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Once upon a time, I also enjoyed choices in RPGs and games of other genres, but as I grew wiser and more experienced, I came to the conclusion that a good story isn't ruined by linearity, and choices, their consequences, and variable endings are just a way to deceive an impressionable player and hide the weakness of the plot itself. It took me less than ten hours for my first playthrough, and if you remove all the tedious gameplay elements (fetch quest level), you get a story that lasts about two hours, which is exactly how long it takes to watch a movie. Speaking of gameplay, apparently, the pinnacle of modern game development is pressing buttons and moving the mouse clockwise or counterclockwise to open a window, wash dishes, mop the floor, etc. If in JRPGs, human life is conveyed to varying degrees of color, then here it was just a mechanical routine that had no meaning other than to stretch the game time. I also couldn't help but laugh at the flowcharts, where each scene, no matter how short and insignificant, is marked as a separate item, which is why the diagram in each episode consists of long lines. In general, the point is, I've heard many very positive reviews about this game, as well as about its predecessor (Heavy Rain), but now I'm coming to the conclusion that it's just that console-only players, who don't have many games to compare it to, have overhyped it. The questions of morality and other aspects of philosophy also seemed to me to be at a rather simple level, and because there was no attachment to the characters and the plot as a whole, what was happening was perceived as quite bland, but at least you could knock down statues, throw Molotov cocktails at cars, fight with the police, etc. However, I wouldn't say it's bad; it's perfect for killing a couple of evenings, but if we're talking about choices and endings, Alpha Protocol was much better; it has more fun gameplay and a more exciting plot. And from thematic games about androids, I remember that I liked Binary Domain more, although it's not a fact that my opinion would remain the same now, as I played it a long time ago. And of course, androids for a healthy and aesthetically developed person are Automata.

I don't usually enjoy platformers, but I liked this one. The levels are well-designed – challenging, but not frustrating, making them enjoyable to play. The art style is very cute, despite the overall bloodiness and brutality. Buying items makes sense, and even though the storyline is minimal, it's still interesting.
The only thing that could be better is the length of the game and more animations and artwork, but overall, I think this developer deserves your money more than, for example, the developers of Detroit.

Activate Windows
O.K.

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Over the past few months, I've seen a lot of great art for this game, and I installed it quite some time ago, but only played it now. Excellent concept, funny jokes, not too easy but not overly difficult puzzles, and an atmosphere enhanced by upbeat music; plus, you wouldn't even say that it's too short. A brief but very cool story. While playing, I had a fun thought – if there were rewards for completing various IQ tests and other assignments in the form of diverse entertainment content (art, scenes, etc.), there would be more motivation to complete them than just grinding for useless numbers. For example, if something like this was integrated into homework and other tasks in educational institutions, etc. In short, it's great, and it's strange that it's free – another mockery of AAA $69.99 garbage.
Oh yeah, when I finished playing, I also checked out the Steam community and couldn't help but laugh at this:

For example, I got stuck on chapters 6 and 9 for a bit, but eventually passed them through retries, so complaints about the boss fight are amusing; you don't really need to think much – just dodge and that's it. It's well-made and a perfectly good way to end the gameplay part. Overall, I recommend it to everyone who hasn't played it yet.

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception
Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth
Utawarerumono

Visual novels with turn-based tactical battles interspersed between megabytes of text. Both masks were released this decade and ported from the Vita to PC this year; the original was released on PC in 2002.
So, I read them in the order 2 => 3 => 1. But since I didn't have a particular desire to delve into this series and had never even heard of it, I just decided to check out another Japanese game, so I started with the masks, which chronologically are the second and third (and I didn't even know about the existence of some first part at that time).
Overall, I can say that this was the right decision, because, abstracting from spoilers, the action of the masks takes place in a different location, with different characters and different circumstances, and although there are related moments, as well as some familiar characters, their perception does not necessarily require playing the old part. And I think that if I had tried to play the old one first, I wouldn't have been able to, because it really is old, and this is evident in everything - the ancient interface, the old and somewhat frightening art, the almost completely unpretentious gameplay, and some extremely simplified narrative conventions. I think I would have dropped it pretty quickly.

In comparison, the masks are definitely next-gen. Everything is very beautiful and well-maintained, the art is magnificent, the gameplay initially (and for a fairly long time) seems simple, but closer to the end of the first mask and throughout the second, it gains interesting depth, without becoming overly complicated. It's a pleasure to go in, read, play, and enjoy. Another next-gen aspect is that the hentai scenes from the prehistoric first part (which weren't exactly inappropriate or cringeworthy, but didn't have any particular aesthetic meaning, looking simply like a tribute to the historical paradigm of visual novels of those years, which required inserting something like that) have been replaced by family-friendly 12-16+ funny scenes, some of which are super mild and suggestive, playing out some typical gags like in a typical lighthearted anime title, and overall looking appropriate; you can even not be afraid to show them to your grandmother.

I really liked the oriental-medieval setting - although I wouldn't call myself a big fan of kimonos (although I have nothing against them), the beautiful pastel-colored graphics, the magnificent melodies of the soundtrack, the features of the costumes and architecture - all this created a very pleasant atmosphere that I wanted to be in.

The narrative itself devotes a significant part of itself to a warm and heartfelt, but not particularly routine everyday life, which, combined with the pleasant characters and the above-mentioned atmospheric moments, often evoked a smile and allowed me to forget about the existential heaviness in these carefree little things, and first of all, it was this aspect that attracted me. There are quite a few such moments, which is very nice, but not excessive - not so much that it would overwhelm the player with dozens of hours of useless text about nothing. Although I love everyday life, so maybe not everyone would agree with me here.
In addition to this heartwarming, the story has plenty of dynamics, war, and tense moments. There aren't too many twists that could make your head spin; some of them can be guessed in advance, some are obviously foreshadowed, some are clumsily implemented, but the game isn't about them, and in general, I actually think that this only plays to its advantage. Given the features of the samurai setting, you can not only give some leeway for certain moments, but rather - you expect them, and without them it would be strange.
In the second mask, the ratio of lightness/seriousness leans more towards the latter, but the overall formula is the same.

