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doubleddenden · 3 years

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I got two games on sale in the PSN store I'd be pretty glad to recommend

Rayman Legends and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD

Rayman Legends has the better polish between the two, BUT Ty was an indie game made back all the way in the PS2 and Gamecube era, so obviously there's gonna be an edge for Rayman here. But, both are pretty solid

Rayman Legends is a 2d side scrolling platformer with optional Co Op. I originally had the game for my 360, but time took its course and I lost it. I remember my friends and I playing it together nights after school, and the inevitable descent into maddening laughter as we kept dying over and over.

It still holds up. It's pretty fast paced, flows pretty well, the graphics are gorgeous and wonderfully animated, and the music... mua. So good. It mixes orchestra with. . . Kazoos? Rabid country bumpkin? It's got this real peaceful or real chaotic unhinged vibe to it, and there's even a level that plays to the beat of a game appropriate Black Betty. Not to mention there's TONS of levels, TONS of secrets to find, and TONS of character skins for 4 different characters that pretty much all play the same. It's a fun time, and I can tell you from experience that this game will make you feral but in a good way, especially if you play with friends. A 9/10

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger is a collectathon from circa 2002 ish. I still remember the commercial for it where Sonic, Spyro, and another character I can't remember were wrapped up in bandages in the hospital, all shaking in fear at Ty himself. It actually kickstarted this weird obsession I had with Australia that lasted through my elementary years. There was a few sequels with 2 being my personal favorite, but time also took those from me. Thankfully it's back on modern consoles and pc.

So, Ty is a collectathon. If you've played something like Banjo or Mario, you get the gist. What makes this game different is the setting and overall control style with combat involving various kinds of boomerangs you can make out of cogs OR some you grab via story progression. Well, and you can glide and bite. And you can swim really fast when you're allowed.

So out of the way, the controls are gonna feel a bit off at first, but you get used to it after a bit. I'm fairly sure the controls work better than they did back in the PS2 days, but that may be my imagination. It definitely runs better at 60 fps during gameplay, but there's something kind of off about the new shading in some areas and on some of the models. Again worth noting that some of the models will look rough, because again, it is from 2002.

It's still a pretty game, and once you get the hang of it, it's pretty fun. The levels are gorgeous and fun to explore with all sorts of things hidden here and there. I literally found a sunken ship that I never saw 20 years ago when I last played! I'm pretty fond of Ship Rex, since it gives you lots to explore and it looks good too. I also really like the music, it really reminds me of home even though it's the opposite side if the world from home. It's very down to earth with Australian vibes at times. The voice acting is also pretty passable. Nothing quite Emmy worthy, but it's not terrible at the least. Something new in the HD version are skins! I've been having a ball trying them all out with my favorite being Ty's prototype skin.

Overall I think it's got a lot of soul and a lot to offer if you give it a fair chance. Its cheesy and fun and it captures something pretty unique for its genre. I'd give it a 7.5 or an 8/10. Honestly there's room for improvement but overall I'm just happy to have it back.

Now... to just get Ty 2, 3, and maybe 4 on consoles and a 5th one.

#den reviews stuff #doubled plays games #rayman legends #ty the tasmanian tiger

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babybahamut · 6 years

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Games Of 2017

Once again, here is my annual review of the games I played in the course of the year. I usually only include games I haven’t played before, but this year I spent 6 months without a decent computer and therefore it’d be a very short list if I did that. Alphabetical order for no reason. Quick mention to Love Live School Idol Festival which three years later I’m still playing- much less so now that the mu’s story mode has ended (I’ve tried to, but I just don’t care about Aqours in anywhere near the same way) but I still play every mu’s event. Looking forward to what All Stars is going to bring us! I miss my girls!

Borderlands 2

A pretty fun FPS, the randomised weapons keep things interesting. I started off as the Gunzerker but I found myself resorting to sniping 99% of the time so I used a save-editor to change myself to the sniper dude and had a much happier time of it. It got kinda dull after a while though and I haven’t finished it- enemies either stomp you or go down very quickly with no real strategy involved beyond “snipe the head”, and there’s no actual impetus to do well. If you die, you just respawn a little distance away with less money (which you get an abundance of and is also not very useful) and you get to keep all the EXP you’d earned up to that point, so you can just bum-rush a group of enemies and die over and over until they’re done. A LOT of the sidequests also boiled down to “go back to this place you already cleared and do the whole thing again and the enemies are the same so they aren’t worth killing any more in EXP terms but you still have to in order to survive”, which was boring. However, it probably would be a lot of fun to play it co-op with a friend, which unfortunately I wasn’t able to do. The writing is FANTASTIC though, it’s a very funny game and Handsome Jack is SUCH a cock.

