A roundup of video games The G has been playing lately.
Star Wars Outlaws (Series X/S, PS5, PC)
Haley reviewed this one back in September—and her take mostly holds for me too. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I'll just add a bit of color from my personal experience with the game. First the good. Outlaws is a charming game that does a fantastic job immersing you in one of the most interesting geographies and time periods established in Star Wars canon: the Outer Rim under partial Imperial occupation. Gameplay is modeled after the earlier Assassin's Creed games, deploying the same mix of stealth, action and platforming. Once you get into the flow of things, it's pretty great. Now the bad: it takes 5-10 hours to get into the flow of things, and before that matters, Outlaws is a frustrating mess. Most people won't stick it out, unfortunately—and that's on Ubisoft. The main culprit is the broken save system, which allows you to quick save unless you are on a mission, where you are captive to a badly-implemented checkpoint system that only allows one autosave at a time—coupled with the fact that, if you load up a previous save, all the NPCs you blasted or knocked out respawn. A lot of early missions force you to replay long sequences that can fall apart with one tiny timing mistake. It's the bad kind of challenging, to be honest. But, again, once you're past that, this largely (but not fully) smooths over and the game ends up being a lot of fine. Recommended for stealth enthusiasts, Star Wars stans and the very patient only.
Score: 7/10 (same as Haley).
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Series X/S, PC)
Another licensed property, this time an Xbox exclusive published by Bethesda Software—and developed by MachineGames, a Swedish studio founded by refugees from Starbreeze Studios. That DNA is very much in evidence here, as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle immediately reminded me of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay—one of the best licensed properties I've ever played. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is up there as well. It's a first-person action game that will bring the Uncharted series to mind for most folks, and it's true—there is a lot in common in terms of both gameplay and thematic content between Great Circle and Uncharted 4 in particular. But, while both games are very good, they don't really feel the same. The shift to first-person gives it a level of immersion that you don't quite get from the third-person perspective, so you really feel like you are Indiana Jones. And the vibes are just different, like comparing James Bond to Jason Bourne. The game is beautiful, expertly paced and —despite not having a quick-save function— presents a decent challenge that never gets tedious or frustrating (I'm looking at you, Outlaws). It really does feel like you're in an Indiana Jones film. One small quibble: the map is terrible—though at least there is a map (now I'm looking at you, Uncharted 4).
Score: 9/10.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (PS5)
I've been a fan of this series since the original came out for PS2. Ratchet & Clank was one of Sony's most popular exclusive properties during the PS2 and PS3 eras, releasing a whopping 12 titles from 2002 to 2013. But then the series took the PS4 era off, as the devs focused on other projects (including the well-regarded Spider-Man games). Rift Apart is a triumphant return to the market, combining series mainstays like crazy weapons and tight platforming action with some new gameplay dynamics, like the ability to traverse interdimensional rifts. The writing is quite good, with an engaging story and strong characters—including Rivet, a Lombax-like Ratchet fighting an even worse version of Dr. Nefarious in her dimension. Now, the not so good... while the game is generally a lot of fun, the boss battles get very repetitive. They aren't especially hard, just long and, well, they're all pretty much the same.
Score: 8/10.
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POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.
