The last few games you beat and rate them 5

[Mikeaveli]

I loved the System Shock remake as well and never played SS2 but I'm waiting for the Enhanced Edition Nightdive is working on to come out before playing it.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Yeah, the weapon durability sucks @SolidSnakeUS , I forgot about that in my review but it was probably because the alien level at the end really stuck with me as being a bad part of the game and being so late. I also spent the majority of the game with the laser rapier which didn't use ammo, energy, or durability. I just couldn't do it in the alien world because it was all tight corridors and you couldn't circle enemies.

I need to play the Thief games @Osprey . I also bought all of those years ago but just never gave them a fair try. It's another game to add to my very long backlog.

I was thinking of waiting for the remake @Mikeaveli but with how long the System Shock 1 remake took, who knows when the remake for 2 would come along. I don't think I'd replay it if it's just an "enhanced edition" but if it's a remake like the System Shock 1 remake was, I'll definitely give it another playthrough.

 

[Osprey]

I wasn't sure whether it's an enhanced edition or remake, either, so I just looked it up. An enhanced edition is definitely coming and is rather far along, but it just looks like what you can already achieve by modding the original game:



So, the enhanced edition mostly just offers convenience, it seems. You can wait for it or get a similar experience now by adding a few mods to the original game.

On top of that, though, Nightdive's CEO said a few years ago that he wanted to remake SS2 after the SS1 remake was done. He said that years after the enhanced edition was announced, so it seems as though we may get both, kind of like how Nightdive released an enhanced edition of SS1 before starting to develop the remake. System Shock: Enhanced Edition was released in 2015 and System Shock Remake in 2023, though, so I wouldn't expect System Shock 2 Remake any time soon, especially not with the enhanced edition coming.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Yeah, that's the thing. The remake is going to take some serious time. I was just in the mood to finally play it and figured I'd just play it vanilla. It honestly looks great for a 25 year old game. Character models are obviously dated but the textures looked great.

I will say though, spoilers for the ending:

The end cutscene honestly had me burst out laughing. Shodan's voice acting and the filters on the voice were so damn good all the way through. She does her speech and the silent protagonist throughout the entire game, who doesn't say a single word, responds to "join me and we can rule the world" with the most casual, terribly delivered "nah" as his only voice line throughout the whole game. I did not see it coming at all and the delivery was so bad I just lost it. I've already gone back and watched it on Youtube several times just to laugh some more at it.

 

[Osprey]

Yeah, that's the thing. The remake is going to take some serious time. I was just in the mood to finally play it and figured I'd just play it vanilla. It honestly looks great for a 25 year old game. Character models are obviously dated but the textures looked great.

I will say though, spoilers for the ending:

The end cutscene honestly had me burst out laughing. Shodan's voice acting and the filters on the voice were so damn good all the way through. She does her speech and the silent protagonist throughout the entire game, who doesn't say a single word, responds to "join me and we can rule the world" with the most casual, terribly delivered "nah" as his only voice line throughout the whole game. I did not see it coming at all and the delivery was so bad I just lost it. I've already gone back and watched it on Youtube several times just to laugh some more at it.

I remember that and laughing at it, myself. My assumption has always been that they didn't want to pay for a professional male voice actor to come in and record only one word, so one of the devs just voiced it, himself. Maybe re-recording that one word will be one of the few selling points of the enhanced edition.

 

[Ceremony]

​

Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition (PS4, 2020)

This might be difficult to believe, but I don't write up every game I play. I go into a game largely intending to, but sometimes I just don't have anything or enough to say. Sometimes I don't think it's worth talking about or recommending something. Sometimes I'm just lazy.

Very rarely we have a game like Kentucky Route Zero where for the entire time I spend playing it I think and I wonder and I struggle with what I can say before eventually deciding that if a game is going to drown me in quite as many words as this does, I'm going to return the favour.

In the Annapurna Interactive Deluxe Collector's Edition, Kentucky Route Zero is introduced by its creators:

I didn't really know anything about this game before I played it. I didn't know that it was released episodically, with five 'Acts' released over a period of seven years. This immediately sets alarm bells ringing. It's easy enough for someone to play the complete version now (or with the subtitle "TV Edition" as it's called on console) but I can't imagine being really invested in something that takes seven years to reach a conclusion. It seems like there was additional content to go along with these releases - websites, phone numbers and the like, but it's still going to be, at best, a hard sell.

I'm waffling a bit here because eventually I'm going to have to start talking about the game. In the past when I've been critical of a game I post a glib summary of the plot to show how silly it is. I can't do that with Kentucky Route Zero because there's so much of it. Go and look at the Wikipedia page. If you plan on playing it and don't want spoilers, read a sentence or two here or there. Random sentences will make as much sense as the whole. The game starts with you in control of a delivery driver named Conway who's struggling to find an address. He stops at a petrol station and is told he needs to take the Zero, an apparently mysterious road which you can't just get to by driving there. He sets off in search of this road and his final destination of 5 Dogwood Drive, meeting a host of other characters and visiting even more surreal locations along the way.

It's also hard to really describe the plot because of... well, a few reasons. The first act is Conway driving around. He meets and teams up with a girl named Shannon Marquez in an abandoned mine. In Act Two they end up at the Bureau of Reclaimed Spaces, a Kafka-esque administration hub where they hope they can find directions to Conway's destination. After this they go looking for a doctor to look at the leg Conway injured in the mine. They meet a boy named Ezra who lives in the forest with his brother, a giant bird named Julien. They fly along the river and find the doctor who treats him and gives him a new, glowing skeletal leg. Then in Act Three their truck crashes and they team up with an android synth-pop duo on a motorbike.

The point is, the plot changes around each act. It changes in a way where you can physically track your reaction and expectations changing. In Act One you want to learn about Conway and where he's going and why. In Act Two you go somewhere to get answers and you're hopeful of things going somewhere. Act Three starts with a half hour long, unskippable student-produced play you need to watch before you team up with the androids and hold on a minute. I need to sit for half an hour, watching some people in a bar talking about... trouble with the distillery? About that night's entertainment not showing up? About someone not getting a promotion at work? It was at this point the game started trying my patience. When Act Four came along and was set on a boat with a bunch of new people who weren't introduced I gave up and started resenting it. By the time Act Five came along and I was in control of a cat and some people were crying about dead horses I'd never seen I just stopped paying attention.

In terms of genre, Kentucky Route Zero seems described mostly as point and click adventure. This isn't a genre of game I have a lot of experience with, but I don't know how well this format works for the story which is told here. There's a lot of dialogue to read, there are things to interact with and choices to make when you do, but almost none of this seems to have any effect on anything. The events that take place don't change. Nothing different happens to any characters or relationships. I don't think you learn anything new. In Act Four there are options to go to one location or another. I played the game twice and chose the different ones each time, and there's very little insight to anything either way.

The point and click format also struggles under the sheer weight of words the game has packed into it. If you read everything and if you think about your responses a first time playthrough of this game will take at least six hours. Even a second run will take about the same if you read everything again in the hope that foreknowledge might help you understand what's going on. When you factor in the attention drift that happens about halfway through the game the amount of reading really starts to drag the game down.

I don't have a problem with video games being experimental with regards to genre and format. I don't mind walking simulators as a concept even though they're basically just films where you need to move around and press X every now and then. If the content of them is engaging, then that's fine. Kentucky Route Zero falls under the weight of its own surrealism and the sheer amount of its characters. It takes too long to attempt to reveal anything, and by the time anything happens you're so fatigued from how long it's taken to reach that point you've stopped caring anyway. As the game goes on more characters are introduced... well, more characters show up without warning and it becomes harder to keep track of everyone.

This game is very well regarded. Its Metacritic ratings for the various acts and versions are all in the high 80s and low 90s. When you look up the game online you find various subreddits extolling its virtues. It's great. It's a step forward for the Games As Art argument. It's spellbinding, it's tragic, it's well-written and one of the best games ever. Nothing has ever touched me emotionally like this. Actual reviews say similar. You read a bit further looking for an actual explanation why and nothing comes. I still don't know why this game is so well-regarded.

Come to think of it, I don't know what this game's about. I mean About. I tried watching some (hour long-plus) videos about it on youtube before I realised, I shouldn't have to do this. I've gone through the game twice, I've read everything and it's not had any effect on me. Someone telling me it's about how evil capitalism is isn't going to be a moment of revelation, and if it did then that's not a good thing anyway. The game is so impenetrable that when actual moments which might or should be poignant and significant happen, they aren't. Something happens to Conway in the end of Act Four, but it's completely outwith your control (which is part of the point) and you know so little about his fate that it just has no impact. I think the game and its writing aspires to literature more than any other medium, but the way it's presented prevents any sense of significance or symbolism from imparting itself on the player.

I think this is partly the point. One comment I did see pop up is that the game is partly about how people aren't really in control of their lives, or the things they do. That forces more powerful and outside our control, ultimately, have more influence on what happens to us than anything we do. That there will be forces which are effectively unanswerable to their actions, and that the game focuses on people who do have to deal with them. But it's all too vague. It's not that things aren't spelled out explicitly, it's that they come and go in a dreamlike state where nothing makes sense and it's a constant uphill battle to feel any sense of grounding or empathy or relation to anything or anyone.

