What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

I restarted a new Stardew Valley save four weeks ago, I'm at 150 hours now, yes, you read that right.

I played right when the pandemic hit (march 2020) and stopped just shy of year 3, having finished mostly what I wanted to do and thought the endgame was too weak for me.

But now, ConcernedApe added a ton of fun new contents (like a new zone) and a clear endgame goal: Perfection. I thought it would be kinda boring to get there, but the continuous days and task-planning you need to do has really kept me going for hours. I don't remember the last game that hooked me this much for this long, in a relatively short period of time. After 150 hours, I just have the Golden Clock remaining, as of yesterday, and I still find the simple grind of gathering, crafting, farming to still be satisfying. Since I've finished a lot of stuff, it's cool to just do "what I want to do" per se. I've never decorated my farm/house before and I'm excited to do it now while I gather enough gold for the Golden Clock.

After that, I'll probably continue my save of Tales of Symphonia, I just can't believe a game from 2003 has cutscenes with complete animations and voice acting. It's really incredible. I know games before that had already done it, but the combination of lore, animation, voice acting and gameplay makes it a really good game. It just sucks that it's an old game with old saving patterns, you can only save at certain spots so you might potentially lose hours of gameplay if you die... which happened to me. :|

I'm still on Lies of P. Actually I'll probably fight the Grand Exhibition boss after writing this post.

I stand by my post from last week, but I've realized that I really dislike boss fights in Souls-like games. I'm at an age where I don't have the patience nor the time anymore to waste 3 hours on a single boss. I just want to enjoy the exploration and small difficulty bumps here and there.

Now I can quickly feel if I can beat a boss or not (and if I'll enjoy trying), so... I have to confess that I used a trainer to quickly get rid of a particularly annoying boss. And honestly, I'm glad I did 😅

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I also bought the early access of Path of Exile 2 yesterday. Not much to say yet, but I love the mood: it's like Diablo 2 from my memories. And it's also super hard, the small bosses scattered on the map are no joke.

Been playing a smattering of Battletech Advanced 3062 after @elight mentioned it here last week. I kind of thought I was done with Battletech after playing over 200-hours, but this mod has me going again. The sheer depth of things you can do and customization to your mechs really has me going. Though, I'm not playing a ton, as it does take awhile to load and awhile to complete a mission, so I'm often only doing a mission every couple of days. Though during the week, that'll probably ramp-up a little bit more to a mission or two per day.

I did just have a crazy one where I lost one mech, one APC and two Battle Armor. There was just a lot of enemies on the field and I wasn't doing great with my prioritization, plus the enemy had a lot of LRM artillery, so my stuff was just getting beaten up.

I've also been playing Need for Speed Underground 2. I've been wanting to play it again recently, recently being the past year or two and had actually downloaded a copy, but it just sat there until I got a wild hair the other day and started Googling how to play it on modern systems. I found some guides and got it up and running on my Steam Deck, so I've been having a great time running races and upgrading my starter car on there. It's a little dated, as far as gameplay, graphics and social stuff goes (the flag girls are...ugh. In one instance, before they wave the race to begin, we have two girls kissing, which is just...boy), but it's still fun enough that I'm having a good time with it and intend to continue.

Two weeks ago I shared that I'd bought a powerful new gaming PC after over a decade. In anticipation of the new PC I've picked up a lot of free games from Epic Games, Amazon and GOG. I've also bought bundles and have a Game Pass subscription.

In order to ensure that I don't get dragged between all of the games I decided to limit myself to just two major games at a time. I have an unordered backlog of the games that I'm interested in playing soon (Backloggery).

So onto the games...

Avowed (beaten via Game Pass)
Avowed has an interesting story and the kind of engaging, non-filler, side quests that you'd expect from Obsidian. Decisions that you make in both main quests and side quests impact the outcome of the main story. This does mean that you're incentivised to play through all of the side quests in each area before moving on with the main quest. Also Avowed is not an open-world game; it has open zones and entrance to the next zone is gated by main quest progression.

There are three combat trees that you can mix together: fighter, ranger and wizard. I played primarily fighter with melee combat but the other trees offer ranged combat styles. I found the fighter combat system simple yet fun but your experience may vary if you focus on skills from a different tree.

I started playing Avowed on an Xbox Series X using a controller before I bought the new gaming PC. Playing on the controller was very comfortable so I was surprised to see how much better the game felt with a mouse+keyboard. I don't feel the same urge to replay the game that I have for Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas.

