Cat Quest II
System: PC
Developer: The Gentlebros
Publisher: Kepler Interactive
Genre: Action RPG, Fantasy, Animals



A while ago I talked about Cat Quest, a fun satirical take on the RPG Genre that parodied genre and game cliches while taking place in the 2.5D World of Felingard. It was quick, snappy, short and did enough right to be one of the more memorable experiences of the year. And I'm pleased to say for the sequel, Cat Quest II is a GIGANTIC improvement over everything Cat Quest I did. Not only does it improve the base things such as art style, gameplay, graphics and controls, but even adds new ideas and takes bold new steps to becoming a series that is certainly worth talking about.

This sequel ends up taking away the satirical edge of the first game in favor of a more serious (but still oftentimes funny and lighthearted) epic adventure that now spans two continents. This sequel showcases our two new heroes, two former kings (one a dog the other a cat) who are tasked with taking down the tyrannical kings who rule both their lands and reclaim their throne and stop the war. You'll get help from Kirry, the royal spirit adviser, plus returning faces like Kit Cat, who is much more well developed in terms of characterization, plus new faces like Hotto Doggo, a cheeky parody of martial arts warriors and skilled weapons blacksmith. There's other characters along the way, but these will be the main characters you're teamed up with to fight off Lioner and Wolfen, the two kings raging a war against the lands.

There's tons of gigantic improvements that make the first game seem a bit dated in comparison. One of the main things you'll notice right away is that character speed and controls are much more faster. This is because when you walk a while, the characters you control will start sprinting which is a very welcomed addition considering Cat Quest I's speed was rather slow at worst. There's been many improvements as well in terms of upgrading weapons and armor. Now you don't have to worry trying to find the same item over and over again to level up or buying chests in hopes of getting an upgrade. Now, you can go to Kit Cat or Hotto Doggo's place to upgrade them. My gripe however is that they specialize in one or the other, so I hope you like travelling continents because you're going to be doing that A LOT.

As for gameplay, character building is very simple. You control the two characters and build them to your liking. I made the dog the buffing offensive type, while I made the cat the defensive spellcasting short who chugged health and mana restoration for their magic. You can play it local coop where one person controls one character and the other the next, but I must admit there's something very addictive about Cat Quest's design with building your characters by yourself. It feels rewarding when you have the right equipment and you've leveled up your weapons and armor to make the build you have more sustainable during the rest of the game. Otherwise, gameplay is quicker, much nicer and feels more polished in terms of spellcasting, movement and combat compared to the first game. There's also loads of dungeons that are worth pursuing and the good thing as well is there is more variety in terms of dungeon layout and challenges you'll face especially in many of the ruins you'll find in this game.

Graphics have also seen a boost. Not just in variety, but in terms of better looking more distinct NPCs as well, not to mention the Cat looks so much better than in the first game. The first was apparently a mobile game first and then moved to consoles later. However, the Gentlebros obviously took a Console/PC approach first and so the game looks like the budget was increased somewhat. The lands of Felingard and The Lupus Empire look very distinct, from Felingard's grassy land and high mountains, to the more Persian desert areas of giant skeletons and isolated villages of the Empire. The music, one of my favorite things from the previous game is just as good if not better than Cat Quest I. You get more variety in terms of music and ambient tracks and the main march that starts the game off is fantastic and a great way to get players hyped for what they're about to play. Trust me, if you loved Cat Quest I's music, there's no denying you'll love Cat Quest II's soundtrack as well.

I won't spoil the story, but there's a big twist at the end of the second act that blew my mind. Seriously, play it blind and you'll be absolutely blown away by it. As said, the story is more epic, but there's still loads of comedy in the game. There's certainly funny moments, and then there are tragic ones, heartbreaking ones and somewhat serious ones that give the game more depth from it's predecessor. The side quests are great as well and yep, another side quest at the very end game showcases a dragon helping you figure out something in the quest you're on. Dragons are friends! Not fodder!... despite the fact you kill tons of Wyverns in this game. Overall, it feels much better designed considering I got to Level 100 by the end, so I could have gone to do a lot of post game dungeon crawling if I wanted to since all the dungeons were very high level at this point. So there's barely any post game grinding required. Well, to be honest, before the epilogue, it's basically post game all the way through unless you want to just see the ending.

There's not much bad stuff to say. But I will say Kirry is nowhere near as an interesting character as Spirry was. Spirry was kind of a surrogate for the player's thoughts, commenting, quipping and joking about all the cliches, tropes and odd things that happen during the game. Kirry does get some depth in terms of his character, but he is nowhere near as interesting because most of the time he's in the background and only relegated to main quest duties. And SPOILERS: It is revealed that there are parallel universes/multiverses in this game, which considering how dated and frustrating multiverses as a story gimmick is, it makes the game feel a bit cheaper knowing that this world we're in doesn't feel like it matters when there are so many others to boot, despite the game's villains saying how important this timeline is or whatever. It's not the game's fault per se, it obviously didn't know that Marvel and Everything Everywhere All At Once was going to do this gimmick, but now I just have to roll my eyes.The only time when a multiverse actually seemed to work for me is in Serious Sam 4 and Siberian Mayhem, where it feels that not only do we get to see a glimpse of the many Sams throughout the series, but it's science fiction setting also makes it fit. Sam feels like he gets to have a fighting chance in every timeline and it makes the player think about previous games as their own multiverses as well. And since the conflict is so dramatically HUGE in the game and does involve things like Time Traveling, which fits with the gimmick, it feels like every parallel universe that is in peril because of Mental MATTERS in the end where in Cat Quest II, it just feels like something they threw at the wall hoping it would stick and it ends up sliding down slowly when you realize this doesn't really work considering it's setting and the scope of it's conflict (which for real, is MUCH smaller than a monstrous alien being attacking Earth's colonies in every single universe) as well as the fact this game I think takes place ONE THOUSAND YEARS after it just leaves you questioning the situation all together. I know the main actual villain is specifically a god, but to be honest he feels rather puny considering he feels like a character "Put On A Bus" as TV Tropes calls it where he's in the game very little.(Which to be honest, is much funnier than my term for it "Steele Syndrome")

Anyways, that's enough about that.

The point is, Cat Quest II is fantastic. It improves pretty much every single aspect from the first game and makes for an excellent overall epic adventure that will delight fans of the first and is a perfect start for newcomers to the series. It's a much bigger, bolder game with better graphics and art style, improved controls, better design and an addictive gameplay loop and awesome story that is certainly one I'd highly recommend. It's certainly going down as a GOTY Contender for the games I've played this year. I'll hopefully talk about Cat Quest III soon, so be on the lookout for that!

Rating: 9/10

PROS:

-Music is even better than in the first game
-Graphics have seen a major improvement to NPCs and Characters and the world is more distinctive than the last game
-Added things like a blocking spell and the ability to upgrade weapons and armor from shops, making character building better
-Character building is addictive even in single player and is easy despite having two characters to use
-Controls are much faster and more fluent thanks to increased movement speed giving the game a faster pace
-Story and characterization is all around excellent and heads in a welcome new direction
-Gameplay loop is very addictive
-Design is much better in terms of progression and dungeons
-Mind blowing twist that will rock your socks off by the end of the second act

CONS:

-Kirry nowhere as interesting a character as Spirry was
-You have to go to two separate shops to upgrade either armor or weapons in two different lands, making trips between continents feel like a slog
-Multiverse as part of the story feels dated and oftentimes frustrating thinking it over

-TheAutisticGamer

Your Sonic Generations review was super interesting to read! That game is in my top 3 games period. In my opinion, it's a phenomenal game that encapsulates the pure joy of gaming as a whole. I sort of see it as the game to end all games! It's something that I can always hop back into when I don't know what I want from life. But even someone like me can admit that the game is wildly flawed. I personally don't hate the challenge levels, and there are a good handful that are pretty dang good, but there are certainly some stinkers (literally anything with a side character is probably awful). And the bosses are also not stellar (Shadow Generations improves on that front), I do agree. And you didn't mention this, but wow, the controls don't work at low speeds. Sonic controls are often quite janky and unpolished, and while this game works great at high speeds, it really isn't fun at low speeds, which is something other Sonic games do a lot better.

But man... there isn't anything like blazing through Rooftop Run or shredding the streets of City Escape. And the game being short is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, yeah, I want more. But on the other, it encourages replays, and good lord, this game is replayable as can be! And now with Shadow Generations, It's just the ultimate Sonic package. I love it to no end, but yeah, it's definitely flawed. I loved reading your review! It was so interesting to see other perspectives. I'm looking forward to what you have to say about Shadow Generations!

Can you tell I'm a Sonic fan?

I'm seriously beginning to think Sonic is a legitimately great series. The movies and the recent Knuckles show (which I'm watching with my sister, we're loving it) really made me interested in the franchise again and I've been just been surprised by what I've been missing with games like Generations and Colors, which I'm playing rn on PC. Generations certainly isn't a perfect game to be honest and I think I may have come off a bit too positive in my review here but even then a 7/10 is what I'd call "Decent" and I was certainly needing me something to get through the month.

