Kingdom Come: Deliverance review

    KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE was released in 2018 to mostly positive reviews but quite a few complaints. The result of an indie developer and Kickstarter money, it was initially riddled with bugs but a labor of love. Much to the surprise of the community used to developers abandoning their games after release, Warfare (the company) continued updating the game with hefty DLC as well as patches. The Royal Edition was followed by a massive graphics upgrade to modern consoles just this year and it is now on par graphically with the recently released Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. 

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a alt-historical story that contains a few mild traces of low fantasy set during the war between King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia and King Sigismund of Hungary in 1403. As they're a Czech developer, this is important national history for them but for a majority of players used to only English or French history, it is a fairly new period. Fans of low fantasy will love this feeling as the Game of Thrones feel is strong and the real-life historical figures are every bit as messy as the best grimdark fiction.

    The premise is that you are Henry, a blacksmith's son in the city of Skalitz (technically Silver Skalitz, which is a bit weird to leave off). Skalitz is treated as a small village, though, and it doesn't take someone familiar with most fantasy to know that their home life is doomed. King Sigismund's forces sack the city as they did in real life and Henry is left to seek refugee in the nearby city of Talmberg. From there, he attempts to go back to Skalitz to bury his loved ones only to get mugged and lose his father's sword.

    Yes, that is the plot of the game, losing your father's sword and recovering it. The game benefits strongly from keeping the stakes far more modest than in other games. Henry saves a noble's son? He gets a horse. If you manage to do fantastic service to the kingdom, then you can potentially become an adult squire to a nobleman with no real expectation of being knighted. This is, to Henry, fantastic social mobility. Certainly, much better than being a blacksmith but you're an enlisted man versus an officer and work for a living. You even start the game as illiterate and have to pay to be taught to read.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance's early gameplay is punishing as hell and that hasn't been changed by the updates. Henry has no knowledge of combat at the start and if he starts a fight with the town drunk in the starting area, he's liable to get his ass kicked. You have to train and master the controls both in order to survive Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Indeed, the realism is helped by the fact that facing down multiple opponents is suicide until you've managed to get yourself some decent armor. Even then, you can find yourself taken down by not managing yourself against opponents from behind.

    Much has been touted about the game's realism with Henry needing to eat, sleep, and clean himself regularly. If you neglect the above or don't manage the numbers carefully by overeating, you end up getting status debuffs. The save system is also punishing with the fact that you need special potions to save or a safe place to sleep. The latter was so unpopular that they implemented an automatic saving system that happens when you quit the game. Even then, the current system sucks and is one major area of complaint versus if they'd just included an unlimited save system.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance's gameplay is a lot like Skyrim with no magic, a much better dueling system so that button mashing is not your friend, and a very slow fast travel system. You have to do the things you want to master and while my Henry ended up a Renaissance Man with knowledge of alchemy, healing, swordsmanship, thievery, speech, and horse-riding, he also worked like hell for all of these. He was also a crappy archer no matter how hard I tried to master it. The game caused me to almost quit several times during the early period with how hard lockpicking and stealth were but then they suddenly weren't. It's an addictive gameplay loop and I ended up putting something like a hundred hours in just the main game.

    The DLC for the game is fantastic with my favorite being "A Woman's Lot" where you play Henry's childhood friend and possible love interest, Theresa. That is also hard but nicely switches gameplay as while Henry is capable of fighting at later levels, Theresa must stealth her way through the sacking of their village. I also am fond of "From the Ashes" where Henry is given yet another gag promotion in the prestigious position of bailiff--of a town that's already been burned to the ground. He must now shell out all of his money from adventuring to get the place running and spending the equivalent of Richard Branson money in Medieval terms.

    I really like Kingdom Come: Deliverance and think it is something that everyone should play before they pick up Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. The story is great, the worldbuilding impressive, and the adventures are all entertaining. There's some flaws in the gameplay and I wish there had been slightly punishing early options. Even so I came to love all the characters and learned a huge amount about the 14th century Holy Roman Empire. 

9/10 

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erd Tree review

    ELDEN RING: SHADOW OF THE ERD TREE is a DLC expansion for the Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin penned Elden Ring. The premise of the game is that the God Queen Marika has shattered the Elden Ring out of grief for her murdered demigod son, Godwyn the Golden. This has plunged the Lands Between into a horrific civil war where the dead rise and chaos reigns. The player character, the Tarnished of No Renown, has set upon a quest to become the new Elden Lord by repairing the Elden Ring then becoming Marika's consort.

    Shadow of the Erd Tree introduces a new land for the Tarnished of No Renown to explore as well as a plot dealing with Marika's youngest child, Miquella the Compassionate. Miquella wishes to become a god and has assembled an oddball collection of servants that he's brainwashed into believing in his vision. The Shadowlands are also tied to God Queen Marika's origins and introduces a new child of hers: Messmer the Impaler. It's more plot than your typical Souls-like and includes a lot of fodder for lore junkies.

    The Shadowlands are a lot more dark and depressing than anywhere in the Lands Between. It is littered with thousands of tombstones and the sign of the ongoing genocide that Messmer has conducted on his mother's behalf. A harrowing tale of revenge and tragedy that you have to do a lot of investigation in order to find out the full horror thereof. The design for the Shadowlands are depressing but beautiful with the empty plains, endless ghosts, and ruins of a once thriving civilization.

    Most Souls-like gamers are not here for the lore or world-building, though. They are here for the gameplay. In this case, Shadow of the Erd Tree is extremely difficult. Not entirely fairly difficult either as some of the bosses go past the enjoyment factor of "Souls difficult" to "the computer is a cheating bastard." Indeed, the developers seem to be aware of this and have introduced a new mechanic called Scadutree Fragments that basically just exist to increase your damage resistance as well as damage output only in the DLC.

    There's some genuinely great bosses like the Royal Knight Rellana, Messmer, and the Dancing Lion. However, there's also some bosses that just flat out are unfun to fight like the Golden Hippopotamus and the Putrescent Knight. Some of the story beats are also accidentally lost as you move through the story. For example, if you want to explore the history of Miquella and Saint Trina then you can't have burned open the path to the final level.

    There's some good loot in the Shadow of the Erd Tree as well as several new abilities that are worth enjoying. This includes new armor, Talismans, and Remembrances that are worthwhile. There's nothing that's particularly gamebreaking but some of the rewards in the DLC could be used to finish the main game easier. I was particularly glad to get some Talismans that can hold off Fire, Holy, and Lightning attacks.

    In conclusion, Shadow of the Erd Tree is a solid DLC. Unfortunately, it is something that is designed for artificial difficulty. When the hippo ignores your Mimic Tear and turbo charges you repeatedly like a heat seeking missile, it is not particularly fun. There's also a lot of platforming that I'm not fond of. Many times, I would try to explore the map only to get completely lost. Still, the expansion is beautiful and the plot is extremely well done. I came to love the characters and lore of this DLC more than anyone in Elden Ring's primary game and I love those characters. Sadly, there's no option to romance Leda the Needle Knight.

8.5/10

Elden Ring review

    THE ELDEN RING is not really a game that needs me to review it. It is a video game that has sold thirteen millon copies and is only selling more as time goes on. It has won countless awards. It was written in conjunction between Hidetaki Miyasaki and George R.R. Martin. The game is good, fantastically good, really, and is up there with some of the all-time best ever made. That is, with the caveat, "Do you like Dark Souls-esque games?" Because that's actually something that not every gamer can answer yes to. They're something a lot of gamers love. However, prior to this game, I'd never played a Souls-like before and it became a punishing learning curve to get used to the game's quirks.

