Recent reviews by Liam

The lofty allure of adventure promised, and initially delivered, in Dragons Dogma 2 slowly tarnishes with the sting of wasted time.

Alright adventurer- you need item A, but oh-no its at the end of a quest in area 12 three zones from your current position. Then you spend a few hours hiking and fighting on foot to find the NPC won't give item A yet because they have a side-quest that must be completed before they're responsive to any other request. Fast-forward 4 more hours finding that there are 2 more side-quests impacted by, or required to complete, the current side-quest. Congratulations, another 2 hours and you can finally talk to the intended NPC- but oh no this is a 3 part-er requiring item J-34 found again on the opposite side of the map.

I love a lot of what this game offers: from sprawling landscapes to cool boss mechanics to the ability to create your own little fellowship of the ring styled party. But it's all fleeting. Once you've seen the biomes once or twice, the cutbacks and repetitive return-treks for quest tasks quickly become chores to be waded through. I found myself taking longer and longer breaks from the game due to sheer exhaustion. I'm too old and too busy to dread "the next step in the quest" after a long day when the last 2 fetch chores each soaked up a weekday evening and neither were enjoyable.

Side note: While workable with some adjustments to settings, believe what the other reviews say about optimization issues.

I write this at 120 hours in, and roughly 30-40% through the main story. While you could rush the main story of KCD2, I can't imagine a greater waste of your experience. The first 10 hours are rough and difficult because being broke and homeless in medieval times sucked . . . But it's part of the experience and plays as such to juxtapose and provide a measuring stick for progress and growth you can feel . Within the beginning hours of your time wandering the roads, it becomes apparent this isn't an experience to rush through; something I've not felt since Skyrim. I catch myself actually curious about the lives of the denizens of Trosky and Kuttenberg.

If you can allow yourself to invest in the world and see challenge as part of Henry's story, I think you'll have a good time. However, if you pizza when you should have french-fried, you're gonna have a bad time.

Frog, cottagecore, and naps.

Revel in hats, foliage unlocks, and lofi tunes as a frog watches you browse reddit and play games between naps on his lazy lawn chair. Decorate his island. Change what hat he wears. Upgrade his grass-clipping powers and sleeping prowess. Wonder how he wound up on the island, how he manages logistical challenges such as food, or if he eats the grass to sustain himself. Then change hit hat again.

Honestly one of my better RPG experiences in recent years. Is it an expansive open world romp? No. But it doesn't sell itself as such. It's a well told story with well written tight dialogue and some RPG elements from combat builds to relationship development. I believe its more contained plot and story elements gave developers more control in directing the player experience; which shows in spades in the jokes I actually laughed at and the characterizations and character development I actually cared about. If there is to be a sequel, It'll be a day-1 buy for me. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this one.

Heretics aren't going to cleanse themselves.

Sometimes after a hard day at work, you just wanna spread the good word, ya know? Join a squad of 4 and dispense righteous justice one .75 caliber round at a time.

Love the art design. Big expansive backdrops and gloomy lighting set the mood. The music is fitting and picks up when the hoards of faithless come running. The guns feel appropriately powerful. Big guns sound and feel big. The character design is also fitting. You're an Imperial underling. Scum of the galaxy churned into instruments of the Emperor's will. You're not a pretty Abercrombie and Fitch model. In the 40k universe, pretty people don't stay pretty for long. Characters are scarred and weathered; the militarized janitorial staff that you are. Some don't like this. I think it's fitting. We're grunts in a war machine. Don't get me wrong though. The texture work and design of the characters is gorgeous. They're just not pretty people. If you're aim is to fulfill a fantasy of an attractive protagonist, this may not be your jam. Character creation only churns out character actors.

My only complaint at the moment is that, for whatever reason, the devs decided that voice comms should be disabled by default. You have to go into settings and enable push to talk or voice activation. This has lead to most new players not knowing how to talk and an overall hindrance to cooperative communication in a cooperative game.

I've had trouble putting this one down for very long. I think it scratches the same itch the newer Doom releases have.

Hired Gun has some rough edges, but it brings some punch to it's arcade-y shooter roots. I've enjoyed the run and gun in spite of the "meh" enemy AI people seem to be having a seizure over. I've enjoyed finding and upgrading different weapons. It's also cool seeing more non-rts 40k content.

I lost interest in the story about half way through, but the big loud guns and shiny 'splosions made up for it. /shrug

Buy on sale.

Pretty good/spooky Stephen King style horror game. Worth the pickup while it's on sale IMO. Tuck it away for next Halloween to play at night . . in the dark . . alone . . .