Starfield

Starfield

• General 
• It's a Bethesda game so if you enjoy their games then you will probably like this one, but it depends on your expectations.  
• It's more like Mass Effect than No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous.  It's an RPG in space and not a space exploration game.  You won't be flying your ship around the galaxy and see a cool planet in the distance, fly to it, then land to explore. 
• Space exploration is menu based where you have a star map and you select the galaxy then the planet you want to explore.  You will be placed outside the planet in your ship and you can fly around that immediate area, but that's about it.  The game will sometimes spawn enemy ships that you can shoot or other spacecraft you can interact with, but actually flying around in your ship is very limited.  Landing or taking off from a planet is shown in a cutscene.    
• The character creator is pretty good and there are a lot of settings to tweak.  When selecting traits you are able to remove them later in the game, but not add them so make sure you like your choices. I restarted after 10 hours because I didn't like my original traits.  
  
• The game starts a bit slow and there are a lot of systems to learn, but like other Bethesda games you can just take off in a direction and go find your own fun and the main story will be there when you want to start it.  
• There are a lot of loading screens, luckily on PC the loading times are fast, but it does take you a bit out of the experience since there are so many.

• Graphics/Performance
• Some of the landscapes are stunning. Watching the sunrise over a mountain can be awesome.  
• The game can also look awful, especially random AI characters. Never stare one in the eyes. 
• If you take photos using the photo mode then those pics will show in the loading screens which is a nice touch. 
• Performance has been great, but I do have a beefy computer.  The game does like newer faster CPUs with all the simulation that's going on so be aware if you have an older CPU as you may have to lower the settings quite a bit.
• The game's lighting is a little on the bright side with no brightness or gamma settings and no HDR on PC.   
• I have had some small bugs, but no crashes or mission breaking ones yet.   
• Ground Combat
• The gunplay feels great and using your boost pack with low gravity to fly around the battlefield could make for some exciting battles.  
• Unfortunately the enemy AI I've encountered is awful.  This happened in my first real fight in the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hphl7V4BZs&ab_channel=AshCountach
• I was able to try a couple of Combat AI mods and they've worked pretty well.  Last night I stormed a base and had an epic battle so modders should be able to create better mods when the full creation kit is released.  
• There are a lot of weapons in the game and all of them can be modded.  The only gripe I have is that there are about 8 different ammo types to keep track of so you will run out of ammo and have to switch guns which was probably their intention.  
  
• If you want to try a stealthy approach for a mission I would suggest not using a companion or speaking to them and have them wait outside as almost anytime I've tried sneaking my companion has alerted the enemies before I was ready.  Also if you want to sneak or use your boost pack you have to put a skill point into them first.  
• Ship Combat
• I've only done minimal ship combat, but the AI seems fine.  You have to manage power to all of your ships systems which adds some strategy other than just holding fire.
• I would suggest doing the UAC intro mission early in your playthrough as that lets you access a ship battle simulator.  You can use that anytime to level up your piloting skills instead of in real combat.  
• Ship building requires a ton of resources so I haven't touched that yet.  You can upgrade ships though which is not that expensive.  
  
• Planet Exploration
• There are 1000 planets to explore but most of them are barren.  They procedurally generate content on the planets  so you will have something to do like exploring caves or attacking pirate hideouts, but with so many planets they reuse assets so doing those will eventually get boring.  
• You can scan resources, animals, and plants.  If you can scan everything on a planet you get money and experience. I spent an hour last night scanning one planet.  
• There is encumbrance so if you try and pick up everything you will be overweight quickly and that prevents you from fast travelling.  Also you lose oxygen while running while encumbered so try not to be a packrat. 
• If you find a resource you need you can set up an outpost to extract that resource.  It takes a lot of material to build an outpost so I haven't done much with this yet.  
• Mods
  
• I can't play a Bethesda game without mods so here are a couple of QOL mods that really improve the game
• Quicker Menu Loads
• You are in menus a lot and for some reason there is a slight delay when you open each menu.  
• This removes the delay so opening menus is instant.  Also if you want to fully exit out of a menu you have to hold the B button and this reduces that time as well.  
• Star UI
• The UI is pretty terrible and basically shows you one inventory item at a time.  
• This mod changes that to show multiple items like in a spreadsheet so you can see more stats. 

