Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Resident Evil Village (PC)
  • Sequel to the excellent Resident Evil 7
  • Same first person camera perspective as RE7 and is the best playing Resident Evil game as the movement is fast and responsive and the shooting feels great.
  • More action than RE7, but not as scary unfortunately.  A couple of jump scares, some enemies will chase you around the levels at times, and a couple of creepy locations, but nothing like RE7.  One caveat though, if you are a hand model then stay away from this game as it will freak you out.  
  • The game looks great and the performance was pretty good. I had an issue where the  game would open up on my second screen for no reason which would mess up my HDR settings so I would have to redo the HDR  setup and that happened about 6 different times.  I also had a couple of massive frame rate hits in some mini-boss fights.  
  • I like all the characters and the new merchant is great and of course the Tall Vampire Lady is awesome.   
  • Tip:  Don't sell any of the meat you get, give it to the merchant and he'll cook you some nice meals.  
  • I've never been a fan of the enemy transformations the characters go through when they are infected and turn into a boss character and this game doesn't change that.  They all have these weird tentacles and such and they are never very scary. 
  • The enemies are varied and fun to fight and be sure to let each one of them kill you at least once so you can see the cool death animations. 
  • The default difficulty was a good challenge.  There was one area that went on for a bit too long and had you fight too many enemies in a tight space that I was glad when it was over.   
  • I completed the game in around 12 hours which is a decent length.  
  • Definitely recommend the game. 
Mass Effect Legendary Edition (PC)
  • The Mass Effect series was one of my favorites in the Xbox 360/PS3 era so I was excited to play through the trilogy again.  
  • I replayed the first one a couple of years ago with a mod that let you use a controller on the PC version and I'm glad they added that feature to the remaster on PC.  
  • They did a decent job of improving the graphics and the addition of HDR really makes the game look great especially with all neon and the views in space.
  • The first game was more RPG than action shooter so the combat was always a bit clunky and they've improved it somewhat, but it's still not that great.  Your teammates are useless and will die pretty quickly even though you can tell them where to go. 
  • I changed to the easy difficulty so I could get through the story which is the best part of the first game.  
  • I'm about 3/4 the way through the first game so I haven't tried the 2nd or 3rd game yet as I don't want to spoil anything.  
  • For new EA games you can sign up for the Origin Plus for $15 a month and play the game for a cheap price if it's something you will never play again. 
Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart (PS5)
  • The first thing you notice is the awesome graphics.  I'm playing on the 30fps Fidelity mode since I want all the bells and whistles  and it's amazing.  There is so much detail in every scene and the world is dense with a ton of things happening in the background.  I haven't tried out the 60fps modes, but I haven't had any issues with 30fps as it feels very smooth. 
  • The gameplay doesn't drastically change from the previous games which is a good thing as they always played and felt great.  You still get crazy weapons that have a ton of upgrade options and I like the instructional video you get for each new weapon as the voice over is really funny.  
  • The big thing in the marketing was the rifts and how you would go through them and be in a totally different area with no loading.  The no loading is cool, but so far I really haven't used them that much. They are also in the combat arenas, but they feel like a grappling gun more than anything else.  I've only played a couple of hours so maybe they are used more farther into the game.  
  • I was playing at a higher difficulty, but turned it down to the default after a couple of hours since it felt like the enemies were mainly bullet sponges and at the default difficulty it just felt better. I was also having a hard time knowing where I was getting hit and from what direction as there were usually a lot of enemies on the screen all around you. 
  • The controller is put to good use as each gun  feels different when you pull the triggers.  There are also slight rumbles throughout the game that really add to the immersiveness, much like the rain you feel in Returnal. 
  • When you play as Clank it's mainly puzzle sections that you are able to skip if you don't like them which is a nice feature. 
  • The game is $70 which can leave a huge hole in your wallet, but I used BB reward points to lower the price.  
  • Overall I'm enjoying the game, but it's not that much different from the older games so unless you want something new to play on your PS5 or really love the series I would give this a wait till it goes on sale.