With this in mind, there are aspects of the game which should contribute to effectively putting its message across. The art style is nice, if lacking a bit in colour. The ambient soundtrack and world design is very distinctive and striking. The designs of the game's actual locations are imposing too, from Equus Oils right at the start with a giant horse's head in the building to the impossibly shaped Bureau to others, the locations are unique and fantastic examples of the clear imagination and creativity that went into the game. One subject of praise I have seen about the game is that it recreates a sense of place well. People who're from Kentucky and the surrounding area recognise it and identify with it. I can't speak to this specifically, but I have certainly played other games with a more dramatic and immersive sense of place.

But then even considering this, there are moments which should be emotionally resonant but which just aren't because of how difficult it is to follow the narrative. Remember in Red Dead Redemption when Jose Gonzalez plays as you go into Mexico for the first time? Or later when music plays as you go back to your family for the first time? How the music gradually comes in and plays over the usual sounds and ambient music, complementing and dominating at the same time while also defining the moment, physically and emotionally? Kentucky Route Zero has similar a few moments.

There are moments, usually at the end of the acts, which tie into the sense of place I mentioned earlier. Where a country/folky/bluesy acoustic guitar number will play, usually with a few shadowy figures in profile in the foreground of the picture, suggesting they're part of the audience along with you. The songs themselves are good, but unlike Red Dead where they make you realise how momentous what's happening actually is you just sort of wonder what and why. Why is music playing? Why is the music significantly more arresting than the events surrounding it? Arguably the most memorable part of the game is when the android musicians you team up with play their song in a bar. The roof tiles float away and the stars streak across the sky like a time-lapse photograph showing the movements of everything in the sky. The song - musically and lyrically - is absolutely haunting, and feels like a landmark moment in what's going on. You wonder who they're singing about (it's called Too Late to Love You and you can choose the lyrics).

But this is near the start of this act. You subsequently spend an hour in a cave with a computer that doesn't make any sense and the poignancy and impact of the music is long gone. I tried to like Kentucky Route Zero. I went in with goodwill (largely through ignorance, I knew virtually nothing about it) and for about the first two acts I played in curiosity and expectation. Eventually though the game just falls under the weight of the amount of strange, unresolved content which even undermines the actual memorable moments.

In a way it's hard to determine whether or not Kentucky Route Zero is a bad game. It's not broken. It's not lazy. Everything works. It's clear a lot of care and attention and detail and imagination went into the writing and the art design. Some aspects of this are more successful than others. Ultimately though a game like this only succeeds if it leaves an impact on the player, and it just didn't for me. I can still barely describe what this is about. As distinctive as the art style is, it's not going to stick with me. As much as some people on the internet think it's a transcendent masterpiece, I don't know if they could ever convince me. There might be a Message here, but I don't think it's communicated well and I don't know how well it even could be communicated in this format. The introduction to this game I posted earlier says "it's also a story, so it has an ending" and I just don't think that's accurate.

I don't know if I'm trying to not criticise this game or not, but it's just hard to decide what I think. It's hard to follow, the plot, narrative and characterisation is lacking and there are several prolonged occasions where it feels like an endurance test with the makers off to the side of the screen sRacial Sluring at you as you actually sit there taking this in. It didn't have the effect on me it seems to have had on people online. But I'm not overjoyed and glad to be rid of it, I'm just moving on.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Resident Evil 3 - 8/10
I never played the original and didn't even really play any Resident Evil until 7 came out. I'm now working my way through the series playing the remakes over the originals when I'm able to. This is another solid Resident Evil title. It's really short, I finished it in a little under 6 hours.

I already played the RE2 Remake and for that reason I was a bit hesitant to even play this one as Mr X felt more tedious than anything to me and I knew Nemesis was rather similar. That being said, this one is definitely more action-y. A big complaint I had about Mr X was how sometimes you needed more time for puzzles so you just had to kite him around the map to buy that time and it felt really tedious. In this one, you're not really forced to do that. Any chase sequence is just that, a chase sequence. You don't have to worry about things taking too long because quite frankly, he can outrun you anyway.

The story was your typical RE stuff, nothing too crazy. I enjoyed the game quite a bit more than I thought I would. It was a lot of fun even if it was really short.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

The Saboteur - 8/10
I didn't play this game when it first came out so I'm glad to get a chance today with it coming back to Steam. The game runs great. There are a lot of complaints of crashing or the resolution not changing but I didn't have that problem. There is an engine problem if you try to launch the game over 60hz where the resolution won't change and sometimes the game crashes but running it at 60hz works fine. I suspect all the negative reviews about crashing did 0 research on the topic and were too stubborn to try anything other than the max their monitor has to offer.