Dave the Diver, Armored Core VI

 Dave the Diver(PC)

• I'm trying to finish Baldur's Gate 3 before Starfield comes out, but I tried Dave the Diver and got addicted.  
• It's a fairly casual game where during the day you dive into the ocean and gather fish, other aquatic animals, and restaurant condiments. At night you serve them in your Sushi bar. 
• At least it starts out that way.   Each half hour or so they introduce a new mechanic or a new way to interact with the game that even after 12 hours I'm still encountering something new to do.   
• I won't go into details since discovery is a big part of the game, but the latest thing it's added has given me Stardew Valley vibes.  
• The game is perfect on the steam deck. 

Armored Core VI(PC)

• A third person action MECH game from the developers of the Dark Souls games and it does share the difficulty of those games.
• I've never played an Armored Core game before so I thought the best time to try one would be a week before Starfield comes out and I have 3 other games I want to finish.  
• I've only put in about 2 hours, but I have earned my gamer card since I can at least say that I've beaten the Tutorial boss although it did take me 10 tries. 
• Customization of your mech is half of the game so there are a ton of options of how to build/paint your mech to fit your game play style.  One of the nice things is that you can sell back items purchased from the store for the same price you bought them so no punishment for trying new parts or builds.  You can even upload your own images to put on your Mechs. 
• The story is delivered by codecs so it's usually just a voice talking to you giving you mission briefs. You will be making choices that will affect which missions you can go on so you won't see everything in one playthrough.  From what I've read one playthrough is around 16-20 hours.  
• The combat is pretty hectic and a lot to keep track of from your booster and weapon cooldowns, to the whole 3D space you can be attacked from.  Luckily the boss fights have checkpoints, so unless you need to buy something from the store, you don't have to restart the whole mission if you get in a tough fight.
•  There is a multiplayer arena where you can test out your best builds against others.  You can also upload/download builds for specific campaign missions if you find one giving you issues.  

Starfield

• If you buy the premium edition, the game will be playable next Thursday night at 7pm Central. From some leaks it appears the game may be the most polished Bethesda title.  

Baldur's Gate 3, Benq 4550i 4k Projector

Baldur's Gate 3

• ​It's awesome, go buy it.

• I took the day off when it came out, which is usually never a good thing to do because most games have bugs or issues at launch.  The 120 gig game took about 30 minutes to download and I had no bugs or any other issues.  Good job Larian.  

• T​he game does a good job of explaining everything so if you aren't familiar with D&D you don't have to be.  It's a very accessible game and a good starting game if you've never played a CRPG before.   ​It has a story mode if you just want to experience the story​ without the combat being difficult.  

• ​The story has been ​interesting so far and there are a ton of difficult choices to make that can alter your story dramatically.  You can save scum your way through the game to always get the best outcome but what is the fun in that?   

• The combat is turn based and on the normal difficulty setting I've had to try some battles multiple times, but nothing has been frustrating. It's easy to switch out your companions so you can try a different strategy.  Also any companion not in your party still levels up so every character is around the same level.  

• ​I'm playing with a controller and they've done a great job making that control scheme work on a game like this.  It's a totally different UI than the Keyboard\Mouse setup and you can switch between them at any time. 

• The only gripe I have is that everything is voiced except for the main character, but some may like that as it could add to the roleplaying aspect.  

• The game is in the top 10 of Steam concurrent player list with over 800k users and it releases on the PS5 in September so it seems to be a massive success and I'm happy for the developer.  

​Benq 4550i 4K projector

• I accidentally bought this projector about a month ago.  I was browsing the Benq site and was curious if they charged sales tax so I went through the process and was thinking I'd get to the payment  confirmation page and exit out.  The payment confirmation page turned out to be a purchase confirmation page and the Benq site doesn't allow you to cancel your order.  

• My older projector, Sony 40es, is a 1080p projector and the input lag was a bit high at around 30ms so I never really used it much for gaming.  So far with the Benq I haven't turned on my TV in two weeks.

