In its first few hours, Witcher 3 felt "good," but not spectacular. Not a revelatory experience that overtook my expectations, like Breath of the Wild; more like a better-written (and better-voiced) iteration on Skyrim.

A meaningful improvement, certainly, over Witcher 2. Combat is a lot more accessible, as it sticks to simple and intuitive attacks from the start, easing very slowly into things like bombs and oils. The menus, particularly for managing character inventory -- so much better than before. And maybe the most important enhancement, given my last moments with the second game, is frequent auto-saves. (I also haven't encountered any crashes yet, fingers crossed.)

But I wasn't blown away. Despite being an open-world design, it didn't feel like I had all that much freedom: the starting area of White Orchard wasn't all that big, and as I trekked around Velen and Novigrad, all the quests I picked up were way, way above my level. It seemed like the only way forward was to continue the main story.

I wanted to do some exploring first, though. So I continued wandering the map, trying to find side-quests and activities that a lowly level 5 could pull off. And as I hopped from town to town, gathering quests, collecting intel, and Gwent-ing quite a bit, the hooks sank in.

What I initially observed as "better-written than Skyrim" turned into much more than that: a comprehensive approach to world-building, steeped in gritty fantasy. Talking to cynical peasants, wandering through dingy towns, stumbling across burned caravans, finding a note about a treasure heist next to a thief's rotting corpse... there is so much detail in Witcher 3's world, and it isn't just for the sake of aesthetic beauty, nor just to put checkboxes on a map. All of this content builds up an intimidating and immersive theme, with craftsmanship that makes Skyrim look, by comparison, bare and mechanical.

I still wonder if scaling enemy strength (like The Elder Scrolls) wouldn't make the map feel more open and free. At least in Witcher 3's first several hours. But having gotten over that hurdle, now, I have no doubt about the quality of this open world, and the joy of exploring it.

And that's all without saying anything about the incredibly engaging and intriguing main storyline.

Nor about Gwent, which may be the sole topic of a future post.

Progress: Level 9, helped a witch track an elf through a cave.

My misgivings about Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel centered around its creative shortcomings and ineffectiveness: the new features weren't engaging, the new enemies weren't fun to fight, and the "new" story and characters weren't exciting or surprising. Claptastic Voyage suffers in the same ways. While it attempts to mix things up with a cool TRON aesthetic, it crumbles under the weight of nonsensical missions and grindy encounters.

The story's focus on Claptrap is pretty regrettable, similar to games like Jazzpunk and Matt Hazard -- while aiming to lampoon annoying tropes, it ends up succumbing to them. Not just because there are too many Claptraps and they all talk too much, but because of the world elements inspired by Claptrap. I mean, pop-up ads! Obstacles that suddenly rise from the floor as you walk. Flying robots that whizz around and obscure your vision. Stuff like this is just brazenly un-fun.

And while these elements may have been meant to punctuate the flow of the story, that flow is just ... awful. The main quest should be simple, but is stretched out by a series of contrivances; every time it feels almost over, some new, seemingly-random plot device appears to steal the objective away. It doesn't help that so many of the levels are either generic glowy cubes, or rehashes of areas from previous Borderlands games.

(One level, near the end, did make really impressive use of gravity-defying geometry and boost pads. That part was great. The rest really wasn't.)

An unfortunate consequence of this uninteresting game world is that my partner and I were utterly uncompelled to do its side-quests. And this, in turn, meant that we were underleveled as the campaign moved on. For the most part, this wasn't a problem; enemies with flashing red skulls were still no match for us.

The final boss, though, was a tiring chore with an unreasonable health bar. ... and then it turned out, that wasn't the final boss. The "real" final boss was an even bigger bullet-sponge, and its attacks destroyed us almost instantaneously. (Fun anecdote: as Wilhelm, my partner used the Termination Protocols skill to die, revive, and immediately die again back-to-back for about a full minute.)

We could have gone back to do an hour or two of sidequests, and probably stand a much better chance in that fight. But neither of us cared enough to keep playing.

Claptastic Voyage is basically competent, and - with the exception of that final boss - about as enjoyable as the middling, mediocre parts of other Borderlands games. But its ambitions above that, few as they are, fall.

Better than: Borderlands 2: Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt
Not as good as: Borderlands 2: Sir Hammerlock vs. the Son of Crawmerax
I probably shouldn't get my hopes up for the next Borderlands: but I really want someone to come up with a blend of action and humor that lives up to Borderlands 2.

Progress: Got to the ECLIPSE boss, and died a whole lot.

It's been about eight-and-a-half years since my last go at a Final Fantasy, and some parts of FF XV looked kind-of appealing to me: like driving a car around an open world, and fully real-time action combat.

The demo makes a pretty poor case for it, though. What passing interest I might have had is dead and buried, now.

