January 26, 2024 - Day 391 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 427

Game: Elderborn

Platform: Steam
Released: Jan 31, 2020
Installed: Jan 26, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 22m

Rating: 1 - Nope

Elderborn is a first-person Soulslike slasher melee-combat game.

The game opens with a bombastic monologue from the lead character (at least you can choose their gender), who lays out a brief history of how you got to the point of entering the locked-down city of doom, but there was nothing unique about it that grabbed me. It was just... filler.

(Sidenote: If your game supports 3440x1440 ultrawide, you need a FOV slider. Playing a first-person game through a fisheye lens is not fun.)

The graphics and design feel average. It feels like they forgot the narrative part of a Soulslike that gives you a reason to press on.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with the game is that it's just boring. Run to room. Cut down undead. Run to next room that looks like previous room. Cut down undead. Rinse and repeat.

Elderborn is:

1: Nope

#FirstPerson #MeleeCombat #Soulslike #Gaming #ProjectONG

December 10, 2023 - Day 344 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 364

Game: Mordhau

Platform: Epic Game Store
Release Date: Apr 29, 2019
Installation Date: Dec 9, 2023
Unplayed: 1d
Playtime: 19m

Mordhau is a first-person or third-person medieval combat simulator/slasher.

I picked it out of my unused Steam keys list last night, then realising I already owned it on EGS, decided to install it there.

I thought, for some reason, it was a Soulslike.

It is not. It like a twin to Chivalry II, right down to the annoying knight doing the tutorial.

Multiplayer game, enter tutorial, use the mouse to try and do a bunch of different sword moves and parries.

Unlike Chivalry II, you also get the option of training with a bow and arrow (which was OK), and jumping on a horse and using a lance.

Somehow, as frustrating as Chivalry II was, this was *more* frustrating. I could not, for the life of me, coordinate the horse and the lance, and after spending half of my playtime trying to hit the second of four targets with the lance, my frustration exceeded my patience, and I quit the game, and recovered 36GB of SSD space.

For someone who's into multiplayer swordfighting, this game might be right up your alley, which is why I'm throwing the Steam key into my giveaway list.

Like Chivalry II before it, Mordhau is a big old:

1: Nope

#Mordhau #Slasher #MultiPlayer #MeleeCombat #FirstPerson #ThirdPerson #HumbleChoice #HumbleBundle #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 7, 2023 - Day 219 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 239

Game: Chivalry II

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 12, 2022
Library Date: Aug 4, 2023
Unplayed: 3d
Playtime: 28m

Sometimes the reveal of the Humble Bundle on the first Tuesday of the month is a pleasant surprise. Sometimes, it's a case of finding I already have the AAA game in the bundle.

Then there's months like this, where I was overjoyed* to see the second game in the bundle.

Chivalry II.

On December 28th last year, in what was the predecessor to this project, my personal rating on the predecessor, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare was "Meh".

It was DirectX 9, laggy as hell, and I didn't even complete the tutorial.

Does Chivalry II turn me into a fan?

First up, like Temtem last month, Chivalry II is primarily a multiplayer game. If I were a cynical woman, I might infer that there are some devs looking to the Humble Bundle there trying to goose the player base on their games.

Chivalry II is a first-person OR third-person medieval battle simulator.

There's no single-player campaign, just a somewhat frustrating tutorial to go through before being thrust onto a multiplayer battlefield.

It's said that trying to create art with a mouse is like trying to draw with a bar of soap, and trying to swing a sword with a bar of soap is worse.

On the off hand that it worked better with a controller, I tried the tutorial with a controller instead.

It was not better.

There were points during the tutorial where I was doing exactly as instructed, and not succeeding.

At one point, I had to block two opponents, and then move the mouse to the left to slash left.

The sword slashed right. I tried repeatedly, eventually figuring I was moving the mouse to the wrong left. I moved it to my other left.

The sword slashed right.

Eventually, mercifully, I made it through the tutorial, and onto the battlefield. At least I could show my mettle, and my metal, against a field full of human opponents.

Ah, no.

That would be a field full of bots. 63 bots and me.

But it was fun, right?

Nope. It was not even that.

Frantically trying to remember all the different ways to block and riposte, and heavy attack and light attack, and it was a lot easier to die than to fight.

I dropped my weapon, and walked away from the battlefield, with no desire to return. I'll cash in the trading cards, and then get 25Gb of NVMe space back.

Chivalry II is a:

1: Nope

#ChivalryII #MultiPlayer #MeleeCombat #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay