In gaming terms I lost the last few days of the month to the start of the holiday season proper and its accompanying family visits, but that's as it should be and I like to think I planned pretty well for that eventuality: 7 games completed for the month of November would seem to bear that out, at any rate. Weirdly, the game I'm happiest about having finished this month is the one I enjoyed the least! But that's the beauty of finishing a big game ahead of schedule and being free to move on, I suppose.

(Games are presented in chronological completion order; the numerical indicator represents the YTD count.)

​

#67 - Kena: Bridge of Spirits - PS5 - 6.5/10 (Tantalizing)

I vaguely recall the marketing for this game leading up to its release, and that my thoughts at that time were something like "Gee, this game looks really pretty, and the gameplay seems fun enough." Now playing it years later, my thoughts are "Gee, this game mostly looks really pretty and the gameplay was fun enough, I guess." So, you know, I suppose I can't say it didn't meet expectations. The game's use of bright colors and scenic vistas really does make it gorgeous at times, though that's counterbalanced by the character design, which I can best describe as "Disney/Pixar's Fortnite." Kena herself has her face locked in a permanent Pixar smirk, though hers is unique in that it's somehow inverted into a smirk-frown, reflecting her general melancholy. Other characters fare better or worse on the visual front, but the unremarkable dialogue and overall "meh" sort of story doesn't manage to sell you on the importance of what you're doing.

That said, I'm a sucker for a good "cleansing" kind of process. I'm the type of dude who would sit there in Super Mario Sunshine spraying down every little bit of goop even when it didn't matter. I'm the type of dude who will try to get 100% ink coverage on a Splatoon level just for fun. So the concept of restoring the corrupted land in Kena: Bridge of Spirits was really appealing to me, and it was quite satisfying seeing those transformations taking place. This also meant I was encouraged to explore each locale as thoroughly as I could, and Kena is full of little rewards for those kinds of efforts. Much of the time the rewards themselves weren't worthwhile (cosmetic hats for my helper spirits don't really move the needle for me), but the journey itself was still enjoyable. Kena was at its best when I felt free to just wander a new area and see what I could find without any external stressors ruining the vibes.

Which takes me to the more focused gameplay side of the equation, where Kena lands unevenly. There's a whole bunch of combat in this game, forming a hybrid form somewhere between "generic 3D platformer button mashing" and "die-hard Soulslike." That's a pretty wide skill gulf, and I worry that more casual gamers will struggle mightily with some of these boss battles, particularly when the non-boss combat bits are usually so forgiving that "keep pressing R1" is more or less a winning strategy. Beyond combat, platforming doesn't feel very good and there's unfortunately quite a bit of it as you progress deeper into the game. This is further marred by random movement glitches such as Kena getting stuck on inch-tall floorboards as though they were invisible walls. So with Kena: Bridge of Spirits you end up with this weird divide where the more "video gamey" it gets, the worse time you have. That said, even the game's warty bits are still at least somewhat fun, and all the in between stuff was truly a very nice time. Just don't be fooled by the aesthetic into thinking it'll be a walk in the park, because Kena very much wants to kick your butt around a bit.

​

#68 - Marvel's Midnight Suns - PC - 8.5/10 (Excellent)

Check out the official box art for this game. What do you notice? Initially, that everything is oddly yellow for some reason. Then you probably notice Wolverine there, as the largest figure and the first you see while scanning left to right. The next place your eye is drawn is to Scarlet Witch on the middle right side, because her glowing red eyes and horn-like protrusions stand out amidst the gray/yellow palette and, expecting symmetry, you're trying to see what's opposite Wolverine. If you're like me, your takeaway from this box art is that you're in for a big, washed out, grimdark affair featuring only edgelord characters like the two aforementioned heroes, Blade, Ghost Rider, and apparently "extreme demon" versions of Spidey and Iron Man...alongside whoever the heck that is in the very back. If you're still like me, this is an instant turn off to whatever Midnight Suns might be: I don't want to play a gritty, dark Marvel RPG. Turns out there must be a lot of people out there like me, because nobody bought Marvel's Midnight Suns, despite the game receiving generally strong reviews.

Well, there's a reason for those strong reviews: the game is nothing like the box art would seem to suggest. When you start the campaign it jumps you right in with Iron Man and Doctor Strange. Not "Grimdark Edgelord Iron Man" and "Fire and Brimstone Doctor Strange," but just the regular, colorful heroes you'd want to see, banter-filled personalities fully intact. Then Captain Marvel comes along, and now you're actually playing an Avengers RPG? Your newly created character (the mystery figure in the back of the lineup) enters the mix, you meet the other titular Midnight Suns (Blade, Ghost Rider, Magik, and Nico Minoru), and you're off. So already you have none of the negative associations the art gave you, but furthermore Wolverine? Spider-Man? Scarlet Witch? They're not even here! Not for a while, at any rate. It's all so very misleading, and that's a shame because Midnight Suns is way better than I'd hoped it might be.

What stood out most to me was the quality of the writing. There's tons of dialogue in this game - almost too much at times - but it all captures the essence of these characters, and almost all of it is delivered with very strong performances from the voice cast. This is big, since I'm sure I spent much more time in the game's hub area between missions than I did actually fighting enemies on the battlefield. There's a small world to explore, full of nooks and crannies and secrets. There are base upgrades to unlock and play with, revealing the game's XCOM lineage (same developers). Most importantly, there are relationships to build with each of the other heroes on your team, and these felt exceptionally rewarding, both in terms of enriching the story and for tangible gameplay reasons.

The gameplay itself was also standout, of course. The concept of a deckbuilding tactical RPG is one of those "I'm gonna need to see it in action" types of deals, but once you get through the tutorial stuff the systems make a ton of sense and create highly satisfying encounters, especially as you continue to unlock new and stronger abilities to use. I was additionally surprised at how well these systems created individualized play styles for each hero. At the outset I had a few who I thought were good and others I considered useless, but more time with everyone often altered these perspectives, and in the end I think almost everyone had a really strong niche, a true accomplishment of balancing.

Ultimately, there are only a couple reasons I don't rate this even higher. For one, the game does drag on a bit near the end: I finished at about 80 hours and could've spent another several pursuing yet further upgrades. I do however recognize that I could've been done much sooner had I not gone for all the optional stuff I did, so half of that is on me. What's less on me is the game's performance issues. I read after the fact that the 2K launcher the PC version boots with actually throttles the game's performance, which is something I wish I knew ahead of time. In fact, the publisher seems to have figured this out too, because as of the time of this writing, said launcher has been killed off permanently. As it stands, I faced down some long loading times, some graphical glitching, and a number of annoying framerate issues in battles. But with the launcher gone you probably won't have to deal with as much of that now, and other than that Midnight Suns was pretty much the Marvel game I never knew I wanted. I'd happily recommend it to any tactical RPG or general Marvel fan.

​

#69 - Cursed to Golf - PC - 6/10 (Decent)

Earlier this year I was semi-itching for a fun golfing game and gave Mario Golf for the Game Boy Color a try. Sadly, while the golfing mechanics there were quite solid, the rest of the game really let me down, so I found myself here several months later still looking for a nice scratch. What I didn't expect or realize going in was that Cursed to Golf is a fully 2D golfing game, which sounds at first like it would take all the secret sauce out of what makes golf games fun, but instead for me ended up in the complete opposite direction. Once I got past the initial surprise of it, I relished the simplicity of only having three shot types to worry about: drives, mid-range, and chips. So to answer the obvious question that comes out of that, yes: there is no putting in Cursed to Golf whatsoever. And all of this works because the course in Cursed to Golf is effectively a precision platformer, except that your ball is the thing that needs to do the platforming. The gameplay challenge comes not from managing wind and curve and slopes, but from dodging obstacles, managing your exaggerated ball spin abilities, gauging risks, and most importantly using your power-ups wisely.

That's right, in true arcade style, Cursed to Golf features a whole bunch of power-up options you can collect and activate as you go. Some of these are very straightforward, like granting a mulligan or giving you a practice shot to experiment with. Others are complete game changing nonsense that let you effectively cheat your way through a hole. Which is often necessary, because the holes in Cursed to Golf are brutal and unforgiving by design, and flubbing a shot can prove disastrous to your entire run. You see, rather than adding all your strokes and then scoring your hole that way at the end, in Cursed to Golf you're given five strokes to reach the hole, and if you don't make it you're given a game over and sent back to the beginning. The power-ups and various stroke-granting targets around each hole can let you overcome these limitations, but make no mistake: each hole in this game is a long affair, often taking twenty or so well-placed hits to reach. And because the ultimate goal is to complete an entire 18 hole round, the game becomes a marathon of skill and concentration. It's fun, but man, it's exhausting to play mentally for any period of time. Naturally, this also means that any failure is absolutely devastating. For context, I completed Cursed to Golf on only my fifth attempt through the course, and I still very nearly quit the game twice because defeat was so deflating.

Beyond that balance of being grueling and yet satisfying (the harder the climb the sweeter the payoff and all that), I found that Cursed to Golf just didn't explain itself very well. Oh sure, there's a tutorial, and each power-up card has a brief description of what it does, but that's often not enough to actually grant you understanding. For example, I got a power-up that said it would electrify my ball for one shot. I had no idea what the purpose or value of that might be, and I was loath to potentially waste a crucial shot trying to find out, so I simply never used that power-up at all, and still haven't a clue what it's for. It's very much a trial and error, "fiddle with this and figure it out" kind of game, which I'm fine with in theory but not in a context when you stand to lose so much from any mistake at any given time. Finally, Cursed to Golf also has boss encounters, which are special holes against powerful CPU opponents. These might be fun except every boss encounter caused the game to glitch out in various ways. Often it would muck with my club selection, showing the wrong visual or picking one I didn't want. A couple times it randomly disabled my ability to apply spin to the ball. More than once it caused my opponent's ball to phase through a hazard straight through a large section of the course, rendering the hole virtually unwinnable. Once it made the entire game crash completely. Mercifully these bosses are one-and-done affairs, replaced by normal holes in future runs after you beat each one the first time. It's a shame, because they could've been a really great wrinkle but instead they were just landmines of dread for all the wrong reasons.

There's a lot to like about the fundamental concept and execution of Cursed to Golf, and I did overall enjoy my time with it. But it's problematic enough in some important areas that I can't quite recommend it to anyone who wouldn't already be keen on it from the premise alone.

​

#70 - Ghostrunner 2 - PS5 - 7/10 (Good)

About a year and a half ago I concluded my review for the first Ghostrunner game with the line "Even though Ghostrunner wasn't perfect, I'd love to see more games like it." Well, I suppose it's tough to get too much more like it than a proper sequel, which does pretty much the same kinds of stuff. This is still an action platformer that sees you dashing along walls, zipping across grapple points, and bullet time dodging laser fire as you fight a bunch of goons in one-hit kill scenarios. Instant death goes both ways, mind you, so what may start as an oppressive surrounding wall of projectiles and aggressive bodies will steadily get simpler to work through as you slash down each enemy along your path, moving quickly onto the next. This gives most encounters a strange yet satisfying difficulty curve, where the biggest spike is right at the start, but where getting through that opening crucible enables you to feel like a demigod. Bosses are again a different story, soaking up multiple hits and requiring some Sekiro-like parry action, but checkpointing you frequently along the way so nothing ever becomes truly frustrating. New gadgets and new uses for old gadgets round out the combat options in Ghostrunner 2, keeping things fresh while never going off the rails.

Now, perhaps that's because the off-the-rails bits are saved for the game's ambitious addition of vehicle segments. For the most part these replace the simple platforming with high speed obstacle dodging and ramp jumping; imagine that infamous Battletoads hoverbike level in first person and you get the idea. There are occasional combat elements on these bits as well, but they're not the focus. These segments are a pretty nice changeup to the standard action that admittedly became somewhat stale from time to time in the first game, and they do fit right into the general adrenaline vibe that Ghostrunner 2 has going for it. If nothing else, I respect the push for something totally new in order to iterate on what was already a pretty successful formula, and though I wasn't a huge fan of the vehicle levels at the outset I was eventually won over for the most part.

Unfortunately they, like the rest of the game, have a bit of a pacing problem. The pacing of the first game was a highlight, and within each individual level of the sequel that feeling shines through, but Ghostrunner 2 loses the focus on a macro level. After each mission you end up back at your HQ to talk to a bunch of NPCs and prep for the next mission. That doesn't seem like a big deal in itself, but I didn't care about the story of this game any more than its predecessor, and I'm not playing Ghostrunner for exposition dumps, you know? There's also one mission that experiments with a pseudo-open world concept, and at that point I felt like the whole game design conceit was dangerously close to being tossed out the window. Thankfully it was a one-off, but again, not my jam. Finally, I still experienced quite a number of collision glitches, several of which required me to manually restart the checkpoint from the menu just to keep playing. So ultimately, Ghostrunner 2 is more of the same - of the good, the bad, and the little extra that it didn't truly need. That lands it in a reasonably fun spot, if a slight step below the original for me.

​

#71 - Moving Out - PC - 7/10 (Good)

Some games are made for parties, or at least for playing with a friend or two. Moving Out is one of these kinds of games, very much in the Overcooked vein even if the gameplay style is the polar opposite; Moving Out focusing on careful planning and execution as opposed to Overcooked's chaos management. But the vibes are all here: silliness, a charming cartoony aesthetic, simple gameplay that only needs a few buttons to work, and of course, the omnipresent threat of timers. It's the sort of thing you boot up with a buddy and laugh about as you're chucking a couch out of a window, or chasing down a chicken while trying not to crack yourself in the nose with a rake. But it's also the sort of game where those laughs can turn to yells and frustration, and eventually you and your buddy are trading blows because one of you didn't follow the plan and you finished two seconds off the target time.

