Recent reviews by blue

i usually try to be charitable to games. see the positives.

this game is dull, boring and uninspired.

where to i even start? let's talk navigation first. please go to the world map so you can go to a dungeon then go to a sub dungeon then go to a battle. why do we need 5 levels of stuff like this? is this game a dungeon crawler or a card battler? i wouldn't mind if it was a dungeon crawler! but honestly the UI is not fun to navigate (quite the contrary) so any sort of extra navigation is just not particularly fun. i will admit that i am, once again, being uncharitable. it's not always like this, you can navigate *some* on the world map and do stuff there, but eventually you are forced to go dungeon diving. and it isn't fun to navigate.

which leads me to the ui : haha, god it's miserable. navigating the game is not fun in any capacity. i have to be honest and say i played with a controller, then with mouse and keyboard - it was moderately less bad with the latter, but just not a fun time to deal with all of it, man. which is pretty pivotal in a game that's based on menuing.

and ultimately what did me in is the character progression. yes there's "depth". you can pick what the character does and build around that. but i don't play card battlers to have modular skill trees. on top of that, you can eventually pick more "skills" (cards) to add to your deck, but the decks just do not mesh with one another. the unique mechanics are neat, but i could clearly see very fast that the decks just... don't mesh with each other. the specialisation ideas is cool - a character can be more healing focused, or field focused, but any and all extra customisation past that is just not great. you are very much funnelled into going deeper off the spec you picked. i will admit that i am not being very fair having only played a handful of hours, but i cannot imagine spending 10+ with this. it just feels like shallow customisation.

also the campaign was terribly dull. unbelievably so. there should be a hook in a game if you bother to put in a campaign. i found none here.

does not work out of the box on modern hardware. requires modding.

a better, and more fun, game than 1. i normally like to talk more about my thoughts on games i played, but i tapped out and don't really ever intend on finishing it, mostly played it as a curiosity after playing older ubisoft games.

mostly writing a review to point out that the game still is tied to ubisoft's ecosystem and might require some messing around to get it to launch. buyer's beware? but any and all issues encountered is with their (garbage) ecosystem and not the game itself, it still runs fine to this day.

you have completed a uplay action for reading this review.

don't think the game held up very well

also seems to freeze regularly. online reports kinda point to the game seeking to connect to an online server and being unable to. there are apparently work arounds online but also i would just rather play other video games.

for nearly 30 years i've modelled my entire being around this stupid gecko, and now he's here in a whole trilogy

i don't think it's perfect, so let's talk couple issues :

- save function decoupled from the game's original save systems. i don't hate it, but i know a lot of people will
- it's the US voice actor. i don't care but once again a lot of people will (edit: fixed in an update shortly after launch!)
- no real wide-screen support for gex 1. just the good ole stretch-ish thing. wish it got real upscaled resolution support
- the price. i'm a sucker for gex but 30 usd kinda be a lot for gex
- no way to remap controls. gex 1 will let you if you use the debug to go to the option menu, but what you see is what you get. especially bad for keyboards. (fixed in an update!)

the good :

- rewind function. it functions differently than just rewinding (letting you pick a moment from the past x amount of time) but it's fine.
- widescreen support for gex 2 & 3. a blessing
- similary, analogue camera controls for those games. you don't have to know the pain of remapping controls on something like the vita!
- bunch of extra stuff including dana gould interview. it's there i guess
- i no longer have to care for LRG as a company. they are bad, i hate them, i gave them my money, and now i can go back to pretending they don't exist anymore.

finally i can log in 100s of hours playing these damn games on steam... lock n load little lizard it's tail time..........

a fun puzzle platformer based on a very silly proposition. very fun to play, and in general the puzzles aren't overly complicated messes that take 20 minutes to clear a room. at least worth considering if this kind of game is up your alley!

simultaneously the most fun and worst prince of persia game

the parkour feels very fun, the time freezing mechanic is well utilized and fun to use. unfortunately to make up for it they made the game a hack and slash where the prince uses elemental magic (???) against 20+ enemies at a time because they made this game using the assassin's creed engine. and since the engine could handle it well i guess it had to be in the game.

the combat is inoffensive enough even if it's not "prince of persia", but it's still there so i guess i have to dock points for it. if you can launch the game and play it (which seems to be an issue in recent years - people can't even do that), just put the game on easy and play those segments like a goofy hack and slash. just don't know what lead people to design the prince as "magic man" - yes, magic is somewhat core to the universe but not to the extent of having elemental magic and genies in the main series. it was always a bit more mystical on the magical front. but whatever, i guess

i have seen worse games in my life. it's mostly a not bad time. you have completed a uplay action by reading this review.

it's fine. i dropped it because the camera made me nauseous.

the combat is unremarkable and there isn't much expression the parkouring. in short? yeah i guess it's a prince of persia game. i'd say what it mostly has going for it is the visual aesthetic, which came at the price of removing what made the original trilogy what it was - the time gimmick. also it's a collectathon, for some reason.

i think you could do worse for a game but i don't think it's particularly remarkable enough to go out of your way to play it. it does wear thin relatively fast, especially since the prince is quippy but not particularly funny.

A more fun game than Warrior Within, but lesser than Sands of Time. They replaced the incredibly over-present combat in Warrior Within with timed health-draining segments that allow you to better handle crowds. Also stealth takedowns, for some reason. They feel out of place in this game but are kind of a neat little reward in a lot of spots for parkouring. Could be worse.

Also at the very least even if there's a lot of bloom we are back to somewhat less brown, meaning you can actually tell what the hell is happening in this game.

I think it's fine 20 years later. It's very obviously the blueprint for what followed shortly after (Assassin's Creed). I don't think you suffer if you don't play it, but it's there as the most fine 7/10 game I can think of. Felt like a nice way to wrap up the trilogy. You have gained 10 sand credits for reading this review.

it's fun? it's confusing? the vibe is extremely on point and i have a vague idea of what is happening but the game kind of explains... not much to you. even squad management - i had to check everywhere to figure out how to use things like weapons or squad management. which is a little weird. i'm still intrigued and want more but i have no idea where to even begin explaining this game to someone.