Coelacanth

I’m cautiously optimistic. I really hope this is the big redemption, sort of like Phantom Liberty/2.0 for Cyberpunk.

I’m starting to look forward to a second playthrough.

I had such high hopes for a new Warren Spector game and it turned out to be… this. Shame, really.

I didn’t mind Saga, I liked several of her chapters (the one coming after Coffee World was one of my favourites) and I enjoyed the mixup in playstyles, environments and weaponry to create some variety. I also thought it was neat to see the reality-rewriting happen in real time for her in parallel to the Alan stuff. The one thing that I didn’t like with her was all the collectibles, I felt that those ruined the tempo and pace and were just busywork put out to meet the expectations of modern gamers but actually detracted from and otherwise tight and concise story.

For sure Alan’s chapters are the stars of the show though, they’re just fantastic and show the full range of Remedy writing, art direction, creativity and mixed media use.

How hard is God Hand? It’s become a bit of a cult classic but I’m somewhat intimidated by it, especially as someone who hasn’t played many fighting games.

Haven’t had too much time or energy to play the past week so I haven’t made much progress. Played another two chapters of The Drifter. Game is still excellent, maybe Chapter 4 has a little too much backtracking and Chapter 5 had the first instances of some more convoluted logic in the game (although I would still not call it “moon logic”). But overall it’s absolutely great. Writing keeps being sharp and funny, pulpy thriller mood and pace keeps being quick and tense, voice acting keeps being top tier.

Must play for point-and-click or adventure game fans, I would say.

The ultimate weapons for each character in FFX are all locked behind minigames, most of which are unfun (barring Blitz Ball), most being extremely difficult and some being almost broken (looking at you, chocobo racing). You might remember jumping to dodge lightning bolts 200 times in a row or chasing down butterflies in the trees.

I agree with most of your criticisms, but the jumping puzzles and beach challenges I don’t really think should factor into the overall rating too much. They were deliberate nods to inane and frustrating minigames in older Final Fantasies and I think they succeeded in that regard. Anyone who has tried to assemble all the ultimate weapons in FFX knows what I’m talking about. They’re also completely optional in E33, contributing neither important lore, plot or item rewards. They can be totally ignored without consequence by anyone that doesn’t enjoy them.

I’m the same. One game at a time, for the most part. I might mix in a non-story game in parallel sometimes like a roguelike, but only ever one story based game at a time. My brain can’t handle switching back and forth, I need to dedicate my full intention hah.

I agree. This is a fantastic video essay that goes through everything in more detail than I could here, and I recommend it thoroughly. It’s a good game, that manages to enthrall most players into thinking it’s a great game through a combination of a phenomenal soundtrack and some standout moments that sort of jolt their critical thinking faculties out of order. I was victim of this too - I liked the game way more as I was first playing through it, but the more I went back through it and the more I actually thought about it the less I liked it.

I still appreciate E33 for what it is (overrated does not mean bad), but for me Blue Prince was the GOTY 2025.

Gotcha. Funny how that is, sometimes we need something outside our comfort zone to shake us up. I was close to buying ROUTINE last Steam Sale, but ultimately opted against it. I’ve heard good things, although I think it’s more psychological horror than survival horror.

Final note about the DLCs, the Lake House is also integrated into the main campaign and that one I didn’t feel break the pace as much. Despite being the reverse release order my preference is playing the Lake House when it appears in the story and then all the Night Springs episodes after finishing the campaign. Lake House still works fine as a post script too though, if you want the main story to be more concise and do all the DLCs after.

I think I agree with that about Cronos. The lore has some interesting implications, especially with the exact nature of the Collective that I hope gets explored further in the future.

I’m glad you fixed the blurriness issue in AW2! One thing I will say is, while the Night Springs episodes are integrated into the campaign I find they kind of break the pacing and sometimes spoil things and work better when played afterwards. But I guess that’s a personal opinion.

Totally agreed about the subway, that whole Alan chapter is absolutely superb I think. Love all the detail like the text on all the signs all over the subway too.

Since you seem to be a big horror gamer, have you tried ROUTINE? I’ve been curious about it since I’ve heard some good things.

If it keeps this quality through the whole game (which I’ve been told it does) I might end up dubbing it the best point-and-click of all time. It’s definitely going to ruin the genre for me when I next try another game and start running into frustrating nonsense puzzles.

Good, I wasn’t sure whether they came bundled or not but just making sure since they’re pretty crucial. Enjoy!

