cuem Reviews

Diablo IV (2023 Video Game)

Sold a beta (alpha even?) as full-priced AAA game

[11 December 2023]

According to D4 Armory website I got over 600h of playtime. Now that out of the way.

It is no secret the original producers of the game have left the project some time ago, and despite multiple closed & open betas, early tests, etc. We got an undercooked game. At launch we received:

GOOD: * Super fluid combat

* Amazing graphics and sound effects. When you hit or cast a spell, the timing and sound just feel right

* Good old Blizzard-level top notch cutscenes

NEUTRAL: * Soundtrack was overly meh IMO, nothing stuck in my mind, except a single overly eerie WB fight music which is great. But it's a subjective topic, so...

* Unlike most people, I'm kinda ok with the lack of trading of leggos & uniques. If done right, this could've been acceptable. I don't have a strong opinion for or against it, yet.

* Abattoir of Zir is a nice touch, and kinda brings the Uber-Tristram/torch farming type of grind to endgame

BAD:

* Overly mediocre but unnecessarily complicated itemization

* No resistances... in an ARPG... in 2023!

* No ladder-system, again in a live-service ARPG... which relies on seasons!

* The horse, oh the horse! Before they fixed it, the horse could drive any sane person crazy with its quirks and bugs and artificial limitations, like cooldown; the horse should have NEVER EVER left the devs' computers in this state to production, it was an abomination.

* The end game loop was boring, and still is. Crafting is basically non-existant, "grailing" would be a joke. When they make Helltides, Legion Events, ToW stuff attractive, they make them redundant again with the next NMD XP buff or whatever.

* Dependence on external websites & apps; yeah, we all want to track mystery helltide chests via a 3rd party site

* A backwards step in social features, trading & LFGs via Discord, because in-game would be too comfortable

* Boring endgame loop, and with every update they make either the Overworld redundant then fix it and then make it redundant again, in favor of NMDs or lately Uber-Bosses

* Sidequests are only for masochistic completionists. You will do the "same" cellar prob 100 times; there were a lot of copy-paste there.

* Inventory management, stash space, and character limitation. Oh come on, we don't need an infintite stash space as in some other games, or 50 char slots for mules, but 4 stash tabs? For a total of 10 chars? And all of it shared so no muling? What's the point of an ARPG whose core is *items* if you cant store them?

* That major facepalm "we load everybody else's stash into your memory when they're nearby" tweet; it might have its reasons, but still unacceptable to any developer - and I mean any developer, not just game developers because it's basic data structure and memory management - to release it as it is. Imagine WoW, POE, any MMO or ARPG doing that.

* and a ton of other missing usability features: codex & aspect management, missing search features, lootfilter in many places, random max limits on mats.

This was mostly the launch state of the game and some problems still remain after 5+ months. I am 100% convinced that if the devs & testers had done more end-to-end leveling tests instead of point tests, they would have realized many, many, many problems and fixed them.

The itemization & end-game loop are by far the biggest offenders, IMO in that order.

The affixes are very similar to each other and redundant; the DiabLol video hit the nail on its head "Damage on Thursdays" meme. First crit & vuln were necessary, then they were supposedly not anymore... but guess what they are still necessary and most other affixes are just there, in a giant vague blur.

And second, the white & blue items have absolutely zero use in the game, except until level 2 :P In D2R for example at least white, grey or blue items have a contextual use, as a runeword base, or BIS PVP item or whatever. In D4 they're just litter. The lack of an even the simplest loot-filter makes this worse. I'm still hopeful that they will find a use for these.

Yes, yes, they are still working on those, but my main critic point is NOT if current D4 deserves a full AAA price-tag (I paid for the ultimate edition mind you) after so much broad testing, feedback and numerous hotfixes, but IF it deserved the price at launch. If you tell me "yes, it did" you're either lying to me or to yourself. So I lost interest and moved on to more polished games. As the saying goes, this is literally more live development than live service: Missing features are brought in after the launch.

Tl;dr: Too early, too undercooked. Full AAA price tag completely undeserved, was so at launch and still is IMHO. If Blizzard had taken their time, say 1-1.5 years, this could have been an amazing game. As it stands it's lost many players. Regardless, I'm still full of hopium, instead of copium.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

mere fan fiction that glitters

[11 January 2023]

Long time LOTR/Tolkien fan here. I watch whole LOTR trilogy every year at least once, and re-read LOTR & Tolkien books such as Silmarillion every couple years, in 3 different languages.