    Basically, for newcomers, a Souls-like game is a game where you play a character that is immortal in-universe. In this case, the Tarnished has been given the ability to come back from the dead but no real other superpowers. You are expected in this game to die a lot and to master the parry, dodging, as well as stabbing abilities needed to survive through trial and error. This is a game where you can grind levels and are expected to but death is punished by losing all of your unspent Experience Points (called "runes") unless you can get to the place where you died to recover them. That comes with the caveat, though, that if you die a second time then the runes are lost forever. This incentivizes the PCs to play well by punishing them for loss.

    The lore of the game is exceptionally deep but incredibly difficult to find out in-universe. The short version is that Marika, the God Queen of the Lands Between, has disappeared and the Elden Ring that provides prosperity has been shattered. All of Marika's demigod children and her Elden Lord husbands have claimed a fragment of the Elden Ring in hopes of assuming rulership of the universe. You, as the immortal Tarnished, are part of a group of warriors resurrected to make their own play for the Elden Ring. If you're a good person, you want to be Elden Lord to fix the world and if you're a bad person then you just want to be elevated to godhood.

    I really like George R.R. Martin's touch in a much more high fantasy world than Westeros and the focus on the Olympian-like demigods and their dysfunctional family that makes this gameworld so great. He apparently wrote much of the backstory that the game requires you to research to understand and its readily apparent. Almost every god has a deep and messed-up backstory relating to their families with messy breakups, long-buried lust, as well as deep philosophical issues with the way the world functions. For millennia, the Golden Order has created a paradise but it was only one for humans and under an immortal God Queen.

    I think my favorite of the demigods are Ranni and Melina, who both are willing to help the Tarnished for their own reasons. I think both characters could have had much more presence in the game and interactions but it is the nature of Elden Ring that anything other than pure gameplay takes a great deal to coax out. Of the bosses, I actually really like Godrick and Rennala who are the runts of the litter of gods. Godrick is a diluted demigod who has turned to Frankensteinian body experimentation to try to become a true immortal while Rennala used to be the world's greatest sorceress but just lives as a madwoman in her academy's attic these days.

    If you want to know what playing the game is like, basically you just wander around multiple gameworld-sized domains looking for monsters to slay and secrets until you're leveled up enough to go after the bosses. The game is fantastically beautiful but takes a special delight in not letting you know when you're underleveled for an area until you're easily smashed by a local monster. Part of what I enjoy is the fact that you start with being able to see the Erd Tree and you never really stop being able to see the miles-tall God-Thing. It provides a focus for the story just by its constant presence.

    There's very few NPCs to interact with compared to many other games but that doesn't mean that they're absent entirely. There's things like talking giant jars, a host of heroic immortal knights that have fallen on hard times, and a few twisted individuals like the loathesome Dung Eater. Figuring out how to trigger their quests is an incredible struggle but that's part of the "no hand holding" nature of the game. There's a lot of things that flat out are impossible to do at the start of the game (and sometimes later) that the game simply laughs at you for. "You can come back from the dead! Start again!"

    In conclusion, the Elden Ring is an incredibly hard but rewarding game. I had a huge amount of fun with it and am already thirty-five hours into it but have yet to even approach endgame. This is a game where I actually recommend you farm your runes and level up as well as allow yourselves to check guides. I never would have managed to enjoy it as much as I came to if not for the help online as well as gaming the system as much as I had. I needed those extra ten levels or so I got from shanking Elder Dragon Greyoll.

Xbox X

Playstation

Baldur's Gate 3 review

“Not quite as amazing as reviewers claim. Still, a fantastic RPG and a nostalgia trip for Dungeons and Dragons kids of the Nineties.”

    I explained to my niece that Baldur’s Gate was a generational game. Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadow of Amn was created in 2000 when I was her age. The Enhanced Edition updated the original classic game and Siege of Dragonspear added an interquel in 2016. However, creating a full-fledged sequel to a twenty-year-old game was something that I thought was a risk even with all the nostalgia packed in. Indeed, I concluded Baldur’s Gate 3 was probably something made by fans of the game from when I first played it in the Nineties who now had the chance to play with the toys as adults. Whether or not this is true, I certainly choose to believe that it is. It is the same sort of thing that I imagine about Spider-Man fans who grew up to write Spider-Man.

    The game has received almost universal praise upon its release, calling it the redemption of the stand-alone RPG that has been undermined repeatedly by corporate greed as well as the dissolution of several famous studios. However, I’ve always felt this to be an exaggeration and the RPG market is still in pretty good shape. After all, we had The Witcher 3 as the “Savior of RPGs” recently and while that had a defined protagonist, I don’t think of that as necessarily a precursor from being a true RPG. After all, that would have eliminated the Nameless One from Planescape: Torment.

    So, onto Baldur’s Gate 3. Is it any good?

    Oh yeah, it’s fantastic. Just not quite as good as a lot of people are proclaiming. There’s a lot to like here and it reminds me of the best parts of Dragon Age: Origins and the original Baldur’s Gate but there’s more than enough to question as well. The game is pretty much a trigonometry textbook of inventory management and combat management that many fans will appreciate being more complex than the dumbed down version of other RPGs that some of us fans prefer.

    No one was asking for the “invulnerability” mode that Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition had so you could just experience the story, but you will spend a lot of time trying to figure out what alchemy ingredients, vendor trash, and so on are important. Then there’s the save issues. The game has some automatic saves, but a large chunk of the game really does depend on you remembering to save often and well. Not because you’re going to die in the game, the game is pretty forgiving by giving you access to a Lich able to resurrect your party members for a paltry 200 gold (at least if you search for him). No, it’s because saving often will prevent you from doing something that annoys the hell out of you.

    At one point, I sold a Wand of Resurrection that I was supposed to either give to a widow or break in front of her and it vanished from the vendor’s inventory too. Another incident is the fact that to stop a bunch of poison gas traps, you needed to have rocks to put on the vents. Which can mostly be gotten from your camp, which you can’t access this deep into the dungeon without major backtracking. This also doesn’t cover a lot of story beats that are decided by dice rolls that, bluntly, I’m fully willing to cheat on because I’d prefer to avoid a child being murdered by a snake because my super-charming CHR 17 Warlock apparently mumbled this time.

    It’s still a fun game, don’t get me wrong. Indeed, the game strongly benefits from the fact that it embraces the absurd and weird of the Dungeons and Dragons multiverse. The opening of the game is that a bunch of Cthulhu-looking aliens (Illthids) abduct you with their MAGICAL SPACESHIP (Spelljammer), put a parasite in your brain, and you only escape because of another group of aliens (Githyanki) attack you on dragonack while you’re traveling through HELL. The premise is delightfully nuts and as crazy as a Gloryhammer album. They really need to do another Planescape or Dark Sun adventure with these guys.

    The plot gets even more weird and complex, involving Netherese magic and gods long thought dead by most Dungeons and Dragons nerds not aware of how the setting was updated past 4th Edition. It also takes the somewhat old school approach that the first ACT of the game has you fighting goblins, owlbears, and other low-level enemies. A green hag is a particularly powerful boss if you choose to confront her. I was twenty hours into the game before I started moving from what was traditionally low-level monsters.

