It’s also a factor that he’s getting closer and closer to Mordor right? Not to mention he was hungry, exhausted, sleep deprived, etc. with the ring physically near him 24/7. I haven’t read the books in a couple years so my memory is sketchy.

If anything, media made for a malleable audience with low critical-thinking skills should be held to a higher standard, not lower. I still remember how much I loved The Hobbit as a child. Even at the age kids don’t remember stuff, you still set the groundwork for the rest of their lives. The argument insults kids and betrays the speaker’s low opinion of them.

It’s a shame discourse is still stuck where it was when SWSH came out. I hope the fandom can move forward some day and accept that a billion-dollar franchise isn’t immune from critique.

Fair enough. There’s always the two-hour grace period for refunds. The first “real” level after the tutorial eases you in pretty well, so if the gameplay doesn’t click there I’d take it as a sign. It’s a unique game that punishes hard for mistakes, so it won’t click with everybody.

There’s a story/cinematic difficulty, but I haven’t tested it out. The standard difficulty is a challenge, but in my experience it felt fair. I’ve never played a Soulslike so I don’t have a point of comparison on that front lol.

Prey (2017), killer immersive sim. Reminiscent of System Shock 2 mainly.

If you enjoy the combat, Sifu takes that/the Arkham Batman style to a new level. Definitely has a crazy high kill count, but the story is all about revenge so there’s not too much ludonarrative dissonance.

There was so much other controversy with that game that I didn’t even hear about the AI. Gross.

If you found HL1 dated, there’s a good remake in source: https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

Even as a purist (HL1 is my favorite FPS period), I love how Black Mesa handles the source material. It’s on sale for $5 right now too. Besides Valve’s other games, check out F.E.A.R (2005), Doom series and the Bungie Halo games.

If you want to try an FPS, the original Half-Life is amazing (if visually dated), and was designed to ease the player into the experience as opposed to something like Doom or Dusk that throws you into the action without any tutorials. I’m biased though, Half-Life is my favorite FPS of all time lol.

It goes on sale for around $2 regularly, which is a nice bonus. I second the Portal and Stardew recommendations of others too.

These suggestions rock, I guess my weekend is set!