I think you’re spot on about Alan Wake, it has a cool story and some good ideas but feels pretty clunky to play. The sameness of the levels doesn’t help, either. American Nightmare plays well if you can overlook the low budget of being an Xbox Live Marketplace game. Plus it has some cool manuscript pages and lore elements and Ilka Villi absolutely slays as Mr Scratch in the FMV clips. Very interested to hear your thoughts on AW2. For me it’s by far the best game Remedy ever made, and probably in my all-time top 3.
Shame you’re not clocking with Hellblade, it’s a game I really enjoyed but it does have its shortcomings. For me all the elements kind of worked, and even though the puzzle mechanics weren’t amazing I allowed the game to be carried by the concept pretty far. The whole “seeing patterns where there are none in reality” being another manifestation of psychosis was neat. Also if you do want to finish it, the game is very short so there is probably less of it left than you think if you want to push through. I did personally like the ending, but maybe not worth it if it’s not clicking.
What made you bounce off Disco Elysium before? I agree with you that it’s probably the best game of all time, but I also do see people bounce off it frequently. Always interested in hearing people’s thoughts on it.
AW2 is going to be a while. Not only because I’m a patientgamer, but because it was published by Epic and I have no interest in setting up an account and dealing with their launcher, plus jumping through all the hoops to be able to play it on my Steam Deck. I’ve already switched a couple of my household’s PCs to Linux, and I’ll probably do the rest eventually. Maybe I’ll pick up the PS5 version some day, but that severely limits the different ways I can play it. I might get FBC Firebreak if it ever goes on sale- I don’t play a whole lot of multiplayer games generally but I’m interested to see if they put any lore in there.
Disco Elysium is great, but at times the “gameplay” so basically just reading a polysci textbook. It’s a very heavy game that deals with a lot of heavy topics. Often I’m tired of processing all of the terrible things happening in the world and look to videogames as an escape, and Disco Elysium is up there as one of the worst games for that lol. Even just seeing the ZA/UM logo starts to get me going from thinking about what happened to the studio and the main creators of the game.
There’s also a lot of friction that just comes from it being a text-heavy game. I had my retina surgically re-attached in one eye a few years ago- it was largely successful compared to going blind in that eye, but that eye is not as good at focusing at screens further away. Action games like Alan Wake and Hellblade are fine on my living room TV, but for Disco Elysium I mostly need to use my Deck or some other screen that can be closer to my face.
Another factor is sobriety. I feel like this doesn’t get talked about in gaming communities a lot- a lot of gamers are children, or adults who are sober for a variety of reasons. I’m adult who does not have any of those reasons, and even a medical marijuana card for my arthritis. I have a full-time job, a house to maintain, and several relationships to maintain. So on the rare occasion that I have an evening to myself to enjoy, I often want to get high (responsibly) and play some videogames. It’s kind of a difficulty customization too: often the difficulty settings in-games are just boring number changes that make enemies bullet sponges. So I’m more entertained by playing on Easy and getting high than playing on Hard sober. Disco Elysium, for as much as it features drug-use in its world and gameplay, is nearly impossible for me to play while high. It’s not a huge deal, but it often means that other games are just more appealing when I’m planning any given evening.
AW2 is worth it. Don’t deprive yourself of the experience, it’s a memorable one. I understand the hoops though, but trust me it’s worth holding your nose and getting an Epic account. It’s still to this day my one and only purchase on Epic, and I don’t regret it one bit.
All that makes sense with Disco Elysium. Also I’m sorry about your eye, that must be an awful thing to go through. Very understandable with the eye fatigue and reading though. There is a lot of it, even after the voice acting update.
As far as heavy themes and all, I can’t say much without spoiling stuff but I will say this: the game somehow does strike a strange kind of balance where it ends up feeling oddly hopeful, even in the face of nihilism. It slightly depends on how you play it, granted. The Communism playthrough for example is a lot more hopeful than the Fascism run (although the latter is also very interesting and doesn’t play out the way you’d think).
I struggle with depression and self loathing and being unable to move on from the past and have struggled with addiction in the past, and Disco Elysium is one of the most cathartic experiences I’ve had in any medium of culture.
