Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is another "good" game in the franchise as it explores Lara's earlier years.

It has all of the typical things you could expect from games in the genre, gear that is upgradeable with animals and supplies you hunt, pathways that unlock exploration, hidden tombs, this is like the 15th game -- they've figured out a few things by this point.  When you are running for your life dodging falling rocks to make a flying leap across a chasm and the game gives you that little bit of slo-mo and camera circle to make you feel awesome for going for it.  Level design is top notch.

But they don't use this wonderful engine to tell a compelling story.  It's the typical lone archeologist vs. "the organization" chock full of militia goons.  We are supposed to feel the sympathy for Lara trying to follow in her fathers footsteps, finishing his life's work - but with that story being told somewhat in parallel, I was going through the motions of things before I knew or cared why.

Like Sisyphus, the boulder has run downhill again.  Not all the way down.  Perhaps this is more of a Paula Abdul, two steps forward - three steps back.  This is the crux of the love/hate relationship I have with Steam and the reason to start up this website project again to try and clear out what I won't get to without the inspiration.

Steam Halloween Sale!

I didn't look long through upcoming games, I just looked through the ones that were already on my wish list and on super sale:

• Call of Cthulhu
• Heavy Rain
• Detroit Become Human
• Beyond: Two Souls

(I'm still working on #59 of 99, but this bumps us up to 103) 

Jazzpunk: Director's Cut

Jazzpunk: Director's Cut (28/100) is a bizarre little art piece of a game.  You are sent on mind bending Easter egg laden detective adventures fraught full of puns.

This is the kind of game you play in the same way you will stand in a t-shirt shop and read every design.  There is some clever little goofiness, worth a couple hours.

Marvel Heroes Omega

One thing I haven't been doing is logging the games that I'm just noping out of.   There are some games on Steam that are accidently or automatically added to your account and I think this was one of them.  35/101 Marvel Heroes Omega doesn't even have a store page in Steam -- it's a free to play (presumably in-game purchases) PS4 game.

Graphically unremarkable button masher with the opportunity for a bunch of recycled super-hero quips and tropes?  MMmmmmhmmm .. first of all no, second -- all servers have been offline since November 2017.

Lone Survivor - The Director's Cut

Lone Survivor is a pixel-art point and click survival horror game.  There are no jump scares, it's about managing your food, stamina and sanity as you try to make it out of the city while dodging (or destroying) the shambling undead.   

In a sentence - a key finding puzzle game with annoying obstacles (zombies) that has you cutting open a skin flaps with scissors.

The mapping system was tough to figure out, I oftentimes found myself turned around and had to repeatedly check the map for my directions.  Being that I never got off the apartment floor I started on, it should not have been that tough.

There is also the elephant in the room about a pixel art based horror game that needs to be mentioned.  There was a room I walked in that was supposed to be a bathroom covered in blood and gore.  I had no idea what room it even was really except for it saying "examine bathtub" with the feedback "oh the horror of what must have happened here" (paraphrasing).  On a "oh the horror" scale, I'd give this a 2 for the couple hours I played.  

Broken Age

Broken Age (10/103) is a point and click adventure made by DoubleFine that tells two seemingly disconnected stories.

The first is about the space boy, Shay, who couldn't grow up.  Coddled by a "mom" spaceship, this young adult is impossibly bored fake hero missions like rescuing crochet creatures from an avalanche of ice-cream, and eventually sees through the farce.

The second is about a girl, Vella, who is one of a few offerings to be sacrificed to an ancient god named Mog Chothra at the Maiden's Feast but ends up breaking free and destroying it.

Spoilers, the ancient god(s) are actually the spaceships and the entire enterprise is being controlled by a super-race that are harvesting girls for their DNA because they have over purified their own genetically.  Shay is one of many of these that go to collect the young girls, the illusion of travelling in space and rescuing colonists is maintained so these harvesters don't "go native".

Pretty fun for a point and click, but it did have those moments of linear path blocking.  I missed a peach I was supposed to pick off a tree and ended up walking around trying stupid combinations everywhere else even though I knew a peach was the answer.