Deathloop (beaten via Steam)
On my playlist for 4 years whilst waiting for a suitable gaming PC so that I could play it with a mouse+keyboard. I'm a huge fan of the time loop stories and Deathloop has a lot more story and worldbuilding to it than is immediately apparent. The game has four zones and and four parts to each day (morning, midday, afternoon and evening). When you leave a zone the day moves onto the next part. The order in which you approach areas, actions you take in them and the time of day changes everything. You can unlock and upgrade Dishonoured style special abilities which greatly influence how you approach things. Personally I focused on a stealth playstyle and abilities but there's a lot of playstyles available.

The game was really fun but Deathloop holds your hand a little too much. Presumably the developers were concerned about people being stuck for too long. There's also only one valid way to resolve the story although there are multiple endings. Also an alternate player (human or computer) attempts to kill you and reset your loop as you play. A good human player, who knows the zones well, would be very frustrating so I played on an offline mode. This was a fun compromise for me but if you're interested in playing with human players you'll find that there aren't many players anymore. I thoroughly enjoyed Deathloop and I'll most likely replay it in the future.

Atomfall (beaten via Game Pass)
This one is certainly interesting. It features a configurable difficulty system split into three categories: combat, exploration and survival. Personally I chose the difficulty preset "investigator" which features challenging exploration but easier survival and combat. Instead of selecting a preset you can customise every difficulty feature in the game. I've not seen something like this before but it was very welcome. So I can't comment on the difficulty of combat or survival because of my difficulty choice. The "challenging" exploration seemed very fair though with everything solvable without cheating/searching on the internet.

I found the overall story reasonably predictable. The characters were interesting, and mostly English, with emphasised use of local dialects/slang. You have a lot of choice about who to side with each option leading to a different conclusion to the story. I feel that I chose the best final option although I explored many before deciding on it. I felt compelled to play until I finished the game and definitely enjoyed it although I do not plan to replay it.

Far Cry 5 (played via Game Pass)
This one starts off very strong with an interesting story and decent combat. Unfortunately it shares a lot with other Ubisoft titles like Assassin's Creed and I consider it to be weaker than those games in both combat and setting. The game is split into three zones and in order to progress the story in each zone you need to complete various open world activities. These are fun the first few dozen times but after I completed the first zone and moved onto the second I realised that the game was going to drag on. Maybe it's because I've been spoiled with other more focused games recently (see above) but I don't think that I'm going to finish this one. Perhaps I've played too many "open world" games at this point.

What's next?
The next big game that I'm looking forward to is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 but it doesn't come out until 24th April. So until then I'll pick some other games from my priority backlog (Backloggery). I had some recommendations via replies on my earlier post but feel free to suggest games from my priority backlog.

Been working my way through the Mass Effect trilogy (by way of the Legendary Edition). It keeps getting better. Recently finished ME2, and am in the early going of ME3. The story and fictional world are interesting. I like how you can create a custom appearance in ME1, and then import your appearance, stats, and major history (decisions) through ME2 and ME3. My main criticism is that the combat maps are too linear for my liking. Very few forks, almost no doubling back. For advancing a story, and keeping things going, I get it, but I like more openness, even in combat areas.

The combat also makes too much use of cover spots that your character snaps to. Too often, I was snapping to spots when I didn't mean to, sometimes even dying because of it. I prefer a more fluid and open-ended combat experience. It's seeming like ME3 is poised to provide more of that, though.

Anyway, I'm happy to finish this game and this series for the sake of enjoying the story.

I played Islets. It's a 2d sidescrolling (classic) metroidvania by the same developer who made Crypt Custodian, which I played a few months ago (you can really tell from the art style). It was pretty good!

It's an older game than Crypt Custodian, shorter and smaller in scope. As far as metroidvanias go, it's oriented towards simple/classic platforming mechanics with fairly open and relatively uninteresting areas, inhabited by various types of mobs. Various gimmicks often found in Hollow Knight style metroidvanias are missing. Instead, up to 60 upgrade tokens can be found throughout the game world and invested each time on one of three randomly selected upgrades that improve the player's combat stats, attacks or movement abilities. A currency also exists that can be used to purchase upgrades directly.

Boss fights are nice and challenging, and there are a whole bunch of them. Most of them lean heavily on bullet hell style attacks, which isn't that typical of modern metroidvanias. There's a difficulty setting if you need it (I played on Normal). There's also a boss rush mode after you complete the game, which I did play through but I disliked how it forces you to use upgrades that did not accurately reflect my own smarter choices during the main game, thus making the fights in this mode unnecessarily frustrating.