As for Shadow Generations, I'm also looking forward to playing it. I just got Sonic X Shadow Generations on PS5 so I'm really looking forward to talking about the changes made in terms of Generation's cutscenes and dialogue, not to mention playing the entire Shadow part which I've heard unanimous acclaim for. I'm also hyped for the third movie and will hopefully see it on opening week. People's love for Sonic in general really has made me realize what a good series it is from a gameplay perspective and talking with friends and people like you who are enthusiastic about the games has really changed my perspectives. I don't like every game, mainly Shadow The Hedgehog for it's insane redundancy to get the true ending, not to mention the story in Sonic Forces is one of the worst stories I've ever played, but even in the lesser titles like Forces I enjoyed the fast paced pick up and play gameplay that made it quick to play between commuting to places (It helps I played it on Switch during commutes to college at the time).

I'm really happy passionate people such as you have really made me think about Sonic in a different way. For years all I've heard is the same twisted argument that 3D/Modern Sonic is ass, but listening to so many people who love games like Sonic Heroes, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Sonic Generations, Sonic Rush, Sonic Mania and plenty of other titles have made me realize that Sonic as a franchise is pretty cool! I really gotta go back and finish all of Sonic Adventure 1, complete Sonic Adventure 2, replay Sonic Heroes and give other titles a retry like Sonic Unleashed for 360. I seriously think this series just gets a bad rep from the 2006 360 game which has been talked about to, to death at this point so I feel for a long time the reception of many of these games have been warped. I'm just glad Sonic is in a much better spot reception wise than it had been previously. Seriously, Sonic fans are great and I'm happy to now be a part of that community.

I managed to get two games done this month.

Sonic Generations - PC, 11/09, 7/10
Cat Quest II - PC, 11/27, 9/10

The obvious winner of this month for me is Cat Quest II, but Sonic Generations is still a decent game all things considered, especially when focusing on the major levels in the game and ignoring the challenge acts that I don't really like. Generations is also one of the best looking games of Gen 7 and it's vivid and bright graphics make the game super appealing to the eye. I'll be playing the new version in Sonic X Shadow Generations so I'll probably talk more about the Shadow part of the game when I complete it. Cat Quest II is just a massive improvement over the first game in almost every single area. Removes the satirical elements of the first game for a more epic and lighthearted adventure and in general I thought it was better written, better playing, better looking, better sounding and more intuitive than the first game by all means. I love the game and it honestly captivated me from beginning to end. This is how you do a sequel! I'm starting Cat Quest III as well in the meantime, although I might wait till January to complete it.

December will focus on getting some games I've already started done hopefully including Timeshift and Sonic X Shadow Generations, maybe I'll be able to fit another smaller game in there, but those are the two I'm going to focus on aside from trying Half-Life 2 mods from the Steam Workship thanks to the new update for the game. I would say I would also want to start Sonic Colors Ultimate, but that might not be a realistic expectation. Besides, there's also games I'll probably start at Christmas if I get gifted them but who knows.

Time for another post! I'm actually quite excited as this week is going to be my Staff Dinner Party for Work. I went last year and had a great time at the Golf Club where we held our dinner and it's going to be really awesome to go back again this year. The nice thing is every table gets a bottle of wine which is also great, but I might skip out on the alcohol this year, especially since i never know how I'm going to feel and don't want a depressant to make it worse.

I decided to wait until next year to start coding and then get into UE5, but I've gotten the idea for next year to start with a Half-Life 2 mod. Now, this uses C++ (I think UE5 does too) so I'm going to probably get a book on coding that will make it easy for me to understand the language. I've never used modding tools before in my life and this will certainly take a while. However I want to get my feet wet into game development as said and if this goes anywhere, I'll probably do some updates on how game dev is going. I'm planning to get my friend PhatPotato to join me as well as his love is basically D&D and gaming, so we should be a perfect match to work together on something.

Other than that, there's been loads of gaming I've been doing the past while. I'll talk about two games I'm playing at the moment.



On the Wii, MySims was one of my favorite franchises to play besides Boom Blox and it's sequel Bash Party. I have fondness especially for the spinoffs like MySims Racing and MySims Agents, especially the latter which I played a ton of back in the day. So obviously, when it was announced MySims and it's sequel Kingdom would be getting re-released for Switch, it was an obvious buy from me. And so far, it feels good to be back in this world. Obviously, it's a life sim and you end up building a town while making residents happy by giving them things with their preferences. The game already gives a good first impression as 1. The Game runs at 60 FPS and 2, the Resolution Boost makes the game look more beautiful than it did on the Wii. My only gripe is that this version's controls kind of suck for building. The Wii Version used the remote's pointer to make building and customization work as well as it did, but here for some stupid reason instead of using the left stick to moves around items, that's the stick for adjusting the position of the item. Right stick is used for moving objects which just doesn't feel good and you'll never get used to it. The Touch Screen is used thankfully so most of the time it's not a problem, but it becomes rather irritating that the controls for this are not perfect and should have been the easiest thing to get right for what is essentially a extremely basic port that changes basically nothing about the game otherwise as the gameplay, graphics, music, menus and everything are pretty much the same.

I already put 3+ Hours into MySims, so I am definitely planning on playing more of it throughout the winter. Problem now is I might have to buy another copy because my Mom and Sister want to both play it (My Mom loved this game on the Wii) so I might have to get that as a Christmas present for them both.



I'm nearly done Cat Quest II and I'm mainly just finishing up side quests and dungeons that I need to finish. I'm at Level 81 rn and boy, this game is a MASSIVE improvement over Cat Quest I. The story is 10x better than the first game, the characters have depth to them, despite this being a very lighthearted game it can get really emotional at points, the graphics have seen a major improvement as well as having the NPCs look more interesting than in the previous game, they've built off the lore of the first game and made for some really good worldbuilding and this has a GIGANTIC WTF twist I did not see coming. I don't know if I'll 100% the game, but I'm still pretty amazed by how much better the game is in general compared to Cat Quest I. The first game was a good satire of the RPG genre, but this evolved the series into it's own thing entirely with amazing writing and even more addictive gameplay. I'll probably start Cat Quest III in the new year and can't wait to see where the series goes next.

---

That's pretty much it. These two games have helped me get through much of November and hopefully MySims and Sonic X Shadow Generations (which I just got) will keep me busy until the new year. BTW if you're wondering if I have another Year End Epilogue planned for the Blog's Season, yes I do! I just have to figure out and write it. I have an idea of a small continuation I can write that transitions into the next season. I don't have a name for Season 4 Yet, but I do have some names I might pick, like Mark of the Draconians. I don't know yet, but we'll see if that sticks in my mind. Cat Quest II review will be coming very soon hopefully! I just need some time to finish it up. Thanks all! Next month I'll probably talk about my thoughts on Sonic The Hedgehog 3, a movie I'm cautious about, but am nonetheless looking forward to.

-TheAutisticGamer

Just wanted to jump in on the discussion. When I initially played this it was without a doubt one of the best FPS Games I've ever played. Everything is so freaking frantic and just overall an adrenaline rush and I played it at the perfect time when COVID was just starting, so I got to play this for a good chunk of a week or two and ended up absolutely loving this game. Certainly not a beginner friendly FPS, but if you can get a hang of the gameplay flow and mechanics and use them to your advantage you're absolutely going to have a blast with this.

I haven't played it in a VERY long time, not since launch I think. I will however be replaying 2016 and Eternal plus Ancient Gods 1 + 2 before I end up starting Doom The Dark Ages, but even then I'm probably going to wait to buy a new GPU since that's what I've done for every new Doom title in the last decade. I don't know how my opinion on it will stand now, but at the time I remember it being a gigantic improvement over 2016, and 2016 is a game I try to come back to finish again but always feel like it's completely overrated for what it is, not to mention the problems I had with the in engine unskippable gameplay cutscenes which just kill the pace of the game where you stand around doing nothing while characters talk for hours on end (at least Eternal had the ability to skip all cutscenes). It will be interesting to see my current thoughts on 2016 and Eternal, especially since I love Doom 93 and also have a really soft spot in my heart for Doom 3.

I think a common complaint about Sable was the repetitive nature of tasks which seemed pointless. I have no idea if this is a fair criticism or just one laid on by people who don't like the sort of game it was. So, I 'll be keen to see your review when you finish it.

Unfortunately, I had a softlock when playing Sable and am unable to continue unless I start a new game, and I was already 3+ hours into it when this softlock happened because apparently, exploring places you think you should explore can get you trapped into an endless falling animation. So, that was aggravating. Hopefully my blood pressure will settle down and I'll play this game again one day though. Just to let you know my thoughts from what I played it's one of the best looking games of our current gaming gen rn. World is interesting and exploring can be rewarding at points. I just wish the animation style wasn't so jagged and I realized the game does have a tendency to lag.

