Recommended – Page 8

Happy about: Rogue Legacy 2

14/06/2022 14/06/2022

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.

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Happy about: Halo Infinite

13/05/2022 13/05/2022

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.

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Happy about: Hitman 3

01/05/2022 01/05/2022

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)

25/04/2022 24/01/2025

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.

Happy about: Myst (2021)

14/04/2022 14/04/2022

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

09/04/2022 09/04/2022

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.

Happy about: Gnosia

16/03/2022 16/03/2022

On one hand, Gnosia is a mix of two genres I don’t particularly care about – a social deduction game and a visual novel. On another – it’s so shockingly fascinating and well put together, that I was engaged until the final ending of the game.

Happy about: Blasphemous

20/02/2022 23/08/2024

I’ve played Blasphemous about 2 years ago, just a few months after its initial release, and decided to stop my playthrough. As a fan of more exploration focused metroidvania titles, I didn’t gel well with the action focus of the game, especially since it was also going for the “Dark Souls inspired” challenge, seemingly. But a few months ago I’ve seen other people play it on streams and realized, that the game wasn’t exactly what I first thought it would be. So I decided to give it another go.

O tempora: Final Fantasy V (Pixel Remaster)

06/02/2022 06/02/2022

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

Back when I was going on my Final Fantasy spree in the early 00s, trying to play all of the titles in the series, being late to the party myself, FF V left me conflicted. On one hand, I remember enjoying the vast majority of the game and the way the Jobs (character classes of FF series) were handled. On the other, I also remember serious difficulty bumps, most notable one being the final boss that I simply could not defeat no matter how hard I’ve tried, which lead to a long and exhausting grinding session, before I was finally able to finish the game. Yet, with recent years Final Fantasy V has become a very popular entry, leading to really cool charity events like Final Fantasy Four Job Fiesta, and I was curious about replaying the game myself.

Now with the Pixel Remaster version available, I was happy to see that my opinion on the game became more positive.

Happy about: Psychonauts 2

01/02/2022 01/02/2022

Ah yes, Psychonauts 2. The game that no one expected to happen, but many hoped. Psychonauts, the very first project of Double Fine as a studio (even though a lot of its talent had prior industry experience), was a game released in 2005 and despite positive reception it was a big commercial failure. Yet, as years went by, more and more people came to love and praise it so when the studio was able to purchase back the rights for the game, the first rumors of a potential sequel started circulating. But it wasn’t until 2015, when the crowdfunding for the project was announced. And after 6 years, with a VR-only mid-equel Rhombus of Ruin released released in 2017, the game was released.

Was it worth the wait? Well, only if you’ve been among those who’ve waited.

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