Breath Of The Wild

I mean… I don’t need to spend long talking about how exceptionally good this game is, right? Everyone already knows that. It’s really, really, REALLY good, and lets leave it at that. What I do want to talk about is something this game does that no other game has ever done for me- it made me fear for my life.

Even encountering a fairly simple mob of monsters brought with it all kinds of considerations- is it worth engaging them? Using up my equipment on these enemies when I could just avoid them might be the wrong decision, or do they have something I need? Can I sneak around them or will I be spotted and have to engage them anyway, so should I get the drop on them while I have the advantage of stealth? One of the mob is a stronger version than the rest, can I even fight him without being killed in one hit?

It’s so interesting to me- usually I throw myself into a challenge and if it’s one that I’m not matched for, I just shrug it off and come back later. This is, I think, the first time I’ve ever had that feeling of genuine survival in a video game. Really great stuff.

Frontier

This space simulator from the Amiga era was an astonishing technical achievement at the time, squeezing an entire galaxy into a single floppy disk. The game presents space in real-world scale and it literally takes days to traverse a solar system (you can increase the speed of game-time though!) and it also observes newtonian physics with the way ships move in space. There’s no goal- simply live your life in space and try to get by. A childhood fave that’s still enjoyable, but it’s gotta be your type of game to begin with.

Golden Axe

Played this co-op with Ruu! Golden Axe is a game that you HAVE to play with a friend- it’s dull as dishwater solo but with a buddy it becomes a good laugh. Gilius Thunderhead and Tyris Flare killed Death Adder and Death Adder Junior and saved the king and princess!

Gunstar Heroes

Treasure’s debut is also one of their finest games and a fantastic run’n’gun in its own right. We played this co-op too and had a total blast. It’s one of the jewels in the crown of co-op and if you have someone to play with you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more fun game to burn through. It’s also a lot of fun to play solo, which I did on Hard difficulty for the first time ever. I usually run chaser+chaser, but in Hard mode it doesn’t do enough damage so I opted for fire+laser, which apparently can destroy bullets!

Hatoful Holday

Played the first chapter of this one- the first game was really gripping but this one didn’t grab me quite so firmly. I want to come back to it though, and I’m sure it gets a lot more compelling later on.

Iji

I had the sudden urge to play this rad-as-heck indie game out of nowhere to find that after 6 years, it had been updated just a week before I got the urge. Playing through again with the improvements, this is still a great game made even better- it’s a run-n-gun that’s a little bit metroidvania, with upgradable stats, but where it shines is in the writing and logbooks you’ll find within. The world has been destroyed by the alien race known as the Tasen. A team of scientists who survived the onslaught use the Tasen’s nanotechnology to revive Iji, in the vain hope she might be able to save what remains of Earth. I actually think this game will appeal to Undertale fans, strangely- there’s a similar pacifist/aggressor system in place (though not to the extreme of Undertale) that makes playing through in both styles worthwhile. For the dedicated, the game is absolutely riddled with secrets and bonuses to find if you’re wily. Huge recommendation and it’s completely free.

Ikaruga

2017 saw the arrival of a new friend who surprised me with their knowledge of this game. Confronted with the fact that I’d bumped into someone who knew about one of my favourite games of all time, I had no choice but to play through it once more. It’s beautiful, it’s brutal, it’s smart, it’s brutal, it’s another masterpiece by the geniuses of Treasure, and it’s available on Steam for goodness sake BUY IT.

Jak and Daxter (+2)

This series is midgi’s special series from childhood, so she had to share it with me. This is the PS3 collection. I finished the first one and played some way into the second which I’m still working on. The first is your standard collectathon platformer fare that was popular at the time- Jak has a janky double jump that was frustrating several times, but it’s fun. The second game I’ve enjoyed a lot more so far, becoming more of a run-n-gun/platformer that overall has a much darker tone. I need to get back into this one but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far.