The Islets mechanic is pretty clever. Essentially, the game largely takes place in five separate areas which represent floating islands. Your main objective is to activate giant magnets in each area that make the island snap together. When that happens, dead ends in adjacent areas connect, creating one larger area and enabling access to previously unreachable parts of the game world. It's too bad the game was relatively short and mechanically straightforward as it was, since I feel like there's way more they could have done with this. It took me 9 hours to complete the game, having found all upgrades.

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EDIT: Accidentally a word.

Dark Souls 3 nearly done! I've got one lord of cinder left. I've done all the optional bosses and had a blast. What a cool game for cool people!

Beyond All Reason thanks for @SUD0 for this one, I gave it a go and it's been real fun so far. It feels like the good old days of Supreme Commander but with all the bells and whistles and switches I always wanted.
We've been playing scavengers PVE games and it's been really fun learning how to play by getting clapped by easy AI.

Playing the remaster of Suikoden I & II. Suikoden II is one of my favourite RPGs of all time, and I never got a chance to play Suikoden I. Bought it on Steam, and it runs flawlessly on my SteamDeck, which is awesome as I'll be doing more traveling for work sadly.

Suikoden I is rather short and very sweet. Recommend playing with a recruitment guide, as there are 108 characters to collect. However it is not as neatly involved as Suikoden II is. Beat it ok my most recent flight, and while the ending comes together quickly, it doesn't drag its feet one bit.

Now I'm on Suikoden II, and loving it. It's a beautiful game, rather faithfully remastered just enough to keep most of the charm.

Monster Hunter: Wilds

One of my two must play game series. I'm at 130 hours since release. Am maining Gunlance and used it exclusively through the whole story and have also beaten every monster at least once with SnS, Lance, Insect Glaive, and Charge Blade. Fashion hunter is alive and well with this game, the layered set possibilities are great.

I love this game :)

I played ENA Dream BBQ, Chapter 1. If you know anything about the ENA YouTube series, this is a reminder that the game is out after 3 years in development and you have to get on it. And there's also another episode that is an amazing watch.

For everyone else, ENA is a web series that's strongly inspired by the 90s surreal vaporwave, dreamcore aesthetic. Think Yuma Nikki and LSD Dream Simulator mixed with your old Jump Start edutainment games, with a ton of influence from PC98 Visual Novels and you'll have some idea of this world.

But unlike a lot of the super surrealist projects, ENA actually has a coherent narrative that you can grasp without extra substances and there's plenty of consistency to hold a story down. The series centers around an ENA. They're a sort of split personality humanoid creature who inhabits a digital world. The one in the web series faces situations with a sort of childlike wonder or existential dread and that makes them instantly endearing. The web series is an anthology of ENA just going on random adventures with their friends. Its presented using game systems and mechanics and always feels like a game that should have existed. And there's plenty of menes and absurd lines that live rent free in my head.

The game on the other hand follows a different ENA that I prefer over the YouTube character. This one seems a lot more mature, confrontational and proactive. They also have an entrepreneurial drive with some weird religious undertones and its just hilarious to see them navigate these small business relationships. The actual gameplay in this opening chapter is mostly simple first person platforming, fetch quests, mazes and puzzles. But you're really there for the incredible art, music and writing. It also has some of the best non-English writing and VO I've seen. There are AAA projects where it feels like the writing was run through Google translate and the lines delivered just as stiffly. But here, the dialogue was clearly put past native speakers and reworked to represent the languages in an organic way.

The interfaces and ui are Persona levels of creative. With hyper detailed presentations and animated transitions. Also silly little Visual details and gags make for a fun time. Like your phone being a cup on a string dangling from the sky. Or the mcguffin constantly being renamed to Bathroom never gets old.

The insane variety on offer means that nothing ever feels too out of place. The whole experience goes back to the early days of the internet. Where you had a vague sense of what you wanted to do, but it was so easy to get lost in winding rabbit holes of different art, discussion and general strangeness.

Also, the game is free. It's a three hour interactive art show with plenty of actual gameplay and multiple routes that's free on steam. Don't know if it's just for this first chapter but you've got nothing to loose and I highly recommend giving it a shot. You don't even need to watch the web series since it's an original story.