Thus, it's a double-edged kind of sword that I played Moving Out alone. Yes, I was locked out of certain advanced maneuvers, and many time challenges felt completely out of reach under the circumstances, but I also didn't have to dissolve any friendships over a dumb video game. Speaking of timers, it's a testament to the fun of Moving Out that I even bothered with them at all for as long as I did. I completed the first third of the game (10/30 stages) making sure to get gold medal times and complete all bonus objectives (which are only revealed after clearing the stage once), because I was genuinely having a ball and it all seemed fairly manageable. But I never bother with time or score attack stuff in games. Just doesn't motivate me. I may strive for completion here and there, but I don't ever strive for perfection. So around the time the game introduced the concept of platinum times, and of reverse style "moving in" versions of levels, I realized I was content to not bother with any of it anymore, and I zoomed through the rest of the game doing the bare minimum.

This decision proved to be quite wise, as the back half of Moving Out significantly ratchets up the level complexity, and if I'd been trying to check every arbitrary box along the way I'd have surely gotten fed up with the game entirely. Instead, I was mostly able to appreciate the nifty ideas and changeups as they came, though certain parts were still frustrating even playing alone. Ultimately, I can't quite fault a game for delivering a bunch of extra replay value and options to measure your skill, even though the inclusion of those elements in a game are an instant turn me off for me personally. So, if you're a fan of that kind of thing, I'd say grab a rock solid friend and give this a whirl. If you're more like me and want nothing to do with anything scoreboard related, just breeze this one on through and you'll have a nice time regardless.

​

#72 - Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies - DS - 5/10 (Mediocre)

This was the game that started it, you know. I remember seeing announcements for DQ9, and the hype for it being on a portable system, and having multiplayer capabilities, all that jazz. I never owned an NES, so the first four Dragon Quest games never made my radar, and of course the next two didn't receive any contemporary localizations. I didn't have a PS1 or PS2 growing up either, so I likewise missed the boat for Dragon Quests 7 and 8. Therefore in large part I was more tuned into the release of 9 because it was a new game on a system I actually owned, and I was excited to see what all the fuss was about. But of course, me being me, I figured I should start at the beginning. Thus, there I was in 2010 emulating Dragon Warrior for NES while everyone else was cavorting around playing the ninth entry with their friends. The first game wasn't bad, but of course wasn't particularly great either, and so I left the series alone again until Dragon Quest 11's release on Switch piqued my interest in a similar way and got me to play through the franchise in earnest, a journey I've been working on over the past five years. Before I go on, please consider that five years is a long investment, and Dragon Quest IX is the original lure, so I hope you can forgive me if a little bit of bitterness seeps its way in. But you mean to tell me this game is what I felt like I was missing out on fourteen years ago?

Now to be fair, fourteen years ago I probably was missing out a bit. DQ9 made its bones as the first multiplayer title in the series, and to that end it was designed with multiplayer in mind. Party up with your friends, do story content together, grind random dungeons for boss loot like a turn-based Diablo, change your class on the fly, trade with other players...all this is great stuff if you're logging onto that wi-fi connection for a good time. But if you're playing today, alone? All those multiplayer-focused design decisions come back to bite in a big way and suck most of the fun right out of the equation. For starters, there's essentially no story to this game, or at least not a strong and meaningful one. Yes, there's a main plot thread and a hair of intrigue around that, but because you needed to be able to jump into a party of four actual players, there are no party NPCs other than randomly generated generic options with no motivations or agency. Each section of the main plot is essentially a self-contained side quest with no direct bearing on anything else beyond "These people are happy now so you're closer to your goal." Even the ending is completely anticlimactic and unearned. The random dungeons? They're dull, lifeless, and totally unrewarding unless you're grinding them repeatedly - which again is only fun to do with friends.

But by far what stuck in my craw the most was this game's version of the job/skill system. Here as in the previous game you get skill points as you level up, which can be assigned to any of multiple skill trees your class has access to. However, in DQ8 each character was unique (and, you know, important). In order to mesh that skill system with the idea of changing jobs/classes at will, DQ9 had the bold idea of making each class level up independently. What this means is that if you change classes in Dragon Quest IX - as you're strongly and repeatedly encouraged to do - you revert back to level 1 again. Once more, in a multiplayer environment this makes some sense. "I'll play as a thief when I'm doing single player, I'll be a priest when I'm playing with this group of people, and I'll run a mage with this other group." You can always stay at level parity with your friends and never sacrifice anything on your own. And in fact, since you gain skill points with each class you level and skills are permanent to your character, you can still get significantly stronger even if you're not committing to any one thing. But imagine this from a single player perspective: if you want to interact with the job system at all, you have to commit to grinding through a ton of XP levels, over and over, for the sake of characters randomly named things Tomkins and Lilian and Helga. I hated this design choice with a burning passion, to the point that I decided upon its reveal only several hours into the game that I was never going to interact with it at all. I resolved to beeline to the end of the main campaign and be done with the whole affair.

So, it's only fair that I call out to the game's credit: it allowed me to do this pretty easily. I did a smattering of grinding for gold in the middle of the adventure - the game's overengineered alchemy system once again frustratingly making the idea of selling old equipment anathema - but other than that I never felt like I was running into anything out of my league, and I was able to clear even the final boss grind-free with just a little bit of luck. I finished the game in about 47 hours, which is probably the shortest amount of time I've spent on a Dragon Quest game since the 8-bit era, and I appreciated the relative brevity of this adventure. Would I have traded some of that brevity for a better story, and well-written characters, and a world map worth exploring beyond finding random alchemy ingredients, and a progression design that didn't actively punish me for not playing this game on a Tokyo subway? I mean...yeah, of course. But at a certain point you just take what you can get.

​

#73 - Death's Door - PC - 8/10 (Great)

It's impossible for me to write about this game and not compare it to Tunic. They're both action-adventure indie games using an isometric viewpoint with terrific music, a partial focus on real-time/skill-based/Souls-esque combat that never gets hard enough to frustrate, and a further focus on rewarding environmental exploration. By coincidence, I also played them only a couple months apart. This means that for my entire playthrough of Death's Door (which for context took me perhaps 11 hours to 100% clear), I couldn't stop drawing parallels to Tunic, and unfortunately this constant comparison ended up being rather unkind to Death's Door, which didn't quite manage the same soaring highs for me that Tunic pulled off, especially in regards to the discovery aspect. I kept looking for secret nooks and crannies and "a-ha" moments that Death's Door simply wasn't going to deliver, because that wasn't this game's mission statement. Though at first this proved a big disappointment, I eventually realized that the comparison was both entirely personal to my own experiences and entirely unfair: Death's Door came out a year before Tunic, and I had I played them in reverse order these thoughts never would've even entered my mind.

So instead, let's look at what Death's Door does do very well, which is quite a bit. For one, the adventure is brief and paced/configured really well, so you can knock it out in 3-4 solid chunks, 9-10 smaller ones, or anything in between. This made it very easy to pick up and play, especially because (as mentioned before) the combat always maintained a pleasurable balance between "I need to lock in think about what I'm doing" and "This is relaxingly easy." For that matter, once I accepted that the game wasn't going to be overflowing with secrets and hidden knowledge, I found it refreshing to be able to give the screen a quick visual once over and immediately identify whether I needed to poke around a bit or simply move on. The strong telegraphing of secrets means you always feel like you can figure everything out without looking up help, saves you the trouble of wasting time on red herrings, and still manages to give you that happy, satisfied feeling when you do find something. That's good design!

I wasn't particularly invested in the game's setting or lore, and the story itself I regarded as little more than an excuse for the gameplay, which is to say it was fine but nothing special. I also found the game's fast travel system to be thematically interesting, but practically inefficient enough that by the later stages of the game I was mildly annoyed. Finally, you can raise your stats with the XP you earn and find, but there's not enough to get all your stats up - in fact you'll end up drastically short of that goal even if you hit 100% completion, and that feels like a miss. Yet these were minor complaints amidst an adventure that I had no problem sticking with after the credits ended to see everything else the game still had to offer. That I didn't think the secret ending was actually worth it is beside the point: the additional gameplay very much was worthwhile on its own, and if you have that - with a strong soundtrack to boot - I'd say you have enough.

​

Coming in December:

• As the year curls to a close, so does my PC gaming time slowly sunset into the new year. Holidays, man. But I reckon I've got time for one or two more before the Great Radio of 2024 starts playing Semisonic at me, so we'll give Eternal Threads a try, if only because I installed it on a whim a few months back and am tired of seeing it in my little sidebar.
• I told myself after the turmoil of LEGO Lord of the Rings that I was done with the whole LEGO adventure game franchise, even though I had virtually the entire rest of the set available in my backlog somehow or another. But I got so ahead of schedule on my console gaming (meticulously planned at the moment against a specific date next year for reasons we won't get into) that I figured I could chuck an extra title in the mix. And when looking at the backlog options and their approximate playtimes, I saw that the next LEGO game in the chronology was LEGO City Undercover, widely considered to be the best of the whole dang bunch. Considering I've seen this game referred to before as "Baby's First GTA," the classic "Ah, here we go again" meme feels apropos.
• I read my mandatory palate cleanser book after finishing a portable JRPG (this is a very specific self-imposed rule, I know), so I'm clear to dive back into the world of retro titles for a little while. I initially had an N64 title on the docket, but a case of major stick drift on the ol' joy-con has put anything analog on the backburner until I sort that out. Instead, enter Pokémon Trading Card Game for Game Boy Color.
• And more...

​

​

I opened up Final Fantasy 7 (Playstation 1, 1997) when I realized that a stock PS3 can directly run PS1 game discs. FF7 offers relevant commentary on environmentalism and centralized power, reasons to care about what happens to (many) characters, a fascinating leveling system, an uncomfortable reliance on Don Corneo for humor, and desperately needs the Fast-Forward functionality offered by emulators.

This is also a sad story, full of loss and broken families.

I haven't played the FF7 remakes (as I don't have that console), and so can't compare the 1997 & 2020 games.

FF7 opens in an industrial city, as a terrorist (protagonist) organization bombs a reactor providing energy to the city. While the reactors enable the city and its residents to function, the reactors also cause enormous environmental damage; and AVALANCHE views its actions as justified, given their limited alternatives. However, while the game doesn't spend much effort questioning Barrett's explosive, environmental views, it's clear that the sudden loss of Midgar's reactors will add to the hardships within the Midgar slums, and make the situation for the residents even worse. It's a shit situation for everyone, and for the most part, the game continues introducing serious topics; generally on family, and loss.

I wish that the authors allowed us to see the scene between Aeris, Marlene, and the Turks. Prior to story beginning, Aeris was orphaned, alone, and then adopted and cared for; this cycle repeats, but with Aeris taking on the role of protector, and Marlene being the child in need of protection. Aeris agrees to surrender to the Turks and Shinra, as long as Marlene's safety is guaranteed. This is a shift in Aeris' role, from protectee (being protected by her mother, and later being protected by Cloud as a 'Bodyguard'), to protector. I wonder why Aeris shifted her role, what realizations she had, and, as Aeris' shift to protector foreshadows Aeris' later sacrifice, it's a shame this pivotal scene isn't in the game. We don't see enough from Aeris' perspective.

In a story about loss, Barrett and Dyne stands out, as these two characters are mirror opposites in how they react to loss. Barret and Dyne both lose their spouses and hometown after a reactor is installed. Dyne responds to his loss with rage, destruction, desperation, and hopelessness, and generally unproductive destruction; while Barrett channels his rage to find solutions. Within the game, Barrett's final limit break, or powerful in-game effect unique to that character, is titled 'Catastrophe.' Barrett literally uses the catastrophe of his home town, spouse, and life, to create the change he wants to see in the world; while Dyne kills himself after deciding that he can't cope with reality. Barrett uses sorrow in a beneficial way, which Dyne couldn't. (An especially striking part of Dyne's story, is that Dyne could've recovered. Part of the reason for Dyne's breakdown is that he lost his spouse and child, and then went mad. Upon learning that his daughter, Marlene, was alive, Dyne seemed to view this as more of a reason to give up, rather than to reset, find his daughter.)

The FF7 leveling system remains fun due to flexibility, seeming simplicity, and the long term consequences of immediate decisions. Some games have a very passive leveling system, in which leveling decisions are made on some sort of 'Level Up!' screen. FF7 forces those leveling decisions through how the game is played. The best, most powerful party in the short term, doesn't make for the ideal set of characters in the long term. Materia and Limit Breaks require that the game be played in different ways, in order to achieve different effects. Then, the materia system encourages exploration and learning, as there typically aren't any adverse consequences of trying something and failing, other than the opportunity costs. I see parallels between FF7's Materia, and Hollow Knight's charm system: both have simple interfaces, with enormous consequences in how the game is played, and maybe the combination of simplicity, re-playability, reversibility, and exploration, is why both games are well liked.

