great soundtrack – Page 2

O tempora: Sweet Home

02/01/2026 02/01/2026

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

I’ve talked about movie tie-in titles that became instrumental in shaping the future of gaming when I was exploring The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. But this time, we are going even further back in time to 1989, to a horror themed action adventure turn based party based RPG Sweet Home, developed by Capcom as a tie-in to the movie of the same name. It was released on Famicom exclusively in Japan and has never been officially localized or re-released. Yet, this game and its unique blend of game mechanics are incredibly unique and have never been recreated to this day. And it is also the reason Resident Evil exists.

In love with: Sword of the Sea

28/11/2025 28/12/2025

Journey by thatgamecompany has been rightfully considered a classic for over a decade now, a perfect culmination of ideas the team has played with up until that point. But when several team members left and created their own studio Giant Squid, their first project Abzû was highly liked, but never reached the same cult status. Which is a real shame, because it is one of the most beautiful and medidative games I’ve ever played with really fun movement. A few years later, the team followed it up with The Pathless, another game with really cool movement, but that one I did not finish. It felt like a very odd mix of open world-ish design with the meditative pace of Abzû (that had linear levels), so the end result to me felt very boring. Several years later still, the team decided to mix the best ideas they’ve had in all projects since Journey into Sword of the Sea and it’s really fun.

In love with: Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025)

21/11/2025 21/11/2025

It’s very odd to attempt to review a game like Tokyo Xtreme Racer, released in 2025 after a year in early access, as it feels both too simple and too complicated to explain in modern day game market. Because, it’s a game about street racing, where you battle other cars on a section of the Shuto Expressway to see who’s fastest and… that’s really it. The mechanics are simple and they don’t really change across the entirety of the game that can easily take over 20 hours or more. The rule of the “battles” are also dead simple. And most of it has not been changed drastically, it seems, since the original Shutokō Battle on Dreamcast came out in 1999 that was localized in United States as Tokyo Xtreme Racer. In a way, it’s a game from a bygone era. And yet, that’s the best thing possible.

Happy about: The Rise of the Golden Idol (with DLCs)

12/11/2025 12/11/2025

A few years ago The Case of the Golden Idol really impressed me. It was a solid investigation game that drew a lot of ideas from Return of the Obra Dinn, where the gameplay revolved around investigating a scene frozen in time to get certain key words, and then putting those key words in specific forms to explain what happened. It had a unique visual style, really fun plot that gradually revealed itself through your investigations and even the later DLCs were a great addition to the game, providing a solid prequel to the invents in the main game.

But the developers decided to go even further and develop a sequel and then also plan a year worth of DLCs for it. Which is the main reason I have not reviewed the game up until now – I don’t like playing “unfinished” story-heavy games. But now that it is finished, I have to say that the sequel is considerably less fun than the original game, but is still really good.

O tempora: Heretic + Hexen

01/11/2025 01/11/2025

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

Just as it was the case with the original Doom titles, I’ve only played a little of Heretic in the 90s. My proper “formative” FPS experiences, I suppose I can call them that, happened later with Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life. And for one reason or the other, I never had much desire to revisit the “Doom clones” from Raven Software, even as they became the “reliable mid-budget game developers” during the 2000s and 2010s, before being completely absorbed by Activision and turned into another machine to pump out Call of Duty content. Plus, I’ve heard horror stories about the level design of Hexen, so I wasn’t really keen to experience that either.

But, in what appears to have become a yearly tradition, Nightdive Studios have created yet another remastered release of the classic FPS titles that are running on some version of id Tech – Heretic + Hexen. “As you remember them” collection of both titles, both of their expansions and with two new expansions on top. And I’ve decided that it was finally time to experience what if Doom was fantasy.

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In love with: Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater

23/10/2025 23/10/2025

Half a year ago I was revisiting the Metal Gear series with the Master Collection Vol. 1 that is now finally in a good state, and was pleasantly surprised by my experience with MGS3. Up until that playthrough, I had more respect for the entry than love and have far preferred the first and the second games. But the replay has shown Snake Eater in a new light to me, which was one of the main reasons I’ve decided to grab Metal Gear Solid Δ (Delta): Snake Eater. At the end of that previous review I wondered if Delta will be the better way to experience the game. And now I can definitively say – yes.

