PixlBit

I've put 26 hours into Hitman 2016. That would be a healthy amount of time for any action/stealth game. But I've spent that just on the first episode. And there are 7 or 8 of them. Needless to say, I like this game. I've always liked Hitman, since I was introduced to the series with Hitman: Silent Assassin, the second game in the series. On PS2, in an age when games like this (aimed at the PC puzzle solving and immersive sim crowds) were not that common on consoles.  But back to the new game:  26 hours playing the same level over and over again. Not only can you spend a lot of that time figuring out your own way to pull off assassinations and mastering the lay of the land, item placement, NPC schedules and behavior, etc. but there are a host of developer assigned challenges to complete. You'd think after 26 hours and dozens of mission restarts I'd have everything figured out, and I mostly do, but some of these challenges throw you real curveballs and have you going back to pay attention to things you completely overlooked.

So I've had this game for a few months. I wasn't sure about the game, I saw a lot of hand-holdy b.s. in videos, so I waited for a sale, and then only bought the first episode to try out.  I'm ready to invest in the next episode, which is often said to be the most impressive of them all. Can't wait.

Btw, you can turn off most of if not all of the hand holding stuff, but because of the specificity and unintuitiveness of some of the Challenges and Opportunities (basically highlighted ways you can pull off assassinations, offering hints and a sort of waypoint system), they are sometimes required.

Since when I do play games (which isn't often these days) I like to have a coupe different kinds going, I'm looking at Shantae and The Pirate's Curse. I'm in the mood for 2D platforming, and this game looks crazy. I've never tried a Shantae game before, but they have a good rep. The action in this one looks crazier than the others, with all sorts of fast movement, dashes, super jumps, and flashy sword attacks, like Strider or Castlevania on crack. It's one of those "metroidvanias" as you all like to call them, a term I'm not fond of, and I don't even see any RPG elements in it (you know, the -vania part which made SotN more than just a Metroid wannabe). But the combat is melee oriented, so just saying it's "like Metroid" doesn't quite get it either, so whatever, it's fine.

Now something "new" I"m really excited about:

U.S. release date finally announced! If you don't know, this is a Falcom action-RPG in the vein of their long running Ys series. There are two Zwei games, and this is the first one. The second one was released months ago, retitled Zwei:  The Ilvard Insurrection. That one sports  low-res, low poly, 3D rendered graphics similar to latter day Ys games, while the first game has more of a 2D look similar to Ys 1 and 2 Complete, although I do believe they are 3D models with shaders to give it the hand painted/sprite look. I think visually the first game looks far better*. Brighter, sharper, charming, more stylish. I normally don't play games with the cutesy anime aesthetic, but I usually make an exception for Falcom games, for nostalgic reaons. And I know the soundtrack is going to be top tier.

I always like finding these interesting, niche games from other territories. I used to be a big importer of Japanese console games during the PSX era. Now it seems all you have to do is wait and eventually they will come. Maybe one day From Software will release Shadow Tower Abyss here.

Also in the mood for some modern combat/gun porn, so I'm reinstalling Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and updating my BF4. For my money, BC2 mutiplayer has not been bettered by any of the BFs that followed. I put hundreds of hours into it. They got it just right. Hope there are still enough people playing.

*Generally anything sidescrollling or top down I prefer to be or look 2D. Because of the lower budgets and handheld origin most of these games have, if they use raw 3D models they usually look grainy, have crude geometry, washed out textures, etc.