RPG Tourist

Warning: Spoilers At this point I decided Henry needed development and abandoned the main quest line. He is perpetually poor and cannot fight his way out of a paper bag. I did take advantage of Captain Bernard’s training in Rattay but after one round Henry is usually bleeding all over the place. His speech and herbalism skills however are skyrocketing. He now gets a strength boost from flower picking. Sad. His paltry funds go towards food, bandages and shoe repairs. I decided that Henry has no choice but to learn reading and alchemy. These two skills are far more elaborate than in most games. The reading is a nice touch and alchemy is hilarious but gets tedious quickly. I am looking forward to that auto perk. For right now, I am very happy Henry can brew Saviour Schnapps and Marigold concoctions. And instead of just waiting around for NPCs Henry can improve himself by reading a book. I must now amend this post. After spending some time on side tasks and sucking up to Th...

Warning: Spoilers Henry was rescued by Theresa and a party from Talmberg and he woke up at the mill operated by Theresa’s dad. Other than Theresa, no one seemed very happy with him. Mollifying the miller involved grave robbing and more lockpicking. Henry then informed Sir Radzig about his lost sword. He somehow convinced Sir Radzig to employ him. Sir Radzig really must know something the rest of us don’t. Henry got some training and was assigned to town patrol. We met an elite character that seems about as bright as Henry. During cut scenes Henry engages in some alarming behaviour. I hope this changes but I doubt it somehow. He was sent hunting with his new nemesis but he managed to do something heroic for once, made an influential friend and got the best reward so far which is Pebbles the horse. Unfortunately, he did not learn how to hit anything with a bow. Pebbles is part mule and part get a way car. She seems to reside in some always accessible ephemeral place and appears...

Warning: Spoilers On introduction main character Henry does not appear all that virtuous. I assume that the player can take him in one direction or another. His parents are much more tolerant than I imagine medieval parents would be but Henry does get assigned some simple tasks in the process of forging a sword for the local noble. Aside from basic game play, I learned about the benefits of allies and time sensitive quest objectives. Yeah Pa’s ale got warm and I had to go back. We got on with completing the sword and met some pivotal characters. I also learned that there might be more to Henry’s backstory than even he knows. Then Henry witnessed the cruel death of his congenial parents at the hands of the (I assume) central villain of the story and the next quest began. You know when a quest is titled Run things are going to get hairy. Henry was urged to run and warn a nearby settlement but he’s quickly taken out by a Cuman mercenary. Next time he managed to jump on a ...

Kingdom Come Deliverance: First Impressions Yay Steam Summer sale. My CPU just meets the minimum requirement for Kingdom Come Deliverance. This means I have to play on low settings but I can live with that. I should have purchased the Royal version but after looking through the DLC I cheaped out and just got the base game and the From the Ashes DLC for now. The game often gets compared to Skyrim but I’d call it Oblivion plus. KCD employs a similar art style and user interface but the overall graphics and character model quality is much higher as would be expected. Character development is more straightforward in KCD but there is a plethora of status effects and permanent attribute bonuses and debuffs that interact in complicated ways. Class refers to a character’s station in life rather than a traditional RPG play style and that shapes the role playing possibilities. There is no magic enhancement. Henry must rely on currying favour and developing skills. Unlike many o...

Ubisoft still has me in their grip. Recently I got fed up with Odyssey’s Alkibiades and attacked him which caused him merely to run off. I lost him in a rocky elevation. I shouldn’t have been surprised he is adept at climbing. This caused me to return to Origins. It took a bit to get reoriented. The map looked quite barren compared to Odyssey but there was still much to complete including the final DLC. There were multiple unassigned ability points. I had to relearn controller assignments that I never completely grasped in the first place. I want to save my game constantly even though it strictly auto saves. I often forget I’m not immune to fall damage or that I have no health replenishment abilities. I kind of hope no one avenges me. Avenging fallen players is silly idea that doesn’t appear in Odyssey but I have done it a couple of times. I have mostly been determined to fully exploit tools and abilities. Things don’t always work according to plan but that’s all part of...