Sir, You Are Being Hunted

Sir, You Are Being Hunted was a game that seems like a fun idea, but didn't deliver in the few hours I put into it. 

You play as someone who ... crashlanded? anyways, you need to gather 15 parts for your ship to get it working again, while aristocratic hunting robots patrol the grounds.

There was no introductory level or tutorial, just the school of hard knocks in learning how to distract robots and what things were edible.  They make allusions to weapons you can find, but I never noticed any so most of the time I played was creeping around slowly --- setting up an alarm clock on a 60 second timer, then positioning myself to a dash and grab.

There is also an annoying amount of "junk" inventory with no way to sell it.  90% of the items end up being junk - and yet there is a "take all" button. 

The Ball

The Ball (3/117) seems like a senior thesis made game.  The mechanics are that you have a gun that can both attract and repel a ball, and do this in order to traverse terrain and click buttons to move on to further areas ala Portal test.

Simple physics puzzles, no incentive to play.

Resident Evil 7 Biohazard

Resident Evil 7 Biohazard was random 65/110 and knocks a couple earlier editions off the list.  I confess this one made me skip a night playing, I wasn't feeling up to it.  I don't enjoy scary games, fear of jump scares makes me slow walk them in a crouch typically.

I forced myself to play for a few hours tonight, enough to get a feel for the game at least.   The menace this time is a hillbilly family that has been making their own zombies, referring to something/someone as giving "the gift".  Apparently this gift is immortality and cannibalism, and you definitely have it since your hand cut off with a chainsaw -- then was stapled back on and you can still use it.

Interaction was similar to Remothered, being hunted while I wandered a house looking for keys and such, making it to a place teeming with gangly oil slick type zombies in some narrow corridors.   In typical Resident Evil fashion there is always just a too few bullets, but it also felt like killing zombies was a health bar related thing and not a skilled headshot other than causing more damage as a headshot.

With oil slick zombies - you can't really tell how much you've damaged them either...

Game of Thrones

Random 25/112 has us playing Game of Thrones, released 2012 by Cyanide Studios.  It's a single player action RPG where you play as a member of the Black Watch.  This might have been made in 2012, but it is graphically older - photographic textures mapped and stretched over clumsy polygons.

It does not follow anything of the book stories, and is instead a precursor to the tales.  It does contain references to some book/series characters, Mormont is Captain of the Watch with Master Aemmon.  I didn't play too far into it to see where else it takes you. 

The combat was pretty clunky for what I did of it, and I likely won't play more - I am intrigued at how GoT'ish the story will be, after all - it does start out with you beheading someone who was apparently your friend.  It didn't work for me, it painted your character as an emotionless ass - and I'm not prepared to suffer the janky old game mechanics and graphics for this kind of edgy.

Plus going by what we know of GoT the series, even if the game is great, there is high chance the very last bit of it will suck so bad you'll end up hating the entire thing.

To be fair - I have played less than an hour total, but I'm not feeling compelled to play more.  I want to get current with my list and there are better titles to spend time with, I'm ready to roll random again!

STAR WARS™ Knights of the Old Republic™ II - The Sith Lords™

STAR WARS™ Knights of the Old Republic™ II - The Sith Lords™ - that's the actual number of trademarks in the Steam store.  

I knew I was going to love this game, I had heard nothing but fantastic things about the original KOTOR and I'm crazy for the universe.  I think it was the fear of dumping 80-100 hours into it that kept me from every firing it up, and a good one to have on this random selection to force me to finally play.

The bad news, I could not get the mouse to send any click and got stuck inside the game unable to quit because it wouldn't let me save and took over screen rendering to a point where you couldn't even force quit it.  I had to start rebooting for it to be quit out of by the system, it was a horrible puzzle game with no winner.  I don't want to start it again for fear of it still not recognizing my mouse.  Old game is old I guess ... 

Maybe next one ... 