FF7 doesn't have many quality of life features, and a significant portion of 'gameplay' is watching a screen, or going through a menu doing some dull activity. An emulator's Fast-Forward function alleviates some of this, but not all of it. Then, FF7's gameplay loop seems to both punish dying and returning to a save point, and also depend upon dying and returning to a save point, in order to gain information about upcoming scenes. The player is simultaneously hit over the head with a number of required, tedious actions, while also being encouraged to do more tedious actions. e.g. 'Always heal after every battle, because sometimes boss battles start without warning'; or 'This boss is impossible unless you spend hours leveling up, or unless you already know which elements to protect from', or 'try this obscure skill on every single enemy, to find the 3 enemies in the game with essential skills.'

Use an emulator, use save-state, use a guide/walkthrough; and FF7 remains fun.

TL;DR: Rollers of the Realm is a fun and quirky indie game that mashes up pinball and RPG mechanics in a mostly-successful way. If you happen to be in the middle of that venn diagram, check it out.

In Rollers of the Realm, you're playing as a party of pinballs who all have traditional fantasy RPG jobs/classes - thief, knight, mage, etc - while playing through a standard D&D style campaign where each scene is its own pinball board. The story itself is quite basic - a plucky thief stumbles onto a plot to unleash great evil on the world - but that's not really the point here.

The point is to do something genuinely unique with video pinball.

Rolling Rolling Rolling, Keep Them Ballies Rolling...

The first thing that struck me is just how charming the game's overall design is. The pinball boards are all themed after different stock fantasy settings, and they do a good job conveying the idea of the setting while still working as pinball tables. There are little NPCs wandering around, guards around gates, farms and fields, castles, dungeons, the works. The designers should get credit for just how well they pull off the conceit visually.

And the pinball side of the game is pretty well-done. Few of the tables would stand alone as pinball games, but taken as a whole they make for a satisfying pinball-based adventure. Some are focused on combat, others are more puzzle-like, trying to figure out how to move balls through mazes of paddles and gates. You'll have to swap characters frequently to overcome challenges with their specific skills, but this can be done whenever the ball is on the launcher or cradled on one of the main paddles.

That said, there are probably too many characters. By the end of the game, you can easily have a party of 10+ balls, and cycling through them whenever you need to swap can be a pain - especially in hectic sections. Also, some of them just aren't that useful, or have skills which are only helpful in very specific circumstances. I wish they'd whittled the roster down a bit.

The physics are solid enough for the most part, although one big aspect of the game is that each ball/character behaves differently. They have different sizes, speeds, and maneuverability, as well as special powers. So you have to vary up your style and strategies depending on which ball is active at the moment. The designers also aren't afraid to do twists on traditional boards, such as including slopes and inclines to further complicate shots. That said, I do feel like some of the boards are just too cramped, but that's a nearly unavoidable issue when designing pinball tables that fit onto a standard horizontal screen without going TATE.

Basically, it's not pure pinball, but it should appeal to people who like games that push the pinball format further, like the whole Pinball FX series.

They See Me Rollin', They Hatin'

Combat is a major part of the game. For the most part, it reminds of the old Devil and Alien Crush games on Turbografx/PCE, with enemies wandering around the board and getting in the way. However, unlike those games, each enemy has their own HP meter and typically takes several hits to take down. Individual balls, of course, have varying abilities in combat. Your heavy hitters are best reserved for boards with a lot of enemies roaming around, while they may be too big for more fiddly section.

Fortunately, you aren't 100% reliant on physics. The left stick (I'd strongly recommend playing on controller) can apply force to the ball in motion, and how much it moves is governed by each character's agility stat. The heaviest balls can barely be budged off their path, but lightweight characters like the thief offer a ton of control while in motion. And you WILL have to make use of this, so get used to coordinating the paddles and the stick. Otherwise, you'll be losing a lot of balls down drains.

There's also XP and money, which is spent in a shop buying the usual sort of stat-upgrading items. You can even hire some mercenaries from time to time, to beef up your party.

In addition to keeping your balls alive, your main paddles are also vulnerable, and take visible damage that breaks them as damage accumulates. Enemies will shoot arrows or even throw fireballs trying to damage them. The fireballs are a particularly interesting threat, since they will quickly burn through a paddle - but could also be hit back at enemies, if you're willing to tank the paddle damage. But at least you get a healer ball early on who can fix them, as well as resurrecting lost balls.

Unfortunately, this does lead to one of my gripes about the game. At least on the higher difficulty level, enemies tend to feel a bit too tanky - especially if you've let one of your main damage dealers get killed. Speaking of, as the game goes on, there are a few too many enemies who like to punt the ball straight down the main drain, which can be downright infuriating since you often don't have any chance to react. Add that to the busy boards with a ton of items and other things moving around like wind spells that blow your balls off-course (depending on weight/agility), and the action can become very chaotic.

It's one of those cases where 'easy' feels too easy, but 'hard' is mostly hard by being extra tedious. Especially the final bosses, who are absolute damage sponges. And did I mention the final battle is set on a goddamn DOME with the boss perched on top, where every bit of the level's design is trying to funnel balls into death traps? Ugh.

Still, genuinely enraging moments were rare.

I Wanna Roll You Up Into My Life

Overall, this is one of those games where you'd probably best off just downloading the demo to see if it clicks with you. Personally, I fell in love in the first few minutes, but this is a YMMV situation - mostly depending on how you feel about video pinball games. The only other thing to be aware of is that replay value is minimal. The main campaign takes around 6-7 hours, and while a few boards open up for an arcade score-attack mode, none of them are really strong enough to stand alone as pinball boards.

But still, it's a cheap game, and cheaper on sale. If this sounds like something you might like, check it out.

I've mused a few times in the past how Skyrim has never clicked for me, despite seeming like a game I'd love. My latest such musing came about a month ago, when I was watching a stream from a friend of mine. He finished his initially planned game faster than expected, and decided to try Skyrim for the first time so as to not end the stream early.

I decided to stick around, and as he played, I began to get a sense that maybe it would work if I tried playing again. It had been a long time, and my tastes have changed enough that the hangups from the past seem like less of a deal breaker now. (Mainly a lack of patience for longer games, which has been remedied by the likes of Persona in recent years for me)

I mentioned the temptation to try it again in some chats, and got advice on what to help make the game work, such as deciding my "class" before starting, and about two weeks ago, I installed the Special Edition on Steam (I bought the Legendary Edition years back, so Special Edition sat in my library for a long time).

With that, I went through the memetic opening, and made my character, planning to make her a mage. A run through the first dungeon, and after I left, I got tempted to grab some plants, and then an idea came to me. I decided my character is a botanist, and she was crossing the border since she was on a mission to document the flora of Skyrim, which naturally extended to putting Alchemy in the build plans.

With some more quests played, I found myself thinking that the game is really feeling better than it did years ago. As of now, I've met the Greybeards and am feeling really up to exploring the world more and seeing what else there is that I missed out on back in the day.

So all in all, after many years of thinking "Skyrim is the game I want to love", I think I've finally found that love, and I am very happy that I did. I can't wait to continue my adventure and learning more about this world that is so mysterious to me. Going in with a build in mind and thinking up ideas of who my character is has made such a big difference in how I see the game and all for the better.

It is crazy how this game is entirely unknown. I saw only one review on Youtube and not a single let's play. One would expect it to be a hastily made asset flip, but it's actually highly polished.

The best way I can summarize Lithium City is that it is like a slower-paced Hotline Miami with the vibe of SuperHot. Mechanically, it's a fairly standard top-down shooter/slasher, but visual and audio designs can carry it into the awe-inspiring experience. There is one particular moment at the train level that made me audibly go "woah."

As limited as the basic mechanics are, its sandbox approach to the level designs can make it less limited than one might assume. Although railroaded, the game crams as many set-pieces and different obstacles as possible to vary the gameplay. The physics applied to grenades and disc weapons in particular create some emergent moment-to-moment gameplay.

The game is short enough to be finished in one sitting, so it's over before it gets repetitive. The definition of "hidden gem", in a sense that it's so hidden barely anyone's aware of it.

I think this is first YGO game released in English. For me personally it was early childhood game when I could barely understand 3 words in English - yep you guessed never finished it and not because I couldn’t understand because progress is quite straightforward, but all I care while building my deck was how cool each monster looked like.

Plenty of years later, I’m today years old and decided to refresh my memory and check how it’s aged. After short research in what I should expect I was so sure that game is known for one thing - It was a helluva grinder.

And everyone was right, literally grind starts from the moment of starting new game - you should keep resetting game until your starting deck is ok and I mean here you need some specific cards.

Game is kinda split into 4 phases of difficulty, where last one is the hardest and pretty much a gauntlet of few duels one after another without possibility to save between against OP decks of enemies.

Which leads us to early stage farming, mid and late (and I’m not taking about resetting game here)

I don’t wanna go into details how to farm, but in the end for farming purpose and to make my deck way I would like to be I done about 500 duels (there is about 40 story duels) and still it wasn’t perfect (I had 2 out of 3 Meteor B. Dragons) I can’t imagine doing it on PS1, with fast forward of emulator it was bearable.

A little explanation what for all of this farming, well this is card game, there are 700 cards in the game, but Windows95man sang a song about rules in Forbidden Memories which is No Rules.

I mean there are basics like 1 card per turn, att/def position etc, but like most of the games got some rules to limit you from spamming strongest cards, here as long as you have a card in your hand you can play it on n your turn. Both you and your AI enemy - so expect first turn fight with 4K attack monsters (while all you can do is 3,5k) That’s why you need to farm - there is a card Meteor B Dragon that is farmable which can beat endgame bosses, without this card well you probably won’t be able finish the game.

Anyways it was quite fine experience in 2024 but don’t expect any complex tactics.

Playing through the Arkham games cause I never got to as a teen and I'm kinda surprised by how bad the portrayal of mental health is? I mean I wasn't expecting it to be good, anything from 2009 with 'Asylum' in the name is bound to be problematic and play off fears of mental health that were prevalent at the time. I remember myself being really scared of 'insanity' as it was portrayed in the media.

Still, Arkham Asylum seems to be a cut above (below?) the rest. The Asylum inmates are presented as completely inhuman, raving enemies that rush at you thoughlessly. They also consistently show signs of how badly they're treated, with completely inhumane measures such as electrified floors featuring in the 'cell block'.

It's interesting that nobody ever comments on this? Like, Batman keeps trying to save the Warden who caused all this and nobody mentions (so far and to my memory) how badly the inmates are treated. At one point Joker records a message telling his thugs to knock the 'crazies' out and I was, at that moment, knocking out one of those enemies. Just a weird moment where Batman and Joker didn't seem as far apart as they usually do.

That said, and despite the other issues in this game, i am enjoying just following the plot and seeing where it goes. I don't really care about the secrets and I don't really care about seeing all the content of whatever, I'm happy to just follow the main quest for this one :)

EDIT: Ok as a general response to the comments on this video, you guys do know that representation matters right? Representing mental health in this way, regardless of in-world justification or whatever, leads to stigma and that's what we saw in the 00's. Stigma and misunderstanding of mental health issues. It's good to realise that this game is a product of it's time, but it's also good to criticise old media through a modern lens to see how we've improved and where we can still improve. I was not personally offended by this game, just surprised at how nonchalant Batman is about the cruelty taking place at Arkham, a position that places him closer to Joker than I expected, and which isn't there in other Batman media like the Animated Series that came out a decade before this game.

I recently felt like trying an arcade racer (usually I'm more into sim racing), and found NFS heat in my steam library.

The game has the most stupid story and even dumber characters.. like, they are really dumb beyond words, so I won't even try.

The good thing though: the racing is great. To be more specific, the racing at night time is great. At night, there are illegal street races in a city which loosely resembles Miami. Usually the cops get triggered by those races and start the chase. The more notorious the player's actions have been during the night, the higher the escalation of the cop chases. They start to send ramming wagons and helicopters and faster police cars and are generally more numerous. If you get caught, you lose all your earning from the ongoing night, so the night time racing is really tense and exciting with high stakes.

The daytime racing on the other hand is not too interesting. You participate in legal races on closed tanks without any traffic.

At night you earn reputation to unlock upgrades and cars, while during the day you earn cash (which is called "bank" in the game...). So you are forced to do the boring daytime races to a certain extend, although sometimes that's a good thing since the cop chases can get really intense so you might want to recover a bit :D

The looks, especially at night time, are done extremely well: neon lights, lots of reflections, beautiful cars.. it still looks good!

The cars handle also well (I played on gamepad, I don't think this game works well with a wheel but I didn't try it out), it's not trivial but also not super hard and there is a wide variation of cars and many handle very distinctly, e.g. muscle cars vs Japanese high revving cars etc. Sound is also great and especially the engine sounds have a good variation.

Tuning is a must in this game, and also nicely implemented. Especially the optical tuning offers a lot of variation and it seems they put a lot of effort in it.

I didn't play a need for Speed title since Underground, but I really don't regret coming back. :)

I was recently playing Lies of P when I was struck with this thought. Lies of P copies the interconnectivity in level design that every From Software title has, as if its very important that levels loop around on themselves back to earlier checkpoints.

But why? Everyone including From Software seems to have convinced themselves interconnectivity within level design is very important but for the life of me I can't understand why.

Take Irythyll from Dark Souls 3. Its a good level, but not because after you go all the way to the end, there is a shortcut right to the beginning. Thats cool, but functionally it doesnt make that much difference if there wasn't that shortcut and there was simply a bonfire outside Pontiff's room. Because if for some reason you wanted to go back earlier, you could just fast travel.

