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

This week I broke standard procedure and temporarily ignored my backlog in order to play a newly released game, MIO: Memories In Orbit. It was cheap enough that it didn't make sense to wait for it, especially with the 10% launch discount. There's a lot to say about this one (sorry)!

MIO is a 2.5D science fiction metroidvania created by a French studio, in which you play a little robot that exists in a vast spacefaring ark, the Vessel. The Vessel's original inhabitants, the Travelers (humans?) are long gone. They left behind their many ageing sentient robotic servants in a habitat that's slowly falling apart and being invaded by out of control vegetation, malfunctioning devices, etc. The Vessel is run by intelligent entities named after body parts related to the function they supervise, and at the start of the game - after a big tremor - the Spine, in charge of the network, claims they have lost contact with the others and can you please go check up on them?

Visually, the game is gorgeous. Clever shader use yielded a pencil-drawn, watercolor-painted aesthetic complete with some discreet cross-hatching that made me think of certain modern comic books. While at first deceptively stark, throughout the game various parts of the Vessel are revealed to have beautiful architecture and a consistent and polished style. The sound design is also good and there's voice acting for the bosses. The lore from conversations is supplemented by several written testimonials and visual storytelling as you slowly uncover the history of the Vessel. The various robots you encounter range from creepy and insect-like to adorable (which is unrelated to their friendliness). Many are dead (or "beyond repair" as the game puts it), but every single one has a unique name, adding to the immersion.

Gameplay-wise, this game is VERY HARD. Did you read what I wrote last week about how Afterimage failed to be a souls-like metroidvania? Well, the finger curled on that monkey's paw. Throughout the game (so far) Mio has had between 3 and 6 hitpoints, and not necessarily in that order, as the plot will occasionally (permanently) take one away from you just to keep things interesting. Running is not super fast, jumps are floaty (probably on purpose - the game does include ice sliding and low gravity physics) and most bosses are tanky and can zip across the screen in half a second, or have up to ten times your attack range. Patience, endurance, pattern learning and good timing are essential if you want to get anywhere at all. Or, if you don't feel up for that, there are assist options (which I don't plan on ever using), including one that makes fights progressively easier with each repetition. If you can, try doing it the hard way - despite the difficulty, fights have never felt impossible so far. This is the type of game that makes you want to beat each milestone out of spite, and will fill you with vengeful satisfaction when you do.

There is a parry mechanic which lets you tank damage from an attack for maybe one second (if the enemy attack lasts longer than a second - tough!) Confusingly, the game calls this the "dodge". It's not a dodge. It does not move the character. I don't know why they called it dodge. Must be french humor I don't understand!

Mio's move set is a little different from your traditional metroidvania's. Forget about the dash and ground pound, as Mio is more fragile than almost anything else in the Vessel. To the basic double jump and punch (slap?) they add an unlockable grapple that is pretty much Mio's only way of moving fast, a limited glide and - my favorite - what I can only call "spider"; less of a wall climb and more of a "if you see it, you can walk on it, yes, even upside down". The thing is, any single skill use requires Mio's full energy bar, after which they must land and rest for a second. Unless, that is, they punch something, which will reset the bar. Punching makes everything better! Platforming sections therefore involve a bunch of punching enemies or slapping flowers and bombs as you string together a bunch of ceiling walking, grapple launches and glides over hallways filled with poisonous fuel or buildings overrun by corrupted funghi, with fairly strict tolerances.

The UI and menus have that sci-fi computer "burnt yellow on black" look, with clean lines and text, and monochrome icons representing the various collectibles and modifiers - which are an extension system for Mio's abilities. There are many of these and each takes up way too many of Mio's limited memory slots, forcing you to respec for specific bosses and to make sacrifices. For example, I almost immediately found myself unplugging Mio's HUD in order to make room for an attack power boost (which removes everything from the game screen, including the hitpoints and energy, making it impossible to know how close you are to dying). Slots can be extended but this requires paying a currency that is lost on death unless it's deposited in specific locations (I assure you this game will never go easy on you). Finally, there is a very good explorable map system which shows accurate area sizes, (the many) doors, complete with lock status, unexplored exits, checkpoints and boss areas, and which can be extended with custom-placed icons.

MIOs real sins are few, but oh boy are they cardinal.

