What are you currently playing?

[hanselthecaretaker]

Got the Best in the West trophy for 100% completion in RDR2 last night. That was a big one, but ironically enough it’s still not nearly everything needed for the Platinum. Last I checked there’s 28 more animals to study and skin for two separate trophies, then there’s the Gold ranks for missions which I’ll have to replay most of the game for since I only got a few of the 70 needed.

As enjoyable as it’s been overall (there have been some ridiculous aspects to some challenges and collectibles resulting in expletives to be sure) I’ll be looking forward to smaller games before getting into my other large open world backlog. For example, not sure when I’ll jump back into The Witcher 3...pretty sure no earlier than mid winter.

 

[happyninja42]

Ghostrunner Full Version

*said in the voice of Mr. Torgue from Borderlands*

HEY KIDS!! DO YOU LIKE MIRRORS EDGE?!?!?

DO YOU LIKE GENJI!?!?!

DO YOU LIKE RUNNING LIKE A TECHNONINJA BADASS AND CUTTING DUDES IN HALF IN COOL ASS BULLET TIME?!?!?!

WELL HAVE I GOT THE GAME FOR YOU!!


*coughs* Sorry about that.

So yeah, this game is super fun. It's definitely one of those "does one thing but does it well" kind of games, but damn am I enjoying it so far. I'm a sucker for cyberpunk, I lub me some ninjas, and I love me some freerunning. So yeah, this scratches a lot of itches for me.

Not much to really say beyond what I said in my review of the demo, as it's basically "that, but more of it." The upgrade system is interesting, and it will help if you have at least some basic tetris skills...yes, seriously, tetris blocking has at least 2 different functionalities in this game, so brush up comrade!! You basically have a limited space to slot in the upgrade shapes, similar to say, your inventory in Deus Ex: HR/MD, so squeezing as many things in as efficiently as possible, is helpful. But, it's also a good idea to leave some stuff empty, as the more free space you have in your core, the faster your bullet time ability Blink recharges, so there's a give and take.

I like the personality of the Ghostrunner so far. I was expecting him to be a soulless, typical gruff dude, and he is to an extent, but he does have some shades of personality that I really enjoyed. Like at one point, you are talking to a new person, and they offer their help to you. At first I expected him to be all gruffy mcgruffface and say "I work alone, I don't need your help" but no....he just firmly, and without hesitation states "Yes." His tone even sounds like he is quite happy with the idea of assistance. Another point he makes a call about something that person informs him of, without any hesitation, to show that he has empathy and humanity still. It was a nice little touch I felt.

Combat is nice, if a bit limited, though it's still early so I haven't unlocked much. But there are several tricks that will make some of this stuff a lot easier. Dying is going to happen, a lot, but the respawn is super friendly, so you never really lose a ton of progress, as the checkpoints are frequent.

And the music, oh fucking hell the music. Just, so much driving awesomeness of synthwave techno. It's so good, I'm constantly bobbing my head while running.

But yeah, solid game so far.

 

[Dreiko]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey was on my radar for a while but recently the super duper dlc version was on sale for 20 bucks so I jumped in. First game in the series I've actually tried.

So far, I'm really enjoying the way the world feels. That early bit with Leonidas was super epic and I love my eagle pal and everything. Also it's interesting how they did the writing and voice acting in the game. Everyone has this accent that's kinda hard to place, it's not like a Greek person speaking English but more like a Greek American speaking English, where there's some Greek grammar stuff and a random word thrown in but more or less it's English. My accent isn't nearly so heavy though, so they're like, recent immigrants to America or something, that kind of accent level lol. Something nice they do is encompass how sometimes you say one word in one language and the other moment in the other language, like when you're calling the horse one time it's "on our way" and the other it's "ela" which to me is just normal but then I pause and notice that the game did this thing I always do myself. It's kinda trippy and fun.


Though something interesting is that they're using the roman names for the gods, when everything else is actually pronounced in the correct way and not in the americanized way you usually find in games. I guess calling Zeus Dias would just confuse people and the roman names are too popular in the wider culture so they went with them.


Oh and all the malakes they throw around, that's also incredibly hilarious. Not exactly historically accurate, but appreciated still XD.



But yeah still trying to figure out if I'm supposed to sneak around or just run in and fight everyone fairly. I feel the game often tells me to sneak but I enjoy the combat gameplay more so I tend to just rush those malakes face on lol.

