now I think of that. Changes that Larian made in combat reeks RPGCodex vocals “D:OS1 is combat is for scrubs, here is the build you can stunlock all enmies in one turn gg”. And even my passing familiarity with Codex that another thing these peeps are bent on are being dicks in cRPG. Once again looks like Larian decided to accomodate those folks. Vile settings is unpleasnt for me but give oprtunity to play a massive asshole.

[sonson]

I’m quite happy to reconsider that claim. I missed the KOTOR NWN etc era of stuff. The only RPG’s I’d played prior to the Witcher were from the Black Isle stable and Ocarina of Time so I’m not sufficiently versed to be making those claims in truth. I remember reading something by Kieron at the time that did make those claims and that affirmed my own experience of playing it so I sort of just owned them for myself I suppose.

In respect to its “train wreck” accusations all I can say is I hate games that aren’t acccessible within a few hours, or that hit a spot where they just stop or become incomprehensible for more than a few hours at any point. That never happened with W1. I remember vividly that I found it utterly compelling because it jeopardised my Dissertation that I was writing at the time. I. bought the game at full price, which was a rarity due to student funds, solely on the back of the demo. There were a couple moments where I got confused but that’s par for the course in an RPG. I bought the day of release too so there was no patching or Wiki to improve the experience but I still completed it within the week and found it made a profound impression for a videogame, for a bunch of reasons (I’ll spare folk for now).

For someone with an intolerance for anything the slightest bit demanding in terms of undeserved patience, in 2007 the Witcher was nothing but an immersive and accessible thrill. I recognise that 11 years later it will feel far less intuitative and that even at the time compared to its peers that might have also been the case, but in absolute terms I don’t buy the argument that it isnt navigable and rewarding with reasonable investment.

[Viral_Frog]

Yeah, maybe. Even if I disagree with that I am simply tired with that notion of lambasting games that don’t land in personal’s top10 for whatever reason.

I find this to be extremely common amongst gamers and not any other groups of fandom. It’s a mentality that isn’t exclusive to gaming, mind. Just far more common, as far as I’ve ever experienced.

I once made the mistake of saying BioShock: Infinite was one of my favorite games of all time (still is, haters!) on RPS and a large number of people jumped on to tell me why I’m wrong for enjoying it because of X, Y, and Z. I just ignore it because another person’s subjective opinion will likely do nothing to alter my own.

As for the discussion regarding Geralt, I find him highly relatable and well-rounded in The Witcher 3, as others above said. I did find him dull and easily forgotten from the first game. Never played the 2nd so no opinion there. I think I’m starting to pick up what it is about TW3 that people really enjoy. Something about the writing, the interactions, the overall atmosphere… it’s just clicking.

I don’t think the first game in the series was at all a train wreck. Geralt was dull, the combat system was wonky, and the first area in the game was absurdly boring… but I got on really well with it despite those flaws. I came to it far later than most people, as I first played it around 2-3 years ago. Even though it was extremely outdated, I didn’t bounce hard off of it like I do with other games from the same time period. From my memory of it, I feel like train wreck is a bit of a stretch.

[Baines]

I played Rooftop Cop, which had been sitting in my library since it was acquired in some forgotten bundle.

I racked up 12 minutes of playtime, and that was only due to continuing to mess with it out of the sheer mistaken belief that it honestly couldn’t have been as vapid and meaningless as it appeared to be. It arguably got worse the longer I played.

In theory, and by its store description, this is a collection of vignette games about a world where cops have lost their way. For example, in the first game you have a cop issuing citations to try to meet some arbitrary quota, but citations are issued just by walking up to a random person and giving them one. In the third game, you control a cop collecting evidence in a building, but collecting evidence consists of just pickup up every object you pass.

As far as a message and meaning, that is it. Rooftop Cop doesn’t go any deeper. Heck, while Rooftop Cop consists of five games, those two above are the only two that even relate to cops. The second is capture-the-flag without an opponent, the fourth is floating on a raft, and the fifth is just existing on a beach. As for the mechanics, only the third game approaches actually being a game in a conventional sense. The others are just boring slogs, which have no more meaning or purpose than they have “game play”.

