Dave the Diver is a delight. It is also a:

Resource gathering game
Restaurant sim
Rhythm game
Bullet-hell shmup
Mini-game collection (think Warioware, Iron Chef-style)
Farming sim

It is all those things while also secretly advocating that we take care of our greatest natural resource, our oceans.

Don’t waste your time reading any more reviews for Dave the Diver. Just go get it and play. I promise you will finish the first day with a smile on your face.

9.5/10

I sure hope they deserved it. I know some of them did. Some of them, I think, were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’m just going to come out and say it — Starfield is a pretty ok game. It’s almost a really good game. Yes, Bethesda’s game design is getting very long in the tooth but taking that as a given means you at least know what you’re getting. And what you’re getting with Starfield is a game that is MASSIVE in scope. Ambitious, probably too ambitious. I finished the first time “through” the game, clocking in at over 80 hours of game time. That’s a decent chunk of time to play a game and there were at least a dozen star systems I didn’t even fly through (as I was traveling somewhere else). That’s a decent chunk of a game that was completely superfluous.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first. There are hundreds of planets and moons to explore. With that kind of content, the goal of creating individual, bespoke environments for each world had to be monumental and was probably out of the question. That means that type of detail to be added procedurally. These procedurally generated worlds aren’t as engaging as one would hope. But let’s give Bethesda credit. Yes, I explored the “same” abandoned scientific lab or deserted mine shaft a dozen times, but there was still enough detail for my imagination to fill in the blanks. It would have been nice to come across the occasional mini-story contained on a a planet, but what they’ve done populating the galaxy is still quite impressive.

This game is ostensibly a role playing game, and I really tried to approach it as such. I didn’t want to solve every problem with the business end of a gun but man, the “let’s talk this over” approach took a backseat real quick. Yes, there are times where you have the chance to charm your way out of a jam, but more often than not you’re dropped into a situation where you’re surrounded by a bunch of bad guys. There’s no way to start a dialogue so I just start blasting. You can invest skill points in persuasion but leveling up is such a grind that putting points in weapon efficiency is a much better bang for your buck.

The interface for this game is also a stumbling block. It took the first few hours just to figure out how to find what I wanted and then a few more hours to get comfortable. Inventory management was a pain, the skill tree interface was designed for a mouse, not a controller, and menus and maps were clunky and inconsistent. Eventually you get used to making your way through the menus, but eventually you get used to a blister, too. Because it has either popped and you have a new type of pain or it’s become a callous and a constant reminder of the irritation.

The main storyline is engaging enough to maintain a pace that keeps things moving but allows for some side-questing and exploration. Going through the story opens other chances for new dialogue options with your fellow Constellation members and allows you time to develop relationships that you can take down relationship paths (I like you, but not in that way). Ultimately, though, the exploration and side-quests become repetitive quickly and so soon you’re just chugging through the story to see where it goes.

Before moving on to the climax, there are some meaningful side quests you can do involving four different factions that make up the game world. These stories are actually interesting. I thought picking one of the four factions would make it impossible to try any of the other three but it turns out you can do them all in one playthrough if you’d like. I finished three of the faction quests and started the fourth before deciding to move the story to completion. You can also pursue missions with your compadres (a-la Mass Effect) that are mostly helping them fix their past mistakes or come to grips with their past and move on with their lives. Those missions don’t have the same commitment and aren’t as well fleshed out, but they do add variety to the playthrough. But man, if your companion “wants to have a word with you when you’re free”, you better have a word with them, otherwise they are going to pester you forever.

As you approach the end, the game throws in a couple decision points that drastically impact the outcome of the game and a nice little story twist near the final stanza to round out the story. It isn’t Shakespeare storytelling, but that was never Bethesda’s strong suit anyway. Eventually you reach the final confrontation and (SPOILER ALERT) you are given the chance to stay in your “original” universe or walk through the multiverse gate and “start over” in a New Game Plus situation, that actually can continue new-game-plussing for as long as your heart desires. Things stay the same or you go to a new universe and do it all over. Your choice. The game ends with a nice little recap of your decisions and how they impacted the galaxy, and you’re plopped back in the world based on your decision.

Do it again or feel the satisfaction of completing a game and never open the game again. I think I know what I’ll end up doing.

It’s weird, but when I started this review, I thought I liked Starfield more than I think I actually do. Everything I like about Bethesda games is here — an open world, crafting, exploring, picking up every insignificant piece of detritus along the way “just in case”. But there’s no charm, no personality. The wasteland of Fallout 4 was much more fleshed out than any of the main hub planets in Starfield. Character progression is a slog. Flying and fighting in space leaves a lot to be desired. If you’ve hacked one locked chest, you’ve hacked them all. I appreciate what they tried to (and sort of) accomplished, but in the end, it’s an average game in a year full of amazing ones.

7/10

It’s another great weekend for some gaming! After a steady diet of Starfield and Inscryption for me, I decided to take a break for something a little more light-hearted and downloaded Dave the Diver. I’m 30 minutes in and I’m sold — I’m going to be playing this a lot in the foreseeable future. It’s got everything I like — exploring, resource gathering, crafting (cooking) and of course sushi! It’s Lemonade Stand for the twenty first century. This game is definitely in my wheelhouse!