 

[Dalisclock]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey was on my radar for a while but recently the super duper dlc version was on sale for 20 bucks so I jumped in. First game in the series I've actually tried.

So far, I'm really enjoying the way the world feels. That early bit with Leonidas was super epic and I love my eagle pal and everything. Also it's interesting how they did the writing and voice acting in the game. Everyone has this accent that's kinda hard to place, it's not like a Greek person speaking English but more like a Greek American speaking English, where there's some Greek grammar stuff and a random word thrown in but more or less it's English. My accent isn't nearly so heavy though, so they're like, recent immigrants to America or something, that kind of accent level lol. Something nice they do is encompass how sometimes you say one word in one language and the other moment in the other language, like when you're calling the horse one time it's "on our way" and the other it's "ela" which to me is just normal but then I pause and notice that the game did this thing I always do myself. It's kinda trippy and fun.

But yeah still trying to figure out if I'm supposed to sneak around or just run in and fight everyone fairly. I feel the game often tells me to sneak but I enjoy the combat gameplay more so I tend to just rush those malakes face on lol.

Michael Antonakos(Alexios) is Greek but has lived in Canada since the age of 3. Melissanthi Mahut(Kassandra) was apparently born and raised in Athens before moving to Canada later.

Apparently Ubisoft had them go through some language instruction(like it often does with these games), which has been awkward in some games where the accent doesn't really fit the character(Such as Shay Cormac in Rogue whose Irish accent isn't great). I found this amusing also.


As for the game-play, unlike the earlier games where you're supposed to be sneaky, Odyssey(and Origins) you can play either way and Odyssey particularly you can spec for a silent vs. "Loud" play style. Be aware there are some boss fights where you're literally locked in a room with the boss and stealth is pointless so knowing how to fight is a must regardless.
It's a very long game and you'll need to hit L50 to access the DLC so by that point you'll have more then points to spec however you want(and you can respec at any time as well, though it costs some (in-game) money every time you do so and the amount will increase each time.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Platinum'd This War of Mine. Fiddled around with other stuff, decided I wanted to keep playing TWOM, now I'm going through all the character campaigns. Thankfully I'm at the point where anything that isn't Day 1 Winter feels like a walk in the park. I'm on Day 17 with Katia/Bruno/Pavle and it's been a smooth ride so far.

 

[Dreiko]

Michael Antonakos(Alexios) is Greek but has lived in Canada since the age of 3. Melissanthi Mahut(Kassandra) was apparently born and raised in Athens before moving to Canada later.

Apparently Ubisoft had them go through some language instruction(like it often does with these games), which has been awkward in some games where the accent doesn't really fit the character(Such as Shay Cormac in Rogue whose Irish accent isn't great). I found this amusing also.

Yeah I had the feel they were very careful in both how they picked the VAs and how they wrote their dialogue because it was very on point. Also all the random ancient greek you hear people spout as you walk around is good too. I knew all those years of mandatory ancient greek I took in middle/highschool would eventually pay off!

Btw I'm only like 8 hours in (well "only" since I started the game yesterday lol) but I don't see how Alex is not cannon yet since the lady in the beginning lets you pick which char to play as, is it because she's a woman so she "melds" into Kassanrda better? Or some future spoilery thing I'm better off not knowing yet cause I hate spoilers?



And yeah so far I've been kinda only doing stealth when the plot makes it seem the must do thing. I love the combat. The parry window is kinda gigantic so it kinda trivializes 1v1 fights but the feel of impact is very good for even the quick weapons.

 

[Dalisclock]

Yeah I had the feel they were very careful in both how they picked the VAs and how they wrote their dialogue because it was very on point. Also all the random ancient greek you hear people spout as you walk around is good too. I knew all those years of mandatory ancient greek I took in middle/highschool would eventually pay off!

Btw I'm only like 8 hours in (well "only" since I started the game yesterday lol) but I don't see how Alex is not cannon yet since the lady in the beginning lets you pick which char to play as, is it because she's a woman so she "melds" into Kassanrda better? Or some future spoilery thing I'm better off not knowing yet cause I hate spoilers?

Technically it doesn't matter which one you pick. The story/character is the exact same regardless. The canon is more a joke because when the novelization was released they picked Kassandra instead of Alexios, thus Kassandra is the "canon" PC. In game it's pretty much always "The Misthios" or "The Eagle Bearer" and while you may not have noticed yet, pretty much nobody ever uses their actual name when talking to them to avoid have to rerecord certain lines for the NPCs.

