Rating of
4.5/5
Apotheon
Sing, O Muse, the tale of Nikandreos!
Apotheon, released in 2015, has been on my radar for years. It was highly recommended by a friend of mine who, like me, studied classics at the university. I have spent much of my life in the ancient world, majoring in it as an undergraduate, earning a master’s degree in the field, and teaching Latin for the past eighteen years. Just looking at the game, I was intrigued, given its unique visual style and inspiration. Its title, for those who know Greek, is a significant hint at the plot and apotheosis of its main character. It’s unfortunate that it has taken me so long to play it, but I am finally glad that I did, removing it from my backlog.
Story (5 out of 5)
Apotheon is set in ancient Greece in the village of Dion. You, the …
Rating of
3.5/5
DiRT Rally 2.0
I played Dirt Rally 2.0 using a racing wheel in first-person bumper cam mode. I didn’t play multiplayer, as it seemed very lacking, and I also didn’t enjoy rallycross, so I didn’t spend much time on it. Over the course of my playthrough, I completed three championships in career mode: Open (1st place), Clubman (1st place), and Pro (3rd place). I unlocked the Elite class but didn’t play it, so I didn’t progress to the final class of Master. In order to move up in career mode, you need to finish 3rd or better in the championship, and since I barely got 3rd in Pro class, I didn’t care to torture myself attempting to get to Master. However, the standout experience for me was playing the historic rallies, which were by far the most …
Rating of
4.5/5
Baldur's Gate 3
From rather humble beginnings to king of the modern-day RPG - or the type of tabletop, party-based cRPG that is the epitome of what the genre should be - Larian Studios has mostly walked their own path. Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel were both original creations - though very much inspired by D&D and the like - so when it was announced that they would be responsible for continuing one of the best non-Divinity RPGs - Baldur's Gate - I was both happy and intrigued. The wait was more than worth it, as Baldur's Gate 3 takes everything that made their Divinity games great just in a more familiar setting. But despite near-universal critical acclaim, Larian had some beef with Wizards of the Coast (who own D&D) and that essentially led to …
Rating of
2.5/5
Zoria: Age of Shattering
I am always on the lookout for the next great cRPG. This has lead me to having a Steam library (and backlog) filled with RPG Maker projects and Kickstarted Indie games that simply don’t measure up to professionally made games or officially sanctioned tabletop RPG conversions. The most recent such game to find its way into – and, in a rare surprise, OUT of – my backlog within a year of its release is “Zoria: Age of Shattering” (“Zoria”), which caught my attention when the Romanian-based Indie studio behind it, Tiny Trinket Games, avowed that it would be a party-based, turn-based game, similar to the greatest classics of the genre. Somehow I seem to have conflated this cleavage to traditional RPG mechanics with being based on …
Rating of
3.5/5
Demon's Souls Remastered
Difficult, Frustrating, and also Rewarding
Demon's Souls is a remake of a game with the same name on PS3. It's a beautiful, difficult, and rewarding game that lacks when it comes to controls and explaining things.
I had never played a game in the "Souls" series before starting this so when I began I only knew a couple things. First, the series is pretty popular and second, that it's viewed as extremely difficult. By the time I finished I understood both of these things very well.
The story of this game isn't that intriguing. In a land called Boltearia an evil presence is taking over. A fog is enveloping the area and there are evil creatures and demons strung about. Once you're in there is no escape and it appears there's a evil being making people like you kill …