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I think you’re spot on about Alan Wake, it has a cool story and some good ideas but feels pretty clunky to play. The sameness of the levels doesn’t help, either. American Nightmare plays well if you can overlook the low budget of being an Xbox Live Marketplace game. Plus it has some cool manuscript pages and lore elements and Ilka Villi absolutely slays as Mr Scratch in the FMV clips. Very interested to hear your thoughts on AW2. For me it’s by far the best game Remedy ever made, and probably in my all-time top 3.
Shame you’re not clocking with Hellblade, it’s a game I really enjoyed but it does have its shortcomings. For me all the elements kind of worked, and even though the puzzle mechanics weren’t amazing I allowed the game to be carried by the concept pretty far. The whole “seeing patterns where there are none in reality” being another manifestation of psychosis was neat. Also if you do want to finish it, the game is very short so there is probably less of it left than you think if you want to push through. I did personally like the ending, but maybe not worth it if it’s not clicking.
What made you bounce off Disco Elysium before? I agree with you that it’s probably the best game of all time, but I also do see people bounce off it frequently. Always interested in hearing people’s thoughts on it.
AW2 is going to be a while. Not only because I’m a patientgamer, but because it was published by Epic and I have no interest in setting up an account and dealing with their launcher, plus jumping through all the hoops to be able to play it on my Steam Deck. I’ve already switched a couple of my household’s PCs to Linux, and I’ll probably do the rest eventually. Maybe I’ll pick up the PS5 version some day, but that severely limits the different ways I can play it. I might get FBC Firebreak if it ever goes on sale- I don’t play a whole lot of multiplayer games generally but I’m interested to see if they put any lore in there.
Disco Elysium is great, but at times the “gameplay” so basically just reading a polysci textbook. It’s a very heavy game that deals with a lot of heavy topics. Often I’m tired of processing all of the terrible things happening in the world and look to videogames as an escape, and Disco Elysium is up there as one of the worst games for that lol. Even just seeing the ZA/UM logo starts to get me going from thinking about what happened to the studio and the main creators of the game.
There’s also a lot of friction that just comes from it being a text-heavy game. I had my retina surgically re-attached in one eye a few years ago- it was largely successful compared to going blind in that eye, but that eye is not as good at focusing at screens further away. Action games like Alan Wake and Hellblade are fine on my living room TV, but for Disco Elysium I mostly need to use my Deck or some other screen that can be closer to my face.
Another factor is sobriety. I feel like this doesn’t get talked about in gaming communities a lot- a lot of gamers are children, or adults who are sober for a variety of reasons. I’m adult who does not have any of those reasons, and even a medical marijuana card for my arthritis. I have a full-time job, a house to maintain, and several relationships to maintain. So on the rare occasion that I have an evening to myself to enjoy, I often want to get high (responsibly) and play some videogames. It’s kind of a difficulty customization too: often the difficulty settings in-games are just boring number changes that make enemies bullet sponges. So I’m more entertained by playing on Easy and getting high than playing on Hard sober. Disco Elysium, for as much as it features drug-use in its world and gameplay, is nearly impossible for me to play while high. It’s not a huge deal, but it often means that other games are just more appealing when I’m planning any given evening.
AW2 is worth it. Don’t deprive yourself of the experience, it’s a memorable one. I understand the hoops though, but trust me it’s worth holding your nose and getting an Epic account. It’s still to this day my one and only purchase on Epic, and I don’t regret it one bit.
All that makes sense with Disco Elysium. Also I’m sorry about your eye, that must be an awful thing to go through. Very understandable with the eye fatigue and reading though. There is a lot of it, even after the voice acting update.
As far as heavy themes and all, I can’t say much without spoiling stuff but I will say this: the game somehow does strike a strange kind of balance where it ends up feeling oddly hopeful, even in the face of nihilism. It slightly depends on how you play it, granted. The Communism playthrough for example is a lot more hopeful than the Fascism run (although the latter is also very interesting and doesn’t play out the way you’d think).
I struggle with depression and self loathing and being unable to move on from the past and have struggled with addiction in the past, and Disco Elysium is one of the most cathartic experiences I’ve had in any medium of culture.