And this does lead to some "interesting" situations where Kassandra is allowed to do anything a man could do with pretty much no questions asked, including competing at the Olympics because of video games.

If you didn't know already, the game takes some liberties with known history. Some of it is minor and some not so much. The series as a whole does this but Odyssey is probably one of the most egregious entries and handwaves it as "Well, the DNA was degraded, so we patched into Herodotus to fill in the gaps" on top of the usual "The Templars rewrote the history books so what you're seeing is the REAL HISTORY" and very occasionally "We programmed the animus like that to make it more user friendly" the series loves to fall back on. I've played most of the series by this point so I have a pretty good feel for how nutso this series can get.

 

[Dalisclock]

The Banner Saga.

I started this a while back and decided to pick it back up again, because it's time to clean out my "In Progress" list before moving onto something new. Basically a cross between the Oregon Trail and X-Com(or any number of turn-based tactical combat games) with stats and resource management, it details what's very likely the end of the world in a setting that's very, very Fantasy Nordic/Vikings. The sun has stopped in the sky, Winter has come and a force of armored stone men from the North called the Dredge are invading en masse. The chapters follow a number of different characters, for a while in 2 different groups which eventually meet up and sorta join forces together, which is kinda jarring because it means for a while you'll get used to one group and their warriors(the only ones that matter in the tactical battles) and then have to switch to the other, though this goes away about halfway through the story when the focus switches to one group and more or less stays there.

The atmosphere is top notch, due to the beautiful hand drawn art style and the viking-like music, and the game keeps tension very well, pushing you on because no one you go is safe. You may find a few days respite in a given town or fort but everyone is hurting if they haven't already been overrun, so you're continually forced to push forward and fight battles along the way, sometimes against dredge and sometimes bandits and such. And every so often, you'll be tasked with decisions not unlike a visual novel or a choose your own adventure(albeit a linear one), where choices have consequences(though rarely is something you can't recover from) and scrounging for supplies(without which your caravan will starve) can be a massive problem if you make too many bad decisions.

The plot is also fairly good too, with a couple of good plot twists along the way, the biggest of which is that the dredge invasion includes women and children, which you've been slaughtering without realizing it because they look similar to the men. This quickly leads the characters to realize that the dredge are running from something far worse which has yet to be revealed and everyone south of them happens to be in their way.

My only real issues is that some decisions don't really give you any clue if they the right ones or not, and some can lead to horrific consequences down the line. That and the combat system honestly could stand to be a little better, especially since you're encouraged to whittle enemies down one by one but not kill them since a heavily wounded enemy is often(but not always) far less dangerous than a dead one because of how the system works.

 

[Ezekiel]

Crazy Dash sort of works now that I've moved the Accelerator and Brake to the shoulder buttons from the triggers. Apparently it's because Crazy Taxi was designed for analog controls and Sega ported it to digital controls for Steam. Or something. I just got my Awesome score back with 12,600 points. I'm gonna see later if I can still do Crazy scores (over 20,000).

I really wish they'd make these sorts of time attack games again. They were fun. Jet Set Radio too.

 

[meiam]

My only real issues is that some decisions don't really give you any clue if they the right ones or not, and some can lead to horrific consequences down the line. That and the combat system honestly could stand to be a little better, especially since you're encouraged to whittle enemies down one by one but not kill them since a heavily wounded enemy is often(but not always) far less dangerous than a dead one because of how the system works.

I backed the game when it came out but ended up stopping because of those two points. It just suck when you have decision that just punish you for no reason, one situation has some of your of civilian be lost in a snowstorm, you can search for them, abandon them or build a fire signal. I went with the fire signal only to be told that there weren't any wood around (despite the visual clearly showing many trees) and that the character just decided to default to abandon everyone, not even giving you the option to search for them. And combat is really annoying with the forced turn switching, never played a game where having more enemy and less ally make the fight easier.

 

[Dalisclock]

I backed the game when it came out but ended up stopping because of those two points. It just suck when you have decision that just punish you for no reason, one situation has some of your of civilian be lost in a snowstorm, you can search for them, abandon them or build a fire signal. I went with the fire signal only to be told that there weren't any wood around (despite the visual clearly showing many trees) and that the character just decided to default to abandon everyone, not even giving you the option to search for them. And combat is really annoying with the forced turn switching, never played a game where having more enemy and less ally make the fight easier.