    The companions are well-designed, but these are usually the most popular part of the game anyway. I think Mass Effect: Andromeda was the only game where the party members just went over like a wet fart with me. My favorite characters were Astarion, Lae’zel, Astarion, and Karlach. Which is a huge chunk of the party right there. The voice acting is great but seemingly every character in the game is voiced and that really adds to the sense of reality to the place.

    The characters are a bit on the horny side, which is not so much a complaint as an observation. No sooner than I’d had a few conversations with Lae’zel, an alien from a bunch of race supremacists worshiping an undead lich queen, then she wanted to get down and busy. This applied to virtually all the other characters and they’re all player sexual too. This is a game that needed a “Flirt” button option versus some mixed signals being put out. The game has a nudity option, which is something that both The Witcher and Dragon Age: Inquisition had. I mostly mention this because I appreciate the idea that Mature Audiences who can see horrifying brain surgery with a demonic parasite aren’t going to be traumatized by nipples.

    The world is pretty and well-designed but I’m going to be honest that a lot of the joy from this game (at least separating it from other games) will be the nostalgia factor from people who love Dungeons and Dragons. It’s the return of an old friend and you’re willing to overlook the bugs (which are minor but annoying) along with the fact you might have to go back to camp, remove a follower, recruit a follower, and then search their inventory to find some Infernal Iron that you need a for a quest versus having all quest items available.

    Still, I’m going to give credit where credit is due, this is a solid game and if you have the patience to deal with the interface then you’re almost certainly going to enjoy this trip down memory lane. It’s probably the best game I’ve played since The Witcher 3 and not only has the massive open world RPG content of a hundred hours like, say, Assassins Creed: Odyssey but it’s actually worthwhile content.

     9/10

A Plague's Tale: Innocence review

    A PLAGUE TALE: INNOCENCE is a work of dark fantasy and that is a surprisingly rare (albeit by no means unknown) work among video games. Historical dark fantasy is even rarer as you don't often see stories set in the "real" Middle Ages, let alone with the benefit of magic as well as other occult elements. Knowing that A Plague's Tale would be set in 13th century France, during the Black Death, and have supernatural elements thus made me very intrigued with this title.

    The premise is that fifteen-year-old Amicia De Rune is the daughter of a minor noble house, living a happy life with her parents as well as dog. Lion. Yes, a dog named Lion. I have no idea why this bothers me but it's literally one of my three or four complaints about the game. Amicia also has a five-year-old little brother, Hugo, who suffers from some unstated ailment that keeps him bedroom as well as isolated from the rest of the family. Hugo's illness has severely impacted Amicia's relationship with her mother and resulted in her becoming a somewhat anachronistic tomboy in Medieval France as her father picks up the slack.

    Well, things go to hell very quickly as Lion the dog is killed in the most genuinely upsetting part of the game. A nightmarish horde of rats representing the Black Death pours out from the ground and signals the plague is here. It's not the plague that ruins Amicia's life, however, but the Papal Inquisition. The Papal Inquisition believes, possibly correctly, that Beatrice De Rune is a practicing sorcerer/alchemist and carry out a massacre. This results in Amicia being seemingly orphaned and forced to flee with her brother.

    The game becomes a giant escort mission where you attempt to stay ahead of the Inquisition, which is obsessed less with the children's mother than Hugo himself for reasons that gradually become clear. You also have to avoid the massive horde of rats that are less interested in spreading plague than eating poor Amicia alive. In addition to the Inquisition, you'll also have to deal with superstitious villagers and English soldiers from the One Hundred Years War.

    The game has a slightly believable element in the fact that Amicia de Rune can't survive fighting any of these soldiers. It's a one-hit, game over sort of situation since they're all burly large men while she's a fifteen year old girl less than a hundred pounds soaking wet. So, instead, you have to sneak around the Medieval hellscape of dead bodies and abandoned ruins. Less realistic is the fact that Amicia is a master of the sling and if she can sneak attack these guards, she can start building up a body count in the low hundreds.

    I have to admit, I actually like the respect being given to the sling. The sling is a surprisingly deadly weapon and people basically forget that it killed Goliath. While I don't think Amicia could have slain quite as many people as she did, I do like the first couple of times she kills someone and how it causes her deep distress. Unfortunately, time starts to harden our heroine as she struggles to find respite from the constant barrage of horrors.

    This is definitely a horror game and a pretty good one at that. The picturesque Medieval community that is destroyed by the violent events that occur is well-done. It's perhaps cheating that you have a sweet innocent girl have to crawl through giant rat pits that resemble the nest of the xenomorphs from Alien, walk through battlefields of hundreds of dead bodies, and see shocking act of violence after shocking act of violence but it works.

    Gameplay-wise, it is best described as serviceable and functional. Amicia sneaks, crafts, and slings across a fairly linear set of areas. But just because it's simple, doesn't mean it's not fun. I would have preferred more options but a lot of the game's appeal is how helpless our heroine is. Even when she's got a few options like controlling rats via stink bombs and alchemical goodies, it's still not too many options.

    Really, I also have to give props to the game for its artistry and music as well. The environments are rich and lush, to the point that I really do recommend playing this PS4 game on PS5. They're sort of the Medieval version of Ghost of Tsushima to me. So many memorable set pieces ranging from the beautiful to the nightmarish. The music is also fantastic with the violin parts my favorite. I even listen to it separate from the game on occasion

    If I had to say the appeal of A Plague's Tale: Innocence, I would say that it has strong A Song of Ice and Fire energy. Note: I didn't say Game of Thrones energy. This is much more the "teenager unwittingly in a zombie apocalypse" sort of story that is closer to the literary version of the story. Amicia just wants the horrible things that keep happening to her to stop and they just keep coming. It's not going to be for everyone but people who enjoy grimdark I think will enjoy this game a great deal.

    Speaking of grimdark, what would you enjoy following a teenage girl struggling to survive and trying to protect her bratty ill brother? Why do we enjoy the terrible suffering and nightmarish visages from the Dark Ages? Well, grimdark is a genre built on extremes. Amicia deserves to be in a better sort of fantasy and is a deeply likable character. Seeing her struggle not to break against the horribleness of the world invokes strong protective as well as sympathetic emotions. It's not for everyone but for those who like it, I think they'll like it a lot.

    This is an older game to review and the sequel has already come out but I think the original deserves props for what it achieved without a AAA budget. Just don't play it if you have a fear of rats, because it will destroy you. It's terrifying, beautiful, and grimdark. Just the way I like it.

Available here

Middle Earth: Shadow of War review

    MIDDLE EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR is the sequel to the highly popular and enjoyable MIDDLE EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR. It was a somewhat blasphemous and fascinating take on the classic Tolkien Legendarium, having its protagonist seek to use necromancy as well as other dark magic to fight the Dark Lord with his own power. You know, the one thing that is constantly warned against by Tolkien as self-defeating but we kind of would be curious as to how it would go.

    Since this is a direct sequel, a brief recap is warranted: Talion is a Ranger of the North without the powerful blood of Numenor running through his veins. After a sneak attack by Sauron's forces, he ends up being possessed by the elven smith Celebrimbor. Talion manages to do a good deal of damage to Sauron's war machine but the realization that the Dark Lord is just getting started is enough to get him to convince Celebrimbor to make a new ring.

