A few days ago, we’ve received an email from Blizzard with our statistics from the first season of Diablo 4, it’s a really nice touch and I hope that they’ll continue with the next seasons. We both enjoyed the Season of the Malignant but we didn’t go further than level 80 because we were busy preparing our trip to New-York. We both played a Sever Necromancer and the Malignant hearts were synergising perfectly with it, making our corpse explosions and corpse tendrils auto-casted. We’re now trying different builds for the Season of Blood and we’ve already narrowed it down to Pulverise Druid and Fury/Rapid Fire Rogue.
It’s kind of strange that it took us so long to write something about Diablo 4, especially knowing that Hack’n Slash are our favourite games. This is actually the third version of my Diablo post. Since the first beta, we went through three stages:
The Beta: we didn’t enjoy it;
The release: we enjoyed the campaign but we ended up disappointed by the gameplay;
The first season: amazing!
During the beta, we were quite disappointed by the slower gameplay. We’re used to Diablo 3, Path of Exile and Grim Dawn, where we can destroy an entire map with very little downtime. In Diablo 4, the builder/spender builds are slower and the monster density is very different from what we’re used to. It was very frustrating at the start.
At launch, we actually enjoyed the campaign which is absolutely amazing! Blizzard’s seal of quality is everywhere: the gorgeous cinematics, the huge amount of details and the soundtrack. The scale of the world is also very impressive. Unfortunately, the gameplay of the Barbarian and the Sorceress made us very nervous and, once the campaign was complete, we found it hard to continue. We played very slowly because the weather was very warm and the PCs made it even warmer in the office. So we actually completed the campaign two weeks before the release of the first season.
The launch of the season changed everything. We started with a Necromancer with the sever build from Maxroll and, with the synergies of the malignant powers, the gameplay feels amazing. Since we had completed the campaign before the season, we could skip the story and I was afraid to run out of things to do, but I was wrong. Between the renown, the malignant dungeons, the whispers, uncovering the map, the altars of Lilith and so much more, we never ran out of things to do. We’ve been playing the entire weekend with sessions of 5-6 hours and not once have we felt like we were doing twice the same thing, all that thanks to the variety of activities.
The Team behind Diablo 4 wasn’t afraid to change things and it really pays off, they delivered a superb game and I can’t wait what they’ll come up with for the next seasons.
As I write this post, I’m watching the Exilecon 2023 and the gameplay videos of Path of Exile 2 look fantastic. What a time to be an ARPG fan!
I’m gonna start this Diablo post by talking about World of Warcraft. In case you didn’t read the blog, Soforah and I have been playing WoW for 15 years. Ok, there were highs and lows, but the game always managed to keep us entertained. I don’t know if it’s due to the new – more socially acceptable – crowd at Blizzard, or if the game is simply not targeted at us anymore, but we both have had the most horrible time in Dragonflight. It’s so bad, it had us quit after 2 weeks, and I’m not talking about a break… The game is a chaotic, frustrating, ugly pile of stinking dung!
So, when we went to the beta week-end of Diablo 4, we didn’t have high expectations. Of course, we were very curious to see what Blizzard has in stock for its next gen Hack’n Slash…
We both completed the beta and we both found the game underwhelming, to say the least.
First, the monster density is horrible! Sometimes, you fight 20 mobs, then you have to cross an entire area without finding a single enemy to kill. I understand that they want to introduce mounts in the game (so they’ll probably fill the cash shop with hundreds of poneys, horses and unicorns in every possible colours), but it completely broke the pace of the game.
Second, I find the textures quality pretty poor for a next gen game. I know that Blizzard is trying to keep their games accessible to most, even those with outdated PCs, but this is ridiculous for a game set to be released in 2023.
Finally, I played a sorceress and I found the gameplay boring. I was using arc lightning and I was constantly out of mana. My other ability was a recycled hydra, which I already found boring in Diablo 3.
I know that the game is still in Beta and still needs polishing, but I found the core of the game bad.
I remember the beta of Diablo 3, it was awesome, it had left me wanting more. Diablo 4’s beta makes me afraid, I hope that nowadays Blizzard is not gonna butcher another of its franchises.
