tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180272387228842732024-03-16T16:46:25.401+00:00the background noiseAn ongoing indictment of the internet in blog form.Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-64322596508909708012024-02-29T22:18:00.002+00:002024-02-29T22:19:52.538+00:00gaming archaeology<div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">There is an art to playing old games, a</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">mindset even. A requisite state of mind thats required in order to play through its history. It's often said that you can't judge the past by the standards of the present and this is true to a point. Beyond that point the present can very much creep into your judgements and I think this is fine too as long as you are honest about it. The present moment can indeed cast a harsh light on the past, revered classics may not hold up even if you can still see what made them tick way back when. Such thoughts have come to mind recently as I found myself playing through the original 1987 release of <i>Maniac Mansion</i>.<span><a name='more'></a></span></span><br /></div></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><i>Maniac Mansion</i> you say? That old gem? That revered <i>LicasArts</i> classic? A hall of famer in the point and click genre of comedy puzzle solving? Why yes the very same. As with so many games from the good old days I had not had the pleasure until now. I just happened to be playing <i>Day of the Tentacle Remastered</i> recently when I came across the easter egg within it, the complete game of <i>Maniac Mansion</i> <span>hidden within its sequel. A pretty good value proposition really, at least I thought so until I played it. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Now don't get me wrong, in terms of character and comedy there is much to still enjoy here. If these games were animated features on <i>Adult Swim</i> they would be sure fire cult classics and deservedly so. As games however there is a lot of legwork to get to the punchlines and as is so often the case with comedy, the more you have to figure it out, the less funny it gets. The puzzles are obtuse, much as they are with the <i>Monkey Island</i> games by many of the same creators but its not necessarily the puzzle solving that is at fault, at least not by itself. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Much rests here on figuring out the sense of humour of those who put the puzzles together and its on this point that these games lose much of their charm for me. <i>Day of the Tentacle</i> is redeemed somewhat here by a remastered version that removes much of the visual clutter but <i>Maniac Mansion</i> is very much presented as it originally was, with all the fiddly busywork included. You find yourself performing peculiar mental gymnastics to figure out the kind of thing that gave some game developer a laugh over thirty years ago. Unfortunately for them and the game, it does their work no favours in the here and now and it all ends up feeling like an empty exercise. You know the punchline you need you just need to figure out the setup, ostensibly the least funny part of the joke.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>After many failed attempts and a growing realisation that there are many better games I could be playing in my spare time, I loaded up the walkthrough to make it marginally less tedious but even this served to underscore the essential issue I have with these games. Even when you just use the cheat sheet and take the quickest possible route to the solution, it still plays like a slow, backtracking slog. The fastest solution does not feel fast, it still feels like a chore. Maybe the true lesson of these games is that gamers of the time were really starved for quality humour. That in the absence of quality humour, gamers were willing to jump through a whole lot of hoops to get to something that felt like a good joke. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVT0SmfAg7Wmi5ajVcrWdauhdNQUxrAnnK4vtRIxcRQfEc12hcKtV0Gp1hM0_gRHz0foWuaP4J48YBN2ZwPE75pBD2tQeMLqKqX8dYGfmjL4g9OxEGOWlehJT1HzTwwEW9WzNZk_tWzh7mwgQXNXv7MGxme2pJwDe5VIQjnfS19tm3IZwzeU4TheMSHziy" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
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</div><br /></span></div><div><span>So to come back to my earlier point, how do you play an old game? Do you judge it purely by the standards of it's time or by the standards of when you happen to be playing it? Do you split the difference and find the fine point in-between? Recognize a game for it's historical value whilst still acknowledging there was still mountains to climb in the field of video game development as there is in the development of almost anything at all? </span><br /></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div>It's not the first time I've had pause to reflect on the subject. A good long time ago now I went back to play the original <i>Fallout</i> and it's immediate sequel <i>Fallout 2. </i>This was<i> </i>a good few years after they came out back in the heady days of the late nineties. Both were fine games to put them in their historical context but both came with some pretty major disclaimers that got in the way of actually having fun whilst playing them. By the early noughties they were already feeling quite removed from the games of the time. The world was rich and intriguing, much as it remains to this day but the gameplay itself in those early games was something else entirely. Slow, glitchy and prone to absurd difficulty spikes with barely a moments notice. They were games that promised much with their customisable character options and setup but in reality there was only a few ways to play it if you wished to derive any enjoyment out of the experience at all. A testament to a time where developers tried to wring some grand ambitions out of some meagre system resources.</div><div><span><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Therein lies perhaps the true value of playing old games. Yes they are a window into the conventions of times past but equally they are a window into the minds of those who made them and played them. You could even stretch it a little further to extract some insight into the minds of those who game in the here and now. Perhaps we're not patient enough? Perhaps we have so many options competing for our attention that there isn't time for more deliberate slow-paced experiences. Maybe we are all just drawn to more immediate thrills and spills and cannot for the life of us fathom why someone would follow a long chain of obscure clues to an obscure solution? All for a gag that may or may not land as intended.</span><br /></div><br /></span></div><div>I realise this has turned into a critique of point and click adventure games more than any other genre of old games. Faster paced intuitive gaming wasn't unknown back then even if it was neither as fast paced or intuitive as it is now. Point and click adventure games do feel like a monument to yesteryear though. Highly prescriptive games with only the one track to a solution, a neat embodiment to the wider mindset of game design back in the day. </div><div><br /></div><div>In retrospect it's perhaps not a surprise that the majority of successful point and click adventure games were comedy based (notwithstanding <i>The Broken Sword</i> games which also come to mind). Something had to offset the tedium and comedy is the best pressure valve for that. Still I can't help but imagine what a resurgence of such games might look like? More open-ended with multiple paths to a solution perhaps? Funnier gags for those willing to figure out the more convoluted solutions with lesser rewards for the simpler but faster road taken? On the other hand maybe we just get a total retreat into the comfort zone of idiosyncratic puzzle solving? Who knows? </div><div><br /></div><div>Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to find out why there is a trophy achievement here for sticking a hamster in a microwave? Enquiring minds must know...</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgd1yKK8jQJ66spVn8PIHTfhZhFwR6poftWeu9GIpO6TB7yrlNQ1q07Mfa8a-aFs0MDWYQbBdxoKLr_ANhuRSkxz5gvdfjs9Q4QvwZUfu5Jju78RxbPmnNY2QXB6M7xINATzQdRIrpjFTXAsnXvbt_TeUJKnJPM6Gi1VyOB8twwwZt61eUT8iQ1Eul_E1fY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
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</div><br /></div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-28133737762567105052024-01-31T16:47:00.002+00:002024-01-31T16:48:33.800+00:00the games played last year awards 2024<div><br /></div><div><span><div style="text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></span></div><div><span>The glitz, the glamour and the games! Yes it's the 2024 edition of </span><i>The Games Played Last Year Awards!</i><span> The </span><i>GPLYA's</i><span> as I will continue to call them even though it doesn't commit itself to the memory at all. It's that special time of year (the start of it) where I come together with myself (phrasing) to pick out the highlights and otherwise of the past twelve months of my gaming habit. Here I single out the very most notable of my gaming experiences of 2023.</span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I've brought back most of the awards from last year's ceremony with a minimum of tweaks plus a few newbies to go around. Which games will win these prestigious and not at all fictional awards? What did I enjoy? What did I not enjoy? What is the point of it all? Stamp your ticket, take your seat and read on to find out...</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Game Most Surprisingly Bad 'Award'</i></b></div><div>It actually wasn't a busy year for bad games for me. I feel like 2022 had more sub-par experiences on the whole. But they weren't completely absent from 2023 oh no. Now this is a relative judgement and I think the worst game of 2022 was still a worse game than this years winner. It's a harsh verdict to be sure but a fair one nonetheless. For this year's 'winner' is <b>Arcade Spirits</b>, not for being egregiously bad per se but rather because it felt a little bland for me, a little too flat even by the standards of visual novels. A bright aesthetic and a decent soundtrack alas does not save it from being out first recipient tonight.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Game Most Unexpectedly Good Award</i></b></div><div>On the flip side of this coin is the game that wins you over despite your preconceptions. Whether it be due to bad press, a glitchy launch or just something about it just rubbing you up the wrong way upon first loading it up, this is the game that most surprised me by turning out to be pretty damn good in the final assessment. This award proudly goes to <span><b>Cloudpunk</b> for upending my expectations and giving me one of my best game experiences of 2023. As I mentioned in my end of year round-up, I don't associate retro aesthetics with solid gameplay as I feel they don't always come together. Here though they did, a cyberpunk world beautifully realized in blocks, accompanied by a great look and feel to the whole thing. A well deserved honour I think!</span></div><div><br /></div><div><i><b>The Game That Eats Time 'Award'</b></i></div><div>It's another one of those quote unquote awards as we recognize the game that took up far too much of my time last year. This isn't necessarily a negative but I rarely find it to be a positive either. As I've remarked before around these here parts, modern game design seems to be fixated around busywork and engagement which leads to games being far longer experiences without them being any deeper. This is ultimately an award that recognizes that a game can be either good or bad but takes far too long to get where it's going. This year that award goes to <span><b>Assassin's Creed: Odyssey</b> for its untiring commitment to commitment. It certainly wasn't a bad game but it is far too much of a grind for its own good.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Game Over Too Soon Award</i></b></div><div>From games that overstay their welcome to games that don't hang around for as long as you'd like them to. In an era where games are chock full of content and then some, it's a rarity to find that game that finishes up whilst the going is still good. Just to be clear, where this does happen it is indeed a very good thing and is much preferred to the alternative. This award goes to <span><b>Stories Untold</b>, the first part of my <i>No Code</i> double bill in 2023. I'm not doing runners up for these awards (apart from the last one) but if I did then <i>Observation</i> would be a close second here for sure. The first game just sneaks past the finishing line as a fine example of well paced storytelling with a sharp focus that serves it well. With a deft touch and a nifty approach to videogame horror, this game really impressed me.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>Most Dysfunctional Protagonist Award</i></b></div><div>In all honesty there weren't too many of these in the last year. The protagonists were slackers like in <i>2064: Read Only Memories</i> or angsty super powered types like In <i>Beyond: Two Souls</i>. The protagonist of <i>WATCH_DOGS</i> was kinda dull and the protagonist of <i>Doom Eternal</i> was fuelled by pure rage and little else. There really can only be one winner here and that goes to the lead of <span><b>Disco Elysium: The Final Cut</b>. When you are so screwed on the head that the game has to split up the various parts of the human psyche and give them each their own voice, this is an early indication that all is not well in their head. It made the game compelling though so there is that and it all pays off by the end. Truly <i>Disco Elysium</i> could be said to be more dysfunctional than dystopian but there's plenty of that too.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Game Is Melting My Brain Award for Difficulty</i></b></div><div>Now you may get the idea from some of my ramblings around these here parts that I'm not high on high difficulty in my games. There is a grain of truth there but really I generally think it's more about ensuring that the reward is proportionate to the challenge. That time is not wasted just for it's own sake, that the in-game systems are well designed and not overly punitive just because games back in the day could be fiendishly difficult. There are indeed times when you can justify a difficulty curve that is nigh on vertical. Such is the case with <span><b>Darkest Dungeon</b>, a game that was absurdly difficult to say the least. Ultimately it was a game I did not finish and have no intention of finishing but I can appreciate it for what it was. A well designed generator of frustration it may be, but well designed it surely is. Also a great comic book style aesthetic with Lovecraftian overtones generates a lot of goodwill with yours truly. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>Most Patriotic Game Award</i></b></div><div>Much like our award for dysfunctional protagonists I fear there's not too many candidates for this one. 'Why this is nothing but a scam!' I hear you cry, to which I can only knowingly tap my nose in response. I mean <i>Guacamelee! 2</i> was fairly proud of the culture it borrowed from but I'm not sure I would call it patriotic as such. <i>Tekken 7</i> is deeply steeped in something recognisably Japanese but again I don't see anyone waving the flag there either. No there can only be one winner here and that is <span><b>Metal Wolf XD</b> for it's soaring tribute to that most American of qualities, namely kicking ass. I'm not American myself you understand so I can't speak as to the cultural nuances offered here but I for one felt inspired by it's devotion to duty, it's soaring call to arms, it's rendition of Presidential duty as deployed in an over-sized over-armed mech suit. God bless America!</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Feast For The Senses Award</i></b></div><div>An award that recognises excellence in game presentation. Where everything looks, sounds and feels good, if it happens to play well then that's a nice bonus too but is not necessarily required for his award. The aforementioned Cloudpunk scored some points on this front, as did Hyper Light Drifter and the Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection. But there was one standout in 2023 that must have the nod here and that is <span><b>Mortal Kombat 1</b> as it is presented on PS5. This was an extremely beautiful game to look at even when what you were looking at was mostly decapitations and disembowelment. Liu Kang, Scorpion and Sub-Zero have never looked so well rendered as they are here. The look, the sound and the feel we're all on point. The game itself I had some reservations about but yeah, aesthetically this was a home run.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Most Random Game I Played Last Year Award</i></b></div><div>When you have a to-play list of games and an unending sense that you haven't played enough of those games as I have, then there is a tendency to checklist your way through them and not really take the time to enjoy the whole gaming thing. To help prevent this from occurring I make a habit of picking out games at random to surprise myself a little and keep things interesting. These may be games I have little to no prior knowledge of, games I may have had for ages or games I may have purchased mere minutes ago. Sometimes it just doesn't work and you find yourself playing a dud. Then there's <span><b>Burly Men At Sea</b>, a charmingly presented tale of some fisherman as they embark on a surreal adventure across the sea. It is by turn, idiosyncratic, funny and endearing with regular diversions into the weird and strange. I really enjoyed this one.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Death Metal Award</i></b></div><div>Another highly legitimate award here that was not the least bit contrived. Yes new this year is the Death Metal award for being metal as... well you know. I try to keep it rated PG around here but sometimes you must pay tribute to those games which go all-out with highly anti-social violent behaviour. If said behaviour is packaged in a game that looks like an 80's hair metal album cover then all the better. Yes only one game could have won this award in 2023 and that game is <span><b>Doom Eternal</b> for it's unwavering commitment to being hardcore as all heck. The entire game is a non-stop marathon of carnage and destruction and everything appears to be on fire. The people, the enemies, the planet Earth, also yourself. Ultraviolence is rarely this fun!</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Deja Vu 'Award'</i></b></div><div>This award recognises when a game is not just familiar but a bit too overly familiar. Like you have played this game before under a different name or presentation perhaps. You often get awards that champion innovation and original thinking in game design, this is the opposite of that. This doesn't mean the game is bad but it perhaps means that such games don't reach the heights they could. For this 'award' we recognise <span><b>Hard Reset Redux</b> for it's steadfast commitment to going with what you know and feel comfortable with. Yes this game doesn't do out of the box thinking but within that box it's actually a really solid first person shooter in a grim dystopian sci-fi setting. So yes you may have played games like this before and if you like that sort of thing then here is more of it.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>Best Backstory Award</i></b></div><div>I love a good backstory, not every game gets one and not every game needs one but when they do and it's done right, it's good stuff. On its own it can help with a lot of the heavy lifting required around tone and mood. It can get the imagination fired up and instil some real enthusiasm for a game long before you've even started it up. Couple of candidates came to mind here for their varying degrees of success here. <i>Darkest Dungeon</i> gives a lot whilst leaving enough blanks to fill in yourself, <i>NieR Replicant</i> has some of that too but is less successful at imparting it to the gamer and <i>Hyper Light Drifter</i> leaves a whole lot of things up in the air with it's backstory. There can only be one standout winner here however and that is <span><b>Sunless Sea</b> and the <i>Fallen London</i> storyverse it belongs to. Part steampunk, part <i>Lovecraft</i>, part nautical adventure, all highly compelling. I wish the game itself was perhaps a little better but I'll be checking out the follow-up anyway on the strength of the world itself.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The.'Music To My Ears' Award For Best Soundtrack</i></b></div><div>I don't think it's a secret that I am a big soundtrack nerd. Whether it be film, game or TV, when the right piece of music plays at the right moment it hits me right in the head but in the good non-violent way I highly recommend over the alternative. Couple of games stood out on 2023 for their contribution to my ever growing <i>Spotify</i> playlist for favourite soundtracks. <i>Hyper Light Drifter</i> had a beautiful, desolate and haunting score, <i>Cloudpunk</i> had a solid <i>Blade Rinner</i>-esque soundtrack too. I feel there can only be one winner here alas and that is <span><b>Paradise Killer</b> for it's soundtrack composed by <i>Epoch</i>. This was a seriously good collection of music and the perfect accompaniment to the game itself. It's great music by itself and a vital part of the hazy sun-drenched city vibe of the game itself. Job well done!</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The 'No Idea What's Going On Here' Award</i></b></div><div>An award that recognises when a game excels itself in sheer unadulterated bafflement. Whether it's by accident or design, some games leave you scratching your head at best and questioning everything you know at worst. Actually no that's wrong, at worst these kinda of games can make you wonder why you ever picked them up but that was not the case for this year's winner. No this year's winner was a decent game for the most part and in fairness to it, it does clarify most of the confusion by the end. Abrupt time jumps and a incongruent juxtaposition of the old and new did make for quite the first impression however. Our winner is <span><b>NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…</b> for a game experience that was in no hurry to explain itself.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span><b><i>The 'Don't Get Too Attached' Award</i></b></span><br /></div><div>Some shared territory with the difficulty award here as this sentiment usually goes hand in hand with it. An award for the very best of those games that allow you to invest just enough into it only to have your hopes and dreams crushed without warning. Games that strike a unique chord with their players, where it pays not to get too sentimental with everything you're building up and working towards. <i>Darkest Dungeon</i> was a close runner up here but due to that difficulty spike I felt I never got overly invested in it. No our winner wasn't quite that crushingly difficult, just difficult enough to hit the sweet spot required here. Our winner is <span><b><i>XCOM 2</i></b> for reminding us that it's never too early or too late to lose your cherished squad members to that overpowered enemy you weren't expecting to show up yet. Commendations to the <i>War of the Chosen</i> content too for adding many finely designed complications to an already fraught experience. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><b><i>The 'Neat' Award For Cool Game Concept</i></b></span></div><div>On the home stretch now with an award for those games that may or may not be the best game experiences but regardless have a real good idea or concept behind it all. The sort of outside the box thinking you didn't know you wanted until it was playing out in front of you. Our winner here is <span><b>Hypnospace Outlaw</b> because this was one really well formed idea to build a game around. Alternate history late 90's internet but accessed when asleep run by a shadowy company and full of eye sore web design and obnoxiously obtrusive multimedia. As a game it could be a touch unwieldy at times but otherwise the execution of the whole thing is really rather good.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><b><i>The Overall Worst Game I Played Last Year 'Award'</i></b></div><div>I feel a little bad about this one. Not just because it's already won an 'award' here but more because it wasn't the most terrible experience I've had playing videogames, not by a long shot. Nonetheless it was the worst game I played in 2023 which I think speaks to just what a good year it was really for my game selection ability. This years 'winner' is <span><b>Arcade Spirits</b> for just feeling a little slow and flat as a narrative experience. Yes it's a visual novel and this comes with certain conventions and expectations but even within those I don't think it was particularly well written or played like a fun game either. It was colourful to look at and the soundtrack was alright but in a good year for my gaming habit this was the one that really made me wonder why I chose it. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>The Unquestionably Best Game I Played Last Year Award</i></b></div><div>Now for the main event of this prestigious award allocation, we're going to do this a little differently this year because it was a pretty good year for my gaming habit. Let's do a top three.</div><div><br /></div><div><i><b>Third place</b></i> goes to a game that hit a lot of sweet spots for me. A game far from perfect but nailed the core experience with aplomb. I'm talking about big robots, mecha, bipedal tanks and not the bipedal yanks that autocorrect just tried to foist upon me. I'm talking about <span><b>MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries</b>. A game with a lot of nostalgia baked in for me due to fond memories of playing these games back in the ancient earth years of the early 2000's. The way it plays and feels is top notch with a real sense of scale and destruction to everything. The more hard sci-fi setting feels refreshingly different and the mecha themselves are things to behold as they blast away at the opposition. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><i><b>Second place</b></i> goes to a game I was not expecting to enjoy quite so much as I thought I would at the start. Don't get me wrong I like <i>Star Wars</i> to be sure but it's somewhere far behind <i>Star Trek</i> and <i>Doctor Who</i> in the league of sci-fi properties I enjoy. On the flip side <i>Respawn Entertainment</i> might just be my favourite developer making videogames right now. <i>Apex Legends</i> is great and <i>Titanfall 2</i> really needs a <i>Titanfall 3</i>. They also did a bang-up job with our second place winner which is <span><b>Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order</b> which might be one of the best uses of <i>Star Wars</i> I have seen since that first season of The Mandalorian. A skill based semi-Souls-like game that really puts the emphasis on picking your moment wisely to strike or parry. Not an easy game but a tremendously rewarding one, looked amazing on PS5 too. Also that ending and the cameo therein was outstanding.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><b><i>First place</i></b> goes to the game I enjoyed the most in 2023. A game that stands alone in many ways, a game with a distinct feel and identity of it's own even in the crowded field of first person shooters. A game that dives in at the deep end except it's filled with nuclear powered sharks powered by steroids. Our winner here is <span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>Doom Eternal</b> for being the best in full throttle high speed violence. A game that is pure controlled chaos, that constantly pushes the player to the limits of their tolerance only to leave them skimming that edge for a good deal longer than they might have thought possible. Shotguns sound like an act of God and flesh tears with glorious abandon. As I've said before <i>Doom (2016)</i> was a great game in its own right and a glorious surprise to boot. <i>Doom Eternal</i> builds on it in all the right ways. It is the new gold standard for making the old feel new again. Highly deserved!</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div>That's a wrap folks, thanks to all our winners and 'winners' for their participation tonight. What an entirely credible awards ceremony this was. Games were recognized, accolades were bestowed, entirely unsolicited opinions were provided. A proud moment for entirely arbitrary award provision as we embark onto 2024. Until next time all!</div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-7862955527310817942023-12-31T22:56:00.001+00:002023-12-31T22:56:07.975+00:00completionism 2023 - part 3<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">So we arrive at the third and final part of my 2023 in gaming. Another classic year for my gaming habit, an even more classic year for compiling lists of games played that year. Indeed as I've come to the end of this year and reflect upon my gaming in general I feel like I am in some way on top of it for the first time in ages.