Anyways, I've been playing Cat Quest II in hopes of completing it. I REALLY needed some games that would make me feel happy as I'm going through a depression slump which happens every November-January. I'll probably play Cat Quest III after, but also I'll soon be revisiting My Sims for the newest re-release of the game on Switch which I'm actually very excited about. My Sims was a game I loved back on the Wii and even my mom loved playing it and the only game she's really beaten currently was Hogwarts Legacy on her Switch (She's a really big Potterhead) But My Sims and it's numerous spinoffs were all really cool so I'm looking forward to experiencing the game again.

Sonic Generations
System: PC
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: SEGA
Genre: Platformer, 3D Platformer
Completed in 5:03:00



Hello! I haven't been on HLTB for a while, I know. It's been like three weeks. However, I am now falling into the period I call a "Depression Slump" which usually occurs from November to January. I have been feeling shitty lately (it may or may not be obvious why, but I'm not going to get into that) but last week I had two straight up panic attacks at work. So, I wanted something to play that would make me feel at least good about myself. And so, digging in through my backlog, I found I haven't completed Sonic Generations yet, so I wanted to go through it. I've heard it be acclaimed again from time to time as one of the best Sonic games. Now, I'm not the biggest Sonic fan but I have grown up on two specific games growing up, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Sonic Heroes both for the Gamecube. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was the one I played the most, but Sonic Heroes had it's share of moments too. For me, Generations fits nicely with the Sonic Games I like. I'm glad a lot of people have gone to reassess Sonic's game library (Shoutout to Chronoja who is currently doing so!) because I feel Sonic has been unfairly treated over the years, so it's great to see people coming back to give these games another chance.

As for me, it's a decent Sonic game and a good mood booster. The game isn't fantastic but it does do certain things right. First off, to get into the gameplay, the narrative needs a bit of explaining. Sonic is celebrating his birthday with friends when all of a sudden some big evil thing comes out and sucks the world into pieces (this is my last resort!) and so, Sonic and Tails, alongside Classic Sonic and Tails join forces to find out what the hell is going on and save characters from many of the worlds washed away in time. The game itself is mainly consists of going into worlds as either Classic or Modern Sonic and completing each stage to revive a character. After completing three worlds, you have to do three challenge levels (one from each stage) and get the boss key, then you fight a boss, then it's onto the next three worlds. To be honest, if we're only talking about the main stages, it totals 18 Levels, if we add another nine to the bonus stages you have to do, not to mention the bosses like Metal Sonic, Shadow and Silver and end game bosses it's technically 34 for completing the entire game (I think) considering you also need the Chaos Emeralds for the final confrontation. Unfortunately, these challenge stages felt like filler and they're not that simple and consist of cumbersome challenges that aren't that fun to begin with. For a game that loves simplicity, they really should have thought to not make the challenge levels a chore to do.

The entire game itself is decent as said. The 18 Main Levels where you play as Classic and Modern Sonic are really good and Modern Sonic's levels are a blast to play mainly because of the boost feature. If you are doing REALLY good that sense of speed really is rewarding to have and that's also said for Classic Sonic. I've learned after playing some of Sonic 1 that these games are not necessarily about going as fast as you can. Instead that's the reward; it's speed. And I think that's what's satisfying about these games. You want to go fast. But you need to learn how the levels and you need to learn Sonic and once you do, you feel like the king of the world. The controls are pretty good for this type of game and since the game switches between 2D and 3D a lot it's never jarring when it happens and you feel like you mostly have control over what Classic and Modern Sonic are doing. This is one of the best looking games of the 7th Generation of Gaming as well. It's so bright and vivid and eye popping that it immediately pleases the eye. The FMVs do look low res and dated in general, but the game overall has a great style and look throughout and I love the defining differences of Classic and Modern Sonic.

Music is also another highlight, but in this case almost every Sonic game at this point has some great tunes. I heavily praised the average Sonic Forces' soundtrack as one of the best of the series. And since this game has a lot of the greatest hits, you're not going to be disappointed by the selection you get here. The music is stellar throughout the game and it's one of the reasons to play it aside from it's main levels. The story itself is decent as well and has a twisty plot that I saw coming, but man does this feel right for a game involving time travel. It also ends on a hopeful note for future games. Whether you at all care for any of Sonic's latest outings like the movies, Sonic Forces, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Mania or any other Sonic game depends. So far it's great to see Sonic back in the limelight and possibly more popular than he has been in the last decade. Sonic Generations is pretty decent overall and it made me happy just playing it. It's not amazing as it's design choices can be sometimes annoying and intrusive (wanting to jump over boss keys in the overworld to get another challenge level but the game thinking you're trying to get the boss key and saying no no in a big text bubble stopping you dead in your tracks instead is rather aggravating) but otherwise if you like colorful games with great soundtracks, this should be on your backlog if you haven't tried it yet.

PROS:

-Stellar soundtrack
-One of the best looking 7th Gen Games
-Modern Sonic is a blast to play
-The Main 18 Stages are loads of fun to play
-Decent Time Travel story despite an obvious twist
-Comes with a freaking Virtual Pinball machine you can play in game!

CONS:

-Annoying Design Choices for Challenge Levels
-Bosses aren't as fun as the developers think

-TheAutisticGamer

P.S: I'll hopefully be back to talk more about games later. Right now I need to build up my endurance again if I can. But I hope to see you later when I'm in a better state!

I finished Sonic Generations recently. Unfortunately I don't have the new version so I had to go with the delisted version with an outdated settings interface on Steam. Still, this is one of the best looking games of the 7th Generation. Everything is so vivid and bright that it makes it very appealing to the eye. I loved playing Classic and Modern Sonic's levels for each world which I thought were the strongest aspects of the entire game. I loved Modern Sonic's gameplay as I'm more akin to playing as him having grown up with Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Sonic Heroes. Classic Sonic's levels were certainly easier, but Modern Sonic with the boost function made it a lot more fun for me to play. I also enjoyed that they went back to all previous Sonic Games from the time and even if the reception to some of the games were not as good, they still managed to celebrate those levels as part of Sonic's Legacy he has given us through the years. I wasn't a fan of the challenge segments of the game, mainly because they could have been so simple to grasp but they had to complicate them in one way or another. With how simple the rest of the game is, I think it would have been okay at this time to continue the simplicity of such challenges. The music also is wonderful, but all Sonic Soundtracks at this point are amazing anyways.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how the narrative turned out. I knew halfway through what was going to happen, but seriously, it was pretty decent all things considered with the twist at the end. I think the game is mainly a 7/10 because I'm not the biggest Sonic person, but there's no denying this was a mood booster game for sure.

Sadly I only beat one short game this month because I was insanely indecisive about what I wanted to play. Not to mention I'm busy playing with Unreal Engine 5 at the moment and trying to learn how to use it.

The Pony Factory (PC, 10/10, 8/10)

The Pony Factory is a game I like more and more when I think about it. It's another small David Szymanski project and apparently with this, Squirrel Stapler and the upcoming Butcher's Creek he's making his own game universe which ties these three games together. It was so refreshing to play this considering you're not playing a dual weapon wielding badass who spouts edgy/cringey one liners, instead you're a guy with one weapon who is not that strong trying to survive. Playing as someone who wasn't a bad ass was so nice, but the great thing is there's no cheap jump scares at all in this game. It's mainly relying on you to remember enemy positions and take them out as quickly as possibly, while having a gorgeous aesthetic and cheesy B-Movie soundtrack with very fun creature designs for the enemies. It also is pretty funny if you think about it and I love that he's putting a lot of humor in these horror projects. If the DSHGU (David Szymanski Horror Game Universe) will succeed, only time will tell. Szymanski has only made one flop in my eyes with DUSK '82, but most of his projects are really stellar to begin with so I have confidence this will work out.

UE5 learning is still going on for me, but I'm getting some progress done in Sable. I also want to start a longer game but haven't really landed on which one. I was seriously thinking Planescape: Torment EE, but it will depend on what I'm feeling like. Lets just hope next month is better for me in terms of games.

Well, I have been jumbling stuff on and off but mainly I've been playing Sable which is jaw droppingly gorgeous. The game looks amazing and is probably one of my favorite games visually from this decade so far. I'm mainly just trying to figure out stuff right now and what quests to do and where to explore next but I'm having a pretty good time. The dialogue is all around excellent and one conversation nearly had me in tears at the beginning of the game. I love it. Plus the Soundtrack by Japanese Breakfast is great, it has one of the best main menu themes I've heard in years. I mentioned on my blog I don't get why everyone was complaining about performance but I'm not beginning to see why. Stutters are not constant but they happen more so than I would like.

I'm also trying to play Sniper Elite 5. I don't know if I mentioned this before but I did play a bit on Game Pass and really wanted to play it after the great first impression it gave me. I'm only REALLY early on and still at the very beginning but so far the story and character development is a million times better than any previous Sniper Elite game and Karl actually has a personality and depth now! Yay! The obsessive handholding this series is known for is still unfortunately in place though, literally in the very first few minutes the game verbally told me pretty much how to play the game without the freedom of choice that I had and basically babysat me through the entire first part of the first level. I seriously don't get why Rebellion is not trusting enough for players to figure out and understand that this series is about freedom and how you play around with how missions are completed, it's become ridiculous.

