Nantucket

Wow, I had a lot of fun with this one. For the style of game it is, it's quite well done. I loved the map (it was gorgeous), and there were enough random events to keep things interesting, although I have to admit they started to be a bit repetitive in late game. Music was very good as well.

The key to this game, though, is upgrades. As soon as you start playing and you're hiring your first crew, you should be doing so with an eye to upgrades. You can't buy a bigger ship until you've researched specific upgrades, so you need to get on that asap. Keep upgrading until there are no more to be done. After that, you can concentrate on building up your permanent whaling crew. If you grab the jobs available, do regular whaling, and get a good mix of professions in your crew, you'll be swimming in cash and prestige (and have no morale issues) in fairly short order.

One interesting thing about his game is when it was first released, I was thinking to myself that I'd probably grab it at some point in the future when it went on sale. But I ended up buying it almost as a spite move due to a thread where someone was going on about the evils of whaling. The odd part about this is the game, while paying a nod to the 'golden age' of whaling, really served to point out (to me, at least), the colossal waste of the whaling industry. In order to maximize your profits, you really want to fill your hold with whale blubber (and later on turn that to oil), which means you leave a lot of the 'food' (i.e. whale meat) behind. I could almost picture the tonnes and tonnes of carcasses left to rot in the ocean. Not to mention the wholesale slaughter of one of the more intelligent marine species on the planet. Anyway, preaching aside, it had an effect on me.

The story is a continuation of Moby Dick and you play Ishmael (if you're familiar with the novel at all, you'll recognize that name from the opening line), now captain of your own whaling ship. Throughout the course of the game, you gather clues and information that will eventually lead you to a showdown with the great white whale. By the end, my Ishmael was maximum level (20) as were my crew (level 10 is max for them). I had a good distribution of professions so each of my three whale boats were very effective, and had also gathered some rather potent trinkets to help with the final battle. In the end, it wasn't much of a contest. We took old Moby out with only one of my nine crew sustaining any damage at all, and that was from the only hit Moby Dick was able to deliver on any of my three whale boats. Some might view that as anticlimactic or disappointing. I was quite pleased, as I took it to mean I'd chosen a very effective crew with the optimal mix of professions (of course, through the course of playing the game, it will become apparent what the optimal crew is).

About the only thing I didn't like were in a couple of the quests where there were some 'gotcha' choices. By this I mean, there were a couple times where a choice ended up with your captain Ishmael fighting three bad guys all alone. This resulted in the enemies being able to stun-lock your captain and just whittling him down to death with no recourse available to you. There was no indication in the dialog that you'd end up fighting alone (especially since you're exploring the quest line on land with your crew). So there were a couple reloads due to that. (Don't get me wrong, there were a couple reloads other than that as well when I got a bit arrogant and pushed my luck, but those are completely acceptable, as they were totally my fault).

Anyway, I thought this was a damned fine game and well worth the purchase price. Hope to see more from the devs in the future.

FINALLY finished Jak II: Renegade on PS4 two days ago. Motherf...

I very much enjoyed Jak and Daxter which I also finished recently. I had only minor complaints about this 3D platformer. Jak II on the other hand is one ugly ugly game - and I'm not talking about the graphics. How do you make a sequel to an innocent platform game? According to Naughty Dog you turn it into a "GTA for kids" with a dystopian setting where everything sucks, the hero is a growly asshole out for revenge after being continually tortured for two years, you steal vehicles, use guns to kill evil dudes and passers-by and the cynical sidekick from the previous game appears heart-warming compared to everything else. That's Jak II.

It's not the first time I consider a game by Naughty Dog distasteful but frankly it's the most extreme example in one of their games I have seen. I do often enjoy ultra violent games with lots of black humour - my problem with Jak II is how oblivious the game is to its moral implications. First off, it's kinda moronic to go in this direction in a sequel to a perfectly child-friendly game that still looks like a child-friendly game due to its style and lack of blood. Secondly the game is unaware of its moral implications. Characters barely acknowledge that Jak is now a psychotic asshole - there's a few surprised reactions from other characters throughout the game but that's it. Even the resistance fighting for the people don't care at all how many passers-by you run over or gun down in cold blood which makes no sense whatsoever. The only character critical of Jak's new psychological condition forgets all about it once the final boss is dead - with no change on Jak's part. It's the most cynical example of character development I have ever seen.

