Tale

When I said Below Zero mainly just reminded me of how incredible the original Subnautica was, I wasn't joking. I'm on my third playthrough now. I've not done much, but I feel like the second I have a Moonpool, the game is already as good as beat.

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl Aside from the headbob being so bad it's officially a headwobble, this game holds up really well. I played it way back in the day and always meant to give it another go. That said, I have 0 interest in running around doing sidequests. I'm just playing it for the main quest and it's plays very well for that.

Since I'm off this week, I was able to run through Subnautica: Below Zero. It's more Subnautica and that's good. It's got new base building modules and that's also good. The Seatruck is actually really cool. And the environments are all still absolutely incredible. But all of the environs are too small and too cramped to really build a cool base. The Snowfox is wasted and the Spy Pengling is itself a waste that only helps get small amounts of resources early and resolve a plot. And the story is poorly structured.

Have some commentary on random games I've played lately. Buddy Simulator 1984. I'm not sure what this game is trying to do. It's like it's supposed to be a horror title with a really insecure AI creating games for you. The text adventure segment is full horror and aspects of that carry over into future segments. And there's lots of horror tropes. But the buddy is so affable it's like being haunted by Casper the friendly ghost who likes to create quirky NPCs where murder and torment is a punchline. It's impossible to be afraid. And it's not funny either. So I'm lost. Perfect Vermin. A free game on Steam where you bust up stuff in an office building to find creatures imitating furniture. And then it gets crazy. But it goes further in the end and tries to be deep. It's fun, but what it's trying to say ends up causing whiplash with all the gravitas compared to what came before. Vessels. Where has this been all my life? You can beat it in two hours and it's $5. If that's okay with you, BUY IT. You're a guy in an airlock trying to stop himself from getting spaced by the rest of the crew. And there's a voice in his head that grants him powers. It's a cosmic horror story, but more than that it's a great mystery. Explore the ship with your powers and learn what happened. If it had been made with a real budget it could have been the next Outer Wilds.

Baldr Sky is my main game right now. It's... kind of slow. There's advice in writing circles in the US to cut your first chapter or so because people tend to write too much buildup and wait too long to get to the interesting bits. This advice is clearly not popular in Japanese Visual Novel circles I'm finding. Still, it's pretty fun. Dungeons of Naheulbeuk I'm playing on the side. A comedic RPG based on some radio dramas if I remember right. It's actually super charming and been a few laughs so far. So I'm glad I grabbed it and fully recommend.

Team Pfizer in the house. Don't @ me if you're one of those Johnson & Johnson boys. I was literally offered three appointments for today, one for each. Initially offered Moderna through work, but that whole thing got cancelled. So I picked up one from the county for the same day. Then work got back to me for the J&J. I'm pretty happy with what I hear about Pfizer, though.

Raging Loop The best under the radar visual novel I've yet seen. At least under my radar. Maybe it's too recent compared to all the classics I'm still catching up to, but it's pretty great. It's about a guy who gets trapped in a time loop in a village that's playing a real life version of the Werewolf party game.

I've been snowed in all week so far and it's looking to continue. So I'm playing through the Crysis trilogy. I'll be honest. I hated Far Cry. And wasn't thrilled with Crysis when I first played it. It only clicked for me when I played Warhead. Replaying Crysis now, I see a bit of why that is. Because when the aliens show up, the interesting play style goes out the window. Sadly, Crysis 2 does not capture that same play. But it has its own strengths. I've always kind of loved transhuman storylines and it's got plenty of power fantasy when you grab a turret, armor up, and go to town. Now to play Crysis 3 for the first time.

Destiny 2, I know I shouldn't... The three best things about this season are that the activity is actually fun, they put Ruinous Effigy on the kiosk, and removed catalysts are dropping. I've already got Bad Juju's, Ruinous Effigy's, and some other thing. I don't even care about the third one.