A while back I mentioned the Mass Effect series. It’s been a while so my memory of the three games I played is hazy. I skipped Mass Effect 3 because it’s not available on Steam. I like the Star Trek vibe of the series. However, I was most excited to finally be able to import a save file into the next series installment. Not many games allow for this. This led me to race through the first game in anticipation of playing the second. I selected male Shepard for his classic military demeanour. Series one Shepard was mostly a boy scout eschewing romance and opting for the most diplomatic decisions. Harsh choices and an unanticipated story conclusion had an impact on his character going forward. Game two veers towards X-Files in space. I liked the game play improvements Bioware made but I did not understand the morality system at all. Events did not turn Shepard renegade but he was much more neutral and less selfless. This turned out to be a mistake and his disengaged attitude ...

Warning: Minor Spoilers I just finished the family story quest line in Odyssey but still have two major quest lines to finish not to mention add ons. The map is not yet fully explored and is still cluttered with incomplete objectives. Still, I feel I’ve given the game a fair enough shake to compare it to my Origins experience. It’s clear that the same development environment was used for both games but Odyssey leans heavily towards RPG and Origins leans slightly more to sandbox. The maps are equally stunning. If I had to recommend one over the other, I would pick Odyssey for it’s game play improvements. Systems are so similar you could almost describe Origins as a game length tutorial for Odyssey albeit a very entertaining one. Both games offer loads of optional content but Odyssey offers more incentives to engage with that content. This is due to more elaborate equipment and naval options. Origins usually rewards some coin and XP plus a purely cosmetic item or a weapo...

Recently I listed off all the Assassin’s Creed games I am playing concurrently despite the fact I have never played a game from the franchise before. I’ve completed Origin’s main story missions and the Hidden Ones DLC and have now moved on to Odyssey. Seeing that Odyssey rolls Black Flag and Origins together with a heap of Witcher 3, I may never have to return to any of those games. It depends on how long Ubisoft spews content. Right now Odyssey looks like a completionist’s nightmare but forturnately I am not one of those. Ubisoft has taken a really interesting turn with Origins and Odyssey. They have moved away from multiplayer completely to single player with limited shared social features and mostly cosmetic microtransactions. Even loot boxes can be purchased with ingame currency. No luring children towards controversial forms of gambling here. No siree. Origin’s stand alone discovery mode goes even further to buff up video games’ tarnished reputation. This looks like...

We’ve finished both seasons of Westworld. By the end of season one, William’s hat is definitely black. We also learned that we have been following William’s story on two separate timelines and nothing is as it seems especially the ever menacing Robert Ford. Once the AI characters achieved self awareness the discomforting violence became incessant. The series began to feel much less like a video game and more like the sci-fi horror film that spawned it. The message is clear this time though. Corporations are evil. By the end of season two there were hardly any redeeming characters left and there were only five or six maybe to begin with. The multiple timelines became so incoherent I needed to consult an online wiki. But due to the nature of the technology will any character truly die? We did get treated to some philosophical questions. Are the AI really autonomous? Just when we think they are the puppet master reappears. Hector is the only AI character that ever becomes unbound...

Right now I’m watching Westworld and I feel compelled to talk about it even though I’m only at Season 1, Episode 8. It quite obviously draws inspiration partly from popular video games. It may be the best adaptation of a video game that doesn’t exist ever. The image of Yul Brynner in the original movie still burns in my memory. I remember the movie itself as a sci-fi horror though. This series seems to be about NPC’s come to life. The writers do a great job of illustrating NPC game mechanics in the first few episodes but I was glad to move on from Dolores’ part mundane part horrific loop. I identified with young William right from the moment he picked his off white hat. I was also filled with dread because I know that Westworld will inexorably darken that hat. Otherwise I’m enjoying the scenery and the plot twists. I’ve read that the author Michael Crichton was disappointed that audiences seemed to misinterpret the original Westworld’s message. This time the real v...