In my Steam review, I compared it to a lower end Junior High school project, which is what it is. It is the kind of project where some student thinks that they have some amazingly deep ideas, but the ideas in reality are completely shallow; paper thin and/or completely misguided. It is the kind of project that you don’t want to call pretentious not because “pretentious” is such an overused word, but rather because “pretentious” implies at least some base level of effort exists.

[LexW]

In respect to its “train wreck” accusations all I can say is I hate games that aren’t acccessible within a few hours, or that hit a spot where they just stop or become incomprehensible for more than a few hours at any point. That never happened with W1. I remember vividly that I found it utterly compelling because it jeopardised my Dissertation that I was writing at the time

Personally I played it for a few days on and off, then laughingly gave up on it because it was such an amazing mess. The gameplay was beyond “wonky” as others have put it. It was a disaster. A disaster the likes of which I thought was in the past. It literally made me laugh it was so bad - the gameplay that is. The story and the fact that it was different from trad fantasy (TW3 is actually rather closer) and more towards Warhammer-style grimdark Europe kept me playing despite the tedious and awful gameplay.

It didn’t leave the same sort of impression on me as you for the same reason I was largely unimpressed with Baldur’s Gate 1, but many others were blown away; it wasn’t all the remarkable to me, because I’d kind of seen the same thing done better before. It was interesting rather than amazing.

I’ve seen this pattern with gamers, and this isn’t a criticism, merely a comment, where, the first time someone REALLY interacts with a certain sort of game, REALLY gets into it, it’s totally amazing for them, they’re blown away and for them that game is eternally fantastic or at least pretty great. I can see the pattern with me, too - I was blown away by earlier games - Ultima 6/7, UW1/2, System Shock, Fallout 1/2 (particularly those two), KotOR, and so on*. Fallout 2 especially just ruined many later CRPGs for me. It ruined Baldur’s Gate 1 completely. When I played BG1 all I could see was what trash it was next to FO2 (which predated it, amazingly). Awful dialogue writing, terrible, laughable “choices”, cheesy gameplay, and so on. For someone who hadn’t played FO2 and/or who bounced off that (I knew several people who got stuck early on in FO2), BG1 was probably amazing. For me it was a shitty Tuesday (BG2 is another matter).

And so TW1 still seemed sub-FO2 in terms of writing, daring-ness, and so on, whilst having even worse gameplay than FO2 (which takes some doing - BG1 managed it as well, because low level AD&D2E fucking sucks). BUT, it did seem closer than most, which I really liked.

Had I not played FO2 very heavily (more than one playthrough), I’m pretty sure I would have been obsessed with TW1 despite the gameplay.

• = I may upset some people here, but PS:T did not blow my mind, because I was already extremely familiar with the Planescape setting, having DM’d it for a few years at that point (on and off with the Forgotten Realms), so a lot of the really cool stuff was just like “Uh-huh” rather than “WHOA!”. Still really remarkably well-written though. Just didn’t strike me as hard as some as a game.

[Shadoko]

Alright, maybe “trainwreck” but that’s really how I felt playing it a few years ago. The story and mood made me continue, but frankly the gameplay was quite trash. Now, would I have reacted like this if I had played it in 2009 ? Probably not, but still.
Specifically, here are my complaints :

• It’s button-mashy, and not the good kind of button-mashing (ie hack and slash games). It’s wonky, reacts badly and requires a good timing that’s quite hard to achieve, though it’s not the worst part. After a few hours it’s okay.
• Most potions are utterly useless. The Witcher games always had a problem with this but here, even on the highest difficulty you can basically complete the game with two potions : the one that restores health and the one that restores stamina. That’s it. And Thunderbolt or Blizzard to chesse the bosses.
• Same problem wigth signs. Quen never works properly, axii is useless as well as Yrden. Aard and Igni are completely overpowered. Upgraded Aard stuns everyone and everything.
• The game loves to trap you in small spaces where the gameplay doesn’t work at all which happens rather frequently. Geralt doesn’t know how to parry and dodge properly, so it’s all about striking first and striking hard. Which you can’t do in a cramped space.
• Balance is…what balance ? There are some weird difficulty spikes that leave you completely underpowered unless you do exactly what the game expects (but never tells you) and of course, like the boss in Act 1, those moments are right before the autosave. You’re either underpowered or completely overpowered, especially near the end. The game never achieves balance.
• Character progression is bloated with utterly useless upgrades.