With fast travel interconnectivity basically eliminates some loading screens (though you have to ask whether the loading screen would take longer than the shortcut), and reduces the number of checkpoints. Irythyll is a good level because of branching paths and other things. Interconnectivity makes absolutely zero difference imo.

The reason interconnectivity mattered so much in Dark Souls is there was no fast travel. As a consequence, you felt far from safety from the hub or earlier checkpoints where you had important NPCs. The reason the lift from the parish to firelink shrine was so important is that otherwise you would have to literally replay the entire game so far to get back to the hub, but instead everything is now linked. Same with the lift from new londo after finishing blight town.

In Demon Souls, ever level was just one checkpoint, so shortcuts were essential.

Thronebreaker is a gwent inspired RPG set in the Witcher universe. It follows the actual Gwent game instead of the Witcher 3 version but it also has its own different rules. The game is set in a top-down perspective, and your only control is the mouse and left click, you use it to move and interact, so it's a very one hand friendly game. On the world map there are points of interest and loot scattered that you collect and battles you fight. You go through multiple area maps in sequence with the story.

Battles come in mainly 3 types. The typical 3 round Gwent if you have ever played that, the short 1 round which is most common and puzzles that contain many small challenges with a set goal.

It is a game where you make decisions and your decisions do affect many parts of your journey the biggest of which is that characters in games are also cards in your deck, and named characters are very powerful. So the joining or leaving of one character does affect your gameplay.

The best part of the game for me without a doubt is the artstyle. The Gwent cards all look great but that I knew from the time of me playing Gwent but the character and world artstyle might actually be in my top 5 even. The cellshaded work on the characters especially, is amazing. Very rarely does an artstyle capture me so easily and still makes me admire it 30 hours into the game. The soundtrack is also really good with battle music filling you with determination. Same goes for the voice acting, it is all voiced except for the letters you find and the narrator is excellent, it is well written and narrated and never feels like it's trying too hard or wasting your time with filler. The voice actors for all characters are great and pull their weight. I played in English. 

The game came as a surprise also because in many regards it's a very limiting game, in many parts it feels like a side project, which it pretty much was. Basic things like zooming into the world or zooming out are not present, almost no graphics option, for a choice heavy story there is a certain lack of a variety of choices in any given situations, many of the missing choices also feel like the most obvious ones. The biggest of course, is the lack of deck verity, Of course they had to stick to a deck theme to fit the story but the cards available in the campaign are surprisingly limiting, with the story definitely taking priority over gameplay. Many of the cards you can't even build and are only available in a certain amount even tho they are common cards. A part of me understands but still wishes it was less restrictive.

But despite its limitations, it's a very fun game at its core with a surprisingly well written story. I would recommend it to anyone, just for that alone, even if you know nothing about Gwent. The game does a good job of familiarizing you to the card game.

I'll be honest that I dismissed this game for the longest time, due to it being a series tie-in game and also a formula "clone" of another franchise. It kept coming up in online circles so I decided to give it a try out of curiosity, and I was very pleasantly surprised. This is a really good game that totally holds up more than two decades later.

What I loved about it most is how alive the world feels. There's so much going on at once and the driving mechanics are good enough to make navigating the ensuing chaos a blast, and a nice challenge too. It's the sort of game design I don't often see these days, unafraid of creating something that feels wild and spontenous. I understand that it can occasionally cause frustration, but I still much prefer it to what it would be otherwise.

Each of the area is lovingly crafted, they're charming and beautiful, and a ton of fun to explore. The visual style seems like it hasn't aged at all. I've never watched The Simpsons, but I still enjoyed the characters, jokes and music quite a lot. The story was a lot of fun and the final chapter is super memorable and awesome.

It really comes together super well, I can see why it's regarded as such a classic and I'm glad I played it.

What do you think of this game?

The original Homeworld blew my mind in '99. It was a beautiful space based RTS with *true* 3D movement. The story was great, the soundtrack was awesome, the gameplay was the stuff of legend, it was the best game I'd ever bought. Last week I bought the Homeworld Remastered collection on Steam...

Released in 2015, Remastered has a complicated history. The OG Homeworld (HW1) had a truly awesome sequel called Homeworld: Cataclysm. Then around 2004 Homeworld 2 (HW2) was released and it changed a hell of a lot, it didn't get the expected 100% reviews across the board, the planned sequels were cancelled and the franchise was put to rest. The Remastered collection contains remastered versions of HW1 and HW2 as well as the original versions of those games. There's no need for any Direct-X mumbo jumbo, it all runs natively on Win 11.

The story sees you marshalling a fleet that holds the last of your people, across an epic journey to find a world you can call home. It's very much Battlestar Galactica, but it's beautifully told. You build your fleet along the way to meet new challenges, you approach each battle with whatever strategy you want. Your combat fleet has two main ship types, the larger capital ships like the destroyers and carriers, and the smaller strike craft like interceptors and corvettes.

In HW1, the strike craft had limited fuel and would need to dock or resupply periodically. As any Homeworld player will tell you, the salvage corvettes are among the most valuable ships in the early-mid game, and having them run out of fuel when they're grabbing an enemy missile destroyer was not a good moment. But in Remastered, none of the ships ever run out of fuel. Which changes your strategy and makes the carriers a lot less useful. It also means the enemy fighters aren't going to run out of fuel if you catch them at the end of a patrol run.

The other big change is how Remastered handles groups and formations. In HW1 you could create groups of ships, say 50 interceptors in one group, and order them to a formation, and they would all fall into that formation. In Remastered the games breaks up large ship groups, so 50 interceptors in Claw formation, will be broken up into two or three smaller groups in Claw formation, which completely mucks up your tactics.

There's lots of other niggles too, like the undocumented and arbitrary changes to keyboard mappings. But it's that first change, infinite fuel, that really screws things up. The game is very scripted, how you deal with each mission is up to you, but the enemy always deploys the same fleets at the start, in the OG Homeworld this wasn't a problem. The script, the map and the ships abilities always clicked in just the right way to give you a good game, the OG was a genuine labour of love for its devs and artists.

So by changing the game rules, but not the mission settings, you've got a messed up, unbalanced game. Suddenly my salvage corvettes don't have to worry about refuelling, but it also means the enemy fighter patrols will never run out of fuel chasing you back to your mothership. So in Remastered, some missions are a total cake walk and others are suddenly much more difficult. In short, it's a different game, and it's a bit broken.

The problem is that the code for the OG Homeworld is no longer available, there was some business related musical chairs shortly after it was released and I think there was uncertainty over who owned what. When HW2 was released it was built around a different engine, which introduced some of the shortcomings I listed above. When Remastered was released, it had to be coded using the HW2 engine, the HW1 code was just not available. This brought in the changes to formations and fuel, which buggered up the game.

Adding insult to injury....The Remastered Collection also includes "original" versions of HW1 and HW2, except they're not. These "original" versions are also updates to the OG game but with older graphics, and it introduces a truly game destroying bug. The smaller ships *do* have limited fuel but they can't dock with the mothership. The bug means the strike craft will approach the mothership and then go into an endless orbit around it, never docking, until their fuel runs out and they're left drifting in space.

So there's two versions of the game, both with game changing bugs. If you want to experience the truly original Homeworld you'll have to haunt thrift stores and yard sales or dip your toes in the salty seas of the internet.

Homeworld Remastered ; it's true what they say, you can never go back again, 2/5

Note: This is a repost as the original included minor contextual information that violated rule 1. Sorry if the post feels incomplete.

I just finished the original unmodded version of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007). I’ve wanted to play the game for years and now seemed like the right time. Unfortunately, I absolutely hated it. I’ll list my positives and negatives below:

Positives

• SOC has a great world-building and I wanted to learn more about the zone.
• The zone is a great setting. The world feels “lived-in”. It successfully tricks you into believing you are a small cog in a larger machine.
• The game has an intimidating and oppressive tone, which is great. Despite the jank I was often immersed in the world, especially in the more open-ended areas.
• The game has a great AI system and it’s fun to use stealth mechanics to flank enemies (when they work).
• There are some great environments, I’ll definitely remember “Garbage”, “Yantar”, and “Red Forest”.
• The story has a strong hook and reveal, even if I think the execution is poor.

Negatives

• Side-quests are time-sensitive and involve a huge amount of backtracking. I was often informed I failed a side-quest before I realised it was active.
• The benefits of each artifact is unclear. I was using +health artifacts thinking that it boosted my health. It actually boosted my health regeneration, which was basically useless given the low TTK.
• The game generally delivers its narrative through the PDA. There is a huge emotional disconnect between the protagonist and the player.
• The player character does not react when Doc informs him about Strelok . There should be an entry about this in the PDA.
• There isn’t much dialogue or role-playing or even plot right up until the very end of the game.
• There aren’t enough flanking opportunities. Most of the fights take place in tight corridors with limited strategic opportunities. Baiting headshots is boring.
• The game has “realistic” shooting mechanics. You can get one-shot by enemies if the RNG isn’t in your favour. Guns jam frequently. Some people will love this but it was too much for me.
• There is very limited enemy variety. There isn’t much difference between a snork and a wild hound. 
• It’s possible to get stuck in a room with limited ammo and a large amount of enemies outside. This happened to me when I turned off the brain-scorcher . I basically had to bait all of the enemies into the room one by one to headshot them and quickly loot their corpses. The alternative was to reload an old save and backtrack to find more ammo. It took me a full hour to get out of the lab and I hated every second of it.
• At least two sections of the game have ugly visual filters that are active for far too long.
• The true end-game combat sequence is an absolute slog. Just absolutely joyless.

Anomalies

• Enemies can shoot the player while looking 90 degrees away from them. You can never be sure if an enemy is looking at you.
• NPCs repeat dialogue frequently, especially around the Bar (“Get out of here Stalker”, “Don’t just stand there, come in”, the Snitch, etc). This sucks because the Bar is the most convenient stash. I eventually started muting the game when I was in there.
• The game crashed twice when I used bandages directly from an enemy’s corpse
• I failed an escort mission as NPCs attacked my charge while I was in a scripted cutscene.
• An NPC named Wolf died because he accidentally spawned in a fire. I thought this was deliberate so I attacked the friendly NPCs around him.
• A quest-giver was shot by a sniper immediately after giving me the mission to kill said sniper. This mission remained active and I could never turn it in (the map marker stayed on the quest-giver’s corpse).
• Enemies would sometimes disappear after I re-loaded a quick-save.
• An enemy in the final mission walked up into the skybox and continued to shoot me even after I teleported to another section of the map.

On on a final note, I played this game on the Steam Deck using joystick and gyro to aim. The PC version was obviously designed around MnK and doesn't have aim assist. This may have unfairly coloured my experience.

I had high expectations for SOC and unfortunately it didn’t reach them. The game is full of rough edges and it’s hard to look past them after hours of exhausting and unforgiving save-scumming. I can see why it’s a cult classic and why it’s so highly regarded but unfortunately the negative outweighed the positives for me. I love the premise and the setting, but I probably won't come back to this one. I wish GSC all of the best and I plan to check out their other games.

I'd always been a fan of UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994) and, to an extent, X-COM: Terror From the Deep (1995), so I played XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) shortly after release. If I remember correctly, I completed a single campaign, and then largely forgot about it. I still picked up both the expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within (2013) and sequel XCOM 2 (2016) when discounted without playing either. After watching some interesting retrospectives about the original games on YouTube and getting the itch to play some XCOM, but not wanting to deal with games quite that old, I decided to finally give XCOM: Enemy Within a try.

I'm not going to try explain the game - just my experience with it 11 years after the expansion was released. But the basics of the game is that you control the XCOM global defence force fighting against the alien invaders at both a strategic level (managing resources, personnel, research, etc.) and tactical level (fighting turn-based missions against aliens with normally 4 to 6 soldiers).

Now given that it's been about 12 years since I played the base game, I was essentially relearning the game. My first attempt at a new campaign, I aborted after a couple disastrous missions. The biggest learning curve here was understanding the enemy "triggering" system. For the most part enemy packs trigger when any soldier gets close enough to see them. The enemies then get an immediate free move before you can do anything. If that was your last soldier who triggered them, too bad for you, as that free move plus full enemy follow-up turn can be devastating. So by the time I'd figured out how to manage it - slow and steady advancement with the first soldier to act each turn being the one advancing to the most forward position - I decided to restart the campaign, this time turning all the tutorial options off. (As an aside, I don't remember the first tutorial mission having this enemy triggering behaviour, and it's never actually explained when it does occur in your first real mission.)

So I started a second campaign and it went much more smoothly. The first few months were suitably challenging. Even while being cautious, rookie soldiers without any upgrades and starting gear, are still paper-thin and die fairly easily. But once they start levelling up and you start getting better gear from research, you outpace the lethality of the aliens, and just playing cautiously means I rarely lost soldiers after a certain point. Post-campaign stats says I lost 12 soldiers over the 56 missions I needed to finish the campaign. And 3 of those deaths were in just one single brutal mission where you have to defend your base from an alien incursion.