In addition to Diving with Dave, I’ll be playing a little more Starfield, maybe some Forza and definitely some more Inscryption.

What are you playing this weekend?

It’s that time of year again when it gets dark a little earlier, the air is a little crisper and it just feels right to settle into some weekend gaming. Some people might be excited about pumpkin patches and haunted houses, but I’m ready for some videogames. And boy, what a stacked deck of new and not-so-new games to play.

On my docket this weekend will be to continue my exploration of space in Starfield with some occasional driving breaks with the new Forza. Starfield has slowly reeled me in and now that I’m comfortable with the interface and menus the story has taken center stage and I can relax and let that engross me.

If I need a break from those two games, I recently downloaded Sea of Stars (on PC), which seems like a fun little jaunt. And I still need to wrap-up my playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom.

What are you playing this weekend?

It’s also hard to describe what it is. It’s a medieval mystery? A late Rennasiance detective story? A religious cover-up? I can’t explain. I was also stuck most of the time wondering “Is this fiction? Or based on actual events?” That both made it a little hard to believe and also a little exciting.

I would not be surprised to hear that many of the reviewers that scored the game high only played the first few hours and thought “yep, that’s a 10 out of 10!” I, too, was sucked in to the first act of the game. I was caught up in what I was playing. Did I make the right choices? I accused multiple people of being criminals and sentenced them to death (directly and through actions). Did they deserve it?

After the first act ended, it felt like the game had a good, but ambiguous (and short!), ending. I had no idea, no indication that it was the first of multiple parts. I thought my game began and ended with Andreas Maler’s story. Not so.

I bounced off the game for a while, somewhere in the third act. It was fine, the story was moving along at a decent pace but I just wasn’t in love with it. Ultimately I finished the game in a car, driving to NYC, on my iPad. These are not ideal conditions but I had wanted to try out Cloud Gaming from a mobile device for a long time and since I couldn’t be playing Tears of the Kingdom I figured Pentiment on an iPad, tethered to my phone, was the next best thing.

With my iPad jittering through frames provided by my poor phone as a hot spot, I played through the last 45 minutes (I hadn’t realized how close to the end I was) on a touch screen. Playing through the Cloud on the iPad is probably worth another post, but poor gaming experience matched how disappointing the end of Pentiment was. The 3rd act’s choices have less consequences (no one died by my actions) but raised just as many “did I make the right choices” doubts I had throughout the rest of the game. Unsatisfying.

Yes, the game wrapped up the dangling storylines with room for interpreting it how you’d like, but as a completionist who has to exhaust all dialog options and inspect every point of interest, Pentiment was not made for me.

6/10

In addition we have the Summer Sale on Steam. Steam Sales have definitely lost their wow-factor but there’s always that chance you’ll find a hidden gem or finally pick up that X-Com bundle, so I may peruse the sales and my wishlist (thinking about Inscryption) and see what we can find.

And of course there will be much Zelda’ing over the long weekend, too. I can’t go that long without a fix.

What are you playing this weekend?

I didn’t finish everything on my to-do list, but nothing matters now. It’s Zelda time.

What are you playing this weekend (besides Tears)?

To-do list before 5/12:

• Finish Resident Evil 4 Remake
• Finish Hi-Fi Rush
• Finish Pentiment
• Finish garden
• Finish job
• Finish being a dad
• Kiss wife good-bye, tell her how much I’ll miss her

I started this post last year, after I finished Resident Evil 8. Now that it’s sit in the Drafts folder for months, I figured I should finish it up before the next Resident Evil release drops this week. And boy oh boy what a drop that is going to be — the remake of one of the best video games I have ever played — Resident Evil 4. Excitement for RE4 Remake is at an all time high around the buttonmashing household.

But first, a quick review of Resident Evil 8. After two VERY solid remakes, RE2 and RE3, RE8 is a continuation of Resident Evil 7, another of my favorite Resident Evils. It took a little bit to get used to the first person mode after going back to 3rd person for the remakes. Overall, RE8 was a really good game. The story was another bonkers Resident Evil storyline, complete with rounding up trinkets and items to solve puzzles and move the story along but this time the “trinkets” were actually pieces of your daughter, dismembered and preserved in jars littered throughout the spooky village.

Yep. And then things get weirder. Your previously murdered wife wasn’t your wife, you have been dead since RE7 (you really didn’t think you reattached your hand when the tall, pale vampire lady sliced it off, did you?) and your daughter is supernatural. So ya, another bonkers Resident Evil storyline. It’s why we love them so much.

So having finished Resident Evil Village and before diving back into RE4 again, I thought I’d post my rankings of all the Resident Evil games I’ve played.

Resident Evil Rankings:

1. Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube, PC)
2. Resident Evil 7 (PC)
3. Resident Evil 2 REmake (PC)
4. Resident Evil 8 (PC)
5. Resident Evil 3 REmake (PC)
6. Resident Evil REmake (GameCube)
7. Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360)
8. Resident Evil Revelations (PC, in progress)
9. Resident Evil 0 (GameCube)
10. Resident Evil Resistance (PC)

Haven’t played yet: Resident Evil – Code Veronica, Resident Evil Revelations 2 (and too many spin-offs/mobile games to list)

And with that, it’s time to get ready to go back to the remote Spanish village where it all began…