Coming from that background, this show can be called as a mere glorified fan fiction, because it is clearly *not based on* on Tolkien's work. Even describing it as "inspired by Tolkien" is a stretch, because it fails on so many levels: It falls flat on the characters it introduces, it fails on picturing the very well-established characters such as Galadriel or Elrond, and it does a very poor job at capturing Tolkien's vision of Middle Earth & LOTR lore.

One of many examples: Calling Galadriel's depiction boring, one-sided, unfaithful to the lore would be a compliment. Apparently in an attempt to depict her as a strong-willed heroine, the authors forgot how to write interesting characters, since they decided to introduce a new "Not-Galadriel" but made this Not-Galadriel super uninteresting. At no point during the watching of the series, I felt sympathy towards Not-Galadriel, and wanted her scenes to end asap. In the thousand years she lived, she apparently has not learned the slightest touch of wisdom, diplomacy, empathy... or different facial expressions :D She shows no character development whatsoever. Unfortunately list of boring characters doesn't end with her either. The Not-Gandalf subplot was equally boring and dragged just for the sake of "plot-twist" in the last episode, which me & most viewers saw coming early on in the show. I really do hope for the show's own sake, that they won't introduce the mysterious Istar as Saruman or Gandalf or any of the Tolkien Wizards, which will not arrive at Middle Earth anytime in the show's age.

Nitpicking the contradictions within the Tolkien Lore would take so much time, but even if you approach this show with zero knowledge of the lore, contradictions within the show is still a huge list. In order to keep this review spoiler-free, I will only mention the characters' names: Harfoots, Numenorians, Gil Galad, *the* Gil Galad, the High King of the Elves with thousands of years of wisdom (let's call him Not-Gil Galad), and many more characters all contradict themselves, even if we ignore the lore and take their motivations, customs, traditions at face value as the show depicts them.

One of the major reasons why Peter Jackson's Trilogy succeeded, beyond the much more faithful & respectful adaptation of LOTR, was also the memorable, majestic music. This show offers you no such music. There was not a single phrase which caught my attention, let alone made me want to re-listen to that section.

At the end of the day, if taken as an adaptation of Tolkien's work the show fails miserably. If taken on its own, as an inpired work, it fails at serving a capturing story, with drama, conflict and character development. The only reason I can rate this show higher than 1-star is the production, such as costumes, CGI, etc. And very few actors' performances. Then again considering the show's billion dollar budget, I am not sure we got the best that could be done.

The Hunt (2012)

Our ugly side, yours, mine, others'

[10 October 2019]

There are movies which you watch only once then never again. Not because they're bad, on the contrary because they shatter you psychologically. This is one of those.

I love everything Mads Mikkelsen does, since Blinkende Lygter or Adam's Apples, one of those two, and his movie's been on my list for years now. But knowing the heavy subject, how protective of children we are I've delayed it for years. Until last night. I gathered all my courage and now I'm a mess. It's drained me empty and gave me a headache from all the veins trying to burst on their own.

I'm not much of an empathetic person but the whole time I was thinking "what would I do in his place?"... "what could I do?" It makes you face the harsh reality of very deeply rooted psychological mechanisms of human nature. Sartre is probably right, hell is other people. You, me, all of us. When you see yourself through other people's eyes and how ugly they think of you, you feel diminished even if there'd be no reason to feel it, but how can you stop that crushing weight? As much as harming others is an injustice, being accused of something you haven't done is an equally unjust, evil action. That is what makes me angry. It's not a freak accident that cripples you or a rare disease which are out of your control, it looks like a gross misunderstanding you could rectify by talking to people, but you see the train wreck coming and it seems unavoidable. You assume other people would understand, if only they'd think reasonably... No chance. Instead you see how people act so cruelly based on something they have no chance of ever knowing the truth of, not in the slightest.

Not sure if somebody has said it in olden times but in some western movies there used to be lines like "let us lynch him, kill him whatever and let god sort it out." In the face of uncertainty, this is what we humans do. "What if he, she, they have done it? What's worse, losing a friend... or supporting a 'potential' criminal, an evil person? Heretic, witch, whatever..." This is how we alienated family members, broke friendships, and all up to lynching people and burning witches. Err on the probably wrong but safe side, as long as it's not *you* who has to pay the price. Turn the tables and you realize how cruel, how evil we can be just so that we can feel morally safe. This is our nature. We can play rationality all we want, we're often driven with primal instincts, mass hysteria and moral reflexes. And there's nowhere to hide from our own ugly sides or other people's.

Wow. This movie is... just wow. 10/10

Dunkirk (2017)

The emperor is naked: Watched second half at 1.5x speed and still couldn't finish

[13 January 2018]

This has to be one of the dullest, most uninspiring movies I have seen in a long time. There was *nothing* to be seen from the historical importance of Dunkirk, few gunshots here, few dogfights with 2-3 planes there, that's it. The movie simply doesn't know what it tries to be: War movie, historical reconstruction, epicness, character study... It benefits solely from Nolan's past glory, otherwise the current rating of 8.0 cannot be explained at all.