That didn't bother me so much because I realized the clansmen don't do much more then eating your food and because I'd been taking anyone in it was really hurting my supplies near the end.

No, I was more hurt when I got to that point that a certain person decides "Fuck you, I'm gonna mutiny" and kills Egil. This happens no matter what unless you told him to fuck off much earlier in the game and it feels like there's no real way to predict that in a way that allows you to prevent it. Especially since the situation is so muddled it's unclear who is actually on your side there.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Ghostrunner Full Version

*said in the voice of Mr. Torgue from Borderlands*

HEY KIDS!! DO YOU LIKE MIRRORS EDGE?!?!?

DO YOU LIKE GENJI!?!?!

DO YOU LIKE RUNNING LIKE A TECHNONINJA BADASS AND CUTTING DUDES IN HALF IN COOL ASS BULLET TIME?!?!?!

WELL HAVE I GOT THE GAME FOR YOU!!

*coughs* Sorry about that.

So yeah, this game is super fun. It's definitely one of those "does one thing but does it well" kind of games, but damn am I enjoying it so far. I'm a sucker for cyberpunk, I lub me some ninjas, and I love me some freerunning. So yeah, this scratches a lot of itches for me.

Not much to really say beyond what I said in my review of the demo, as it's basically "that, but more of it." The upgrade system is interesting, and it will help if you have at least some basic tetris skills...yes, seriously, tetris blocking has at least 2 different functionalities in this game, so brush up comrade!! You basically have a limited space to slot in the upgrade shapes, similar to say, your inventory in Deus Ex: HR/MD, so squeezing as many things in as efficiently as possible, is helpful. But, it's also a good idea to leave some stuff empty, as the more free space you have in your core, the faster your bullet time ability Blink recharges, so there's a give and take.

I like the personality of the Ghostrunner so far. I was expecting him to be a soulless, typical gruff dude, and he is to an extent, but he does have some shades of personality that I really enjoyed. Like at one point, you are talking to a new person, and they offer their help to you. At first I expected him to be all gruffy mcgruffface and say "I work alone, I don't need your help" but no....he just firmly, and without hesitation states "Yes." His tone even sounds like he is quite happy with the idea of assistance. Another point he makes a call about something that person informs him of, without any hesitation, to show that he has empathy and humanity still. It was a nice little touch I felt.

Combat is nice, if a bit limited, though it's still early so I haven't unlocked much. But there are several tricks that will make some of this stuff a lot easier. Dying is going to happen, a lot, but the respawn is super friendly, so you never really lose a ton of progress, as the checkpoints are frequent.

And the music, oh fucking hell the music. Just, so much driving awesomeness of synthwave techno. It's so good, I'm constantly bobbing my head while running.

But yeah, solid game so far.

It is very playable, like Titanfall 2 mixed with Super Meat Boy/Hotline Miami style difficulty. Unfortunately the PS4 version has some pretty bad screen-tearing along with some weird resolution bug they been trying to patch. At first I weren't sure if it was meant to be an intentional, equally awful "glitchy hud" effect, with how consistent it occurred, but an online browse did confirm the devs are aware and working on patching it. One has been released, but it seems to have only reduced the intensity rather than eliminate the screen-tearing entirely. So while it is clearly a good game, am going to leave it till the next patch to go through properly methinks. Still got Doom Eternal to thank for practicing the art of mid-air first-person camera whipping on a controller though, which came in extremely useful for synching with this game's tempo.

 

[happyninja42]

It is very playable, like Titanfall 2 mixed with Super Meat Boy/Hotline Miami style difficulty. Unfortunately the PS4 version has some pretty bad screen-tearing along with some weird resolution bug they been trying to patch. At first I weren't sure if it was meant to be an intentional, equally awful "glitchy hud" effect, with how consistent it occurred, but an online browse did confirm the devs are aware and working on patching it. One has been released, but it seems to have only reduced the intensity rather than eliminate the screen-tearing entirely. So while it is clearly a good game, am going to leave it till the next patch to go through properly methinks. Still got Doom Eternal to thank for practicing the art of mid-air first-person camera whipping on a controller though, which came in extremely useful for synching with this game's tempo.

