My next game after I get through 1000xResist, looks absolutely delightful and weird.
Jusant
Taking place in a world where the water has dried up and people had been living in little communities on a giant, steep mountain, you start in the dried basin at the base of the mountain, determined to climb your way to the top. Along the way you uncover various notes and text conversations which fill in the blanks of the story and help you understand what has happened, bit by bit.
As you climb, you find little animals with rocky grips on their backs, willing to pull you along with them, harness a power that interacts with the plant life to spread their roots, place pitons and swing off your rope to reach hard to reach places. There are no enemies, it’s just you against the mountain, and it makes for a very chilled out game. You move your left hand with the left trigger and the right with the right trigger. I thought I was going to hate this control method for the first 10 minutes or so but it soon became second nature and in the sections where you get extended climbing without having to take a break, the rhythm you get into adds to the zen feel.
I don’t think I ever felt particularly challenged playing the game. You can generally just always climb upwards, the game signposts all the holds too. There was only a handful of times that I couldn’t work out where the next area was. It would have been nice to have some more sections where you had to go left, right or even down to progress instead of always going up. I also finished the game without ever running into any other ‘human’ characters which sort of made me wonder why I was working so hard to get to the summit if there was nobody to share the success with. But these are small complaints over a generally positive and short experience.
7/10
2 Likes
Alice: Madness Returns surprised me in a lot of ways. I thought it was gonna be some Tim Burton shite, but it was actually quite unsettling, and committed to exploring her trauma in ways that I can’t help but admire. Pretty damn good, and now I’m a bit sad that the next one was canned. They could’ve fixed the fucking wayward lock-on!
2 Likes
Ive got this on 360 but never played it. Also thought it might just be goofy ass Tim Burton shit
I’d say give it a chance then! It’s a bit janky, but there’s a lot to like about it. Lots of grotty Limeys too!
6. 3D Workers Island
Was debating whether to include this. Is it really a game? It’s a visual novel if it’s anything, and it’s on itch, and I’d like to recommend it so… why not?
Play in browser here: https://mryes.itch.io/3dwiscr
As I say, it’s certainly game-adjacent in the same way Tony Domenico’s previous project - the excellent Petscop, a YouTube series which I recommend to anyone who likes the sort of things I like (Lynchian unease, warped memory, old video games, etc.) - was. This “short horror story about a screensaver” is much learner than that multi-part series, but still does a similarly great job in implying huge amounts of dread through the smallest, most seemingly mundane of things.
The story (conveyed through slides) takes you through the installation of a simple screensaver program - an island inhabited by five characters who live their own procedurally generated lives - before you go down a rabbit hole of forum posts and side documents written by people obsessed with the screensaver, and Easter eggs contained within that may or may not be genuine.
Really good, if you have a little under an hour and want to be weirded out!
2 Likes
- Path of Exile 2 [Early Access]
- South of Midnight
Yeah ended up really enjoying that for the most part. The setting, the music, the story and the environment variety/quality did a lot of heavy lifting to carry some very servicable but totally unremarkable gameplay. Some pretty cool multi-phased boss fights help stop the game from being too formulaic but that is my main critism I can throw at the game - it’s formulaic - every chapter once you visit the bottle tree becomes quite routine and has the same gameplay beats but the awesome variety in environment design and interesting cast of characters are strong enough that this doesn’t become too much of an issue. The combat and platforming is pretty tivials especially when you get a few upgrades as the difficulty curve is at most a gentle incline so the by numbers combat and platforming isn’t too much of an obstacle to what is an otherwise enjoyable experience. Really wish there was some verticality in the combat arenas though - which are always flat circles. For fans of stuff like Psyconauts 2/linear action platformers/ anyone that is interested in the subject matter or aesthetic - not for anyone looking for challenging platforming or deep combat. Reckon it’ll get a bit of a cult following
7/10
4 Likes
Jan 12th - Resident Evil 2 (PS5)
Mar 5th - Nier Automata (PS5)
Mar 14th - The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)
Apr 23rd - Blue Prince (PS5)
I don’t think you can really complete this game, but I think I’ve reached a point where I’m parking it for a while.
Got to the antechamber and Room 46 around Day 20ish and then put in several more sprint runs to continue with the wider mystery, unlocking several new areas, doors and rooms. But I think at around Day 38 I’m calling time. For now.
I’ve largely loved my time with Blue Prince.
I think it wants you to hold multiple avenues and mysteries in your head at once, and pivot your playstyle on the fly as you realise that one of them is beginning to come to the fore. And if you do this, then every run reveals at least one new room, fragment of information or item. HOWEVER if you zero in on a single approach and go all in on that, then the random nature of the game is infuriating, and feels like you are simply hoping a bunch of rooms appear.
I largely had a good experience, due to writing down multiple tangental paths and enjoying the process.
But I definitely found that by Day 30, and certain puzzles getting more laborious and long winded, that the juice was beginning to not be worth the squeeze.
I feel on the one hand that I have plenty more to uncover here, and that I don’t want to bail just yet. Equally it’s been feeling like diminishing returns since I got to Room 46 and that perhaps it’s time to move on. Having googled a few of the upcoming puzzles I’m part way through figuring out, it’s clear that it’s a long road to a relatively minor pay off.