Only Civ you’ll need for a long time, possibly ever. Already great out of the box (assuming you got all the expansions), and after a few hundred hours you got tons of mods to spice it up too.

I started playing The Drifter this week. Don’t want to say too much about it without having completed it, but I’ve played through the first few chapters now (about a third of the way through) and so far it is living up to its reputation and then some.

• Initial impressions:

Great pixel art that is surprisingly expressive, some great animations and a nice synth soundtrack. Pace is breakneck and breathless, it often feels like you’re playing out a classic pulp thriller. Controls are great, it actually plays fantastically well on controller which is a rarity with these kinds of games. Writing is razor sharp, at times quite funny and the dialogue is actually good. The plot is interesting and as befitting the genre involves a conspiracy that keeps going deeper, although it’s too early to say how well it is tied up at the end. Voice acting is phenomenal throughout, and almost everything is voiced, too. The main character is great, and I love the noir-y internal monologue.

Puzzles and gameplay so far have been equally impressive. Not a single “moon logic” instance so far, every solution has been very logical. The internal monologue of the protagonist is also a great vehicle to deliver some subtle clues when you interact with things, or occasionally when you fail a certain puzzle a couple of times.

Overall I’m completely hooked.

To be honest, I find DLAA to be quite a good form of anti-aliasing, almost as good as DLDSR. I don’t have much personal experience with FSR though as I have an Nvidia card.

I guess that screen tearing is a result of CRT and being locked into Vsync? I used G-Sync and never had any screen tearing issues.

Shame about your monitor, HDR is addictive when you get used to it.

Yeah, Cronos is a survival horror that emphasises survival over horror in my opinion. It isn’t really too scary, just atmospheric and with cool lore and story. It’s more about scraping by on the edge of resources and ammo than it is scaring the shit out of you.

Totally unrelated but I love your username.

I’m confused by the claim that FSR is mandatory in Alan Wake 2. I played with DLSS but you can play in native if you want unless a recent patch changed it. What platform are you on? It is a very demanding game though, although funny enough I found the forest to be more demanding than Bright Falls. It does look amazing though, especially in HDR and with ray tracing.

You have also read wrong about the protagonist split, it’s more or less an even 50/50.

I’m curious to hear what you think of the double barreled shotgun in Cronos. I actually preferred the first shotgun that you can charge. Also, how intense was that hospital level? The morgue was such a tough fight, at least for me.

I’m in between games. I finished Road 96, and was somewhat disappointed in it. It is occasionally funny, it has a charm and has its moments, but is mostly let down by too much subpar writing and too much terrible voice acting. Nice art, good music and some good ideas and concepts that fall flat of delivering the great experience it could have been. The political angle and story takes too much of center stage, especially in the second half, but the writers don’t have the chops to deliver anything other than a very superficial plot overall. It’s also just very uneven. If every character was written and acted as well as John, this could have been something great. In the end I don’t regret spending €4 on it, but I was expecting more based on the reviews and past recommendations.

I was planning on The Drifter next, but I might need something more action packed first so I’m also considering Wanted: Dead.

I can relate to that. It’s not great. I hope your brain relents soon, then, and starts being cooperative again.

Sorry to hear things are rough. I know there isn’t anything I can do, but I hope things change for the better soon.

I’m playing Road 96 this week, which is on sale for cheap currently and I’ve been curious about for a while.

I should save the full review for after I’ve seen the ending, but it’s definitely an interesting game. The perspective of how the story is told is very unique - there is no protagonist or main character. In fact, it’s almost like a “story roguelite”. You play in multiple individual “runs”, where in each run you play as a nameless and faceless teenager trying to get to the border of the fictional dictatorship Petria and escape the country through Road 96.

During each of the runs, you come across a set of characters, and a large part of the story is their stories, told through the eyes of all these nameless teens you play as as you continuously come across these same characters at random points during your journeys.

The other story is the fate of the nation, and this is where the Telltale-style choices-matter stuff comes in. There are three types of dialogue you can pick, either promoting revolution, peaceful change through voting or just ignoring everything and fleeing the country. I’m assuming the ending you get will be influenced by which of these you pick the most times. I’m interested to see what the endings are like, especially regarding how they’re handling revolution/voting.