Kirby Robobobobobobot

Oh man, what an unbelievably fun and tight game. If you’ve played any kirby game before you know what to expect here, a fun platformer where you can absorb enemy abilities to use as your own. This one has the same puzzle/challenge aspects as games before it, with each level containing 3 Puzzle Cubes to collect, rewarded after solving something a little tricky or out of the way. New to this game is the Robobot Armour, which is so so so much fun to roll around in that I can’t even begin to explain. It’s so satisfying to jump in the armour and just blast through a level, and it’s used really well too- it never feels like a gimmick and you get to use it a lot. The final boss (the final encounter, I should say- there’s like 5 final bosses without including the secret and bonus extra final bosses) is great and there’s one mindblowing scene at the end where I was watching open-mouthed with surprise. Also, the soundtrack is AMAZING- it has one of the most intense final boss themes I’ve ever heard (spoiler free link), and the rest of the soundtrack has a nice crunchy metallic, mechanical sound to it. Huge recommend.

The Last Of Us

Bloody hell, it’s grim isn’t it? I enjoyed it though, the story doesn’t have many smiles but the gameplay is a lot of fun. Stealthing around and sniping jerks was the best, but the game seems to send more enemies in out of nowhere if your stealth breaks which means you can get blindsided from an area you just cleared, which is irritating. It’s very good at making ammo feel scarce but giving you enough you don’t feel like you need to conserve everything, which also rewards exploration.

Love Nikki

F2P mobile fashion dress-up game with a bewildering array of options, there’s literally 1000+ items in each category to choose from and the art is SO PRETTY. It’s not just dress-up, there’s a story mode to play through and events to unlock more outfits, plus clothing item “evolution” (collect X amount of one item and you can spend them to upgrade it). There’s a lot to do here!

Pikmin 1 and 2

Playing them both together 10 years on, I definitely would say the first game is stronger. The second added a slew of new features and QoL upgrades, but the lack of that 30 day timer really changes the feel of the game. That little bit of pressure in the first game was just oppressive enough to make you plan your movements and constantly re-evaluate your priorities, all of which was missing from 2. People considered it better back in the day to be without the timer, but I disagree.

Pokemon Moon

I was entirely ready to declare this my GotY until Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon were announced, and now I kind of feel like I got stiffed with half of a game. But, evaluating it on its own merits, this is the best pokemon game I’ve played. I’m not entirely sold on all the new ‘mons (but Decidueye is AWESOME) but I appreciate all the ways this game finally breaks the constraints that the series has had since gen1.Major criticism I have for this one is the dull soundtrack- considering Gen5 and 6 had great OSTs it was a real disappointment.

Later on, as part of my Gym Leader Umi challenge, I came back to play the game in a more competitive way (or at least, I built a team that had competitive viability) and it provided a very different experience. It’s not quite as friendly to this style of play as Gen6 was, but breeding is quick enough and thankfully you don’t need to level your team up to 100 to use them (as online will automatically level them up to max). Nintendo’s online is still janky as heck, but this is the best it’s ever been, and I had a lot of fun playing the game in a different way. (Again, USUM tempered this by adding a slew of new stuff and rendering all my work to have been in vain, because now people only play the new games… and they aren’t compatible)

Super Mario Odyssey

Only played it VERY briefly cos we wanted to finish BOTW before jumping into this, but I’m impressed so far. I really like how it doesn’t tutorialise much- you just find stuff and interact with it and it WORKS and it’s cool.

Super Mario World

Timeless, flawless, 2d platforming perfected. Can’t be beat.

Snakebird

Bloody wars, this puzzle game is HARD. I didn’t want to just use guides because then what’s the point, but I definitely used youtube thumbnails of guides to see what kind of situation I needed to get my snakebirds to halfway into the level so I could work my way through from there. This game isn’t gentle at all, recommended if you like brainbreakers.

Sonic Generations

Like Sonic Adventure 2, this game feels janky and a little broken, but still manages to be a great deal of fun to play. I actually finished it to 100%. Contrary to popular opinion, I found the Modern Sonic levels to be better overall than Classic Sonic, but they’re both good. Some of the bonus challenges were bollocks (screw you Vector The Crocodile!!!!). The soundtrack though, hoo boy, Sonic games never fail to provide an excellent soundtrack and this one plays with the nostlagia of the older games but does enough of its own thing to be worthwhile in its own right. This rearrangement of City Escape made its way to my playlist.