That being said, the game is a lot of fun. It genuinely makes me realize how bad modern open world games are with mission design. This feels like a true open world. There aren't many set hallways and most missions are "get here and kill this guy" instead of modern open world design of "go here, stand in this specific spot, now talk to this person, go stand in this specific spot but don't get too close to this other guy, now sit in this specific bench until this person shows up until we let you move to this other specific bench."

The driving and shooting is fun albeit a bit dated. The climbing mechanic is pretty fun and so is the sabotage. It was cool playing as a revolutionist where you're sabotaging Nazi towers or vehicles as you liberate Paris. The story was really enjoyable for what it is too. I can see why this game got a lot of praise even 15 years after release. I wish open world games would follow this kind of formula nowadays but unfortunately everything has to be cinematic nowadays and it really takes away from games. Enjoy this classic view on open world gaming.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Ghostrunner 2 - 7.5/10

I'm kind of up in the air in this one as I really loved the original Ghostrunner. There are some strange bugs with custom controls where some of them won't let you rebind keys (mostly just the hub which I don't understand why it has a different set of controls in the first place) and every time you launch the game, some of the controls reset to the default controls. I've never seen a game like this, let alone a game released in 2023. Those were fortunately the only bugs I dealt with in my playthrough.

First, I'll go with the good. The gameplay is still fun. It's fun to run, dash, climb, etc as you traverse the level and take out enemies with your katana or other abilities. Most of the enemies will be familiar with what you faced in the original, there's no real change there. The graphics are quite a bit nicer here and the world is beautiful. It's mostly set in an apocalyptic wasteland rather than a cyberpunk world compared to the first.

There are also some neat vehicles like the motorcycle. It was pretty fun to use although it overstayed its welcome a bit in my opinion. The game is about traversal and finding cool ways to kill enemies, the motorcycle was pretty cool but it took away from the actual game play to kind of pad your time in the game. Late in the game you also get a wing suit which was fun to use for traversal as you use momentum to swing up and down into small openings. The mechanics for the wing suit were solid and I wouldn't mind playing a game focused on it to be honest.

That being said, the level design took a massive step back in comparison to the first. The original Ghostrunner felt just as much of a puzzle game as it was an action game and this one just feels like a straight up action game. In the original, every wall, ramp, opening, etc was intentionally placed. as you practiced clearing a room, you would find the optimal path to take and feel like a real ninja taking out all the enemies with precision and skill. In the sequel, every room kind of just feels like a big arena with some walls. It really takes a lot of fun out of the game.

I still enjoyed Ghostrunner 2 and I would still recommend it on sale but just know, while it's a pretty upgrade on visuals, the gameplay loop is not nearly as satisfying. Hopefully if they make a Ghostrunner 3, they'll focus more on clearly defined encounters rather than just large empty rooms with a few obstacles.

 

[Jovavic]

Ff7 rebirth, probably 8/10. It and Infinite Wealth were two of my most anticipated games of the early year and both did not disappoint.

 

[Shareefruck]

I don't see why the same themes and character development couldn't be tied into a game where you have to figure out who the murderer is Or a game where your choices affect the story

Bit late to this, but both of those things would compromise the point of the game's themes and also get in the way of that unexpected but beautiful note of hopefulness/perspective that undercuts it moments later, in my view. Both the supposed intrigue of the murder and the "I can be whoever I want to be because I apparently questionably have amnesia" freedom is a facade and a form of escapism that the protagonist uses throughout the game to run away from himself and his real problems and that arguably has put him down this path of spiraling. Having either aspect end in some sensational grand epiphany or some masterstroke of detective-work that blows your mind or that changes his life rather than hit the somber notes of cold hard, unceremonious reality and reflection that it does would completely defeat the purpose, in my opinion.

It would also be focusing on and congratulating the superficial in a way that just wouldn't sit right with me, personally. Feeding into arbitrary gameplay/entertainment/fun-driven player-demand/expectations (which is all "I want my choices to matter" really is) when they aren't appropriate to the art itself would be a mistake, in my view. In contrast, I feel like something like Stanley Parable where your choices can result in a million different outcomes just ends up being kind of obnoxiously masturbatory rather than thought-provoking. There's also value to having choices in games beyond simply having them determining outcomes-- The value of choices in games like Disco Elysium is more about giving the player the ability to collaborate on and adjust the flavor of the experience/narrative.

