Thomas Morowski
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is amazing. It doesn’t come right out throwing you into battle and you may find it a little bit slow to pick up in the beginning. Push past that and you will enter into a world of beauty, mystery, violence, love and deceit. There are tales of lore, contracts, stories and kinfolk. It makes no difference if you have played the past Witchers, since CD Projekt Red allows you to emulate a Witcher 2 save. You don’t have to do this, but it might add some filling to your story and how your game turns out.
Pneuma is a first-person puzzler, with some amazing looking graphics at times due to its use of Unreal Engine 4. But thats all the game has going for it. Throughout the story you are led to believe you are like a “god,” but you internally question some things that are going on, such as the existence of certain features in your own world. During most of the puzzles the character gives you a little hint on how you should solve each one. But I quickly became annoyed by the mellow and monotonous tone of his voice, so I essentially tuned him out. As you might imagine, this can make each future puzzle more difficult since you’re virtually not getting the one provided hint. That said, if you are good at this type of game, the hints are probably not needed until you make significant progress. Most of the initial puzzles are simple, requiring that you look at an eye to open a door, create sound, or just pull a lever. However, once you get further into the game, listening to the “god’s” monologue is must. At one point it took me awhile to figure out that I just had to sit and stare at a sundial to complete the puzzle – all because the only character in the game had almost immediately lost my attention.
In Episode 2: The Lost Lords, Telltale brilliantly included all the elements that has popularized the Game of Thrones television series – war, greed, deception, and love. War is brewing between House Forrester and the Boltons, as the Forresters are trying to do everything they can to avoid giving up their rare Ironwood and thus starting a war. A few new faces appear in this episode, such as Asher Forrester, the Forrester who got banished for falling in love with a daughter in the rival family. If you are a fan of the television show you’ll recognize newcomer Jon Snow, voiced by Kit Harington (the actor who plays him in the series). This episode begins with Gared Tuttle finally reaching The Wall, the place where criminals go to defend the North from the wildlings. He quickly finds himself needing to prove he can fight to survive, as the older criminals taunt him by telling him new recruits quickly die. While in Kings Landing, Mira Forrester has discovered that she has been making enemies with the wrong people and they will stop at nothing to make sure they get what they want. If you’re an emotional type of person, Telltale made sure to pull at your heartstrings towards the end with the funeral of Lord Gregor Forrester and Ethan Forrester.