Sonic Lost World

Aaarrrrrrgggghhhhhh… there’s so much in this game that could be SO COOL. There are so many great ideas and genuinely awesome fun gameplay hooks that are wasted in this game. It’s not at all BAD, but it’s frustrating to play it. I really enjoy the cutscenes between levels, they have some funny moments and good writing. I just… I want to like this game, the snowball level is smart, the under-ocean railgrinding level is so much fun, but for every great moment there’s another enemy or death pit hidden just out of view, or wonky wall-jumping section, or gameplay mechanic that is actually just broken (it’s a Wii U port and there’s one special power that utilised the second screen to play a sort of rhythm minigame- rather than replace it, they just removed the minigame altogether and you can spam the button as fast as you like with no rhythm consideration and it BREAKS). Soundtrack, again, is the saving grace.

Starfox 64

Childhood fave, its still the best Starfox has ever been. Great fun arcade-style into-the-screen shooter, very fast and fluid, branching paths through the game so you can see new levels each time you play. I adore this.

TF2

I think…. I’m at a place where I’m ready to say goodbye to TF2. The changes to matchmaking honestly took everything I enjoyed about the game away, and although the base game is still a lot of fun, it’s just not the same. The new contracts and weapons are enjoyable to play with and I wish Pyro’s jetpack had been added three years ago so I still wanted to master it, but it feels like an old friend whose path has diverged from my own now.

still not interested in overwatch though lol

TMNT

The SNES one, another co-op with Ruu. This one was his pick as I’ve never played it before! It was definitely fun- I feel like I didn’t really have much clue what I was doing but the combat is satisfyingly crunchy and enemies crumble in an enjoyable way. But, damn, what a rocking soundtrack!

Touhou 16

I will say I liked TH15 more, but this one is a great time. I actually liked the Extra stage better than the main game (complete opposite to TH15 whose Extra stage was balls). In terms of the main game, there’s really no reason not to use the Summer power- the others might have Releases that clear the screen or make your shots stronger, but only the Summer power lets you Release a single Option at a time. Losing all your Options every time you release is just too crippling, plus you then can’t do it again for a long time afterwards. Extra’s a blast though, with the backwards-facing shot making you play in unconventional ways.

Unreal Tournament

I had this on another of these lists, but when I got my new PC I wanted to test something. 200 bots on Hall Of Giants, all with instagib rifles. It ran smooth as silk and was complete and utter chaos. Great fun!

Wonderboy 2

Master System version, for reference. This is one of the very first games I ever played, many moons past. It’s still fun, but the decision to include the timer from the arcade version is baffling. The final boss is a little bit BS and game over means start from the beginning. I dunno if I’d recommend it to a newcomer, but if you’re used to the foibles of retro games it’s a good one.

Ys 1 and 2

Played through these again while on midgi’s laptop. The second game is much much better, but they’re kinda two halves of one whole so you need to put up with the first game to get to the second. The maps are confusing, but the combat is fun. Soundtrack is the reason to stay.

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That’s my lot of the year! Let me know if I played anything you played and you disagree with my opinion or you have any recs for 2018!

#BBs Retro/Gaming/VGM/Etc Culture Tag #BBs Do A Thing Tag

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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‘Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ review: Ambitious but poorly executed

Ghost Recon: Wildlands isnt just an open world game its a daunting expanse of unrealized potential.

SEE ALSO: 5 tips you’ll want to know before you start ‘Ghost Recon: Wildlands’

At first blush, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a mesmerizing experience. The rocky hills in Itacua, the first province in the game, create a beautiful, treacherous landscape that is glorious to behold. But Wildlands quickly reveals itself as a husk, devoid of any life or meaningful story, with more veneer than actual substance.

A good start to the story breaks bad quickly

Wildlands narrative starts off compellingly enough. You play as a Ghost Recon operator, call-sign Nomad, in the wild lands of Bolivia, under the CIAs Operation Kingslayer. Your mission is to clear out the Santa Blanca cartel and rid Bolivia of its narco-state ties. But it isnt long before you discover the myriad flaws and plotholes that run rampant throughout the games latter half.

Yuri and Polito, the first provinces buchones (minibosses), were a fascinating pair to track down. Their cringe-inducing talk of necrophilia was enough to motivate me along the missions that would lead to their inevitable execution. Unfortunately, Yuri and Politos end was one of the only satisfying story conclusions in the game.