Combat is kind of a mess. It has shades of tactical precision, in being able to parry some enemy attacks, and "blindside" enemies by hitting them from behind; but the mechanics feel skewered by the optional lock-on. You can choose to lock aim onto a target, and be unable to see most of your surroundings - like other foes about to surprise-attack you - or you can stick with free movement and aiming, lose the ability to teleport strike, and swing wide due to the awkward camera. (And, maybe I missed it, but there didn't seem to be any way to switch my lock-on target once the game arbitrarily selected one for me.)

Plus, since your AI teammates reposition themselves liberally, the enemy's facing direction is effectively random. I had fun using the teleport strike, but everything else about combat just felt chaotic and sloppy. (For better or worse, the encounters in the demo were so easy that these problems never made it difficult.)

The open world is kind of a mess, too. It's certainly pretty-looking, but actionable elements are incredibly sparse, and traversing it is a chore. The car can't go offroad! (Invisible walls stop you!) And walking/running between points of interest takes forever. It seems like your entourage's banter is supposed to make these stretches less boring, but all they ever had to say was filler text; none of it was interesting to me.

And the story and pacing - not that I expected much - is ... kind of a mess. You've got your ambiguously evil "empire" and obvious foreshadowing of war, you've got your ancient prophecy and royal lineage of magic, you've got your fish-out-of-water protagonist and his childhood friend(s) guiding him along; it's a smattering of various clichés, plus the flat characterization and stilted dialog (and awkward voice acting) you'd expect of a Japanese RPG from last decade. And of course, the cutscene-heavy exposition that has come to define this franchise.

Frankly, in terms of "sort of realistic but also wacky and fantastical" worlds, Super Mario Odyssey's New Donk City was better-executed than the locales and "humans" I saw in the Final Fantasy XV demo.

The emptiness and boredom of the open world is what disappointed me the most. My fondest memories of older Final Fantasies are largely around exploring their world maps, and being enticed by far-off sights or hunting for hidden secrets; the map I got had to explore here just felt like butter scraped over too much bread.

Progress: Finished the demo.

Back in, wow, January?, I had already resolved to skip over a lot of Witcher 2's gameplay - the combat, basically - in order to enjoy the story. So, after my last post, I strolled around the town of Flotsam looking for sidequests and colorful NPC chatter.

Then the game crashed. And when I brought it back up, almost an hour of my progress was lost. There were no autosaves from when I'd crafted and equipped items, entered and left buildings, or acquired and made progress in quests. Ugh.

Over the following few months, I told myself that I'd muster up the patience to try again. But I never did. I recalled that Skyrim also screwed me out of progress a handful of times, such that its quick-save became a reflex -- but Skyrim was actually fun to play. Witcher 2 just wasn't. The fun was in seeing larger world events unfold, and in hearing Geralt give some NPC a dressing-down; all the rest of the game just felt like a chore between story beats.

So I watched a movie of the game's cinematics, instead. (And, props to this movie maker for some impressive direction and editing, particularly in the mid-game sidequest montage.)

As for watching Geralt's story play out, well... "enthralling" isn't exactly the right word, as the movie's cinematic chops suffered a bit from clipping bugs, and from wandering NPCs pulling accidental photobombs. And I never got completely comfortable with the fantasy slang that Iorveth kept spewing out.

But the game's narrative strengths were still plainly evident, especially how it blended swords and sorcery with, not just political intrigue (Game of Thrones has that cornered) -- but the more mundane, day-to-day evils of human behavior. No one in this story was purely heroic, and few were purely villainous; their shades of gray were demonstrated quite well, and their characters often made quite relatable.

I'm glad I got to watch that story unfold, not just as preparation for Witcher 3, but also for its own sake. CD Projekt deserves to be proud of the narrative world-building that they've pulled off. And I hope that the next game keeps me from relying on recorded playthroughs to experience that.

Better than: The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, basically better than Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (which was way more functional but just not interesting at all).
Not as good as: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
From the minutes I've played so far: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is at least not as bad as its predecessor in terms of bugginess and incomprehensible controls.

Only a month or two after saying they would have a release date - and, you know, a couple years after their initial estimate - Shaq Fu 2 is finally dated. I guess I can appreciate that, after this project's tumultuous history, they really wanted to be sure of the date before announcing it.

And ... wow. I like the over-the-top irreverence angle, a'la Marlow Briggs -- but this gameplay looks like a lot of bland, undercooked shit.

Sure, it's only the first level, but I still have to wonder: will all of Shaq's moves be restricted to 2D targeting, like beat-em-ups from 20 years ago? Will the screen always look so empty, with the camera zoomed out to show unremarkable environment art? Will the whole story be relayed by animated cutscenes and disassociated, throwaway voice-overs? And is that coin pickup art and sound from some royalty-free asset pack?