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Oh I'm sure there are still games from the last decade I've been meaning to get around to for ages but they are definitely becoming a rarer sight in my various game libraries. Heck I even played a game on the fabled 'Day 1' I hear so much about this past autumn, imagine that? So hip, so cutting edge, any further ahead of the curve and this may become the first blog to travel in time. So what about those games eh?</span></div></span></div></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>The Shapeshifting Detective (2019)</b></span><br /></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">One of the more memorable games I played in 2022 was <i>The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker</i> by <i>D'Avekki Studios</i>. An endearing and committed effort to capture the promise of FMV-centric games from decades past. This game came after that and continues in very much the same offbeat and sinister vein. Now you might say the game itself is very minimal, confined to selecting a number of options and watching a lot of video clips as potential murder suspects answer your questions as the eponymous Shapeshifting Detective. It's hard for me not to enjoy it though as the plotting and writing are pulled straight out of guilty pleasure paperbacks. The acting is pretty much in the same vein too, some of it understayed some of it just right and some of it as hammy as heck. It's one of those experiences where everyone knows exactly what's needed for this audience and it's provided in abundance. Four shady tarot readings out of five!</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><b>Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Continuing another ongoing thread from 2022 as I try to bring myself remotely up to date with the <i>Assassin's Creed</i> series. This time it's apparently the origins of the whole drawn out affair as we go back to ancient Egypt and the roots of ue conflict between the Assassins and the Templars and I'm already finding it hard to care even as I type this sentence put. Despite Ubisoft's efforts to make the plot matter, it probably matters the least in these games now. They still try to tie the whole thing together with a modern day storyline that feels like it accomplishes a whole lot of nothing. The main event is still the incredible renditions of places and people scattered throughout history. Ancient Egypt here looks incredible and is the highlight of the game. The gameplay itself feels like it took a step back though. This was <i>Assassin's Creed's</i> first foray into a more RPG like experience and for me it didn't make for a fun game. Half the enjoyment you get on these games is from slipping into a crowd to approach your target, slipping a knife between their ribs for the kill and then slipping away. It takes some progression to get to that point here and most encounters become more drawn out and tiresome battles that are more a test of patience than skill. Oh and some of that DLC was ridiculously difficult too. Two origin stories that aren't really origin stories out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (2018)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>More of the same as I creep ever closer to the most recent release in the <i>Assassin's Creed</i> series. This time it's ancient Greece and Troy as the whole 'origins' part of <i>Assassin's Creed: Origins</i> soon feels rather redundant. Again the depiction of the ancient world here is incredible and to its credit the gameplay feels a bit more polished and a little less of a slog. Unfortunately the modern day story segments still feel like a waste of time. I assume they are there to anchor the whole thing in something relatable for the modern audience but truthfully they needn't worry there. The core game feels refined and a better experience than <i>Origins</i>. Unfortunately the game feels bloated to the utmost as well with this game being a real poster boy for how the modern videogame industry fails to contend with portion control. It all gets thrown into this game and so much of it feels less than necessary. Still it's a step in a better direction but I'm leaving it until 2024 before tackling <i>Valhalla</i>. Three Trojan horses out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Stories Untold (2020)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Came across this game and the next one via all the recent <i>Silent Hill</i> announcements as developer <i>No Code</i> is involved with one of them. This was pretty impressive all said, a series of what initially appear to be unrelated tales concerning an old house, an absent family and a tragedy that you may have had more of a role in than you'd care to admit. Memory and escapism intertwine as you try to make sense of what exactly happened and to whom. The first level in particular grabbed me as you approach an old empty house and venture inward to find a facsimile of the old <i>Spectrum</i> and <i>Amstrad</i> machines that I myself had as a child. On it you load up an old text adventure game that describes someone approaching and entering a very familiar old house, all while you start hearing some very concerning sounds downstairs. The following episodes go in equally interesting directions and the finale feels well earned once you get there. A pretty solid experience that I cannot fault, I really enjoyed his one. Five cassette based games out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Observation (2019)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The second half of my <i>No Code</i> double bill and another rather excellent masterclass in building unsettling mood and tension. <i>Observation</i> tells the tale of an astronaut on a space station who finds herself rather isolated after a sudden and unexplained outage on-board. The game is largely told from the perspective of the ship's AI who can navigate between security cameras and drones in a bid to fix the stations various systems and figure out what exactly went wrong to begin with. Along the way you are haunted by the kind of sinister and abstract weirdness that I very much enjoy. The guys who founded <i>No Code</i> were part of the team that developed the excellent <i>Alien: Isolation</i> and I really could feel some of that experience in this game. This is a mechanically simpler game but no less impressive for it. After playing these games, I'm very much looking forward to what they are going to do with <i>Silent Hill Townfall</i>. Five attacks of sinister geometry out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (2022)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Changing gears a touch, I played a LEGO game. Largely because I'm a bit OCD and someone else started the game and logged a few trophies on my PlayStation profile but yes I played a LEGO game based on all nine of the mainline Star Wars movies. This is a fine game for it's intended audience, the younger crowd and by that I mean those in the age range of single digits. You explore, navigate, collect and unlock in a more comedy based self-aware take on the Star Wars universe. Great for kids, for adults it's... err great for kids! Which is to say I don't think there's a lot here to get stuck into. It's basic, it's repetitive, not without a little charm but not enough to sustain my interest much beyond the first hour or so. One thing is for sure <i>The Rise of Skywalker</i> still sucks on LEGO form as well, I will however remain a staunch advocate for <i>The Last Jedi</i> despite some notable missteps. Oh yes the game, let's say two trilogies out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Doom Eternal (2021)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Here's the business, a death metal album cover brought to life in furious, blood-soaked murder mania. You once again become The Doom Slayer and make everyone in hell cancel their long term plans for a happy and prosperous existence. I loved <i>Doom 2016</i>, a genuine surprise that played like a dream and did much to evoke happy memories of the frag-fests of the late 90's and early noughties whilst still evolving the formula itself to something new and different. <i>Doom Eternal</i> carries on in the same vein whilst simultaneously smashing it into many pieces. A notably more difficult experience but at the same time I rarely felt frustrated with it. It's a marathon race of carnage and destruction, the legions of hell die violently by your hand and let me tell you, they don't die well at all. There is a more sustained attempt to tell a story this time around but I'm not really convinced that it was required. There's a greater variety of detours and side-challenges but again I never really felt myself wanting for a challenge. About the only thing I really took issue with here was the lack of your usual multiplayer options, confined as they are to a single asymmetrical multiplayer mode that didn't quite scratch the same itch. Again Doom 2016 just captured a certain something here that it's sequel missed out on. It's multiplayer modes weren't breaking the mold but in capturing the feel of multiplayer games from times past like your <i>Doom</i>'s or <i>Quake</i>'s or <i>Unreal Tournament</i>'s, it provided something no other modern shooter provides. Shame they decided to forego it this time around. Anyhow it's still five disemboweled demon hordes out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition (2020)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>A dreamy, supernatural road trip delivered with a beautiful art style and a trippy surrealism. Down home country weirdness as a man tries to make a delivery and goes on a detour into the unknown, meeting up with a whole band of idiosyncractic characters along the way and arriving at an altogether different place entirely. This game is quite the piece of work but I felt the core narrative wandered a little too much. Now of course that may have entirely been the point but as a game experience, I don't think it lands as well as it might. I'm all down for weirdness, I love the films of David Lynch, Twin Peaks might be the greatest thing ever to grace the screen but that weirdness does need a counter-balance, a structure of you will. If it all just kind of free-forms and floats off into the void without anything solid to grab onto, then it kinda loses me. That said, there is a lot to appreciate here and it's not a game that out stays it's welcome. Three supernatural TV sets out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Mortal Kombat 1 (2023)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Day 1 baby! Day 1! I played a game on the day it came out for once and not years later oh yeah and... yes what did I think about it? In short it was pretty good but with some disclaimers that bring it down a notch or two. At some point on the blog I'm going to do a dedicated piece on the great revival of <i>Mortal Kombat</i> as a franchise over the last decade plus. Starting with 2011's <i>Mortal Kombat</i>, <i>NetherRealm Studios</i> embarked on a quest to make Mortal Kombat meaningful in a way that it perhaps hadn't been before. Now I'm a fan of the original trilogy but I don't think anyone would accuse it of being especially deep, meaningful or polished. With the most recent trilogy of games, starting with the 2011 game, continuing with <i>Mortal Kombat X</i> and concluding with <i>Mortal Kombat 11</i>, they gave this story and its characters the polished AAA blockbuster treatment and I was very much on-board with it. All the slaughter and violence is still there but contextualised in a better way. Characters have depth, have arcs, have better formed seasons to be doing what they are doing within better stories. This tradition very much continues with what is essentially the second time they have done an in-contonuity reboot (the 2011 game being he first) and it looks and plays like a dream on modern hardware. The story, which is what I'm here for mainly is great but it very much centres around the concept of the multiverse and here is the main issue with it. It's not a fault with Mortal Kombat 1 as such but in wider popular culture there is a sense of multiverse fatigue. Mainly due to its use and abuse In the MCU, there is a feeling that it is a little overdoneor that it makes meaningful things meaningless by its very premise. This game uses the concept just fine, it's just that the concept itself feels a little much now and could use a break. Anyhow, four fatalities out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Asteroids: Recharged (2021)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Changing gears again with another one of those retro arcade classics getting a modern upgrade. You navigate your spaceship on a screen, you blast at rocks that's break up into smaller rocks and then you blast them as well. Power-ups and UFO's join the fray and it's all very bright and neon coloured as the challenge increases with every moment. It's a classic formula, respectfully upgraded for a modern experience. Going back to such games as <i>Pac-Man Championship Edition DX</i> or <i>Space Invaders Infinity Gene</i> I have always had great appreciation for those games which adapt retro classics and bring them up to spec with modern tastes. Games which update the original design while still attesting to just how solid that original design was. This is a quality game and a focused experience that rewards skill and timing. Four screen clearing superweapons out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Disco Elysium: The Final Cut (2021)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>A murder mystery set in a port town in a vaguely dystopian future setting where tensions with the local union are reaching their apex and hostilities may break out at any moment. Into this volatile powder keg steps one of the most dysfunctional player protagonists I have ever encountered. A barely functioning alcoholic wreck of a human being who also happens to be the guy tasked with figuring out this whole mess without it killing everyone. A top down RPG where most of the meaningful interaction is carried out through narration and conversation. Where the various voices in your head are given a surprising amount of personality and you free to craft a pretty versatile set of skills and qualities. It's probably the kind of game you could play through many times and get a markedly different journey on each go-around. I don't have the time for that so this is what I thought: it's good, not great but good. The central mystery plot is engaging and the central characters journey is compelling. However at the same time the writing that that slightly clunky quality of devolving into a TED talk on the game's back story every so often. Someone clearly devoted a lot of time to that back story and wanted it all in there no matter how inelegantly it gets shoved in. The end result is a somewhat uneven experience as a result. The big moments all hit the ground running but the moments in-between not so much. Four fully-voicrd manifestations of the subconscious mind out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Dark Nights with Poe and Munro (2021)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Returning to the world of <i>The Shapeshifting Detective</i>, it's another game from <i>D'Avekki Studios</i>. This time it's an episodic series of misfortunes visited upon the late night radio hosting duo of Poe and Munro. Forgoing the shapeshifting of the earlier title, this is a more straightorward experience in the make a choice and watch the video genre. Your dysfunctional duo make for an oddly endearing pair of protagonists as their night job involves them in the increasingly weird and sinister goings-on of their local parish. Moreao than the other titles produced by this team, this game felt like it was straining a little within the constraints of the production. Whereas the other games had these same constraints it felt like they worked around them or disguised them more effectively. Here it does feel like a somewhat stripped bare production that struggles to obscure the fact. Nonetheless it was a fun if over a little too soon. Three late night phone-ins out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Arcade Spirits (2020)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Visual novels, I'm not saying they make for underwhelming games but I'm still waiting for one to blow my mind. Such remains the case with <i>Arcade Spirits</i>, a brightly coloured ode to videogame and geek culture where you try to find love, happiness and fulfillment whilst helping to run your local arcade. Along the way you select your responses to the various text based prompts that come your way and you navigate your way to success or disaster as the plot dictates. It's heart was in the right place I think but I really found this game to be a chore that couldn't translate the joys of said geek culture into an actual joyful game experience. There's just too much of a sense of going through the motions for any real investment to take place in this game. Not a fan I'm afraid. One cat-based cosplay out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Outlast (2014)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I tried this game not long after it came out and at the time it proved a little too intense for me. A first person horror experience where you play someone navigating an asylum with nothing but your video camera and it's night mode to protect you from the deranged predatory residents within. Many years on and I still found it to be a pretty unrelenting experience. The sense of unease and tension in the atmosphere is impeccable. The graphics hit that right note of unspectacular mundanity. That sense of the ordinary and the dull disarms you a little and helps make the horror all the more palpable when it arrives. Whether you are creeping around with your fist on your mouth or running in blind panic through the labyrinthine hallways in search of the exit, this game gives you precious little breathing room to compose yourself before the next ordeal commences. Easily one of the best horror games I've ever played and I played the original <i>Silent Hill</i> in the early hours whilst living in fear of that blasted radio static. I very much doubt I'll ever play this game again but I can gladly recommend it to you. Five surgically enhanced lunatics out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Axiom Verge (2015)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>It's <i>Metroidvania</i> time again and this go around it feels like the game is circling ever closer to the roots of the genre. A sci-fi platforming adventure with hefty amounts of exploration, progression and combat. There was a plot here of some kind, of a scientist carrying out an experiment only to wake up in a strange alien environment and I soon found myself not really invested in that plot so much. Luckily the core gameplay is solid, some of the routes to further progression were a little on the obtuse side but overall it's a solid game. Fun boss fights too in the over-sized and ridiculously proportioned style of yesteryear. The aesthetics are great all round in fact with a pixelart style that really hits the spot. Really liked the soundtrack too which is always a big plus from me. I just couldn't summon much enthusiasm for the story which supposedly ties it all together despite allusions to some interesting ideas. Four massive mechanical heads out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (2022)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Yes I have played this one before in it's much lauded original release on <i>Steam</i>. A case study in how to be self-aware and fourth wall-breaking without diminishing investment in the core experience. A player avatar sets off on an adventure through their deserted office with only an omnipresent narrator for support and soon finds that their notions of free will and personal agency are nothing but an illusion. Decided to give it a go again with this spruced up edition mainly for the new content which again delivers the goods. Happy to report that said new content sits very happily alongside the old with some great gags around the all-new all-different <i>Stanley Parable 2</i> and well, to say any more would be too much. This game, remains as ever, a key moment for auteur driven game development. A unique voice with a lot of personality and a game well worth your time if by some chance you haven't partaken already. Five office cubicles out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Among Us (2021)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>One of the few multiplayer games I got stuck into this year, a top-down exercise in subterfuge and detection as you play a member of a sci-fi crew going about your business but someone among you is not who they appear to be. Over multiple rounds players get offers and survivors vote on who they think is the enemy in their midst. It's a simple but effective piece of game design that really worked for me. Some neat art design and a tongue-in-cheek approach to the premise helps to seal the deal as well. You're not so much playing the game as much as you are playing those around you and this ensured the game never felt too samey from playthrough to playthrough. Four adorable space people out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Anniversary Edition (2021)</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>I may be the last person in the game playing world who was playing games in 2011 but still hadn't played a full game of Skyrim as of 2023. Oh I'd started at least one previous attempt at it when the Special Edition came out a few years ago but never ventured too far into it. Having now played through an entire game plus DLC, what's there to say that hasn't already been opined upon? It's a vast epic with impressive direction and design presented at its best. There is a sense of adventure and wonder to the game that still stands strong after all this time. On the other hand it is still a product of it's time. The combat is a little too repetitive as are a great deal of the side quests and outside of the main story I found myself getting bored or frustrated a little too often. It does get a bit samey as an experience. As with <i>Disco Elysium</i> up above, there is also that sense that a lot of time and effort has been sunk into the back story and lore only for it to get dumped wholesale into the game in a rather blunt way. Thankfully characters don't sidetrack into huge monologues on the history of <i>Skyrim</i> very often but when a game wants you to stop and read books for a while I feel like something is not quite working well in the core game itself, like if a book kept prompting you to watch the film version instead. Four shouting matches out of five!</div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>Back 4 Blood (2021)</b></span><br /></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">This is it, the last game I'm going to count as 'played' in 2023, at least officially anyway (more on that below). On a random aside I felt like some online co-op zombie shooting and so I got <i>Back 4 Blood</i>. Now to be sure I got what I came for, an experience in the vein of <i>Left 4 Dead</i> where oodles of zombies and zombie variants come at you whilst you and fellow survivors try to go about the arduous task of living. At its best it does indeed channel that earlier game but the experience very much fluctuates depending on who you're playing with. Even with a good team, it can become repetitive a little too quickly despite the efforts they've made at mixing up the threat from the carnivorous masses. The story feels a little too perfunctory and the whole thing just lacks that certain sense of finesse that <i>Left 4 Dead</i> had. It's a worthy substitute but it's a substitution all the same. As of writing this I haven't finished it but a few acts in and I feel like I've more than seen what this game has to offer. Three worm-infested zombie sieges out of five!</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">There you go, done, done and <i>done</i>. Well not really done but that is far as I'm going to go this New Years Eve. After finishing the above games I've spent most of December playing <i>Rocket League</i> but that's true most years. God help me but I've also started playing <i>Fortnite Battle Royal</i> as well. Haven't spent much time with it so that'll probably be filed under my games played in 2024 list now. </span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">I will say that it does seem to be one of the better battle royale experiences I've played in some time. Nice aesthetic, everything feels responsive and tactile. Combat engagements have a nice sense of back and forth to them and being surprised by someone doesn't mean you are instantly dead. Also played </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><i>The Finals, </i>again not much time spent with it but between the general presentation and the destructability this one looks very promising for next year. Oh and I did technically start the <i>Halo: Master Chief Collection</i> this year but have only replayed th first game of it so again, another one for next year's list.</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">But apart from all <i>that</i>, yes I'm done.</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><i><b>Happy New Year 2024!</b></i></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</a></div><br /></div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-83702357614783174052023-12-25T00:40:00.005+00:002023-12-25T00:43:38.465+00:00completionism 2023 - part 2<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-30fc0fdf-7fff-b5a7-1048-0853fc2fb391" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Wasting no time and taking no prisoners let's dive into the second part of my 2023 in gaming. The dizzying highs, the subterranean lows, the odd bit in the middle. Truly I am a man of many seasons but only so many games. We got platformers, we got RPG's, we got beat em ups, we have whatever </span><i style="font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Hypnospace Outlaw</i><span style="font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> was exactly? Indeed we have it all, let's crack on...</span></div></span></div><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-30fc0fdf-7fff-b5a7-1048-0853fc2fb391" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><a name='more'></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-30fc0fdf-7fff-b5a7-1048-0853fc2fb391" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Undertale (2017)</b></span><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-30fc0fdf-7fff-b5a7-1048-0853fc2fb391" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-30fc0fdf-7fff-b5a7-1048-0853fc2fb391" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dug out the old <i>PlayStation Vita</i> for this one, god that is still such a great piece of handheld gaming hardware, the design and the performance still hold up. Anyhow Undertale yes, going into this one I had little prior expectation. I was aware that it had something of an 'indie darling' status. Employing a simple retro aesthetic but subverting the expectations that come with such a presentation to deliver something truly auteur. Now I can sort of, maybe see some of that in this game. This is definitely a work that reflects an individual sensibility. It just didn't deliver a great game for me outside of a few sporadic moments of interest. An awful lot of genuine goodwill seems to surround this game online but for the life of me I just can't quite see it. Two talking flowers out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-30fc0fdf-7fff-b5a7-1048-0853fc2fb391" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Elite: Dangerous (2017)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This is a game that I've been trying to get into on and off for several years now across multiple platforms. Having dallied with it on both PlayStation and Steam before losing interest in it on multiple occasions. In keeping with the general spirit of meeting my goals to clear such games from my to-do list I committed to at least one substantial playthrough of it this year and what did I think? It's a game with such promise, exploring the vastness of space from the cockpit of your spaceship. You can wheel, deal, mine, attack and freewheel across the stars. The presentation is outstanding, the graphics hit the spot and the sound work is top notch. It is also one of the most convuluted, long-winded and tiresome games I have ever played. The operation of your ship, the centrepiece of the game itself, takes a whole lot of work all by itself. Remembering what buttons need to be pressed and in what order frequently tapped away at whatever joy I got out of Elite. Part of this is the translation to consoles and the controller but I don't recall this being any easier with mouse and keyboard either. I really, really wanted to like this game and I still want to really, really like a game like this. It just won't be Elite: Dangerous. Two low fuel warnings out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Guacamelee! 2 (2018)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The original <i>Guacamelee!