Viking Strike 02

Round Two. Fight!

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Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (Finished)

The worst feeling in the world is playing one of these contemporary AssCreed games, stealthing up on a target, pressing Y to Instakill, and seeing a health bar go down by *only* 80 percent or so. It’s the kiss of death. Not just because that simple act feels bad in and of itself, but because of all the little things that factor into this interaction being horrible. Sometimes it’s a function of you being in a zone where things outlevel you, because that is definitely a thing that needs to be in a series that used to be about (highly scripted) stabbing people to Instadeath after meticulously stealthing into position. Sometimes, it’s a matter of stacking on the correct gear in the nine (!) inventory slots that are constantly overflowing with +1 percent bonuses to one of three types of damage, yet another idea that I’ve come to loathe.

Then there’s the net effect of the Instamurder not working, which is mushy feeling R1/R2 melee combat which, because of the level scaling, winds up feeling about the same in the first hour as it does in the fiftieth. Which leads to the realest issue, which is AC: Odyssey is just too goddamn long to be “good”. A twenty hour story about a family recovering from some fucked up traumatic circumstances would be an alright idea for a game.That core story, stretched to fifty or more hours and interwoven with the barest threads of the elder alien shit from the earlier games, is just a bummer. I’m the fool for sticking around hoping that the ending would be satisfying. I don’t even think Kassandra was that interesting of a character, all told. Having checked the tape, Alexios secretly has some way better line reads.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Finished)

As a palate cleanser from an overly long, frequently disappointing sub-RPG thing walking around in the corpse of a series I really liked in college, Sonic and Pals in Cars was a fine thing. Now, I think it is very, very silly that my boy Ryo is locked to the PC version of this game, but it did compel me to spend a lot of time driving around as Alex Kidd, Vyse, AiAi and their little freak friends instead. I also had no idea how much loving Sega pervert content was in here. There’s a track based on Panzer Dragoon! It’s the closest thing the 360 got to another entry in the series (pretend that Yar’s Revenge game didn’t happen). Also, nobody told me that, between some of the mission objectives and free downloadable extra stuff, this is a low key stealth sequel to OutRun 2.

Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City (Continuing, finally got to the fifth floor)

Just because I’m no longer doing about 20 hours of commutes a week doesn’t mean my fleet of handhelds is retired (though I did sell my Vita). EO3 is the only Etrian game that didn’t get some sort of remake for the 3DS, though I understand some of its content is in EO:Nexus. So I’m going to finish this game on my Ordained DSi. My party consists of a Hoplite, a Gladiator, a Farmer, a Sovereign, and a Zodiac. I’ve specced things in a direction where as long as my little back row prince lad doesn’t die, or take much damage, we’re regenerating health constantly. That accounts for the wind up time for this outfit to start outputting damage once buffs are all in place. I’m sure that you smart folks have put together better party comps so feel free to ridicule me below. As for me and my house, we will serve the lower screen map making lord.

Also, shoutout to the guy in Winnipeg who 3D printed me a grip of styluses. I have some anxiety over not having all OEM parts, but in this case we’re talking about a few grams of anonymous plastic. Points as well for domestic manufacturing, I guess?

Invisible, Inc. (Started, a few missions in)

Shank is one of my least favorite games. It is technically fine, sure, but between its weird cartoon look and grotesque worldview I find the thing abominable. Its sequel isn’t much better. Shadow of the Ninja is a game I own at least two places but haven’t really played. As for Invisible, Inc., its reputation on this site is largely owed to one man stonewalling it onto the site’s top ten list by sheer conviction in his arguments in favor of the game. What do I think so far? I think something Klei games have working against them, from my reference point, is they all have this “Nicktoons” look to them that doesn’t do much for me. This is absolutely not me saying that cartoons are immature, or that comic art cannot slap, but it might be just having an aesthetic? For reference, the only print comic books I keep around are three volumes of the original Tank Girl. This doesn’t look like Tank Girl, and that means a) game bad, I guess, and b) the only good game is… MadWorld?

Oh right, the game. It’s a grid-based stealthing around game with a responsive world. The choices you make during missions, including how quickly you are trucking through one techno-office or another, have a lot of risk-reward calculations put onto them. The same applies to the metalayer of the game, where choosing certain missions will provide you (for example) more money to buy necessary gear or the chance to disable security systems on future missions. I think I get it? It’s landing somewhere between “pleasantly stressful” and “just frustrating” after about four missions.

Super Video Golf (Continuing, slowly working through the single player mode)

This game continues to receive updates, continues to have a fantastic Steam community that meets every Sunday for online play, and continues to be the best “tribute to Pebble Beach on the Saturn” that I have ever played. Super Video Golf is not an expensive game, and presently it is 33 percent off so close this page, launch Steam, and buy this game today.

Also, remind me at some point to make a GB Wiki page for this game that is better than about 90 of the games being published on Steam these days.

Avowed (Started, this one is about a 50/50 split between my wife and me)

I love the character creation music in Avowed. They get more mileage out of a first, a fifth, and an octave than you could ever imagine. Just a droning choral arrangement while you decide what sort of mushroom person you plan on being throughout your time with this, the homeopathic Skyrim that was promised. I’m going to be writing a little about Avowed every week because we’re not going to be getting through the game all that quickly. But so far I can say that I appreciate the thrust of the story being unabashedly about colonialism, how much your character can do in terms of aligning with or against that colonial program, and how each of the upgrades I’ve made to our character (Magdelena, for the record) has felt impactful. I cannot say enough about how much I love using grimoires for magic, and how improving your spells only makes those books more effective. Game’s very good so far. Wish it had scored better so my Fantasy Critic dot Games publisher would be doing better.

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Thanks for stopping by. Here's hoping this Viking will Strike again next week with more impressions of more games.