Throughout the Vessel, there exist a few save points. These are where Mio will resume the game when you die or load from the menu, and also the only places where modifiers can be re-slotted and where your map will update with newly explored areas (did you think the map system deviated from the game's pervasive difficulty? Nope! Can't see where you are while exploring a new area!) It's also possible to fast travel between them as long as their robot "overseer", which has been torn off and dumped somewhere else, is found and "mended". There are relatively few of these save points - few enough, in fact, that for the whole first section of the game you have exactly one. And there are no other checkpoints whatsoever. That means whenever you die fighting a boss - which could happen within, say, ten seconds - you can expect to spend sometimes longer than a minute making your way back to the boss fight. This might require dealing with smaller enemies or platforming challenges through hazards which might kill your boss fight attempt before it even starts by taking away one of your precious hitpoints. If you overcome this, you then get to watch the boss fight's introduction animation again, during which you can punch the boss if it makes you happier, but they will take no damage. You cannot skip it - you can't skip any cutscenes, and at times will have to hear the same voice line many times as you repeat a fight. There are almost no concessions to your time - there isn't even a way to return to a save point deliberately other than exiting the game and re-loading.

This is mitigated by a fairly good shortcut system. In fact, the Vessel is pretty well designed as a whole, and shortcuts are many and an integral part of your progress in the game. But there is no world in which I will ever find this sort of player-hostile nonsense acceptable in 2026 (and neither do any other players, as far as I can tell). There is no reason why they couldn't checkpoint just before the bosses and shorten their introduction after the first time. I felt genuine anger at first, and this could have made me drop what is otherwise a fairly good game. It's "bad" enough that rooms can be vast and hallways long, and Mio can take a while to cross them at their not super fast, dash-free running pace.

I think I kind of get it. The developers had an artistic vision - a pretty good one - about this immersive arkship, with consistent distances, reasonable physics and a realistic aesthetic and they're uncompromisingly faithful to it. Based on their website, this seems to have been an artist-led endeavor, which is almost unbelievable given how polished and major-bug-free the gameplay seems to be. But if that's the case, I sure hope they will start listening to their players and patch more reasonable checkpointing in. It would be a pity if MIO failed to get the recognition it deserves out of pointless stubbornness.

If you're a really good gamer and manage to train yourself to never actually die, I can see MIO becoming an attractive speedrun game. I'd be interested in watching that!

Previous

I have been playing the Assassins Creed: Ezio Collection which consists of the 3 games in the Assassins Creed II trilogy(confusing, right?).

I finished ACII a couple weeks ago and just finished AC:Brotherhood, which means Im onto the final game, AC:Revelations.

ACII was very fun and I enjoyed it a lot, but I felt the plot was hard to get into. Ezio wants to get revenge for his family, which is a good motivation, but most of the game is following breadcrumbs to unravel a conspiracy that you dont really understand the meaning of until near the end. So most of your assassination targets kind of end up not mattering much.

AC:Brotherhood was better in this regard, because you have a clear upfront goal of going to war with the Borgias, and everything makes sense in that context. I also liked how they fleshed out the side plots better. The stories concerning Ezios sister joining the assassins and Machiavelli being suspected as a traitor were interesting mini plots. I also liked the new ability to train assassin recruits, although I found myself not using the feature often.

The biggest change in AC:Brotherhood was the new kill streak mechanic, which allows you to rapidly chain kills if you manage to do a counter, which is made much easier in this game by widening the timing window for a counter. On the one hand, this does kind of trivialize combat, as even without most gear or armor you can easily take out a whole army with just the hidden blade. On the other hand, it really does amp up the badass factor for Ezio as an unstoppable master assassin. Plus it makes sense narratively, AC:II was Ezios story of learning to be an assassin, but Brotherhood is Ezio in his prime as the leader of the Order.

So far in AC:Revelations I havent seen much gameplay improvements. The hookblade and new bombs are decent additions but dont really feel like they add that much. Im still early on though, so more may come.

As it stands now I think Brotherhood is my favorite of the games, but AC2 still has good appeal with the older combat system, and I really like the aesthetics of the first one the most.

