Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is fun to play, but feels like a ... bit of a stretch, in a few ways.

For one, the fact that everyone on the moon is Australian. Yeah, we get it, this installment was made in 'straya. And the claptrap unit trying to do a robotic accent is a funny touch. But the overwhelming amount of Aussies in this game - just about everyone, except characters that were already introduced in other games - makes one wonder if Pandora had been using its moon as a prison island.

For another: the moon mechanics of managing oxygen and doing high jumps. The mobility options actually make for some "interesting" combat twists, like ground-pound attacks and mid-air direction changes; but they feel out of place in a class-based RPG. What I mean is, these mechanics feel at home in a Quake-style arena deathmatch -- and in Borderlands, when you get one-shotted by an enemy ground-pounding on you like an angry meteorite, it doesn't feel too great.

For yet another, the setting of the moon just isn't that interesting, at least so far. Borderlands 2 started in a barren, bleak glacier area, before introducing all sorts of other diverse and exciting environments. It seems like we're still stuck on the moon's equivalent of that glacier area. (I really hope we find a new area soon, with less of these goddamned kraggons.)

And finally, the Pre-Sequel's attempt at characterizing the party feels like a miss. Clever idea, to involve party members' voice-acting directly in quest banter (as opposed to having NPCs talk to each other). But Wilhelm's script is deliberately terse and uninteresting, which just leaves me wondering ... if a different character had talked to the quest-giver, would we have heard a more compelling story? (And at the same time, did the length or quality of the story suffer from having to rewrite so much, for six different characters?) As a storytelling tactic, I don't think that this paid off.

My co-op partner and I are still having fun blasting fools, and the madcap sense of humor is entertaining enough to push us along the Pre-Sequel's story. But the overall quality certainly doesn't feel like it measures up to that of Borderlands 2.

Progress: Level 11

I'll walk back some of my previous sentiment about Shadow of the Colossus "recapturing" the original game's charms and quirks. That is to say, not all of this game has aged well -- the open world really wore on me.

It's pretty, for sure. The environment's beauty is very impressive ... for a few seconds. Then what? I have to ride this dumb horse all the way around the map, occasionally re-plotting my route to get around a mountain or a ravine, and there's nothing else to do* except continue trying to find that next colossus. This world feels too big, for how little is in it.

(* There are some character-boosting pickups that you can collect, although I didn't even know about the majority of them until I'd finished the game. And really... fruits and lizards don't feel like they're adding anything worthwhile to how the game works.)

The contents and structure of this oversized world don't even contribute to the game's lackadaiscal story. That story is nothing but bookended cutscenes, an overlong, tedious intro matched by an overlong, tedious ending; neither of which meaningfully connect to anything that happened during the game. (All the ending really does is make oblique reference to Ico.)

The last decade's worth of open-world games have gotten better and better at weaving content into their maps -- most poignantly (and recently), Breath of the Wild struck a really elegant balance between beautiful, serene landscapes and diverse videogame activities. (When I was riding out to meet a colossus, I often wished that I'd find a bokoblin camp or a circle of suspicious-looking stones.)

I don't think that the stark emptiness of Shadow of the Colossus's map is critical to its overall theme. If this wasn't a remake - that is, if it was a wholly original 2018 production - I'd really have expected, at the least, some extra bits of lore to dot the landscape.

I'm picking on it a lot, but Shadow of the Colossus still isn't a "bad" game, or even an unremarkable one. Even today, there isn't much out there that can out-do its "colossus" feature; progressively hunting, evading, solving, climbing, taunting, and slaying such uniquely intimidating bosses.

And I can't get away with not mentioning the epic, awe-inspiring soundtrack. The thrilling score feels like a vital part of that colossus-climbing gameplay.

But while back in 2005, the colossi were the highlight of an inventive, fascinating package of a game; now, they feel a bit more like pearls resting in a crusty old clam.

Better than: Brütal Legend, Grow Home (and the original)
Not as good as: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Toki Tori 2+
There is a New Game +, but...: I'm not that interested in doing all the same fights over again. Maybe in another 10 or 15 years.

Progress: Finished on Normal.

Like Ōkami HD before it, the new Shadow of the Colossus excellently recaptures both the magical highs and the irritating lows of the 2005 original.