On top of that, Disco Elysium is not a game about big picture outcomes/narrative beats to begin with, but instead a game about the tiny subtle moments, relationship dynamics, and synapsis firing in your brain between them (and your choices do influence those quite a bit).

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Creaks - 7.5/10

Creaks is a relaxing puzzle game set in a beautiful world. There are enemies but no combat. Every enemy reacts a certain way and you have to manipulate their movements to solve puzzles. Most of the puzzles aren't overly challenging but some can be tricky. The story's pretty interesting considering there's no dialogue and it's all visual too. This is a neat little puzzle game and if you like puzzle games, this is worth playing.

 

[Ceremony]

Bit late to this, but both of those things would compromise the point of the game's themes and also get in the way of that unexpected but beautiful note of hopefulness/perspective that undercuts it moments later, in my view. Both the supposed intrigue of the murder and the "I can be whoever I want to be because I apparently questionably have amnesia" freedom is a facade and a form of escapism that the protagonist uses throughout the game to run away from himself and his real problems and that arguably has put him down this path of spiraling. Having either aspect end in some sensational grand epiphany or some masterstroke of detective-work that blows your mind or that changes his life rather than hit the somber notes of cold hard, unceremonious reality and reflection that it does would completely defeat the purpose, in my opinion.

It would also be focusing on and congratulating the superficial in a way that just wouldn't sit right with me, personally. Feeding into arbitrary gameplay/entertainment/fun-driven player-demand/expectations (which is all "I want my choices to matter" really is) when they aren't appropriate to the art itself would be a mistake, in my view. In contrast, I feel like something like Stanley Parable where your choices can result in a million different outcomes just ends up being kind of obnoxiously masturbatory rather than thought-provoking. There's also value to having choices in games beyond simply having them determining outcomes-- The value of choices in games like Disco Elysium is more about giving the player the ability to collaborate on and adjust the flavor of the experience/narrative.

On top of that, Disco Elysium is not a game about big picture outcomes/narrative beats to begin with, but instead a game about the tiny subtle moments, relationship dynamics, and synapsis firing in your brain between them (and your choices do influence those quite a bit).

If you're back in this thread please tell me why you like Kentucky Route Zero.

 

[Shareefruck]

If you're back in this thread please tell me why you like Kentucky Route Zero.

Yeah, I was reading what you said earlier. I think the game is broadly about doing what you can to find solace and meaning in art and community in the face of hopeless circumstances where systemic (I guess capitalist-driven) forces hold you down (something out of your control). It's definitely more dry and less like an emotionally dramatic rollercoaster than most videogame stories, but the soul of everything is very authentically and tastefully felt, IMO.

Regarding choices mattering, I think that Kentucky Route Zero is an even more extreme case of what I mentioned about Disco Elysium. I think the idea of making choices to influence direct outcomes is antithetical and inappropriate to what the game's communicating narratively, and frankly, I find the value of that particular brand of "choices matter" that a lot of people seem to want in videogames to be a little superficial and overrated in general anyways (at the very least, not everything has to be that to be worthwhile). Choices do matter in Kentucky Route Zero, but only indirectly/modestly and not in the min-maxing/event-changing way that people seem to want-- the purpose is just to influence the flavor/color of the experience and to have the player collaborate in details of the narrative (which I don't think is any less valid or lacking in value). This gameplay choice reflects the themes of the narrative in how people trapped in dire situations don't always have a choice to actually change the direct circumstances that they're stuck in, but they do have the ability to find respite and value in their approach to little things (such as art/community/humanism). The game very deliberately tutorializes that this is how the entire game will function when it first introduces the poetry password in Equus Oils, where your choice strangely doesn't actually influence whether you're granted passage (every password you enter results in the same thing), it only influences the mood of that moment as a result of that choice's text (I believe this is setting up what's basically the thesis statement of the game, and I think the sentiment works really well).

Personally, I found the delicate way that Conway's fate was handled to be really harrowing, tasteful, and effective. How its snowballs from something innocuous, how the realization of his circumstances slowly set in, he begins to accept what's to become of his life, eventually resigns to agreeing with the non-choice, and how he just becomes one of the other lifeless skeletons and gets swallowed up by those invisible (I guess capitalist-driven) forces. The way the remaining cast then has to soldier on in wake of that and make do with similar circumstances and eventually finding solace in what they do/can have (and what I guess Conway was searching for this whole time but tragically couldn't find, symbolized by Dogwood Drive) at the end is all very poignant to me. It's never really pointed out in an overtly on the nose way, you just read between the lines and it's there (and yeah, I would consider that a fitting "ending").