Overall it’s a bit of a weird one because I like some of the things it’s doing and it has a charm to it, but I also a lot of the time can’t help but think “man, I wish this game was just a little better”. Like, the story concept seems fine but the writing isn’t great. The voice acting is pretty poor, and it’s not that well recorded either. Some of the political stuff and the story looks like it lacks nuance. It seems like the product of a team with a lot of interesting ideas, but not necessarily the skill or budget to execute them.

But eh, for a couple of dollars I am not going to complain too much. And it does have a charm to it.

You should definitely play Alan Wake 2, especially after having done the homework of playing all their earlier games. It is in my opinion Remedy’s best game and a phenomenal game in general, I had it as my GOTY 2023 over BG3. Great story, beautiful presentation and cinematography and very tight gameplay.

With your tastes (impeccable btw) you might enjoy HYPER DEMON. I think it’s a little too fast and overstimulating for me but it’s still on my to-do list. I’ve had it heavily recommended.

Hummmmm. Hard one, this. I think this is my final 10, after some consideration. I break it down to three categories:

Forever games

• Civilization V: Was a comfort game for years, could probably play it forever as a type of Solitaire. Several thousand hours of content still remain with learning the Vox Populi mod and modded extra civilizations.
• Football Manager: I would try to argue I’m allowed to buy each year’s edition for the data update but if I must choose one it’s 2024. Digital crack that I have lost months at a time to before.
• Magic The Gathering: Arena I would want a card game on the list, and even though I quit playing Magic a long time ago this would be the one with the most limitless content.
• Noita: I’ve never played it, but I’ve been told this game has potentially thousands of hours of content so it sounds like a perfect time to get started with it.

Evergreen action games

• Ninja Gaiden 2: I could probably spend a thousand hours just trying to beat my own high scores in Survival mode. The combat in this game just never gets old.
• Elden Ring:* May be a surprising pick to some since this isn’t even my favourite Fromsoft game and I’ve only played through it once and currently don’t plan to come back. But I do enjoy a Soulslike every now and then and if we’re being economical in terms of content this has to be the smartest pick.

Modding games with infinite content

• STALKER Anomaly: One of my favourite games, an open sandbox with potentially infinite content and a modding scene that could keep it fresh forever.
• Fallout New Vegas: Same reasoning as above. I also love the story and a lot of the writing and I could rotate different styles of roleplay to keep it fresh.
• Skyrim: I’ve never actually played Skyrim, so this would be a perfect reason to. All the mods could probably keep me entertained forever.
• Baldur’s Gate 3: I’m not actually super high on this game, but it’s an investment for the future. If I could choose Pathfinder Kingmaker+Wrath of the Righteous as a combo instead I probably would as I prefer that rules framework. But BG3 is unbelievably popular and has a modding kit that will let fans make custom campaigns, and so I pretty much am just banking on that to keep me going with this one.

It still absolutely holds up. You will be amazed. Phenomenal shooter.

Yeah that’s fair, haha. It’s a fun game though. One thing that amazed me was the amount of peripheral lore and emails and that kind of stuff they put in the game. It’s surprisingly fleshed out for what is like a 12h standalone blockbuster game. I guess Remedy just like to write.

I probably have similar sentiments. I hated the boss fights, I disliked the overly supernatural parts, I hated the shoehorned “love story” and I hated the ending and the general vibe of Artyom being russian Rambo.

I loved the start travelling with Pavel, reminded me of travelling with Bourbon and I loved the settlements. Venice and Theater are some of the best Metro bits I’ve seen between the first two games.

Overall it didn’t hit the same for me, it felt like it leaned away from the grounded bits I loved in 2033 and leaned more into set pieces and action movie spectacle.

Ah that’s a terrible bug! Did you have to restart the whole game or just the chapter? I know the PC port isn’t the best, but I didn’t know there were still bugs like that in it.

Oh, I haven’t been tapped in in a while, I did my heavily modded playthrough pre 2.0 and I remember some of the mods broke with the DLC and I’m not sure they got updated. I know that there is a very popular mod collection called Welcome To Night City you could use as a starting point (or just use wholesale).

Recently some of the old classic mods that broke in 2.0 have started to get new updated versions (the original modder left), like Reinforcements System, SynthDose and Drone Companions.

I like using PED Damage Overhaul, but you need to tweak the default settings (check the pinned comments).

In the pinned comments of HARDCORE22v2 there is a list of mods and settings/tweaks of them by the user ezzio2030 for a more “hardcore” experience that I used pretty much all of. Makes for a more fun game with stuff like limited ammo, ammo refill in vehicle trunk and much more.

Hopefully that’s a starting point?