For a World of Warcraft player like me, the biggest piece of news from this week has been the announcement of the next content patch, 9.1, which is coming out in less than 2 weeks. It's not bringing a whole lot with it other than a new raid, a new dungeon and a new area to explore, but a new "season" is kind of a shot of adrenaline and is probably going to make me play a lot more of this expansion, which so far hasn't been getting the kindest reviews. It's not that the expansion is bad per se, it's just that content updates have been non-existent up until this point and not having anything new to do in an MMO for over 6 months is almost a death sentence. But I guess we'll see how it fares in a couple weeks, I for one am pretty stoked to be playing it a bit more with a few friends. On the downside, it means I'll have less time to play all these single player games that I've been enjoying for the past few months while WoW has been slow.

Picking up from last week, I not only finished Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, but also went for the platinum trophy and 100% completion. It was a blast! I don't think I have a lot more to say that I didn't say last week, other than to reiterate my praise of almost every single aspect of that game.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

I played the first 3 Uncharted games a few years ago in the Uncharted Collection that was released on the Playstation 4, so the plot of the first trilogy kind of blended into one big mess for me. Coming back to the franchise wasn't hard at all though, 'cause even if I didn't remember much at all about the different plots, the characters felt like old friends I was rejoining after some time away.

There's a LOT to like in this game. The animation quality and overall fidelity combined with the stellar voice acting make these characters believable and real, and the dialogue is written in such a realistic manner that it was really easy getting swept up in the relationships between the different characters. The writing even managed to rope me in to the treasure hunting fantasy, and I was right there with the characters in terms of excitement.

The Uncharted games have a pretty specific kind of action set pieces that this game did not fail to deliver on, but this game brings with it some new knowledge that Naughty Dog brought with them from The Last of Us - namely giving stealth gameplay a bigger role. It's not a full blown stealth game or anything, but the added option of being a little sneaky went a long way when faced with some of the combat encounters in this game.

Speaking of the combat encounters, I feel like the cover-based third person shooting found in this franchise has kind of overstayed its welcome, as it is by far the most tedious part of the game. I'm reminded of a recent article on Waypoint, written by Rowan Kaiser, that brings up the topic of exertion versus reward, and that being the structure many games follow. The exertion in this case are the climbing, the puzzles and the shooting, and the reward being the next development of the story. The traversal and the puzzles were fine to me, but the combat tended to drag a little bit. The hook of the reward was enough to keep me going though, and I would definitely say it's worth sticking through those shooting sections to marvel at what the game has to offer in terms of story.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

Ridiculous name aside, I have been really enjoying my time with Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, which is the PS5 release of last year's Final Fantasy VII Remake. I sit in the camp that doesn't have any real nostalgia for the original Final Fantasy VII, having only played a few hours of the Steam version that was released a while back. Back then, I thought the world and story was interesting enough, but for a newcomer it definitely didn't age well. This remake is then the perfect opportunity for someone like me to come along and learn to love these characters that have been so central to gaming pop culture for so long.

In typical Final Fantasy fashion, the game throws a LOT of tutorials at you right from the get-go, but I managed to stick it through those and have started to see some of what makes the combat tick and how it could turn into a really rewarding gameplay system. I'm on chapter 7 right now, which I think is somewhere around the later early game or early mid game, and so far I like how the different chapters feel in terms of pacing, length and variety in the sense of being either tightly narratively driven or more free-form roaming, completing sidequests etc. The latter sections feel a lot like walking around the open world of the Yakuza series in terms of both tone and feel, there's extended sections of little to no combat, but a lot of running around and talking to people and unearthing more character building and world details.

I'm hoping I have enough time to finish this game before WoW's next patch though, 'cause I feel like with how mechanically dense the combat is, I might have a hard time picking it back up if I take a break. All in all though, I'm really having a good time with it so far!