It's definitely not for everyone, and I struggled on my first play-through as well (mostly just due to attention span issues on my end, which is the case for a lot of my favorite media). But I wouldn't say it's a case where you tolerate the slow and puzzling bits to get to some brilliant epiphany/moment of clarity that makes the drudgery all worthwhile or something. The things that make it tough to warm up to and the fact that it side-steps a lot of the cheaper melodrama, emotional manipulation gimmicks, and hand-hold-y engagement techniques that most videogame stories use and that might make things more palatable (not sure if your Red Dead example would fall into that category for me, but it might) are partly what I loved about it. Everything's done with a lot of uncompromising restraint and artfulness in a way that I really appreciated.

Just going down the list of things I loved, the aesthetics and art direction are beautiful in a timeless way that I wish more games adopted, you can feel the labor of love in everything, most of the scenarios are very clever and creatively thought out, usually have something amusingly unconventional/surreal about it, or have some visually striking idea, symbol, or imagery to it that feeds further into the larger themes mentioned above, and moments are allowed to fully breath and ruminate rather than rush from beat to beat like most games. I agree that the sense of place and atmosphere it has does a lot for it-- it puts you in this quiet, contemplative and meditative state, and this surreal, dream-like mood, that lets you really sink into the moment in a way that you rarely get. The game's often puzzling, impenetrable, and mysterious in a way that to me is not a bad thing at all, and can feel really satisfying to just marinate in and think about, if you can get into the right mindset (I agree it can be a tough sell to try to get into that mindset, but I found it really worthwhile, personally). I also just felt a lot of awe and wonder at a lot of the set pieces and particular creative choices in general (how the Conway stuff plays out being an example of that).

If I were to look for criticism, I would say that the lengthy side-flavor-text that you encounter when stopping at various optional/out-of-the-way places on the map are often not very compelling and can feel like a drag to get through for me (like when you take a detour to a random place and it's just a wall of text about some guy listening to a basketball game on the radio or something-- I'm sure there's relevance, but I can't bring myself to care in those instances), but I don't feel this way about anything from the main story, interludes, or even the optional stuff that are actual visual scenes.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

We Were Here Forever - 8/10

If you haven't played a We Were Here game yet, it's a two player puzzle game where both players are mostly in different rooms and you have to communicate about the puzzles and solutions within your room to help your friend get out of theirs. The other We Were Here titles didn't have you sharing spaces at all really.

It's another solid edition to the series but there were two puzzles that me and my friend both felt like we lucked through rather than actually solving. Even looking at a guide to see what the solution was for those didn't make sense. However, even with those two strange puzzles that felt like luck, it was still a fun co-op puzzle game. I honestly recommend the entire series, they're all great.

 

[Turin]

Dishonored - 9/10

Story is ok, if not predictable, but the lore and worldbuilding is fantastic. Games a little short but there’s immense replayability. Gameplay is pretty stellar across the board and art direction is perfect. Should have played it in 2013 when my friend lent it to me.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Finished a couple quick games today:

Cloak & Dasher - 7/10
This is a nice little precision platformer/speed running game. The controls are tight and it is what you make of it. Each room can fit on one screen and you can replay games as often as you want to try to beat your previous best times and collect all the collectibles. Simply beating all the levels can be done relatively quickly but beating them with all the trophies and collectibles found can be quite difficult.

If you're into precision platformers with speed running mechanics, I definitely recommend this one. My only gripe with the game is that the timer shouldn't start until you start moving. There's a quick animation for your character spawning in and then the timer starts. Sometimes there's a hazard right next to you and it's hard to get the timing down to immediately start and not hit the hazard.

Acid Spy - 7/10
This is a pretty fun stealth game with a simplistic aesthetic. It's all in first person and you can parkour all over the place. Your pistol gets 4 shots and only reloads when you get a knife kill. You can wall jump and slide, as well as hitting bounce pads later in the game, to traverse every stage. Most stages are set up in a configuration of arena > platformer > arena > platformer > arena. You have to kill all the guards in each arena before the door opens. Some of the platforming sections actually becomes fairly tedious and got annoying fast. They really felt like filler that required too precise jumping to feel fun.

It's pretty short, I beat it in about an hour and a half in a single sitting. It feels a bit like a puzzle game because enemies will always spawn in the same spot and take the same route. You can find neat speedrunning paths to clear out sections with ease. The price is cheap and it's even cheaper on sale. If you want something similar to Severed Steel but wish it was a bit slower and more stealth based, this is the game for you.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Spider Man 2 - 8.5. /10

Took me a little bit to get going, but once I did, it was another great adventure in NYC with both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, along with a few brief sections with Harry Osborne and MJ. The multiple main villains were fun and posed some challenges that forced some actual strategizing, if I have any complaints, I would say there may be a tad too much side stuff, which is pretty common in modern open world games

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Parkasaurus - 9/10

I didn't technically "beat" Parkasaurus but I never end up "beating" tycoon games. I get through most of the campaign, realize I've pretty much seen it all, and happily stop at that point.