</i> was another title I hugely enjoyed on my Vita back in the day. A Metroidvania-esque platformers infused with all kinds of style and charm. A love letter to games, pro-wrestling and pure imagination. Given how much I enjoyed it, I surprise myself with how long it took me to check out the sequel which remains all of the good stuff and expands on it somewhat. This time the goofy hijinx go all multiversal and the developers really run with this idea and use it to the utmost. There's still a solid sense of puzzle and challenge to the whole thing but I also found myself grinning a whole lot as I made my way through the madness. Playing this game in 2023 when the concept of 'multiveraal fatigue' is very much a thing in popular culture, it speaks to the sheer quality of this game that so much of it's humour still shines through. This game was the good stuff even if it doesn't stray too far outside of the template set down by the first game. Four jumping powerbombs out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Pillars of Eternity (2017</b>)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">You know what I haven't played in a while? An RPG, a full bodied, full fat, full of everything RPG. Sure I sunk a whole bunch of hours into <i>Fallout 76</i> back in the pandemic era but it's just not the same with MMO's. No I wanted a classic top-down isometric experience. With swords and spells and dragons and whatnot. For the most part I found it in <i>Pillars of Eternity</i>, a game that very much does what it says it's going to do on the tin. You embark on a quest, you get companions, you get embroiled in intrigues big and small, you become everyone's favourite errand boy. The writing is great, the presentation for the most part is superb but there was one big issue here. Now it's common to run into games with performance issues on PC, the nature of the format can indeed give rise to such things. The advantage of console gaming on the other hand is that whilst you won't get the bleeding edge performance, you will nonetheless get stable, reliable performance. On my standard PS4 at least, this game runs like #?$. Just the poorest performance I've seen on a console port. Distractingly bad, game crushingly bad, just the worst. So yeah that did detract from the experience in a big way. Loaded it up on PS5 and the issues thankfully resolved but they are not getting a free pass for this version. Two frequent crashes out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Paradise Killer (2022)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Next up is a game I may have bigged up around <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-refreshing-taste-of-cosmic-justice.html">these here parts</a> not so long ago. A surreal retro first person exploration murder mystery-a-thon. You play Lady Love Dies, a god in exile after previous misdemeanors but exile In this case is a luxury apartment suite located on a single strut that extends miles and miles above an extra-dimensional tropical island inhabited by other gods. It's this island where you will spend most of your time figuring out who killed a number of members of the ruling council of this island as everything and everyone was just getting ready to transcend into a new age or something like that. Yes that previous sentence got away from me but it definitely captures the feeling of the thing. It looks and sounds much like a mid-budget game from the PS2 era and it has a great soundtrack. It's a quirky, expressive gem of a game and one I immensely enjoyed. Five skeleton bartenders out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Hard Reset Redux (2016)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">No-frills cyberpunk first person shooter with minimal storytelling and maximum boom boom! Ok so that might be a touch too reductive as a summary of this game but I feel it sums it up pretty well for the most part. It's dark, it's grim, it's rainy, it's industrial. That game's palette is essentially shades of dark blue and grey with some splashes of neon thrown in. The core gameplay was solid, robust and reliable. Not the highest standard of gunplay I've seen in a FPS but a solid good time all the same. I had fun with this, played through to the end of the story and I probably won't pick it up again. Sometimes though, that's all you need. Three EMP bombs out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Punch Club (2017)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Feel like a broken record with this line but this happens to be yet another game I started on Steam during the pandemic and decided to return to this year and play through the whole thing. 2D retro homage to 80's action movies with plenty of references from the pop culture of the period and a tight gameplay loop which sees you training up your would-be street fighter into a veritable badass. I had a decent time with his one, the game itself plays well and I got a kick out of how well the old-school aesthetic was captured here. On the flip side I feel that core game never really evolved too far beyond what is established in the first hour or two. Lots of repetitive button tapping that is endearing at first and then eventually starts to feel like they run out of ideas a bit too soon. Two and a half roundhouse kicks to the head out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>XCOM 2 (2016)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I may have mentioned around these parts just how big a fan I am of the modern take on <i>XCOM</i>. The 2012 reboot/remake is one of my all-time favorite games and I dread to think just how many hours I've sunk into it across multiple platforms. Now I had completed <i>XCOM 2</i> prior to 2023 on Steam but I never got around to completing a run with <i>The War of the Chosen</i> expansion enabled. So this year I played the PS4 version with said DLC just to see how it stands up. In short, it stands up pretty well. At length, it adds some compelling new twists to what could be a brutally tense game at times. The core <i>XCOM 2</i> experience was already a finely tuned response to the shortcomings of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and this expansion feels like it does much the same to the core <i>XCOM 2</i> experience itself. If the base game feels like you're spinning just one too many plates at once, then the expansion adds a few saucers more. Now it wo</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">uld be nice if they could get around to an <i>XCOM 3</i> some day soon but <i>Marvel's Midnight Suns</i> apparently didn't set the world on fire commercially so there may be more waiting on that front. Oh the rating? Five squad members cruelly cut down before their time out of five!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (2016)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's Duke freaking Nukem! It's a game I've played through in one form or another multiple times over multiple decades. I played the original version, played the Atomic Edition, played the Megaton edition that came out about a decade ago and now I've played this 20 year anniversary edition. The main draw here being a new chapter with new levels designed by the original level designers. The original game still plays great and what improvementa there are have been respectfully integrated into the old game. It's a case study of solid gameplay trumping almost everything else. Yes you have to acknowledge that this is not the most progressive sense of humour on show here but nonetheless it never fails to crack me up (of all the failings of Duke Nukem Forever, it was their failure to deliver the humour that took it down for me). As for the new levels, it was genuinely an enjoyable experience for me seeing how the <i>Build</i> engine can still produce results after all this time. They can't quite outshine the original levels but that is a high standard to surpass in my view. Five shake it baby's out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Tekken 7 (2017)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tekken, the name itself evokes the glory days of the PS1 and PS2. 3D beat em ups hold a special place in the heart for most gamers of that sacred decade we call the 90's. They were games that seemed to capture something of the future at the time but soon dated in a major way if only graphically. Not all of the mainstays of that time remain with us but <i>Tekken</i> certainly. <i>Tekken 7</i> is a smooth, fluid, intuitive ass-kicket of a game. It rewards a certain degree of mechanical skill but can also grant a good time to the most anarchic of button bashers. From the perspective of pure gameplay, it still has its own unique place amongst the big-hitters of the genre and it works well. As for the stories and the characters themselves? Well it doesn't help that I haven't really sunk much time into <i>Tekken</i> since the PS2 was a new and exciting console, so I was just baffled in a somewhat amicable way throughout the single player campaign. Also I realise celebrity cameos are all the rage in fighters these days but getting Negan in from <i>The Walking Dead</i> was just weird. Four inexplicable plot developments out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Pony Island (2016)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Funny thing happened this year, I remembered I actually have a gaming PC. A gaming PC that has been somewhat neglected for the last year or two and a system which was decent for 2015 but a gaming PC nonetheless. So on the spur of the moment I loaded up <i>Steam</i> and played me some <i>Pony Island</i>. This is a unique experience, played from the perspective of someone playing a haunted game machine at an old arcade somewhere. What starts as simple platforming and puzzling soon reveals itself to be a battle for your very soul with whatever evil entity possesses this accursed hardware. It goes to extreme lengths to rig the game against you but you are not entirely alone in your fight either. The very code of the game itself becomes the battleground, just trying to select an option on the main menu screen becomes contested warfare. I</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">t</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'s a novel, entertaining experience that's big on ideas and doesn't overstay it's welcome. I'm a big fan of this game, some of the ideas may be for a niche crowd but the confidence in the execution of it is to be applauded. Five screens of assembly code out of five!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Th</span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">e Beginner's Guide (2015)</span></span></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Still on my PC here, I moved on to another random title in the Steam library which caught the eye. This is a follow up to <i>The Stanley Parable</i> (more on that later) and whilst not played for laughs in the way we saw there, this is another curious and singular take on the more meta aspects of videogames. What starts as a retrospective on the life's work of a small time hobbyist videogame maker by the maker of <i>The Stanley Parable</i> turns in on itself and becomes something more introspective. I found this to be a curious title big on idiosyncracy and the nuances of the creative process. Much like Stanley, I can't say I've played anything else quite like this. As one person reflects on the impact they have had on another and comes to a realisation about their own life's work in the process. It's a mature and thoughtful work, can't say I prefer it to it's predecessor and much like that game it's more narrative than game but this is well worth checking out. Four unfinished levels out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019)</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Take your average <i>Soulsborne-</i>like game with all the difficulty and skill required for such an experience. Subtract a bunch of your typical RPG elements, maybe touch down the difficulty just a smidge, remove most of the fantasy elements and add a whole lot of <i>Star Wars</i> and you arrive at something like <i>Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order</i>. It's been a while since I played a <i>Star Wars</i> game and even longer since I played one I really liked. This game was tremendous on all fronts even with the difficulty curve that comes with games of this type. With skill and timing the combat hits its groove and feels great. The story is one of the better ones Star Wars has come out with in many a year and altogether the package is one of the best AAA games I've played in quite some time. Between this, <i>Titanfall</i> and <i>Apex Legends</i>, <i>Respawn Entertainment</i> might just be my favourite studio in action today even though they haven't given the world <i>Titanfall 3</i> yet. Five Jedi mind tricks out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Mad Max (2015)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's curious that there haven't been more attempts to translate <i>Mad Max</i> from film to game. Post-apocalyptic setting, crazy mobs of feral lunatics, vehicular combat and plenty of resource management. It feels like all the ingredients are there but despite this, the series gets little exposure in the interactive space. This one came out not long after what might be my personal favourite cinema experience of the last 10-15 years, that being <i>Mad Max: Fury Road</i>. I love that film but curiously it's influence is not hugely felt in this game outside the visuals and some of the enemy designs. It's an open world drive and survive experience with plenty of explosions and in that sense, it's a job well done. The driving has a really solid feel to it, as does the combat. There are some colourfully over the top personalities here but nothing that eclipses the film that casts a rather large over it. It's that kind of mid-budget game that we don't see so much of in the modern era. It's a game that over delivers on modest ambitions. I liked it but I really wanted to love it. Four Road Warriors out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition (2022)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From one cinematic translation to another, this is another one of those games that reminds me just how ancient I am. I happen to have played this game on its original release back in the late nineties and to be sure that original release still holds a special place in my heart. Indeed <i>Blade Runner</i> itself might be my all-time favourite film. Shame really, as this was not a stellar update this game deserved really. What was an atmospheric point and clock adventure based on said film has been updated but only in the most cursory sense. It runs on modern platforms on modern displays and that's about it. The backdrops still look great but the characters that inhabit this world barely look like they belong there. Muddy low resolution graphics have had the minimum of touch up work done on them and it painfully shows. I </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">know a lot of the original assets were lost when Westwood Studios (RIP!) closed up shop but this game deserved better than this. Two skin jobs out of five!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (2022)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Another advantage of taking ages to get around to playing some of my games is that by the time I get to them, they sometimes have a snazzy new edition to play them on. Such was the case with the <i>Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection</i> for the PS5. Not that 2016-17 was ages ago but it's clearly long enough for some games to get the deluxe upscale and performance boost treatment. <i>Naughty Dog</i> have a well deserved reputation for quality and excellence in the videogame industry and those qualities shine through here in this collection. <i>Nathan Drake</i> and company travel the globe in search of treasure and adventure, quipping aplenty at each other and laying waste to the global supply of private mercenaries in the process. It's not in the description where these games excel as much as it is in the smooth, flawless execution of the entire thing. The combat, the traversal, the sheer gorgeous look of the entire thing. It's action adventure in the best possible sense of the term but without the story and character development getting short shrift. <i>Uncharted 4</i> and <i>Uncharted: The Lost Legacy</i> are excellent games excellently upgraded for the current console generation. Five death-defying escapes from flaming wreckage out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… (2021)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Wasn't entirely sure what I was signing up for when I picked this game next. Wasn't entirely sure about it whilst I was playing it and having completed it I'm still of <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2023/07/anime-hair-and-end-of-days.html">a mixed opinion about the whole thing</a>. A reissue of a game from over a decade ago but a reissue of the Japanese version of that game before it was adjusted for the Western audience of the time. A hack and slash combat RPG that plays it's cards close to the chest for most of it's playtime before revealing all in the last 10-20 minutes of it. It's not a bad game as such. It still certainly feels like a game of it's time what with an open world structure that feels a bit too empty even for something that's supposed to be desolate. The combat is fine but the core gameplay is really lacking a certain something for a game that lasts dozens of hours. The game doesn't dish out it's revelations until the end and I wonder if a more well paced story might have helped here. There's enough here to make me check out the acclaimed sequel but as for this game AI doubt I'll ever return to it. Three foul-mouthed RPG companions out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Hypnospace Outlaw (2020)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Picture the internet of the mid to late 90's in all it's primitive but endearing glory. Now imagine an alternate history scenario where that self same Internet is visited only in your dreams and someone has to monitor and police the whole mess that results from this idea. Someone who is also navigating corporate intrigue within the company that developed this whole system to begin with. This is <i>Hypnospace Outlaw</i> and I was really impressed by this game. You largely spend your time surfing this space whilst on the lookout for those who breach it's rules. Copyright infringement, inappropriate content, threatening behaviour and the such like. There is a real love to the design of the whole thing, based as it is in the early versions of Windows and Internet Explorer. The Geocities and the AOL's of yesteryear get the same ironic but nostalgic treatment as well. Whilst it doesn't always play the smoothest and some of the transgressions were a little obscure for me, this game is a real triumph of ideas and concept in my view. A love letter to a bygone era for those who lived through it and a reminder why we wouldn't want to go back. Five Chowder Men out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>The Messenger (2018)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Speaking of love letters to the past, this one is very much an ode to the 8-bit and 16-bit platformers of the late eighties and early nineties. Yes those <i>Metroidvania</i> senses are tingling again as we fight, jump, and upgrade our way to greater and greater access through an ever expanding game world. The games fundamentals are solid and it's tone of self-aware humour hits the mark more than it doesn't. The plot plays around with expectations in an entertaining way and you feel a decent sense of accomyas you expand your set of abilities. Some of the difficulty spikes were a bit much for me however and some time was wasted in search of the tools and prompts needed to proceed to new areas of the game. So it's not a whole hearted endorsement from me but I liked it nonetheless. Three flying shurikens out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That's it for the second part of my end year reflections. I'm going to leave you all now to go enjoy your yuletide celebrations and I will be back before New Year with the third and final part of this great work. Merry Christmas all!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span></div><br /><p></p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-68309839220738256092023-12-20T23:21:00.003+00:002023-12-20T23:31:20.844+00:00completionism 2023 - part 1<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><span style="background-color: transparent; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">It</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> is that time once again! As the clock ticks down to years end, triggering a wave of reflections and retrospectives not entirely dissimilar to the one you're reading now. My free time is a precious thing and as such I've tried to be a little discerning in choosing what games to play this year.</span></div></span></div></div></span></div><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Nonetheless my game time eventually expanded to over 50+ games in 2023. Some of the below are large games, some are small, in fact I daresay most of them fit the latter more than the former. I have cleared a whole bunch of stuff that has been on my radar for years now so in that sense I feel it was time well spent. What did I play and what did I think of it? Read on...</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition (2018)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Kicking off 2023 with something of a random choice. Not a game I'd been wanting to get around to forever but one of those wildcards I'd been eyeing up in my game library for the few months preceding. An alternate history Victorian London sunk into the Earth, finding a strange shadowy under-sea within. You control your boat from a top-down perspective, navigating the seas of this perilous world as you go about your business. Complete errands, transport goods and intermittently meet a grim end in the shadowy fathoms of the deep. This was a worthy effort but I can't say the core gameplay really grabbed me as much as I would have liked. The atmosphere is evocative and the setting really intrigued me but the game itself is a respectable but unspectacular experience. Will definitely check out the sequel and <i>Fallen London</i> at some point though. Three screaming monstrosities from the depths out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d116fbc6-7fff-1c38-92ca-4622c0ae36dc" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Cloudpunk (2022)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Sometimes appearances can be deceptive. Take <i>Cloudpunk</i> for instance, you load it up and are greeted by a cyberpunk city richly rendered in a variety of blocky 3D voxels and for a moment I thought this may be too much style over substance. Not a huge fan of the throwback aesthetic, the sheer look of the game actually won me over pretty quickly and then the game itself did so as well. You're a courier who traverses the neon city in their hover car completing jobs, paying debts and becoming increasingly embroiled in intrigues way above your pay grade. Traveling via hover car is a little too floaty (no pun intended) and the story is a little thin outside the main narrative but this game really won me over by the end. Sometimes getting swept up in a story is enough. Four cyber dystopias out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Darkest Dungeon (2016)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Hard. Difficult. Frustrating. Challenging. Hard. All words I could use to describe <i>Darkest Dungeon</i>. Having originally tried this game during early lockdown I returned to it earlier this year and was swiftly reminded why I initially left this game unfinished. A stylish pulp aesthetic, brutal turn based combat and an ongoing focus on the battered mental state of your party as you navigate the cursed corners of an ancient family estate. I think I ended up liking this game more in spite of some of these game design choices rather than because of them. The Lovecraftian atmosphere is much appreciated but this game really needed one or two more allowances for the player to really get invested in it before shutting them down. An austere three tentacled horrors out of five!</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy (2017)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Despite being a part of the OG PlayStation generation I never actually got around to playing the Crash Bandicoot games of the mid to late 90's. Only took me until 2023 and the release of this spruced up collection to remedy that so what did I think of it? Well besides the charming and endearing visual aesthetic, I was surprised to find that these games could be pretty difficult for something that seems so geared to sell to a young audience. This is 3D platforming that storms along at a decent pace for a few levels before hitting the occasional difficulty spike where split second timing and co-ordinatoon is ruthlessly extracted from the player and yes there were sections of this where I found myself swearing at the screen why do you ask? Anyhow it's a worthy collection and a real window into the idiosyncracies of 90's game design. Four excruciating death drops out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>Wreckfest (2021)</b></span><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Speaking of the OG PlayStation generation, there was one cherished series of games that I did enjoy way back when and those were the <i>Demolition Derby</i> games. You don't have to try to hard to sell me on vehicular destruction but curiously it is a genre that pops up only rarely in modern gaming. So when Wreckfest was first revealed in Steam Early Access I was certainly interested. Again it was one of those games I toyed with briefly during lockdown and didn't finish and so I found myself coming back to it this year. It's well good this one even if it's lacking in depth in some areas. You drive cars irresponsibly, you crash them, you marvel at how these vehicles can still drive when so much of the car is no longer attached to the car. Coming back to this game via the PS5 version I found it to be a joyous experience even if it doesn't last as long as I'd like. Race and win a few cups and that was about it really barring a few goes at the multiplayer. It is vehicular warfare done well though and the closest thing we have to <i>Demolition Derby</i> in the modern age. Four pile-ups out of five!