Posts

Borderlands 4: A Carnival of Restraint and Excess

Image
A New Tone, At Last Borderlands 4 finally outgrows its adolescence. The franchise has always swung between two extremes: the stark, Western-flavored nihilism of the first game and the clownish carnival of memes that consumed the third. This new entry threads a middle line with sharper intent. The humor is still irreverent, but it no longer stumbles over itself to tell a joke every five seconds. The writing shows restraint, which paradoxically makes the humor land harder. There are moments when the narrative breathes, moments of silence or solemnity, and in those beats the game earns the gravitas it had been pretending to hold for years. Borderlands 4 understands what its predecessors didn’t: humor without contrast is noise, and noise quickly dulls. The story feels more carefully woven, less like a string of gags stapled to a quest log. Set on the new planet of Kairos, the tale explores themes of legacy, survival, and self-delusion. Where Borderlands 3 leaned on spectacle, 4 builds ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the Uninspired State of Combat

Image
Every Assassin’s Creed franchise player has their favourite gameplay style; mine is stealth, and I use combat as a last resort when a plan collapses. Combat has never been the main attraction, and Assassin’s Creed Shadows does not change that. While combat is well executed, clean, mechanically competent, and polished, it lacks that intangible zest and exuberance that makes it come alive. For a game that brilliantly integrates atmosphere with movement and stealth, the combat design feels puzzlingly unsatisfactory. Naoe, the agile shinobi, and Yasuke, the disciplined samurai. On paper, this should deliver a rich and diverse contrast in playstyle: Naoe is quick and precise, while Yasuke wields his control with strength. As it is, both characters complain of the same monotonous combat style that Assassin's Creed has employed since the series transitioned into RPGs. Whether it's a katana or a dagger, the same mechanics that have haunted us since Origins ...
Post a Comment
Location: London, UK
Read more

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – A World Painted in Emotion

Image
I consider Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to be one of the most beautiful surprises from an indie developer this year, a title that can easily stay with big names (like Final Fantasy, for example) with significantly higher budgets among the top action role-playing games . Rather than overwhelming the audience, Clair Obscur strategically tries to haunt. For instance, a half-burnt mural is haunting, evoking feelings and capturing the attention of an unspeakable yearning. Dungeons feel like memory spaces, filled with forgotten color and broken symmetry. Each scene is an entire world, and the subtle and thoughtful lighting enhances the mood while also feeling like a painting, capturing the essence rather than clarity. Every exchange is given an added dose of warmth by the animations, most importantly, the face and hands. You feel a layer of humanity in the stillness before the words and the delicate glance. It serves the game subtly as it mournfully weaves through the tra...
Post a Comment
Location: London, UK
Read more

ARC Raiders: Where Scrap Becomes a Story, and Survival Feels Cinematic Unraveled

Image
Some games tend to collapse under the expectations set by their own buzz. In the case of ARC Raiders, the opposite seems to be the case as they handle the wild buzz with calm assurance. Since the moment of the launch, Embark Studios has managed what few live service titles ever do, which is an incredibly smooth debut. With well over 350,000 Steam players in the first three days, this post-collapse sci-fi shooter seems to have really resonated. Even better, the servers managed to hold up over the entire span. There were no major outages, no endless login queues, no early meltdowns, just a stable, functioning world that felt prepared for the floods of players who buy PC games joining in. This is important to focus on because ARC Raiders is built around rhythm: a steady weave of tension, collection, and return. Its central core does not revolve around chaos, but unification. Thanks to that smooth launch, players were able to lose themselves in the world without distraction. The outc...
Post a Comment
Location: Berlin, Germany
Read more

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - A Second Chance at the Apocalypse

Image
Night City has no mercy. That’s the first thing Phantom Liberty reestablishes—and does it without the cockiness of a game that has its life together. No, Phantom Liberty isn’t Cyberpunk 2077 in desperate need of a cherry-on-the-cake redemption arc. It is a makeshift reaffirmation of what this world was supposed to be in the first place: seductive and brutal, unsentimental, oozing with choice, and, more importantly, consequence. The original game felt a bit like it was trying to be Blade Runner and, at the same time, tripping into Idiocracy with sword-shaped dildos lopped off as loot. Phantom Liberty adjusts the pendulum back. The world is no longer drenched in cheap irony, feeling far more grounded — and willing to punish you for getting it wrong. Not mechanically. Narratively. Phantom Liberty is a jolt to the neural interface for an RPG player who’s been starved for morally complex, heavy decisions since the golden era of Obsidian and early BioWare. The spy-thriller premise serves ...
Post a Comment
Read more