All in all I think Blue Prince is marvelous. It doesn’t quite deserve to be held alongside Outer Wilds for me personally, but it’s also way more interesting and complex than your average roguelike.
2 Likes
1000xResist - PC
Truly incredible. Finished the story and instantly thinking “one of the greatest things I’ve ever played”. It isn’t perfect gameplay wise, but it pales in comparison to how much I loved the writing and the story, it wants to say so much and has so much ambition that it just knocked out of the park for me.
Can’t recommend highly enough to anyone who loves narrative focussed games, absolutely adored it.
2 Likes
Medal of Honor - PS1
Really good! Massively helps that it includes modern first-person controls as the fourth bloody control option in the settings. Little did they know that including those, at the time bizarre, controls would help keep this game feeling good to play.
Anyway, probably the most polished and enjoyable FPS on PS1. Really fun. Hard final level but mostly a piece of piss if you know how to play an FPS today (hide, use cover etc).
8/10
Promise Mascot Agency - PC
This started off really well with me - the weird vibes are so good and it’s fun building up the business at the start. But, it really becomes a collectathon really quickly, which made the game quite a chore to get through. The vibes are great and the art fun, but the gameplay just really got monotonous by the end unfortunately.
really hoping for a console port
It’s on PS5. I bought it last night
It’s on all consoles already (I’ve been playing it on the Switch).
It isn’t? @vamos are you thinking of a different game? It is only pc and switch sure, but i don’t play my switch anymore
Ah sorry I thought you were replying to Promise Mascot Agency
1 Like
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
- Avowed
- Blue Prince
- South of Midnight
This was fine. It had some issues but the overall piece was pretty good, I felt.
Gameplay was a bit ropey at times. The combat was loose, and I found it really annoying that the enemies could very easily hit you while you were down which, frankly, can get fucked. It wasn’t hard, but it did try my patience a bit towards the end, as the power ramp felt… not great. The skill tree, such as it is, is pointless really. Felt more like abilities you get for getting into certain areas.
Also, there was some serious Jedi Fallen Order level jank with the platforming and wall running that never EVER feels good, especially after the frankly perfection of Titanfall 2’s wall running, and that was in 1st person!
I found the level design, creature design and generally the whole vibe to be off the scale exceptional, however. It really had a few stand out moments - the fight in the tree with Huggin’ Molly is easily one of the best boss fights I’ve ever played! But most of the encounters were a pain - the Two Toed Tom one, in particular, was a pain in the fucking arse.
And for me the story didn’t really land very strongly, and I think that was because it didn’t reveal the actual point of the game beyond “getting mama” until late, and whilst that works narratively, it meant for 10 of the 14 chapters I was being chased by… something… that just didn’t really make sense or feel earned.
Otherwise, it’s pretty good. Well worth the time I put in I think, and a few soaring highs, but yeah I can see why this sits at a 70ish across the meta. Perfect for Game Pass, and I mean that as a compliment.
7/10
Old Skies
Point-and-click adventure in which you play an operative for a time travel agency, taking people on nostalgia trips and helping them undo past regrets, while trying to prevent them changing anything too important. Which, as you might expect, doesn’t always go entirely according to plan.
The puzzles need enough engagement that you’re not just walking your way through the game, even if they’re rarely challenging enough to get you stumped. The story and writing are where it really shines though: there’s a lot of fun as well as more thoughtful moments, and even time for some romance. Very nice art style too.
2 Likes
Jan 12th - Resident Evil 2 (PS5)
Mar 5th - Nier Automata (PS5)
Mar 14th - The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)
Apr 23rd - Blue Prince (PS5)
Apr 29th - Dishonored 2 (PS5)
I really loved Dishonored and it’s DLC but this is an even bigger leap forward. The way you can play this game in so many different ways is incredible. And they all work.
I did an entire playthrough on Hard as Emily, relying largely on stealth, non lethal attacks and exploring less direct pathways. And it was great.
And I replayed half of the game as Corvo, levelling up my combat, brutality and becoming a one man army. And both are equally compelling and varied for entirely different reasons.
The level design is also truly lush. The visual aesthetic splendour of it is a lasting legacy to the recently departed Viktor Antonov. And behind that veneer are complex, layered and multi-avenued levels ripe for experimentation.
A vertical iisland prison you can infiltrate from the sea, coast, front door, windows or roof. A sprawling town being patrolled 24/7. A clockwork house that transforms as you move through it, like a giants Rubik’s cube. A haunted house that exists between two plains you can shift between. A decadent coastal palace where you can alter the fortunes of the staff being employed there.
It’s staggering stuff. The variety of Hitman in terms of replayability, but with the thrill of Metal Gear Solid or The Last of Us when a situation goes south and alters. Thinking on your feet Vs reloading your level is exhilarating.
I put 40+ hours into this and feel like I could probably play it again and experience it in a very different way. But, y’know… there’s a lot of games to play…
I can totally see why many regard Dishonored 2 as a masterpiece and the high water mark of Arkane’s output. It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played.
4 Likes
I’d argue that it and Prey are the high water mark of the immersive sim genre
on a par with (if not possibly better than) OG Deus Ex
2 Likes