What Have You Been Playing... IN APRIL 2025?

Oy, April. Some people like Spring; I'm not one of them. It's not so
much the changing weather or light, it's the heat. I remember Springs
not being so oppressively warm in years past. If it was all bluebells
and 15C degrees, I'd be thrilled... but it's birds tweeting cheerfully
at 3AM and 25C and I'm miserable. Maybe that's why I didn't do as much
gaming as I usually do.



Short
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* Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
* Star Wars Jedi: Survivor



Long. So very, very, very long.
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* Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Even at my most generous, I can't say that "Fallen Order" is a _great_
game. But after the disappointment of "Star Wars: Outlaws", I didn't
need a _great_ game. I just wanted a good one, and "Fallen Order"
certainly categorizes as that.

It's biggest advantage, as I see it, is it's level design. Namely, it
actually has levels as opposed to one giant open world. There's just
so much less pointless faffing about, because the developers aren't so
desperate to fill their massive creations with something --anything!--
to do. That's not to say the levels in "Fallen Order" are small; there
are four primary worlds to explore (and three smaller mission-based
ones) and each one has numerous nooks and crannies to explore. But the
level design --while still allowing some exploration and looping back
onto itself-- is far more linear. Admittedly, there were a handful of
times I was stumped as where to go next because the way wasn't clear,
but on the whole the game signposted the correct path admirably.

The gameplay of "Fallen Order" is a cross between third-person
action/adventures like "Uncharted" and the combat of Dark Souls,
except softened in both instances. The platforming is fairly
straightforward, with different areas gated by powers you only get
later in the game (similar to many a Metroidvania). The combat is the
usual dodge-block-strike of any Souls-like, except without the sheer
and nasty difficulty. It's not that it's an easy game, but "Fallen
Order" is a lot more accessible and the difficulty curve is much more
generous.  The incredible mobility of your character --you're a Jedi,
so you can leap and bounce around the arena like a coked-out
superball-- gives you a lot more maneuverability to avoid incoming
blows. The combat is almost entirely melee based (no blasters --or
even crossbows!-- to take out enemies from afar) but the game is
fairly generous with the size of its arenas. There were some instances
when the enemy crowded me against the wall, making it all but
impossible for me to see anything (and thus impossible to block) but
these were rare occasions.

Beyond that, it's all a fairly humdrum affair. There's a bunch of
cosmetics to discover, if you've a desire to smarten up your
appearance, but beyond that --and the XP you get for discovering the
secrets-- there's little reason to leave the beaten path. You won't
find any awesome weapons or powers for your trouble; all the necessary
tools are drip-fed to you as you progress through the campaign. The
story certainly isn't going to dazzle; it's okay as far as it goes
(it's the usual Star Wars claptrap; 'stay true to yourself and your
friends and everything will work out') and the voice-performances are
good enough, but there's no real depth to it. It's not the sort of
narrative you experience a second time and discover hidden facets you
missed the first time.

If it sounds like I'm blasting this game, though, think again. Like I
said, "Fallen Order" isn't great, but it _is_ good. It captures the
Star Wars mythos fairly well, and its mechanics --if lacking in
innovation-- are good enough. It's a competently put-together game
that doesn't insult the player by pretending to be more than it is, or
waste their time with tedious make-work. It might not appeal to
everyone, but if you like Star Wars or Souls-like, then "Fallen Order"
is for you.



* Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
I wasn't really intending to play "Survivor" again so soon. I last
played it in February 2024, and while I generally enjoyed the game, I
thought it a distinctly less polished experience than "Fallen Order",
and I had no real desire to go through it again any time soon. But
after playing "Fallen Order" to clear the taste of Ubisoft from my
mouth, I figured what the hell; I might as well finish up the series.

"Survivor" is a clear example of what I've termed a "kitchen sink"
title; a game where the developers throw in new mechanics solely for
the point of adding new mechanics, because we as gamers expect that in
a new game. It ignores (or at least, fails to understand) the balance
of ideas that made the original so memorable, adding new complexities
because to do otherwise --to release a game without new features--
would seem lazy on the part of the developers. It's an unfortunate
Catch-22 for developers --they're damned if they do, damned if they
don't-- but it's an understandable choice only escapable if you're a
/great/ developer, or simply refrain from making sequels.