ARC Raiders
Online multiplayer games scare me. I usually don't engage because I fear the level of skill that a lot of folks seem to have for some of these games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, or even Fortnite. It feels like I'm back to being considered a child and end up getting punished for my lack of time to devote to said games. Don't forget the toxicity of the general communication between players I've encountered. It all seems like too much, so I stick to one player games, or just Fifa (sorry, FC or whatever EA calls that "new phone who dis" game they keep crapping out.

That's not even remotely apparent in ARC Raiders. I've been blasting through missions, and finding the community to not only be positive, but helpful and genuinely nice. The amount of times I've experienced a whole group of us defeating a Matriarch, or any large machine, to the little things like a blueprint being dropped from another who has doubles. Bandages being traded mid run. Stuff like that. It's incredible to experience, and with Proximity chat, I've had some incredible moments where it made me double over with laughter...

At the top of the launch towers in Spaceport, there's a gap with platforms to jump between. I'm up there some 600 feet above the Earth with someone else, and he asks, "You gonna do it?" I run to the edge and jump only to barely hang onto the edge of the other slowly pulling myself up. He exclaims, "Well ghaddamn... I don't think I wanna try..." but yet he does, and he fails, falls, screaming "Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" while I stand there watching. It was straight out of Looney Tunes, the scream fading with his fall. This kind of thing has happened in different scenarios throughout my playtime. Sincerely it's some of the best gaming experiences I've had with a community of others from around the world.

That all being said, when someone does finally shoot to kill you, particularly in the back while you're looting some random machine, it does hurt. It stings like you really got punched in the gut. Most of the time I just say, "Well that's enough for today," after these very rare encounters.

Maybe I'll see you out there? I'm Jeakams everywhere, so please, I'm down to kill some ARC with some Tildepians. HMU

So I finally finished Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony last night. I thought I'd complete it Friday night, while I was watching the first half of the 24hrs of Daytona, yet somehow the race ended 12+ hrs later and I was still working on hours beyond the end of the race!

(Pinging @Well_known_bear because I think they were the last person I talked to about this game)

What a slog. And for a wholly unsatisfying ending. Aggravating, even. I just don't care for meta endings. "None of this is actually real! It's all just a 'game'!" Oh. So does that mean the first two games were just part of said "game"?" What does that mean for all the lore and worldbuilding from the first two games, anime, manga, spin-off games, etc?

I've seen some of the fanbase justifications. That V3 is non-canonical or it's in an alternate universe, that takes places separate from DR1 and DR2. But that's not stated anywhere. That's just an assumption, again, a justification.

Let me refocus. If you saw any of my previous comments from earlier in the month, I mentioned that I didn't like this game because of the characters mostly being pretty awful; one-dimensional. I still hold that belief (except for probably Kokichi). But I came back to the game because I wanted to see if there was a narrative reason for that. And I guess technically there is: it's because they're all unknowingly participants in a reality TV show, so their personalities are "scripted." Since they're not "real" people, their personalities and backstories are entirely fictional, that's why they're not deep and have weird or offputting personalities. They're bad because they were intentionally written to be that way.

Oh. OK. That's actually not said at any point; I'm just connecting possible dots. It could be that there's no reason at all why they're just not as good as DR1 and DR2 characters.

I also think the end comes off way too preachy and accusatory. The creator is definitely assigning blame to us players. There's no other way to take it, I don't think. "Why are these killing games happening? Because you the audience, the actual IRL players [such as me], wanted it! You wanted more Danganronpa video games, so that's why these high schoolers keep killing each other and dying gruesome deaths! YOU are killing them, all for your entertainment! So you can feel good about hope triumphing over despair!" Alright, buddy, relax.

Idk, this is absolutely, IMO, the worst game of the three mainline entries. By far. That's not to say there weren't some funny moments. That the style and art wasn't good; it was quite good. And that there weren't some moments that I enjoyed that were poignant and did make me rethink some of my thoughts on the characters. Again, that's mostly focused on Kokichi, but even on our MC, Shuichi though to a far lesser extent. But the characters overall, the pacing, the length of the game, and the terrible ending outweigh everything else.

I'm glad it's done. That was an instant uninstall after the credits finished. I think there's some other gamemode, but I have zero to desire to touch this game ever again.

I have been starting to play Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon and I am... conflicted.

I had seen it described as a modern, indie take on a dark fantasy Skyrim and that's certainly not wrong, but some things have been clear to me:

• It does not run well. I should not have picked it up on Playstation
• The team have bitten off a little more than they could chew.