• The Benq uses an LED light that is rated for 20,000 to 30,000 hours so no need to worry about replacing lamps every year. It's also a very bright projector so it does HDR content reasonably well.  

• It is factory calibrated and the colors are very accurate and I could tell immediately in movies as the skin tone was so much better than my Sony.  

• It can only do 4K/60, but that's fine for me and the input lag is not noticeable so FPS games feel great.   

• It also has 3D support which is still a top feature for me.  Fury Road in 3D is awesome. 

• The only negative is that the fan could be a bit quieter.  It's not that loud, but when there is a quiet scene in a movie you can hear it running. 

• The ultimate viewing experience is still my OLED TV with true blacks, but I've been having a blast playing Baldur's Gate 3 on a 132 inch screen. 

​

Guardians of the Galaxy

• I was a little worried after the not so great Avengers game, but GOTG turned out to be one of the best games of the year.
• This is not a GaaS game, it's a single player adventure game that's a mixture of Uncharted and Mass Effect that lasts around 20 hours and has a new game plus mode.  
• The characters' voice actors are not the ones from the movies and honestly I think I prefer the game's voices to the movie actors.  I really liked their take on Drax. In the movies he's basically used as comic relief, but in the game he comes across as very intelligent and you really get to know his personality and what motivates him.  The same is true for all the characters as you find different mementos during a mission and when you return back to your ship you can choose to have a lengthy  dialogue and learn about each member of the group. 
• There is a lot of dialog in the game.  In the whole 20 hours it took me to finish there may have been 10 minutes where no one was talking.  I enjoyed the dialog and thought the writing was very well done. 
• You only play as Star-Lord which may sound disappointing, but the game feels like a leader simulator where your actions and dialog choices seem to have a huge effect on how the story and gameplay turns out so only playing as one character makes sense. 
• In combat Star-Lord has guns that do minimal damage with some modifiers that can affect the enemies in different ways, but the majority of the damage comes from your teammates and the actions you have them perform.   Since you are more of a commander than a powerful fighter it makes the fast paced combat interesting and somewhat tactical on the harder difficulties.  At certain points during combat you can assemble the whole group and can give them a pep talk. 
• Amazing graphics. It maybe the best looking game and the soundtrack is awesome. 
• The whole game is top notch and really shouldn't be missed. It was developed by the makers of the Deus Ex series so hopefully they will be able to continue that franchise for their next game.

Switch OLED

• I told myself I wasn't going to buy one since there were only minimal improvements from my original Switch.  I was going on vacation ​two week​s​ which meant time on a plane, so somehow I convinced myself to get the new Switch and I'm glad I did.
• I do like OLED screens and on the Switch it makes a huge difference as having true blacks and great contrast makes the graphics pop off the screen.  
• The screen is only marginally larger, but it feels bigger and it seems to be the perfect size for a handheld console. 
• They did update the battery in later Switches and the OLED uses the same one, but since I had the original Switch the extra battery life was very noticeable.  I got around 5 hours playing Metroid which was great.
• On the original Switch I found that my hands would cramp after 15 minutes of playtime so I bought a device that made the Switch a bit bigger.   The new Switch is a tad longer so it wouldn't fit in that device, but for some reason I didn't have any issues cramping on the new one and at times I played for a couple of hours straight. 
• The new dock has an ethernet port in it but since I don't play online it isn't that big of a deal and I didn't notice any faster downloading of games when I had it plugged in.  I bought an additional dock for my older Switch last year and luckily it works on the new one.
• Moving my data from my old Switch to the new one was the only downside and it's still surprising how backward Nintendo is on the software side.
• I wasn't sure that I was going to keep the new Switch so I didn't choose the option to completely move all of my data from the old to the new and moving it in pieces is a pain.
• If you subscribe to the online service then your saves are stored in the cloud and can be moved easily, otherwise they are stored on the internal storage and since they can't be moved to the Sd​ ​card moving them manually is a huge pain.  They use near field communication to send the save files so the Switches have to be close together.  Also you can only move one game at a time.  On the old machine you select the game and then select send, then on the other Switch you have to select receive.  The transfer takes about 10 seconds then you have to go through all the menus again.  Notice I keep saying moved as you can't copy your save to the new machine, they are deleted off the other Switch after the copy is successful.  Moral of the story, sign up for a month of the online service for $5 if you have a lot of game saves to move.
• Another backwards thing is that I had an sd card with a lot of games stored and you can't move the sd card to your new Switch without formatting it so I had to download all of the games again.  Ugh......
• Other than that I am really enjoying my Switch and I am happy I upgraded.  