Nevertheless, I'm very excited to play more of the game. The only thing gameplay wise I don't like is that ADS on Pistols now only showcases a first person view, not the standard third person in previous games. This is excessively distracting and there seems to be no way to turn that off, meaning one time I used a Welrod, wanted to get a headshot up close, completely missed and got my spot compromised because the view I get in first person is extremely shitty so now I have to use the default gun the game gives me because the game completely changed how it works. Maybe there's some obscure way to get third person ADS on Pistols but to me this is extremely disappointing. (I'm Playing on PS5)

I also want to at least start a bigger game soon. I might go back to Yakuza Kiwami 2 and restart that, or I might play Valkyrie Elysium since I really enjoyed the demo for it. I might try Horizon Remastered since it's a $15 Upgrade from the original and I've been meaning to play it, but who knows. I'm just messing with a lot of stuff right now and am mostly learning how to use Unreal Engine 5.

I've caught a stomach bug yesterday so I'm mostly in bed or lying on the couch just trying to pass time. But for this quick Moving Forward post I do want to give you all some exciting news. It's been on my mind recently, but I've decided to take it very seriously now.

Basically, I'm beginning to use Unreal Engine 5 and attempt to work my way into game development. This might seem like a turn of left field considering you know me as the guy on here who loves writing stories. But, my writings haven't gone much anywhere in the past month or two, so I decided in order to get back in shape, I wanted to do something to excite myself and push my stories further. I wanted to start Game Dev as I thought it would take my stories to new heights and be more powerful than it would be on paper. I'm only just getting started and haven't even gotten to learn blueprints yet in the tutorial I'm watching, but I want to just say that this tutorial I'm watching is extremely helpful and I've been having an easy time learning UE5. There's plenty I still have to learn, but eventually I would love to get a small team together and start making my dream projects come to life.

In the meantime, while I'm learning I will still be working on the blog as usual. I will update you when there's anything close to a project starting, but for now I'm just in the midst of learning things.

There's not much to say in terms of gaming right now. I've been mainly stuck in my bed and on the couch, but I did start one thing in particular.



This game caught my eye when it was first announced. To describe what I played so far, it's kind of like a Giant Squid game like ABZU or The Pathless. You have a very deep narrative, platforming, open world map to explore, things to do, directions to go in and the visuals are by far spectacular. This is one of the most gorgeous games I've seen released this decade. It's a real stunning game from the moment you pick it up. And the story involved has gotten me invested and emotional. One conversation in particular nearly had me in tears, so the game is obviously do something right.

Now, I've heard people on the Reviews tab of this site have said the game's performance is atrocious. And I have to ask, have we played the same game? I'm running on a RTX 2070 still to this day and I've had nothing but praises in terms of how smooth this game runs. I did encounter one visual glitch early on, but it was easily fixed itself. But overall the game just runs nice and I don't have anything bad to say except that the camera is awful and unreliable and the controls feel a bit rigid. One of my favorite moments so far was Platforming up top to this building and doing a puzzle to get the building back up in action. It's right after you leave the tutorial area, but it's still a remarkable moment and I haven't felt such freedom since The Pathless. I'm honestly very impressed with the game so far but if it keeps my attention is another story entirely.

Also, just to note, I watched Prime Video's Like A Dragon: Yakuza series. And... no, it's terrible. I could go on and on and on and on about every canon breaking thing they did to everyone in the first game. I could ask questions like why Kiryu is just an asshole to Kazama for no good reason, why they added a fourth friend to Kiryu, Nishiki and Yumi's group when they were at Sunflower, why Shibusawa is even in this series (which showcases the year he's in is 1995! WHAT!?) why Sera and Shimano look nothing like their game counterparts, why Kiryu acts nothing like his video game counterpart, why Nishiki is just a wet blanket, why Reina has no personality whatsoever, why the series doesn't follow the first game at all except for a couple things name wise, or why in the hell the majority of this series takes place in 1995 and not 2005 like the game is supposed to which makes the pacing drawn out and way too long and boring. Why? Why? WHY!? Honestly it hurt my brain thinking about this series and I abandoned ship after Episode Two. This really felt like a spit in the face to Yakuza fans everywhere. It disrespects canon and in it's failed attempts to do something new it ends up just feeling like some cliched worse show in the genre. Absolutely avoid it. Also, what the hell did they do to my boy Majima!?!

Rant aside, I will talk to you all later when I'm feeling better. For now, I just want to get this bug out of my system. Thanks again!

-TheAutisticGamer

Just letting you guys know I ended up playing David Szymanski's The Pony Factory which he made with his brother John who also has some games out. The more I think about the game the more I applaud and like it even more. I love that this is a horror game that doesn't rely on extremely cheap jump scare tactics, but mixes the survival horror aspect with a Indie/Boomer Shooter game to create a game where if you die, you have to know enemy placements and hope you'll survive. I love that your character is not a big badass killing machine spouting stupid one liners, instead he's vulnerable and doesn't have much in the way of agility and attack aside from the one gun and hiding behind corners hoping projectile throwing enemies don't shoot you. It's strong on the humor and fun premise, the enemy designs are awesome, the ammo and health placements are neatly spaced out so you have a fair chance of fighting, not to mention the spooky B-Movie themes are a lot of fun and the game overall just feels nice and refreshing. There's a reason I love David's work so much and apparently, this and Squirrel Stapler are part of the same universe as he continues to expand his works into one connected world. Gotta play Squirrel Stapler now! Really good game, 8/10 from me. I played it like a week and a half ago but it's still something I absolutely had a good time with.



I also suggest trying out David's newest demo for his project Butcher's Creek. I guess the only thing I can compare it to maybe might be Condemned, but it's a melee driven survival horror where you kill serial torturers (who are admittedly a bit dumb with their AI) and regain health by capturing photos of crime scenes and blood and gore (which I found darkly funny) It's a solid demo and the game comes out at the beginning of January, so I'm definitely going to play the full thing. Great atmopshere, no tacky jump scares, very immersive, can be thrilling to master the combat in the demo, can't wait for it to come out.

Well what do you know? TAG decided to quickly (and by quickly I mean nearly 3 weeks later) do another Moving Forward post. WHAT!? That doesn't happen unless it's months apart from the reviews! I know, but today I'm feeling in general REALLY good about myself that I think I'm going to post another one to see how things are going on.

First up, I just feel pretty good about things recently. For one thing, I'm reading again and this time I'm actually dedicating time for the looks of it to a book finally. Specifically The War Of The Worlds, which I'm really getting invested in. I'm planning to read more H.G Wells after that, but for now this short book has me hooked. I think listening to music while I'm reading also helps me with this as well so there's good news there as well since I'm also getting back into my vinyl library and listening to whatever I feel would fit the mood for today (Today was Cloud Nine by George Harrison). Another thing to note is that slowly but surely I'm getting back into writing, specifically with the Awesome Man book. I feel it's much easier to write that one right now than it is to do so with Unity Chronicle/Evergrace Saga and so for that project, it would need almost a fresh reset in order to do what I'm planning to do with it. I'm nearly done... Chapter 8? 9? I don't know what I'm on at this point in the Awesome Man story, but it's getting there!

Recently I was having some chest pains and went to do a heart scan and X-Ray, but nothing is wrong with my heart or lungs thank god. I've been taking more of my steroid puffer by adding a second puff every day and night and I think it's helping, but I have to go do a breathing test which I'm not sure when that will happen considering that doctor needs to give the okay. And on Sunday, it's Canadian Thanksgiving! I'm planning to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving mainly because I haven't seen it in years and I don't want my Apple TV+ subscription to be collecting dust (I've mainly been watching The Snoopy Show on it as well as various Peanuts specials they managed to get). I'm looking forward to seeing what I think of it years later. Work has been going great although I messed up my sleep schedule one night because I couldn't get to sleep so I was sleepy for an entire week, but now things are normalizing again so I don't have to take naps.

That's it for life stuff, now lets talk about games!



So I started Mysteries of the Sith which is a continuation of Dark Forces II. Unfortunately the game does not give a VERY good first impression in it's opening levels. First off, the well made FMV Cutscenes have been replaced by ungodly crude in engine cutscenes that are so pixelated it might as well be a censored cover art for a porn parody. I am playing this on OpenJKDF2 like I did with the main game, but my god do these look awful and have not aged well. It's clear this was made on a severely cut budget, because the game just doesn't have the same quality as the original main game. The levels have become annoying labyrinths that you need guides for in order to even figure out what you're doing, the story is significantly worse than the main game and feels more like cheap cartoons than anything, the same issues that plague the main game have not been fixed (meaning no quick load option still, clunky menus still in effect, awkward geometry that makes some jumps ridiculous) and now the enemy AI is even worse! They're either blind and can't see you standing in front of them or they can tell 100% that you're wearing a disguise in one level while others can't? There's no consistency! The game because of this means it's become too easy for most of it so the game overall just looks, sounds and design wise is worse than the original Dark Forces II.