Everything in Wildlands takes place in an open world, which means that the buchones can be taken down in any particular order. Which sounds great until youre stuck in choice paralysis. I got so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of provinces to explore and buchones to execute that I began to resent the cartel map and its execution targets. Ten hours after starting the game, its repetitive nature and tone deaf narrative caught up with me.

The deeper Wildlands thready narrative gets, the more stale the ideas feel. Its flaws start with inconsistencies in the story but completely unravels when yet another cinematic rewrites a major plot point. But it was the ending both of them that was the worst offense. Not only is Wildlands narrative conclusion a massive letdown in terms of tension and story resolution, its treatment of drug trafficking and cartels is appallingly ignorant and still somehow heavy-handed.

Theres a way to handle those themes that doesnt rely on stereotypes or tired tropes. The Mafia games, especially the most recent installment in the series, provides a far more nuanced perspective of what it means to run a large drug operation. Lincoln Clay, Mafia 3s protagonist, and his gang leaders feel tangible, believable. Wildlands couldnt decide whether to be serious or satirical, evident by its bombastic characters that felt too ridiculous to be taken seriously, even if that was the purpose. Wildlands is a poignant reminder that painting broad strokes on top of existing real world issues is not the way to tell a compelling story.

Sniping is everything and your drone is your only friend

Story isnt always necessary to enjoying a game but, sadly in this case, Wildlands misses the mark almostall the way across the board. Thankfully, between decent gunplay, enjoyable long-range combat, and a drone that has more personality than anyone else on your squad, it manages to claw its way back to mediocrity.

The gunplay is mediocre in comparison to any number of third person shooters, including Ubisofts own The Division, mostly because the contextual cover system is twelve ways to ridiculous. The cover system is unreliable, accounting for at least a third of my deaths it was hard to stay fully protected because there was little indication as to what was considered true cover and what was only a cosmetic hiding spot. The latter obscured my line of sight but didnt give me any protection from enemy fire. But in spite of the unintuitive cover system and the shrug-worthy gunplay, there were a handful of moments that made the game worth playing.

The long-range snipe is where Wildlands really shines. There isnt much to shooting from the hip, even after youve put points into that particular skill. But the shots I made with my eye down the barrel or through a high-powered rifle scope were often the most exhilarating they challenged me to think tactically, rather than just react to the environment. The quick audible feedback, followed by the target dropping out of his sniper tower when the shot struck true from 300 meters away (regardless of whether or not it alerted the enemy to my position) was often the best part of beginning an encounter.

The majority of the game is played at long range, so moments like this are fairly frequent, which means theres a lot of fist-pumping along the way.

Sadly, the only things that your AI squad is good for are fist-bumping one another in background chatter and soaking up sicario bullets. The background information on Holt, Midas, and Weaver indicates that they have special roles within the team. Unfortunately, those roles arent realized within gameplay. Youre still the one laying C4 charges and blowing up trucks full of coke, even though you have a demolitions expert in the squad. So, while its easier to play stealth-heavy missions with the AI (as their presence doesnt alert enemies), theyre little more than meat shields in the heat of battle.

Your drone, however, is your constant companion. In most altercations with either UNIDAD, the military police, or the cartel, the drone was the only way I stayed alive. Flying it (while safely in cover, of course) allowed me to mark targets, blow up a group of enemies, distract another group, and even revive a teammate remotely. My drone was my in-game bestie the only thing that kept us apart was a drone jammer and I always, always dealt with those first.

Vast spaces too empty for their own good

From breathtaking vistas to lush jungle rivers all the way to desolate salt flats, Wildlands has constructed a collection of incredible landscapes to explore. While Bolivias existence as a narco-state is a work of fiction, the environment is as close to real life as you can get without hopping on a plane (or three). Its a joy to ride a dirt bike around the early provinces, capturing shots of sunrises and twinkling stars, but the world is otherwise empty.

Strangely, the more you explore, the more overwhelming the world feels, in spite of the desolation in the environment. It takes a long time to travel from mission to mission the roads and mountains are unforgiving and expansive. As you uncover more intelligence within each province, the TACMAP becomes the most unsavory place in the game. Without a way to filter, it devolves into a lumbering beast with a plethora of icons obscuring the map and making navigation a chore.

Open world games shouldnt be daunting. Rockstar and 2K Games both managed to create open worlds that dont feel like youre drowning in them. So why didnt Ubisofts land?

