Everyone is a little in the wrong, I think. But Argo is one of the good guys, and for me one of the biggest takeaways I was left with after deep diving onto this whole mess is a deep sadness over the friendship between Kurvitz and Argo falling apart.
Damn Martin Luiga is involved with Longdue now? I’ve only heard negative things about that studio before and I also thought he was already a part of Red Info with Kurvitz and Rostov. The Disco Elysium drama vortex just keeps on churning it seems.
Finished Skald: Against the Black Priory, and it was a lovely experience overall. It’s one of those games that knows exactly what it attempts to do, and is very good at limiting its scope and not biting off more than it can chew. I might have liked a bit more agency and player choice - it is very linear for an RPG - but I can see how that would have been a challenge for a small studio and could well have ended up hurting the quality of the experience. As is it’s a very enjoyable ride, full of retro charm, nostalgic music and pretty pixel art but without retro clunk like memory limitations or poor controls and UX. I liked the story and found the writing solid, with a great gloomy atmosphere and some nice cosmic horror touches. The combat and character customization could have been a touch more elaborate, but at around 20 hours the game isn’t long enough that it really becomes a problem.
I’d give it somewhere around an 8 to 8.5/10 and definitely recommend it, especially to anyone who enjoys retro RPGs. It’s quite cheap too, even at full price.
I’ve said before that I genuinely think FarmVille is in with a shout. The trends it started in terms of monetisation, user retention mechanics and analytics driven intrusive big data player behaviour analysis and behaviour prediction was extremely far-reaching, not just in the context of gaming. Not to mention how it got a whole new demographic into video games and showed corporations that games are not necessarily only for gamers. It is very much possible to reach your grandma’s wallet too. It heralded things like Candy Crush.
It’s as if two completely different studios made these games, and the one behind Syndicate had no idea what made Unity great.
Funny you say that. Unity was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the primary Ubisoft studio who are responsible for much of the good work they’ve done (think Splinter Cell, Far Cry and AC: Black Flag). Syndicate was developed by Ubisoft Quebec, and it was also that developer’s first AC game.
I’m sorry. The attention span comment wasn’t directed at you personally, it was reflecting on your point that people would find it too slow and boring with fewer kills. It wasn’t meant as a jab at all.
I think it sounds like we’re mostly in agreement. And yeah, the O’Driscolls spawning in and popping up like whack-a-moles is another great example!
I don’t really disagree with you about the nature of the story, and I don’t have anything against the overall narrative. I just personally think the story could have been told with fewer bloodbaths and outright massacres and still be compelling. In fact, for me every innocent you kill would feel more impactful morally and narratively if there were fewer of them.
But maybe I’m out of touch with the attention span of the modern mind.
It might well be a me-problem. I had the same issue with Sleeping Dogs that I just finished last week. So I might just have a fundamental problem with the type of gameplay design these kinds of games go for and the fundamental ludonarrative dissonance you have to be able to look past to enjoy them. I just have a hard time squaring off war crime levels of mass murder as “getting into a little too much trouble”. Killing a lawman or two as things get out of hand in Valentine? That’s getting into a bit too much trouble. But Arthur Morgan literally kills hundreds upon hundreds of people and that just breaks my immersion.
I’ll get through the RDR2 story one day. I played it for two stints last year but I just space out and lose immersion every time the main story forces you to kill one hundred lawmen in the middle of a town. For a game that put so much effort into making the open world vibrant, alive and dynamic you face very little consequences for committing what can only be classified as genocide in the main story.
Did you get XIII classic or the remake? I played classic just recently as a fun retro game that I missed back in the day. It’s got so much style, even though some levels felt a little clunky. It’s a shame no other game went for the same art style, they really nailed that look of “play in the panels of a comic book”.
Does the definitive edition still have the music of the original? I know it’s technically anachronistic, but those Django Reinhardt tunes were so iconic.
Otherwise I agree, though I only played Mafia 1. I remember it came out the same year as GTA 3, and it was very much the sort of mature and serious option. I personally always preferred it.
I have my issues with the game, but it was still a solid 7.5/10 for me in the end. Just the kind of brain-off entertainment I needed after playing two lengthy CRPGs, and a very good deal at 80% off like it was recently.