Now I was playing on Normal difficulty, and that was probably a mistake. Classic difficulty (between Normal and Impossible) might have been more appropriate, but I'm not going to play another campaign when I've got XCOM 2 to try now. I played on almost-Ironman, that is I rolled with the punches, even losing 2 of the 56 missions I played, and only reloaded a save game when I lost my entire squad. This happened 3 times in the campaign - twice on the same brutally hard campaign mission (I think coming from the expansion) where I encountered Chryssalids for the first time and did not have the firepower to deal with the waves of them that spawned; and once when I encountered the very tough Sectopods using their AoE ability for the first time. So I did, rarely, lose valuable, experienced, soldiers. My keenest loss was my Australian heavy weapons specialist who was the first of my soldiers to reach the top rank (max level), but then her backup ended up being the psionically-gifted soldier who would save us all in the game's finale.

So what was the expansion like? Besides some new aliens and missions, XCOM: Enemy Within's namesake addition is that of a mysterious human enemy faction, EXALT, that helps to break up the gameplay a bit with a different set of missions against these human enemies. While I appreciated the increased mission variety, fighting against humans didn't feel very XCOM-like and were only very loosely integrated into the game's narrative.

The most important addition was Meld - a resource that can be collected on some missions that can be used for either genetic enhancements or cybernetic suits (called MECs). These were always nice but Meld was such a scarce resource so that on missions which featured Meld, you really wanted to collect all of it (always 2 cannisters to collect). But the clever thing is that these cannisters were on a timer, expiring after a certain number of turns, and so encouraging me to abandon the slow and cautious approach in favour of rushing for these cannisters. I tried to be strategic about it, only going for cannisters that I thought I could collect safely, but even then, I still ended up in some scary situations more often than not. The tense battles that were fought around the ticking-down timer of a Meld cannister were some of the best moments of the campaign.

So overall I enjoyed my time with XCOM: Enemy Within, and for anyone playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown for the first time, there's no reason not to play the expansion instead if you have it. (For some bizarre reason, you have to choose between Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within on the game launcher even though Enemy Within just adds content to the base game. Why couldn't they have just made campaign toggles to include the various expansion features?) But... I don't have any urge to replay it. I understand now why I never replayed XCOM: Enemy Unknown in 2012 despite enjoying it. For such an expansive game, it actually seemed pretty linear in that, by the end of the campaign I felt like I'd seen everything - all the scientist research, foundry upgrades, soldier weapons, soldier level-up perks, genetic enhancements and MEC abilities. So with XCOM 2 awaiting me, I look forward to playing that next.

Do you have any games that you wanted to play for a long time but find yourself always delaying that playthrough for one reason or another? I’m not talking about any random game from your library that you might have bought on a whim. I’m talking about something that’s either a critical darling and you always wanted to try for yourself, or a sequel to your favorite game or a concept that’s too good to ignore or that game that’s on your Wishlist since forever (say hello to Monster Hunter: World).

Last year, I noticed that I had a perfect bunch of games that I wanted to play since day one and they always lost to something else, when it was time for the next big thing. These games were:

• Nier: Automata: I loved everything about the concept and the main girl as soon as I read the first review about it. In fact, it reminded me again of the Drakengard/Nier series that I’ve been hearing about, from time to time. What prevented me to play it earlier was all the talk about annoying multiple playthroughs and my suspicions that it was a pretty brown/grey game full of desert areas, or that was my impression from watching a friend of mine play it for a little bit. I finally decided to give it a try last year and I’m glad to inform that it was one of the most emotional gaming experiences I’ve ever had and my personal G.O.T.Y. of 2023. Definitely a case of “I should have played it sooner.” Loved almost every second of it and Nier: Automata jumped really fast to my Greatest of all Time pantheon.
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice: impressive graphics, an interesting premise and good reviews. It was an instant buy as soon as I joined the Steam Sales hordes. Went untouched for years because I thought the concept was too heavy for someone that was already down in the dumps. But I finally got the courage to play it some time ago. And while it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be (the gameplay was too limited and repetitive), I’ve finally tried the game by myself and I’m happy for the experience.
• Prey (2017): great art, raving reviews and from the same studio that made Dishonored? Count me in! I bought it in early 2019 and I still haven’t played it. My biggest limitation for a while was that many people said it was a very artistic game and an immersive-sim, which is something I really like to hear (love immersive sims, like the Deus Ex series) but I wanted to have peace of mind to dedicate myself to the game to the fullest. Thing is, life has a funny way to always push something urgent in front of you and I never found the peace and quiet to play it. Against all odds, I’m looking forward to try it in 2025, at last. We’ll do it live!
• Dishonored 2: and speaking of Dishonored, I really enjoyed my time with the first game, way back in 2012. That game did a lot of things right, like the art style, the stealth gameplay, the choices. But the problem was, and this is hard to describe, but it’s a game that check all the boxes in a very artistic and unique way and yet, I never felt the urge to get back for more, in the form of a sequel. It’s like an almost too satisfying game that left me with no desire to continue exploring that world. But I’m finally warming up for some more Dishonored and I think 2025 is the year, too.

And that is my list of games I’m always on the verge of playing but don’t.

What are yours?

Welcome to the Bi-Weekly Thread!

Here you can share anything that might not warrant a post of its own or might otherwise be against posting rules. Tell us what you're playing this week. Feel free to ask for recommendations, talk about your backlog, commiserate about your lost passion for games. Vent about bad games, gush about good games. You can even mention newer games if you like!

The no advertising rule is still in effect here.

A reminder to please be kind to others. It's okay to disagree with people or have even have a bad hot take. It's not okay to be mean about it.

Let me start by saying, yes, this game is a classic and still holds up incredibly well. This is not a smear campaign or hot take piece trying to say this game sucks. But there are some really poor design choices in this game and I wanted to make others aware of before they play because this is not a perfect game like it is sometimes sold. It's going to sound like I hated this game, but I had an amazing time. I beat both castles and a Richter play through. And I will gush at the end. But I just want to call out some things that are important to know for new players that I wish I knew.

The largest problem with this game is navigating the castle. Alucard is so abysmally slow moving through the castle that the best way to navigate is to look the other direction and mash triangle (PS4) to back dash. You can tell even the developers knew this was a problem because they give you a wolf power with a sprint function. But that only helps in like 4 really long hallways because you need a completely smooth surface. The slightest bump will cause you to immediately lose all speed.

Related to the speed, the fast travel system is lacking. There are not enough teleporters in the castle and you can't choose where you teleport to. So if you have to backtrack, and you will, you have to navigate to a teleporter, cycle through wherever it sends you until you are in the right spot, then go to your destination. Once you are done, you repeat this cycle again. It hurts wanted to explore every room because it takes so long to get anywhere. Which is a huge disappointment because the castle is such an amazing and interesting setting that you want to explore to find every secret.

And lastly, the inverted castle was a pain to navigate. You have to use the somehow even slower bat because it wasn't designed to allow Alucard to navigate it with platforming. There are so many simple jumps that are too high, and you have to Gravity Boot or use the bat. The Gravity Boots are sick though. 

Now to gush. This is weird, but I love when Alucard starts moving, and he kicks his foot and just glides for a bit before running, making him look like the coolest person ever. The art and design are still top notch. The gothic setting, creatures, character portraits, weapons, all of it is so remarkably cool and interesting to look at. Each zone is so unique that it compels you to explore just to see what monsters and environments are hidden. 

And the music? Classics all the way through. I always had the volume turned way up playing this game. Go listen to the soundtrack. 

Combat is also extremely fun. It creates this sense of power and lets you easily destroy everything in front of you (my opinion also may be influenced by playing Rondo of Blood right before this, because that game has no problem crushing you. I enjoyed the contrast). Alucard feels like the powerful vampire he is described as. You can become so strong that you can just tank damage against almost all bosses, and there are some really broken weapons you can use. And best believe I used them. 

There is also a story that really goes nicely with Rondo of Blood, and while there isn't a lot here, it's enough to show the character dynamics with each other, their personalities, and their motivation. Seeing how much Maria cares for Richter, how heartbroken Richter is at what he did when you break the spell, and getting to experience Alucard's relationship to Dracula are all great character moments that don't require a ton of dialogue and cutscenes. 

In summary, a really fun game that is absolutely worth going back too, and deserves the title of classic, but there are some things to be aware of before you start. 

I'm not really sure how to best describe Death Stranding - I sometimes hear it described as a glorified walking simulator, but I found it much more than that. The core gameplay is based on delivering cargo from point A to B (and indeed, sometimes walking to accomplish this), but Death Stranding added an incredible amount of depth to it that I didn't expect.

What I Liked

• While Death Stranding started off a bit slow, the amount of weapons, vehicles, structures, and other general equipment that opened up later was insane. It was a constant barrage of unlocking new stuff - a significant amount of which was actually useful / game changing. It felt super rewarding throughout and all the new mechanics/equipment really opened up the game.
• I love resource management/optimization games, and Death Stranding doesn't disappoint. There is a constant pressure to figure out how much cargo you can take, how many orders you can fulfill at once, how to take the most efficient route to save you the most time, which equipment you need, etc... So even though the "actual" gameplay of getting from A->B might sometimes be on the simpler side, the planning and resource management really helped keep things interesting and challenging, and often times felt like the primary gameplay.
• Death Stranding had a lot of "base building" vibes to it - essentially building various structures across the map to make your life easier and more efficient. I completed the entire road network and also had a pretty extensive zip line network (as I imagine a lot of people did) and it was incredibly satisfying*.* Building roads required managing a crazy amount of resources, while zip lines required managing limited chiral network bandwidth. The feeling of having an efficient route throughout the map made it all worth it. In fact, many premium deliveries were essentially impossible without doing this in advance, so those ended up being an excellent payoff as well.
• The environments were beautiful, as maybe expected from a AAA game. Along with the soundtrack (more on this below), it was quite cathartic to just roam around and enjoy the view.
• Due to all of the above, the core traversal gameplay actually grew on me quite a bit. There was also usually at least one small wrench thrown into every plot-related (as well as optional) route/delivery which helped keep things interesting.

  • !e.g. Delivering bodies, vog-emitting cargo, time restraints, motion-sensitive deliveries, snow, etc...!<

What Was Average

• The first couple chapters of the game are definitely slow and overwhelming. There is a ton going on in the map, the UI is super confusing, there are tons of cutscenes, and the actual gameplay is quite literally a walking simulator at this point. Gameplay is also extremely stealth oriented due to the lack of equipment, so it can go by very slow. While I was having fun, I was also worried that the entire rest of the game was going to be like this. However, as I mentioned previously, thankfully you get some critical equipment in chapter 2 (bike, hematic grenades) to tide you over until the game blows wide open in Chapter 3.
• I loved the worldbuilding/lore and the general setting of the game - post-apocalyptic settings are always super fun to explore and learn more about. I wasn't as impressed by the actual story. It had a lot of emotional moments...but also went off the rails in places, had some real awkward writing/lines at times, and a lot of the themes fell a bit flat for me. That being said, I still enjoyed the story overall, but I was definitely way more hooked on the general lore.
• Combat was surprisingly...decent, and a good change of pace from the rest of the game every so often - especially once the game started ramping up in Chapter 3. Similar to above, getting more weapons throughout helped keep things fresh.
  • However, for >!chapters 4, 7, and 11 (the battlefield flashback chapters)!<, combat on the highest difficulty setting was an absolute slog. I had to turn it down for these because enemies just became massive bullet sponges (>!which might have been OK if they didn't respawn constantly!<). It reminded me that the combat wasn't *that* good that it could be the primary focus of the game/chapter.

What I Didn't Like

• I can only think of one thing that really annoyed me, and it's relatively minor. Death Stranding has powerful moments after tough deliveries/segments where music will start playing while you get a great view of the scenery. The soundtrack was excellent, and many times it was great to just walk around and enjoy the moment while listening to the music. But, for some reason, you could not play the soundtrack while doing regular deliveries. The only time you can listen to it ad-hoc is while you're resting...i.e. when you're not actually doing anything. It seemed like a giant waste to me - given how much of the game is spent traveling, it would have been awesome to actually enjoy the soundtrack they clearly put so much effort into. At least let me unlock the capability after some certain progress in a region etc...

Final Thoughts

I did not expect to love Death Stranding as much as I did, especially given how much it's focused on purely traversal. It was probably one of the most unique games I've ever played, and I'm incredibly glad I took a risk on it. I ended up playing about ~100 hours on the PS5 Director's Cut version, and getting the Platinum Trophy.

I know it's quite a polarizing game, but I'd definitely suggest giving it a shot to see if you like it. And just know that the beginning of the game starts off pretty slow and is not (completely) indicative of the rest of the game.

Overall Rating: 9.5 / 10 (Outstanding)

Throughout my life I've been a Mortal Kombat guy. I played Armageddon on PS2, MK9 on PS3, MK11 and MK1 on Steam. My passion for this franchise weakened after the last game due to kameo mechanics, poor performance and some other issues. In an atempt to try something new, I got SF6.

World Tour is a neat single player experience. It reminds of MK Deception Konquest and Like a Dragon games. I liked the little side quests and getting to learn the playable fighters' personalities and backstories. I just wish it didn't require exp grind in the end.

Fighting mecahanics feel solid. At first it was kind of strange to see all the differences between MK and SF (back to block, 6 attack buttons, quarter circle inputs, universal throw tech etc.) but eventually I got used to them. The game manages to not annoy me on a mechanical level. Even when my ass gets kicked, I understand what was the issue and able to learn from it. There aren't mechanics that feel particularly scrubby or frustrating to me. Everything looks like it can be countered in some way. There is also Modern Control schema. I don't use it because it's restrictive, but I guess there are people who want one button specials.