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">M</span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">etal Wolf Chaos XD (2019)</span></span></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This one hails from a rather different console, the original Xbox and a Japanese focused title at that. Originally released in 2004 for that region, this title didn't exactly make the Xbox a must-have in that part of the world but it did secure itself something of a cult status for its endearing plot and presentation and all of that is kept very much intact in this HD re-release for all modern formats. The President of the United States has been betrayed by his villainous Vice-President so naturally he goes to war in a ridiculously well-armed mech suit to save freedom and liberty for all. Cue hammy dialogue, an onslaught of explosive force and some deadpan humor that still hits pretty well two decades on. Gameplay was decent too if not exactly something you would confuse for a game released in the last decade. All in all it's great that games like this can still find an audience and I for one appreciate the effort made here. Four Presidential rocket punches out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Redout (2017)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Super fast zero gravity racing in the vein of Wipeout and yes that's another PS1 reference. Something subconscious is clearly going on here. Anyhow Redout, a sensory overload where you constantly feel at the edge of your ability to cope with the onslaught of light and sound. It's fun, but fun tempered by fatigue. I'm not sure enjoy is the right word for this. I know there are are whole genres of games that pile on the stress in the hope that by overcoming it you achieve a sense of fulfillment and fun. Not sure I ever arrived at that point with this game though. The difficulty curve kicks in quickly and soon resembles a sharp Ascent into ungodly levels of challenge. Didn't 100% this one you might say. Three high speed collisions out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>WE ARE DOOMED (2016)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The first random wildcard game of the year plucked out of the dusty corners of my game library. Can't even remember how I came to acquire this one, maybe a free game claimed as part of my PS+ membership perhaps. Anyhow it's a modest twin stick shooter in the vein of a Geometry Wars and the suchlike. You vlast at waves of incoming enemies until they eventually overwhelm you and then you start again. Think I was playing this more in the hope of finding a hidden gem but such hopes did not materialize. It's fine, not bad but not really remarkable either. A worthy hour or two of gameplay followed by putting the game down and not really remembering much about it shortly after. Two overpowered laser beams out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>2064: Read Only Memories (2017)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A retro styled point and clock adventure with full voice acting, a decent soundtrack and a few decent moments to its credit. Playing your near future everyman Avery Mann (untrue) who wakes up one day to find themselves in possession of a talking robot. You navigate screen after screen of neat pixelart and text in search for the reasons why you ended up in this situation. It's all well put together with nice moments scattered throughout but it did miss a certain something for me. It wasn't lacking cocktail recipes I can say that much, someone programmed an awful lot of those into this game. So yeah not bad but not surpassing expectations either. Three obscure point and clock puzzle solutions out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Beyond: Two Souls (2015)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If memory serves this game came out near the end of the PS3 generation which *checks notes* is a darn tootin decade ago now but that explains why I didn't get around to playing this at the time. Least I'll tell myself that's why I only got around to playing the PS4 re-release now like it didn't come out two years later. Anyways it's high drama with contextual button prompts and some decent acting. If you played <i>Heavy Rain</i> then you will get the idea. This was alright but like most games from David Cage and Quantic Dream I feel like someone in charge has some seriously frustrated ambitions of being a film maker with the game mechanics feeling almost inconsequential to the whole enterprise. Did I say the acting was decent? Two invisible ghost friends out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Detroit: Become Human (2018)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The other half of my great Quantic Dream double bill of 2023, <i>Detroit: Become Human</i> was distinctly a step up in my estimation. The acting was pretty good, the game mechanics felt a little less superfluous and the film aspects felt like they were much better realized than in <i>Beyond</i>. For my money that high tension opening scene where you play as a highly advanced android thrust into a hostage negotiation situation has to be one of the best starts to a game that I've seen in quite a while. Other than the presentation was very Apple store but in a good way. If the whole thing feels like a rip-off of Will Smith's <i>I, Robot</i> however then I'm assuming that was intentional. Three AI uprisings out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>WATCH_DOGS (2014)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Think I may have mentioned before the advantages of getting around to some games long after everyone else has played them. The particular advantage of playing a game long after any given online furore has subsided is not to be overlooked in my view. More specifically <i>WATCH_DOGS</i> got it in the neck for misrepresenting the graphical quality of the game when it was first trailered way back when. It was quite the topic in the internet of circa 2013-14 and yes I would agree with the general critique itself. That said, this is a really fun open world crime game where your hacker vigilante can (mostly) seamlessly create havoc within the various systems of the city. Speeding away with cars in pursuit only for you to hack the traffic lights and create a collision behind you was something that never got old for me. Yes it didn't look as amazing as they made out at the start but it was still fun and that's not to be taken for granted in Ubisoft games. Four cyber security fails out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Burly Men At Sea (2017)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Another game chosen from the wildcard section of my gaming library. Think I chose it more due to the title than anything else as I had literally zero expectations going into this one. A charming, stylised and whimsical gaming experience about three guys who go on a surreal comic adventure. Not a lot to this in terms of sheer mechanics, you explore, you choose a path, you make your way to the end of that path, you begin again. Definitely more about the journey than the destination and about exploring all the permutations of this particular journey through Scandinavian folklore. I enjoyed this for the brief time it lasted. Four manly beards out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Titan Attacks! (2014)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Following one wildcard selection with another, this is <i>Space Invaders</i> with updated visuals essentially. Not hugely updated mind you, when I started it I thought I was playing a Flash game from the mid-noughties for a moment there. The </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; letter-spacing: 0.2px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">gameplay is the time honoured format we all know and love coupled </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">with a decent if unspectacular look, oh and a nice synth soundtrack which always scores you a few extra points with me. Apart from that not a whole lot more to say about this one really. It's a game with modest ambition and it exceeds those ambitions but only just. Three flying saucers out of five!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Hyper Light Drifter (2016)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Feels like I've been meaning to get around to this game for longer than should be possible. Top down retro styled twitchy combat shenanigans in a strange desolate world. Beautiful look to this game, great soundtrack and the aforementioned combat is finely executed. Yes I really liked this game, a genuinely great example of bringing together retro aesthetics with modern gameplay. The story is told non-verbally with no dialogue that I can remember, nonetheless the game never failed to make itself understood. There was a really deft touch in the making of this one and I greatly applaud it. B</span></font><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14.6667px; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">elieve a sequel to this one is not too far off either so may check that out in the not too distant future. Five quick dodges out of five!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood (2015)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">The original <i>OlliOlli</i> was a great game and one I sunk a lot of hours into on my beloved PlayStation Vita nigh on a decade ago. A neat look, some well tuned gameplay and a real sense of 'oh just one more go!' about the whole thing that really endeared it to me. As with most games on this list it took me a while to get around to this the first sequel and yes, it's more of the same. Skill based skateboarding tricks that require a cool head and nimble fingers in order to succeed. It's no</span><span style="background-color: transparent; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> radical reinvention of the wheel but the wheel still goes round like you want it to. Note to self, must check out the most recent sequel next year. Four face plants into the concrete out of five!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>LA Cops (2015)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Top-down isometric kick the doors down and blast em before they blast you, all presented in the vein of a 70's cop show. Truth be told the retro aspect of it is mostly there for the presentation and not so much for the story. What little that exists of that is mainly there to provide minimal context for the blasting. there wasn't much to this one outside the core gameplay which was... alright. It got a mild laugh out of me and once done, it's not a game I'm liable to revisit. Two jelly doughnuts out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries (2021</b>)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Big robots and lasers and widespread destruction in the dystopian far future where wars have proliferated throughout the stars. Despite not being hugely into the lore of <i>MechWarrior/BattleTech</i> this game won me over in a big way. The look and sound of the thing is spot on, the rising tension of an ongoing enemy engagement as they chip away at your various systems, the adrenaline as you make a hasty retreat to the extraction point. This was all good stuff and a real testament on how to do the core gameplay justice in games like this. It's not perfect by any means, the presentation of the main story is bare bones and the difficulty spikes at times could be hard to fathom. However this is a case study for how a game can nail '<i>the feel</i>' of the source material without slowing the action down. As I may have alluded to in my <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2023/02/i-love-all-giant-robots-equally.html?m=1" target="_blank">previous post</a> on this game, this game was great. Five impractical but cool looking walking tanks out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game - Complete Edition (2021)</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">To round off this part of my gaming year I played the game based on the movie based on the comic that was at one point delisted from online stores and then re-released in this current complete collection. Having loved the film and skimmed the comic I really wanted to like this game, especially as it seemed to have something of a reputation as one of the rare licensed games that wasn't a poor cash-in. Having played it, this side-scrolling button mashing combat spree, I'm not sure if I liked it so much. It looks great and clearly there is some affection for the source material here but the sum of the parts do not exceed the whole and it all feels too repetitive. The core gameplay is established in the first few minutes and never really evolves too far beyond it, making the entire experience a little too samey for me. Two evil-ex-boyfriends out of five!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Boy those were some games huh? Tune in next time for... more of them?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span></div><br /><p></p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-68525948064106831582023-11-30T21:36:00.001+00:002023-11-30T21:36:15.246+00:00almost entirely maybe<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: start;">Quick state of the blog update here in this season of the limited edition eggnog latte. The aforementioned major life events that are not life threatening were a complete success but have left me with less time than usual for the blogging thing. I've still managed to fit in some more of the gaming thing however so plans are afoot as we approach the year's end, big plans I say, nefarious plans. Plans.<br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Which is of course another way of saying that the first part of my thoughts on all the games I've played this year will be coming shortly, yes <i>Completionism 2023</i> is well on its way. Somehow it has ended up being another bumper year in that regard. Maybe about as bumper as it gets actually. So bumper there may be a notable shift in my gaming habits come 2024.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>As previously mentioned on here I've been on something of a mission these past few years. Starting in the COVID times and extending all the way to the here and now I've been playing all those games from the past decade or so I've been meaning to play but hitherto didn't get around to. A half ge task to be sure, a lot of games come under that description. But recently something has changed. In fact I think I may have reached something of a personal milestone in my quest to play said games.</div><div><br /></div><div>You see, I think I may have played all the games that came under that label for me. I may have indeed played all the games I've been meaning to play for an age or so and I now find myself pondering games that look suspiciously <i>modern</i>. It happened around late October when that sense of having caught up with my gaming habit finally caught up with me. Found myself playing Disco Elysium and realising that this is a game people refer to in the right here and now. I started struggling to find games that fit the criteria of having not been played despite being released in the age of early iPhones. These kinda games were still there but as I gazed upon my library I realised they were now getting rather few and far between.</div><div><br /></div><div>I realise I may be the last person on the game playing planet to play a game of <i>Skyrim</i> from beginning to end but with its recent completion I can now look to play games that people talk about in the present tense rather than in the 'oh yeah I remember that one' sense. I may begin to feel dangerously current again.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dangerously current meaning that I might just casually pick up and play a game like Cyberpunk 2077 like that's not already three years old. Although in this example I think the wait pays off with better game quality. The 'Day 1' crowd certainly got a raw deal there.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyhow there may be change afoot in the new year is what I'm saying. That said, as far as December goes it'll be business as usual amidst all the Xmas frivolity. There will be games, there will be thoughts, there will be ramblings, there may even be something like a well-formed opinion here and there should I let one slip through. </div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-58577998100424096652023-10-31T21:58:00.001+00:002023-10-31T21:58:07.272+00:00horror movie mania 2023<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><br /></div><div>Once more we return to my favourite time of year. The air cools to a brisk chill, the leaves go red and brown in that deeply pleasing way and the evenings grow steadily darker. This year it's slightly different for me as major non-threatening life events unfolded earlier this month but amidst a flurry of recent activity I have found time to sneak in that most precious of all October past-times, the Halloween-adjacent horror movie marathon. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This year I've managed to watch more than a film or two so thought I'd give my thoughts in brief on each one. These are mostly films that have been on my to-watch list for an age with an exception or two and there may be more than one movie called <i>Halloween</i> as it happens, maybe even more than two. To the hot takes...<span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div><br /></div><b>Annihilation (2018)</b><div>Natalie Portman and team venture into the unknown as a great big spooky field of something slowly expands across a swampy grassland area. Strange thing happen, more strange things happen. Also her partner was sent in previously on an earlier mission but was the only part of his team to make it out alive. This was engaging to a point but lacked a certain something for me. Maybe it could have double downed on the weirdness of the idea, maybe it could have fleshed out the characters some more. Either way it's three roadside picnics out of five!</div><div><br /><div><b>A Quiet Place (2018)</b></div><div>Aliens invade! The good news is they are blind! The bad news is they found their way to Earth anyway. Also they have very, very good hearing and are capable killing machines as well. Enter our family of characters headed by John Krasinski and Emily Blunt as they try to navigate the perils of life in the new status quo of living in silence or death at a moments notice. This was really good, the minimal dialogue was a nice touch and the set pieces really amped up the tension here. Four sombre silences out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>A Quiet Place Part 2 (2020)</b></div><div>See the above mostly as it pretty much applies here as well. I wouldn't necessarily pegged <i>A Quiet Place</i> as a film that needed a sequel but here we are. So yes there were guarded expectations going in to this one but it swiftly put any conncerns to rest. Cillian Murphy joins in the fun and by fun I mean the soul crushing burdens of life in the silent downfall of the human race. It's a really good companion piece to the first film and well worth the time. Four sound bombs out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Possessor (2020)</b></div><div>This was an intriguing one. Mind-jacking corporate assassin jumps into the brains of people who can get close to their target. Upon dispatching said target, the unwary pawn kills themselves as the assassin returns back to their own body. Cue existential dread as the lines between mind-jacker and mind-jacked become very blurred indeed and it all gets a bit unclear as to who exactly is at the wheel as chaos unfolds on the latest job. Really compelling, interesting premise, bit excessive on the violence though. Nice disassociated performance by lead actress Andrea Riseborough, more on her shortly. Four blood soaked murder scenes out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Mandy (2018)</b></div><div>I didn't intend to follow up one Andrea Riseborough film with another but there we have it. Another film that had been on my to-watch list for an age. A trippy hallucinogenic murder oddysey as Nicholas Cage does what he does best and loses his mind in the most cinematic way possible. Said kill spree is prompted by a cult passing through town and taking an unhealthy interest in his love interest and well, it all goes south from there. Visually impactful with some nice violent flourishes, I feel like it did lack a certain something though. Any sense of character development comes to a halt about twenty minutes in and it all becomes a bit senseless and meaningless rather rapidly. Can't say I didn't have fun with it though so that'll be three sets of Nicholas Cage's crazy eyes out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Evil Dead (2013)</b></div><div>No not the original classic <i>The Evil Dead</i> from 1981. No not the first remake of Evil Dead which was <i>Evil Dead II</i> from 1987 either. This'll be that there remake from nigh on a decade ago now. This one was a real mixed bag for me. It has all the essential ingredients of an <i>Evil Dead</i> film but it's hard to capture the manic frenzied energy of low budget horror in a more polished Hollywood production. It's decent but never great and let down by a mostly bland set of characters with a notable exception in the lead. Demonic entities are summoned, arcane evil is evoked and evil spreads like a virus in a small cabin in the woods. It just didn't feel particularly good. Two necronomicons out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Evil Dead Rise (2023)</b></div><div>As the last film left me feeling a little underserved for demonic misadventure I decided to give the more recent Evil Dead film a chance. This on the whole was a much stronger effort with a slightly more compelling set of characters, a nice change of setting and an altogether better approach to the material. Still not as good as either of the first two films but at least it's trending in the right direction. Much like the remake it still suffers from characters having a major case of the brain fog to advance the plot forward. After a certain point it's all just sound and fury signifying nothing but their heart is in the right place. Three demonic turntables out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Halloween (1978)</b></div><div>The first part of my trilogy of films simply called <i>Halloween</i>. This remains a classic even if other films have surpassed it in terms of sheer adrenaline and violence. A superbly paced effort that really does justice to the masked killer at the heart of this series. Michael Myers slips into and out of the frame seamlessly, entering and exiting the shadows like the unstoppable nightmare he is. An empty town in the coming night, a porch light on across the street in the darkness and the sheer autumnal mood of it all. It's quite the piece of work this film and I remain a fan myself. Four William Shatner masks out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Halloween (2007)</b></div><div>From the original we now go to the remake helmed by Rob Zombie and released back in the noughties. It's <i>Halloween</i> but on steroids, a film so relentlessly Rob Zombie it seemingly can't help itself. Everything the original film does in moderation this film does in excess and it really falls apart early on for me. What the original film accomplished for Myers in five minutes at the start takes up the first 45+ minutes here and I don't feel like it had anything interesting to add to the origin story with all that extra runtime. Malcolm McDowell as the doctor was a nice update to that role but otherwise this film was a hard pass from me. One needless remake out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Halloween (2018)</b></div><div>Getting back on track here with the 2018 sequel or 'requel' or who the hell knows but hey at least the film was good. Quick backtrack but you may remember <i>Halloween: H20</i> as a film which disregarded the events of a number of prior Halloween sequels? Well this one disregards <i>all</i> prior <i>Halloween</i> films apart from the original itself. Laurie Strode is now an understandably PTSD afflicted survivalist who has let her obsession with Michael Myers negatively impact every other facet of her life since the events of the original film. From this nice smart update to the material we get a really good <i>Halloween</i> film that I highly enjoyed. Good ending too, so good in fact they could have ended it there but they did not. Anyhow that's four murder sprees out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Halloween Kills (2021)</b></div><div>The action picks up moments after the previous film with various characters shouting, screaming and/or bleeding in equal measure. Mistakes are made, killers are freed and the town of Haddonfield decides it's had it's fill of masked killers and enacts the always reliable mob to put Michael Myers down for good. It doesn't quite pan out as planned but they do give it the old heave-ho before Michael once again makes with the stabbing. It's a curious sequel this one, not short on ideas to be sure but it's almost like they weren't expecting the 2018 film to be as good as it was and weren't quite prepared for the follow up as a result. It's three quarters of a decent film with a rushed ending that could have been a lot better. Three flaming torches out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Halloween Ends (2022)</b></div><div>My great <i>Halloween</i> marathon of 2023 ends with this one. The most recent entry as of writing and the one that tries to close out the trilogy that started with the 2018 film. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. They really didn't seem prepared for a trilogy here and this certainly doesn't feel like the kind of film to close out what should have been the epic final confrontation between. Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. Weirdly it almost feels like a standalone movie at times. Whereas the previous two films take place over the course of a single Halloween night this picks things up a few years later and the momentum really suffers for it. Whilst we do get the confrontation between Michael and Laurie it all ends up feeling like something of an underbaked afterthought. The majority of the film is concerned with a would-be Michael Myers apprentice and his descent into madness but it's almost like the film makers forgot why everyone was watching. Sadly this film was a wasted opportunity and really made me wonder why they even bothered to stretch it out to a trilogy at all? Nice surprise at the start there though. One tragic babysitter out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Midsommar (2019)</b></div><div>Bad times in rural Sweden as a bunch of students attend the arcane festivities of an isolated commune and in turn fall victim to its various machinations. Folksy horror in the vein of The Wicker Man then. It's an intriguing look into cult conformity and the pulling sway of collective groupthink. It's a vivid visual experience too and is not without a certain dreamy hypnotic appeal either. Overall I felt it perhaps ran a little long with the ending telegraphed well in advance of it's arrival. Great performance from the Florence Pugh too as her characters journey takes her into some very dark places. Four sacrificial burnings out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Shining (1980)</b></div></div><div>Finally it's a big one, it's a really big one. One of those horror films you can almost watch by proxy given how often its scenes are referenced elsewhere in popular culture. Man gets a job as a caretaker for an isolated hotel up in the snowy mountains. Man takes family to said hotel as it shuts down for winter. Some malevolent supernatural force drives man crazy. Man tries to kill his family as a result. It's a tale as old as time! This was a great film though, with that slow burn dread that really turns the screws on its characters. Add some ambivalence and weirdness to whatever the heck is actually happening and it's not hard to see why this film is considered a classic. Not to mention Jack Nicholson and his ability to channel the crazy into his performance. Yeah this was good, five ghost bartenders out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div>...and that's it for <i>Halloween Movie Mania 2023</i>. Given everything else that's going on in my neck of the woods it's a wonder I watched anything at all but there you have it. Same again next October perhaps, time, willpower and available film selection on streaming services permitting of course.</div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-71618100619654991662023-09-29T19:56:00.001+01:002023-09-29T19:56:53.922+01:00high stakes, false confidence and a bad hand…<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMC-XvLZdLCvsioM9LahJCusc8EkNLdWy5ki9fCzb30qJfHgy8CaeGqGI1KPoFE0SxFbz_Dn3Of_fppC-AMC6IjD41IVUhXCp4BCoR_y3ymkPYxI0wJMkB_PotB3q85yccFn1xrQwspdHghU0HRU7VwcFLnONMhVvpMpUMFAa2ZHiI9x6KKjaZ79HOA52a/s244/coollogo_com-1733716.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="244" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMC-XvLZdLCvsioM9LahJCusc8EkNLdWy5ki9fCzb30qJfHgy8CaeGqGI1KPoFE0SxFbz_Dn3Of_fppC-AMC6IjD41IVUhXCp4BCoR_y3ymkPYxI0wJMkB_PotB3q85yccFn1xrQwspdHghU0HRU7VwcFLnONMhVvpMpUMFAa2ZHiI9x6KKjaZ79HOA52a/s1600/coollogo_com-1733716.png" width="244" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's book review time again, real life is on the verge of getting busy in the very near future but I've still found some time to turn the pages on some random reads. This time it's something a bit different and more than a little disconcerting. It's a dose of real life as we get all late-noughties and cover the 2007-08 financial crash in <i>The Big Short</i> by Michael Lewis. It's the book that became the film you may have also seen, or rather in my case its the film what was the book as I watched the big screen version ages ago. As always all words here are expanded and revised from the review I posted recently on Amazon and Goodreads, all ill-judged opinions are, as ever, my own.</span></div><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The short version: a butterfly flaps its wings in Wall Street and the world falls over.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The long?</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a name='more'></a></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7f90876d-7fff-1def-7eed-1158d957138a" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Complex financial instruments, not the most foreboding harbingers of doom but therein lies the trick. They most certainly delivered when it came to wrecking the global economy back in the mid to late noughties at any rate. This book is the real life tale of an opaque and seemingly distant world to most of us, one where a few numbers going the wrong way can have profound and wide-ranging effects on the world beyond. It shines a light on one part of that shadowy world and whilst it is tremendously well-written, I don't know if I like the realisation it bestows upon the reader. Namely that those managing such impactful things don't really understand the things they are managing, but there it is regardless.</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Excuse the vague layman's terms there, I'm no money man myself but I found it refreshing just how detailed this book was whilst not managing to lose its reader amongst the flurry of financial jargon and murky accounting. It's not a simple account but it doesn't patronise the reader either. Having some knowledge of the impact of the financial crash certainly helps but is not essential, the film is very good too as a broad strokes introduction but there is really no substitute for the wealth of detail and recent history on offer in the book itself.