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Mar 22nd, 2026 at 16:40:50 - The Falconeer (PC) |
This is an aerial combat game. Admittedly not my favorite genre, but The Falconeer won a BAFTA, despite receiving lukewarm reviews, and I got it for free or in a Humble Bundle, so I decided to try it out. It apparently had a remaster, so I was hoping that whatever issues it previously had would be remedied. It nails a visual style and commits to political-military worldbuilding, which I respect. Unfortunately, that’s about all it nails.
The amount of things the game doesn’t bother to explain to you is perplexing. It begins with a prologue and combat tutorial, the first and last thing the game explains. I appreciate figuring things out on my own, to an extent. When I decided to quit, I noticed some text on the menu screen that said I’d leveled up and saw that I was level 3. There are levels? Are there experience points, too? What do the levels do? Do they improve my stats? The stats are AG, SPD, ENG, HP, RGN, DMG, and ROF. What do these mean? Some I can interpret—SPD must be speed, for example—but others, I am at a loss. ENG? What is this? English? Engineering? What is AG? Agility? What does that do? There is no tutorial for this, no tooltips.
I also discovered shops. What is the point of shops? I played an hour without buying anything and it didn’t hamper my mission success. Do I have to buy things? What are these different categories of things I can buy? I stumbled upon an inventory of sorts, I think. Do I equip things? Some things are damaged. Can I repair them? Speaking of the difficulty, it seems to be random. There are skull icons indicating difficulty of each mission. In the hour I played, these ranged from 1 skull to like 6 skulls (out of 10?). I didn’t notice a difference. It would go like 1, 2, 6, 1, 4, 2, 5, 1. What does the difficulty mean? Why was there a “6” difficulty mission 15 minutes into the game? And why was it easy? Why are enemy names re-used over and over? I killed the same named enemies, blew up their falcons, sank their ships, and yet they continued reappearing. What is the point of the shrines? Are a lot of the open world locations just places to discover, but you can’t interact with them? What’s the point?
Related, the story is a dense political-military slog. There are a bunch of different factions, or countries, or organizations, and they are all fighting, allying, betraying. Some guy keeps barking orders at me to take main missions. I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t really care. It seems like the developers built a neat world here, but the narrative isn’t presented in an interesting way, and exploring the world on your falcon is boring, too. There’s a big map, but there’s nothing to do. The open world is empty, just an expanse of sea with islands and cities here and there, and various shrines and other “open world” boxes to tick off, but there isn’t much substance to any of it.
The controls are a hot mess, too. You can fast-travel immediately, which begs the question of why there is an open world at all, especially since there is not much to do it in. Actually, fast travel only works sometimes, though I cannot discern when or why. Sometimes, you can press “A” to fast travel and sometimes it doesn’t work. Other times you press “A” to fast travel, and the fast travel indicator doesn’t appear, yet you will fast travel anyway. In missions, you press “A” to target enemies. Sometimes “A” will target them and other times it won’t. It was very irritating. Occasionally, in combat the camera swings up for no apparent reason or the bird ascends, which is disorienting.
I gather I am not the only one turned off by all these issues. On Steam, 57.8% of players completed the prologue. Then just 10.6% completed the first chapter! That’s a huge attrition rate. Then nearly half of those bailed before completing the second chapter, which just 5.9% of players did! It looks like it’s not until the third chapter that players committed to finishing (4.7% in chapter 3, 4.3% in chapter 4, and 4.2% completed the epilogue).
I was just trying to knock something out in the next week so I could have a completion for March (because I’m in the middle of two long games), but this ended up being a retirement. I’ll have to pick something else to beat this week.
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Mar 9th, 2026 at 09:45:05 - Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS5) |
Yeah, this was incredible, as expected. The story, the character development, the historical setting, all incredible. My brother and another friend (especially the friend) were highly invested in me playing the game, so I was keeping them updated while playing. Another friend was supposed to be playing it at the same time as me, but I paused a couple months ago and he defected to Mass Effect for a break and never returned. I need to be like, "Dude, I beat it. Hurry up so we can talk about it!"
There are so many memorable missions, from the night out with Lenny (the game explores race and racism during this time and place, which was neat) to going to get the kid from the Italian guy to an epic train robbery to the final showdown, and even to the side missions, like collecting debts for Strauss (which seems so mundane), but realizing the damage that Strauss's money lending causes to individuals and families and then eventually kicking him out of camp. The characters are all flawed, and the main character arc of Arthur about made me cry throughout the last chapter (though I had a MAJOR plot point spoiled for me by a John Green book!). Truly, it is a story about redemption, with some characters growing and others succumbing to their flaws. Very human, very emotional.
Two main activities in the game are riding your horse and shooting people. Riding your horse could have gotten boring fast, but you have good control over movement and how fast you go, and have to manage horse stamina. You also encounter things along the road, from Strangers (capital "S") to meet (aka side characters with their own story arcs), to strangers (small "s") whom I usually ignored (aka random events to random NPCs like passing someone calling for help because he's getting chased by bandits, passing a person begging for money, passing a hunter stuck in a bear trap [I felt bad that I never helped the hunter]), to ambushes, etc.
