Ghost of Tsushima (and Outer Worlds).
Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2020 5:00 am
I finally, out of desperation really, sprung for Ghost after a month of hand-wringing over the cost of buying an essentially new game and am very glad I did.
I'd used a voucher I had to buy Outer Worlds and was a week into playing it when suddenly I knew it wasn't doing it for me. It wasn't that bad, it's just that it wasn't......well....... Skyrim. It'd been an impulse buy - I'd heard it'd been made by Obsidian, the guys who made the very well received Fallout; New Vegas and was hoping for a game that would rekindle my enthusiasm for loosing myself in a world that, albeit full of bugs and monsters, was free of Covid and Brexit.
For me gaming is about immersion - and in role playing games especially, I need for a while to be somewhere (and someone) else. While Outer Worlds did have some elements of depth to it - side quests were more than the 'fetch and carry' stuff of AC Odyssey - it still seemed in some 'flat' in comparison to my favourite games. In fairness, it was quite good at mirroring the complexity of choice of real life decisions, in that often there was no clear 'right or wrong' path, and decisions could have bad consequences either way you went, for one or another group that you didn't want to let down - but in some way it wasn't enough.
I don't think that the budget for the game was all that high and this was reflected in a very old-school dialogue mechanic (think the face-on style of Oblivion) that seems dated and one dimensional these days. Similarly with the graphics, having gotten used to the almost art-like palate of Skyrim, I found the world of the Halcyon system bright and garish, but with no depth of field worthy of the name and a uniformity that soon became dull and repetative. I could have continued to play it - but the thought of spending potentially months in this place where I could not seem to loose myself (to get a brief holiday from being me) gave me no pleasure and so I decided to call it a day.
Immediately I loaded Ghost however, I knew I was in a different place. I simply love the world and the attention to detail that has been put into making it soft on the eye, but rich and satisfying at the same time. I'm only a couple of days into it, and haven't yet gone far into the main quest, but would at this point put it down more as a Witcher type experience with the character you are playing essentially set out for you, but with the freedom to go out and play him as you will.
The game mechanics are tip top; I'm not good at combat so tend to play on easy, but even on this level the difficulty is just right for me- difficult enough to be challenging but not such as to get overly frustrating. Importantly on this score, the saving system is really generous; loading is super fast and seems always to bring you back right to the point just before you entered the combat where you fell. This way you don't mind getting beaten a few times before winning the challenge. Fighting is a joy as well. The sword play is just what you'd expect from a samurai bout, with your different stances and combinations making a dance of all the scenes that unfold before you. And when it all becomes a bit too much, well you can always go to a mountain top and play your flute or write a haiku. Bliss.
Okay, it's early days and if my recent form is anything to go by I could loose it with this one as I have with other games of late, but on first encounter it's promising, very promising indeed!
I'd used a voucher I had to buy Outer Worlds and was a week into playing it when suddenly I knew it wasn't doing it for me. It wasn't that bad, it's just that it wasn't......well....... Skyrim. It'd been an impulse buy - I'd heard it'd been made by Obsidian, the guys who made the very well received Fallout; New Vegas and was hoping for a game that would rekindle my enthusiasm for loosing myself in a world that, albeit full of bugs and monsters, was free of Covid and Brexit.
For me gaming is about immersion - and in role playing games especially, I need for a while to be somewhere (and someone) else. While Outer Worlds did have some elements of depth to it - side quests were more than the 'fetch and carry' stuff of AC Odyssey - it still seemed in some 'flat' in comparison to my favourite games. In fairness, it was quite good at mirroring the complexity of choice of real life decisions, in that often there was no clear 'right or wrong' path, and decisions could have bad consequences either way you went, for one or another group that you didn't want to let down - but in some way it wasn't enough.
I don't think that the budget for the game was all that high and this was reflected in a very old-school dialogue mechanic (think the face-on style of Oblivion) that seems dated and one dimensional these days. Similarly with the graphics, having gotten used to the almost art-like palate of Skyrim, I found the world of the Halcyon system bright and garish, but with no depth of field worthy of the name and a uniformity that soon became dull and repetative. I could have continued to play it - but the thought of spending potentially months in this place where I could not seem to loose myself (to get a brief holiday from being me) gave me no pleasure and so I decided to call it a day.
Immediately I loaded Ghost however, I knew I was in a different place. I simply love the world and the attention to detail that has been put into making it soft on the eye, but rich and satisfying at the same time. I'm only a couple of days into it, and haven't yet gone far into the main quest, but would at this point put it down more as a Witcher type experience with the character you are playing essentially set out for you, but with the freedom to go out and play him as you will.
The game mechanics are tip top; I'm not good at combat so tend to play on easy, but even on this level the difficulty is just right for me- difficult enough to be challenging but not such as to get overly frustrating. Importantly on this score, the saving system is really generous; loading is super fast and seems always to bring you back right to the point just before you entered the combat where you fell. This way you don't mind getting beaten a few times before winning the challenge. Fighting is a joy as well. The sword play is just what you'd expect from a samurai bout, with your different stances and combinations making a dance of all the scenes that unfold before you. And when it all becomes a bit too much, well you can always go to a mountain top and play your flute or write a haiku. Bliss.
Okay, it's early days and if my recent form is anything to go by I could loose it with this one as I have with other games of late, but on first encounter it's promising, very promising indeed!