It shouldn't be terribly surprising that this remake of Colossus looks and runs much better -- given that the original was such a strain on the PS2, throwing more hardware at it is certainly helpful. But this remake goes beyond higher resolutions and framerates; new art and animation techniques make it remarkably, sometimes breathtakingly beautiful. It's not as stylistically impressive as Ōkami, but still looks pretty damned good.

The introductory story sequence is rougher than I'd remembered. Not just for being obtusely mysterious, but for how long it is. I seriously don't remember Dormin droning on so much, and I think the game would have been better-served to just skip it and drop you into the world immediately.

The openness of that world was staggering, back in the 2000s, and it's a little less-so today. So many other open-world games have come and gone, and this world is so comparatively empty. It's not generally "bad" - merely unengaging - except in a few cases where directions to the next colossus are ambiguous, and you get lost in a world that has nothing else to do.

That happened to me on the 8th colossus, and even after I looked up directions from the interweb, I still couldn't find that damned cave entrance for like half an hour. As elegantly simple as this game's sword-shining navigation is, I think it could really stand to be modernized like BioShock Infinite's path-finding arrow.

And the horse is still a pain to ride. No surprise there.

But when you actually reach a colossus, the whole journey feels redeemed, and the genius of the whole game's design shows through. With some exceptions for a few unreasonably arcane colossus behaviors (which thankfully Dormin's hints tend to help with), the process of mounting and scaling and methodically taking down a colossus feels as incredible as it ever did. They're so organic in their behaviors, and yet the puzzle-like design of their weak points is so mechanically satisfying.

That said, my biggest worry about this remake was the controls, and they're still frustrating to deal with at the most inopportune moments. When a colossus is trying to shake me off its back, and my grip is failing, it isn't unreasonable for the view to shake or for my button-presses to become less effective. But it is unreasonable for my grip to get stuck on the wrong material (because my "grab" went in an unexpected direction), and for the camera to insist on showing some other part of the colossus entirely.

The challenging aspects of the game's controls are fine, but there are still some behaviors, especially with the camera, that just feel broken.

So, like the recently-facelifted Ōkami, Shadow of the Colossus remains imperfect. But its beating heart - the colossi fights - is intact, and I'm itching to stab more stone giants in their big furry heads.

Progress: Felled the 8th colossus.

Considering it's a completely-free visual novel, a lot of things about Red Spider: Vengeance didn't surprise me -- like the typos, the simple art, the unpolished UI, and the laughably bad sound effects. But there were two big things that really did surprise me.

The first was that it told a pretty good story! Granted, some of the dialog (and inner-monologue) lines could use some cleaning up, but the plot and the characterization are all in line with real, commercial-quality crime drama. Its Hong Kong setting and crime-syndicate themes feel just as evocative as Sleeping Dogs did, even though this game is text-based. And at around 80 minutes of reading, the length feels on par with a full-length film.

The second thing that surprised me was that I made one choice in my entire playthrough. It was fairly early on (maybe around the 10 minute mark), and the rest of the game simply played out as I clicked through the text. Despite there being plenty of obvious opportunities for the main character to make a decision - as well as a handful of scenes that could have been quick-time events, in the style of a Telltale game - almost all of this story is non-interactive.

(According to the in-game "route map," there was a second choice that happened even before my first. But either by bug or by design, there was only one option for me to click on. I suspect that the second option doesn't become available until playing through the first option's storyline.)

As much as I admire this story, I'm really not interested in replaying the whole thing to experience five more variations of it.

... That said, I am slightly curious about the prequel.

Better than: Hate Plus
Not as good as: Analogue: A Hate Story
Debatably better than: The Walking Dead, in terms of narrative quality.

Mandagon is a brief experience -- I played through it in 36 minutes, and even got all the "hidden" achivements without trying. And it's not a complicated game; nor is it thrilling, nor very thought-provoking.

But it's serene and relaxing, and exploring its single, Tibet-infused level is exactly engaging enough to sustain that running length. (And it's free, which is good.)

It's no Uncharted 2, but Mandagon's short trip to a snowy mountain peak is pretty satisfying, for what it is.

