Recent reviews by drhamm

I'm only thirteen hours in, but Baldur's Gate 3 has already become one of my all-time favorite games. The characters and story are well-written, with verisimilitude and player engagement in mind, the gameplay is both balanced and customizable, and the voice acting is some of the best in recent years. Even though it is a completely different franchise, I cannot help but be reminded of all the strengths of Dragon Age Origins, which has long been the gold standard for this type of game. It's a little early to tell for sure yet, but so far it looks like BG3 may be coming for DAO's crown (or at the very least a strong second). That it is based on D&D shows; it takes me back to the thrill of adventure I felt when I first discovered tabletop RPGs in the early 80s.

Is it perfect? Oh, I can find flaws, but they are few, minor, and far between. For example: At first I was disappointed that I couldn't customize my character's face beyond, "pick one of the handful of pregens we've provided," but within an hour of actual gameplay, that minor gripe was overshadowed by the excellence of every other part of the game. (I also recognize that the lack of face customization is also probably much of why the facial animations are so good--meaning that the lack of sculpting I took as a flaw likely contributes to the games strengths.)

Overall, Baldur's Gate 3 belongs in the library of everyone who enjoys story- and character-driven fantasy games.

I wanted to love this game, and as you can see, I definitely gave it a fair chance; as far as gameplay, it is still fun, but if you care at all about writing (as in story and verisimilitude) in your open world games, don't get this. You won't like it. It is the most poorly-written game I have ever played--the only effort put into the writing seems to be in punching up the dialogue. Bethesda's writing was deteriorating from title to title already, but with Starfield, it has reached such a new low that this will likely be the last Bethesda game I purchase until they hire a competent and qualified writing director; one who actually cares about quality.

Want to know why everyone raves about games like BG3 and DAO? The writing. Emil Pagliorulo and Bethesda haven't figured that out yet. Or more likely (based on Pagliorulo's public comments disparaging players), they simply don't care. I mean, even the inventory screen has glaring errors. (You cannot have an "amount" of guns--you can, however, have a quantity of them. Minor on its own, but when combined with all of the other objectively bad writing and language errors no English major would ever make, it speaks to the overall contempt Bethesda shows to the intelligence and education level of its players.)

Spoilers below

One of the most egregious examples of terrible writing is Sarah Morgan's companion quest: This person, who is supposed to be a sympathetic character and a competent leader, abandoned her crew on a hostile world for twenty years-despite knowing exactly how to find them--because looking for them would mean "facing her failure." She couldn't even be bothered to tell anyone else how to find them. Meanwhile, all the survivors died, leaving a child born afterwards an orphan. Especially combined with other aspects of how the quest is written (primarily Sona's reaction), I can only conclude that Sarah did something horrible, and was willing to sacrifice her crew to conceal her crime. This is exactly how I'd have written a villain pretending to be one of the "good guys."

Here's some low-hanging fruit: The space navy doesn't know the difference between a galaxy and a planetary system, and uses the terms interchangeably in official displays. The reasons given for the abandonment of Earth make absolutely no sense--Earth is no more hostile than myriad other inhabited worlds where humans have built habs in which to survive. In a galaxy with equipment that can complete complex tissue and genetic analysis in seconds, how did not one single biologist ever realize that the galaxy's most ubiquitous pest was the same species as its most-feared monster? No one knows the difference between a soldier and a Marine? Why does Andreja insist that other members of Constellation have a problem with the idea of killing people who are shooting at you, when they obviously don't? And--this one is minor and admittedly pedantic--"pull through" and "come through" do not mean the same thing.

On the backgrounds--there are more examples, but if I tore them all apart I'd be here all day--take Soldier for example. What Army were you part of? The only one ever referenced is the Freestar Militia, so this would imply you were a part-time soldier called up only in time of need or for training. If the UC has an Army we're just never shown, why wouldn't service in it count towards your UC citizenship? (Again, a Marine Corps is not an Army, and soldier is not a synonym for Marine.)

I could list another hundred examples off the top of my head, but the long and short is that the writing in this game is simply insulting. I personally know at least a dozen people more qualified for the position of Bethesda's writing director. But Bethesda won't hire any of them, because Bethesda doesn't care about quality.

Overall, I wish I'd saved my money and bought Baldur's Gate 3 instead.

After all these years, Skyrim is still one of my favorites, and that Bethesda mod (even providing the tools to do so) it so easy to mod keeps it fresh even after dozens of playthroughs. If you're late to the party and considering picking this up, just do it; You won't regret it.

This is my go-to, low-stress time sink. It can be as difficult or as easy as you want it to be (especially with the Truly Advanced Setup and In-Game Editor mods). Is it the best entry in the series? I'm torn on that, but it's at least as good as 4, and imho better than 6.

The final DLC is unplayable on certain (modern) rigs. I'm on a modern system with 24 gigs of RAM and a 3060 with 6 gigs of VRAM, and have tried every trick Google could show me, yet every time I try to go through the Eluvian the blood trail leads to, the game exits to the main menu and tells me that my single player game has lost connection to the server. Thanks to the combination of EA's insane policy of requiring a server connection for a single player game, and their inability to provide a reliable connection to those servers, I won't be purchasing any EA games in the future, and will advise anyone I know to avoid them, as well.

It's the Mass Effect Trilogy, but updated! What more is there to say?

I started with Fallout 3, moved on to Fallout New Vegas, and plan to play 1 and 2, but right now I'm mainline Fallout 4 with, as Lou Reed said, "a spike right in my vein." It's sort of like a post-apocalyptic Skyrim, but with more features and freedom. If you liked Skyrim, but always wished that, for example, your resolution of the civil war had more of an impact, and if in addition to the questing and looting and stuff, you always wanted to build your own towns and actually run them, you will probably love Fallout 4. (Or if you're an old school tabletop gamer like me, imagine Gamma World meets Mad Max, with a side order of American Graffitti.) It's not perfect, but it's damn good, and addictive.

Bethesda seems to be looking in Bioware's direction as far as depth of companion interaction, and while they've not completely mastered that aspect yet, they're definitely on the right track. I'd say the companion relationships are around, or maybe a little better in some ways, as the level of Dragon Age 2.

Some of the things Bethesda did with Fallout 4 seem directly influenced by mods made for 3 and NV--like settlements. And speaking of mods, let's be honest--although I love Bethesda games, one of the things that makes them so much fun is that if I want to change things up for a new experience, or if there's a game mechanic that bugs me, or one that is missing, there's a mod for that. And if there isn't I can build one (once the GECK drops later this month). Bethesda encourages modding, and even provides the tools to do it with, so you can customize your game the way you want to play it.

Right now I'm playing with a couple of mods that make the Minutemen faction more immersive by, among other things, giving me patrols to help guard my settlements. Then there's the one that gives me a personal jetpack without the need for Power Armor, and one that replicates the effect of the old Chinese Stealth Armor that I miss so much. Don't like the way that NPC looks? Change it. You don't even need a mod to do it. And if you absolutely must have a little more whimsy in your wasteland, it's only a matter of time before someone replaces all Super Mutants with John Cena and puts all feral ghouls in sequined bikinis.