</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">At the heart of it is debt, bad debt that will probably never be repaid, bad debt packaged and made to look like good debt. It's the story of how some people might look at that and see bad things approaching and take steps to insure themselves against it, making a bet with long odds on what seemed like the distant prospect of failure in the US sub-prime mortgage market. Through many twists and turns, it's the story of greed and stupidity in the great financial institutions who bought into the prevailing good times of the day and either couldn't see or wouldn't see the crumbling foundations it was all built on. At times it feels like a more universal cautionary tale: that those who need the doubt lack it and that those who have the doubt don't get listened to.</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's also an intriguing personal story of some unlikely individuals making headway in a system which largely privileges the grand institutions of finance over the smaller players in the field. There are some nicely nuanced accounts of these individuals and how they came to see what by and large others could not. What saw them through this situation was an eye for detail and willingness to actually look closely at the reality beneath the numbers. This book puts you in the head-space of guys who could see the worst case scenario a mile off and really understand their thought processes as they devised the fail-safes by which they could make money whilst the world lost money in the kind of amounts that only the world could lose. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's a picture that slowly builds with a growing tension and the book does a great job of making you feel like the fly on the wall at some very pivotal moments in the development of this crisis.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That sense of unease is very much the defining trait of this book for me. A slow-burn disaster movie in numbers playing out page by page. It captures a moment in recent history pretty well without reducing some essential complexity. That complexity is really key here as its the point where the book risks losing its reader. In my opinion it treads that line very well but should you find yourself hitting that wall I do urge you to power through it. The most unassuming of things can impact everything, the world spins like a plate and its not always the most competent pair of hands that keep that plate spinning. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's mostly a tragedy with hints of absurd comedy strewn throughout. It's a reminder that the devil is in the detail, that numbers matter and that ingenuity can sometimes pair quite nicely with stupidity. It is, in short, a solid recommendation from myself.</span></span></p></div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-59198326864667198962023-08-31T19:59:00.001+01:002023-08-31T19:59:28.021+01:00you got game (music) #3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbU0NfxfLckXfTMzJnn2c0nAVqIxPca8XllOAax9xWtLBK7P1-kTEoMx0IijZnRiYcW8PrnF0r4AEL7y9OA-5T-z9eQxvf-dQ8Xo2iLVEtZ4nHI2OjVNpLR4r8dGGh5QjS6h_5AWXN2zHkyjiLIu2eSHf3Vya6suxNgYOEk5lmfrP3p3v9pFztlu8fa2x/s1920/pxfuel%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbU0NfxfLckXfTMzJnn2c0nAVqIxPca8XllOAax9xWtLBK7P1-kTEoMx0IijZnRiYcW8PrnF0r4AEL7y9OA-5T-z9eQxvf-dQ8Xo2iLVEtZ4nHI2OjVNpLR4r8dGGh5QjS6h_5AWXN2zHkyjiLIu2eSHf3Vya6suxNgYOEk5lmfrP3p3v9pFztlu8fa2x/s320/pxfuel%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Happy August one and all! It's been a mostly sunny carefree month here. Sunshine, blue skies and a stillness to the air, true peak August vibes all said. So what better way to lean into the tail end of summer as the evenings gently grow darker and the temperature feels a touch cooler, than with another sample of my favourite game music. This time around it comes from a game I may have mentioned around these here parts previously: <i>Hotline Miami, </i>otherwise referred to by myself as<i> 'T</i>rippy Retro Ultra-Violent Hallucinogenic Slash Bang: The Game'. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>Where to begin with this one? I feel like this is one of those games I've had a real fascination with for a long time. In fact thinking about this game again I am struck by the realisation that this game came out over a solid decade ago now, back in the autumn of 2012 and then releasing for consoles in 2013 when I got my hands on it. Eventually when I compile that list of favourite games I keep meaning to get around to this will definitely feature somewhere high-up on it. </p><p>Not just for the snappy, neon-saturated retro gameplay which it has in spades. No this is a game that introduced me to something long-lasting. Something which I may have had a vague awareness of beforehand but which crystallised into shape the moment I played this game. in short <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Miami" target="_blank">Hotline Miami</a></i> gave me an appreciation for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthwave?wprov=sfla1" target="_blank">synthwave</a>, that strain of electronic music inspired by the moody synthesizer soundtracks of eighties pop culture. Now synthwave is my go-to preferred term of choice but it seems to be one of those genres with no shortage of sub-genres and alternative labels. <i>Retrowave</i>, <i>vapourwave</i>, <i>chillwave</i>, <i>darkwave</i> and if <i>Wikipedia</i> has anything to say about it there's also something called <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovietwave?wprov=sfla1" target="_blank">Sovietwave</a></i> and you just know I am going to be checking that out as soon as I'm finished here. </p><p>Anyhow, back to <i>Hotline Miami</i> and a soundtrack that is up there with the very best of them, headed by what is for me its definitive track: 'Miami' by Jasper Byrne.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IECnJ18ox-Q" width="320" youtube-src-id="IECnJ18ox-Q"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>This is the track I still place at the top of my all-time favourite pieces of music. A prevailing sense of uncertainty, ambivalence and nostalgia speeding its way along the highway at night. A dream of danger and hope playing out against the certainty that all things end summed up in a mere four and a half minutes. it's quite the track is what i'm saying and an absolute favourite of mine. This being the internet, naturally others have come and put their own spin on it as well meaning I have no shortage of favourite variations on it as well which I include below for your listening pleasure. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_jslnMjqvck" width="320" youtube-src-id="_jslnMjqvck"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uIxPUxalMx0" width="320" youtube-src-id="uIxPUxalMx0"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y37WlvPS31I" width="320" youtube-src-id="y37WlvPS31I"></iframe></div><br /><p>Oh and a version with vocals from Trevor Something with intentionally dodgy lyrics...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/80214E8FuBo" width="320" youtube-src-id="80214E8FuBo"></iframe></div><br /><p>You know what? While I'm at it I might just go, sit back and listen to the whole soundtrack again for the seven billionth time, that's some good listening there. Also <i>Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number</i>, go check that out as well, its more of the same but more confusing, but in a good way.</p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-65110892124863381712023-07-30T20:21:00.004+01:002023-07-30T20:30:49.939+01:00anime hair and the end of days<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>I've just completed a game that, in normal circumstances at least, wouldn't generally be my cup of tea. A game remastered and released in 2021 but which originally arrived in 2010 in a somewhat 'adjusted' manner shall we say?. A game I meant to get around to back then but never did and now that I have finally gotten around to both playing and completing it, I'm not entirely sure if I liked it or not. That game is <i>Nier Replicant</i> or to give it it's full re-released title: <i>Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139...</i> because clearly the game alone wasn't baffling enough....<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div>FYI: Outside of the beginning I will try and keep this a relatively spoiler free zone and place appropriate warnings in place if needed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Described by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> as an 'action role-playing' game and not a JRPG or Japanese role playing game, it borrows a lot but thankfully not everything from the genre of Final Fantasy and the like. The immaculate hair, ostentatious clothing and oversized weaponry are all here on full display. Then there is the somewhat erratic story developments as well as the amazingly over the top battles against oversized overpowered adversaries. Thankfully for my patience it doesn't bring over the huge time sink requirements I generally associate with JRPG's and is generally a pretty snappy experience I completed in about 25 hours or so. That bit there I definitely liked.</div><div><br /></div><div>The characters and plot eventually won me over but for a large part of the play time I was absolutely in the dark about what exactly was happening in this time and place. A word of explanation perhaps? You are, at first, an unnamed character in a dystopian near future. You're fighting off bizarre shadow monsters and protecting a sibling slowly succumbing to some bizarre self-writing text spreading over her body. You get your standard intro tutorial and then suddenly the plot shoots you forward 1500 years ahead where you are now a different but very similar self-named character looking after a similar but different sister dying of the very same thing in a world that's still a little dystopian but also very medieval fantasy as well. A world that has both moved forward from dystopia and yet back at the same time. </div><div><br /></div><div>You get all of that? Because for quite a few of those 25 hours I spent that is all I got. Don't get me wrong I like a good jarring cut that puts you on the wrong foot or subverts expectation. That one time they skipped a year in the reimagined <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_%282004_TV_series%29?wprov=sfla1" target="_blank">Battlestar Galactica</a></i> was a great example of this but here it was a little less successful. An evocative but slightly generic near future nightmare is swapped for a generic somewhat rural fantasy setting with some surprises in store but it takes a little while to get to them.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: red;">SPOILERS: </span>So you're in this town generally running errands for the locals and the leaders of the community. You slowly get a feel for the shape and feel of this world, a world built upon the ancient remains of another and you incrementally unravel the mystery at it's heart. Sinister agents of the shadow things attack and the sister is taken and you now shoot forward just a couple of years. Oh and there's a character who looks like a child in the garb of a lord of the manor who can't look at anyone lest he turns them to stone, oh and at some point it turns out he was a weapon from the ancient times and in an anachronistic weapons laboratory beneath their manor you fight their sister alongside them who you beat and then the two siblings merge or something and the lord becomes something like a character out of <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare_Before_Christmas" target="_blank">The Nightmare Before Christmas</a></i> and there's another companion who dresses like a burlesque dancer but swears like a sailor and... <span style="color: red;">END SPOILERS</span>.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>So plot-wise its essentially long periods of going back and forth carrying out jobs for the locals with an occasional deluge of major plot development taking place. It gets a bit jarring, often a bit boring and rarely quite interesting. I guess that's ultimately my impression of it, a potentially quite interesting game that spends much of the running time being quite uninteresting. Your main character is pretty dull but this is offset by a varied and interesting set of supporting characters, the main highlight being the magical talking book that serves as your main companion for most of the experience. The finale delivered too, providing adequate closure to a plot that could have easily gone off the rails with less of a guiding hand. It ends on a strong note and it doesn't take ages to get to the end either as stated above. Certainly if this had been one of those games that required a time investment of hundreds of hours I would be less charitable to its failings but here it just about all works for me. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Mechanically its slick and the combat system is intuitive and responsive. The crowning highlights of the game are pretty much the boss battles, challenging but not crushing in the vein of a <i>Dark Souls</i> or its ilk. None of them took more than a few attempts to clear and none of them depleted my will to live so again, top marks for that. The presentation can feel a little sparse and plain but much like the plot if often taken to unloading some real visual madness on you when you least expect it. Ultimately it comes across very much as was it is, which is a game originally from 2010. A game that has been remastered, reworked and tweaked from it's various versions back in the day.</div><div><br /></div><div>So where does that leave me on this game? Truly I am now somewhat curious about the well-received sequel <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier%3A_Automata" target="_blank">Nier: Automata</a></i> so this re-release certainly piqued my interest in a game and genre I don't usually spend much time with. So yeah it has that going for it in the larger scheme of things, when I will get around to that one is anyone's guess of course. I still don't know if I am a huge fan of the aesthetic, not that everything should be gritty, industrial and grounded but the sheer amount of hair spray these characters must use manages to somehow be the least realistic aspect of this game. Maybe its just a difficulty to believe that the long slowly drawn out end of humanity would be so finely tailored. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>So what shall I give it? Let's say its three baffling plot developments out of five! A luke warm recommendation all said. Until next time!</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-79656427836791542772023-06-27T17:50:00.001+01:002023-06-27T17:50:36.158+01:00foreverware<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: start;">Once upon a time in the dark ages, in the long ago, in the age before the <i>iPhone</i> and reliable high speed broadband there was the humble video game. You would play it, it would last for a finite length of time and then it would end. You'd move on and play another game, maybe read a book, watch a film, join a ukulele band. You'd cast that game into the realm of memories past, enriched by the experience in some way but no longer actively partaking of it. Now that time never <i>ended</i> as such, those games are still very much around but in the here and now they have been eclipsed somewhat by something else altogether.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: start;"><br /></div><div>Yes I'm talking about the idea of a game that never ends. A game that can be played in perpetuity or until it's service provider decides it's not worth the time, effort or money and shuts it down. Games as an ongoing experience, a lifestyle, a vocation overflowing with obligation. XP bars fill to the brim, online stores are kept fully stocked, the team chat is alive with the sound of jocularity and vulgarity and what closure exists is forever deferred. You can call them MMO's, you can call them 'live service games', you can call them general all-purpose everlasting game experiences/revenue streams. What you can't call them is finished.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thinking back, my experience with these games began with the juggernaut of the MMO space: <i>World of Warcraft</i>. Fresh out of university I spent a good many hours in this game around 2006/2007. Impressed by it's scale, charmed by it's aesthetic and generally very much on board with the polished game play we associate with <i>Blizzard</i> games. Persuaded by a friend to give it a go, it was one of those rare instances where I found myself in the midst of a popular trend whilst it was still unfolding. I spent many hours in the base game and it's first expansion <i>The Burning Crusade</i> and then, for no specific reason that I can recall, I just stopped.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was some combination of less free time coupled with more productive use of my limited disposable income I think. That and the possibility that as patient as I am, I don't think I can keep playing one single game indefinitely no matter how good it is. Back then it was a much simpler question too with less of these types of games in circulation. Now this category of games has exploded, they're everywhere, swing a cat and you'd likely hit one in your vicinity. More and more huge game experiences encroaching ever more on that limited pool of free time in an age where more things than ever are competing for your attention. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 2021, according to my <i>PlayStation</i> stats for the year my most played game was <i>Apex Legends</i>, an ongoing never-ending progression of shooty shooty bang bang. Well designed and fun to play yes, but perpetual nonetheless. Around 2016 I put a few hours into <i>The Elder Scrolls Online</i> but sensing a fearsome grind I unceremoniously put it down after a dozen hours and a few levels. In the first year of the COVID pandemic, I spent hundreds of hours playing <i>Fallout 76</i> after the <i>Wastelanders</i> expansion came out. Those were good times but again I reached that same point with it. The point where I say enough and move on to the next thing. Failing to find a satisfying sense of closure in game I created one for myself with the completion of the then current season pass and its extensive chain of unlockables. I completed it, got my Soviet super soldier costume and I was done.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I look back on my gaming habit, especially since becoming a parent, I think about time. As I officially approach the age of 40 next year, I think about time. When I think about the great multitude of things that always need doing every moment of every day, I think of time. It's limited, its finite with my free time being even more so. Time, always plenty and never enough. I think about all the games I've played in my backlog in recent years and I think about the sense of accomplishment and closure that comes with the end of each one. Some games do this more successfully than others of course but on the whole most games do eventually get done.</div><div><br /></div><div>I prize closure in my popular culture is what I'm saying, a sense of an ending, a finishing point. So I look upon the current era of gaming with some mixed thoughts. Not all bad to be sure, these are vibrant, active, social games and they make large numbers of people very happy, that is not to be bemoaned. On the other end of this is the troubling notion I get whenever I think of a game that becomes more a lifestyle than simply a good time. Of convoluted systems designed to eat said time, of game mechanics orchestrated to create addiction not to mention the means by which these games play on players and their wallets. Never outright demanding money but never drawing a firm line between play and pay either. </div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously these games are money-making exercises, i get that. I get that these can be win-win situations for gamers and game-makers, at least in theory anyhow. Gamers get good games that they can play socially or competitively, the game makers get the money that will in part fund future game development when its not helping the bottom line. The issues arise when the practice of game development comes to be largely centred around these kind of games and you end up in a situation where <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/02/video-game-loot-boxes-problem-gambling-betting-children" target="_blank">some people are clearly paying more than they can afford</a> for all the payable cosmetics et al.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's a problem for game makers too, it was one thing when you could count these games using both hands but in a marketplace that's now teaming with them, a lot of good money is now going after bad. A<a href="https://kotaku.com/game-preservation-server-dead-apex-battlefield-mobile-1850083031" target="_blank"> whole slew of live service games are being shut down</a> with little to show for it for anyone concerned. New games in this genre are struggling to make their presence felt and it all feels like more noise than signal in the fierce competition for consumer attention. The question invariably becomes: how long can it last? How long can the enticing prospect of creating the next <i>Fortnite </i>command so much priority? There is perhaps a turning point coming here and time will tell if the industry leans into it or goes crashing headlong into the curve.</div><div><br /></div><div>But back to the other side of the coin and the players themselves. I could pontificate about all the time our games now seem to demand of us, of all the books that don't get written or read, of all the self-improvement activity that doesn't get done but I'd rather not, its a leap to assume we'd all go in that direction if we didn't have those very same games. Rather I wonder if we're approaching some form of critical juncture here. A point beyond which games get shifted to the side in favour of something newer, cooler or just less demanding of our time? </div><div><br /></div><div>It's unlikely I know but given how fast things change I can't rule it out entirely. Maybe a shift to more concise single player experiences is not entirely out of the question but again that feels like i'm underselling the capacity for change in the popular culture of the future. Whatever happens you can bet I'm not predicting it's exact shape and form here of all places, remember where you are now. Whenever whatever happens <i>happens</i> though, you remember where you read that first, or even second, or maybe a distant third. Now if you'll excuse me I think I might check up on <i>Apex Legends</i> for a round or two...</div><div><br /></div><div>Until next time.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">*The image at the top is brought to you courtesy of my toying around with <a href="https://www.bing.com/create" target="_blank">Bing's AI image generator</a>.</span></div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-49339996168543605462023-05-29T20:26:00.000+01:002023-05-29T20:26:10.503+01:00blood, magic and seawater...<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Haven't done a book review for the blog in a while, not since the dark days of 2022 and that <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-most-verbose-ikea-catalogue-ive.html" target="_blank">William</a> <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-cutting-edge-and-all-who-fall-over.html" target="_blank">Gibson</a> <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-piblokto-madness-drinking-game.html" target="_blank">trilogy</a> I endured. Instead here's some assorted thoughts on a book I just finished, 1987's <i>On Stranger Tides</i> by Tim Powers. Expanded and revised from the review I posted recently on Amazon and Goodreads, all ill-judged opinions are my own.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The short version: It's a rollicking yarn full of pirates, ghouls, dark magic and bloodshed, I really enjoyed it, thanks for coming!</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh you want the longer one do you?<span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Ok then, so it's a page turner full of personality and pace that plays out across the high seas and into the murkiest corners of the supernatural. Nefarious schemes abound, pernicious villains ply their trade and throughout there is a refreshing sense of familiar material getting a less than familiar treatment from it's author. It's very much regarded as a standard bearer of the 'supernatural pirates' genre and I can believe it. There's an admirable sense of commitment to the fantastical events unfolding on these pages that doesn't feel the need to wink at the reader or break the fourth wall and it's all the better for it. Man takes boat trip, boat gets purloined by pirates, pirates embark on a scheme involving dark forces and fateful drama and all that is within the first few chapters. Pacey is the word but not overwhelmingly so. </div><div><br /></div><div>A healthy infusion of actual pirate history makes the cut here as well. Blending into the narrative here with such larger than life figures as Blackbeard and company casting some very large shadows over the events within. It's hardly a scholarly treatment of the subject but there is enough here to help this tale keep it's feet to the ground throughout the madness that follows. There is a distinct air of finality to the proceedings as the very real end of the age of piracy comes to bear upon these characters and the use of real history nicely reinforces that where it comes up. </div><div><br /></div><div>By and large though the reality steps aside for the story and quite the effort is made in this regard. There is some decent and varied characterisation. It's not all standard pirate archetypes although there are plenty of those if that's what you be seeking. A pleasant, romantic sense of place and time is nicely conveyed here too with more than just a faint hint of coconuts and rum wafting within the warm tropical breeze. The writing really has a vibrancy to it that brings the content to life, all blue skies and palm trees amongst the violence, the undead and the odd cutlass thrust straight through the gut.</div><div><br /></div><div>As mentioned above there is also copious doses of the supernatural here too. It's all pretty evocative and grisly in turn but to it's credit it never feels forced. No small amount of effort has been devoted to making it feel as grounded as possible, there is a method to the madness and a sense of an infernal alchemy being played out throughout the tale. There's is a tangible if fantastical basis to the sinister deeds coming to fruition here but it rarely feels like a convenient plot device pulled out of thin air to meet the dilemma of the moment.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the flip side, this book might feel a little overly familiar to anyone reading it in 2023. After all it was superceded by a whole raft of popular culture over the last few decades, certain Caribbean pirates know what I mean there. If you happen to be wondering why one of those films was named after a pirate book you probably have never read well now I hope its apparent. Notwithstanding that though, I think this is well worth a read for fans of pulpy pirate fiction. It's a lively and engaging tale well told and a solid recommendation from myself.</div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-80931289154343630072023-05-15T18:11:00.001+01:002023-05-15T18:13:21.386+01:00you got game (music) #2<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /><p></p><p>Picture the scene if you will...</p><p>It's the early 90's, precise year unclear but possibly 1992? A young boy comes home from school to find that most special of surprises awaits him but not all is as it seems. For you see said boy was indeed myself, and the gift in question was a machine that could play video games but there was a catch... Was it the <i>Nintendo Entertainment System</i> I hear you ask? A <i>Game Boy</i> perhaps? A <i>Sega Mega Drive</i>? A <i>Jaguar</i> even? No my friends it was none of those, for you see I grew up in a family that was not flush with cash so I had to make do with what I got.</p><p>What I got was a hand-me-down <i>Amstrad CPC 464</i>. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span></span><p></p><p>Now the full story of this feels like a tale for another time, which feels strangely appropriate as the machine itself felt like it was of another time even all the way back then. Chunky monitor, blocky keyboard, built-in cassette player. That would be the cassette player for the <i>games that came on cassette </i>mind you. Games <i>that required you to wait five to ten minutes to load in</i> before you could play them no less. To say I had mixed feelings about this machine at the time would be something of an understatement but looking back, I do feel a certain nostalgia for it's many foibles. Which is to say it definitely has its moments.<br /></p><p>Which brings me to the subject of this entry, the 1988 video game adaptation of one of the finest films of our time, <i>Robocop</i>. More specifically the version of this game ported to the 8-bit home computer generation of the time. Even more specifically this brings me to the soundtrack of said ports, composed by prolific videogame composer <a href="https://www.giantbomb.com/jonathan-dunn/3040-16075/credits/" target="_blank">Jonathan Dunn</a>. It's a soundtrack that has since taken on something of an iconic status in the years since and as someone who played it at the time, I'm inclined to agree.