We’ll probably try the game in its final state, but the beta has set my expectations very low.
After many hours in AC Odyssey, getting lost in many quest lines and exploring the huge map, I’ve finished the main story line. It was fun, but it’s far from over. While I’ve killed many cultists, they haven’t all been slain. As long as my cultist page isn’t fully tainted red, I won’t give up on the game.
Apparently, there are nine different endings of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey depending on how many of Kassandras’ (or Alexios’) family members remain alive at the end of the game. Here is the short version of how I got to “a happy ending”:
In Chapter 2 “The Wolf of Sparta”, spare your father, Nikolaos;
In Chapter 6 “Catching Up”, tell your mother, Myrinne, you will save your brother, Deimos, from the cult;
During the quest “Ashes to Ashes”, save the baby;
In Chapter 7 “Paint it Red”, be kind to Nikolaos and tell him to help Stentor;
Don’t kill Stentor;
During the quest “A Bloody Feast”, tell Myrinne that you’ll bring Deimos back;
In “A Bloody Feast”, tell Deimos to hold on after you fight him;
During the quest “Doing Time”, convince Deimos the cult is manipulating you both. Deimos will say “I am not your puppet,” if it worked;
Continue to convince Deimos the cult is using him and refuse to fight in “Where it all Began”.
As a bonus for saving all of your family members, you’ll have them unlocked as Lieutenants for your ship. At first, I wasn’t too happy about having to do naval battles to progress in the game, but upgrading my ship changed that. It was pretty fun cleaving through ships as if they were butter.
Also, the end of the “Daughters of Artemis” quest line broke my heart, but I won’t spoil it in case Sardoken would decide one day he’d want to play Odyssey. While it was fun killing all those legendary beasts, I still can’t believe that the developers came up with an end like that. Ubisoft, sponsored by prozac.
For a game that I was so prejudice about in the past (I’d never play it, even if hell would freeze over), I’m having a lot of fun. Even AC Valhalla made it to my backlog, who would have thought that? Certainly not me.
I’ve just completed the Far Cry 5 DLC – Hours of Darkness and it has been one of my best gaming time ever.
I forgot how much I loved to watch Vietnam-war era movies. From Full Metal Jacket to Apocalypse now, I was obsess by Vietnam when I was a kid. It was one of my longest phases, just after astronaut and before surfer. Yep, those were the days I would change my entire life (meaning re-decorating my bedroom) because of a movie. Trust me, you didn’t want to know me after Ghostbusters… Anyway, Vietnam movies had such an impact on me that my mum had to drive me to American supply shops on Saturday afternoons, so I could buy U.S. military gear.
Playing Hours of Darkness just brought me back to these times. Don’t worry, as tempting as it may be, I won’t run around my neighborhood dressed like a G.I., I’ve grown up! But it was nice completing objectives in a jungle setting. I really wish that a good Vietnam war game was made, but I understand that the topic might not be as popular as it once was…
The picture above is displayed at the end of the game, after you have successfully reached the extraction point. It gets populated in function of the challenges that you’ve completed during your run. Then, the credits start rolling and one of the most amazing song starts playing (it starts at 0:33):
Thank you, Ubisoft, for making me discover The Cambodian Space Project.
For the story, Kak Channthy (c.1980 – 20 March 2018) was a Cambodian singer and vocalist, she has been described as “the barefoot diva of the Cambodian rice fields”. She formed the Cambodian psychedelic rock band “The Cambodian Space Project” with her Australian husband Julien Poulson and worked as the lead singer and songwriter releasing 5 albums and touring 24 countries around the world. (source: Wikipedia)
Sometimes, you have the feeling that you’ve seen or heard it all but, really, you don’t.
Fighting cultists, liberating outposts, finding caches, making awesome friends (among which a bear named cheeseburger), fishing, hunting, driving all sorts of vehicles on the ground and in the air… All of that in beautiful Montana while wearing a crazy dog mask and using a sniper rifle with pink led lights, this game was made for me!