 

It Takes Two, Legacy Bowl

  It Takes Two(Xbox Series X)

• The game is about a family that is at the point of divorce and the effects it has on their daughter. She finds a magic book and unknowingly turns her parents into dolls that sets them on a quest to return to their normal bodies and maybe rekindle their love on the way.
• From that description you are probably not excited or interested in this game and you would miss out on the best game of the year.  
• It's co-op only so you will need a partner on the journey, but only one person has to buy the game, the other person can play for free by downloading the friend's pass version. My only gripe is that the game is not cross-platform compatible. 
• I've played the developer's previous games, Brothers and A Way Out, which were both great games, but this game is just on another level. 
• The game starts off a bit slow as it sets up the story, but once the gameplay begins it's a thrill ride for the next 16 hours. 
• The world is like the Honey I Shrunk the Kids movies or the new grounded game where you get to experience it from a different perspective.  I was amazed at the number of levels in the game and each one was unique  and the amount of creativity felt like you were playing multiple games.
• Since it's co-op each character has different abilities that you need to combine to traverse the environment, solve puzzles, and succeed in combat.  Each level you receive different abilities so you are constantly doing something different and the game never becomes stale. 
• There are mini-games to find in the world which pit you and your partner against each other for really no other reason than bragging rights, but each time we found one we were compelled to play to win.  
• The combat encounters are awesome, especially the boss fights which leads me to another discussion about the story. 
• The story is about divorce which itself is a bit depressing, but this game gets dark, really dark.  During some of the boss fights we were laughing hysterically because what we were doing was so horrific that it was the only way to cope with what we were forced to do.  I still have nightmares....

Legacy Bowl(Steam)

• I subscribed to the EA game service for one year so I got to play the new Madden game on PC and just like always, I was kind of meh.
• It looks good, but not much has changed in the gameplay department and I'm not interested in buying packs of ultimate team cards which I think is the main issue with the stagnation of Madden. 
• I saw a review for this new football game and decided to give it a try and it's great and it has features Madden still doesn't have.  Can you believe it has Refs on the field??
• It's basically a reboot of Tecmo bowl with better AI and actual strategy. It's not licensed by the NFL, but on the game's discord channel you can download a mod that adds the NFL to the game so you'll have all the teams and players. 
• The play calling screen feels like Madden with tons of plays for offense and defense with an ask the coach option as well.  
• Since it's sprite based the game is quick and responsive.  Passing, running, and playing defense all feels good. Kicking is a bit tricky with the quick moving meter that caused me to miss a couple of kicks but everything just feels right.  
• The AI is good. The first couple of games I lost by 3 points each with both me and the CPU having realistic stats.  
• The game is missing a Franchise mode which is a bit of a bummer but you can play a full season which is still fun.  
• The game was in early access for awhile and just fully released a couple of weeks ago on PC so now that more people are playing there have been more feedback so there have been a couple of patches that have made the game even better.
• If you get the football itch and have a PC give this game a try for $20 you won't be disappointed. 

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.  