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Uxjif2S2_K4" width="320" youtube-src-id="Uxjif2S2_K4"></iframe></div><p>There's the iconic intro theme I've linked into above which makes full and inventive use of the limited sound hardware of the time. Listening back to this in 2023, it certainly sounds like it would slot right into the chiptune renaissance of recent years. It's a quality piece of game music that has stood the test of time and still gets infrequent shout outs from those who shout out about classic video game music, see a recent episode of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Played?wprov=sfla1" target="_blank">Get Played</a> podcast for an example of this.. Incidentally when searching for the above track I came across the slightly richer version done for the Game Boy port and it's still a winner!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wGIKnn-COS4" width="320" youtube-src-id="wGIKnn-COS4"></iframe></div><p>Good as it is, another standout effort here would eclipse it for me and would remain lodged in my brain for all time. Outside of the <i>Super Mario Bros</i> theme tune, I can't think of any other examples of video game music making such an impression on me as this track did. To this day I remain entirely at one with it whenever I bring it up on Youtube for a listen. Here I refer to the track that plays over the first level of the game, a catchy composition that I feel doesn't get all the recognition it deserves...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KlzvIFqnbjQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="KlzvIFqnbjQ"></iframe></div><br /><p>A mechanical beat with a catchy rhythm and a hint of the tragic about it. Yeah this is the good stuff for me as far as video game music goes. I genuinely feel it punches well above it's weight given the technological limits of the time, not to mention the low expectations one might associate with video game tie-ins. This one stuck out to me as a young gamer and even now I feel like it does a lot with a little, a masterful economy of sound if you will. So yeah props to you Jonathan Dunn and the <i>Robocop</i> video game soundtrack of 1988, I salute you!</p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-19816861384877677492023-04-30T20:18:00.001+01:002023-04-30T20:18:12.785+01:00the refreshing taste of cosmic justice<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /><p></p><p>As alluded to in my last post I have some thoughts about the game I have spent most of the last week playing, that game being <i>Paradise Killer</i>, those thoughts being well... these ones. </p><p>First up it seems like a minor miracle that I am playing a game like this in 2023 on my PS5 and not on my PS2 in the hallowed year of our lord 2001. it's a game that's quite simple and straightforward in some ways and in others it has a lot going on just beneath the surface. It feels about as removed from the generic high budget videogame as it gets these days without going into the realm of indie low-budget. There's some weird throwback energy going on here is what I am saying and over the next few hundred words I will attempt to put said thoughts in some kind of coherent order. To the commentary...<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>Feels like a plot summary is in order. I could just link to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Killer" target="_blank">Wikipedia page</a> at this point and of course I will but I will also attempt to summarise this fever dream of a plot in my own words as well. See you're on an island that's based in its own pocket dimension. It's populated by god-like beings who are not quite gods but not your standard issue human beings either. They are middlemen and women somewhere inbetween and they call themselves 'The Syndicate'. They are a wild bunch who want to resurrect their gods and to do this they bring regular issue human beings to the island via mass kidnap and make them worship said gods to bring them back. Problem is the worship of these gods opens the door to demonic entities and possession which in turn spells doom for the island. This then prompts a reboot of the island where the whole process starts again.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /><p></p><p>Following that? Good!</p><p>At the outset of this game, the 25th iteration of this island is about to be launched when dastardly deeds occur and the ruling council of 'The Syndicate' find themselves all murdered and stuff. Into this picture steps our heroine, one Lady Love Dies. She's a dedicated investigator exiled as a result of past misadventures in human-god relations and she is brought back into the fold to investigate this minor case of mass murder so the big reboot of the island can go ahead. Basically its a whole situation these guys have got going on here and you're going to clear it all up with some high-calibre detective work.</p><p>That's the meat and potatoes of this game really and despite the fantastical premise, the detective work is actually pretty grounded. You mainly talk to suspects, get their stories and cross-check these stories against the testimony provided by other suspects. In doing so you arrive at some approximation of the truth allowing you to point the finger with authority when it comes time for the trial at the end. You track down clues, you collect collectibles, you wander the island that feels like it's been lifted from some TV lifestyle special centred around aloof beach-strolling supermodels. Throughout there are liberal servings of existential angst as these god like entities wonder why bad things happen to good gods. It goes places let me tell you.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /><p></p><p>Dreamy aesthetics and a vapourwave soundtrack sweeten the deal and really underpin the strong sense of the unreal here. Its a hazy counterpoint to the hard and fast search for the truth that takes up most of your time in this game. What really struck me was just how well it works as a package. Upon loading it up, you get a good hit of quality music but between the menu layout and the font choice I'd swear I was playing a remaster from something way back when. Impressively there is an tone and aesthetic captured here that I feel I have not seen for decades. A sensibility and presentation which has been accurately reproduced for the here and now. The sort of aesthetic I didn't realise I'd missed until I saw it again in front of me.</p><p>Naturally we've had a great revival of retro game aesthetics in the last decade or so but these trend to the ancient days before the year we call 2000. That period between ultra high definition and the dusty years of early 3D gaming is a time that is perhaps only just beginning to form into its own genuine aesthetic. I'm thinking about that period around the late PS1 and early PS2 era where game worlds began to feel a bit more fully formed if still somewhat empty at the same time. The tech just wasn't there yet for fully realised world building but we didn't care because get a load of these three dimensions! I think that's what struck me the most about <i>Paradise Killer</i>, that someone has replicated a moment in time that hasn't been done to death already like most other era's of retro gaming.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /><p></p><p>Sandy beaches, ex-assassin bartender skeletons and pyramids in the sea. There's a lot of otherwordly weirdness going on in this game and they've chosen a game feel that really does it wonders. It doesn't overstay its welcome and it doesn't pack its space to the brim with content. The island feels big but not overwhelming, not a cramped space but not impossibly vast either. It's a rare balancing act where just enough content is there to make it worthwhile but not so much that it becomes a chore to play. It's a good thing I tell you, a good thing indeed!</p><p>It also goes off on some of the most impressive tangents I've seen for a while. Meditations on how to prepare the perfect quality of ice for your whisky so it doesn't prematurely dilute the flavour. The finer points of creating custom made reality. Graphics that look right at home on your late 90's website. Talking vending machines and a place of exile that is basically a luxury hotel suite placed in its own box at the top of an hilariously tall pillar that extends upwards into the heavens. A dawning realisation that even when you have all the answers you probably still don't have all the answers. it's all here, it all feels highly erratic but at the same time everything feels like it belongs in this game. It's a quirky idiosyncratic experience that lasts as long as it needs to. Yes I will mention the soundtrack again with its dreamy beats and shimmering melodies. Not since <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2013/11/nostalgia-kill.html" target="_blank">Hotline Miami</a> have I played something where the entire soundtrack was so perfectly in sync with the game. </p><p>In the interest of balance, yes its not the most in-depth or mechanically complex experience, yes it does require a certain patience whilst it introduces you to its world and characters, it's not a graphical powerhouse and sometimes the particular threads of the various conspiracies do get a little hard to follow. For me the bad here is easily outweighed by the good. It packs a lot of personality and character into a modest package, more so than games with many times the budget. It's a striking and novel experience in a game market where there is a tendency for everything to start feeling like everything else. It's a recommendation is what I'm saying and a strong one at that. </p><p>Four inter-dimensional space taxis out of five!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /><p></p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-80937191171198147112023-04-29T15:06:00.034+01:002023-04-29T15:29:11.489+01:00my week as a screenshot #2<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>This week I have been mostly playing <i>Paradise Killer</i>. I have many thoughts about this game but those will comes later. Suffice to say there's an embarrassment of riches here for zany out of context screenshots, such as this snippet from a conversation between my player character and a possessed vending machine that just might be out to end the world as we know it. </div><div><br /></div><div>No shortage of such moments in this game and I applaud its developers for going out on something of a limb here. As I say, more thoughts later but for now enjoy these visions of inter-dimensional madness from the repeatedly rebooted island of the gods, more after the break...<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Some premier pelvic thrusting going on here from Doctor Doom Jazz, can't speak for the bonafides of his medical degree however.</div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Another quality slice of oddness from this game and a contender for best item description I will read in a game this year I think. Then again this game is replete with choice contenders for this prestigious title as exemplified below...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div>Won't you look at that? A soft drink that makes you nostalgic for a past that never was. The game is full of nice touches like this, incidental though they are. You just don't get existential angst like this from Tetris or Call of Duty do you? </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyhow that's enough high quality blogging for today, back soon.</div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-24709357639217685972023-03-31T22:49:00.004+01:002023-03-31T22:50:15.020+01:00great value cut-price dvd action hour #1<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div><i>'I'd say we're looking up a dead horse's rectum Norm!'</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Presenting the first of an infrequently updated series where I pay tribute to the very best finds found upon the DVD shelves of charity shops wherever I happen to find them. Films loaded up to the gills with pure cut-price testosterone. Films where men are men and production values are low to middling at best. The great value quality aisle of the action movie world. Those humble titles that just don't get no respect or enough appreciation for their distinctive DVD box art. </div><div><br /></div><div>Not saying this will be a showcase of quality action cinema mind you but let's see what we have here...<span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div><span><a name="more"></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div>With an almost alarming consistency, films not dissimilar to <b><i>Operation Delta Force 3: Clear Target</i></b> populate charity shop shelves nationwide. You know them almost before you even see them up close. To a tee, the DVD covers follow a very reliable formula I think. Loud explosions feature predominantly alongside louder typefaces. Some very serious and very sweaty men are photoshopped into said explosions with varying degrees of skill and there are always bonus points for hilariously over-sized weapons, ships or tanks in the background as well. Along those lines <i>Hollywood DVD</i> has provided us with a visual treat here long before the disc is inserted into your DVD player and all for a steal at £1!</div><div><br /></div><div>These are films that very likely saw no wide release, theatrical or otherwise. The epitomy of what was once termed straight to video or straight to DVD but which would be straight to streaming now. Films designed for the mid-afternoon or early evening section of the TV schedules if they made it that far at all and didn't just go straight to home release. Such is the case here i imagine with this humble effort. Truthfully my hopes are not high. More importantly I hear you ask, what is the plot of <i><b>Operation Delta Force 3: Clear Target</b></i> Dave? Going by the blurb on the back cover alone, let's get some initial impressions...</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Explosive high octane hullabaloo ensues as the war on drugs is fought in the stars! Actually I'd totally watch that film, but that film is not this film. Rather in this case an assembly of the world's foremost ass-kickers are called in to face off against the united forces of crime! This undeniable force of ill-intent has come together to make a move on the US government because they launched an anti-drug satellite called <i>ISIS ONE</i> to ruin their day and/or their business. </div><div><br /></div><div>You read that right an anti-drug satellite, a satellite that can detect illegal drug stashesm Not sure why that specific remit tickles me. General reconnaissance and aerial photography could be used to do a lot of things but here it finds drug stashes and nothing else it seems. That's government efficiency for you I guess?</div><div><br /></div><div>Back in 1999 it was probably more of a novelty. Actually no that's not true, satellites were all the rage back then and plentiful as plot devices in popular culture. They were always getting launched, stolen and hijacked. It's just the way it was in that most perfect of decades. We're not here to consider any of that however, we're here to see what the Delta Commando team can do to combat these ruthless barons of crime as they target New York for a heinous chemical attack.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course I shouldn't jest this might be an all-time classic I am unfairly maligning here with my faint praise? A cinematic effort on par with <i>Commando</i> or <i>Under Siege</i> perhaps? Probably not on a level with <i>The Terminator</i> or <i>Predator</i> though, that might be too much to hope for. Let's take a glance at the calibre of talent we have on offer here.</div><div><br /></div><div>Directed by Mark Roper who has an <a href="https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0004161/">extensive IMDB profile</a>. He worked on the first two <i>Operation Delta Force</i> films and directed the fourth. He also directed <i>Human TImebomb</i>, <i>Warhead</i> and a couple of episodes of <i>Peak Practice </i>of all things, a long-running British TV series from the nineties and early-noughties. Safe to say this man has had a varied career.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Operation Delta Force 3</i> also features the acting talents of Jim Fitzpatrick whose <a href="https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0280541/?ref_=m_ttfcd_cl1">own IMDB profile</a> highlights his role as 'NORAD Technician' in <i>Armageddon</i> but has starred in a zillion other things as well. Also Bryan Genesse who I feel I have seen elsewhere in films very much like this one. His <a href="https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0312768/?ref_=m_ttfcd_cl2">IMDB page</a> notes that he starred in 180 episodes of daytime soap opera <i>The Bold and the Beautiful</i>, a film called <i>Death Train</i> and the always reliable <i>Cyborg Cop III</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>I would be remiss if I left out <a href="https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0172333/?ref_=m_ttfcd_cl3">Greg Collins</a> here too. I am absolutely sure I've seen that grizzly visage elsewhere but again I can't name any obvious films off the top of my head. <i>Armageddon</i> comes up again in his back catalogue alongside <i>The Rock</i> and a litany of bit parts throughout film and TV going back decades. Maybe I know that face through sheer cultural osmosis? Anyhow I have further films to watch for future blog posts but back to this one.</div><div><br /></div><div>Is it any good? Well lacking foresight as I do I didn't actually think to buy the DVD you see pictured at the top. i was obviously too awestruck by the aforementioned box art to actually commit a whole single pound of British currency towards this film. Luckily for me the internet has come to the rescue, specifically Youtube. So not only will I watch said film for the purpose of brief review I will share the joy <a href="https://youtu.be/xKIYL7aT4r4">right here</a> so you can watch it alongside me. I know, I know, don't thank me...</div><div><br /></div><div>Now by the time you're reading this I will have already watched the thing so I'll give you a moment whilst I gaze at what I assume was the VHS box cover and the expert use of the font more commonly used on the screens of LCD calculators...</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Spoilers ahoy!</div><div><br /></div><div>So what's the verdict?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well I guess you know the type of film it's going to be within moments of starting it. We're zooming between Columbia, the Pentagon and deep space within moments before proceeding to some fairly unambitious action fare. Much lambasting of the bureaucrats in Washington then follows alongside much mention of the then current war on drugs. Incompetent leadership at the top whilst the good, honest men below put their lives on the line for Uncle Sam! Lots of gunfire, very little blood. Many explosions, little aftermath. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's serviceable stuff on a modest budget. More comfortable with gun violence than strong language. The sort of thing you would find whilst randomly browsing the little watched 'classic' movie channel on free TV. In short, its what I expected. Not bad, not good, very much content to fill a gap in the schedule back when people cared about TV schedules. Naturally I had my action movie checklist at the ready but what did I tick off?<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Classic 90's style movie hacking done by less than classic 90's movie hackers? Check! Implausibly placed killer chefs able to incapacitate an entire navy submarine crew with poison gas? Check! Swearing vengeance on drug lords responsible for the death of your buddy? Check! The gang walking in slow motion towards the camera whilst a helicopter hovers in the background? That's a check baby! Somewhat dodgy Hispanic accents, that's also a check! A soundtrack that's fairly by the numbers except for that one point where it gets all choral and sounds like something out of <i>Metal Gear Solid</i>? Your check is in the mail!</div><div><br /></div><div>There's a half decent attempt at a scene with a moving train and helicopters that unfortunately falls flat in the execution. The eponymous Delta Force all generally act, look and sound the part and the big end sequence generates some tension despite it being mostly centred around slow manoeuvres in a submarine. So there's that going for it but really not much else. There is however a definite sense of the motions here and the film going through them one by one. More out of a sense of obligation than anything else really. Not many bold, stylistic choices on offer here, everyone on board with this knew their job and committed to it but only within the strict limits of daytime TV action. Yes of all the films I have seen, this was truly one of them. The verdict is two virus bombs out of five!</div><div><br /></div><div>On that explosive finale, that's about it for this one. Quite possibly the best random blog post you will read about <i>Operation Delta Force 3 </i>in 2023 dare I say? Dare I seek out the rest of the series? Can I dare not to? You know i think I can but I will leave that an open question for now. The more pressing question here is would I be better off watching <i>Cyborg Cop III </i>perhaps? Maybe I just stick to random ass films I find in charity shops instead? Answers below please...</div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-67529143655371358992023-02-28T21:14:00.002+00:002023-02-28T21:17:41.946+00:00I love all giant robots equally<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>A moment of appreciation if you will for the humble giant robot, mecha or walking tank.<br /></div><div><br /></div>Playing a lot of <i>MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries</i> lately, a 'war-em-up' set in your standard grim future of near total conflict across, between and beyond the stars. Why it's been a good long while since last I played one of these. In fact there was no less than a nineteen year gap between this game and <i>MechWarrior 4</i>. not entirely certain that was the game I played then or whether it was perhaps a budget release of <i>MechWarrior 3.</i> Regardless that's o<i>ne nine years</i> I tell you! Sure there's been mobile and online games in that time but by and large this is a series with some serious underexposure in my humble opinion. Shame really, because when it's firing on all laser cannons, it satisfies that ever eternal need to pilot a giant bipedal tank through a future battlefield whilst wrecking all what you see. I'm having a lot of fun with this game is what I'm saying.<span><a name='more'></a></span><span><a name="more"></a></span><div><br /></div><div>What struck me is how much of the core experience of yesteryear has been preserved in <i>MechWarrior 5</i>. The core game play feels very much intact from it's late nineties/early noughties heyday. You pilot a mecha and if you have found your way here you probably won't need an explanation of what that is. If by some means you are hear without that knowledge, it's a giant metal colossus, an epic tank on legs that bestrides the land laying waste to your enemies. When it's not laying waste to enemies, it's laying waste to buildings, or protecting same from being reduced to same by other equally enterprising individuals piloting their own towering death engines. You know, just making their way in the universe same as you or I.</div><div><br /></div><div>Private initiative is very much the order of the day in this, what is technically the <i>BattleTech</i> universe. You run a private mercenary company making money from hiring it's services out to the highest bidder in a vast interstellar dominion divided up by and contested between various space empires a thousand years from now. You are but a single proxy amongst many in a series of proxy wars and it's great for your bottom line. Various sides vie for your services, various sides find themselves on the receiving end of those services. You generally don't get too sentimental about who you get attached to as you may find yourself on the opposing side from them at any point. The causes of these conflicts are many, too many to document here but as always <a href="https://youtu.be/PuHnKQXHTRQ" target="_blank">the internet has got you covered</a> if you wish to comb over the story in fine detail. Suffice to say it's a vaguely dystopian feel to the lore and the universe. One in which a near constant state of warfare amongst the stars has impeded human progress giving us a universe that is an intriguing mix of the advanced and the anachronistic. Thematically similar to the <i>Warhammer 40K</i> universe, but a lot less overtly grimdark.</div><div> </div><div>For me, what really matters here are the mecha. The essential joy of piloting said machines forming the bedrock of the experience alongside managing the finances of your company. Whether it be the smaller, faster more versatile machines or the larger, lumbering heavyweights of the mecha world, it's the experience of taking these machines to battle that has really etched itself into my brain. <i>MechWarrior</i> games old and new take great pains to really capture a feeling. Mainly the feeling of being in a giant murder bot in the midst of battle but also other feelings as well, one part joy to two parts nervous trepidation. Arguably the latest game captures this the best given the gleaming presentation and top-notch sound-work but nostalgia, (that always reliable nostalgia) tells me the older games weren't remiss in this regard either.</div><div><br /></div><div>I should say this is not a review, I find it difficult to be impartial about a great many subjects and giant walking tanks are definitely one of those things. It captures my imagination you might say, something about the sheer feel of it. The growl of the engines, the ambient lights in the cockpit, the enjoyment of nailing a shot that disables the leg of a distant opponent. Not to mention that feeling of dread as you glimpse a small armada of enemy forces approaching you from across the barren wasteland and that slight sense of panic as your systems overheat and your death machine becomes a paperweight for the precious few seconds it takes to restart. None of these qualities are unique to these games of course but it's an experience that I consider to be greatly more than the sum of its parts here.</div><div><br /></div><div>There a great many manifestations of mecha in popular culture to put it lightly. I still remember with great fondness watching the anime <i>Patlabor</i> for the first time back in the late 90's, I make no excuses for my unadulterated enjoyment of <i>Pacific Rim</i>. i absolutely loved the game <i>Hawken</i> that came out a few years back and which unceremoniously died a death without too many people mourning its passing. In fact I'd argue there's not nearly enough giant robots in popular Western culture. It's a very recognisably Japanese phenomenon but there is more than enough to latch onto if you know where to look. </div><div><br /></div><div>Indeed when i think of anime, I tend to think of the sleeker model of mecha that predominate throughout. Machines that by comparison, are almost streamlined in their presentation and graceful in their movement. They are very much something you could almost picture on a shelf in an <i>Apple</i> store. On the flip side you have the more industrial designs of <i>BattleTech</i>. Mecha that look like they have rolled off a factory production line somewhere, more possessed of sheer destructive potential than cosmetic appeal. Machines more overtly mechanical but no less aesthetically pleasing for it. I don't pick favourites of course, I love all giant robots equally. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are a great many more manifestations of the form that I haven't gone into here for reasons of time, space and the patience of my readers. This was more a general all-purpose salute to these glorious machines from yours truly prompted by my recent experience. There are some mainstays of the genre I have still yet to check out myself, your <i>Gundam's</i> and <i>Neon Genesis Evangelion's</i> and so forth. My backlog isn't just confined to games after all, why there is no form of media where I don't have a list of things yet to be consumed that is about a mile long. No doubt there will be more thoughts on these when I get to them in the fullness of time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Where was I? Oh yes <i>MechWarrior 5,</i> a good game that's ticking a great many boxes for me. I highly recommend the experience. I will probably be playing this for some time to come yet. Anyhow, some unambiguous praise for you there to break up the non-stop cavalcade of misery, stay with us as we will shortly return to our regularly scheduled misanthropy. Next up, 500 words on <i>Watch Dogs</i> and how I'm certain it contains next to no giant robots at all...