However, I think the game is starting to recover from these problems hopefully, the last level I played is much less labyrinth like and there's a sense of progression happening smoothly as I play it now. I'm only on the 6th Level, but so far the game length is pretty big for an expansion pack, which is great considering the 90's and Early 2000's were a time of massive meaty expansions to games that showcased new perspectives and showcased some of the strengths of the base game themselves. So overall, the length is pretty good so far and I'm hoping the levels get better now. And still, the gun/swordplay is still pretty great all things considered.



Oh boy. First things first before I even talk about my thoughts so far, this game gives off the WORST first impression I think I've ever seen in a game thus far. You have this opening cutscene where there's this quirky scientist lady who likes Mario and she has a... flying roomba? And then she's talking about how she's on the cover of this magazine but "They just don't see my genius!" or some shit, and then she leaves, the Ubisoft Rabbids invade with some sort of time machine, use her Google Glasses or whatever, then the Mario and Rabbids universe combine and then the Roomba grows Rabbid ears and... do you see what I mean? I was ready to give up on the game then and there because I thought this was going to be absolutely horseshit. It felt like they were making stuff up as they were going along and none of it is funny in the slightest.

And then, you start playing the game and you're like: "OH! I get it!" and then the game becomes REALLY good the minute you start playing it. First off, it's a turn based strategy game and much easier than some games in the genre like Xcom: Enemy Unknown for example. One of the best parts of the game certainly comes from the battles themselves. They just feel REALLY damn good to play and it can get you REALLY thinking about how you're gonna plan out things and what movement you should do. I'm having a great time with this part, but this is also one of the best looking games on Nintendo Switch in general. Clean, crisp graphics and a steady frame rate make this so far one of the more enjoyable titles I've played on it thus far. I was so surprised by how much this game was offering me at the beginning and it got my good will back VERY fast. I'm really excited to continue playing it and I'm hoping to buy the sequel once I'm done with it. I'm having a marvelous time with the game so far. Can't wait to play more.

----

And that's all for now! I've been in a great mood and I'm personally pretty happy rn. I feel confident and strong. So I hope it keeps going on throughout the month. But yeah, not much else to say, I'm excited for many games that are releasing rn and there's so much more to play in the coming months. I'll talk to you all later but hope you're doing wonderful.

-TheAutisticGamer

Well, I managed to get three games in this month. One replay to be exact in that bunch.

Half-Life: Uplink - PC, 09/07, 9/10 (BEST)
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - PC, 09/25, 8/10
Super Mario 64 - REPLAY, N64 via NSO, 09/29, 6/10

No bad games this month! Even with Super Mario 64 which has not aged gracefully as other games from the time, I would still absolutely recommend it as it's essential to anyone who loves gaming. It's more of a cult classic nowadays for it's music, graphics, sound, worlds and what not which all still hold up, but the controls just don't feel great anymore at least to me. I found it cumbersome to do some of Mario's move set and the camera is a pain in the ass, even with the game talking about the limitations of it. I just find it cumbersome to play nowadays, but it's super important to me mainly because it's the first video game I ever played and that meant so much to me. I get emotional at the end every time I finish it. Again, go play it because it's still worth it after all these years even with how the controls are nowadays.

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II was a pretty groundbreaking game in terms of Narrative in FPS and Action games. This came out in 97' a year before Half-Life swept the market with it's seamless gameplay and narrative. The story overall is pretty awesome even if the ending kind of sucks and the characters are worth caring about. There's some issues like how Jedi Battles just consist of you running in circles around the enemy and smacking them with the lightsaber until they die, the game bafflingly having NO QUICK LOAD OPTION but having quick save only, not to mention clunky menus, muddy strafing and so forth. But the graphics are lovably late 90's and it's a very immersive game to begin with. The game never gets boring or stale and the gunplay has all these blasters feel unique. The lightsaber is also insanely powerful and can one shot everything but the game makes it clear from when you get it that it's not good for every single situation which means you can't spam it to the heavens which I like as well. The FMVs are very cheesy and funny and honestly, this was a pretty solid game altogether. I'm going to probably play the expansion Mysteries of the Sith later on, so hopefully that will be even better than this.

Finally, Half-Life last year got a 25th Anniversary update and managed to give us the Uplink demo which I never played before! This was probably my favorite "Game" this month, mainly because it's more Half-Life and it just showcases why I love the game so much from it's perfectly balanced difficulty, amazing gunplay, appealing graphics, nice controls and still being intriguing to play after all these years. It's only 30 or so minutes but it's definitely worth checking out.

Well, I'm starting Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and I'm not even done the tutorial yet (yeah, I just hope the game picks up once I get out of the prelude) but that's going to be somewhat of a focus for now. But I still want to play some more action based fast paced games as well. We'll see how next month is. Usually I'm sure about what I'm going to play next month but at this point I'm not really confident I know which will be keepers for the month. I do want to try David Szymanski's newest game The Pony Factory, so maybe I'll do that for Halloween this year.

Here's the last 5 Films I watched recently again:

Suzume (2022): With a lot of the modern anime films I've seen they've taken an INSANE nosedive in quality and it's no thanks to people like Makoto Shinkai who are influencing animators and storytellers in the worst possible ways. I loved Your Name but he got lucky with that one and movies like Weathering With You are insufferable garbage that are extremely and stupidly dangerous with it's love conquers all but for the cost of thousands of lives. Again, all the things his detractors said about his works are true and I feel repeating them would be cliche. We have yet again: Crying Characters that can cause natural disasters, no character development and forced conflicts, his obsession with McDonalds, obsession with Water and Rain like Tarantino has with feet, extreme style over substance animation, no realistic drama, teenagers attempting to ruin the safety of the world because "I WANT 2 SEE DAH PRETTY GURLLL/GUYYYY!!!!" All the cliches you expect from his films are here, just done in a more insanely boring fashion where you don't care about anything that's happening. If I see another schoolgirl/guy go 😱 for the millionth time I swear I'll teleport into the movie and punch them in the face. Truly the most hackiest auteur there is today.

Scary Movie 3 (2003): I don't get why I didn't like this one when I first saw it but maybe it was because it was so different from the first two that I had problems adjusting to it. But make no mistake, this is my second favorite of the original four films. I love that this is a totally unhinged slapstick comedy that miraculously uses references and pastiches to other films in order to give coherent character development and a story worth telling in a comedy/parody. Every punch, beatdown, guy getting thrown through a window and kicks to the groin made me laugh out loud. Thankfully, David Zucker is a smart director and decided to scrap Seltzerberg's OG script for the movie and instead use a new script by now famous Craig Mazin and parody veteran writer Pat Proft. Hilarious all the way through and I had a blast watching it. Definitely worth seeking out for fans of Stooges Like antics.

To Kill with Intrigue (1977): Another Jackie Chan/Lo Wei collab and another wuxia/martial arts film that is by far the weakest movie in the two Shout! Factory box sets so far, but it's still pretty good all things considered. I certainly enjoyed Shaolin Wooden Men more for it's video game like feeling, but the characters are much better in this film. The story is nonsensical, but there's some pretty nice fight scenes here and there and honestly, the movie looks gorgeous in HD. Watching this on my New OLED TV I got a couple months back, it just shows how much more enjoyment I can get out of a film when something like this looks as pristine and rich in detail as it does.

San Andreas (2015): Considering this avoids so many disaster movie tropes like characters getting at each others throats and screaming for 2 hours, I am still extremely disappointed. It's rather insulting to make a movie showcasing how millions of people die in natural disasters every year, only to play this self serious fantasy as some kind of joke where The Rock uses a speedboat to jump over the crest of a tsunami that kills thousands more people. Characters spout Marvel esc quips as if that's going to bring any levity to this horribly depressing film and the faults of the genre are starting to showcase giant cracks. I don't understand how people can get kicks off of seeing tons of people dying horribly in one of the most ridiculous earthquakes in film history while the world around them is destroyed. I wouldn't feel good and I never felt good during this film. Depressing to say the least, but insulting for treating such material as a schlocky joke that takes itself WAY too seriously.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017): Surprise! I liked this one quite a bit. Kevin Hart should stick to voice acting as that's where his strong suit is I feel. What I thought was going to be 90 Minutes of fart noises was actually a fun look at mental health as a kid in school and having to deal with the boundaries of imagination. Nick Kroll is giving his all in this film and the animation is distinctive and successfully replicates the books I had fondness over as a kid. Surprised by how much I enjoyed this but seriously, this was actually quite good.

Yesterday I finished Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II which you can read more about on my backlog blog. It was certainly a groundbreaking title in terms of narrative for FPS and Action games and the story is one of the best ever told for an FPS Game. Characters you care about with a compelling story makes this easily worth playing. There's things that have not aged well like extremely clunky menus, the ability to quick save but not quick load (WTF? Even Quake the year before had both!), problems with controls including overshooting platforms by jumping too fast, sluggish strafing and clunky geometry makes jumping into holes in walls and other things more difficult than it should be. Also, one on one Jedi battles mostly consist of running around in circles smashing the enemy with your lightsaber until they're dead so there's not a lot of strategy involved.