Also :

• The game is pretty for 2007…on ultra settings. Because turn down the graphics a bit and it’s frankly ugly in places, especially the lighting.
• Game runs like crap, even on modern systems. Crowded areas, rain, and the goddamn swamps can divide your framerate by two. Also it stutters like mad. The game uses the same engine as Neverwinter, IIRC (it’s Bioware’s Aurora engine) and it has lots of performance issues.

Don’t get me wrong : I love TW1, while TW2 was mostly “meh” for me - a competent game, but not a great one. I’ve done three playthroughs of TW1, and Act V remains to this day my favorite act/level in a video game, period. But it still has a crappy gameplay and plenty of pacing and graphics issues, hence why I consider it as the best worst game I’ve ever played.

(Though I do prefer TW1’s gameplay over TW2, simply because most gameplay concepts can be safely ignored in TW1, where it’s quite easy to cheese the game and just worry about cliking on enemies, while TW2 requires you to think about its incredibly average gameplay.)

[Naramsin]

but frankly the gameplay was quite trash.

The thing for me to analyze games in vacuum is kind of bs. I.e “technical trainwreck” W1 has completly competent camera control, something that Neverwinter Nights 2 is struggling to no end. Also W1 has pretty straightforward UI, mouse works, there are tooltips, navigating betweeen quests, inventory and character abilities is actually easier then Witcher3.

You called it technical and gameplay trainwreck. Your points about combat and balance etc. do not constitute trainwreck. If they do, 75% of video games I’ve played are technical and gameplay trainwrecks and it si not true.

[sonson]

From my perspective complaints about combat etc in The Witcher fall flat because I can’t name an RPG where combat hasn’t been an issue*. Combat in most RPGs is second rate, because it’s not the focus but the remains of genre convention that hasn’t been suitably adapted for a videogame, much like level gating. I don’t go into an RPG expecting combat to be the draw. By this time I’ve played all the Fall Outs at least once, some of them several times, all the Black Isle Games, all the Witcher series and a few other RPGs. In those thousand of hours of playtime the hundreds of hours of combat has rarely been gripping or taxing, but the key is that I’ve been excited enough by the wider adventure and exploration to cut through the crap to continue with it. In the same way that I’ve cut through the crap of interminable FPS plots because the experience of killing things was so fun.

The Witcher 1 was so interesting to me for multiple reasons that the stupid Barghest save point etc just didn’t matter beyond the half an hour I was stuck there. Whereas all the other stuff-the examination of folklore and mysticism as belief systems rather than naivety, the dense and intricate modelling of society and distinct, detailed societal space in an early modern faux Eastern Europe, the detective elements, the social tensions, the multi dimensional aspects of monsters and ghosts which meant something and explored wider cultural themes rather than just being stuff to kill, the exploration of racial purity, the sheer ambition of a multi act story which intentionally tried to do something different thematically each time while holding together a meta narrative-those were fucking great and they spoke to me because those things are interesting as of themselves. That’s why the Witcher 1 is good and important.

I can understand why someone wouldn’t want to have to commit to its mechanics and presentation now a days to get to that core, but that is the core nonetheless. The mechanics are there to serve that as best they can. They were clearly not decided to be much as of themselves. Obviously a game which can manage that with mechanical excellence would be even better-but again, show me an RPG where it’s enormity isn’t compromised by the complexity of delivering that vision.

*Dark Souls dosent count. It’s a great game with excellent combat but it’s focus on setting and indirect exposition while very elegant and impressive do not equal or rival the richness of a trad RPG setting for me. It’s a shadow of a world that in itself is very clever, and it’s hollowness is deliberate, but it is nonetheless largely dead and a shell for all that. Hollow Knight managed to use the same devices to present something far more vivid and impressive for my money.

[LexW]

The thing for me to analyze games in vacuum is kind of bs. I.e “technical trainwreck” W1 has completly competent camera control, something that Neverwinter Nights 2 is struggling to no end. Also W1 has pretty straightforward UI, mouse works, there are tooltips, navigating betweeen quests, inventory and character abilities is actually easier then Witcher3.