</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-22575778749577677072023-02-03T16:36:00.005+00:002023-02-03T16:51:00.122+00:00my week as a screenshot #1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been playing <i>Metal Wolf Chaos XD</i>, a special kind of crazy. A game in which the US President wages war on an attempted coup d'etat against America by taking on the villainous forces of his Vice President armed in a ridiculously, implausible mech suit. He may be wearing a war machine but his true power is the love of his country. </div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Why yes I am liking this one, what gave it away? I've also been playing Wreckfest and Redout, scratching that racing itch as its been a minute since I got me some racing game action. They were good but alas they contain no single screenshot that compares to this.</div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-34338716787708924782023-02-02T17:54:00.003+00:002023-02-03T16:37:08.446+00:00you got game (music) #1<p>Presenting the first of an infrequent series where I showcase my all time favourite video game music, starting with this little gem from <i>Deus Ex</i>...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2uKxEoQQiSQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="2uKxEoQQiSQ"></iframe></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Whilst we are on the subject of this particular piece of music, also enjoy this cover version, again from the depths of Youtube.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/odfCTFPyZCo" width="320" youtube-src-id="odfCTFPyZCo"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-49603832995172806032023-01-31T17:39:00.001+00:002023-01-31T17:39:50.089+00:00the games played last year awards 2023<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbPkhy4o9vulCRyTLyZWlf2oVDvWZVoSr4mLbac73oC9tfKi4e_78vRpESVD1nRNfiPnyDD2FbKGWLuXcvsaIAsP17IgakuUG2RlSCDUWN1t8sbr_Bf4F5oGVPAPioOeLMHO0lVRneqmEvmkejDL89KDVkA729yGL60AGr4dm2B-SedxVFm8npizSnZw/s401/4419057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="401" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbPkhy4o9vulCRyTLyZWlf2oVDvWZVoSr4mLbac73oC9tfKi4e_78vRpESVD1nRNfiPnyDD2FbKGWLuXcvsaIAsP17IgakuUG2RlSCDUWN1t8sbr_Bf4F5oGVPAPioOeLMHO0lVRneqmEvmkejDL89KDVkA729yGL60AGr4dm2B-SedxVFm8npizSnZw/s320/4419057.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i><p><i><br /></i></p>Hello 2023</i>, it's nice to have you here!<p></p><p>Yes I know we're a full month in, nonetheless it's a new year, a new day and a new blog post. New games as well, well not <i>new</i> games as such but possibly more recent games than I've been playing as of late, <i>newer</i> games shall we say? Newish? That's a word right? Yeah let's go with that, this is the internet after all. Tallying up my games played last year, I came to the rather startling, nay troubling conclusion that I played something like fifty games across the entirety of 2022. Nearly an inexplicable game per week by some nefarious tampering of space and time. </p><p>Not sure how I accomplished that if I'm honest, a single minded sense of purpose perhaps? A stubborn refusal to engage my time more productively? Whatever the answer, I've been left with a lot of games to reflect back upon. Lots of good times with an ample selection of the less spectacular to choose from as well. See my previous blog entries for individual run downs on these games, here I thought of one last hurrah for my 2022 in gaming. Yes it's the first and possibly last edition of 'The Background Noise Presents The Games Played Last Year Awards', the 'GPLYA' if you will or maybe 'The Goplaya's' if I'm really stretching it. A round of applause if you will for the following illustrious award winners...<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><b><i>The Game Most Surprisingly Bad Award</i></b></p><p>Straight off the bat into a hotly contested category here. The knives were out as prospective games vied for excellence in the field of being surprisingly bad. So this award is for games that don't have a reputation for being poor as such but despite this lack of expectation, I was dismayed to find myself playing it anyway. In all this award is for a game that might not necessarily be the worst I have ever played but its certainly trying to be. This award goes to <b>The Magic Circle, </b>congratulations or commiserations rather, you tried your best with some high calibre voice acting but there was no saving the essentially under-cooked nature of your game.</p><p><b><i>The Game Most Unexpectedly Good Award</i></b></p><p>Onto happier times now with an award for a game that finds itself on the opposite side of the divide from the previous award winner. Again, here at Background Noise, we are not all about the negativity. Not all anyway, only mostly. However in that brief space of time where we celebrate the good and cast away the bad, we like to celebrate those games that impressed despite a complete lack of hype or expectation beforehand. These are games that, to read their product description, might be confused for non-descript or generic experiences that you might assume won't be any good. Here we award a game that wrongfooted our expectations in the best way, here we award <b>Pyre </b>for flying in the face of expectation and delivering an experience that was both familiar and yet very different from what I expected whilst still managing to be a fun time all round.</p><p><b><i>The Game That Eats Your Time Award</i></b></p><p>What we give with one hand we now take away with another. Less an award and more a condemnation of the gaming industry here but one we at <i>Background Noise</i> will recognise nonetheless. You know them, you've probably played them, the games that don't respect your finite supply of free time. The games that gorge on your precious leisure time, games that stubbornly refuse to end. Sometimes this is by design as with your MMO's or online shooters, sometimes these are games with an actual ending somewhere to be found at a distant point in time. Sometimes the time investment is rewarded, often it is not as the industry churns out perpetual game experiences designed to never end, your foreverware as it might be described by certain notable internet personalities. Our award winner earns this distinction by shamelessly ransacking those precious moments you will never get back, our award goes to <b>Mercenary Kings </b>for not knowing when to call it a day and send it home, not going out on a high so much as overshooting the high by a very considerable margin!</p><p><b><i>The Game Over Too Soon Award</i></b></p><p>A pretty self-explanatory one here I hope so in the spirit of this award I won't go on too much. Suffice to say this is the equal but opposite award to our last one. The game you could have happily sunk a few more hours into. The game that might not necessarily be the best at what it does, but you could have gone back for seconds such was the quality of the portion. This award goes to <b>What Remains of Edith Finch </b>for its adept pacing, delivering a well realised vision of a family drama largely without the family with all the feelings and emotions that come with such a bittersweet tale. </p><p><b><i>The Game Is Melting My Brain Award for Difficulty</i></b></p><p>There are difficult games and then there are DIFFICULT games. You know the ones, where incremental progress is only made possible by storming through the sheer fortress walls of an incredible challenge. Games that are not only unreasonable in the level of challenge they pose, they are downright hostile to the player and spit on all their hopes and dreams from up on high. Vertical difficulty spikes, unbelievable timing, inhuman skill. These are all the hallmarks of a game worthy of this award. It was another hotly contested category this with more than one game vying for the goods. In the end though the judges deliberated, which is to say that I decided this award should go to none other than <b>Furi </b>for its keen sense of challenge, which is another way of saying that the final boss fight was a comprehensive attack on my sanity.</p><p><b><i>The Feast For The Senses Award</i></b></p><p>Such an emotional rollercoaster we are on here folks. the dizzying highs and the terrifying lows all covered within the course of a few hundred words. This award goes to the game that made the jaw drop with its sheer aesthetic beauty. A treat for the eyes, a treasure trove for the ears, possibly quite an experience for the other senses as well. Here we recognise the games that display a smorgasbord of pristine work from the art team and all who dwell within. The game that, almost by itself, vindicates that decision to spend a few hundred of your chosen currency on that latest console or graphics card upgrade. This award goes to <b>Control </b>because that game looked astoundingly good with a level of verisimilitude that quite frankly, bordered on the ridiculous. </p><p><b><i>The Most Random Game I Played That Year Award</i></b></p><p>A touch of light hearted frivolity here amidst the otherwise dead seriousness of this utterly legitimate awards ceremony. An award to celebrate the sometimes baffling decisions made by <i>Background Noise</i> (that is to say, me) when selecting the next game to play. A tribute to randomness, a salute to living in the moment, seizing the day with style and bravado. A game that I had no long term designs on, rather a game I picked out of obscurity and a game I shall now bestow this honour upon. This award goes to <b>Arcadegeddon</b>,<b> </b>of all the many games I played this year, you were certainly one of them!</p><p><b><i>The Deja Vu Award</i></b></p><p>Next up is an award for those games which, whether they be bad or good, generate a feeling of familiarity. Too much familiarity perhaps, those games that might in fact be none too concerned with striking new ground or charting new horizons in our favourite medium of choice. You might, for good or ill, call this the comfort zone award but i'm not changing it now. Is this a good or bad award? I'm not sure. Franchise fatigue, the predominance of certain genres over all others and the always reliable inclination to go where the money is, has given us a veritable production line of games chasing the same trends, that play much the same and yes, feel much the same as well. It's not necessarily a bad thing but it is what it is. This award goes to <b>Assassins' Creed: Syndicate </b>for being both a highly familiar experience whilst also remaining a very fun game overall.</p><p><b><i>The No Idea What's Going On Here Award</i></b></p><p>You know that feeling of being totally lost? Confused? Baffled even? When one knows not how one has arrived at their current predicament and has even less idea of how to get out of it? That feeling you get when you watch a David Lynch film? That vague sense of disquiet you get as you stare at the washing machine controls and you could swear that you do actually remember how to use the thing? This is an award for the game that generated this feeling the most in 2022. I'd show you the award, except its floating in the void above us, clutched by a nameless man who has seen dark things and is currently trying to shout a warning at us from across the unfathomable space between. In other news this award goes to <b>Virginia, </b>part David Lynch film, part silent film, all very strange indeed!</p><p><b><i>The Overall Worst Game I Played Last Year Award</i></b></p><p>Almost at the finishing line here folks, it is time for the best in the worst of the games I played in 2022. What was the biggest waste of time in those twelve months? Independent of all other considerations, what was the worst game I sat down to play with last year? Given that I spend no small amount of time putting lists together of the games I want to play, its impressive that there are a few candidates up for this award. You'd think i'd automatically filter out the bad ones but you'd be wrong. Some way and somehow, life finds a way and I find myself playing games I really shouldn't be playing. An award for bad decisions, deliberate or otherwise, goes to <b>Bedlam The Game By Christopher Brookmyre</b>, you started off promisingly enough but the start was very much the peak of the experience, its not without its good qualities but they really struggle to keep their head above the bad.</p><p><b><i>The Inevitable Best Game I Played Last Year Award</i></b></p><p>Finally we here at Background Noise celebrate the very best of the best. The game that stood head and shoulders over all others, not that video games have heads or shoulders but if they did, this one would be standing far up above them. A game that excelled on all fronts, that hit the ground running and never stopped until it was the right time to stop. A success story in every sense of the term, a game whose title you would carve into the side of a mountain in such an act of hubris even God would sit back in awe at such a perfect example of the form. Words can barely capture it, hyperbole can barely express it, tenuous metaphors fly apart against the pull of its gravity. The award for <i>The Inevitable Best Game I Played Last Year</i> goes to none other than <b>Oxenfree</b>, a characterful, emotionally resonant tale about loss, love and life with a healthy dose of spectral horror, ethereal strangeness and time travel interwoven throughout, really loved this game.</p><p><b>There you have it folks, an all-star selection of the best and worst of my gaming in 2022. Speaking for myself I naturally deem it a stunning success and I look forward to repeating it in 2024 and perhaps for all eternity and beyond. Good night everyone!</b></p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-8248225729101904742022-12-31T18:23:00.002+00:002022-12-31T18:23:44.857+00:00completionism 2022 - collector's edition part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFTC2e6mh9Q04QqRfdtJkYFVSd1AcrsKYxwNpg40WuDEUxe04UlHDIacXpcReG5bd0pbe0se5xz2YEXofaDX75ozKNYjwrmEyHVG52UTxDWAXy294I_v95Q317jtAXvJdjRkcuYRbuCApEtkf5grpSnzl7utY8u82iydouUcBP_MwejKhc46Bwq5biw/s602/finallyover.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="602" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFTC2e6mh9Q04QqRfdtJkYFVSd1AcrsKYxwNpg40WuDEUxe04UlHDIacXpcReG5bd0pbe0se5xz2YEXofaDX75ozKNYjwrmEyHVG52UTxDWAXy294I_v95Q317jtAXvJdjRkcuYRbuCApEtkf5grpSnzl7utY8u82iydouUcBP_MwejKhc46Bwq5biw/s320/finallyover.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Okay then, time to wrap up this wrap-up. I think I've made my point and that point is that I have played <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/06/completionism-2022-not-quite-half.html?m=0" target="_blank">a lot</a> <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/07/completionism-2022-not-quite-half.html?m=0" target="_blank">of games</a> <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/12/completionism-2022-collectors-edition.html?m=0" target="_blank">this year</a>. When I restarted this blog all the way back in <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-obligatory-my-bad.html?m=0" target="_blank">February</a>, I was very much in the mindset that I was going to actually some of these games I always buy when the sales are on and boy did I get busy on that front. Looking back it doesn't feel like I had a wealth of free time to fit in all this gaming, but by golly I did. Mission accomplished! I may even get around to playing games from this very current decade on a regular basis next year but naturally I am making no promises there. For the last time this year, to the games...<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><b><i>The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker</i></b></p><p>Now this was a change of pace and a throwback all at the same time. An FMV based murder mystery of sorts where you spend 95% of your time watching clips of people talking and the remaining time making a choice as to the few branching paths available to you. Not the most complex game to be sure but there was something quite charming about this one. It marked the start of the October horror season of gaming, yes that may be a thing now. It was more affably goofy than outrightly sinister though. Playing therapist to some off-kilter X-Men-esque patients was mostly a good time though. Three quantum suicides out of five!</p><p><b><i>Kholat</i></b><br /></p><p>Continuing the horror theme, I took a random stab and chose this one next. A first person wander amongst the frigid mountain wastes in Russia that is occasionally voiced over by Sean Bean. It was atmospheric sure, one or two decent moments of tension as you try to evade ephemeral monsters haunting the barren wilderness. Also some connection to the real life incident that claimed the lives of a group of Russian mountaineers back in the 1950's. Overall though I felt somewhat underwhelmed here. The game itself is largely a collectible hunt that got old fast. Collecting them all unlocked the true ending though, but that was also fairly underwhelming after all the effort. Two haunting voiceovers out of five!</p><p><b><i>Lone Survivor</i></b><br /></p><p>Another one from the 'I started this ages ago but never finished it' pile of games. Lone Survivor is an intriguing pitch. What if you took the aesthetics and sounds of <i>Silent Hill</i> and made it a 2D puzzle platforming experience? What if indeed! Ultimately I struggled to get into any kind of flow with this one despite appreciating it's individual parts. The puzzles could feel a little too opaque at times and the somewhat repetitive design made the inevitable backtracking something of a chore. I appreciate the intent here but the end result less so. Three strangers wearing a box on their head out of five!</p><p><b><i>Alien: Isolation</i></b></p><p>Now this was something special. A game based on Alien but not the more action focused fare typically based on the first sequel. Sublime design, superb sound work, a veritable tour de force of tension in one of the best video game translations of cat and mouse yet devised. Creeping around an old space station whilst something far worse creeps nearby made for an experience I'm still reflecting on several months later. What I am saying is, this was good. This was pretty good. I might even go so far as to say excellent and one of the best games I played this year. Five agonising moments of holding your breath out of five!</p><p><b><i>Resident Evil 0</i></b></p><p>Funny story, I often complain about my to-play list as anyone reading this blog will know. How long it is and how many games I never get around to playing and so on. Sometimes though for reasons I cannot adequately explain I will play games I technically have already played and completed. So was the case with <i>Resident Evil 0</i>, a game I completed in its original form back in, checks notes, <b>2002!</b> That sound you are hearing right now is the sound of my ancient bones turning to dust. They re-released this in HD form back in 2016 and at some point thereafter I thought why the heck not? Actually playing it now a mere two decades removed it holds up quite well. A <i>Resi</i> game in the classic mold with some 'new' ideas on offer and the last classic <i>Resi</i> game we'd get before <i>Resident Evil 4</i> would blow us all away in, checks notes, <b>2005!</b> Three disintegrating skeletons out of five!</p><p><b><i>Resident Evil</i></b></p><p>Funny story. No wait I won't repeat the above, rest assured the above entry very much applies to this one as well. If anything this is even more pronounced. I didn't just play and complete the <i>Resident Evil</i> remake back in 2002, I actually bought a console on the hype train rolling ahead of it. Yes I bought a <i>GameCube</i> to play the original release back in the day and two decades later I'm playing it again in HD form. It's a personal favourite, I think it's very much a prime example in how to update a game in a way that respects the strengths of the original release whilst also acknowledging it's weaknesses. The atmosphere and the aesthetic are great, the added sub-plot is a plus and overall it remains a strong entry as far as early <i>Resident Evil</i> games go. Three lab outbreaks out of five!</p><p><b><i>Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel</i></b></p><p>I've always had something of a love hate relationship with the <i>Borderlands</i> series. On the one hand it's colourful, vibrant and anarchic. On the other it's hollow, repetitive and tiring. I love the world, I love the combat, but outside of <i>Tales From The Borderlands</i>, I'm not sure there has been a definitive <i>Borderlands</i> game that nails the characters and story as well as it does the shooting at the same time. This remains true of <i>Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel</i>, an entry I never got around to playing at release and a gap in the series I put down to it coming out late in the PS3 generation. Playing it as part of <i>The Handsome Collection</i> now, it's often a fun time but equally it's an uninspiring experience as well. This particular entry has a distinct Australian flavour to it courtesy of its developers but otherwise there's a feeling of been there, done that to the proceedings that does the game no favours. Two hockey mask wearing psychopaths out of five!</p><p><b><i>Slay the Spire</i></b></p><p>A pull from the random pile of games at the edge of my radar here. Turn based card games, In theory I'm quite fond of these but in practice it doesn't always work out. This one though seemed promising and had a groundswell of good word around it so I gave it a go. It's very good but the pronounced difficulty curve designed to eat up time does work against it in my estimation. It's superbly designed though with a charming aesthetic. Overall it gets a recommendation from me and it's definitely given me a taste to delve into other card games I see in my games library. Four random acts of fate out of five!</p><p><b><i>Bedlam The Game By Christopher Brookmyre</i></b><br /></p><p>Oh dear! Oh dear oh dear oh dear! Remember when I said in an earlier entry how <i>The Magic Circle</i> was very nearly the worst game I played this year? It was the frontrunner certainly until I played <i>Bedlam </i>recently. A first person nostalgia trip through shooters of the last few decades. I feel I should point out the good before the bad here. It was refreshing to have a protagonist voiced by someone from Glasgow. The level homaging <i>Unreal Tournament</i> and channeling the testosterone fuelled ignorance of such online spaces was pretty entertaining and... that's about it. Clunky to play, glitchy in an unintentional manner and generally littered with frustrations throughout. There is an art to subversive retrospective takes on gaming of the past and this game lacked a great deal of it. So much traversal through largely empty levels too. Speaking as part of the ancient order that played games of the 90's in the 90's, I can confirm said games of the time did not conform to these lazy rehashes. One glitch through the level into bottomless space out of five!</p><p><b><i>Alan Wake Remastered</i></b></p><p>I've done it again. Playing a game in remastered form that I've already played. It's <i>Alan Wake</i> though. I enjoyed it on the first-go around many moons ago and I enjoyed it here in snazzy 2022-o-vision. <i>Remedy</i> are possibly my favourite developer in gaming and <i>Max Payne</i> will forever have an assured place in my list of favourite games. Loved the allusions to <i>Twin Peaks</i>, <i>The Twilight Zone</i> and horror fiction generally. Snappy combat mechanics, quirky characterisation and a strong aesthetic seal the deal. The combat does come with a certain déjà vu however as enemies tend to attack in the standard ambush that repeats itself throughout. All in all though, a good time was had here. Four displaced manuscript pages out of five!</p><p><b><i>Control</i></b></p><p>I wasn't just playing <i>Alan Wake Remastered</i> for the fun you know? I mean that was nine tenths of it sure but there was also the connection to the next game on the to-play list: <i>Control</i>. Playing this on PS5, this may be one of the most exquisite examples of presentation in gaming. Sure the combat is great, the sense of bureaucratic weirdness is top-notch and the general mission statement of a top secret government agency fighting threats to reality itself is delivered with flair and style. It's the presentation I still think of after completing it however as it's clear some real thought went into it. It also has a DLC sized chapter of tease for <i>Alan Wake 2</i> so it's got that going for it too. Four inderdimensional management entities out of five!</p><p><b><i>Machinarium</i></b></p><p>So after <i>Control</i> I was tempted to call it a day for the year or however that might be phrased. Instead I cleared out a few more. Gaming habits are a harsh mistress after all. <i>Machinarium</i> is a good old point and click adventure game with a superb design and aesthetic. A real interactive picture book to look at, a less sublime experience to actually play however. Nothing wrong with it as such, nothing that isn't also an issue with the point and click puzzle adventure genre at large anyway. It's got lots of personality and charm, it's just the puzzles end up feeling opaque in a way that doesn't turn into a good time for yours truly. Maybe I just don't have the head for puzzle gaming or maybe I don't feel the enjoyment proportional to the headwork required. Either way it's two robotic hoodlums out of five!</p><p><i><b>Virginia</b></i></p><p>Next up as we rapidly approach the end of 2022 is <i>Virginia</i>. Not a game that has resided long on the to-play list. Think I grabbed it in a PSN sale after reading a positive write-up on it <a href="https://www.fandom.com/articles/virginia-value-games-without-challenge" target="_blank">somewhere...</a> Hints of <i>Twin Peaks</i> and David Lynch here delivered entirely without words but with no shortage of style. A non-verbal murder mystery situated in the early 90's. In theory this should have really connected with me and truly enough, it does have its moments but I don't think it surpasses itself as a gaming experience. Two silent protagonists out of five!</p><p><b><i>Nex Machina</i></b></p><p>Now the very final, final game of the year that won't actually be final if you have already scrolled ahead. The last game played this year that I have not played in previous years anyway. A twin stick shooter where waves upon waves of enemies mass upon you in increasingly intense bouts of destruction. It was very good I thought but that difficulty spike at the end was ridiculous. It's a relatively short game technically but that final boss on standard difficulty was a mind melter to put it lightly. After a few too many failed attempts I invoked the 'actual frustration is outweighing the potential enjoyment' rule (see <i>Action Henk</i>) and I called it a day on this one. If I close my eyes I can still see waves upon waves of deadly pink skulls making their way in my general direction as I fruitlessly evade them to attempt to land a shot on that boss. A boss very reminiscent of the final boss in <i>Furi</i> actually (also played this year) but somehow I managed to beat that one with near-equal exasperation. It's an impeccable game but also a mildly impossible one at the same time. Four bazillion on-screen enemies out of five!</p><p><b><i>Honourable Mention: Rocket League</i></b></p><p>Finally, finally I feel it remiss not to mention that in-between and throughout I have been fitting in some time with that most playable of ongoing habits that is <i>Rocket League</i>. You know I'm not even fussed by football even, sports generally are not my thing. This game though is just so much fun even when it's not being fun. It's that rare trick of gaming and one it's makers continue to pull off in the seven years or so since its release. Dear lord I have been playing this game on and off for seven years. Five sobering reflections on the nature of time out of five!</p><p>Thats it!</p><p>Done!</p><p>No, really it's done. It has been a single journey around the sun to be certain. Dizzying highs, abyssal lows and the murky middle bits between. In mainstream entertainment's ongoing war on my free time, I feel this year represents a turning point in the eternal struggle to feel like I am in any way getting around to it all. 2022 I salute you and gently place my boot on your butt as I kick you out the door. Happy New Year all! See you on the other side!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCgBWz51mZdD_Bh0RCfY2n4bAxZ9p3zW7IyK4THKLj29Ipq8ruk9e2HqwNJMkmND8qKHKzqESF5R2WkBGG17whF_dMnwVoAfFIpqrezLrS1c2CFBhtRHBVaMU9ueFJGME9IXv-8r0AttLt5TSOU4POR1kd7ISGyeBRksyVUWrGjOTrB1_cT9G4q7YwaQ/s4096/IMG_20221231_163423927.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4096" data-original-width="3072" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCgBWz51mZdD_Bh0RCfY2n4bAxZ9p3zW7IyK4THKLj29Ipq8ruk9e2HqwNJMkmND8qKHKzqESF5R2WkBGG17whF_dMnwVoAfFIpqrezLrS1c2CFBhtRHBVaMU9ueFJGME9IXv-8r0AttLt5TSOU4POR1kd7ISGyeBRksyVUWrGjOTrB1_cT9G4q7YwaQ/s320/IMG_20221231_163423927.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-42293174675817478822022-12-26T21:53:00.001+00:002022-12-26T21:54:34.615+00:00completionism 2022 - collector's edition part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIK40uB_8Vnb1BDjZCGDtsqTPyPpNbpqHWW-smcIwvKosFPBVAA-zMSe0-mYN80AQ5zW-NgMZl7iHufT0FsCOwUd3RCAEQq31W7eRQ5F_K3h5T46PKfVI8dZi2_JNZrjP00UOGQ4UTRhyxN8-sI57l1zz5jmKKKW9OltXJeWCfz1KAlljjVR23AQRESA/s292/toooldtoplaygames.