But the game overall is REALLY good. All the guns/blasters feel unique and the gameplay never gets stale, I love the late 90's 3D Graphics so much in this game, it's extremely immersive, the FMV Cutscenes brilliantly blend live action actors with computer animated characters giving it an of it's time look in a good way and the lightsaber is insanely powerful and can one shot everything, but isn't good for all situations meaning you can't just spam the lightsaber and kill everyone with it and actually have to do proper blaster fights. The FMVs as well are often campy and cheesy in a good way. I certainly had a great time with it and will give it an 8/10. I'll probably start the expansion Mysteries of the Sith soon, so hopefully it will be even better than this.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II
System: PC
Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: LucasArts
Genre: FPS, Old School Shooter, Science Fiction, Action Adventure



To me, I'm mixed on Star Wars. That doesn't mean I don't like Star Wars, the first two movies with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are in my Favorite Films list and has influenced me greatly in my writing journey especially on character chemistry and giving every character something to do. I'm currently watching Episodes 1-6 in chronological order and so far it's been a great experience. George Lucas gets too much hate for the prequels I feel and with the improved reception of those films as of late, it makes for a interesting watch in terms of worldbuilding, dialogue, character growth and tragedy. However, the thing I do not like about Star Wars is it's fanbase. I've been turned off time and time again by the Star Wars fanbase mainly because of shit like with what happened with The Acolyte (which I heard is bad for real, but just the overall reaction made me sick to my stomach). I feel uncomfortable even talking about it and have found the fanbase overall to have a supremely toxic feel to it. Even my friend who is a die hard Star Wars fan has said that Star Wars has one of the most toxic fanbases in the world. How much of this is true I do not know and maybe I'm just talking out of my ass (please do correct me if I'm wrong, it's just that I'm tired of the discourse surrounding the Lucasfilm-Disney era) but the point is, I like Star Wars, but I'm not a fan and have extreme reservations when it comes to much of the franchise.

Still, that doesn't stop me from enjoying the games like this one! At the time, Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II was a groundbreaking effort in the FPS Genre. Released between Chasm: The Rift one week after and Half-Life another year later, I think the most impressive thing we should talk about this game first is how it was one of the most influential story driven games in the FPS Genre, if not the Action Adventure genre. What's this? Characters you care about, a story that's compelling while having engaging gameplay can make the player more immersed and think more highly of the game? NO WAY! And that's what impresses me more is that this story still holds up to this day!

To quickly summarize, the game follows Kyle Katarn who is tasked with finding the Valley of the Jedi before the Dark Jedi Jerec and his cronies do. Jerec is planning to use it to become the ultimate weapon in the galaxy and Kyle alongside his pal Jan, go across the galaxy in order to find the Valley and seek revenge against Jerec for the death of his father. While the story isn't anything outstanding by today's standards, the story still is told through awesome FMV Cutscenes that mix live action actors with computer animated characters and creatures. I was very impressed by how naturally they mixed the two elements and it made a lot of the game feel of it's time in a good way, not in a way that most people think of FMV games as old fashioned and ugly. This is a proper looking game that handles it's material well. In general, the story is constantly immersive and engaging and I wanted to keep seeing what would happen next throughout my time. I liked Kyle as a protagonist due to the forementioned FMVs also being very cheesy and campy which I enjoyed. But he's also just a great hero trying to avoid the influence of the dark side and sometimes, he can't control his emotions and he does something that makes him nearly fall over to it, something Jedi have wiped away entirely with themselves if you've seen the prequels.

How's the game though? Well, as said the story is pretty awesome, despite it ending on a whimper with little to no power or excitement. But the game itself is interesting. You get to use a bunch of blasters from Star Wars and a lightsaber as well. You shoot enemies, collect key cards and wrenches, push buttons, progress through vast levels. There's also one on one Jedi Battles, but they mostly consist of running around the enemy and mashing the left mouse button to do damage. In fact, the only fight that requires any sort of skill is the final fight with Jerec, which is done in three repetitive phases. But are the weapons good and more importantly, are the controls good? Short Answer: Yes. Long Answer: Yes AND No. It's complicated, but the blasters all feel unique despite using only a couple of ammo types throughout, making weapon management in the game a bit of a pain if you want to save on ammo for one gun, but can't use other guns because they use the exact same ammo type. There's only really three ammo types in the game, one's regular, one's more powerful and the other is an explosive type for one singular blaster in the game. The gunplay in general is surprisingly good for a game like this and since the weapons are all unique I noticed how fast enemies can die with certain guns while it takes some shots to use others. The lightsaber though is a powerhouse of a weapon. I love the fact that it looks more flat like it did in the 1977 film which is my preferred look of the lightsaber. But the lightsaber can one shot most enemies in the game except for a couple of powerful creatures. Not every situation is good with a lightsaber though which I liked and you only use it when you feel it's appropriate to do so so you're not just a one shot killing machine throughout the entire game.

Control wise is more complicated. I used the OpenJKDF2 source port for this game and unfortunately, this is in need of a remaster. The problem I have is that while controlling Kyle, he's very clunky when it comes to strafing and when it comes to jumping and momentum. If Kyle is going too fast and jumps at something he'll probably overshoot the platform and fall to his death. If Kyle strafes left or right, he'll sludge through the floor like it's lard. If Kyle attempts to jump/force jump onto another higher area, usually the geometry is so clunky it will result him missing the jump, meaning even in smaller spaces having to spam the jump button constantly before you even get into a place. The controls leave lots to be desired, but what really kills the game is the menus. They're clunky and unintuitive. For example, if you click on something like display, you can't click on any of the other things in the settings menu. You have to press Esc and then click on what you want. And you can't just press Esc while looking at objectives via the menu, you have to click on a button in order to exit. What? What sense does that make? The worst part though is the fact that there's quick save option, but they perplexingly didn't add a Quick Load key, meaning if you hit F9, then screw up at one point, you have to painstakingly go into the load menu, click on the file (it doesn't automatically highlight the file so you have to click it or else it will bitch at you and say "PLEASE CHOOSE A FILE!"), then load your quick save. What contrarian bull crap is this!? Even Quake and Quake II had both Quick Saving and Quick Loading around the same time! But thankfully, unlike those two, this game comes with a map, but considering how it's designed, I'm beginning to think I know why ID didn't build a map feature for the first two Quake games.

So that's what I mean by Yes and No. The other aspects like the soundtrack is strong but it doesn't use any original music of it's own, instead relying on the movie's scores to fit scenes which is fine, but I think the game would have benefitted and aged better if they had a new soundtrack made especially if you were going to stream it. Graphically, I love the look of this game. I love Late 90's/Early 2000's 3D Graphics and this is no exception. I absolutely think the levels look fun and fantastic to this day and the character models do look nice with the source port as well. What can I say? I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff and would love to see games recreate this really distinct style from games like this and not just rip off more famous games of it's era. Finally, I would like to say that this is an extremely immersive game. I couldn't get my eyes off this game and there's loads to enjoy here. The gameplay, story, characters, FMV Cutscenes, graphics and music made this something I would definitely play again.

Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II is obviously worth playing but keep in mind that it feels somewhat dated in terms of controls today. I'm going to still play Mysteries of the Sith which can be played via OpenJKDF2 so I'll be willing to give that a go soon. Overall, I had a blast playing this even with the rougher patches. I still think there's lots to love here and it's a groundbreaking game for the FPS Genre. Of course, JRPGs and CRPGs of the time were still very story driven, but I feel from what I've seen a lot of Action/FPS Games didn't get a chance to tell a fully blown immersive story. And with this game, it set the bar incredibly high for the genre in terms of narrative driven gaming, and in a way it still does. Check it out, it's pretty cheap as well.

PROS:

-Groundbreaking in terms of Narrative Driven Action and FPS Games
-Characters you care about with a story worth telling
-Charming and Lovable Late 90's 3D Graphics that I adore
-FMV Cutscenes brilliantly blend live action actors and computer animated creatures and characters
-Very immersive even to this day
-All the blasters feel unique and are a good roster of weapons to use
-Lightsaber is insanely powerful and can one shot almost everything, but thankfully cannot be used as a one man killing machine all the time
-Gameplay never gets stale
-Oftentimes Campy and Cheesy in a good way with it's cutscenes

CONS:

-Clunky menus make it hard to navigate settings
-No quick load but there's a quick save feature? WTF!
-I can see why Quake I and II never used a map feature
-Jedi Battles mainly consist of running around the enemies smacking them until they die
-Controls are cumbersome to use nowadays
-Geometry is clunky and oftentimes leads to problems with platforming onto things

-TheAutisticGamer

Right now I'm going through Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II via the OpenJKDF2 Source Port which also allows me to play Mysteries of the Sith as well and yeah, I'm having a blast with this game. It's one of the most immersive FPS Games I've ever played and for a game that was released in 1997 the amount of detail to story in an FPS Game is groundbreaking. The FMVs are super cheesy and funny and I love late 90's/Early 2000's 3D Graphics so much. The music is of a very high quality, which is not surprising given this franchise and each blaster gets to feel unique and I also like that the Lightsaber isn't great for all situations and the fact that it has a more flat design to it like it did in the original 1977 film which is the look I prefer to the weapon honestly. I'm really getting into this one and it's by far a contender for one of the best FPS Games of it's era. The only issues I'm having are the super clunky menus and lack of a quick save/load feature, something that Quake II also from the same year did NOT suffer from. Hopefully we'll get a new remaster of it soon, because I would love to play this with modern features added to it.