Multiplayer in this game is top notch. Matches are found very quickly, it's easy to add friends, block people and view other player's replays, set your favorite stage and character outfits. Somehow even Wifi warriors feel bearable to fight, unlike in MK. I guess Capcom servers are powered by Ki. There are plenty of people with my level of skill, so ranked almost always seems fair and balanced. Also, I can use modded outfits online, which is great.

Perhaps the most abstract strength of this game is that it's cozy. Music is upbeat, characters and ingame systems act nice to the player and encourage improvement. This is hard to describe, it's something you have to feel for yourself.

Now, there are downsides as well. The biggest one is monetization. I understand DLC characters and to some extent stages, but prices of costumes and other cosmetic elements are quite ridiculous. It's like I'm playing a F2P mobile gacha and not an AAA game.

Overall, I went into SF6 expecting a rebound from MK1, but ended up with one of the best gaming experiences this whole year.

Unavowed is the second-most-recent point-and-click adventure game by Wadget Eye, taking place in the same setting as its Blackwell series. Like those games, it takes place in modern New York but with supernatural beings lurking behind the scenes. It's a compelling setting; even though "contemporary fantasy" is done to death at this point, it's executed well and Wadget's approach is frequently novel.

Clearly inspired by games like Maniac Mansion, your protagonist can take one of four companions on each mission, and the solutions available to you differ based on who you take. A spirit medium can talk to ghosts, a cop can shoot things, etc. The companions also have a number of dialogue options, both with you and with each other, that encourage you to interact with them frequently. You can also choose one of three different backgrounds (cop, bartender, or actor), each of which will give you different dialogue options through the game. And of course there are moral choices to be made. All this adds up to enough replay value for two, maybe three passes through, perhaps one with the creator's commentary turned on.

Your adventure will take you to each of the five boroughs of New York (except you go to Chinatown instead of Queens). Each is a separate chapter, with its own unique characters and mini-story. These vignettes are very good, meshing supernatural powers with people who just want to go about their lives. The game is fully voice acted, and it's all done very well.

The one major downside is that the puzzles are all signposted and contained very strictly. Every environment object is either something you can look at or something you can interact with, and few are interactable. Between talking to everyone and clicking on everything, you'll solve nearly every puzzle in the game. Very few involve using one item on another, or asking one of your party members to do something to an object, and most of these cases are dead obvious. There are a couple of easy "riddle" style puzzles. If you get stuck, you can ask one of your companions for advice, and their advice is extremely direct. On the plus side, that means there's no moon logic, but on the minus side there's not really anything that will make you think. The puzzles are there because it's a game and they have to be there, not really getting in the way but not really making the game more of a game, either.

The characters are a little one-dimensional, as well. One is a recovering alcoholic, and 75% of what comes out of his mouth is about temptation and AA meetings. You never even learn what his job is. Only one of your four companions has a really deep history and personality. They're all well-voice-acted, at least.

Overall, I recommend Unavowed to fans of point-and-click games who enjoy a more narrative experience with good world-building. If you're looking for a challenging puzzle experience, you may want to look elsewhere.

JRPGs generally haven't been my thing for most of my life, I think this was my aversion to turn-based combat and disinterest in anime until recently. I did have two Japanese-made RPGs I loved growing up, Pokemon and Zoids Legacy. Since then I've dabbled in Final Fantasy (6, 13 and 7 Remake) and I played Tales of Arise in 2021. I'm trying to get more into the genre because there's a lot of cool looking stuff out there. I recently had an aborted run with Phantasy Star 1 (I may try again but I might also just skip to the later games) and now here I am with another space fantasy-themed game, Star Ocean: First Departure R.

Tales of Arise is probably the best touchpoint I have for this, as the two series share similar lineage, gameplay and aesthetics. I still remember the total shock I had booting up that game and seeing spaceships. This is upfront as a space fantasy though, and makes great use of it. It tells a fun, expansive story spanning continents, worlds and time periods.

The cast of characters is pretty likable. Roddick is a charming protagonist, Ilia and Ronyx are cool (I can never tell how old he really is though) and Millie is cute. As for the optional characters, I had Cyuss, Welch and Pericci. I wanted a bit more out of all of them character-wise but the great voice acting (all 3 options) and sprite work helped me get invested. I thought FF6 had expressive sprites, but this evolved that further. It was always funny when they made silly faces when getting hit.

The combat was fun, if a bit basic. I wish they let you pick more than two abilities at a time. That said, it was pretty easy to brute force your way through the game. I only switched characters in combat when I needed to, or when I wanted to do anything different. It was only in the later parts that I had to grind and rethink my strategy.

This game reminded me of things from old RPGs that I'm glad we deal with less nowadays, the first being random encounters. While I understand how they give you the levels you need for whatever part of the game you're at, too much of them gets wearying.

Another is the lack of quest logs. I often forgot where I needed to go, resorting to using a guide (shoutout to SuperCheats, I wouldn't have beaten this without them) to figure out where I was at. I get that I could make my own notes, but I shouldn't have to, IMO.

Navigation was also a pain. A lot of the dungeons have same-y screens, which made it hard to figure out where I've been already. I don't want a hallway simulator but some direction would've been appreciated. This culminates in Revorse Tower, which I straight-up just used a video walkthrough for.

That said, it had a lot of other enjoyable aspects I wanted to make note of. The character building through the skills was great. While I wish I understood the talents page before I started dumping points (I tried to build the characters myself based on how I saw them, before realizing that they had predetermined skills they excel at), it was nice to not use skill trees.

The skills were great too, I like how many of them didn't have to do with combat. Some of them didn't even serve any practical use at all, like the Oracle skill that gave you trivia. I never got the team to do an orchestral performance, but I kinda wish I did.

All in all, I'm glad I played it but I don't think I'll be revisiting it any time soon. I'm really curious how the other Star Oceans are though. I know 2 (particularly the remake) was well-received, and I know either 3 or 4 was as well. The rest seem to be rather divisive or mediocre, but it's an intriguing series, I hope it can keep going.

Isotx was a Dutch indie developer from the mid 2000s that started off making mods before branching into standalone games. Iron Grip: Warlord was the first of that lineup, and as of right now it seems that it is the only one of their products that is still playable, as their later games were all free-to-play strategy games, and well, Isotx ain't around anymore, and I doubt anyone is going to create dedicated servers for Iron Grip: Marauders. The only way to play the entire game, with its DLC, is to buy a Steam Key for it isn't available for purchase. There are abandonware sites for the base game, but I find that the game is missing something without Scorched Earth.

I first came to know about Warlord via TvTropes, and through it the strange world that Isotx constructed for it. It's set in a world that is a mishmash of everything from Early Medieval to WW2, with a dieselpunk flair. I'd highly recommend looking up its concept art online, it's wonderfully creative in how the setting blends various time periods and cultures to create something new and it was a massive inspiration for me artistically. The art was really the only way I engaged with the game until 2021 when I decided to track down a key to play it at long last.

The core concept is simple: you play as a ragtag group of resistance fighters fighting to defend your divided homeland from a literally endless enemy army. To do so, you'll engage in a war of attrition, wiping out wave after wave of enemy troops, their vehicles and their officers, until eventually the enemy gets annoyed and carpet bombs the city you're in, thus riling up the population against them. In game, you can obviously shoot at the blue guys to do so, but it's also has some tower defense in its bones, which means you can build traps, turrets, all sorts of things. Once you get a nest of turrets going, you typically only need to worry about officers and tanks since the enemy AI is braindead (if numerous,) but the DLC adds engineers and spies who do basically the same thing, destroy your defenses, but in different ways.

Tragically, this was a mostly a coop multiplayer game; thus, it was balanced around the idea that you'd have a bunch of other players taking on dedicated roles. You can play it by yourself, I have beaten every map in the game up to hard difficulty, but it's quite difficult even on normal difficulty and some of the more specialized towers and weapons tend to go un-utilized in my experience. That being said, it is very fun once you get the hang of it; it's basically a Stalingrad simulator, in that you'll likely kill over a thousand enemies, at least a dozen vehicles, and experience more explosions than Americans on the 4th of July. The difficulty of maps themselves is quite variable; some have singular routes, ample sightlines to fire down, and easy to navigate layouts, while others require you to defend two separate places with barely any room to breathe.

What really elevates the experience, in my opinion, is the aesthetics. It's a 3D indie game from 2008, so graphically it isn't anything to write home about, but the weapon, vehicles, and character designs are top notch stuff. The soundtrack is also pretty good, though it's hard to hear over the constant mass-murder; I'd recommend looking it up on Youtube. Really, the big shame of it all is that for how much clear love and effort that went into the game, setting, and even lore, it's pretty much wholly forgotten. It's not an amazing game, I doubt any of their games were really top-notch, but it's fun and has a lot of heart.

I'd to preface by saying I'm a big fan of Supermassive Games. I remember first playing Quarry and being blown away by the graphics and the best acting I've seen in a video game by Ted Raimi.

#The Crew

This was the last one in the dark series and I was excited to dive in. Right off the bat, I wasn't feeling the characters which happens but I took a liking to Charlie wrongly thinking he was voiced by Stephen Merchant - looked and sounded like him anyway. Kate seemed like the main protagonist who had some character I felt, Jamie grew on me later on but Erin and Mark felt like NPCs.

#Gameplay

It's been awhile since I've played one of these but the controls felt especially clunky. I personally think it's due to narrow pathways and terrible lighting from torchlights. Expanding on that, most of the game was just shifting through dark hallways one after the next with cheap jumpscares ad nauseum - what's behind this curtain? A mannequin that falls over. What's in this cupboard? A cat jumping out. What's in this window? A dark figure walking by. I personally hate jumpscares because they are unoriginal and a cheap way of getting jumped - I would play the volume at 5% when expecting this and loud screech from the jumpscares would be at normal volume demonstrating you're being startled by the loud "bang!" rather than the image accompanying it. The Quarry did it perfectly, never once resorting to cheap tricks like this yet maintaining a great horror atmosphere. The Devil in Me does nothing but the opposite.

The crew's equipment seemed cool at first but proved to be shallow and pointless. Erin has a microphone to detect sounds behind the walls, aside from where you're asked to use it, it never really comes into play. Arguably the worst was Mark's camera, you're told to take pictures to document it for the authorities or something to that effect. All the pictures I took never came into play, not even a mention.

The collectibles are... The coins were basically just to unlock figurines which was a total waste of time picking up those damn things. The premonitions were misleading at times, helpful once and the rest didn't come into play. Based on the one that did help, it doesn't seem like it's meant to misguide yet there were some that were misleading, so how do you pick which to trust and suffer death as a consequence? Not much to deduce from. The secrets were a mess of information thrown in a hat and read one at a time. Despite this, I enjoyed finding every piece of paper and reading the clues which I typically hate in other types of games.

#Story

What I gathered by the end from all the clues is that there was a cop that was investigating murders and then he became a murderer himself and then he died (faked). Maybe you're supposed to pause and piece all the clues together but I felt like you're meant to piece it as go you like the characters you play.

The choices itself makes no sense half the time. At one point, Kate and Erin get trapped in a "choose who lives" scenario. You're given no clue how to chose, one comment said, Jamie has a relationship with Erin, it would make sense to pick her. This choice saves both. In another scene in comparison, Jamie offers to be bait for the killer. After she says this, she takes out the only weapon she has and gives it to Kate who will be in the safe zone - this makes 0 sense. Later, Jamie is trapped with Kate and must choose between herself and Kate (who she doesn't like). If she kept the weapon, she will try to break free with the weapon but fails, she must then choose suicide and save someone she doesn't like, for said weapon to luck out and save them both.

With these games, there's always a twist and a pretty good one. With this one being so confusing and with different clues, constant information of past victims, displays of other characters, I couldn't wait to find out what the twist was - I can't figure it out! What could it be? I thought. At one point, the killer is chasing 2 folks and in the next scene presumably at the same time, the separated crew is also being chased which made me think, oh there's more than 1 of them! Nope. The information they've been feeding you about the cop, it's just him. Just straightforward "here's info on the bad guy's history and yes he's the guy chasing you".

The climax is arguably the worst part of suspension of disbelief. The gang gets on a boat and by sliver of luck, get away with the killer missing and falling into the water. They're at least half a mile out when, guess who's back? Jason Voorhees over here somehow is in the middle of the ocean with his axe swinging from the water. They fight, his masks comes off, Mark looks like he recognises... Nope, just more tropes without any connection. Killer gets stabbed with an anchor, and pulled into the propeller with blood filling the water. Cut to the end, there's a mask of the dock and a hand reaches for it. What? And again, it's just one guy.

Some folks are watching the aftermath on TV when they win some competition to stay in a resort hosted by Du Met, the same alias that was used when dealing with our survivors. Come on man.

#Final Thoughts

No twists, no real substance for the characters, janky movement due to level design, dark hallways after dark hallways with every horror trope from a B grade slasher leaves The Devil in Me at last spot beating out Little Hope. The music was good though.

These games can be a hit or miss but some are really good. I personally recommend The Quarry, House of Ashes and Until Dawn. The last one being the gold standard by general consensus

The title basically says it all. Stranglehold is a take on the Max Payne formular, where you jump around like an angry grass hopper and mow down enemies with a hail of bullets in slow motion. You can jump in any direction, jump off walls, walk over and slide down rail guards, hang on chandeliers and ride service trollies in all the bad assnes that Eastern action movies provide.