    The game starts immediately after Talion sneaks into Mount Doom and proceeds to smith himself a ring with Celebrimbor's help. I would have actually enjoyed sneaking into Mount Doom and am a bit disappointed that Talion didn't have to do so. Either way, Celebrimbor pours his life force into the New Ring (along with yours) but has it almost immediately stolen. This is meant to explain why Talion goes from an orc-slaying badass Ringwraith to a complete weakling again but also actually fits the fact the Rings of Power can never be trusted.

    Unfortunately, this is also where the story starts to go completely off the rails and never quite gets back on them. Specifically, the New Ring is stolen by Sexy Shelob. Yes, the giant spider who almost ate Frodo. Apparently, she can assume a form that can best be described as "Morrigan from Dragon Age in an evening dress."

    Much has already been made of this bizarre lore change, somewhat akin to Godzilla becoming a hot Japanese school girl, but I could meet them halfway on this. Plenty of mythological creatures assume the form of sexy women to eat people because ancient peoples had serious issues with misogyny: vampires, sirens, succubi, kelpies, deer women, and so on. It's just Shelob doesn't have her one characterization trait and instead works as a kind of anti-Galadriel, putting Talion on the road to destroying Sauron. Because, apparently they used to date.

    Oh sweet Eru.

    No.

    Seriously, you have no idea how badly you must screw with the lore to get me to not support more pale raven-haired witches in fiction. Not saying it’s a fetish but it's a fetish. Anywho, Talion has to use his unholy powers, diminished as they are, to try to help protect Minis Ithil from an invasion of orcs. I mean, technically the citadel should have fallen a thousand years before, but this Sauron is just getting started.

    Talion meets a cute pint-sized Eowyn named Idril, her Haradrim captain, and father before asking, "Could I please have your palantir because the ghost in my head wants it before Sauron gets it?" This goes poorly and becomes a bickering conflict between Talion wanting to save lives and Celebrimbor seeking absolute power to defeat Sauron.

    The story is pretty complex and spread across multiple zones of Mordor. Some of the ideas are quite interesting as you apparently meet an Ent-Wife (or their patron Maia), you have to deal with a cult of necromancers, contend with a Balrog waking up, and finally have the Nazgul introduced since Sauron is well and truly tired of Talion/Celebrimbor's bullshit. 

    Frankly, some of these would have made pretty good games themselves and I kind of think it'd have been hilarious if instead of Sexy Shelob, they'd made Durin's Bane be the beautiful woman who stole Celebrimbor's ring. That would have been ridiculous but not necessarily lore breaking. Who says the Balrog can't be female? Plus, as a Maia, the idea they can assume a human form goes with the territory. She'd probably be a redhead, though. 

    Sadly, the weird lore breaking gets even worse as the game goes on as we find out the identities of the Nazgul like Helm Hammerhand, Isildur, and a group of Chinese-themed twin sisters (DLC only). There's also a guy who was clearly meant to be Al-Pharazon but they changed his name, which is about the only smart move they did. This is just silly because the people who know who these people are don't want to see them stuck with entirely different characters. It's like revealing Darth Revan's true identity was Luke Skywalker all along. Even if you explain that he was transported back in time via a wormhole, that doesn't make it less stupid.

    Unfortunately, as silly as the world-building is and the game's inability to commit to any of its interesting ideas (I'd happily play an entire game of Talion versus a Balrog), the storytelling is by far the best part of the game. The gameplay is decent but the attempt to make it a much-larger open world game and introduce base management elements doesn't really improve it. The previous game benefited fantastically from the Nemesis System where artificially generated orcs are used to harass Talion, but this has a lot more predetermined ones that are less interesting. There's also a lot more of them so by the time you've killed your 50th Captain, you're kind of sick of them.

    Perhaps the most egregious of trying to push the gamers into unnecessary time-wasting content is that to get the "true" ending, you must do ten sieges of your bases by Sauron's forces. Sieges are not particularly enjoyable, and these are lacking in any form of story. It's just time-wasting busy work for a short cutscene that should have been at the end of the game anyway.

    I feel like the game doesn't make use of its set pieces very well, either. You have an entire mission chain in the area around Mount Doom and you never get to go inside but for the New Ring forging scene. The New Ring's powers are also not particularly well-defined with mind-control being an ability you had in the previous game. I feel like when introducing something like a new Ring of Power, you need to be a little more grandiose in your ambitions. There was more to complain about the game, like loot boxes, but, thankfully, the developers removed those.

    Despite this, stabbing orcs and jumping off buildings to stab orcs will never not be fun. Much the same for blowing up barrels of grog and setting hordes of baddies on fire like you're in a Medieval Michael Bay movie. Do I hate those damn caragors? You bet I do. However, there's never not going to be a lot of fun had as a Not-Nazgul.

    In conclusion, Middle Earth: Shadow of War suffers from the fact that they wanted to appeal to the broadest audience possible and that meant making some very big compromises in the lore. I like the original characters for the most part and wouldn't have had a problem if they had just made Sexy Shelob into another previously unknown fallen Maia. It's already fanfic with Talion and company, that doesn't mean it has to be bad fanfic. It's still a lot of fun playing this game, branding orcs and mind-controlling them, but it's not as fun as its predecessor due to the slog as well as attempts to push the sieges as a main gameplay element. 

7.5/10

Available here

Baldur's Gate retrospective

A Gateway Drug To the Imagination

Everyone has a book, movie, or video game that has a special place in their hearts. The actual medium doesn’t matter but the story or characters tantalized you enough that you wanted to experience more. These were our gateway drugs and are things that both tantalize the imagination as well as enspell the spirit. In this case, I’m going to tell you about a game called Baldur’s Gate.

Baldur’s Gate wasn’t my introduction to fantasy or even Dungeons and Dragons but it was something that, nevertheless, kept pulling me back into the world despite the fact it was more or less an “alpha” version of what Bioware would eventually achieve with their far more polished Dragon Age setting. I’m going to discuss the plot of each game in-depth so if you care about spoilers for a twenty-year-old game, I recommend you go buy the Enhanced Edition for PC or console then come back in about a hundred hours.

Baldur’s Gate (1998)

The premise was you were a convenient orphan who was raised in the library-castle of Candlekeep. You could be a man, woman, elf, human, or whatever that was any number of professions. Freedom was maximized even if your story would probably indicate you would have been learning either how to fight or how to shoot fireballs in the version of Faerun’s Library of Congress.

Unfortunately, for Gary (as I named my protagonist), he has the problem of being a Chosen One. Not Chosen for anything good like the Dragonborn of Skyrim or Nezzarine. No, he is the child of Bhaal the God of Murder. Bhaal has been dead, a rare status for a god, for decades but his evil essence was passed down to all of his mortal descendants.

This is part of a complicated plot to resurrect himself as the surviving Bhaalspawn will kill each other off like immortals in Highlander. The survivors will grow stronger from each person they kill as well as each Bhaalspawn, justifying D&D experience, and eventually the last will become the new God of Murder.

The Highlander influences are actually pretty thick as your opponent is Sarevok, your half-brother who is basically the Kurgan. They should have gotten Clancy Brown to do the voice instead of Kevin Michael Richardson (no shade on Trigon and Goro, though). Sarevok is smarter than the Kurgan, though, as he’s doing a complicated plot to start a war where he’s supplying both sides with weapons as well as corrupting the iron ore so he has a monopoly on steel. It’s not your typical fantasy villain stuff and while you thwart him, I have to say he’s actually one of the smarter bad guys in gaming.