I always enjoyed the idea of tycoon games but a lot of newer ones feel like you have to micro-manage too much. Parkasaurus is not the case here! I always hate how important it is in these kinds of games to pick every employee, place them in a particular spot, and move them around as necessary. In Parkasaurus, you just have to place the Scientist in the science building and you can let the rest of your employees free roam, they'll take care of everything automatically. I absolutely love this about Parkasaurus because every time I'm in the mood for a tycoon or city builder, I just get overwhelmed with how much you have to micro-manager and it feels more tedious than fun. Rollercoaster Tycoon did it perfectly decades ago while every other game tries to do something else. Fortunately, Parkasaurus nails it here!

The UI is really straight forward and it guides you well for what you need to do for each exhibit. The tutorial isn't overly long, it's about a half hour but you're playing the game as you go through the tutorial so it doesn't feel that long. I had no problem figuring out how to do things along the way. You'll know exactly what kind of food to feed each dinosaur, what kind of biome to put them in, how happy they are with each category, etc.

The whole game feels very simplified and I love that about the game! You never feel overwhelmed, everything is clearly laid out right in front of you. The aesthetic is cute as is the music. This is seriously just a really enjoyable tycoon game, especially if you're like me that wanted something similar to Rollercoaster Tycoon in terms of mechanics and feel most tycoon games are too overwhelming.

My only complaint about the game is if you build an exhibit that isn't a perfect square, you can't just fill the whole terrain within the exhibit. You have to drag and drop the terrain and with all these twists and turns you could have, you'll be spending a lot of time just placing terrain down unless you don't mind it overlapping outside of the exhibit. They should have added like a paint bucket function that can just fill in everything within the exhibit walls with the same terrain type. That's the only issue I had with the game and it can be overcome by just focusing on mostly square exhibits.

 

[Ceremony]

Yeah, I was reading what you said earlier. I think the game is broadly about doing what you can to find solace and meaning in art and community in the face of hopeless circumstances where systemic (I guess capitalist-driven) forces hold you down (something out of your control). It's definitely more dry and less like an emotionally dramatic rollercoaster than most videogame stories, but the soul of everything is very authentically and tastefully felt, IMO.

Regarding choices mattering, I think that Kentucky Route Zero is an even more extreme case of what I mentioned about Disco Elysium. I think the idea of making choices to influence direct outcomes is antithetical and inappropriate to what the game's communicating narratively, and frankly, I find the value of that particular brand of "choices matter" that a lot of people seem to want in videogames to be a little superficial and overrated in general anyways (at the very least, not everything has to be that to be worthwhile). Choices do matter in Kentucky Route Zero, but only indirectly/modestly and not in the min-maxing/event-changing way that people seem to want-- the purpose is just to influence the flavor/color of the experience and to have the player collaborate in details of the narrative (which I don't think is any less valid or lacking in value). This gameplay choice reflects the themes of the narrative in how people trapped in dire situations don't always have a choice to actually change the direct circumstances that they're stuck in, but they do have the ability to find respite and value in their approach to little things (such as art/community/humanism). The game very deliberately tutorializes that this is how the entire game will function when it first introduces the poetry password in Equus Oils, where your choice strangely doesn't actually influence whether you're granted passage (every password you enter results in the same thing), it only influences the mood of that moment as a result of that choice's text (I believe this is setting up what's basically the thesis statement of the game, and I think the sentiment works really well).

Personally, I found the delicate way that Conway's fate was handled to be really harrowing, tasteful, and effective. How its snowballs from something innocuous, how the realization of his circumstances slowly set in, he begins to accept what's to become of his life, eventually resigns to agreeing with the non-choice, and how he just becomes one of the other lifeless skeletons and gets swallowed up by those invisible (I guess capitalist-driven) forces. The way the remaining cast then has to soldier on in wake of that and make do with similar circumstances and eventually finding solace in what they do/can have (and what I guess Conway was searching for this whole time but tragically couldn't find, symbolized by Dogwood Drive) at the end is all very poignant to me. It's never really pointed out in an overtly on the nose way, you just read between the lines and it's there (and yeah, I would consider that a fitting "ending").