The game itself is a sequel to the movie Hard Boiled, but since I didn't watch it, I don't know how accurate the game is. That said, the story is pretty self contained and usual action cliché stuff. It's not good, but it gets the job done moving you from place to place in a believable manner.

The gameplay itself is more unique, given that there aren't that many Max Payne liker shooters out there.

As I said above, you do all kinds of acrobatics while hosing your enemies with bullets. Blood is splattering, enemies die with overly dramatic screams and motions, especially when you use the Sniper Elite like precision shot that let's you watch the impact of your bullet, and everything breaks and explodes with the lightest touch. It's really comical how much of the environment gets destroyed during your antics and that gives the game its own charme.

In addition to your regular agility, you also have four special abilities that can heal you, give you infinite ammo and health for a short time or allow you to kill everyone around you instantly. It may sound a bit cheap, but the whirlwind ability really adds to the campyness of the game if pulled off well.

Your arsenal of destruction feels a bit limited though and while there are different weapons, they do feel pretty samey. For example, all guns are either full auto or semi auto. There are no single shot weapons in this game, given its gameplay, and most of them do feel obsolete once the assault rifle and SMGs are introduced. I don't know, you do have six individual guns in the game, but I do feel like there should have been one or two more.

As for the levels, they are fine for the most part and most of them do look good visually. Especially the penthouse level is great, both from a visual and a gameplay perspective, because it's the only section that has light puzzle elements and makes you think about your actions during combat.

The others are fine as well, though I quickly noticed that a lot of them suffer from Painkiller syndrome and that you only move from arena to arena with some corridors between them. Not all of them are like that, but the majority do feel like this.

The game also gets a bit repetitive towards the end, since you do the same stuff over and over again. Unlike in CoD or Battlefield with their stealth or turret sections, there is only one section in this game that changes the pace of the gameplay, otherwise you constantly do the same, even when the game tries to give you a different objective.

For example, at the start of the game you have to destroy drug labs and you do that by jumping around and killing all enemies, before destroying the labs. The next level you have to plant C4 and you do this by jumping around and killing all enemies you encounter. Another one has you protecting civilians, which you do by jumping around and killing all enemies. You see where I'm going with this.

The last part I want to mention are the boss battles. They are nothing special, but they are well done for this type of game and are a good mix of shoot them till they die and those with their own gimmicks.

And although this list may sound negative, I still enjoyed my time with the game. It's fun, it's silly and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Metro Exodus was a game I found myself pleasantly surprised with at the start and enraptured by its presentation. I think the game tripped along the way in some areas, even if it ultimately made it to the finish line. Regardless of its hiccups, it's an experience I'm not soon to forget and I still loved my time with it.

Exploration - A true change to form comparative to earlier entries. The game offers a greater variety in terms of levels, allowing a few sandbox experiences with a greater focus on exploration. I will admit it felt like a breath of fresh air, but given the restrictive environments you return to, it does leave a bit of a bitter taste by the end.

Plot Armor - Every piece of media has some expectation that the consumer maintain a reasonable suspension of disbelief. However, that's earned, and not outright inherent and I found Exodus particularly guilty of regular immersion breaking sequences absolutely dissolving that suspension as Artyom escapes death time and again. It's normal to maintain it through regular gameplay, as medkits magically resolve all manners of injury. That pill becomes a bit harder to swallow though as the same, and potentially more unbelievable, injuries and sequences take place feeling more like an action movie.

Looting Mechanic - Coupled with the focus from the cutscenes, I felt an odd disparity between what the game was trying to be. On the one hand, the moment to moment gameplay felt like these potentially heavy firefights or tense stealth sections followed by a significant amount of time searching for scrap and junk. It almost felt like I was playing Fallout 4 all over again. Not inherently bad, but when you consider the presentation the game demonstrates in cutscenes and its core gameplay, it feels like a really odd tug of war in pacing.

Telling Not Showing - The game is so determined to give you flavor to the world and some depth to its people. I appreciated the attempt but held disdain for the delivery. People so often felt like these little puppet show set pieces as they often monologued at our silent protagonist. I can at least applaud the voice actors, but I felt discouraged to ever stop and let a conversation or monologue play out. I still allowed many of them to run to completion, but it definitely weakened the experience.

Side Characters - Largely felt like a medium for advancing the plot and undercooked as a whole. You have a team and most of them feel like set pieces with more introduced later on. Ultimately it felt like you could have spent more time fleshing out the characters that were a part of your core team. On that note though, the overarching groups you meet and interact with are incredibly interesting as you see the cultural divergence of different persons as isolation took hold.

Gunplay - Honestly, one of my favorite aspects. I loved the weapons available and the mix and match aspects of the different gun modules. It was nice having the option to customize my arsenal (even if I rarely did so) and the actual gunplay felt great.

Level design - Overall, I enjoyed most of the levels, even if a few of them felt restrictive. I think the game really showcased the capability for wider, expansive spaces, as well as staying true to the original claustrophobic and limited areas you'd expect out of the Metro series. I also appreciated the developer's approaches to setting up combat and stealth areas. It seemed a lot of care went into making sure the player had multiple approaches and options available to tackle different situations. It's no immersive sim from that perspective, but it wasn't an outright hallway shooter either. I think the variety in level size and scope on display was great, but as I mentioned above, I don't know that the order of them culminated in the best experience.

Tone - Ultimately, I still think the game nailed that bitter sweet, melancholic tone. It really encapsulated that feeling of beautiful desolation; a glimmer of hope in a time of utter despair.

Typos - An odd one to highlight, but I have increasingly high standards as games move from indie to A, AA, and finally AAA. A single typo here and there isn't too bad, but there were numerous mismatches and misspellings between the spoken dialogue and the corresponding subtitles and for a AAA game, it bordered on unacceptable for me.

Russian Dialogue - This may be a comment on something I am a bit disappointed wasn't there, but also an admission I may be daft and outright missed the option. I can't believe the developers didn't make the game with the option for Russian dialogue with English subtitles. If I'm wrong, correct me so I can fix this on future playthroughs. However, if I'm right, it really feels like a missed opportunity. I think the voice actors did great, but I would have loved the immersion of native tongue given the setting.

Overall, it's a game I'd encourage people to play, especially if they'd played any of the previous entries. It delivers a memorable experience and ultimately yields a satisfying and immersive game. I love being in post-apocalyptic worlds. Though you wouldn't think it, it often feels comfy to me despite the encroaching threats and oppressive atmospheres.

And while I didn't cover it here, I took issue with many aspects of the story. I won't go into it as to avoid spoilers, but just know that I would have personally approached it differently.

Roadkill is a car combat game developed by Terminal Reality and published by Midway in 2003, back when they were losing money hands over first over underperforming games with expensive licensed soundtracks and stunt casting. As a huge fan of vehicular ccombat, it's a game I've always been curious about and last week-end, I made a serious effort to finally play through it to completion. Tl;dr: It's good, slightly undercooked, but the star of the game is not necessarily its gameplay!

What the hell is Roadkill?

Roadkill is an open-world game. After a short introduction, you're left in an open map and can take on missions from the local gang leaders to advance the story. Besides being necessary for progression, completing these missions award you with new cars and side-activities in the open world. These side activities include races, stunt, snipping NPCs, and protecting your car from suicide bombers, and winning them reward you with money and new cars. Beside side missions, you can explore map to find blueprints and car parts to acquire new cars and weapons.

This is a familiar enough set-up but there's a catch: you can't get out of the car. Some missions put you in control of your vehicle's back-mounted turret while the AI takes over driving but that's it. To defend yourself, you have a basic forward-firing machine gun and can collect up to three ammo limited primary weapons, and one secondary weapon dropped from the back of your car. You also have a sidekick who mans the afore-mentioned turret, but he doesn't do much damage. Upgrades can be purchased, which improve the obvious stuff (armor, speed, etc) and also give you the option to exert more mid-air control over the car.

The story of Roadkill

In an alternate-history 80s, a viral plague called The Rot has devastated the U.S and caused the collapse of the government. Armed gangs have risen up to take control of the scattered pockets of civilization left. Your protagonist, Mason, used to be a lieutenant in one such gang until he had a failing-out with its leader Axl, and was left for dead. Well Mason's back and now he's out for revenge.

Roadkill is a product of the 2000s cultural climate in that it's very edgy, but in a kind of shallow way. There's lots of swearing, explicit violence, provocative subject matter (such as a gang of pretend soldiers who dress in gay BDSM fits). Every female character shown on-screen is a prostitute or a pole dancer. It doesn't take itself seriously but the story isn't very coherent: there's barely any connective tissue to it. Your character just decides to join gangs for no clear reason why he's selecting that gang over the other and the game will frequently namedrop characters as if you should know who they are but you really don't. It feels like a lot was left on the cutting floor. The characters are barely one-dimensional.

The star of Roadkill's world-building isn't the story though. Like every good open world game, it has a selection of radio stations and their writing was outsouced to a Texas-based improv group staffed by actors that worked on Funanimation's Dragon Ball Z dub (Roadkill can boast to be the only game to have a sequence where a woman chastises Goku over the radio for giving her a STD); their edgy content was already pushing it by 2000s standards and today they come across as wildly unhinged. The most popular segment (and perhaps the biggest reason anyone would know of the game in 2024) is Gear Talk Radio, where two southern yokel stereotypes discuss their creative application for the game's weapon and share their deranged anecdotes and thoughts on proper child rearing, relationship and the American way. Other radio stations include a flaming gay stereotype and his female co-host, an insane Republican shock jock, a depraved rock band (with a selection of original rock songs made for the game), a rap channel and a classic rock channel. Some will find them offensive, others try hard. Personally, I'm firmly in the "They're hysterical" camp.

My thoughts

As a car combat game, it's pretty good! One thing the game does very well is the driving model: it's very arcade but feels weighty enough to be satisfying and a intelligently-laid out control scheme gives you all the control you need over your player avatar. There are a lot of cars to unlock and even the ones that have similar stats feel properly differentiated. The lighter and less-armored rides are not really usable for most of the story missions but they're fun for driving around and doing the side tasks.

The mission design is weird: many missions are basic and can end in less than 3 minutes. Others, especially the rail shooter sequences, feel luck-based in that activating hostile NPCs  beside the ones spawned for the mission might result in an unavoidable demise. The missions make a fair attempt at mixing objectives and circumstances up but the designers really liked the "Chase a car and shoot it to recover packages" template: it's repeated at least once for every three maps and with the missions being as short as they are, the repetition is noticed.

As an open-world game, it's basic. The maps are very small, though densely-packed with building and ramps to perform stunt, and interactivity is limited – you can't damage any map object for instance. The side-missions are basic open-world stuff. Driving around to get car parts does add some spice, but most of it boils down to finding the proper prop to jump off or recon remote corners of the map. It would've added some much-needed variety to have more involved puzzles, things like blowing up an object to uncover a hidden passage or make a ramp… The only "event" that can happen is that a tornado may pass through and destroy every cars in its path. This can occur during races and really screw you over.

The upgrade system is the worst part of the game. You don't get any payouts for completing missions and the rewards for blowing up other vehicles and completing side-tasks are fairly meager until you're on the last map. Armor and speed upgrades are necessary for missions so you'll have to do some grinding.

Conclusion:

Roadkill is a fine first draft but it's a game that could've used a sequel to elevate the concept: It called for more varied tasks, deeper combat, a more balanced economy…

Sadly, no other game has stepped up to realize Roadkill's vision of an open-world Twisted Metal and with the unpopularity of car combat games, I don't see that happening any time soon.  But it gave the world the widsom of Gear Talk Radio, and that is forever.

I played through Gotham Knights and even went on to earn all the achievements. For the most part, it was an enjoyable experience.

This game received quite a negative reception at launch. While many of the criticisms aimed at it are entirely valid, you can still have a great time despite its flaws.

Let’s start with the flaws.

First off, you should not expect an Arkham game. The free-flow combat system is absent; there’s no countering, stunning, or jumping over enemies. The combat is more simplified and “button-mashy”. The story and writing are not as strong as the Arkham series, but they are serviceable enough.

My biggest complaint is the "looter shooter" mechanics, where your character’s strength is primarily tied to the level of their gear. This doesn’t make much sense since all the weapons are non-lethal. Yet, if your "stick/staff/tonfa" is too low-level, you’ll deal no damage to even the most basic enemies simply because their "level" is too high. You also level up your character to unlock new abilities in a skill tree, which works perfectly fine. But having the exact same weapon either do no damage or one-shot elite enemies, depending on its level, never felt right.

Gear comes in multiple rarities, but it doesn’t drop directly. Instead, you get crafting recipes for gear, which must then be crafted using resources you also need to collect. These mechanics feel utterly unnecessary, tacked on, and add nothing of value to the game, apart from padding. If you want a specific piece of gear, you must grind repetitive missions repeatedly and hope the RNG Gods favour you.

Another consequence of these “looter shooter” mechanics is the repetition. While the main story missions are varied enough, the side activities you must grind for a random chance at specific gear quickly become repetitive. Technically, crime missions in the open world never run out, as new ones appear each night, but there are only so many unique ones. You can only clear out the same exact criminal hideout so many times, before you start to get sick of it.

The repetition is also bad in the post-game co-op missions. There are 45 "levels" in total, but many reuse the same rooms, areas, and "puzzles". These are the missions you’ll need to grind if you want the best gear in the game. Specifically, for the very best gear, you will be grinding the final boss mission over and over again, unskippable cutscenes included. Also, these missions are the only place where four players can play simultaneously, as the main game supports a maximum of two players.