There are so many things to enjoy in Far Cry 5 but what I love most is the sense of humour. Here is the perfect example (content spoilers):
After liberating Hope’s end, the cook of the Spread Eagle asks you to help him restore the “Bull Testicle Festival” to its former glory. To do so, you must go cut a few bulls’ balls off for the barbecue. The tricky part is that you have to do it while they are mating, otherwise it wouldn’t taste as good (duh!). So, after following the quest tracker, you finally reach a farm where a bunch of unsuspecting bulls are living their best lives. Before doing the gruesome deed, you first have to free the cows that are kept behind a fence. As just as the padlock is broken, the cows start mixing with the bulls and, as the bulls and cows are mating right before your eyes, the game plays the song “Sexual Healing” by Lionel Ritchie. I don’t think that I’ve had such a fantastic moment in video games since… Ever!
It took me 60 hours to reach the end and I haven’t hundred-percented it yet.
My only regret was the lack of achievements on Steam. I’m now faced with a dilemma: should I purchase New Dawn on Ubisoft Connect or Steam? While I like to have all my games in one place, I enjoy unlocking achievements very much. In the end, I prefer to see how many hours I played a game from my Steam library than unlocking Ubisoft Connect achievement where I have zero friends. Meanwhile, Soforah is unlocking Steam achievements in AC Odyssey on Steam… Consistency, people!
In my backlog, there are the games that I bought because I’m loyal to a franchise, there are the games that I bought because of the hype, and there are the games that I’m so sure I’ll enjoy, I don’t dare to play. I keep them for a fabled perfect moment which, of course, never comes, so they stay in my backlog for years… Until the day I finally decide that it’s been long enough and I finally play them.
That day has come for the final season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead.
I love episodic adventure games, I love Telltale games and I love The Walking Dead, what could go wrong, right?! Well, beside Telltale shutting down right in the middle of the final season, absolutely nothing… The game is awesome, as good, if not even better than the other seasons.
Clementine is still amazing, a total badass, but it’s especially A.J. that surprised me. I get easily annoyed by kids, usually in movies, especially in games. It’s so rare that a kid as main protagonist doesn’t get so bratty that you want to yell at him (Gus in Sweet Tooth – the TV show, Daniel in Life is Strange 2,…), but A.J. isn’t like that. Beside a few moral conflicts, he doesn’t easily whine. In fact, he becomes the perfect side-kick and you’re the one who becomes dependent on him, not the other way around.
The game in itself is fantastic, it doesn’t overwhelm you neither with waves of monsters nor too long drama scenes. There are a few twists, sometimes sad, sometimes happy and sometimes OMFG! In short, the usual recipe for a perfect Telltale moment.
What I feared the most finally happened, I’ve finally reached the end of the adventure. Keeping it in my backlog was my way to keep it going on. Now that I’ve played it, even if I’m happy that it received the end that it deserved, I’m sad that I won’t get to live new adventures with Clem and A.J.. Until, of course, the new Telltale studios, announces a new season or, eventually, the day I’ll miss it so much that I’ll do a replay of the entire series.
Let me get this out of the way: we loved everything about the game except the combat, which we ended up tolerating. Everything else was over the top and made our first week of Christmas holidays unforgettable.
The game transitions between the youth of Peter Quill and his life aboard the Milano. The best thing to do in his past life is to visit his old bedroom which is, by far (and I can’t stress this enough), the most amazing place ever! I wish that I could visit it with my VR set. (Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy & Samantha Fox, is Peter my hidden brother?)
In his present life, Starlord is surrounded by the best crew in the universe. They’re constantly talking to each other in the background, sometimes joking, philosophising and often arguing, making you feel much less alone than you’d usually feel in a solo game.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too hot playing a Marvel game. I’m not really a superhero fan and I hate The Avengers. I think that Marvel’s universe is to cinema what Mc Donald’s is to food: junk for a braindead generation that can only open its mouth to be fed explosions and battles that last so long that they make you sleep.
However, we had planned to begin December with this game, so we forgot our prejudices and we launched ourselves into the Galaxy that’s supposed to be saved by a bunch of misfits accompanied by an Alpaca (yep, you read well).