There is a handy auto-ride system, where you can set a cinematic camera to take over as you go from one place to another. Arthur will actually ride the horse the whole way, but you can put the controller down and watch the beautiful landscape and bathe in the ambient music. You can also fast-travel using wagons or trains between towns, but I hardly ever did that.
Shooting people is pretty basic. You have a weapon wheel and an inventory wheel, and during combat you basically duck behind cover (R1), pop out and target someone (L2), which uses handy aim assist, flick the left control stick up to the target's head (because aim assist always centers on their chest), and pull the trigger (R2) for a headshot. Duck again, line up your next headshot, kill. Move forward to the next cover. Repeat until mission cleared. This did get repetitive by the end. I hardly ever used "dead eye," a slow time ability that allows you to shoot multiple enemies at once, and I hardly ever used items, including healing items, because you just don't need them. Weapons are just regular pistols and rifles and knives, whatever they had in the late 1800s. Combat was spiced up by the various contexts in which you fight (e.g., raiding a mansion, robbing a train, shooting on horseback, etc.), and it was engaging, but like I said, it did get repetitive.
Another thing that got repetitive, and that I quit doing after too long, was looting corpses and searching places for loot. Each "search" animation is way too long, and like I said, you don't end up needing health items, or any other items. You can always pick up new guns from the ground and ammo is plentiful. You can also buy guns and ammo too if you want. There is a "camp upgrade" element to the game in the earlier chapters, and I collected money and items to sell until I had upgraded everything, but that was a small portion of the game. Once I'd upgraded everything, first of all, the camp moves and you don't even have access to all the upgraded stuff for a chunk of the game (I don't think), and second of all, you don't need all the stuff anyway. So once camp was upgraded (by like chapter 2? of 6 + epilogues!), I basically had no use for money for the rest of the game. Sure, you can buy outfits and new guns and whatever, but none of that is necessary.
This made me feel like I went pretty straight through the main game, plus most of the Stranger missions, but didn't touch much else. I didn't mess with mini games, I didn't spend time in towns going to the theaters and whatever, I didn't mess with cosmetic things like giving myself haircuts or trying on outfits, I didn't do optional legendary hunts (those wild animals will kill you so fast!) or search for special gear or do the treasure maps, etc. That all sounds nice if you want to spend more time in the game and do everything that the Wild West has to offer, but I didn't. The main story was fantastic, so that was my focus, and I've played so many open world games and MMOs that I felt no need to hunt extra legendary creatures or collect special item sets.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was an epic tale. I can see why my brother and my friend were so excited for me to play it. Now I will be the one harassing other people: "Did you play RDR 2 yet?! Let me know when you start it! Keep me updated!" Next up from Rockstar later this year: GTA 6!
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Mar 2nd, 2026 at 15:38:02 - Vampire Survivors (PC) |
I first played this a few years ago on Game Pass and loved it. I rebought it on Steam because there was so much extra content. (I have since learned to avoid long games, roguelikes, and stuff with tons of replayability on subscription services; buy those instead!). Last summer, I replayed the game and started to dig into the DLC. There is practically an infinite amount of stuff to do in Vampire Survivors. I still feel this after sinking another 30 hours into it. The achievements and unlocks are extremely compelling and I could chase them all day. But it has finally started to feel repetitive. Longer 30-minute runs that result in like one unlock or just some progress through a map feel more and more like a time sink, especially as I have other games to get to, including newer games in this genre.
The DLCs (so many!!) have been interesting in that they alter the base game in interesting ways. The maps have rooms, islands, and more geographical features; they are not just massive plains with the occasional obstacle. Contra has a different kind of boss fight. They have new characters, weapons, evolutions, and secrets. The Ode to Castlevania DLC is massive, about the same size as the entire base game! It also has unique boss fights, and an even bigger map to explore, including different spawn points so you don't start over every time. I mean, really, I could just keep playing this forever...but I can't keep playing this forever! I must delete it. Maybe one day there will be another DLC that really piques my interest and the game will rise like a vampire from the coffin of my Steam library! I did see that they are releasing a first-person card battler roguelike, so I am sure I will get sucked into that too!
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Feb 26th, 2026 at 17:49:42 - Fear the Spotlight (PC) |
Dang, another kickass random freebie from Epic sometime in the past year. I remember being drawn to it because it was published by Blumhouse, which has had some horror movie hits, and which is apparently getting into game publishing. This is like a PS1-style survival horror game, but without combat. Gameplay is straightforward. Without the combat, it is more linear, simple puzzles, play some hide-and-seek with the monster. It builds a great atmosphere though--still manages to be tense--and has a unique story.
I think the narrative is where this really shines. It drip feeds you the story and peels back layer after layer. You think it's this straightforward high school romance drama, but then no. And then the second layer, the second thing you think is happening, but then no, another layer. And another layer. Some taboo shit that made my skin crawl. It was really good. And it was really...sweet. It's an atypical choice for a horror game, but it works. In the end, maybe it is a high school romance story after all. Definitely worth playing.
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