(1) Puppeteer》Death Stranding》God of War》Persona 5 Royal 》Sea of Solitude 》Quantum Conundrum 》Cyberpunk 2077
(2) Ni No Kuni Remaster》What Remains of Edith Finch》Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption》 Afterparty》Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order》The Last of Us Part II 》 Ghost of Tsushima
(3) The Outer Worlds》Sunset Overdrive》Final Fantasy VII Remake》Transistor 》Ryse: Son of Rome》 Red Dead Redemption 2》Doom
(4) Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice》Ori and the Will of the Wisps》Kingdom Hearts III》Spiderman》Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice 》The Forest》 Darkwood》Resident Evil
Benchwarmers (5)》 Resident Evil 2 Remake》Mass Effect Trilogy》 Dead Space 2》 Hollow knight》Killer is Dead》Resident Evil 3 Remake》 Control》 Borderlands 3》We Happy Few》Tacoma》Observation》Tacoma》Last Day of June
After six months, almost four hundred deliveries, through about a dozen pairs of boots and with everyone but the Veteran Prepper, the First Prepper and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named at maximum connection, the Last Stranding has been averted [personally, I would have preferred to end it quick and clean but I'm kind of a fatalist].
Story: The world as we know it has been decimated by a cataclysmic events called the Death Stranding [massive explosions caused by the living coming into contact with creatures from limbo basically called BTs or Beached Things]. These creatures also saturated the sky with chiralium [a particle that causes anything it touches to age uncontrollably]. Whenever it rains, destruction pours from the sky [called timefall in this world]. Now, most people live in isolated colonies called knot cities and rely on porters for all their essential needs. Porters like our protagonist, Sam Porter Bridges [as brought to life by the awesome Norman Reedus]. Did you know he has a show on AMC called Ride w/ Norman Reedus? Sam is the epitome of most people (in the former USA anyway, the rest of the world is a giant question mark) in the post Stranding world: mistrustful of all other people and driven only by self interest. He is literally afraid of being touched [aphenphosmphobia]. The only person Sam cares for is his sister Amelie. When she is abducted by terrorists, Sam reluctantly gets on board with connecting all the major knot cities to the chiral network [the internet on an anabolic steroids] to rescue her. How? One foot in front of the other and one package at a time.
Gameplay: Like many things in life it's not everyone's pint of ice cream. It does take a few chapters to really pick up but once it does, it becomes enjoyably addictive. As I mentioned previously, Sam is delivering much needed and wanted packages to isolated knot cities and isolated individuals. The heart of the game is as simple as that. Delivering packages to increase Sam's connection level to the knot city or individual usually involves the following metrics: quantity, condition and time. The major obstacles to high delivery scores are BTs, mules [former porters single mindedly stealing packages to deliver in a doomed existential loop]. I would recommend bumping up the difficulty one level higher than you think necessary. Outside of a few bullet sponge BTs, combat is not overly difficult. In fact, it's a nice break between all the deliveries. Cruising through about a third of the game is probably a good way to come away with the impression that the game is absolutely boring.
Sound: Absolutely amazing soundtrack! Low Roar is easily a new favorite band of mine. After reaching certain milestones in the story [particularly, during key deliveries], you're rewarded with a thematically perfect song [one of my favorites is "Gosia"].
Graphics: The environments were well detailed, you have a nice selection of customization options for vehicles [although it's a little disappointing that alternate outfits for Sam aren't available until postgame] and the mocapping of the actors was great with minimal uncanny valley [my impression at least]
Overall: 9/10 grading on a curve. 7/10 w/o the curve.
Final Fantasy VII Remake It's the end game now. The only thing left is helping the survivors of sector 7 and the residents of sector 5 deal with the aftermath of the plate collapse [I seriously didn't think it would happen up until it actually happened]. And our branch of Avalanche is left devastated! Once most of that is done, it's off to save Princess Peach [ can't leave Aerith in Shinra's clutches any longer than I have to!] One final note, it was actually fun playing Barret solo. I admit I didn't like him at first [not a fan of boisterous people] but he's grown on me.
The Last of Us Part II Well, I was wrong about the twist and Abby's target. Otherwise, Part II is almost as brutal as reviews made it out to be. Maybe I'm desensitized but I wasn't overwhelmed by most of the kills [at least not until the second half]. The second half is really making me feel guilty about all the dogs Ellie has killed [she really let's them have it!]. I wasn't expecting Dina to be Ellie's Ellie but I'm glad she ended up coming along [though I can already tell that she doesn't quite have the stomach, pun unintended, for the things revenge necessitates]. And I seriously want to see every single one of the people that were in the room with Abby dead. As for Abby herself? I want that one to be a slow kill of quality. I'm talking about a God of War III, kicking the crap out of Poseidon and gouging out his eyes, quality kill! I reeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyyyyy want to kill Abby [and I'm only half playing this up for effect]. Gods damn it Druckman! I went from wanting to decorate a Christmas tree with Abby's organs and tissues to liking her and the WLF in the span of two days! She is a badass! Smart, more ripped than a phone book thrown at the Hulk, selfless...she's a person! Not some one dimensional villain for me to righteously kill with impunity! And her friends that I mowed down with satisfaction earlier as Ellie?! All people! Norah's death is going to come back in my nightmares...or Mel's death... Seriously Druckman, wtf?! Way to ruin my revenge quest with "perspective" and "humanizing both sides"! I feel like Two Face! Every time I move closer to liking Abby and co, I'm reminded [usually by Abby herself that she killed Joel!] Then she goes to the mat for her friends and even helps some Scars [Seraphites]! This ending is going to suck!
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