O tempora: Gex Trilogy

04/10/2025 04/10/2025

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

My taste in platformers is something some consider unnatural. Despite growing during the era when platforming games of many variations were the dominant genre of games, there were not that many I actually liked. Mario games? Nope. Sonic games? Kinda, but not really my thing. Mega Man? Nah. Classic Castlevania titles? Also no. I admire and respect a lot of entries in those series, but the closer it gets to being just a platformer or action platformer, the less likely I am to enjoy the game, usually. Especially with 2D ones. Exploration focused games, like so called “metroidvanias” I do love. But if it’s just about jumping or jumping and shooting, especially if the game is supposed to be challenging – not for me.

And while there are a lot more 3D platformers that I like, it’s not a gigantic list as well. It lacks Mario, for example. But it does include Gex: Enter the Gecko – a game I have considered to be my favorite 3D platformer for the longest time. So when this game, as part of the “whole” “Trilogy” of Gex games was announced to be re-released, I was super excited. It didn’t need to be a remaster or a remake, just a very good re-release (emulated or not) of the original titles. Gex Trilogy is not quite there, though I’m still happy it exists.

Thoughts on: OFF

13/09/2025 13/09/2025

Closer to the end of the 2000s the independent game development scene was starting to bloom. Independent developers have been doing it for a very long time by that point, but the mix of availability of tools and the evolution of the internet changed the game. People didn’t consider the commercial releases for their games yet as often as they do now, so a lot of genuinely impressive, influential and highly praised titles were released completely for free. OFF was one such title – originally released in 2008, completely in French, it was a surreal horror themed RPG made in RPG Maker 2003 with a memorable soundtrack. And a couple years later, with few unofficial fan made English translations, the game started going rounds around the internet and was often a target for then rising popularity of Let’s Play format of recorded game playthroughs on YouTube.

And now in 2025, after years of being talked about and influencing other developers, the game is officially translated into English, ported to Unity and is available as a commercial release. A faithful recreation of the original project with some improvements and some side-steps.

Thoughts on: Old Skies

11/07/2025 18/10/2025

If you like point and click adventure games, you have seen the Wadjet Eye Games logo at least once or twice in the past 15 years. They have developed and published some of the best adventures of the past decade and have been one of the most prominent users of Adventure Game Studio. And ever since I’ve decided to try the Blackwell series back in 2013, I was never disappointed with a release developed by them since. Even when it was short and simple like The Shivah or The Blackwell Legacy, or as rough around the edges as Blackwell Unbound. Their Unavowed from 6 years ago is easily one of my favorite adventure game titles ever. So to say that I was excited about Old Skies is to say nothing. And yet, somehow, this game was easily the least enjoyable title from Wadjet Eye Games I’ve played.

Happy about: World of Goo 2

19/06/2025 19/06/2025

Many many years ago there was a cool website called Experimental Gameplay Project, that, as I didn’t even realize at the time, was full of university projects (specifically of students from Carnegie Mellon University). There were lots of short but very memorable and fun little projects, some of which were just silly fun like Attack of the Killer Swarm, On a Rainy Day, Gravity Head, Tower of Goo or Super Tummy Bubble! (which is basically Suika Game decades before the actual “Watermelon game”) and some were more mysterious and strange like The Crowd. The team behind this project would later form Tomorrow Corporation, but even prior to it, they’ve collaborated on other projects. One of which was done by a mostly two-man team at 2D Boy. The game was a fully realized idea previously shown in Tower of Goo – World of Goo, which was released in 2008 to huge critical success and become one of the earliest biggest examples of independent developer success stories (at least from the critical reception perspective).

Yet, despite the success, following that game up with a direct sequel would’ve been strange. It felt like a more or less well developed idea and its “story” was quite simple. So it made sense that Tomorrow Corporation worked on different puzzle titles that continued some of the themes and ideas, but played very differently. However in 2024 World of Goo 2 was released on several platforms (but with odd exclusivity deals on PC). With the latter being finally over, I was able to complete it and while I have enjoyed it quite a lot, I have to say its existence still feels strange.

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