It continues to be relevant . One of the most helpful tools for me when thinking about games, art, and what sets the 6/10 fan favorites 10/10 crowd favorites.

It was great to hear my question on remap! I took a month off to finish up the end of tax season (Oct 16th) but once work slows down again I'll be posting more. Thank you to everyone checking this page out after hearing about it on their Podcast!

Lies of P // Been There, Done That

Early on in Lies of P, you cross this bridge to the city hall of Krat. It's dark and storming and most notably spotlights shine on a puppet strewn across it's steel beams. A sign is pinned to the body - "PURGE PUPPETS" . You're looking directly at this one specific spot above you to read that sign. It's a set piece fit for trailers. Much later in the game you fight your way up to a Cathedral on a mountaintop. Hours have passed. After completing the Cathedral you receive a side quest to come back down the mountain to this bridge and investigate the puppet hanging from the crossbeam again, but with one very specific difference.

The weather has cleared.

You look up to the puppet's sign and now see St. Frangelico Cathedral tower over the city of Krat. Clear in the morning Sun. This little treasure hunt pointed you towards recognizing the church looming over you. How'd you miss that? During the climb you looked down at the city so it makes sense you would have seen it. It's massive. It makes sense physically. You just didn't notice it.

St. Frangelico was still there in silhouette. Hotel Krat stands out on the skyline in the rain but Lie's of P's world designers chose to pull this punch until you had visited the Cathedral. The weather here, specifically here on this bridge, changes the focus of where you are guided to look at.

Lies of P demonstrates a complete understanding of this kind of world design without being a carbon copy of Dark Souls.

Venigni, an NPC in your home base, sets up shop next to his scale miniature models of the city. Little replicas of city hall, the tramway, the factory. You'll come back and visit his shop often over the course of the game. After you recruit him you begin your ascent up to the cathedral.

The Sun rises for the first time. You take a cable car up the mountain. It's a quiet moment. You look out at Krat in the sunrise. You look past the battlefield to see a city still mostly intact. The destroyed parts become too small to see. Like chips or imperfections in miniatures. Krat is now small, it's warm, it's serene. You can imagine the City surviving this.

You'll remember this quiet moment when you see the miniatures again.

Lies of P (2023) // St. Frangelico Cathedral

Angel, why did you abandon us? The cathedral scares me. I want to go home. Every night, there is a monster crying in the basement. Even if I sing hymns, I can hear it in my ears. It'd be better if the Archbishop was with us, but he's busy praying. Angel, please hear our prayers. Help us go home, please...

Lies of P (2023) // First ImPressions

Lies of P fully commits to Souls-Like in its entirety. It has really surprised me how much I like that. I'm now a couple of bosses in (at the Factory, not very far) and I think this is the most I've liked a non-From souls game. I think it's because the combat feels closer to Dark Souls 1 and 2, before things started moving a lot faster. A lot of folks have been comparing this game to Sekiro and Bloodborne, but I find combat in Lies of P has a much slower pace than these two games. That's more than welcome after playing Armored Core VI where the speed dial is at 11.

The look and overall tone in Lies of P very close to Bloodborne. The assets and animations even make it seem like the cities of Yharnam and Krat are in the same universe. To me Lies of P still managed to draw an extremely interesting and well made world. I love Krat's visual design; the cliffs in the rain, the hotel standing high on the horizon, the workshop's smokestacks clouding the sky. The level layouts seemed more simple than something in a Fromsoft game but it hasn't been something I've had a problem with.

Overall I really have been enjoying it so much more than any of the other souls-likes I've tried. I think a lot of similar attempts will excel in one area dark souls did well and competently fumble something else, but Lies of P seems to not have an outright weak aspect like other souls-likes do.

Lies of P is a game built in the image of Dark Souls - about robots built in the image of man.

It all is working extremely well so far. But also you play as Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. Sometimes it's a little silly and on the nose... but so is a knight staring at the sun and yearning to be so grossly incandescent.

Getting whiplash going back to Armored Core VI after playing Starfield

Starfield trips over itself letting you know all of the quests are chill and good actually. The choices in dialogue range from doing a good deed to doing a good deed… for money😈. The only way to join the Space Pirates is to be offered the chance to go undercover first, making sure you see the Pirate but you’re a good guy option. If a persuasion check with someone fails, leaving you only with the prompt [Attack], your companion will say something to the effect of “woof, that was rough. But you did what you had to do.”

The most recent mission I finished in Starfield was for the United Colonies. You stand in front of a council of bureaucrats trying to convince them to hand over banned archival weapon data. This could help stop a small but growing danger to the galaxy. The council argues that it could also lead to that weapon falling into the wrong hands - It was locked away for a reason. It’s a great moment because it was the first time a character in starfield stood up and said to me No, you are in the wrong here, your research could lead to the weapon data leaking, civilians will be put it danger. ALERT. oh no. ALERT. Just as this conversation is happening an entirely contained but also extremely dire attack occurs. ALERT. You rush out and save the day. The threat is proven to be real and the data is necessary. No more questions about is it the right thing to do. Forget about all that other stuff we brought up, you were right. The whole council apologizes to you profusely. Here, take the nuclear launch codes, and here’s a thousand credits as an apology for insinuating that you weren’t the galaxy’s goodest bestest boy.