I tried to watch it and fell asleep during 1st try. On 2nd try, I couldn't take it anymore and watched the 2nd half up to last quarter at 1.5x speed but still couldn't finish it. I won't even bother to sell the BluRay on Ebay, which I luckily bought for only 10 bucks. I will instead destroy the disc, so some other poor chap wouldn't suffer this merdique, scheiBe of a movie.

The Maze Runner (2014)

Suspension of disbelief? More like suspension of all brain activity

[9 March 2015]

**** Major spoilers of the ending and plot of the next movie as well!!! ****

A meeting somewhere safe in a post-apocalypse world

Leader: We need a cure for this disease. We need it now! It's gotten out of control.

Project manager: I have an idea. Let's build a maze.

L: What for?

PM: To study survivors. We will put them inside the maze and study their brain activities under certain scenarios from a distance.

L: Are you kidding? Why don't we study it in a lab, where we have superior equipment?

PM: Right. Maybe we can read their brain activities with micro-transmitter implants. They can do voodoo magic I don't have to explain.

L: But why should we severely limit our technology? Well... fine. What kind of a maze?

PM: Enormous, at least a couple kilometers wide, with 100 ft high walls. And it will reconfigure itself periodically.

L: Reconfigure? 100ft?

PM: Yes, we will build tons of moving massive stone walls, put gigantic hydraulics, motors and generators. Energy needs and maintenance should be negligible.

L: *sigh* Where shall we build it?

PM: In the middle of desert sir, where the working temperatures are infernal, roads and rails are blocked, and transportation costs are high.

L: Not underground?

PM: Of course not, because we will need a lush forest inside the maze.

L: How will that work?

PM: We will plant some trees and hope it will rain enough to keep the green.

L: And what workforce would build it? We have enough problems with decreasing population already.

PM: We will use as many survivor people as we can to get it done as quickly as possible.

L: Then what? Who will we put in there?

PM: Teenagers.

L: Why? Do they have some significance older people don't have? Why not 20 or 25 years old people?

PM: I'll come back to you on that sir, but I feel like we should put teenagers in there... Each month one at a time.

L: Why one?

PM: Because we will brainwash the rest and study them in a lab first.

L: Why not study them in the lab in the first place?

PM: But sir, then the maze would be unnecessary, wouldn't it?

L: That's circular argumentation! *sigh* Whatever. Then what?

PM: We will open and close the maze every day and release giant, genetically modified spider-scorpion creatures every night to kill any escapees. They'll be injected with the virus.

L: Sacrificing some of the last of survivors of humanity we study and invest lots of time in would be acceptable. And we might ignore the danger of uncontrolled spreading of the virus I guess. So, do we have them creatures in stock?

PM: No sir. We have to develop the technology first and breed them as well.

L: I see. And that's the only way to study these teenagers? What about their hormones? If we put them all in one place they'll populate like rabbits.

PM: See sir? We will put only boys in the maze. There'll be no girls.

L: What?!? Why shall we halve the "guinea pigs" we have?

PM: You haven't heard the best part yet. We'll put the girls in the second maze.

L: What second maze?

PM: We'll build another maze just like this one, just as expensive and elaborate, and put the girls there.

L: And how long will we keep them there?

PM: As long as it takes until they escape. Years, decades if necessary.

L: What if they decide not to escape or those monsters kill them?

PM: Sometimes science needs sacrifices sir. And if they decide to stay, we'll help them escape after a while.

L: Then why do we have to wait for years? What do we do in the meantime?

PM: I'm sure rest of the world can survive the virus in safe, isolated environments until we've finished building the mazes and carried on with the tests.

L: Why don't we study those safe environments and the other survivors?

PM: But sir, a self-reconfiguring maze with teenagers and monsters is much cooler, isn't it?

L: Only in a movie! Tell me what do we do with the escapees?

PM: We'll study their biology with our equipment and develop a vaccine for the virus in our labs sir.

L: Then why don't we invest all our efforts into biological study instead? Whatever. You're not much of a scientist are you?

PM: No sir, I'm just a project manager. I worked as book author before my career switch. Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

...and on and on...

L: Sounds plausible, your idea is our best hope. It's a bulletproof plan. Our governments, economy, transportation and communication are collapsed but I'll ignore our scientists' opinions and give you as much resources as you need. I got you covered. Let's start.

Had they not tried to explain the premise, it would be much much better for the sake of the movie.