Been playing a bit of Slay the Spire on my tablet while doing cardio. My wife and I recently bought an elliptical machine, which was ostensibly intended as a winter training option for my distance-running wife, but I've used it about 10 times as much as her because I'm a stay at home Dad and her work schedule has been demanding.

I have found StS to be a great companion to using the machine. I can think about my next move while running, then throw a bunch of cards without really missing a beat. It seriously helps pass the time as I get through about half a run (usually) in my 30ish minute workout.

Any recommendations for other games to add to the list for possible running entertainment? Basically it needs to be simple controls, no time constraints, and ideally something I can look at and think about for a bit of time before acting. Another game I've played that kind of fit the bill was Into the Breach but I basically did everything I could in that game completion-wise and StS has a little better replay value to me.

As mentioned in the daily game thread, I picked up Inertial Drift last week, it's a racing game where steering and drifting are decoupled, both having their own stick.
So on top of having to handle using both sticks at once (just treat the Drift Stick as the main stick for turning, and use the Steering Stick for fine adjustments), you also have to handle the cars drifting differently.
There's an in-universe reason for the control scheme (the Drift Gyro) which is also gonna change when the DS can work its magic, for some it's always an options (if stronger when not accelerating and/or braking); while others may need you to do something first, not to mention recentering once you're done drifting may not be that easy for some cars...

For some examples:

The Terra Dart and Coda Gecko can drift on demand, just push the DS, but how much it alone can do differs: the Dart goes to about 50% while the Gecko stops at about 20-30%, the Dart also recenters pretty much as you let go of the stick, while the Gecko takes a second or so.

The HPE Dragon barely can drift while you accelerate, you have to release first to start drifting.
It also recenters slowly, but can be forced to by braking, even by a light tap will do.

Then you have the Coda Chrono, you can do some surprisingly steep drifts without releasing the accelerator in this one., but the big drifts need you to release first...
And then feel what your angle will be once you're back on the pedal, since you're "charging" the drift while not accelerating unlike the first 3 cars. But much like the Dragon, it recenters slowly if you don't brake.

While you can expect to spend most of your time racing (with no contact ever) and setting times, you do have some other modes to bring some variety, Duels (basically Tokyo Xtreme Racer), Endurence (reach Checkpoints on a timer to get a progressively lower amount of time back, aim to go as far as possible), and Style (Drift as close to corners and as fast as possible to gain as many points as possible) are the ones I tested.

While the game has a great handling model and style, and even a good variety of gamemodes, it does have some issues.
Arcade mode is the only mode to not show you car stats for some reason, Story Mode have some difficulty spikes in the 2nd story (only an issue for 100%) and the 3rd (mostly completion again, albeit some can slow progression), and then the last storyline gives you 2 fairly easy events followed by a challenge that spikes hard (get the gold time medal, just straight up beat Arcade gold in that car. In the first area of Story Mode. Yeah.Correction, Arcade gold is 50 seconds, Story Mode clear is 47 seconds.), due to the SM spikes I wouldn't be surprised if the Challenges also get way harder for the last 3 cars I gotta unlock, most of the gamemodes are basically Time Trial in a trenchcoat, and then there's the content.

16 cars in the base game, 4 variants from free DLC (existing cars up/down-tiered), and 4 new cars in Twilight Rivals (a paid DLC), and 10 tracks across 5 regions with reverse variants, paid DLC adding 4 more tracks, for a final total of 20 cars and 20 tracks in the base game, and 24 cars and 28 tacks with the DLC.
This is a double-edged sword, there is little content, but both the cars and tracks feels significantly more different from each-other as a result.
It's also explained by having like, 90% of the game made by a 3-man team.

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I've also been playing Rallyman GT and DIRT on the side.
It's a boardgame about racing, track racing and rally to be precise.
While they share so many of their mechanics that they can be crossed over (there even was an actual crossover expansion), they still have some differences.

Really fast rules.

The basic rules are fairly simple: here's a track made of spaces, and a bunch of dice.
Use the black and white dice to move down the track one space at a time, use the red dice with a black die to slow down and pass trough speed limits safely.
Each die can only be used once per turn.
For rolling, either make a path and roll all dice for the path at once to gain Focus Tokens, or roll one die at a time with the option to secure a roll by paying Focus Tokens.

They differ in a few key points, from track features (sharp corners in GT vs shortcuts in DIRT for example) to turn order and how the game starts, passing by what's on the dashboard, or even the goal (finish 1st in GT vs having the lowest time in DIRT).

There's a bit more to the rules (Loss of Control, rows and movement, overtakes and contacts, etc) but that was just a basic idea of what they are.

