Fragalicious

There's a lot to like here. Okay, it's not going to give you god rays, superfantastic hyperrealistic graphics, but if you've looked at even one screenshot, none of this is going to come as a surprise. I've taken to playing more indie games these days, as AAA developers have worn me out with the bloat, the tired plots, the microtransactions, and just all-round general greed. It's funny. I'm usually the sort of person who goes for the most realistic (preferably flight and battle simulations), the most hard-hitting, the atmosphere of dread and panic. My idea of fun is being bogged down by Monolith and mutants in the STALKER Anomaly mod just as the damn gun I forgot to maintain jams on me and I leg it in terror. Often straight into an unseen anomaly. Foom. Well, this is the opposite of that. And I really like it. It's gentle, or at least as gentle as you want it to be. I think I ignored most of my farm initially and went on dungeoneering quests to Fight All The Things! Now, I relax, and farm. I say hi to my friendly chickens, rabbits, cows and goats. I grow trees. I get some nice food going. I visit the special holidays where I get to show off my nifty produce. I do a little fishing. I give people presents and hang out. It's nice. It's actually got a fair bit of complexity to it as well, but dammit, I have a good time, and I feel relaxed for it. Took me a while to learn that you can put hats on horses. Mine has a sailor's cap on, and it's adorable. You see what I mean? It's jolly. It's pleasant. It's quite immersive once you get into it. It's also very cute. But cute isn't *all* it is. It's got a lot going for it. If all that sounds bad to you, maybe you won't like it. Though you might. It's a small download, doesn't take up much space on your hard drive, won't work your CPU to boiling point and it's pretty easy to get into, but has more going on than just what is on the surface. If all that sounds good to you, then have at it. You'll most likely have a good time. I had a good time. I still have a good time with it. No one is more surprised than me.

This is a good age of independent games, and Return of the Obra Dinn delivers well. The basic premise is that of an insurance agent searching an old sailing ship, attempting to identify those aboard, and what happened to them. Essentially, a detective story, and it is done very well. Some cases are easier to solve than others, and I found some situations took more thought than others. Sometimes a little extra thinking goes in, and personally, I found that very rewarding. It's remarkably satisfying when you get it right. The graphics are interesting. On the surface, they seem simple, but they are very effective. If one monitor style doesn't suit you (the default is old Macintosh), there are other options that might appeal more. I found the default works fine, and given I am prone to migraines, but didn't have any issues with this game, I was relieved. There's quite a bit to this game, and it had more depth than I was expecting. The story drew me in, and if you like detective stories or mysteries, you'll probably like this. I've reached a stage where I've grown a little tired of many AAA games being flashy and pretty, even quite big, but lacking that soul, the element of good writing, interesting plots and just something a bit different to the standard "destroy enemy, fetch item, sit through some Hollywood-style lacklustre dialogue", so I'm finding the independent games offer something that older games tended to. In lieu of enormous budgets, special effects, bloated marketing budgets and buckets of hype, the independent arena has offered many games which just do things a little different. I think this is for the best, and Return of the Obra Dinn can certainly be added to the list of smaller (though there's a lot of meat to this one), more independent games which have these qualities. Yes, there'll always be a place for the big pricey hype machines (just as Hollywood films tend to deliver), but it's good to see independent works out there which offer something that simply throwing truckloads of cash can't achieve. And that's some soul. Some writing. Some results that don't insult your intelligence. More of these independent efforts, please. They're hitting the spot nicely.

'Caveat emptor' Look. I've played a fair bit of this. In fact, for the better part of the year, I played a *lot* of this. I enjoyed what I'd played (I've even done the Hutton Orbital run), I have a pile of damn fine ships, plenty of missions, safe, dangerous, easy, hard, everything in between, I made it to Sol, yadda yadda and I left it for a while. Couldn't remember why. I come back to play it this evening, take a quick hop from a base near Mercury to Gorbachev near Earth, land the thing; game drops out. "Can't connect to matchmaking server". In a solo game. Therein lies the problem. This reminded me why I put it down in the first place. For a while, I thought it was because of the grind - it wasn't that. I like simulations, in fact I spend a great deal of time with Orbiter 2016 as I did with Orbiter 2010, as well as many flightsims. It was the fact it's always online. Want to play solo? Sure. But your internet must be connected at all times. Boy, oh boy it had better be one fine internet connection, too. **** you like steep learning curves, fine. If you like space, fine. If you like a grind, fine. These aren't all dealbreakers, if the game is solid. However do bear in mind that *this game requires constant online connection to play*. It might have gained a higher score from me if it worked. Currently, it's a rather pricey bit of plastic. Buyer beware.

There are the fanboys, the haters, then there is everything in between... I enjoyed this. It was pretty, there were side tasks to keep you occupied, but I also spent a great deal of time shouting at the thing. The controls - dear lord, the controls - are clumsy at best, a liability at worst. If you're playing this, save while in open roam (you can't do this in missions, obviously), because you *will* a.) pull a weapon on someone accidentally b.) die due to some janky control mess-up, c.) bump into several people at once and get into a fight, which will escalate out of control pretty quickly. I've been lucky not to have the "punch my own horse" issue that others have with the dicey controls (although I've accidentally pulled my gun on a few shopkeepers), but I've been *very* careful. The horses are so well rendered that I'd be horrified at doing so. Seriously, I think I spent most of the first hour or two of free wandering just hanging out with my horse and trying to make it happy. Probably the best part of the game, really. Just being a cowboy, hanging out with your horse. But boy, is the control issue annoying. It is, unfortunately, something that is unavoidable in lowering the score. The plot, without spoiling anything, is reasonable, but the writing didn't grab me. A great deal of the voice acting, too. I'd put the writing on a par with GTA V, as in "not brilliant, but will keep Hollywood fans amused." I haven't played online, because GTA:O in the end just put me off Rockstar's ethic when it comes to online games now. Look. I enjoyed it. I played it through. I'm still messing about with it now. Will it have longevity? I don't know. It's big, but the clanky controls are a real problem. DLC would help, but the refusal to put such in GTA V suggests to me that Rockstar will rather pump everything into online if they think it'll make them even richer (will there be a Cowboy Card? Who knows?), but I'm hearing that basic items are ludicrously expensive in the online game, so I can be forgiven for being a bit cynical on that score. It is a visual masterpiece (the weather effects are truly stunning, I like the hair and beard growing idea, like Witcher 3 had, I find games are getting better and better at reproducing nature since the early days of videogames - I'm an old guy, so I remember when 8-bit was the height of graphics technology) and while all of this is beautiful, and I quite like just meandering about, I just wish more time that was put into, say morphing horse testicle technology (nope, not a joke, your big fellers spuds will shrink in the cold) was put into writing, characterisation, and making the controls smoother. But this old cowboy is rambling a bit. It's fun. Many people clearly enjoy it and are prepared to overlook its faults for its strengths. You know what? I'd play it just for the horses. They're worth the price of admission alone. TL;DR: - Good plot, could have done with better writing though. - Very pretty. One of the prettiest games I've seen on a console. - The nature effects are magnificent. - The controls are at times frustrating and the general interface can be an issue. - There are bugs, according to others, but I've yet to encounter many. - Some of the voice acting is a little corny. - Some of the characterisation is a bit hamfisted. - Where's my damn poncho, guys?