It doesn't help that the developers decided to (mostly) avoid the
usual trope of 'bag of spilling' the hero between games; at the end of
"Fallen Order", you've gone through an epic Hero's Journey, starting
from a powerless apprentice and ending up a full fledged Jedi Knight.
Many other games would reset the clock, stripping you of all those
hard-earned powers at the start of the next game, but "Survivor"
leaves (most of) your abilities intact. This left the developers less
room to maneuver; they couldn't spend most of the game having you
re-learn all your powers, and so were forced to invent new ones. I can
admire the reasoning that led to this decision, even as I regret the
outcome.

Because all these new abilities added to the game don't really make it
any better. It just makes everything more complex. It's like changing
Chess so that every time a Knight takes a queen, three enemy pawns are
spawned. It would certainly add some new flair to the game, but it
wouldn't actually make the game _better_. There's a balance and
cleanness to chess based on its relative simplicity that's marred by
reckless additions to the rules.

So too with "Fallen Order"; in the first game, I could jump and climb
my way past obstacles; now in "Survivor", I have a grappling hook,
hang on ceilings, bounce off walls and get launched from balloons, but
it doesn't make the platforming any different or better. It's just...
more. The combat is similar; I've new abilities but if anything it
makes the combat less fun. I was already super-powered by the end of
the first game; in "Survivor" I become a literal god-amongst-men and
the challenge of the game is greatly reduced (the developers strove
against this by making you face off against more enemies at once,
which is admittedly awesome spectacle but just drags out each battle
in terms of gameplay).

Then there's the case of the open-world, which is something the game
absolutely did not need, and even the developers didn't seem to know
what to do with. It's so full of useless stuff to do (like collecting
seeds to grow flowers in your garden, or stones to buy songs to unlock
in your cantina). It's all pointless make-work designed to give the
open-world some reason to exist.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure most people weren't playing the first
game for its mechanics anyway. The game was enjoyable in that respect,
certainly, but had it been a generic sci-fi game, it would likely have
sunk like a stone. It succeeded largely because it was a good Star
Wars story, and this is another area where the game fails. It's story
feels directionless; none of the major characters have any real arc to
their journey (and why should they, seeing as they all completed their
arcs in the first game?), and almost every new character added to the
game varied from forgettable to annoying.

Despite this, I don't really dislike "Survivor". It's a competent
enough game in terms of its mechanics, and --useless open-world
aside-- doesn't really annoy me the way "Star Wars Outlaws" did. But
it is definitely an inferior copy of the first game, with many of its
changes seemingly mandated by marketing rather than any need or vision
on the part of the developers. If "Fallen Order" was good-not-great,
"Survivor" is 'fine-could-be-better'; hardly a desirable outcome for
the devs, but not damning either.

Oh, and one last thing: is it just me or would the titles of these two
games be more suited if they were reversed? The first game is all
about being one of the last survivors of the Jedi Knights, and coming
to grips with the guilt and the new situation you've found yourself
in. Meanwhile, the second game is all about maybe rebuilding the Jedi,
and then deciding that maybe the order as you knew it was ill-suited
for these new times and giving up on the fight to find new ways. The
first game should have been subtitled "Survivor", the second should
have been "Fallen Order". At least that's the way I see it.

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I'm adding an additional game in this conclusion, but not as a game I
played but as a game I very specifically DIDN'T play. It's "AMERICAN
TRUCK SIMULATOR", and it's a title that I fully expected to dominate
this month's gaming, just because a new expansion DLC ("Missouri")
dropped for it at the beginning of the month, and I'm usually all over
those. I bought the DLC day-one, of course; I just didn't play it. Or
rather, I didn't play it for long. I loaded the game, started tooling
about... and almost immediately stopped. Because, quite frankly,
driving about in a game that celebrates America --and ATS does just
that, showing America at its best-- just isn't FUN right now.
Especially not driving around in the Trump-dominated heartlands where
they proudly support the current regime.  It's just not a country I
want to have anything to do with right now, whether in real life or
digitally. And that's incredibly disappointing, because I love the
base game. (Instead, I drove around in "EUROPEAN TRUCK SIMULATOR", but
since there's nothing new for me to say about the game, it didn't get
included in my 'what have I been playing' thread). Sort yourself out,
America... if only so I can go back to enjoying my video games.


Anyway, with that unfortunate (political) digression aside, all that's
left is my usual query with which I end these posts:


What Have You Been Playing... IN APRIL 2025?