Picked up x4:foundations in the steam sale. It’s good. I just finished building my first station
I just started Mass Effect 1 for the first time via Legendary Edition. One of my friends is super into it, and they’re excited for me. I’m about 14 hours in, just finished the first Liara mission (have done everything on the Citadel thats available right now, read all the codex entries I’ve found, etc). Classic leveling, level 21.
I like the story, but it’s jarring how separated from the action it is. So far, I’m either on the Citadel having conversations, or on a planet shooting, and there’s almost no middle ground (except the Fist mission, that had a lot of both). I wouldn’t mind the separation, except they’re extremely separate;
- You have to go from the Citadel to the
- (boarding loading screen) Normandy to the
- (fancy zoom loading screen) map screen to
- (zooming loading screen) a
- (zooming loading screen) few
- (zooming loading screen) planets to the
- (landing loading screen) Mako to some driving THERE are some enemies,
then
- You get back in the Mako and
- (loading screen) back to the ship then
- (fancy zoom loading screen) the map screen then
- (slightly shorter, but lots of steps, loading screen) back to
- (docking loading screen) the Citadel then
- (loading screen or running, with elevator loading screens) the quest giver, then a 15-45 minute dialog (depending on whether you did something minor, or a major plot mover that has several scenes).
I haven’t bounced off it yet, but some of the side missions are repetitive and tedious due to the above. I like maxing out my character levels as much as possible, so I want to do all the side stuff, but… yeah. It’s kinda work.
Don’t stress about doing all the side stuff if you’re not enjoying it. The Mako is kind of fun to drive around until flips over, but the places where you use it were built out of repeatable code and procedurally generated assets (not randomized but procedural) to fill in the game a bit. What kind of RPGs are you used to playing? Mass Effect is the progenitor of a lot of tropes in the genre, and the way it flows from scene to scene, or doesn’t, as per your criticism, is pretty common for the era outside of Bethesda games. In fact, I’d still argue most games are better off with the load screens and without the open world design, especially one where you’re traveling between planets like this. And what else were you hoping for besides the city hubs and combat areas? That’s probably informed by the other RPGs you’ve played as well.
Just finished the Elden Ring DLC, which was overall still fun but felt overtuned at times. While I didn’t use any summons throughout the base game and initially tried to keep it that way, some bosses simply weren’t fun to learn anymore.
Afterwards I dove into my backlog and started God of War 2018. I had pretty high expectations, given how beloved it is. Honestly, it’s fine at best - the combat is boring and the overall design can be summarized as AAA slob. Maybe it does get better, I’m not very far yet.
I continued a bit in Fallout 3. It still holds up, much to my surprise, especially after playing Fallout 2. The shooting still feels bad though, which I know is vastly improved in New Vegas and 4.
With Double Exposure around the corner, I finally got around to playing through Life is Strange: Before the Storm. It could be slow at times, and the story was otherwise just fine. I think not having the missing person criminal conspiracy really harms the pacing, and I’m glad that angle is coming back in Double Exposure.
I also got back on the grind in Street Fighter 6 a bit. I hit a wall with Zangief and struggled to find the answers in neutral, especially against the two newest DLC characters, to the point where I considered changing characters, but I do think I got over that hump. I’m at about 1400 MR right now, and I’d like to get to around 1700 sometime this summer.
In trying to finish Before the Storm, I didn’t make much time for Elden Ring, but I do want to get back to that DLC now that I have; that and The Thaumaturge.
I’ve also been enjoying the new drg season, especially now that they have removed all fomo from the game
Been trying to go through the several hundred free games Epic has given out that I’ve never played.
Mostly spent this week on Redout II, which is good if not great. But it’s also the closest I’ve played to a modern F-Zero or WipEout, so it might even not end up uninstalled when I’m done with it.
