I like a good stupid game. Something with a simple silly premise, easy to get into gameplay, good length. Something to just sit down, play, enjoy and move on, maybe replaying it again a few years later. And Maneater turned out to be a pretty good example of a game like that. Less than 10 hours of simple gameplay loops of swimming and chomping fish and people, upgrading the shark to be more ridiculous and finding secrets.
Tag: Recommended
Quick thoughts on: Emily is Away <3
Emily is Away <3 is the third entry in the visual novel/social media simulation interactive story adventure thing series about relationships. It’s bigger, it’s… somewhat better and it’s quite different with its move from simulating AIM/ICQ to Facebook. And I kinda liked it.
Happy about: Fable Anniversary
Many many years ago, in 2005 to be precise, I’ve played Fable: The Lost Chapters on PC and enjoyed it quite a bit. It didn’t exactly wow me, because of how intentionally primitive the storytelling was, but it was full of curious ideas. And from what I’ve seen and heard, all those ideas were developed and expanded upon in the highly praised sequel that still remains exclusive to Xbox 360 and thus, I’ve never given it a proper playthrough. I’ve not checked Fable III either, since the PC port of that game wasn’t particularly great and was tied into the terrible GFWL service, which was apparently the main reason the game was pulled from sales pretty soon after and remains not available for PC since then.
In 2014 an Unreal Engine 3 driven remake/remaster was released, called Fable Anniversary, which was basically exactly the same game as The Lost Chapters, but with many little tweaks and changes and with better support for modern hardware. And for the longest time I’ve not planned to ever play it. I thought that I will find Fable too simplistic and boring and not worth revisiting. Yet a discussion with friends prompted me to reconsider and give this game a go. I’m glad I did that.
Revisiting Tomb Raider: Underworld
Finishing up my revisit of the Legend timeline, I was most curious about what I would think of Underworld. When it was just released, the reception to the game everywhere was rather positive, but somewhat mediocre, yet to me it seemed like a really good game. And since unlike Anniversary I did not revisit this game since launch, I was afraid that my memories of this entry were a bit more rose-tinted than I was willing to accept.
Well, time to accept it now. It’s still a good TR title, but a lot of it doesn’t work all that well.
Revisiting Batman: Arkham City
After wholly enjoying myself replaying Batman: Arkham Asylum yet again, I’ve braced myself for Arkham City. I never truly disliked this game, in fact I quite admire it and what it tried to be. Yet, all of my previous attempts to replay it always ended with me getting bored a few hours in. But not this time – this time I’ve yet again played the whole game, doing all collectibles and side stories and the story DLC (not the challenges, though). And… yeah, it was alright.
Happy about: The Outer Worlds (with DLCs)
It’s been a while since The Outer Worlds got initially released, but, as it always happens with me and story driven games with DLCs that happen inside the main story, I tend to not play them until the DLCs are out. And now, a year and a half later they are with Peril on Gorgon releasing late last year and Murder on Eridanos just a few weeks ago.
And I’ve had my hopes pretty low, if I’m completely honest – most of the people I know were very underwhelmed by the game at launch and several of them didn’t even finish it because they got bored. Knowing them, I knew that I had to approach this as something far less exciting and story-driven than a typical Obsidian title and more like a simple RPG, a slightly more nuanced action RPG. And yes, while The Outer Worlds is not full-on Borderlands, it’s more or less Fallout: New Vegas, but somewhat streamlined and simplified in some aspects. And given that I really like New Vegas despite itself, it took me a while to adapt and adjust, before I could start enjoying the game for what it is.
O tempora: BloodRayne: Terminal Cut
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
While third person shooters were a thing throughout the 90s, it wasn’t until Max Payne in 2001 when the genre suddenly clicked. It had all of the speed and energy of a late 90s FPS’, but didn’t feel like a bizarre third person mod to one and had its controls and animations tweaked to feel great. Many games followed using a similar formula. PC-centric ones, like Max Payne itself, kept it all really fast and mouse controlled. Console-centric ones tried to adapt the speed and agility to the controller. Many failed to be fun or memorable. BloodRayne, originally from 2002, was one of the fun ones.
Happy about: Trials of Mana (2020)
I’ve never played games in Mana (Seiken Densetsu) series before. I’m aware of the popularity of Secret of Mana, yet to this day I’ve not checked it out, nor it’s poorly received remake. However, as a fan of certain type of Japanese action RPGs, mainly the Ys series from Falcom, when I’ve first seen the gameplay from the Trials of Mana remake, I got very interested. Now, after playing through the game several times and doing everything I could think of, I gotta say – I’ve had a lot of fun with the game.
Happy about: The Room 4: Old Sins
Fireproof Games have been doing The Room series of titles with intricate mechanical puzzles and Lovecraftian horror theme for almost a decade now. Always focusing on mobile version first and then rebuilding the title for PCs, with the biggest exception being the VR-only entry A Dark Matter released last year. Old Sins, the fourth entry in the series, is no exception as it has originally been released on iOS and Android devices back in 2018, only now having arrived to PCs. And, as usual, it’s a terrific port for a fantastic puzzle game.
Happy about: Beyond a Steel Sky
Revolution Software might be best known for the Broken Sword series, with the first entry still being considered among the best adventure games of all time. However, their previous title, Beneath a Steel Sky, is liked as much if not more among some. It was their second Virtual Theatre engine game that had lots of innovative concepts not seen in other adventure games at the time, “grounding” every character in the game and giving all of them their own schedules. It was also a relatively short game, yet packed full of memorable scenes, characters and moments and it’s no surprise people wanted to see more of this game world. 16 years since the release of the original and 7 years since said original has been available for free download, Revolution released Beyond a Steel Sky – a full on sequel, exploring the aftermath of the events of the first game. And while it’s not as revolutionary (pardon the pun) as the original game may have been, it’s a really fun modern take on the genre.