¡Recently, Abandoned; Games!

Demon's Souls (PS3)

The first other From game I tried after playing Elden Ring. They have a reputation, but after soloing all of Elden Ring with shieldless melee I thought I was prepared for taking on the challenge. I was wrong, at least in the case of Demon's Souls.

I knew it would feel stiff and clunky and dated compared to Elden Ring, and I'm fine with taking it for what it is on its terms. I mean, I have to do the same whenever I go back to playing Ocarina or whatever, and I'm fine with that too. It was a little rough getting used to at first, but after adapting the stages became very manageable.

Can't say the same about the bosses though. I've heard people say this is the easiest From game because you can stack up an absurd amount of health items, which is true but doesn't mean anything if a boss doesn't let you use them. Phalanx was fairly easy, Armor Spider was manageable after a few tries, but Tower Knight was a nightmare, I was stuck in that level for 8 fucking hours. With boss checkpoints it wouldn't be a quarter as frustrating, but of course you respawn at the beginning of the stage every time. Yeah, I can get through the level without getting hit by now, can I please just skip this? The levels are fine for going through once or twice, but after that it becomes just horrible tedium.

I hoped that was an outlier, but now I'm stuck at Flamelurker who's even worse. He seems to take as much damage as Fire Giant, and to make matters worse he gets more aggressive the lower he is on health. I'm now stuck in a "gameplay" loop where I chip away his health pixel by pixel for 15 minutes, then late in the fight he goes completely berserk and stunlocks me to death with a relentless flurry of explosions, and then it's back to the beginning of the stage to take another few minutes just to get back to him. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

And so I'm still stuck at the 4th boss 17 hours in. I hoped I'd like this game more the more I came to terms with it (like I did with Elden Ring), but it just got worse and worse every hour I played. It wasn't like playing a game anymore, just a terrible chore, and I almost stopped playing games altogether because I dreaded firing up the PS3 again. It got so bad I decided to give up on it and move on to Dark Souls Remastered because what's the point in just ruining my day?

I was afraid Dark Souls would just be more torture, not least since everyone said it's harder than Demon's Souls, but thankfully I can't confirm that. I think after 21 hours I'm already a third or half way through, I've defeated 8 bosses and I'm happy to say that so far they're a lot easier than those of Demon's Souls. Like, a lot a lot, only 2 of them took more than 3 attempts, and even they weren't remotely as bad as Tower Knight and Flamelurker. And generally, I find it a great improvement in pretty much every regard and it's generally much more enjoyable--although to be fair, it is a remaster that I play at 4k60, in contrast to whatever Demon's Souls runs at on the PS3.

A few final thoughts:

- It was surprising to see just how many of Elden Ring mechanics were already in place here. I knew it would be quite a few, but it was even more than I expected.
- Stage design already shows some of the trademark complexity, although not nearly on Dark Souls' breathtaking level, at least not in the early game.
- I do like the style of the game.
- But it's too fucking dark! It can be difficult to even see enemies further away than 2 metres, let alone read them. It's really over the top.
- No soundtrack during stages is very disappointing, it would go a long way to have more mood/atmosphere, which would have made even the tedium more enjoyable (although tbh, the Nexus theme is the only track I liked so far). Sadly, Dark Souls does the same.
- Farming for healing items can go to fuck. Thank the heavens for Estus Flasks, one of the best things Dark Souls did.

Gods I hope your Tower Knight nightmare wasn't just due to missing the stairs where you could kill all the archers, trying to beat him while being pelted by arrows would be understandably dreadful!
Flamelurker is one of the hardest bosses in the game and better fought after beating 3-1, 4-1 and 5-1. Basically do the first level in all five worlds (well second in World 1 Boletaria) before attempting the second in each.
Maybe return after Dark Souls as the atmosphere in worlds 3 to 5 are unparalleled and a shame to miss.

