Observer: System Redux

This game was billed as "The other Cyberpunk" - and in theme it probably is, but boy do I hate these "hunt for the hotspot" games.   You have two different modes to scan an area with (three if you include actual eyesight) and once I've hunted and not found whatever it is that I was directed to find - a game needs to give me a pass or a hint or something, otherwise I'm just .. .angry at it for not showing me?  It took about an hour.

I got angry with this game multiple times, wandering the same rooms looking for a little blob of something that at this point as a detective I would have given up on.

Might be a great story.  I'll never have the patience to know.

High on Life

 High on Life is a shooter that had Justin Roiland as producer and voiceover actor - where your sentient guns help you combat the evil menace that has come to earth in order stop the G3 Clan from turning humans into space narcotics.

It's goofy, your weapons have great personality - and one of them (unsurprisingly) sounds exactly like Morty.  The entire time you're bounty hunting, your companion is making quips and chatting it up with your targets in very "Rick & Morty" fashion.  For example, one boss exchange simply started out -- "Wait, you have drills for hands -- how do you wipe your ass?  Oh god .. do you now wipe your ass?"

The cut scenes were VERY long, way too long in fact - but I would have kept playing if there were more bounties to hunt, because the conversation was A-tier.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

This was the first Uncharted game that I played, which is very similar to Tomb Raider but it the story of Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter trying to be retired when his brother he thought dead comes to find him for that one last score.

It's a story we've seen many times, but this was done fairly well - the character rendering, the voice acting was exceptional - the navigation and parkour was "okay" - the combat/stealth was terrible.

The game was 120GB+, mainly because of the quantity of rendered scenes included in the game - each mission was about 30 minutes long, with 10-15 easily being story scenes.

It was good.  I mean ... no sense in a replay, the game sequences were mainly figuring out the puzzle of how to trigger the next cut scene and enjoying the movie.

Eternal Afternoon

 Eternal Afternoon is an indie game where you spend the last 20 minutes of your life doing something before a giant wave comes and destroys all of creation.   

There are plenty of missions and things to accomplish in these last 20 minutes, from writing a love letter to a girl you were too nervous to talk to, finding your lost dad, playing a video game within the video game - and many collectables/achievements.

The game is a long dialog about loss and the end as you encounter various people in your neighborhood, and eventually embrace the inevitable - however the developer added a number of in-game glitches where you can "Kobayashi" the game (the mission Kirk cheated to win IIRC) and escape in some fashion ala Stanley Parable in some cases.

A great idea and well executed.

The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

...

Kind of liked the game.   Then kind of hated it there at the end.

This game played out in a series of text pages where you participate in the novel as the third born of a household and born to the common class.  "The Lots" of people in society was a big focus on the novel and your decisions affect your characters statistics in some fashion, making you more noble or cunning or whatever based on the particular event.

I tend to make "the hero choices" in these games, feeling that's what the developer assumes is the right path - so in this story I rush to the aid of "Sophia" who is about to be run over by a carriage.  I get injured pretty bad.  Fine, it's the hero's lot.  Ten years later I see her trying to escape someone chasing her, she's part of some secret organization trying to get equal rights for people - she wants me to join her and I help recruit more to the cause to end "the Lot system".  

It ends up she is a double agent.  Wait .. what?
Everyone you recruited is killed.   Wait ... seriously?
She please for her handler to spare your life, you might be useful to their cause.  ...

I refused ... Game over.   Wait wait wait wait ... Seriously seriously?

There were no clues!  This was the heroes path!

Was this game expecting me to side with the people who just executed a room full of people that *I* was responsible for being there?   

"The Gods" ask in the end what you thought of them/life/free will.  Heartless/Cruel/None.   Decent story at the start, infuriating at the end TBH.   The idea of playing this again, even a restore game knowing this betrayal was on the horizon ... Nah.  Pack it up.  

Assassin's Creed - Mirage

Assassin's Creed is a cow that is being milked so hard.

You can tell because they don't number them, if they did - logically 3 would be better than 2.   Assassin's Creed Mirage had me hiding in the bushes, 4 feet from some guards - and whistle them one at a time over to my bush to knife them.  They all said "huh?"

It's a visually stunning game, and was an amazingly interesting concept when it first arrived - the idea of going into past lives to sort of treasure hunt is *brilliant* - but they use the same formula every time of some ancient alien intelligence awakening ...

The *same* story *every* game.   I was speed running dialog that I've heard many times before just in a different accent

Kerbal Space Program

I've heard people rave that this game is fantastic.

You manage a space program, and with the little that I played - you incrementally gain science in order to construct better ships to go further and do better science-y things.  The first few of which are just being able to launch a ship into orbit.

To me it felt heavily like I was about to be managing a spreadsheet of slowly incrementing variables.  Unlocking boosters that are level 2 ... in order to unlock a space module level 3 and stay an extra 3 revolutions for 100 more science points and my first space walk.

There was probably a time for this game to shine, and I'm just playing it at a different point in time.