Bummer, I'm not having any issues like that with the PC version. The biggest issue I've seen now, after several hours of playing, is that the various surfaces you are supposed to run along, can sometimes be problematic.

Like, it's clearly meant for you to run along this billboard to the next wall, ok fine, no problem. However, they added these little light fixtures directly above the billboard, and you will sometimes jump and mantle onto them, instead of wallrunning. So you lose all momentum, no longer stick to the wall, and fall to your death. A few issues with the various traversal mechanics, like that one, pop up every so often to be annoying, but so far not bad enough to be a serious issue. Frustrating in the moment, but quickly forgotten as you run along on your speedy little ninja feet to the next walking meat sack, I mean guard.

 

[Dreiko]

Technically it doesn't matter which one you pick. The story/character is the exact same regardless. The canon is more a joke because when the novelization was released they picked Kassandra instead of Alexios, thus Kassandra is the "canon" PC. In game it's pretty much always "The Misthios" or "The Eagle Bearer" and while you may not have noticed yet, pretty much nobody ever uses their actual name when talking to them to avoid have to rerecord certain lines for the NPCs.

And this does lead to some "interesting" situations where Kassandra is allowed to do anything a man could do with pretty much no questions asked, including competing at the Olympics because of video games.

If you didn't know already, the game takes some liberties with known history. Some of it is minor and some not so much. The series as a whole does this but Odyssey is probably one of the most egregious entries and handwaves it as "Well, the DNA was degraded, so we patched into Herodotus to fill in the gaps" on top of the usual "The Templars rewrote the history books so what you're seeing is the REAL HISTORY" and very occasionally "We programmed the animus like that to make it more user friendly" the series loves to fall back on. I've played most of the series by this point so I have a pretty good feel for how nutso this series can get.

Oh I see, it's from external content. I did hear a few Alexios here and there but it was during "big" moments, not throughout the numerous more minor ones.

Yeah the Kassandra being a spartan warrior bit (as well as all the other women you come across fighting like it's normal) feels very wrong but it's a game where you synchronize your sight to that of an eagle to scout ahead so it's w/e. I think they're just trying to be SJWs about it by making it so a woman can do everything a man can in a historical context where women were seen as "defective men" to be progressive and woke, but either way if the game is fun that's all that matters, chicks can now get the spatha through the tit too lol.

I kinda had an inkling of the liberties this game took when I saw a gigantic Zeus statue on freaking Kephalonia of all places. I have relatives from there and we'd go swimming there when I was a kid since it's a short distance from Athens so you can make it into a daytrip. Trust me, I'd have noticed even the ruins of a giant Zeus statue! XD

But yeah, I just got my ship and man the naval combat is fun as hell. I love ramming the other ship with that poker that protrudes from the front of the ship. I remember studying about those in history class in like the 4th grade. Fun times. Also I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do all the minor quests or just go kill the "bit target" right away, I just kinda tested my skill and tried to kill him without doing anything that would weaken him and I managed to kill everyone in his building pretty easily but I fear I may have missed out on some content by not doing all the other smaller quests first. I honestly expected the fight to be legit unwinnable lol.

 

[BrawlMan]

Did a quick session of DMC1. Still a fun game, despite being 19 years old now.

 

[Trunkage]

Frost Punk

I did not realise this was created by the same guys as This War of Mine. But it makes sense.

The story line is really stupid. We’ve gone into an Ice Age. We moving from London to a better locale.... and we go North? What? And there is already a fully fledge massive generator built there ready for us? There are multiple generators? But no other buildings? I can’t build an appropriate cave? Why is there so much coal lying around? At least I’m burning enough coal to rectify the Ice Age.

Otherwise this game is fun. I don’t usually knock down the difficulty but I did for this one. I haven’t even finished a normal run yet. I also can’t understand how I sent out teams into the wilderness, no problems. But dig up some coal and now everyone has frostbite. The time on everything is very tight and I liked how you could make laws that improved the city. Like using child labor or dead bodies to keep the healthy people alive.

Fun game. Way more stressful than TWOM. None of the people have any personality though.
8/10

That being said. I bought it on special. And I can’t imagine why I’d spend money on the DLC. It’s way too expensive for such little content

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The Banner Saga.