Hi! I know it's been a while but for this post it's mostly going to focus on games. I've been doing okay! I went to the dentist recently and got a minor filling to remove decay from my front tooth, but I guess I'm exhausted from anxiousness from going despite not feeling any. Work is kind of boring right now as everyone has went back to school so there's little carts to do unfortunately, but I'm hoping to get more done later.

But, I want to talk about the games I'm playing because these are some of the most memorable I've been playing recently. So lets take a look!



When I eventually do my review for this game I'm not sure how I'm even going to talk about it because everything that has been said about it so far would become a cliche if I said those things as well. As it is, it's an awesome game. I don't know if it's GOTY Worthy for me, but it's right up there with one of the best I've played this year. When you're making me sit there for minutes on end playing with the insane physics that is Half-Life 2 x1000, you're doing something right and making me extremely happy and relaxed. My only issues here is that 1. It's too easy unless you're going for the challenge levels, 2. The game has WAY too many checkpoints, some a couple feet from one another and 3. They still didn't give Astro a Three Life Bar and he continues to die in one hit, meaning enemies respawn on death as well meaning having to do repetitive tasks like killing them again.

Still, I'm having a heck of a time playing it. Team Asobi hopefully will compete with Nintendo in terms of the Platforming Genre and I hope to see more cool things from Astro Bot in the coming years. The Dualsense Features are excellent of course and the graphics are bright and shiny. I feel the platforming gameplay never gets tiresome and the gimmicks they throw never become stale because you're always doing something new with them. I'm having a blast with the Gacha Machine and finding all of these Playstation Icons signature items connected to them. Recently I just got one for Kiryu from Yakuza, although to be honest some of these aren't even Playstation Specific games, some of these games were third party exclusives and eventually went multiplatform. Maybe a nit pick, but it's awesome to see a bunch of these games get recognition. It's been acclaimed for a reason and Astro Bot is certainly one of the best platform games since Super Mario Bros. Wonder. I really hope Team Asobi will compete with Nintendo's Mario franchise because this adorable guy could be the next BIG Playstation Mascot. An issue I have with the gaming market right now is no one is willing to compete with anyone, not Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, the only ones who are seemingly competing are in the VR Headspace with Valve and Meta. So MAYBE this will give one or the other a push to do something. IDK. Awesome game though, definitely play it when you can.



Recently I wanted to play this game for some reason, but maybe it's just because I have Star Wars on the mind right now considering I've become more interested in Star Wars games in general considering they seem to be doing consistently well for years and years at this point, even if they're just okayish. So I wanted to attempt to play Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II which actually come out a year before Half-Life in 1997. That's pretty insane to think about because in terms of the game, it's HEAVILY story driven which is something I didn't expect. The only FPS I can think of that had an emphasis on story before this was Chasm: The Rift which shockingly, came out a week before this one!

I'm playing this on GOG with the OpenJKDF2 Source Port. Aside from sluggish movement, a lack of quick saving and loading and clunky menus (which is something Quake II, another shooter from this year managed to avoid), this is actually kinda great! Early 3D Graphics are something I absolutely adore. They have such a charm to them and I can't help but love games like this. I just got the Lightsaber and it's actually not ideal for every situation considering people are trying to shoot are you all the time. I think you can deflect shots but I'm not entirely sure how to do it yet. But still, it's a very immersive title and I've been loving the adventure so far so I'll probably play the prequel after this. All the weapons feel unique compared to most shooters I've played but you still feel the punch of something like that crossbow weapon that acts like a shotgun (you know, the one Chewie uses in the OG films?) In general the level design is super adventurous which I love. I always look for that in a FPS Game. I don't have many force powers yet but I'm really looking forward to see what I'll get later. Overall, so far the game is very enjoyable despite it's shortcomings and I would love to see a new remaster of it one day.

Anyways, that's all I can really say for now. I'll talk with you guys later and hopefully I'll have a review coming up sometime. Cheers!

-TheAutisticGamer

To be fair, the eshop front page wouldn't be my go to place to judge quality games. I'm also pretty selective with what I play and do I pretty good job at avoiding soulslikes and roguelikes and I got hundreds of games to play almost too much. The only soulslikes I even own are the recent Star Wars Jedi games and Rise of the Ronin. Prince of Persia the Lost Crown is also a really good game that does a good job at scratching the platformer and metroidvania itch. The problem I'd probably say is that there is more metroidvanias now than ever was before and there is a new one coming out every few months, at the very least I wouldn't mind more 3D metroidvanias, Exophobia does seem to scratch that itch so at the very least it isn't too barren.

Either way, I'm probably enjoying gaming right now because I usually be careful with what I buy, or at the very least not give attention and play games I was never going to play to begin with.

I guess not. I was mostly just trying to say there's so many things coming out right now that the chances of getting at least decent popularity is very slim considering there's so much stuff being released right now that it's nearing becoming a risk if the game gets an audience or not. I've seen many games that I've wanted to try but unfortunately haven't had much success which is sad because some of the games I did play that didn't find success were quite decent. And if it's a multiplayer game as well, there's a HUGE chance it's gonna be a flop unless you're a very established name in the business, but even recently that hasn't been working out.

I didn't know Exophobia was actually a 3D Metroidvania. I saw a copy at my Gamestop recently wondering what in the world this was so that's actually kind of unique. I'll have to see if I can try it out one day. And thank you for mentioning Prince of Persia! I totally forgot that it came out at the beginning of the year as that's one that I could probably really get into.

I am enjoying the 9th Gaming Gen even with my mixed thoughts on a lot of the trends going on. But those are for reasons I don't think that the industry was intending. For me choice is hugely important and with so many ways to play things and with so many games that are backwards compatible, emulated and being sold right now, it can't be all bad.

BTW I've enjoyed your reviews recently. I find your takes refreshing and unique. Just wanted to give you some appreciation. :)

Not only you don't sound stupid but you're making a very good point about indies and genres. You can add 'metroidvania' (even if it often goes with soulslikes since there is now an unwritten rule commanding any metroidvania to be tough and combined with soulslikes tropes). I was looking at my Top 20 games completed in 2024 and was surprised to notice that for the first time in years, I didn't have any platformer in the first half. Just like you, I don't play games right after their release, so I could blame it on bad luck, but the truth is it's harder and harder to fine to a great 'pure' platformer - not a so-called 'metroidvania', not a high concept game including randomization, not a puzzle-platformer : just a simple (and effecient) platformer.

I'm afraid indie gaming is going through the same thing as indie music did in the late 90s/early 2Ks : too much money, too many titles, too many trends, and too many uninspired designers that wouldn't have made the cut few years earlier. I think it's quite natural to be more lenient with indies (although there are more and more 'fake indies'... again as in indie-music back then), but I have the feeling that their production tends to standardize around a few tropes and therefore reproduce the same pattern as AAA.

As for Sony... well, I think the very fact that almost every post ends up talking about them when the original question wasn't this specific says a lot about how they rule the industry. Only a few days before PS5 Pro announcement I was telling a friend that Sony was acting like a lazy king because of the lack of true competitor. I couldn't have imagined a better example. Who's the biggest PS5 challenger nowadays? Actually, I think it's probably... PS4.

I'm actually quite glad. I really worry sometimes I sound like a fool but I'm glad I at least had someone think I made some great points. And yeah, another problem is that there's no competition really. Nintendo is not competing with anyone, Sony isn't competing with Xbox, I don't know what Xbox is doing and... yeah. It feels like we're a bit stagnant right now in terms of anything like that. The only real competition I feel if it's competition at all is with VR Headsets like the Valve Index and whatever the next Meta Quest model is. But that's not saying much right?

I was always wondering why I felt like this about Indies and your comparisons made a great point. There's just too many coming out and too much money being invested and a huge chunk of games that wouldn't have a single chance of making it onto the front page of the Nintendo E-Shop or Steam's New and Trending. Yeah, I'm not really excited about any indie games right now, but maybe that can change next game generation.

