Tag: Highly recommended

In love with: Mass Effect Legendary Edition

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When I sat down to play all three original Mass Effect trilogy games 3 years ago, I did not expect EA to join on the idea of remasters, especially for such a complex series made on Unreal Engine 3, at the tail end of the previous console generation. They seemed perfectly content with selling original releases and all of the DLCs separately for a juicy price, without even attempting to fix any serious issues that plagued the PC releases for years. So the announcement of Mass Effect Legendary Edition came as a complete surprise to me.

After having spent another 90 hours, playing through the trilogy with a fresh new Shepard, I’m happy to say that while it’s not exactly perfect and definitely not as thorough as some might’ve wanted, Legendary Edition is the best way to play the original Mass Effect trilogy. And play it you must.

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Quick thoughts on: Ynglet

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I really like games by Nifflas (Nicklas Nygren) even when I don’t like to play them. Truth be told, apart from the wonderful Knytt games, I never finished any of the other titles he designed or worked on. So when I saw Ynglet, my memory went to the really tough platforming parts of Knytt Underground, which were my least liked part of that wonderful game, and I considered skipping this game. Luckily I didn’t.

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In love with: Cyberpunk 2077

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Years after its announcement and months since its release I’ve decided to give Cyberpunk 2077 a go. Despite owning the game, I didn’t play it not for the obvious reasons of it being horribly buggy at the moment, but out of my usual principle of not playing story-driven games that have DLCs announced for it until said DLCs are out. I don’t like playing story-driven games until they’re “done” and I was willing to wait a year or more, just like I did with The Witcher 3 and it’s DLCs and expansions or recently with The Outer Worlds. But after almost half a year of CDPR spending all of their efforts on patches instead of additional content, I figured that the wait might be a bit too long for my liking and played the game in its 1.21 patch version. What an experience it has been.

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O tempora: Tomb Raider: Anniversary

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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 already revisited Tomb Raider: Anniversary several times before. In fact, it’s been one of my favorite entries in the series, up there with The Last Revelation. But it’s been a while and the game has never been perfect in the first place. I was somewhat worried that it has aged more poorly than I’d expect.

Nah, it’s still great.

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O tempora: Batman: Arkham Asylum

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

It’s been quite a while since I’ve revisited Batman: Arkham Asylum. A really curious mix of a beat ’em up and stealthy action adventuring inside a metroidvania-ish map it instantly became one of my favorite games and even though I’ve admired the later entries in the series as well, none of them came close to being as fun as this first one. I’m happy to say that almost 12 years later it remains wonderful.

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In love with: Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus

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I can’t believe how much I can sometimes enjoy games that are very much “not my thing”, but Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus managed to be that rare exception. It’s a tactical turn-based strategy game mixed with RPG and choose your own adventure elements set, as the title suggests, in the Warhammer 40K universe. And I tend to absolutely suck at strategy games and tend to dislike turn-based combat. Yet, somehow, something about Mechanicus clicked and I couldn’t stop playing it until I was done.

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In love with: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

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I have been holding out for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for a very long time, fully expecting it to be yet another western attempt at a challenging Souls-like title that will annoy me more than entertain. Besides, the timing of the game couldn’t have been more unfortunate, being somewhat tied in with the worst Star Wars feature film, released a month later and overshadowing all Star Wars news for a while. And I’m also one that always craved for stories that distance themselves from the two original movie trilogy timelines, preferring something like the Old Republic over yet another chance to shoehorn the poor Skywalkers into a new story. But the reviews of the game were positive enough for me to be at least vaguely interested and, with low expectations, I sat down to play the game. I was most impressed.

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O tempora: Dead Space

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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 have quite a few games I love to replay. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to, simply because nowadays we get more games that could be potentially interesting, but I can still sometimes get back to something reliable, something that will be a joy to replay. Usually, games like this simply don’t get old with replays. In some cases, I learn to appreciate them a bit more each time I replay, notice new details. And among games like these Dead Space is a bit of an oddity. I replayed it few times before, and I like doing that. But at the same time, it was never my “go to” game for replays either. Yet, every single time I replay it, my respect for it grows far more than with any other game I replay. And this time was no different. It’s like Dead Space is aging backwards and gets better with each year.

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