I finished the Banner Saga. I really wish I enjoyed the combat in it, as I’m sadly probably not going to find it in me to finish the trilogy. Which is a huge shame, because the rest of the game I really loved. Art was beautiful, music gorgeous, world building interesting and the story and characters were well written. I really do recommend the game, especially if you can grab it on sale. I love a game that doesn’t shy away from tragedy, that allows characters to die and that lets your actions actually have consequences. The tone and style felt really distinctive and just… refreshing compared to a lot of recent RPGs I’ve played. It’s slow, melancholic and somber. I really liked it for that.

Next up I’m probably tackling The Last Express, a game I picked up on sale a while ago and have been really keen to experience ever since randomly stumbling upon a video essay about it some months back and stopping the video about 15 minutes in with the realization that this is a game I need to experience.

I hope the move goes well!

Finished the Alan Wake 2 DLCs. Enjoyed them very much. The first two Night Springs episodes I thought were kind of so-so, but the third one was great and really had Remedy stretch their creative legs and both flex some mixed media usage and fully signal that Quantum Break is a part of the Remedyverse, at least in spirit. The Lake House DLC was just an excellent little horror episode, amazing atmosphere and gameplay while also being a very sharp criticism of AI art, which while perhaps not subtle I can still agree with and appreciate.

I also played through about 70% of the first Banner Saga. I have very mixed feelings about this game. The art, music, story, writing and world building are all excellent. It’s a very pretty game. I just… I don’t really vibe with the combat. The way the turn based system works and the way the damage stat and HP stat being unified plays out just makes fights end up kind of… weird. It’s very different from most games and I’m not really finding it that enjoyable. I haven’t played it in a few days now but I might just turn it down to Easy and breeze through it so I can see how the story goes.

Ah, now I remember your username from a Deadlock thread the other day. Yeah if you vehemently hate third-person perspective in a shooter then there is no saving it, I guess.

I mean, I don’t know. You have to watch it with 2013 eyes. Sure, if you only look at it like “oh, cover-based shooting” then sure. But what’s suggested by the trailer (seamless world, PvE and PvP simultaneously in the open world, proximity-based voice, some kind of mobile-app integration for drone support, faithfully rendered New York environment, extraction shooter gameplay YEARS before it was cool or even a thing…) still kind of looks like an appealing package imo and back then it truly did look mind blowing.

Of course I’m well aware of how it turned out, but I even watching it back I get why I was so hyped for it once.

I remember watching one of the early gameplay trailers for the first Division and thinking it looked like the coolest game ever. Wonder if third time is the charm for the series.

EDIT: trailer I was thinking about for those who haven’t seen it, E3 2013 trailer.. 13 years ago, fuck me.

Alan Wake 2 is the only title I ever bought on Epic too. Do not regret it, despite my dislike of Epic and EGS. My desire to support Remedy was magnitudes larger than any desire to protest Tim Sweeny.

Yes, this is it right here. The whole point of art is communication and connection with another human being.

If you can’t find an invite there I can probably sort you out.

I thought so too at first, but I actually don’t think the movement aspect of Deadlock would feel as good in first person.

Interesting failure states has to be one of the most difficult things to implement in game design. To this day I struggle to think of many examples besides Disco Elysium that manage to discourage save scumming purely by virtue of having failed rolls often lead to equally or more beneficial and interesting results as successful rolls.

That’s part of it sure, but it just… doesn’t feel right. Someone else pointed out how it is almost an “alternate universe Max Payne 2” with how it feels narratively like a more follow-up to the first game than the second. It also just has a very different tone and style in the writing. It doesn’t have that Remedy vibe. Everything from the characters and main story to the TV bits, which feel very different compared to Lords and Ladies and Adress Unknown.

It’s by no means a bad game, and the action bits are awesome. It just doesn’t feel like a Max Payne game to me.