I really liked the first mask, the second... Objectively speaking, it's probably better. It has more combat gameplay, it's deeper; there's more plot, the story reaches its conclusion... But subjectively, I got a couple of not very pleasant things from it. The first is that I focused on some moment in the narrative and was waiting for it to develop, but in the end it didn't happen the way I wanted. And the second is that they slightly dragged out the ending to my taste, as sometimes happens with the Japanese, and in addition to this - here I first felt for both masks that it would have been better to read the first part in advance, because 99.9% of the time I didn't need to know what was in 2002, but the last tenth of a percent was related to the plot of the first part, and although it was generally edible raw, I felt out of place and didn't feel a sufficient level of comfort, let's say.

After the masks, I decided to polish off the first one. As I said, it looks pathetic compared to them, and even in terms of absolute indicators, it lags behind in some moments, but... The most important thing is that I saw the same familiar and beloved form of pleasant everyday scenes as a basis. The gameplay is primitive compared to the masks, but it's playable and even fun, and it was nice to see some of the characters "from the masks" again, only this time with a focus on their life.
I didn't lose anything by playing them in reverse order. It was a good experience to see many moments and understand how they resonated in the masks, especially since, in general, the masks say almost nothing about the story from the first one, and practically everything was new, so in essence, for my order of perception, it turned out to be a typical prequel. And along the way, it was nice to remember some small references from the masks, which at the time of reading did not cause any particular associations, but now you finally felt them firsthand. Well, and finally, that uncomfortable feeling from the ending of the second mask was also smoothed out, fully understood and accepted.

I'm glad that I randomly managed to discover this series. After finishing all the parts, I won't say that my order of mastering was fundamentally wrong; on the contrary, it injected life into where it shouldn't have been originally. So, if you want, starting with the masks is more than acceptable. And no, Ment, anime won't work here either.

/////// - Awful physics - the hero doesn't feel grounded and seems to float above the ground on a magnetic cushion, jumping over small stones or thresholds on his own, while still possessing some inertia. Perhaps this was done so that all this detailed clutter wouldn't get in the way and wouldn't be too annoying in the gameplay, which requires constant movement around the arena with your back or side facing forward, but it looks terrible. //////// - Terrible level design - in the first half of the game, it's practically non-existent; the player is offered to wander through endless, identical corridors, rooms, and courtyards in boring ruins that are indistinguishable from one another. In the second half, it gets a little better - the levels move away from the ruins, the music becomes more interesting, and a couple of levels allow you to ride around beautiful expanses on vehicles. But overall, the levels are still bad. The "secrets" in them are also disappointing. In the older games, there were cool and interesting secrets, but here, for the most part, they are puzzles that require you to jump on platforms in this idiotic physics engine. ////////// - The auto-detect feature set the graphics settings below average; I tried setting them to maximum and got very low FPS, so I didn't bother and reverted to the automatic settings. As a result, I encountered a huge number of artifacts - textures loading on the fly, tree canopies hanging in the air, and so on. I don't know how it's supposed to look with normal graphics. In addition to the graphics, I also encountered some other bugs. ////////// + At first, I didn't like that on the very first level, they introduce some unnecessary companions and conversations with them, but it turned out that this was done well - for most of the game, you play solo and only exchange "generally" satisfactory jokes with them over the radio, and when you're not solo, they just run around next to you as an intangible model and don't force you to do anything. //////// + They removed the monkeys and all the corridor content associated with them, which interrupted the standard action gameplay. In general, the mechanics and balance of most weapons and enemies are ~~~satisfactory, and it's more or less enjoyable to shoot. ///////// + Upgrades, like in all modern shooters, are done in a very balanced way and without any focus on them, simply adding a couple of decent new elements to the process. //////////// ~~~~6.5/10; those who don't like the series should stay away. ///////////////////// thanks to the forum's technical work for the lack of the ability to wrap text to the next line.

I've been playing Legends of Runeterra for the past week.

Compared to the dying Hearthstone and Shadowverse, as well as the disastrous MTG Arena, it looks really great.

And in general, even though I'm incredibly annoyed with LoL's gameplay for the last 3 years or even more, I still find the setting quite appealing. I like some of the characters, so I'm glad I can play as them in another game.

Revan, Locki, and other card game players, have you tried playing LoR? What do you think?

What kind of setting is it, with its constant rewriting of lore and attempts to piece together a cohesive whole from fragmented references, memes, and random fan fiction? At the moment, the only good thing left in the game is the fox, and even that will probably be ruined by some future rework.

have you tried playing with the lore?

Even if we forget for a moment that this is a Riot game, the artwork was enough to completely kill any interest I had.

Well, I'll disagree by saying that, firstly, it looks quite accessible, without a ton of microtransactions and donations, and secondly, the gameplay is pretty good, believe an old mapmaker...

But if you don't like the aesthetics, then yes, I can't argue with that.

Divinity: Original Sin
Divinity: Original Sin II

It was good. Very good. I completely forgot about my miserable life and immersed myself in the game with my redhead (imaginary, of course).



Although in the second part, I ended up with an elf instead of a redhead.

A little bit of life.

I never managed to finish the first one.

It’s just meant to be played by two people.

And I played it with just one other person...

But not with a cow.

Games of this genre are best enjoyed in single-player mode.