Part of what I like about is that it’s only from level 1-10 that you play. Most games go much-much higher. Yet you’re fighting Kobolds, Gnolls, skeletons, and giant centipedes rather than liches as well as other horrors. You can build a party from a couple of dozen NPCs, many of whom don’t get along at all, and while they don’t have much to say–some leave a big impression. For example, I will always love Imoen and refuse to accept she’s my half-sister when my character was fully in love with her.

No Kentucky jokes. Only we can do that.

Siege of Dragonspear (2016)

I think it says just about everything you need to know about how Baldur’s Gate touched so many lives that they eventually released an expansion for the first game ten years later. Specifically, eight years after the sequel was done. It’s common enough to do a prequel to games but how often do you have an interquel? That requires a level of fan dedication and love that the developers believe exists to know all the characters as well as their complicated weird plots.

The Siege of Dragonspear is designed to bridge the gap between Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadow of Amn where the protagonist goes from being on top of the world to a hated outcast despite saving the world (or at least Sword Coast) from Sarevok. You do, indeed, start off as living in the Ducal Palace of Baldur’s Gate, beloved by all (though my in-game reputation was absolute crap due to killing a few hundred guards), and spending time with his beloved sister Imoen.

Unfortunately, the reward for a job well done is to do it all over again and Gary is called upon to slay the Joan of Arc-like figure leading a crusade across the Sword Coast. No one is entirely sure WHY the woman is leading a crusade, but her followers are looting and pillaging in the name of all the gods. Which, given this is the Forgotten Realms, is ridiculous. The gods hate each other. So you have to get the band back together in order to lead an army to slay her and disperse her rebellious forces.

With ten years of game technology advances, the game looks visually spectacular while remaining an isometric top-down RPG. The dialogue also gets to take advantage of the fact that we know where all the characters will end up. The game is heavy on foreshadowing and contains one of the last performances by the amazing David Warner (AKA Batman: The Animated series’ Ra’s Al Ghul and Jon Irenicus). The protagonist’s dialogue options also get a lot “sillier” options, which implies the events of the first game have driven them to become a snarky bastard.

A sense of doom hangs over the expansion and the funny thing is that it makes the story much-much better, which shouldn’t be possible for two such classic games. The fusion isn’t always one hundred percent perfect but it’s close enough. In the end, no matter what you do, someone good is going to get hurt as well as the line between good and evil being blurred.

Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)

The sequel to Baldur’s Gate is one of those stories that manages to improve on the original with a stronger plot, stronger characterization, darker tone, and motherfricking David Warner. The protagonist has found himself kidnapped by a mad wizard, tortured, experimented on, and stripped of their soul.

David Warner’s Jon Irencius is really what makes this module. An exiled elvish archwizard, he is possessed of a complex and interesting backstory that would give a George R.R. Martin protagonist pause. The protagonist isn’t left behind, though, as his relationships with his various associates are allowed to grow considerably. Baldur’s Gate II is where the option to have romances with his or her companions arrived. While some of them were undercooked, especially for female protagonists, others like Viconia have become iconic characters.

If there’s any flaws in the game, it is the fact that the story of the protagonist being the scion of Bhaal takes a backseat to its new villain. This is corrected heavily in the Throne of Bhaal expansion but, briefly, it feels like it is the Irenicus show instead of dealing with the fact you’re the child of an evil god. Which is a rare sentence. The deaths of the beginning of long-time party members Khalid and Dynaheir also added a sense of gravitas that players who didn’t let their party members meet the final death might have missed. Plus, you get to explore the Underdark and that’s always a plus.

It has little to do with Bhaal’s resurrection but is one of the best of Bioware’s stories even today.

Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Baal (2001)

Every journey must come to an end and the Throne of Bhaal is where it reaches its climax. Civilization is under assault by the last of the Bhaalspawn aside from you. The remainder of them have decided to team up in order to make sure there can be only one, sort of like the bad Tributes in The Hunger Games.

The Throne of Bhaal brings back the plot of your (un)holy heritage full force and the possibility of resisting becoming a monster or embracing that energy to become a god. It is a genuinely epic quest and one that suffers a bit for the fact that the bosses are somewhat one note compared to Sarevok and Irenicus.

The Throne of Bhaal pulls out all the stops and you can effectively slay a god in its final levels or actually do slay a god (or the Lord of the Abyss) with the Demogorgon as a bonus boss. It also has a set of ending slides that manage to incorporate a wide variety of default states depending on your decisions as well as companions.

In the end, it is a suitable climax for what was a truly epic adventure until this point. The Baldur’s Gate franchise would continue after Throne of Bhaal as well with some books (that were absolutely awful–no offense to the author), comic books (which I adore), as well as an upcoming sequel with Baldur’s Gate III. The Enhanced Editions would also come out, making all of the games into a single epic adventure with improved graphics as well as game assets.

You can even play it on console.

 

Ghost of Tsushima (2020) review

    GHOST OF TSUSHIMA is a game I picked up in-between replaying Spider-Man (PS4) and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. It looked fantastic and I'm a huge fan of Akira Kurosawa and historical samurai anime. I'm also going to admit specific bias in the fact my college degree is in Medieval Asian history so I'm doubly in my wheelhouse here. However, if you are not a fanatical student of samurai then you may not get as much from this game as I did. Alternatively, you may get just as much or more because you're not obsessed with every off detail.

Many different kinds of armor and cosmetics.

    The premise is based around the First Mongol Invasion of Japan in 1274, specifically the titular isle of Tsushima. Historically, the samurai took advantage of the terrain and used their mastery of the bow to rain down arrows on the invading horde enough to severely deplete their ranks. This is because samurai were originally archers rather than swordsman (that came later). In this version of history, Lord Shimura is an idiot charges the Mongols head on rather than use the terrain and gets the entirety of the island's defenses wiped out in a single battle. Lord Shimura's nephew, Jin Sakai, is seemingly the only survivor and barely manages to escape with his life.

    The premise of the game is that Jin needs to become the first ninja. While the word shinobi is never used, Jin has to learn a variety of stealth tactics and sabotage skills in order to wage asymmetrical warfare on the Mongols. Jin cannot defeat the Mongols by himself but he can certainly make their invasion far more difficult. He also attempts to recruit as many allies as he can to continue resisting the invasion after the majority of their defenders are killed. This is all in hopes of eventually weakening them enough that they can be repulsed by reinforcements from the mainland. Theoretically. In practice, Jin does single-handedly murder the entirety of the Mongol invasion and drive them back by himself.

    This is pretty much about as good a set of historical facts as Assassins Creed, which is to say not at all. Tsushima island is less than three hundred miles in size and the Mongols actually managed to subdue it in a few days before getting repulsed at the next island over. The depiction of the samurai here is also extremely stupid because the ones here are obsessed with "honor" and glory as defined by fighting fair. The thing is that samurai have NEVER applied fighting fair to anyone but their fellow samurai and the greatest honor has always been winning. Even Klingons know that. So much of the game's premise is about Jin tormenting himself about teaching himself how to be sneaky.