Thirty Flights of Loving

Thirty Flights of Loving (101/119) is a very quick play, a simple little art piece - stylized look.  A simple story of a heist gone wrong is made an interesting play through because of the order in which the events are revealed.

It makes the game play feel a bit like a drug trip as you will blink out and into significant events completely changing pace, as one of which is frantically pushing a shot up companion in a luggage cart through the airport.

15 minute play through, artistic first person short story.

Mad Max

Typically a game based on a movie has the arduous task of retelling the tale, but Mad Max picks up at the end of the movie - you're known as "the guy who killed the bad guy" in an open world post-apocalyptic car wars type battlefield. 

The world is divided into areas with factions and similar missions in each zone, and not unlike Far Cry or Assassin's Creed or 100 other games in this genre - you gain favor by destroying depots and taking down negative propaganda, reclaiming territory, getting better gear and reclaiming more territory. 

I am having fun playing it, I'm leaving it installed -- I might keep going with it after this exercise, but I'm not compelled to play more.

Divinity II: Developer's Cut

Divinity II: Developer's Cut is an old game, older than Divinity Original Sin I or II.  Games that they are known for, and Baldurs Gate 3 which people seem to be very happy that Larian Studios made.

So this is one of the games that "came before" - and it plays as much.  A great vehicle with which to probably tell an epic story.  I feel like this version anticipates a bit of nostalgia because it is the "developers version", same game with a console - a computer arch you can pop open at any point and turn into a dragon.  Literally.

If I loved the world, this would be a great way to re-explore old haunts - but it just feels like a semi-klunky game from yesteryear.  It got my attention for 3 hours.

Battlefield: Bad Company™ 2

Battlefield: Bad Company™ 2 (random 5/135) has been in my queue for a long long time.  I haven't played any of the Battlefield games, but I'm told they're a better "more realistic" experience than COD.

Perhaps that was true at one point, but this game was made in 2010 and it feels like it.  I stuck to the single player campaign for 3 hours until it crashed on me progressing to the next mission objective and I feel like I'm done playing.

It's very good, just a bit dated and I don't really care for playing "super soldier".

You Don't Know Jack

Random 144/144 sent me to You Don't Know Jack.  There are actually 9 versions of this game so I suppose it was rather inevitable, this will be a nice chunk to take care of.

I play this game with a bit of nostalgia, I remember installing this from floppy disk at one point.  Cookie was hilarious, this is a really well made and fun game show, they do an amazing job.  Vol. 6 had errors, so I ended up installing Vol. 3.

Trying to play it again was a rough lesson in everything I've forgotten.  The questions are dated, and even though I am of the generation it's been a while since REM lyrics were part of daily vernacular, let alone the Krebb cycle.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a game designed to frustrate you, making it cumbersome to move around as you learn to drive a sticky cephalopod like a forklift to do various daily tasks and pretend to be normal.  Occasionally running for dear life when a chef, who is apparently the only one who can see through your disguise.  (60/145 random)

I gave up after two hours play, it didn't grab me as funny or interesting enough to suffer the game mechanic.  It's like drawing a picture with an Etch-o-sketch, you'll be walking your octopus normally through the freezer section - then one wrong move, accidently whip a tentacle around and knock over a stack of canned goods.

The game payoff is the equivalent of Dad humor.  I won't be playing again.

Dyscourse

Dyscourse is a "choice driven narrative game".  (24/150 random choice)

The setting is a plane crash where you and five other survivors live or die based on the multiple point selections you make at various decision points.  There is no real apparent intelligence to the decision in the selection - looking for food or working on your shelter, you only know by repeated play throughs which you really should be doing based on the result.

The art style is similar to South Park, mobile cutouts and simple click through dialog boxes.

Nothing in the story made me want to play it again though, I had to make Sophie's Choice a couple times based on what food I had - but there was no "oh my gosh" to compel me to feel like I needed to see any of the other optional outcomes.

