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.

Got it for free too on Epic and was super surprised by it. Solid game indeed.

My plan to work on my backlog this fall has utterly failed. Instead I’ve not been playing any games at all for the past month and a half, instead just working on a mod for STALKER Anomaly. Consequently I know in my heart of hearts that the right thing to do is not spend any money this sale. However, I am still looking at:

Tails of Iron (-92%)

The Banner Saga (-85%)

Bloodstained: Ritual of Night (-75%)

Virgo Versus The Zodiac (-75%)

Road 96 (-75%)

HYPER DEMON (-75%)

INMOST (-70%)

Trepang2 (-66% - if it was any lower I would just snap it)

I played Mandragora this summer. Liked it quite a bit. It’s not going to change your whole world but it’s a solid Soulslike Metroidvania. Compared to other entries in the genre it’s extremely light on platforming (which for me was a plus), so keep that in mind if you play these kind of games for the precision platforming. The platforming is there as part of the level design and traversal, but don’t expect to be challenged with long sequences of difficult platforming if that’s what you’re after.

Otherwise it’s a lot of fun, the PoE-inspired skill tree is great and lets you do some fun multiclassing by moving over to adjacent skill trees to find combos and synergies. Some of the spellcasting classes can be pretty broken though, so keep that in mind if you don’t want to make the game a cakewalk. Chaos magic in particular was pretty busted, at least when I played.

Exploration is good, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a Metroidvania: new stuff opens up in old areas when you unlock new traversal abilities. Also the game is very pretty to look at.

Fellow Ninja Gaiden enjoyer? I like it.

Those are some wild numbers! As someone who hyperfixates on one thing at a time and can’t keep track of multiple things at once I can’t even imagine what your gaming style is like. With 150+ games and averaging 3 sessions a day I’m guessing you play three different games every day?

If gameplay is your concern then AW2 is miles ahead of the first game. It’s a very competent survival horror game in its own right, on top of all the Remedy stuff.

If you didn’t like the story then, well I dunno. It’s not like it gets less convoluted.

It’s not happening. Alan Wake 2 was not just a regular Epic exclusivity deal. Literally every other publisher refused to touch the franchise. Epic didn’t just publish it, they fully funded its development. Given these circumstances, I can’t imagine it ending up on Steam in the foreseeable future - if ever.

If you can’t allow yourself to hold your nose and make an Epic account just pirate it at this point. It’s an absolutely phenomenal game and not worth missing out on over attempting to show Tim Sweeney the middle finger.

You’re not necessarily selling me on it with that comment, but I’m glad you’re loving it! 😅

There are 2 pretty massive Alan Wake easter eggs in Quantum Break actually! Sam Lake and co were working on ideas for the sequel in the background even when the publisher weren’t interested.

Also I think the integrated TV show in Quantum Break taught Remedy a lot of valuable lessons for live-action work, that you can say they then perfected in Control and (especially) Alan Wake 2.

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.

Is Returnal as hard as they say? I’ve heard good things, but I’ve also heard it’s incredibly unforgiving and hard. I’m a little scared I won’t be able to finish it.

Glad I didn’t stay up for that. Felt kind of… meh? I haven’t gone through and watched all the trailers but not a whole lot of announcements that made me really excited. Felt like the last couple of years were much more stacked in terms of reveals and trailers.

D:OS2 being the best game Larian has ever made IMO (sorry BG3 fans)),

A person of culture with a bold and hot take. I respect it.

I wish more people realised this. Alan Wake 1 sold really poorly, but Sam Lake and Remedy had really really wanted to make a sequel forever and literally no other publisher would touch the franchise. They tried to talk Microsoft into it but got funding refused and had to make Quantum Break instead.

Epic was their only chance to get to do their passion project, it’s not like I can blame them.

That’s pretty much where I’m at too. Though the “Indie Award” has always had similar problems before, such as the Dave the Diver debacle. But even though you could technically argue E33 is an indie it felt really wrong to have it up against something like Blue Prince in the indie categories. E33 had a huge budget with A-list actors ffs.