You called it technical and gameplay trainwreck. Your points about combat and balance etc. do not constitute trainwreck. If they do, 75% of video games I’ve played are technical and gameplay trainwrecks and it si not true.

That’s BS, Naramsin.

The majority of the game works poorly, and it worked even worse at release, thus your experience is poor. Pretending it isn’t is gibberish, and claiming Shadoko analyzed it “in a vacuum” is insulting, demeaning gibberish, and sad to see, because he’s not even being unreasonable - but you are.

You say “75% of games” are bad as TW1 technically and gameplay-wise? I’m going to have to say that’s an outright lie, of a very extreme kind. Not even arguable or a possible valid opinions. It’s extreme fan-ish nonsense. If you’re not kidding or trolling I strongly suggest you consider whether your opinions on this are in some way compromised. TW1’s terrible gameplay, and technical issues, particularly at release, are far, far beyond what’s normal for games in general, or CRPGs in particular.

Obviously a game which can manage that with mechanical excellence would be even better-but again, show me an RPG where it’s enormity isn’t compromised by the complexity of delivering that vision.

You’re asking for the impossible, not because it hasn’t happened, but because even if you don’t, someone else will quibble with some minor mechanical element and claim a game is “compromised”, even when it’s a laughable comparison.

Just look at ME2’s combat mechanics, which are frankly superb, and for the time were insane for a CRPG and good-to-great for an action game (which lead to it getting TW3-like review scores). Yet someone will inevitably talk about how they loved the pointless and poorly-implemented inventory management of utterly generic gear from ME1 and claim ME2 was “compromised” by not having that. Obviously nonsense, but there you are.

TW1’s problem was that, even by the standards of combat in CRPGs, which you have said, typically is “second rate”, TW1 was distinctly, noticeably, worse. Third-rate? Fourth rate? Depends on who you are, but it was bad, real bad, and the gameplay generally was bad, even by CRPGs in 2007 (2007, note, same year as ME1, yet people often seem to think it’s from 2001 or something, from some earlier era, and defend it as such). TW2 had better-but-still-awful gameplay tedious, clunky, and amazingly poorly balanced. It wasn’t until TW3 that they reached “Okay I guess” gameplay, even that let down by the bizarre and inexplicable* decision to basically copy a less-fun version of Diablo 3’s loot system into a game where every element of the plot and setting ran against it.

• = I mean seriously can anyone explain what the hell they were thinking? I can’t think of a poorer match, aesthetically, or in terms of gameplay, for the Witcher universe. That it manages not to destroy the game is a testament to the rest of the game and panic-speed balancing decisions after launch which made the design less awful by nerfing how much impact gear had (it’s still excessive).

Talking of games with some issues, I’m continuing with Shadow of War, and I’ve finally reached the “main” bit of the game (after like 10 hours!), and they’ve taken me back to exactly the same second area from the first game. I hope I’m not going to spend eternity here!

The mixtures of PS4 and Xbox button prompts continues to infuriate (and is pretty hilarious on a certain level, but mostly irritating), but the game has delivered some exciting if Tolkien-purist-hate-baiting stuff. Like when I had to fight 5 Nazgul at once. I thought it was a joke, like a “now you lose and the plot continues” deal, because first time, I was dead inside 10 seconds and didn’t get a hit in on any of them, and most of that was me reeling backwards. Then the game said “No, try again” and I was like “Oh-kaaaaay I guess” and got my ass handed to me a tiny bit less, still half-expecting to be told “And then Talion lost and the plot continued”, but nope. They made me do it until I succeeded (which took another 2-3 goes), and when I did, holy shit, instead of being destroyed in under 10 seconds, I took them all out and barely got injured (I think I was hit once or twice). Which was fascinating because it showed how much better timing and tactics and knowing what you were doing can change utter defeat to victory in that game.

The first guy you recruit is an Aussie-accented “Olog-Hai” (basically “smart troll wot doesn’t die in sunlight” - these are totally canon amazingly) called Bruz, who is already awesome. It should be entertaining to get some of the utterly insane murderers I’ve been having to murder on my side.