I could write about the plot, the characters and the beautiful landscapes for many pages but, let’s face it, no one would care and, anyway, it wouldn’t translate the most important thing in this game: the ambiance. The huge 80s vibe, the many props, the sense of humour, the retro sci-fi landscapes, everything contributes to creating an amazing ambiance that you can only experience in the game. So, quit reading this tedious post and go rescue the Galaxy, you won’t regret it!
Added bonus: As you can see above, there’s an in-game photo feature that allows you to customize your screenshots and it’s freaking awesome! I can tell you that I’ve made enough wallpapers for a few years.
We compulsively bought 2 new Switch Oled just before December, so we would have them for our Mega Awesome Holidays. But why did we do such a thing while our vanilla Switch(es?) are still in perfect condition and we mostly play with the console docked?
Yep, that’s right, we did it to create a second Animal Crossing Island. Added bonus: they match the black & white theme of our PCs, yay!
My new island is named Moonglow and Soforah’s island is Starlight. We played every single day for a month and we’re progressing pretty nicely. The terraforming is complete and all the buildings have been moved to their right places. We both decided to go for a more “city” style and we’re using custom patterns all over the place. However, there’s still a lot of work to do before we can share our dream codes. So, I’ll go back to my bush planting now…
After years of instantly dismissing games like Assassin’s Creed for some made up stigmata; I solemnly swear that I’ll never be prejudice again. When AC Odyssey came out, I was quite negative without even having played it, but when I saw some breathtaking screenshots on twitter, I started doubting my negativity towards the AC franchise and all other games I’ve ever discarded without any valid reason. Now, I’m 60+ hours later in the game and I’m having a blast.
The game is so much fun for many reasons;
It has a lot of diversity. You can go explore maps, quest, kill beasts, do naval battles, gather resources, complete objectives,… there’s always something for any kind of mood.
The gameplay in itself is great, intuitive and fun. You have the choice between warrior, hunter and assassin’s skills which you can mix up however you like. You can adapt your game to your own play style, I absolutely love this. Another plus is that you can reset your ability points whenever you want at a low cost.
The landscapes are jaw dropping, I sometimes stop everything to admire the beautiful view.
The developers really went out of their way when it comes to detail. My advise is to play with a headset for the immersion. The sound of the environment and the interaction with it is so accurate and detailed, it feels lifelike.
Swimming… It may sound weird, but I love to swim in Odyssey. The waves sometimes are threatening and daunting, but diving and swimming in general are so peaceful (if you can avoid the sharks and enemy ships hehe). Again the detail of the water, the way you shake off the water when climbing out of the sea, the sound of it,… they did an excellent job at Ubisoft creating this world.
If I may make just one suggestion: add a button “kick”. As you can see in the screenshot above, some of the bodies really don’t want to be disposed of and keep falling on the ledge where they remain… a little kick or push would do the trick though. It took me a while to get rid of that one. On another note, as you can see, some have a flair for dramatics when they die.
Another great thing that they’ve added to the game and that I’m going to mention here as a reminder for myself, is the screenshot mode within the game. I play AC Odyssey on Steam, so I can take screenshots with F12 which is great, but it doesn’t remove the interface. Since the game is always linked to a Ubisoft account, you can take screenshots by pressing F3. It makes your screen look like this:
As you can see, there are quite a few options for taking your perfect screenshot. Once you’ve taken it, it’ll be uploaded via your Ubisoft account for others to see. When you check out your map in game, you can see your screenshots as well as those of other people. The cool thing is you can drop a like on any of the pictures posted there.
Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently at 60+ hours in the game, and I’m only level 25. I’ve read somewhere that it usually takes 40+ hours, but I’m taking my time. When I check my map, more than half of it hasn’t been explored yet so, I guess I still have quite some fun ahead. I have to admit that I love to explore every nook and cranny, and complete every objective that crosses my path. At this rate I’ll be at a few hundreds of hours I think, but the longer it takes, the better. I wonder if AC Valhalla is as great. It certainly is on my list, and I will play it one day when I’ve completed Odyssey.