Anyone ever find themselves in the mood for a particular kind of game and just can never find it? I want me some good space opera with a starship focus. And not have to grind around trading for hours. I guess I have to wait for Everspace 2 to hit 1.0. Anyway, I played through Metal Unit. A recently graduated from Early Access side scrolling roguelite. It's got a derivative story, what with it being aliens invade earth so we fight them with robots. If you're familiar with that kind of story you'll see the twists coming too. It's decent fun for 12 hours. Got it from Humble Choice. I did my replay of Nier: Automata on PC. And it still proved to be a game I'm absolutely in love with. I tried out Rain World. I bought it expecting a cute+dark platforming adventure. Instead it's kind of a side scrolling survival metroidvania. With a focus on the survival. I ended up replaying sections over to gather food, nap, then try to run past enemies that kill me in one hit. This was not my idea of a good time and so I put it away.

So Wildermyth is kind of addictive. It's pretty much exactly what it's advertised as. RPG and storytelling. With the kind of humor you might find in a webcomic, which matches with the papercraft art style.

This has taught me one thing. That some part of me is an accelerationist. Because I had a giggle and a grin hearing about this today. I do hope we can get back to making progress on serious issues in this country. And that this is more of a last gasp and not the start of another terrifying phase.

I'm really wary of anything Yakuza. I played 14 hours of 0 before realizing I'd only encountered about an hour of worthwhile plot. The game has the pacing of someone walking their execution. It doesn't want to get on with it. I'm serious when I say I thought I'd only had about an hour of plot. Looking at my achievements and I'm in Chapter 5 and apparently completed 10 substories. And I don't remember a single damn thing.

I played through Beyond a Steel Sky over the weekend. Joey is fantastic. That's the only noteworthy part of the game, sadly. None of the other characters are worth remembering. And the story is exactly what you're used to from dystopia disguised as utopia fiction. But Joey is funny and a delight and I wish the game had been all about him instead of the world's most dull and emotionless man, Foster. I find myself wanting a really good party based RPG with quirky characters or super funny adventure game. Sadly I'm turning up empty for one I haven't already played yet. Recommendations, anyone?

And now I just binged through Blacksad. Shows 7 hours, but it felt a little longer. Anyway, it's up there with Telltale's best. Right behind Telltale's own Noir comic license, A Wolf Among Us.

Have you heard about our lord and savior Noita? It's getting hard for me to stick to anything else. I'm always wanting to jump in for a quick run that turns into a few hours and multiple runs. Will I get lightning bolt today? Will I accidentally electrocute myself in water when I do? Will I become electric and stand on a propane tank and explode? Here's to hoping I finally get unlimited bombs and explosion immunity! Finally a luminous drill that can go 4 length indefinitely, killing everything through walls. Except that one thing that... according to wiki only attacks me if I attack it. Too late.

The only competition is for your time. "Cheating" would be letting a game get away with having you spend time doing stuff you don't enjoy.

Cyberpunk 2077, or technically I just finished it. I don't think there's any sidquests left for me to do and there's one ending I can't get without a restart. Maybe I'll do that after they release expansions.

I've already scheduled Thursday off largely to play Cyberpunk. I'll be disappointed if it's still in miserable condition and all the NPCs are T-posing. But I think I'll survive.

I have no choice but to finally finish it now! Drakensang has been in my queue to play since before 2009. I always start and play a couple hours and put it down. Might have to tough through that intro.

Like I said, exhausting. Honestly, having their own tech tree sounds like it's an improvement. Is it?

Phoenix Point scares me in that it looks like it's leaning too heavily on emergent and randomized gameplay. As you progress, the enemies adapt! That doesn't sell me. That sounds absolutely exhausting.

How do I have 100 hours in Destiny 2 just since Beyond Light's launch? It's not that good a game... And I haven't even done the raid yet! I'm also playing The Last of Us 2. Initial impressions were that it's more of the same... but the game has flashes of brilliance where you're focusing on characters and it really connects with me again. Both are really just holding me over until this December's release of the true Game of the Year. Sam and Max Save The World remaster.

Got dragged back into Destiny 2. I'm not sure why, it always fail to live up to the promise it presents. Previously, it was nice coming in late to enjoy stuff after it had settled. But this time they deleted half the game.

Chaos;Head and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Both I can recommend if you're into stories and have a bit of a weeb side. Chaos;Head is pure VN, where 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is 90% sidescrolling story game of high schoolers talking and 10% strategy game of giant robots fighting Kaiju. Though everyone pretty much looks like blue, yellow, or red dots. Don't expect to feel immersed in that part.