Ah, that makes sense! Damn I wish Itagaki was still with us. That might make me actually wishlist this game, though. I played Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time recently (also by Soleil, the last game Itagaki was involved in) and was pretty positively surprised by it.

Gives me Ninja Gaiden 2 vibes, only with less aggressive enemies.

Remedy are doing a connected universe, kind of like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. People are calling it the Remedyverse. They’ve started blending their IPs into each other, even IPs they no longer own like Max Payne and Quantum Break (where they just change the names pretty much so “Alex Casey” becomes “legally distinct Max Payne”). It’s very cool and really comes to its head in Alan Wake 2, which really is enhanced quite a bit by playing the other Remedy games in order first.

Max Payne 3 isn’t bad at all - it’s a very tight 3rd person shooter. It’s just that it was made by Rockstar and not Remedy (Rockstar had bought the IP after Max Payne 2). So Max Payne 3 doesn’t really “feel” like a Max Payne game. It’s still a good game though, I just kind of wish it was independent of the Max Payne franchise.

Man, old paper magazine PC Gamer… Strong nostalgia overload. Getting a copy was always the highlight of the month, that era of like 1995-2009 was really the golden age of PC gaming.

It definitely is time for Max Payne! Well, unless you want to wait for the RTC Remix mod. And it’s the first step into the wonderful Remedyverse too, culminating in the fantastic Alan Wake 2!

Both MP 1&2 are honestly amazing, and they are very short games too so not really a huge commitment compared to some modern titles. The comic book style slideshow used instead of cutscenes was also ingenious as it has let the game age incredibly gracefully.

I think TALKER Expanded is in a stable and decent enough state to take a little break, which I sorely need honestly. Been burning out a bit on it lately. So this week I will finally be playing some games.

First on the docket is the Lake House DLC for Alan Wake 2. I was in the middle of playing the DLCs when I got sidetracked into this project. After that I’ll get into one of my Christmas games, either Chrono Ark or The Banner Saga. Might play both depending on how long they are and how much of a break I need. Leaning on starting with the Banner Saga.

Do it! The story and writing is still great and the gameplay holds up surprisingly well for such an old game (not that it will feel modern, but it’s not a chore to play).

While it win the Indie Award, I wonder?

Dark Souls will probably be great, and I’m also very curious about Pokémon HGSS as that has a special place in my heart.

Well… kinda but not really. The room-placement is only a small part of Blue Prince though and I think turning it into a roguelite was pretty innovative.

Funny story, Tonda Ros actually hadn’t heard of Betrayal until Blue Prince was well into beta testing. These things happen. The true inspiration for it was a choose-your-own-adventure/puzzle book by Christopher Manson called “The Maze”. Manson actually contributed with the art for the paintings in the Gallery in Blue Prince.

Okay listen. I know I haven’t played it myself but… Isn’t Arc Raiders just another fucking extraction shooter? How the fuck does it beat Blue Prince for most innovative gameplay?

It’s your funeral, pretty sure the Steam version still comes with SecuROM DRM - if it even launches. No clue how that DRM plays with Linux, either tbh.

Get it from GOG, download the Echo Patch and make sure to play the first expansion too (which is included), called Extraction Point. I think it’s even better than the base game actually. Definitely DON’T play the second expansion, and in fact probably just pretend the series ended after Extraction Point.

The game absolutely holds up, still plays like a dream. One of the best FPSes of all time for sure, great combat with good AI and fantastic gunplay from most of the arsenal (apart from a strangely anemic assault rifle). Also looks remarkably good for its age - some of the distortion effects especially like bullet traces during Bullet Time or shockwave ripples from explosions look surprisingly good for a 2005 release.

You can also jump through some extra hoops to make EAX audio work but it’s a bit of a headache.

“Spiritual successor to F.E.A.R.” was all they had to say to get me on board, but my backlog is still too large to pick it up unless on deep sale.

Ooh, I haven’t watched a Christopher Odd LP in a while! That’s nice and short too I think I’ll watch that today. Thanks for the suggestion!