And mechanically the game is less moral than even the GTA series. There are literally no consequences for killing civilians, you only get into trouble by attacking the bad guys. And you will slaughter hundreds of civilians with the way vehicles are implemented, whether you want it or not. And throughout large portions of the game your only mode of replenishing ammo is slaughtering these almost human enemies. And we're talking about a "T for Teen" game here. Plus, they totally messed up the dynamics of the two heroes. Daxter was the cynical counter-weight to the innocent Jak. Now Daxter is still the "lovable rascal" but he appears tame next to the blood thirsty but boring Jak. In my opinion they pretty much messed up the foundations of this duo.

But is it a good game? No, it is not. It's a pointless sandbox with a city that's not there for exploration nor a fun gameplay area - it's just an excuse for stretching out the gameplay by several hours as you have to pass the same streets over and over again. Ironically the city is the one area where there's no collectables and thus no rewards for exploration which is downright moronic. And a gigantic portion of the game is vehicle sections - the only problem: the vehicles in this game suck. They have shittier handling than Jak 1, they are super floaty, there's no sensible brake (they even removed the handbrake from Naughty Dog's previous games, Jak 1 and Crash Team Racing). And comparably light collisions can make your vehicle explode which is a terrible combo with the handling. Plus the city's architecture is super claustrophobic and the remaining space is almost entirely filled by traffic, there's no fun in navigating the city. You get the minimal amount of space necessary for some okay navigation if you fly on ground level - where you will run over not only legions of civilians but also inevitably some enemies which will cause combat (much like getting two stars in GTA). And the designers decided to include numerous obligatory vehicle missions, including actual races, which are some of the most frustrating and least fun sequences in the game.

But what about the platforming, exploration and combat? Well, the melee combat hasn't really changed at all but you will mostly use guns in this one. It's not really a shooter, though, as much as it is a "3D run 'n' gun" game - you shoot in the direction you run with some auto aiming. It's actually a pretty fun mechanic at medium distances but it's pretty bad at small range, since you can't evade enemies while aiming at them, and it becomes atrocious at large distances. Ironically they removed the ability to shoot in first person from the first game, which would have made more sense in this one than there. Go figure. The areas outside the city play much like the original game at first glance but they are far more scripted and linear, exploration is limited to looking for some secret areas that hold "precursor orbs" which are basically of no relevance anymore - they are only used for unlocking cheats and bonus content. So it's the opposite of what I love about 3D platformers. Now it's mostly simplistic dexterity challenges, ironically much like in Uncharted, rather than fun exploration and using your brains to get ahead. Admittedly the platforming isn't all bad. They improved the character behaviour a slight bit, as far as I can tell, and came up with some decent platforming challenges. However...

Jak II is one of the most frustrating games I've ever finished. The difficulty curve is all over the place, many sections involve lluck, ammo and health drops are sometimes absurdly scarce, occasionally enemies get spammed senselessly and the checkpoint placement is often outrageous - seemingly placed not where the level design allows it but to artificially make the game longer and harder. There were actually areas where you got several platforming, puzzle and combat sections, separated by several cutscenes, without a single checkpoint.

As for the story: it's pretty basic stuff with no surprises or character development, many missions don't contribute anything to it and feel forced into it. And the fact that many missions were of no relevance to anything only made the game drag on and on even harder.

So that's Jak II: a pretty mediocre and superbly frustrating game. I see why people loved it back in the day - it surely was a pretty novel and ambitious game at the time but I like to think that modern gamers, without their nostalgia goggles on, would be less forgiving of the game's many problems. After the first game I was almost sure I'd finish the whole trilogy in one run but after this pile of crap I seriously need a break form the series.

Yikes. Good to know my initial impression wasn't wrong and I didn't miss much in giving it a pass. Thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts in detail!