The beautiful scenery and stylized violence is A+

   Still, even if you don't buy Jin's source of angst, the storyline is pretty excellent. An incompetent leader who Jin still loves as family has led them to ruin and now it's up to you to extirpate the Mongol horde. Technically, the Mongols should be composed of Han Chinese and Korean levies as well as Mongols but calling them all "Mongols" is forgivable given Jin is probably not going to draw technical distinctions regarding the invaders. It offers an excuse to become Medieval Batman, with more murder, and that's always an excellent gameplay style.

    The game is absolutely gorgeous. It's quite possibly the prettiest game that I have ever seen. The whole thing successfully evokes the kind of stylized Japan that shows up in many media. It's the kind of beautiful flying cherry blossom sort of natural beauty that is almost impossible to replicate. The battles are as beautiful as the scenery. I have occasionally stopped to marvel at the backdrops of video games but this was something else entirely. The score combined with the setting makes just about every scene a work of art.

    The gameplay pretty much is Assassin's Creed with sword fighting and that isn't a bad thing. I always felt that the Assassins Creed games would be good to crossover into ninja-storylines and the Mongol invasion is pretty much the perfect place to do this. You sneak around, assassinating Mongols whenever you don't just run into their bases to kill them all with your sword. You do sidequests, you collect objects, and you explore the map. 

Great drama as you approach murder zones.

   The game doesn't do anything innovative with the open world stealth combat formula save, maybe, duels where you can call out the strongest fighter of a Mongol group to kill him in an iaijutsu duiel. It's mostly the same, go to X, kill everything there, pick up Y, sort of gameplay. That doesn't mean it's bad but people expecting anything more are likely to be disappointed. I collected a bunch of crafting materials because I wanted a Straw Hat and to be able to kill slightly more efficiently with my sword. 

    The sidequests of the game include cutting through bamboo, composing haiku, tracking down foxes, and soaking in hot springs. In other words, Jin is probably the most Japanese man who ever lived. About the only way he could get more Japanese would be to take up a job as a salaryman or rice eating contests. This makes sense with the fact that this is an American game that's an homage to classic samurai cinema but is still very noticeable. Sometimes only foreigners can play all the tropes straight.

    If I had any complaints about the game, I'd say that it's a little too self-serious and Kurosawa. The samurai are all concerned about honor, honor, and honor with the time period completely inappropriate to be worrying about bushido (that didn't exist until centuries later). This is the time when the samurai were defined as, "people who kill people really good" versus "obsessive honor fanatics." That's more a Tokugawa Shogunate thing. Despite this, I had a lot of fun and you can even switch this game to "Kurosawa Mode" where it's black and white with Japanese language.

8.5/10

Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order

    STAR WAS: JEDI: FALLEN ORDER is a game that I have been hesitant to play because of how burned I felt on BATTLEFRONT II. I enjoyed the single player campaign of that guy but felt cheated for the short duration of it as well as the attempt to nickle and dime all of its players. Still, I'd heard good things about this game so I finally picked it up and when I hit a Star Wars mood, decided to play through it. I'm very glad that I did. Despite not being the most original story, it is a solid and entertaining game throughout.

    The premise is Cal Kestis is a Jedi Padawan who managed to survive Order 66 while his master did not. As such, he has been junking space ships the entire time. Unfortunately, in order to save his best friend, he has to use the Force and brings down the wrath of the Empire on his head. Barely escaping with his life, he teams up with a Jedi Master that has lost the Force and a professional gambler to try to rebuild the Jedi Order. The key to this is finding the list of all the remaining Force sensitives in the galaxy.

Mark Hamill went from Jedi to Joker.

Cameron Monaghan went from Joker to Jedi.

    The game is a weird combination of Dark Souls, Uncharted, and Metroid Prime that amounts to being an exploratory platformer and lightsaber game. I was expecting something like The Force Unleashed but it is much more about running along walls, jumping on things, and exploring every little corner in the game. Cal is constantly swinging over things and doubling back to expand his map by knocking down rocks or solving puzzles that he couldn't until he learned the right Force power.

    Generally, the game is very fun and while it can be daunting to explore the huge maps and it is very easy to get lost, I managed to get my money's worth many times over. Throwing stormtroopers over the sides of cliffs never gets old. I felt like the parries of the game were a little less than awesome but I had the difficulty turned down very low so I have only myself to blame. Still, I loved it when Cal fought AT-STs, bounty hunters, and the occassional giant monster. Indeed, I wish I'd fought more Imperials because killing the local wildlife made me feel guilty. Jedi are connected to all living things, Yoda-darnit!

I like the Purge Troopers as mini-bosses.

    When the game is good, it is very good. The opening section on Bracca is fantastic with some fantastic set pieces, a truly amazing train ride section, and the feel of the Star Wars universe down pat. When the game is bad, it feels like you're playing a Jedi themed Sonic the Hedgehog with the only thing missing being a bunch of rings you need to catch. It can get exhausting trying to find your way to the next part of the map when I really just want to fight some Dark Jedi.

    The characters are a somewhat mixed bag as Cal, Shera, Greez, and (later) Merrin are all awesome but we don't get enough of them. The Second Sister is a decent villain but I feel like we could have rounded this story out by including an Imperial General or something. We get a theatrical crime lord at one point but he's barely in it. The storytelling is good but could have been expanded, which is to say it's "mostly good."

I HATE wall-running. Parkour is not the Jedi way!

    There's also the not dismissable point that this feels like a plot that has already been done to death I can't count the number of times a survivor of Order 66 or the Jedi Purge in general has popped up out of nowhere to have their own adventures before Vader either kills them or they survive past Endor, Yoda be damned. The fact they're going after a list of children to train to be Jedi also is something that we know is doomed to failure.

    The game hints at something more interesting with the Zeffo, a race that seem to be like the Rakata in they were a pre-Republic force sensitive culture that fell to the Dark Side. However, they're just background dressing and I feel that's a missed opportunity. While it wouldn't be terribly original either, maybe looking for an ancient Zeffo superweapon to use against the Empire (or for the Empire in the Second Sister's case) would have been better. Basically, there's a very "been there, done that" feel to the game.

Sith officially have Goth girls. I'm in.

    I will give props to the game for being very integrated into the Disney Star Wars timeline. We get references and homages to just about every bit of Star Wars EU up until this point ranging from a Lasat Jedi Master (Star Wars: Rebels), Saw Gerrera (criminally underused), the Prequels, the OT, The Clone Wars cartoons, and even characters from the comics. There's even a call forward to Starkiller Base as we discover just what planet they used to create the First Order's ominous superweapon.

    In any case, I played the video game until the end and that is its own endorsement. It corrected one of the big issues of The Force Unleashed with its handling of Vader. Cal never feels too powerful compared to the universe as a whole and is grossly overmatched by a true Dark Lord of the Sith. Also, when he faces an actual Jedi Master fallen to the Dark Side, he only wins because he has the help of another force user. I recommend playing this but with the caveat that there are some long boring sections. I hope in the next game it's not 90% exploration, 10% lightsaber combat but something closer to 50-50.

8/10

Mortal Kombat 11 review

    MORTAL KOMBAT!

    *Techno Music*

    Okay, I've used that opening multiple times but it never gets old. The Mortal Kombat series is one of the nearest and dearest to my heart. With the exception of Spider-Man, the Dresden Files, and Star Wars--it is probably my all time favorite fictional franchise. Yes, that means it beats out Star Trek. What can I say, it's the ninja-ladies and bizarre mixture of fantasy with bloodsport.

The graphics are awesome.

    My opinion is that Mortal Kombat has never been as good as it is now with the somewhat dicey Mortal Kombat 9 (that still managed to make a coherent story out of the first three games) being followed by the spectacular Mortal Kombat X. I loved the changes to Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, and Raiden. I also loved the introduction of the Kombat Kids that I felt were some of the very few successful "passing the torch" characters. Cassie Cage, in particular, was a great character that I believe fully deserved the title of new Kombat Klassic Kharacter.

    The nature of fighting games means that there's less to talk about than in some games. You can play Mortal Kombat an infinite number of times in Tower Mode and against online opponents but there's only so much difference. In the end, you must love the genre or there's no real point in playing the game. Which is a way of dancing around saying, "Mortal Kombat XI is basically Injustice 2 gameplay wise--which wasn't that different from Mortal Kombat X. If you liked one, you'll probably like the others." This comes with a caveat.

I like the costume redesigns.

    The storyline for this installment of the franchise is that a heretofore unknown deity known as Kronika has started to unwind the timeline due to Raiden having defeated Shinnok. A believer in the balance between good and evil, she believes that our heroes have destroyed that by successfully beating down the bad guys too completely. Kronika recruits a bunch of classic villains like Sektor, Shao Kahn, and Baraka. She can bring them back from the past and effectively resurrect them, making an impossible series of promises. Smashing together time like this also brings a number of past characters back on the heroic side like the original Liu Kang, young Sonya Blade, demon Scorpion, and Kung Lao.

    Mortal Kombat has always been a martial arts superhero universe. It has benefited from larger-than-life villains, melodrama, and constant reminders of classic storylines. Things like Scorpion's family being murdered, Sub-Zero's clan being turned into robots, and the "will they or won't they" relationship between Liu Kang with Kitana. This is a fairly classic time-travel crisis crossover like we had with DC comics' Zero Hour or Infinite Crisis. The Story Mode is a bit disjointed as there's no concrete protagonist as we switch between Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Raiden, Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, and Cassie Cage without much connective tissue. Overall, I very much enjoyed it but it's also a bit silly as all stories with time travel eventually are (I'm looking at you Endgame).

Best mom/daughter team-up since Jean/Rachel.

    I think Cassie Cage's storyline is the best in this storyline. She's ascending to be a Commander of the Earthrealm Special Forces but this is in the wake of a disastrous mission to Netherrealm that gets her mother (present-day Sonya) killed. The fact this traumatizing event is followed by past-Sonya and past-Johnny Cage arriving is actually fairly interesting. One of the best moments of the game is past-Johnny acting like an ass and getting his older self to kick it. I think we've all wanted to slap our past selves silly.

    Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the depiction of Liu Kang and Kung Lao in this story. I've never been a fan of either character, finding Liu Kang bland and uninteresting at best. However, both characters have a surprising amount of chemistry with one another as they deal with the fact both of them got turned into revenants in this universe. Liu Kang is depicted as the bright-eyed optimist and Kung Lao as the cynic with both of them weirded out about how crazy the timeline has gotten. It made them both extremely likable.

I am a Mistress of Time! And Evil!

    Kronika is a fairly one-dimensional villain with her idea of balance never really explained. She's tied to the existing mythology pretty well, though, with her revealed as Shinnok's mother as well as another Elder God's. Besides, no one is interested in Mortal Kombat because of the intricate character studies. She serves her purpose well and the confrontation with her at the end has a fun mechanic where the ending depends on whether you defeat her two rounds in a row.

    Gameplay-wise, there are only a few modifications from previous installments with my favorite being Fatal Blows. These are special finisher moves that are easy to perform when a Kombatant (hehe) is on his last breath. They can only be performed once a match per participant but are electric and brutal. Basically, Fatalities you can perform in the middle of the match. Given I am a notorious failure at finishing off foes, these were most welcome and lived up matches considerably.

    The costume redesigns of the game have been subject to controversy but I tend to think this is much ado about nothing. Om both sides. The women are still wearing skintight outfits and high heels so it's not like the fanservice actually went away. Is Skarlet wearing a uniform rather than a bikini? Yes. I think they could have inserted the others as alternate costumes but some of the MK variants were ridiculous looking anyway (I mean you Sonya Blade).

The Krypt is quite beautiful.

    The character selection is a pretty decent collection of Mortal Kombat classics with few characters missing that I love. They also get extra props for bringing back Shao Kahn and Baraka. On the other hand, Mileena isn't present and her absence is noticeable given the presence of frigging Kabal. I'm also not sure why you'd turn Frost into a cyborg ninja if you're also going to bring back Sektor. Kung-Jin, Kenshi, and Takeda seem like characters they should have found a way to put in as well. I also think Goro would have been a good DLC character versus a couple I've been spoiled on.

    New Kombatants Cetrion and Kollector are decent enough. Cetrion is an Elder God meant to be the Big Good compared to Shinnok's Big Evil but is a lackey of her mother with a sense of self-righteousness that explain a lot of the Elder God's previous screw ups. She also seems to be a divine Poison Ivy/Gaia figure. Kollector is the former tax collector of Shao Kahn and a spider race. I'm always for more Outworld races since it is a fantasy D&D world but he's a bit one note. Still, he also reminds me a bit of Larfleeze from Green Lantern and that's not a bad thing. Really, though, I'm here for Shao Kahn and Cassie Cage.

My home boy Shao is back. Hammer time!

    The introductory quotes aren't something I'd normally comment on but I actually think they deserve a shout-out. There's a lot of really hilarious one-liners from Johnny Cage and Cassie but everyone gets in on the action. They even try to justify some of the fights like having Mirror Match opponents say one is a clone, imposter, or alternate timeline version of themselves. I liked this in Injustice 2 and it's hilarious when alt-Kitana tells her prime self that she is dating Kung Lao only for the other to say he's not in their league. Really, the only characterization I didn't much care for is that of Shao Kahn is he seems to be too much of a brute when he's always been a much more calculating evil genius to me.

    As for the rest of the game? Ehhh. The Tower Mode includes some modifications but the ridiculous gear-unlocks that I couldn't figure out. The Krypt is an enormously well-designed loot box arena based on Shang Tsung's island. It's beautiful to look at but there's nothing to do that but open loot boxes that don't give very good material anyway. The fact you don't pay for in-game currency is about the only benefit to it. It also confuses me as loot boxes only exist to facilitate microtransactions so if you're not going to gamble with them then why bother?

    In conclusion, this is a game that I very much enjoyed and was well-worth my sixty dollar investment. The Krypt and the equipment in-game, though, is just a waste of time and I am sick of pretty much all loot-box inclusions in my game. The storyline is where it's at as is the fun of colorful fighters beating the hell out of each other. If they wanted to adjust the game, they should have just made fighter customization and alternate costumes plus challenges.

9/10

Mortal Kombat XL review

    Mortal Kombat is one of my favorite series but it's a series which suffered a great deal, well, pretty much since Mortal Kombat III. It's said every series has a expiration date and it was clear they ran out of ideas roughly around the time Shao Khan invaded Earth Realm. It's kind of funny given Mortal Kombat has a much better history of getting itself adapted than most other fighting games.