It's definitely not for everyone, and I struggled on my first play-through as well (mostly just due to attention span issues on my end, which is the case for a lot of my favorite media). But I wouldn't say it's a case where you tolerate the slow and puzzling bits to get to some brilliant epiphany/moment of clarity that makes the drudgery all worthwhile or something. The things that make it tough to warm up to and the fact that it side-steps a lot of the cheaper melodrama, emotional manipulation gimmicks, and hand-hold-y engagement techniques that most videogame stories use and that might make things more palatable (not sure if your Red Dead example would fall into that category for me, but it might) are partly what I loved about it. Everything's done with a lot of uncompromising restraint and artfulness in a way that I really appreciated.

Just going down the list of things I loved, the aesthetics and art direction are beautiful in a timeless way that I wish more games adopted, you can feel the labor of love in everything, most of the scenarios are very clever and creatively thought out, usually have something amusingly unconventional/surreal about it, or have some visually striking idea, symbol, or imagery to it that feeds further into the larger themes mentioned above, and moments are allowed to fully breath and ruminate rather than rush from beat to beat like most games. I agree that the sense of place and atmosphere it has does a lot for it-- it puts you in this quiet, contemplative and meditative state, and this surreal, dream-like mood, that lets you really sink into the moment in a way that you rarely get. The game's often puzzling, impenetrable, and mysterious in a way that to me is not a bad thing at all, and can feel really satisfying to just marinate in and think about, if you can get into the right mindset (I agree it can be a tough sell to try to get into that mindset, but I found it really worthwhile, personally). I also just felt a lot of awe and wonder at a lot of the set pieces and particular creative choices in general (how the Conway stuff plays out being an example of that).

If I were to look for criticism, I would say that the lengthy side-flavor-text that you encounter when stopping at various optional/out-of-the-way places on the map are often not very compelling and can feel like a drag to get through for me (like when you take a detour to a random place and it's just a wall of text about some guy listening to a basketball game on the radio or something-- I'm sure there's relevance, but I can't bring myself to care in those instances), but I don't feel this way about anything from the main story, interludes, or even the optional stuff that are actual visual scenes.

I appreciate you posting these. I still don't think the majority of it is done as well as you say, but this is still more coherent than the thoughts I was able to find online when I played it and wrote it up. I just didn't feel invested in the place or the people at all.

 

[Shareefruck]

I appreciate you posting these. I still don't think the majority of it is done as well as you say, but this is still more coherent than the thoughts I was able to find online when I played it and wrote it up. I just didn't feel invested in the place or the people at all.

Don't know if you came across it, but personally, I thought this one was very good.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Anomaly 2 - 8/10

I played the original Anomaly when it first came out and loved it despite not being able to beat it because it was so tough. It kind of deterred me from playing the sequel but all these years later, I wanted to give it a try since this series is so unique.

Anomaly is a tower offense game meaning you control the vehicles destroying the towers by setting up your convoy and using special abilities when fit to do so. It's a really interesting twist and despite these games being over 10 years old now, I haven't seen replicated. This one definitely felt easier than the original from what I recall. It's the same fun game play. If you enjoyed the first but felt a bit frustrated or even just want more of the same, I would recommend this one. I'd even recommend the sequel over the original if you haven't played any of the series.

It's fun to get a unique twist on a genre and this one nails it.

 

[SimGrindcore]

Resident Evil 3 Remake - 7/10

Compare to RE2 Remake, it's shorter and kinda more difficult. Zombies never die as they come back once or twice after you take them down. It was stressing me out with the Nemesis constantly chasing me.

I was nice to briefly revisit the RPD station and realize that the events of RE3 take place a few hours before the events of RE2.

That being said, I like RE2 more than RE3.

 

[Mikeaveli]

Dragon's Dogma 2 (PC)

This is a great action RPG. Combat is really fun though I wish we could equip more than 4 skills. Enemy variety is also a bit low until the endgame. This games biggest issues are technical, performance sucks in towns and the game can crash sometimes. Quests are generic but I enjoy the lack of handholding. Graphics generally look really nice but there are some sore spots (reflections, low texture resolution, npc pop in). Overall its a fun time but I would probably wait to see if patches come before playing.

8/10

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Inertial Drift - 7/10

I'm not a huge fan of drifting in racing games but this game has an interesting twist to it. It feels very arcade-y and the controls are rather casual which is probably why I enjoyed this game as much as I did. Your left stick will turn while your right stick will adjust how much you drift. Your right stick essentially controls up to 50% of your drifting ability while your braking controls the other 50%.

You can pretty much hold the gas through most turns while just using the right stick to help make corners. It's a fairly casual game in that regard but it's still an enjoyable little arcade racer. The career mode is very short, it only takes about an hour. I got this in the Humble Bundle Catch My Drift bundle and it was a solid addition to that bundle.