Better than: Escape the Game
Not as good as: Dyadic, I guess?
And...: this isn't a promotional demo for a paid game? Feels surprisingly "zen."

While the most striking thing about Glyphs Apprentice is how terrible its user interface is, the second-most striking thing is how uncannily it resembles Opus Magnum. Not only are there programmable arms that can grab alchemical elements, rotate, and extend or retract; the elements can also bind to others, and transform into ... familiar variations.

Today I learned: both games are based closely on some of Zachtronics' pre-Steam work. Huh.

From my limited time with it, Glyphs looks like it has a couple of advantages over Opus Magnum -- more puzzles, and more complexity in its later puzzles. And while my biggest gripe with Opus Magnum was how "simple" it felt... this feels like the wrong kind of complexity.

It's the kind that gets lost in that terrible UI, for one thing. There are so many permutations of tool type and of elemental variety, and they are all blue. The only visual distinction between one thing and another is a few low-detail lines.

There are a number of tutorial-level puzzles with extensive help text, but these are so prescriptive - click this button, now click these buttons, now confirm that it looks like this example - that it only teaches how to use the game, not how to understand it.

For whatever faults I'd ascribe to Zachtronics' more recent games, one thing they've continued to get right is the Miyamoto style of teaching: progressively enticing you to discover the tools you need, reinforcing each lesson with a feeling of accomplishment. Glyphs instead barks out directions, and hopes that by gradually barking less, you'll learn to recall previous barkings.

Outside of the puzzles themselves, Glyphs doesn't appear to have any redeeming aspects. There's zero story content, and there's no soundtrack. It's quite dull. C'mon, even SpaceChem had some smooth background music.

As with Silicon Zeroes, my biggest takeaway from Glyphs Apprentice is a renewed appreciation for how professionally-produced Zachtronics games are. And maybe it isn't fair of me to ignore the amount of content that Glyphs is offering -- but given the quality of its competition, I just can't take it seriously.

Progress: Did a few of the tutorial puzzles.

Considering it's a fan-game that's clearly ... inspired by Ace Attorney, Regeria Hope brings a couple of surprisingly-fresh ideas to the table.

The first is testimony selection: You, as the defense attorney, can help script your client's testimony. He may plan on some statement that could, uh, damage the case, which you can rephrase or remove entirely. It's an interesting twist on Phoenix Wright's prescribed dialog - imagine if you could actually tell Larry Butz to be less of a goddamned idiot! - albeit limited to a pretty small portion of the trial.

The other is that you can intentionally throw the case. Which is, ehh, not great in terms of a defense attorney's story. But I suppose that part of the game author's grand plan is a Telltale-style branching story? Maybe it would be more significant in a multi-chapter career mode, ... but this feature is hard to appraise in only a single episode.

And aside from those new ideas, this first episode of Regeria Hope is mostly what you'd expect of Phoenix Wright fan-fiction. The plot is pretty-well telegraphed, the dialog has its fair share of typos, the Unity-default GUI is just-a-bit shameful, and the narrative isn't as much "branching" as it is a branch of what the author thought seemed interesting.

If Regeria Hope's author can iterate on this strategy, then I might really look forward to a Phoenix Wright rival. But in the meantime, Hope seems pretty-well sequestered to "fanfic" - and if you're looking for a prosecutor-versus-defendant adventure with credentials, Aviary Attorney is a better bet than this imitator.

Better than: Phoenix Wright: Asinine Attorney, an officially-sanctioned fan-game disaster.
Not as good as: Aviary Attorney, a fan game with its own intriguing characters and plot.
Really, author: You can do better, if you recognize that the strength of Ace Attorney isn't suits and ties, but the interaction of uniquely interesting characters. Larry was a great foil for Phoenix because their childhood friendship conflicted with the Steel Samurai case. How can you make me care about Brock 'En Hart? What's my motivation?

I may only have played Dark Souls for about two hours, and The Surge's demo for less than an hour, but ... wow, yeah. This sure looks like a modern sci-fi reskin of Dark Souls.

Are all "souls-like" games this uncanny? Where save points restock your healing potions, and respawn enemies you've killed? Where you lose experience points when you die, but can recover them from your corpse? Where there's no in-game map, and bad guys jump out from behind a wall to slice half of your health bar off? ... Is it always this specific?

