Action adventure game about a cute cat turned out to be an action adventure game about a cute cat. Who knew?
Tag: Recommended
Happy about: Eternal Threads
Eternal Threads is among those pleasant types of games that don’t really invent anything new, but manage to take a lot of well established concepts and mechanics and combine them into an experience that hasn’t been attempted before. So while you’re playing, you’re enjoying the game as something that isn’t unlike what you already know, but when the time comes to analyze it and try to compare it to other titles you’ve played before, you realize – hey, this is actually quite new. It wouldn’t mean much if the game wasn’t good, but it is.
Happy about: The Gunk
The Gunk is a new project from Image & Form Games, a studio best known for the SteamWorld series and also their first fully 3D title. And it’s pretty good.
Happy about: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
I’m not good at beat ’em ups or fighting games, but I do find them often fascinating and fun. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I was growing up when those genres were extremely popular. Or maybe because a lot of great beat ’em up titles just don’t care about being serious, realistic or anything other than stupid explosive fun. And I did love the home port versions of the fantastic Konami Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles titles, even that weird first NES one that is objectively not very good. Yet, something about it still feels awesome.
But it’s been a while, the beat ’em up genre fell out of favor, Konami turned to crap and even the TMNT franchise was changing and mutating with each new iteration, becoming much less popular than what it was during the 80s TV show and the first live action movie. But the fans are still out there (not of Konami, they suck). So with the revival of the beat ’em up genre in recent years and never fully fading popularity of the turtles, it’s only natural for Shredder’s Revenge to exist. And it’s pretty neat.
Read more“Happy about: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge”
Happy about: Rogue Legacy 2
So, I don’t really like roguelikes and roguelites. I’m not fond of randomly or procedurally generated content and would always take a wonderfully hand crafted shorter experience over it. But there are occasional projects that grab my attention. And the original Rogue Legacy did grab my attention. There was something interesting and fresh about the idea (quite new at the time) of mixing the “fresh run” nature of roguelikes with permanent upgrades, plus there was enough metroidvania-ish charm to the exploration of the locations to get me interested, even if said locations were randomly generated each run.
Yet, a lot of games since then have done the same and combined the exact same basic concepts and I’ve not enjoyed any of the ones that I’ve tried. Thankfully, Rogue Legacy 2 turned out to be fun.
Happy about: Halo Infinite
As someone who almost never plays multiplayer or console-only FPS titles, I was never super into Halo. But I was curious enough to check the entirety of the Master Chief Collection when it finally landed on PC and did enjoy my time with it. ODST and Reach were the most enjoyable entries by far, but it’s not like I hated my time with the rest of the games. Apart, maybe, from the original which was just so damn tedious. Halo 5 never got a PC release so I’ve still yet to play it. But knowing how mostly disposable the story in these games is, I still was interested in checking out Infinite. And it’s quite nice.
Happy about: Hitman 3
It’s almost hard to believe that it’s been more than 20 years since Codename 47 release. Hitman franchise went through so much, slowly evolving and occasionally making very radical choices. And the the “World of Assassination Trilogy”, as its now known, might be the best era yet. Started out as a episodic season-based game with “live service” concepts in 2016, this evolved into a trilogy of titles, each next entry superseding the previous one while slowly evolving the ideas. Hitman 3 is the end of this period and being a title that can also contain the preceding games content it’s undoubtedly the best. But on its own, it’s quite disappointing.
Quick thoughts on: Iron Lung (and revisiting The Music Machine)
David Szymanski has been doing small unsettling horror themed titles for a while, but his biggest success, of course, was the fantastic classic FPS revival title DUSK. Somewhat ironic, I suppose, given that it was the polar opposite of what his games were usually about, but thankfully he didn’t decide to abandon his smaller projects because of that success. So after a few years of working with other developers and helping with awesome demo collections and small game compilations (like the awesome Dread X Collection) a new standalone commercial title is now out – Iron Lung. And since I was in the mood, I’ve decided to revisit The Music Machine, that awed me seven years ago, as well.
Read more“Quick thoughts on: Iron Lung (and revisiting The Music Machine)”
Happy about: Myst (2021)
Myst is such a huge and important title in not just the adventure game genre history, but the history of videogames overall. It’s legacy remains strong, affecting games and creating new genres to this day. And I have never finished it until now. In fact, I’ve tried playing the original game, it’s re-releases/remakes and sequels over many years and they’ve never clicked with me. And the majority of its influence on adventure game design was, frankly, terrible. With many titles abandoning any attempts at good design, opting to push cool visuals and obscure “puzzles” instead.
But I really wanted to get what Myst is about. And in this new 2021 remake of the game, I think I finally got it and was able to enjoy the game.
Happy about: Ghostwire: Tokyo
I remember when Ghostwire: Tokyo was first announced and everyone thought it looked really cool but also had no idea what the game is supposed to be. Turns out, it’s a first person perspective open world action adventure with an immersive sim flavor which plays rather well, even if not without many flaws. But it still looks really cool.