The quality of Dark Souls does drop off in the later portions of the game unfortunately. If you've hit the Demon Ruins and met the plane of copy pasted Taurus Demons you are at a low point for sure.
The DLC areas and bosses are great, though you may still struggle with the time between runbacks on attempts against the difficult second dlc boss.

...and abandoned, just boring and overly obtuse (which if I find a game to be is enough for me to quit) map and lack of direction.  Second quit of the year, oh well.

Abandoned a few lately, just couldn't find the enthusiasm to continue:
Encased - a Sci-Fi RPG Adventure (or something) - meh. I like an X-Com-like turn based tactics, but this ...it ain't. Too much texts, too many menus. Setting not very interesting. Just didn't grab me.
Biomutant - well, I made certain progress but the constant narration starts to annoy. Also, too many hazardous environments, the rodent drowning too often (cannot rodents swim though?). Although the premise is interesting, I just couldn't be bothered. Nice visuals though.
Generation Zero - a post-apocalyptic RPG where you shoot robots. The reviews are right, it is structured more like an MMO. Which I don't do.
The Swedish countryside is nicely done though.

Probably dropping Assassin's Creed Unity. I really enjoyed the Ezio trilogy but gave up with 3 as I didn't like the setting or Conor and haven't touched the series since. Thought I'd give this a try as I liked the thought of exploring revolution era Paris. And that part is great. Controlling Arno though feels like a real chore, with him constantly deciding to just stop, fixed to a random chimney or so suddenly barge a guard out of the way whilst running. It might be due to rose tinted glasses, but I remember Ezio being a more fluid.

The Ubisoft-ification is massively intrusive as well. Loads of in game currencies for upgrades and gear. Massive invasive tool tips and icons all over the HUD. And constant reminders for co-op which I have no interest in and is probably dead 10 years after release anyway. Additionally annoyingly co-op related is that that appears to be the main way of getting skill points, locking out a lot of upgrades I assume.

Meh.

Dropped The Quarry. Not sure why I even bothered, these walking sim/horror games are definitely not for me.
Well, at least I finished the introduction part though the only creepy thing were the characters' faces. And the policeman.
Couldn't even finish watching the story recap on YT, it was such BS.
LOL.

Are any games for you? You've abandoned 5 in the last week!

MolarAm🔵
Ha, yes I'm currently having a blast with FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage and also .
What's wrong with abandoning games anyway. It saves you time.

I remember when Infinity Blade was supposed to come out on Xbox One with Kinect controls. I wonder what happened to that.

I looked around and it seems it actually does exist and still available, but it was only ever released in China. Weird. Don't think anyone still has an Xbox One Kinect anyway.

Downloaded High on Life. Some of the dialogue is funny, but the purple gun you start off with is obnoxious. The shooting itself is PS2 era bad (Halo excluded), and the first boss fight was a bullet sponge.

Uninstall.

"Azure Sheep Enlightened" Half Life mod: As it turns out I might have unintentionally played a newer version of the mod as various models and features are different. In any case, the premise is a lot like Blue Shift and some parts of the game are quite a bit like Half Life 2 - Episode 1. There are a few new weapons, though nothing too interesting. Some nice levels, but also quite a few very bland ones and way too many identical doors only some of which open. Some decent encounters and some semi-decent original voice-acting. Lots of getting stuck on NPCs.

I would probably have finished it, as it isn't too long, but I did run into a few crashes and bugs and the training mission couldn't be finished for me. I eventually ran into a required NPC that completely refused to follow me and even after I got him to walk a few meters after reloading a few times, he just stopped again...

Hopefully there'll be less of that with the next mod.

probably giving up on Horizon: Zero Dawn (figured I'd try that as it was cheap rather than getting the sequel).

It's visually very nice and I love the setting but I was finding the gameplay a bit infuriating. Things are just too dense, feels like you can't go twenty paces without another pack of enemies just being there.


Also gave up on FF12, the grid system makes me annoyed.


Also gave up on Alan Wake 1, combat was getting tedious.


Interestingly, I seem to quit games around the 12 hour mark. Wonder what I'll give up on next.