Glad to see someone actually managed to finish it, I couldn't get past the mission where you had to defeat 4 gunships located across different parts of the city, it's frustrating when your own vehicle gets blown up in seconds. Anyway, Congrats.

Last night I completed Raven: Remastered

What a wonderful detective adventure game. Its very well written, constantly throwing you off predictable path and the ending is so good.

do recommend it for any adventure game fan.

a bit annoyed though that I missed couple of secrets hence for the third chapter i did not get master detective achievement even though i got it for chapter 1 and 2.

Thanks for the review! Sounds really interesting.

That one was actually pretty easy to me somehow and I managed to do it on the first try - my guess would be that you didn't follow that indicator that shows where enemies are. If you use that one you can safely shoot down most enemies before they even get a chance to attack.

Anyway, if that's where you lost your patience then yeah, giving up there was certainly the right choice. There's no way you would've sat through the torture that followed.
Glad you appreciate it. The sad/funny thing is that I mostly write these posts for myself and I kinda do it for professional reasons, lol. Writing these little reviews really requires me to organise my thoughts on a game, so I become more aware of certain issues and it becomes pretty easy to remember more details even many years later. This stuff has actually already helped me with some design decisions.

But of course I always hope that someone is actually gonna read these posts here and they end up benefitting from them - or that they will spawn a discussion.

I do the same as well. I don't always write an in-depth review (in fact, usually, it's a short blurb), but I always check this thread when there are new posts to see what others have played and what thoughts they have on the game(s).

Finished a third campaign of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition in two months time. I had five campaigns going on at the same time, now it's back to two.

This particular completion was with a Blade (a kit from the Bard class), my most favourite class/kit combination in the series, yet this was only the second time I finished the game with a Blade character.


full list

Doesn't BG get boring after having played it so many times? I played it a lot back in the early 2000s...so often I've become allergic to it. Its flaws (like the limited choices in quests) just become too obvious once you know the game that well.

It's my most beloved game, so no, it doesn't get boring. Does a loved one get boring after being married for years because he or she has flaws?

edit: and unlike real-life spouses, Baldur's Gate got Enhanced and there's tons of mods to improve and modify the game.

Well, they often do, divorce is very common, and many men swap their wives who've gotten old and ugly for younger women.
Which mods do you use? I've only really liked some parts of Quest pack (the quest about infiltrating the harper base is much improved with it, in its vanilla form it doesn't make much sense, since you've got to betray the harpers to advance the Jaheira romance).
I would have liked to try the Nalia romance (finally a romantic interest who isn't some kind of elf!), but it seems that there'll never be ToB content for it.

@morolf: my staple mods include Stratagems (formerly Sword Coast Stratagems), CDTweaks (formerly BG2 Tweaks) and Rogue Rebalancing for tweaking.

Content-wise I always use NPC1Project, mini-quests and encounters and the Sirine's Call, mixed in with NPC mods when I want to take a particular character or two. There used to be a lack of NPC mods for BG1, though Finch was excellent and Gavin as well. The Enhanced Edition sparked new life in BG1 and there's more variation of possible NPC mods now, though none are as well-written as Finch. Even if Finch is non-romancable (or maybe because of it), of all mod NPC's I'm most fond of that shy gnomish librarian.

BTW, you're talking about mods for Baldur's Gate 2 while I am speaking of Baldur's Gate 1 as my most beloved game of all. For me the game is finished when I've defeated Sarevok. Only 3 times did I finish Shadows of Amn (BG1 7 times, BG:EE 7 times as well), but it takes me much more stamina to get through it, as the hurdle becomes big with the number of spell choices and the number of spells needed to defeat the enemies grows while you progress through higher levels. Throne of Bhaal I never managed to finish, far too overwhelming (the last is a big hurdle even without the Stratagems mod).

Sorry, I had missed that. I prefer BG1 in some ways as well, the general atmosphere is much more charming, story is better than in BG2 imo, and I like low-level gameplay better.
I've never played much with BG1 mods apart from Unfinished business, getting that Tutu mod to work seemd too difficult. Maybe I should get the Enhanced edition eventually. Thanks for your reply!