Other than that, it's more muddy. Granted, I haven't played a ton yet, so I'll see what I think later, but it's a solid "meh" from me in ways I didn't expect from the very good rating on Steam.

The game certainly is moody and atmospheric and in a fun way if you're okay with a bit of "heavy metal edgelord", which I am. The actual real Danheim music they use for a soundtrack is good, but stretched very thin, lacking variety almost immediately and un-immersing me, since I happen to listen to that music.

The graphics aren't great on Playstation and I feel they overdid it some with a generic "dark" feel, contributing to a pretty sad environment to walk around in for a start.

The combat is more fluid than something like Skyrim, but pretty janky too, I'm not all that great at dashing in a first person game and regularly get semi stuck in combat, because I obviously can't see behind me. Also it appears like it also might get repetitive and feels a little cheap, but I'll see more when I unlock more spells and weapons.

The characters seem great, though the writing and voices sometimes give me an impression of "overacting" and the voices especially are of varying quality, from great to that guy with a terrible microphone.

Quests have been somewhat funny in their topics, but very "kill that, talk to them, get me that" in inplementation.

My visceral reaction, though I'm not sure if that's fair yet, is: this game was made for me as a thirteen year old edgelord. Would've lapped that stuff up.
Now, I'm a bit more unsure, but I'll continue to give it a go, although a little disgruntled.

I can see there's a bunch of passion and fun and sense for adventure and "wouldn't it be epic if..." in this game, but I wish there were more technical excellence (or manpower) to back that up fully.

I wouldn't recommend it on Playstation and I would be a bit reserved on PC. It might be for you if you've been craving something in this genre, because it seems underserved. But it ain't a masterpiece -- there's too much jank -- though perhaps with more resources, a second attempt from this team could be one.

Still just playing Arc Raiders. This game is my crack. My kids and I will do a couple runs after I finish work almost every day. So good.

Put some more hours into Starrupture and I have a nice and very compact omni-factory that can make every item currently available, the only issue being it's basically impossible to scale up any individual item's production because of how densely packed it is, so I'll probably end up making a whole new, much more spread out factory later on. I think I've otherwise exhausted all the content currently available, which is pretty good considering I put a couple dozen hours into it. Looking forward to more updates.

Also tried No Rest For the Wicked since they had a free weekend and sale to celebrate the launch of their co-op mode, been playing that with a friend and it's been a pretty good time so far. This one's a third person soulslike (yes I know that term's overused but this game really does lean into the difficulty) from the studio that made the Ori series. There's a good weight to attacking and moving, stamina usage is hefty and enemies are punishing. Haven't run into too many bugs yet, mainly loading issue things. The game also recommends you play with a controller, and after trying KBM and controller out I can confirm that controller is indeed a much better experience.

Came back to the permanent Deadman world in Old School RuneScape, partially to scratch the itch left behind by the lack of temporary game modes. Literally spent an evening fighting NPCs around Varrock, thieving from the town's Tea Stall and pickpocketing guards, because I knew the moment I stepped outside the safe zone, I'd be griefed by a pure unless I made it to the 75 - 85 combat bracket that hardly anyone was in.

I felt like I've made good progress.

Speaking of MMOs that are in my Steam library but I hardly touched, I installed and gave Winds of Valen a go. It's another point & click MMORPG, its main mechanic seems to be switching shields to mitigate enemy attacks in a way akin to prayer flicking in RuneScape, and changing your weapon to counter enemy armor weaknesses. Other than that, the game is incredibly barebones, lacks a world map and much of the QoL that other games like it has. Definitely one to keep an eye out for.

World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Anniversary is a lot better when you aren't trying to level a Blood Elf or Draenei. The other starting zones seem a lot more empty and I've actually been able to make some good progress on a few alts. I think my approach is to semi-casually level alts to max and exploit rested XP gain as much as possible, at least aiming to get a 70 character midway through Phase 1.

I just recently started playing Cult of the Lamb after looking for a cozy game that I can latch my ADHD onto when my executive function is having issues.

I'm liking it so far, however it's not exactly what I thought it was. I think I've gotten the hang of it but I feel like I'm missing some mechanics.

I like the artstyle, but I do wish there was an option that could make it ever so slightly less positive.