I don’t remember if I finished Diablo back in the day or if I learned the rest of it through cultural osmosis. I certainly did now. Regardless, I had forgotten how many genre staples were already present.

It’s not just procedural generation, two vessels for health and mana, clicky combat, etc. There are fully voiced quests, a reasonably robust loot system, spells and scrolls, and many other features that have become standard not just for this type of action RPG, but for most games nowadays. Yes, a lot of games are Diablo-clones now.

What sets Z.A.R. apart from other shooters is its open levels and voxel engine. Are these features enough to make it a hidden gem? Not really. It’s not a bad game and is still enjoyable, just not very remarkable.

I can’t help but think that Babylon 5: The Road Home wasn’t created because someone wanted to tell a story. Perhaps they just wanted to revisit some aspects of the TV show. Perhaps they wanted to gauge interest in an old, dormant franchise. It feels like a postcard — a way to remember something. But it’s certainly a nice postcard.

Avalon is beautiful, in that drab sort of way. Even the CGI, which often ages first, looks interesting because of its style. The story has been done before, though. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; there’s no reason to expect everything to be unique. It’s just that Mamoru Oshii keeps playing with similar ideas, and this is not his best work.