That said, there are aspects of this game that do seem impressive. Somebody got Shaquille O'Neal to record a flavor line saying "I hate crates!"

I think that this could be a good game to drink my way through.

Dull, repetitive, boring, camera problems. Well, that's a shame.

From watching gameplay footage, it looks like - although trash-clearing and civilian-rescuing technically constitute "gameplay" - Extinction took a pretty direct route from proof-of-concept to retail release. Reviews agree that the ogre fights become redundant quickly, and that the game's world and characters simply aren't compelling. Not much meat on these bones.

I still like the premise, the elevator pitch of Extinction -- if it was surrounded by more robust mechanics and world-building, like a Shadow of Mordor or Breath of the Wild. Maybe a sequel or a spiritual successor will push the needle further.

Oxenfree wasn't perfect, but it was thrilling and exceptionally memorable. More than a year later, I still fondly recall its endearingly-anxious characters and "creepy-shit" (my words) storytelling.

Add a dash of neon-backlit hell, and -- yeah, Afterparty looks like something I want to play.

When I tried replaying it last year, I neglected to consider - or maybe just forgot about - the impact that HBO's Westworld series has on revisiting Red Dead Redemption.

It's oddly reciprocal, since the show is so up-front with its videogame inspirations -- when the incoming guests talk matter-of-factly about the freedom of Westworld's sandbox, and the fun of playing it "straight evil."

(I recently started re-watching it; season 2 is coming up!)

Everything about Westworld's starter town of Sweetwater, from the train-ride prologue to the NPC quest-givers, is evocative of the same kind of destiny-manifesting experience that Red Dead strives to deliver.

And what's kind of amazing is ... the show does it better.

RDR, pretty early on, makes it clear that this is John Marston's story. There is some freedom in its grandiose wilderness, but the fetch-quests and bandit-hunts are ultimately just distractions from John's true path. A path which includes chatting about Ms. MacFarlane's family history, and some poorly-controlled cattle herding.

And it would be unrealistic to expect different from Red Dead Redemption 2. Character-driven campaigns are Rockstar's "thing."

But the promise of Westworld is a more Bethesda-styled sandbox, where you never know what might be waiting for you at the end of a particular trail. The world is seeded by its designers, and has its own tales to tell, but still feels personal and emergent when you stumble across an outlaw gang and talk your way into joining them.

It's hard not to look at RDR and yearn for that architected-yet-free frontier. HBO's depiction of a western open-world just makes it harder to go back to John Marston's.

Judged on its own, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is a good-enough game. It's zany and flippant, it's got a healthy variety of enemies and weapons, and the RPG-lite random-guns formula works well ... just like it has since the first Borderlands.

But it's disappointing how easily TPS is eclipsed by its predecessor. The campaign is not only shorter, and not only lacking in environmental diversity, but also just plain uninteresting. By the time the NPCs and special abilities and random weapons really start to heat up, the story is practically over.

Its additions to the franchise don't feel that worthwhile. The limited-oxygen mechanic isn't meaningful. The butt-stomp attack isn't fun to use. Low-gravity levels are occasionally cool, but feel under-served by the game's level design. (Works best with boost pads!) The laser guns -- okay, the laser guns are pretty radical. I hope those stick around for Borderlands 3.

And as for the narrative, it varies between lazy and uninspired (returning characters like Wilhelm and Nisha get roughly 30 seconds of new backstory), and trying too hard (Handsome Jack's character arc is about as graceful as Anakin's distaste for sand).

Again, TPS isn't a "bad" game; headshotting fools and scrounging for upgrades is as fun as ever. And the lasers are sweet.

But as a follow-up to Borderlands 2, it feels distinctly phoned-in.

Better than: Borderlands, as far as I can remember.
Not as good as: Borderlands 2, or really even Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep.
And not that I'm getting my hopes up, but: maybe the Claptastic Voyage DLC will compare favorably to Borderlands 2's often-lackluster expansions?

Last month, I lamented the protracted development period of - among other Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects - Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn. As if the original game wasn't enough of a joke, this sequel project had claimed to be "99% there" over a year ago, before going silent.

Recently, a wild update appeared, encouragingly titled: "Finally we are getting close to release!"

We wrote the game over three years ago and had not [sic] idea what history had in store for the world at that time. As a result, we had to change certain narratives because things got a little Nostradamus as the months unfolded. Some major plot changes meant we had to rework certain sections of the game that had a huge impact on the story overall.

I wonder if their story was about President Donald Trump killing Princess Leia. I really hope that I can eventually see a making-of featurette about this "little Nostradamus" game that they'd intended to release.

Anyway -- so I guess this update means that Shaq Fu 2 finally has a release date!?

You can expect a new trailer and release date any day now.

Well, that hasn't happened yet. Hell, maybe it'd be funnier if it doesn't happen.