Apparently the big Wow! they were going for in the game is that your individual choices make the story vary in massively different ways, so in order to 'get' the game, you need to play through it 3 or more times.  Not going to happen here if the first play through is so bland ... I typed that ellipse and then felt a bit guilty.  So for the sake of knowing I just did a second playthrough starting at Day 2.

Because I sacrificed myself for Jolene, my arm was bitten off - Jolene ended up dying anyways, and George who lived turned out to be an asshole and caused someone else to die.  Different but not in an amazing way.

Novelty game.  Designed for achievement hunters.

  

Pineview Drive

Pineview Drive was the first truly random choice.  78/156* on the list.  

Pineview Drive is a game where you spend 30 days in a house uravelling a mystery of some sort.  "No one has stayed in the house for 30 days and lived."   I made it 3 ...  

It's a dimly lit house that is trying to scare you, there are some camera tricks and some sort of sanity meter that should affect gameplay, but nothing seriously happened in the repeated times I wandered through the house in the dark.  The game mechanic is to repeatedly search the same rooms every day for a new key to get a little further in the house, find a piece of paper where the narrator can contemplate how much closer he is to solving a riddle that I have no interest in.

Didn't grab my interest, after 2 hours my own sanity meter was spent.  Done with it.  I'm going to leave my game running like Jon Hamm in that one Black Mirror episode.

* There are not actually 156 individual games in the unplayed list, some of those span a few titles - Warhammer 40,000 has 5 versions, You Don't Know Jack has a bunch, etc.  Until I investigate which I want to play in a game bundle I'm going to be leaving them all on the list.

Remothered: Tormented Fathers

Remothered: Tormented Fathers was kind of the impetus for starting this list again.

I was watching an "upcoming game" video that was really excited to announce a new Remothered game, saying the first was such an interesting and twisted story.  

You play as an older female investigator, only really significant in the fact that she is creeping around a house with clicking HIGH HEEL SHOES on for some reason.  Her look is similar to Clarisse in Silence of the Lambs, not un-probably on purpose.

Things go a bit haywire when you sneak into the residence after hours and find a dessicated corpse being tended to by a naked old man holding a sickle and ranting about how he needs his pills and can't sleep.  Wait wut?

The game at this point becomes a sneak through the house while being hunted by a psycho on various fetch quests unravelling the story.

As a mechanic it is not enough to carry a whole game for me.  It wasn't obvious enough what was red herring and what (and why) a plunger would be retrieved from the kitchen pantry.  Just an excuse to get lost while the game mechanic of someone hunting you could be flexed.  

I gave it a couple hours and gave up and watched a Let's Play to get the story.  It was a story that had to explain itself at the end, and even then made me looking at it squinty-eyed to try and make it make sense.  Maybe the sequel will offer more?

Star Wars Squadrons

 Well it's come to my attention that the quantity of games to play is almost too daunting, so I'm firing up my backlog machine and looking to knock a few of these out of here, posting here was a nice way to catalog the experience as I look back.  I should come up with a system though...

I recently played through the single player of Star Wars Squadrons.  Even though *%!*$-*%!*$-you can't invalidate canon-*%!*$, I'm a glutton for all things Star Wars - you have me at the idea of flying an X-Wing.   

I have no experience with a flight sim though and quickly found myself overwhelmed with keeping track of the battle in 3 space and not getting lost looping around jousting a single target.  The single player was a revenge story that had you waffling between elite squadrons on both sides, proving yourself mission to mission ...

They kept thanking me for how amazing I was doing for the squad from mission to mission, but I was refueled and healed like 80000 times over the course of the campaign, I spammed "give me a recharge" immediately after getting a recharge more often than I would care to admit, I ran - I was certainly no hero.  I felt a little undeserving.

I couldn't imagine playing online ... I knew the reality, even if the game wouldn't admit it.

Am I rating games?  This one was rated "good" for what I played of it, I didn't attempt online obviously because I was such a hot mess of a pilot.   If you like flight sims and love Star Wars, you just probably got the game of your life, not my thing though until I can take this ship into an open universe ...