Trepang2 is high on my wishlist, but that’s about all I’m familiar with on this list. Anyone else can comment on any of the rest of the games? Is this worthwhile?

Still barely gaming as I’ve been spending my time on my mod making project instead. I’ve been playing Chaos Zero Nightmare a bit on my phone though and it continues to be a guilty pleasure. Can’t say I condone gacha monetisation, can’t say I love all the character designs, can’t say the story isn’t terrible and the English translation is amateurish. All that being said, the roguelike deckbuilder gameplay is actually just really good. The dopamine hits of unlocking rare card variations during runs and making new builds work just keep me coming back.

I did end up buying two new games for myself on the Steam Sale as a Christmas present: Chrono Ark and The Banner Saga. I’ve had my eye on them for a long time, and so I’m looking forward to getting to a point in the mod making where I can take a break from it and actually play some games.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword is a surprisingly amazing DS game where you hold the DS in portrait mode like a book and control your character with the stylus. I played it this year and was very positively surprised by it.

The amount of fights wouldn’t be so bad either if the encounter design wasn’t so bad. Especially towards the endgame it just felt like Owlcat absolutely hate their players. Both HATEOT and the endgame sucked, and that’s coming from someone who was earned beforehand to put Blind Fight on every single character. That being said there were parts I really enjoyed - the whole Vordakai arc was great I thought.

Shame to hear that about the story. That’s the part that always made me hesitant about WotR too - I tend to prefer more grounded narratives over epic godslaying adventures.

Damn, very sad to hear WotR was a disappointment for you. I also had similarly mixed feelings about Kingmaker, but I was looking forward to WotR as everyone was saying it’s so much better.

Could also be a case of Michał Kiciński truly believing in the mission statement of GOG and wanting to free the organisation of any shareholders to be beholden to so that GOG can operate at near-breakeven if need be instead of having to maximise profits to please shareholders.

This is of course giving him a massive benefit of the doubt, but I guess I still have a sliver of hope for humanity somewhere in my rotten applecore of a heart.

It has some really strong moments and a very powerful ending that means it leaves a very strong lasting impression in a lot of people. Also the music really carries it. I still think it’s a good game, but I was definitely a victim of this too and have found that my esteem of it has fallen a little bit as the “dust has settled” so to speak.

It’s still a great game, and I’d recommend people playing it but I don’t think I’d rank it as highly on my all-time list now as I would have when I sat and watched the credits roll the first time.

That’s sick too! Very nice build!

That’s very pretty! I love unconventional pc case builds like this.

The game was made by communists, and they do make fun of themselves and other communists a lot and try to be even handed with the satire. That being said, if you’ve completed all four political vision quests you do notice how pro-communist the authors are. I always recommend people do the communist path on their first playthrough, because it is the political quest that injects a necessary piece of hope into the game. It feels almost like the “canon” choice considering how well it balances out certain other elements of the story.

Ooh not bad! I had that one on my wishlist and was considering grabbing it on the Steam sale.

People didn’t call Dave the Diver an indie game. The Game Awards nominated it in that category, and rightly got a lot of shit for it.

Indie is a fraught and vague term in whatever genre of culture it gets applied to. During the early 00s indie music era you had tons of mass produced “indie rock” pushed out by big labels too.

Everyone kind of knows what it’s supposed to mean: small budget, small crew, independent of the major commercial publishers/labels/whatever. But there will always be edge cases in both directions.

I agree with your take. The definition of what an “indie” is is very vague and subjective, but given the budget and resources and circumstances of E33’s development it seems outside the scope of what seems to be the “spirit of the award”.

Blue Prince should have gotten the award to begin with.

Is Seance of Blake Manor the first Blue Prince-like? I’m very hyped about it too but I’m still waiting for more than -25% off. Let me know how you like it, Blue Prince was my GOTY so another game to scratch that itch is enticing.