Mission 1 of Armored Core 6 is called “Illegal Entry”.

In mission 4 “Destroy the transport helicopters” the helicopters are just that. No weapons. Trying to run from you. The rubiconians who stand between you and the helicopters are defending their families. During the fight the enemies bark about you being the bad guy. After the mission your Dad calls you and says “It’s just a Job 621. All of it.” Throughout the entire game you are flooded with voicemails, calls, voices in your head, that all have an opinion on whether what you’re doing is good or bad or just a job.

Starfield is telling you not to think about it too hard. Armored Core is telling you to think about it. A lot. Screaming at you to think about it. What are you doing. It’s not just a job. The game is talking about your actions through all sorts of different lenses.

It’s stepping out of a lazy river and then immediately riding down Niagara Falls in a barrel. Sometimes literally. You see the same safe boring landing cutscene a million times in Starfield. Twice 621 has packed themselves into a barrel and yeeted it into danger.

I did the math and this folds perfectly into a 2010 Chevrolet Camaro

Handler DeWalter is proud of me

Don’t Rush the Main Quest in Starfield

Absolutely stop telling people to rush the main quest - I understand it gets clicks - if you’re searching for the guidance on quest order because you want better quest quality - When Sarah Morgan walks you to get into from the space marines and they hint you to join them - do it (or if you passed it, go back to New Atlantis and Join at the front counter of MAST). They send you to a museum shouting Lore for People in a Hurry and then after the first quest the UC sends you on you will meet a character that has a much more interesting quest-line than anything I’ve found so far.

Your personal context with American history and geography is what makes Fallout interesting

The museum gives you context for planets you visit in the main quest. Without it, the only interesting place you’ll have heard of before visiting is Mars. It is so important that it blows my mind that it’s not required or just outside the Lodge. There should be a big flashing arrow. Imagine playing fallout and you didn’t know anything about nukes or even countries. The game loves to put you in bio labs and mech garages and it is only outside the main quest that those spaces have any context to them. That bio labs and mech garages are where the escalation of the war happened. It feels like generic space set dressing without it. Starfield successfully gets across the long term effect of war post-hostilities, but if you rush the main missions you’re gonna have miss it.

1-OF-A-KIND SALVAGE // Planet Niira

"Few settled worlds were left untouched by the Colony War, but nowhere could the viciousness of modern warfare be seen more clearly than on the Freestar planet of Niira. Initially occupied by invading United Colonies Forces as a forward operating position, repeated attempts to take and retake the planet by Collective forces led only to devastation. Swathes of the world were transformed into scorched husks, a nightmarish testament to the depths of human ingenuity and human cruelty. Today Niira remains a continuing reminder to the horrors of unfettered war."

The UC's History of the Settled Systems 1st Floor M.A.S.T. Building in New Atlantis, Jemison

Baldur’s Gate players are explaining how beautiful and complex their favorite companion is. How love blossomed over a 100 hour journey. Truly an achievement for writers to craft such a compelling romance. Armored Core VI players:

“That mech called me buddy I’mm gonna bust!”

Armored Core VI is about exploiting one planet's natural resources but Starfield is about exploiting every planet's natural resources

The spirit of the Chao Garden is alive in Starfield.

Even though I have so many criticisms of it, Starfield gets across the feeling I had playing Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and scouring a level for a dragon or a seal or a purple goo tube. So many games that try to recapture what you remember Sonic Adventure 2 feeling like will go all in on the 3D Sonic like Spark the Electric Jester - or all in on the Chao Garden like Wobble Dogs.

It’s so satisfying to go through main levels and bring back materials to work on your settlement or ship builds. I think the spaceship being a completely different gameplay system really helps this feeling as it helps break up regular action focused gameplay much like Sonic Adventure 2 kicking you out to the Garden to cool down after moving 100mph+. For me the survival crafting system feels more like the SA2’s design because you’re able to pick up the materials over the course of regular gameplay as opposed to feeling like you need to go mine rocks and cut down trees.

Every time I get a notification on this post, or if someone uses these gifs, it’s my own personal version of the bell mechanic in dark souls. If someone beats the bell gargoyles and rings the bell - the sound rings in everyone’s game. Congratulations on beating Balteus.

AAP07 BALTEUS (バルテウス)

" ...Enemy systems down. It's silent." - Ayre

All games ask “how can I reuse this asset? how might I trick the player into replaying this level or moving through this space again? It sure took a lot of work to make it.” When I played Armored Core 3 there was a mission to defend a rebel base from attacks on all sides and you have to rush around to manage all the enemies. A few missions later you’re hired by a corporation to put down a labor uprising. I loaded in and it immediately hits me where I am and how well I had learned the space. The corporations couldn’t beat you - so they hired you. It stuck with me as the best recycling of a level asset since flipping the castle upside down in Castlevania. I hit my first mission in Armored Core 6 like this. It wasn’t the same reuse of an exact level that I was expecting but it was still exciting to be on both sides of the conflict. I love the mission structure of the armored core games because it led to this extremely creative solution for reusing maps and spaces.

Just as Fallout asks the question “what if it’s the nuclear age but the transistor never gets invented?” Starfield asks the question “what if it’s the space age but the car never gets invented?”

I stand corrected

You can indeed Baldur's Gate 3 the Enemies in Starfield