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="172" data-original-width="292" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIK40uB_8Vnb1BDjZCGDtsqTPyPpNbpqHWW-smcIwvKosFPBVAA-zMSe0-mYN80AQ5zW-NgMZl7iHufT0FsCOwUd3RCAEQq31W7eRQ5F_K3h5T46PKfVI8dZi2_JNZrjP00UOGQ4UTRhyxN8-sI57l1zz5jmKKKW9OltXJeWCfz1KAlljjVR23AQRESA/s1600/toooldtoplaygames.jpeg" width="292" /></a></div><br /><p>So it came to pass that another twelve month period was at its end and lo they did say, it was good, bad or indifferent as whatever the case may be. 2022 was quite the year for a whole host of reasons but for the purpose of this blog post i am going to zero in on the old gaming habit. All those games I finally got around to clearing from the backlog this year as well as a few picked at random because spontaneity is not entirely dead yet. Not all of the games I played will be featured here of course, why if you want to read previous tales of the games I completed in the first half of the year then please divert your eyes to <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/06/completionism-2022-not-quite-half.html" target="_blank">this post</a> and <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/07/completionism-2022-not-quite-half.html" target="_blank">this post</a>. Yes its the blog entry so prolific it's arriving in four instalments. To the games...</p><p>No wait, Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Now to the games...<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><b><i>Overwatch</i></b></p><p>Kicking off the second half of my gaming year with one from the 'I really should have gotten around to this sooner' stack of games on my to-play list. Incidentally it's also a part of the 'games with a live service component getting shut down' list due to it getting essentially replaced by its sequel which came out a short time ago. So at the time I thought it best to dive into the original experience of Overwatch, having not spent any real amount of time with it since 2017. Unsurprisingly it remains a fun well-balanced and highly monetised experience. All the polish and flair you would expect off Blizzard though so I can't be too hard on it despite the money extraction strategies being put to work here. Four talking science monkeys out of five!</p><p><b><i>Arcadegeddon</i></b></p><p>Here's a novelty if you have been reading the prior instalments of this series. A game that came out in 2022 that I also managed to play in 2022. Not many of those to be found around these here parts. It came out on PS+ so on a whim I gave it a few hours. Nice aesthetic, plays alright but it there was a faint feeling of busywork to it that is not altogether my thing these days. Objective based team play is fine to be sure but the way its set up here there, it felt a little by the numbers and more than a little 'been there' and 'done that'. A worthy experience for some but not for me. Two alien space arcades out of five!</p><p><b><i>Broforce</i></b></p><p>It was a year where I got somewhat fixated on the idea of completing not only games i haven't played before but also games I'd started way back when and never returned to. Broforce was one of these games that I spent a few hours with several years back but never actually completed. So in a random turn I found myself returning to it in 2022 and completing it. Lots of fun with this one all said, it was explosive and lively and brought some finely tuned chaos into proceedings. Possibly a few too many dominos falling over at once and the difficulty spike in the latter half of the game was a bit much but all said, I liked this one. Three steroidal action movie stereotypes out of five! </p><p><b><i>Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Classic Edition</i></b></p><p>Random side story about this one but in the way these things happen, I caught some of the soundtrack to this game way, way, way back on one of those randomly generated Spotify playlists. I do recall the original version of this add-on for Far Cry 3 when it came out back in 2013. I'm letting that sink in for a moment because I really did intend on getting around to this one somewhere in the first half of the last decade. Honestly! So yes my gaming to-do list being this bad is not a new thing by any stretch. Anyhow, so thanks to having the soundtrack in regular rotation for years i'd felt like I'd already played this game out in my head and actually playing it now? Well it didn't disappoint. A pared back version of Far Cry with its innumerable missions, collectibles and myriad other things to do is, on paper, no bad thing. Blood Dragon ended up being a nice pacey affair with a neat atmosphere and an unwavering commitment to the humour it brings. Four synthwave ballads out of five!</p><p><b><i>The Magic Circle</i></b></p><p>I remembering catching some word of this game a few years back. Not much stuck out about the game itself other than it was a first person adventure through some retro 90's videogame aesthetics with some voice work from Doctor Venture himself, James Urbaniak. On that basis alone the game hooked me in and now I've finally played it. it's not very good alas. Yes its written well and performed in the same vein, but as a game this might be a candidate for one of the poorest ones to make my to-play list. It's comes with a decent line in commentary on game development and messianic corporate personality cults but its pretty rough around the edges when it comes to the actual gameplay. I would say it might be the worst game I've played this year but another game may have pipped it to the post there (see part 2). Ultimately if you're going to be all wry in your commentary about the shortcomings of games from yesteryear you do need to provide a game that is fun to play at the very least. One frustrated development hell out of five!</p><p><b><i>TRON RUN/r</i></b></p><p>One from the random pile here. I've always felt like TRON was a property in search of a decent game adaptation. I mean of all the properties out there to jump the divide from films into gaming, it seems weird that we aren't complaining about a veritable glut of TRON games. Then again its perhaps not so surprising. Personally I feel the first film is not as good as everyone remembers and the second one not as bad (but still not good). Anyhow this is a long winded way of saying that TRON RUN/r is actually a surprisingly fun game that does justice to the aesthetics of TRON with an endless runner game. Even my ageing reflexes had fun with this one. it does have some obnoxious single-use paid-DLC going on though so be wary of that. Three light cycle collisions out of five!</p><p><b><i>Mercenary Kings</i></b></p><p>See the entry for Broforce for my comments about finishing games I started years ago. Actually this one shares a lot of DNA with that game. Same vein of humour based on 80's action movie archetypes, same over-the-top more-is-more approach to violence but unlike Broforce this game didn't know when to end. A point I go on about in this very <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/07/overstaying-welcome.html" target="_blank">blog post</a>. Again the look and feel of it is great, the combat is satisfying and clearly a lot of good will has gone into its making. It's also a case study in how a surplus of content can really subtract more than it adds to the experience. Two exploding killbots out of five!</p><p><b><i>Hotshot Racing</i></b></p><p>A game ripped out of the look and feel of 90's style arcade racers. Not a huge amount to the experience but its the rare example of a game that does what it needs to do and then takes it home whilst the going is good. So in that sense can't fault the experience. It's a hit of good nostalgia as opposed to the bad nostalgia that comes with its own host of issues (see The Magic Circle). it's uncomplicated, I had fun with it and once I got through the single player campaign, I was happy to call it a day with Hotshot Racing. Three ridge racers out of five!</p><p><b><i>The KIng of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga</i></b></p><p>Sense of Humour Failure: The Game was a real chore for me as you might surmise. A collection of the first five King of Fighters games, this was a collection that truly exhibited the best and worst of an entire generation of beat 'em ups. The difficulty, especially on the first two of these games, was cheap and ridiculous. The boss fights require either extra-sensory perception or extreme telepathy to win. All in all it did rather a good job of overshadowing its good points. The art style and the aesthetic is great and characterful, the fight mechanics themselves are snappy and responsive. It just turned into a massive chore to play by the end so I can't recommend it. What I can do however is spin a blog entry out of the post-fight screens which I did <a href="https://the-background-noise.blogspot.com/2022/09/ode-to-screen-of-defeat.html" target="_blank">right here</a>. Two impossible Rugal fights out of five!</p><p><b><i>Action Henk</i></b></p><p>I saw a meme recently that reminded me of this game. What did it say again?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9C68pK9X0xvDzE5uwIX6nefvYVoaHf6K88cUtHVpLbfe9_9b1vMavDnFOo3h8hXRjrGcgIbyP_Q9cAfscT61ICjXkv53OA5AzYhoPnrd-SXd5LpohL7lItkMC9-x8t8s8Q7j8__Im3zkty1D1Xk7n4Y2xOuF9l89ttAu1mGTy2T-XdHTTd_7EYnPJZA/s233/oktostopplaying.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="216" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9C68pK9X0xvDzE5uwIX6nefvYVoaHf6K88cUtHVpLbfe9_9b1vMavDnFOo3h8hXRjrGcgIbyP_Q9cAfscT61ICjXkv53OA5AzYhoPnrd-SXd5LpohL7lItkMC9-x8t8s8Q7j8__Im3zkty1D1Xk7n4Y2xOuF9l89ttAu1mGTy2T-XdHTTd_7EYnPJZA/s1600/oktostopplaying.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Yeah that's the one. Now remember i was just coming off the previously mentioned King of Fighters Collection going into Action Henk. I'd assumed it was going to be light-hearted, perhaps even funny, maybe a gently increasing difficulty curve at the most to deal with. What I got was less a curve and more a sharp 90 degree turn into the ridiculously hard. Steering high-speed action figures along zig-zagging rollercoaster courses could have been a good time. Indeed I'd go so far as to say there is a fun game in Action Henk for the first few levels but the novelty soon wore off. It might be the only game on this list where I haven't played all the way to the end because I couldn't see the enjoyment of said completion exceeding the frustration of getting there. Another potential candidate for worst game I played this year but again I think a late-comer to the race has just robbed it of the honour. One incomplete rollercoaster set out of five!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><i>Assassin's Creed: Unity</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So at some point this year I realised I was a great many games behind in the Assassin's Creed franchise. i played <i>Black Flag</i> back in 2018 and gave it a rest for a while. For some reason or another it hasn't been a series I was especially invested in since the beginning. The Assassin's conflict with the Templars and all the pseudo-history crammed in to pad out the narrative just didn't feel especially coherent or interesting. It feels like a series where they are just cramming in content and getting it out the door to meet release windows. I'm not sure if they have made a compelling case for the existence of any of these games since the Italian Renaissance loomed large over them. This one though, based in revolutionary France did alright by me. A benefit of playing games a good few years removed from their release means I avoid the many issues that plague games like this at launch and boy did Unity have <a href="https://youtu.be/jZDs1AR9qh8" target="_blank">problems at launch</a>. Playing it in 2022 though, it was 99% a polished experience that impressed me with the scope of its world and its detail. It even tried mixing up the whole Assassin/Templar conflict up a little so it gets points for that too. Three hidden blades out of five! </div><p><b><i>Assassin's Creed: Syndicate</i></b></p><p>After playing one <i>Assassin's Creed </i>game that pleasantly surprised me, I just happened to play another. This one is of course the Victorian London entry into the series and built upon the good bits of the previous entry to create something that was, dare I say, fun? Yes I had genuine enjoyment playing this game, both in the main story and all the many side-quests along the way. Much as with the previous game, the depiction of the time and place was a treat for the eyes and all rendered with a fine eye for detail. To my surprise, this game pulled off the same trick that <i>Infamous: Second Son</i> and <i>First Light</i> pulled off, making all the content feel cohesive and fun without it feeling like a chore or just eating time for the sake of it. It's not something I see pulled off successfully very often so I will big it up here when I see it. Four industrial revolutions out of five!</p><p><b><i>Papers, Please</i></b></p><p>Here's a modern classic I've long been meaning to get around to. The much lauded and much awarded Papers, Please from 2013. Fun fact, if you want to play this on a Sony gaming device and the majority of my gaming this year has been on a PlayStation, then the only way you can do so is to play it on the much beloved but sadly neglected PlayStation Vita. So I did just that, loading up the old favourite and hoping Sony hadn't shut down their Vita store yet. They hadn't so I acquired said game and well, what am I going to say here that's any different to the acres of praise it has received elsewhere? It's a neat conjuring trick of a game, a nightmarish bureaucratic multi-tasking hell of a game in fact. Almost everything about it is finely judged and balanced and I'm sorry I didn't get around to this one sooner. Five sets of corresponding identification out of five!</p><p><b><i>Hitman (2016)</i></b></p><p>Rounding off the first half of this entry is the start of the most recent trilogy of Hitman games. The 2016 reboot? Restart? Do-over? Continuation? At least one of the above anyway. It's one of those series I have admired from afar in the past and never gotten around to playing myself. This one was rather good, a proper sandbox feel to the proceedings and ample freedom to pick an approach and see it out to the end, bitter or otherwise. It walks the fine line between no-nonsense and nonsense rather well to boot so yes I can safely say I hugely appreciated this assassination-sim. Four unfortunate deaths by falling light fixtures out of five!</p><p>So that's it for this instalment of the games I played this year but it's not done yet. Yes somehow, some way I found the time to clear even more of them from the to-play list of infinite dimensions. So next time its the complete completion of the list of games I played in 2022, completed. See you then!</p>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-75898639063433884482022-11-29T20:26:00.001+00:002022-11-29T20:26:44.498+00:00free start menu with every game<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Now this is not a new point I'm making certainly. In 2022 the argument over paid DLC in video games has now been a long and storied one. How game makers and publishers have got to where we are has been oft-remarked and commented upon by minds wiser than mine, in takes more considered than this one and debates more finely argued than anything I'm about to say on the matter. That said, get a load of this bollocks!<br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>I'm actually somewhat curious about <i>The Callisto Protocol</i>. Made by some of the same people who made <i>Dead Space</i> way back when and very much channeling the same niche, it looks like it might be a rather good time (reviews pending). However for some reason, someone wanted to include extra death animations as part of the season pass. Channelling the grim fascination with the grisly death scenes seen in <i>Dead Space</i> into an additional revenue stream.</div><div><br /></div><div>Look how far we have come from horse armour in <i>Elder Scrolls</i>? Remember how that energised gamers back in the dark and dusty depths of 2006? God I'm old, anyway remember that? That now seems almost benign now doesn't? Almost quaint and bygone even, an odd reminder of the time when the norm was not the norm we now normalise. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Now I get that games, certainly AAA games, cost a lot of money to make, largely as a result of chasing high fidelity and large scale. This in effect creates the immense cost which then demands the blood sacrifice of monetisation. All hail the gods of DLC and so on. The upper end of the game space is now saturated with the mindset that said AAA games must be deconstructed only to be reconstructed at a cost. Not an inevitable situation I would say but it's one we're now firmly at the centre of.</div><div><br /></div><div>Begs the question though, have the most expensive games of say, the last decade alone, been the best out there? Is all this cut-throat business practice in aid of a superior product? Tastes may obviously differ here but I'm not so sure. You have your <i>Call of Duty's</i> and your <i>God of War's</i> but you also have your <i>Papers, Please</i> and <i>Undertale's</i> getting all the critical darlings hot and bothered. Budget is not correlated to quality sure so the question then becomes, what is all of this DLC paying for?</div><div><br /></div><div>Short answer: profits, bottom lines and dividends. Long answer: we seem to be paying to feed and sustain the cycle itself. The cycle of ever larger, shinier and elaborate products, paid for by the games themselves but also by the subtraction of content plugged back in via our wallets. Insidious and commonplace yea, but also increasingly bizarre. If death animations can be repackaged, I can't help but wonder where next? Sure you can argue that extra death animations are cosmetic additions, barely distinguishable from character costumes and gun skins. I mean you can argue that but it's hardly a slam dunk argument.</div><div><br /></div><div>Might be less galling if it wasn't already a fully priced release, it'll never be entirely without gall but they can certainly mitigate that by not doing the thing they're doing. Alas that seems to be too much of an ask now. In the age of microtransactions and currency paying for less tangible in-game currency, I'm beginning to feel like there's no lack of imagination when it comes to finding exciting new ways to drill down beyond the bottom of the barrel.</div><div><br /></div><div>It all feels predictable is what I'm saying, in the sense that had it not happened here, it was surely only a matter of time before it was attempted elsewhere. Can't help wonder where its all heading. A small fee for changing the font colour on the main menu perhaps? A minor consideration for enabling full access to the soundtrack maybe? Only the merest fee for optional extras like the first act of the story or even full access to the dialogue in your chosen language. The possibilities you see, are limited only by our ability to dive into the murky depths.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Until next time.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-12058978857023972852022-10-31T22:35:00.000+00:002022-10-31T22:35:01.600+00:00copy paste soul delete<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Happy Hallows Evening All! <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>It's October, it's the season to shriek, scream and flee in terror and as such for the second year in a row I've decided to make it a horror gaming month. So I've been clearing some horror games off the backlog which I will discuss in due course but for this entry, my mind is going back to a game I played last year. A game that might just be one of the finer horror experiences I've ever played. I want to talk about SOMA. </div><div><br /></div><div>Spoilers ahead.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>It's not the longest game I have ever played, nor the most mechanically complex. I wouldn't say it has the best characterisation or plot either but it tapped into something quite profound with a deft touch not often found amongst the bombast of blockbuster games. It skillfully navigates the age old question of what it means to be human. Press P to ponder.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now obviously this is not new territory for storytelling or science fiction but it's clear a lot of love and attention went into the making of this game. A year after playing it and I still find myself contemplating it's finer moments. What starts with a man waking up in his apartment in the here and now soon takes us to somewhere altogether very different very quickly. There in a sealed dark metallic hell you find some very human voices coming out of some very robotic bodies. All speaking as if nothing is amiss and sounding like they are very much real people. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's a great 'what the what?' start to the game that only piles on the weirdness from there. Amongst the damp, murky darkness of said base, you chance upon someone who seems to be aware of their robotic predicament. A scientist who serves as your main source of exposition for the rest of the game. You see, if it wasn't already apparent, things have have gone very, very wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many years from now a comet has hit the Earth and when the proverbial hit the fan nearly everyone was wiped out with it save the isolated pocket of humanity toiling away at a space gun at the bottom of the ocean. Quickly surmising that the end of days has come and gone, the few humans left here deal with some weighty questions on survival and essential humanity. Here is where a somewhat typical apocalypse becomes something a bit special.</div><div><br /></div><div>It all boils down to their project in progress when the comet hit. The aforementioned self aware scientist machine lady devises upon a scheme of digital immortality in lieu of the suddenly more depressing real life. Upload a copy of your brain to the matrix and once everyone is on board with this, shoot the matrix into space to complete the ascension. </div><div><br /></div><div>Not everyone is on the same page when it comes to this idea. It's not a transfer of consciousness but a copy and paste job on the human soul. This is where SOMA became something quite special in my view. Where it excelled past an effective mood piece and became an altogether more thought provoking journey. Upon commiting a copy of themselves to the digital void, some opt to check out permanently and end their flesh and blood selves. This is in an attempt to maintain some essential notion of continuity of the self, by refusing to exist as merely one of multiple versions of themselves.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's the core theme of this game in many ways. At multiple points your character undergoes the same copy and paste job and nothing beats the unreal eerieness of hearing signs of life that sound like yourself coming from a body that is no longer your own. Indeed much of the core tension of the narrative comes from the main character unsuccessfully trying to wrap this idea around their head and only coming to terms with this in what remains one of the darkest endings I've ever played.</div><div><br /></div><div>Along the way we get an AI hell-bent on keeping people alive at any cost, former members of the base who are not so much out of their mind as in near orbit around it and a nagging insistence that your self is just a copy of a copy of a copy. All disguised as a horror game where you spend much of your time running, hiding and keeping your head together against the prevailing tides of madness. Not a bad effort by any stretch and a solid contender for a high spot in my all time favourite games list. </div><div><br /></div><div>Rare does a game linger with me you know? It's final moments reached that special kind of something that stayed with me for the long after and remain even now. Such material could make for a good film or a thoughtful read but in this one particular case it happened to make for an excellent game. </div><div><br /></div><div>Until next time.</div>Davetendohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10899268847632414865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-818027238722884273.post-3916160968046332472022-09-30T22:51:00.001+01:002022-09-30T22:53:27.486+01:00ode to the screen of defeat<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Played <i>The King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga</i> recently, a collection of the first five games in the venerated fighting series. Having not had the 'pleasure' before now of playing these games I was perhaps ill-prepared for the difficulty level I was about to encounter. A difficulty level best described as somewhere between 'crushing' and 'soul destroying' but that's not what's important here.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>No wait it is, it's very much the defining feature of this collection, certainly the first half of it anyway. What is <i>also</i> important though is the charming way-back 2D aesthetic, the great character and stage design and a selection of some of the finest post-fight defeat screens to ever grace the fighting genre.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Admire the sheer poetry of Benimaru as he strikes a pose there. Yes this is truly some of the finer burns ever bestowed upon the defeated player. Running the gamut from 'WTF?' to 'WTAF?!' by way of occasional stops in normality. We have geography, we have bowling, we have ninja ladyhood! In short we have it all! </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>In a series that plays deadly seriously these screens lend some much-needed levity to the proceedings. Fighting games of times past had to slip in their story somewhere and somehow afterall. No fancy rendered cut scenes here. In order to create intrigue, fleetingly obscure snippets of character break through as the game awaits the response to your latest humiliation at the hands of the AI. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sure you had the character specific endings to flesh out the narrative but let's be honest you are seeing way more of the game over screen than any of those. The post-fight taunt is really where it' was at when it came to how these games conveyed the random, the odd and the obscure.</div><div><br /></div><div>Random aside but in a wider point, its curious how game makers stuck it out at all with backstory and lore back in the day. I mean I'm thankful they did of course, but it's an interesting tangent nonetheless that this may not necessarily have turned out this way. That on the path to formal competitive multiplayer tournaments, elite play and the like, developers just didn't give up on the idea entirely and focus purely on pure, unadultered mechanics.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Context is key of course and a unique selling point to boot. So the back story has stuck around and evolved over time and the space in which to tell stories has grown with it. The post-fight taunt is still around of course but perhaps doesn't occupy so critical a space in the storytelling of fighting games as it once did.</div><div><br /></div><div>Different fighting franchises have pulled off varying degrees of success in this field over the years. My personal favourite <i>Mortal Kombat</i> has had something of a resurgence in the last decade largely off the back of an impressive story-led reboot and a great evolving narrative. On the flip side I find it hard to believe that anyone but anyone can muster the enthusiasm required to track the <i>Street Fighter</i> story and it's various zig-zags back and forth through time. It perhaps matters less for a game so finely tuned around multiplayer finesse but still, having played all the mainline entries I couldn't even begin to join the dots on that one.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm probably forgetting some corkers in that franchise but on the whole it's a series with a real lack of quirky idiosyncrasy in comparison to KOF, at least in it's early days anyway. Stern rebuttals in the comments section are always welcome of course.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>But back to the subject at hand, post-fight defeat screens and the majesty thereof. By the arcade norms of then and the retro tastes of now, these are good looking games. All of it in service to a series that could wildly veer all over the difficulty scale and back again. But it's not the difficulty that I dwell on now after the fact. Instead it's the elegant economy by which it's makers dish out these snippets of weirdness. Credit to the localisation efforts too as it plays its own special part in elevating this material. When put together it's a vital component of what made these games tick for me.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div><br /></div><div>Anyway here's to quirkiness in the name of violence, truly the best way to soften the blow. Until next time, enjoy this exquisite rendering of a fiery inferno at sea.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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