I totally forgot about Metroidvanias as well! The only ones I'm interested really in playing are some of the Metroid games and the Castlevania GBA and DS titles (and of course Symphony of the Night) I played a bit of Metroid: Zero Mission and had a great time with it, so I'll have to complete that eventually. But yeesh, if what you're saying about Metroidvanias adding soulslike elements, that's disappointing to here since it seems like something I could get into but I just wish there were more accessible titles. Again, as I've said there have been times in the history of gaming where these trends/bubbles burst, so we'll have to see when those bubbles burst sometimes. I am still having hope that Action RPGs, Platformers and Metroidvanias will go back to the roots of what made them so appealing in the first place.

469 Games in total. I don't know if I posted on this thread before but whatever, it's time for a modern update.

Honestly, I'm not worried about completing everything in my backlog since one of the things that matters to me is that I'll always have choice on what to play next. So with a big backlog, there's lots to check out and play. Although I am removing things from time to time that I probably am not going to touch realistically.

I'm someone who is EXTREMELY uncynical about this type of stuff. And since I play games from so many different generations whether it be from PC, modern consoles, legacy consoles, emulation. PS Plus Premium or Nintendo Switch Online, I feel I'm not qualified to answer that question. Especially since I don't play every single new release ever and have nothing to say when a game launches in a bad state since I'm not there.

But I will admit I'm mixed. I usually don't like making these types of posts because I worry people will think I'm stupid or something (which I know never happens here, but even then it's a great fear of mine) but I thought I'd might as well jump in on the discussion because I certainly don't think the world of gaming is in the dumps right now, but I do have some complaints.

My main issue is that that a lot of the games I played this generation were kind of unsatisfying or unappealing to me. Well, let me rephrase it. It sometimes feels unsatisfying and unappealing but the feeling is creeping up a bit more than usual nowadays. AAA takes too long to make nowadays and the Indies I've played especially in the Boomer Shooter and sometimes the 3D Platformer market feel like copycats of better games I could be playing right now. Even though it feels like so much comes out nowadays I can't help but feel with AAA they're too expensive to make back a profit and take too long for anyone to care at that point when the sequel eventually comes out and yeah, I just don't see a lot of appeal in the Indie market right now. The only thing that's really keeping me interested is the AA stuff. I find that's the perfect balance of not only time and budget, but also giving players the most interesting titles and overall, I feel AA games will keep me continuously interested in the 9th Generation up till the 10th.

To talk about the PS5 Pro for a sec, I was never going to get one anyway but when I went to Gamestop, they said it would be around CDN $959.99 and if they did decide to sell it with a disc drive, it would have been $1200-1250 including tax which would have already made Sony look even worse. To me, with the games I play we really don't need a Pro model imo. A lot of the games I play run perfectly fine on my PS5. Don't have much to say about this subject but it's crazy that Sony went from releasing a giant flop, to releasing a giant success, to releasing a system that again will probably be giant flop and only for dedicated PS users. And that was in the span of like 2-3 weeks! Insanity.

I'm not one who is loyal to one system or another and I honestly don't care if one system is underperforming compared to another. I have a PS5, I have an Xbox Series X, I have a Nintendo Switch OLED, I have a pretty decent gaming PC and tons of legacy consoles. I have them because I would like choice. And yes, I can go to my subscriptions on all modern console platforms and play games that are easily accessible and I can still play my backwards compatible titles that I've missed during the last console gen. In fact, I'm mainly playing a lot of 8th Gen games since those are the most interesting to me atm. My advice to anyone is play on whatever you like and also think about what your friends play on the most if you're into multiplayer sessions.

To be honest I've become extremely disillusioned with a great deal of people who do nothing but trash gaming eras and in general modern gaming because like Civilwarfare101 said, it's be overdone to death for years and even decades now. I'm just sick and tired of all the negative clickbaity articles and thumbnails calling everything TRASH or STUPID or AWFUL or *INSERT NEGATIVE CLICKBAIT WORD HERE*. I agree that Modern Gaming isn't perfect and I highly see some big problems as I've stated (eventually they're going to have to do something about aging discs, but the quality of the discs and carts for legacy consoles are so different from one another that would be really hard to figure out a solution for all of them), but it's become borderline parody now. I don't know, I just like being here on HowLongToBeat because pretty much everyone is so uncynical and nice and friendly, something I find lacking in places like Youtube, X/Twitter, Facebook, Steam, GOG, that stuff. I can't stand to be anywhere else. Again, I don't want to say everything is perfect in the world of gaming but I feel at least to me there's more things better than there are worse.

My main issue with a lot of games today is the overindulgence in genres like Soulslikes and Roguelikes. I find the concepts of those genres extremely unappealing and there are people who certainly do not like one or the other or both. You can't just make a simple Action RPG anymore, it has to be a Soulslike. You can't even just make a regular Indie/Boomer Shooter anymore. Nor a Platformer, or a Deck Building Game, or a Action Game, it HAS to be a roguelike. It's disappointing to see such an obsession of game genres not a lot of people are going to get into. Japan seems to be the only one making Action RPGs the way they were. One of my favorite stories of the gaming industry gives me hope though that we will go back to simpler times. Back in the day, there was the obsession of Gritty Military FPS Games and Science Fiction Hi-Concept FPS Games that were FLOODING the mid 2000's to the mid 2010's and then when Doom and Wolfenstein: The New Order and DUSK came out, the gaming world realized we needed to go back to being simple about FPS Games and what made them so fun in the first place, and even then FPS Games were trying new and incredible things. The bubble essentially burst one Gritty Military Shooters and Sci Fi FPS games. So I'm thinking the bubble will eventually burst on the Soulslike and Roguelike trend and hopefully, we can see why those games were so good in the first place. I'm not saying don't make roguelikes or soulslikes anymore, I just want devs to see why those Action RPGs were great in the first place and why they influenced games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring.

And if we're talking about Exclusivity to me I honestly don't care. I don't buy a specific consoles for specific games because as I said I like choice. I can lean forward more favorably to someone like Nintendo, but that doesn't mean I'm going to always play exclusives. There's so many different games coming out right now that are not first party titles. Like, that new Dynasty Warriors game coming out? That looks insane! And some of the third party ones are even more interesting than the first party ones. But that's just me.

This took a lot out of me, but I feel I have had a burden lifted off my shoulders. The world of gaming rn isn't perfect, but it could be A HELL of a lot worse at least to me. There's always something coming out that I'm interested in and there's always great legacy games that I still would love to play. And there's just so many things I can play from all these generations that gives me so much more choice. In the end, choice matters for me. And when you're living in a present day where there are tons of amazing (although sometimes not so amazing) choices to be made of what game to jump in next, then I'm mostly happy. I just wish some types of genres weren't overflooded and I wish some games would stop being copycats of better games and if they're going to use mechanics from other games, give them a new spin that makes it refreshing.

I found Severed Steel to be a breath of fresh air in the FPS genre with how free-of-boundaries its movement system feels (unlocked Y axis FTW!) and how smoothly you can connect all of your actions while quite literally being amidst the hail of bullets and all the explosives being set off around you, which is further complemented by the destructible minimalist neon environments, extremely snappy gun accuracy and the perfectly fitting jungle dnb tunes: the entire package already sets itself apart from all the other shooters on the market, in pretty much every department. Games like Titanfall 2 and Shadow Warrior 3 are significantly less versatile in offering the player complete freedom over how to approach the adversary, but I do agree with Turbo Overkill being the more compelling game, even though it's not a level-headed comparison by any means. SS should also be treated as a fullfledged arcade title, it wasn't even going to have a story in the first place and that has never been the developers intention, the fun you'll have will be determined by how often you utilize the games mechanics.

You made some very good points! I think I do understand a bit more now on the game it's just that I guess you're right considering I wasn't utilizing the main mechanics too much. Now that I think about it I didn't find the game bad or terrible I just think some of my personal preference for what I like from games nowadays kind of got in the way from what the game was intending to do by itself. And looking back I found I was going too harsh on some aspects.

I'm glad we agree on Turbo Overkill. I was very enthralled when I first played the full game I just wish the game didn't have such an unnecessarily obnoxious and edgy potty mouth and I also think it goes on a bit too long (took me nearly 10 Hours to complete, the time it usually takes me to play most FPS Games is around 4-6 Hours if on an easier difficulty which I did play on, but usually takes me longer during other difficulties which I'm okay with). Still, it's one of the highlights of my gaming year and I'm so glad I gave it another chance after the Early Access Build.

Keeping the thread alive again by saying that I finally got my hands on Astro Bot on PS5 and even though I'm only an hour in, so far it's looking to be the best platformer and best Playstation First Party game since Sackboy: A Big Adventure. I'm absolutely on board the hype train now for this game. This features some of the sickest if not best physics simulation I've ever seen in a game that rivals Half-Life 2 but times a million. The Dualsense Features are very nice, the music is excellent, the graphics pop out and are vibrant, there's tons of callbacks if you're a big Playstation fan and just overall the gameplay, level design, power ups, worlds, boss fights, controls EVERYTHING in this game rules so far. If I had to nitpick it might be that potentially it may get tiresome using the Dualsense features over a longer period of play, but even then this is quickly becoming one of the best games of this console/game generation. Can't wait to play more.