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Hellblade II Reviews
Hellblade 2 getting unanimous praise across the board with critics. The combat has been improved in all of them. Say it is better than the first game. Puzzles are apparently much more interesting and better, but I did see a few reviews complain about the newer puzzles. I think those was boiled down a personal preference though. The game is about 7-10 hours long depending on difficulty and if you bother to do all the side paths.
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BTW @CriticalGaming and @FakeSympathy, Hellblade II is about 9 hours long. So there you go.
Nintendo Acquires Hogwarts Legacy Port Studio From Embracer Group - IGN
Nintendo announced today that it's acquiring Shiver Entertainment, the company behind the Nintendo Switch ports of Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat 1, and more.
I played about 2.5 hours of the game before work this morning so I'm either 50% or 25% through the game. I hope it's only 25% because nothing has happened yet. The first 35 minutes was slowly stagger-walking around a beach while the voices in my head told me how shit I am. Then I finally got some combat which lasted about 30 seconds before it was back to slow walking through another area. I then walked around a burned village and solved a "look at the thing" puzzle, before some combat in my brain happened, and the game showed me how to get a collectible. Then I walked through another part of the village where zombie-men where killing people before finally jumping into a battle against dude after dude.
Through out this there were several painfully slow sections of crawling under or through things that I couldn't help but feel like they were only there to drag out the run time. Senua can sprint during exploration sections but it's more like a causal jog and her normal walking speed is very slow. Partly I think this slow pace is so that the voices in your head can run through all their dialog before you get to a new section, but it serves to remove all player agency out of the game. It feels like you aren't really in control until combat and everything else is just forcing you to look and listen to everything before you get to "play" again.
That being said the combat isn't great either. Senua is ill-fitted to be a warrior. She's weak, and scampers like a cockroach, each swing of the sword is a lumbering effort for her and it feels like you aren't winning battles because you played well but more because Senua got lucky and your opponent fucked up. It's rare for a game to make you feel like a bad player even when you win so I guess that's a new trick. However when you start to fight sequences of battles one after the other, often against the same guy you just beat which doesn't feel great, though to be fair that could be in fitting with the theme of making you feel crazy.
The game might technically take 8ish hours to complete, but I feel like the actual content is far less thanks to the many many slow tight space crawls you have to do throughout. Senua's slow pace does little more than add to the runtime honestly.
The good news is the game is beautiful, runs flawlessly on my system, and the sound design is pretty fucking fantastic. I wonder why MS didn't do shit to promote this leading up to release.
I don't think the game itself is very good, but it's got a pretty good presentation. I can see why journalists are loving it though because it doesn't ask for much from the player and since these journalists often hear voices in their head to, it's also pretty relatable to them.
Also it's short and I frankly don't blame game journalists for liking that.
Personally as someone who increasingly likes less and less types of games while liking the ones I do like more, I'm actually down for longer games.
For something like Hellblade- I quit on the first one because I could not deal with the environmental puzzles. Pointing my camera at trees for a half hour matching crosses was not my idea of a good time. And I understand why the voices whispering mean things at you is cool in concept and affecting for many, I found it annoying after 10 minutes.
Maybe if one day the sequel appears on PS and then it goes on sale I'll check it out because I do like the idea of it and I'm not opposed to a "narrative" or "cinematic" experience. But still $50 for a fancy 9 hour walking sim? Come on...
I feel like the game being graphically incredible, and also being short is what's earning all the points in terms of review scores here. Combat has no depth or strategy (unless a talent tree unlocks in the back half), puzzles are extremely basic, there is no real level design because it's just linear hallways for the most part. So the graphics, audio, and length are doing all the heavy lifting here imo.
Gotta justify those graphics! The first game sold at thirty dollars digital and forty dollars physical when it released.
Working as intended.
Yeah, sounds like Hellblade 2 is one of those play-once-but-never-touch-again type of games, just like the first game. It's gonna be a deep sale or sailing the high seas for me.
Guess it's not just publishers consolidating. Until all are IGNbraced
www.gamesindustry.biz
IGN Entertainment acquires Eurogamer, GI, VG247, Rock Paper Shotgun and more
IGN Entertainment has acquired the Gamer Network family of digital brands for an undisclosed sum.As a result of the acq…
www.gamesindustry.biz
I will disagree with Luke on one thing: I.
'd still take Hellblade 2 over TLOUS 2 any day of the week. I rather deal with 5-9 hours of semi misery, then fourteen hours of full misery porn. He's entitled to how he feels, and he does have a few points. Though it's obvious he had way higher expectations than presented. As for Microsoft, their expectations are so lofty, flimsy, and ever changing, that nobody should really expect anything better from them at this point. The fuckers don't even know what they want anymore. Neither does Sony for that matter.
Considering how worse Eurogamer got, that's not much of a loss. I'm not defending the acquisition, but i'm really not gonna miss anybody from there. It's IGN absorbing its European self.Guess it's not just publishers consolidating. Until all are IGNbraced
IGN Entertainment acquires Eurogamer, GI, VG247, Rock Paper Shotgun and more
IGN Entertainment has acquired the Gamer Network family of digital brands for an undisclosed sum.As a result of the acq…
True, but still pouring one out, out of nostalgia for their halcyon days.
Maybe they can even take over Kotaku? Infuriating hot-takes aside, Kotaku is apparently in shambles right now.Guess it's not just publishers consolidating. Until all are IGNbraced
IGN Entertainment acquires Eurogamer, GI, VG247, Rock Paper Shotgun and more
IGN Entertainment has acquired the Gamer Network family of digital brands for an undisclosed sum.As a result of the acq…