 

Cyberpunk 2077

 Cyberpunk 2077

• Graphics
• I'm playing the PC version with an Nvidia 3090 at 4K Ultra settings with all Ray Tracing turned on except Ray Traced Shadows in DLSS Performance mode.  I maintain 55-60 fps and with VRR the game feels smooth.
• There are issues with it's HDR implementation, but I've been able to get an amazing  picture using these settings on my LG CX.  TV Brightness set to 48 and Dynamic Tone Mapping turned off on the TV and the in-game HDR brightness set to 3000 with the midpoint balance set to .90
  
• With Ray Tracing it puts it above Demon's Souls as the best looking game.
• Walking down a dimly lit alley with water puddles on the ground reflecting a lonely red neon sign hanging from high above the building is a sight to behold.  
• There is just so much to see it's almost overwhelming as the city is so vertical and densely packed, it's an amazing world to walk around and get lost in.   
• Gameplay
• I was excited to see how they would improve upon the open world game formula and unfortunately they don't deviate very far from other open world games.  
• I'm enjoying the game, but there isn't anything revolutionary about what I'm doing moment to moment.  The world, story, and it's characters are the main draw for me.  
  
• A lot of people are trying to compare the game to GTA V, but currently it's more like Deus Ex than anything else.   Will you use stealth, hacking, or a gun's blazing approach to fulfill the mission.
  
• I was worried since it was their first game with guns that the shooting wouldn't feel great, but after tweaking some strange controller settings, it feels really good.  Their default settings have some deadzone setup which makes it feel a bit sluggish but turning those down fixed the issue for me. 
• The stealth is just ok.  There is no real indicator you are being stealthy, each enemy has a cone radius and you have about 5 seconds to move out of the cone before being spotted.  If one enemy sees you then all enemies do so I've reloaded quite a bit when that happened.  
• The hacking isn't anything special either.  Highlight a device and you can turn it off or use it to distract enemies by the press of a button if you have enough resources.  Same for enemies, you can do various things depending on how you spec your character, but so far nothing that interesting.
• The skill tree is massive, but it's filled with a lot of add 3% to shotgun damage and stuff like that.  There are only a handful of them that offer up any real game changing experiences.
• You do a lot of driving in the game and the cars that I've driven don't handle very well, it's not as responsive as I would like it to be.  The way they offer up new cars is also strange as most characters you do missions for will try to sell you a car immediately after meeting them.  Didn't know in 2077 everyone was a car dealer, also no flying cars. 
• There is a ton of loot in the game that is mostly worthless.  I have hundreds of special drinks that can alter your attributes, but I've never drank one so far.  After each battle there are a ton of items to loot, luckily they are color coded so you can just loot the special ones.  
• I'm playing on the hard difficulty as the normal mode felt like I could go on a rampage in every mission and not fail.  
• It sounds like I'm being hard on the game, but I could say most of these things about every open world game and they would apply.  I was just hoping to see something truly different.
• As I said earlier I am enjoying the game, the world is fun to explore and just look at the pretty graphics.  The story and characters are interesting and I am excited to see the story through.
• The main quest can be beaten around 20 or so hours if you run quickly through it, but not doing side missions will affect the end of the story and how many different endings are possible so I'm trying to complete all of them.  The side quests are varied enough to keep you interested and almost all of them have some story in them.
• Bugs
• The game was delayed a couple of times this year and honestly it should have been delayed once more even on PC.
• I haven't had any game breaking bugs, mostly visual bugs, but it does take you out of the game in those situations.
• The most irritating bug is sometimes when I die and the game reloads it puts the last subtitle on the screen and it stays there even though I don't have subtitles turned on.  A quick game load fixes that, but it's happened about 8 times now.
• The combat AI is decent as enemies flank and take cover, but the pedestrian and car AI is awful.  If you get out of your car in the middle of the street other cars will just stop until you move your car, they just sit there and pile up until you get back.  Same if you park your car in a pedestrian's way, they wait as well.  
• The Cop AI is pretty bad.  If you commit a crime in front of them they will start shooting, but if you get in a car and drive about a block they stop chasing you.  They will also magically appear out of nowhere when you commit a crime. 
• There was a reddit post a couple of months ago where one anonymous developer said the game needed about 6 more months of development and that turned out to be true.
• CDPR does have a great track record of fixing bugs and getting the games where they need to be.  The Witcher 2 really wasn't fun to play until a year later when the definitive edition came out.  
• If you have a beefy PC or the latest consoles then you may want to go ahead and get the game, but if you are on a last generation PS4 or Xbox don't bother until at least February until most of the bugs are ironed out.  No sense druding through a game that will be better in a couple of months.