O tempora – Page 4

O tempora: Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

18/10/2023 24/01/2025

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

Now that the original trilogy is out of the way, I can talk about the Alone in the Dark game I’ve played the most – Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. The first and so far only reboot of the storyline. You see, for all the convoluted storylines, the original trilogy and the 2008 game are actually part of the same timeline. Even the horrible and rightfully forgotten spin-off Illumination was technically part of the same world. But with The New Nightmare the series attempted a fresh start headed by Darkworks, whom I recently talked about when revisiting Cold Fear. And it did many things right and a few things very wrong.

O tempora: Alone in the Dark 1, 2, 3

08/10/2023 08/10/2023

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 a while since I’ve last played any Alone in the Dark game. I admired the original and genuinely liked the 2008 game despite all of its numerous flaws. My favorite one was the first reboot, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. But the original still had that “something” about it that I really liked. Not the sequels, however. But for the sake of revisiting every game, I decided against my better judgement to play all of the first three Alone in the Dark games, knowing well that I will not enjoy the two thirds of the journey.

I also love: We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie

08/08/2023 08/08/2023

When Katamari Damacy REROLL suddenly rolled into existence less than 5 years ago, I absolutely loved it. And my biggest complaint was the lack of We ♥ Katamari content, as it felt to me that a new title mixing both the original and the sequel would’ve been a far better choice. Well We Love Katamari REROLL is here now, with lots of improvements, a little added bonus in the form of Royal Reverie and, sadly, with a few unfortunate issues.

O tempora: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

16/07/2023 16/07/2023

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

There are several well known sad “oh what if they had more time” stories in video game development, where it’s well known that the game was launched in a state that was viewed by its own developers as incomplete. Not necessarily even buggy or full of issues, but not containing everything that has been already prepared and shipped, but locked and normally inaccessible. And to me, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is the saddest example of them all. The first title of Obsidian Entertainment, a gathering of incredibly talented and experienced people from Black Isle Studios backed by new no less talented team members, it remains my personal favorite Star Wars story of them all. No really – there’s not a single other piece of SW-related media that is as good as this. Yet, even with a fantastic The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification (TSLRCM for short) that restores a lot of cut content in its current 1.8.6 version, the game occasionally feels incomplete and playing the game can be a frustrating experience.

O tempora: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

12/07/2023 12/07/2023

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 think, none of the other BioWare games had the impact on gaming as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic had. Originally released in 2003 on Xbox, it was the culmination of everything the company did up until that point, but streamlined (in the best possible way) for consoles and due to that (and the Star Wars setting) it managed to cover an audience so huge no “western” RPG covered before. It kickstarted the rise in popularity of morality systems, romance options, “home bases” with companions to choose from… All of it existed in games before, but KotOR became a template for lots of games to follow. All while also being, arguably, the least controversial and most beloved Star Wars product from the whole prequel period of the franchise.

I played this game a lot back in the day, but after the sequel (which I loved so much more), I revisited it less and less and the last time I’ve played it was more than 15 years ago. Now that the game is turning 20, I’ve decided to finally revisit it and see how it fares.

O tempora: Aliens versus Predator 2

07/07/2023 07/07/2023

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

When talking about No one Lives Forever 1 and 2, I mentioned that apart from those two, there was another Monolith Productions classic that cannot be purchased digitally – Aliens versus Predator 2. Released between NOLF 1 and 2, this game was my personal favorite of the three and I replayed it a lot. I haven’t done it in a long while, though, and after replaying the NOLF games I was a bit worried about being disappointed. But I wasn’t.

O tempora: No One Lives Forever 1 and 2

27/06/2023 27/06/2023

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

Ah, Monolith Productions at their heyday… Not that their releases were consistently great or popular, but they’ve made some fantastic classics, most of which were powered by their own engine that was first developed for Microsoft to showcase the power of DirectX. Even though the usage of that engine began with the dreadful Blood 2 that no one should ever play, the first half of the 00s started an almost perfect set of games using that engine: The Operative: No One Lives Forever, Aliens Versus Predator 2, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.’s Way, Tron 2.0, F.E.A.R., Condemned: Criminal Origins were all instant classics and are still beloved and remembered by many. Three of these six titles, however, are not available anywhere digitally.

I used to love NOLF. They were among the very first games I played on my own PC back in the day and I’ve replayed them several times since. But the last revisit happened a very very long time ago – I don’t even remember when. So I decided that it was a good time to finally remember why people have such fond memories about these.

O tempora: Persona 3 Portable

16/06/2023 16/06/2023

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

Persona 3 FES was my first experience with the Persona sub-series of Megami Tensei franchise. I’ve started playing it about 14 years ago or so, after Persona 4 was already out and Persona 3 Portable was about to get released on PSP. And although I was enjoying its inventive mix of a life sim and tactical RPG, enhanced by a fantastic soundtrack and really stylish visuals, I got stuck on one part of the game and due to how slow (even by the standards of that time) loading was on PS2, I gave up. Later on the same thing happened with Persona 4 and it stayed that way until 2020 when an enhanced version of the latter, called Persona 4 Golden, did get remastered for PC. Despite being far longer than I’d like (especially since I tend to play jRPGs for stories rather then mechanics), playing the game was very enjoyable and I was hoping the other parts of the franchise would get ported as well. Fast forward 3 more years and we have both Persona 5 Royal (which I have just started playing) and Persona 3 Portable available on PC, so I could finally finish that playthrough I’ve started. Kinda… Because Portable version is quite a bit different with mixed results.

O tempora: Max Payne & Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

25/05/2023 07/12/2023

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 absolutely loved Max Payne when I first played it. It felt unlike any other action game out there and for years remained my golden standard for how an action game should be. It wasn’t without flaws, but it’s fantastic pace, exciting action and shockingly good storytelling far outweighed them in my eyes. Then there was also a sequel that I admired and respected for its even bigger focus on storytelling and some refinements to the gameplay mechanics. But I also didn’t enjoy the game as much. It has been a while, however, since I’ve played any of them and I wanted to see what my opinion on these classics would be today, especially with a remake announced.

In love with: Live A Live (2022)

20/05/2023 20/05/2023

Live a Live (stylized as LIVE A ƎVI⅃) has been a project I’ve heard a lot throughout the years. It was a jRPG from Square released in 1994 – that’s the same year as Final Fantasy VI, a year after Secret of Mana and a year before Chrono Trigger. But, just as Seiken Densetsu 3 (later officially and wonderfully remade under the title Trials of Mana), it was originally a Japanese-only title, so a huge amount of international audience only heard about it without good means to experience it for themselves. The concept for the game sounded wild – several unrelated independent stories with unique setting and gameplay mechanics in one package. All produced by Square at the top of their game and with the soundtrack from Yoko Shimomura, who’s soundtracks for Super Mario RPG and Parasite Eve would become much beloved just a couple of years later.

Unexpectedly, last year a “HD-2D” remake of the title was announced, first exclusively for Switch and now available on more platforms including PC, so I could finally experience this unbelievably sounding title for myself. And it’s genuinely hard to put into words just how surprising the experience was.