Pspspspsps Videogames

Early on in Lies of P, you cross this bridge to the city hall of Krat. It's dark and storming and most notably spotlights shine on a puppet strewn across it's steel beams. A sign is pinned to the body - "PURGE PUPPETS" . You're looking directly at this one specific spot above you to read that sign. It's a set piece fit for trailers. Much later in the game you fight your way up to a Cathedral on a mountaintop. Hours have passed. After completing the Cathedral you receive a side quest to come back down the mountain to this bridge and investigate the puppet hanging from the crossbeam again, but with one very specific difference.

The weather has cleared.

You look up to the puppet's sign and now see St. Frangelico Cathedral tower over the city of Krat. Clear in the morning Sun. This little treasure hunt pointed you towards recognizing the church looming over you. How'd you miss that? During the climb you looked down at the city so it makes sense you would have seen it. It's massive. It makes sense physically. You just didn't notice it.

St. Frangelico was still there in silhouette. Hotel Krat stands out on the skyline in the rain but Lie's of P's world designers chose to pull this punch until you had visited the Cathedral. The weather here, specifically here on this bridge, changes the focus of where you are guided to look at.

Lies of P demonstrates a complete understanding of this kind of world design without being a carbon copy of Dark Souls.

Venigni, an NPC in your home base, sets up shop next to his scale miniature models of the city. Little replicas of city hall, the tramway, the factory. You'll come back and visit his shop often over the course of the game. After you recruit him you begin your ascent up to the cathedral.

The Sun rises for the first time. You take a cable car up the mountain. It's a quiet moment. You look out at Krat in the sunrise. You look past the battlefield to see a city still mostly intact. The destroyed parts become too small to see. Like chips or imperfections in miniatures. Krat is now small, it's warm, it's serene. You can imagine the City surviving this.

Lies of P fully commits to Souls-Like in its entirety. It has really surprised me how much I like that. I'm now a couple of bosses in (at the Factory, not very far) and I think this is the most I've liked a non-From souls game. I think it's because the combat feels closer to Dark Souls 1 and 2, before things started moving a lot faster. A lot of folks have been comparing this game to Sekiro and Bloodborne, but I find combat in Lies of P has a much slower pace than these two games. That's more than welcome after playing Armored Core VI where the speed dial is at 11.

Starfield trips over itself letting you know all of the quests are chill and good actually. The choices in dialogue range from doing a good deed to doing a good deed… for money😈. The only way to join the Space Pirates is to be offered the chance to go undercover first, making sure you see the Pirate but you’re a good guy option. If a persuasion check with someone fails, leaving you only with the prompt [Attack], your companion will say something to the effect of “woof, that was rough. But you did what you had to do.”

The most recent mission I finished in Starfield was for the United Colonies. You stand in front of a council of bureaucrats trying to convince them to hand over banned archival weapon data. This could help stop a small but growing danger to the galaxy. The council argues that it could also lead to that weapon falling into the wrong hands - It was locked away for a reason. It’s a great moment because it was the first time a character in starfield stood up and said to me No, you are in the wrong here, your research could lead to the weapon data leaking, civilians will be put it danger. ALERT. oh no. ALERT. Just as this conversation is happening an entirely contained but also extremely dire attack occurs. ALERT. You rush out and save the day. The threat is proven to be real and the data is necessary. No more questions about is it the right thing to do. Forget about all that other stuff we brought up, you were right. The whole council apologizes to you profusely. Here, take the nuclear launch codes, and here’s a thousand credits as an apology for insinuating that you weren’t the galaxy’s goodest bestest boy.

Mission 1 of Armored Core 6 is called “Illegal Entry”.

In mission 4 “Destroy the transport helicopters” the helicopters are just that. No weapons. Trying to run from you. The rubiconians who stand between you and the helicopters are defending their families. During the fight the enemies bark about you being the bad guy. After the mission your Dad calls you and says “It’s just a Job 621. All of it.” Throughout the entire game you are flooded with voicemails, calls, voices in your head, that all have an opinion on whether what you’re doing is good or bad or just a job.

Starfield is telling you not to think about it too hard. Armored Core is telling you to think about it. A lot. Screaming at you to think about it. What are you doing. It’s not just a job. The game is talking about your actions through all sorts of different lenses.

Absolutely stop telling people to rush the main quest - I understand it gets clicks - if you’re searching for the guidance on quest order because you want better quest quality - When Sarah Morgan walks you to get into from the space marines and they hint you to join them - do it (or if you passed it, go back to New Atlantis and Join at the front counter of MAST). They send you to a museum shouting Lore for People in a Hurry and then after the first quest the UC sends you on you will meet a character that has a much more interesting quest-line than anything I’ve found so far.

Your personal context with American history and geography is what makes Fallout interesting

"Few settled worlds were left untouched by the Colony War, but nowhere could the viciousness of modern warfare be seen more clearly than on the Freestar planet of Niira. Initially occupied by invading United Colonies Forces as a forward operating position, repeated attempts to take and retake the planet by Collective forces led only to devastation. Swathes of the world were transformed into scorched husks, a nightmarish testament to the depths of human ingenuity and human cruelty. Today Niira remains a continuing reminder to the horrors of unfettered war."

Even though I have so many criticisms of it, Starfield gets across the feeling I had playing Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and scouring a level for a dragon or a seal or a purple goo tube. So many games that try to recapture what you remember Sonic Adventure 2 feeling like will go all in on the 3D Sonic like Spark the Electric Jester - or all in on the Chao Garden like Wobble Dogs.