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On Borderlands 3

On Borderlands 3

Posted by on Nov 8, 2019 in Commentary, featured |

I started Borderlands 3 with Amara, the Siren. Having played most of the previous game with Maya—BL2’s Siren—I thought it would be a natural progression. At some point around level 10 or 11 I began to find gameplay difficult so I stopped and tried Zane, the Operative.

Things became even more difficult.

So I stopped and thought for a second. One of the things that was getting in the way was ammo. What I never liked about the Borderlands series as a whole is that I always seemed to run out of bullets. Ammo, like all loot, is generated randomly, so getting lucky with finding a good gun feels useless when I don’t have anything to shoot it with.

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No Posts Explanation

Posted by on Aug 8, 2018 in Commentary |

I haven’t been writing because it’s been tough to find the time for it. I recently relocated so rebuilding my life has been the primary focus. Now that things are a bit more stable I can write again.

Divinity Original Sin 2 is the first game that captured my attention since I moved. The main plot is more about how the series defines divinity instead of a full-blown sequel of the first game. There are also subplots with the recruitable NPCs so it’s got plenty of content for the lore-hungry players out there. They revamped combat with the addition of physical and magical armor that sit on top of health points, making fighting a bit more challenging since most status effects won’t do anything unless armor is depleted first. A word to the wise: the game heavily favors physical damage so if you’re looking for an easier time, make sure to follow that route.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen came next. I played some of it on PS4 but the load times there were horrible so I tried it out on PC. It was certainly a more pleasant experience playing it there. I actually managed to finish the game.

After that I tried to get back into the PS4. I finally bought Shadow of War and Dragon’s Crown Pro. I tried playing the former on Nemesis difficulty, which is a notch tougher than normal difficulty, but ultimately concluded that it wasn’t for me. The game does a lot of cheap things to make things tougher and as much as I tried to power through it at some point it felt like it wasn’t worth it. Now, I know it’s not a Souls game, but when things are still difficult after 30 hours of playing, it might be a good idea to tone things down a bit.

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On Monster Hunter World

On Monster Hunter World

Posted by on Apr 5, 2018 in Commentary, featured, PS4 |

Monster Hunter World is my third attempt at getting into the Monster Hunter series. The first two were on handhelds, the PSP and the 3DS. I couldn’t get into them because I struggled with the camera controls. I also felt that the series wasn’t noob-friendly, so it was pretty discouraging. In fact, for years I fostered the belief that the cycle of mission-based games—get a mission, complete the mission, get another mission, repeat—wasn’t for me. I thought it was the reason why I didn’t finish MGS V, Freedom Wars and the like. Who knows? Maybe it’s still not.

Monster Hunter World is a good argument against it though. It’s certainly more accessible than the previous versions I played, which is good. It’s also great to hear that series veterans aren’t turned away by it. In gaming, making something more accessible to newcomers usually means watering down complex gameplay mechanics, the same mechanics that series veterans expect and love. MHW managed to strike a balance, a rare feat in modern gaming design.

So what’s it like being a noob in Monster Hunter? Challenging—sometimes to the point of frustration—yet rewarding and ultimately fun. It took a second character and around 200 hours to get to the point of feeling like I know what I’m doing, and even then I still feel like an idiot when I get my ass handed to me. A key thing that MHW does masterfully is how it delivers progression. The raised difficulty of each new monster feels just right, that the challenges presented are tough but fair. I will say this though: the game requires a lot of investment. I don’t recommend it for anyone not willing to put in the time and effort.

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On Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds

On Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds

Posted by on Jan 4, 2018 in Commentary, featured, PS4 |

New Game Plus on Ultra Hard—those are the settings I chose to play Horizon Zero Dawn and its new DLC The Frozen Wilds. I haven’t played the game for over a year now and found myself needing to relearn some of the game’s mechanics. Most of it was easy to remember but the worst thing that I forgot was being able to notch multiple arrows. That’s what I get for not reviewing Aloy’s skills.

Ultra Hard, the game’s highest difficult, was not much of a challenge when I started out. That changed when I got to the DLC area. The increased health of the daemonic machines presented two problems: they were tougher to kill, which also meant that they cost more to kill. Fights with the new enemies—scorchers, frostclaws and fireclaws—are consistently difficult. They are also a drain on resources. I found myself restocking on blaze and chillwater after finishing a mission or two.

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On Mass Effect Andromeda

On Mass Effect Andromeda

Posted by on Oct 2, 2017 in Commentary, featured, PS4 |

Mass Effect: Andromeda is a half-baked mess. What was supposed to be a new and exciting adventure turned out to be a broken, limited game with lackluster characters and no compelling story. It’s like Bioware suddenly forgot what makes Mass Effect what it is after releasing the original trilogy.

I’m going to start with what they got half-right: the action. Combat in Mass Effect features third-person shooting mixed with the spellcasting. The game does not call it spellcasting, of course, but when characters are throwing fire and lightning from their hands then it’s just semantics. Andromeda got rid of character classes so players can buy any ability they want, which is great because mixing and matching abilities is something the series has never done before.

The problem is that the game limits usable abilities to three. Yes, only three. This design choice does not make any sense. First, what was the point of making all abilities available if you can only use three of them? Second, previous Mass Effect games had no such limit, even while running on last-gen consoles! Dragon Age Inquisition, another Bioware title, also allowed multiple ability usage.

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