Just like last time, I’m 3 years late to play a Life is Strange game. Just like last time, I had doubts I will enjoy it, though this time not due to trying out the first episode and not liking how it starts, rather because I just didn’t expect a side-story/prequel to a very self-contained game could be an interesting story to explore. And… *sigh* just like last time, I’m wrong.
Read more“Late thoughts on: Life Is Strange: Before the Storm”
I have a complicated history with Darksiders, I suppose. I always loved what the series tried to do in terms of their style, their world, their characters, their ideas. But there haven’t been a single game in the series so far that I could’ve easily recommended or fully liked. Original was often annoying for all its cool (if borrowed) ideas. Sequel was extremely long and got boring by the end, despite its really inventive take on mixing hack and slash with action RPG elements. Third one was… well, it was just bad, no way to dance around that. But Genesis is a slightly different beast. It’s less of a straight action adventure hack and slash and more of an isometric action RPG shooter. This change of perspective, a literal one, once helped Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light be the most fresh and fun take on the Tomb Raider series. Does a similar approach help Darksiders? It kinda does, actually.
I’ve never played Doom 64 before and despite hearing that it was not just a port of the original Doom or it’s sequels or expansions, I never really cared to play it either. Partially because I was never as big into id software FPS titles. Partially because, well, it’s Doom again, even if the levels are new, right? And that’s where I was somewhat wrong as Doom 64 feels different. So I’m really glad that it got officially ported to newer systems and PC.
When the new DOOM came out in 2016 almost everyone was in love with it. Me personally? I thought it was a fun game, but it lacked a lot of things I liked about FPS games. With the classic Doom titles the entire level was the challenge, whereas 2016 had a more arena-based design where each separate encounter was the challenge. At times, I found it boring, at times it had genuinely good moments. But overall it was a solid FPS that got elevated into something more due to its technical elements, its visual design and most importantly its fantastic soundtrack.
DOOM Eternal, right from the first teasers of it, was showing willingness to reintroduce a lot of the exploration and a lot of arcade silliness of the classic FPS titles back into the formula crafted by DOOM (2016). Was the resulting mix successful? Well… More often than not. It’s the “than not” parts that kill the enjoyment with the game.
It’s a bit of a shame, but 2019 didn’t seem to be as standout in terms of videogame music to me as I was hoping it would be. Still, there were some amazing tunes that need to be mentioned and given their due. As usual, I’m not covering the music to the titles I’ve not played and don’t know much about, but will mention several soundtracks to games that I’ve not yet played but plan to when I have more time. I know, you know, everybody everyone let’s go.
When Koji Igarashi left Konami and later announced a Kickstarter project to revive his “IGAvania” take on Castlevania series, I was excited. Despite usually preferring the exploration, rather than the action RPG aspects of the projects IGA has worked on before and despite not sharing the same reverence for Symphony of the Night as so many people have, Bloodstained sounded exactly like what I’d want to play. It looked like a cool mix of ideas from later Nintendo DS IGAvania entries combined with a more grand presentation of Symphony, something lots of people will find enjoyable in their own separate ways of playing it. 4 years later and one surprisingly good (but completely not my cup of tea) side-game later, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was out. And yeah, it’s pretty damn good.
It’s been not that long since I’ve played Remember me, the first project of Dontnod Entertainment, and was utterly disappointed. Since then, they have impressed the public with their episodic Life is Strange, which I did like in the end and the sequel to that game seems to be getting positive reviews as well. But before LiS 2 they’ve decided to try their hand in action adventure again, except this time going more into action RPG direction, with Vampyr. Have they learned from their first experience in Remember Me?.. Nope. No, they kinda got worse, really. But at least they have more good things to combat the bad things this time.
I think pretty much anyone I know who loves good stories mentioned Disco Elysium to me at least once since it’s release a few months ago. By the time of me writing this, the game has received several awards for its storytelling and yet, I find it a bit hard to explain what Disco Elysium is. The comparisons with Planescape: Torment are unavoidable, for example, yet this game feels almost completely different to play. What I can say quite easily, however, is that Disco Elysium is a really good game and an unforgettable experience.
Despite playing a lot of PS1 games as a teen, I completely missed out on the original Spyro trilogy and haven’t played it until 9 years ago. Back then I decided to give both best known PS1 platformer mascots a go and while Crash Bandicoot series didn’t click with me at all (I did kinda like the last of the original games, though), Spyro was an incredibly pleasant surprise. It controlled well, had great levels, stellar music by Stewart Copeland, visually aged shockingly well and felt like a true timeless classic – and this is coming from someone who rarely likes platformers. And while I liked the sequel a lot as well, I did get bored by the third game that felt like it was going for needless gimmicks instead of simply being fun and never finished it. When I heard of the remaster coming I was curious about how the games will be handled and if any of the occasional annoyances will be fixed since the game was being completely rebuilt from the grounds up on Unreal Engine 4. The Reignited Trilogy ended up being enjoyable, but somewhat confusing.
I’ve always loved the mid-90s FPS titles, especially ones made on the Build engine. They had a perfect mix of exploration in fun levels, cool weapons and enemies to use them on, number of encounters per level balanced just right so action doesn’t get stale and almost always had kickass tunes. My recent revisit of Blood was a wonderful reminder of how fun those games could get. And after years of FPS games, and shooters in general, going in a very linear, very “cinematic” direction we’ve seen a revitalization of that old 90s approach in recent years. Some of them were disappointing, some leaned too heavy into base mechanics, forgetting about the importance of hand crafted levels, some were pretty okay. DUSK, though, ever since the first Early Access builds, attracted exclusively positive buzz around it. So I was understandably curious, yet, due to all those disappointments, still somewhat cautious.
But now I’ve played the game. And holy fucking shit it’s amazing.
