 | A test of failing memory more than a discussion of video games. |
Alone in the Dark.
I wrote this series off after Illumination. I said so in my review of that game. There's no coming back from this, I said. But it did come back. Here's the twist ending: I'm glad it did. This is a good game. No one saw that coming.
Batman: Arkham Knight
Knight is probably my least preferred Arkham game. It invests harder in being a sandbox and loses a lot in the process. There's no grand boss fights, for example, but it does surprise in other ways. Gradually filling up the jail with random thugs and defeated super villains is really satisfying.
BROK The InvestaGATOR:
Little known fact - I love a good pun. This is a game about a P.I. alligator, taking on small sleuthing jobs in a point and click that also is a side scrolling brawler.
Deep Fear
SEGA actually released a Resident Evil inspired game on the Saturn to compete with the new survival horror genre. The mistake was, it was a Saturn game and thus I was the only person I knew who had played it. And then, crazed with power after getting a fiddly Saturn emulator to run after trying for literally a decade, I played it again. It's an experience.
Dreamweb.
Dreamweb's gameplay never quite reaches the potential it sets up for itself. A regular guy starts hearing voices that he has to kill seven evil people to save the world. Is he a savior for doing so, or just a psychopath? DW plays around the edges of the concept, but never truly commits.
Grim Fandango.
Go to the Mexican underworld, steal everyone's stuff and solve obscure puzzles with them. I loved this game back when, and I love it just as much now I've played the 'remaster'.
Helltown
The start of Helltown is great; you're a postman delivering weird packages to a town that gets stranger with each visit. Sometimes it's subtle, and sometimes it's... not. This builds up to the second half of the game, which is a series of cat-and-mouse chases around mazes which is... less great.
Haunting Ground.
You may be seeing a pattern here as I work through the PS2 horror games I missed back when. This one was okay, somewhat saved by hilariously out of place jiggle physics. Most of what I wrote might just be about hilarious jiggling in the face of abject terror.
Kuon.
Just 20 years post-release. Kuon is clumsy mechanically, but is an aesthetically excellent horror. It's subtle and clever in how it creeps you out. As an experience, it's great. As a game, it's bumpy.
Let’s Find Larry
It's Where's Waldo if Waldo was being hunted by a secretive cult and was desperate not to be found. Who knows; maybe Waldo is being hunted by it just that good at hiding. This is an interesting game that's smart enough to end before it starts feeling gimmicky.
Masochisa
A shortish point and click about a troubled boy and how he became a serial killer. It;s a disturbing tale and treds a lot of ground that most narratives would - probably quite sensibly - avoid completely. I thought it was a clever game though, based on a true story but not advertising it and wrapping a lot of the facts up in a kind of ARG-lite meta path.
Mask of the Ninja
I loved this game when I had it on XBLA back when and, to the surprise of none, I still love it now. It started as a curiosity play but I picked through it pretty rapidly. I’m still kicking through some of the harder achievements and I suspect I’ll 100% it before I put iot back down for good
Monkey Island – (almost) All of them!
The Secret of Monkey Island, The Secret of Monkey Island 2, The Curse of Monkey Island, Escape from Monkey Island, The Booze of Money Island, Tales of Monkey Island Return to Monkey Island (in progress)
I don’t understand my thought processes most of the time. I’m as surprised that one day I randomly decided to drop everything and play through the entire series and more surprised I followed it though. Secret’s still great and I’ve beaten it multiple times at this point. Secret 2 was my first time with the game since I beat it way back when and it’s also still great. Curse I skipped over entirely back when, but it’s also a really good game with a cartoony artstyle I really like. Escape I’ve picked up many times and dropped because, like most Point & Click games making their first steps into 3D, it controls like a nightmare and makes itself infinitely more frustrating than it has to be. It also has Monkey Combat, the worst ever thing to happen to the series bar none, which is a shame because it’s a fun game on paper obsessed with getting in ti’s own way. Booze is a fan game, but a really high quality one that’s taking its homage from Curse – it’s good for a couple of hours of sleuthing. Tales is really good, so much better than I expected it to be, even if it flirts with uniquely awful 3D controls, it doesn't kneecap the game as maliciously as Escape. I’ve only just started Return, so the jury is still out. It’s a bit of an oddity so far - it seems more bitter than the rest of the series and the brave new papier-mâché-like graphical choice has yet to grow on me.
