Week of 30 Apr 2023
I was in a lull on Sunday, waiting for the release of a new game this week that I wanted to start on Day One. Instead of starting a new game, why not play one of the few open on my ‘tag? I decided to finally plow through the current playthrough of Max Payne 3, which when I’d last left it I was on Chapter 7 out of 14 on Hardcore. I forgot this was the hardest difficulty in the game, but quickly remembered when I kept getting downed to Last Man Standing mode if a gang member even so much as breathed my way. Didn’t take long until I got back into the groove of things and easily knocked out the rest of the game. The key for Hardcore is shootdodge, shootdodge, shootdodge! Are you needing to take out some peek-a-boo dude on the other side of the room? Shootdodge. Is some punk rushing your position? Shootdodge. Got a migraine? Shootdodge. It helps immensely and keeps you from getting hit; using Bullet Time otherwise is almost useless you’ll likely die. But…even with being rusty, it really wasn’t too hard and I finished up this run. Next is Old School, which is easier, and then the big one: A New York Minute mode. Almost time!
Achievements unlocked: 62 (+1) | Completion: 93%
Usually when I’m getting achievements in Minecraft the past few years I’m just loading up someone’s world that has all the achievements setup, unlock them quick, and move on. I’ve had this Nintendo Switch version sitting here for some time and I’d planned on doing the usual routine, but…nah. I played some freaking Minecraft this week! And, wow, speaking of forgetting how to play a game, jeez this game has changed a lot! It’s also just as fun as ever, so it wasn’t long until I was totally lost in just mining and exploring. I managed to get a fair few achievements on stream, and may still get an achievement world at some point, but I think I’m gonna enjoy this one some more before I decide. What’s weirder is that it seems many on TA have issues getting any achievements to unlock, but I had none. Maybe it’s because they tried to use an achievement world? Huh, guess I’ll find out!
Well, later. I got vampires to hunt!
Achievements unlocked: 29 (+27) | Completion: 24%
If you know me as an achievement hunter or have followed my gaming habits, I just don’t tend to play newer games. Whether it’s due to the lack of guides for the achievements, unobtainable or glitchy ones needing to be fixed, or the ever-present danger of future update and add-on achievements, I just don’t bother. And, honestly, I don’t really care enough to play something new since franchises I like either don’t make game much (i.e. Dead Rising) or their entries are years apart (i.e. Fallout). This choice kinda leaves me out of the conversation when people are discussing the “new new” in our hobby, so I decided I’d start something Day One when it hits Game Pass. And since I love a good disaster, I chose Redfall!
I…really wish I could say the negativity swirling around this game is completely unwarranted. Thirty hours in (playing as Remi), I can definitely say this is not the wildly unmitigated disaster like the internet has painted it to be. But, honestly, most critical scores are right around the 40%-60% range, and that’s squarely where this game fits. I find myself enjoying the gameplay loop here and there, the art style and visuals are vibrant (and that wall of water surrounding the island is pretty neat), the gameplay is serviceable, and the premise is cool. But, the game is overall so dull. There are huge pieces of real estate, buildings with multiple floors and rooms with just…nothing in them. Maybe a vampire or cultist or two, but mostly no loot or even one out of the 100 of the game’s hard-to-find collectibles. The crux of the gameplay, the guns, also don’t really throw much excitement into the mix as there are eight types of guns with five quality ranks, but there aren’t cool special guns or really much in the way of variety at all! It just feels so pointless to even try for sweet lootz. This is such a middle-of-the-road game from an up-until-now impressive studio, and I think that’s where a lot of the (as always over-exaggerated) disappointment from the gaming community stems from. I think if this game has a “Game Preview” label on it we’d be having a very different conversation, because that’s definitely where this feels it should be in this state. If you temper you expectations, I think this is a very good time, especially at the length it runs. …And you don’t pay seventy US dollars.
Completion-wise, it’s actually very easy. I’d say I’m pushing the upper range for what the final completion time will be (minus future updates) since I’m searching for the collectibles with no guide, and they’re VERY well-hidden with no way to track them. There're some missable achievements due to mutually-exclusive choices to be made in a few missions, but the game is quite short so a new run with the same or new character isn’t much of a hassle. Even an hour in I already had to make a new character (Jacob this time) and start a parallel run to grab a missed achievement. There are some online co-op achievements, including a 4-player one, but they’re just for playing with someone else playing with each of the four current heroes, so it’s not complicated. So far I’m just about to finish up with all the achievements and collectibles in the first district of the game’s two, separated by a point-of-no-return, so it’ll be interesting to see how the game fares in this new zone.
Achievements unlocked: 30 (+30) | Completion: 45%
I put on my water wings for this!