As with Dark Souls, I didn't mind the high-risk combat so much as I did the mazelike levels and "no in-game map." A hologram told me to go to some place, and although the areas I'm walking through all have names, I really couldn't tell you where I was going or how far to the next bonfire medical bay.

I compared Dark Souls to VVVVVV, which is a little ironic in this light -- because VVVVVV championed plentiful checkpoints. When I die in The Surge, I have to repeat several minutes of wandering through uninteresting wreckage, and high-stakes, resource-constrained combat.

I hope this isn't what all "souls-like" games are like.

Progress: Did not finish the demo.

I should probably note that I tried playing The Witcher some years back, but quickly bounced off of it. The animation quality was distractingly bad - like that time I tried New Vegas after having finished Skyrim - and the controls were just a mess.

As for Witcher 2, well, the animations are a lot better.

...

I really want to like Witcher 2, and for the most part, I do! The writing lends weight to some darkly interesting characters, the environments are beautifully engrossing, the combat-preparation mechanics are unlike anything I've really seen before, and the basic swords-and-sorcery stuff more-or-less works.

So I'm putting up with the controls. The moments when I have to press a button twice before something happens; or when I have to struggle to point the camera at an item pickup; or when the camera moves itself in a way I really can't agree with; or when melee combat with multiple opponents is just a silly clusterfuck; or when I want to equip an item in my inventory, and the menu interface just, absolutely, goddamned, doesn't work at all. I put up with those moments.

(It's a good thing that the game automatically put me in Easy mode, because otherwise I'd be dead, like, all the time.)

And I should be a little discerning in my praise of the game's writing. It somewhat frequently betrays the franchise's literary roots, by telling events in an order that would be cool - in a book - but is maddening in the context of player choice. (Read: having to select Geralt's dialog without knowing who or what he's talking about, yet.) And it sometimes suffers from the same misleading-dialog-option problem that I keep pinning on Mass Effect, where Geralt and I have differing opinions on conversational etiquette.

But in spite of its flaws, Witcher 2 is compelling due to the strength of its characters and events. I'm genuinely interested in what Geralt has to say. I'm curious about his companions' motivations, and intrigued by the mystery he's stumbled into. I want to learn more about his gray-soaked fantasy world, and I want to see him deal with the relatable, human evils throughout it.

Since I'm playing on Easy, I'll also enjoy mashing the 'X' button to sloppily eviscerate my inept enemies. And maybe, given enough practice, I'll even figure out how to equip my off-hand sword.

Progress: Finished the prologue.

Reaper of Souls's plot isn't as terrible as the core game's - after all, what could be? - but it's still fairly dumb. I mean, I know we're talking about somewhat-trashy gothic power fantasy here, but at least the events of Diablo II felt consistent within the established world. Seven evils, Horadric staff, no one cared about Izual; pretty straightforward stuff.

Reaper of Souls turns the main game's "black soulstone" into a deus ex machina, more than once! The reaper Malthael's relationship with the angelic pantheon is just as groan-worthy as the "nephalem" garbage-lore. And the ending is so terse and anti-climactic, it's like it was picked out of a hat.

But hey, there's no Leah, so ... yeah, not as terrible as before.

My previous concerns about the trivial campaign difficulty were not abated by Act V. The final boss did succeed in making me pay attention to my health bar; but I still didn't die, nor did my companion. (Again, this was in the "Hard" difficulty.) And he dropped loot for above our current level! So I'd definitely call the game's definition of difficulty pretty suspect.

I know the whole point of Diablo is to continue climbing the loot ladder, and I've heard that the current game's Nephalem Rifts and Adventure Mode features are way better than previous iterations' Nightmare and Hell mode bullshit. But the early rungs of this ladder are unsatisfying and overlong. I'm not going to keep climbing on the gamble that it will eventually become fun.

Better than: current-day Diablo III
Not as good as: I remember Diablo II: Lord of Destruction being.
As for potential follow-ups: I lost interest in Torchlight II, and a brief try at Path of Exile didn't grab me... but I've heard good things about Grim Dawn? At any rate, more Borderlands is next on the schedule.

Progress: Finished the campaign on Hard.