Nihilumbra
I’ve played, beat and reviewed this before, but on a different client and a long time ago. I didn’t even know I had it on Steam until I saw it and booted it up to see if I remembered it right. Then I beat most of it over the weekend. Still a few post game challenge levels to see off, and I suspect I will. Very similar circumstance with Mask of the Ninja, really.
Overlord
Abandoned. I got a new PC and the majority of my saves have come across fine on Steam Cloud. But this one didn’t for some reason. I’m more annoyed that the GTA V save was also lost - this I can leave for a few years and maybe wander back to.
Patient
Obscure indie point and click that’s betrayed by its simple foundations (like voice actors that sound like random people off the street asked to do their best dodgy accents) but is a competently put together adventure with logic puzzles (as logic as the genre allows, anyway). Worth a shot for those interested in homebrew stuff.
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs
This went under the radar for most; it’s a fun hybrid where you try to rebuild an obsolete kingdom using JRPG tropes. You got the naive protagonist who falls into begrudging adventure, and all the typecasts you’d expect. But it does more than enough to be different; you have to complete a number of missions and tasks within a certain time period with any failure to do so being a game over. It means you spend so much time in a frantic juggling act of building property, exploring the lands and trying to recruit or appease the myriad folk who have come to live on the land. Vandal Hearts-like combat system included, it was a lot of fun.
Rule of Rose.
Wanted to play this for decades. It's a bloody awful video game with one of the most interesting, subtlety told tales I've ever unraveled. I reviewed this after putting it to a vote of sorts and no one was more surprised than me. I’ll offer a similar deal in this list: if anyone finds this offer buried all the way down here, pick a game off this list and it’ll be my next tardy review attempt.
Star Wars Unleashed.
Force powers are ridiculous overkill, which makes up for the bland lightsaber combat in spades. Lot of imagination in the alien worlds and set pieces, worlds apart for the dull mess modern Star Wars has become.
Tails Noir
Bad pixel furry extensional horror that starts bright and, my gosh, works very hard to crash spectacularly.
Witcher
In progress. I can’t play the new Witcher games if I’ve not played the old ones, says the angry threatening voice that lives in the back of my mind. I’m okay with that. I’ve started this game many times, but my playthroughs never stuck. I just got on to Chapter IV, so this is the time I’m going to power through. Probably.
Yakuza 4
My annual Yakuza game. 4 is the start of the period where SEGA start playing around with multiple protagonists before they finally realise that everyone just wants to see Kiryu (and then promptly retire him). I thought it was a step up from 3 and its sometimes soul-crushingly hard combat, but then I played the last of the four back-to-back end game fights, and I’m still yet to recover from the jaw clenching rage it induced.
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honestgamer - January 06, 2025 (10:37 PM) Glad to hear Regalia is great. I saw it and it looked cool, so I bought it but haven't had time to get to it. Your little write-up suggests it is exactly what I hoped it would be, though maybe a bit more frustrating because I don't always enjoy being rushed and having to start a new campaign to try again. Still, if done right... |
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jerec - January 06, 2025 (11:33 PM) Yeah, my feelings are mixed on the newest Monkey Island. It sort of came out of nowhere long after the entire fanbase had given up on ever getting a new one... and yeah, the art style is weird, and Ron Gilbert Ron Gilberts the most Ron Gilbert has ever Ron Gilberted throughout. |
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overdrive - January 12, 2025 (11:35 AM) Well, if we get to pick something to review, I'll pick Witcher for the same reason I picked Rule of Rose -- I've played it and it's always cool to see others' opinions on it. Even if this won't be with the same gleeful "Heh, he suffered his ass off to get this game reviewed!" sadistic vibe. |
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