jonamok

THE top 5 of 2019: Chernobyl Watchmen The Boys The Dark Crystal: AoR The Virtues

And done. 50 hours exactly. It’s a flawed masterpiece. A fascinating and crazy blend of a range of sciences (cosmology, evolutionary biology, geophysics, archaeology, extinction theory) and a range of spiritual beliefs and historical sociology, a truly stunning game world, it just feels so solid and real. It’s the best looking game I’ve ever played, incredible detail and craftsmanship throughout, superb soundscape, great music, great performances on the whole, but some patchy writing that labours the point like crazy - but that goes with the Kojima territory. On which note, up to about 46 hours in it was a solid 9/10 or higher. But that was my last meaningful interaction. There then follows a barely interactive series of massively drawn out overblown cutscenes and ‘push forward to launch next cutscene’ sequences that genuinely do last around 4 hours, much of which offers no save points, though I might be autosaving in the background. It’s all plot relevant, but could have been done in 20 minutes max. This makes the ending of Return of the King look like a fucking paragon of directorial self-control. To be honest it broke my spirit - I was praying for it to end. Easily knocked a mark off that score, and left a sour taste from what was otherwise an amazing experience. A real shame, but of course I would still recommend it based on everything that goes before it. Just know that its closing hours utterly disrespect your time, and will likely test your patience to the very limit.

Or vice versa?

Yep, the campaign is a piece of piss, apart from the stupid ‘no movement’ levels. Fuck those.

I had to force an update to get BS to add the 360/Green Day stuff on Quest. 360 mode is great. Very enjoyable twist (literally), but it needs waaay more tracks at Hard difficulty. There’s only 3 or 4 at the moment. And a couple from the newish shite DLC, which I didn’t buy so can’t play. The Green Day tracks are also really well mapped in the main game, with nice use of the walls.

Looks lovely.

It’s the X series. So surely it’s going to be a series of consoles at launch with different specs and different price points. Basically a PC tower case with different PC spec options inside. If so, what would that mean for devs?

A cuboid of meh.

Yep, nearly 40 quid is way too rich. Should have pitched it at half that.

Now they tell me!

Some fucker in work told me that Ep 8 was the last ever episode, so I watched it just now and I’m like what the fuck!?!? Came in here to see that there’s one more left. Well thank fuck for that. And as it happens I’m watching it right now. We all are.

God no. Life’s too short and there are way too many long games already. Give me a good 4-8 hour game that is all killer.

Setting aside all the fascinating Oculus Link tech talk, this is genuinely exciting news, and the gateway to next gen VR control. Wasn’t due until next year, but here in some form this week! Can’t wait to try it, even if only in interfaces for now. Imagine if they get it working in First Steps etc...

^ This. Had my first ‘dragged to the squid boss’ encounter before. Kicked his ass with help from some good online Samaritans lobbing me blood rifles. And now that particular ballache of a mountain pass is clear of cnuts. From now on I’m gonna tool up and let the tar peeps take me to their leader.

That Baldy bust is bloody amazing.