I was thinking Jackass but bum fights is probably more accurate. God humanity is bleak sometimes.

The ultimate weapons for each character in FFX are all locked behind minigames, most of which are unfun (barring Blitz Ball), most being extremely difficult and some being almost broken (looking at you, chocobo racing). You might remember jumping to dodge lightning bolts 200 times in a row or chasing down butterflies in the trees.

I agree with most of your criticisms, but the jumping puzzles and beach challenges I don’t really think should factor into the overall rating too much. They were deliberate nods to inane and frustrating minigames in older Final Fantasies and I think they succeeded in that regard. Anyone who has tried to assemble all the ultimate weapons in FFX knows what I’m talking about. They’re also completely optional in E33, contributing neither important lore, plot or item rewards. They can be totally ignored without consequence by anyone that doesn’t enjoy them.

It’s a shame to me because it divides the modding scene, and plenty old but stable mods will never be updated to work with the remaster. But it is what it is. I guess it will be nice for console players as F:NV is practically unplayably broken without mods.

Just don’t break mods, please.

I’m the same. One game at a time, for the most part. I might mix in a non-story game in parallel sometimes like a roguelike, but only ever one story based game at a time. My brain can’t handle switching back and forth, I need to dedicate my full intention hah.

I agree. This is a fantastic video essay that goes through everything in more detail than I could here, and I recommend it thoroughly. It’s a good game, that manages to enthrall most players into thinking it’s a great game through a combination of a phenomenal soundtrack and some standout moments that sort of jolt their critical thinking faculties out of order. I was victim of this too - I liked the game way more as I was first playing through it, but the more I went back through it and the more I actually thought about it the less I liked it.

I still appreciate E33 for what it is (overrated does not mean bad), but for me Blue Prince was the GOTY 2025.

Gotcha. Funny how that is, sometimes we need something outside our comfort zone to shake us up. I was close to buying ROUTINE last Steam Sale, but ultimately opted against it. I’ve heard good things, although I think it’s more psychological horror than survival horror.

Final note about the DLCs, the Lake House is also integrated into the main campaign and that one I didn’t feel break the pace as much. Despite being the reverse release order my preference is playing the Lake House when it appears in the story and then all the Night Springs episodes after finishing the campaign. Lake House still works fine as a post script too though, if you want the main story to be more concise and do all the DLCs after.

I think I agree with that about Cronos. The lore has some interesting implications, especially with the exact nature of the Collective that I hope gets explored further in the future.

I’m glad you fixed the blurriness issue in AW2! One thing I will say is, while the Night Springs episodes are integrated into the campaign I find they kind of break the pacing and sometimes spoil things and work better when played afterwards. But I guess that’s a personal opinion.

Totally agreed about the subway, that whole Alan chapter is absolutely superb I think. Love all the detail like the text on all the signs all over the subway too.

Since you seem to be a big horror gamer, have you tried ROUTINE? I’ve been curious about it since I’ve heard some good things.

If it keeps this quality through the whole game (which I’ve been told it does) I might end up dubbing it the best point-and-click of all time. It’s definitely going to ruin the genre for me when I next try another game and start running into frustrating nonsense puzzles.

Good, I wasn’t sure whether they came bundled or not but just making sure since they’re pretty crucial. Enjoy!

Only Civ you’ll need for a long time, possibly ever. Already great out of the box (assuming you got all the expansions), and after a few hundred hours you got tons of mods to spice it up too.

I started playing The Drifter this week. Don’t want to say too much about it without having completed it, but I’ve played through the first few chapters now (about a third of the way through) and so far it is living up to its reputation and then some.

• Initial impressions:

Great pixel art that is surprisingly expressive, some great animations and a nice synth soundtrack. Pace is breakneck and breathless, it often feels like you’re playing out a classic pulp thriller. Controls are great, it actually plays fantastically well on controller which is a rarity with these kinds of games. Writing is razor sharp, at times quite funny and the dialogue is actually good. The plot is interesting and as befitting the genre involves a conspiracy that keeps going deeper, although it’s too early to say how well it is tied up at the end. Voice acting is phenomenal throughout, and almost everything is voiced, too. The main character is great, and I love the noir-y internal monologue.

Puzzles and gameplay so far have been equally impressive. Not a single “moon logic” instance so far, every solution has been very logical. The internal monologue of the protagonist is also a great vehicle to deliver some subtle clues when you interact with things, or occasionally when you fail a certain puzzle a couple of times.

Overall I’m completely hooked.

That sounds lovely! If I ever get a partner (and they’re a non-gamer that is open to getting into gaming) then that sounds like a delightful thing to do together.

Hm, I have no ideas about mods for 2, unfortunately. I only played it once, and that was back in the day. I remember absolutely loving it, and I’ve been hesitant to go back because I don’t want to sully my memory of it.

And my backlog is too long to be replaying games, anyway.

I played it like a year after launch on PS4 and didn’t have any issues. On PC there is also ACUfixes that further fixes and improves things. Honestly Unity was such an ambitious game and both the city of Paris and the crowd system in it is still unsurpassed by later titles. I remember when Mirage came out comparison videos started going viral questioning which game came out 9 years after which. The fluid and varied animations in Unity is still absolute peak, look at how satisfying high level gameplay is.

Original Xbox games are a mixed bag though, emulation development for that platform is very far behind PS2 or GCN. Sadly :(

X360 too, although bizarrely I think Xemu is sometimes worse performing than Xenia? Is it just that there aren’t enough enticing exclusives that lead to these emulators being behind? I’m not really tapped into the scene.

Unity is still underrated largely due to its reputation formed during launch with all the bugs. But I think there was also a case around then of “Assassin’s Creed fatigue”, which only amplified the negative reception. It’s actually a very interesting what if scenario, what would have happened if Unity wasn’t broken on release and was successful? It’s well documented that its failure led to the entire rejigging of the franchise into open world RPGs in Origins and beyond.

As always I love reading your reviews and articles and just writing in general. Loved the clip of the trigger clacks, they may perhaps be too loud for stealth and convenience but they have a very pleasing sound. But then I love clicky mechanical keyboards.

Unfortunately I feel like I give the same comment every time (well, every time I remember to actually comment): “this device is so cool and I want it because it looks like such a desirable and pleasing object, but I can’t possibly justify buying it when I barely play any retro games of the era this runs well”.

Maybe I’m still waiting for the moment when (if?) portable retro handhelds like this get just a few steps further more powerful. Well actually, I guess that’s just the Steam Deck, eh? Though even that is probably not quite powerful enough. I’d love the PS2/Original Xbox (even X360) era games on my lap…

It’s absolutely all over that time period. I was firing up Lost Odyssey (2008) on an emulator recently and it’s there too. It’s also part of the reason Dragon Age: Origins looks so ugly. I could probably go on listing examples. I have no idea how or why Real Is Brown got so popular, but I’m glad we’re over it now.