    When Netherrealm Studios took over the franchise, it was questionable what they were going to bring to the table and the answer turned out to be story. Mortal Kombat 9's story mode wasn't the first time such a thing had been added (that was Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe) but it managed to give a coherent story of the first three games while also adding a time-travel narrative that didn't work too well in Star Trek (2009) but served decently in Mortal Kombat. It also ended on an amazing downer note which forms the basis for Mortal Kombat XL.

Cassie Cage is my favorite character of the new game.

    For those unfamiliar with this ending, which is spoiled by playing this game, they had Raiden royally screw up his attempts to save the timeline. His mistakes in trying to prevent Shao Khan from taking over the universe ended up getting half of the cast killed because it turned out the former wasn't down with that plan. While Raiden "won", he ended up winning in the most awful manner possible with his surrogate sons dead and enslaved by Quan Chi. Worse, Liu Kang died at Raiden's hands, cursing his name. It was a brilliant bit of tragedy to a series which once lowered itself to a Teen rating. Great storytelling that was matched by everyone else's stories too.

    Indeed, the biggest flaw with Mortal Kombat XL is one I never thought would exist for a Mortal Kombat game and that it has too much story. A quarter of the game takes place twenty years before the remaining 2/3rds and there's a lot of stuff which references past games in both continuities as well as discusses the politics between dimensions. For an enormous video game world-building nerd like myself, it's awesome but others may find it off-putting.

    The premise for the tenth game in the franchise begins with most of the original Mortal Kombat heroes dead and raised as undead slaves of Quan Chi: Liu Kang, Kitana, Kung Lao, Nightwolf, and Sindel. Shinnok, the evil Elder God, is invading the Earth Realm with his armies of demons and the only person who can stop him is Johnny Cage. Honestly, it would have been the set up for a bad joke in the previous Mortal Kombat timeline despite the fact Johnny Cage is one of the most popular characters in the franchise.

Baraka isn't playable. Which is ridiculous.

    It's not really a spoiler to see Shinnok doesn't take over the universe in the opening chapter and gets defeated by Johnny Cage despite the fact the former is more powerful than Shao Khan and Raiden combined. What follows is twenty years of peace which is detailed in the Mortal Kombat comics I recommend people read even if they aren't GREAT like the Udon Street Fighter comics. The modern era is one with Outworld and Earthrealm having an uneasy detente while various secret plots are enacted.

    The big reason for Mortal Kombat XL is it allows an entirely new generation of fighters to be created and grow up, most of which who have some sort of connection to the previous generation of fighters. There's Cassie Cage, Jacqie Briggs, and a few other Earth Special Forces which are tied to previous heroes. Surprisingly, most of these generation Y heroes are pretty awesome. Cassie Cage is the appropriate combination of snarky and awesome and reminds me of one of my novel characters.

We're not going back to 3D and I think that's a good thing.

    Some fans are going to be annoyed by the fact so many of the previous generation are not only undead but (seemingly) permanently evil. I don't know if that's possible but I actually think Liu Kang is more interesting as a villain than he ever was as a hero. Frankly, he wasn't doing that much for me as a Bruce Lee clone and The Chosen OneTM. Him as a broken hero who has lost his faith in the Elder Gods (not that they've done much to cover themselves in glory lately) works much better.

    I do have some complaints about the story even though I'm, overall, very positive about the developments within it. For one, Mileena and Baraka are two of my favorite characters in the franchise. They get the short end of the stick storyline-wise and I find Mileena a far more sympathetic character than Kotal Khan. Kotal Khan is supposed to be the "good" (or at least neutral) new ruler of Outworld but every scene he's in shows him to be a complete tool with no real honor. Mileena isn't any better, don't get me wrong, but at least we're not being told she's a good guy.

Not a big fan of Revenant Kitana's new look.

    The developments with Scorpion and Sub-Zero really surprised me and managed to turn around what I thought was a doomed premise. Getting rid of the cyborg ninja subplot really allows the two stories to have more dignity. I also never imagined we would be getting, Scorpion as a wise father figure. The fact Scorpion is still the kind of vengeance-obsessed nutcase who will do anything to avenge his clan isn't forgotten, though. It also causes massive trouble in this game. I also like the new, older Sub-Zero who is trying to do the right thing despite the fact everyone around him is an impatient jackass.

    So, while it's ridiculous judging a Mortal Kombat game by Story Mode primarily, that's where we're at. I enjoyed it for introducing the next generation, having them lose enough not to overshadow the new generation, and then come into their own in the final round. Is it ridiculous we have moments like Johnny Cage and a SPOILER character defeat Shinnok? Characters who are not gods? Yes, but that's Mortal Kombat for you. This is the game where you can rip out Raiden's spine and always has been.

    The graphics are excellent this time and while I may regret the loss of Sonya Blade's ridiculous outfit from the previous game, I think the designs for this game are excellent. I especially liked Cassie Cage's outfit. I will say, I didn't much care for the aging Johnny Cage's new look and think they should have let him stay as young as they've let his wife or Kenshi. Scorpion having resumed his humanity is also a bit of a back and forth for me. Shinnok's look is ridiculous, though, and he appears to be a male Maelificent. Not exactly a look which inspires terror in the hearts of mortals.

Shinnok has looked better. Like...any other look than this.

    The gameplay is streamlined and it's to the point even I can perform fatalities. I enjoyed making use of the stage's bonus weapons and benefits to smack around opponents with pots, old women, monks, and Shao Kahn's hammer. I miss Friendships from the game and am probably the only one who'd like to have Cassie Cage give her mom a gift or Shang Tsung present Sonya Blade a rainbow. Some people will object to "Easy Fatalities" where you just hit the Right Trigger then the X button but I'm not one of them. I'm a button masher to begin with and the fact I can complete the game is an feature for me rather than a flaw.

    I'm not a big fan of the Faction system where all of your points online go to an arbitrary team which "competes" against one another but whatever floats your boat. I do like "quitality", though, where if you quit during a match then your character's head explodes. That's a nice way of rewarding players who stick to the end. I haven't completed "Tower Mode" for every character, which is basically just original recipe Mortal Kombat, but I've enjoyed the stories I have completed as well as the extra costumes for characters.

Xenomorph is the best non-sentient fighting game character aside from Panda.

    As for the horror movie DLC characters, I was hoping we'd get Freddy to return with Robert Englund voicing him but I'm not going to complain about the Predator, Alien, Jason, or Leatherface. Actually, I am going to complain about Leatherface because I just find that guy gross and his ending horrifying even by Mortal Kombat standards. I've always wanted to play Jason Voorhees in a video game, though, and this combined with the recent Friday the Thirteenth game is great.

    One element I strongly have distaste for is the fact this is a game which is wall-to-wall with microtransactions. I have a larger tolerance for these than most gamers as I'm willing to pay extra as long as I'm getting extra. Sixty dollars is not my absolute limit for playing a game and I find packs with 80s Horror Movie icons not so bad to pay for. However, this pushes even my buttons as it seems like they've left out half of the roser in order to eventually sell them back to you. It's doubly noticeable when Baraka is in the game along with characters like Rain but you can't play them. Then again, perhaps that's why I'm playing XL rather than the original X.

    Netherrealm Studio is probably too busy making Injustice 3.5 to get cracking on Mortal Kombat XI but I really look forward to the next installment of this series and want to see some more spin offs. I love the franchise and think this is the best they could have done with the game.

9/10