Pentiment is a new RPG-ish adventure game from Obsidian Entertainment that, honestly, came out of nowhere for me. I had to rub my eyes when I first saw it in stores, first to figure out what am I even looking at and then to make sure I am seeing the name of the developers right. And I’m really glad I’ve finally had a chance to play it.
Tag: Highly recommended
In love with: The Case of the Golden Idol
I’ll be honest, the first I saw of The Case of the Golden Idol, I thought it was a typical point and click adventure with an “ugly” art style to fit some sort of comedic/parody plot. I was so sure of it, that I completely filtered out the positive reception the game was getting up until very recently, when I saw it being compared to the amazing Return of the Obra Dinn. Confusion turned to determination to play the game for myself and I’m really glad that I did.
In love with: Dead Space (2023)
I’ve revisited the original set of 4 Dead Space games (and related media), starting with the still wonderful original, less than 3 years ago. The original remains one of the most interesting survival action (and almost survival horror) titles in history, while Extraction and Dead Space 2 were really awesome and memorable in their own right. And there’s also Dead Space 3. And after EA so unceremoniously ran the franchise into the ground and then closed Visceral Games, and no I’m not forgetting that, you’d think they would give up on the franchise. Yet, in a completely unexpected turn of events, instead we now get Dead Space, the remake of the original that is basically attempting to be Resident Evil 2002 (know as REmake) for this franchise. A remake that is both extremely faithful, but also expanding on the title and introducing elements meant to surprise returning players. And it is really great… if lacking in finesse.
O tempora: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena
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 replayed The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, in its PC “Developer’s Cut” release, back in 2004-2005 quite a few times. At the time and to this day, this game felt like an experience unlike anything else. Being an action adventure with stealth, quests, FPS, multiple solutions to problems, constantly changing situations it wasn’t quite an “immersive sim”, yet it wasn’t just a simple action adventure either. And I’d say that ever since then, the only other game that attempted to be something as varied and unique was The Darkness, a game also from Starbreeze Studios released 3 years after EfBB. A lot of the members from this team later went to form MachineGames that started with something more unique, the game being Wolfenstein: The New Order, but even that title has never been quite as varied as EfBB and all of their follow ups have been more and more primitive and generic.
The game was a critical success, remains to this day an example of how good tie-in games can be (this title was released to coincide with The Chronicles of Riddick movie) and in 2009 an extended version/sequel was released – Assault on Dark Athena. This new release contained almost the entirety of Escape from Butcher Bay content, but now on the updated engine and with some tweaks and rebalancing, and an expansion-sequel campaign that was about 2/3 the size of the original game. It wasn’t received as warmly, later had several strange attempts at digital release, including the DRM-Free GOG version which I’ve bought back in the day and replayed right now, but now it remains completely unavailable for purchase digitally. And since I’ve not played this game ever since 2009, I was curious to see just how much my opinion on it might change today.
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In love with: Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection
It’s odd, isn’t it? To play Uncharted on PC. It’s far from the first big well known franchises to get from being a Sony console exclusive to PC, but something about Naughty Dog’s series that always made Sony hardware look like a magic box producing game flow and transitions no one else could achieve on any other hardware, makes this port feel extremely weird. But here we are, sadly, starting at the end of the franchise, or at least a big transition point, instead of the beginning.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, originally for PS4 from 2016 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, also for PS4 but from 2017, combined into one package and released first on PS5 at the start of 2022 and now on PC.
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In love with: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
The incredible hype for a remake of Final Fantasy VII has always felt odd to me. Partially because I didn’t care that much about the original game, but also because I couldn’t even picture how a classic jRPG could be remade, other than by doing it in the exact same way but with better visuals. Which sounded pointless. But the remake did happen after years of speculation and a surprise announcement. And it went in a rather unexpected direction. For one, “Remake” seems to be the actual name for this game, which is the first of several entries to redo the story of the original Final Fantasy VII. And if that’s not weird enough, the gameplay has been drastically redone too. What is most surprising to me, though, is that for how much respect rather than enjoy the original, I loved playing Remake.
Read more“In love with: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade”
In love with: Judgment
By this point the Ryū ga Gotoku franchise, formerly known internationally as Yakuza and from now on Like a Dragon, is extremely popular everywhere. We’ve come from having some spin-off titles having no international release and main titles in the franchise having the international release delayed by years, to getting almost day one releases worldwide and future announcements that get so many people excited it would’ve been hard to believe this just a few years ago.
Judgment is the first game that is set in the same shared world as the rest of the Like a Dragon titles that has absolutely no “Like a Dragon” in its title. It was originally released on PS4 in 2018, has gotten an enhanced Remaster on current gen systems juts last year and now is finally available on PC, released the same day as its sequel Lost Judgement. And I have to be honest, even though I like these series in general, I truly loved only 2 Like a Dragon games so far and unfortunately, being extremely long titles, I did get somewhat tired of them last year when I finally wrapped things up with the PC port of Yakuza 6. Even though I’ve heard great things about Judgment, I was still afraid that it will tire me out. Instead, it has become the third game in the franchise that I consider exceptional.
O tempora: Chrono Trigger (the PC port)
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Chrono Trigger doesn’t need an introduction. If you’ve ever been interested in jRPGs, you’ve heard of it. If you’re not interested in jRPGs, I’m sure you are aware of it anyway. It is often called to be one of the greatest videogames of all time and, in my opinion, that title is rightfully deserved. And while I will continue on talking about what makes the game so great, I’ll spoil it right away – absolutely worth playing, fantastic soundtrack, great characters, exciting story, 10 out of 10 would time travel again.
But there’s a catch. For whatever reason, ever since its original release in 1995 on SNES, it has never gotten a re-release that a game of this greatness truly deserves. And this current PC port, despite numerous updates that fixed most game breaking issues, remains a rather poor, yet somehow the only, way to get and play the game nowadays.
In love with: Axiom Verge 2
Seven years ago Axiom Verge got released and while I had a fair share of criticisms towards it, it really was a fantastic metroidvania. Without being too novel, it had several extremely clever additions to the formula of the genre and apart from that was a solid game with unforgettable soundtrack and cool visual style. A year ago Axiom Verge 2 got released on several platforms and had far less excited reviews overall, most emphasizing the change in focus of the game from action to exploration. Which excited me, because I love exploration in metroidvania games and the combat in the first title was my least favorite thing about it. Now that I’ve finally had a chance to play the sequel myself, I have to say that I love it even more than the original. Yet, I can see how it’s not going to be for everyone.
Revisiting Resident Evil 4
I have a complicated history with Resident Evil 4. For a lot of people it was an instant hit, for me it was a frustrating experience. I didn’t “get” the appeal of the game for several years and only after several attempts, and because of the fact that the game influenced so many others, which gave me necessary experience to understand what it as going for, I started enjoying it. I still have plenty of criticism towards it, mind you, but nowadays replaying RE4 is an enjoyable experience for me. And I’ve replayed it many times over many different platforms, including this 2014 “Ultimate HD Edition”, which remains the best version of the game to play.
In fact, the main reason for my revisit this time was the fact that the version got even better due to fan work – I wanted to finally experience out the fantastic RE4HD mod, that more than lived up to my expectations. And in addition to that, wanted to have some fun with the recently released randomizer mod that adds some fun chaos to the overall experience. As I was about to play, the RE4 Remake got officially announced as well, so I decided that it might be the best time to revisit the original. And even in 2022 it’s still an extremely fun game… that really hates you.