Outside of the cartel hit list, Wildlands does very little to acknowledge progression. Theres the odd soundbite from DJ Perico, Santa Blancas propaganda-spouting mouthpiece, but there is nothing in the cinematics or the gameplay that recognizes the cartels destabilization. The videos from El Suenos perspective feel disjointed enough that its hard to believe that any part of the cartels operations are aware of one another. Story progression felt like a checklist of requirements rather than the interwoven narrative that it could have been.

Crackdown tackled a similar structure to Wildlands, but integrated the gang leaders executions into both the story and the gameplay. Each gang leader that you took out led to the decreased effectiveness of the gang itself. Taking out a particular leader could mean that enemies began to carry pistols instead of assault rifles; or typically well-defended hideouts would see their numbers drastically decreased. Sometimes, you had to fight certain leaders first before you could even think about tackling some of the games bigger fights.

Wildlands gives the player full reign of what to do and where to go next a true open world experience. But as I progressed through the game, it didnt feel like my actions impacted the game. It was a matter of finishing out a set of missions in order to get to the next set of missions, in order to maybe get the hint of a story. Crackdown, on the other hand, demonstrated through both gameplay and narrative how important it was to be tactical and strategic about the order of execution.

Huge, open world games need diverse soundscapes

Wildlands requires a lot of point A to point B travel but doesnt offer much in the way of companionship. Your options are either to listen to your squad mates drone on, or to endure the same two songs that play on the radio over and over again until youre fairly certain that you are, in fact, in hell. The combination of the two work to create an aggravating experience in between the major story beats.

Theres some satisfaction in looping through the terrain in order to pick up the plethora of meaningful collectibles, but even that wears thin.

Theres a hollowness to how your Ghost, call-sign Nomad, interacts with their squad mates. While Nomad perks up with comments about the mission every once in awhile, Midas, Weaver, and Holt are usually silent. The intermittent broisms including various musings about sex with twenty-two-year-olds and snorting coke to cope with altitude sickness cement how vacuous the game presents its operators. Granted, its a Tom Clancy game and exaggeration is usually the order of the day, but the dialogue writing feels downright lazy after more than a couple of hours with the squad.

There are only so many times a person can hear this medal has a coca leaf on it, thats kinda cool before they are driven to summoning an Elder God in order to end all existence.

Despite its best efforts, Wildlands can still be fun (with friends)

Somehow, out of the cocktail of mediocrity that the game serves up, Wildlands still manages to be kind of fun in partnered co-op. Hopping into a party, bantering with friends and taking down sicarios is pretty much the only way to enjoy playing the game.

With the exception of the day/night cycle, the entire multiplayer experience was disjointed. Weather conditions, radio audio, and incidental chatter was delivered locally, rather than synced across all players in a session. It could be a torrential downpour in my instance of the game while the sun was shining brightly in yours. But in spite of that, the multiplayer experience is what initially sold me on the game.

Cooperative play set a tactical atmosphere that solo play missed. While AI squad mates wandered around of their own accord, getting in the way of my tactical plans, real-life companions and I were able to coordinate our efforts more explicitly.

Everything except stealth missions were easier with human players because we had specialized our Ghosts skill trees. My co-op partners skillset was best suited for vehicle combat, so he often drove. My Ghost was far better at reconnaissance, so I would scout ahead with my drone, marking targets and blowing up small groups of sicarios along the way.

Were not booking a return trip to Bolivia anytime soon

Ghost Recon: Wildlands is an enormous departure from what makes Ghost Recon a reputable tactical squad-based shooter franchise. Beyond narrative fluff, the three AI Ghosts are indistinguishable from one another. Gone are the series staple of individual commands for squad members and the teams specialized skills in favor of a trite story with an empty, repetitive world. The mish-mash of ambitious, poorly executed ideas detract from what could have made the game truly great.

Sniping is a lot of fun. And roaming the gorgeous Bolivian landscape is absolutely breathtaking, no matter which province you find yourself in. But Wildlands myriad missteps are experiential landmines that blow up in your face in almost every province, with immersion and enjoyment suffering as collateral damage.

Amanda Farough has been writing about video and tabletop games for a number of years. Her tastes are eclectic and varied, with a love for strategy and action. You can find her on Twitter at @amandafarough, where she is likely shipping her Overwatch main, D. Va, and Lucio. You can also find her previous work at her personal site.