While I play solo there's still a lot of stuff for me thanks to things like the ISGOYTRA Cups (which is quite the acronym) and the historic solo challenges someone made on bgg, it does need a couple other homebrews but gives you a good 40/50 scenarios to try. There's also rallymoon for a weirder homebrew.

Just started with "Knights in Tight Spaces" a roguelike deck builder where all of you moves and attacks are represented by cards in your hand.

It's a sequel to "Fights in Tight Spaces". The old one had sort of a John Wick/ spy theme, while this one is more fantasy themed.

The biggest addition is having multiple party members and equipment. Weapons and armor give you cards or changes your stats.

The whole party shares a deck, but some cards can only be used certain conditions. Magic cards need a character that can use magic. Archery cards need someone with a bow. Grapple and throwing cards can only be used by an unarmed character, and so on.

So far it's seeming like a pretty cool addition follow up to what was already a really fun game.

Something caused me to pick up the Halo Master Chief Collection again last week and I have so far played through Halo 2, 3, and ODST. ODST in particular only took me two days to beat (maybe like four hours of playtime? Six tops.) but I'm really enjoying going back through them. It's nice to have a tight, linear game that doesn't waste a ton of your time.

Welcome to Halo, do you want your stick inverted? Okay, get to killing, the aliens are that way.

I am playing a "solo" (a combat-oriented character) in the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk Red. I usually try to make characters that reflect my personality in a direct way, but this time I went with the flow and adapted the character the GM gave me for the one-shot that preceded the campaign. I am happy I did that, as I am enjoying interpreting someone so different from me.

John Steele is a psycho with a code of ethics. He reminds me of those special ops dudes that I watch on YouTube who are insensitive to violence and death but also have morals that allow them to have meaningful emotions and relationships (I don't think a person who can kill without remorse can be considered "adjusted" in any way, but they are either masters of compartmentalization or just faking very well... but that's another discussion).

My character is essentially a sociopath who is on your side. He believes he is perfectly normal. I think this kind of character makes sense for a cyberpunk scenario. Very fun to roleplay. I hope that the next sessions allow for more roleplay, as the GM was very goal-oriented in the first one. I think that was just an understandable nervousness and a wish to guarantee that the adventure was on track, and he'll losen up a little bit when he feels more secure.

The other day I started playing Ultima VII.

It's freakin' amazing.

(or to be more precise, it's amazing after some basic quality of life improvements when played with the Exult engine.)

The thing that I find amazing about it is that I've almost entirely avoided combat for the entire day or so I've been playing. For the most part, I've been faffing about, talking to people, and playing with the many complex mechanics that let you do things like make paintings or bake bread. Of all of the RPGs I have played, it's the best at being a role playing game instead of being a role playing game. I like the mechanics quite a lot of it has been copied into another favorite computer RPG, Albion, which came out three years later.

I'm honestly really surprised to find how much I like it because it has so much stuff I don't like. It's very planted in the tropes of fantasy, which is a big turn-off for me. Magic consumes both mana and reagents you will need to purchase and store. I especially can't stand the way that they talk, and that's a big downside for a game that has mostly been reading so far. But perhaps it's those fantasy tropes that accentuate how original the game world actually is. I mean, I've only been in three towns so far, and there are countless more to go through.

I started after watching part of Majulaar's coverage of it as part of his Retrospective, and I have to say that playing the version I got from GOG is okay because it does have scans of the documentations, but the quality of some of the scans are very poor quality. There are two sets of maps; a perfectly servicable black and white one, and color one that will make your eyes bleed. You get a copy of the cluebook, which is good, but they are direct unprocessed pictures that haven't gone through OCR and have the most intense JPEG artifacts I've ever seen. Also the manual they provide isn't actually the manual - what you need is the quick reference from the reference card section. Limited Run Games should go get the rights from EA to make a full release with the fellowship medallion and cloth map like the original release had.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2

My multiplayer group started playing the Chaos Wastes mode, which turns the game into a roguelite. We like this way better than the regular mode. It adds some much needed variety, and it makes it so that grinding for gear isn't really necessary. Playing it this way reminds me a little bit of Gunfire Reborn (which we loved).

I also said last week that I couldn't figure out why I liked this more than Left 4 Dead 2 and Back 4 Blood despite the games being so similar in mechanics.

I've had more playtime and more time to think about it, and I think Vermintide 2 stands out from those in two ways.

1. Staying Grouped

By making the game melee-focused, it's much more natural to stay in a group because your attack radius is much smaller. In the other games, your main attacks are ranged, which gives a much larger attack area, making you feel intuitively "safer" even when farther from others, which then makes it feel less necessary to stay together. Shortening the attack range makes grouping up an organic byproduct of the game's design, rather than something that you as a player have to be constantly conscious of or even feel like you're fighting at times.

2. Level Design

The levels in this game are seriously impressive. They are interesting, sprawling, and complex. The environmental design is great, with lots of different locations and set pieces and atmospheres and whatnot. L4D2 and B4B both had variety in their levels, but they all had the same basis in realism and an overall zombie apocalyse vibe. Warhammer's fantasy background, meanwhile, makes for a lot of compelling settings that don't have to be grounded in reality. The levels themselves are cool on their own, and not just as a means to play the game.

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Crime Scene Cleaner

If you asked me my preferences on cleanup games, I'd say my current hierarchy is this: PowerWash Simulator > Crime Scene Cleaner > Loddlenaut > Island Saver > Barn Finders > Viscera Cleanup Detail > Ship Graveyard Simulator. (Note: It would appear that I have a type! If you have other recommended cleanup games, please let me know).

Crime Scene Cleaner is dark. You're going into the locations of murders and actively covering up the crimes. The murders are, naturally, gristly and unsettling. The second level of the game gave me Final Destination vibes. This is not my usual cup of tea both narratively and aesthetically, but I admittedly do love a cleanup game, and this scratches that itch nicely.

It's got all the standard chore game trappings. You do menial tasks to get skill points and currency that you can then spend to make the chores slightly less menial. Why do I find this compelling? I don't know. Will I spend more time playing this game than actually cleaning my own house? Of course.

I've been Split Fiction here and there when we find time with my friend. So far our schedules have been mostly at odds.

Compared to what the general reception seems like, I find the actual game pretty mediocre collection of gameplay features and writing that's forced to fill the silence with boring banter. There's some soft-shock level whimsy to be found, in the "I can't believe they just did that" way and that's fun in the same way killing that plushie was in It Takes Two.

Anyway, as always the secret sauce in co-op games is the co-op and the smart design decision here is to take players through different gameplay systems fast so you don't get bored like in an amusement park. It's just all very banal at the end of the day. Too easy to offer challenge and the joy is mostly in bullshitting and screwing around with a friend.

Assassin’s Creed has been my favourite series for a long time, at least until the RPG ones. So after I saw good reviews for Shadows, I decided to bite the bullet. It’s really a mixed bag.

The game itself looks great, but the world feels dead; there’s a bunch of stuff moving about without any point. The wilderness feels empty, because not much happens in it. There are random encounters, but they are not memorable at all. They usually boil down to making a binary choice and being rewarded with a popup: new content unlocked on the map.

The finishers, parkour & assassination animations look similarly great, but there are so few of them; literally a couple per category. Gone are the days of AC3’s 700 distinct finishers.

The dialogue is mostly cringe, the story is nonsense, the voice acting not great, and the facial animations are entirely algorithmically driven; even during cutscenes. It’s noticeable.

The entire game in fact is algorithmically driven, from facial animations to the placement of props, objectives, etc.

But there is one saving grace to the game: the fantasy of playing as a lethal but vulnerable shinobi is amazing and very well executed. With the difficulty cranked to the max, and most UI elements disabled, I am having a blast, and I can definitely recommend the game for fans of older AC titles. This one has IMO the best and most polished stealth gameplay in the entire series. The enemies react, coordinate (a bit) and act unpredictably (sometimes). It’s great, but it’s a shame that this nugget of greatness is buried in the middle of some open-world, vanilla bullshit that has no vision or value.

Over the last month or so, I've played through God of War (2018) and God of War Ragnarok for the first time -- I hadn't played any of the earlier GoW games, but I understood this to be a good place to jump in. I really enjoyed both games, though I think I liked GoW (2018) better. I always found myself groaning when I had to play as Atreus as his fighting style was way less interesting. Also, I don't know if I just explored more in the earlier game, but the upgrades and armor I found in Ragnarok were way more limited. It's also possible I missed something, but Atreus ended with like 20k XP that I couldn't find anything to use it for.

I liked the story fine enough in Ragnarok. I was a bit over the whole teen angst, needing to get away from my Dad part of it by the middle, but I came around by the end.

I'd give GoW a 9/10 and Ragnarok an 8/10, probably