I started this a while back and decided to pick it back up again, because it's time to clean out my "In Progress" list before moving onto something new. Basically a cross between the Oregon Trail and X-Com(or any number of turn-based tactical combat games) with stats and resource management, it details what's very likely the end of the world in a setting that's very, very Fantasy Nordic/Vikings. The sun has stopped in the sky, Winter has come and a force of armored stone men from the North called the Dredge are invading en masse. The chapters follow a number of different characters, for a while in 2 different groups which eventually meet up and sorta join forces together, which is kinda jarring because it means for a while you'll get used to one group and their warriors(the only ones that matter in the tactical battles) and then have to switch to the other, though this goes away about halfway through the story when the focus switches to one group and more or less stays there.

The atmosphere is top notch, due to the beautiful hand drawn art style and the viking-like music, and the game keeps tension very well, pushing you on because no one you go is safe. You may find a few days respite in a given town or fort but everyone is hurting if they haven't already been overrun, so you're continually forced to push forward and fight battles along the way, sometimes against dredge and sometimes bandits and such. And every so often, you'll be tasked with decisions not unlike a visual novel or a choose your own adventure(albeit a linear one), where choices have consequences(though rarely is something you can't recover from) and scrounging for supplies(without which your caravan will starve) can be a massive problem if you make too many bad decisions.

The plot is also fairly good too, with a couple of good plot twists along the way, the biggest of which is that the dredge invasion includes women and children, which you've been slaughtering without realizing it because they look similar to the men. This quickly leads the characters to realize that the dredge are running from something far worse which has yet to be revealed and everyone south of them happens to be in their way.

My only real issues is that some decisions don't really give you any clue if they the right ones or not, and some can lead to horrific consequences down the line. That and the combat system honestly could stand to be a little better, especially since you're encouraged to whittle enemies down one by one but not kill them since a heavily wounded enemy is often(but not always) far less dangerous than a dead one because of how the system works.

I've been playing The Banner Saga as well.

I finished 1 a couple of weeks ago and started on 2 before my attention was temporarily drawn away by Doom's DLC.

I really enjoy it. Interesting plot and world-building and some pretty fun characters.

I agree that there can be frustration with making choices, but I think that's a design choice they implemented on purpose. You're supposed to second guess all your choices as a leader, and know that even if you think you're making the best choices you always have a limited amount of information and no way to know if what you're doing is right until it's too late. While it's frustrating I also think that it's one of the strengths of the game's story.

Rook and Hakon don't want command, they're tired and they know that any wrong choice is going to get people they care about killed. Making your choices have consequences and forcing you to second guess your choices does a great job of putting you in their mindset.

 

[happyninja42]

Frost Punk

I did not realise this was created by the same guys as This War of Mine. But it makes sense.

The story line is really stupid. We’ve gone into an Ice Age. We moving from London to a better locale.... and we go North? What? And there is already a fully fledge massive generator built there ready for us? There are multiple generators? But no other buildings? I can’t build an appropriate cave? Why is there so much coal lying around? At least I’m burning enough coal to rectify the Ice Age.

Otherwise this game is fun. I don’t usually knock down the difficulty but I did for this one. I haven’t even finished a normal run yet. I also can’t understand how I sent out teams into the wilderness, no problems. But dig up some coal and now everyone has frostbite. The time on everything is very tight and I liked how you could make laws that improved the city. Like using child labor or dead bodies to keep the healthy people alive.

Fun game. Way more stressful than TWOM. None of the people have any personality though.
8/10

That being said. I bought it on special. And I can’t imagine why I’d spend money on the DLC. It’s way too expensive for such little content

Yeah I really enjoyed that game. I have a soft spot for those "try and fix/manage a terrible situation and make it better" kind of games.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Finished off Danganronpa 1. Time to move on to the very improved sequel.

 

[meiam]

I agree that there can be frustration with making choices, but I think that's a design choice they implemented on purpose. You're supposed to second guess all your choices as a leader, and know that even if you think you're making the best choices you always have a limited amount of information and no way to know if what you're doing is right until it's too late. While it's frustrating I also think that it's one of the strengths of the game's story.

Rook and Hakon don't want command, they're tired and they know that any wrong choice is going to get people they care about killed. Making your choices have consequences and forcing you to second guess your choices does a great job of putting you in their mindset.

To me it just does the opposite, since there's no way to know what choice are good or bad it doesn't really matter and you can just pick w/e every time a choice pop up, a random number generate would do just as well as someone who spent 15 minutes weighting the pros and cons of every choices.