(That said, if you’re not bothered about 100% completion and only care about finishing the main story and exploring Gotham a bit, you can entirely ignore the repetitive grinding.)

Now for a couple of small nit-picks. The game doesn’t pause when you open the map or change your gear. Worse, opening the map and gear menu requires loading time because the map is in 3D. Character movement is also imprecise, which is frustrating in sections requiring precision or in time-sensitive situations where you must interact with something, but your character won’t position properly.

Traversal is another weak spot. Air traversal for all characters is too slow and not particularly enjoyable (Other Batman universe games have had much more enjoyable air traversal). This might stem from map-loading limitations since even the Batcycle has a very low top speed, but still kills the game performance.

Now onto the positives.

Gotham itself is beautiful for just soaking in the athmosphere, with so many cool little details. The buildings look fantastic, and there are various shops with unique window signs, detailed posters everywhere, and random NPCs having conversations on the streets. There's a lot to appreciate, if you just take your time to explore.

Although simplified, the combat feels good as long as your gear is appropriately levelled. The combat animations are excellent; I’ve sunk way too many hours into the game and still love seeing the finishing moves.

Co-op play is particularly fun, whether you’re playing the main story, or just exploring Gotham together. However, the entire game is also perfectly playable solo.

You can play as one knight throughout the entire game or swap between characters as much as you like. But you will get slightly different dialogue and even scenes, depending on who you play as. Not a massive difference, but in addition to combat feeling different with each knight, it adds a lot of replay value if you want to replay the game in New Game+ (where you keep your gear and levels), or even across multiple playthroughs.

The outfits/ suits are also great, offering a good variety with some customisation options.

The story was predictable, but still enjoyable enough. It wasn't painful to get through, or cringe, or anything like that.

Overall and TL;DR.

Gotham Knights certainly has its problems (the "looter shooter" mechanics and the repetition) and it isn’t an Arkham game, but if you go in with tempered expectations and can get it at a cheap price, it can be a lot of fun. If you want to explore a beautifully rendered Gotham as Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood, or Robin, and enjoy a simple combat system with great animations; If you're looking for more stories set in the Batman universe outside of the Arkham games, that's still decent, then I can recommend this.

I'm about to turn 38, so when Tomb Raider 1 came out in 96, I was 9 and about to turn 10. I remember catching my Dad on the PC one day in late 1996 either shortly before my 10th birthday or Christmas - can't remember which, wondering what he was doing, and basically he had to admit to me that he had bought Tomb Raider for me and wanted to make sure it was installed and playable on the day, and so I got a sneak preview of my present. Now looking back, my dad was never computer literate, nor was he into games, so I suppose this was a magical time in my childhood where he recognised that I loved games, and he would join in with me to get through tough parts, or deal with the installation (which I know now must have been hellishly difficult for him given game installation wasn't as simple then, he knew next to nothing about PCs, and there was no internet).

We played Tomb Raider 1 a lot together, using keyboard only (controls of which I never forgot) and we made it quite far through the game, although I think we must never have finished it, because when I recently replayed it I couldn't remember the >!Skateboarding Boss, wtf??!< nor the Atlantis levels. I was actually playing through the original PC version on steam, and the remastered trilogy came out just before I finished it, so after I completed the original I went onto Remastered and completed TR1:Unfinished Business before starting TR2.

Now I did also have Tomb Raider 2 on PS1 when I finally got one later than most back in the day, and made it through the first few levels, don't think I got beyond Venice. I remember thinking the speedboat was amazing, but that it felt a lot less "Tomb Raidery" and a lot more pointless shooting bad guys. I lost interest and I never made it far, I remember using cheats just to see what the next few levels looked like but never played through them.

Now as an adult I've been playing through the whole of Tomb Raider 2 on remastered, and tbh my opinion didn't change much, I think I nailed it as a kid that the game didn't have quite the same atmosphere as the first.

Until I've got to the level I'm currently on. Temple of Xian. I've been playing through the whole of Tomb Raider 2, and it's only on this level where suddenly I felt myself recapturing some of the early feeling I had from the first time I ever played Tomb Raider 1. This one actually feels like I'm raiding a tomb, I've not finished the level yet, in fact I've paused it to give you all this wall of text (btw I'm on long term sick leave and on strong painkillers maybe that's why) but I've not come across a single human enemy, I feel alone and like I'm stumbling through something that hasn't been seen by humans for centuries, and the platforming in this level has got to have been the best yet in the game so far, with combat restricted to a few animals. Fighting humans with guns never made sense in OG Tomb Raider as you just need to soak up the damage.

It's just a shame this is level 15. The Tibetan ones weren't awful, but this has just been head and shoulders above the rest. I've not played TR3 so not sure what I'm in for there.

TL;DR, I'm disinhibited from strong meds but just want to tell you that Tomb Raider 1 was better, but that Xian Temple in Tomb Raider 2 actually feels like a Tomb Raider 1 level.

P.S. I love that I felt the need to include spoiler tags for a 27 year old game.

TL;DR: Blue Submarine No 6 is basically a dad game, years before dad games became popular. It's a slow-paced job sim focused on underwater salvaging, with only smatterings of combat here and there. While it probably goes on for too long, it's still good enough to recommend for people who want another sub sim in their lives - especially since good underwater games are rare in general.

So, Blue Submarine No 6 Time & Tide is a Sega-developed sequel to a 1998 anime adaptation of a somewhat obscure 1960s post-apoc manga which was basically Waterworld before Waterworld. Due to a mad scientist-induced climate calamity, the world has been flooded. Much of humanity was wiped out, and the survivors are now living in makeshift floating cities built around the remaining skyscraper peaks still sticking out of the ocean.

Watching the anime - which I wouldn't really recommend - isn't necessary. While the game never gives a deep lore dump, it's easy enough to pick up the basics through context.

You play as Hayami Tetsu, a veteran of the war in the anime, now trying to keep a low profile as a salvager in New Singapore. However, he's a bit too good at his job, and keeps attracting attention with his skills. The story - told through VN style segments - slowly unfolds as a political crisis happens and ultimately ropes him in despite his best efforts to stay out of it.

While the storytelling was kind of choppy, I liked how indirect it was. Hayami really doesn't want to be involved, so all the exposition is in the form of rumors he hears at various bars, cafes, and such in the city. It does do a good job propping up the idea that you're just a skilled blue collar worker trying to keep their head above water, so to speak. That said, the plot pacing is weird, with the final couple hours of the game absolutely loaded with exposition and (original) animated cutscenes despite the rest of the game having a very leisurely pace.

But the story is a sideline. What you're really here for is...

Post-Apocalyptic Submarine Salvaging... Action?

The most remarkable thing about BS6 is just how slow-paced it is. In an era when every other underwater game was basically imitating Wing Commander style space shooters, Sega decided to make a job sim where around 3/4 of the missions really boil down to "Go here, find the assigned salvage and retrieve it, then come back." This requires proper management of your sub's loadout, and over the course of the game, dozens of upgrade modules will unlock. You will have to frequently change its configuration to meet the demands of each job, and put thought into how to approach each one.

The game isn't totally devoid of action. Rather than human enemies, you're instead facing off against mutated sea creatures roaming around the oceans. Seeing a giant crab scuttling up the side of a sunken skyscraper was always a bit unnerving, not to mention catching a flash of tentacle and realizing there's a kraken-sized squid nearby. Worse, many of the enemies are substantially faster than you, especially in deep-dive missions where the enemies are huge but you're stuck in a heavyass shielded sub that moves like a crippled manatee. It's a "long stretches of dull routine with moments of pure terror" sort of setup.

And fuck fuck FUCK those giant hermit crabs which hide in wrecked cars and jump out when you get close.

You can have up to three weapons equipped. You'll pretty much always have a main gun, but its effectiveness is limited to squishier unshielded enemies. Taking down anything large requires mounting missiles/torpedoes on your sub's hardpoints - but those same slots may also be needed to hold tools necessary for a salvage job. Balancing speed, weight, and power is also important. If you want a quick, maneuverable sub you'll be sacrificing a lot of firepower and shielding to make it happen.

At the same time, combat isn't guaranteed. Many of the sea creatures behave like regular animals, and leave you alone if you leave them alone. Some are also aggravated / attracted by noise, so another balancing act is how loud your sub is. Going for stealthy builds and trying to avoid combat is 100% viable, since you generally get no rewards for killing wildlife unless you're specifically on a hunt-and-kill mission... but if you get cornered, you'll be in serious trouble.

For a 2000 console game, it actually has a pretty complicated simulation going on. I also appreciated the immersive cockpit, with the D-pad switching smoothly between up/down/side views.

And despite the relatively weak graphics of the Dreamcast, it does an excellent job creating an unsettling mood as you quietly drift through the crumbling remains of sunken cities and suburbs. The graphics are less detailed than some of the other underwater games of the day - such as Sega's own 3D Ecco the Dolphin - but with a somewhat better draw distance, less visible pop-in, and a locked-down 60fps framerate. Stumbling onto an abandoned subway tunnel system full of dead trains slowly bobbing in the water, or a hollowed-out building you can enter, actually still had some power to creep me out.

Also, if you end up emulating this (which seems likely) it plays very nicely with Flycast's widescreen hack mode. There are relatively few graphic glitches, and the wider FOV definitely helps.

Not All Smooth Sailing

Even accepting that the game has a slow pace and going with the chill, slightly creepy vibe, it has some issues.

The biggest is that the missions do start getting repetitive. It isn't necessary to complete every single mission, as sometimes plot-advancing cutscenes will occur when you visit a particular location in the city. But still, when most of them are some form of salvaging, it gets a bit samey. Especially later in the game when you're given very few clues about an object's location, and you could spend a lot of time simply searching around for it. At one point, I wasted 2 hours trying to find a legendary lost treasure and never did find the damn thing. At least I picked up a lot of other valuable loot to sell.

Likewise, the limited asset set means that the various map segments often lack distinctive features, and navigating by memory is difficult because of that. You'll be constantly referring to your map - which requires pausing the game - to get around.

And then there's one particular mission which should have been tweaked because it's terrible. In short, you have to race through a section of subway tunnels at top speed to get to a rapidly-closing exit. You have to custom-build a sub for speed and nothing else, but even then, you have to drive near-perfectly to make the run. And the path is full of semi-random enemies and obstacles which can foul you up. Worse, to reset the challenge, you have to go all the way back out and up to your ship, before diving again. So (unless you're savescumming) a single attempt takes around five minutes round-trip, and you might have to make several tries before actually pulling it off.

But topping it off - that's not the only time you'll have to do it. There are a couple more guild jobs that require making that same run, and there's no mercy. You just have to keep grinding the run until you can do it reliably, which is downright infuriating with all the semi-random elements.

As more of a nitpick, I also really wish they'd included a way to save preset loadouts. Having to reconfigure your sub before every mission is just tedious enough to be annoying.

Plus, as mentioned above, the storytelling was kind of spotty. Which is odd, considering they were telling an original story. At first I assumed it was just typical bad-anime-adaptation game storytelling, but no. So a few more scenes fleshing out the plot and characters would have been nice.

And Then There's The Translation...

OK, I really try not to complain much about fan translations. Even a mediocre fan translation is a very difficult job, and they make inaccessible games playable. But hoo boy, did this translation make some choices.

Aside from the translation itself being flat and grammatically questionable at points (I strongly suspect it was done by ESL Japanese speakers) they made a truly baffling decision about how to handle sequences without onscreen subtitles. They took the original audio, but then laid a machine-generated English voice over top of the Japanese voices. Even more confusingly, it's the exact same fake male voice for every single character - even the little girl! This can make it hard to keep track of who's even talking, in back-and-forth conversations. Although I did eventually get used to it, more or less.

I certainly wouldn't say the translation is a total deal-breaker, especially in a game where the story isn't the focus. But it really begs for a different team to step in and clean up the audio.

I'm Sailing Away

Overall, BS6 gets a thumbs up for me - assuming you enjoy 'dad game' job simulators. It successfully creates and maintains a unique vibe, and becoming skilled at working the sub + its various systems feels very rewarding. Plus, again, good underwater games are pretty uncommon in general. Just try to avoid burnout (I'd recommend against trying to 100% it) and deal with the wonky translation issues.

I'm playing through the Crysis remastered trilogy atm. I saw a sale for black friday, and played all of these games at launch when they came out, but seeing as how it'd been awhile I wanted to revisit them. I must say I see people praising Crysis 2 a lot as their favourite of the trilogy, but tbh it was the one that I enjoyed the least.

Firstly, I love love love the first one. Just the ultimate power fantasy, even with the subpar alien level near the end. The open level design is brilliant, perfectly paced, competent story, and the game still looks great.

3 is excellent as well. The bow rocks, the story is the most engaging and least cliched of the trilogy, memorable level design, and the suit makes you feel like a god. Not to mention the game is still beautiful. While some say it's short, I found it a good length, and doesn't drag on like the second one.

I must say, I didn't enjoy 2 though, and I'm surprised to see it so heavily praised. It just feels like a subpar CoD knockoff. Bland, repetitive and uninspired level design filled with cliched and forgettable story beats and characters, and the suit is almost a non-factor. It's pretty much an on-rails shooter. Great music though, Hans Zimmer's score rocks.

So yah, 1 is a classic, 3 is great as well, 2 is a letdown. Thoughts?